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Dancer on Maddening - Blue Lions


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19 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Needing Link Attacks for Respectable Accuracy? What? She has 90 Hit across the board on some of the most dodgiest enemies you have to face. How isn't 90+ Hit Rates respectable?

And what units are worthy of investment? Because I don't see many units being capable of OHKOing Chapter 13 enemies in Terrain while still being able to Canto out of danger.

Way to miss the point - the way I see it is, if I need to twist and contort my game plan for something to have a good chance of working, that something is, more likely than not, not worth it. Like the Great Club in Fates, for example. It has astounding crit rate... but the hit rate is so bad you're likely gonna have to go out of your way to have anything resembling a respectable hit chance with it. Or those 4-star 2000+ ATK cards in YGO, most of which had severe drawbacks to the point that it tended to not be worth dealing with them. Rant aside, only three battalions (from what I've counted, at least) are both flying and have a decent hit boost. And one of those is A rank, with the other two being route locked. Long story short, I much prefer a consistent and reliable strategy that doesn't force me to jump though a lot of hoops to be viable than one that needs a shitload of investment and setup just to achieve, and even then is still vulnerable to Murphy's Law (and don't delude yourself - this IS a Fire Emblem game, and your luck WILL run out eventually).

8 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I was happy with Dancer Annette; I don't need a dancer who can do much on their own turn, but sometimes there are no mages nearby to dance for so having a dancer who can take out both armour knights (which any mage can) and wyverns was kinda nice.

I can't say I missed rallies, they're okay early but I wasn't particularly impressed by them later on. Rally is a tough sell as an action in this game with relatively little enemy phase, where it eats into skill slots something fierce (and skill slots are very valuable), where it only targets one, adjacent ally (unlike Awakening/Fates), and where it doesn't give the user exp / skill exp / class exp (unlike healing and other faith actions).

Ditto. While rallies can be useful, I feel that they just aren't as useful in this game as they were in Fates and Awakening.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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And farming 42 mag boosters so you mage of choice can oneshot rhing does not twist game plans? Or 42 str boosters for doing the same on a physical unit. Maddening is a difficulty that kinda require you to carefully build your characters to excell at something.

Optimizing hit rates on annette or similar units is like optimizing a shock tropper charger in 3.5: you take a strong but inaccurate attack that can kill anything level appropriate, and find a way for it to hit consistently. 

And if you happen to miss a 93 hit there is the fucking turnwheel. Not everyone ban it.

Edited by Flere210
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2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Long story short, I much prefer a consistent and reliable strategy that doesn't force me to jump though a lot of hoops to be viable than one that needs a shitload of investment and setup just to achieve, and even then is still vulnerable to Murphy's Law.

How exactly is needing a specific battalion and perhaps an Accuracy Ring a 'Shitload' of investment? Especially since when it grants 90+ hit rates which can be improved even further?

And you still haven't answer the question. What other units are capable of OHKOing Chapter 13 enemies in Terrain while still being able to Canto out of danger? 

Edited by LoneRecon400
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On 12/5/2019 at 11:00 AM, Shadow Mir said:

Far as I'm concerned, I think it's about as worth it as summoning Gate Guardian was in Yu-Gi-Oh (aka, not at all; for those of you who don't know YGO, Gate Guardian required sacrificing three specific monsters who themselves require two tributes each. Making matters worse, the components' combined attack is twice that of GG's, they have decent effects that it doesn't get, AND three monsters are harder to get rid of than a single target). Having your magic options be even less accurate than Lysithea's Luna and Hades, which I already consider iffy in the accuracy department, sounds about as smart as robbing a police station, if you ask me. Especially when one of those forces her into close range, where if she doesn't kill for whatever reason you might as well get some butter and jam, because she's toast. The fact that it's a Hero's Relic only makes things worse, because they're generally too pricey to repair for how good they are(n't).

Wyvern Lord isn’t really any more investment than the typical mage path: Wyvern has two As, one in a Neutral and one in a Strength, and a C in a Neutral. Dark Knight is the same thing. Gate Guardian is more like, I dunno, Mortal Savant Lysithea or something, lol. 

I’ve never really had bad hitrates since Lightning Axe uses Magic Avoid, which is generally worse than Physical Avoid. Definitely not as bad as Lysithea’s Dark tomes, that’s for sure. And with Canto and Flying, most maps have more than enough ways to avoid being attacked on Enemy Phase after OHKOing something. Crusher is really just a bonus if you want to secure a one-shot, and generally speaking, Annette doesn’t need it. Unless you really load up on Hero Relics and spam them, Umbral Steel is easy to come by, and gold is essentially limitless. 

Edited by LegendOfLoog
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Wow who knew a discussion about dancers would get so heated. Regardless, I'll throw my 2 cents in about who's a good dancer.

