screenshots A Grindy Crimson Flower Playthrough, Three Houses.

[DehNutCase]

Ch. 5, Part 2:

 

Academy:

Spoiler

Lecture:

Pretty low on Motivation on my students this week, since we had to take a week off to bulldoze some mooks. (This gets Ferdinand the 2nd star, at least, so we only need 1 more tutoring session for Seal Speed.)

Doop.

It might've been better to tutor for Axes here, but eh.

C Authority on some of our students will be nice so we can spread good battalions around.

Annette will only ever use one of the two Stride battalions, so Authority is only about getting more Rallies for her. C+ is Rally Speed, and S is Rally Movement---Rally Movement isn't really important, though, so I'll be focusing Authority mostly so she can equip the other Stride battalion. The other Stride battalion has some decent stats, but it has Stride, so only someone who doesn't need gambits for damage purposes will want it.

It also has a -2 Magic Atk penalty, but I'll take -2 Atk for an extra Stride any day. (There is a point where I'll stop wanting more Strides on a team, but 1 single Stride isn't that point.)

We have Annette now, so we can have Linhardt and Annette on weeding duty for efficient exp and support gain.

Ferdinand had D+ Axes for a while now, but I only got around to switching him to Lances right now.

Leonie's Birthday.

It's Perfect, and we get Charm for both of us as well. (I don't actually know if NPC units keep the Charm, to be honest, and I've never cared enough to check.)

Annette has a bonus to Weeding and Linhardt already has a support with her, so Perfects are pretty likely.

D+, so Cavalier is pretty likely.

Thief is pretty likely.

Caspar still exists.

D+ Axes and Authority.

D+ Authority.

Doop.

 

Quests:

We see these two now rather than right after the maps, which is interesting. The battalions are pretty worthless, although the Merchant Military does have the an AoE gambit like the Empire Knights' (the triangle shaped one) at E-rank Authority, if you really needed AoE gambits for some reason.

 

Back to other stuff:

Lots of support ranks getting built.

This fails.

So I save/reload and have her pass Myrmidon to advance the list of numbers.

Edelgard doesn't need any more lance exp, so I have her start working on Axes again. Wyvern Rider doesn't have 10% Speed Growths, so I'm not sure If I'll even have her be in the class, but it does have 1 more movement and a lot more Atk. She'll pick up some nice Axe Combat Arts this way too, and she's pretty much our only Axe user.

B Axes would also be useful for Fortress Knight if her defense level ups don't end up panning out.

Linhardt will be perfectly happy with a hand-me-down D-rank mage battalion, so I have him working on Faith again. (I swapped out of Swords since it's D+ now.)

D+ Axes, so I start on Reason again. I'll probably tutor her a bit in Swords if it looks like her Speed growths are falling behind.

This is just 2 Golden Fish worth of loot, I believe. Fistful of Fish is way better than the golden fish days for cash.

Some handy stats for Ferdinand, although he won't be Monk, obviously.

The defense doesn't really matter, but 3 strength is kind of like half a point of Speed.

(She doesn't go fighter.)

Buying some more 500g stat boosters.

I don't care enough about Petra to get her Monk, so straight to Soldier she goes. (Pegasus knight has decentish Res bases, and Petra has a double Weakness in Faith and Reason.)

 

Exploration:

Doop. It's Fish of Mystery, I believe, but I'm also not insane, so I don't try for it.

Oh, I just realized I forgot to buy bait from the merchant... Oh well.

Great set of loot from the Greenhouse.

And we plant the usual.

I'm going to give the tl;dr rather than kill you with screenshots, I buy a bunch of gifts. (All of the 100g ones and a select few 300g and 500g ones.)

Lost items will be mixed with gifts this month. This is Lysithea.

I shove her a ton of gifts (something like 5 Owl Feather tier gifts).

Today's Special doesn't take any ingredients, so I just have Annette and Sylvain refill their Motivation.

Ingrid has one of the easiest Paralogues and her stats are pretty great, so I'll work on getting her to B-rank next, after Lysithea.

Doop. Lysithea needs a lot of magic and a high-ish Faith rank to recruit naturally, so I'll have to wait for her to ask to join. Unfortunately, either save/reloading doesn't work for that or else it has to be in a lecture week, because I don't get her before the map. This means she won't have the Monk's D-rank combo of Faith and Reason. (Although I don't remember her skill exp bases, maybe she'll have those two anyway.)

Linhardt.

Buying gifts effectively save you activity points, so it's basically buying Professor Points. It's pretty tedious, though, compared to just spamming meals.

I end up buying a Watering Can and a Dapper Handkerchief as well in addition to the other stuff I bought. Bernadetta loves both of them. (Note the 500g Armored Bear---I bought it since it's a item that Lysithea really likes.)

Bernadetta.

Filling to 100 Motivation.

Petra.

Petra still, filling to 100.

Manuela.

Ingrid.

Felix.

I ask Felix for help, although I end up benching him.

His stats are quite great for a level 9, but again, he stays foot-locked, and some C-rank battalions have 5 damage, so we're already at the point where his personal isn't useful anymore.

Cyril.

Sylvain.

Ignatz. (We still can't give Hilda the used bottle of Perfume.)

I think I'll skip the lost items and gifts bit for later chapters, we do have a resource in Serenes Forest for what belongs to who, after all.

More Motivation refills.

I swap Edelgard back to Pegasus Knight, since Soldier's mastered.

The knights fell off since she flies, so I give them to Byleth.

She picks up the Pegasus Knights again.

And Sylvain gets Seiros Mercs.

Back to the tournament grind.

Doop.

I wanted to hold off on this since Dorothea's Motivation is full, but oh well.

Dedue's Birthday. Oddly enough, I got different results for Charm despite getting Nice both times I did it, which means I'm either wrong about the RNG thing being set at the start of month/week, or else me getting Dorothea's support changed things up. (For the 2nd reset I got Dorothea's support during the exploration phase, to see if that can change Lysithea's join RNG.)

Lysithea didn't end up joining, but I do get Charm on Byleth.

Edelgard fails this, so I reload to save the Intermediate Seal, I'll try again next month.

Dorothea goes Monk.

Ferdinand goes Soldier.

Selling some odds and ends for spare change. Magdred Kirsch is used for one of the Goddess Fish recipes, but like I said, it's not too worth it for me.

 

Map:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 9, I wonder if it means you're supposed to only have 1 or 2 units at that level.

Pre-Map Planning:

The main issue with this map is the cascading aggro thing, where if you aggro one archer near the middle of the map it'll aggro literally everything on the map. If Gillbert is allowed to move as he likes, he'll pretty much definitely walk into aggro range for the archers, so this map is a lot easier if you just let the useless Fortress Knight die.

I'm not being paid to keep him alive, so I let him die ASAP and just deathball my way to the boss. (I might let him die if the reward is a Vulnerary or Concotion, too, but even a Secret Book is worth have me keeping him alive---it's a hassle to kill off the giant ass death ball of enemy mooks if everything aggros at you, but between gambits and Divine Pulses it's doable even if your whole team was below level 10.)

There's also enemy phase reinforcements, but those are the just devs flipping you the bird and making you use a Divine Pulse, they don't really make the map harder.

The sooner this guy dies, the better. Note how he doesn't have Prowess, the devs really want you to use Divine Pulses to keep him alive, since he'll be seeing positive crit rates. Which is weird, seeing how you don't get any reward for it.

24 Atk, 11 AS, not too low, but not completely awful. (Still not good, considering we have level 10 class stats now too.)

16 Atk, 14 AS, I guess you might have trouble with mages this early if you really hated the idea of Pegasus Knights?

...Why do our enemies keep getting slower rather than faster? We've been fighting 14 AS mooks since back when most of our team was level 1, this guy has 12 AS and we're like 7 levels higher.

The Armor Knights have toilet paper Res but very good Def, especially considering the decentish Battalion. (Everyone enemy with a Battalion on this map has this particular Battalion.) The guy has 25 Defense when attacking but any mage will ORKO him more or less guaranteed.

Seriously? We used to fight 11 AS Archers, you know, like right after the Prologue.

Thieves still have Pass, but Pass doesn't really matter when your stat spread got worse after 6 or so levels rather than better.

He also has the Chest Key for this chest, which has an Armor Slayer.

Up in the top left corner is this guy, who's somehow a Fortress Knight (and still a complete joke despite that---or rather, because of that, Fortress Knight bases are nice, but the class itself is a bad joke.)

Kill him, get free Accuracy Ring.

Maybe they meant for him to be level 19, so you'd actually have a challenge to kill him?

The wave of mooks right before the boss carries a ton of Vulneraries. I usually end up killing these guys near the start of the map since before this run I tend keep Gillbert alive, which means he causes the archers to attack and aggro everyone.

I mean, he's an Armor Knight (with Steal as his Personal Ability, because 9 Speed can Steal things).

Not a threat, despite the nice Weapon.

 

Lance of Ruin is pretty much a super strong Killer Lance, not bad, but the durability means that you won't get to use it much. (Unless you enjoy paying an arm and a leg for weapon repairs.) You can get it right after this map as long as Sylvain's on the team, so it's pretty useful, but the accuracy will cost you some Divine Pulses.

I rate Relics in general more or less around the same level as Killer Lancers, they're not endgame tier, although the game tries to pretend they are, but they're not bad. What they gain in better stats compared to generics they lose in durability issues, since generics can be forged to Killer+ or whatever, and you can carry multiple copies of the same generic for a unit that takes lots of combats. A broken weapon completely dumpsters your combat, so once you get below 10 or so uses you don't really want to be holding it on enemy phase, and Relics only have 20 max durability.

Certain Relics are way better than others, of course. (Same with the not quite Relic stuff like The Inexhaustible or Gradivus.)

Buying some Lances.

And a bow.

And another bow.

More ability shuffling.

Weird that I remembered to swap Defense in for Edelgard but forgot to grab Reposition.

I shuffle some weapons around within my team.

Sylvain took Ferdinand's almost broken Iron Lance, and I forged it up to a Killer. Killers more or less have the stats of Steel Weapons except with 25 Crit tacked on top, at the cost of being pricier and having less durability. (A Killer Lance is 5% more accurate than a Steel Lance as well, but that's minor.)

Byleth keeps a training Bow around since it has better combat than Sword of the Creator right now.

(She also keeps her Gauntlets since nobody else comes close to her in terms of using them.)

I'll give you a tl;dr and tell you that I remove physical weapons from all my mages.

Main reason I picked up a second Iron Bow is, ironically enough, because I want to forge them into Killers. For raw combat the Training + Steel combo covers more or less everything.

But it's a bit more cost efficient to break or almost break weapons before forging them up.

Petra gets a bunch of random junk. (Note the Steel + Training Bow combo, though.)

Training+ has slightly more durability and is 2 weight lighter than regular training Lance, so it's nice for people who aren't made of Strength.

Sylvain has an Iron Axe because I have like 10 unused Axes just sitting in Convoy.

Edelgard also has a Bow for poking people from range. She also picks up one of the Training Lance+ I had.

Team. Caspar's on Adjunct duty to farm some exp, and Felix is benched since it's not like I need or really particularly want him. (His Paralogue gives great stuff, but it's a bit dicey before your units are higher leveled.)

Replenishing battalions.

And now, because I'm pretty forgetful about semi-important things (things that are only 'nice' rather than absolutely crucial), I start the map.

 

False Start:

Doop. (Misses.)

Rally to prepare for enemy phase.

Ditto.

And then I try to reposition Hubert, and notice I can't.

Because I don't have it equipped. Oops.

Reset Counter: 4

 

Pre-map Planning, take 2:

I didn't need reposition to clear the map, but I don't need it to clear any map, and it's not like I played long enough in the map to care about resetting for it.

I also buy some Chest Keys for the Convoy in case I forget for later maps.

Selling Bullion for cash.

And buy a Door Key for the same reason I bought Chest Keys.

I noticed the stat boosters while selling the Bullions so I finally have Byleth eat them.

I'm pretty forgetful about stat boosters since they're also stuff that are 'nice,' but I don't especially need to clear a map.

And Byleth picks up her stuff again. Weird that you can't just eat stat boosters from convoy.

 

The Map:

Doop. This hits.

Rallies for the road.

Repo Hubert and then Canto into enemy range. Reposition + Canto means playing with mages isn't too sluggish as long as you have enough cavalry around.

Repoing Dorothea forward.

The repositions were just to smack this guy twice. He doesn't need to die, or anything, but I don't have anything better to do this early.

We don't really need this, since Byleth is a Thief.

The first wave of enemy reinforcements is based on advancing a certain amount on the map, so you'll want to do that before Gillbert aggros everything on the map thanks to getting shot at.

The best part about Pegasus Knights is everything. (Enemy Phase Combat)

This is pretty much the entire game. (Also Enemy phase.)

Nothing to do except advance forward. I'm keeping the guys in the back clumped in case I want to Stride them for something.

We moved far enough forward, so these guys spawn. At least they wait until you're out of range before spawning, assuming you keep your units together.

tl;dr is that Gilbert got smacked twice by the mage and then ate a crit from this Thief to go to critical HP.

And then he kills himself.

Good riddance.

We aren't in a rush or anything, so I move Edelgard back.

And I repo her into enemy range.

Doop.

Not sure why this guy decided to take 24 damage to the fact rather than use a Gambit. Probably because of the 20% or so accuracy on the gambit and the fact that Edelgard doesn't straight up kill him.

(Enemy Phase combat.)

Doop.

This crits, so the guy is vaporized.

Picking up some exp for Hubert. Level 10 is a pretty huge power spike, so I try to get as many of our students to level 10 as possible.

Everything he doesn't need, the level. If he majorly lucks out in Speed growths (he picks up all 3 in the 3 levels left to 10), this Speed point matters.

I shuffle people around and have Annette top Edelgard off.

Leaving Bernadetta in enemy range to proc her Personal.

She gets doubled, but nothing she can't walk off.

Doop.

Dead.

She got Strength every single level for 3 levels and then more or less stopped. This is still quite acceptable stats for level 9, though.

Annette things.

Repoing Byleth towards the Chest, since she's our Thief.

And she goes here to lure the mage.

Linhardt procs his Crest so Bernadetta ends up fully healed, but oh well.

This map is trivial as long as Gillbert dies early. And it's hard to make it harder without having the game reward you for keeping Gillbert alive, since the mook AI is just 'sit and wait to be killed one by one.'

The best part about Pegasus Knights is still everything.

I Convoy the Armor Slayer, but mostly because Byleth is the only one who really care about it and she grabs it from Convoy for free anyway.

Curved Shot being great.

Sylvain grabbing some exp. I want him level 10 this map since Edelgard will go missing next map, so a replacement front-liner would be nice.

Edelgard flies ahead to trigger more reinforcements, but the rest of the team will hang back for various reasons.

Team's pretty scattered right now, but nothing's in threat range so it doesn't matter.

More enemy phase mooks. I'm not sure if this is based on time after the first wave of reinforcements or based on distance after advancing even more. If it's based on time then they're just here as an 'gotcha' while you're fighting the first wave.

Especially if you're fighting where they can walk to, since, you know, they're enemy phase reinforcements and all.

Edelgard keeps going to trigger the next, and even more jerkish wave of reinforcements.

I gather up my team in a more or less ideal Stride ball and end turn.

You see the broken pillar to the right of Edelgard? That pillar marks where the reinforcements spawn. Toe a step to its left and reinforcements will spawn.

If I'm keeping Gillbert alive I usually have my entire team above an below the pillar, although getting to the point where I'm doing that would've taken clearing basically the whole map's worth of enemies, since Gillbert would've aggro'd them all.

I double check enemy stats to make sure Sylvain won't be getting in over his head, and I send him out to get some enemy phase combats.

Everyone's still more or less in a ball for Stride purposes.

Thanks, Captain Obvious. I'm glad you're dead. (He's alive, in story. Which is like being alive in spirit.)

The mooks in the wave to the left also aggro after these guys spawn. I didn't know that until now since before this run they were too busy being dead to aggro. (And would've already been aggro'd anyway.)

Enemy Phase combat.

I'd like more Speed, but this is a great level nonetheless.

Also Enemy Phase.

Ditto.

The best part about Pegasus Knights, you ask?

It's still everything. (Edelgard's moving back to the team now that we don't need her on Reinforcement spawning duty.)

Poke.

Striding to make the turn easier.

Doop.

This misses, unfortunately, but oh well.

Caspar proc'd his adjunct attack, in case you were wondering why this guy is 5 hp rather than 9.

I'm a tad low on unit turns, so I have Ferdinand move over to box this guy in. (The disturbance damage was nice, but the guy would've been stuck regardless.)

D+ Authority.

This one I did need to land, since this guy has pass, I believe, and I'm not sure everyone can survive him.

But 85% is pretty likely even in a one-roll system, getting Dorothea this pretty good level. Very unlikely that she gets 12 Speed before level 10 now, though.

Sylvain finishes off the mook who attacked him on Enemy Phase.

Patching up.

Bottom is more or less handled, so here's a picture of Edelgard looking pretty.

The second wave of sword mooks doesn't really matter, since if you were going to lose units due to surprise the first wave would've done it. (Unless you Divine Pulse'd for the first wave without learning about the second.)

Gotta give them points for effort, though. (Enemy Phase combat.)

Still enemy phase.

Ditto.

Hit and runs are really easy when the enemy is polite enough to walk over to you before letting you hit and run.

Poke.

Dead.

I move Byleth up before trying to grab the kill with Hubert, but it misses. 21% misses are pretty damn unlikely, but they do happen.

Oh well.

Don't really need Physics for much so I spam it freely, even though Edelgard doesn't really need it. (She'll want to be healed, but she's safe from damage for the moment.)

This is pure exp grinding.

Those were the only reinforcements, so the map is more or less just marching forward now.

One of the mooks on the map has Physic, so a Thief gets healed. Oddly enough, healing only get mooks into a semi-aggro'd state, they'll walk towards you if they don't have anyone to heal, but they don't aggro people around them, nor do they always attack immediately when they get into range.

10 HP isn't enough to save our sorry sword mook, but it does let him get a counter off.

Painful level, but Charm isn't bad at all on a front-liner, since enough Charm and you're immune to gambits.

Imagine a mage or an archer being able to stand where Edelgard is currently standing and being able to kill the Sword Mook she just killed, that's pretty much what Canto does, positionally speaking.

Actually relevant healing.

Sylvain gets ready to farm some exp.

Doop.

Physic means I don't mind if Linhardt lags behind to heal stragglers with regular Heal, which is nice.

Everyone shuffles a bit forward.

Enemy Phase combat.

Enemy Phase healing.

The mage is a tad concerning so I work on him early.

Training bows are great.

Speed, Byleth, you need Speed. Thief and Pegasus Knight bases can't carry you forever.  : (

(Great level aside from that, though.)

Those sure are some great level 5 stats. Pity it's Caspar, so he only gets it now.

Poke.

Murder.

Great level, especially since it completely removes the need for me to get Thief for him.

I had to move Hubert so this is 100%, otherwise I would've had to Curved Shot, or attack at something like 93% accuracy.

Strength is becoming an issue, but her Personal and her Speed will carry her for a long while yet.

(Great level.)

Patching up.

For a great level to cap level 10, not that Annette's stats matter all that much.

I won't be getting Thief for her since Armored enemies tend to have nothing for speed for the entire game, and it's hard to double other types of mooks no matter how much speed you have. (I mean, unless you go pick up Darting Blow, but I'm not going to make my mages go through that.)

Doop.

Gonna be some boring turns of walking.

And healing.

And repoing. (Byleth forward)

Thief has 1 less movement than Pegasus Knights, but reposition means Byleth can keep up with Edelgard, even if the pair is slower than if they both had repo and Canto.

Pure exp farming.

I'm already working on Swords for him anyway, so I'll probably grab Thief even if he ends up 10 Dex, 11 Speed. Luck and Res are great, of course, but pity about his Magic.

Slowly advancing.

(Ah the joys of 4-move hell.)

At least we're close to the next wave now.

Everyone else is lagging behind since they're 4 move and don't have repos.

The priest we semi-aggro'd is walking towards us. I wouldn't have cared too much if he aggro'd the entire map, but this does save some gambit uses.

I rally Mag for Linhardt since Physic was having some minor range issues.

This was worth it, I swear.

I convoy for Armor Slayer.

Everyone walks a bit forward, and our armor mook enemy opts to live half a turn longer.

20%, because that'll hit the broad side of a barn.

This one hits, though.

Effective damage combat arts can't double, but your 2nd stringers will rarely double regardless, so effective weapons aren't too great compared to steels and silvers and whatnot.

This pretty much describes the player flier vs. enemy archer matchup, player fliers ORKO them on player phase, and enemy archers never hit them.

I Canto Edelgard a bit more forward, although she'll need to wait for Byleth and the team anyway, since the next pack is fairly big.

Our team is 2 or 3 turns behind since 4 movement sucks.

We can start pulling without them, though, so I buff Byleth.

And patch her up.

The threat range is coming from the semi-aggro'd priest, so I swap to a bow.

Edelgard repos Byleth into the priest's range and then runs back to join the team.

The AI prediction wasn't lying, oddly enough. Even though the mook was in range to attack Byleth, he doesn't.

Apparently 1 turn of being in attack range does turn him fully Aggro'd, which is interesting.

Byleth doesn't believe in overkill, so she calls Annette over for a Rally.

I convoy the Steel Sword in exchange for the Training Gauntlets (I had put them away for the Armorslayer), because don't let your memes be dreams.

I maintain that Gauntlets are a complete joke.

Repoing Dorothea forward, to grab the Accuracy Ring a bit faster.

(I needed a physical unit to go with the mage anyway, since the ORKO was pretty shaky, and Edelgard's reposition means she can keep the mage safe.)

4 move hell is real.

Poke.

And a repo so Dorothea doesn't take an Axe to the face.

Moving a little more forward for efficiency.

Annette things.

Byleth doesn't have Brawling Prowess, so I hold a lance for Lance Prowess. (Sword Prowess is better for avoid, but I want Lance exp more.)

Ready for the pull.

Yeah, 30%, that's a useful accuracy.

Enemy archers, because they'll hit something someday.

25% isn't good odds even in a one-roll system.

This is more for gambit support than damage.

Because Byleth has damage covered.

Exp farming.

This didn't give Dorothea all that much exp, interestingly enough. You'd think a Fortress Knight would give a ton of exp for killing.

Probably has to do with the fact the guy's level 9 for some reason, though.

Oh well, the ring's nice.

Edelgard doesn't have time to waste on 4-move losers, so she flies forward without repoing Dorothea.

The wave of mooks is immobilized thanks to Byleth's gambit, so we just move everyone forward and chill.

This archer dreams big dreams, none of them come true. (He misses.)

Exp farming.

C+ lances, so Sylvain gets Prowess 3 and Monster Piercer, both of which are quite useful. I removed Smash earlier, so Monster Piercer goes right into his kit of combat arts.

Doop.

Speed, Byleth, Speed...

Dismount is almost a free action, so Archers should basically never be a problem to fliers. You can't mount, move, dismount, and just be a infantry unit with cavalry mobility, but you can move, dismount, or move, mount.

Doop.

Sylvain isn't as fast or tanky as our other two front-liners, so the enemy archer goes for him. (Weird that he wasn't aggor'd with the rest of the wave.)

Dream big, archer mook. (He misses.)

Doop.

If only that were true, Caspar.

Doop.

I mount Edelgard and patch Byleth up.

Bear in mind we haven't gotten stuff like Alert Stance or Evasion rings yet, bows are a complete jokes to fliers.

Everyone slowly marching on forward.

Dream big, archer mook. (He misses, of course.)

Byleth gives a free archery lesson.

Everyone moves forward, and Edelgard baits another Bow, because why not.

Supposedly bows are accurate. (This also misses.)

Probably cascading aggro, since these guys aggro'd towards us.

First things first, though, Byleth needs to give another lecture on bow usage.

Sylvain equips the Training+ since it adds a bit of AS.

Edelgard repos Byleth back, and then moves back herself.

Sylvain moves next to Byleth for exp purposes, and everyone else slowly shuffle out of the way.

Annette things.

Almost done.

Steel swords are significantly less threatening than training swords, funny how that works.

(Enemy Phase combat.)

Byleth does Byleth things.

She gets a Vulnerary, and convoys it.

Doop.

And, feathered.

One more to the pile.

Poke.

Dead.

Very defensive level.

And another Vulnerary to the pile.

Patching up.

B Faith and Monk mastered. Draw Back is probably the 2nd best out of the level 5 class positioning skills, but it's a fairly distant second.

Mag +2 is always useful, though.

The nice thing about being Charming is that people don't want to hit you.

Although that doesn't mean they don't try.

Points for effort, but not much.

Doop.

And she flies over for archer baiting.

Patching up.

Doop.

The hp was pointless, since we haven't gotten Armor Knight yet, but the Mag and Dex are nice. (If you're crazy you can go for A in reason to grab 17 Mag, 15 Res at level 20 on a physical unit, but that's a lot of skill exp to invest for some secondary stats---A Faith only gets 15 Mag, incidentally.)

One more Vulnerary to the pile.

Poke.

E+ Bows.

Poke.

Dead.

And the very last Vulnerary, for the road.

Patching up.

Not much longer.

This also misses.

Typical archer vs. flier engagement in action.

(Wait until Part 2, fliers get a Counterattack Battalion.)

If Byleth had been closer I would've trade swapped Edelgard to hold a bow, so I can show you why Archers never do anything, but she hadn't been.

This lands, because, as you can see, this archer was attacking from 2 range rather than 3, meaning a way better hit chance.

Don't let your dreams be memes, use Gauntlets everyday.

(Don't actually do this.)

Amazing level, especially the Speed.

Patching up. Archers might be jokes, but even jokes hurt a bit, occasionally.

Hubert grabs the accuracy ring since his spells are more important. Mire provides a good debuff, and Banshee is pretty neat for fighting infantry.

Pure exp farming.

We're going to spend a few turns patching everyone up and getting into position.

Annette is out of heals, but we have two healers.

Doop.

This is not to bait the guy.

Doop.

In case you didn't already know, killing the boss mook doesn't end you turn, meaning you keep single turn buffs like rallies or, more importantly, Stride.

Stride is also very useful for getting in range to hit the guy, of course, but ranged units outrange him anyway, seeing how he's an armor.

I also like how they introduce the fact that holding a Relic hurts people without a Crest. (Note that you don't need the 'proper' Crest, any Crest in general will prevent the 10 damage.)

Also, Dorothea got C+ reason off the fight, but I missed the screenshot.

Byleth is lucky enough that even something that's more or less a killer weapon doesn't often crit her. (Part of this is the Goddess Icon she chugged, mind.)

Not that it matters, since this is a OHKO.

Everyone gets moved a ways back after you smack the guy to 'death,' and he shows up with 3 more hp bars.

(I didn't take a screenshot of the Monster's stats or abilities because Miklan in both forms is just a giant exp pinata.)

Hubert starts things off. Breaking a barrier dazes a monster, meaning they won't be able to counter the next attack. Barriers halve damage, which is annoying, but it's occasionally useful to allow them to recharge so you can keep dazing them.

Smacking monsters with gambits or effective damage also causes them to aggro you.

D+ Authority for Hubert, which gives Authority Level 2.

Using Assembly to pull the 'Black Beast' closer to our team.

And moving a little to the side (but still in support range), for our more tardy characters.

Annette things.

Breaking all of a monster's barriers stuns them for a turn, meaning no counters for the rest of the turn, and no attack on the next enemy phase. It also drops loot. Once all barriers are completely broken they won't recharge anymore, meaning no more dazes. Occasionally relevant if you're having crowd control issues.

Umbral Steel is what you use to repair relics, demonic beasts tend to drop a ton. They also sell for a nice chunk of change.

Gauntlets are still a meme, I swear.

O.O

D rank Brawling, and a combat art for it. Why are you using combat arts with a brave weapon?

Caspar also gets a level. I missed one of his levels on this map, and I couldn't even check his stats since he's an adjunct, but at least you see where his stats ended.

(Being stapled to Byleth is pretty great for exp gain.)

Poke.

More pokes.

Ditto.

And have another. (Dorothea crits, so she gets quite a bit of exp.)

Which made her level, but I missed the screenshot.

It's +1 Hp, +1 Dex, +1 Speed, +1 Charm, I believe. Mostly irrelevant, unless she manages to get 2 Speed in a row.

 

I also forgot to do a end of turn screenshot, but I do end the turn.

Monsters tend to have 1-2 range (some have more), so Hubert gets to poke this guy for free, and also apply his Def debuff.

The Black Beast has a fair amount of Res, but toilet paper Def, which is interesting.

It has Mag, so it's great. I'm probably still getting Thief for him, but the 11 Speed means it's not crucial anymore.

Poke.

Annette things.

Gambits don't actually do too much damage, despite the way the game tells you to use Gambits on monsters, but they're still free chip. (Not that Byleth needed any more help.)

Doop.

Sorry the level up's hard to see, but it's just Mag and Res anyway.

Meh level, but Edelgard's stats are fine for a while yet.

You can probably tell what the developers are trying to prevent, since this is what Byleth is doing with a Training Gauntlet.

The problem is, in their current state you pretty much have to be Byleth tier to get anything done with Gauntlets, and people like her have better things to do than walking around on foot. Yeah, a brave weapon that costs less than 400g is pretty insane, but being infantry only is already a pretty strong limitation, no need to make them useless for anyone who isn't made of Strength.

+25 Motivation for everyone, doesn't matter much since most of our students are capped.

You can refuse to give back the Lance of Ruin after the map, it'll make Rhea mad at you, but you'll get the Lance of Ruin without having to do Sylvain's Paralogue.

Assuming Sylvain's on your team, that is.

It's a great lance this early, just bear in mind it's like 1k gold a swing. (If you're using combat arts with it.)

 

[Shadow Mir]

On 12/17/2019 at 7:50 PM, DehNutCase said:

Anyway, all fliers have 10 avoid for free

With the exception of Wyvern Riders.

On 12/18/2019 at 12:06 AM, DehNutCase said:

it's a hassle to kill off the giant ass death ball of enemy mooks if everything aggros at you, but between gambits and Divine Pulses it's doable even if your whole team was below level 10.

It might be doable, but it'd pretty much be a Pyrrhic victory. Especially since I'd want my gambits so I break the monster's barriers quicker.

On 12/18/2019 at 12:06 AM, DehNutCase said:

Relics only have 20 max durability.

The Thunderbrand is an exception for some reason.

On 12/18/2019 at 12:06 AM, DehNutCase said:

Up in the top left corner is this guy, who's somehow a Fortress Knight (and still a complete joke despite that---or rather, because of that, Fortress Knight bases are nice, but the class itself is a bad joke.)

His class is a gimped variant of Fortress Knight. Same for Gilbert, considering that 27 base defense (the minimum a Fortress Knight would have) would be lolbroken at this point.

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

His class is a gimped variant of Fortress Knight. Same for Gilbert, considering that 27 base defense (the minimum a Fortress Knight would have) would be lolbroken at this point.

I'd personally have been fine with that, to make you work for the Accuracy ring. The guy has Res + 2, but even then he'd probably be around 12-14 Resistance at level 19, meaning a mage or two would handle him pretty easily---he's even thoughtful enough to stand near a choke point so you can take your time blasting him down. (And he'd be an exp pinata comparable to the Black Beast.)

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

The Thunderbrand is an exception for some reason.

Probably because it's a Brave Weapon. A 20 use Brave would be pretty expensive on repair costs.

[DehNutCase]

Ch. 6:

 

Academy:

Spoiler

Edelgard already had full motivation, so the refill's wasted, but oh well. Byleth and Edelgard have a bond support, so getting support ranks between them is pretty useful, but most if not all the of the support levels are time gated, so yeah.

This wasn't a Lecture week. (Next week won't be a Lecture week either.) So I was either really unlucky last month when I tried to save/reload for her or else the RNG numbers are set at the start of month or something.

She comes with a Training Bow, a Bullion, and a Vulnerary. As you can see, she lost a level of Faith from not being Monk, but on the other hand this does save me an Intermediate Seal since she's already a Mage. I'll be trying to get Armor Knight bases for her because I'm insane. (And also because she already has C Authority, so she doesn't really need skill-exp until it comes time for the A Riding grind.)

Nothing to complain about in her stats, really, but not having HP +5 and her glass cannon stats means it only takes a hard look from a physical unit before she dies.

This also saves me having to rush Reason ranks to promote her at level 20, since the level 20 Warlock bases are mostly about getting level 10 Armor Knight bulk anyway. (For Lysithea, anyway, other people do care about Black Tomefaire.)

We had a tea party, it was Nice. (No Charm.)

Some more support levels between our teammates. Always nice to get some free accuracy and gambit MT. (I'll be dropping Authority on people to make space for other abilities fairly soon, since I don't really depend on Gambit damage.)

Doop.

Thief costs me like 3k to try and get into, and I don't even manage it by the end of the month. (This fails.)

Someone smarter would've settled for 10 Dex and called it a day. I don't.

Linhardt will very rarely attack with magic, and I haven't even gotten around to getting Wind for him yet. But eh.

I noticed that he didn't have any chance of getting into Armor Knight, so I change his goals.

We'll be getting a lot of high leveled and acceptable units from recruitment, so it'll be hard for Caspar to make the team. 14 Strength at level 8 is is a good argument, though.

Buying more 500g stat boosters.

All level 10 classes have 8 Luck. We're still early enough that not being a cavalry doesn't hurt team-wide mobility all that much yet, mostly because most of my team is still stuck in 4-move hell, so hopefully I grab Hit +20 (Archer's mastery skill) before mobility becomes an issue.

Bernadetta didn't have any other tests available, so I have her working on Lances for Cavalier or Pegasus Knight, and Axes for Armor Knight still.

Cavalier was guaranteed, so I grab some free Defense for Sylvain.

She's still stuck in 4-move hell because casters don't believe in moving fast, but Fiendish Blow is a great skill.

Note how every option but Explore is grayed out. You have to find Flayn this week---I don't think you're even allowed to quit exploration until you finish the quest. (You don't have to actually go rescue her, but you do have to do the quest.)

 

Exploration:

Important non-quest stuff:

+300. It's the only book I found this week, but there might be more.

 

Quests:

Actually this week only, since you can't end exploration without completing this, I believe.

Love letter deliveries are boring, but they do give you a bit of extra support points for giving a gift.

Oddly enough, you can't find the herbs before you take the quest, which makes this the first quest where that happens, I believe.

Doop.

There's a lot of people you can talk to for this quest, but you only need to talk to the ones about Jeritza, I think.

Seeds are boring since we're on the Nordsalat train, but I'll take the Renown and 300g Watering Can.

Tea is always nice, since they're 500g a pop if you had to buy them.

Lumping these with quests since they're the major source of Renown. This is Lance Skills +2.

Divine Pulse +1. Having lots of pulse uses means you can play very sloppy and get away with it. It's more efficient to hold off on getting Divine Pulse charges until later, but a lot of things that are efficient are also majorly annoying.

 

Non-quests:

Rerolled for the Nordsalat Seeds, as per usual. (I mostly do that so I know I'll always have enough seeds to keep planting it.)

We went up a Professor Rank, meaning the x4 Nordsalat combo is available now, so I do it. (We had 6 seeds, so 2 seeds left after the combo, which is important.)

Using the 1.5k Cultivation method, which we just now unlocked. Note the 3 grain stalks in predicted yield, this means we'll get significantly higher quality stuff, but in exchange we won't find any Nordsalat Seeds in the yield.

I start buying bait, finally. Could've done this last month but I forgot.

(I also buy a bunch of gifts, but I won't kill you with the screenshots---nor the ones of me delivering them.)

Pay no mind we seem to be missing an activity point, it's because our Professor level went up. It's Hunting day in the Cafeteria so I share some meat based dishes.

Ingrid has a easy Paralogue to get levels to do the rest of the Paralogues, and Leonie because she comes on a horse. (Not as great as a Pegasus, but not awful.)

We're out of Speed fish now, so we'll be doing more fishing next time it's a good day for it.

I do a tournament. Steel Axe+ isn't bad at all, especially considering how amazingly durable it is, but we don't really have Axe users at the moment.

Chit-chatting with Ferdinand got us a support rank.

It's choir day so I sing with Dorothea and Lorenz. We can't recruit Hilda anyway so I get Dorothea a bit closer to Physic.

Hunting day applies to more than just the daily special, so I share a meal with Lorenz and Raphael. We're out of meat since I sold most of my stock earlier, though.

We get a support rank with Raphael for it.

I cap things off with another tournament since we don't have any more meat dishes to share. If you work on Professor Points extremely aggressively*, it's possible to be maxed Professor Level around the time the first Paralogue unlocks, which lets you do 3 Paralogues per day off.

*Greenhouse usage with high tier herbs is important for that, to get the snowball going when you're still trapped in 2 or 3 activity point hell.

For some reason having a holiday at the start of the week means students take the entire week off. It's weird. (Not Professors, though, we still only have the one day free at the end of the week.)

Sylvain and Ferdinand. They already had max motivation, but whatever.

We don't do any tutoring this week, but at least our students still do their chores and self studying.

C+ Authority. Paralogues tend to give Battalions requiring B Authority or better (some of them give lower level ones, but those Battalions are... mediocre, to say the least), so it's nice that Edelgard is almost there.

Caspar, still in existence.

C Authority, meaning he can use the Empire Knights to fix his noodle arm issue relative to Edelgard and Byleth.

Doop.

It's a Rare Monster Sighting day, but it's only a Silver Lance, so I go to explorations. (I don't bother with rare monsters unless they drop something Gradivus tier---although you won't be able to repair it or use it until quite a while later. Rare monster maps do tend to give a ton of cash, though, if you're ever cash starved.)

A fail, but we don't have any more useful classes for her, so I just tank the -1000g.

Linhardt goes Priest.

Caspar picks up Soldier.

Cavalier for Sylvain.

And I buy some more Intermediate Seals. Byleth will hit 20 off the first Paralogue we do, probably, so we won't need to worry too much about Intermediate Seals soon, but for now they're fairly limited, since everyone uses up 2 or so after level 10.

Dark Seals can't even be vendor trash properly. If you're really strapped for cash you can use them in place of an Intermediate Seal and an Advanced Seal for a male caster (the Dark Magic line is male only), but you'll have to go get mage for Fiendish Blow eventually anyway, although Bowbreaker from Warlock isn't nearly as useful.

So at most Dark Seals will save you 2k gold from saving an Advanced Seal use, assuming you managed to grab 2 and had someone who didn't mind losing Warlock's Black Tomefaire. (Pretty much only Hubert.)

Well, if you're doing shaky promotions you can also use them to burn a bad RNG number on a male unit.

We only needed to make sure we had 1.5k for the Greenhouse, so I sell the Bullion Lysithea brought us.

I don't sell these, but bear in mind Umbral Steel sell for 600g a pop. I ended up with like 60 of these at the end of my last playthrough.

Lorenz and Raphael got a support rank from the meal they shared, but I didn't see it till now.

 

Exploration:

Time to grind some Professor Points.

Ailell Grass sell for 500g each. We don't save/reload the yield this time since Nordsalat Seeds are impossible anyway. I think the idea is to encourage you to do some crop rotation, where you get the high level yields from one seed to get another seed, and then plant that seed to get yet another. The problem is that stat boosters are the most valuable part of the Greenhouse for me, so I always just plant Nordsalat.

You can also just do Pale-blue Flower Seeds for Speed Carrots, they're like 300g a pop from the merchants and drop gifts, but 1 Nordsalat a week and resetting for seed yield is actually faster than having to go buy flower seeds.

I swap Edelgard's Axe Prowess back in, she won't be using Swords much now that her Speed isn't an issue even if she's weighed down a little, and she's about to do some major tournament grinding.

I also remove stuff from her so I'll see them in convoy before the map.

I do this with all 7 of my activity points.

Giving me a nice chunk of change and about half a Professor level.

 

Lecture:

You do need E+ Riding or Flying to even see the cavalry classes, even if you have C lances, so I tutor Bernadetta a bit. Tutoring Riding rather than Flying since she gets Pass from it, even if it's not all that useful. It's handy for walking past monsters to help in focus firing, but Bernadetta doesn't have the stat spread to just walk into a bunch of enemies and kill them all. (Unless you majorly invest in her speed.)

I only needed to tutor him twice to make sure he got D+ with self-study, but I'm lazy.

So I tutor him all the way to D+ Axes.

Annette has a Strength in Axes (although a weakness in Heavy Armor), so it's pretty easy to get her Armor Knight, even with her late join.

She's even good at weeding to pick up some spare Heavy Armor exp.

D axes.

Tutoring Axes would be a lot more efficient if Byleth cared about Armor Knight at all, since we'd be getting the +2 Professor bonus, but oh well.

At least the statue bonus means a Weakness doesn't hurt as much.

You need E+ Heavy Armor for Armor Knight, so here's me tutoring Dorothea.

This was mostly to grab Seal Speed.

At this point, Seal Speed is mostly about letting you steal things easier. (I didn't care enough about the loot next map to steal them, so Ferdinand was benched.)

Earlier in the game it turns 3RKOs into 2RKOs pretty easily.

Doing some goal shuffling. Don't care enough about Petra to get her Armor Knight, even if we end up using her I'll be using her as a glass cannon.

Dorothea needed 20 more Heavy Armor for E+, so I have her work on it for a week.

+50 Motivation.

A Perfect, too. In other routes support rank with Catherine is pretty important to let you recruit her earlier (her bases are great and she comes with a better Brave Sword), but in Crimson Flower/Silver Snow she's either unrecruitable or locked till Part 2, so support with her doesn't really matter.

Doop.

D+ Axes.

C+ Authority, she can move off Authority for other stuff now, since Rally Speed is the most immediately useful thing from Authority.

E+ Axes. Heavy Armor is a long ways off. (Our team's a little mage heavy, so it's possible her exp gain will be low enough that Armor Knight matters, but even if it doesn't I'm fine with her wasting exp like this since she's already set on Authority, and Reason's pretty easy to get for her.)

Doop.

This...  fails. Again, not much else she needs so I just tank the -1000g.

Putting Annette in Armor Knight mode since C+ Authority just happened.

Flying for Pegasus Knight, although it's not vital yet, because our team is still slow as molasses at the moment.

Caspar's Axe ranks are falling behind, so I have him working on it for the moment. (I'll swap to Heavy Armor once he gets D+ Axes, for Armor Knight bases.)

Linhardt works on Heavy Armor a bit more for higher odds at Armor Knight.

And Hubert starts on the long, long road to A rank Riding.

It's too bad you can't just put mages on horses and have them use magic weapons for the first 30 levels, since you can't buy the stones to forge them until New Game+ or Part 2. And Physical units don't exactly care about getting -1 Movement just to get magic access, since most of the magically inclined physical units have magic damage combat arts anyway.

 

Exploration:

Doop.

I was a lot luckier with Speed Carrots in my other playthrough, but I wound up with 20 carrots in my convoy in that playthrough, since I didn't care enough to eat them for most of the game.

Back to the usual 1x Nordsalat, since doing 4x would run me out of seeds.

Some motivation refills.

Half a motivation refill, half to grab Ingrid.

Ingrid wants Flying ranks to recruit, which is actually pretty easy after Byleth spends a map in Pegasus Knight. Her Paralogue unlocks next month, though, so I might have to B rank her after training Byleth up to E+ Flying.

I do 4 tournaments, which get me a chunk of gold and also B+ Professor level.

I gave Shamir some gifts since I noticed she has the recruit button now. (Sadly, I saved after clicking it the first time to confirm I don't have the levels yet to recruit her, so she missed a week of tutoring/self study.)

Non students only take getting Byleth's level up to recruit, so they come fairly naturally over the course of the game. The recruitment for most of them are heavily time gated, though. (Catherine happens earliest, I believe, but we can't recruit her in Crimson Flower.)

 

Lecture:

It's more efficient for Bernadetta to get tutored in Lances and self-study axes and flying, so I do that.

Knightkneeler is a great general purposes combat art, in addition to the effective damage, so I tend to replace Tempest Lance with it once combat art slots are tight.

It didn't take a lot of tutoring to get C lances, so I dump the rest in flying exp.

(No rush on getting Pass nor the Strength in Riding, since neither are all that important right now.)

Filling up the 8 points so he can self-study to D Heavy Armor.

The rest go into Authority, because why not. (Linhardt gets Warp at A Faith, but this early Warp is barely better than Reposition.)

Annette only gets 16 points of Heavy Armor from self study, although she does get a bit more from Weeding.

I play it safe anyway, though, and only swap to Axes after she's guaranteed E+ Heavy Armor from self study alone.

Warlock stat boosts over mage doesn't really matter for Lysithea, so if you're really cash strapped you can just... not get Warlock for her.

I probably will, since cash isn't really a problem in this game.

Dorothea goes back to Reason and Authority now that Heavy Armor is D+. She'll probably be my dancer since I'm lazy about choosing dancers, so she won't have to grind Riding exp.

Tutoring Hubert in Authority because it's really efficient right now.

C Authority. I'm not a fan of the Battalion skills because they're too annoying to use. They're good skills, don't get me wrong, just annoying enough to use that I never bother.

(Battalion Renewal is just bad, though, since to take advantage of the healing your Battalion is going to hit 0 pretty fast.)

Might as well grab Physic for her.

E+ Faith.

Doop.

C+ Reason. Hubert does have accuracy issues, and non-Byleth casters don't take many enemy phase combats, so I'm actually fine with Reason being a hit chance focused Prowess.

D+ Authority.

We can swap her out of axes now. (D+)

Ditto.

Doop.

This makes Perfects really likely when they're both on Weeding Duty, but I'll probably swap to Stable Duty now, to get my casters working on mage cavalry.

This fails again, and I call it a month for trying to get Thief, so I stop dumping more Intermediate Seals into her. My stockpile of Intermediate Seals is almost gone. (It won't be an issue once we do a Paralogue next month, though, since infinite Intermediates unlock once someone hits level 20.)

Linhardt rarely takes combats, but he's built like a moderately fast truck, at least.

Very fast truck. (Because of her Personal she actually hits just as hard as Linhardt on the magical side.)

 

Exploration:

Doop.

We basically found a Speedwing in the Greenhouse this month. (Which I proceed to not use because I can't be bothered to remember.)

The usual.

We ask Shamir to help us out. Non-students tend to have availability issues occasionally in Part 1, so don't lean on them too hard.

Sniper bases are pretty great. Monster Blast is nice for aggro purposes, and Curved Shot and Heavy Draw covers accuracy and damage, respectively. Unlike students, your co-workers tend to come with a weapon and an Intermediate Seal. Pretty useful if you're Seal starved from not stocking up earlier, but Byleth hits level 20 pretty fast from Paralogues anyway.

A rank in Bows means she can max out Prowess really quickly and pick up Bow Crit +10 too, or you can just ignore bow exp for the rest of the game and work on other stuff. C+ lances means it's trivial to get her into a cavalry class, although she will need to pick up E+ Riding or Flying.

I swap Shamir to Archer, though, since I'm more interested in the +20 hit skill than the Combat Art Sniper gets. (Which is mostly only relevant if you keep her in Sniper forever---not a terrible idea, but there's better options out there.)

Sniper does have a bit better growths than Archer across the board, but Speed growth isn't affected and Shamir is more or less set on everything else anyway. Thanks to Sniper bases she even has Byleth tier Strength. (If you felt like doing Gauntlet memes.)

I have her working on Bows and Authority for now.

Getting A+ professor level before Paralogues start isn't really practical, so I have Byleth working on Lance rank rather than grinding more Professor Points.

She doesn't like it.

All 3 sessions are only 'good.'

Oh well.

It's alliance day so there's a bit of a bonus for sharing with alliance students.

Doop.

Pair of supports from meal sharing.

And Byleth picks up B support with Lorenz. We pretty much don't have any more reasons to do Choir, now. I would've liked to get Lorenz later, so that I don't have to invest exp in him for him to get stats, but eh.

More supports.

Ignatz isn't interesting at all, now that Annette has Rally Speed, but he does have a Paralogue. (With very mediocre rewards, unfortunately.)

I grind a pair of tournaments to finish the day off.

Well, actually, I lied. I also run around doing some lost item and gift shenanigans, which picks up C rank with Marianne.

It was also a Perfect.

This fails, so I reload the save and call it a month for class changes.

It's hard to get enough money back from Greenhouse to make up for the Cultivation cost, so there's rarely a reason to specifically cultivate for Ailell Grass, but it's a nice occasional bonus if you're planting Nordsalat.

Much less occasional bonus.

Angelica is fairly rare, just like Ailell Grass, but I don't care about magic dishes. Enemy armors have toilet paper Res and a team being mage heavy feels pretty awful, especially this early.

Doop.

Map:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 11.

Byleth is actually majorly over-leveled for this, seeing how she punched a monster to death.

 

Pre-map Planning:

25 turns is pretty tight, especially if you're doing the map for the first time, but you should have a fair amount of turns free to grab everything if it's not your first time through.

 

The way the map is setup the easiest clear would probably involve sending a strong Thief by themselves to the right (Byleth could do this, but she also starts to the left so I don't send her that way) while everyone else deathballs through the left. The Thief would pick up all the chests, and also steal the magic staff from the priest, and then uses the warp tiles to join the rest of the team for the boss.

I don't care enough about the magic staves to steal them (Fiendish Blow and Magic +2 being so easily obtainable for mages means that 3 points of Magic Atk doesn't really matter), so I pretty much just deathball everyone left. I send Shamir to clear the archer stragglers to the right (with a bit of help for the Armor), since she doesn't need much combat exp and she can handle the side by herself.

