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

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Fire Emblem Three Houses has a wealth of options, but it's no secret some abilities, classes, weapons, or even characters can seem either outclassed or cater to no noteworthy niche. So let's hash out these weird discussions. The question for each round is simple. Would you ever see yourself using these things in a serious playthrough? I won't restrict the discussion to purely maddening mode, but instead reframe it as you, the player, trying your hardest to optimize units regardless of the need to based on difficulty. Since I know not everybody plays or likes Maddening Mode.

Round 1 is the Holy Knight Master Class. You may vote in the thread's poll to participate.

Spoiler

 

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

• Holy Knight requires Riding A, Faith B+, and C lance. 
• Holy Knight provides Canto, White Tomefaire, and Terrain Resistance as its class skills. Canto is obviously nice, though the majority of master classes also provide it. White tomefaire only improves the damage of white magic attacking spells (it does not improve healing), and Terrain Resistance only removes the damage one would take from terrain, it does not negate avoid penalties from terrain.
• Holy Knight's base stats are matched or exceeded by every other master class.
• Mastery of the Holy Knight class provides Defiant Res.
• The only unit in the game that has proficiency in Faith, Riding, and Lance is Marianne. And Lance must be unlocked via budding talent.
• Besides master classes, Holy Knight also faces stiff competition from Bishop, particuarly for units that primarily provide support. Bishop is a class that provides the same terrain resistance skill, double the white magic uses and +10 healing. In particular, double physic uses and bonus hp restoration on them can mitigate the lesser amount of movement, because your support units don't need to be too close to the action so late in the game. It also lets you use warp twice instead of just once.
• let me know if there's an important point I missed, lol

 

 

Round 2 is the Battalion Renewal ability. You may vote in the thread's poll to participate.

Spoiler

 

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

• Battalion Renewal restores 30% HP at the start of every turn when your battalion's endurance is 1/3 or less. 
  • Healing effects at the start of each turn take place after a unit takes damage from poison or terrain, thus mitigating those statuses slightly.
  • Yes, Battalion Renewal stacks with regular renewal, heal tiles, or other sources of healing.
• Battalion Renewal is learned by Edelgard, Linhardt, Mercedes, Annette, Marianne, Manuela, and Flayn.
  • All of them learn the ability at C rank authority, instead of Edelgard who gets it at A rank.
• Like any Battalion ________ ability, the player could purposefully not replenish a battalion at low endurance, and allow units to benefit from those skills from the first turn without having to take any damage. Of course, we're talking about renewal, so it won't see any use until we do actually take damage.
• My main concern with Battalion renewal is that it can never be as permanent as actual renewal. With your battalion so low on endurance, they will withdraw at some point very soon. 
  • How soon depends on several variables. The general rule of thumb is that endurance damage equals half the damage that unit takes (rounded down in cases of odd numbers). So tankier units take less battalion damage per encounter, and battalions with higher max endurance will widen this specific threshold of 1/3. 
• The danger a unit experiences from taking advantage of these sorts of skills at the start of a map is that if your battalion does withdraw, all the unused gambits and stats they provided go away. If your unit is also hit by a gambit, the "rattled" status forces them to lose access to their battalion's effects for a turn as well, including abilities like this one.
• It's worth pointing out that all characters earn Defensive Tactics at B rank authority, further halving the amount of endurance lost upon taking damage, and pairing well with Battalion _____ abilities.
• Perhaps Battalion Renewal could be used to mitigate the passive damage one gains from trying to use a crest weapon without a crest, the only unit that has no crest yet learns this skill is Manuela. Soooo Thunderbrand/Blutgang Manuela, maybe? It could also serve to aid the use of devil weapons by the same token.

 

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

Spoiler

 

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?

 

Round 4 is Poison Strike. Here is the strawpoll link. 

Spoiler

 

• Poison Strike reduces the opponent's health by 20% max health after combat if the unit attacked and hit.
• Poison Strike is the class Mastery for Dark Mage, which requires a Dark Seal to certify into. Your opportunities to collect a Dark Seal, regardless of route, are Chapters 4, 6, 8, along with any future chapter where Death Knight is encountered as an enemy.
  • Also note that Dark Mage is a male-exclusive class. It provides the Miasma spell (or double miasma charges, if your name is Hubert), and heartseeker as class skills. 
• If a Poison Strike wielder reduces a monster's current HP pool to zero, Poison Strike activates after the health bar refills for the next stage
  • However, I have observed a bug where the game only checks the max health of the monster's first stage, making the skill less effective than it should be on later stages
    • The three Strongest monsters in the game: A big turtle, a big bird, and a big dragon, all have an ability called Ancient Dragonskin, which does indeed cut Poison strike's damage further in half. On their final stage, Poison Strike is only chipping for 5% of their current max health which is a bummer.
• I find that magic users in general have low competition for equippable skills, at least until the end of the game.

 

 

Round 5 is Desperation. Here is the strawpoll link. 

Spoiler

 

• Desperation allows the user to perform their double attack before the enemy's counterattack if their HP is 50% or less
• Desperation is obtained from mastering the Cavalier class.
  • Which may be a bit ironic, since cavalier's -10 speed growth would be detrimental to the fast units who could make use of this skill.
• Desperation has no value unless you double, and if your double doesn't one round, the outcome of the battle will be the same outside of having two chances to crit or crest proc before counterattack.
• Due to the ability's HP threshold, it has some synergy with other abilities that require low health, such as Defiant skills.
  • But as a player phase only skill, it has no synergy with others that explicitly have the same HP threshold, like Vantage and Wrath.
• The goal of Desperation is for the user to avoid counterattacks, but brave weapons, brave combat arts, ranged weapons, and gambits all exist too. 

