Golden Deer Maddening Team

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Glennstavos said:

Raphael is like Lysithea. He'll gain just three stats (HP, Str, Dex) and it's the only three he needs to function in the war master line. Try to make him any other class or use any other type of weapon and he will underperform other physical units.

That's far from convincing when he's using weapons with 4 might at most, and second, he's hitting the higher defense of most units. What's more, his Dex is not that great, which is a problem when you need 4 numbers to go in your favor. The logical result?  I'm not sure I'd recommend someone who sucks worse than Little Mac's recovery until advanced classes come into play...

1 hour ago, Glennstavos said:

Also brave weapons (including gauntlets) are king on maddening. Burst down enemies without counterattack. Good for the same reason spamming combat arts with other weapon types are good. But unlike combat arts, Each strength level up is another two points. And with war master's +20 crit he sees 20-30 crit on all attacks late game. Brawling prowess also provides a healthy boon of up to +20 avoid while the brawler line has less movement penalty in forests so his enemy phase is far from helpless. Even getting doubled by mages he won't be one rounded like Lysithea is by any physical unit since his HP is ludicrously high (expect at least 60 by Chapter 13). I've witnessed Raph on Hard and Maddening, he does exactly what he needs to, no more no less.

I wasn't impressed by him in hard mode - he often took too much damage for my liking due to being constantly doubled by everything that wasn't wearing heavy armor or significantly weighed down. With that in mind, logic would say that I can't expect him to be anything other than a liability in Maddening... Also, with gauntlets being range-locked (and horseshit on enemy phase), he's fodder for anything with range, especially mages, which he folds like a cheap suit against.

Edited December 23, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Hit +20 is also a good pick-up on anyone who can afford the detour. It makes the high-Mt, low-Hit weapons more reliable for brave art shenanigans and same for the standard Brave weapons. Bonus points is that they affect Gambits in a way that goes over the normal +30 bonus granted by Charm. It's extremely helpful to have 100% hit Gambits that don't need link support because the soft crowd control it provides is godly (the damage and debuffs help too, but the CC is far more important). I accidentally pulled the entire front half of Hunting By Daybreak and Hit +20 Gambits basically trivialized the counter-push.

I would also recommend against using Raphael as a front-line unit. I tried really, really hard to make him work in my own run, but he was almost always short of benchmarks. He'd also often have less than perfect hit, which made me wary of Fierce Iron Fisting much of anything. The most annoying part is that he'd run into this when he'd actually have a chance of three-hitting a mage, but if he whiffed a single one of the three, the mage would double and one-round him from full. In the end, I made him a Rally Str bot, which my Falco Brave Bow/Lance+ Byleth appreciated a ton.

As far as Lysithea goes, yeah, I find her early game accuracy pretty sketchy. The Gloucester Knights do come easily enough, though, and she's got proficiency in Authority. Once those are in place, I find I typically don't run into Hit issues with her anymore (except against the DK at Remire, which I usually have a Dark Mage stand beside him for). Then Macuil happens and she's set for good. Personally, I don't think I'd find it worth spending time on Bows and in Archer for her and I'm a player who never, ever uses Divine Pulse.

Another good way to pull units is Canto + Curved Shot (or Deadeye, though you don't have any units on roster that learn that) and I see you're looking for field a number of fliers. One pot shot, then retreating, will often cause the enemy to happily run out of position to die in your kill zone. I abused this rather heavily with Bernadetta during my Black Eagle run (and would have with my Deer run, too, if I'd been aware of what I could do with her when I recruited her). Doesn't matter if the hit or damage ends up being garbage, so long as it aggros the AI. Then they'll run out and feed harder than a bad MOBA player.

[Random Schemer]

3 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

-For Claude I'd recommend Bow Prowess, Death Blow, Hit +20, Strength +2, and Authority Prowess. For Seteth I'd recommend Lance Prowess, Death Blow, Swordbreaker and optionally Alert Stance+ and Battalion Wrath if you want another dodgetank. 

-In my experience Lysithea hit rates are fine aside from the early game thanks to a substantial amount of Magic Battalions giving Hit. If you want to fix her earlygame accuracy, I'd unlock her budding Talent since Soulblade is going to be much more accurate than Miasma due to base accuracy of swords.

-I'd honestly say to keep Defiant Speed since it works rather well with Darting Blow. But if you don't want to keep it, I'd recommend Hit +20 since Leonie is usually going against really speedy enemies, so the extra accuracy is nice. 

-I'd give Perta Bow Prowess as an option so she's less liable to get hit by Axebreaker enemies. Battalion Wrath can also do wonders on her since she doesn't plan on being hit anyways.

