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Maddening Tips


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Hi all! I'm starting my first run of Maddening (it's taken me some time!) and I'm on Blue lions. I hear it's one of the tougher paths with the final boss being tough. I thought I'd log on, see if I could find some tips, ideas/ suggestions, and I am surprised there's not much to find. I was hoping we could fix that. 

 

For starters,  I can say archers are great. Being able to attack without the counter attack is very handy for the chip damage, and curved shot is learned early on. 

 

 

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Be prepared to actually check enemy stats before you start a map. You will begin to utilize options you previously didn't bother with to figure out how to survive (in my case, the repositioning combat arts, passive skills, and rallies).

After the initial taste and frustration that comes with it, I actually find it pretty fun and rewarding. And I'm pretty confident I'm not playing optimally at all.

 

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Be sure to buy up all the bait the game will sell to you and do all that fishing. Selling fish really helps finance your campaign (though I would keep two or three of each fish variety so that you never come up short on dining hall ingredients). And while I wouldn't spend activity points on it, try to nail perfect tea time on birthdays because you want that free charm. I think even without scanning an amiibo for free items you might happen upon enough tea items just by diligently exploring the monastery for sparklies, but I'm not sure about that. Buying tea is expensive and not something I'd want to spend precious gold on. And in the greenhouse I'd try for the Str, Mag, and Def stat boosters more than anything. You want each of your attacks to hit hard, and each point of Def is 2HP in most cases since the majority of enemies are physical attackers who can double you. 

Edited by Glennstavos
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See this is how I don't play optimally: I'd rather do my statistics homework rather than play the fish mini-game for hours.

So far I've done fine without it, honestly.

EDIT: Have done a tea time every birthday for the +1 charm and that's painful enough, but I also haven't actually had to buy much of the tea. Getting favorite teas does afford you one botched talk attempt, though, and that's saved me a bunch of times lol.

Edited by Crysta
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If it doesn't require sacrificing other important goals, gun for D and C Authority ASAP. Enemy bulk is fairly high and there will be times where you simply don't have the luxury of sitting back and pulling small groups at a time. The AoE soft crowd control provided by offensive Gambits is quite invaluable (and the big damage certainly doesn't hurt). Enemy Charm stats are going to be fairly high, though, so you're going to have to build supports and learn how to position for threat-range hit boosts in order to have reliable hit rates.

Encloser is godly for the same reason Gambit crowd control is valuable.

Blessing and Impregnable Wall are god. There is going to come a point where, unless you're extremely prepared, you're going to face units with overwhelming Atk, Hit, Crit and Counterattack. Blessing lets you fight these enemies relatively safely. Impregnable Wall lets you lure these enemy super units out of range without risking losing Blessing. More mundanely, Impregnable Wall is also great if you just want to body block and delay fighting a side of enemies for some time.

Deadeye is a surprisingly valuable Combat Art for all the wrong reasons. That is, its hit rate is going to be garbage and because of that, its decent damage boost isn't going to be terribly helpful. However, the AI doesn't care if you just took a pot shot at it with 0% Hit, it will happily YOLO out of its entrenched position to get mauled by your waiting army. Therefore an Archer with Deadeye and someone to Reposition/Draw Back said Archer can troll the AI in really hilarious ways.

Learn to love "Brave" Combat Arts (Swift Strikes, Point-Blank Volley, Hunter's Volley and Fierce Iron Fist). With all resources dedicated to them, you'll maybe be able to get two units to a point where they're doubling/quadding fast enemies. More likely, it'll just be one unit. The rest are going to have to settle for trying to reach enough AS to just not get doubled, then use said Arts to secure kills on PP. For the most part, I would advise only engaging in this when absolutely necessary (enemies are pushing hard or you're trying to reach a certain point before turn X elapses, so you need that burst damage now) for reasons that will become clear in the next section.

As an addendum to your observation about Curved Shot: it's highly abusable with any  Canto unit. It's especially dumb with fliers, because maps are typically made to hinder cavalry with obstacles, but fliers don't really care about that stuff. This often lets fliers get free damage over walls/water/gaps and the AI will generally have no idea how to deal with it.  Cavaliers and Paladins will have a tougher time taking advantage of this, but in the very least, they can get free damage, then retreat to being targeting by minimal enemies. Bow Knights can abuse this about as hard as fliers, but over completely open terrain (because 8-9 Move Canto plus up to a 5-range Curved Shot is incredibly silly). I ended up calling my Maddening Golden Deer run "The Mongol Horde Run" because over half the team was Canto bows and almost completely untouchable because I very rarely had to end any unit's turn within enemy range. It got to a point where my team needed so little healing that Marianne went Holy Knight for quite a few chapters so that she could get in on the ranged weapon + Canto abuse shenanigans.

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  • you should bring a decent amount of magic users. exp through support magic is not reduced while combat exp is
  • check enemy stats before putting your units into their range
  • equip your units with multiple weapons so you can also avoid getting doubled by the enemies as often as possible
  • don't hesitate to use combat arts or legendary weapons to dissolve a difficult situation
  • use support gambits, especially Stride and Impregnable Wall
  • use offensive gambits to immobilize enemies that you cannot kill fast enough. Fusillade is great for this
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2 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

If it doesn't require sacrificing other important goals, gun for D and C Authority ASAP. Enemy bulk is fairly high and there will be times where you simply don't have the luxury of sitting back and pulling small groups at a time. The AoE soft crowd control provided by offensive Gambits is quite invaluable (and the big damage certainly doesn't hurt). Enemy Charm stats are going to be fairly high, though, so you're going to have to build supports and learn how to position for threat-range hit boosts in order to have reliable hit rates.