 

 

Round 6 is Edelgard's unique classes: Armored Lord and Emperor. Here is the strawpoll link, 

Spoiler

 

• Armored Lord and Emperor are classes unique to Edelgard, and are obtained at chapters 13 and 16 respectively
  • Unlike the other Lord's unique classes, Edelgard is never forced to use Armored Lord in Chapter 13, as there is battle preps before the fight. 
• The class masteries are Pomp & Circumstance and Flickering Flower. The first is a boost of +4 to Luck and Charm, the other is a combat art with pretty great stats and reduces the target's move to 0 for a turn. However, you must remain in the Emperor class to use this combat art.
  • It's also worth mention that CF, the only route in which you may use these classes, only allows you two in-game months to work on Emperor's mastery. Though since it awards a combat art you'll still be able to unlock and use it on the final chapter without needing to keep a combat art slot open. These classes require the same 200 class experience as any master class. 
• Both classes have only 5 move. Compared to Fortress Knight's stat boosts, Armored Lord has +3 speed and -5 defense, and +2 charm. Emperor has +3 HP, +2 speed, and -2 defense, +1 luck, and +2 charm. 
• Armored Lord and Emperor's class skills are Charm and Axefaire. Charm passively increases the damage of adjacent allies by 3.
  • Fortress Knight has weight -5 in place of Charm.
• Both classes provide a bonus 3 points to authority and armor ranks in each round of combat.
  • Classes that provide authority boosts are very rare - exclusive to Byleth and the Lords in fact. But one could argue Edelgard's authority could easily be as high as B by chapter 13 if the player wants some of the best batallion options. Her later gains by raising authority rank, such as Batallion renewal at A rank and Rally Charm at S rank are less than ideal to push for.
  • the bonus to armor may be more valuable if you're looking to pick up equippable Weight -5 in a reasonable amount of time.
• And finally, the big elephant in the room is "why not make her a flier". Not only would wyvern rider/lord be great alternatives in their own right, many players comment that her unique relic's combat art is best combined with a class that has high move. And canto obviously doesn't hurt either.

 

 

Round 7 is Lifetaker. Here is the strawpoll link.

 

Spoiler

 

• Lifetaker is the class mastery skill from dark bishop. 
  • To certify as a dark bishop, one must be a male unit who has also certified as a dark mage, so in total the class requires two dark seals to unlock
• Lifetaker restores health equal to 50% of the damage of a killing blow. The skill doesn't mention it, but it will only activate on player phase.
  • As far as I know, the healing is similar to Crest of Flames and Crest of Riegan in that the game only factors in the amount of HP the opponent loses, not necessarily how much you're dealing with that last hit. For example, if an opponent has 6 health remaining and your attack does 30 damage, you would heal 3 HP instead of 15. 
    • So Lifetaker will heal considerably more if you can nail an opponent's current/remaining HP in one hit, rather than doubling. Access to nuke spells or high Mt/magic combat arts would be ideal for a lifetaker user.
• While healing options are certainly plentiful in Three Houses, Lifetaker is the only source of healing that allows a unit to heal and attack within the same action. Healing Focus and Elixers force you to choose between the two, while healing magic takes up the turn of one of your mages.
  • Well I guess the Draining Blow brawling combat art also lets you do both in a single attack, but only Byleth and Raphael can learn that.
• Since the ability requires a killing blow, it has surprisingly poor synergy with poison strike lol

 

Round 8 is the Bolt Axe. Here is the strawpoll link. 

Spoiler

 

• Bolt Axe is a weapon with 14 MT, 60 hit, 15 Wt, and has 1-2 range. And it require B rank in axes to wield. The forged version has 1-3 range.
• As a magic weapon, it applies the user's magic stat to target the enemy's Res. 
  • Its damage will not increase with Death Blow, instead only with Fiendish Blow and other magic boosters. However your strength stat still mitigates weight like any other weapon or spell.
• The Bolt Axe can only use combat arts at 1 range, as there exists no 2 or 3 range axe combat art.
• The player can earn a bolt axe from a chest in chapter 15 of AM/VW/SS. Otherwise It must be forged from a Steel Axe for 2 arcane crystals and 770G. Forging it takes another 4 crystals and 1150G.
  • Arcane crystals seem to be a rare drop from some specific monsters and can be bought for 500G a pop from the dark merchant, who unlocks from a side quest as early as Chapter 16 on (I think) all routes.
• The best theoretical users of Bolt Axe would be Annette and Edelgard. In Annette's case, the high MT Bolt Axe complements her low MT, 2 range spell list if you prefer her in a magical class.
  • Though it's worth noting that both Annette and Edelgard will often face a choice between Bolt Axe and the Lightning Axe combat art with other weapons. To conserve an inventory or combat art slot, the player may want to stick with just one option. Compared to Bolt Axe/Smash, Lightning Axe with a training axe+ is just as accurate, has 7 less damage, and has 11 less weight, while Silver+ would have 4 more damage. Annette's unique Crusher combat Art is also a disgusting amount of damage that nothing else from her should compare to.
    • But none of these options would apply to enemy phase or to 2-3 range. That's what Retribution is for.

 

Round 9 is Faith Prowess. Here is the strawpoll link. 

Spoiler

 

• Faith Prowess begins with 5 Hit, 7 Avoid, and 5 Crit Avoid and upgrades to 10 Hit, 20 Avoid, and 10 Crit Avoid as the user's Faith rank increases from E+ to A+.
• Most units only have Nosferatu for white magic attacking. That spell has 8 weight, and 1 MT, making it an iffy means of keeping your avoid rate high and for sustaining health. 
• Faith Prowess stacks with white magic avoid +20, which Byleth and Dorothea can learn by unlocking their budding talents.
• If luring an enemy with a heavy spell like nosferatu doesn't sound appealing, you can manually equip a heal spell and it will stay equipped as long as you end your turn without attacking.
  • Unlike with weapons, you cannot use the trade command to swap a unit's equipped spell to something lighter.
• Since most characters stop learning white magic spells at C rank, I don't find myself intentionally raising my faith rank past that point, making it unlikely Faith Prowess will max out.
  • The rewards for reaching S and S+ Faith, White magic Range +1 and White Tomefaire, are also not very enticing as they only affect white magic attacks, rather than enhance your support capabilities in any way.