-Lorenz is a decent choice for a dancer, espically considering he shows up for Chapter 13 rather quickly. Though do keep in mind you may have to invite him for ~5 Tea Parties since his charisma is rather low and you need 14 Charsima to consistently win.

Some miscellaneous tips I can offer:

•Have Ingrid, Flayn, and Alosis Adjutant Felix, Seteth, and Leonie respectively. Those specific units will increase the attack of units, up to 3 Attack at A Rank as well as add +10 Hit and Avoid.

•Make sure to cook up Bullheads every week. It gives +1 Speed for every meal, and can stack all the way to +4 Speed. If recommend cooking the Defensive Fish for chapters 2 and 3 though since they're easier to get.

•Have your Dancer consistently do Stable Duty every week really helps to reach A+ since it's 12 Riding Exp at minimum with boon. I'd also recommend doing the same with Dodge tanks afterwords to reach Alertstance +.

•Rallies really help in the earlygame, so don't be afraid to use Ignatz for a time soley for his ability. 

 

Thank you very much, this is all I need to know. 

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Good luck with that, considering Lorenz has shit for charm (3 base and 35% growth). You WILL need it.

Ugh... I forgot about that base stat... 

Maybe Sylvain is a better alternative? He has 40% Charm, 7 at base and I can recruit him for free. Ferdinand is difficult to recruit and Bernadetta has 35% Charm. I need Ingrid as an Adjutant and Marianne as a Bishop. There is no one else available with a profiency in riding.

 

My final verdict for Raphael is... no, I won't use him. However I don't think is THAT bad overall, but... it's true: he needs a lot to become good. I already have 10 combat units and a dancer so, in the end, aside from "he's good" or "he's bad" I think I can't make him good at all because I have objectivily better units to train and Raph needs more than them.

Still, he and Iggy can be useful as rally bots sometimes.

Edited December 23, 2019 by Random Schemer

[Zapp Branniglenn]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

That's far from convincing when he's using weapons with 4 might at most, and second, he's hitting the higher defense of most units. What's more, his Dex is not that great, which is a problem when you need 4 numbers to go in your favor. The logical result?  I'm not sure I'd recommend someone who sucks worse than Little Mac's recovery until advanced classes come into play...

I wasn't impressed by him in hard mode - he often took too much damage for my liking due to being constantly doubled by everything that wasn't wearing heavy armor or significantly weighed down. With that in mind, logic would say that I can't expect him to be anything other than a liability in Maddening... Also, with gauntlets being horseshit on enemy phase, he's fodder for anything with range, especially mages, which he folds like a cheap suit against.

Well then it's your experience vs my experience. If you ever tire of imagining what he performs like, Mangs' LP shows he's working just fine on Maddening. In fact he's caused no resets/pulses that I can remember except probably the opening chapters where everybody is helpless. 

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Good luck with that, considering Lorenz has shit for charm (3 base and 35% growth). You WILL need it.

@Random Schemer

His charm growth is actually 40% in any class except Dark Mage. Nobles have that one difference over commoners, and most other classes provide 5. Students are at least level 15 by the time the dancer contest rolls around. So Lorenz needs 5 charm ups in that time (since the other 5 is provided for free by choosing him as the dancer). 15 level ups, 40% chance, you're looking at about 6 charms up on average, plus tea time if you really got charm screwed. More than possible.

Edited December 23, 2019 by Glennstavos

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Glennstavos said:

Well then it's your experience vs my experience. If you ever tire of imagining what he performs like, Mangs' LP shows he's working just fine on Maddening. In fact he's caused no resets/pulses that I can remember except probably the opening chapters where everybody is helpless. 

@Random Schemer

His charm growth is actually 40% in any class except Dark Mage. Nobles have that one difference over commoners, and most other classes provide 5. Students are at least level 15 by the time the dancer contest rolls around. So Lorenz needs 5 charm ups in that time (since the other 5 is provided for free by choosing him as the dancer). 15 level ups, 40% chance, you're looking at about 6 charms up on average, plus tea time if you really got charm screwed. More than possible.

From where I'm standing, Raphael requires too much resources and effort to become even remotely competent - and likely won't unless you get majorly lucky. Which, for all we know, might have happened with Mangs.

Still, he's not exactly a safe bet for the dance competition; in fact, he's among those I'd say have the worst chances of winning (others in the same boat include Caspar, Raphael, Linhardt, Ignatz, Ashe, and Lysithea, all of whom either have low charm bases, low charm growths, or even both).

Edited December 23, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Crysta]

Do 2-3 tea parties with Lorenz and he'll win unless you're especially charm screwed for some reason. I only needed one, myself.