Assuming OP wants to use a dancer for... dancing, I'll leave out the dancer Felix build which allows him to dodge tank almost everything with the dancer speed, his base speed stat and growth, and sword avoid. You want Felix attacking anyways. Probably as a Bow Knight or something.

The boons a dancer should have IMO should one or two of the following:

  • Swords (to capitalize off of Sword Avoid)
  • Reason (dancers will not have an impressive strength growth so they may need to rely on magic instead)
  • Faith (for more support)
  • Authority (the dancer battalion capitalizes on their niche, and it's A locked.)
  • Riding (A+ gives them additional move, combined with the March Ring and you have a dancer that can keep up no problem)

I'm well aware that dancers don't need to have these things to serve their purpose, but it's nice to have a unit that can make the most of the dancer niche and some do it better than others.

Here's some BL students that I personally wouldn't make dancers because they're people that should be danced for in a maddening playthrough:

  • Dimitri (combat prowess is too good)
  • Dedue (he's not there the whole time. I want that dancer for Ch.13)
  • Felix (combat prowess is too good)
  • Sylvain (although not the strongest, his easy access to mounted classes makes me want to keep him as a combat unit, either as a Wyvern Lord or Dark Knight)
  • Mercedes (she's the best healer in the game and should be allowed to do just that.)

BL students that are good choices for dancers, IMO:

  • Ashe (he's the weakest of the bunch, his personal skill gives him a little bit of utility. I see him as Lara 2.0 personally)
  • Annette (I know there's the issue with rallies, but rallies are the most useful in the early game before she gets access to the dancer class. It gradually loses importance down the road. With the dancer class, she'll always have a use.)
  • Ingrid (She becomes one of the best combat units in BL, BUT requires a lot of time and resources to do so. However, some things to consider are that she has a boon in swords and a decent faith spell list. She also has a boon in riding so getting her to A+ won't be hard.)

Otherwise, recruits are great candidates for dancers because by the time you get them, they probably haven't been invested as much as your starter students and may not be as good. I'm not sure if you want a list of who's a good dancer from other houses, but imo there's a few to consider. If you want an explanation on why they're a good candidate for dancer, feel free to ask!

BE students:

  • Ferdinand
  • Linhardt
  • Bernie
  • Dorothea

GD students:

  • Lorenz
  • Ignatz
  • Marianne

Flayn is also a good option.

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4 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

The boons a dancer should have IMO should one or two of the following:

  • Swords (to capitalize off of Sword Avoid)
  • Authority (the dancer battalion capitalizes on their niche, and it's A locked.)

Recruits are also great candidates for dancers because by the time you get them, they probably haven't been invested as much as your starter students and may not be as good.

Tbh I don't think Sword Avoid is ever really relevant on a Dancer. Even if you had it with Sword Prowess 5 and Gautier Knights along with 20 Speed, that'd only be 80 Avoid. While that may sound high, it really isn't enough to consistently dodge enemy attacks when they all have 110 + after the timeskip, especially ones with Sword Breaker. 

Putting on the Dance of Goddess Battalions on Dancers is not also not a great idea. It should really be used to instead refresh the Dancer instead so you can refresh five units in single a turn rather than just three. I find its much better to put it on to a healer since they don't see a lot of combat and how the gambit best used at the start of map to get rid of things like Ballistas or Reinforments triggers. 

You should also really consider only Starting House Members for Dancers rather than Cross Recurits. Not only would starting units have more time to build up their Riding Rank, Cross Recurits often have significantly better stats than those of your class even when invested in.

Here's an idea of how good Cross Recruits stats are: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mxxdq5VuCoX0y8HFIptCJi_jZZFCLY2GDNlWY3CMCLY/htmlview#

Edited by LoneRecon400
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32 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Tbh I don't think Sword Avoid is ever really relevant on a Dancer. Even if you had it with Sword Prowess 5 and Gautier Knights along with 20 Speed, that'd only be 80 Avoid. While that may sound high, it really isn't enough to consistently dodge enemy attacks when they all have 110 + after the timeskip, especially ones with Sword Breaker. 

Putting on the Dance of Goddess Battalions on Dancers is not also not a great idea. It should really be used to instead refresh the Dancer instead so you can refresh five units in single a turn rather than just three. I find its much better to put it on to a healer since they don't see a lot of combat and how the gambit best used at the start of map to get rid of things like Ballistas or Reinforments triggers. 

You should also really consider only Starting House Members for Dancers rather than Cross Recurits. Not only would starting units have more time to build up their Riding Rank, Cross Recurits often have significantly better stats than those of your class even when invested in.