Speaking of which, if you're making someone into a flyer, get them to D authority asap, as the lowest ranked flying battalions are D rank.

Also, I would recommend recruiting units from other houses to make post-timeskip chapters easier - Petra in particular. Other good recruits include Dorothea, Bernadetta, Hilda, Lysithea, Leonie, and Marianne.

Pay special attention to enemy AS.

Note that any enemy unit that has been aggroed will also cause enemy units that they pass to become aggressive as well. This can be particularly troublesome in chapter 5.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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The Saint Statue that gives you +Class Exp; make sure that is the first one you invest your renown in + that you get that bonus as soon as you possibly can.

What thats gonna do is cut in half the amount of time that you need to stay in a class before you get its mastery skill (i.e. you'll actually be able to feasibly grab them and then hit your next promotion tier in a timely manner)

And some of those class skills--reposition (soldier), +speed (myrmidon), fiendish blow (mage), death blow (brigand), darting blow (pegasus knight),  Hit +20 (archer)--are going to be absolutely clutch for you.

 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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I would also recommend recruiting Caspar - Mercedes's paralogue requires him as well, and second, it gives you the chance to get his (Donkey Kong's) weapon if you can have Caspar defeat him.

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-Be sure to use Gambits. Not only do they stop the enemy in place, they also weaken them and cut them off bonuses they get from a battalion. And keep in mind that while a units gains or loses 5 hit for the difference Charm, up to 3 unit that can attack the enemy add +5 Hit, with an additional +5 per every support rank. 
 
- Support gambits are also really good. Kuroi already mentioned some, but two in particular that stand out are Retribution which makes a unit counterattack regardless of range for 5 turns and Sacred Shield, which makes a unit take zero damage from ranged attacks, even magic one contrary to the description. 

- Fishing up Bullheads and cooking will give a point of Speed to the entire party and stacks every time it's cooked until after the battle at the end of the month. 

- That being said, it's better to fish up and cook Teutates Pike(+Def fish) for the first three chapters as Bullheads have a very low chance of being caught without three star Bait. 
 
-Rallies can make a huge difference in the early game, especially when stacking different types of rallies on one unit. So rush to get Annette to C+ Authority to learn Rally Speed, as combined with her personal can make units even one round some enemies. 
 
-Training a unit that Heavy Armor can pay off as not only will they learn the Weight -3 Skill at C Armor, thy can also increase their defense to a base of 12 if they can pass the Armored Knight Certification. That's the same class base of most Advanced classes. Wouldn't recommend staying as a Armor Knight, however, since the class itself is pretty bad due to lowering a unit's Speed. 
 
-Weight from Shields can also be canceled out by having enough Strength. A unit with 20 Strength and the Weight -3 Skill would suffer no AS loss from wielding a Training Axe + and a Steel Shield.
 
-Be sure to have long range attacks such as Meteor or a Long Bow on a Bow Knight equipped on them. They will actually be able to add hit to other units in the form of link Attacks. 3 Hit for three units in range, with an additionally 2 Hit per support rank. 
 
-Be sure to equip the units who have shaky accuracy with Adjutants. At A Support, it provides +10 Hit and Avoid even on the enemy phase unlike Link Attacks. Some supports even give +3 to attack, such as Dimitri and Dedue. 

-Students that you can obtain from recruiting from another classes have very good bases, to the point they're usually better than when raised up from scratch. Here's a spreadsheet showing their stats: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mxxdq5VuCoX0y8HFIptCJi_jZZFCLY2GDNlWY3CMCLY
Edited by LoneRecon400
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Remember to check enemy inventories before the battle starts!  Having your ex-thief with "steal" equipped is great when there are lots of lootables... but, you can replace steal (with another ability) if there is nothing to loot for a map.  

P.S. Konosuba quote "STEAL!"

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Once you get more professor levels and explore points. I recommend using the kitchen every single time you explore to give everyone bonus speed. It can mean the difference between not doubling to doubling in part 2.

Ignore the battle quests until you obtain the knowledge gem with only one exception. Later on you can have a single unit solo the map with an adjutant and give them both class EXP in whatever class you need. It's possible to master 2 intermediate classes this way without being late to advanced with good planning. 

 

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11 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I would also recommend recruiting Caspar - Mercedes's paralogue requires him as well, and second, it gives you the chance to get his (Donkey Kong's) weapon if you can have Caspar defeat him.

Piggybacking off this, I recruited Caspar during the last month pre timeskip, and let him naturally grow to A Axes for Exhaustive Strike. It doesn't take much effort, if any at all. Base level ch11 Caspar (not sure if he's recruitable in ch12?) had like ~80 hit and ~25 damage with a Steel Axe+, Axe Prowess, and Lancebreaker.

There are an insanely large amount of chapters you can cheese with Stride + Dancer + Blue Lion Dancers + Warp. Recruit Lysithea if you like warp cheesing.

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Recruit Lorenz for his Magic + 2 Relic, it's one of the best accessory in the game. Linhardt is also a very easy and good recruit especially if you're using Leonie, their Paralogue post time skip rewards the best Bow in the game.

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