 

 

Round 10 is the Great Knight class. Here is the strawpoll link. 

 

Spoiler

 

• Great Knight certification "requires" the user to have B+ in Axes, A in Armor, and B+ in riding. This is more skill ranks than what is required by any other class in the game.
• The only units in the game that have proficiency in all three skill ranks are Ferdinand and Gilbert.
  • Interestingly, Dedue and Raphael seem set up for fortress knight, but have a weakness in Riding, making Great Knight a very costly choice for them.
• Great Knight's class skills are Canto, Axefaire, and Lancefaire.
  • Great Knight and Paladin are the only classes available for men that have lancefaire as a class skill, so it pairs well with the brave lance and swift strikes combat art that Seteth, Ferdinand, and Sylvain can use.
• The reward for mastering the Great Knight class is Defiant Defense.
• Great Knight's growth rates are pretty poor. The paladin and Fortress knight classes have the same modifiers, but Paladin adds +5% Dex, +5% Luck, and +10% Res, while fortress knight provides +10% Def. 
• Great Knight does have weaknesses to both horse and armor slaying weaponry.
  • Like any mounted class, you may negate your riding weakness by dismounting. It is impossible to negate your armor weakness.
• As one final point in the paladin's favor, not only does it have 1 point of movement over Great Knight, but a dismounted paladin still has 6 move, while a dismounted Great Knight has just 4.

 

 

Round 11 is the Wild Abandon combat art, Here is the strawpoll link. And here are some notes:

 

Spoiler

 

• Wild Abandon applies +10 MT, -30 Hit, and +30 Crit and costs 5 durability.
• The units that unlock Wild Abandon are Petra, Caspar, and Raphael.
  • Looking at the learned combat arts of these characters, there's a fairly average amount of competition. Raph and Caspar will eventually get Healing Focus, and also have Shove. Caspar's Bombard has a total monopoly on the final slot unless you're keen on sticking with Grappler long term. Petra's a bit more open. Assuming Repo is one slot, and Smash takes up another, it's between Wild Abandon and Finesse Blade. I've used both, and neither has impressed me. Wild Abandon always missing, while Finesse blade just tacking on single digit damage for a unit that doubles most opponents anyway.
• I find myself comparing most axe combat arts to Smash, and Smash tends to win out in any category other than MT, but Wild Abandon's combination of MT and Crit really lets the damage ramp up to a level where the gamble in accuracy may seem worth it.
  • then again, Smash/Killer Axe+ is also +55 crit rate on a much more accurate move, assuming you're willing to pay those repair costs. You only get five shots of that maximum.
• Since accuracy is the biggest issue, a unit using Wild Abandon might want to spec into more hit rate from batallions or even Hit +20. 
  • Caspar gets some automatic help from his personal skill reducing adjacent enemy avoid by 10.
  • The most accurate axe is actually the forged mace at 90 hit.
• Wild abandon is perhaps most effective in monster battles, especially if you can't double. Monsters are very susceptible to crits and have low avoid (since they lack prowess skills and can't take advantage of terrain bonuses). There is no axe natively effective against monsters to pair with this combat art, but when they happen to have a weakness to axes, a wild abandon crit can possibly one shot.

 

 

Round 12 is Venin Weapons. Here is the strawpoll link. \

 

Spoiler

 

• Venin weapon stats, both forged and unforged, are typically identical to iron weapons outside of having much less durability and maybe one more point of weight in some cases.
  • this is noteworthy because venin weapons in previous games typically had much lower stats than generic weapons.
• The poison status reduces a target's HP by ~10% at the start of each turn. Poison damage cannot kill, and always occurs before health restoring effects like Renewal or heal tiles that also occur at the start of a turn.
• The only guaranteed drops of the weapons themselves are a Venin Axe and Venin lance in the DLC Anna paralogue. 
• Forging a venin weapon from an iron one costs 2000G and 2 Venomstones. Forging it further costs 3000G and 4 Venomstones
  • venomstones are a rare drop from armor breaking the poison spewing demonic beasts common of many story and paralogue chapters. They also allegedly drop from the Giant Crawler monsters who spawn in desert auxiliary maps. Though personally I've only seen those monsters drop agarthium.
  • I've also heard venomstones are one of the items you can obtain by feeding animals around the monastery, a mechanic also exclusive to the DLC.
• I have checked whether inflicting poison is based on random chance (like with the poison spewing demonic beasts, or the Poison skill on Maddening mode Assassins), but the activation rate seems to be 100% until you're striking an enemy with the General skill which makes them immune to all status effects and debuffs.
  • You will even inflict poison when your attack deals 0 damage or you are striking a monster's barrier, but the point is the attack must hit.
• Unlike the player, the enemy isn't equipped to deal with poison unless there's an antitoxin sitting in their inventory.

 

 

Round 13 is the Absorption gambit. Here is the strawpoll link

 

Spoiler

 

• Absorption is available from just two battalions, Alliance Brawler Duelists, and Empire Raiders. As such it is not available in the Blue Lions route outside of carryover in NG+.
  • Empire Raiders is available in CF/SS Battalion Guild in post time skip. It requires B authority. At maximum level, it provides 7 phys atk, 10 avoid, 4 prot, and 7 charm
  • Alliance Brawler Duelists is a battalion that is only available in Golden Deer's Battalion Guild but I have no idea when it unlocks. It requires C authority. At maximum level, it provides 4 phys atk, -2 mag atk, 10 avoid, 3 prot, and 5 charm
• The gambit itself has 4 MT, and 30 Hit, making it the least accurate offensive gambit in the game. In order to get more Accuracy on gambits, the unit can have 6 more charm than the target for +30, three A support linked attack bonuses for +60. An A support adjutant for +20, an accuracy ring for +10, or Hit +20.
• The range of the gambit is just 1, but the radius is a 3x3 diamond around the target. Put another way, it has the same radius as Dimitri's unique battalion. Or is a 1 range version of Resonant Lightning and Ashes and Dust. While it's rare for you to get one of your units surrounded on all four sides, the full coverage is 12 tiles.
• The Healing effect is 50% damage dealt to the initial target, then 50% of the splash damage dealt to all other targets caught in the radius. I presume like other healing attacks, you can only heal 50% of remaining HP (for instance, if an enemy receives 30 damage from this attack, but only has 10 left to lose, the player only gains 5 HP from them, and not 15).
• There are few attacks in this game that allow a unit to both attack and be healed in just one action, freeing up a turn for the healer.