Here's an idea of how good Cross Recruits stats are: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mxxdq5VuCoX0y8HFIptCJi_jZZFCLY2GDNlWY3CMCLY/htmlview#

I do agree with a lot of your points. I still like Sword Avoid though. It's better than not having any Avoid bonuses. It's not like the dancer has more pressing skills that they need to equip. It doesn't hurt them to have it.

That's a good use for Dance of the Goddess Battalions. I didn't know they worked on dancers too. Thanks for letting me know.

Cross Recruits are still viable choices for dancer though. The Cross Recruits with the great stats aren't necessarily ones to make into dancers. For example, recruiting Felix, Ingrid, and Hilda are all strong recruits I wouldn't recommend be turned into dancer because they can be used for other purposes. It's a case by case situation. If you recruit someone like Marianne early enough, you can still get her riding rank up to A+ with worrying too much since she has a boon for it. Her stats aren't special by any means either, so it's not like you're getting some specialized unit. She's no Ingrid or Hilda.

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3 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

I still like Sword Avoid though. It's better than not having any Avoid bonuses. It's not like the dancer has more pressing skills that they need to equip. It doesn't hurt them to have it.

Cross Recruits are still viable choices for dancer though. It's a case by case situation. If you recruit someone like Marianne, whose stats aren't exactly special, early enough you can still get her riding rank up to A+ with worrying too much since she has a boon for it.

It certainly doesn't hurt to have Sword Avoid, but I'm not convinced it's particularly useful to have as it's simply to unreliable to depend on and Dancer really shouldn't be targeted in the first. 

The thing about using unspectacular cross recurits as Dancers is that none of them autolevel any Moment skills, only their weapon skills.

So if you recruit a unit like Marianne by Chapter 7, she'll be behind in Riding by as much as 506 Ridining Exp compared to a Starting House unit like Ingrid and will have to be tutored in Lances to certify as a Cavalier. 

It's a minor advantage to be sure. But I don't see what boons an unspectacular cross recruit unit will provide as dancer when almost unit can get the job done. 

Edited by LoneRecon400
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3 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Tbh I don't think Sword Avoid is ever really relevant on a Dancer. Even if you had it with Sword Prowess 5 and Gautier Knights along with 20 Speed, that'd only be 80 Avoid. While that may sound high, it really isn't enough to consistently dodge enemy attacks when they all have 110 + after the timeskip, especially ones with Sword Breaker. 

If your dancer is Ferdinand, that gets pushed to 95, and you can toss on an Evasion Ring for 105, Axebreaker for 125 when active. That's definitely relevant - it won't dodge-tank everything, but enough formations to be worthy of note. Him and Dimitri are probably the only dancers I'd seriously build for evasion, though (and obviously, Dimitri's combat is such that making him a dancer is very much a sub-optimal "for fun" thing).

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1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

If your dancer is Ferdinand, that gets pushed to 95, and you can toss on an Evasion Ring for 105, Axebreaker for 125 when active. That's definitely relevant - it won't dodge-tank everything, but enough formations to be worthy of note. Him and Dimitri are probably the only dancers I'd seriously build for evasion, though (and obviously, Dimitri's combat is such that making him a dancer is very much a sub-optimal "for fun" thing).

I'd be pretty against Ferdinand becoming a Dancer in the first place with how valuable of a unit he is. He's one of the few units that can hit over a 100 Avoid with the regular version of Alert Stance. 

Even if you didn't want him to Dodgetank, he'd still be one of the only three units in the game that learns Swift Strikes. That's pretty vaulable Niche with how hard Swordmasters and Assassins are to take down on Maddening, especially with his high Accuracy thanks to Perfectionist. 

Edited by LoneRecon400
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4 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

I'd be pretty against Ferdinand becoming a Dancer in the first place with how valuable of a unit he is. He's one of the few units that can hit over a 100 Avoid with the regular version of Alert Stance. 

Even if you didn't want him to Dodgetank, he'd still be one of the only three units in the game that learns Swift Strikes. That's pretty vaulable Niche with how hard Swordmasters and Assassins are to take down on Maddening, especially with his high Accuracy thanks to Perfectionist. 

Ferdinand is a solid unit, but I disagree that he's so amazing that I would be unwilling to make him a dancer, particularly if his stat gains are a bit worse than you'd like (easy to have happen, since his bases are on the poor end... he's a lot like Ingrid, in fact). Yes, he's a great dodge-tank... and he can still play that role as a dancer. He won't be able to benefit from Alert Stance often if ever (since a dancer doing that is giving up dance), but Sword Avo +20 exceeds regular Alert Stance anyway, and Alert Stance+ is a long slog for someone without flying talent.

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56 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Ferdinand is a solid unit, but I disagree that he's so amazing that I would be unwilling to make him a dancer, particularly if his stat gains are a bit worse than you'd like.