Levin Sword. Pretty great weapon throughout the game, since it lets physical units ORKO armors pretty reliably.

March Ring (+1 movement). Great for letting mages keep up.

There's some people carrying magic staves on this map, but I'm too lazy to Steal them, usually. You need 18 Speed to steal them, but you want someone with 18 Speed for other reasons anyway, so that's not a problem. (Worst comes to worst just Seal Speed and Rally Speed and you can steal it at 8 Speed. You can't be a Thief and have less than 13 Speed.)

If you're not into stealing right in front of the Death Knight the priest over here also has a Magic Staff.

Typical armor stats, although 24 defense on initiation is actually weaker than we're used to, since the armors before now tended to have Battalions.

Game, we've been fighting 14 AS mooks since level 1, stop making fun of us with these garbage enemy stats.

...(8 AS, seriously?)

Look at me, I'm an Archer with 9 AS, I'm helping.

Some of the mooks drop Vulneraries.

Some of em have Battalions. Not awful, but we've seen better before. Every mook with a battalion has this exact one, and it has the crappy 2 square line AoE gambit.

Some mooks have Door Keys, if you don't have having thieves around and are forgetful about buying Keys.

Dark Mages hit a little harder than regular Mages on this map, but they're also a lot slower. Note the Seal Strength, occasionally that matters.

The only Cavalier at the start of the map, boring stats.

21 AS, but if you didn't have Rally Speed the last time you saw him and you do have it now you'll still have someone capable of avoiding the double. (Last time he has 17 AS.) 18 AS avoids the double, which is coincidentally enough to steal the magic staves on this map.

We have the Lance of Ruin this time, so he's OHKOd from full hp anyway. Oh, and turns out his Personal wasn't Heartseeker.

It's just something that does pretty much the exact same thing. Doesn't help allies, but the guy's good enough at KOing your guys to not care about allies anyway.

Being stapled to Byleth is good for exp gain.

Petra goes on Sylvain since he's our other front-liner this map.

Edelgard goes AWOL for the first time, and you can see our lineup.

I have both Petra and Ferdinand holding Iron lances, and remove everything else from their inventory, since they're Adjuncts. I also remove the bow Lysithea comes with from her inventory.

Shamir picks up the good old Steel + Training combo, but also an Iron Bow since I want to forge up some Killers, and breaking Iron before forging them saves a few gold that would've been spent on other weapons.

It's still early enough in the game that crit chances are pretty low even with a Killer Weapon, but I don't mind. (You'd probably want crit rate Battalions to go with Killer Weapons, and people like Shamir can pick up their Weapon Crit skills.)

Caspar isn't benched, so he picks up some weapons.

I forge up Byleth's Training Gauntlet. It's +10 Hit and +20 max durability, so quite useful for the rare occasions she where she wants to punch something into dust. I doubt they'll come up much, but it's a cheap forge.

I also forge up the Training Bow she's holding, more for the max durability than the weight, since she's made of Strength.

Final loadout.

Some battalion replenishing.

I buy Byleth Knights of Seiros since she doesn't need the physical attack as much as Sylvain, and the Res is nice for tanking mages.

Sylvain gets Empire Knights.

Merchant Military gives 2 Magic Atk at level 5. The gambit's useless since it's physical, but the battalion's better than nothing.

Shamir starts with this battalion. It's not great, but it's passable.

tl;dr is I remove physical combat arts from all my mages.

Bernadetta's current combat arts. I'll probably drop Tempest Lance for reposition once she gets a chance to pick up Soldier skills.

It's Caspar, he exists.

I buy a Steel Lance for Bernadetta just in case she needs to Knightkneeler someone.

I was planning to send Shamir right, so I buy her a Chest key. (I know I have one in the Convoy, but I like having extras to pass around if needed.)

 

The Map:

Fighting an Armor Knight as an Archer is pretty annoying even with 17 Strength, so I have Hubert go in first to soften it up.

Doop.

And then Shamir takes the kill.

Byleth does Byleth things.

She also decides bad levels are for other people.

I mean, it has Strength in it, so I'm fine with the level. (Adjunct exp.)

I swap Sylvain to Training+ as a just in case vs. doubles.

And I trade swap Byleth into Training Lance.

Ending Sylvain's turn here, so he's making a semi-decent wall.

Bernadetta walks next to him to draw some archer fire and activate both their Personals. (Holding Training Bow for attack speed purposes.)

Everyone shuffles forward a little, but out of enemy range, and we end turn.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

The mook had a key, but Byleth is a thief, so she convoys it.

Bernadetta would counter-attack either way, since she's also an Archer, so the mook gets up close and personal. (Still enemy phase.)

More mooks that don't like living.

This one does, though.

Caspar's strength means his combat contribution is actually pretty useful, but his 4 movement means he won't be getting many kills.

Would be great if he managed to get 11 Speed by level 10---I probably wouldn't get him Thief just for 1 Dex. He's not Edelgard.

Doop.

And another Vulnerary for the pile.

Crit chance is pretty low since nobody has a lot of Dex yet, and Empire Knights isn't a crit based battalion.

So Bernadetta goes in to add some more chip damage.

Her skill-slots are full, but it'll let her do some minor damage when activating her personal vs. melee mooks later. (C rank bows.)

Doop.

And doop.

Minor patching up. Priest has Heal, so Linhardt has 20 uses of the spell now.

Shamir walks a bit forward and Hubert starts walking back towards the team.

Not much to say, it's a map based on walking a lot and we're still mostly stuck in 4 move hell.

Annette things.

This misses, but oh well, the important thing is getting the mage to move.

Shamir walks up into enemy archer range.

Everyone shuffles forward a bit more. You can clearly tell how our level 10 units are walking way faster than our 4 movement mooks, even after just a few turns.

The mage is standing on an avoid tile, so Bernadetta's accuracy is shaky. (Enemy Phase combat.)

Also enemy phase.

Annette things.

Curved shot being great.

I want the mage dead more than the armor knight, so I have Byleth hold a bow.

And Sylvain goes to stand next to her holding a Training Lance+.

Patching up, forgetting that Dorothea will cap her hp, but oh well.

On the Shamir side she takes a step back and start Curve Shotting this guy. (The enemies are stupid enough to just stand there for her to slowly grind them down.)

We're keeping a square behind Byleth and Sylvain on the off chance gambits manage to land, if they even bother using them.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto.

Doop.

Armor Knights basically never get any Speed whatsoever, or resistance, so anyone with not complete garbage Speed and Magic tends to either ORKO or take off most of their hp.

Exp on Byleth is still more important than exp on anyone else, so she kills this armor mook.

This level is complete garbage, but him having more than 30 hp does mean the hp matters.

I could just curved shot for the 1 damage, but Bernadetta needs her personal active.

And Lysithea picks up the kill.

The mook drops a Door Key.

I forget to swap Byleth out of armor slayer, but she's scary enough that the mooks prefer to hit Sylvain anyway.

I shuffle people around a little and also patch up Bernadetta.

It has Magic so it's great. Hp's wasted since she doesn't have Armor Knight bases yet.

More patching up.

Pretty bad level, but 10 Strength is like having 2 extra Speed, so it's not completely worthless.

Shamir continues shooting at people who don't know how to fight back or run away.

It's faster to make her go through the doors to rejoin the team via teleporters, but I don't bother.

Doop.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto

Doop.

You sure did. (Decent level, since Bernadetta tends to have Strength issues more than Speed issues.)

Byleth walks up a bit.

Mostly so Sylvain gets some extra combat exp.

It has Strength, I'll take it. Defense is also relevant for now, but eventually enemy mooks will start walking around with 80 Atk or so.

Petra has great stats, but being Speed biased means her start is possibly even more hellish than Caspar's. (At least on Maddening. On lower difficulties she probably doubles people like crazy from the start of game.)

This was a minor mis-play, since I actually want Sylvain to be on warp room duty, but eh.

Topping Byleth off since she's needed to open the door, meaning I want her to tank a round of combat.

Shamir slowly cleaning up her side.

Everyone shuffles a bit forward.

I have Byleth hold the Armorslayer to make the armor use its Gambit. (Exp seems to be partly based on how much damage you deal, so armor knights tend to give mages a lot of exp.)

Being a thief, the Door doesn't cost a key for Byleth.

I move Sylvain down to get ready for the warp room.

Patching him up, same reason.

More free damage from Shamir's side.

And everyone shuffles around a little.

20% accuracy might as well be 0% in a two-roll system, honestly.

Annette things, to get Sylvain ready for the warp room 'ambush.'

And off he goes.

This might cost a Divine Pulse if you sent someone really low hp to do the warp room, but Statues are a thing now so you should have plenty of charges.

The archer is the most annoying of the lot, so Sylvain takes him out immediately.

Bernadetta pokes an archer. (The archer is on an Avoid tile, and we want him to move off it.) Bernadetta's on an avoid tile herself, so I'm fine with her being in range of 2 archers. (Plus her Armor Knight bases means that she can tank 2 hits no problem.)

The attack misses, but oh well.

More exp farming for Dorothea.

Amazingly, the Speed levels she's been getting might actually ends up mattering. If she gets a speed next level she's past Thief bases. (Dorothea has 40% Speed Growths, Byleth has 45% and 1 point higher Speed at base---Byleth had 10 Speed at level 10...)

Chest Key actually matters, since Byleth has better things to do than opening Chests when she's part of the left side team.

I should've moved Byleth 1 more square left, since the tile the mage will attack from is an Avoid tile, but oh well.

I shuffle some people around around in case Sylvain needs some reinforcements or people to help him with levers and whatnot.

And Shamir finally kills this guy. I don't need her to do anything else here so I'll start walking her back to the team.

You can tell she'd probably get along really well with Byleth.

I'd like it if she got some Speed, since her Personal makes her pretty good at counter-killing people on enemy phase, but her offenses will always be at least passable thanks to easy access to Bowfaire and Bow Crit +10. Having one or two people capable of poking people for free damage via huge range is also pretty useful for a team.

Shamir only has 40% Strength and Speed growths, but her bases are so good that 40% is more than enough.

The mook drops a Door Key, which I convoy since I don't care about making Shamir go through the doors to join the rest of the team. She'll just take the long way around.

Bernadetta's in range for archer baiting, and Byleth for mage baiting.

Enemy phase combat. (18% hit, that'll hit things.)

Magic ignores terrain evasion.

More enemy phase combat.

Sylvain's on a Cover tile, so even without his personal he's pretty tanky. (Still enemy phase.)

And the final enemy phase combat of this turn.

The priest holding the Magic Staff also has Physic, so the archer mook gets healed back to full.

Not that being full hp ever saved people from Byleth.

Sylvain's hp is getting a bit low, but he's still fine for 2 more combats. (3 more, technically, since this one didn't take any hp.)

C lances for Petra, so she's guaranteed to make it into Pegasus Knight now.

I have him wait in place since it's a Cover tile.

Hubert teleports in to save Sylvain some hp. (And get Hubert some exp.)

Mostly wasted level, pretty much only the Res and Charm matters.

Annette things.

Rally Speed is great.

We do need a Door Key to open up the room to the Death Knight, since Byleth has more important things to do, but we can just grab one from Convoy later.

The Dark Mage here doesn't have any movement, so you need to open the door to get to him. (Or teleport in.)

Luna ignores resistance, so it's pretty good at killing mages. Not that great right now, since Lysithea doesn't have Mag + 2 or Fiendish Blow yet, but it'll get better later. (It also can't double, so it's basically a magical Combat Art.)

Patching her up since we don't want her dead on enemy phase.

And everyone shuffles around a bit, note Shamir slowly making her way towards us.

Enemy Phase combat.

Pretty much a perfect level, since bulk will mostly depend on getting Armor Knight anyway. (Lysithea doesn't really care about Warlock since she doesn't use Black Tomfaire, so if you don't care about the Warlock's extra offensive stats it's fine to keep her in Mage until level 30.)

Opening both doors is quite convenient, but it might cost a Divine Pulse if enemy positioning is unfortunate.

I move Bernadetta up and have Linhardt top off Byleth.

Sylvain uses the lever.

And walks around so he's a bit closer to the relevant warp tiles.

Hubert doesn't use the warp tile since I'm not 100% sure this goes to the room with the Dark Mage in it. (The other warp tile would've cost me a Divine Pulse.)

Everyone shuffles around a bit.

Annette things.

The kill doesn't happen, but Byleth being like this forces the mages to attack her in melee range, which will get them off the Avoid tiles.

Ferdinand also picks up C rank lances from the fight.

Poke.

Pretty risky, but we had unit-turns to fix it if it goes south.

The hit lands, though, and Hubert uses the Warp tile now that the mooks near the other exit were further away. (A mage would've been in range if this was the wrong warp tile, but Hubert had enough Res to survive for a turn and then warp back inside this room.)

But it was the right warp tile, so he ends up right next to the team.

So Sylvain goes through too.

Doop.

More patching up.

I take an extra Chest Key out of the Convoy with Dorothea to save Byleth some time.

And Dorothea delegates the Chest Key delivery to Lysithea.

Who gives them to Hubert.

Dorothea has enough Res that the mages prefer the free hits on Byleth, so she's fine standing where she is. Also note Shamir slowly coming over.

Enemy phase combat.

Mages are pretty accurate, but Annette's Rally Resistance takes most of the sting off.

Meaning all they did was more or less get them into position to die.

Enemy healing.

Poke.

Sylvain borrows an Iron Bow.

Not very accurate, but he's fine even if he missed.

And he didn't, getting Sylvain even more Strength. Cavalier has -10% Speed, which is unfortunate, but Sylvain has 50% base and 40% is still more or less acceptable. It's low enough that his offenses will fall off later in the game unless he gets a lot of Strength, though.

And he moves down a tile after combat to be safe from the mage possibly staying alive.

Hubert goes into the warp room with his keys, ready to collect loot.

Poke.

Which gets Byleth another amazing level. (That's 3 in a row, so her stats are pretty crazy now.)

Exp farming.

Patching up.

And everyone shuffles around a bit.

It's faster to take the warp room to get to the Death Knight if you aren't right next to Byleth, so some of our team goes to wait in a line around the warp tile. (Shamir is still making her way slowly back to the team.)

The enemy mook opts to not immediately die, so he uses a gambit instead. (Which, like most gambits, does nothing against Byleth.)

Poke.

Poke. But it misses. Eh, it happens.

Dorothea needed the poke to land to grab the kill, so she settles for getting some damage exp.

And Byleth does Byleth things.

Hubert walks a bit closer to the warp tiles with loot.

Caspar joins him and splits the loot grabbing duty.

And the slowpokes shuffle in to take the Warp tile closest to the Death Knight.

Patching up.

This was on the way anyway, so Shamir gets some free damage in.

Getting all the loot is pretty annoying without multiple Thieves (on account of the fact that Steal takes a full turn), and 25 turns isn't exactly generous when your team is still in 4-move hell.

Byleth walks in for mage pulling duties.

I don't actually remember which of the top 3 warp tiles goes to which, so I just have Hubert take the first one.

It ends up being the one that goes to the priest with a Mage Staff, and, coincidentally, right next to this Armor Knight.

Annette and Lysithea wait patiently next to the Warp tile that'll bring them to the rest of the team.

Everyone moves as close to Byleth as they can. Note Shamir being pretty close to a warp room warp tile, she's more or less caught up to the team now.

Enemy Phase combat. It goes about as well as you'd expect for the dark mage.

This is significantly better, but it still puts the priest in a bad spot.

Hubert has better things to do than sit around letting a Priest hit him with magic, so he Warps out and hands Lysithea the Chest Key he had been holding, seeing how Lysithea still has her turn.

Lysithea and Caspar get ready to open some Chests.

Patching up and a bit of shuffling forward.

Bernadetta starts working on the priest. (The lever it's guarding just turns off the floor tiles, which doesn't matter at all, honestly.)

Shamir's almost with the team.

10 turns left, and almost done. Looking back, I definitely had the time free to pick up the Magic Staves, but eh.

The Nos healing means this guy doesn't die on enemy phase.

So Dorothea picks up the kill.

I mean, she managed to get 12 Speed by level 10, I'll take it.

Shuffling forward and patching up.

Byleth things.

12 Speed at level 8, even, I'll take it. Always nice to have better than Thief Speed.

More patching up.

Lysithea slowly on her way to the March Ring.

You do need C rank swords to use a Levin, just bear that in mind. You do tend to get some arcane stones from exploration, but you won't be able to buy them till part 2, so it's difficult to repair.

Still a nice sword for physical units with decent magic.

We're going to spend a few turns getting everyone except Caspar and Lysithea into a Stride ball.

+1 Move is great, especially since boots are hard to come by in Three Houses.

While we're waiting we have Bernadetta get in some free damage.

Doop.

Not a good level at all, unfortunately.

Everyone shuffles in and I repo Bernadetta to safety.

It's pretty easy to just kill everyone other than the Death Knight without opening the door if you don't have the resources to kill him, but we do, so we'll wait around for a bit.

Linhardt picks up a Door Key since he has the least important combat.

And he does some patching up.

Speed is always useful, even if it's on a unit that rarely sees combat.

Doop.

I don't want to kill the mages (since that'll clear the map), so I repo Bernadetta back.

Like I said, I definitely had the turns free to pick up both Magic Staves, but I didn't care enough.

Linhardt starts the turn by opening the door.

Annette doubles everyone's movement. (Except for Sylvain and Byleth.)

And Byleth starts the chip damage train.

It also masters Thief, which is great, since it's a lot more convenient to Steal in a Canto Class, and you can just buy Keys.

Misses.

Also a miss. But bows having 3 range means they're setting up support bonuses anyway.

Lands, so it adds some more chip on the Death Knight.

More unnecessary chip.

It's pretty obvious Hubert and the Death Knight know each other.

Knightkeeler is based on weapon MT, so with a 22 MT weapon it explodes people.

A Rafail Gem wouldn't have saved the Death Knight, though, since Ruined Sky is still enough damage. (Although 5% less accurate.)

Considering I wasted 2 unit-turns on trying to gambit the mage, I definitely had the unit-turns free to have Byleth steal its Magic Staff, but eh. (I would've needed to Rally Speed Byleth for it anyway, I believe.)

Disappointing level from the kill, but that's what you get for letting your weapon carry you, I guess.

I mean, it's 15 Speed at level 8, I'll take it.

More vendor trash.

I'd be a lot happier doing this map with level 10 classes, for the better mobility, but if you knew where to go beforehand you do have a few turns to spare even with 4-movement mooks.

 

[DehNutCase]

Ch. 7, Part 1:

 

Academy:

Spoiler

Paralogues open up this month, and they last until the end of February (2/22), there's 10 Paralogues in part 1 of Crimson Flower, not counting Anna's DLC one, so if you were diligent about Professor levels you can knock them out in 4 days of free time, or about 1 day a month.

The Paralogues you have available are based on who you have in your House, but they don't update in the middle of the month, so we'll probably be skipping Paralogues next month in order to recruit as many people as possible into our house.

Some support levels from the map we just finished.

Doop.

This fails.

So I reload and have Bernadetta pass Fighter to advance the RNG counter.

Dorothea didn't have any chance of getting into Armor Knight, so I have her work on D Heavy Armor. (I also test her for Brigand on the off chance the RNG numbers are based on character, but it turns out individual characters have different RNG numbers for each class they can test into, so you can fail a 80% for, say, Pegasus Knight, but still pass a 30% for Armor Knight.)

She's guaranteed for Mage, so I don't pass her into any class at the moment, since I want to use Mage to burn a bad RNG number if needed.

This was because Brigand failed, and I didn't know yet that individual classes have separate RNG numbers. Oh well.

Flayn (I keep thinking her name is Flynn for some reason), joined our class after the events of last month. She comes with the typical set of weapon, vulnerary, 1k item, although in her case she happens to have an Intermediate Seal, which is helpful if you use a lot of them.

Her Personal is great, although it doesn't benefit herself, and her bases are more or less passable for a magically inclined unit. She has the skill ranks to go Pegasus Knight at 100%, but despite Pegasus Knight having the best Speed bonus of level 10 classes, at +3, its base Speed is only 8, so you'd probably want to get her Thief for 11 base Speed before grinding levels for her. In Priest she gets a nice bunch of support spells, including Rescue at B and Fortify at A, so she's a great defensive support. She has more or less the same set of spells Linhardt gets if you go Reason with her, minus Linhardt's Bolganone at B Reason. Not very interesting, but serviceable if you want to make her a generic offensive caster.

She also ditches us around the time Part 2 rolls over in Crimson Flower, so I won't be investing in her. (I wasn't 100% sure if you needed support ranks to unlock her Paralogue, so I do tutor her a lot for Support Points.)

I put all her stuff into Convoy, since Seals on a particular unit can only be used by that unit, unlike Seals in Convoy, IRRC. Useful if you need to get someone into a class and tend to be forgetful about how many Seals are available, just put a Seal in their inventory and they'll always have that one available.

One interesting thing about Flyn is that Priest is her only class. Unlike everyone else, who joins with some lower rank classes unlocked, she doesn't have any of the level 5 classes despite joining at level 11.

Set Shamir to Authority and Flying for eventual Pegasus Knight, although she doesn't use the class as well as Bernadetta. (Bernadetta has very long range Combat Arts from leveling Bows, so she doesn't need Sniper and Bow Knight's +Range skills nearly as much.)

It's still good for getting better Speed level ups for Shamir, though.

Bernadetta's more or less set on short term skill exp, so I have her working on Bow and Authority. I should probably have her working on Lances for Falcon Knight, but level 30 is a long ways yet.

Caspar, still existing.

 

Exploration:

No important non-quest stuff this month, I couldn't find any books at all. Might be because the devs didn't want to punish players who spent the whole month doing Paralogues? *Shrug*

I could also just be blind.

 

Quests:

Make sure to talk to the people around Flayn before you talk to her to complete the quest, you'll get some extra loot for having a 4 or 5 star fish. (The fish Flayn's looking for is 5 star, so you shouldn't have trouble getting everything if you do this quest.)

One minor note, you don't get Professor Points for fishing up the tournament fish, but the tournament bait does occasionally fish up the crappy 10g fish, which will give you like, 10 Professor Points.

Don't use the Tournament Bait for Professor Points if you value your sanity, even using up all 50 would only get you like, 200 points.

Combat quests are pretty worthless, so I'm only accepting this to put it in my quest log. It'll sit there until it expires when Part 2 rolls around. (Assuming it expires.)

Ditto.

The other quest that matters this month. Rewards aren't too useful, but if you're fine with fishing the Earthworms are nice.

Once you fish this up you can get all of the secondary rewards.

This is the fish Flayn's looking for.

Fishing Tournament loot.

It's not much, but it's honest work.

If you do the fishing tournament second you can also finish the love letter quest really easily, since Alois is right there.

Doop.

And doop.

 

Non-quests:

The Speed Carrot train has no stops.

The usual.

Today was the blessing of the land, which, in a nutshell, significantly boosts the chance of a stat booster and gives you around 5 or so extra pieces of loot. If you value selling Greenhouse stuff for cash you should do a 4x Nordsalat planting today, or some other high value cultivation, but I want Nordsalat Seeds more than anything else so I stuck with the usual.

Bought all the bait and some gifts.

We don't have all that many Paralogues to do yet, and the time frame is fairly generous, so we can afford to not earn Professor Points from activity for the time being. So I get Byleth started on getting into Pegasus Knight.

D+ Lances and Flying gives around 30% to get into Pegasus Knight, which Byleth somehow manages later. (Although not with her first try.)

Harvest Festival, so I share a bunch of meals rather than grinding tournaments.

Motivation refill.

Trying to make Ingrid like me. (WIth bonus Ashe---his Paralogue isn't great, and our team already has 2 stellar Archers, but the Paralogue does have Boots, and that counts for a lot.)

I wasn't sure if you needed support with Flayn to get her Paralogue, so here's me getting support points with her.

We do still do 1 tournament for the bonus Intermediate Seal, though.

(Felix dodged one of Edelgard's attacks and proc'd his Crest twice.)

So I reloaded, gave Edelgard Sword Prowess back, and tried again.

Typical cooking stuff, although we cooked the +1 Def rather than +1 Speed. I tried fishing for a bit for the plus Speed fish, but it's not a fishing day or anything so the loot was very mediocre. I gave up after like 10 attempts.

Some supports from all the eating Byleth did.

B support and E+ flying (and some stats, but Byleth is a wall of stats, just not exp) is enough to recruit Ingrid.

So we do. It's a very good idea to recruit Ingrid before doing her Paralogue, since you don't get her Relic or the bonus Battalion if she isn't in your House, IRRC. (In exchange she's a level 22 monster on the map, but the map is pretty trivial anyway.)

Lady Knight isn't very useful for the time being, since she doesn't even have the Authority to equip flying Battalions yet, but there's nothing at all to complain about in her stats. Good hp, decent Strength and even Magic, great speed, and decent to great bulk on both sides along with a nice side of Charm.

(Comes with the very typical weapon, vulnerary, Bullion setup.)

She even comes in with C swords, meaning she can use the Levin Sword immediately.

She doesn't really need anything except Lances and Authority, C Swords is already enough for Falcon Knight---I could make her work on Reason to get 17 Mag at level 20, but her Magic growths are good enough to fight armors so there's no need to get B+ Reason, which could've been something like A Lances or B+ Authority instead.

Finding some lost items for Catherine got us a C support for her.

 

Lecture:

The skill exp doesn't matter, only did this for support points. (Which I don't actually think you need to unlock a Paralogue once they're in your house, anyway.)

But eh.

No need to have Ferdinand self-study for D Heavy Armor since it's easy to tutor.

Doop.

Had some Motivation left over so it goes into Lances.

D Flying makes Pegasus Knight guaranteed, so I go for it.

Very inefficient, but Annette doesn't need much skill exp so inefficiency doesn't really matter.

Heavy Armor train keeps chugging along.

Except for Lysithea, since she didn't have the months of self studying Axes everyone else had to do.

She'll never use this.

Linhardt doesn't need Heavy Armor anymore, so Lysithea takes his place.

I start Annette on the long road to A Riding.

(And give them to me if they end up being Gradivus.)

Doop.

D+ Axes.

C Authority, meaning Bernadetta can equip Knights now.

Also C, but we don't have the C rank mage battalions just yet.

C+ Lances. Hit and Run gives bonus avoid, so it's moderately useful if you're fighting Close Counter Archers, and it makes, well, Hit and Runs a bit easier since it moves you a square back after attacking, but I tend to prefer having 2 effective damage Combat Arts and Reposition.

(I also occasionally run Triangle Attack for the memes, but Triangle Attack isn't very useful until Wyverns or Falcons, since 6 movement makes it hard to use without wasting unit-turns.)

We'll be seeing our first B-rank skills soon, but not quite yet. (Ignoring Sharmir's amazing A rank in Bows.)

This fails.

So I make her pass fighter to advance the numbers.

Beginner Seals are more or less only for advancing numbers now, so I stop buying them 4 at a time.

This fails, and I reload since we'll have a 100% with a little bit more tutoring.

This passes.

It cost me something like 4 Intermediate Seals for this point of Dex, but fortunately I stocked up on them, and we're near the end of Intermediates being limited.

Advanced Seals aren't nearly as valuable despite them giving nice amounts of Strength, Mag, Defense or whatnot, mostly because you could just spend the skill exp on Authority instead. So we should be fine on Advanced Seals with something like a 3 Seal Stockpile.

 

Exploration:

It's best to do Paralogues as late as possible in the month unless you really need to unlock the next shop tier (or to get Byleth some necessary exp), so we keep exploring.

More Carrots.

A 4x Nordsalat day, since we have quite a bit now.

I end up 1 exp short of D Flying, which is... something.

We can't get enough lance exp to get C lances, so I stop Byleth's training for the day.

The Seteth support is wasted, since I think you only need to have people in your house to get their Paralogues, not support levels for the people involved in a Paralogue. But oh well.

Motivation refill.

Ditto.

Half a refill, half trying to get more people into my House.

 

Lecture:

More support points for Flayn, and probably unnecessary.

Doop.

I play it safe to get her D Armor.

She gets 16 points from Self Study, so I... tutor her in axes for some reason, even though it's already D+.

Fighting through a double weakness in Axes and Heavy Armor was annoying, but we're almost done.

Doop.

We won't manage to get B Authority, which is a pity, since Ingrid's Paralogue gives a B Authority flying Battalion. Would've been nice.

C Authority is more or less enough for Hubert, since the C rank mage Battalions are good enough for the entire game if you had to sit on them, so I start trying to get him Warlock or Dark Bishop. (He doesn't care much about either class, so I could also just leave him in Mage until level 30.)

Perfect tea time with Ashe, but no Charm.

We do get B support with him, though, meaning we can start cooking with Mercedes now. (And also recruit him for his Boots Paralogue.)

I'll need to remember to get these guys off Weeding duty later.

C Axes. Helm Splitter 7 Mt and effective against Armor, making it a good general purpose weapon art as long as you're someone who can ignore the low accuracy of Axes. (It doesn't give any accuracy bonus, just 5% crit.)

It also costs 5 Durability, but axes are very durable.

E+ Authority.

The last time we can show the entire House in two screenshots, this is the end of an era.

I expected to just reload and have to do some more training, but Byleth passes the 31%.

I don't swap her to Pegasus Knight because she still needs to pick up hit +20. (Which will let her stop using Curved Shot and start using Deadeye.)

Here's when I learn classes have different RNG numbers, since Dorothea would pass Brigand despite it being 65% for both.

So I get her into Mage to advance the RNG numbers.

Shamir also passes, so if we're ever in drastic need of mobility we can swap her out of Archer and into Pegasus Knight.

I buy 3 Intermediate Seals so I know exactly how much I'd have this month. (Turns out the shop upgrade wasn't based on level 20, it's based on unlocking level 20 classes---and Byleth's skill exp issues means that she isn't ideal for that.)

 

Exploration:

Last exploration of the month, since we'll start on Paralogues next week.

No breaks on the Speed Carrot train.

And we go back to the usual 1x Nordsalat since we're low on seeds again.

Bonding Bites only work on people from your own house, so it's not very useful. You get loads of support points naturally between house members.

I'm not sure why I suddenly remembered to swap Annette out of Heavy Armor self study here. (Probably because it occurred to me that I forgot to try to have her pass Armor Knight.)

If you look carefully, you'll notice that Flayn doesn't get the bonding bites bonus, for whatever reason. (Probably because she isn't actually a 'student,' per se, more like a member of the Knights of Seiros.)

I do some motivation refills, which ended up being completely pointless since Byleth nabbed a triple MVP title later. (Which was +75 motivation for everyone.)

Doop.

Support points with some people outside my house.

Ditto.

Completely meaningless meal, due to the MVP thing and Seteth support not actually being necessary.

More support grinding. You don't really need support levels with faculty, since you recruit them based on levels. (I guess it might be useful if you're trying to min-max Byleth like crazy by leaving her level 1 until she promotes into Enlightened One, which would give her level 20 class bases at level 1.)

Support ranks.

Doop.

Ashe needs Lance ranks to recruit, and we happen to have those, so we invite him easily.

He comes with a Speed Carrot, which is great. Lockpick isn't very useful since you can just, you know, buy keys. Yeah it'll save you something like 2k gold over the course of a run, but even a 2 damage personal would be worth around 10k, and he doesn't quite have the stat growths to be amazing despite a more or less useless Personal.

He's not bad---14 Strength and 15 Speed at level 13 is quite acceptable, and he has Axe ranks for easy Armor Knight to get some bulk, but our team already has archery covered.

Very boring base skills outside of Bows and Axes, unfortunately. Although the Hidden Talent in Lances does mean he gets into Cavalry relatively easily.

I start him on Authority and Armor Knight, although I'm not sure I'll bother spending 1k to get him Armor Knight bases.

I also randomly remember to give Byleth a flying Battalion.

 

Lecture:

We don't need people on Weeding duty anymore, so I start two of my casters on the Riding group task. I don't know of any mages outside of Lorenz, who shouldn't really count, with a stable duty bonus, so there won't be much perfects.

More meaningless support points.

Seal Magic... isn't very useful. Because of the Reinhardt method of avoiding damage. (Just kill them before they counter, 4Head.) We're late enough in the game that people who can't 2RKO are more or less the dredges of your team, so Seal skills aren't very important for combat anymore.

(Seal Speed is still nice for stealing, if you don't have a massively invested Thief---which we do, thanks to Byleth.)

Authority is always nice.

Getting Bernadetta Pass because why not. (Because I'll be dropping it for +20 hit right after this month is a good reason, but eh.)

It does get her a bit closer to Cavalier, if I ever end up wanting Bow Knight for her.

Lysithea will get D+ axes and D Heavy Armor from self study, so I start working on getting her some Faith spells. She gets Seraphim, an effective vs. Monster spell at C Faith, so it doesn't take much investment for her to get a nice combat spell on the Faith side.

(She also gets Warp at B, but I tend to use Rescue more than Warp due to my preference to deathball everything down. It's definitely very handy, despite that, though.)

I really should tutor her in Authority, since Gautier Knights, the other Stride Battalion, requires B Authority. But ideally I'll want one of my cavaliers holding it anyway, so it doesn't matter much.

So close to B Authority, yet so far away.

Linhardt goes to Authority and Riding since B faith is more than enough for now and he doesn't need any physical stuff.

Being our designated Dancer, Dorothea gets to put her feet up and study Reason and Authority forever. (I'll be tutoring her for Physic, so there's no need for her to self-study for it.)

Shamir got Pegasus Knight last week, so no more need for Flying.

Doop.

And Perfect. (It's possible that Perfect has better odds than Great at getting Charm, and I was just weirdly unlucky last run where I got more Charm from Greats than Perfects.)

Soon the days of Perfects almost every week will be a fond yet distant memory.

Our house takes 3 screenshots to show, so I'll only focus on skills that matter a little. Swordbreaker matters a little, a very little. It'll make him more accuracy against Assassins, who tend to be made of avoid and also like to hold swords, but he'll probably replace it really quickly once skill-slots are an issue. (B Lances.)

Petra and Ferdinand got C Authority. Annette got C+ Reason, and Lysithea D+ Axes and D Heavy Armor.

A support from stable duty.

30 hp and 12 Def tends to mean your mages can survive a double from pretty much anything for a while, which is also nice if you tend to play sloppy.

Lysithea even gets some Strength since I didn't bother doing any level 5 Physical classes for her. (I could spend 1k to get her Brigand for 10 Strength, but she tends to be fast enough not to need that 20% extra effective speed.)

This fails.

So I have her pass Myrmidon to advance the RNG counter.

Restocking my Beginner Seal.

Selling some random stuff.

Doop.

I have a nice chunk of change from selling all that, so I buy 3 more Beginner Seals.

Time to do some Paralogues.

 

Ingrid's Paralogue:

Spoiler

It says Suggested Level: 17, but really the mooks on the map are more or less comparable to the ones in the story map this month, which has a suggested level of 13.

 

Pre-map Planning:

You don't get to know the enemy layout until you enter the map, and it has some annoying reinforcements.

But it does leave one guy on the map so you have a general idea of the stat spread to expect, at least. (Although this guy isn't anywhere close to the strongest mooks that'll appear.)

We've finally hit the next tier of Speed on our enemies, since now we're seeing 15 AS even on Axe mooks.

I have Edelgard on Adjunct to Byleth, since she has Pegasus Knight, no Battalion, and they share a Bond support. She's holding the Lance of Ruin because Adjuncts don't cost durability. Caspar is attached to Sylvain and holding a Steel Axe+.

I buy a Iron Bow for Sylvain because ranged attacks are always nice, and 1-2 range physical weapons are pretty mediocre until you get stuff like Sublime Creator Sword and Gradivus.

I forge Byleth's Training Lance up since it's almost broken.

Ditto for her Training Bow.

I also forge up a Killer Bow for Bernadetta---I'll need to remember to buy some Black-Sand Steel later.

I don't actually do this, but note the price on repairing a relic. The 3 Umbral Steel sell for 1.8k, so it's a total of 4.3k to repair. Like I said, Relics are basically 1k per swing if you're using Combat Arts.

Replenishing Battalions.

Bernadetta gets the Knights of Seiros now that she's C rank Authority. It's a bit of a side-grade for now, but once it hits level 5 it'll be 3 extra resistance and 1 more damage. (At the cost of 15% hit---Archers do like accuracy battalions, but 15% isn't too great.)

Empire Archers have more damage and defense at the cost of magic attack and avoid, which is a easy trade for Shamir.

Hubert's benched so Lysithea picks up his Battalion.

I remove Byleth's Authority for Steal.

Bernadetta's Authority for Pass. Pass isn't very important, nor Close Counter, really, so they'll get replaced with other skills eventually.

I clean up Sylvain's skill set a bit.

Ditto Annette's. (Stride doesn't do damage.)

Caspar continues to exist, I drop Authority from him because his Charm isn't good enough to have accurate Battalions anyway.

Tempest Lance will most likely be dropped for Reposition or a different combat art later.

Shamir starts with a nice combo of accuracy, damage, and monster effective damage, so I tend to keep her with this set for the whole game.

Helm Splitter will probably get replaced with Monster Smasher later, or whatever it's called, and Tempest Lance with Knightkneeler.

I stop pretending Bernadetta cares about anything except Bows.

Ingrid picks up a collection of swords and lances.

Byleth continues her weird collection of weapons. (You can use Gauntlets while dismounted, for when you need damage enough to lose Canto for it.)

Sylvain's stuff.

Bernadetta's, note the Killer Bow, although it's not too reliable yet.

Doop.

They casters all more or less only hold a Vulnerary, except Lysithea, who has the March Ring.

Dorothea picks up a pair of Chest Keys---I hope I remember to buy more later. (There's two Chests on the map, a Healing Staff and a Killer Axe.)

 

The Map:

You also win if you Rout, so we'll do that for more exp.

Here's what the initial layout actually looks like.

The axe mooks have more or less the stats we've seen.

10 AS bows still...

And now we have the next step up in Speed, 21 AS from these Thieves.

Anyone with Battalions on this map have either Rogues or Thieves, which are more or less identical. (They're more or less irrelevant.)

Occasionally the mooks on this map have Venin weapons. They're pretty light, so watch out for unexpected doubles.

As long as this guy's alive, 2 Thieves a turn will reinforce and rush towards you.

His combat stats are awful, though.

Note how this guy has 'Thieves,' they're identical aside from the name, as far as I can tell.

Disturbance is the name of the game. (And Gambit.)

Goddess Rings are surprisingly common if you do Paralogues, but for people with Luck already covered (like Byleth), a Prayer ring is nice for some minor sustain.

Devil Axe, good for Bernadetta. If she doesn't really need it then it's also a nice axe for Adjuncts, since 18 MT is almost Relic level damage. (It's a pain to repair, so I don't recommend using it as a primary weapon.)

You can steal this antitoxin, but who cares about poison, anyway.

And Linhardt had Restore for ages.

We also see the occasional promoted class on this map. Note the 22 Crit, maxed out Prowess, Axe Crit +10, and Wrath. Strongly suggest finishing the guy from range or KOing before Wrath range happens.

Because even with a Venin Axe this guy has 38 Atk, which is some serious damage when crits happen.

Anyway, let's actually start playing now.

 

Annette things.

I meant to attack the guy with Thoron, but I forgot Chest was the first option, so I looted the Killed Axe by accident.

Oh well, bows can handle poking people at 4 range pretty easily.

They can handle poking them at 2 range, too.

The combat gets Byleth D Flying, but I missed the screenshot.

I trade swap Byleth into Training Lance+.

Ending turn like this.

We'll be heading towards the reinforcement spawning priest, but first we have to take care of this initial wave.

A bit of talking to introduce the reinforcements.

Enemy Phase combat. (It's interesting that the suicidal mook attacked first.)

Sylvain's pretty slow, but he's also fairly tanky.

Last enemy phase combat of the turn.

A pretty meh level, to be perfectly honest.

D+ Flying from Edelgard.

Poke.

The red line is an Archer's attack range, so I want to wait a bit before pulling him.

Sylvain's pretty dead if he misses, so I heal him.

Not that it was a very likely miss, despite Lancebreaker.

D+ Riding for Sylvain.

I confirm the sword mooks don't have the range to hit Shamir, so I have her pull the archer.

And then I realize I'd be fine with them shooting Bernadetta, too.

Enemy Phase Combat.

Thief reinforcements are steadily trickling in, so I want to advance quickly to shut off the flow.

Annette things.

Bernadetta doesn't need her gambit for much, so I use it here to simplify the turn.

Typical archer vs. flier combat.

Byleth Cantos forward to deal with the next set of mooks.

Poke.

Dead.

Restore is an AoE now, which is interesting. It cures Sylvain of being poisoned.

Walking through fire is pretty painful, but nothing the team can't handle.

Enemy Phase combat.

The first few Thief reinforcements give full exp, but the ones after that pretty much only give skill exp.

One of the first pair of Thieves decided to take the top route, so I have Byleth fly back just in case things get messy next turn.

Annette things.

Shamir getting some free damage in.

Mostly for exp, we're still standing in the fire so it's not like hp matters.

Bad screenshot, but Ingrid stays where she is to take an enemy phase combat.

Doop.

If she's a green unit rather than a blue unit you can still control her, but she'd be level 22 with all the stats that implies. She isn't level 22, so she hits like a wet noodle.

(Enemy Phase combat.)

Wet Noodle is about the exactly wrong way to describe Byleth. (Also enemy.)

Edelgard gets a pretty great level. (Adjunct exp, in case you've forgotten.)

Last enemy phase combat of the turn.

Byleth doesn't quite ORKO without a rally, so Annette keeps doing her thing.

The red line is a bow, and I'm not quite cocky enough to just have my fliers handle bows just yet.

Doop.

C lances.

Doop.

Shamir walks up to trade swap for Byleth. (She wouldn't counter the bow either way, but this way she gets Prowess avoid.)

Linhardt things.

The map is pretty easy to deathball through, since the enemies mostly just wait for you to come kill them.

Unlike with Cavaliers, dismounting loses a Pegasus Knight 2 Speed, so Byleth misses the double.

We'll be seeing near 0% bow hit rates pretty soon, but not just yet.

Mounting is almost a free action, you can mount or dismount in place without having to use your turn.

Doop.

Poke.

Dead.

I look down near the Chest, and turns out this guy has a Venin Bow rather than Steel, so he has actual Attack Speed.

We go back to fighting the mooks nearby, though. (Sylvain stays where he's standing.)

 

Poke.

C+ bows. Deadeye is a 3-5 range Combat Art with 6 MT, at the cost of 5 durability and not having any accuracy bonus. Assuming Bernadetta has a lot of accuracy, she doesn't really care about having +attack range skills, since she can just Deadeye people in whatever class. (Very useful for fighting fliers, since she can snipe them while being a flier herself.)

Dead.

Ingrid flies back a little since there's a straggler Thief reinforcement topside, and she might need to help out.

Byleth continues being Byleth.

C Lances.

Patching up for the Enemy Phase.

Annettte things.

Almost to the priest. (Killing him won't stop all the reinforcements, just the constant 2 Thief stream.)

Still strange that the suicidal attack goes first. (Enemy Phase.)

Sylvain isn't quite dexterous or lucky enough yet to crit much, even with a killer, but he doesn't care about being doubled so the weight isn't an issue.

(Also enemy phase.)

Poke.

And he goes up to prepare for the next wave.

Dead. (Shamir gets +4 to Str/Mag/Dex/Speed when she gets a Player Phase kill, so she's pretty good at taking enemy phase combats when you can get the proc, here she's getting ready to fight the Venin bow guy.)

Poke.

More poking.

And dead.

I didn't check if Rally stacks with Shamir's Personal, but I hope it does.

I decide not to have Sylvain take enemy phase combats after all, so Byleth heads up to block for him.

Most of the healing on this map is for exp purposes.

Doop.

Chugging a few Speed Carrots would've made this a double, but Byleth would've needed 1 more damage to ORKO anyway. (Enemy phase.)

+8 to Speed and Strength is definitely something you want to fight into, says enemy mook. (Also enemy phase.)

Great level, but it's an odd quote considering the lack of Strength.

Doop.

Dead.

And she Cantos upwards.

Don't care too much about Shamir taking enemy phase combats this turn, so she's on chip damage duty.

Using a bow for the kill since it lets him get Byleth's exp bonus.

And he Cantos out of enemy range.

Annette things.

Byleth things.

The constant stream of reinforcements is pretty annoying, so Byleth is up here to speed up getting to the priest a little bit.

Linhardt things.

Doop.

Weirdly, these guys don't wait for the one with a gambit before killing themselves on enemy phase.

Doop.

Pity these combats don't give much exp, since they're reinforcements.

Somewhat amazingly, this hits.

Which means this guy survives, since Gambits debuff your stats a bit, causing Byleth to lose the necessary AS to double, and the damage to KO.

(Don't know why this guy waited, unlike the other suicidal mooks.)

This was the final enemy phase combat.

And the Parade of mooks gave Byleth an amazing level.

Poke.

Heavy Draw is 8 MT, 10 accuracy, 2 range, and 5 durability cost. Deadeye is probably better, but Heavy Draw is a bit more consistent and a bit stronger.

Poke.

Dead.

I notice Restore was available, so I use it.

Turns out it clears Gambit debuffs, so I could've had Byleth kill the priest this turn. But eh.

It's only 1 more turn anyway.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto.

There'll still be more reinforcements incoming as you go through the map, but at least they'll give exp.

Pretty much vendor trash.

Byleth Cantos back towards the team, and Shamir gets a kill.

We pull this wave by having Bernadetta poke the archer mook.

Annette things.

Possibly relevant patching up. There's still a bunch of fire to walk through.

I shuffle around a bit, but our team's a tad scattered, so we won't be able to advance much next turn.

The archer mook misses, and dies for his trouble on enemy phase.

I have Byleth get ready to take the enemy phase combats. Paladins don't take terrain damage, but fliers don't either, as long as they're flying. (Nor do they get the terrain damage reduction or evasion, of course, unless you land. Healing still works, though.)

Some shuffling around and then Annette does her thing.

Byleth doesn't really need healing so Linhardt patches Shamir up instead.

For a pretty mediocre level.

Doop.

Enemy Phase combat.

This misses. 30%s are significantly more likely than 20%, but it's not exactly good odds even so.

Poke.

Mostly for exp healing, since Lysithea is standing in fire.

And dead.

It has Strength, so I'll take it. Sylvain will need some amazing Speed levels to keep up with the best units on the team, but his spread is still good enough to bring into maps.

Caspar had 6 base Speed, 2 lower than Byleth's bases. Byleth had 10 Speed at level 10.

Patching up.

C rank Authority. Like I said before, not a fan of Battalion skills in general, but they're good. Except Battalion Renewal. If you actually have to use the hp the skill gives you your Battalion is going to retreat pretty quickly..

Dorothea gives Linhardt the key she had been holding since the Chest has a Healing Staff for him.

We're about halfway, I'd say.

I believe these guys spawn once you get close to the 2nd Chest on the map, but I'm not 100% sure.

They're enemy phase reinforcements, because of course they are, so it's a good idea to keep the team together.

This guy isn't holding a Venin axe, so he hurts. The Attack Speed is way lower because of that, though, so he's fairly simple to kill.

Byleth isn't really worried, even with 41 Atk, so I send her to take the enemy phase damage.

Linhardt goes to open the Chest. Note that you don't auto-equip loot, so remember to equip them.

I have Ingrid loiter near Byleth and Annette just in case, but the rest of the team slowly moves towards the archer pack.

Enemy Phase combat.

Getting Edelgard a great level.

Also enemy phase.

Doop.

And Byleth Cantos a little bit down so she can help the team on either side of the lava.

Patching up.

Surprisingly, these Axe wielding guys are Thieves. With Sword Prowess and Iron Axes. The attack speed might be a bit unexpected coming from Axe mooks, but their accuracy and evasion take a dive since they don't have any Prowess active.

I have Linhardt equip the Healing Staff then heal Dorothea for exp.

I don't want to pull the archer mooks without Byleth being ready to help, so the team more or less twiddles their thumbs for a turn.

Poke.

Dead. (Ingrid Cantos down a bit.)

Healing for exp.

Annette starts walking towards the rest of the team, but everyone else sits on their hands.

I move Lysithea forward and Rally Shamir.

And walk her in to pull the archer mooks.

Because of the next wave of reinforcements, I strongly suggest going through the lava here rather than the left side path, even though it's easier to cross without taking damage on the left side.

These guys spawn behind us, but they're far enough away not to be an issue.

Enemy phase combat.

High Speed classes tend to have hilarious amounts of Speed, hence the 29 Speed at level 20 from this Assassin.

Occasionally mooks will have Poison, but honestly it never matters.

(The axe mooks are the weird Sword Prowess Thieves we saw before.)

Enemy archers sure have a hard life.

C+ Authority.

Exp farming.

Annette things.

Poke.

And dead.

Patching up.

We'll trigger another wave of Reinforcements if we aggro the axe guy near the exit, so we'll wait a bit for the Assassin to catch up to us. Assassins have 6 move so it won't take too long.

Enemy phase combat.

D+ Flying for Byleth.

Pegasus Knight mastered for Edelgard. Triangle Attack is a meme, but Darting Blow is probably the best of the Blow skills, especially for strength heavy units like Byleth and Edelgard.

We loot the Prayer Ring, which is more useful than the Leather Shield we've been hanging on to.