His charm base sucks, but his charm growth itself is pretty decent.

Edited December 24, 2019 by Crysta

[Shadow Mir]

Another issue I have with Lorenz as the dancer is his starting position in chapter 13 - "Noodle Arms" Ignatz, who he spawns with, ain't killing anything even with two attacks.

Edited December 24, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Crysta]

Early dancer access is a good thing, particularly for that chapter lol

[Shadow Mir]

34 minutes ago, Crysta said:

Early dancer access is a good thing, particularly for that chapter lol

I'm not arguing against that - only that if I was on GD and wanted my dancer to come early, I'd want it to be Hilda or Leonie, who can actually kill shit.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Lorenz and Ignatz's location is actually the most ideal location for the Dancer to come in. The north side of the map comes with two distinct advantages: that section of buildings is a really good chokepoint for Claude's new, over-powered Gambit; and it's the best place to start pulling. The enemies with battalions are the ones who start aggroing the rest of the map as they move around and the northern Sniper is relatively isolated. He'll still aggro 1/3 of the front section, but better than the entire section at once, which the other Sniper will do—unless you have some way of insta-gibbing him without aggroing the other battalion enemies. Mid and south are pretty bad because that one Sniper is basically positioned where if you aggro him, everything in the front section of the map is going to chain aggro over the next three turns. Throw in that Claude is automatically a flier and that it's generally optimal to have a Pegasus/Wyvern Byleth and it's easily to consolidate some serious firepower up north (especially if Ignatz is a Sniper with Hunter's Volley, as he's rather competent at it). And hell, even if you don't have a flier Byleth, it's quite possible to avoid the problem Sniper if you have a move combat art on Claude. I was able to evade that Sniper's aggro range with Paladin Byleth and Shove, when the map is full of bushes, so the roster of what can work should be fairly flexible (no magic or armour classes for sure, though).

[Shadow Mir]

14 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Lorenz and Ignatz's location is actually the most ideal location for the Dancer to come in. The north side of the map comes with two distinct advantages: that section of buildings is a really good chokepoint for Claude's new, over-powered Gambit; and it's the best place to start pulling. The enemies with battalions are the ones who start aggroing the rest of the map as they move around and the northern Sniper is relatively isolated. He'll still aggro 1/3 of the front section, but better than the entire section at once, which the other Sniper will do—unless you have some way of insta-gibbing him without aggroing the other battalion enemies. Mid and south are pretty bad because that one Sniper is basically positioned where if you aggro him, everything in the front section of the map is going to chain aggro over the next three turns. Throw in that Claude is automatically a flier and that it's generally optimal to have a Pegasus/Wyvern Byleth and it's easily to consolidate some serious firepower up north (especially if Ignatz is a Sniper with Hunter's Volley, as he's rather competent at it). And hell, even if you don't have a flier Byleth, it's quite possible to avoid the problem Sniper if you have a move combat art on Claude. I was able to evade that Sniper's aggro range with Paladin Byleth and Shove, when the map is full of bushes, so the roster of what can work should be fairly flexible (no magic or armour classes for sure, though).

Still, I felt I pretty much needed to rush to the north with Hilda and Leonie before Lorenz and Ignatz ended up getting stomped harder than pretty much any Goomba variant ever.

[OCDbox]

Here's some self advertising for a helpful resource if interested:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/ef5pl1/verdant_wind_maddening_ltc_92_turns_14_from/

Depending on how much you are grinding, it's not a great idea to use so many members of your original house. You just don't have the EXP to spare early on and may find yourself soft-locked if you spread EXP too thinly (like any fire emblem). IMO the best members of your original house are Byleth>Claude>Lysithea>Hilda or Leonie. You can round out your combat members with Seteth. Then choose 1-2 of Catherine, Felix, Petra, Shamir. Then round out your team with Linhardt and Manuela for support. Add Flayn/Alois/Caspar/Ferdinand as filler depending on your chapter per chapter needs. You should also save 1-2 spots per chapter for a rally user/Retribution user/Stride/DoTG user: Annette, Alois, Ignatz, Raphael being the best ones. 

IMO the most efficient option for all combatants is Wyvern rider/Lord and Cavaliers/Paladin/Pegasus/Wyvern for Rally/Authority users. 

Lysithea doesn't get dark tome flair from Warlock so she would probably be better off as a bishop for more warp midgame

Marianne is probably the ideal candidate for dancer because chapter 13 is terrible and you probably should just make Byleth a pegasus knight with Sword breaker and alert stance, and make a dash to the boss. On turn 5 kill the boss and just Lysithea to warp Marianne to Byleth to kill him again.

Edited December 26, 2019 by OCDbox