 

 

Round 14 is Swordmaster. Here is the strawpoll link. 

Spoiler

 

• The Swordmaster class "requires" A rank in Swords. Its class skills are Swordfaire and Sword crit +10. 
• The reward for mastering Swordmaster is the Astra combat art, which that unit can only use so long as they remain in the Swordmaster class.
  • Astra is 5 consecutive strikes at 30% of your damage with that weapon normally. General rule of thumb is that your damage will be an additional ~50% the amount of damage of one strike with that sword. You do have five chances to crit, but those crits will be just 90% of the damage a normal swing does instead of 300%
    • It also reduces hit by -10 and costs 9 durability.
• The Swordmaster class faces stiff competition from Assassin, a class with 1 more Move, no movement penalty in forests, and a greater variety of skills.
• Why is Catherine excluded?: Because she joins in the class, and I didn't want the poll to be "would you use Catherine". Even if the player has no interest in her staying in this class long term, they can't help but keep her there for at least a little while for the time it takes to instruct her in other skill ranks for more class options.

 

 

Round 15 is Weight -3 and Weight -5. Here is the strawpoll link. 

Spoiler

 

• Weight -3 and Weight - 5 are acquired from raising Armor rank to C and A+ respectively. 
• Reducing weight helps up to a point dictated by current equipment. If your strength stat already mitigates whatever you have equipped, then reducing weight further does nothing, not even improving your avoid rate like the speed stat does.
  • But weight mitigation does make accessory options that have weight (like shields) more appealing.
• While the ability itself is inoffensive, the cost of acquiring it is often compared to other options, such as Speed +2, gardening for speed boosters, or the generally high effectiveness of lower weight weapon and spell options for keeping your AS high.
  • Speed +2 is acquired from mastering the myrmidon class, and is appealing if the player has the opportunity to grind in an auxiliary battle.
  • Gardening is a free action on any explore session, so the only opportunity cost in going for speed boosters is going for any other stat booster.
  • Low weight weapon options can be trade-equipped to in order to get a higher AS for enemy phase, thus never have to be used exclusively. You can't trade somebody's equipped spell however.
• The only classes that require armor rank are Armored Knight, Fortress Knight, and Great Knight, who "require" having D, B, and A respectively. Furthermore, in order to increase your armor skill rank outside of passive instruction sessions/group tasks and tutoring, a unit must spend time in one of those classes, either on the battlefield, or as an adjutant
• Alois and Gilbert join with C and B rank armor, respectively, so they have weight -3 from the start. For the sake of fairness, Please answer for the long term in their case since the opportunity cost of abilities for those first chapters you can deploy them would be extremely low when they haven't gotten any class masteries.

Edit: Apologies if this was unclear, as I don't think strawpoll allows you to change your vote, but this round is an And/Or question. So if your answer is yes to one but not the other, then your poll answer ought to be a Yes.

 

 

Round 16 is Seal Skills. Here is the strawpoll link. 

 

Spoiler

 

• To be clear, we are referring to Seal Strength, Seal Magic, Seal Speed, Seal Defense, Seal Res, and Seal Movement. Saying yes to any of these would be a yes to the poll question.
• The game says the debuff applies for "1 turn" after combat. This is false. They only apply for a full turn when used on player phase. On enemy phase, debuffs are technically applied but wear off when the enemy phase ends.
  • These skills have no application on enemy phase, besides seal movement cutting the remaining movement of an enemy with canto as they try to move away after attacking.
• Like any debuffs, seal skills are ineffective on bosses with the Commander skill. In pre-time skip, the only bosses with that skill are Death Knight, Flame Emperor, and Edelgard/Rhea, and it doesn't become much more common as the game goes on compared to General.
• The acquisition of most of these is locked to specific units' budding talents: Seal Strength is the budding talent (reason) of Ignatz. Seal Magic is the budding talent (reason) of Flayn. Seal Speed is the budding talent (armor) of both Hilda and Ferdinand. Seal Movement is the budding talent (horses) of Dimitri.
  • Seal Def and Res are the class masteries of Wyvern Rider and Dark Knight, respectively, allowing any unit to equip them.
• Ranged attacks and gambits are a safe way to apply debuffs without retaliation. But only the targeted unit of a gambit will receive the debuff.

 

 

 

Round 17 is the Longbow. Here is the strawpoll link, 

 

Spoiler

 

• The Longbow is a C rank bow with 9 MT, 70 Hit, 13 WT, and 20 durability. The effective range is also one space further than any other bow for basic attacks (with the exception of the Failnaught and a forged magic bow), allowing you to fire that extra space at no -20 hit penalty. When forged, the MT increases by 2.
• The longbow cannot fire one space further on any combat art. Combat art range is tied to the Art itself, only increasing through the +1/+2 bow range class skills of archer classes
  • Most bow combat arts worth a damn have the longbow's range.
• You get a Longbow for free from Sylvain's paralogue. Otherwise it must be forged from a steel bow using 6 wootz steel, a very precious resource since it is also used for brave weapons and only drops from monsters.
• The benefits that a longbow has over other bows and combat arts are few
  • you can potentially double at curved shot range with the longbow, but with that amount of speed you could also quad with the brave bow, as they have the same weight
    • also, if your archers are snipers, you can double with any bow thanks to hunter's volley.
  • you can provide linked attack/gambit boost bonuses from a further space away while the longbow is equipped. Though hopefully you're not still in enemy range, since that is a heavy weapon to be carrying for enemy phase.