Yes, he's a great dodge-tank... and he can still play that role as a dancer. He won't be able to benefit from Alert Stance often if ever (since a dancer doing that is giving up dance), but Sword Avo +20 exceeds regular Alert Stance anyway, and Alert Stance+ is a long slog for someone without flying talent.

Wyvern Class bases will ensure that he's good to see combat. 21 Strength / 17 Speed / 14 Defense will keep him relevant no matter what his stats were like before. Especially when coupled with things like Deathblow or C Armor for Weight -3 and for the chance passing the Fortress Knight Certifcation for 19 Defense.

If he becomes a Dancer, not only will that mean he loses a substantial amount of offensive prowess due to missing out on a faire skill and +3 Strength class Mod, he'll also be impacted by terrain and miss out on two Movement. 

Put simply, why would Fredinad be the best pick for a dancer when he's the one who needs Sword Avoid the least to become a dodgetank?

Edited by LoneRecon400
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17 hours ago, LegendOfLoog said:

gold is essentially limitless. 

Sure, in the first part. Not so much in the second.

10 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Putting on the Dance of Goddess Battalions on Dancers is not also not a great idea. It should really be used to instead refresh the Dancer instead so you can refresh five units in single a turn rather than just three. I find its much better to put it on to a healer since they don't see a lot of combat and how the gambit best used at the start of map to get rid of things like Ballistas or Reinforments triggers. 

That's a good point, but you gotta admit, the healers probably won't get to use either of the Dance of the Goddess battalions in a timely manner, considering one requires A authority, and the other needs B rank authority, is easy to miss if you don't know that you need one of two specific characters to go to a specific square on a specific map, and still comes late in the game. And none of them have a strength in authority either.

15 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

BE students:

  • Ferdinand
  • Linhardt
  • Bernie
  • Dorothea

GD students:

  • Lorenz
  • Ignatz
  • Marianne

I disagree on the ones I bolded - they have a hard time getting the charm needed to win on account of poor charm bases and growths, which would likely result in them getting shaken, rattled, and rolled out onto the loser board.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Healers probably won't get to use either of the Dance of the Goddess battalions in a timely manner considering one requires A authority. And while the other needs B rank authority, it comes late in the game. And no Healer has a strength in authority either.

It takes 1320 Skill Exp to get a skill to A rank. 

Assuming you let a healer study solely Authority after promoting to Bishop by about the start of Chapter 10, that'll yield +30 Exp a week. Tutoring them will yield at the minimum 28 Exp thanks to Cichol statue bonus and Professor's Expertise, with 42 Exp with a single perfect. So that'll be an average +65 Authority a week. 

Healers also gain +2 Authority exp whenever they're both Fighting or Healing with a Battalion Equipped, and also gain also +4 whenever they used a gambit. So assuming they they fought and healed around ~125 times and used around ~25 Gambits, they'll have already stockpiled 350 Authority Exp by this point. 

So Healers can easily learn A Rank Authority by about Chapter 15. Might have to delay their promotion if you want to promote them to Gremory, but Healers are better off staying as Bishops anyway. 

Edited by LoneRecon400
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22 hours ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Wyvern Lord isn’t really any more investment than the typical mage path: Wyvern has two As, one in a Neutral and one in a Strength, and a C in a Neutral. Dark Knight is the same thing. Gate Guardian is more like, I dunno, Mortal Savant Lysithea or something, lol. 

I’ve never really had bad hitrates since Lightning Axe uses Magic Avoid, which is generally worse than Physical Avoid. Definitely not as bad as Lysithea’s Dark tomes, that’s for sure. And with Canto and Flying, most maps have more than enough ways to avoid being attacked on Enemy Phase after OHKOing something. Crusher is really just a bonus if you want to secure a one-shot, and generally speaking, Annette doesn’t need it. Unless you really load up on Hero Relics and spam them, Umbral Steel is easy to come by, and gold is essentially limitless. 

That doesn't really seem practical when I'm forced to invest in four proficiencies, of which she only has any experience in one (axe [which she only has E+ to start in], lance, flying, authority), and I'm still unconvinced it's worth it because I am not convinced axes are that great in this game - most of them are too heavy to the point of being impractical, including the Crusher. FYI, I don't consider Dark Knight worth it either - compared to Gremory, which only needs two proficiencies, I would only feel like I invested too much just to get too little in return (sound familiar?). Anyway, if I did want to use Heroes' Relics more, I could easily do better than picking one with the awful combination of high weight and shitty accuracy. Short of archers, that's just having a death wish. Lightning Axe requires C+ axes, which, as I said earlier, I doubt is worth investing into.

19 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

Authority (the dancer battalion capitalizes on their niche, and it's A locked.)