I send Shamir down on the off chance I don't actually have to aggro the axe guy to trigger the next wave of reinforcements. (The Assassin wave is already in range, so no need to worry about them causing problems.)

Annette things.

Patching up.

Byleth getting ready for some enemy phase combat.

Doop.

Enemy Phase combat. 27 AS is enough to avoid Byleth's double, but Byleth is also fast enough to avoid the Assassin doubling her.

I'm not sure what triggered these guys to walk towards us, but it's probably Shamir walking down.

This guy is a Sniper, but Steel Bow seriously hurts his offenses. Just be careful about the Vantage. (The game's polite enough not to give him Vantage Close Counter, at least.)

We're trying to get Byleth level 20, so she kills the promoted mook.

Poke.

Dead.

Lysithea's spread is pretty min-maxed towards magical offenses, but Armor Knight bases will cover her bulk nicely for the near future, meaning offenses are all she needs.

Annette things.

Deadeye tends to have accuracy issues if you use it from full range, so it's pretty much just a damage Combat Art for Bernadetta---although occasionally RNJesus will come through for you on the really shaky attacks. Have some Divine Pulses handy anyway, though.

Bernadetta either rolled her crit or her Crest, so the guy exploded.

Getting her a Speedy level. Her Strength is already at the point where it's extremely unlikely to beat the 17 base strength from level 20 classes, so I mostly care about Speed, Dex, and Luck, since those are the stats that buff up her offenses.

The Assassin managed to poison Byleth earlier, so Linhardt cures that for her.

Shamir gets ready to have an archery competition. (She even gave the guy a handicap by being Archer rather than Sniper.)

Doop.

Steel bow means the Sniper shouldn't really double your mooks, but he does hit quite hard with it, thanks to good Strength and Bowfaire. (Enemy Phase combat.)

And the combat exp gets Shamir a pretty amazing level.

Linahrdt things.

One of the sword mooks from the wave decided to walk through the right path instead, so Shamir can't just keep trading arrows with the Sniper.

I shuffle people around and have Annette do Annette things.

Byleth flies down to handle the sword mook.

There's on last, and fairly large wave of reinforcements once we aggro the lone axe mook in the bottom right, but we're pretty much done.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

Shamir walks next to Byleth for some extra exp.

Doop.

Annette things.

Byleth things.

The counter damages the Pegasus Co. enough for them to retreat, but we're nearly at the end anyway. Charm is important for landing and avoiding gambits, but the effect is capped at +/- 30%, and Byleth has enough Charm to give enemies -30% without the +5 from the Seiros Pegasus Co., so this mostly just costs us some Authority exp.

The guy drops his Devil Axe.

Which Bernadetta proceeds to pick up.

(Byleth Canto'd forward one square, if you were wondering about positioning.)

Bernadetta manages to proc her Crest and lands a crit on the second hit, so this guy dies.

Topping off.

Final Stretch.

Stride to save some time.

Byleth to pull the mook.

Linhardt things. (And some shuffling around.)

Doop.

These guys are fairly strong, and it's a 4 unit wave, but they spawn far enough out that you shouldn't get caught by them.

These guys spawn from the bottom left, and they'll probably murder someone (possibly 2 people) if you decided to take the left path down.

This misses.

The warrior Reinforcements are the same as the ones we've seen before.

Fairly deadly to everyone who isn't heavily invested, especially if they gang up on them. (Not even Byleth can survive 2 hits, I believe.)

Annette things.

Poke. (Mostly to provide support bonuses for a gambit.)

This is just for exp and killing a mook, though.

Dorothea does need some Speed to do Armor killing later, but Dancer has a fair bit of Speed and she won't be the first choice to kill armor mooks anyway, so this is a pretty nice level.

Poke.

C+ Reason. Mastermind isn't too amazing on a magical unit (they don't take a lot of combats), but it does help skill exp gain a fair bit.

Byleth things. I'm using the Sword of the Creator to help out with the gambit support. (The Training Bow didn't quite have enough damage.)

Byleth continues to demonstrate that bad levels are mostly for other people. (She did have a bad level to start this map.)

She Cantos over here.

The Blaze gambit has a pretty good AoE, especially because the devs like to pack mooks in diamond shape formations at the start of a map, pity it only has 1 use.

Dead.

Ingrid Cantos to the left since that's where the other mooks will be arriving from.

Exp farming.

Chip damage.

Just about done.

Doop.

Poke.

Dead.

Lysithea is in a bad spot, so I stride Ingrid. (The target is Dorothea, but directly Striding Ingrid would've doubled up on the problem.)

Very shaky hit. In retrospect I probably should've use the Steel Sword and a combat Art.

Since either way I would've been able to Canto to Safety.

Byleth punches him to death. (She didn't take counter damage since she managed a crit, but Linhardt was ready to heal her up anyway.)

Speed is the worst stat to miss, but she did get every single other stat, so this is still an amazing level.

Byleth didn't end up taking any damage, so Linahrdt heals Dorothea for exp instead.

Mag is more important than Speed for Linahrdt, but it's not like this is a bad level.

Doop.

Enemy Phase combat.

Exp farming.

Ditto.

Poke.

I move Byleth a square to the right and have Bernadetta take the kill.

It's honestly not too bad. Speed is still her most important stat.

Paralogues give motivation, which is interesting. I guess the point is so that lectures aren't completely gimped if you end up doing lots of Paralogues over sharing meals.

(I don't think the generic maps you get to do give motivation though, so I'm not 100% sure about this guess.)

Renown's always useful.

A B ranked Flying Battalion. It has 7 Strength, 5 hit, 10 avoid, 5 Def, 6 Res, and 8 Charm at max level, so pretty great, especially for how early you get it. You'd be happy having it in the endgame, although there are even crazier Battalions out there.

The gambit is Lure, which basically moves the target behind you after you hit it. Most things tend to be dead from a gambit considering the kind of people you'd be willing to give a top-tier Battalion to, but it does work on Monsters, so it can make focus firing them easier.

We had Ingrid on the team, so we also pick up Luin. It has 17 MT and 10% crit compared to the Lance of Ruin's 22 and 20, but a significantly higher 90% hit. The unique combat Art has 8 MT base and adds more based on Speed, as well as 20% crit, but again, using combat arts on Relic is like 1k gold a pop.

I tend to give Relics to my Adjuncts because adjuncts don't use up durability, but it's probably more efficient to carry them around as a last resort. (Late game I just have Byleth grab Relics from Convoy and use them like generics, since you end up with so many Relics if you do Paralogues.)

Like I said, we get a lot of Goddess Rings from Paralogues. Basically just a Prayer Ring with Luck attached, Edelgard tends to like it, seeing how she has Luck issues. Evasion Rings tend to trump everything for a heavily invested flier, though.

I convoy both the Goddess Ring and Luin.

 

Sylvain's Paralogue:

Spoiler

Sylvain's Paralogue has a bit of a time crunch, unlike Ingrid's, so it's easier if you go into it after doing a different Paralogue. It's not insane or anything, so a team of level 10s should be able to handle it and get max rewards without problems, but it's easier to just start with Ingrid's or Flayn's.

Suggested level: 17, just like Ingrid's.

Like I said, occasionally maps will ask if you want to Replenish Battalions. Don't quite know what triggers it yet, though.

 

Pre-map Planning:

Anyway, unlike the last one, we know exactly how the map is laid out, and also all the enemy stats. (No reinforcements on this map.)

Armor mooks are still complete jokes. Yes, Hubert would die to 2 of these, but Hubert is level 8. A level 10 Hubert would survive 2 easily.

26 Atk 17 AS isn't bad, but last map had harder stuff.

He didn't get the memo that Attack Speed is what makes you dangerous, not raw attack.

Mages somehow have more AS than Atk, which is... interesting.

Brawlers are actually pretty scary when you're underleveled, since they'll hit reasonably hard and almost always double. Once you aren't fighting level 20s with level 13s or, in Hubert's case, level 8s, they become a lot easier.

People with Battalions tend to have Thieves again.

The 'boss' mooks all carry an Iron Shield, which is free loot if you have a thief.

Boss mooks also don't move, so there's no rush to kill them.

Lots of different types between them, although they mostly have hp+5, Atk +2 (whether it's Strength or Magic), and Defense +2 as skills. Level 1 Prowess too, which is odd on an Maddening Mook.

13 AS archers, so you really want Thief bases to avoid doubles from them.

Boss archer is weighed down by his Iron Shield, of course.

The 6 thieves in the middle are loot pinatas, and, as far as I know, never attack.

Some of the loot is better than others, but you want all of them dead for the best rewards after the map anyway.

Left side has Byleth and Sylvain forced, and I bring Ingrid, Hubert, Linhardt, and Bernadetta too.

Right side has Edelgard and Shamir as the designated carries, and also Annette, Dorothea, and Lysithea for support, moral and otherwise.

I give Petra and Ferdinand Lance of Ruin and Luin respectively, which is a bit of an odd choice since I end up sticking them on Bernadetta and Shamir. (You need matching attack ranges for an Adjunct attack to happen, I believe.)

Neither Edelgard nor Ingrid have Battalions due to Authority issues (Ingrid needs D, Edelgard or Byleth needs B to grab Galatea), but I need their Pegasus Knight mobility more than they need Authority exp.

Shamir picks up the Iron Bow Ashe started with, since he's on bench duty.

Sylvain grabs Byleth's old Leather Shield.

Edelgard gets an assortment of Lances and Axes.

Ingrid's stuff.

I notice the durability on Bernadetta's Steel Bow getting a bit low.

So I forge it into a Steel+. Steel+ have a bit more MT, a bit less weight, and a bit more max durability, so they're pretty decent as long as you aren't planning to forge up to Silvers.

 

It's a pretty easy map, despite the Thieves in the middle starting to run away after a few turns or if you get close, so I start without any more prep.

 

The Map:

Which, unfortunately, costs me. Long story short is that I misplayed the first turn due to pulling the archer on the left side and trying to rush Byleth to the middle too early. Between the bottom mooks more or less starting aggro'd and Hubert being majorly underleveled it meant that he was dead unless some major RNJesus plays paid off, 2 turns down the line. (I missed on Bernadetta's 40%ish deadeye, so I just Divine Pulsed back to turn 1 to play it better.)

Divine Pulse: 6

So I start the map a lot more aggressive about clearing out the bottom mooks. (Right side relative to us.) The mire is more about support for a gambit than anything else.

Ditto for this Levin Sword combat.

Ingrid would get a bit of magical benefit from going A Reason for Warlock, but there's not much reason to because her natural Mag growths tend to be good enough for fighting armors.

Great level, obviously.

I swap Sylvain to Training Lance out of habit.

And go for a fairly shaky gambit, despite the 2 supports. (Mostly because of the lack of support levels. A pair of C-ranks and this is 85%, which looks a lot better.)

The gambit still lands, though, so I Canto Sylvain upward to get ready for the push towards the middle.

Bernadetta picking up a free kill while walking towards mid.

I'm pretty free with Sword of Creator uses (note the Combat Art) since it'll be recharged and upgraded pretty soon, and a 7MT weapon isn't exactly crazy valuable, even if it is 1-2 range. An Iron Bow+ can probably pull off most of the stuff I use it for.

Left side ends like this.

Annette takes around 3 damage from mage son this map, and she'll be doubled either way, so I have her equip her highest MT (and also heaviest) spell.

Aside from that she continues doing Annette things.

Poke.

We don't want to aggro everything down here in the bottom right, just enough to clear a path towards mid.

Doop.

Right side ends like this.

I'm not quite sure how aggro works on this map, mostly because I never did it with a team so mobile that it could just ignore the mooks in the bottom and bottom right of the map, but the bottom mooks seem to straight up start aggro'd or something.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto. -1 Sword of the Creator durability, but also +1 dead mook.

-2, and no dead mook.

Got to love taking 0 damage.

Edelgard doesn't quite have the accuracy to just ignore Lancebreaker, which is unfortunate.

And the last enemy phase combat of the turn.

Doop.

Poke.

And, dead.

Annette walks forward.

Edelgard stands more or less ready to deal with the Thieves in the middle. She doesn't have a gambit, so she'll mostly be contributing damage.

Doop.

Amazingly, Hubert almost manages 12 Def by level 10. Not quite, even with another Def level up, but he's pretty tanky for a level 9 mage. He'd still want Armor Knight base hp, though.

Doop.

Byleth grabs a Steel Sword+ from Convoy.

And uses it to kill a mook.

Byleth is also in position for the thieves mid, more or less. She does have a gambit, but a 2 square AoE gambit isn't really that good for keeping them in place, so she'll mostly be contributing damage, just like Edelgard.

Shaky Levin.

But it did land, so Sylvain picks up the kill.

And gets a very left sided level. (Which is pretty great.)

C+ Authority.

Sylvain already used up his gambit, so he's also here to provide damage.

Linhardt does Linhardt things.

You have a few turns grace before the thieves start running, so it's not too much of a rush. (And I didn't bother using a Divine Pulse to check how many turns of grace you have, exactly.)

Sylvain's map is also pretty easy, it's just the time crunch at the start that makes you want some leveled units.

Enemy phase combat.

Annette Strides our left side infantry.

Dorothea had nothing better to do.

Hubert walks up.

More Levin usage.

Doing this give the Thieves their movement, so the distance based reason these guys start moving is probably based on your attack range. (Not threat range, just end turn attack range.)

Note the way bigger threat range, although the thieves wont' actually hit anyone.

No crit, but it was worth a shot.

Sylvain Cantos left to provide support, and Byleth comes in with the Creator Sword, same reason.

More loot to the pile.

There's a very minor chance this misses, but it's small enough to be negligible.

Everyone else is stuck, so only this thief is an issue.

Both attacks land so he's just dead.

Disappointing level, but oh well.

Doop.

Shamir getting some potshots in.

Linhardt things.

Everyone moves as close to our deathball as they can. Once the thieves in the middle are dealt with it's mostly a matter of deathballing around the map to kill everything and steal the Iron Shields.

Enemy phase combat, Linhardt doesn't really mind fighting armors since they can't double him and he heals most of the damage off with Nosferatu.

Banshee to remove the armor from being relevant.

Magic is always nice against people hiding in terrain.

We're too early to care about this just yet, even though Byleth will hit 20 before the end of the map.

Doop.

If you're doing Paralogues better equipment tends to come along for mages really quickly, so the Magic Staff isn't too interesting. +3 damage is better than nothing, though.

Doop.

Good offensive levels coming in from Shamir. Her Speed tends to fall behind, but her crit chance tends to skyrocket to compensate.

Petra is crazy fast, now, considering she's level 9. Pity about her strength.

Another Goddess ring for the pile.

Poke. She procs one of her Crests, so this guy dies.

Nabs C flying.

And a Short Spear. I don't like the 1-2 range melee weapons that much, at least not the generic ones, mostly because you can just carry a bow for that kind of thing.

We'll still use it rather than sell it, though. (Edelgard Cantos downwards since we're done with middle now.)

Byleth things.

Draw Back on Byleth so Hubert can pick up some exp next turn. Level 10 won't get him out of 4-move hell, but it'll at least give him the bulk not to be 2RKOd or 1RKOd by everything.

Everything else on the map politely waits to die, so it's just mop up now.

I convoy sword of the creator to make room in Byleth's inventory.

And then I yoink the Iron Shield from the armor mook's.

Repoing Lysithea closer to the armor 'boss.'

She couldn't quite reach, but she does give Hubert the Magic Staff.

Poke.

Ferdinand masters Soldier, which is also nice, since it means you can go Cavalier without worrying about having to backtrack later.

Doop.

And dead. The Levin is actually harder to repair than the Sword of the Creator right now, but there's no difference between having a broken Levin Sword and never using the Levin Sword you actually have, anyway.

It's not awful, but I do care about Strength and Speed more than Magic, even if the stat's pretty decent for Ingrid.

Shuffling towards the next 'boss.'

Farming healing exp, and still chugging along.

Annette goes to do some mage pulling.

It's interesting how the mooks on each section of the map is different, but the map doesn't really give you much of a reason to hit each side simultaneously rather than just killing the thieves ASAP and then deathballing through.

Enemy phase combat. (This is why damage is more important than attack speed, mooks...)

Byleth couldn't quite reach the boss without a gambit, although in retrospect I could've just repo'd her with Edelgard.

I move Annette out of the way and have Hubert take the kill.

He somehow managed 11 Def by level 10. Not that it matters. 15 Mag is great, though. I'll probably bench him for a bit and work on getting him Thief.

Edelgard goes up to start working on the trash mooks.

Farming exp.

Byleth can handle the boss by herself, stealing and all, so the team starts marching towards the next boss.

Doop.

Enemy phase combat.

Hubert walks up and Annette does Annette things.

I convoy the Iron Shield.

And Steal a new one.

Doop.

Doop.

Pity cantoing into bushes doesn't do anything for a flier, but the important thing is aggroing the next few trash mobs.

And, dead.

Cantoing up, but Sylvain seems to be tanky enough that people would rather hit Edelgard.

Doop.

Using disturbance rather than attacking is a pretty good way to live very slightly longer.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto.

Both hits land, despite the shaky odds.

So Byleth Cantos up to join the team.

Poke. And Cantos off the grass.

Linhardt things.

Doop.

Poke.

And a great level from the combat exp. Pity the strength is wasted since I haven't gotten around to getting all my mages armor knight yet.

And dead.

Ingrid joins the mage mooks in the ranks of people with more AS than Atk.

Annette slowly tries to rejoin the team.

Turn out, I needn't have bothered with the Training lance. I forgot about the 25AS on these guys. (Enemy Phase.)

Convoy old Iron Shield.

Acquire new Iron Shield.

Poke.

Poke.

Dead.

And dead.

Byleth is fine handling the 'boss' alone, so everyone else starts making their way towards the last 'boss'.

Doop.

Since Charm is -30% hit max, you do need some avoidance from other places to get to 20% hit on enemy gambits. 30% is still a bit annoying. (This hits.)

Which is why Byleth doesn't destroy him on player phase.

Linhardt things.

I'd be fine with Linhardt getting nothing except 1 point of Mag every 2 levels, although obviously I wouldn't be very happy about it, just fine with it.

Sylvain gets ready to pull a mook.

I sent Bernadetta to help out versus the oddly accurate bandit, but everyone else continue marching left.

This time the gambit misses.

Enemy phase combat.

No crit, but Byleth didn't really need it.

Since killing the boss mook was more about accuracy.

Not a great level, but definitely a decent one. Due to Byleth's skill exp issues, the next tier of shops doesn't actually unlock, meaning I'll have to do some faculty training next month.

She Cantos over to join the rest of the team.

Exp farming.

Heavy Draw is pretty expensive on durability, but I was too lazy to a chip damage attack.

Everyone gets as close to the left side as they can.

Some shuffling around, and I have Sylvain on Archer pulling duty. (I considered having Shamir do it, but she wasn't 100% guaranteed to survive... merely something like 99%.)

There was no need to dismount since one arrow can't kill Byleth, but dismounting lets her take advantage of the bushes.

Doop. (Note how Bernadetta is still in the top right, I competely forgot about her.)

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto.

Doop.

The combat exp didn't matter, since Byleth is majorly over-leveled now, but Darting Blow is great.

Byleth Canto'd down here to provide some extra exp.

Canto is pretty nice for when you feel like attacking into choke points.

Very unlikely that he gets enough Speed to be relevant, Speed-wise, so Sylvain's growths will mostly be about raw bulk and Strength.

Doop.

And dead.

Everyone moves left a bit more, and I even remember about Bernadetta.

Shamir on pulling duty.

Annette things.

Not much action, although Bernadetta did get a bit closer to the team.

Enemy phase combat.

Petra is one very speedy level 10, she has 20 Speed in Pegasus Knight. (Although barely any Strength and not enough Magic to care about magic weapons.)

Doop.

Accuracy and crit chance, I'd prefer damage and Speed, but it's not complete garbage.

Yoink.

Annette things.

Sylvain was 1 off doubling the armor, so I unequip the Leather Shield.

This... can it be...

It's not a triangle attack. (Because I don't have it equipped on Byleth or Edelgard.)

And the whole setup with the Killer Lance didn't even end up mattering, since Lysithea just walks in and one rounds it.

Almost done.

Ingrid isn't nearly as Charming as Edelgard or Byleth, so she takes a gambit to the face.

Chip damage.

Mastering Soldier for Petra.

Byleth doesn't need exp anymore, so I move her to provide bonus exp and have Edelgard attempt to take the kill.

She misses a hit, so I have Ingrid attempt.

Ingrid also missed, and the gambit (and me not thinking to Restore it off), meant that she can't Canto away. So Lysithea takes the kill without being next to Byleth.

Any level with Magic is a good level, regardless of other considerations.

We killed all the thieves, so we got the 10k gold bullion.

A Longbow.

And a Talisman. (We convoy all 3.)

The Longbow is fairly useful for cavalry who like bows but don't have long range Combat Arts like Bernadetta. The repair materials are better spent on other things, since IRRC it uses the same material as Brave Weapons, so it'll be more or less gone once it breaks.

Everyone has at least 50 motivation, which is a very good reason to buy gifts rather than eat meals.

Some Renown and the 2nd Stride battalion of the route. (The last in Crimson Snow, but there's a 3rd one in Azure Moon, I believe.)

Ordinarily we also would've gotten the Lance of Ruin here, but we already had it from refusing to give it back.

This is probably better off in the next update, but I'll probably forget.

It's a free meal, so 100-200 Professor Points, depending. Both Petra and Hubert already had max motivation, so the refill didn't matter.

 

[DehNutCase]

Minor correction. After playing another month, it turns out Paralogues you have available do update inside a month, it's just that they have different unlock dates so recruiting Ignatz and Ashe didn't matter for unlocking their Paralogues yet.

And level 20 by itself is enough to upgrade the item, weapon, and battalion shops, it's just that the shops do, in fact, take a month to update.

[DehNutCase]

Ch. 7, Part 2:

 

Academy:

Spoiler

That feeling when you don't even have the requirements to go Assassin.

Note how going Paladin from Pegasus Knight doesn't improve your stats at all, Pegasus Knight stats are stupid good. (You do get some good boosts from going Wyvern, but I like Pegasus Knight growths better.) Paladins do get Lancefaire and 8 movement, of course, so they do hit a bit harder in exchange for not having Avoid +10, and are fairly mobile despite being grounded.

Picking up some stats for Hubert.

Armor Knight obtained, so I move Hubert to Swords for Thief and Riding for Dark Knight.

 

Some supports from comat.

Doop.

We fished up some Golden Fish in the failed attempt to get the Speed Fish.

 

Map:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 13

Since we're doing Paralogues, the difficulty is more or less tossed out the window at this point. We haven't gotten to use the high level battalions or the really interesting Relics yet, but the massive pile of exp we got from doing 2 level 17 maps definitely shows.

 

Pre-map Planning:

You get a Blessed Lance if you kill the most enemies out of the 3 armies, but you want to do that anyway, since any enemy you didn't kill is exp you failed to get. The enemy armies will get stat boosts as they kill people, so you'll want to rush the middle ASAP to prevent the two armies from meeting. There's not much strategy besides that since we're majorly over-leveled.

 

I actually forgot about the Chest at the bottom of the map the first time I did this map. The Archer in the middle has a Chest Key, so just remember to pick it up and you're fine.

Armor Knights, still jokes.

If you recruit people from other houses they'll be replaced with slightly stronger than usual generics. (I think the generics have the same stats and skills as the students whether or not you recruited them, but I'm not sure.)

Enemy Pegasus Knight are actually in a secret level 20 version of the class, with Lancefaire and 7 movement. We're a bit over-leveled right now, so 18 AS isn't too hard to deal with, but enemy Pegasus Knight stats are pretty brutal if you're only doing story maps.

This is Ingrid replacement, she has Darting Blow rather than Weight -3, and, oddly, Lance Prowess 3 rather than 5. She's still faster than the generics on both phases, since her Speed is brutal.

Those sure are some stats.

Enemy Cavaliers have... jokes for a stat spread, no other way to put it. 9 AS at level 20...

This is probably Sylvain? *Shrug*

I don't care too much about enemy Battalions since my front-liners are extremely charming, but they do occasionally matter.

Dedue has a Leather Shield if you feel like stealing it, but he's an Armor Knight with 1 Res and 0 AS outside of that. Short Axe makes him a little more dangerous than regular Armor Knights, but not much.

This should be Annette, I think? Mages do have the magical Battalions, so be a bit careful about combat math.

She has Miracle, but she's also fairly slow (technically she's actually pretty fast, just weighed down a lot by Nos) and hits like a wet noodle on both sides. She does heal people with Physic, which might matter for exp farming, I guess.

Byleth is a giant wall of stats, so the enemy House Leaders don't matter too much, but they do have evasion rings to steal. (I wasn't nearly as concerned about chugging Speed Carrots last time through, despite planting them the whole game, so I had to use Seal Speed and maybe even Rally Speed to steal them. Byleth has stupid amounts of Speed this time around, though.)

Claude's mooks have the same cavaliers with jokes for stats.

Ignatz is pretty accurate, and Seal Speed can cause Cavaliers to double you if you're a fairly slow unit, but he only has 14AS due to the Steel Bow so he's not too dangerous despite the 30 Atk.

Lorenz has Seal Strength, which is interesting, and... Black Magic avoid, which he can't use. His stats aren't bad, and he does have a 1-2 range weapon.

Hilda has a Short Axe, Darting Blow, accuracy +20, and 29 Strength. Playing this map without doing Paralogues first probably has her seeing ORKOs on more or less everyone. The Mace shouldn't really matter, though.

Enemy generic bow mooks, not much damage, very low speed.

Probably Lysithea?

Leonie has Knightkneeler and a Steel Lance, so watch out for taking 14 more damage than expected thanks to the combat art.

Raphael has 27 Strength, so he punches pretty hard. Decently fast, too.

Enemy healers really drew the short straw when it came to stat spreads. I think that's the Resistance +6 blow skill?

You need 25 Speed (or 19 with Seal Speed) to steal from Claude, but you get another Evasion Ring for the trouble. Your front-liners with Luck issues will probably still want the Goddess Ring, but the Evasion Ring is pretty amazing throughout the game for your Avoid tanks.

 

Shamir's AWOL since it's unfair for Faculty to fight in a student's battle. Watch out if you're leaning heavily on Catherine and Shamir, I guess. Petra's attached to Bernadetta, and also holding an Iron Lance.

Sylvain has his relic in case things go majorly south.

Ditto for Ingrid and her relic, I also give her the Goddess Ring over making her hold a Vulnerary.

The Devil Axe is only very occasionally useful, since Armor Knight bases means that Bernadetta can fairly consistently survive a combat from just about anything if she needed to trigger her personal.

I do some cleaning up of my inventories, convoying stuff that don't matter.

Edelgard ends up using the Short Spear like a Steel Lance most of the time, but it's not a bad use for it.

I'm a bit more on the ball about chugging stat boosters this run. Everything more or less always goes on Byleth---not necessarily the 100% optimal play, but never bad.

She chugs all 6 Speed Carrots (I'll spare you the screenshots.)

And I put her inventory back the way it was before I had to convoy some stuff for stat boosters.

Battalion reinforcing.

Fiddling with skills.

Edelgard drops Authority for Darting Blow, not like she has a Battlion right now anyway. (And she doesn't really have damage issues with physical Battalions, seeing how her Strength is House Leader tier.)

Dropping Authority on Linhardt.

Battalion Wrath isn't a bad skill, just annoying to use, so I drop it. Hubert's still a Monk, but he doesn't have magic +2 yet and Mages are also 4 move so it doesn't matter much.

I'll probably drop Axe Prowess eventually, but for now it might occasionally come in handy for the Devil Axe.

Typical combat art setup for me, 2 effective damage arts and repo.

Ditto for Edelgard, although she uses different weapons for her Arts.

Tempest Lance will be replaced with Repo if I ever around to mastering Soldier for Ingrid.

And here's a picture of Burning Quake, it's pretty good, especially for Ingrid, but it's still 1k gold a use, so yeah.

 

The Map:

This is actually really good advice.

This bit doesn't matter since I Divine Pulse unit losses on this map anyway. It does make the map more bearable if your team is underleveled, I guess.

Gotta rush mid, so I open with a Stride.

Doop.

And doop.

Edelgard couldn't quite reach the archer in the middle of the map, so I have Byleth repo her a bit forward.

She Cantos over for Pegasus Knight baiting.

This puts the archer just barely out of Defiant Avo range, assuming that is, in fact, Defiant Avoid.

And Bernadetta comes in to remove the archer and also activate her personal on Enemy Phase.

Strength will be fixed via level 20 bases, but I would like her to be very speedy in exchange.

I'll take the Chest Key out of Convoy later, past the initial rush the mooks will just wait for you to walk over and kill them.

Sylvain moves to the right side, dismounts, and holds a Training Lance. 12 - 6 is 6 Speed, just barely avoiding the double from the 9 AS cavaliers after a Seal Speed. It's a hassle if Ignatz and his cavalry mooks rushes mid the same time I'm trying to kill the Pegasus Knights to the left, so Sylvain's here to handle the issue.

Our stragglers move towards middle, other than Linhardt, who's sticking around near Sylvain for healing purposes.

Doop.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

Non-generics tend to have sky high crit chances on this map, so most of the team sees positive crit odds against them.

Still enemy phase, note how Sylvain's avoiding the double.

I want Sylvain to stick around to deal with Ignatz and the Cavalier, so I have him use a gambit while dismounted.

Getting Ferdinand a great level from the Adjunct exp.

Linhardt things.

Doop. (Mage is pretty nice for Lysithea, giving her access to Fire, an accurate, low weight tome.)

Ballista Shot, mostly for aggro purposes. We don't want her riding towards left.

But Edelgard goes bottom to lure Leonie anyway, since I don't trust the AI to charge middle rather than left.

The Ingrid replacement has a 1-2 range lance, so I have Byleth bait her while holding a Training Bow.

OG Ingrid goes to deal with the cavalier from Ignatz's pack. (It decided to charge mid rather than go towards Sylvain.)

Our 4 move mages are still slowly making their way middle. Except Linhardt, of course, since he's supposed to be next to Sylvain for healing purposes.

Enemy Phase combat. Both shots land.

Knightkneeler hurts.

Ingrid's damage output is less than stellar with a training lance, which is the trouble with being Speed leaning rather than Strength leaning.

And the last enemy phase combat.

Unfortunately I had to use a Pulse later in the turn, Edelgard needed to hit two 70% swings against an archer or I'll lose someone because of the moves needed to kill the archer after the miss. (Losing someone isn't really important since it's a safe map and all, but eh.)

Divine Pulse: 7

I started with Sylvain to start the turn originally, but this time I put my focus bottom.

Lysithea is poking this mook to setup a better Stride.

Striding Dorothea and Ingrid.

I decide not to have Edelgard kill the Archer, since it'd make her end turn in a vulnerable position, so she pokes Leonie instead.

Getting her this focused, but good, level.

This is still in Archer range, but she's safe with some healing.

And the archer prefers to hit Dorothea anyway. (Leonie's at 5 HP since Edelgard proc'd the bonus MT on her Crest.)

Dorothea's safe from dying, so bottom is fine for now.

Both shots land.

If Ingrid really wanted to she can bust out Luin and start OHKOing people, but that's expensive.

D+ Flying for Ingrid.

And she Cantos mid.

This kill and Canto mid was more or less guaranteed, so I left it until the end of the turn this time around.

Linhardt things.

Our team's still a bit split up, but it'll take a while for the mages to catch up the rest of the team.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

The archer mook is only standing on a heal tile, but in story the team refers to it as a fort, I believe. (Still enemy phase.)

Doop.

Dorothea moves middle after the combat. It's actually important that Bernadetta is in range to get attacked by Raphael, since I'd rather not let Red and Yellow kill each other.

Hubert rallies Linhardt for extra Physic range.

Byleth does Byleth things.

Lysithea walks mid and Linhardt puts Bernadetta out of ORKO range.

Patching up.

Sylvain kills a mook and Cantos towards mid.

Hilda is very scary, so out team waits to fight her on player phase.

We outnumber the enemies armies now, although not both of them combined.

Raphael is pretty scary.

Anything attacking Byleth... isn't.

This.. misses. Raphael being so dodgy actually cost me a pair of Divine Pulses, but that's for later.

Doop.

And doop. (Ingrid Cantos upward after the fight.)

This misses, so I had to Divine Pulse or Raphael kills someone.

I move to right before Lysithea's combat.

Divine Pulse: 8

And have Byleth kill a mook to burn the bad RNG numbers.

Only to discover there were more bad RNG numbers where the last miss came from.

So I do the smart thing and pulse to an attack I know will hit, which was Ingrid's shaky 60% or so Levin Sword.

Divine Pulse: 9

I move Ingrid to the side to open up a space to attack from.

And this hits like we know it will. In retrospect I should've used a stronger tome with less accuracy, since we knew we could get away with something in the 60s.

The combat gets Lysithea C+ Authority.

Had to use a combat art with a Killer weapon for maximum accuracy, which is pretty expensive. (Strictly speaking I didn't have to, but yeah. Kind of considering giving Edelgard Smash back, due to her Accuracy issues.)

Healing Bernadetta out of ORKO range.

Byleth murders a mook.

And Canto's away from Hilda, who's scary.

More patching up. (And also some shuffling around, note Sylvain hiding just outside of Hilda's range.)

We couldn't prevent the two armies from meeting, unfortunately, but we're still in position to swoop in and grab most of the kills.

Red Phase combat. (This hits.)

Doop.

Red army is acting like a team.

Yellow Phase. (This is the only combat since the other caster is stuck.)

Annette things.

In retrospect I should've had Byleth fight Hilda on enemy phase to save her a unit-turn, but eh.

Byleth Cantos south and we start working on the mooks bottom.

Rally Charm for Lysithea. (From Dorothea.)

We need to be careful because we do lose someone if Red and Yellow decide to gang up on us.

This lands.

I see that the Red army perfers to fight people who can't move, so I feel safe leaving Bernadetta and Lysithea down where.

Patching up.

Miracle is less awful than it would be in most Fire Emblem games, since you can use Divine Pulse to make up for RNJesus not smiling, but Three Houses doesn't give you enough ability slots to slot in something so low value.

Yellow goes after red, so this combat will never happen.

We missed a kill, unfortunately, but we'll still get the vast majority so I'm happy with how the map went.

Patching up from the red army.

Amazingly, Marianne procs Miracle.

(If this guy attacked first Miranne would've been ORKOd regardless of Miracle.)

Yellow doesn't move on their turn, so we start cleaning up Red.

Dedue is pretty strong, but not quite strong enough to OHKO even our mages. (Partly because all our mages have Armor Knight bases.) Ingrid isn't really a mage, but against armors there's not much difference.

She cantos towards mid and Dorothea picks up the kill. (Only 1 Thoron cast left so it was slightly iffy.)

Byleth flies down for exp bonuses and Lysithea kills a mook.

Getting both of the stats she cares about on a level up. (Mag and Speed.)

Bernadetta's pretty Strength screwed now, so getting her to level 20 will be nice.

Sylvain moved mid and I had him dismount since it's easier to walk through stairs than ride through them. (Not much difference, though, since Cavalier loses 3 move for dismounting unlike Paladin, which only lose 2.) And Annette picks up some healing exp.

D+ Faith.

Linhardt things.

Map is only cleanup now, since we outnumber both of the other armies combined.

Red army healing before combat, which is inefficient.

Since healing after combat would've topped the Cavalier off.

I repo'd Byleth forward a bit since she couldn't quite reach, and then picked up a Training Sword from Convoy.

I was trying not to kill this guy, you see, and it was hard even with a training sword.

Doop.

Petra's offenses can't be fixed with level 20 class bases, seeing how she doesn't have Bernadetta's +5 damage Personal, so her Strength growth will be important. I might have her pick up Brigand if I end up deciding to use her, since 17 Speed at level 11 is a pretty good reason to bring someone to a team.

Healing exp.

B+ Faith, so Linhardt won't have problems getting Bishop.

Some minor shuffling around and we end turn.

Bernadetta trades her Devil Axe for a Chest Key---she very rarely swings that Axe anyway.

Passing it on to Lysithea.

Who grabs the Killer Lance.

I have Byleth on pulling duty and top her off with Linhardt.

Doop.

Turns out the Cavalier had a short spear, so it doesn't immediately explode.

Doop.

Byleth Canto'd up a bit and Sylvain fights someone who's supposed to be Sylvain, I believe.

Doop.

Topping off.

Ditto.

We're cleaning up the non-Dimitri mooks first since I'd rather not make things complicated.

Interestingly enough, Mercedes chooses Nos over training bow. Probably because a training bow doesn't have enough MT to damage Byleth.

Bernadetta goes to activate her personal.

Mastering Archer, meaning we can get her into Pegasus Knight now.

I briefly consider stealing Mercedes' Vulnerary.

But nah.

Using the training bow to take the kill had the risk of Sylvain exploding (but the benefit of Byleth exp bonus), but I go for the safe combat.

C+ Lances. Shatter Slash debuffs defense, so between that and Seal Speed Ferdinand is really good at setting up 2RKOs.

Ingrid goes to lure Felix---I thought she was fast enough to avoid the double, I keep forgetting about Darting Blow.

Doop.

Dimitri has a Spear and a very strong arm, but he misses.

This could've ended badly, but Ingrid dodged one of the hits.

I convoy an Iron Lance and Byleth's Gauntlets and steal an Evasion Ring.

Byleth Cantos a little left afterwards and Hubert starts the chip damage train.

Hubert's busy debuffing more important people to Banshee this Felix, so I Gambit him.

Getting Bernadetta a pretty good level, although the Strength is mostly to tide her over till level 20.

Doop.

And dead.

Speed and Res are both issues for Sylvain, but 19 Strength will carry him for a while yet.

Riding C for Dex +4.

And Ferdinand hits level 10.

Doop.

Mage mastered, Fiendish Blow is great. Considering how rarely casters take enemy phase combat it's probably better than a collection of Tomefaires. It goes right into Lysithea's skillset since she had an empty slot.

Linhardt things.

For a pretty great level.

Doop.

Also pretty great level.

Only 1 army left to clean up.

Although getting to them takes a pair of turns. (Byleth was in range of the archer mooks)

Enemy range combat, and we can see the future of enemy Bow Mooks now, 17% might as well not exist.

If Divine Pulse didn't exist they'd still cost you resets once in a while, but we do have them, so yeah.

Edelgard's accuracy is a persistent issue, but at least she's fast. (She landed both hits.)

Poke.

Dead.

Mages more or less only care about Magic, so this is a pretty good level.

These archer mooks are really inaccurate for whatever reason.

Doop.

1 left.

And the team gets into formation to watch Byleth do all the enemy phase things, as usual.

20% is better than 17%, but not by much.

Yoink.

I don't attack with anyone since Claude has Close Counter.

He also has a melee range Gambit, so this only buys us one turn.

It's all we need, though.

This lands, and pushes Edelgard back a square.

Even point blank Claude's accuracy isn't too great, but it is a Byleth with over 10 Speed worth of stat boosters.

And Bernadetta grabs the kill.

Byleth gets a MVP triple crown, so +75 motivation for everyone, which is useful seeing how we won't have free time before Lectures begin next month.

Blessed Lance is mostly for someone without access to an Anti-monster Combat Art. For now, this goes on Ingrid. Reparing it costs Mythril, the same stuff Gradivus is made from, so I won't be repairing it. (If you fail to find rusted semi-relics like Gradivus, Parthia, or whatever, then feel free to use it on Blessed Weapons.)

 

[Shadow Mir]

On 12/20/2019 at 7:12 PM, DehNutCase said:

I don't swap her to Pegasus Knight because she still needs to pick up hit +20. (Which will let her stop using Curved Shot and start using Deadeye.)

Which is pretty much useless for anything other than luring enemies, considering that you're most likely to accomplish a fat load of nothing if you try to attack from any noteworthy distance.

On 12/20/2019 at 7:12 PM, DehNutCase said:

I do some motivation refills, which ended up being completely pointless since Byleth nabbed a triple MVP title later. (Which was +75 motivation for everyone.)

I get the feeling that was on purpose since you get a tutoring session to start the next month.

[DehNutCase]

Ch. 8, Part 1:

 

Academy:

Spoiler

November is a bit of an odd month, and we start the month getting dumped into Lectures, no free time first.

 

Lecture:

We have plenty of Motivated students, though.

Ingrid has better things to do than rallying people, but D Authority means she can equip flying Battalions now.

Looking at Lysithea reminded me to swap her out of working on Armor Knight stuff.

Hubert has Speed and Dex issues, so Thief will be a bit of a stat boost, even if we don't manage to get him into the class immediately.

Doop.

B Authority means she can equip Galatea Pegasus Co.

Defensive Tactics might be useful if you're trying to use other Battalion skills, since they'll last longer at below 30%, but you're spending 2 skill-slots for a single skill at that point. Outside of using Battalion skills it mostly saves you a bit of money---not awful, but cash isn't really a problem in Three Houses.

Bow rank is good. Effective damage is based on weapon MT, so having access to higher rank bows make sniping fliers a lot easier.

Bows for Petra because why not.

C rank bows. Close Counter is nice, but I usually end up swap it out once skill slots become an issue.

Authority is always nice. Paladin does need B Riding to 100%, but even at C+ it's pretty easy to get into the class, so I'm not too worried about Riding.

Starting Lectures before the free time does get me A rank in Professoring, which is nice for an extra Activity Point. We need A+ to do 3 maps per day off, though, and the last level is a bit over 10k points.

We do get 3 Adjunct slots now, though, so we have quite a bit of extra exp for our benched mooks.

We also get access to cooking the +1 all stat food, but between the hard to get ingredients (mostly the meat) and the fact that the Goddess Fish recipe and the regular Speed fish recipe is already pretty good I never actually bother with it.

Some supports.

The refill is pretty handy, although Professor Points wastage from sharing meals isn't too much of an issue now that we have a ton of activity points every day off.

Tea party.

It was Great.

Doop.

Pretty much the only relevant skill from skill exp, if you can call Petra relevant.

(I forgot to take the summary screenshot, unfortunately. Hubert got D Swords, Ashe E+ Authority, and Flayn C+ Lances.)

Some support levels from combat.

Doop.

Here when I find out you needed the month to tick over before the shop updates. We want some 1k gold stat boosters, so we buy 4 for the moment.

This fails.

So I get him into Cavalier.

I don't particularly mind Cavaliers being strong but slow, since Pegasus Knights more or less have strong and fast covered, but I do expect them be strong, so if Strength growths don't work out it's pretty likely for my Paladins or Cavaliers to hit the bench. (Ferdinand is useful even in the bench, though, because of his Bond support with Lorenz.)

Picking up free stats.

 

Exploration:

It's big fish day, not nearly as good as Fistful of Fish, but I still fish a little bit to pick up some Speed fish.

 

No important non-quests, still couldn't find any books.

 

Quests:

Combat quests will pretty much sit in the quest log until they expire. Wootz Steel forges into Brave weapons, but you need 4 to make a Brave and 6 to make a Brave+, so getting a single one isn't exactly enticing.

You can also do the quest from Catherine for a Silver Sword, but the Silver Bow costs more to buy. (Shamir's basically the only person who can use a Silver Bow right now, so she'll pretty much get the two-toned whetstone for free, seeing how the Silver Bow will go right back into her inventory.)

The quest involves a bit of running around or fast travel, but you do get some minor support point boosts with the people you trade with.

Tea is nice.

We don't really care about Iron Shields since we stole 4 from Sylvain's Paralogue, but it's a quick and easy quest.

Doop.

Doop.

Putting this here again. We only had Sword Skills+1 unlocked last time we were here. Getting Riding +2 since it'll help our mages get into mage cavalry.

 

Non-quests:

Some support levels.

Doop.

Speed Carrots are rolling in, now.

The 5x combo is actually slightly worse than the 4x combo in terms of yield quality, but it has a better chance of getting Speed Carrots, which is what I care about.

Pegasus Blessings are 2k, but worst comes to worst you can do some rare beast maps for gold.

We just sell off our Bullions for 11k gold, though.

We buy all the bait in the shop and also 20 Black-Sand Steel, for when we decide to forge some Killers.

Ignatz needs Authority to recruit, which means recruiting him happens pretty naturally as you get closer to Part 2. (He also needs 10 Dex, but Thief has 11 base Dex so yeah.)

Watchful Eye is just a renamed hit +20, a great skill, but other than that Ignatz is just your typical generic and forgettable Archer. He comes with the Resistance herb, though, which is great.

Getting him early give you access to Rally Speed early, but we're way past the point of caring about that. (He also gets Rally Dex and Rally Strength, but Rally Strength doesn't happen until S-rank Authority, which simply isn't going to happen in time to matter.)

Ashe is already recruited, so we're cooking with Mercedes from now on.

Fished up a pair of Speed fish so we're set for the near future.

Pegasus Knights don't dismount for tournaments, so you have to reclass into a grounded class for Brawling tournaments. (You can choose to be an Armor Knight for it, which means you'll take 0 damage. You do have a turn limit, though, so high speed and accuracy classes are better for actually winning.)

The tournament always counts as you being the attacker, so the fights are pretty lopsided, despite the occasional enemy crit.

I want to recruit Lorenz, so Byleth studies up on Reason.

You need D reason to recruit at B support with Lorenz, I believe, but getting even a little bit of Reason makes it quite likely for Lorenz to ask to join.

We're high enough level to just ask the other two Professors to help out, so I decide to recruit them. Waiting till later gives them a little bit of extra stats, but they're mostly support units, i.e. their stat more or less doesn't matter.

Unlike the Knights of Seiros the Professors only come with B rank in their combat skill.

The Intermediate Seal is handy, but now that we're level 20 it's strictly worse than a Bullion.

Manuela learns Bolting at A Reason and Warp at A Faith, so she's a fairly useful spell caster. She doesn't get Physic though, in exchange for getting Ward at C Faith---makes it easier to grind exp for her, but also makes her less useful in general. Her personal is +10 crit avoid for adjacent allies, which is unfortunately a bit hard to use on a 4-move unit.

Doop.

Hanneman does have a Strength in Riding, so it's fairly simple to get him into Dark Knight. (B+ Reason is needed to get 100%, but B is already good enough to test into the class, assuming you get him enough Riding and Lances.)

His stats are way more lopsided towards Mag than Speed, but that's a plus compared to Manuela, since Armors will be doubled by just about everyone, while the faster stuff almost never get doubled.

He picks up a nice set of offensive spells from Reason, capping out at Meteor with A+ Reason, but Faith mostly gives him boring support stuff, and not even Physic. His personal is Rally Magic, but he doesn't get any rallies from Authority, so look elsewhere for your rally botting needs. He does come with Seiros Magic Corps, though, which is useful if you're thin on magic battalions for your mages.

Working on recruiting everyone we can, so Byleth stuffs her face.

I forgot Lorenz already had a B support.

And we cap the day off with more tournament grinding. Rare Beast maps give a lot of gold, IRRC, but free time tournament grind isn't too bad either. (We do 2 tournaments.)

Leonie need Lances to recruit (and Strength, but this is Byleth we're talking about), so she's pretty easy assuming you like cavalry classes.

I have her working on Authority and Flying immediately to get her Pegasus Knight---being stapled to Byleth is great for exp gain, so even if she's going to be benched for a bit due to lack of flying Battalions she'll still want Pegasus Knight.

Great bases, especially when you remember that going Pegasus Knight will give her 4 speed in exchange for a point of Strength. (There's other changes too, of course, but that's the most relevant difference.) Her Personal isn't as good as Sylvain's due to the team's female bias, especially on the front-liners, but it's good.

Her Magic and Resistance won't be stellar, so no Levins for her, and mages are quite capable of ORKOing her if she doesn't avoid the double.

She comes with the Dex herb.

I replace Tempest Lance with Curved Shot, since she won't be using Levins for ranged damage.

 

Lecture:

Thanks to the statue tutoring people in Riding is a bit more useful now.

So we do that for our mages.

Doop.

Decided to tutor Caspar in Heavy Armor rather than make him Self Study for it.

We even had a bit of Motivation left over, which I spent on Authority.

He keeps working on Axes, but swaps out Heavy Armor for Authority.

More Riding tutoring.

E+

I tutor Leonie a bit in Riding on the off chance I want to get Paladin for her.

Authority for better battalions.

Not very useful, but at least Desperation saves Battalion hp rather than cost it like Renewal would.

I have Manuela working on Riding on the off chance she makes the team.

And I tutor her a bit in Authority because you need D rank to get the mage battalions.

Doop.

I forgot to take the summary screenshot again, but here's the only skill upgrade. Caspar gets C Axes.

 

Today's rare monster day, so I hop into the map to check it out. But it's just a Silver Sword, so I don't bother.

Got to love 1k gold stat boosters.

Getting Caspar Cavalier on the off chance I end up using him. (Brigand is probably better while he's benched, though, since Death Blow is way more useful than Desperation and Brigand doesn't cost speed growths.)

I sell a Silverfish I found while fishing for Speed fish.

 

Exploration:

We aren't fighting, so we're exploring.

Byleth is rapidly approaching the point where enemies have 0% hit rates on her, and she doesn't even have Alert Stance yet.

We're low on seeds again, so back to 1x Nordsalat.

Pegasus Blessings every week is pretty expensive, but 3 tournaments pays for it even if you're really cash starved.

Motivation refills and support building.

I'll need to study a bit of heavy armor to recruit Raphael, and a bit of Riding for Marianne, but there's no rush. (In story, Byleth probably eats with everyone at once, rather than having something like 6 lunches a day.)