 

 

Round 18 is the Hero class. Here is the strawpoll link, 

 

Spoiler

 

• The Hero class "requires" B rank in swords and C in axes, and is a male-exclusive class.
• The Hero's class skills are Swordfaire and Vantage. Its class mastery is Defiant Strength.
  • Vantage is interesting, as it opens up possibilities for players to craft an enemy phase build in the mid game without having to master Mercenary first. Not having to spend an ability slot on vantage also leaves room for other luxury abilities.
• Like the Swordmaster, the Hero faces stiff competition from the Assassin due to that class's higher movement and no movement costs from crossing various terrain

 

Round 19 is Defensive Tactics. Here is the strawpoll link. 

 

Spoiler

 

• Defensive Tactics is acquired by every character in the game at B rank authority.
• Defensive Tactics reduces damage dealt to battalion endurance by half. 
  • For those unaware, the amount of damage dealt to endurance is approximately half of whatever you're taking in HP. However, there is a cap that equates to one third of the max endurance, meaning it is impossible to lose your battalion from one really bad round of combat.
• Since battalion endurance on higher rank battalions progressively increases, the odds of your battalion withdrawing mid battle isn't something that really happens more often as you progress in the game, even though the damage you receive certainly gets higher. 
  • The only low rank battalions that typically see use all the way into late game are Jeralt's Mercenaries, which has a generous amount of endurance anyway, and that early game stride battalion. 
• There is no way to restore battalion endurance in the middle of the map. Except for those yellow swirlies you see when playing with online features. One of the two random effects is restoring battalion endurance.
• Defensive Tactics may pair well with Batallion Wrath/Vantage/Desperation/Renewal. If the player intentionally avoids replenishing battalions for a unit, that unit can benefit from those skills from turn 1, and Defensive Tactics may increase the amount of hits they can take before the battalion withdraws completely.
• I've seen the argument for Lorenz, especially, to use this ability. Because Lorenz' bulk depends more on a high HP growth than on his defense and resistance stats, and he gets +2 to damage so long as his battalion stays alive. Gilbert similarly takes 2 less damage so long as his battalion stays alive.

 

 

Round 20 are the Talisman Shield and Hexlock shield. Here is the strawpoll link, 

 

Spoiler

 

• The Talisman Shield provides 1 Def and 3 Res at 4 Weight. The Hexlock Shield provides 2 Def and 4 Res at 5 Weight
  • the only other shield in the game that provides extra resistance is the Aegis shield, which is available pre-time skip through Felix's paralogue and will cause recoil damage to any unit who lacks a crest.
    • And it's notable that several units renowned for their tankiness lack crests, such as Dedue, Raphael, and Alois.
• The acquisition of the Talisman shield is unique only to Dedue's paralogue, which is only available starting in chapter 6 of the Blue Lions route
• There are three Hexlock shields available in any route
  • The first is available in chapter 13. For Crimson Flower, it is dropped by Judith and is thus unmissable due to the objective
  • For non CF routes, it is dropped by an assassin in Chapter 13
  • Another is dropped from the bishop on the left side of Marianne's paralogue.
  • Another is buyable from Anna's shop for 3000G, which appears in chapter 15.
• Generic shields are typically equipped by units who already can't avoid doubles and just want to reduce the damage taken per round. While providing resistance is unique, there aren't a lot of sources of magic damage throughout the game. I think the only chapters in which magic attackers comprise at least 50% of the enemies are the Flayn paralogue and Silver Snow's final chapter, so stacking physical defense tends to give the unit more mileage out of their equipment slot

 

 

Round 21 is Pavise. Here is the strawpoll link, 

 

Spoiler

 

• Pavise can reduce the damage taken by swords, lances, axes, and gauntlets by half.
  • Although the game does not mention it, it will also work for monster attacks at any range and gambits. When it comes to gambits, I can only personally confirm that it worked on 1 range gambits while some sources claim aegis uniquely protects against 2 range gambits.
• Pavise is the class mastery for Fortress Knight, which is a tad ironic since it has more defense than any other class.
• The activation rate for Pavise is the same percentage as your dexterity stat. It is one of very few abilities activated by random chance that isn't tied to a crest.

 

 

Round 22 is the Lord class. Here is the strawpoll link

 

Spoiler

 

• The Lord class is exclusive to Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude. Its class masteries are the Resistance +2 ability and Subdue combat art. 
  • The Lord class also has Charm as a class skill, providing +3 damage to adjacent allies at all times.
  • Subdue can be used in any class and leaves the target at 1 HP while adding +20 to hit. It's ideal usage is to setup kill experience for another unit, or for doing a little micro-grinding of skill ranks on an enemy by keeping them alive a bit longer.
• The Lord "requires" D+ and C authority to certify into. All of its potential users have a strength in both proficiencies, and a starting sword rank of E+. If I recall correctly they need only one additional rank in Swords just for a chance at certifying as a Lord.
• The Lord class provides bonus authority experience with each round of combat which is pretty unique until post-time skip unique classes become available. It's also worth mention that all three Lords have some high end sword combat arts, making the Lord a good choice of class if the player is going for those as well.