There are actually two dance battalions, but the other comes late and is easy to miss unless you know you need one of two specific units to go to a specific area on a certain map.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I disagree on the ones I bolded - they have a hard time getting the charm needed to win on account of poor charm bases and growths, which would likely result in them getting shaken, rattled, and rolled out onto the loser board.

Linhardt's charm base is a lot higher than the other 2 (9 vs 4 and 3, idk if I'm correct tho I got the stats from the wiki), he is also a much better unit overall and can safely level up by spamming Heal/Physic/Warp. On average he should get 13 charm at lv 20, with 1 or 2 golden apple he can win the dance competition so it's not impossible.

Making him a dancer is a waste tho unless you're recruiting extra healers and Lysithea for Warp, I personally find Dorothea/Ferdinand to be better BE dancer candidates.

About Annette I don't think fixing her accuracy issues so she can use Lightning Axe/ Bolt Axe+ reliably are hard, an accuracy ring and a battalion with high hit are enough to fix her low Axe Hit. The question is why would I spend a lot of time and resources turning her into a Wyvern, she's not the only unit in the game that can reliably one shot mid game and canto away into safety. It feels horrible to train her to lv 20 for Wyvern if you're doing a NG Maddening run, you need to spoon feed her kills and spend a lot of resources tutoring her Magic Level so she get stronger spell first while also training her Axe/Authority/Flying level so she can become a Wyvern on time. In addition if Annette fails to oneshot her target she will get doubled and instantly destroyed due to how frail she is, also by actually training her I'm not taking full advantage of Annete's Rallies - her strongest asset because she doesn't get any EXP this way. Pegasus Marianne and Horse Hubert do the same thing Annette does with Frozen Lance, they even have higher accuracy but nobody builds them that way because they're much better off as standard mages, mage Annette on the other hand is just Linhardt without anything that makes him useful (Physic or Warp), being a Mounted Magic Unit pre 30 is not something unique to her, it's just that most of her competitors don't have to turn into one to be useful.

Edited by Ari Chan
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9 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Wyvern Class bases will ensure that he's good to see combat. 21 Strength / 17 Speed / 14 Defense will keep him relevant no matter what his stats were like before. Especially when coupled with things like Deathblow or C Armor for Weight -3 and for the chance passing the Fortress Knight Certifcation for 19 Defense.

If he becomes a Dancer, not only will that mean he loses a substantial amount of offensive prowess due to missing out on a faire skill and +3 Strength class Mod, he'll also be impacted by terrain and miss out on two Movement. 

Put simply, why would Fredinad be the best pick for a dancer when he's the one who needs Sword Avoid the least to become a dodgetank?

I don't really understand where you're coming from with those first two paragaraphs. Every single unit can by definition have wyvern bases, that's kinda what bases do. Someone is giving up that level of combat when you make them a dancer. It's obviously worth it, though.

For the last, you have that backward. Sword Avoid allows him to be a dancer who can reasonably dodgetank as well, and not having to worry about your dancer's durability is a nice bonus. Meanwhile, some other characters (especially ones with high speed and flying boon like Ingrid and Petra) can become great dodgetanks with Alert Stance builds (which they get to more easily than Ferdinand does; a boon helps a lot when chasing an A+, as does Pegasus Knight access), but their avoid as dancers is far shakier than his. Like, since they're both Eagles, I'll emphasize this comparison: it seems manifestly obvious to me that you're better off making Ferdinand a Dancer than Petra.

7 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Assuming you let a healer study solely Authority after promoting to Bishop by about the start of Chapter 10, that'll yield +30 Exp a week. Tutoring them will yield at the minimum 28 Exp thanks to Cichol statue bonus and Professor's Expertise, with 42 Exp with a single perfect. So that'll be an average +65 Authority a week. 

Agree with this in principle, except that if anything, +35 from tutoring is an underestimate. First off, in the later stages of the game, getting Cichol to +2 instead is viable. Secondly, even ignoring that... I dunno what the proportions are for tutoring results, but even assuming they're 3:2:1 for good/great/perfect, that'd be an average of +42 from tutoring, so they'd have to be quite a bit worse than this to go as low as +35 when, as you note, +28 is the absolute minimum. Really would be nice if we knew the exact numbers, though... I wonder if support rank affects them?

4 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

Linhardt's charm base is a lot higher than the other 2 (9 vs 4 and 3, idk if I'm correct tho I got the stats from the wiki), he is also a much better unit overall and can safely level up by spamming Heal/Physic/Warp. On average he should get 13 charm at lv 20, with 1 or 2 golden apple he can win the dance competition so it's not impossible.

Dunno where you're reading, but Linhardt's base charm is 3 according to this site, and my memory confirms this. He pretty much has the worst charm in the game so if anyone's going to have trouble winning the dance competition, it'll be him. (Still possible if you want, especially with stat boosters, though I agree with your conclusion that he doesn't seem like a great choice anyway.)