D reason is needed to manually recruit Lorenz, and I really want the +2 range staff from his Paralogue (the +1 range staff from Flayn's doesn't unlock until later.).

This is just for getting better Battalions.

Doop.

And we cap the day off with another tournament.

 

Lecture:

It's a pity physical units are the only ones that get Dark Knight easily, since Cavaliers and Paladins only need to pick up B Reason for it, more or less.

Physical units can just swing a magic weapon around anyway, but I'm not sure fist wizards are a thing.

D Riding.

More Riding.

Ditto.

Some Authority for Manuela.

D is good enough so i won't be bothering with it much more than this.

More Riding for just in case of Paladin.

D+ Riding.

D Riding.

There's a surprising amount of good A rank flying battalions, so I need my fliers with high Authority in general, even if they don't get to A rank themselves. (Since they'll be using the B and C rank Battalions the A rankers leave behind.)

Lorenz asked to join, and also lets us into his Paralogue.

What else am I going to do, say no?

Free motivation refill for Hubert, I believe.

Perfects are now only a distant memory. : (

Not really interested in 2 range magic spells for Dorothea, but she does have spell slot issues so getting another spell isn't bad. (B Reason)

We almost need 4 screenshots for the entire class, now.

In addition to Dorothea's B Reason, Bernadetta got C+ Authority, Ignatz C+ Swords (I left him with his base goals since I don't care about him), and Leonie E+ Authority.

Tea party, but it was a complete failure, unfortunately.

Tossing some cash at our benched units, probably won't be useful, but cash isn't really an issue.

Between Distinguished House and his bond with Ferdinand Lorenz more or less has +4 Str and Mag, which means his 17 Strength hits a fair bit harder than you'd expect. He doesn't quite have the speed for doubling with a magic weapon, so against high Def targets it's mostly about 2RKOs with Frozen Lance. (A magical combat art.)

 

Note the 40 hp, 13 Def, and 12 Res. Lorenz is very bulky on both sides. His speed doesn't avoid doubles against anything except the very slowest units, but it also means I don't mind giving him a heavy weapon and shield, since his bulk tends to be enough to survive doubles without an issue.

His Paralogue is on the harder side, especially as your first or second, but the +2 range staff is great.

Lorenz has Lance and Reason as the skills he studies for as an NPC, so Dark Knight is trivial for him. Pity Dark Knight is worse than Paladin for me, thanks to the -1 movement and worse Faire skill (Tomefaires rather than Lancefaire). If he gets majorly screwed in certain stats Dark Knight could boost it up, since the bases are a bit better than Paladin's, but if he's that screwed maybe you should just bench him.

Strength in reason and starting with a relatively high rank for it means it's not too difficult to get him Warlock at level 20 for 17 Mag and 15 Resistance. (He has good Mag and Res growths, though, so it's probably better to just focus on Authority.)

I have him working on Lances and Authority, since he doesn't really need much else. Riding and Authority is also an option to try and grab +1 move, but I'd rather he work on hitting harder than riding further, especially since most of our fliers will be 6 move for the time being.

Leonie passes, so I swap her into Pegasus Knight.

Don't need Flying anymore, so I have her working on Swords (Falcon Knight needs C Swords) and Authority.

 

Lorenz's Paralogue:

Spoiler

Suggest Level: 17.

Doing 2 Paralogues means you're more or less over-leveled for the rest of them. This Paralogue feels more like a level 19 than a 17 though, mostly because the mooks like carrying Silver Weapons.

 

Pre-map Planning:

It's a defense map, this means you need to rout the enemy in 12 turns. And also kill the commander last.

(We're over-leveled, so there's no much strategy beyond 'kill everything that moves.')

Silvers are a tad less accurate than Steels, but significantly lighter and stronger. Mooks picking up Silvers is more or less the point where avoid tanking becomes much better relative to face-tanking.

And we just picked up 2 Evasion Rings, what a coinky dink.

Axes are still heavy, and their wielders are still slow, though.

Even so, 35 Atk hurts.

Mages have more Atk than AS again. Your magical units will more or less ignore the damage, but your heavily physical biased units will take fairly heavy damage if they can't avoid the double.

These guys didn't get the memo about upgrading to Silvers.

Pegasus Knights, still the level 20 NPC only versions, with a nice bunch of stats across the board, especially the 49 avoid if you're trying some long range sniping. They're using Irons, but they have Lancefaire so their damage isn't too bad despite that.

These guys didn't get the Silver Weapon memo either.

Advanced Seals aren't nearly as important as Intermediates, since they're way harder to chug as stat boosters, but it's still a free 2k gold unless you go overboard on hoarding them. (I did, last run---ended up with like 6 leftover at the end.)

As far as I know, these guys don't attack, so don't worry about their offenses.

The mooks with Battalions tends to have the kind you'd expect. Cavalry with Knight battalions, Pegasus with Pegasus, and mage mooks with mage, etc.

Devil Sword isn't as good as Devil Axe, you lose 6 MT and don't actually gain much of anything. (It's 5% more accurate and 4 weight lighter, big whoop.)

Pity Devil Lance isn't a thing.

Unless you have worse than Armor Knight bases these guys will have a hard time out damaging the typical mooks on this map. Fairly speedy, though.

As always, healers get shafted in the stat department.

Boss Mook has Poison Strike as his personal, which is... interesting. (He also has the Dex% poison skill we saw on the Assassin in Ingrid's Paralogue.)

I knew we got new Battalions, but didn't know the type or quantity just yet, so I start with those.

Wyverns tend to give less avoid (and Res) than Pegasus Battalions, which makes them worse for tanking, but in exchange they tend to give a fair bit of crit. If tankiness isn't an issue then using Wyverns will occasionally save weapon uses, which is why I tend to have Bleth using Wyverns.

If you absolutely need to see 0% against everything, go for one of the 15% avoid Pegasus Knight battalions.

Edelgard goes back to Pegasus Knight.

Bernadetta leaves Archer behind.

Empire Pegasus Co. for Bernadetta. Empire Pegasus Knights trade 1 Res and 5 Avo for 15% hit compared to the Seiros Pegasus Knights, so it's nice for someone like Bernadetta, who needs a bit of extra hit chance for long range sniping.

Lorenz is still in the E rank Authority gutter, so he picks up Seiros Mercs.

Edelgard gets Galatea, as I've mentioned before these max out at 7 Atk, 5% hit, 10% avo, 5 Prt, 6 Rsl, and 8 Charm, so a very large pile of stats.

Ingrid picks up our old Seiros Pegasus Co.

Hanneman won't be joining us outside of his Paralogue, most likely, so Linhardt takes his battalion.

We don't have any more flying battalions, so Leonie is stapled onto Byleth, holding Luin. Ferdinand gets the Lance of ruin and gets attached to Lorenz. (They don't have a support level yet, so this is more about grinding support points than boosting combat.) Dorothea gets attached to Shamir while holding Thoron.

I drop reason from Lorenz's skills since he has Frozen Lance for magic attacks.

Dropping Battalion Vantage, I believe.

Ingrid has better things to do than Rallying magic.

Dropping Miracle.

Pass gets swapped out for Hit +20.

Cleaning out Battalion Desperation and Lance Prowess, since Shamir's fine with an all bow inventory.

For people on Adjunct duty Brigand is probably the better class, but eh.

And I drop Rally Charm because Dorothea tends to have better things to do.

Lorenz gets a set of lances and an Iron Shield.

I forget to give Shamir the Silver Bow from her quest, but it doesn't matter on this map.

Byleth's inventory doesn't really matter, since she has access to the whole Convoy.

I forge up Edelgard's Training Lance since it's almost broken.

Ditto for Byleth's.

Sylvain also picks up an Iron Shield.

Forging up Bernadetta's Training Bow.

The Iron Turns into a Killer Bow.

And I repair Sylvain's Training Lance+.

It's 410G if you value Smithing Stones at 100g each, so a bit more expensive than just buying training weapons, but you do get more durability and a bit of extra effective Speed.

 

The Map:

We're pretty over-leveled, but Byleth doesn't believe in overkill, so she has Annette Rally her.

And she flies out to do Byleth things. (Her Seal's prevent counterattack effect activates, so she doesn't get hit.)

She also gets C Flying.

Bernadetta does some poking, and then Cantos back behind the walls.

Trade swapping to Training since I don't want her weighed down.

Edelgard dismounts and sit on a bush.

And everyone else shuffles around a bit.

Doop.

Enemy phase combat.

Between Byleth's high avoid and the Crest's healing effect the enemies do more or less 0 damage.

More enemy phase.

Ditto.

Silvers being less accurate than even Steel is an bit of an issue for Axes.

C+ Lances.

More enemy phase.

Player Phase, and Byleth reminds the archer mook what happens to archer mooks on this phase.

She Cantos North afterwards.

A gambit to make the turn easier, before Cantoing left.

Heavy Draw is pretty neat when you don't need to fix accuracy with Curved Shot.

Bernadetta fishes for a crit, but it doesn't happen, and she Cantos left.

Also kind of considering giving Edelgard a hit based Battalion, but nobody else can hold Galatea at the moment.

I'd like Edelgard to get Speed and Strength, but only Speed isn't too bad.

Stabbing a mook before Cantoing right.

Shamir doesn't believe in overkill either.

Linhardt things.

Lorenz trade his Vulnerary for a Iron Bow.

Which he uses to kill this mage mook. He's not quite lucky enough to see 0% crit rate without Prowess active, but he needs to get crit twice to die.

Our Canto units sit in a nice comfortable spot near the middle of our formation letting them go to whatever side needs help next turn.

Doop.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

Our archers are significantly more ridiculous than mook archers, so this Pegasus Knight gets OHKOd before she gets to double Shamir.

Doop.

Killer Bow poking isn't very good yet, due to low crit rates on everyone, but it'll get better. This does crit, though, and Bernadetta Cantos back into the fort.

Iron Bow poking.

Cavalier mastered, but people in Cavalier don't tend to have the Speed to care about Desperation.

Speed isn't too much of an issue if you have the damage to OHKO, but Lorenz doesn't have the offenses to ORKO from full hp yet.

This procs Lysithea's Crest, so the mook dies.

Healing exp.

Byleth gets ready to bait an archer.

Shaky hit rates, but Edelgard manages. She even avoids the damage thanks to her Crest activating. (She has the Crest of Flames as well.)

Linhardt things.

Ingrid flies down to bait a Pegasus Knight.

The initial rush is the hardest part, but we're over-leveled like crazy so it didn't take much to deal with.

The boss mook is kind enough to let us know the thieves with loot start moving now.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

Some people just don't like having hit points. (Last enemy phase combat.)

Bows on fliers are a hell of a drug.

Poke.

Doop.

A kill, and Byleth Cantos towards the right side.

Trying to get some chip damage in on the thief, although Sylvain and Lorenz don't quite have the stats to handle the guy by themselves.

Sylvain managed his hit, but Lorenz missed.

I gather my fliers into a Stride triangle and have Annet wait next to them for next turn.

Left side mooks will take a while to get to middle, so we can concentrate on the right side for a few turns.

Stride.

I really should just replace the Short Spear with a Steel Lance or something.

The mook dies, and Edelgard Cantos out of the range of other archers.

Byleth reminding enemy archer mooks why they don't need to bother existing. She Cantos down a square.

This misses, unfortunately.

And both Lorenz and Sylvain pull back towards mid.

Lorenz has issues surviving combats at half hp, so Linhardt tops him off.

It wouldn't be a kill either way, so I try a gambit, which works, and Ingrid flies back towards mid.

Doop.

It has Speed, I'll take it. She Cantos back mid after the kill.

We don't quite have the unit-turns to kill the archer mook safely, but Shamir gets some chip damage in.

Lysithea walks to safety and we call it a turn.

The second wave is coming, so we want to gather up mid again, despite the Thief slowly walking towards the exit tiles.

(Between the drawbridge and flying units you don't really need to worry about losing items on this map.)

I end up skipping the enemy phase by tapping the + button, so I use a Divine Pulse to grab screenshots.

Divine Pulse: 10

Enemy archers, what a joke.

The cavalier survives at critical hp.

But this guy wasn't as fortunate.

Byleth sure had some great levels recently, is all I'm going to say. (A lot of the stats came from stat boosters, mind.)

Speed, Strength, the stats that matter. The low Resistance issue does matter, but between Falcon Knight bases and hopefully being fast enough to avoid the double she shouldn't have problems surviving one round of magic damage, at least.

More enemy phase combat, and Lorenz takes a large chunk of damage.

So does Edelgard.

Even with Curved Shot the accuracy is a tiny bit iffy, thanks to how dodgy Pegasus Knights are. (And the fact I'm attacking from 3 range.)

Strength is a good stat, everyone should get as much as possible.

Doop. Now that the fliers are handled Byleth can go focus on KOing the thief before they escape.

So she Cantos down a bit.

Swapping into the lightest possible weapon by habit.

Topping off.

It's a good thing I don't really need to worry about archer damage, since IRRC the whole team has Armor Knight bases.

Pretty much vendor trash. Don't know why it's so bad compared to Devil Axe. If it had 90% or so accuracy it'd be usable, at least.

Using Deadeye to snipe means Bernadetta doesn't get to double, but usually flying mobility is worth more than doubling.

Bernadetta flies to the stairs and Linhardt does Linhardt things.

A poke and ride back to mid.

And a kill.

Getting Speed isn't bad, but it's hard to get enough Speed to be relevant for a male unit, so I'd rather he get Strength.

-100g.

Right side is more or less handled, so we need to deal with left side next.

Enemy phase combat. (Bernadetta dodges it, I believe.)

Player phase combat.

It's 2k gold, as long as you don't buy too many. (I miss the days of buy at full price, sell at half.)

Nothing pressing bottom, now, so Byleth flies back to join the team.

Killer bow poking.

It crit, so Ingrid comes in to finish.

Strength is worrying, and, unlike Bernadetta, Ingrid can't just let level 20 bases carry her.

Doop.

Not a good level, but her stats are fine for now.

Poke.

And dead.

I really should hand my Adjuncts 1-2 range weapons, but the adjunct attack is low enough that it doesn't really matter, anyway.

Lorenz Cantos back mid and Linhardt does Linhardt things.

Annette things.

And a doop. (Sylvain Cantos a bit back mid afterwards.)

Pretty much just mop up now.

Enemy phase combat.

Byleth doing Byleth things. She Cantos 1 square up so she can counter any attacks.

Doop.

Level 20 classes have 14 Speed, so if Sylvain gets 1 more point this point of Speed mattered. (Cavalier has -1 Speed, so he's at 14 right now, outside class effects.)

Sylvain Cantos to mid and Lorenz kills a man.

Quite acceptable.

Levin Sword things.

Doop.

Edelgard repositions her out of enemy range.

Linhardt things.

A bit of shuffling around later and the turn ends.

Doop.

And dead.

Annette things.

These guys refuse to hit Byleth on enemy phase, so she settles for killing them one by one on Player Phase.

Exp farming.

Lorenz goes to sit on the fort as a just in case.

Almost.

Poke.

This misses, unfortunately.

So Bernadeta picks up the kill.

Not quite a OHKO, unfortunately.

But we have more than enough unit-turns available to kill the mage.

Edelgard finally uses the Short Spear as a ranged weapon.

We want to kill the boss last since killing him earlier ends the map.

D Flying for Leonie.

Byleth Canto'd 1 square to the left.

This hurts more than just the 12 damage, thanks to Poison Strike, but the guy doesn't have any mooks to follow up.

Edelgard picks up the Training Bow+ since it's a way better ranged weapon compared to the Short Spear.

Not having Prowess means she's looking at positive crit odds, but that's what Divine Pulses are for.

She almost has as much Speed as Strength now, which is certainly something.

Doop.

Gloucester Knights have 6 Strength, 6 Mag, 15 hit, 5 def, 5 res, and 7 charm at max level, so a really good mixed damage Battalion. It's B-rank.

The gambit is physical, though.

+2 spell attack range staff. Lorenz and Lysithea can take advantage of the occasional damage halving effect, but that's more useful on Lorenz than Lysithea, since Lysithea isn't supposed to get into the kind of combats where that matters.

People without a Crest would take 10 damage after combat, but with +2 range you probably wouldn't see enemy phase combats anyway, so the demerit doesn't matter.

 

Sothis's Paralogue:

Spoiler

The available until date is kind of minor spoilers.

Suggested Level: 19, but we're a bit over-leveled even so.

 

Pre-map Planning:

There's a lot of monsters on this map, so if you have the unit-turns to break barriers before KOing them this map is a smithing material bonanza.

There's also a Knowledge Gem, so don't forget to bring a Thief or buy a Chest Key.

The birds have high speed, especially at low hp, but noodle arms.

The wolves have good speed, good damage, pass, and basically OG Wrath, the kind that works on both phases. (I didn't notice this until during the map.)

The map doesn't end until this guy dies. His stats aren't too much of a problem unless you get ganked by multiple monsters, but in that situation you'd probably lose people anyway, since they're good at sniping weak links.

 

https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Red_Canyon#Reinforcements

Says the reinforcements are based on whether you left wolves alive before aggoring the boss and his birds. Unfortunate, since me killing the wolves really early meant I missed out on a wave of Birds. Oh well. (I only looked up the wiki after I finished the map, since I had memories of 3 hawk waves spawning.)

Battalion things.

Ingrid gets Blessed Lance since this is a Monster map.

Lysithea needs Thyrsus the most since most of my other casters have long ranged stuff naturally.

Annette gets the March Ring. (She doesn't have long ranged stuff either, but she also doesn't attack much.)

Shamir finally picks up the Silver Bow, since there are flying units with high hp on this map.

And I also forge her almost broken Steel Bow into a Steel Bow+.

I swapped the Short Spear and Training Bow+ back to Edelgard and Byleth, respectively, and also pick up a Iron Bow from for Edelgard.

Which I forge into an Iron+. Edelgard would be fine with heavier weapons, but she doesn't have the bow ranks to wield higher tier stuff anyway.

I sell a random Bullion.

And buy a pair of Chest Keys, since I like having spares in Convoy.

Bernadetta takes the Chest Key.

Unit comp is more or less the same as last map, ditto for Adjuncts.

 

The Map:

I notice Ingrid was in range to reach the Chest, so I swap her the Chest Key in exchange for her Blessed Lance.

Misses, but that's what you get for long range sniping. I Canto her upwards to provide support bonuses.

Ingrid grabs the Knowledge Gem. Byleth likes holding it, since she has skill exp issues, but we're almost A+ at Professoring, so we can afford to do some Faculty Training now. (She Cantos 1 square right afterwards, since she had a point of movement leftover.)

Swarm reduces Speed, so if this lands it'll make future hits more likely.

Annette things.

Swarm landed, so getting a hit on this guy is a bit easier, but he's still pretty dodgy. (This missed.)

I'd prefer to avoid the wolf's counter, so I have Shamir take the 20% penalty for attacking at range. (And also using Monster Blast for damage rather than Curved Shot for accuracy.)

Doop. (The crit lands, but it didn't really matter.)

Since Edelgard would've done enough to finish regardless.

Last time through I was a lot luckier with Wootz drops, getting multiples from just about every barrier break, but even at 1x per the Paralogue still drops quite a bit of forging material.

2 range weapons can counter a monster even if they attack at melee range, so bows are better than lances vs. monsters, generally speaking.

The crit lands, so the monster explodes, Sylvain cantos upward a bit so that Linhardt isn't in enemy range. (The wolves have pass, but you can still body block them by preventing them from having enough space to stand.)

Enemy units that aren't aggro'd don't show the proper AI prediction, which is annoying, since they're perfectly happy to aggro once enemy phase happens.

If you want maximum rewards you need to pull the birds at the bottom before killing all 3 starting wolves, since that'll trigger an extra wave of reinforcements, but I didn't look at the wiki until after I finished the map.

The extra wave is only birds, though, so they don't matter too much. Birds drop Mythril, but aside from Gradivus I don't really use Mythril for much.

Enemy Phase combat. Interestingly, the wolf that was in range to hit Sylvain rushed towards Byleth instead, so this was the only enemy phase combat.

Byleth pokes it.

And Cantos to the team.

Sylvain moves out of the way so Annette can do Annette things.

And Edelgard repos her to safety.

Everyone shuffles around a bit and I mess with inventories, first Bernadetta gives Ingrid her Blessed Lance back.

Linhardt does Linhardt things.

And Shamir takes the Knowledge Gem.

The classic sit around and wait for Byleth to do everything formation.

Enemy Phase combat.

Lysithea has some major accuracy issues on this map, but she gets lucky on her rolls. (This lands.)

Lorenz pokes a wolf and then Cantos away.

Trying to snipe wolves is pretty hard considering their high avoid.

Byleth breaks the wolf's barrier.

For phat loot. We already have enough Wootz to forge a Brave.

Poke (and Canto back).

And dead.

This was a very bad move in retrospect, since that funky looking skill to the right of Pass is OG Wrath. (Renamed Defiant Crit in Three Houses.)

Ingrid does get B lances from the combat, though.

She Cantos 2 squares to the right and I trade swap her into her Levin.

If you want max rewards you should probably have Bernadetta deadeye a hawk around now, since you need a wolf alive for the 3 hawk reinforcements to spawn. Hawks have noodle arms, so you can just send an Armor Knight to stall a full wave of hawks while your team takes care of everything else.

Amazingly, Ingrid doesn't explode to this. (Note the 51% crit.)

This was when I notice, oops, wolves have this.

Annette things.

This misses, unfortunately.

Bernadetta is always happy to snipe things, though.

Doop.

Doop.

So much phat loot.

Exp farming.

Lorenz attemps the kill, but misses.

Linhardt things.

I mean, it's not bad, but magic is what I care about on Linhardt.

Not sure why I'm feeding Byleth kills, to be honest.

Wolves are gone, so now the boss and his hawks will aggro without you poking them first. If you aggro without killing the wolves first I believe a double wave of reinforcements will spawn, for 6 monsters total.

Wolves are the important things on this map anyway, for me, so I don't mind losing 3 hawks too much.

The reinforcements are player phase, incidentally, so don't worry about your students being majorly out of position.

The hawks near the boss move a bit faster than the boss himself, and we have a turn before the north west reinforcements reach the team, so Byleth starts with the boss's hawks first.

Annette things.

A bit of shuffling around and we call it a turn. If we didn't kill all the wolves before pulling the boss 3 hawks will spawn just above where our team is, in the north east corner of the map.

Hawks have pretty sad stats. (Enemy Phase combat.)

Annette things.

Doop.

Getting Mythril from hawks is actually slightly difficult, since it's pretty easy to kill them by accident before breaking all 4 barriers. (First world problems.)

Byleth Cantos northwest to start dealing with the next wave.

Lure only works if there's enough space to flip the guy you're luring to the opposite side, so this doesn't move the hawk.

Doop.

Doop.

Assembly is the same way, Edelgard is blocking the hawk (well, giant bird) from moving, so neither Ingrid nor the hawk moves.

Dead.

Not a lot of Mythril drops, but Wootz Steel is more important anyway.

Silver bow has a lot of MT, so it punches really hard against fliers, barrier or not.

Pretty sure you meant to say 'Strength is all for a mercenary.'

She can get out of Archer now.

*Sad party horn noises*

Trade swapping Edelgard to Iron Bow for the enemy phase. (Since Edelgard aggro'd one by using a Gambit on it.)

Steel doesn't punch quite as hard as silvers, but it does make 2RKOs really easy. Bernadetta Cantos out of the way after the combat.

Two birds had their barriers broken, so our squishy back liners are safe.

Enemy phase combat.

The bird even tanked the hit with the last unbroken barrier, so we get loot.

More enemy phase.

Ditto. Byleth lands a crit, so this bird loses an entire hp bar.

It also gets Leonie a pretty amazing level from the Adjunct exp, although it'll take some major luck for her to start caring about Magic.

B Lances, so she only needs C+ Riding or thereabouts if I cared about getting her Paladin.

Doop.

Fire is lightweight and fairly accurate, so staying Mage is definitely a viable option compared to going Warlock for people with Dark Magic. Warlock has 5% higher Strength growths in exchange for 5% Dex growths compared to Mage, so going Warlock is mostly about getting better base stats.

A rare hp level from Lysithea. She also gets a bit more accurate, which is nice. (Luck is basically strictly better than Dex for mages, though---interestingly, Bishops get 10% Luck growths basically for free in terms of growths, but it's not really worth going Faith just for that.)

Doop.

Heavy Draw is pretty expensive* when you're using it with a Silver Bow, but Shamir can flat out OHKO a bird with it.

*Around 300g I think.

This misses, amazingly enough.

Reversal swaps where you and your target are standing, so it's more or less a worse Lure.

A Levin only had 43% accuracy against the birds, so I had Sylvain give Ingrid his Iron Bow in exchange for her Steel Lance.

77% isn't exactly great, but it's a major improvement over 43%.

Man, the game really likes nickle and dimeing us for Mythril, which is funny because Wootz Steel is so much better.

The bird without a broken barrier is charging up for the AoE attack, so it won't bother moving as long as someone is in range.

Amazingly, the AoE actually hits Byleth. (Also note the friendly fire damage, although it seems like it can't KO allies---it can definitely KO multiple of your mooks though.)

Enemy Phase combat.

Byleth can't move anyway, so she does some major overkill on this bird.

Ingrid drags the other bird back a little. She Cantos right with her leftover movement point.

Boss monster is getting close, so I Stride to get my back-liners out of the danger zone and to get in range to actually contribute.

Swarm for helping later attacker land hits.

Doop.

The interesting thing? Even if every single bird only gave 1 Mythril, if you got the 3 extra birds from leaving the starting wolves alive the map has 10 birds in it. Which is enough to forge Gradivus. (And also other semi-Relics.)

Everyone tries to rush forward, except for Linhardt, who drags Annette forward a little bit.

The wolf is charging up the AoE attack, so it's safe to take potshots at it.

The next wave of reinforcements is apparently turn based, but 3 turns is quite generous for 2 waves of Monsters (the boss hawks + the reinforcement wave). Though it's not quite enough for 3 waves (2 waves of Hawks + reinforcement wave), unless you have some good AoE Gambits.

You definitely have way more than enough unit-turns to kill everything, it's breaking the barriers before killing them that's the problem without Gambits.

I'm not sure how AoE attacks can miss, since you'd think they're more like saturation attacks, but late-game fliers pretty much don't care about AoE attacks.

Shamir starts the pain train by breaking a barrier from safety.

Another Stride for our stragglers.

More Linhardt mobility support. Warp would've been better, but he doesn't have it yet.

Doop.

Exp farming.

Doop.

That's 2 Braves worth of Wootz now.

No crit, but whatever.

Doop.

And dead.

Edelgard has 35% base Res growths (and Pegasus Knights have an additional +5%), so it's weird that she's so magically frail, but if that's the price to pay for the amount of Speed she's been getting I'll gladly pay it.

Our team's pretty scattered, but I knew I could aggro every monster that comes from the left while getting everyone out of range of hawks from the right side (I didn't know the hawks weren't coming), so it's fine.

I was quite tempted to keep this alive for a while just to see if he'd keep spawning reinforcements, but not enough to actually sit around for it. (This is the guy roaring for more reinforcements.)

Overkill doesn't exist in Byleth's dictionary.

Only complaint about Blaze is the single use, but aside from that it's pretty great. Sylvain Cantos towards the hawks to provide support for gambits.

We cap the Wootz loot off with a final 1x, which is disappointing. I could swear I've gotten 5x Wootz from a single wolf before, but maybe I'm mis-remembering.

Doop.

Lorenz cantos to support for the other bird, and Bernadetta feathers this one.

Doop.

I'll be pretty sad if I somehow end up 3 Mythril short to repair Gradivus or something, but Sublime Creator Sword isn't too much worse. Umbral Steel is... really damn common for a 5* smithing stone.

This is a bad place to stand, since 4 move means that she'll be hard pressed to reach the other monsters despite the +2 range staff.

Doop.

Not too lucky on drops, only 2 3x drops and the rest were 1x. 

Heavy Draw is a hell of a drug.

Exp farming.

Ditto.

Great level.

Just mop up now, more or less.

This bird's still alive, so Lysithea gets to contribute.

B Reason. Dark Spikes is effective vs. Cavalry, which is quite useful.

Shamir's pretty good at killing monsters, thanks to Monster Blast, but it's almost as expensive as Heavy Draw when you're using it with a Silver Bow.

I'd prefer getting Mag or Speed in a level, but Dex + Luck does give a bit more accuracy and crit, so it's not too awful. (Adjunct exp.)

There will eventually come a point where even Annette has better things to do than making Byleth even more overkill, but we're not at that point yet.

Barriers don't recharge once they're fully broken, which means getting chip damage is a bit harder, but we have a lot of long ranged options.

D+ Fliers for Bernadetta.

I should probably work on Lance exp rather than Bow exp, but eh. Holding a bow is better for fighting monsters, anyway.

Byleth Cantos over to start working on the boss.

Edelgard is almost as overkill as Byleth, but part of that is because the birds have pretty sad stats.

One last monster.

Enemy Phase combat.

D rank bows. I don't think I'll bother equipping Curved Shot for Byleth, since she doesn't care about counterattack damage (who hits her?) and she doubles pretty much everything thanks to the amount of stat boosters she ate.

2 hit barriers are a bit tougher than 1 hit barriers, but we have plenty of gambits left over.

Faith exp farming. I'd like Annette even more if she had Physic, but I like her plenty already. (As a reminder, she gets Mend rather than Physic.)

The boss doesn't have much Speed, but more debuffs can't hurt.

Doop.

Not much drop luck, but oh well.

Ingrid still suffering noodle arm problems. (And the Blessed Lance is heavy enough that she can't double.)

Doesn't crit.

Both Lorenz and Ferdinand got D+ Riding, so I won't bother showing 2 almost identical screenshots.

Doop.

Not too happy about his Speed, but between the 20 Strength and his Personal Sylvain will hit quite hard for a while yet. He also has Bond Supports with both Ingrid and Felix, so worst case scenario I can just have staple Felix to him and send him to the same part of the map as Ingrid.

We can also forge up some Brave Lances now, so Speed isn't as important as it used to be for dealing damage.

The Silver Bow is almost broken from just one map, but it was probably worth it.

Byleth lands a crit, I believe, so this guy explodes.

She says, breaking into the 30s for Strength. (She did chug a few Strength boosters, mind.)

I'm not sure if Edelgard even needed this, but whatever.

The extra Divine Pulse charges is by far the best reward of the post-map loot, since Umbral Steel feels like it rains from the sky during Crimson Flower. The in map loot is pretty good, but I'd probably favor the Wootz Steel over the Knowledge Gem.

 

According to the wiki you get 3 whole Divine Pulse charges, which is quite a lot, but I've never actually cared enough to check.

 

[DehNutCase]

12 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Which is pretty much useless for anything other than luring enemies, considering that you're most likely to accomplish a fat load of nothing if you try to attack from any noteworthy distance.

That's more or less why you need the hit +20, since it counters 1 range worth of accuracy drop off.

Deadeye is 6 MT compared to Curved Shot's 1 MT, but it's iffy to use it for damage before getting hit +20 since it had a minimum range of 3. But yeah, for serious sniping you'd need to be grounded, since archer battalions tend to be the ones with the most accuracy.

 

I do occasionally attempt Hail Marys, although most of them end up Divine Pulse'd for obvious reasons.

12 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I get the feeling that was on purpose since you get a tutoring session to start the next month.

Do you mean getting Byleth MVP three times? It's definitely the preferred outcome, but it was more of a happy coincidence from rushing her to level 20.

MVP feels like it's based on exp gain or something (maybe not necessarily exp gained, but the pre-level adjustment exp), so it's not something I'd want to manipulate too hard, due to the steep exp drop off from being over-leveled. And that's assuming I'm right about how MVP works.

[DehNutCase]

Ch. 8, Part 2:

 

Academy:

Spoiler

Edelgard is level 20 now, so we get this message. Since, you know, Byleth is too much of a potato to actually get into any level 20 classes.

2k gold.

Edelgard was pretty Resistance screwed, so going Wyvern actually boosts her Resistance. I don't mind paying 2k to give her some extra stats, so this was nice. (I don't actually go into Wyvern, though.)

Some support levels from combat. (It's interesting that this particular support happened, seeing how Ferdinand was an Adjunct for both maps.)

The Lorenz and Ferdinand support gives them a bit more punch when they're stapled to each other, which is nice.

Shamir goes Pegasus Knight.

Yoink.

 

Map:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 15.

Yeah we're crazy over-leveled for this.

 

Pre-Map Planning:

The map is a bit of a rush to get the furthest villagers before they explode, but as long as you have at least 2 cavalry units that aren't potatoes it's quite doable. You might be forced to use a few Divine Pulses because the devs are giant jerks, but aside from that you do have plenty of time to save the defenseless villagers.

We're past the 'freebie' stage of Chest Keys, so expect to have to cough up 300g to open Chests now, unless you brought Ashe, a Thief, or an Assassin.

More angry villagers will pop out from burning houses occasionally, but aside from that the map is very chill until you get close to Tomas, at which point it'll... still be very chill, since Tomas & co. will take a leisurely stroll around the map.

The real time crunch happens once you save all the villagers. At that point Jeralt will start charging towards Tomas, and he's really good at killing mooks. Remember, every mook you fail to kill is a mook's worth of exp wasted.

 

We're hilariously over-leveled, and our team is quite mobile, so the map is pretty much the team rushing as fast as they can to cover the whole map.

In another, better, world, this would be a Dracoshield. Instead it's localized as Giant Shell.

(I have a feeling the translator was new to Fire Emblem and didn't realize the words for this item was referring to dragons and not turtles, but I haven't played the Japanese Version, so it's not like I'm 100% sure the original name referred to dragons. I also don't understand Japanese.)

Horseslayer.

Note the Dex +4. Note it, because the Devs wanted you to know they deliberately added 4 Dex to the enemy mooks.

The regular villagers have 12 Luck, which would've been exactly enough to see 0% crit rates, if it hadn't been for the extra 4 Dex.

They could've simply made the Rampaging Villagers have 16 Dex base (note how the friendlies have 14, rather than 12), but no, they wanted you to know.

Armor Knights, as threatening as ever. (Not at all, unless you're a level 1 caster, a lot of level 1 physical units can survive this guy.)

Mooks with Battalions tend to have this one. It's not awful, but it's also not good enough to be interesting or notable.

Diamond Axe is strong. Diamond axe is also -20 Accuracy. This guy hits like a truck, but he probably sees close to 0% hit chance against anyone who matters.

Unlike the other mook, he's a Fortress Knight. He can KO level 1 physical units as well, in addition to level 1 magical units.

Enemy archers still haven't gotten the memo to either upgrade to Silvers or downgrade to Irons or Training weapons.

22 Atk, 19 AS is pretty typical these days, but still not threatening ORKOs yet.

This mook is guarding the Horseslayer, and he does have a Gambit, so be careful about getting stuck.

Ingrid got her Battalion yoinked, so she's on Adjunct duty. Edelgard wasn't really using the Short Spear as anything other than a lower MT Steel Lance, so Ingrid's holding it instead. Leonie has Luin, and is attached to Edelgard, and Ferdinand the Lance of Ruin, and attached to Lorenz.

Dropping Desperation.

Ditto, except the Battalion version.

Edelgard picks up an Iron Lance to replace the Short Spear.

Bernadetta gets her Devil Axe back.

Sylvain's stuff.

I buy a pair of Chest Keys because I like having them in Convoy. (I already had 2, but I like having spares in case I go into a map with Chests without remembering to buy some.)

Mages tend to have empty inventories, so Lysithea holds on to two of the Chest Keys. This way both Lysithea and Byleth (via Convoy) can act as Chest Key dispensers.

This is pretty much why I don't value Ashe's Personal. Convoy is a better version of the ability in exchange for costing gold. (Since you can hand keys to other people, rather than having to open the Chest yourself.)

But then I realize Edelgard starts in range of one of the Chests, so I have her trade her Iron Lance to Lysithea for one of the Keys.

 

The Map:

It's not exactly a hard map, especially considering how stupidly over-leveled we are, so I start without anymore prep.

I equip Wind to Annette for anti-double purposes and then have her Stride most of the team.

Edelgard grabs the Giant Shell.

Shamir doesn't quite ORKO, but we have plenty of turns to kill the important Rampaging Villagers.

Lorenz pokes at a villager and then Cantos down.

Sylvain pokes a nearby villager and then heads southwest.

Devil Axe KO, which also activates her Personal.

She ends turn over here, and also got a level up from the kill. But I missed the screenshot.

It should be +1 Dex, +1 Speed, and +1 Res, I believe, so a pretty good level. She'll want a bunch of Strength levels later, but not until after she gets 17 Strength from level 20 bases.

Byleth things.

Everyone's more or less fanning out to get to the most distant villagers ASAP.

Poke.

And dead.

Poke.

Hubert will be in for some pain on enemy phase.

Everyone else is fine since the allied mooks will take most of the damage. I forgot to take pictures of their stats, but you don't need the Soldiers alive so it's not like it matters much.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

Note the 2% crit, the dev's extended middle finger.

I spare you the screenshots of all the other villagers being smacked, so here's one breaking a wall. (All their attacks hit the regular villagers, but none of them crit.)

Not having Prowess active means Lorenz is seeing positive crit rates.

Jeralt destroys people, obviously.

The Soldiers are jokes, though.

And one last enemy phase combat for the road.

And then ally phase happens. Jeralt doesn't move until you've saved the villagers, but he does hit people stupid enough to end turn next to him.

The Soldiers do their best to kill themselves, though.

And also steal some exp while they're at it.

I have some questions about where the Villagers got all these swords from. Iron Swords I wouldn't have minded, but Steel is probably pretty expensive.

Byleth things, and she Cantos down.

Shamir saves a mook.

And gets an almost perfect level for doing a 'good' deed. (I hope that arrow was a non-lethal take-down.)

There's still two villagers down here, which will take 1.5 turns to handle. (Byleth kills one a turn, but Shamir needs two to kill one.)

Exp farming.

Ditto. Lorenz also Cantos back to safety because face taking 8 damage doubles do take a toll eventually, even if you started at 40 hp.

Edelgard also manages a KO a turn, which is nice. (She Cantos down.)

Doop.

Exp farming.

This point of Speed reminds me that I forgot to get Thief for Hubert, oops. There goes more or less a Speed Carrot. Thief will still be worth it for the 2 Dex, though.

Doop.

And dead.

Linhardt things.

Annette is about to get smacked, but she's fairly tanky and speedy, and Jeralt's pretty good at keeping the rest of the mooks off our backs.

We've apparently got close enough to trigger Tomas to tranform into Solon, changing the victory condition from Rout to defeat commander, which is unfortunate, since Rout gives more exp.

These are enemy phase reinforcements, so if you had people up here they're going to die, probably, but at most that costs a single Divine Pulse.

Enemy Phase combat.

Bushes are great.

This was the villager who matters the most, though, since he's the furthest away, and he failed the dodge.

If you had to keep even the Soldiers alive for max rewards this map would be significantly more annoying, because they're pretty unlucky.

But you don't, so they can go ahead and die.

For whatever reason, the Death Knight goes northwest to start.

Solon and his mooks also head in that direction, although they have to go southwest first.

People really like ending turn next to Jeralt. (Ally Phase combat.)

This guy was smart, and chugged a Vulnerary. (As long as villagers don't explode to a crit, which kills them from full hp, even in bushes, they'll heal once they get low.)

The Death Knight still has a good amount of stats, especially Crit, but Byleth is a even scarier wall of stats now.

Crescent Sickles are basically slightly more durable Steel Lances, except annoying as hell to repair. Feel free to use them until they break and then use the Part 2 thing to repair them. You'll have better stuff to use later on, but for now they're decent general purpose weapons.

Cavaliers still have jokes for stats.

Boring archer, boring stats.

Healers still have the short straw when it comes to stats.

The Death Knight has a Battalion for the first time, but he'll basically never use it for obvious reasons. It does give him a little bit of extra stats, but not enough to matter.

A lot of Those Who Slither in the Dark bosses have Agarthan Technology, but your front-liners will probably have enough Atk not to care either way.

As far as I can tell, Circe Staff doesn't actually do anything? You can't steal it, either. Solon has... garbage stats, pretty much. He crumples like an empty sack to physical damage. He does have 50ish magic attack on initiation, but the chances of him actually getting to attack with the stubby 4 move legs of his isn't very high.

Edelgard is still on Chest duty since he has fling mobility, so she trades away the Giant Shell for the other Chest Key.

Bernadetta saves the last villager on the left side.

And flies over to join Edelgard, who Canto'd down a bit after her trade.

Doop.

Byleth things.

B Authority, so Byleth can also use Galatea Pegasus Co., now. There's a pretty good general purpose A Authority flying battalion from Flayn's Paralogue, so that'll be the one Byleth will gun for.

She flies over to bait the archer mook in Solon's pack.

Poke.

More pokes.

(Both Sylvain and Lorenz Canto left after their pokes.)

E+ Authority.

And dead. Linhardt might have a bit of trouble if the enemy mooks gang up on him, but it's not very likely.

Patching up.

Exp farming.

Top side ends like this.

Bottom like this, red is the archer's attack range.

The AI prediction thing not working properly for enemy mooks that aren't aggro'd yet is pretty annoying, since this guy will totally go for Byleth once his turn comes.

The Death Knight doesn't ride at full speed until he gets down the stairs, so we have quite a bit of time.

Not a crit, so we're fine on Villager saving.

Not so much on Soldier saving, but those guys don't matter.

It's hard to see, but that's 14% hit. We're at the point where archers only slightly matter, now. Eventually we'll come to the point where we counter-kill them as well as completely ignore their offenses, but that'll be a while yet.

Ally phase combat.

Ditto.

An Iron Bow Curved Shot wasn't enough damage to KO, so Shamir had to fly 1 square extra to double the guy with her training bow.

Jeralt starts moving now, so we have a soft time limit for getting as much exp out of the map as possible.

Shamir flies towards mid and Byleth starts a lecture on Bow vs. Flier combat.

We want to kill the Death Knight and his friends for loot, so she doesn't go in aggro range of Solon's other mooks.

Doop.

Monk mastered, so it's time to get him Mage.

Healing exp.

C+ Authority.

Fishing for crits, doesn't work, so she flies back up.

Edelgard grabs the Horseslayer. It might be handy for adding a bit of extra damage vs. the Death Knight, but Knightkneeler is only C rank lances, so you probably don't care too much about Horseslayer.

Healing exp.

I had expected the enemy villager spawns to end now that we saved all the villagers, but turns out they keep spawning.

A villager pops out right in front of Bernadetta and smacks her.

Another one pops out to the right, and smacks a Soldier.

In retrospect, it was probably fine for Byleth to get in aggro range of Solon's mooks, since it seems like he doesn't aggro with them, but oh well.

Ally phase combat.

Ditto.

This crits, so the mook explodes.

Byleth flies towards the Death Knight, and Edelgard farms some exp.

Her Strength is still quite a bit higher than her Speed, but Pegasus Knight stats means they look quite close. (Amazing level, obviously.)

She Cantos over to Byleth after the kill.

The 3 range minimum on Deadeye is actually pretty annoying when you just want to use it for damage, but at least accuracy isn't an issue. (She flies over to the rest of the team once she's done.)

Doop.

Healing exp.

Jeralt's riding pretty quickly towards Solon, so we don't have many turns to farm.

Byleth briefly contemplates just stealing the Dark Seal. (If you want to go full meme you can probably give him something like an Iron Shield to weigh him down, but I haven't actually checked whether you can give people stuff while stealing from them yet.)

But there's no need to do that, so she flies to a slightly better square and swaps in some better options for memeing.

The only reason Byleth gets away with using Gauntlets is because she has 30 Strength right now. The 21% crit is an issue, but we have plenty of Divine Pulses.

In universe, everyone is probably so freaked out about Byleth being able to punch monsters to death that they just pretend she's actually using the Sword of the Creator, huh.

C Flying for Ingrid.

Dark Seals, they exist, I guess.

Another typical Archer v. Flier engagement.

Magic is fairly accurate even vs. fliers, so her low Res means you can't just toss Leonie into the middle of a bunch of stuff, but her offenses are definitely stellar. She even has a Bond support (with Alois) to boost her damage even higher later. Alois is a really late recruit, though, so she pretty much only benefits from it after Part 2 rolls around.

(Great level.)

Stride to give Bernadetta a bit more flexibility in movement.

One of the rare non-movement Gambits from this particular flying battalion.

Bernadetta flies out of range of enemy mooks, and Linhardt patches Byleth up.

Shamir picks up a free kill, and a free lance.

Doop.

We leave only Edelgard and Byleth in range of attacks.

Once we get the last sickle we don't really care too much about the rest of the map, so it's almost time to kill the 'boss.'

Yeah... healers really drew the short straw.

Enemy Phase combat.

D+ Flying for Leonie.

Ally Phase combat, Jeralt's really good at cleaning up. Hence why it's a serious race between him and the rest of the team in terms of mook farming.

Mounting is almost a free action, so I have Byleth mount before Bernadetta kills this mook.

Weapons with high durability make inventory management easier, but I don't particularly mind inventories with 5 weapons and an accessory. Crescent Sickles are still quite acceptable weapons to hang on to for most of the game, though, even if they won't ever do anything special.

Bernadetta Canto'd over to provide gambit support, and Shamir farms a bit of exp.

Repoing Shamir out of the way. (I'm doing these moves since Bernadetta's almost 20, so I want to feed her some kills.)

Exp farming.

Short and easy map, thanks to the team's huge mobility and the fact that we're hilariously over-leveled.

Amazingly, reinforcements are still spawning. Enemy Phase combat.

The priest, with nothing better to do, commits suicide.

Ally phase combat, I believe. This guy couldn't quite reach our allies from his spawn location.

Doop.

I'm not 100% sure why Solon's isn't full hp, maybe he walked over some fire. This misses.

This also misses. The two of them were mostly here to provide support, though, with their bows.

And Edelgard flips Solon closer to the team.

Byleth convoys for an Armorslayer to deal with the Fortress Knight.

The exp was disappointing, though, since she's so over-leveled.

Healing exp.

Ditto.

Dead.

We left an Armor Knight alive on the map, but eh.

Not exactly a great level to get to level 20 with, but she can celebrate the 4 Strength from level 20 classes, at least. Bernadetta has a Bond with Marianne, so even with the absolute lowest Strength she can get at level 20 she'll hit like a truck thanks to that + her personal, although from now on she'll actually need to get growths for Strength rather than relying on her pretty absurd bases.

 

12k gold worth of loot, which we proceed to convoy.

Doop.

 

[Shadow Mir]

13 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Bernadetta has a Bond with Marianne

Which does jack shit because they cannot support.

13 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

And then ally phase happens. Jeralt doesn't move until you've saved the villagers, but he does hit people stupid enough to end turn next to him.

Or anything stupid enough to attack him.

15 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Do you mean getting Byleth MVP three times? It's definitely the preferred outcome, but it was more of a happy coincidence from rushing her to level 20.

That was what I was talking about. Personally, I would explore to finish that month and motivate my students.

On 12/18/2019 at 12:06 AM, DehNutCase said:

Fistful of Fish is way better than the golden fish days for cash.

I fail to see it when most fish sell for chump change, to be frank.

[DehNutCase]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Which does jack shit because they cannot support.

Huh... Wonder if the oversight was the Bond or them lacking a support. If I had to guess it's because they didn't have time to do support lines, so it's probably the lacking support bit.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I fail to see it when most fish sell for chump change, to be frank.

Fistfuls of Fish also multiply money fish drops, so you actually catch more of money fish on Fistfuls of Fish days than Golden Fish days. Golden fish days merely double the chance of getting Golden fish (from 5% to 10%, according to https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/monastery/fishing/), so it's worse than Fistfuls of Fish which at minimum gives you double drops and occasionally gives you something like 4 or 5 fish at once.

If you're using high tier bait it's also worse than Fish of Mystery for cash, since Goddess Messenger vendors for 1.5k or so. But fishing up Goddess Messenger just to sell it is some kind of Galaxy Brain play.

 

Golden Fish day is just way under-tuned for whatever reason. 

Edited December 23, 2019 by DehNutCase

[DehNutCase]

Ch. 9, Part 1:

 

Academy:

Spoiler

Tea Party.

It was Perfect.

Linhardt got B rank, probably from combat support points.

Another support from combat.

Bernadetta only had 26% to go into Sniper (which isn't enough to take the test), so I make a note to tutor her a bit in Bows.

 

Exploration:

Today's Fistful of Fish day, so I fish a lot.

 

Important non-quests:

We finally see a book again.

I only found this single book, I think it was 500 Professor Points.

You can talk to guard next to the main gates of the Monastery to choose who to meet in the Goddess Tower.

I've gotten Dorothea both times that I didn't bother choosing someone, so I don't think it's based on support points if you don't choose someone specific.

 

Quests:

Easy Fetch quest, so only getting a quarter of a Brave Weapon isn't too bad.

The dancer quest, highly recommended that you pick it up, obviously. Even if you don't want a dancer in the team for whatever reason, it still gives 5 Charm, Sword Avoid + 20, and Sword Dance, a combat art with 1 MT, 20 avoid, and additional damage based on Charm.

Dancers have magic access and 6 movement, so even if you didn't care about the physical combat stuff or dance you'd still get a 6 move caster out of the deal, assuming you gave the class to a caster who matters. I choose Dorothea because I'm lazy.

