Would you use this underachieving thing? (FE TH) Round 23: Recovery Roar

[daisy jane]

19 hours ago, Vitezen said:

I was training Marianne to be a holy knight, but then I made her a dancer and just used her riding training for the extra tile of movement. Besides being a worse utility class compared to dancer, the only legitimate use I see was Shanty Pete's suggestion of making a knight-trained Lysithea a holy knight sometimes depending on map, because mastermind will enable her to easily master both reason and faith.

I've done this. (Marianne as a dancer is amazing). 
I don't like this class at all. I trained Marianne in it but didn't like. 
I feel if there were more white mage spells. it could be benefical, i suppose. 

[vanguard333]

I haven't done every route in Three Houses; I'm still on my first playthrough of Crimson Flower. I plan to complete the Verdant Wind route afterwards, followed by Azure Moon and Silver Snow.

For the Verdant Wind route, I was thinking of making Marianne a Holy Knight. Since I'll probably make her a Bishop before making her a Holy Knight, I'll probably make her a Holy Knight to get Defiant Res, then see if she's better remaining as a Holy Knight or going back to being a Bishop. 

[Fabulously Olivier]

To be frank, I don't see the purpose. Healers don't need the mobility as much, and it loses out on both double white magic and bonus healing. 

 

Maybe, just maybe, it could be useful on a more lance-focused magic character, like Marianne. But she'd get almost no benefit from the class skills.

Edited January 6, 2020 by Etheus

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I went for it on Marianne on my NG Maddening Verdant Wind run. Since it was mostly blind, I didn't know what to really expect out of all the proficiencies and whatnot, sort of assuming there'd be more offensive white magic. It still worked out, since at the point I was fielding her as a Holy Knight was during a gap where my army was basically untouchable, so as a Bishop, she would have just been idling around without providing heals, anyway. However, while the class was usable, there wasn't really anything outstanding about it and I definitely could have optimized for something better. I probably wouldn't use it again, but it was fun to try once (and it was on a serious run, so there it is).

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Don't replenish those battalions yet, Round 2 is the Battalion Renewal ability. I left notes for it in the OP. And the previous rounds will remain within spoilers in the OP as well. I don't care to set time limits on the poll, so I guess Round 1 isn't really "over" and I'm fine with people continuing to vote and talk about Holy Knight if they prefer.

Edit: Also I switched the word "underrated" in the thread title to "underachieving". I wanted a word that was neutral so as not to immediately paint somebody's opinion of the thing, but "underrated" often implies something is good more than it implies something has a bad reputation which is what I'm trying to communicate.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Glennstavos

[GarEEE]

I agree that it's one of the least useful master classes, only beaten by mortal savant.

However it offers some advantages:

1. Allows healers to attack and retreat in the same turn, when needed
2. Allows healers to heal and canto towards enemies to give your other units support boost. (only viable, when you know that you can keep your units safe for enemy phase)
3. Allows healers to keep up with the rest of the pack so they actually can do 1. and 2.
4. Gives magic users access to more movement and Canto, when they have trouble becoming a Dark Knight
5. Gives your healers with high res enough movement to be the first ones to lure enemy mages

 

Personally I see 4. to be the biggest advantage that Holy Knight offers.

I don't think Holy Knight is the best class for anyone, however for some characters, it's easier to fit into than Dark Knight.

 

Characters that I'd consider suitable for Holy Knight:

Marianne: Easiest to reach master class for her, can act as a res tank against mages, however she doesn't really need the movement as she has physics and silence anyway

Manuela: Easiest to reach magic master class for her, movement helps her with her support spells like Warp and Ward

Anna: Easy to reach magic master class for her, movement helps her with her support spells like Rescue and Ward, might be able to act as a res tank?(just guessing, haven't used her yet)

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Minor issue - I had to re-cast my round 1 vote, to enter a vote for round 2. I recognize this isn't your fault @Glennstavos (and is probably just how polls work here), but I'm really hoping this isn't the case for future rounds, if there's any way around it.

Anyway, I said NO to Battalion Renewal. Honestly I don't care for any of the Battalion skills, but maybe it's my own fault for not crafting a skillful Battalion Wrath plus Vantage build. The way I play is, braindeadedly restoring all my battalions whenever the chance arrives. Restoring them is cheap enough, and gold plentiful enough, that I don't think it's worth giving up a skill slot to have to heal them less often. The one case I could see for it is an "I'm never going to spend any gold" challenge playthrough. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

2 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Minor issue - I had to re-cast my round 1 vote, to enter a vote for round 2. I recognize this isn't your fault @Glennstavos (and is probably just how polls work here), but I'm really hoping this isn't the case for future rounds, if there's any way around it.

Oof, I figured that may be an issue. There's also a limit of five poll questions, so the amount of rounds we can have with thread polls is quite limited until we start deleting previous questions. I guess future rounds will be done via strawpoll. The results will be permanent links that can sit in the OP, and people can see results without having to vote first which is a feature I like.