 

 

Round 23 is the Recovery Roar gambit. Here is the strawpoll link,  

• Recovery Roar restores the status and eliminates debuffs of any units within 2 spaces of the target. It has 5 uses per battle. 
• This gambit is exclusive to the Kingdom Wyvern Co. battalion, which itself only appears in the Blue Lions battalion guild beginning in Chapter 8.
  • It's a C rank flying battalion that provides 5 phys. atk, 15 Hit, 5 Crit, 4 Defense, and 5 charm when leveled up.
    • This battalion, like its equivalents in the other routes, is fairly likely to be acquired due to just being a buyable flier battalion in the early-mid game with a reasonably low authority rank requirement. And also having pretty great stats among other C rank battalions as well. 
• Recovery Roar is ideally a replacement for the Restore spell. Both aren't incredibly useful all the time, but can reverse a bad situation the player couldn't avoid (like getting hit by a 30 accuracy gambit) very fast.
  • The problem though is that the battalion is unique to the Blue Lions route, and that route gives you Mercedes for free. She has Restore. So unless the player ditches Mercedes or puts her in a non magic class, it's unlikely for this gambit to find a niche beyond free-ing up her turn to do anything else. If anything the Golden Deer crew would appreciate it most due to lacking a Restore user.
• Even if a debuff or status isn't threatening the survival of any of your units, you can hit them with this gambit if you have nothing better to do on this turn for some skill exp. Unfortunately, you cannot use it on units who are already fine.

By the way, I could use some suggestions on future rounds (which will take place in this same thread). I have a list of my own, naturally. I'm looking for topics that are generally not talked about or perhaps misunderstood. But also clearly aren't so bad or so good that people would overwhelmingly vote yes or no. Here is a list of topics I've been mulling over in my head:

Spoiler

• the Magic Bow
• Mortal Savant
• Alert Stance (specifically the non upgraded version)
• Defiant skills (possibly all of them in one round)
• Healing adjutants
• Model Leader
• Sacred Shield

 

Edited February 26, 2020 by Glennstavos

[Dark Holy Elf]

Nosferatu builds aren't completely crazy especially on Byleth (White Magic Avo stacking with Faith Prowess' high avoid growth), and White Tomefaire amplifies them, so maaaybe there's some use there? The limited number of uses hurts, though.

That's about it though. Reason spells otherwise outclass Faith spells so badly that anyone who would otherwise consider Holy Knight should usually just go for Dark Knight instead. The few characters who are so focused for Faith over Reason that I might neglect their Reason (e.g. Linhardt, Flayn) also have nifty rare utility spells so I'd rather keep Bishop/Gremory to use them more.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

5 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Nosferatu builds aren't completely crazy especially on Byleth (White Magic Avo stacking with Faith Prowess' high avoid growth), and White Tomefaire amplifies them, so maaaybe there's some use there? The limited number of uses hurts, though.

That's about it though. Reason spells otherwise outclass Faith spells so badly that anyone who would otherwise consider Holy Knight should usually just go for Dark Knight instead. The few characters who are so focused for Faith over Reason that I might neglect their Reason (e.g. Linhardt, Flayn) also have nifty rare utility spells so I'd rather keep Bishop/Gremory to use them more.

Yeah, and among the master classes, we're sorely lacking in a dedicated support option. I think Holy Knight would be improved immediately if you swapped White Tomefaire for either Healing +10 or Double White magic uses. And if it has to be a combat oriented class, I'd even take lancefaire over it, since it would give your paladins a class with marginally better growth rates and they wouldn't have to pivot their training into both heavy armor and axes. 

[Deathcon]

I already almost always have Holy or Dark Knight as my final class for my Byleth, usually mastering one then moving to the other, so yes.The only time I didn't is in my current CF playthrough where I am playing Female Byleth and thus want to play as Grimory.

[kamineko]

Marianne is a good holy knight. I train her up in reason, too, so it's healing and blasting with canto. I guess dark knight would have dealt more damage with black tomefaire, but fiendish blow felt like enough. I used her a lot, very solid unit. Gave her the healing staff

Edited January 5, 2020 by kamineko

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

There's an odd argument for making Lysithea a Holy Knight. She gets three offensive faith spells (I think that's more than anyone else?), including one of the best spells in the game in Seraphim. In a map where you have to fight a bunch of monsters (like Marianne's paralogue), there may be a case for giving her a slightly-stronger-Seraphim. Abraxas is powerful too, and stronger Nosferatu means (slightly) more self-healing.

The big things she's missing out on are spell count x2 from Gremory (specifically, double warp), and Dark Tomefaire from Dark Knight (benefits more spells). I would call Holy Knight her third best option, after these two (Gremory first, Dark Knight second). Gremory is most accessible, whereas Dark/Holy Knight are equally (in)accesible for her.

There's also the case for preferring it over Dark Knight among units who just prefer Faith to Reason. Marianne is the most obvious one, but this could apply even moreso to units like Manuela and Anna (both of whom are weak in Reason, strong in Faith, and at least neutral in both riding and lances). Hell, I'm even considering going Holy Knight Dimitri on my second AM run (whereas, Dark Knight would be a much taller order, given his Reason bane).

How would I change Holy Knight? Well, I'd keep White Tomefaire (since IIRC no other class has it, it's something unique), and replace Terrain Resistance (pretty worthless) with Faith spellcount x2 (which benefits offensive and supportive potential alike). Or perhaps Lancefaire, to make it feel like a more "hybrid offense" class, and make the transition from Paladin more natural. Also I'd bump it and Dark Knight to 8 move (still 6 unmounted) to track with Paladin and Bow Knight, but that's its own thing.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Typo.

[Shadow Mir]

Nope, nope, nope. I find it hard to find an excuse to make anyone a Holy Knight when compared to Bishop, it sacrifices too much. Doesn't help that the spells it boosts are pretty lackluster overall (I'm not impressed by stronger faith spells when it only boosts four attack spells, all of them are heavy, and the one accessible one is weak).

Edited January 5, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

Honestly I don't really see much that Holy Knight offers Marianne. Her best offensive spell is Thoron; Dark Knight boosts that by 5 and Holy Knight does not. I guess the argument is that the Faith boon makes it a little easier to get to, but honestly Marianne should have no trouble getting to Dark Knight anyway, between the Riding boon and the fact that you're going to beeline to Reason for Thoron way back; going from C at Level ~5 (or whenever) to B+ at Level 30 is not much of an ask.