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2 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Dunno where you're reading, but Linhardt's base charm is 3 according to this site, and my memory confirms this. He pretty much has the worst charm in the game so if anyone's going to have trouble winning the dance competition, it'll be him. (Still possible if you want, especially with stat boosters, though I agree with your conclusion that he doesn't seem like a great choice anyway.)

O shit my bad, he's usually my E rank Stride Battalion bot and I never made him a dancer so I didn't really pay any attention to his charm stats lol.

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20 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

Pegasus Marianne and Horse Hubert do the same thing Annette does with Frozen Lance, they even have higher accuracy but nobody builds them that way because they're much better off as standard mages, mage Annette on the other hand is just Linhardt without anything that makes him useful (Physic or Warp), being a Mounted Magic Unit pre 30 is not something unique to her, it's just that most of her competitors don't have to turn into one to be useful.

Marianne doesn't really have anywhere to go for levels 20-30, and this level range includes the hardest part of the game, just after the time skip.

Hubert isn't that great as a paladin/DK because CF endgame is pretty unkind to horses, and sometimes to non fliers as a whole.

On the other hand, it looks like Annette is one shotting enemies on ch 13 (at least in the imgur album that was linked). Being able to pick off enemies while darting in and out of danger zones sounds pretty handy.

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17 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

It certainly doesn't hurt to have Sword Avoid, but I'm not convinced it's particularly useful to have as it's simply to unreliable to depend on and Dancer really shouldn't be targeted in the first. 

The thing about using unspectacular cross recurits as Dancers is that none of them autolevel any Moment skills, only their weapon skills.

So if you recruit a unit like Marianne by Chapter 7, she'll be behind in Riding by as much as 506 Ridining Exp compared to a Starting House unit like Ingrid and will have to be tutored in Lances to certify as a Cavalier. 

It's a minor advantage to be sure. But I don't see what boons an unspectacular cross recruit unit will provide as dancer when almost unit can get the job done. 

That's a great point at the end. They'll all get the job done anyways and a starter can become more efficient easier, so I'll agree on that.

8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Sure, in the first part. Not so much in the second.

That's a good point, but you gotta admit, the healers probably won't get to use either of the Dance of the Goddess battalions in a timely manner, considering one requires A authority, and the other needs B rank authority, is easy to miss if you don't know that you need one of two specific characters to go to a specific square on a specific map, and still comes late in the game. And none of them have a strength in authority either.

I disagree on the ones I bolded - they have a hard time getting the charm needed to win on account of poor charm bases and growths, which would likely result in them getting shaken, rattled, and rolled out onto the loser board.

Yeah, the two characters in question aren't notoriously strong characters either. Although if the leaks are to be true, it sounds like a couple of the new classes may give them more viability though.

As for Linhardt, Lorenz, and Ignatz--- yes, they're quite uncharming. Their charm growths are shit. However, it can be raised manually. Using SF's tea party guide to cheese tea parties and the 5 charm you can get by spending time with them in the month before the competition can get them up to the 14 charm needed to stand a chance. Is it the most optimal way to spend your time? Probably not. But you can get them to that level. That being said, Dorothea and Marianne should probably be your dancer instead.

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I know we get one of them late, and I didn't even use one of them in my last playthrough mainly because I found myself not really needing a dancer too much in Azure Moon despite a couple of moments in certain chapters.

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40 minutes ago, msterforks said:

Marianne doesn't really have anywhere to go for levels 20-30, and this level range includes the hardest part of the game, just after the time skip.

Hubert isn't that great as a paladin/DK because CF endgame is pretty unkind to horses, and sometimes to non fliers as a whole.

On the other hand, it looks like Annette is one shotting enemies on ch 13 (at least in the imgur album that was linked). Being able to pick off enemies while darting in and out of danger zones sounds pretty handy.

Marianne can also be a Cavalier/Pally, she has strength in both mounts + lance so it's not hard to train her into this path at all, get C rank riding + B rank Lance + savescum for lv 20 promotion and then focus on Flying rank for Falcon Knight.  The problem is that both her and Annette are very underwhelming pre lv 20 which is the main problem of this build. Hubert as Dark Knights can cast Magic and use Frozen Lance at the same time, I consider that a big advantage, Dark Spikes and Banshee are very useful spells.

For ch.13 AM Maddening, Wyvern Annette is nice to have but she's not the win condition, there are way too many enemies to rely on Player Phase nuke to take them all out, the only way to beat it is to set up a Swordbreaker/Vantage/Battalion Wrath Dimitri build with a Flying Byleth that can reposition themselves out of danger. It's hard to justify training her only for that map considering that you can dump your resources on Dimitri and Byleth instead who are way better carries with an existant Enemy Phase that can wipe multiple enemies out in 1 turn, also after that map you get your recruited units plus Ingrid, Sylvain and Felix back (they arrive too late on ch 13, after the hardest part).