Oddly, you need to stop speaking to them and then speak to them again to offer a dance lesson. They do make sure you tell you to do that, though.

+5 Charm.

Annoyingly, Manuela only tells you how much Charm you need to win after you already picked a Dancer, so hopefully you picked someone with around 8 to begin with. (You can fix minor Charm issues with Tea Parties, but it's still annoying.)

Dorothea has way more Charm than needed, of course, since she starts with enough Charm to become a Dancer. (After you factor in the +5.) The quest isn't over until after the competition, though.

So we finish up the minor fetch quest from Gilbert.

 

Non-quests:

Doop.

More of the usual.

We buy the entire stock of bait again. We also buy all the 100g gifts a bit later.

And then I fish up about 6k Professor Points worth of fish. I didn't need nearly that much to cap my Professor Level, since the Lecture question gives a ton and Sharing Meals would've given 2k or so over this week and the next, but now's the best time to fish anyway. A+ means we get 3 battles per day off, so if we don't find any interesting monsters we'll finish up the Part 1 Paralogues in 2 days worth of fights.

It's a magical tournament this month, so I send Lysithea to do it. She has enough Speed to double everyone in the tournament, although she isn't quite lucky enough to see 0% crit rates against all of them.

We start Faculty Training now that Professor Points aren't an issue.

For getting Raphael. (I might need to get D to recruit Raphael manually.)

E+ Heavy Armor, so we might see him ask to join.

You need A Lances for Falcon Knight, and Byleth tends to use both Swords and Lances to fight, so it's best to grab a little extra exp when you can.

C+ Lances.

Riding for Marianne. We might need D Riding for her as well, but I hope both Raphael and Marianne asks to join.

Cooking.

We're set for Speed fish for the rest of the game even if I cook every time it's available.

Falcon Knights need A Flying as well. Flying is less of an issue than Lance since Byleth will always be getting Flying exp from combats, outside of her short stint in Enlightened One, but getting Alert Stance a bit sooner isn't bad.

C+ Flying.

We by getting some support with Mercedes and Marianne.

Support from Faculty Training.

This is from a lost item, I think.

 

Lecture:

Bernadetta needs B+ Bows to see Sniper as an option, so I tutor her for it.

Authority for A rank Battalions.

D+ Sword for thief.

He'll get 20 points from self study so I spend the rest of his Motivation on Riding.

More Riding.

I should probably tutor Annette to get B Authority so I can have 2 Strides in the team, but eh.

D+ Riding.

Authority for better battalions.

And more Riding.

D+.

This doesn't do anything, since Flayn's full motivation and we're capped in Professor levels.

Tea party.

I might've just been unlucky with getting Charm from Perfects last run---this was Perfect.

So's this, which was unexpected.

Flayn'll ditch us soon, but she and Bernadetta are the only two people with access to Rescue. (Anna also has Rescue, but she's DLC.)

Hubert got D+ Swords, Lysithea C Authority, and Shamir C+ Authority.

We get some money.

We don't sell all the Defense fish on the off chance I decide to cook for Defense. (Very, very unlikely.)

Same for the Dex fish.

Money fish all get sold off, though.

I still have quite a lot of bait left, and most of them the high quality ones, but I'll probably be using them to try for Goddess Messenger. (As far as I can tell, only the 4 star and 5 star bait lets you see the Goddess Messenger at all, but I also could've just been hilariously unlucky with the lower level bait.)

Some 1k stat boosters.

This fails.

So we reload and get Hubert into Mage. Like Lysithea, Hubert doesn't really care too much about Warlock, so staying Mage is a decent option to keep Fire available.

Caspar goes Brigand on the off chance I make him Adjunct for someone.

And I buy some more seals.

We never got Mage for Petra, so going Pegasus Knight gives her a little Magic. Flying mobility means she can get a good amount of Adjunct exp in our flier heavy team.

 

Exploration:

It's probably better to do Battles this week rather than next, but eh.

Boring loot.

And we plant the usual.

A lot of the faculty will be out of the monastery next month, so now's a good time to do some training.

E+ Riding, we need D to recruit Marianne, but this means she might ask to join and save us the trouble.

More lance work.

Sword exp because why not.

C+. (We also get Sword Prowess Lv. 3)

I swap in Bane of Monsters in exchange for Grounder. We can just pick up a Bow for flying effectiveness anyway.

Bane of Monsters hits pretty hard and has some minor crit chance in addition to the Monster effectiveness, but in exchange it doesn't give any accuracy.

Lance exp.

And we stuff our face for Motivation refills.

And also some support building.

Doop.

We cap the day off with Choir because why not. Would've been better to do this last week since it was the Choir Festival, but eh. (Not bothering with picking good choices for Choir since we don't care about Professor Points anymore.)

D Faith.

Supports.

I don't know why, but I completely forgot about Felix. We have enough Sword rank to just recruit him once we get B support with him, though, and worst comes to worst I can just shove a bunch of gifts in his face.

Mercedes is willing to join us now, since she cares about Bows and Byleth does have some exp in Bows.

She comes with the HP herb, which is way better than Bullion, but HP isn't quite as good as the other stats, point for point. She doesn't get any personal combat arts other than a -5 Str bow art from her hidden talent in Bows, and her Reason line is just a bunch of progressively stronger 2-range spells. But she does get Fortify and Physic in Faith, so she's quite a good healer. Live to Serve is pretty iffy, though, since magic damage will barely scratch her and physical units will tend to ORKO her.

I don't really use Fortify since it's very easy to get a single unit to the point where they can handle all of the enemy phase combats without taking much damage, if any, so mass healing isn't very necessary.

Her base skill ranks aren't too bad, since working on Reason and Faith by herself does mean she has a nice amount of spells. Healers don't need to be very mobile thanks to Physic and Fortify being ranged, so I wouldn't mind her going Gremory just to pick up spell slots---but I don't really need any more healers. I can just tutor my offensive mages a bit in Faith if healing was an issue.

I set her Goals to Faith and Riding, since a dedicated healer isn't really a something I need. If I ever decide to use her I'd also tutor her Authority to D for a mage battalion.

 

Lecture:

More Bows.

Pretty much just a repeat of last week.

Aside from the skill ups, anyway. Almost A Authority. Not much point going for S Authority so I'll have her working on other stuff once she hits A.

Doop.

More Riding for our mages.

At least you pick up some minor accuracy and crit chance on the long road to A Riding.

Doop.

Lorenz gets a lot better with high Authority, since his spread doesn't do avoid tanking or doubles at all, meaning he really wants extra MT, Def, and Res from higher level Battalions.

I actually forget about Dorothea for a bit, since the game doesn't automatically change her into Dancer.

Sword Avo +20 is pretty damn strong, especially considering Sword Prowess is 20 Avo at level 5 already, but the whole point of Dancer is adding more mobility to the team and making a minimally invested unit provide as much combat as your highly invested units (by giving their turn to someone else), so investing in a Dancer just to turn them into a highly invested combat unit probably isn't the play.

Might be useful if you're doing a quirky run, though.

Tea Party.

It was Nice.

Back to Good for this.

Lots of notable level ups this time.

Shamir's steadily closing in on S-rank Bows.

Hubert got Riding C, Ferdinand Lance B, Dorothea Authority C+, and Leonie E+ Swords.

Now that the dance competition is over we get the loot from it. Morfis Plum is nice if you have issues Greenhousing for it, although we don't, but the other stuff are quite welcome.

She stays Pegasus Knight. Using Bows via the Cavalier line rather than the Pegasus Knight line is probably better for general purpose use, but only by a little bit, and fliers are pretty ridiculous on any map where flying mobility matters.

Going through the archer line pretty much means you'll end at Sniper, but that's not too awful, just a lot less mobile. (You'd have the same A Riding issue as mages if you wanted Bow Knight, but archers in the archer line are basically just physical damage mages anyway.)

I really should stop dumping resources into 2nd stringers, but whatever.

More 1k gold stat boosters.

 

Hanneman and Manuela's Paralogue:

Spoiler

Speaking of maps where flying mobility is ridiculous.

Suggested Level: 19, but this map is pretty easy even as your first Paralogue as long as you bring some Pegasus Knights for mobility. (If you bring Wyverns you're over-leveled, so it probably wasn't your first Paralogue.)

 

Pre-Map Planning:

Manuela starts in a bit of a pickle, but you have plenty of time to reach her with flying mobility. Come back later (with a Wyvern or two) if you don't use Pegasus Knights, would be my suggestion. 

We've over-leveled and stacked with fliers, so the map is just rushing to Manuela and some minor cleanup. If you lack flier mobility getting to the Rapier in time might be a little hard, but fliers a good idea for a lot of maps, so get some already.

Quick Riposte is stronger than the Heroes' version, it prevents doubles in addition to guaranteeing a double, so if you need to ORKO these guys you want either a brave or to fight them on enemy phase.

High speed classes are really Speedy, 32 Speed at level 22. The guy's weighed down by his Steel Sword, but he's quite fast and hits pretty hard despite that. Also has 46 Avoid.

Mercenaries exist, I guess.

So do, uh, these guys. Mages really like having more AS than Atk.

Mooks with battalions have Bandits. Not awful, not interesting.

Assassins are a bit faster than Sword Masters, with similar damage output, but they don't have Quick Riposte so anyone stacked to the gills with Speed does get to double them on player phase.

Brawlers are pretty painful for people without high Defense, and with 25 AS they're decently good at doubles.

Silver Bows are 12 MT, but they're also pretty inaccurate, so we're starting to get to the point where enemy Bows don't matter. They dumpstered breakers because breakers felt broken or something, but didn't mind giving fliers 40 Avoid for free via Alert Stance+ and Avoid +10...

Boss mook, he doesn't move, but he does have a Killer Axe if you end turn right in front of him. You can use a positioning gambit to move him off the heal tile if you want, but it's not needed.

Rapier guy is a Sniper. Vantage seems to the the Sniper's 'bonus' skill (like QR for Swordmasters and the Poison thing for Assassins), but they rarely have dangerous stat spreads. Note the Iron Bow, so this guy might actually hit your fliers.

Pegasus Knights are still pretty scary thanks to their high mobility and decent stats.

Our first introduction to Warlocks, I believe. They hit hard enough threaten ORKOs on your slower and not very Resistant units, and even your faster units will have issues dealing with them, since they're pretty accurate thanks to Reason Lv. 5 and the way magical accuracy works. They pack Seal Def as their bonus skill, which is... interesting, I guess.

(Just because they can hit fliers doesn't mean their physical damage buddies can...)

Armor Knights continue to exist, although they're high enough level with a good enough weapon to threaten KOs on level 1 physical units now, rather than having to upgrade to Fortress Knight before that's possible.

The Archer who starts next to Manuela doesn't move (I think he'll start moving once you attack him, maybe, but he tends to get ORKOd, so...).

He also has an Experience Gem, handy if happened to have a front-liner who doesn't come with their own 20% exp gain Personal. It's a 50% bonus according to Serenes Forest.

There's more Snipers on the map than just the one holding the Rapier. They're fairly accurate and hit decently hard, but their stat spreads aren't much an issue even so.

It's a very low deployment slot map, so we grab our main fliers and Annette. I forgot Dorothea had Dancer now, so if I remembered Annette probably would've been replaced for her.

Ingrid's stapled to Byleth, Leonie with Luin to Edelgard, and Petra with an Iron Lance to Shamir.

I give the Knowledge Gem to Byleth, if she needs Evasion she can just take an Evasion Ring out of Convoy.

Edelgard picks up an Iron Lance over the Horseslayer she got form the Chest last map.

Shamir picks up a Goddess Ring for some extra crit chance.

Some Battalion Replenishing.

I forge up Shamir's Training Bow since it was almost broken.

Hanneman doesn't have a Battalion and Manuela's stuck with her default AoE healing one, but they're not very important so whatever.

 

The Map:

A Stride to start things off.

The Sniper at the bottom right corner gets a grim reminder that just because they're in a level 20 class doesn't mean the Flier vs. Archer matchup changed any.

Ingrid gets a decent level from the Adjunct exp, although her Strength is really iffy now.

Byleth Cantos a bit upwards after the fight.

Fishing for crits. (And it happens, so this guy explodes.)

Shamir Cantos over for some enemy phase combat. Mountain textures don't show threatened squares properly, so be careful about ending turn in them.

Brawlers are a threat to most of our units, but Byleth and Edelgard don't care too much about them.

Edelgard Cantos up a bit and Bernadetta swoops in to grab the kill.

Bernadetta Cantos next to Shamir to take an enemy phase combat as well, and Hanneman starts walking.

I don't do anything with Manuela so that's turn 1.

Enemy phase combat.

The crit didn't happen, but Petra gets a level. Speed isn't really an issue for her, but she needs Strength even more than Ingrid because Ingrid at least has the magic to swing a Levin around.

The mage misses, unfortunately, so Bernadetta doesn't get her Personal active.

More enemy phase.

A few mooks walk towards us from the left side, so some of our fliers go over to help. The crit lands, so Shamir flies back to where she started.

Doop.

C+ Flying for Edelgard.

She Cantos over to Manuela afterwards, meaning there won't be any problems keeping Manuela safe.

The crit doesn't happen, and Bernadetta Cantos out of this guy's range.

Doop.

Byleth Cantos over to deal with the Swordmaster and Hanneman tries to kill a mage. He misses.

Annette walks over and we call it a turn.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto.

This lands. (The 40% accuracy is from the enemy support bonus, it'd be 30% normally.)

Ingrid masters Pegasus Knight.

Shamir tries for a crit, but it doesn't happen.

Accuracy is an issue thanks to the Gambit debufs, so Byleth takes out the Sword of the Creator.

Byleth had other OHKO options but their accuracy was worse, and Sword of the Creator will get upgraded soon, meaning durability isn't too much of an issue.

Doop.

She Cantos up afterwards.

Annette walks closer to the team and Hanneman walks into the mage's range, equipping his lightest spell. In retrospect I should've just gone with the highest damage since he'd be doubled by everything on the map regardless. I mean, aside from the Armor Knights, but Armor Knights don't matter.

Edelgard flies over to fight the Axe guy walking towards Manuela.

Minor patching up.

Pretty much just mop up now. The Pegasus Knights will fly towards Manuela soon, but we're quite a bit ahead of schedule thanks to our fliers.

Enemy Phase combat. Edelgard procs bonus damage on her attacks thanks to her Crest so the guy dies.

More enemy phase.

Doop.

Dead.

Byleth Cantos upwards after the fight and Annette gets some healing exp.

I get the idea of making this guy immobile so Manuela doesn't just explode immediately, but it might've been better to just put him somewhere else.

Doop.

Edelgard flies over to bait an archer and Manuela farms some exp. (Ward is pretty good for exp farming, since it's a fairly high level spell that you can always use.)

Bernadetta starts poking at the guys chasing us.

A single flying archer can more or less handle everything that's chasing us, so the rest of the team starts pushing towards the Rapier mook. The Sniper does start running towards the top right eventually, where he'll escape, but you tend to have plenty of time.

Silver bows hit for a lot if they land, but that's a big if.

More exp farming.

Edelgard dismounts to take advantage of the bushes, and the archer has typical archer things happen to it.

Benadetta pokes the brigand and then Cantos to a good spot for fighting the mage on enemy phase.

We shuffle around a bit, and Shamir trades her Goddess Ring in for the Experience Gem.

Doop.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto.

Ditto.

The pegasus knights flew down, so Shamir handles one.

It has Strength, so I'm fine with it.

D Flying for Shamir.

Shamir Cantos a little to the side and Byleth goes for the Brawler. She Cantos up after killing him.

Shamir isn't nearly as tanky as Edelgard or Byleth, so I have Edelgard use a Gambit to prevent her from getting ganged up on during enemy phase.

Leonie masters Pegasus Knight from it.

She flies above Bleth afterwards.

Doop. (This breaks her Training Bow, but she has a spare.)

Everyone moves up.

Enemy phase combat.

The Archer v. Fliers thing doesn't really work on our archers, seeing how they can counter-attack and OHKO, even if they're being threatened with a (fairly shaky) ORKO themselves. One of the many situations where +5 hp would get a unit out of ORKO range, but it's not important enough to backtrack for, this late into the game.

Using Ward rather than healing because even at 20 hp Byleth is safe for quite a lot of combats.

She pokes a Swordmaster before Cantoing down to bait the Warlock.

Byleth did a bit of extra damage thanks to her Adjunct, I believe, so Edelgard gets to double the guy to death.

Our fliers move in to cut off the Rapier Sniper's escape.

And Bernadetta starts taking potshots at the mooks in the left side of the map.

Our mages are still slowly walking towards the team.

Enemy phase combat.

Annette things.

Bernadetta doesn't have Darting Blow yet, so despite Annette she couldn't double the Assassin. She flies down since the enemy mooks are slowly walking around to get to us.

Our fliers are in position to grab the rapier and even kill the boss if we wanted to, but there's no need.

More Bernadetta poking. She Cantos to safety afterwards.

Doop.

The Rapier is a very nice sword, but we get it oddly late considering in most Fire Emblem games the Lord tends to either start with one or get it within a few maps. Byleth will probably start using it once the Armorslayer breaks.

Edelgard Cantos back a bit and Byleth removes the last archer that's up here. She Cantos out of enemy range afterwards.

More exp farming.

The crit happens, so this guy explodes.

Felt like farming exp on Shamir, so she ends turn in enemy range.

Weird that the mooks are heading down to get to us rather than taking the top path, but I guess they were prioritizing the mages.

Enemy phase combat.

Bernadetta takes a potshot and then Cantos to safety. There's an archer down here, but between the archer and the Assassin it's actually the Assassin that's more threatening, even for fliers.

More exp farming.

Byleth flies into the Brawlers range, but I end up deciding to let Shamir take the enemy phase combat.

Strength is good.

In retrospect this was a bad idea, trade swapping to Training. It doesn't avoid the double, and a stronger bow might've KOd on the counter.

The KO's really shaky, and we have Divine Pulses even if it does land, though.

Bernadetta can handle the entire bottom side, but she's not exactly fast at doing that, so we'll need to send somebody down to help her soon.

If we haven't already murdered most of this guy's mooks, this is probably what he says to get them all to aggro.

Shamir dodged a punch, so she's safe. (Enemy phase combat.)

Doop, and a Canto up towards safety.

Doop.

Shamir flies over to Manuela for healing. Annette's our other healer on this map but she's quite a few turns behind.

Our mages head up and Edelgard and Byleth heads down.

More Bernadetta potshots.

Annette things.

Patching up.

The damage doesn't really matter since the heal tile will patch it up, but we don't actually want to kill the guy right now anyway.

3 mooks left.

Doop.

The crit doesn't happen, so Bernadetta flies away to let Edelgard get the kill on enemy phase.

Annette things.

Shamir dodged the counter so I left her in place.

D+ Flying for Petra. (Adjunct exp.)

Exp farming.

Almost done.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

Exp farming.

Doop.

And the kill gets Shamir a great level. Her bulk is pretty iffy---20 Speed doesn't avoid doubles from the faster units and I don't really want to give her Shields like I would Lorenz, so she's actually one of our squishier units if she doesn't manage to dodge things---but her offenses are great.

I think her Motivation was already maxed, but whatever.

Some Renown and a pair of pretty good battalions. Macuil Evil Replling Co. is an A rank mage battalion, with the giant AoE lightning Gambit and 7 Mag, 30 hit, 1 Prt, 6 Res, and 10 Charm at max level. The high accuracy means it's nice for people like Hubert and Lysithea, who tend to have accuracy issues.

Indech Sword Fighers is an A rank physical battalion with the Counterattack gambit, which allow unlimited range counters for the people you buff with it, and has 8 Str, -2 Mag, 20 Hit, 10 Crit, 4 Def, and 10 Charm at max level. It's not as useful as the Black Eagle Pegasus Co. which you can buy from the battalion shop once the shops upgrades again, since fliers can't equip Indech, but if you really want Retribution early it's there.

 

Flayn and Seteth's Paralogue:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 21

But really you can do this whenever you want, the way the map works means that being under-leveled isn't really an issue.

 

Pre-Map Planning:

A rare water map, so flying mobility is nice. But since the enemy is also hampered by trying to walk on water, not having flying mobility just means the map takes longer rather than making it harder. It also has sand---as usual in fire emblem, grounded units have issue with sand, with the exception of casters and thieves. (Dancers, oddly enough, don't count as casters despite having magic access.)

Quite fast, hits decently hard. Everyone except Byleth gets doubled, I believe, although most of the team can survive the double.

The Assassins have different weapons for whatever reason.

Thieves exist, but they don't matter since Assassins also exist.

Iron Sword Assassin. *Shrug*

Lots of Warlocks on this map. Hits decently hard, debuffs defense, fairly fast.

Mages shouldn't be an issue.

Bishops are standing around on heal tiles holding loot. Their attack isn't awful, but they still have the short end of the stick stat-wise. Note the 7 AS.

Levin Sword for loot. She has Nosferatu so she hits a lot softer but is a little bit faster in exchange.

Black Pearl is the Charm stat booster, Byleth doesn't really need it, but it'll probably go on Byleth anyway.

 

I forgot to take a screenshot of Seteth, unfortunately, but he has pretty decent stats all around. He's also under your control so there's no rush to get to everything before he kills himself.

I finally remember about Dorothea having Dancer so I get her into the team. Ingrid's attached to Byleth, holding a Short Spear, Leonie with Luin to Edelgard, and Petra with an Iron Lance to Bernadetta. Byleth's inventory doesn't really matter, thanks to Convoy, but she has the Devil Sword just in case a bit more sword damage comes in handy.

Bernadetta swaps out her broken Training Bow+ for an Iron Bow.

Dorothea goes Dancer.

I change her skills around a bit (mostly swapping in Sword Prowess and Sword Avo +20) and give her a training sword just in case.

I drop Axe Prowess to make space for Darting Blow, which will get unlocked pretty soon.

Lysithea loses Battalion Desperation since it's pretty much useless for me---I don't keep Battalions low hp just to trigger Battalion skills.

Linhardt gets Authority over Reason, since why not.

Leonie loses Authority to pick up Darting Blow. (Not very relevant at the moment since she's an Adjunct.)

Petra loses Sword Prowess and Authority for Close Counter and Defense +2. Also not very relevant for the moment.

She also picks up Curved Shot in place of Tempest Lance.

Sword Dance is a good way to apply some chip damage, since Dancers can get quite a bit of Avoid from holding a sword, but Dorothea doesn't exactly hit hard on the physical side, and using combat arts with a Levin is pretty expensive.

And the point of Dancers is that you can just have your crazy invested unit take another combat to deal with whatever problem you're having, anyway.

Edelgard gets Monster Breaker in exchange for Helm Splitter. 9 MT, but no other bonuses except for the Monster Effectiveness.

Some Battalion replenishing.

 

It's a pretty easy map, so I don't bother with more prep.

 

The Map:

Annette things.

Doop.

Edelgard Cantos bak, and Dorothea does Dancer things.

Poke.

She'll need some serious strength to make the team, since she crumples like paper to everything and only does physical damage, but it might work out.

Poke.

Great level, although we're actually at the point where her Dex is getting worrying now. If she gets enough Strength (very likely) she can just keep using Training+ for accuracy, though.

Her physical offenses are almost as good as Edelgard's, although the lower Authority and paper Resistance would mean she's a bit worse in practice. Nothing to complain about, though, and I should probably start making a slot for her in the main team.

Edelgard Cantos back to the beach, and Shamir takes the kill.

Fire is a good spell.

Byleth Repos Lysithea out of the Assassin's range, and Cantos out of the mage's range herself.

Linhardt things.

Some shuffling around and we end turn.

Enemy Phase combat, and we can see Aegis proccing. Doesn't really matter for Lysithea since physical units can probably ORKO her through a single Pavise proc and she has enough Resistance to survive magical units regardless.

Doop.

If this had luck it'd be more or less the ideal level, but it's still pretty great.

I move Flayn a bit forward and Dance Lysithea.

Poking at the Assassin, they're so dodgy even our archers are seeing imperfect hit rates.

Shamir Cantos to the side and Lysithea picks up the kill.

Linhardt things.

Byleth things.

Byleth Cantos a bit more forward and Annette does Annette things.

Edelgard goes right to lure an Assassin.

We move Seteth a bit closer to the team and end turn.

Enemy Phase combat. Assassins are so fast that even with Rally Speed Edelgard is still getting doubled. She's tanky enough not to care too much about the damage, though.

Shamir picks up the kill.

And Cantos right to lure some mages.

Byleth things.

Byleth Cantos down a bit and Flayn and Edelgard do some minor mobility assistance. (Edelgard repo'd Lysithea up.) Rescue is only slightly better than Reposition at the moment, but it does give a good amount of exp. Pity we'll lose access to it later, since I'm not going to make Bernadetta go into Faith.

Annette walks forward a bit, gets danced.

And does Annette things.

Linhardt things.

Linhardt's stats are pretty... bad, now, to be honest. He does need magic for Warp to be good, although his healing doesn't rely too much on magic. (Since most of the additional healing comes from his staff and the Priest's +5 healing skill.)

Bernadetta has nothing better to do, so she starts taking potshots at the people on islands.

Bernadetta Cantos back towards the team, Lysithea may or may not have moved a bit, and we end turn.

Enemy Phase combat.

Basically a level that only gets boring stats. Still a decent level, though.

Strength, Ingrid, Strength. : (

She's very bulky and pretty decent at swinging a Levin, but her offenses will have noodle arm problems if I brought her in as is.

Enemy Phase combat still.

That's not the right quote for this level, but it's still good.

And the last enemy phase combat of the turn.

The three mooks on the Island are moving towards us now, so Lysithea starts taking potshots.

Fishing for crits. (The crit doesn't happen.)

Bernadetta doesn't need Strength as much as Ingrid, thanks to her Personal, but it's still important. Speed and Dex means it's a decent level, though.

Bernadetta Cantos towards safety and Shamir picks up a kill.

She Cantos to the team afterwards to get buffed.

Danced.

And sent out again. Pity you have to have Dance to take advantage of her Personal on player phase.

She ends turn in range to lure an Assassin.

Dispelling the Seal Defense from fighting the Warlock.

Linhardt things.

Byleth moves down to provide extra exp.

Edelgard moves left to help with the 2 Assassin mooks coming our way, and we end turn.

Enemy phase combat.

Fishing for crits still.

The crit didn't happen, but Lysithea has enough damage to OHKO, albeit with shaky accuracy. (Dark Spikes has pretty high MT in addition to being effective versus cavalry, so it's pretty useful in general.)

It misses, unfortunately.

Annette things.

Bernadetta gets danced.

More crit fishing. Doesn't happen this time, either.

But it does get Bernadetta Darting Blow. (Also C Flying, although that's not immediately useful.)

Doop.

Left side is handled for this turn.

Doop.

Shamir Cantos towards the team, and Flayn does some healing.

Nosferatu needs to miss for this to be an ORKO, but it hits. Byleth Cantos to the square above the Bishop after the fight.

Linhardt things.

The enemy pretty much waits for you to come to them, so it's easy to get exp for whoever you want on this map.

Enemy Phase combat.

Byleth things.

A spare Levin's always useful. Edelgard, Shamir, and Bernadetta all have enough Magic to swing it around okay, although Bernadetta would need to get C Swords first. (I do need to get her C Swords eventually anyway, though.)

Byleth Cantos closer to the team and Lysithea pokes an Assassin.

Doop.

Annette doesn't need a lot of levels to help out in combat, since just about any mage melts armors, but levels are still nice.

This is basically identical to just Repoing Lysithea forward.

Linhardt things.

Dance.

Dance gives exp so Dorothea tends to end up around the same level as Byleth, maybe even higher. Pretty meh level, but she has enough stats to kill armors and that's really all she needs.

Everyone moves a bit closer to top right.

Annette walks forward and gets danced.

To do Annette things.

Edelgard flies over to bait a pair of mooks, and Byleth joins her for extra exp.

Lysithea walks forward a bit and Flayn does another ranged Reposition.

Bernadetta gets a free poke in.

She Cantos down and Shamir does the same.

Doop.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

Edelgard missed the Assassin on EP so the guy's still full hp, Bernadetta starts the chip damage train.

Doop.

D+ Flying for Shamir.

Dead.

Our 3 fliers are up here to lure mages and smack a Bishop.

Annette things.

Byleth walks forwrad a single square and gets danced.

She needed that 1 square of distance to hit this guy, you see. Between Res +4 and Strength +4 she has enough attack to cleaning ORKO through Nosferatu healing.

For a pretty good level.

I should give this to a front-liner who isn't Byleth, if I ever get someone else on Edelgard's level of bulk. But it'll probably go on Byleth. Charm isn't too important since you can always just tea party for it, anyway.

Linhardt things.

Some moving around, most notably Lysithea into Warlock range.

One last Bishop left.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto.

Doop.

Edelgard Cantos left and Linhardt cures the poisoning. (From fighting an Assassin a while ago.)

Chip damage and activating Bernadetta's Personal.

Bernadetta Cantos left and Annette does some patching up.

Ditto Flayn.

And dead.

It has Magic, so it's a good level.

Annette gets danced.

Not much left.

Stride for some extra mobility.

Doop.

The crit didn't end up happening, so Lysithea takes the kill.

Poke.

Exp farming.

Dead.

Edelgard Cantos a bit closer to the team, but still in Warlock bait range, and everyone shuffles forward.

Doop.

Enemy Phase combat.

Exp Farming. (The Seal Defense wouldn't do anything this turn, and it's cured at the start of enemy phase.)

Dead.

Edelgard Cantos over to the Bishop, Annette walks forward a bit and gets Danced.

Doop.

And dead. Byleth is still pretty over-leveled, but the 'boss' mooks have enough levels to give decent exp despite that.

2k gold, assuming I don't end up with spares.

Byleth flies down a square to lure a mage, and Shamir trade swaps her to Training Bow.

Only 1 wave left.

Enemy Phase combat.

That's... not a good way to break into level 20. Unlike Bernadetta, Ingrid doesn't have an obvious level 20 class (since she's gunning for Falcon Knight), so I'm not sure if I'll try to get another point of Strength for her.

She's quite bulky, so you can more or less toss her at whatever and expect her to live, but having damage issues is a pretty big issue.

Lysithea gives Annette her +2 range staff.

So that Annette can smack a mook.

Lysithea gets danced.

She takes her staff back and smacks the mook to death.

Exp farming.

No rush, so I leave the last mook alive for a turn.

Doop.

Dorothea gets repo'd into range to dance Annette.

Exp farming.

Chip damage.

And Annette takes the kill.

Doop.

Cichol Wyvern Co. is a pretty good A rank flying Battalion, with 7 Strength, 15% hit, 15% crit, 5% avoid, 6 Def, 1 Res, and 10 Charm at max. If you already have defense covered then its stellar offensive stats will save you weapon uses from the occasional crit and also make ORKOs quite reliable even outside of crits. The gambit is a boring Assault Troop, but the kinds of people who like Cichol crowd controls by going into a crowd and killing them all, anyway.

Cethleann Monks aren't nearly as interesting, though. It does have 6 Mag, 20% hit, 1 Def, 7 Res, and 10 Charm, so more or less A rank stats, but the gambit is the AoE healing gambit (i.e. pretty damn useless). Gloucester Knights is a B rank battalion with 6 Str, 6 Mag, 15% hit, 5 Def, 5 Res, and 7 Charm, so if a mage didn't care about having a gambit they could've just picked up the Knights and had some skill exp free for other stuff.

We also get the Spear of Assal and Caduceus Staff. If you don't do this Paralogue then Flayn and Seteth will use them against you in later maps. (They might also use it against you if you give both of them to Flayn before she ditches your house, but I've never tested that.) Spear of Assal is a pretty good general purpose lance, I like it more than Relics since it has 10 more Durability, but it does take A rank in lances to wield.

Caduceus Staff is +1 range. A little weaker than +2 range, but not by much. 4 range is about the magic number for ranged attacks to be safe from counters and a lot of mages have natural 3 range spells---bow knights can still counter you at 4 range, but they're also not very accurate at 4 range. It also restores hp every turn, so a nice bonus if your mage take some chip damage occasionally.

 

Ashe and Catherine's paralogue is next, but it's also significantly more annoying (it's an annoying map to begin with + it was the first time I played it), so it'll be a separate post.

 

[Shadow Mir]

On 12/23/2019 at 2:07 PM, DehNutCase said:

Fistfuls of Fish also multiply money fish drops, so you actually catch more of money fish on Fistfuls of Fish days than Golden Fish days. Golden fish days merely double the chance of getting Golden fish (from 5% to 10%, according to https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/monastery/fishing/), so it's worse than Fistfuls of Fish which at minimum gives you double drops and occasionally gives you something like 4 or 5 fish at once.

If you're using high tier bait it's also worse than Fish of Mystery for cash, since Goddess Messenger vendors for 1.5k or so. But fishing up Goddess Messenger just to sell it is some kind of Galaxy Brain play.

 

Golden Fish day is just way under-tuned for whatever reason. 

Ehh, I’d like to think I have a respectable chance of getting a golden fish when factoring in getting at least three chances for a fish on golden fish days, as opposed to otherwise.

On 12/19/2019 at 11:17 AM, DehNutCase said:

Probably because it's a Brave Weapon. A 20 use Brave would be pretty expensive on repair costs.

Probably. Or maybe it’s because Catherine spams its combat art for no reason.

RE: Mages: I honestly think the grind for Riding is too much effort to the point that achieving Dark Knight is not worth it, at least for females. Holy Knight is even worse.

Edited December 25, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[DehNutCase]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Ehh, I’d like to think I have a respectable chance of getting a golden fish when factoring in getting at least three chances for a fish on golden fish days, as opposed to otherwise.

The Golden Fish days aren't awful for money, and if I'm really cash strapped for whatever reason then I wouldn't mind fishing on those days for a quick cash boost, but compared to normal days Golden Fish would probably be something like a 1.8x multiplier, while Fish of Mystery something like a 2.2x multiplier* and Fistful of Fish would be something around 3x.

*Assuming you can successfully catch Goddess Messenger every single time it shows up---which is a very dangerous assumption to make.

 

All Golden Fish days do is provide extra cash, whereas Fish of Mystery and Fistful of Fish both have other benefits. It really needed better numbers on the cash department to be interesting.

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

RE: Mages: I honestly think the grind for Riding is too much effort to the point that achieving Dark Knight is not worth it, at least for females. Holy Knight is even worse.

My issue with mages comes from the fact that I like having mobility, and I'm willing to pay a lot for it in other areas like cost, range, or raw combat performance. If the mage cavalry line didn't exist I'd just hand out some extra magical weapons to my team once Part 2 rolls around and either bench my mages or reclass them into cavalry. The main reason I don't do that in Part 1 is because I can't repair magic weapons in Part 1.

A Riding is a lot of effort, but the other option is the bench for most of my casters. People with Warp or Rescue would still have a serious shot at making the team as infantry casters, but that's because they provide more mobility than they cost to bring.

 

That's mostly a playstyle thing, though.

[Shadow Mir]

11 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

My issue with mages comes from the fact that I like having mobility, and I'm willing to pay a lot for it in other areas like cost, range, or raw combat performance. If the mage cavalry line didn't exist I'd just hand out some extra magical weapons to my team once Part 2 rolls around and either bench my mages or reclass them into cavalry. The main reason I don't do that in Part 1 is because I can't repair magic weapons in Part 1.

A Riding is a lot of effort, but the other option is the bench for most of my casters. People with Warp or Rescue would still have a serious shot at making the team as infantry casters, but that's because they provide more mobility than they cost to bring.

 

That's mostly a playstyle thing, though.

Personally, I don't care that much for mobility, especially when I'm paying a hefty price for it, hence why I said Holy Knight is hot garbage. As I see it, the horse doesn't even come close to making up for losing doubled uses of white magic and the extra healing, and White Tomefaire is a dud skill because the offensive white magic is crap.

[DehNutCase]

Chapter 9, part 2:

 

Ashe and Catherine's Paralogue:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 21

It's a pretty great level for farming exp because of that, but it's also pretty annoying to farm exp on a fog of war map with enemy phase reinforcements.

 

Pre-map Planning:

The game doesn't tell you this flat out, but you get rewards for Rhea not taking a single hit. I also completely failed to notice that Catherine was one of my units rather than an Ally Unit, which made the map significantly harder than it had to be.

We're in fog of war, so no idea about enemy stats, composition, or location. There's even 2 mooks with loot drops on this map, not that you'd know unless you played the map before or are the type to scout the fog of war via save and reloads. I tried swapping to Thief to see if Thief gave better line of sight in Fog of War, but either it doesn't or else the better line of sight doesn't show before the map start.

This is Maddening, so your 2nd stringers are 1RKOd and your 1st stringers are 2RKOd, and you have to prevent Rhea from taking even a single hit for max rewards. So yeah, have fun.

Rhea's level 10, but her stats are still quite decent due to Archbishop being a pretty great class. If you stand next to her you get +6 damage and +3 def/res due to her Personal and Charm, but you need to push out on the map to grab loot. And it's pretty hard to protect second stringers if you don't have map control.

It's a pity we don't get to control her because Indech Sword Fighters would let an extremely invested unit take all enemy phase combats with their ideal weapon type, thanks to the Counterattack gambit.

I somehow fail to notice that Catherine is blue rather than green, so she ends up sitting out for most of the map. Great stats, fast enough to double just about everything on the map, enough strength to ORKO most of them, and enough bulk to survive something like 4 or 5 rounds of combat, which basically means she's indestructible. Her stats compare favorably to Byleth, basically.

She has a boring battalion that's basically a side-grade compared to just having her personal active, IRRC.

I had no idea what enemy compositions were like, so I went with more or less my normal team plus Lorenz.

Petra's stapled to Byleth with an Iron Lance, Hubert to Dorothea with Mire, and Ferdinand to Lorenz with the Lance of Ruin.

Ashe is our designated Torch carrier since he's underleved and I don't plan on leveling him. You really want 3 or 4 people holding Torches for this map, to cover all the directions you care about, but that's not something I knew before I actually played it.

Battalion repairs.

Forging up Bernadetta's broken Killer Bow into a Killer Bow+. The difference is 1 MT, 10% crit, and 5 max durability.

And Shamir's Iron into a Killer. Iron weapons can safely replace Training weapons now that our units have decent strength and accuracy, but their biggest use for me is for forging up to Killers. (People like Edelgard use Iron Bow+ due to weapon rank issues, but she has a Bow Weakness so it can't be helped.)

 

I had no idea what's on the map, so more prep wouldn't do much good. (I knew more torches would make the map easier, but I didn't feel like spending 2k or so on Torches.)

 

The Map:

Ashe starts things off by letting me see a bit more of the field.

Annette things.

I equip Training Lance to Byleth and fly her into a mage, which ends her turn.

Dancer things.

So I can do more Annette things.

I land Shamir in some bushes and have her equip a training bow for AS purposes.

Which reveals a mage with a Torch. Enemy stats aren't too much higher than what we're used to, the problem is that very few units in my team are designed to survive more than a single round of combat.

(One of the downsides of preferring mobility vs. raw combat.)

Edelgard things.

Very defensive level, but the Dex is good since she has accuracy issues.

Edelgard doesn't really need to use a Killer Axe to find ORKOs, and Torches are important on this map. (The proper way to play FoW maps with mobile teams is to spam torches so you can actually see things, letting you know how to how to maneuver, but nobody has the Torch spell, meaning that's a pretty expensive way to do a map,)

Bernadetta flies right and lands in bushes.

I completely fail to notice that Catherine is controllable, still, and end turn like this.

You'd think I'd notice the Ally Units: 1 and Untapped Units: 1, but I'm pretty good at not noticing things.

Did I mention this map had Pegasus Knights? Because 7 move fliers with 2RKOs on most of the team are totally in this map, and it's hard to see them before they get attacks off even if you have lots of torches. (Enemy Phase combat.)

More enemy phase combat.

Ditto.

Edelgard can't use the Killer Bow, but she's one of my 2 units who can survive multiple combats consistently. If I noticed Catherine was controllable I'd have 3, but I didn't.

Meaning I don't want to use her turns lighting a Torch, hence Shamir taking it.

Doop.

The monk somehow dodges both hits.

I fly up here with Byleth to see more of the map.

tl;dr is that this ends up being a hilariously bad idea on enemy phase.

Since she gets ganked by a Dark Bishop she couldn't even see. This wasn't even the worst part of the enemy phase.

Rhea gets decked by a Pegasus Knight from out of fog, meaning I would've had to Divine Pulse anyway.

Byleth died to 3 rounds of combat... (1 on player phase, and then 2 on this enemy phase.)

Divine Pulse: 11

So we pulse to the start of player phase, knowing there's a Dark Bishop in the top left and a bunch of Pegasus Knights flying in from the right. I have no idea who thought making the player trade Divine Pulses for information is good map design---it's like expecting the player to read up on a strategy guide before doing a map. Information is the one thing that shouldn't be hidden from the player in a strategy game.

 

I had no idea Byleth was 3RKOd on this map before I started, and even now I still don't know the locations on the map where she'd be 3RKKOd. (Aside from where she exploded, obviously.)

For the record, top left corner is actually the only place where Byleth would get 3RKOd. There's another Dark Bishop in the opposite corner, but that Dark Bishop didn't have magical mooks around it.

Right side had pegasus issues so I don't bother with cute torch trading and just fly Edelgard right to light her Torch.

Bernadetta dodged both of the Pegasus Knight's hits on EP, hence why she's full hp.

She flies back towards mid after the combat, and Lysithea smacks a mook.

Here's some enemy stats, incidentally. Cavaliers still have pretty awful stats across the board, but 7 move means they're fairly threatening in a Fog of War map, since you can get ganked by an entire group really easily.

Pegasus Knights are just straight up better than Cavaliers at everything. They have ORKOs on my under-leveled units and 2RKOs on pretty much everyone except Byleth and Edelgard. They even have 19 Defense, just like Cavaliers, because why not.

Edelgard can barely see this Bishop. I didn't know at the time, but killing this guy stops reinforcements from spawning on the right side.

Only 1 attack lands, and this time I have Byleth fly down a square rather than have her scout more of the map.

Doop.

Scouting the left side. Pretty dangerous, since Shamir is in 2RKO range of a lot of mooks on this map, but sitting in mid just means my 2nd stringers will get ORKOd from fog over and over. At least my 1st stringers can survive 1 or 2 combats.

Doop.

Not a good level at all. Magic is a good stat for him, but it mostly lets him get 2RKOs, whereas enough Strength and he can ORKO things with a Brave Lance.

Not great, but it's actually very good stats for a level 12 unit. Like Lorenz he really needs a bunch of Strength, but unlike Lorenz he might get enough Speed to avoid doubles, at least, even if he's paper on the magical side and can't use a magical weapon all that well.

Lorenz ends up Canto'ing next to Rhea.

This lands.

So I dance Lysithea. I knew there were 3 Cavaliers bot so I wanted 1 to die to avoid someone getting 2RKOd.

Doop.

I make a wall around Rhea, but honestly it doesn't matter much. Even with Rhea's -3 damage aura Ashe would still be 2RKOd if a pair of Pegasus Knights flew out of fog to hit him. (Pegasus Knights are only top and right, but I didn't know that.)

Doop.

Enemy Phase combat.

Dark Spikes is heavy---if there was another mook here Lysithea would've died. Glass Cannons are hard to use on maps where you can't control combats properly. (Still enemy phase.)

Good level, she doesn't really need Warlock so I'll probably keep her Mage for the Fire spell.

I'm going to tl;dr a bit and tell you that I end turn like this, with Ashe scouting out the right side a little with his Torch after Edelgard moved away.

It doesn't help because: A, Pegasus Knights can attack him from fog despite the Torch. And B, these are enemy phase reinforcements Pegasus Knights, so even if Torches had longer range he wouldn't have been able to see them.

 

Some jackass thought making the player use Divine Pulses = good map design. I'd much rather not have Divine Pulses to get combat saves on Casual difficulty and Conquest* type map design, since apparently we can't have Divine Pulses without maps deliberately designed to burn through them.

*Conquest might've been hard and occasionally opaque, but it did its best to be fair and not to hide information. You can tell what kind of units would best handle a map just by looking at the map before deployment, which is the mark of good map design.

Pictured, what a Pegasus Knight does to my 2nd stringers.

Divine Pulse: 12

Sigh...

Fishing for crits.

Shamir Cantos mid after her combat and Byleth does Byleth things while flying right towards the reinforcement spawning Bishop.

Topping off.

Not a great level at all.

Edelgard flies over to scout for Byleth.

Dancer things.

Very good level. It's very likely that Dorothea will get front-liner stats thanks to dance exp, but using a Dancer for combat purposes more or less costs 6 movement. A Dancer basically moves without costing a unit-turn if she dances someone, but not if she attacks or uses an item or whatever.

The Training Bow only did 26 damage, and I didn't notice the Bishop had Seraphim rather than Nosferatu (Nosferatu would've meant I needed to do 53 damage to ORKO), so I had Byleth swing her Sword of the Creator.

Rhea helpfully tells us there's a reinforcement Bishop on the left side as well after I take this guy out, IRRC.

Knowing there's another Bishop to deal with I have Ashe give his Torch to Bernadetta, since he's ORKOd by everything whereas Bernadetta's only 2RKOd.

Bernadetta lands over here, equips her Training Bow for AS (not enough to prevent doubles from Pegasus Knights or Assassins, unfortunately), and uses her Torch.

We shuffle around a bit and have Annette patch Lysithea up.

Great level. When she isn't doing supporting things Annette is still a mage, so she can still kill armors with her unit turn if she has enough Magic and Speed.

We can see the reinforcement Bishop on the left, and we know armors will be marching in from top right although we can't see them now. (We saw them at the start of turn with Edelgard's torch.)

Enemy phase combat. Catherine's weak to magic since she brought a Battalion rather than just rely on her Personal. But she also has 52 max hp so it's fine.

Armors really don't get how the priest vs. armor matchup works. Linhardt heals back to full with Nosferatu. (Still enemy phase.)

This guy doesn't even make contact.

Unit-turns are tight so I have Byleth chug an Concoction from Convoy rather than have one of my healers heal her.

I make Dorothea hold a training sword for slightly more safety versus random Pegasus Knights out of nowhere before dancing Byleth. (Even with a torch we only see 6 squares, meaning Pegasus Knights are free to fly from fog and 2RKO just about everyone.)

Being stapled to a dancer is also pretty good for exp. Magic matters more than Speed since it's very hard to get doubles on non-armors and trivial to get doubles on armors, but it's still a good level.

Doop.

Annette things.

Byleth does Byleth things on her way to the left side of the map.

Fishing for crits, it lands, so we don't need to worry about Reinforcements from the left. I actually have no idea when and what type of reinforcements would spawn from the left side. Mages, if I had to guess.

According to https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Falling_Short_of_Heaven#Reinforcements, it's Assassins. Assassins have 6 movement so they're perfectly capable of ganking you from fog despite a Torch. This bloody map...

This means if Bernadetta didn't land the crit she would've die to Assassins on Enemy Phase.

Doop.

Another slight tl;dr since someone's about to die, this was a bad place to be in for Linhardt.

Since he gets ganked on enemy phase.

Thanks to Canto I can tell the max movement of the enemy Pegasus Knights, at least.

Divine Pulse: 13

Thanks to Canto we can deduce the threat range of the 2 Pegasus Knights fairly easily.

Shamir takes some potshots, but no crit.

She Cantos out of Pegasus Knight range and Linhardt does some patching up.

I continue to fail to realize Catherine is one of my units.

Enemy phase combat.

Catherine has stupid good stats, pity I didn't know to use her. (More enemy phase.)

Of course, she is fighting fliers, so it's a bit hard to hit the broad side of a barn. (Last enemy phase combat.)

Poke.

Dead.

This, unfortunately, was a gigantic mis-play. Shamir's probably my 3rd best unit at the moment, but she's still 2RKOd by just about everything threatening.

There were a pair of Assassins (maybe even 3) up here, and she didn't manage to dodge enough hits to live.

Divine Pulse: 14

The point of quality of life features is to make the game less annoying to play, it's not an excuse to design more annoying maps...

Dead, again, but this time we Canto down.

Doop.

Edelgard is made of bricks, so it's fine for her to be up here.

Byleth grabs a Torch from Bernadetta since I need her to be sweeping the map for loot.

I also trade her Knowledge Gem for an Evasion ring since we're a bit low on Divine Pulse charges now (2 left), so I need her as ridiculously combat capable as possible.

I don't know why I didn't light the torch immediately, though.

Dancer things.

I swap her to Training Lance rather than Sword of the Creator and light the torch---odd choice, considering I could've lit it earlier.

I had a nagging suspicion something was odd about Catherine at this point, but I still failed to make the obvious deduction.

We see a mage at the bottom left and a pair of Cavaliers bottom right.

Edelgard isn't fast enough to avoid the double, but she's Edelgard, so she doesn't really care. (Enemy Phase combat)

Doop.

Cavalier things.

Some people really don't like living.

Petra's gonna need some seriously lucky Strength levels to make the team, since as is she's just a worse Ingrid. Yeah, she'll probably have more Speed, but she's also way squishier and gets completely walled by armors.

Last enemy phase combat.

Flying right.

And we spot this guy. He hits like a truck, but has jack all for Speed. Steel Shield is pretty meh since even the Silver Shield we've had for ages (from a tournament) isn't good enough for me to remember to equip on Lorenz.