[Geenoble]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Honestly I don't really see much that Holy Knight offers Marianne. Her best offensive spell is Thoron; Dark Knight boosts that by 5 and Holy Knight does not. I guess the argument is that the Faith boon makes it a little easier to get to, but honestly Marianne should have no trouble getting to Dark Knight anyway, between the Riding boon and the fact that you're going to beeline to Reason for Thoron way back; going from C at Level ~5 (or whenever) to B+ at Level 30 is not much of an ask.

She does get Aura which has higher Mt, but imo the 3 range Thoron gives is more useful.

 

Holy Knight is probably the 3rd worst master class in the game, with only Mortal Savant and Great Knight being worse.

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

There's an odd argument for making Lysithea a Holy Knight. She gets three offensive faith spells (I think that's more than anyone else?), including one of the best spells in the game in Seraphim. In a map where you have to fight a bunch of monsters (like Marianne's paralogue), there may be a case for giving her a slightly-stronger-Seraphim. Abraxas is powerful too, and stronger Nosferatu means (slightly) more self-healing.

This is really the only time i could see Holy Knight being used over Dark knight. In terms of offense DK is better in all scenarios bar sephirim, and Bishop is better for support.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

21 minutes ago, Geenoble said:

Holy Knight is probably the 3rd worst master class in the game, with only Mortal Savant and Great Knight being worse.

I know Great Knight is really damned difficult to class into, especially for paladins who suddenly must become masters of both axe and heavy armor, but once you're there it can elevate certain characters, especially Ferdinand, whom I spec into making the most out of Swift Strikes. GK is the only master class for men that provides lancefaire. That, plus equippable lancefaire, plus death blow, is +15 damage on each hit of Swift Strikes. It takes most of the game to get there, but it's excellent. Sylvain could pull off the same build, but no proficiency for armor will make the process even slower.

[Geenoble]

36 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

I know Great Knight is really damned difficult to class into, especially for paladins who suddenly must become masters of both axe and heavy armor, but once you're there it can elevate certain characters, especially Ferdinand, whom I spec into making the most out of Swift Strikes. GK is the only master class for men that provides lancefaire. That, plus equippable lancefaire, plus death blow, is +15 damage on each hit of Swift Strikes. It takes most of the game to get there, but it's excellent. Sylvain could pull off the same build, but no proficiency for armor will make the process even slower.

I always have found staying in Paladin to be a better alternative to GK. Paladin still has better growth since over GK and doesn’t require speccing into heavy Armor and beyond C axes, meaning you get S+ Lances sooner, (a Sylvain who specs solely on lances from chapter 9 onwards should reach S+ Lances by Chapter 18 or 19. This is based off my experience however so take it with a grain of salt, he I may have just gotten a lot of greats when I tutored him.) Paladin also gives one extra point of strength over Great Knight in modifiers, so Paladin can do higher damage over Great Knights, not to mention having higher speed, higher move and pretty much greater in every stat other than Hp and Def. They’re worse at using Axes but most of the units who would go into GK prefer Lances.

 

the topic of today is Holy Knights however, so I will refrain from speaking more about them until GK comes up.

 

adding to list of potential things for future rounds besides GK, I think something on the worse defiant skills(all of them besides defiant crit and avoid) could be in a future round as those are often seen as poor.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Geenoble

[Flere210]

I think there are some reason to use it. 

1)It's the best class for Nostanking, wich however is a playstyle difficult to pull off, because of the high weight of the tome. An unit need High str,mag,def,speed and hp to nostank maddening. Byleth can maybe pull that off, but require a dedicated build that it's easy to screw.

2)it would be good on a dedicated white attack magic user. But even those whit good white magic spells usually have a better reason list.

3)it's a cheap way to get high mobility on an horse. As much as dark knight is better, it require you to go from e to b on top of having to learn riding and lance. Certainly doable, but costly on a character that heal 80% of the turns. For an Healer it's basically decent offense that one time you use it vs 700 WEXP that would go on authority or to get S riding faster. I am not an LTCer, but i can see someone finding out that holy knighy allow you to save a turn when warpskipping map x.

 

The overarching problem is that there is no character really failored toward it. Marianne has the proficiencies but not the right list, Flayn has the right list but weakness in riding, Byleth has the right proficiencies and skills but not the stats. If they had like 10% more magic growth i could see Holy Knight nostank to be a common build. 

In general, i feel that it's too "balanced" for it's own good. Intsys clearly did not want another Nosferatu god like Robin and so they made very difficult to use Nosferstu for everything but finishing off enemies. They did not want for Holy Knight to be plain better than bishop so they did not give it food support skills, but they also nerfed mounts so movement is not king enought to carry the class in this game. However, i don't think they need to change it. 

If a character had the following list, Holy Knight would be the best option for them:Heal, Nosferatu, Seraphim, Rescue and either Aura or Abraxas.

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

8 hours ago, Geenoble said:

She does get Aura which has higher Mt, but imo the 3 range Thoron gives is more useful.

We agree, though I'll also point out that Fimbulvetr has the same might as Aura anyway, so even for a one-shot power spell there's no advantage to Holy over Dark.

[DragonFlames]

Here's how I personally see it:

• Nosferatu is heavy, so you'll get doubled to oblivion by most lategame enemies that aren't Armored units. No horse class is especially fast and the "natural" healers are all pretty slow, while having low Defense that Holy Knight doesn't exactly salvage. It's a risk not worth taking at all.
• Outside of unrestricted New Game Plus, it's a hassle to have a healer ALSO focus on Lances and Riding when I could much rather have them learn Reason for backup offense.
• Compared to Bishop, I lose out on increased healing AND doubled White Magic uses, two skills I would much rather have than a horse, especially if we're taking stuff like Physic, Warp, Rescue and Fortify into consideration.
• Leaving gameplay aside for a moment, I just think the class, like most mounted classes, looks boring.

[Femboy Advance SP]

I always made Ingrid a holy knight.   I personally don't like fliers so I always go cavalier to paladin, and then went holy knight for the heck of it.   