 

Edited by Ari Chan
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2 hours ago, Ari Chan said:

About Annette I don't think fixing her accuracy issues so she can use Lightning Axe/ Bolt Axe+ reliably are hard, an accuracy ring and a battalion with high hit are enough to fix her low Axe Hit. The question is why would I spend a lot of time and resources turning her into a Wyvern, she's not the only unit in the game that can reliably one shot mid game and canto away into safety. It feels horrible to train her to lv 20 for Wyvern if you're doing a NG Maddening run, you need to spoon feed her kills and spend a lot of resources tutoring her Magic Level so she get stronger spell first while also training her Axe/Authority/Flying level so she can become a Wyvern on time. In addition if Annette fails to oneshot her target she will get doubled and instantly destroyed due to how frail she is, also by actually training her I'm not taking full advantage of Annete's Rallies - her strongest asset because she doesn't get any EXP this way. Pegasus Marianne and Horse Hubert do the same thing Annette does with Frozen Lance, they even have higher accuracy but nobody builds them that way because they're much better off as standard mages, mage Annette on the other hand is just Linhardt without anything that makes him useful (Physic or Warp), being a Mounted Magic Unit pre 30 is not something unique to her, it's just that most of her competitors don't have to turn into one to be useful.

You don't need to be a wyvern to use axes. Excalibur is so shit that even if you have tomefaire but no axefaire is still surpassed by lighting axe anyway. It's way easier to just build her as a mage while dipping for C rank Axe and mostly use them. That's how horrible her spell list is.

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9 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Sure, in the first part. Not so much in the second.

Nah, the second part is where you get all the gold. Your units start hitting the max Skill Levels they need, so you have more Activity Points to use at the Arena. If you want gold in Part 2, it's incredibly easy to come by. 

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

That doesn't really seem practical when I'm forced to invest in four proficiencies, of which she only has any experience in one (axe [which she only has E+ to start in], lance, flying, authority), and I'm still unconvinced it's worth it because I am not convinced axes are that great in this game - most of them are too heavy to the point of being impractical, including the Crusher. FYI, I don't consider Dark Knight worth it either - compared to Gremory, which only needs two proficiencies, I would only feel like I invested too much just to get too little in return (sound familiar?). Anyway, if I did want to use Heroes' Relics more, I could easily do better than picking one with the awful combination of high weight and shitty accuracy. Short of archers, that's just having a death wish. Lightning Axe requires C+ axes, which, as I said earlier, I doubt is worth investing into.

Authority is a given investment no matter what you have Annette do, so that doesn't have much to do with Wyvern specifically. If we're comparing Gremory Annette to Wyvern Annette, the difference is Axe+Flying A and Lance C vs. Reason+Faith A. Reason starts at D+ and Axes start at E+, so there's an extra 60 XP in favor of Gremory Annette. Flying and Faith are the same. The maximum necessary investment into Lances is 160 XP. The difference is only 220 Skill XP in total. That's not a particularly large amount considering you're getting 20~ Skill XP in two Skills per week for free. Wyvern and Gremory are fairly close in investment, but the difference is that Gremory Annette sucks. She has no utility at all, so all you're left with is a 5 Move mage who wilts if an enemy so much as breathes in her direction. With a flying mount, Annette can actually have relevant combat and keep up with your frontliners instead of lagging behind the entire game. Gremory Annette is slightly lower in investment and drastically lower in performance. 

Also, heavy Weight means next to nothing when you're using Combat Arts to one-shot. It's only relevant if you get attacked on Enemy Phase, and if that's happening, there's already an issue there. All you do with Wyvern Annette is abuse Flight to run around, KO a problematic enemy, and Canto to safety. As for poor hitrates, that isn't really a big issue. Magical attacks are much more reliable in general. Just to use Level 30 as an example, a Wyvern Lord Annette will have roughly 80 Hit with a Crusher equipped. Kingdom Wyvern Co, Axe Prowess Lv 5, and an Accuracy Ring bump that to 125. You can also boost this even further with a Wyvern Gilbert adjutant, if you want, for 135 Hit. However, Dust is generally overkill except against particularly high HP enemies, so a Lightning Axe Art with a Silver Axe+ equipped is usually enough to get the job done. This brings your usual Hit rate up to 145, which is more than enough to reliably hit any enemy. I've used this build a few times, and I've tried both Gremory and Dark Knight as well. Wyvern is far and away the best option for Annette, and if you're going to make her a Gremory, you might as well put her on the bench so Annette doesn't waste a deployment slot. 

