Route specific tier list

[Smokie1437]

Currently doing a Maddening NG+ run with DLC units, and I will say I'm very amazed by Constance. Bolting is so insanely useful if you have enough firepower to oneshot (mine does and I haven't given her stat boosters or anything yet). The ability to just take out key units on any map 4 times... Examples: Instantly taking out the armored knights that send endless reinforcements in Felix paralogue, taking out the 50000000000000 cell range Bow Knights in Anna's paralogue, etc... Have an Accuracy Ring for switching whenever you Bolt and you have a good hit chance too.

I knew she was gonna be the best black mage when I saw her kit and stats but damn, it's even better in practice. Unfortunately since I want double uses of Bolting, I can't really make her a Dark Flier...

Edited February 18, 2020 by Smokie1437

[Shadow Mir]

On 2/16/2020 at 11:51 PM, Glennstavos said:

I think any regular player would acknowledge the benefits of recruiting all the students and would be doing the same.

I dunno - personally, I am very highly inclined to agree with TV Tropes that recruiting all the students on a non-New Game+ run is very impractical.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

9 hours ago, Geenoble said:

Hey! Mage Bernadette is amazing in Ng+ normal mode.

On a serious note relating Bernie, I'm curious as to why she's ranked above Flayn, Lysithea etc. You obviously mentioned her unreliable/difficult to activate prf and her atrocious base stats, and didn't even mention her bad proficiency spread. Encloser is really good but it only comes out at A rank bows, which will most likely be chapter 10-11 at minimum. I honestly think Vengence is better in this regard since it comes out earlier. The best Bernadetta build I've ever used was a Vengeance based Falcon K build, And even then despite his Flying Bane, Dedue would make a better Flier Vengeance build due to his higher hp and str meaning more overall damage. She is pretty good as a Sniper, but that's only because Sniper is really good. Caspar is really good in War Master, but obviously there are much better options for the class. Besides her combat arts she really has nothing going for her, especially in comparison to some of the units she is higher than. Hell i would say that Lorenz and some of the other mages may be better since their very large chip damage is around as soon as they hit B reason for most, whereas hers only comes out once she gets Sniper.

Not saying she deserves to be in a lower tier specifically or anything since she does have good availability. But she should definitely be below Flayn and Lysithea imo.

Bernadetta is definitely a weird character to place, and it took me a long time to decide. I figure since she's there from level 1, she gets a lot of skill experience potential to pick up both Vengeance and Encloser at some point, which are very unique to her for this route, as well as keeping Death Blow on the table which is crucial for the Sniper build. But going for all of these three things will probably take S+ bow rank off the table. And I have a high opinion of Hunter's Volley Snipers overall as a very consistent class in which her personal really synergizes with. However, as a level 1 unit, there's the highest potential for stat screwage. But even a Sniper with 24 strength at the end of the game is still going to be keeping up with damage at a safe distance and assassinating with crits. Her base and growth dexterity is identical to Ignatz, and my ignatz was a crit machine, even without having to rely on killer weapons.

She's got a lot going against her. Like I said her personal is very annoying to activate due to her having a crest and there being no "Devil bow" in the game. The Devil Axe just requires D rank to equip, but the agarthium to repair it only comes from the desert worms and Titans. Vengeance nuking can seem to be a bit of a gimmick as well that might not scale well into late game as she has a finite amount of HP to lose, and C+ lances gives her only average MT lances to work with. If I relied on vengeance, I'd probably give her the Luin or Lance of Ruin since those are easy to repair and don't require any lance rank. The Axe weakness hurts a lot, but I see people get Dimitri to Warrior and hitting B+ in axes is triple the effort compared to D+

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I dunno - personally, I am very highly inclined to agree with TV Tropes that recruiting all the students on a non-New Game+ run is very impractical.

I don't know who TV Tropes is. Are they in the Maddening Mode Club?