[Shadow Mir]

No. I find it hard to justify Battalion Renewal since if you're constantly needing it, you're about to lose your battalion, and the bonuses that it comes with.

EDIT: The learnbase doesn't help matters because most of them are frail and most magic battalions don't have much endurance.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[leesangstar10]

No. Because thats what healers are for.

Additionally, only mages and Edelgard gets battalion renewal. Mages do not need healing since they r gonna be at the back. Even if they do need healing they can just use vulernaries. While you could say that it is nice to have on Edelgard, i find there being much more useful skills to have on her like DB and such.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Hard no to Battalion Renewal. The requirement of a low-HP battalion is very finicky, which is acceptable for the performance of Vantage/Wrath builds which prevent you from taking hits. It's not acceptable for Renewal which... is only useful if you're taking hits.

 

1 hour ago, GarEEE said:

I agree that it's one of the least useful master classes, only beaten by mortal savant.

Characters that I'd consider suitable for Holy Knight:

Marianne: Easiest to reach master class for her, can act as a res tank against mages, however she doesn't really need the movement as she has physics and silence anyway

 

I'd definitely rate Mortal Savant above Holy Knight. In particular for Marianne, who benefits from both Swordfaire and Black Tomefaire for all her best moves (Blutgang and Soulblade are her best damage, Thoron has her best range). 1 move and Canto are cool, but at the cost of 6 damage on most of her offence? No thanks.

[Geenoble]

Battalion Renewal is just bad. Easily the worst Battalion skill. The other battalion skills, vantage, desperation and wrath, all increase your dps, and make it more likely for you to not take hits, so the risk of being on low battalion endurance is mitigated. Renewal doesn’t do this.

honestly Concoctions and Healing Focus are better than regular renewal in this game anyway, so just opt for those instead if you want a source of self-healing.

[Vitezen]

Battalion Renewal is a waste of a skill slot. You will always have something better.

[NegativeExponents-]

Holy Knight is a hard no. Anyone who would benefit from the class would prefer to stay as a bishop, gremory, or dark knight instead. I only made Marianne into one because it wasn't clear to me that Dark Knight (or any black magic oriented class) could still use white magic while benefiting from increased offense and better stat bonuses.

Battalion renewal is ok. I wouldn't use it in the long run but early on when you don't have better skills to equip it can be useful keeping a unit alive. In particular I remember Swordmaster Linhardt living through a lot of close calls because of it.

[ciphertul]

The only time I can see the holy knight is when  grinding lvl, they do have good growths but that is it.

As for battalion renewal, I fell it’s just bad do to requirements. Renewal may be harder to get for some but it has no extra triggers, and many who have trouble with getting that can get heal focus. So that will be a no to both but an asterisk next to Holy Knight

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Round 3 is Miracle. Here is the Strawpoll link to vote

Let me lay out some notes so everybody is on the same page:

• Miracle's activation rate is your character's current luck stat, and requires you have 2 or more HP upon being hit with a lethal strike. 
• Miracle is the class mastery skill for Priest, which isn't the worst class to hang out in if you have no other class masteries to pick up in the level 10 or below tiers. So picking up miracle isn't the most out of the way thing for your mages.
  • And I find mages have extremely low competition for equippable abilities until the late game.
• This game has aggro lines, which only lie to the player when they feel like it. So anything lethal coming your way is often pointed out to a player who's paying attention
  • You could honestly argue either way whether Miracle is more or less viable in a game with aggro lines and Divine Pulse. The player can more purposely make use of Miracle in Three Houses, but at best it saves you a divine pulse when it does work, rather than saving you a reset.
• Guard Adjutants and the Blessing Gambit give you a guaranteed miracle if you really want this effect for a strategy.
• I know Guard Adjutants will save your from both the third AND fourth hits if you are quaded. Can anybody tell me if that also happens with Miracle and Blessing procs?

So, would you equip miracle?

[Elephantus]

4 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

So, would you equip miracle?

If there's no better ability to take its slot, yes. Otherwise, I can't see myself doing that outside of some super gimmicky build. Miracle doesn't fit my playstyle at all. I prefer not to rely on chance when I can avoid it, and Miracle is one of those abilities that, while awesome when it activates, is way too unreliable to, well, rely on.

[Flere210]

I would if i was unskilled enought. Miracle will most likely be equipped on frail units that should not be attacked. If you are bad enought and let your healer in the range of 3 archers often, then Miracle can save some bump in your progress. 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I would say NO to Miracle over... basically any other skill. I'm not a fan of %-based activations in general, and (Luck)% means it'll be a less-than-1-in-3 activation for most units, most of the game. That's just not worth it just to save a Divine Pulse.

How would I change Miracle? Make it like the Blessing gambit, so it has a guaranteed activation, but only once-per-map. That way, it's a pretty good fallback, without being overpowered - something you can plan around.