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1 hour ago, Ari Chan said:

Marianne can also be a Cavalier/Pally, she has strength in both mounts + lance so it's not hard to train her into this path at all, get C rank riding + B rank Lance + savescum for lv 20 promotion and then focus on Flying rank for Falcon Knight.  The problem is that both her and Annette are very underwhelming pre lv 20 which is the main problem of this build. Hubert as Dark Knights can cast Magic and use Frozen Lance at the same time, I consider that a big advantage, Dark Spikes and Banshee are very useful spells.

For ch.13 AM Maddening, Wyvern Annette is nice to have but she's not the win condition, there are way too many enemies to rely on Player Phase nuke to take them all out, the only way to beat it is to set up a Swordbreaker/Vantage/Battalion Wrath Dimitri build with a Flying Byleth that can reposition themselves out of danger. It's hard to justify training her only for that map considering that you can dump your resources on Dimitri and Byleth instead who are way better carries with an existant Enemy Phase that can wipe multiple enemies out in 1 turn, also after that map you get your recruited units plus Ingrid, Sylvain and Felix back (they arrive too late on ch 13, after the hardest part).

 

Rng manip is a debatable subject, and people draw the line in different places. In any case, I plan on using Marianne as a physic Mage -> PK -> Paladin -> FK, and so far she hits really hard with a Steel Lance Frozen Lance (ch4). This is gunna be a wild ride.

Not sure how well the Battalion Vantage + Wrath strat works because I didn't get the Authority in time, but I found myself consistently dying to mass 20% hit rates from sword users and 30+ from archers. It sounds a bit sketchy considering it only takes one archer to knock Dimitri from vantage range to zero.

Obviously we're not training Annette for ch 13 then perm benching her. I assume she's able to one shot consistently through the end of the game, and ch 13 is only an example of what she does during one of the hardest chapters. She looks alright if her pre level 20 wasn't so bad.

CF ch15-18 are all not great or downright awful for horse units. By the time Hubert reaches DK, he's probably a stride bot or kills one or two enemies per map. Had I not been playing semi blind, I would have benched him from the start.

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1 hour ago, msterforks said:

Rng manip is a debatable subject, and people draw the line in different places. In any case, I plan on using Marianne as a physic Mage -> PK -> Paladin -> FK, and so far she hits really hard with a Steel Lance Frozen Lance (ch4). This is gunna be a wild ride.

Not sure how well the Battalion Vantage + Wrath strat works because I didn't get the Authority in time, but I found myself consistently dying to mass 20% hit rates from sword users and 30+ from archers. It sounds a bit sketchy considering it only takes one archer to knock Dimitri from vantage range to zero.

Obviously we're not training Annette for ch 13 then perm benching her. I assume she's able to one shot consistently through the end of the game, and ch 13 is only an example of what she does during one of the hardest chapters. She looks alright if her pre level 20 wasn't so bad.

CF ch15-18 are all not great or downright awful for horse units. By the time Hubert reaches DK, he's probably a stride bot or kills one or two enemies per map. Had I not been playing semi blind, I would have benched him from the start.

RNG mainpulation for Advanced class are optional since the promotion items are fairy cheap, Annette's only viable early games thanks to her ever useful rallies and she's not gaining any exp by spamming it, personally I usually get her to lv 10 for Peg Knight and she makes an amazing support unit in ch.13, she can fly, Rally and use Impregable Wall which are very good to keep Dimitri, Byleth alive while Mercie stays at the corner of the map spamming Physics & Fortify. Ashe and Gilbert are legit deadweight tho, Wyvern Ashe is very bad compared to Wyvern Annette and getting him to lv 20 is even more difficult cause he does crap damage, but if you want him to stay alive you basically have to make him a Wyvern Lord since enemies usually flock into the top corner and tend to ignore Mercie/Annie. As for Gilbert I don't know what inspired IS to give the players a 4 mov Armor crap that can't even tank physical hits well in one of the most difficult post time skip map, and of course him and Ashe have to spawn together to make matters worse. Basically you really have to funnel resources into Byleth/Dimitri so they're strong enough to carry your team until Ingrid, Felix and Sylvain arrive, the Battalion Vantage start is very good especially if you give Dimitri a forged Killer Lance or Wo Dao, he's reaching over 80% crit rate with this build and will most likely kills anything that approaches him.

The map is even worse in SS imo, Seteth is nowhere as strong as your House Lord and Caspar is the worst unit in the game along with Gilbert, but if you don't train Caspar or make him a Dancer then it's very hard for Dorothea to hold off everything on her own, at least Petra is a very good unit that comes in early tho.

The only CF map that is extremely unkind to horse unit is ch.18 imo, but you can always Dismount Hubert when he needs to travel through the buring tiles, the penalty is basically a joke anyway. 

Edited by Ari Chan
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