There were 3 Assassins up top after all, so I start working on them.

Fishing for a crit, which happens. Killer+ has 35% crit rate, so they're very nice weapons for occasionally saving unit-turns, especially if you use crit Battalions. Bernadetta Cantos towards Rhea after the fight.

Doop.

I'm already happy to bring her into endgame maps with her current spread. She'll get ORKOd by everything but her offenses are at an acceptable level. If I decide to keep her in a flying class she'll want S+ bows, though, to pick up Bowfaire and Bow Crit +10.

Shamir also Cantos back a little, and Edelgad tries to finish this guy. (She missed.)

She flies left afterwards since we know there's a Dark Bishop up here.

At some point I'll stop being stupid about this and just admit Lorenz will be doubled by everything forever, but some habits are hard to break. (I swapped him to Training Lance) and had him end turn up here to see the Assassin.

Dancer things.

Doop.

Linhardt things.

I do some shuffling around (mostly moving Annette and Ashe next to Rhea), and end turn.

The training bow she had wasn't quite enough damage, so I have Byleth pick up an Iron Bow from Convoy.

It's a good thing she's so lucky, because Bows would be pretty dangerous to hold otherwise, due to skill-slot issues if you used more than 1 or 2 Prowess skills.

B lances for Petra.

Steel Shield is bit of an odd reward since we have Silver already. But I guess it's better than nothing.

No point flying in blind just to take a counter to the face (although if you really wanted to you can just keep flying until you hit the Dark Bishop, since that'll end your turn next to the guy for a counter-kill), so I have Edelgard light her Torch.

This guy has a Secret Book, so he's much more interesting to kill and loot. He also has way better stats than the other Dark Bishop for whatever reason. (Note the 14 AS.)

I had a strong feeling there weren't many more mooks left, so I felt safe to have Dorothea up here for dancing.

Edelgard things.

Edelgard would like it, but it'll probably end up on Byleth anyway.

I gather up my people mid and have them equip Training weapons for AS purposes. And also have Annette milk some more healing exp.

More shuffling around, mostly to make a hug box for Rhea.

I finally notice Catherine was controllable, oops. She's comparable to Byleth so I just send her out to help with scouting.

(This is actually the last move of the turn, but I forgot to take another end turn screenshot.)

More scouting.

Annette things.

Shamir flies a bit left and I dance her.

I was pretty sure this was enough range to aggro the mages in the bottom left and far enough away to counter-attack them.

More scouting, although this side was completely cleared.

Got to love fog of war maps, even when they're basically solved they're still a pain in the ass.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

I flew Edelgard down here for support bonuses, I believe.

Doop.

Now is not the time to tell us we were supposed to protect Rhea from getting hit. You're supposed to do that at the start of the bloody map. For all we knew 'protect' just means 'don't let Rhea die.'

Boots.

It's okay. Only 5% crit, unfortunately. Not bad as a general purpose offensive accessory, it'll save you weapon durability and unit-turns occasionally, but not great. I convoy this and the boots.

Yeah, because Umbral Steel doesn't just rain from the sky in this route...

Still not sure why they decided Paralogues should refill Motivation but maps for quests don't.

I'll be blunt, this is is an awful Battalion. It's 5 Strength, 5% Hit, 5 Defense, -5% Avoid, and 7 Charm at max level, and it's a B rank battalion, at least according to Serenes Forest.

Gloucester Knights are 6 Strength, 6 Magic, 15% hit, 5 Defense, 5 Resistance, 7 Charm, and also B rank...

They even have the same (pretty mediocre) gambit.

 

[DehNutCase]

Chapter 9, Part 3:

 

Academy:

Spoiler

Pair of supports. We also met Dorothea in the tower, but it's not really important.

Lorenz now gets +2 damage from his Bond with Ferdinand.

Some adjusting of goals. Hubert doesn't need Swords anymore so I have him working on Reason + Riding.

Edelgard already got the stats from Wyvern so she goes Lances.

Bernadetta goes Lances as well since Falcon Knight needs A Lances.

Lorenz needs B Lances and B Riding to go Paladin, and Riding is falling a bit behind, so he swaps out Lances for Riding.

Shamir goes Lances for Falcon Knight.

 

The Map:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 17.

Not much to say, it's a pretty short and simple chapter.

 

Pre-map Planning:

All of these guys drop Umbral Steel, so you can use Relics pretty freely if you're fine with paying major cash every swing.

You get rewards if all the students are saved (well, the ones that aren't monsters, anyway), but the game's really generous with time since the monsters don't even reach the more distant students until after a few turns, and between healing items and avoidance terrain they can last a pretty long time.

 

You do need to keep Jeralt alive, but he's beefy enough that it'll only take a little bit of healing to keep him topped off. (I'm actually more annoyed about the fact that he's so good at snatching up kills with his 8 movement and good damage.)

There's a Chest in the bottom right, but it's just a Healing Staff so it's not really important at all. Between March Rings, +range Staves, and even the Goddess Rings (+4 Luck means +2% magical accuracy) it's pretty unlikely to want to bother with Healing Staves---unless you're the type to min max by keeping a bunch of different equipment in a caster's inventory. It's more optimal to do that, but it's also annoying.

 

Not much to say, cover the map, kill monsters, try to break barriers for loot.

Monsters hit quite hard, have Seal Strength, and are fast enough that your slow pokes will get doubled---most likely to death---but all of them come with a weakness to a certain weapon type (in addition to their regular monster weaknesses), so it's pretty easy to dish out major damage. The real issue is breaking their barriers without killing them or taking too much time.

Jeralt's pretty strong, fast enough to avoid doubles, and tanky enough that you don't really need to worry too much about him. A Physic or two to keep him topped off would be nice, but can go toe to toe with a monster without any problems.

Our students. They're fast enough to avoid doubles and tanky enough that it takes a few rounds for them to die even if the monsters land every hit. This one is standing on a heal tile so between that and their Concotion they'll be full hp at the start of Enemy Phase until their healing item runs out.

This one has an Elixir, so no real rush even though she's only in bushes. (If RNG goes your way the bushes are actually better than the heal tile.)

Pretty much the regular team plus Lorenz and Sylvain. Both of them would be able to hit quite hard with relics, but I'm not too interested in spending wads of cash just so my 2nd stringers can keep up in offenses.

Leonie has Luin and is attached to Byleth, Ingrid a Short Spear and attached to Edelgard, Ferdinand has the Lance of Ruin and is attached to Lorenz.

Doop.

I don't actually buy this, but it's a damn good Battalion if you need to lure something safely. I never bother with it since it's pretty easy to get close to 0% hit rates on enemy units, but it's there if you need it.

Lysithea picks up Gloucester Knights for the stats, 6 Str, 6 Mag, 15% hit, 5 Def, 5 Res and 7 Charm at max level is a huge pile of stats, even if Lysithea doesn't really care about the gambit.

I buy Empire Magic Users for Linhardt since it's more or less a straight upgrade to the D rank magic battalions. It has 5 Mag, 10% crit, 5 Res, and 5 Charm at max level. Not a huge improvement over Empire Magic Co. (which loses 1 Mag and 10% crit), but the gambit has a significantly bigger AoE.

Bought some extra Chest Keys since I like having them in Convoy if needed.

We got boots, so Byleth starts chugging on the stack of stat boosters we have. (I give them all to Byleth.) It's a Giant Shell above the Black Pearl if you're curious about the exact kinds of stat boosters she ate.

I won't kill you with screenshots so here's her stats at the end.

Byleth's inventory doesn't matter too much, but she picks up a bunch of swords since her monster effective Combat Art is a sword art.

Edelgard ends up with a bunch of lances and an Steel Axe+, and give a lance to Dorothea for safekeeping. Dorothea also picked up an Evasion Ring out of Convoy since nobody else cares too much about it.

Edelgard needed the inventory slot for a Chest Key.

Bernadetta trades out her nearly broken Training Bow+ for a fresh Training Bow.

Sylvain has B Lances, so he can use the Crescent Sickle rather than holding on to Steel Lances. (Crescent Sickle needs B to wield rather than D, unlike Steel.) He also picks up the Steel Shield we got from last map.

Lorenz ends up with a bunch of lances + a Bow and Silver Shield. Turns out he's 1 hp short of surviving a monster double once they get Str +2 active, but eh. I think he's also slow enough to get doubled even if he unequipped everything, which is a tad unfortunate.

Linhardt gets the +1 range staff since nobody else cares about it.

 

It's a short and easy map, so I don't bother fiddling any more than I have already.

The Map:

We open up with a Stride to get places faster. it's nice that we start in an decent formation for it, even if it's not a perfect one.

Breaking a barrier and moving the monster a bit closer to the team.

She masters Pegasus Knight and gets Darting Blow, which'll make doubles a lot easier when she's just doing ordinary shooting.

Shamir flies off to the side and Edelgard breaks another barrier.

Edelgard also flies to the side and Sylvain comes in for more barrier breaking. It's actually pretty hard to use up all 50 uses of a Crescent Sickle before Part 2 rolls around (with its free repairs), since B weapon rank is a pretty high requirement.

Dorothea goes with the right side, and dances Edelgard.

Edelgard decides she has better things to do than opening Chests so she gives her Chest Key to Sylvain, in exchange for his Iron Lance.

The monster is aggro'd towards Edelgard (since she used a gambit on it earlier), so i do some chip damage with a bow so she can counter during enemy phase.

She flies 1 square up after the combat and right side ends like that.

Group Lance attack is pretty boring since it's a small AoE and doesn't do any movement manipulation, but it gets the job done.

Byleth adds some damage. (She doesn't target a barrier since other people can handle that.) A crit happens, so this guy goes to his last hp bar.

Barrier breaking.

D+ Authority.

Doop.

Lorenz would get doubled to death since this guy has Str +2 active right now, so Lysithea debuffs its Speed.

There's only 7 monsters on the map so it doesn't take too long. If you wanted to hurry it's faster to break a barrier at the single spot and pile in the damage, but that passes up Umbral Steel. (Even if you don't repair relics they still sell for 600g a pop.)

Enemy Phase combat. It misses. (Bloody exact KO with a double...)

Enemy Phase combat. Edelgard drops it to its last hp bar.

And breaks the barrier to boot.

More enemy phase combat. Byleth has some crazy crit rates even with an Iron Bow thanks to her pile of stat boosters, Wyvern battalions boosting crit, and the fact that monsters tend to have jack all for luck.

I don't know why I thought breaking a barrier would stun the monster in the same combat, because this was real stupid.

(I get away with it since Linhardt dodges one of the hits.)

Loot.

Doop.

Bernadetta landed a crit and then flew up a bit, so Lorenz takes the kill.

We can Byleth tanking for our squishy ass back liners, so we just poke at the monster for now.

The monster is charging up for an AoE attack, so there's no need to actually block the monster's path as long as I end her turn in range.

Left side ends like this.

Nobody on the right uses swords, but it doesn't really matter.

Edelgard Canto'd up after her fight and Shamir picks up the kill.

Shamir also Cantos up, and Sylvain loots a pretty meaningless item. (He had some movement points left afterwards so he Cantos a bit upward.)

Edelgard's hp is concerning, but she's fine for one more combat. I really should tutor Dorothea in Faith a bit more, so she picks up some healing spells.

Dorothea will occasionally be asked to nuke armors to death, so this is a pretty great level.

I have Edelgard equip a bow to take the enemy phase combat and flip the monster a bit closer to our team.

Right side ends like this.

Annette walks over to try and catch up to the left side. (Right side needs her more, since they're missing a healer, but good luck catching up to a bunch of cavalry even with a March Ring.)

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto. Amazingly, the AoE lands. Oddly, the move doesn't actually prevent movement like a lot of monster AoEs.

Jeralt decided sitting on his hands was boring so he charges up and smacks a monster. (Ally phase combat.)

Doop.

Annette things.

Kind of wish I gave Bernadetta the Devil Axe back. She lands a crit so the monster's down to its last hp bar.

Bernadetta Cantos next to Byleth and Lysithea adds some damage.

Doop. (He lands the crit.)

3 Umbral Steel, so a pretty good haul.

Byleth finishes it off.

For a really mediocre level. She can probably ORKO armors with her Magic, but she can ORKO armors with physical weapons anyway.

She does fly into range to start bothering the monster up here, though.

Breaking a barrier and pulling the monster back a bit more.

Shamir Cantos a bit to the side and Edelgard smashes the last barrier.

Doop.

Doop.

B Authority. I'll probably give him Gautier Knights for another set of Stride on the team. It'll have 7 Str at max level, which is great, pity the 20% avoid would more or less be wasted since Sylvain isn't that kind of tank.

Dancer things.

The crit lands, but he needed to do a combat art to OHKO with a crit.

No idea why the AI targeting thing keeps saying mooks that can't attack have attack targets.

Right side is pretty much handled, so not much left.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

On ally phase Jeralt smacks this guy again and the student chugs a Concoction.

Doop.

In retrospect I should've had the right side start working on the monsters in the middle, rather than sitting on their hands like this, since waiting till later let Jeralt nab a pair of kills.

Reversal is probably weaker than both Assembly and Lure in terms of repositioning enemies, but it's still decent. I misjudged the monster AoE attack a bit, and ended up moving Byleth to a spot where she'd get the student caught in the AoE attack as well.

Linhardt things, Jeralt edition.

Doop. A crit happens, so the thing's pretty low hp.

I move our left side mooks up a bit (they're still a turn or two behind Byleth and Bernadetta, though), and left side ends like this.

Shamir taking free potshots.

Dancer things.

Another potshot.

Right side ends like this.

The monsters only have 4 movement, so Jeralt actually has enough mobility to hit and run them once in a while---note how he isn't in the monster's attack range.

Enemy Phase combat.

Byleth got hit by the AoE, so Linhardt does Linhardt things.

One more Reversal for the road.

C Flying for Leonie.

More barrier breaking.

Bernadetta Cantos over here, where she's out of range of the monsters in the middle.

Our casters are way too far behind, so Annette does a 1 person Stride.

Doop.

This was... unfortunate. tl;dr is that I end up putting this monster to its last hp bar, meaning it gets exactly enough Strength to ORKO Lorenz.

Pictured, pain and suffering.

So I divine pulse back to before I used the gambit.

Divine Pulse: 15

We had barely enough unit-turns to break the monster's barrier, but Shamir wasn't quite in range, so to be efficient I had Edelgard repo Shamir forward. (Lorenz is perfectly capable of just running outside the monster's range, but that would've cost a turn for basically no reason.)

Edelgard Cantos over here after the Repo, and Dorothea dances her.

Doop.

Lorenz Cantos back after the fight, but not far enough away to avoid the ORKO. Doesn't matter though, since the gambit pushed the monster back a square, giving us the range to start breaking down its barriers.

Doop. Shamir landed the crit, so the guy's down to its last hp bar.

Shamir moves aside and Edelgard flies in to completely break this monster's barrier. It was weak to axes, but I wasn't sure if that would break the barrier in a single attack, so I had her use her combat art to be safe.

Lots of Umbral Steel.

Doop.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto. Unlike Lorenz Sylvain has enough Def to not worry about ORKOs.

On Ally Phase Jeralt steals a kill. : (

The monster's weak to swords so Byleth swings the Devil Sword around for massive damage.

B Flying for Byleth. I'll probably drop Defense +2 for this.

Leonie also gets a pretty good level from the combat exp. Warlocks will make her cry, but at this point the only reason she's not in the team is because we don't have a battalion for her. Once Edelgard gets A Authority to swap to Cichol's we'll be able to give her one.

Not a bad haul on Umbral Steel this map.

The crit lands, so this thing explodes. That's all the students rescued.

Blaze is great as always, pity it only has 1 use. Since I mostly use gambits for breaking barriers having multiple uses tends to be more important than AoE.

Dancer things.

A crit happens, so this thing goes to its last hp bar.

A crit lands as well, so its pretty low.

Lots of 3x drops.

Some last minute exp farming.

Using combat arts on a killer is pretty expensive, but Sylvain doesn't quite OHKO without using one.

He doesn't crit, sadly, but he does get B+ lances.

Doop.

And Jeralt rides in with his 8 movement to take the kill. : (

We get an Energy Drop for saving all the students.

Not sure why the game's so stingy about Umbral Steel in quest and map rewards even though demonic beasts give them out like candy...

Pretty sure her motivation was already maxed from being MVP earlier.

 

[Shadow Mir]

On 12/22/2019 at 8:03 PM, DehNutCase said:

Manuela learns Bolting at A Reason and Warp at A Faith, so she's a fairly useful spell caster. She doesn't get Physic though, in exchange for getting Ward at C Faith---makes it easier to grind exp for her, but also makes her less useful in general. Her personal is +10 crit avoid for adjacent allies, which is unfortunately a bit hard to use on a 4-move unit.

Unfortunately, she has a weakness in Reason, which makes getting Bolting hard. The sad thing is, the only other unit that gets it is... Hilda. Incidentally, I find her somewhat hard to decide what to do with - the only thing that I could think of was to put her on a Pegasus.

[DehNutCase]

Ch. 10, Part 1:

 

Academy:

Spoiler

Leonie's B support is time gated, but now's when it unlocks. (Her C support is time limited, if you don't already have a C support by the time Jeralt dies you don't get to get support ranks between Leonie and Byleth for the rest of the game, I believe.)

'

We had a tea party, it was Nice. (No Charm.)

Some supports from combat.

Today's Blessing of the Land and next week is a Rare Monster Sighting, so it's best to explore today and do a bunch of battles next week. (If you care about the monster's drops, anyway. It's also a nice chunk of gold if you're having money issues.)

The week after the next is Fish of Mystery, but I'll be doing the fishing off-screen.

Important non-quest stuff:

It's a book.

I'm capped on Professor Points so I have no idea how much this gives. Probably 500 if I had to guess.

Here's the ring Jeralt showed you a while ago, I'm not sure if you're allowed to miss this, but it probably lets you get S-rank supports with people near the end of the game.

 

Quest Stuff:

Combat quests are still complete garbage on Maddening. The enemies on the map basically don't give regular exp at all to the people you actually bring into maps, and there's not much reason to spend entire maps grinding exp for 2nd stringers when you have Adjunct slots.

Renown is nice, but if you're grinding maps for renown you won't have exp issues anyway, which is what statues give you. (Aside from the Divine Pulse charges.)

 

Non-quest stuff:

Doop.

More of the usual.

I buy out the 2 highest tiers of bait. Not really interesting to grind fishing anymore since we're capped on Professor Points and there are faster ways to grind money, but maybe I'll use Goddess Messenger for cooking.

I also buy all the 100g gifts.

Felix needs D+ Swords to recruit at support B, which is trivial. (He also needs 6 Speed, but Byleth starts with more than that.)

Without supports it's B+ Swords and 15 Speed, the Speed's easy, but the B+ Swords would cost a bunch of skill exp better spent elsewhere.

Lone Wolf is +5 damage if he doesn't have a Battalion, not really interesting at this point, but if you're only using him for a little bit (say, only for his Paralogue) it does mean you don't have to find a Battalion for him, since +5 damage beats most E and D rank Battalions.

His stats are pretty great offensively speaking, but he has skill exp issues if you get him late.

Since his two skills are Swords and Brawling.

Don't get fooled by his Reason Budding Talent, he only has 2 Reason spells, Thunder and Thoron. If you really don't like handing people Levin Swords then you can eventually get him Mortal Savant, I guess. If it was just between Swordmaster and Mortal Savant it's probably worth it (you pay a bunch of Speed and a little Strength for 1 extra movement and access to crappy magic), but the existence of Assassin means that there's not much reason to go Mortal Savant. Assassin has the same movement, easier requirements, better stat distribution, and skills that actually matter.

He also has an oddly supportive list of Faith spells, although none of them are particularly interesting. If you go into Bows with him he does get Heavy Draw at C+ bows, but nothing special besides that.

It's not too late to get him into Cavalier or whatever, but he doesn't really bring anything special to the table at this point.

I have him working on Leadership on the off chance I decide to use him.

This month doesn't have a lot of faculty training opportunities, which is a pity since it happens right around the time you max out on Professor levels, but we grab what we can.

Getting lances since you need A Lances for Falcon Knight.

More Swords.

The 4 faculty members left in the monastery give really boring skills, aside from Seteth. I get bows this time, forgetting that Marianne needs Riding to recruit.

Byleth doesn't have the skill slots for Bow Prowess, but getting the skill ranks for Silver or Brave Bows might come in handy.

We're past the point where Choir is all that useful, but it's still a bit of Faith and Authority exp.

I swap Edelgard to Thief since it's Bow Tournament. After one tournament I realize that it wouldn't have mattered. (Most of the enemies used Training Bows and the one exception used an Iron Bow.)

Yeah...

So I swap Edelgard right back to Pegasus Knight.

I do some running around passing out lost items and gifts, getting me B support with Flayn.

This is what happens if Edelgard's on a Pegasus rather than on foot. Yeah, she takes damage now, but it's still pretty consistent to just spam the 'A' button until she wins the whole thing.

(I did 5 tournaments total.)

 

Lecture:

Getting Edelgard to A Authority will let Byleth pick up Galatea, and also give us room for another flyer on the team.

Bernadetta needs A lances, and it's pretty efficient to tutor for it.

Sylvain already has B Lances, so he only needs a bit more Riding to have a great shot at Paladin. (B Lances C Riding is already enough to take the test, but it's sketchy.)

C+ Riding.

Authority for Ingrid. I'm debating whether or not to get her some Riding exp so I can get her into Paladin for 1 Strength (she's at 16 Strength right now), but I'm probably going to just have her sit on Adjunct duty and see if she high-rolls Strength back into relevance. She has good speed and great bulk still, but that doesn't matter when she hits like a wet noodle.

C Authority.

Riding for mages.

Leonie would pick up some stats from Paladin, so I go for it. If I checked I would've known it was just 3 Resistance, and I would've skipped it since Falcon Knight bases will naturally fix her Resistance once she hits level 30.

Oh well.

Picking up B Authority in case I want her to use Gautier Knights---I forgot Sylvain already had B Authority, meaning that wasn't an issue anyway.

Oh well.

I spend the rest of her Motivation on Riding.

C Riding and Dex +4.

I change Hanneman's goals to Reason and Riding just in case I end up using him. (I doubt I will, though.)

It's a pity you can't quite see who's behind her, but I think that's Ingrid (who disagrees with this answer) and Bernadetta (who agrees).

Doop.

C Riding for Lysithea.

I forgot to take the summary screenshot, but nobody got any new skills so it doesn't really matter much.

Still not sure why you'd ever say no.

Flayn and Petra, not exactly interesting choices.

I can only buy her flowers, rather than being able to invite her to a tea party like everyone else. I do, since 200g doesn't really matter at this point.

I check the rare monster sighting, but it's just a Mercurius so I skip. It's a wolf so I would've gotten Wootz Steel from breaking the barrier, though.

Mercurius has 15 MT, 100 Hit, 10 Crit, 7 WT, and 40 Durability, so it's a pretty good sword. But it uses the same smithing material as Gradivus so it's not all that interesting. (Gradivus is 17 MT, 90 Hit, 10 Crit, 8 WT, and 1-2 range in exchange for only having 30 Durability.)

 

Exploration:

In retrospect, I should've done the Rare Monster Sighting anyway, since Wootz Steel would've been way better than anything a random battle or quest map would've given me.

Disappointing I didn't get more Nordsalat Seeds, since it had been a Blessing of the Land day, but I didn't care enough to save/reload for more.

More of the usual.

More Faculty Training, again.

I remember that I'm trying to recruit Marianne, so I train Riding this time. Raphael, Marianne, and Alois are the only people left to recruit before Part 2 starts. You can't recruit Alois until the February, and we can't train in Heavy Armor this month for Raphael (unless I get Byleth Armor Knight, I guess), so there's not much we can do about them.

Tea time, it was Great.

Bernadetta is a bit low on Charm, hence the tea party for her.

We don't really care about support or professor points anymore, so I'm just cooking with whoever.

I could stack a bunch of Speed buffs by cooking multiple times a month, but there's not much reason to. (It'd make things easier on people who aren't named Byleth or Edelgard, but Byleth can solo maps at this point, so other people don't have to take combats unless they want to.)

Motivation refills.

We get 7 tutoring sessions per week, so there's 1 refill leftover unless I use gifts for refill instead (which is more efficient).

But I'm lazy, so I don't bother doing the optimal thing.

 

Lecture:

More Authority.

More Riding.

Lances.

Vengeance is interesting, but it's interesting in terms of being flavorful rather than being useful. It deals more damage based on damage you've taken, but Bernadetta's bulk is near the very bottom of everyone in Three houses, so it's hard to get much out of it unless you get her Fortress Knight and also cram her full of HP stat boosters. Too much effort for not much reward.

C+ Lances.

You need C Lances as well as A Riding for mage cavalry, and Hubert can get tutored into a Strength for it, so I do that rather than have him self study for Lances.

E+ Lances.

Having some extra healers on the team is always nice, and Dorothea does get Physic eventually, so I tutor her a bit in Faith.

More Riding.

More Riding, although this one was basically pointless. It'll be a little helpful between level 20 and level 30, but Falcon Knight has 14 Res compared to 8 Res from Paladin, and it's extremely unlikely Leonie gets 7 Resistance in 10 levels.

Marianne asked to join. I accept, obviously. Saves me a training session on Riding, too. (Ideally Raphael would've joined here instead of her, so I can do his Paralogue this month rather than next, but eh.)

It's a pity none of our mages are any good at stable duty.

Death is a 3 range spell with 20% crit, pretty useful. B Reason.

Marianne joined with close to B Faith, and her default goals push her to B Faith, getting her Silence.

If you look carefully you can see Shamir isn't in our team, since she's out doing her job.

Caspar got D+ Authority and Bernadetta got B Authority.

Marianne's stats aren't exactly great, but mages have it so easy, offensively speaking, that their stats pretty much don't matter. Defensively speaking pretty much all mages are made of toilet paper, but that's neither here nor there.

Marianne picks up a boring but workable kit of offensive spells from Reason (she gets a 3 range spell fairly early, which is nice), and she caps off Faith with Aura at A. I'd rather have Rescue, Warp, or Fortify, but it's better than nothing.

She has C+ Swords right now, so she has Soulblade, but I'm not sure why you'd bother with a magical combat art when you can just... attack with magic. Mind, it hits like a truck since adds damage based on Resistance, but mages hit like a truck in general in this game, offenses aren't the problem with mages.

Note the Strength in both Riding and Flying, and a budding talent in Lances, so if you recruit her early it's less of a pain to get her into mage cavalry, and if you recruit her late it's pretty easy to get her onto a Pegasus and have her swing Levins around.

I haven't used her much, but she looks boring but good, meaning I'd be happy to have her around at pretty much any point in the game.

I have her working on Authority and Riding for possible mage cavalry usage.

 

Exploration:

Doop.

Lots of Speed Carrots this month.

More of the same.

Doop.

No slots for Axebreaker, but Byleth can swing around Brave Swords now. (Not much reason to when you can swing Brave Lances around instead, though.)

Lance exp.

B Lances. Also no space for the skill, but we get Brave Lance access.

D+ Bows.

Motivation refills.

Weirdly, Linhardt went to 100 Motivation despite starting at 0 and being neutral towards the meal. I seem to remember getting 100 for the person who liked it and 75 for the person who doesn't when I did something like this before, so maybe it's because of the support ranks between Edelgard, Linhardt, and Byleth.

The first attempt was Great without any Charm, so I reloaded and got a Perfect.

Bernadetta actually needs around 10 more charm to see minimum hit rates from enemy gambits, but getting charm for her is mostly for gambit accuracy, not avoid.

Wrapping things up with a little bit of Faith and Authority exp.

And a support between Dorothea and Manuela. They have a bond, but neither of them tend to attack all that much, so I probably won't use an adjunct slot for it.

 

Lectures:

More Authority.

More Riding.

C+.

More Lances.

Picking up her budding talent.

Dorothea picks up Faith D, meaning she gets Heal, and her talent is unlocked so she picks up White Magic Avo. I'll probably swap out Sword Prowess and Sword Avo for the Faith versions eventually, but it doesn't matter much either way.

I spend the last of her motivation on tutoring Reason. Physic is nice, but it's not too critical at this point.

More Riding.

Ditto.

Dex +4 and C Riding.

Lances for Hubert.

Doop.

C+ Axes for Caspar. Wild Abandon is an interesting combat art, it gives +10 MT, +30% crit in exchange for -30% hit and 5 durability cost. Caspar's Personal means he's a bit more accurate than most, but the accuracy penalty is still pretty hefty, especially considering it's axes and not swords we're talking about. I'd rather have Monster Breaker, but if you really need something dead in a single hit Wild Abandon is good at doing that, as long as you're willing to use some Divine Pulses or resets.

B Reason for Annette, and a new spell.

Edelgard got A Authority, meaning she's fine on Authority for the rest of the game and gets to use Cichol's until Byleth gets A Authority as well.

Aside from that, Ferdinand and Petra got C+ Authority; Felix E+ Authority; Ashe D+ Authority; Ingrid B+ Lances; Lorenz C Riding; and Leonie D Swords.

Leonie can try for Paladin now, so I do it. But this fails.

So I have her take Myrmidon to advance the RNG numbers.

I didn't realize Assassin and Swordmaster simply has 2 or 1 extra stats compared to Pegasus Knight, so I take the tests just in case I'd get some stats out of it. (Assassin has better growths compared to Pegasus Knight, but it's not a big enough difference to make it worth spending 10 levels as an infantry class.)

This fails, and I also fail Swordmaster as well.

So I end up dumping 1k down the drain getting Mercenary for Byleth.

 

Felix's Paralogue:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 19. Meaning we recruited Felix at exactly the right time for this map. Felix doesn't really matter, though, since unless you got him really early he's going to be foot locked, so the team will probably leave him behind really quickly.

 

Pre-Map Planning:

The villagers get 2RKOd by just about everything, and they also see positive crit odds, so it's a bit of a rush to kill enemy mooks before they can gank villagers to death.

We start in the top right corner and the escape point for villagers is the bottom left, so if you aren't trying to just end the map ASAP by defeating the commander it's a rush to cover all of the map. But we're pretty over-leveled and our team is crazy mobile, so it's not really a problem to do that.

We also see the first demonstration near the end of what an ultra-invested flier does to maps if you let them.

Mercenary mook. 29 Atk is high enough that Armor Knight bases aren't enough to survive a double anymore, so squishy glass cannons like Lysithea and Bernadetta need to make sure they're fast enough to avoid the double if they're getting smacked.

35 Atk, but 14 AS is slow enough that he shouldn't be doubling anything. We've been dealing with 14 AS mooks since our team was mostly level 1...

21 AS is fast, but 28 Atk is low enough that armor knight bases comfortably survive. Thieves still have pass, though, so careful if you're trying to body block for the villagers.

Enemy mooks occasionally has Bandits as their battalion.

Yeah... I'm not sure why mages keep having more AS than Atk. It's nice that they didn't spawn any Warlocks on this map, though, since Warlocks would probably ORKO most of the ally mooks.

This guy has a Steel Sword you can loot.

Brawlers are pretty dangerous to Armor Knight bases, since 27 AS is quite fast and with only 12ish defense you'd take around 40 damage. That said, most battalions tend to have good defense at this point so it's really the mages that need to worry, since magic battalions tend to not have defense.

But there's nothing stopping you from putting physical battalions on your mages, so yeah.

Armor Knight, misses KOs on level 1 units. He also spawns reinforcements as long as he's alive, although I'm not 100% sure about the triggers.

Cavaliers still have jokes for stats.

The 'boss' of the map, so kill him last. 52 Avoid so getting ORKOs on this guy is pretty sketchy, especially considering his 30 AS, but if you aren't doing a 1 turn clear you have plenty to time to smack him until he dies (he doesn't move and only has a 1 range weapon), and if you are doing a 1 turn clear you can just go ahead and reset the map until you win, so whatever.

This guy has a door key, but we have fliers, so we don't care about doors or walls.

Rodrigue is cool, he's only level 15 but he's in a level 30 class so his stats are very nice despite that. If I could shove Felix off a cliff to get him I'd gladly do that. He's 3RKOd by most things on the map, I believe, and enemy mooks would much rather go for villagers than for him, so it's pretty easy to keep him alive.

He has Fortify, but I've never seen him use it. He doesn't have Nosferatu, so after 3 turns of Aura he'll change to hitting people with his Silver Lance, which could end badly depending on who he's trying to smack.

All the soldiers on this map have decent stats and also an Elixir. Which they'll never use, because they'd much rather kill themselves trying to hit an enemy mook than heal up. (Well, I think they'd prioritize healing over going for a suicidal combat, but they don't consider healing if they're 2RKOd, meaning if they're 2RKOd they'd attack on ally phase and then die on enemy phase.)

Too bad you can't steal from allies.

Unlike the soldiers, these guys do prioritize healing. They're 2RKOd by pretty much everything, and, I believe, ORKOd by axe mooks, so you'll want to cover the map pretty fast to keep them safe. I'm not 100% sure what triggers them to start walking towards the exit rather than standing still, but they do start walking bottom left eventually, so you need to hustle a bit more than you might expect.

Team's more or less the usual suspects aside from Felix, who's forced and Hubert, who I'm trying to grind some exp for. We did have the battalions to bring another flier, but I didn't bother since Ingrid's a bit Strength screwed and I wanted to get Paladin for Leonie to see what stats she'd get. (If I knew it was only 3 Resistance I would've brought her over Sylvain.)

Lorenz is attached to Sylvain with a Killer Lance and a critical ring, Caspar with Luin is attached to Hubert, and Petra with the Lance of Ruin is stapled to Byleth.

We give Felix some swords because that's what he uses and Steel Gauntlets because why not.

Hubert gets the Experience Gem since we're going to feed him some kills.

Shamir grabs a Goddess Ring from Convoy to have something to hold.

Lorenz is on Adjunct duty so Sylvain gets the Silver Shield.

Edelgard gets a bunch of lances, a bow, and an Axe.

Byleth's inventory doesn't really matter, but here it is.

We buy a Steel Bow for the convoy since I'd rather use one until it breaks and then forge it up to Silver than straight up buy a Silver.

Byleth gets Alert Stance, so she's more or less indestructible as long as she doesn't attack on player phase, now. (A bit of anti-synergy with Darting Blow, but eh---once she gets around 50 Speed I'll drop Darting Blow for HP +5 or something.)

Annette picks up Dexterity +4 in exchange for Defensive Tactics.

Lysithea also gets Dex +4.

Hubert trades Rally Magic for Dex +4 since he has better things to do than Rallying.

Sylvain keeps Defensive Tactics because he doesn't really have anything more important at the moment.

Nimbo Combo is one of very few non-crappy Fist combat arts, since it hits more than once. (It's not a generic art, so you have to be Felix, Catherine, or Jeritza to learn it.) It's still not exactly good, since if you're holding fist weapons you're probably trying to x4 something, but the 20 avoid is nice. I swapped it in in exchange for Wrath Strike.

So Felix has a decent kit of combat arts that we'll never see again after this map.

Edelgard gets Cichol Wyvern Co.

Byleth picks up the Galatea she left behind.

Shamir gets Empire Wyverns.

Hubert picks up Empire Magic Corps. He's probably better off with an accuracy battalion, but eh.

Sylvain picks up Gautier Knights so I have two copies of Stride now. (Ignore the fact that the picture says I'm taking it from Annette---she'll be using the other Stride Battalion still.)

And Felix deliberately doesn't have a battalion because +5 damage trumps most of what he would get from one. He's a bit squishier than he should be because of that, but he won't move fast enough to get into a lot of trouble anyway.

Battalion replenishing.

Our initial deployment is like this.

 

The Map:

Stride to start things off. We're on a bit of a time crunch, so movement matters.

Doop.

Felix walks over to split the damage between him and the allied soldier. (Both mooks are trying to target him, but only 1 can hit him so he's fine.)

Fishing for crits, but it doesn't happen. Using combat arts with a killer weapon is expensive, but not using a combat art would've left her in range to get ganked.

Bernadetta flies back a bit and Edelgard starts the march left.

She landed both attacks so she ends turn here. (You don't have to have Edelgard level stats to fly over here, since the choke point prevents you from getting attacked by more than 2 units.)

Doop.

She Cantos up here.

Poke.

Sylvain Cantos back a bit and Hubert trade swaps him into a melee weapon.

Hubert lands a lot of shaky hits this map.

Dance.

And dead.

Great level.

Byleth flies over to talk to Rodrigue, but he doesn't say anything interesting.

The top of the map is more or less handled, so we just need to push towards bottom left.

Enemy Phase combat. The Kingdom Soldiers tend to give pretty good showings, the main issue is that they never bother to chug their Elixirs.

Ditto.

Not a good idea to attack Shamir after she found a kill. She's a bit too squishy to reliably take enemy phase combats, though, and it's hard to use Alert Stance and her Personal at the same time.

Doop.

Doop.

Doop.

B Lances for Edelgard.

Lots of enemy phase combats.

Doop.

The fact that enemies all have around 2% crit on ally mooks for every single map is really annoying map design.

This misses.

Ally Phase. This misses. (This is the issue with using high level spells and weapons without being high leveled---they tend to have less than stellar accuracy since it's assumed the people using them had a bunch of levels to pick up Dex and Luck.)

More Ally Phase.

I don't think this guy understands the concept of being in 2RKO range. Either wait or chug a healing item...

Doop.

I believe this villager starts moving once this bandit is dead, so you have around 2 turns before he starts walking bottom left, so if you haven't cleared that part of the map by then he's going to suicide.

Fire is a good spell.

And this is a good level.

Free stuff is always nice, even if the team doesn't use swords much.

We're still on a time crunch, so Sylvain Strides our mages who would otherwise get left behind.

He Cantos towards byleth afterwards and Byleth does Byleth things.

The pack of mooks bottom left is the most worrying at the moment (I didn't know about reinforcements yet), so Byleth is flying over to deal with them.

It sure feels nice to be over-leveled.

Shamir convoys the Door Key and flies down to join up with Edelgard.

Doop.

The Thief has Pass, but he's far enough away that this blocks him from attacking the villager.

Exp farming.

Dancing.

And dead.

Caspar's Strength isn't as good as it looks, since Brigand gives 2 Strength, but 16 Strength is still damn good for a level 11 unit. Spreading out exp with Adjuncts like this means it's really easy to find replacements for people who get stat screwed, which is nice.

Doop.

Linhardt things, also note how I'm body blocking for the villager. Felix doesn't have Canto so he doesn't do anything this turn.

Basically just exp farming, honestly, I don't care if this guy lives or not.

The middle of the map is also more or less handled, so we just need to deal with the bottom left.

Thanks for telling us after it happens, game... (It's a single thief from the bottom right corner.)

I looked at the reinforcement data on the wiki just now, but it's actually a little wrong about Maddening's reinforcements. There's a Hero reinforcement in this corner later, and I'm not 100% sure what triggers it.

Enemy Phase combat.

This guy probably has Lancebreaker, I doubt he sees 51% hit against Byleth naturally.

The reinforcement mook provides just enough damage that this guy will die this phase. Should've chugged an elixir, buddy.

The Bandit decided to kill himself, so the villager over here is going to start walking to his death.

Doop.

I'm not sure why they bothered giving these guys Elixirs if the way the AI's setup means they never use them... He dies, but he's also a soldier, not a villager, so we don't care.

This hits, but also puts Rodrigue in an unfortunate position. I think he'd survive both of the thieves attacking him, but I was pretty sure there'd be an reinforcement on enemy phase so I needed to kill at least one thing down here for him to live.

The villager chugs a Vulnerary. They need to be near full hp to survive a combat, so it doesn't really help them for now---the fact that they stand still to heal means they won't walk into more enemies, at least. And the soldier smacks this guy. Mages tend to have just a little bit less damage than needed to OHKO, so occasional chip damage like this is really helpful.

And that's the last Ally Phase combat.

Fire, still a good spell.

I keep forgetting to give Bernadetta her Devil Axe back, which is annoying in cases like this---17 Strength means she's only slightly better than Ingrid in dealing damage right now. Even just giving her a lance would be useful to take damage from attacking melee mooks.

Oh well, I'll remember someday.

Felix misses both hits.

Whatever, Hubert uses Banshee to setup some nice exp for next turn. (Spoilers, an ally mook steals the kill.)

Byleth flies into the entire pack of mooks bottom left, and goes into serious mode by picking up a 1-2 range weapon and the evasion ring from convoy.

She equips the short spear and Waits to trigger Alert Stance.

Edelgard doesn't quite have enough movement to do anything interesting, so she Repos Shamir a bit down before flying a bit more to the right.

Stride to get Dorothea enough movement to dance Edelgard.

Mage mastered. It'll be useful for later once we actually need her to contribute in terms of combat.

Sylvain Strides Edelgard and Shamir---and, unfortunately, the soldier mook. This is what gives him enough movement to steal Hubert's kill.

Sylvain Cantos a bit further left, and Dorothea dances Edelgard.

No more reinforcements, and Edelgard ends turn in place to body block for Rodrigue.

Getting the villager out of ORKO range.

I'm not exactly happy about Linhardt's stats, but he doesn't really need stats to do his job. (Aside from Warp, which he wants lots of Magic for.)

Doop.

Shamir heads towards Edelgard after the combat, to help her body block for Rodrigue.

It doesn't look like it on the map, but every section except the bottom right and top left is handled, now, since Byleth is about to do endgame Byleth things.

Reinforcement pops out bottom right.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto, not sure why these guys went for Edelgard rather than Rodrigue, though.

Warlocks would still be an issue, since Byleth doesn't have the stats to take 0 from Warlocks and magic is still fairly accurate, but Mages don't do anything except die.

Physical units straight up don't do anything, though.

This guy moved to attack from 2 range, which was interesting, since it makes no difference.

Petra's probably benched for good, these aren't the growths she needs to get a spot on the team.

She does get C Flying, though.

More enemy phase suicides.

I'm not sure why they're waiting to put Paladins in as enemies. I doubt they're worried about Lancefaire since they're fine with the enemy Pegasus Knights having that.

And that's the last one from this corner, there's still the mook on the escape tile left, though.

The villager was full hp, so this was fine (except for the 2% crit), but it's a pity Felix didn't land the two punches to kill this guy.

Ally Phase combat, this lands, I believe, so the mook explodes.

Ally Phase kill steal.

Doop.

Byleth flies next to the escape tile mook and swaps back to her normal stuff.

The escape tile mook's encounter with Byleth ends about as well as could be expected.

I'm not sure why Dark Spikes has so much MT (13) compared to other stuff, but I'm not complaining.

Fire is great.

Good level, not great since it's not Speed + Magic, but good.

Felix walks closer to the team and Annette farms some healing exp.

Bernadetta flies towards bottom right, Sylvain gets over here, and Dorothea dances Hubert.

Pretty good level, not that a dancer's stats matter too much.

Hubert walks down here and Edelgard kills a Thief.

She Cantos over here to lure the brawler.

Linhardt things. I wasn't sure what kind of Reinforcement was going to spawn so I wanted to be safe.

The Soldiers start looking for mooks to attack once they're done escorting their villager, so you do need to hurry a bit if you want to get all the kill exp you can. Aside from the reinforcements, anyway---I like getting exp and all, but I don't like it enough to spawn camp for it.

I thought this funky looking guy was an Assassin at first, but it's actually a hero. (Also note how he spawned in range to attack Bernadetta, who was safe from the Brawler...)

I'll be very sad if the next level of difficulty removes mooks suiciding into you to deal 0 damage, since the game's a lot more fun to play like this.

Ally Phase combat. Rodrigue doesn't have Aura uses anymore, so he starts smacking people with his lance. (You should probably get rid of most of the threats on this map before he runs out of Aura uses, since this type of combat could get him killed real fast.)

Here's the stats for the Hero, he has Vantage and, weirdly, Desperation. I don't remember seeing Heroes much in Crimson Flower, so this is a rare sight.

First things first, Lysithea stops the flow of reinforcements.

B+ Authority. Dropping Gloucester Knights will put Lysithea back into ORKO range for a lot of things, so I'll probably keep it on her for a while even after she reaches A Authority. (Until the point where enemy mooks start ORKOing her regardless.)

I really should get Bernadetta some Silver Bows one of these days. The fact that this Thief is here might mean that this was the intended reinforcement spawn for this turn, and the Hero was just a bonus middle finger reinforcement from aggoring the brawler.

It's probably optimal to hold tea parties for everyone so they have decent accuracy battalions, but that takes effort.

Vantage is active, so he dings Hubert for 18 damage before he goes down.

Linhardt was blocking hubert from being danced, so I repo him.

Dancer things.

Doop.

It's a pity he only got 1 point of Speed in 3 levels, but he did also get 3 points of Magic in 3 levels, so I'll take it.

Byleth is a bit far from our healers, so she takes a Vulnerary out of convoy and chugs it on the way to the top left corner.

Shamir joins her up here, since she's the only one who's close.

Linhardt's going to get smacked so I rally him because why not. (Because I'll miss healing exp for no reason, since this rally doesn't make any difference---if I checked the attack speeds I'd know that, but that requires effort.)

I'm not really worried the soldier in the top left is going to die, I'm worried he's going to steal my kills.

Enemy Phase combat. Linhardt KOs the guy on the counter, so that's it for the combats down here.

Byleth and Shamir get into bodyblock position for this mook so we get maximum combat exp.

Exp farming.

Ditto.

Dance is technically also exp farming. Although I should probably focus more on farming Faith exp for Dorothea than regular exp.

Doop.

Just one more turn left.

I still don't get why the people who would attack Byleth tend to attack first. Enemy Phase combat.

More enemy phase combat. She lands a crit so this guy explodes.

Doop.

Ally Phase combat.

One last round of exp grinding.

Anyone with ward loves turns like this, where you don't have anything to do so you just spam random stuff for a bunch of delicious exp.

Doop.

And doop.

Exp farming.

I missed the screenshot for grabbing the training Gauntlets out of convoy, but yeah, I grabbed them out of convoy. Only 3 hits needed to land so this was pretty likely.

Good loot, and I convoy both. Aegis gives 6 Def and 3 Resistance, but if you don't have a Crest you'll take 10 damage after combat (like with other Relics). Felix also gets the occasional half damage effect, but Felix isn't tanky enough to care about having a defensive accessory. He'll still be pretty glass despite the shield and there's a good chance he'll stop being a cannon due to the shield weighing him down too much.

I usually give it to one of my Paladins, since they tend to be slow enough to be doubled by everything regardless.

The motivation doesn't really matter, since we don't want to do the other Paralogues right now. (We miss out on some battalions if we don't do them with all characters involved already recruited.)

Fraldarius Soldiers is a pretty great B Rank battalion, 7 Str, 20% Crit, 6 Def, and 7 Charm at max level. If you have accuracy issues it's not very useful for you, but anyone who wants to crit a lot and tend to get into physical fights likes it.

It's the only battalion with this much crit, as far as I know. Everything else caps out at 15%.

 

Quest Maps:

Spoiler

This is a quest map, so it has a very low Suggested Level of 12.

And remember that quests aren't scaled for Maddening, so you should really subtract 5 levels from the suggested level. So it's really a suggested level 7 map.

Yeah...

 

Pre-Map Planning:

The non-story maps re-use a lot of maps, so they tend to be ones we've seen before.

 

These maps really needed to be scaled. A team of level 1 units can be reasonably expected to beat this map.

Oddly enough, this guy actually has 20 Atk, which is high for a mage.

6 AS...

Healers still have the short straw, although this guy has a interesting stat spread. Lots of 13s.

Can't even kill level 1 mages.

The 'boss.'

You're free to deploy whoever you want to these maps, so I just have Byleth on full skill exp farming mode with Bernadetta attached.

I don't know why, but I forgot to give Bernadetta the exp gem. (It doesn't really matter, since the level difference is so high she gets jack all for exp, but it's a minor in-efficiency.)

 

The Map:

I do this until I win, pretty much.

B+ Authority for Byleth.

If you press the '+' button while in auto-battle or the enemy phase, you skip the phase. (You can also set the game up to automatically skip the enemy phase, although I don't like using that since if you lose a unit during a skip you don't see what led up to the loss.)

I notice that on auto-battle Byleth automatically does hit and runs, which isn't the point when you take 0 damage and ORKO everything. So I had her take this fight manually.

Some more fast forwarding and the training lance broke.

It doesn't really matter, these guys are so sad a broken weapon ORKOs them. (Byleth misses once, though, so the guy lives for now.)

Enemy Phase combat.

Bullion.

Byleth lands both hits.

Of course, we had this quest for ages, so it's expected that it's a joke.

 

This quest we got this month, with a Suggested Level: 16. Which is really 11 when you take into account Maddening. Byleth is, what, level 25 or something right now?

Even in a playthrough without Paralogues Byleth would probably be around level 20 right now, though, which is more than enough to auto-battle this map.

Same deal as last time, too lazy to take the map seriously and if I'm going to skill exp farm I might as well do it semi-efficiently, by having the person with the Knowledge Gem take all the combats. (Max efficiency would also involve a bunch of Ward, Rescue, and Warp spamming, but I'm too lazy for that.)

We got this quest this month. This mook doesn't even have 14 AS.

He's a healer, so awful stats are expected.

9 AS archer...

The 'boss.' Well, a team of level 1 units might have some tiny problems with him, I guess, seeing how he has 1 more AS than the guys we've been dealing with at level 1.

This guy, like the mage on the other map, also has more Atk than AS. Which is interesting.