She learns seraphim which is easily the most useful offensive white magic and physic arguably the best healing spell.    The white tomefaire helps with her low damage output, and her high resistance growth plus the class growths and mastering paladin she became quite the magic tanking machine.  Not the greatest build but my favorite for her specifically.

If I were to change anything about the class it would easily be replacing terrain resist, it is easily one of if not the least useful skills,  heck I'm pretty sure in azure moon there isn't a single map with damaging terrain at all.   

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

43 minutes ago, Femboy Advance SP said:

If I were to change anything about the class it would easily be replacing terrain resist, it is easily one of if not the least useful skills,  heck I'm pretty sure in azure moon there isn't a single map with damaging terrain at all.   

The lava map, which is used for Ingrid/Dorothea's paralogue, and chapter 15 of Azure Moon. I believe crater tiles reduce health by 20%. Fire tiles - created by gambits like blaze, or those fire tiles in Remire village and CF final chapter reduce by 15%. Verdant Wind has that same lava chapter post time skip as well, and its final chapter is more than half swamp tiles, though those are just 10% and are mostly a nuisance for their avoid penalty.

But yeah Terrain Resistance is mostly "you get one of the benefits of being a flier" and not much else.

9 hours ago, Geenoble said:

the topic of today is Holy Knights however, so I will refrain from speaking more about them until GK comes up.

guh! I didn't consider it until this moment. Most of the things I have on my list are hard nos from me, but my "let's salvage speed screwed Ferdinand" build is a hill I shall die on!

Surprised at responses thus far. My ideal polls would be as balanced as possible between nos and yeahs, but this one I actually worried would skew too hard to the no side. Either Holy Knight's reputation is far more positive than I imagined, or Serenesforest is just a very open playerbase.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Glennstavos

[Vitezen]

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.

[eclipse]

Went CF first, turns out the Holy Knight squad was pretty useful there.  I'd "fix" this class by giving it the x2 Faith spell usage thing.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Femboy Advance SP said:

If I were to change anything about the class it would easily be replacing terrain resist, it is easily one of if not the least useful skills,  heck I'm pretty sure in azure moon there isn't a single map with damaging terrain at all.   

There is Ailell, as well as the fire trap Edelgard uses in Gronder.

9 hours ago, Flere210 said:

1)It's the best class for Nostanking, wich however is a playstyle difficult to pull off, because of the high weight of the tome. An unit need High str,mag,def,speed and hp to nostank maddening. Byleth can maybe pull that off, but require a dedicated build that it's easy to screw.\

Nosferatu got beaten over the head, though. Even compared to the Blazing Blade, Sacred Stones, and Path of Radiance incarnations, which were pretty terrible, it's bad. 8 weight and 1 might sucks, especially since it only heals half the damage dealt, meaning the same scenarios attempting to nostank would likely end with in those games are likely here as well (those being the user is likely to get doubled, which means battles go like this; the enemy attacks the Nosferatu user, who heals (assuming they don't miss), then the enemy attacks again and undoes all the healing Nosferatu just managed).

[Jayvee94]

The only reason I can think of Holy Knight being useful is:

When you're late in the game and you forgot to train your healer's reason.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Surprised at responses thus far. My ideal polls would be as balanced as possible between nos and yeahs, but this one I actually worried would skew too hard to the no side. Either Holy Knight's reputation is far more positive than I imagined, or Serenesforest is just a very open playerbase.

I really like the premise, and I think it's inspiring great discussion. But I think the wording itself prompts favoring "yes" - it's much easier to make a case for "sometimes", than for "never".

Also Great Knight (specifically, promoting a Paladin to Great Knight) could be another good one in its own right. EDIT: and I know Great Knight was brought up already (just reiterateing it), other topics could be the Subdue combat art, and Edelgard's personal promotions (Armored Lord and Emperor).

Edited January 6, 2020 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Extra detail.

[leesangstar10]

Terrible class. Never use it on any unit. Any offensive mage should just go to dark knight or gremory. Most offensive mages like Hubert and Lysithea have a decent reason spell list(if they don't, their faith list is trash).

As mentioned, theres not many offensive faith spells and they r pretty bad (lack 3 range, heavy). Faith spells are just better better at supporting and using bishop helps the most.

Personally I think for Marianne she benefits more from mortal servant than holy knight. Yes you get 1 less move, but you get black and sword flair. Sword flair helps her dmg output with blutgang and black tome flair helps her dmg output with reason magic, which helps with thoron. Both still are not optimal classes for her though.

Couple ways to improve it

1. Support: replace terrain res with white tome x2 and give it one more move. I think +4 move > healing +10 and it would give players more of a reward for even achieving these stupid requirements.

2. Offense: replace terrain res with white tome range +1. This helps the fact that theres no 3 range faith spells. Helps units like Lysithea and magic Byleth who have this problem. Some might think this is broken cause you could stack it with white tome range +1 from S rank faith, but I think its balance since faith spells r bad offensively.

3: Mixed: replace terrain res with lance flair. Like the idea of paladin -> holy knight.

[Galap]

The first time I played the game, (maddening, Golden Deer), I made Marianne a holy knight. Gremory was tempting, but I committed to that with Lysithea and Flayn. The lance was completely superfluous, but marianne being a healer/white mage with a horse was a sufficient advantage for her.

[Jotari]

Didn't even realise its mastery was Defiant Defense. There's something rather hilarious about that. That's the thing I'd definitely change. Give it White Magic Usagex2 as its mastery skill and it'd still be an inferior class, but it'd be one people want to use to port a great mastery skill somewhere else.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Didn't even realise its mastery was Defiant Defense. There's something rather hilarious about that. That's the thing I'd definitely change. Give it White Magic Usagex2 as its mastery skill and it'd still be an inferior class, but it'd be one people want to use to port a great mastery skill somewhere else.

It gets Defiant Res for mastery. Great Knight gets Defiant Def.