[Shadow Mir]

Only if I had nothing better to replace it with. The luck stats of units in this game trend toward being rather low...

Edited January 10, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

Miracle is just... very unlikely to be decisive.

Say a player makes 1 mistake per battle on average. Say furthermore that 10% of those mistakes result in [insert specific character here] getting killed. And say their luck stat averages 20. That means Miracle will be relevant 1 battle out of 50, which is pretty low given that there aren't that many battles in the game, let alone after any given character get Miracle.

You can quibble the numbers of course. Maybe a particularly squishy character would die in over 10% of mistakes? But I find that unlikely, since some mistakes don't actually kill a character (due to evade, for instance) and others will kill them regardless of Miracle's activation (e.g. leaving your squishy character in range of a wyvern who both doubles and kills in one hit). As for the mistakes, well, >1 mistake is definitely possible, especially in this game where Divine Pulse allows players to be lazier... but conversely Divine Pulse also arguably makes those mistakes matter less, so I don't think I want give Miracle credit for that.

That said it's still better than nothing, and it's possible you get it early enough that it could be a top five choice. If only Priest were a better class, I could see some use for it as such. The problem is, anyone who would go Priest almost always has the option to go Mage (Flayn is probably the biggest exception), which gives arguably the best mastery skill for a magic user in the game. If Priest had Double White Uses or something there would be more temptation to go for it and thus pick up Miracle, but as is, its use is minimal; filler skill on Flayn (and maybe Manuela, although I find she hits Level 20 before mastering Priest anyway) is about the only possibility I see.

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

How would I change Miracle? Make it like the Blessing gambit, so it has a guaranteed activation, but only once-per-map. That way, it's a pretty good fallback, without being overpowered - something you can plan around.

I would really like that! While I'm fine with keeping some chance-based things in the game (hit and crit), I definitely think FEH had the right idea with moving away from %-based skills otherwise, and I think that's a great place for Miracle to be.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I would really like that! While I'm fine with keeping some chance-based things in the game (hit and crit), I definitely think FEH had the right idea with moving away from %-based skills otherwise, and I think that's a great place for Miracle to be.

Thanks! I have basically the same attitude about skills like Aegis and Pavise. While better than Miracle, I wish they were reformed to, say, "Add 0.3 x Dex to Prt/Rsl when under attack (EP) from the specified weapon types". That way, they'd be good enemy-phase skills that you can plan around.

As for Priest, I actually disagree slightly, in that I think their Healing + 5 is good enough to use them for. My trend for pure magic users is, first let them master Mage (or Dark Mage), then go Priest for slightly better healing. Priest mastery, though... practically worthless.

[Dark Holy Elf]

@Shanty Pete's 1st Mate I think I'd like it if Aegis/Pavise followed the Fates-style dual guard gauge (or alternately, FEH cooldowns) rather than just feeling like more stats, though I'm not going to stand in the way of anything which makes Dex more important.

And yeah, Mage -> Priest is a reasonable idea because Heal+5 is probably more significant than +1 magic though the move is lateral enough that I wouldn't spend any money on it (that said, you keep getting free Intermediate seals due to all the recruits who have 'em). I suppose if Miracle were actually good then it'd be quite possible to equip a Knowledge Gem to have a reasonable shot at mastering both.

[Jotari]

21 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Round 3 is Miracle. Here is the Strawpoll link to vote

Let me lay out some notes so everybody is on the same page:

• Miracle's activation rate is your character's current luck stat, and requires you have 2 or more HP upon being hit with a lethal strike. 
• Miracle is the class mastery skill for Priest, which isn't the worst class to hang out in if you have no other class masteries to pick up in the level 10 or below tiers. So picking up miracle isn't the most out of the way thing for your mages.
  • And I find mages have extremely low competition for equippable abilities until the late game.
• This game has aggro lines, which only lie to the player when they feel like it. So anything lethal coming your way is often pointed out to a player who's paying attention
  • You could honestly argue either way whether Miracle is more or less viable in a game with aggro lines and Divine Pulse. The player can more purposely make use of Miracle in Three Houses, but at best it saves you a divine pulse when it does work, rather than saving you a reset.
• Guard Adjutants and the Blessing Gambit give you a guaranteed miracle if you really want this effect for a strategy.
• I know Guard Adjutants will save your from both the third AND fourth hits if you are quaded. Can anybody tell me if that also happens with Miracle and Blessing procs?

So, would you equip miracle?

This is the most pertinent point in my opinion. Yes, I equip Miracle because I don't really have six decent skills for all my mages for much of the game. It's better than Faith Prowess. Even though of my four playthroughs of the game it's activated for me literally a single time.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Jotari

[Ari Chan]

Miracle is one of the super annoying skill when you see it on the enemies but not very useful and practical to have on your units especially when this game already has Blessing gambits and Divine Pulse.