I don't want to just auto-battle this before I kill the bow, so I have Byleth move into range to bait it. (The broken training lance is intentional---it's cheaper than using a real weapon and taking more combats to kill things gives Byleth a bit extra skill exp anyway.)

We end turn at the edge of the bow's range and skip the enemy phase.

Bernadetta gets B Lances during the enemy phase.

And also C+ Flying.

Both hits miss, unfortunately.

I'll skip over the irrelevant combats, but note how this guy only has 52% accuracy at point blank range while Byleth:

A, Doesn't have Alert Stance active.

B, Isn't holding an evasion ring.

C, Is holding a broken weapon, which has 20 weight.

I didn't feel like risking things for another turn, so I have Byleth switch to an Iron Lance to guarantee the kill on the archer.

We skip the enemy phase, nothing interesting happens. (Aside from Byleth killing almost everyone, obviously.)

And we swap back to the broken training lance since the mooks left don't matter---note how we healed back to full from the Crest of Flames.

Lots of boring combats later and Byleth gets B+ lances and B+ Flying.

Bernadetta, amazingly, gets enough exp to level. Pity it doesn't have Strength.

Eventually we kill them all and grab the Bullion from the 'boss.'

Still don't know why these maps don't give Motivation refill, it's not like it'd be unbalanced or anything. Even a triple crown is only 75, not quite enough to a full tutoring session.

 

Academy:

Spoiler

Raphael joins us at the end of the month, meaning we won't need to train in Heavy Armor next month. I'm not sure if I have enough heavy armor exp to be able to recruit him, do his Paralogue, and then join Edelgard on her trip to the Imperial Capital without RNG, so this was nice.

Renown is nice, but I doubt 400 renown is worth something like 10k gold, which is more or less what you'd get for doing a gold map.

Wootz Steel is nice, but, again, I should've killed the Rare Monster wolf for the Wootz Steel instead.

We get some supports from combat.

Doop.

Raphael comes with Rocky Burdock, which is great. He's heavily Strength leaning, which is also great. Res of 0 is interesting, but level 20 class bases will get him at least 7 so it's more or less fine even if you get him late.

Also, it shouldn't actually be possible for him to have 0 Res, because the level 5 Fighter class has 2 Res and Brawler is only -1, but I guess new recruits only get the bases of their current class. (Brawlers have 1 base Res.)

He already has better than Fortress Knight bulk, so bulk isn't an issue. Damage isn't much of an issue either, since he's Strength leaning. Mobility, on the other hand, is a problem. If he goes Cavalier he's fighting through a Weakness in Riding, and going Wyverns will need around B Axes and D or D+ Flying. It wouldn't take too long if you work on both through self-study and lecture, but you also need at least D Authority for a flying battalion.

Warlocks will straight up ORKO him for the whole game, probably, but Warlocks have 4 move. So yeah.

He has a boring spell list (very tiny and very ordinary), and his personal combat ares are pretty meh. 2 fist combat arts which you'll never use and Wild Abandon, which isn't something you want to use all the time.

 

I'm not sure what he'd be like as an early recruit, but if his stats are always like this if you recruit him late then he's a pretty good replacement for whatever physical unit fell behind in terms of stat growths. It'll take some tutoring to get him into a mounted class (assuming you want him in a mounted class), but he'll get the job done.

I have him working on Lances and Authority, although in retrospect Flying and Authority might've been better.

Byleth passes assassin, and then I realize it doesn't give any base stats, the 2 extra points is just because Assassin has good stats. Oops. So I reload to save the Advanced Seal.

Linhardt fails the Bishop test, unfortunately. It doesn't matter too much, though---I think all of his stats are above Bishop bases, thanks to the fact that he has Armor Knight bases.

Leonie manages to get into Paladin. If I knew it was only 3 Resistance beforehand I would've just waited for level 30 and Falcon Knight bases, but the skill exp was the most important price of this class change, and I can't exactly save reload that back. She stays in Pegasus Knight, but I keep the 3 Resistance.

We found some money fish while fishing for Goddess Messenger.

Note how I only have 2 Goddess Messenger compared to 6 money fish. I used the 2 highest level bait for all my fishing on the Fish of Mystery day, so it's quite possible Serenes Forest is wrong about fishing odds. I'm already pretty sure it's wrong about Goddess Messenger in terms of low quality bait, because I don't remember seeing it with low quality bait at all, but it seems like even with high quality bait the Goddess Messenger is rarer than money fish.

 

[DehNutCase]

Chapter 10, Part 2:

Map:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 19

 

It's kind of weird that we only see a level 19 story map now, considering Paralogues (which averages to be around level 19) have been around for quite a while now.

 

Pre-map Planning:

This is a 2 part map, but both parts are short and easy---especially considering we're hilariously over-leveled. The fastest clear would involve splitting the team to clear both sides at once and meeting up in the middle of the map, but as far as I know there's no penalty for takings your sweet time, so if you're not confident half a team can handle a side you can just deathball the entire map.

Enemy density is a bit higher on the left side, so you should allocate more units there if you're splitting the team.

This is how the 2nd half of the map starts, your students twiddling their thumbs in the forest in the middle of the map, and Byleth where Kronya used to be. Usually you'll swap to Enlightened One here, but I guess being a flier means Byleth doesn't class change.

The class change might also be tied to the creator sword being in Byleth's inventory, I guess, but I'm not going to replay half a map just to find out what the triggers are.

 

The enemy density gets even lower on the second half, and most of them either start aggro'd or are trivial to aggro, so you can just sit near the middle of the map and wait for the enemies to walk into your swords. (You can also just kill Solon immediately, I guess.) Going into the second part of the map doesn't end the turn, but does refresh your unit-turns, so single turn buffs like Rallies and Stride are kept.

This is a Speed Ring, it's... okay. 2 Speed isn't bad, but other accessories tend to be more useful. Even just comparing with other Rings there's Evasion, March, Goddess, and Accuracy.

Monsters are pretty slow, but they do have doubles on your slower 2nd stringers. 39 Atk is also fairly dangerous with a double. Has Seal Strength, but it pretty much doesn't matter at this point.

Dark Mages have passable Atk (should still be jokes against your 1st string Pegasus Knights, though), and now that we're a ways into the game, decent speed as well. 4 Move means they really shouldn't threaten anything ever, though. And here's another Magic Staff, although at this point it's not really useful. (If you aren't doing Paralogues you probably stole the pair of magic staves from chapter 6, and if you are doing Paralogues you have the +range staves for your casters.)

Cavaliers have Silver Lances now, so they do hit fairly hard, and they're actually faster than monsters at this point. I wouldn't call them threatening, exactly, but they aren't complete jokes anymore.

Silver Bows are pretty strong, but they're also not that accurate. If they got these a few maps earlier fliers might be worried against them, but at this point your main flier(s) should have Alert Stance, meaning archers do all of jack all.

Still, 37 Atk, 17 AS isn't too bad, but enemy density is too low on this map for the extra stats to matter.

I mean, it's an armor...

Mooks with battalions tend to have this particular battalion. Not terrible, not great. Armors upgraded to Silver Weapons, but they still shouldn't be threats to anyone above, say, level 5.

17 AS seems to be the new standard for (non-monster) mooks. Now that axe users have Silver weapons their attack is pretty dangerous, 43 Atk should be 2HKOs on almost everyone at this point. Enemy mook attack will keep going up as the game goes on, but their hit rates level out around 100, so avoid tanking will overtake def/res tanking soon, if they haven't already.

This guy drops a Hammer. Hammers aren't bad, but enemy armors isn't too much of an issue, so this isn't exactly a high priority weapon.

Monica/Kronya has 42 AS, which is pretty damn high. (It's so high that Byleth can't double her without buffs/debuffs unless I have her eat all 3 Speed Carrots I have in Convoy and pick up the Speed Ring on top of Darting Blow.) On the other hand, she only has 38 Atk, albeit with a sky high crit chance, so your tankier units can probably survive doubles from her without problems.

NPC mooks with only 1 range tend to have this skill (we've seen this earlier, but I didn't specifically mention it since it basically doesn't matter). It's not bad, pushing Kronya to 72 avoid, but she still goes down really easily to a bunch of ranged attacks.

Shamir isn't available since all the Knights of Seiros are out doing other things, so we bring in a new flier (Leonie) in her place. In addition to the usual suspects we have Hubert and Sylvain picking up the tail of the group. (I guess you can count Sylvain as a main team member, since he's been on the team for so long, but he's around the level of our bench at this point.)

Caspar is stapled to Linhardt with Luin, Ferdinand with a Training Lance to Dorothea, and Lorenz with his Killer Lance & Crit Ring combo to Hubert. The adjuncts are purely for exp gain. Ingrid and Petra aren't too interesting at this point, so we don't bother stapling anyone to Byleth.

We repair Bernadetta's Steel Bow+ and swap the almost broken Iron Bow she had been holding for a fresh Steel Bow from convoy. She also picks up her Devil Axe.

Sylvain gets the Lance of Ruin since Relic durability isn't much of an issue now that we're so close to Part 2. (And its free repair.) He also gets the Aegis Shield since it's more or less a straight upgrade to Silver Shield due to how slow he is regardless.

I should really forge some Brave Weapons to take advantage of the Part 2 free repair, but eh.

Leonie picks up a pair of effective weapons, a Steel and an Iron Lance for normal usage, and an Iron Bow for the occasional poke.

Here's her skills.

I also give her our old Seiros Pegasus Co. battalion.

There's a Chest on the map, so I buy 2 Chest Keys. (Since I like having a bunch of spares.)

Dorothea holds one key and I have Linhardt hold another one.

 

Everything else is more or less unchanged from previous maps. (Lysithea and Linhardt has the +range staves, Annette has the March ring, etc.) Hubert still has the exp gem since he's underleveled.

 

The Map:

We start things off with a Stride. You don't have to, but I have 4 Stride charges and it lets me get into combat sooner.

Debuffing Speed and doing some chip damage to barriers.

The monster was weak to Lances so I use one to see if it breaks a barrier fully or not. (It does, and it also draws aggro.)

Byleth didn't have a Bow in her inventory at the start of map (she had the creator sword in the Iron Bow's place), so I take one out of convoy.

To smack this guy and fight the monster on enemy phase. Byleth misses a shot, but it doesn't really matter.

She Cantos a bit down and left.

I have Hubert fish for a crit---which happens.

The monster would ORKO his slow and squishy ass, so I dance him and move him behind the front lines.

Barrier poking.

Ditto, but also activating Bernadetta's Personal.

Linhardt things.

I'm not sure why the monster would've went for Hubert instead of Edelgard earlier, since 2 range meant it could hit her as well as Hubert, and she has aggro, but once Hubert's out of the way aggro works normally.

Kronya says this at the start of enemy phase, but I don't think the map actually has a turn limit or anything.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto.

More enemy phase.

Byleth can handle the entire right side by herself, but she can't break the monster's barrier for loot if I did that, so I shoot this guy and have Byleth fly towards the main group.

I'm not sure why I do this rather than just stabbing the monster twice with a lance, but I do.

Low rolls on Umbral Steel on this map, but we aren't really hurting for Umbral Steel seeing how demonic beasts are everywhere.

Being a pegasus knight & using the pegasus knight battalion means Leonie doesn't take too much damage from un-promoted casters, although Warlocks would still probably 2HKO her.

We loot the magic staff and convoy it, where it'll probably never be seen again. You can do some minor min-maxing like giving march ring + this to someone, and just equipping the staff before you take a combat, and the march ring before you move, but that's way too much hassle for me.

This crits, so the monster explodes.

B+ reason.

Spoilers, the next series of moves leads to Leonie getting 2HKOd since I'm not bothering to do combat math at this point.

Sylvain trades his Killer Lance for a Chest Key.

Leonie swaps to Horseslayer.

Linhardt things.

And I shuffle people around a bit before ending turn.

And Leonie gets exactly 2HKOd, oops. (She has 38 hp max---it says she has 22 hp because her hp bar is still dropping.)

And dead.

Divine Pulse: 16

It'd be easier to recover if I pulsed to an earlier unit-turn, since the main reason Leonie needed to take both combats is because Dorothea is just as squishy and the Cavaliers can also reach her. In retrospect it'd be better if I gave Dorothea the Aegis and let her take both combats, though.

Leonie still has her turn at this point, so she takes the Aegis Shield from Sylvain.

And she swaps to Iron Lance to avoid the double before flying back in front of Dorothea.

She was exactly 2HKOd so even though Aegis is going to cause her 10 damage after combat she'll survive with 1 hp after 2 combats. (Due to the 6 defense.)

The rest of the turn is the same as before, Linhardt heals Leonie to full and everyone else shuffles around a bit.

Technically 23 damage.

This drops Leonie own to 2 hp, and then Aegis burns her down to her last point.

Not having Lysithea OHKO since I want to feed exp to other people.

Leonie gives the Aegis Shield back.

Doop. (She's 5 hp right now because of Dorothea's Personal, if you were curious.)

Leonie Cantos a bit upward after the combat.

Sylvain picks up the Speed Ring.

I have Edelgard dismount over here (to bait the archers) and shoot the Cavalier to death.

Linhardt trade swaps her to Iron Lance for Prowess, since she can't counter archers even with a bow. (If the archers had been closer holding a bow would force them to attack at 3 range instead, but that's not relevant since we're pulling at max range.)

Exp farming.

Dorothea does a heal.

The monster had its barrier refilled, so we have 2 turns to work on its barrier. Bernadetta Cantos downward after the gambit.

More barrier breaking.

And gone.

Still a min roll, but whatever.

The monster is weak to swords, so this obliterates its first hp bar.

Byleth is in range of a bow mook, but she's also Byleth so whatever.

Enemy phase combat.

34 MT, sure, but 14 hit despite Byleth not having Alert Stance active means it's 0% if she does have it.

And we go back to Edelgard to finish up the last enemy phase combat. Not sure why the order went like that.

I'm not sure what made this guy aggro, but he and the Cavalier northwest of him starts marching towards us using the right path.

Byleth is fine alone so I have her dismount in the forest (for the physical avoid) and kill the monster. She wouldn't quite have enough to ORKO from full hp but the monster was standing on some fire (from Hubert's gambit, I believe), which did enough chip damage.

Hubert and Annette moves left to get out of Byleth's way.

I have Edelgard mount again and remind this archer how the flier vs. archer matchup works.

I should probably consider giving her a Levin Sword at this point, considering the 17 Mag. Pretty good level, but a level needs both Strength and Speed to be great.

Linhardt has Caspar on Adjunct duty so I actually have him get combat exp.

Chip damage.

The archer's at 5 hp because Lysithea's Crest proc'd.

Dancing Linhardt.

And dead. (It's a little sad that Linahardt is so slow he can't double armors, but if I really cared I'd just grab him Wind so he isn't weighed down.)

Technically 17 Strength if we consider class stat boosts, but Caspar's been getting some pretty great level ups. Once he gets Death Blow he'll be worth bringing in to the lineup. I wonder why I keep forgetting to get him Thief, though, since that's a free 2 Dex.

Left side ends like this, completely safe.

Bernadetta does some sniping before flying out of enemy range.

Doop.

(Forests are pretty stupid.)

So are axe mooks.

Slightly shaky KO, and Byleth misses one of the hits.

It's fine though, since Bernadetta could just shoot the guy at point blank before flying away.

Everyone who isn't Byleth heads left to join the main group.

Edelgard swaps to Iron Bow for monster bait duty. In a better world she'd be able to 1-2 range counter with magic, but in this world you have to chop off your legs in order to use magic, apparently.

Dancer things.

Into Annette things.

Exp farming.

A little bit of moving around.

It's not very efficient to give Byleth a lot of kills like this, but thanks to Paralogues we have way more exp than we need, so efficiency doesn't really matter too much.

That 1% hit chance.

Nice that the hammer kept its full durabillity since it missed. I guess Caspar will get to use it if I ever bring him into the lineup. I'll start working on Flying for him if I manage to remember, since I want someone to swing axes around.

10% better accuracy still isn't great.

Doop.

I have Byleth mount and finish off the last guy on the left.

And she Cantos into range to pull the other monster. Fighting the in forest isn't ideal since it's a giant pain to try and reach Kronya through the forest, but eh. (Assassins aren't impeded by most terrain, but our non-fliers are.)

Barrier breaking.

I left Reversal on Shamir, I believe, which is a pity. Moving monsters closer to us would be real nice right now.

Lysithea breaks the far off barrier.

And some Faith exp for Annette.

More low rolls on the loot, but whatever.

Exp farming for Hubert.

I... don't think he missed a single Magic level this month? This level even has Speed, so it's great.

Chip.

Not great since he only has 13 Speed, but 21 Strength is plenty for bringing into the team, especially since Paladins have Lancefaire to push the damage output even higher.

Dancer things.

I'd prefer Speed over Magic on Dorothea, since I'd rather she focus on not dying than killing things, but I'll take it.

Ferdinand also gets a level from Adjuncting for Dorothea. He's level 13 so there's time for his Strength to grow, but I'll be real mad if he ends up Speed blessed but Strength screwed just like my last run.

Leonie lands a crit so the monster explodes.

I move some people around and Linhardt does Linhardt things.

It has Speed so it's not awful, but Magic is the important stat for Linhardt.

Almost done with part 1 of the map.

Enemy phase combat.

It's a bit tricky to fight this guy so close to Kronya's attack range, so I have Byleth flip it closer to the team.

This barrier is pretty hard to reach, so Edelgard goes to break it before Cantoing out of Kronya's range.

Speed debuffing.

It's good that mousing over the tiles shows whether a barrier is present and whether it's broken (note the shiny shield next to the Seal Strength skill for the monster), since barriers are decently hard to see with terrain in the way.

Doop.

More low rolls.

And Hubert gets some exp farming done.

Great level. I'm expecting him to end up with around Sylvain's stats except with better magical damage and bulk, so slightly better than Sylvain, but not by much.

Poke.

Blessed Lance things.

Dancer things.

And more exp farming for Hubert.

Which he puts to good use.

Exp farming.

We could just gather up in a Stride ball and rush Kronya, but Byleth has such crazy stats that we won't need to.

Byleth flies into Kronya's range for pulling. (Dismounting and sitting in a forest would be more optimal, but it doesn't matter for Byleth because Krona's too scared to fight Byleth properly.)

Annette things.

I danced Byleth here to check Kronya's damage, I believe. (By moving over and checking the pre-combat numbers.)

Linhardt things.

As you can see, Kronya's so terrified of Byleth's counter that she's going to use a 20% gambit rather than try and fish for a crit. Mind, she doesn't have the Speed to double Byleth so even a Crit wouldn't help.

Doop.

The gambit misses.

Trying to debuff Speed, although I'm fine with missing since we have everyone's unit-turns to kill Kronya if needed.

Lysithea's spell landed so Byleth has a 100% kill on Kronya, but we do some minor setting up for part 2. Annette does a Rally.

Exp farming and giving Lysithea a unit-turn to get into the Stride ball.

Doop.

Sylvain Strides everyone except himself.

And Byleth does Byleth things.

Don't get me wrong, Speed is a great stat, but I would like Byleth to keep getting Strength, still.

A short cutscene later and Byleth dyes her hair.

And the map ends up like this, as we've seen in the pre-map planning.

Enemy stats are the same as the first part, but we do see some healer on this part. Still with awful, garbage stats.

This armor mook on the left side has a Steel Axe rather than a Silver, but it's dropped on death.

And here's Solon, with... 6 Attack Speed and toiler paper defense. I mean, yes, he has 53 Atk on offense and can fish for crits with Death, but he's not going to survive player phase and 4 movement doesn't get him enemy phase combats.

Byleth isn't in Enlightened One so she could actually just fly up and ORKO Solon immediately. I don't do this, though, gotta farm some exp.

First off, exp farming.

I have Edelgard repo Hubert forward before Cantoing her up.

Exp farming.

Annette walks up and Dorothea does dancer things.

She trade swaps Edelgard to Iron Bow since I forgot to do that before flying her into monster range.

And also regular Annette things.

Poke.

She Cantos back to mid.

And we move everyone into the middle of the map.

Enemy Phase combat.

Byleth lands both crits, so this monster explodes to the counter.

I swap Byleth to a lance for a bit higher avoid (her hp was a little worrying), before trying to Lure this monster, forgetting that it's being blocked by the columns and Sylvain.

Oh well, Lysithea adds some barrier damage.

Poke. (He Cantos back mid after the combat.)

And goodbye barrier.

Finally an x3 drop, although, again, there's so many demonic beasts on the route that you really shouldn't be hurting for Umbral Steel.

Despite how it might look, the stride only hits Leonie, Hubert, and Dorothea.

Exp farming for Hubert.

He also gets the guy's Steel Axe.  (Part of the reason I want to bring Caspar into the team is so I finally have someone to start using all the axes I have.)

On the right side I have Edelgard use a gambit to secure aggro. (Wasn't really necessary, since I forgot this was an AoE turn---all she needed to do was to be in range.)

Nothing to complain about with Leonie's offenses, although being in 2HKO range vs. most enemies is a bit concerning.

Great level.

Leonie Cantos out of enemy range and Linhardt does Linhardt things.

Dancer things.

This is pure exp farming. (Edelgard still has Seal Strength on her from the enemy phase combat, I believe.)

Enemies are trickling in, but slow enough that it's not really a concern.

Enemy phase combat. It's annoying that this guy went first and Byleth failed to ORKO back (thanks to missing), since it meant Hubert didn't take an enemy phase combat vs. the Dark Mage for more exp.

Monster does the AoE thing, and it hits.

That sure was a enemy phase combat.

I swap Leonie to a bow and use Assembly to pull the monster closer to the team.

Leonie flies out of the way and, since the monster is naturally weak to axes, Edelgard smacks it with her Steel Axe+.

Dancer things.

Linhardt breaks a barrier. (In enemy range, but it's a caster, and Linhardt has like 30 resistance after considering his battalion.)

Broken barrier and 1st hp bar gone.

Only one x3 drop this map, but it's still like 8 or so Umbral Steel total.

Annette adds some damage.

Exp farming for Hubert.

It's a 2 stat level, but Hubert continues getting Magic every single level.

A crit happens, so this guy explodes.

Bernadetta dodged the monster's counter, so I was fine leaving her and Hubert left side while everyone else shifted over to the right side.

Doop.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto. The mage gets healed by Physic so he's full hp still on player phase.

Edelgard kills a monster, and Cantos a bit up.

Exp farming.

Lorenz gets B Lances from Adjunct Exp.

Poke.

Poke.

And dead.

Exp farming.

Into Linhardt things.

Everyone shuffles around a bit.

Almost done.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

Speed debuffing.

Chip damage.

And Hubert comes in to snatch the kill.

I'm perfectly fine with Hubert getting 2 stat levels for the rest of the game if they're all like this. (Hell, I wouldn't even mind missing out on some Speed if he just gets Magic every single level like he's been getting.)

Dancer things.

I move Byleth up for exp purposes and Hubert comes in to farm more exp.

Exp farming.

A Faith, so Linhardt gets Warp. (And guaranteed Bishop.)

It's a bit of a hassle to reach the priest behind Solon, so I didn't end up bothering. (A repo and a Stride should get one of my fliers enough mobility to hit it, but eh.)

This guy wasn't aggro'd so he didn't move on enemy phase. But Hubert was close enough to reach him anyway.

Not a fan of this level at all. Magic is nice but Lorenz doesn't have the Speed to be a good Levin user, so it's mostly for 2RKOing armors.

Annette things.

And Linhardt comes in to Warp Byleth closer to Solon.

Only 4 range since his Magic is pretty screwed. Lysithea could pick up the slack later, but Warp isn't too high a priority for me since my team is crazy mobile even without it.

Dancer things.

And Byleth does Byleth things.

A Authority, so she can use Cichol now. I might keep her with Galatea, though, since it has 5% better Avoid.

Hubert gets MVP for all the exp he farmed.

 

[DehNutCase]

Chapter 11, Part 1:

Planned to do 2 Paralogues + a Rare Monster Sighting this update, but Serenes Forest ate the Shamir Paralogue + the Academy Phase so I'm just going to redo that and post it as Part 1.

 

Academy:

Spoiler

We had a tea party, Nice, but no stats.

Exactly the same result with Hanneman's birthday, interestingly enough.

I have the memory of a potato so it's possible you only class change here rather than in the middle of Chapter 10, but yeah, Byleth gets instantly swapped into Enlightened One and then I swapped her back into Pegasus Knight.

Enlightened One has level 20 bases and stat boosts but growths similar to a level 10 class, and magic access or not it's still a 6 move infantry class, so not too interesting.

Support from combat.

Linhardt goes Bishop for a bit of extra stats and exp gain. His White Magic uses also get doubled, but we're more or less fine on healing spells and my lineup doesn't really use Warp that much.

Grabbing the class for the bases, Mage's 10 uses of Fire trumps Warlocks better Mag and Speed when damage isn't an issue but accuracy is.

Low Luck isn't exactly good for a caster, but Lysithea has pretty high Dex so her accuracy with dark magic spells will fix itself eventually.

Paladin brings a bit more Strength to the table, 1 more movement (2 more when dismounted---Cavalier has 4 move dismounted, Paladins 6), and Lancefaire. They're also a bit beefier on the rare occasions I need them to take hits, but I mostly just use them to kill things.

Not too happy about Sylvain's stats right now. It's fine for a 2nd stringer, but just about everyone is fine for a 2nd stringer. We're at the point where the team doesn't need to clump up just to survive anymore, so his Personal will be active a lot less often.

Caspar's stats are pretty damn high at this point, so I have him working on Flying just in case I end up wanting to bring him into the team.

Edelgard has A Authority so she's working on Flying for Falcon Knight.

Raphael gets the same goals as Caspar for more or less the same reason, although I'm less likely to bring him into the main team despite his higher level.

 

Exploration:

There's a rare monster sighting on the 2nd week and you or more less have to do exploration on the third week to get into Crimson Flower---you need to go on a field trip with Edelgard to get into the route, and it skips to the end of the month if you do---so you'll want to have 2-3 Paralogues coming into the month, ideally, although you can do more than that if needed, just don't explore the first week.

You do lose out on a pretty decent battalion if you decide to do battles the 1st and 2nd weeks, though, because of how Alois works.

 

Important non-quest Stuff:

You miss out on a battalion if Alois isn't recruited when you do his Paralogue, so for optimal loot you have to explore 1st and 3rd week and do Paralogues on the 2nd.

Warrior has +3 HP, +3 Str, +1 Speed, +1 Luck, and +1 Def, so his real bases are 47 HP, 24 Str, 14 Speed, 11 Luck, and 17 Def for those stats. Which is still quite good. His huge hp means he's 2HKOd by magic rather than 1HKOd---which is the case for pretty much everyone if we're talking about Warlocks doing the hitting---and his Fortress Knight level defense means physical hits isn't an issue.

24 Strength means he won't have any problems hitting people to death, either, so aside from the fact that he doesn't start with access to mounted classes Alois is pretty great despite his late recruitment. Unless you really rush for Flying it's hard to get him onto a Wyvern before Part 2 starts, though.

He has a bond with Leonie so if one of them ends up benched adjunct duty is available for a bit of extra damage.

Having Brawling as a secondary is pretty annoying, but Alois actually has tertiary exp in Authority and Heavy Armor, so it doesn't actually matter too much. C Authority lets him start with Knights of Seiros (which is good enough that I won't bother giving him a new battalion), and if you like armors he can get into Fortress Knight pretty easily. He has a Weakness in flying, but it should still be faster to get him into Wyverns than Cavalier/Paladin, due to his A rank in axes.

B Brawling does give him access to Healing Focus (50% self heal combat art) and every gauntlet that matters---there's a magical Gauntlet at A and an... dragon effective gauntlet at A, as well. Effective damage is based on weapon MT, and the dragon gauntlet has 4 MT, so yeah. B rank is where brave weapons unlock for other weapon types, so gauntlets really needed to get a version with regular weapon damage at B rank (or go full meme and have 3 hits per attack or something). But nope, they max out at 4 MT if we ignore the relic gauntlet that recently got added.

We have him working on Flying and Authority, although I don't expect him to get into Wyvern before Part 2 rolls around.

Edelgard is over here if you want to join her on the field trip. We pass by without saying 'hi,' though---we'll talk to her later in the month.

 

Quest Stuff:

We spent 2k points to pick up Axe +2 and Authority +2, getting more Divine Pulses is probably more optimal, but eh. Axe doesn't really matter for our lineup but Authority does make everyone get the best battalions a bit earlier, which will be a nice bunch of stat boosts across the board for our team.

 

We don't actually have quests this month aside from the few combat quests still clogging up our quest log.

 

Non-quest Stuff:

Greenhousing.

And we plant the usual.

Buying some smithing material, the 2 highest tiers of bait, and the 100g gifts. It's pretty annoying that you can't buy smithing material in battle prep, and there'll be a similar annoyance later with Master Seals from Anna's shop.

Cash reserves running a bit low, but I should have a ton of bullion in my convoy so it's not actually an issue.

Here's Hilda, turns out you can't give her gifts at all in Crimson Flower. I should probably submit a bug report, but I'm lazy.

I'll skip showing who I'm cooking with now, since neither Professor Points nor Support Points matters that much at this point. (It was with Bernadetta if you were curious.)

Showing the +1 all stat recipe since we have access to it now, Zanado Treasure Fruit doesn't drop from Nordsalat, but the seeds that drop them do, so it's only a week to get them if you cared. Albinean Moose is the real issue since you'd have to either luck into them from random battles or else get them from a quest. Too much effort, not enough reward, in my opinion.

Motivation refills.

Doop.

And a support from eating.

Lysithea's low luck means she's seeing positive crit rates vs. most of the tournament enemies, and the mage in the finals 3HKOs her, but we don't care too much about money so she only needed to do 1 tournament run. (Also, interestingly enough, you're allowed to use any of the low ranked black magic spells, not just Fire, so Thunder and Wind are also fine if you have access to them.)

Faculty training for some skill exp.

Doop.

Lysithea's Charm is a bit low, so I have a tea party with her. It was Perfect, and +1 Charm for both Byleth and Lysithea.

 

Lecture:

Flying exp since Caspar has a serious shot at making the team now.

E+ Flying.

Lances for Bernadetta since it's so efficient to tutor for.

A Reason for Meteor will be pretty great even if Dorothea never ends up casting it, a 10 range tome means she can provide support bonuses from across the map.

Finally working on picking up some Faith spells for Lysithea.

D Faith, and heal. Healing isn't really an issue since Byleth doesn't use a lot of HP when she kills people, and she can wipe most of a map by herself, but it'll give some extra exp + save some gold on healing items occasionally. (It's why I actually like healers in most Fire Emblem games---I don't care about turn count all that much so resource efficiency is more important for me, and healers have that in spades.)

Shamir is just as nice to tutor for in terms of Lances as Bernadetta, although she has a bit of catching up to do to hit A Lances before level 30.

Leonie actually uses Lances to hit people, so it's not really a priority for now.

D+ Authority.

I'll probably swap to tutoring Flying once Edelgard gets B+ Lances and C Swords, since Alert Stance+ should be more important for her than Lance Prowess Lv. 5.

I guess you need B rank support with people for them to stand behind you, hence why Leonie doesn't have friends with her.

A rare Perfect, and C+ Riding for Lysithea.

Alert Stance+ happens at A+, so it probably won't happen until people have been in Falcon Knight for a bit. B Flying for Edelgard.

B+ Reason for Dorothea, which lets her attempt Warlock certification.

Aside from Edelgard and Dorothea, Linhardt got B Authority, Felix got B Swords, and Marianne got E+ Authority.

Trying for Warlock in case it has some stat boosts for Dorothea, but it fails.

So I reset and have her test Brigand to advance the RNG counter.

And her Strength is so low she actually gets a boost from passing Brigand.

Picking up some 1k gold stat boosters.

Selling some Nordsalat for cash.

It's rare monster day, but all the guy drops is a Silver Axe, so the map isn't too important unless you're gold starved. (Rare Monster Sighting maps give a nice chunk of gold.)

 

Alois and Shamir's Paralogue:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 17, it says.

It's not too hard if you do it with the recommended level of units, as long as you take advantage of the fact that you can have people in the town for 4 turns before it starts being a game over, but having flying archers makes the map a lot easier and unless you're heavy on Pegasus Knights (like I am), you'll need level 20 for Wyverns.

A lot of the mooks are promoted, too, so enemy stats are closer to a level 20 map than a level 17 map, they just don't give exp like on a level 20 map.

Pre-map Planning:

The game doesn't tell you until you start the map, but you lose if people get into the town for 5 turns. Also, the boats here are a bit of a hint for when you revisit the map later in Crimson Flower, but that's not for a while yet. 5 turns is pretty generous and according to the wiki you get max rewards as long as you don't lose, rather than max rewards for preventing any units from entering the town at all, so the map should be fine even if you don't have a good comp for it, just really annoying to play.

The AI knows this, by the way, the reinforcement Wyverns that spawn will not attack you even if they have ORKOs, because they'd much rather get into the town and trigger your loss condition, and even near certain ORKOs might lower their hp without costing the player unit-turns on player phase.

 

I still like the map more than I dislike it, since you can anticipate the Wyvern problem just by looking at the enemy composition, at least once you know that you need to keep the town safe. (They do tell you immediately at the start of map, so all it costs is a quick reset assuming you're in the habit of saving before you start a map.) This is miles better than fog of war maps that don't even bother showing you enemy stats.

Yes, if you don't have the unit types to handle the map then you'll need to exit the Paralogue and get those units by doing other maps, but that can't be helped. It's why I'm pretty forgiving of Conquest's map design even though the route gets significantly easier on your second run through, because you know the types of units you'd need beforehand. It's just not feasible to give the player advance notice of maps in future chapters.

Designing maps is quite hard when reclassing is so easy, since the devs can't assume you have access to certain unit types. Conquest got around this by being able to assume you always have access to the Royals in their base classes with a 2k gold seal, so they could design complicated stuff in the main story, but maps with strict composition requirements are pretty much forced into being Paralogues in Three Houses, since nobody is forced into any particular class.

Not saying I like PoR and whatnot's system of locked classes better, but it's harder to design maps when reclassing is available.

 

Anyway, back to strategy. Land units will attempt to enter through the two gates, fliers will probably attempt to get in through the bottom left section of the town, so you'll want flying archers covering that bit. 3 Fliers or 2 fliers & a dancer should be able to comfortably handle everything trying to get in from the air, assuming you have Divine Pulses to reroll misses. You could also attempt Hail Mary flier snipes with Deadeye on an infantry archer, but good luck with that when we're talking about like 5 or 6 range shots. If you're willing to let Wyverns into the town then it's a lot easier since your grounded archers can just shoot them down afterwards, but I played this map under the assumption that you get the best rewards if nobody touched the town at all.

Our composition has a hilarious amount of fliers, so fliers won't be a real issue, and we have a few level 20 class units ourselves, now, so enemy level 20 classes aren't too much of an issue either.

And here we are, the Wyverns. 36 Atk and 22 AS isn't amazing, but it's good enough to ORKO your squishier units, even if they're moderately invested. 7 Move and flying mobility on top of their decent physical bulk means they're hard to take down outside of flying archers. (You can 2RKO them with just about everything, but you're going to using a lot of unit-turns if you had to do that.)

Mages would do decently well against them, but mages can't walk on water or fly, so unless you have a bunch of Meteors and Boltings hitting them with magic isn't going to happen until they get into the town, which is what we're trying to avoid.

A lot of the mooks are in level 20 classes, but we do get a few freebies like thieves, who should be ORKOd by almost everyone and not threaten anything worse than a 2RKO even on your squishiest units.

11 AS archer...

This is still technically a level 17 map, so the game holds off on Silver weapons, so even the promoted guys are a bit weighed down. 41 Atk is dangerous but 12 AS means you're safe from the OHKO with just a little more bulk than armor knight bases.

Their crit rate is fairly high, though, so unlucky people shouldn't be fighting them.

There's a lot of mooks with battalions on this map, and they usually have this. Not too interesting, but it does mean it's hard to get counter-kills since they'd just use a gambit rather than suicide into you.

33 Atk, 23 AS. Between the 6 move and lower attack Assassins are a bit less dangerous than Wyverns on this map, but they could still do serious damage to your squishier units while being hard to ORKO due to their decent Speed.

Brigands exist. 33 Atk isn't bad, but it shouldn't threaten ORKOs on anyone.

Brawlers has 23 AS, which is nice, and... 21 Atk. You'll want 1 or 2 defense over armor knight bases to survive the ORKO, but if defense was an issue you can always just swap into a physical battalion or pick up a shield, so they're not too threatening.

This guy is the 'boss,' he has a Concoction you can steal since he moves, meaning they can't just put him on a heal tile, but he really shouldn't be an issue to any that reaches him.

There are sniper mooks on the map, but 11 AS and low Atk means they're not too much better than the archers at threatening your units. Just watch out for Vantage if you're trying to kill them with your flying archers, I guess.

Hubert is in the Imperial Capital doing things, so he's AWOL for the entire month. (Interesting that he's AWOL this month even for Paralogues while the Knights of Seiros were only away for the story map last chapter, but whatever.)

The team is more or less the usual suspects minus Lysithea---she's benched because I want to get some exp for Annette now that she's falling a bit behind. I also give her +2 range staff to Annette, although Annette keeps her March Ring equipped for now.

Caspar has Luin (I keep forgetting to give him an Axe since I want him in Wyvern at this point) and is stapled to Annette, Marianne is stapled to Sylvain, and Lorenz with a Killer Lance + Crit Ring is stapled to Dorothea.

Alois picks up a bunch of axes an a Speed Ring. Speed Ring isn't great or anything, especially compared to the other options, but it's not like 2 Speed is ever bad.

The reason he has a lot of axes is for Exhaustive Strike. Steel Axe+ has 60 durability, incidentally, so if you're spending a lot of cash for player phase damage it's an option. It's a very niche combat art despite how good it is at killing something that needs to be dead, since you end up holding a broken weapon for enemy phase, but it's there if you need it.

Healing focus like I've mentioned before comes from B Brawling, and heals for 50% of your hp. It saves a inventory slot on healing items assuming you don't have combat art slot issues, and I won't be going back to reposition or whatever for Alois so he won't.

His last art is Helm Splitter for decent damage vs. everything and effectiveness vs. armors. Spike is also a decent option, basically a Axe and slightly better version of Wrath Strike, but Helm Splitter does more damage if you don't mind the lower accuracy and crit chance.

I think I replaced Sylvain's Iron Bow?

We forge Shamir's Silver into a Brave Bow, costing a little bit of MT, Hit, and WT, but it's a brave weapon, so yeah. Wootz Steel is a pretty valuable resource, but we have Part 2 repairs coming up, so it's not much of an issue use high quality weapons right now.

We drop one of her Killer Bows so we have a slot to buy a new Silver Bow for her as well. It's more cost efficient to forge a Steel into Silver after using it a bit, but whatever.

Edelgard drops Defense +2 for Alert Stance.

Bottom is like this.

Top is like this.

 

We're over-leveled and my team comp is more or less ideal for this map, so there's no much reason to do a ton of prep.

 

The Map:

Wish they'd tell you this before you start the map, but whatever.

We don't get good exp on this map since it's technically level 17, so no reason not to make Byleth take the bulk of the combats, so she starts things off.

Flying forward a bit more after the combat.

This... misses.

We're over-leveled so misses like this doesn't matter, fortunately.

This hits, unfortunately it doesn't catch the archer, but Edelgard can survive 1 hit easily and even the archer knows it has no chance vs. Byleth.

Top is more or less handled, so Sylvain does a Stride before joining the team top.

He's tanky enough that he can go a bit more forward, but eh.

Doop.

Devil Axe to trigger Bernadetta's Personal.

Dancer things.

Doop.

And doop.

Bad level, but unlike physical units mages don't need a lot of stats to function. And Annette has 20 Magic already anyway.

Good level, not great since it doesn't have Speed as well, but good. Brigand means his Strength is worse than it looks, but 18 at level 13 is still damn high. Plus he'll be the only person on the team with Death Blow, which is +6 Strength.

Shamir flies down to join the bottom side, since top having Byleth means it's unlikely top-side gets into problems.

Doop.

Two thieves spawn in the top boat, and IRRC an Assassin spawns in the middle boat. The thieves don't really matter since they don't kill anything and die to everything, and the Assassin is only 1 guy, so he's not too much of an issue either.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

Edelgard dodges.

The pair of Wyverns which started need bottom is flying towards the down. They're barely in range to get sniped by a Deadeye archer inside the town itself, but it'd be damn shaky hit odds.

Here's the Assassin that spawned. Spawning in the middle boat means he'll take ages to reach anything relevant.

Byleth things.

I feel pretty confident about Byleth's avoidance levels, so I don't bother with Alert Stance or Evasion Ring despite the large number of mooks ready to attack her.

Doop.

Sylvain went down after his combat, and Edelgard does the typical flyer vs. archer thing.

She flies down over here to get help out in case Wyverns get close to the town, and Alois joins her. We wait on Linhardt in case I want him to do something other than the obvious heal Byleth thing, so we'll swap to bottom side.

A Steel+ is enough to OHKO, but Silvers forge into Braves while Steel+ is stuck as Steel+.

Bernadetta doesn't quite have the stats to ORKO a Wyvern, so Annette does Annette things.

Doop.

Our fliers end up like this, to cover the town against fliers.

Exp farming.

Linhardt things.

Turn ends like this. If you look carefully you'd see Annette move a little bit towards bottom right, but not so far that she separates from the group.

Wyvern spawns on enemy phase.

Enemy Phase combat. (Byleth heals right back to full with her Crest.)

Ditto. (Gambits before regular combats would add damage overall since it'd apply debuffs, but I don't think AI takes that into account at all before deciding on moves.)

The gambit misses.

Miss.

This sure was a combat.

This lands, which means Byleth is stuck. Last Enemy Phase combat.

I could fly Byleth out of here if Linhardt uses a Restore, but there's no need. She picks up an Evasion Ring and goes to town.

Doop.

Linhardt things.

The Wyvern was in an annoying spot, so I have Sylvain Stride the group. Alois also gets enough movement to help out Byleth a little like this.

Sylvain Cantos here.

This... also misses. Good thing I'm overleveled...

Edelgard Cantos back out of the range of archers and I have Annette Stride Dorothea + Bernadetta.

Risky Deadeye, but it lands. (We should be fine even without this landing, though, since Dorothea dancing Shamir should give us enough mobility for Shamir to reach as well.)

Doop.

Alois walks here, swaps to Training Axe for Speed, and heals himself. (Since attacking the Axe mook would put him in range of getting KOd.)

We didn't need Shamir for the Wyvern, so I fly her down here and have Dorothea dance her.

For some free pokes on enemy mooks.

No reason to conserve Brave Bow uses that much since it'll get repaired soon anyway---the mook was too fast to double since it's a Brawler.

Shamir flies back next to Dorothea and Leonie joins the anti-air squad.

We're actually in range to just obliterate the boss, but there's no real need to do that.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto. I forgot to swap Sylvain out of his Iron Bow, but it doesn't really matter.

Miss. (The fact that this is 35% rather than 25% suggest that Evasion Ring doesn't work on gambits.)

Another Assassin spawned and moved over here, I believe.

Alois being a HP sponge means this hurts a lot more than it looks, thanks to Poison Strike.

If Alois gets extremely unlucky he could technically die to this guy's crits + the axe guy, but the axe guy could OHKO Alois with a crit anyway so this guy's 1% crit rate isn't the real problem.

Miss.

And miss.

This lands, so Alois is at critical.

It's also the last enemy phase combat.

Byleth kills this guy and moves into his spot so that Alois has a nice choke point for himself.

Between Lancefaire, better Strength, and Lance of Ruin's high MT it means Sylvain doesn't have an issue with OHKOs. For higher leveled stuff he'd need a Brave Lance or a Combat Art, though.

He Cantos a square left after the combat, which puts him out of enemy range.

Linhardt things.

Finally some Mag. Bishop stat boosts means that his Magic isn't too bad, although he doesn't have Fiendish Blow due to not having gone through Mage.

Alois heals himself to full.

The Assassin reinforcement from a while ago finally reaches somewhere relevant, just to get shot full of arrows.

Shamir flies back and Dorothea does dancer things.

Again, I'd prefer Speed over Mag for her, but Mag isn't bad.

Cavalier mastered for Lorenz, not that Desperation matters. A -10% Speed growths class would not be where I put a skill that depends on being able to follow-up.

Using Brave Bow to avoid the counter damage.

Shamir is in Sniper range, but we've seen from the combat numbers that the Snipers don't quite OHKO, so she's fine.

Nothing better to do for Bernadetta, so she does some Deadeye poking. Which lands.

Edelgard flies a little upward in case top needs help.

And Leonie hangs out a little near bottom in case bottom needs help.

Annette slowly walks toward bottom right and we end turn.

Interestingly enough, this mook moved rather than attacking Byleth. (He was in range to do that.)

It's probably because he's a reinforcement, so he has the no attack thing just like the Wyverns.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto. (This guy's still full hp because he dodge Alois's attack last time.)

Misses.

Last enemy phase, since no more mooks are in range to attack. This also misses.

Byleth flies left to take care of the Warrior that's trying to get to the down---we already know Alois is safe from a Warrior + Archer + Brawler as long as no crits happen, so it's fine to leave him unattended.

Byleth flies a little back toward Alois and Sylvain farms a bit of exp.

Edelgard didn't have any Wyverns to take care of so she flies up here to kill an archer.

The Brawler manages to dodge.

Linhardt things.

The Sniper aggroing means the Brawlers around him aggro'd as well, but we have another turn before they're close enough to matter, so Shamir kills the Sniper first.

And gets C Flying from the combat.

She flies back towards Dorothea and Dorothea does dancer things.

Shamir's Personal means she can double this guy without using a Brave Bow, which is nice.

Pity you have to Dance in order to take advantage of it on player phase.

Doop.

Not much to do in the middle of the map since it feels like Wyverns spawn either every other turn or every third turn, so Bernadetta does more Deadeye poking. She misses, but it doesn't really matter.

Leonie flies next to Bernadetta since Shamir should have the bottom side covered and Edelgard should have top more or less covered, so we just need to be careful of Wyverns trying to fly around Bernadetta.

We almost outnumber the enemy now.

Wyverns spawn, and something interesting happens. This is a reinforcement Wyvern so it won't attack even if it sees a ORKO (which it has on Bernadetta), so it's not really aggro'd, but apparently being in attack range of a player unit means it can activate cascading aggro as if it was aggro'd, so the mooks around it (especially the Wyverns) aggro.

That or the cascading aggro came from Bernadetta trying to Deadeye poke the brawler 2 tiles above the reinforcing Wyvern. (Not having combat saves makes it really annoying to test stuff like this, hence why I'm pretty much just guessing on most of the AI stuff.)

The pirate manages to dodge, again. Dude refuses to get hit.

4% chance for Alois to explode, but fortunately it doesn't happen.

This wasn't an enemy phase combat, just me showing how the guy flew right next to Bernadetta without attacking her. He has a pretty secure ORKO but the AI prioritizes wasting the player's unit-turns on player phase (so it can get into the town and trigger the loss condition), over killing player units.

Doop. A crit happens, so the guy explodes. (I meant to feed this to Annette, but whatever.)

Shamir flies towards top to help out against the 3 Wyverns trying to get into town, and Dorothea dances her.

We use our last Stride.

Doop.

Doop.

And doop.

It's pretty easy to deal with Wyverns when you have plenty of bow using fliers around, but this map is a lot more annoying when you don't. (Melee fliers would have shaky ORKOs on top of having range issues thanks to the fair amount of archers scattered around the map.)

This hit lands, so the brawler finally dies after dodging like 5 70% hits or something.

Sylvain coming in for some exp.

Byleth dismounts which wasn't needed considering I didn't put her into the boss's range, but whatever.

Edelgard joins up with Bernadetta.

Linhardt things.

And we're more or less in the mop of phase.

This sure was a combat.

This misses.

Byleth isn't in any more danger so we take the Knowledge Gem back out of convoy.

And she flies down closer to the boss so she can steal the Concoction.

This was a max range combat, so Annette has to equip the march ring to walk to her square before equipping the +2 range staff to attack. (It's similar to the kind of min-maxing you'd do with a Magic Staff, but I usually don't bother since it's annoying.)

Annette explodes to pretty much everything on enemy phase, so I dance her and move her 1 square left.

Sylvain farms some exp.

And so does Linhardt.

Linhardt warps Sylvain 1 square right and Alois walks down.

Our fliers reposition themselves and we end turn.

Bad screenshot, but this was an enemy phase combat. Sylvain's tanky enough to not care about random Assassins, though. (The Assassin was a reinforcement.)

More enemy phase combat. Interestingly, the boss mook didn't bother attacking Byleth despite being in range, he opted to walk down instead.

Doop.

Sylvain Canto'd down after his fight and Linhardt farms some more exp.

Doop.

Dance.

And dead.

Everyone shuffles around a bit.

We don't quite have the reach to kill both warriors in the bottom right, but I don't bother going for both.

Enemy Phase combat.

This guy flew right next to Linhardt without attacking him, which is typical Wyvern reinforcement AI. (Weird that the Assassin reinforcement does attack, to be honest.)

And dead.

Annette couldn't quite reach the Warriors bottom, so she walks forward and gets Danced.

I convoy one of Byleth's weapons and yoink the Concoction from the boss.

She flies down here afterward to give Annette some extra exp.

Poke.

Dead.

It has magic, so it's good, although even Armor Knights eventually get some Speed, so she'll want a bit of Speed to keep doubling them. I don't mind her only having 2RKOs on stuff, though, since she's mostly a support unit, so it's not like I'll bench her if she fails to get any more Speed.

Doop.

And dead.

We left a warrior alive, but it doesn't really matter.

5k gold.

And Seraph Robe. Earlier in the game Seraph Robe would be by far the best stat booster due to how much bulkier it makes whoever you give it to, but we're at the point where bulk doesn't matter for our most invested units (mostly Byleth, but other fliers will get close to her avoidance eventually) and we have too many back-liners for one single stat booster to matter much.

It'll probably go on Byleth, just like everything else.

Doop.

Holy Knights of Seiros is pretty great. It's a B rank battalion with 7 Str, -2 Mag, 5 Def, 7 Res, and 7 Charm. Gloucester Knights is probably better, but this is pretty close. The gambit is assault troop, but I don't depend too much on gambits outside of saving unit-turns when it comes to breaking monster barriers, so it doesn't matter too much that the AoE isn't great.

You get it for having Alois on the team, hence why you might want to wait until now to do this Paralogue.

This is the other battalion. According to the wiki you get this for having Shamir on the team, but she starts with this particular battalion, IRRC, and you can buy it from the shop anyway, so it really doesn't matter.

 

[DehNutCase]

Chapter 11, Part 2:

 

Ignatz and Raphael's Paralogue:

Spoiler

It says Suggested Level: 19, but the mooks are less dangerous than the ones from Shamir's Paralogue.

 

Pre-map Planning:

The before battle map lies, incidentally, once you start the map another wolf runs into the map, about 2 or 3 turns away from the villagers.

 

The rewards this map are pretty mediocre, but you do want to save all the villagers to get the best rewards you can. Not very difficult since all you need to do is to take out the axe guy guarding the bridge and the archer guarding the escape point and the villagers will start running to safety. A high mobility team helps, but even with 4 move units this map is quite doable, especially if you bring Stride.

The bigger issue is that your team starts split for no reason, and since Ignatz and Raphael are forced and in separate groups, you need to give each side enough strong units to not die. Not very hard, since the mooks on the map aren't exactly dangerous, but something to keep in mind.

We don't actually need Raphael's group to do anything, since Ignatz's group starts close enough to the main objectives to save the villagers even with a half sized team.

 

The objective is defeat commander so if you want to cheese an already easy map you can just snipe the 'boss' of the map.

Axe mook, 13 Speed, 36 Atk, not at all dangerous.

Dark Mages have actual Atk, but 26 isn't too high and 18 AS isn't too scary, although your slower units will get their asses doubled quite easily by 18 AS. Damn Cavaliers and their -10% Speed growths and -1 Speed.

Mages also have more Atk than AS, something we'll finally be getting used to at this point. Just like with Brawlers, though, there's nothing stopping you from slapping a high Resistance battalion on a physical unit, so even a double shouldn't be threatening much of anything.

It's an armor mook.

32 Atk isn't bad, 13 AS is a joke. This guy also doesn't move, incidentally, so bear that in mind if you have unit-turn issues at the start of the map. (You probably won't, since this Paralogue has such low priority rewards that if you do it at all it's probably after you did a bunch of other ones, meaning you'll be overleveled.)

This guy is a fighter. Why are level 5 classes on this map? He's still more threatening than the armor knights, but god damn.

The bridge guarding Brigand is your typical Brigand, and Brawlers have 22 Atk and 27 AS, yeah... If all you have is armor knight bases he might be a bit dangerous, but it doesn't take much more Defense above that to turn him from dangerous to joke.

Healers going to have healer stats.

The 'boss' of the map. The guy doesn't move, so it's basically just an armor knight that decided to use Lances instead of Axes, not very dangerous.

The battalions on the map are pretty varied, but about what you'd expect. The Paladin has Knights, mages have mage battalions, etc. Your front-liners should have enough Charm to see sub 30% enemy gambit hit rates, but don't just assume everyone has the crappy melee line AoE gambits.

Cavaliers went back to having jokes for stats. This map is really more like a level 17 map, honestly.

Wolves are slightly dangerous, 22 AS, 35 Atk is pretty dangerous by itself, but they also have decent crit and good Avoid against ranged attacks when their barrier is up.

That said, you only need 1 or 2 units capable of tanking monsters to be safe, because of how easy it is to control monster aggro, so they're not much of an issue despite their decent stats.

Byleth is forced on the left side, and its the more important side, so Edelgard is over here as well.

Right side is mostly about keeping Raphael safe---all this side does is give you a quick way to rush the boss if you're into that kind of thing, and maybe speed up the map a tiny bit if you aren't---so we give this side just barely enough units to handle everything that might head towards them and call it a day.

Caspar is still holding Luin, and stapled to Dorothea. He has the Experience gem now, though, since his Strength is so high that I actually want to bring him into the team now. Marianne is stapled to Linhardt, and Lorenz with the Killer Lance + Crit Ring combo (which doesn't really matter since I don't really care about Adjunct attacks) is stapled to Sylvain.

Leonie's Bow broke last map, so we pick up a new one for her.

Raphael picks up the Steel Gauntlet+ from convoy, as well as the Speed Ring.

Ignatz gets some bows on the off chance he does something. He's not a bad archer by any means, but pretty much all archers walk around with mountains of accuracy, especially later in the game, so usually I focus on people with good Atk from the start of the game.

Ignatz has Break Shot, which is pretty good, giving a bit more MT over Curved Shot while keeping the extra range in exchange for worse accuracy in comparison. (He also has +20 hit as his Personal, so the lower accuracy doesn't matter much.) Curved Shot is the only generic Bow Art, so having a combat Art with extra MT is quite useful for an archer, although I'd rather a combat art did more damage to begin with rather than providing defense debuffs.

Aside from his two bow combat Arts he also has Haze Slice equipped, which is a 30% avoid Sword Combat Art. It's only equipped because I can't be assed to unequip it.

Gave him a battalion since we have tons of spare E ranked ones.

Ditto for Raphael.

Battalion Replenishing.

 

The Map:

Nice that the game's clear about how to get max rewards.

And this guy pops in from outside the map---not sure why the devs keep hiding information like this rather than just showing us the actual state of the map.

A Stride to start things off.

Sylvain Cantos down and Edelgard puts a dent into this armor mook.

Byleth does Byleth things. (And you can barely see Edelgard poking out from the bottom of the screen.)

Here's where our fliers ended up.

Checking aggro range to see if its safe for Bernadetta to counter the archer after killing the armor knight.

She was, so I leave her in range of the archer, and Ignatz comes in to do some chip damage. (It hits.)

Left side ends like this, so the villagers are pretty safe already.

Annette still has the +2 range staff, so I have her get some chip damage in.

Dancer things.

And dead.

I dismount Shamir since there's archers over here, and have her kill this mage. I actually don't mind using Brave Weapons on enemy phase that much since they have decent durability and similar MT to Silvers.

But Leonie doesn't have anything better to do so I trade swap Shamir into holding a Silver anyway.

Shamir dodged the counter, so Linhardt wasn't needed for healing duties, so I shuffle everyone around a little like this.

Bottom isn't an concern anymore, so the main issue will be slowly picking off units in the top right so that the group doesn't get swarmed.

Enemy Phase combat. (High rank battalions and Aegis does wonders for bulk.)

Miss.

Not sure why this guy's attacking Edelgard---she should be way scarier than Sylvain.

The archer helpfully attacks Bernadetta to activate her Personal, and then she kills him. (He's full hp despite the gambit since the escape tile is a heal tile.)

Shamir doesn't have the bulk to take many enemy phase combats, but her ORKO ability is even better than Edelgard's, thanks to her very reliable accuracy.

Fishing for crits since I don't really care about funneling exp efficiently, so saving unit-turns matter more. I missed the screenshot, but Ignatz gets B rank bows from this. If I cared about him that means I can just give him a Brave Bow and get him tons of combat exp now, but I don't.

Doop.

Sylvain lowers the bridge.

And Edelgard equips a bow to bait the Wolf, the bow's even light enough that she avoids the double from the wolf.

The Short Spear only has 11 or so uses at this point, and doesn't quite OHKO the casters, so I have Byleth use the Creator Sword for enemy phase. She's dismounted in a forest and has the Evasion Ring since she's going to fight a lot of people.

Its a pity short spear takes Wootz Steel to repair/forge, because there's no damn way I'm trading Braves for a crappy 1-2 range weapon. Even Gradivus is a bit sketchy despite how good it is, because the semi-relic Brave Bow (Inexhaustible) only takes 3 mythril to repair, compared to 10 for Gradivus.

Even the Creator Sword isn't too great as an enemy phase weapon because of the 20 durability---once a weapon gets to 10 or so uses you don't really want your dodge tanks holding it to take a lot of enemy phase combats, since the 20 weight after breaking can really hurt. You can mitigate the issue by repairing the Creator Sword to full durability even if it has half its uses left, but at that point you're paying almost 500g a swing.

 

So Close Counter bows is pretty much the best option for taking tons of enemy phase combats. Going for Bows costs a ton of exp if you aren't planning to be a Bow Knight, though, since you want high levels of Bow Prowess on top of class requirements and Authority. (Hence why Byleth isn't using Bows despite how good she is a mowing down mooks on Enemy Phase.)

Left side ends like this.

Doop.

Poke.

Leonie Cantos back, and Annette kills a mook.

Armor Knight bases is almost 'die to everything' tier at this point, and the Stride Battalion isn't big on bulk so I dance Annette out of the way.

Very meh level, but it does give Caspar a bit more accuracy. 18 Strength is barely enough for him to make the team as is, but I'd much rather Caspar have around 22 naturally strength by level 20. (I'd probably run him even if he doesn't get a single point of Strength from now to 20, though, since he'll have Death Blow.)

Leonie's going to get smacked on enemy phase, so I have Annette rally her.

Linhardt things.

Raphael is actually bulkier, though, so I have him body block for her a little. The axe guy has Lure, so even though Leonie is more or less fine against him, I do need to watch out for the archer.

Pretty much only the middle of the map left. Things are slightly dangerous if everyone gangs up on Raphael and he doesn't dodge a single hit, but that's pretty unlikely.

I missed the first enemy phase combat, but a bow mook missed Byleth. Followed by this guy making the last bad decision of his life.

One down side of fighting in forests is that even Byleth has shaky accuracy---although 56% is still infinitely better than 0%.

Leonie's pretty likely to die if this hits, I believe, since the archer would just kill her, but it missed.

This isn't actually the order the combats happened in---Byleth murders a few mooks before this Archer gets moving, but you can see that Leonie would've had some problems if the Lure got her. If we can take the numbers as is she exactly survives, but gambits lower defense.

The fate of mooks without enough mobility to get into a forest tile. (I have no idea why he's fighting unarmed rather than using a gauntlet---maybe to save weapon uses since it's 0 damage either way?)

These guys sure like taking 0% accuracy combats.

8% crit is annoying, but Edelgard avoids the double so she's safe even if it happens.

More mooks running into Byleth's sword.

Last Enemy Phase combat.

We've thinned out the mook count by a lot, so I feel safe swapping to Short Spear by taking it from Convoy. (The mook manages to dodge, so he survives.)

Stride does work on green units, so if you were in more of a rush you can Stride these guys the same turn you lower the bridge. Striding them right now doesn't do much, though, since they'll get to safety in a single turn anyway. (I do it anything because why not.)

We don't have a healer down here, so Sylvain Cantos back to safety.

I swap Edelgard to an Axe for enemy phase, and have her Break more of the wolf's barriers.

Edelgard goes to choke point the bridge, and Bernadetta tries a Hail Mary.

Cheers.

Left side ends like this.

Gauntlets look nice when you're over-leveled, but everything looks nice when you're over-leveled.

Poke.

And dead.

I was a bit worried about positioning, so I Warp Raphael to safety.

Dancer things.

And a draw back for Dorothea so that everyone's in a good spot.

Right side ends like this.

Note the wolf in the middle heading over to us---its why I was worried about Raphael.

This would've been very annoying if it had landed, since I kind of needed Edelgards turn to handle the wolf, but it missed.

Ditto for this one, since it would've moved Byleth out of the forest and also debuffed her avoid a bit on top of that.

But ifs win no prizes and all that.

Its a good thing Three Houses use a 2 roll system, because Charm accuracy being capped at +/- 30% means that its quite hard to see very low hit chances on gambits.

This guy survives, amazingly enough.

This guy... doesn't.

*shrug*

Some reasonably scary numbers coming out from the wolf, but Dorothea has tons of avoid so its pretty safe.

The wolf was weak to Lances, so I have Edelgard kill it with a Steel Lance.

Edelgard goes back to choke pointing the bridge, and Bernadetta adds some chip damage.

And Sylvain finishes it off.

Everything that 1-2 range matters for is already dead, so I pick up an Iron Sword from convoy and have Byleth start working on the enemy mooks. In retrospect I should've attacked the guy with Lure first, though.

Not that it mattered, since Byleth actually missed a hit even with 89% odds, so a kill wasn't going to happen anyway.

Left side ends like this.

There's an axe mook behind the wolf, but as long as the wolf is alive he can't reach us, since the wolf would be blocking the squares he needs to stand on.

Fishing for crits. (Which happens.)

Poke. (This missed.)

Oh well. The 2% or so chance to die is annoying, but we have Divine Pulse so it's not a real issue.

Dancer things.

Poke.

Double x3 Steel Drop, so we got 1.5 Brave Weapons this map.

I double check that Annette wouldn't be in range of the axe mook if the wolf dies, and have her attack. (Otherwise she might explode on enemy phase after the wolf stopped blocking the way.)

Basically mop up now. The villagers (well, merchants,) are safe, and so is Raphael's group.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto.

Interesting choice, but the other archer wasn't in range so Edelgard wasn't going to die even if everything hit her on enemy phase. (If the mooks knew to move back and Lure her it'd be a different issue, but the AI isn't that detailed.)

The gambits are mostly gone, so we can finish these guys on enemy phase now.

This mook finally dies.

This guy decides he's tired of living.

One more bow poke for the road.

The bows are a slight issue, so Edelgard takes care of it before going back to blocking the bridge.

Not really worried about Relic uses so close to Part 2, so I have Sylvain OHKO this guy.

Doop.

Edelgard flies right after handling the archer, since we have enough people left to handle everything that's left.

Another Hail Mary from Bernadetta.

Left side ends like this.

Doop.

Dance.

Great level, since it has both of the stats I care about.

Dead.

Okay, yes, this is a great level, but I'd rather it have a little less raw numbers and a little more Speed. Still quite happy with it, though.

I have Linhardt Warp Annette closer to the middle to lure mages and also get some Warp exp.

The axe mook that was behind the wolf is heading left for some reason, so the left side groups starts closing in on the boss.

Lancebreaker means this guy has pretty decent numbers, accuracy wise. Fighting Edelgard means his numbers are awful in terms of damage.

Doop.

Doop.

Great level, especially the Strength. Bernadetta doesn't need much Strength to function, but that doesn't mean I'd be happy if all she had were Falcon Knight bases.

Everyone gets closer to middle, and left side ends like this.

Doop.

Dance.

Dead.

Linhardt things.

AI seems to treat anything that does less than 40% or so on the counter the same as doing 0 damage, assuming they won't die from the combat, so they actually prefer to hit Annette over Byleth, even though Byleth doesn't attack back.

Doop.

Poke.

Dead.

Dancer things.

Poke.

Exp Farming.

Ditto.

Almost done.

Dead.

Meh. Annette has a lot of Magic, especially considering that unlike Hubert or Lysithea she actually cares about Black Tomefaire, but 13 Speed isn't great. (Thanks to Warlock's better Speed it means she'll keep doubling armors, but it does mean just about everything will ORKO her since she gets doubled all the time.)

Dancer things.

Exp farming.

Ditto.

Doop.

And doop.

We got 50 Motivation on everyone from our two Paralogues, which is okay, but it was probably better to get 2 different people the full 100 motivation MVP refill. (I don't really bother min-maxing for MVP, though, since it's too much hassle for too little reward.)

Leicester Mercenaries is a B rank Battalion with 7 Strength, -2 Mag, 20% Accuracy, 15% Crit, 4 Def, and 7 Charm, so a very nice offensive Battalion, statwise. The gambit is Blaze, so also pretty damn nice as long as you don't mind only using it once a map.

My team is flier heavy so I don't really care about grounded Battalions, but Leicester Mercs is up there with Gloucester Knights and Holy Knights of Seiros in terms of how much raw stats it gives, and it even has a gambit with good AoE to boot.

Victor, on the other hand, is a lot less interesting. 6 Strength, 15 accuracy, 2 Defense, 4 Resistance, and 5 Charm. That said, it's only C rank, so if you somehow only have C Authority despite doing Paralogues its quite good for its rank. It also has Assembly as its gambit, so that's nice if you like moving enemies around.

It's probably a lot better on New Game+, since it'll give you a nice pile for stats for not much Authority exp investment, but in a normal game you get it too late for it to be competitive in terms of stats, considering we have a ton of B rank and a fair amount of A rank Battalions at this point.

Took this screenshot since it was interesting. The game sent the Extra Large Bullion, Short Axe, Short Spear, and Killer Bow (the map rewards for saving everyone) all at once, rather than making me convoy them one by one before giving me the next one.

 

I still got the individual pop ups like this:

But it didn't make me convoy them in between. Anyway, the rewards are basically just money. 1-2 range weapons aren't too interesting between their hefty repair costs in terms of materials, and Killer Weapons are basically generics thanks to how easy they are to make. Honestly the main rewards from the map is the Wootz Steel, but you really need RNG to smile on you and give you x3 drops for it to be great.

 

Rare Monster Sighting:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 23

Which means a lot of exp. Rare Monster Sightings tend to give rewards on the level of a low tier Paralogue (basically about the same as doing Raphael's Paralogue), so they're pretty nice to do, but my impression of Three Houses is that you get more than enough resources just playing through the story maps.

(Not sure if that'll remain true if you skip the Explorations every month on top of that, though, since Exploration provides a steady stream of skill-exp, stat boosters, gold, and miscellaneous quest rewards.)

 

Pre-map Planning:

Enemy starts very close to the monster, which is unfortunate, since I have to spread myself thin in order to grab the delicious exp. (And high level brawlers are very good at pummeling your back-liners into chunky salsa.)

Not much to say aside from that, though, you can either play it safe and have a lot of enemy mooks suicide to the monster, or you can rush forward and make some risky plays to nab maximum exp. Brawlers don't take terrain penalties from forests, so they have good mobility on this map, so if your team isn't very mobile you might have issues.

26 Atk isn't insane, but 29 AS means they double basically everyone. 111 Accuracy is also pretty damn high, as well as 45 Avoid.

Cavaliers still aren't too dangerous, though, despite the 36 Atk and 20 AS.

Thieves also don't take Terrain Penalties, and they have insane AS and pretty great Atk.

Mercenaries are better at killing people than Cavaliers, but not by much.

Look at the Pegasus Knight stats, and then look at Cavalier stats.

Yeah...

Pegasus Knights are pretty damn good at turning even your 1st stringers into chunky salsa, but this isn't a fog of war map so its pretty easily to position yourself to be ready for them.

The boss has a bit of extra stats compared to the regular brawlers, but not so much so that you'd notice, really.

(This guy actually costs me a Divine Pulse, lul.)

33 Atk isn't great, but 21 AS on top of decent range means he's pretty good at finding ORKOs if you're like me and bring a lot of squishy back liners. The squishy back-liners thing can't really be helped, though, the 'fix' for that is to invest skill exp into getting Fortress Knight bases, but I'd much rather invest skill exp into my front-liners, so we're slowly getting to the point where my back-liners will die to everything. (Eventually we'll get to the point where just about everyone dies to just about everything, but that's for part 2.)

Monster mook. Fairly tanky, 3 hp bars, Rusted Axe is Silver (so very boring). The guy is pretty strong, but not so strong that he can just laugh off a bunch of enemy mooks smacking him around, so you'll need to head towards him pretty fast if you want monster exp and monster loot.

Lots of forest on this map, so I move Lysithea back into the team. Marianne's stapled to Annette, Lorenz to Linhardt, and Caspar to Dorothea.

Annette gives the +2 range staff back to Lysithea.

We're approaching the point where Byleth doesn't need any more skill exp to function, so I have Leonie hold the Knowledge Gem.

And Byleth has the Evasion Ring. Byleth will need A+ Flying to reach maximum effectiveness, but it'll come naturally.

Battalion Replenishing.

 

The Map:

Stride to start things off.

Sylvain is made of bricks, so he moves into woods. (Holding the Lance of Ruin is a mistake, though---I never swapped out of it from last map, IRRC. It's not the wasted uses that's the issue, but the fact that it'll have basically 0% hit rates against a Brawler in bushes.)

I fly Byleth over here, take a Short Spear out of Convoy (to force the archer to 2 range her), and smack this guy.

Fishing for crits. (Which happens.)

Shamir cantos back a bit, and Bernadetta also has a go at fishing for crits. Which doesn't happen.

And I have Lysithea give the +2 range staff to Annette anyway, since I want to feed her exp. (And she'll explode if she walks close to Brawlers.)

Doop.

Dance.

Dead.

C+ Bows, we've seen Break Shot before on Ignatz (4 MT, 5 Hit, 2-3 range, -5 Def debuff). It's pretty nice for adding a bit of damage to your bow pokes, but I'm not sure I'll have Leonie drop Curved Shot or lance combat arts for it.

I should've had Leonie attack first since I was trying to feed Annette kills and all, but eh. (Annette moved back after being danced since Brawlers ORKO half my team or thereabouts, and Annette is near the very bottom in terms of bulk.)

A bit of shuffling around.

It's a level 23 map, so I'm perfectly happy with flying Byleth out and having her take a bunch of kills.

Enemy Phase combat. Pity that everyone prefers to hit the monster over Byleth---I mean, the reason is pretty obvious, but it's annoying.

Brawlers are pretty dangerous, but unlike Edelgard Shamir has enough luck to avoid crits, so she won't die from a single combat even with bad rolls.

Basically 0 damage either way, one guy doesn't hit, the other guy doesn't do damage.

More monster smacking.

Which ends badly for this guy, since the monster decided not to take all the abuse and just crit kill him, LUL.

Bow smack. (In retrospect I should've murdered this guy asap, but oh well.)

Random Pegasus Knight joins the party.

Monster Phae combat.

I misread the AI movement for enemy phase, hence why I have Byleth kill the Pegasus Knight rather than the archer. (I noticed the AI prioritizing the monster over even my squishy people, but turns out that was because both the bow guy and the brawler can ORKO the monster---and the brawler moves first, so the bow guy would look for ORKOs on my dudes.)

That's for later, though. Sylvain swaps to Training Lance for some accuracy while hitting this guy.

He missed, unfortunately, but whatever. Lysithea tries to debuff Speed with Swarm (in retrospect I should've just used Fire, though.)

Should've done this combat after I dance Annette rather than now, but Annette kills the Brawler that attacked Shamir on enemy phase.

Dance.

Dead.

Poke.

Dead.

Poke.

Dead.

Linhardt things. (In retrospect, unwise.)

Speed! 17 Speed is about expected due to the fact that he had 11 Speed at level 10 from Thief, but its quite fast compared to his expected Speed if you ignored Thief, due to his low bases + 40% growths.

Doop.

I see this combat and go, 'oh that why the AI focused on the monster over my squishy backliners.'

Oops. (Both hits land, unfortunately.)

Lets try that again, shall we.

Divine Pulse: 17

We don't need to change much, most likely, so I just have Linhardt warp Annette out of the way.

Linhardt levels up from this, but that's because we Pulsed his level up away. He still gets the same level, of course.

 

Lysithea is about as squishy as Annette, but she has more levels and Gloucester Knights for physical bulk on top of being in a forest, so I was pretty sure she'd survive the archer's ORKO. (Not that I bothered checking.)

Lets try that enemy phase again, shall we.

R.I.P. monster kill exp.

As more or less expected, the archer doesn't bother attempting for Lysithea.

Monster Phase combat.

I'm a bit tired of losing exp from the monster and the enemy mooks killing each other, so I Stride the team.

Annette murders the archer.

Byleth the 'boss' mook.

1k gold isn't much, but it's better than nothing.

Fishing for crits. Which happens.

Getting Shamir a decent level. Speed is nice for her since she occasionally takes enemy phase combats, but Strength is still better.

Shamir Cantos over here, and since I Divine Pulsed Linhardt's Physic healing away here him patching her up.

Exp farming.

I don't mind Speed, but Strength is more important for Caspar as well.

Lysithea gets her staff back.

Byleth can hold off the monster indefinitely, so we get ready to kill the enemy mooks first.

Monster Phase combat.

Byleth things.

Poke.

Dance.

Dead.

Speed, which is great.

Marianne doesn't have Fiendish Blow or Magic +2, so her offenses are actually quite a bit worse than Annette's despite having similar stats, but it's still good enough for killing armors. If I end up using her I might go back to grab Fiendish Blow for her, though.

I Warp Dorothea for exp.

Level 20 for Lorenz, so he's ready to be brought back into the team. 12 Speed is disappointing, but 19 Strength isn't bad. (Cavalier has +1 Strength boost.)

Doop.

Enemy Phase combat.

Monster Phase combat. (It's the AoE poison breath.)

Doop.

The monster is a bit far so I have Byleth Lure it closer.

Barrier breaking.

Dancer things.

Poke.

C+ Riding for Lorenz.

Exp farming.

Only 1x Umbral, but the stuff rains from the sky so whatever.

Poke.

Poke.

More poke.

Its too bad I lost a full hp bar from the enemy mooks smacking this guy around, because monsters are giant exp pinatas.

Doop.

Debuffing.

Annette takes Lysithea's +2 range staff and smacks this guy around. (If you're willing to micro manage then it's actually pretty simple for an entire army of mages to use only 1 staff, since their crappy mobillity means that they'll naturally clump together anyway, but that takes effort. And also using 4 move units.)

Poke.

Dance.

Poke.

And dead. She ends up 28 exp short of level 20, which is extremely annoying (since she gets a huge performance boost from being Warlock), but whatever.

Discount Silver Axe.

4.8k, adding the Bullion makes 5.8k.

And 5 (or 6 if you count the monster loot) Umbral Steel. If you convert everything into cash then the map gave about 10k gold. Pretty nice, and the Part 2 Rare Monster maps give even more.

MVP doesn't really matter since you don't get motivation for it outside of Paralogues.

Renown sort of does, I guess, but we're mostly past the point where skill exp is a huge issue.

 

[DehNutCase]

Chapter 11, Part 3:

 

Academy:

Spoiler

Lecture:

Holy Knight needs C Lances.

E+.

Dark Knight also needs C.

It's probably more efficient to tutor Riding instead, since eventually my casters will swap to working on Riding and Lances, but whatever.

Holy Knight again. In retrospect I should've gotten her Faith to B+, though, since you can't test for Bishop at B and Marianne's level 20.

(She got like 3 Perfects or something, so she was halfway to D by end.)

Wyvern. Won't matter for part 1, but I might use Alois in part 2.

E+.

Byleth has B+ Lances right now, so Lances are pretty efficient to tutor for.

I swap to Authority once Leonie hits B+ lances for Lance Prowess Lv. 4, though.

C Authority.

Authority is good.

C Authority, which lets Lorenz equip Victor Private Military.

Doop.

Had a tea party, Nice, no Charm.

It might be possible to scrape into Holy Knight or Dark Knight at B Riding, assuming you have C Lances and B+ of the relevant magic skill, but I'll probably try to get my mages to B+ Riding before having them work on something.

Raphael got E+ Authority, Flayn B Lances, and Manuela B+ Faith.

Some supports from combat.

Linhardt and Marianne went to C, Caspar and Dorothea to B, Bernadetta and Leonie to C, Sylvain and Lorenz to B, Sylvain and Marianne to C, and Leonie and Shamir to C. (In addition to the Linhardt and Dorothea B you see.)

Lorenz is so slow that Paladin actually gave him a point of Speed. His combat will be alright even if he gets doubled by everything and never doubles anything, though, so I don't care too much about his Speed. (Although if one of my slower units get hilariously Speed blessed I'd probably consider getting them into a mobile class without Speed penalties.)

Luck is a bigger issue, seeing positive crit rates isn't good on someone who has to tank 2 hits every combat.

I give Caspar a Rusted Axe here so I don't forget about it during deployment. (Now that I'm planning to let him adjunct his way to level 20 there's no need to grab Cavalier, and therefore Lance exp, for him.)

 

Exploration:

Marianne is level 20, but she needed B+ Faith to see chances for Bishop, so there's nothing else to do. One annoying thing about next month is that you won't get a chance to class change since you won't be in the Monastery, so Annette will be stuck Mage for a while. (Not that it matters, though, since she's mostly a support unit.)

 

Non-quest stuff:

Getting more or less a Speedwing every month is kind of crazy if you're the type to dump everything into one unit. I don't actually like the Greenhouse from a balance perspective---it's hard to balance the game for a greenhouse invested unit without making it so that everyone who isn't crazy invested is ORKOd.

That said, since the point of a game is to be fun, it's fine to let ultra-invested units break the game. Anyone looking for a challenge can just skip using the Greenhouse, and people like me can be happy min-maxing a unit to 'break game over knee' levels.

The usual.

I share some meals, but also remember that Part 2 might start everyone off with 50 Motivation regardless, so I stop after 4 meals. (Byleth's stomach thanks me, probably.)

So I do a pair of tournaments.

Before getting some skill exp for Byleth.

Sword Prowess isn't as useful as Lance Prowess if Byleth is going to be in a Lancefaire class, especially considering that even with Lancebreaker axe users have jack all for Hit, but it does let her use a wider variety of weapons. (Creator Sword and Levins are probably the biggest draw, since Arrow of Indra is a Paralogue reward and Gradivus is expensive as hell to forge/repair in terms of materials.)

Doop.

And doop.

 

Important non-quest stuff:

We talk to Edelgard now, which ends our free time (and the free time for the rest of the month). Crimson Flower is kind of annoying route to get into, especially considering the last month only had 3 days off.

 

We had a tea party, it was Perfect, and both Byleth and Lysithea got +1 Charm.

 

Map:

Spoiler

Suggested Level: 21, so we're massively overleveled for this.

 

Pre-map Planning:

The game is nice enough to show you where all the crest stones are the at the start of map, but the AI is more important than where the stones and units are.

First, the mooks going for Crest stones won't attack even if they see ORKOs (and they'll see a lot of ORKOs on my mages), and second, the two axe using Crest Stone thieves that start closest to Edelgard---and therefore have the shortest path to escaping---won't start running away with just a single Crest stone, they'll go for more. This give you like 2 or 3 turns before you need to be in position to intercept the runners.

 

Since the objective of the mission is trivial (I'm pretty sure our Edelgard would beat the crap out of the 'boss' Edelgard, since armors are kind of jokes), its securing the Crest Stones that's the real, uh, 'challenge.' Which is easily done by just rushing south as fast as you can and then picking off the runners as they try to get to the escape tile.

There're some mooks in the way if you're going down, but any heavily invested unit can handle a side and a half by themselves (The wave of 2 armors + archer, the casters, then the monster), so it's hard to run into problems on that front.

Crest Stone looter type one, decent Atk at 36, decent Speed at 29 (for 25 Attack Speed), and Pass, so no bodyblocking.

Crest Stone looter type 2, very good Atk at 45, passable Speed at 23 for 18 Attack Speed, but mediocre accuracy and also no Pass, meaning you can bodyblock these guys if you had to.

Monsters are monster, 40 Atk and 17 Speed so they're a bit dangerous to your slower and squishier units, but you can usually kill any enemy mooks near them before they get into attack range, so it'll be one of these guys against half your team, which doesn't end well for a monster.

Armors continue to exist for the sole purpose of being killed for exp.

They have this battalion, which has the 1 damage taken and dealt gambit. Doesn't really matter.

36 Atk, 18 AS, and 110 Hit. Not awful, and especially be careful of your slower mages, but your most invested unit will probably be seeing like 20% hit odds from these guys, which might as well be zero.

There's some healers on the map, they have Physic and crap for stats. And also annoying AI that says they'll attack Bernadetta to trigger her personal but actually they'll heal someone instead.

😠

Dark mages have okayish offenses, 30 Atk, 20 AS. 4 move means they won't ever be threatening, though.

There's some Fortress Knights on the left side of Edelgard (and a monster to the right). I think that's Defiant Defense, which is completely pointless since any physical unit that can bring them down to 25% can probably KO them despite another 7 defense.

Good for exp, though.

Lots of Speed, although Byleth is actually fast enough to Speed tie with him thanks to all the carrots she ate. (She can double if I had her use Darting Blow, but I dropped it from her skillset.)

He doesn't even have Keen Insight or whatever it's called, so your ranged units will turn him into a pincushion without problems. Has Heartseeker as his Personal, but doesn't really matter.

He has Empire Raiders, which has Absorb as its gambit. (AoE gambit that drains HP from enemies.)

And here's out 'boss.' Edelgard really let herself go, losing her decent Pegasus Knight Speed in exchange for a tiny bit of Str, a lot of Mag, and a bit of Def. Yeah I'm pretty sure our Edelgard would beat the crap out of this one.

She has Seal Strength and Seal Magic, but its hard to see her surviving a single player phase.

Her battalion is pretty great, though, a nice amount of mixed stats in exchange for minor penalties to accuracy and avoidance.

Some magical mooks have Empire Magic Co.

And the healer in the middle of the map drops a Vulnerary for some reason.

Here's our team, Caspar's stapled to Dorothea, Petra to Byleth (on the off chance she high rolls Strength---if she doesn't she'll probably stay benched while Caspar and Alois joins the team), and Ferdinand to Lorenz. You can see that Caspar has a bunch of slightly used weapons in his inventory, it's because I forgot we still had 1 more map before Part 2 starts.

Caspar has the Exp Gem, Petra the Knowledge Gem (and a sword), and Ferdinand has a Lance.

I give Leonie a Speed Ring since Petra took her Knowledge Gem. It's not the best of the rings, but its always decent so I tend to default to it if I don't care too much about min-maxing for a map.

I buy Lorenz a Silver Lance which I immediately forge up to a Brave. (Note his inventory as well.)

Its a pity Wootz Steel is so damn rare, to the point that Relics are easier to repair than Braves...

Brave+ is great, but I doubt I'll spend the Wootz for that.

Lysithea ends up with Thyrsus again---Annette borrowed it for a while last map---and some slightly used weapons. (Again, cause of Part 2.)

Here's Bernadetta's kit, I also forge the Steel all the way up to Brave.

It's slightly more expensive to forge a Steel into a Silver than buying a Silver outright, I believe (assuming you value Smithing Stone at 100g), but you get to use a Steel Bow until it breaks so it's still pretty cost efficient. Only used 15 uses of this Steel Bow, but eh.

I miss when I had a pile of Wootz. 😞

Shamir traded her almost broken Killer Bow for a fresh one.

And Byleth starts walking around with an almost Endgame inventory. (Part of the reason I value Byleth over a lot of other units is that even though everyone peaks around the same level if they're heavily invested, Byleth has Convoy to use Relics without caring too much about their low durability, since she can always Convoy for more.)

I found 4 Arcane Crystals in Part 1 from Exploration, so I forge her Levin for an additional range and 5 points of durability. We had another Levin for someone else, but Ingrid was the only one with C Swords out of the people who aren't already in a magical class, and 16 Strength isn't exactly what I'm looking for in a flier.

Cichol is actually a downgrade compared to Galatea, due to how ridiculous Avo is, but the 15% crit does save some weapon uses.

(Mostly doing this to free up Galatea for someone else.) It's nice that Edelgard gave Cichol back to us rather than keeping it, since we can't access her inventory nor Huberts.

Ironically, Bernadetta would've loved Cichols, since she wants accuracy for Deadeye, but for general purpose use Galatea stomps Empire Pegasus Co. into the ground.

Empire Pegasus Co. and Seiros is mostly a sidegrade, although Empire does have 6 Charm on a D ranked Battalion, somehow.

Lorenz picks up Victor. He'll still want Gloucester for later, since he does have decent mixed-bulk despite being doubled by everything, but he doesn't have B Authority right now.

There's nothing to Steal on this map (aside from the Vulnerary you can get by just killing the healer), but I like keeping Steal on Byleth so I always have a Thief ready in case I forget about nice stealable.

The change is Darting Blow is removed for HP +5, since Byleth has so much Speed at this point that she doesn't need Darting Blow anymore.

I swap out Faith Lv. 2 for Dexterity +4 on Annette, since she'll mostly attack with Black Magic.

And then we take a short break for Byleth to chug a bunch of stat boosters. That's a Seraph Robe, an Energy Drop, a Rocky Burdock, and 4 Speed Carrots.

Here's her stats after chugging everything.

Mind, just about everyone can reach this point, aside from the hilariously overkill 49 Charm, so the differences in units tend to be about between levels 1-10 and levels 10-20. Females trump just about everything else in the level 10-20 stage thanks to Pegasus Knight, and House Leader tier units trump everything in the level 1-10 stage.

Past level 20 your most invested unit should have more than enough stats to break the game over their knee regardless of who they are.

 

The Map:

As long as the game is consistent about telling you the secondary objective of a map right after it starts, I don't actually mind too much. Since once you get used to it you can always just save before a map, start it, and see if there's any secondary objectives before reloading and building your team.

I'd prefer if they told you before a map started, but this isn't too much worse.

Hustle is the name of the game, so I have Annette Stride our right side + Byleth. We don't have Sylvain for another pair of Stride, but the map is short enough that you really only need 1 use of Stride at most.

Linhardt Warps Byleth next to Dorothea.

We're now at the point where fliers hard-counter archers, by the way.

Those sure are some numbers. Byleth probably has enough Strength for the entire rest of the game at this point, so really Speed is all that matters. (Resistance, Hp, and Luck would be nice for mages, but not essential.)

Not looking for Speedy fliers here, Petra.

Byleth Cantos back and Dorothea does Dancer things.

Great level.

It's almost Part 2, so I don't mind spending a bunch of Lace of Ruin uses to ORKO a mook. Frozen Lance is usually a 2RKO on armors, but Lance of Ruin pushes it over the edge. (A Silver+ can probably also do that, though, and I'll slowly swap everyone into Silver+ for general use as I break my Steel weapons.)

Lorenz retreats a bit and Lysithea does mage things.

Shamir is in OHKO range of Silver Bow archers, which is a bit annoying, but its pretty easy to play around archer threat range on a Pegasus.

Canto.

The best part about the endgame is that I get to stop caring about gold efficiency when I choose my weapons.

Petra masters Pegasus Knight, but the level she just got wasn't a good start toward making the team.

Canto.

It's too bad Bernadetta's Personal isn't quite just straight up +5 Atk, because this guy would be dead right now if that's how it worked.

I fly Leonie towards Dorothea and turn 1 ends like this.

We're moving at a good clip, and we have another turn or two of grace before people start running towards Edelgad and trying to escape with loot.

Enemy phase combat.

Ditto.

Enemies are swiping stones, this'll be the only time I mention it since I'll be camping their escape route.

Game mentions escape tile is here. (This is one annoying thing about this map, since I'd have liked them to tell you this right after the map starts, rather than during the enemy phase.)

Healer combat, much wow.

Start of turn 2 screenshot. If the Axe mooks next to the monsters bolted for it this enemy phase the map would be significantly harder, but they'll run up for another turn, meaning we have time.

Reversal for barrier breaking + moving the monster to a more convenient spot.

Shamir Cantos left after the fight, and Annette farms some armor exp.

I'd like some more Speed, but 23 Magic means that Annette will be a perfectly serviceable Warlock for 2RKOing generic mooks and ORKOing armors. (On top of all the supportive things she'll be doing.)

Lure for barrier breaking + moving the monster.

Doop.

Speed would've been great, but Magic, Dex, and Luck isn't that much worse than Magic and Speed, seeing how Lysithea will stop having access to Fire once she hits level 30 (and goes into Dark Knight), so accuracy is nice.

I swap Byleth to Creator Sword and have her Assault Troop the monster + the Axe guy. (Didn't really need to hit the Axe guy, since he'll run North next turn, not South, but it's some free damage.)

Canto.

Armor farming.

Doop.

Only 1 Umbral, but oh well. I think I have like 30 in the storehouse? Lorenz Cantos a bit North afterwards.

Doop.

Dancer things.

Doop.

Only time I'll be mentioning the fact that you loot Crest Stones when you kill people who had them. Not sure what happens if you defeat Edelgard while some enemies are still holding stones but haven't escaped, but it shouldn't really come up since the map is really easy to Rout.

Leonie Cantos a little down and the turn ends like this.

Just need to handle the monsters, which shouldn't take more than 1 more turn, and we can start working on the Crest Stone mooks.

Enemy Phase combat. Byleth lands both crits for almost 100 damage so the monster loses an hp bar.

(Cichol isn't as min-maxed as Galatea for breaking the game, but its very nice at saving weapon uses and unit-turns.)

Rather than attacking Bernadetta to trigger her Personal, the priest heals this guy.

😠

Start of turn. As you can see, the axe guy on the right moved up to loot another Crest Stone rather than making a break for it, so we pretty much have 3 turns of grace before we need to work on Crest Stone mooks.

Trying to trigger Bernadetta's Personal while removing an hp bar from this guy. It fails because she lands a crit, so she didn't take a counter.

She Cantos down here to attack the Crest Stone mooks as they try to run.

Shamir's high crit means that this is really likely to ORKO.

The necessary crit landed, and Shamir flies to the middle of the map.

Doop.

Another Vulnerary to the pile.

Barrier breaking + Speed debuffing.

Barrier Breaking.

Low rolls on Umbral, but I pretty much only use them for Creator Sword, so I don't need much. (It'd be different on any other route, since Thunderbrand is basically an easier to repair Brave Sword, but we don't get Thunderbrand until the last map of Crimson Flower.)

Leonie flies down here, similar reason as Bernadetta. Gotta smack the runners.

Doop. (She flies towards the axe mook after the combat.)

Dancer things.

Brigand mastered, so Caspar has one of the best offenses in my lineup, now. Not having mobility means he'll be on Adjunct duty until he hits level 20, though. (Fortunately he'll only need to get to level 19 before Part 2 starts, since he'll get a level from that.)

Levin sword to save some movement points.

Petra's pretty much going to be benched forever considering her last two levels. Ingrid is just her except with actual bulk and magic, and even Ingrid will have a hard time seeing the main team.

Canto'd right since I was more worried about this side.

This guy has a ORKO on Annette, incidentally. Annette only has 14 Speed and this guy has 18 AS and 45 Atk. (Hell, he's pretty close to OHKOing Annette.)

Don't need to worry about the Crest Stone mooks attacking your units, though, since they're programmed not to attack.

...I should really get Linhardt some Reason spells eventually, and maybe pick up Fiendish Blow for him. Missing 2RKOs is just sad.

So's this.

End of turn 3.

Start of turn 4. No enemy phase combats, and you can see how the Crest Stone mooks are running down now.

Doop.

B Flying, so Bernadetta shouldn't have issues getting into Falcon at level 30.

Bernadetta Cantos a bit to the left, and Byleth does Byleth things.

Canto.

Poke.

Poke.

Nobody except Dorothea had the reach to attack this Crest Stone mook, so I run Lorenz here.

For a dance. (Dorothea didn't have an ORKO, since she'd need like 30 Speed to double a Thief.)

And dead.

If Ferdinand keeps these levels up he'll actually make it back into the main team. 16 Speed is so high that I'm considering grabbing him Brigand and having him go the Wyvern route.

Canto.

Everyone moves around a bit to cover the last of the Crest Stone mooks.

Turn 5 starts, and we start cleaning up the last of the Crest Stone mooks.

Doop.

Annette walks over for moral support and I have Byleth dismount and equip her Levin for anti-archer duty. (With a 3 range weapon Archers will attack at 2 range if possible, so be careful if you're depending on the 20% accuracy penalty to survive combat.)

Exp farming.

Lorenz misses one of the hits, but he was fine for the counter so whatever.

Lorenz Cantos over here and Dorothea does dancer things.

Doop.

This map is pretty good to get your low leveled units up to par, since armor knights are exp pinatas by default and the Crest Stones mooks are exp pinatas due to AI.

We had massive piles of exp from Paralogues, though, so we didn't need it.

One downside of Edelgard being gone is that the left side doesn't have a decent substitute for Byleth, so I have to wait for Byleth to be done with the right side before working on the left.

Enemy Phase combat.

Ditto.

(Strictly speaking, Byleth didn't need to dismount for these guys.)

Exp farming.

Tried to get Bernadetta's Personal active, but she proc'd her Crest so the guy exploded without countering.

Doop.

Canto to aggro the monster.

Doop.

Exp farming.

Lorenz moves right and Dorothea does dancer things.

I'd like some more Speed for Caspar, but 19 Strength (2 from Brigand) at level 16 means he doesn't need more Speed to make the team.

Exp farming.

Doop.

Enemy Phase.

We don't need Stride for anything at this point, so I use the last charge to have Bernadetta reach the last Crest Stone mook.

Like a 3% chance Bernadetta dies, but we have Divine Pulses, and I really wanted her Personal Active.

Doop.

Exp farming.

Bernadetta and Shamir Canto'd back after their combats, and I start gathering everyone up.

Enemy Phase.

Doop.

Bernadetta lands a crit so the monster goes to its last hp bar.

Strength please. 😞

I'm slightly tempted to swap her into Paladin or Cavalier for the slightly better Strength Growths. But it's probably less of a hassle to just give her an Energy Drop if she falls behind too much in terms of Strength.

Bow exp will be pretty important for her to get Bowfaire, though.

Barrier breaking.

Doop.

And doop.

B Authority.

Minimum roll on all drops, but oh well.

Everyone with free unit-turns heads left, although in retrospect I didn't want to pull yet anyway, since I wanted Byleth nearby to fix things if RNG decided to give me the middle finger.

The two healers start patching the monster up, which changes them to the semi-aggro'd state where they'd head towards us if they don't have anything better to do, but won't cause other people to aggro.

Doop.

Poke.

It's a pity we're past the point where Leonie's Personal can be activated reliably (since our team is too mobile want to staple two units to each other), but 23 Strength means her offenses will be quite alright without it.

Doop.

Everyone heads towards left, and Annette does some exp farming.

I briefly consider having Lysithea pull the archers, and Dorothea farms dance exp.

I'll need to swap that into her skillset.

I end up deciding to wait a turn in case bad things happen, so Lysithea doesn't pull right now.

Doop.

Exp farming.

Ditto.

Dancer exp farming.

Pretty empty level, but whatever. The hp sort of matters, but most things in part 2 will have ORKOs on most of my team, Dorothea included, so it won't matter for long.

Lysithea walks over to pull the archer + his buddies.

Exp farming with Physic.

Doop.

Enemy Phase combat.

Doop, and a Canto back.

Ditto.

Leonie flies here and Annette farms some healing exp.

Doop.

Dancer things.

And Lorenz kills a mage. He barely doesn't have the bulk to avoid the 2RKO, but his decent Resistance and high HP means he has no issues tanking a round of magic, at least for now.

Strength and every defensive stat in the book. Pretty great level, considering that I don't really care about Speed on him.

Exp farming.

Linhardt is surprisingly fast at this point.

(Still not enough to avoid any part 2 doubles, so he'll die to everything physical, but it'll be nice for armor killing.)

Pretty much just Edelgard + buddies left.

Enemy Phase combat.

Byleth moves over for exp bonus, and Bernadetta nabs a kill.

Lorenz retreats a bit and Lysithea picks up some healing exp.

Exp farming.

I missed the screenshot of Dorothea dancing Lysithea, but she does. And then Lysithea farms more healing exp.

More exp farming.

I'm mostly waiting for the healers to get out of range to aggro the boss mooks before I kill them, hence the turn of exp farming.

Byleth flies over for bonus exp, and Leonie nabs a kill.

Leonie Cantos back a bit and Bernadetta picks up a kill.

It's hard to see, but this is Linhardt warping Byleth 1 square to the right for exp.

Lysithea farms armor exp.

Dancer things.

Exp farming.

For a great level.

Doop.

Turns out killing mooks don't aggro their buddies nearby, so I didn't need to wait for the healers to walk closer to use, but whatever.

(I shuffled my units around a bit so Lysithea can attack + Byleth gives her bonus exp.)

Annette things for Shamir.

She flies over to pull the mage.

Dancer things.

Doop.

Almost over.

This hits.

Doop.

Byleth flies over for exp bonus, and Lysithea kills this guy.

Dancer things.

Last minute exp farming.

Overkill buffs on Byleth, from Annette.

And Byleth does Byleth things to Edelgard.

She gets a level from this, but I missed the screenshot.

Here's her stats at level 28, though, so she probably got +1 HP, + 1 Resistance, and +1 Charm. Speed or Strength would've been better, but HP and Resistance isn't bad considering mages are the only things that'll hit her at this point.

This repairs into a Silver Bow, I think. It's like a 60% discount or something, so its worth 1k gold if you wanted a Silver Bow. (Which, admittedly, you probably do.)

Another Knowledge Gem. Pity we get it at the end of Part 1, since our exp problems are mostly over at this point.

2k gold, assuming I don't end up with a pile of this stuff.

Don't think this'll matter since we won't get to Lecture before Part 2 starts.

Kind of weird that you needed to go on a field trip with Edelgard and decide to protect her to get into Crimson Flower.

But yeah, we get into Crimson Flower.