I had few issues recruiting all students. Sylvain I had to save scum to recruit since he sat at B support for two in-game months and his paralogue was running out of time. But, y'know, if my Byleth were female it'd be a non issue for that particular student. In SS, you don't need to train Byleth in C Heavy Armor and Brawling for Ferdinand and Caspar, since they're already recruited, that's a big difference compared to two other routes. You get tons of gifts without even trying from gardening, and I stuck to just buying the 100G gifts each month, as well as only the 300 and 500 options that are liked by students I haven't recruited yet. After chapter 9's fishing day, money's not a concern, so I could have splurged on even more than that. Planning out how to recruit students, and whether they needed support points, added a lot to my play time, but it was kind of fun to strategize. Ingrid just takes 5 (or 4) faculty trainings, Ignatz and Hilda just ask for ranks and stats Byleth should be getting naturally. I'll admit I took advantage of excessive grinding to get Byleth's lances to C rank in order to knock out Ashe and Leonie and save on gifts, but I also wasted a bunch of faculty training on swords trying to recruit Felix which was definitely the wrong way to go for him.

[Geenoble]

8 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

I don't know who TV Tropes is. Are they in the Maddening Mode Club?

I had few issues recruiting all students. Sylvain I had to save scum to recruit since he sat at B support for two in-game months and his paralogue was running out of time. But, y'know, if my Byleth were female it'd be a non issue for that particular student. In SS, you don't need to train Byleth in C Heavy Armor and Brawling for Ferdinand and Caspar, since they're already recruited, that's a big difference compared to two other routes. You get tons of gifts without even trying from gardening, and I stuck to just buying the 100G gifts each month, as well as only the 300 and 500 options that are liked by students I haven't recruited yet. After chapter 9's fishing day, money's not a concern, so I could have splurged on even more than that. Planning out how to recruit students, and whether they needed support points, added a lot to my play time, but it was kind of fun to strategize. Ingrid just takes 5 (or 4) faculty trainings, Ignatz and Hilda just ask for ranks and stats Byleth should be getting naturally. I'll admit I took advantage of excessive grinding to get Byleth's lances to C rank in order to knock out Ashe and Leonie and save on gifts, but I also wasted a bunch of faculty training on swords trying to recruit Felix which was definitely the wrong way to go for him.

TVtropes is a website, idk if anyone who moderates it has beaten Maddening mode.

 

Unless you're doing a non be route and trying to get Caspar/Ferdinand, There isn't any real oppurtunity cost for trying to recruit everyone, since as you mentioned people like Hilda and Ignatz use Byleths natural skill pickups, and others you can just use the B support trick. I only don't recruit everyone since then the p-ts maps feel generic with no actual bosses.

But in terms of recruiting All of Them, is there any need?

You only need to recruit characters that you will use + paralouge characters.

So in SS specifically you wold recruit Ingrid for luin, Sylvain, Mercedes, Felix, Ashe, Hilda, Lysithea, Leonie, Marianne, One of Ignatz/Rapheal, Anna, Lorenz, and maybe some others I've forgotten. Recruit both Ignatz and Raph if you're using one of them since they have a linked Atk.

However this is just nitpicking necessarily since as i mentioned it doesn't really take much to recruit everyone. All it would do is save you some money on gifts.

tl;dr you can recruit everyone with relative ease (inside of be) but there isn't any need too.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

3 minutes ago, Geenoble said:

But in terms of recruiting All of Them, is there any need?

Every student comes with a battalion reward from their paralogue. Though not all of them are as insane as, say, Fraldarius soldiers, and some seem to just become buyable in your battalion guild in post-time skip. I wish there was information online about that, but the one unit I didn't recruit was Manuela, and her Indech sword fighters was suddenly buyable in chapter 14. That's the A rank retribution battalion. The non-recruited versions of units tend to be pretty powerful too in their paralogues. For instance non recruited Manuela just being able to fight her way out of the corner with no issue in Oil and Water. It results in that paralogue being much easier if you're willing to give up her battalion for the remaining pre-time skip chapters. And I don't know if that battalion still appears in the Guild if you end up recruiting her after you clear Oil and Water.

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I don't know who TV Tropes is. Are they in the Maddening Mode Club?

I had few issues recruiting all students. Sylvain I had to save scum to recruit since he sat at B support for two in-game months and his paralogue was running out of time. But, y'know, if my Byleth were female it'd be a non issue for that particular student. In SS, you don't need to train Byleth in C Heavy Armor and Brawling for Ferdinand and Caspar, since they're already recruited, that's a big difference compared to two other routes. You get tons of gifts without even trying from gardening, and I stuck to just buying the 100G gifts each month, as well as only the 300 and 500 options that are liked by students I haven't recruited yet. After chapter 9's fishing day, money's not a concern, so I could have splurged on even more than that. Planning out how to recruit students, and whether they needed support points, added a lot to my play time, but it was kind of fun to strategize. Ingrid just takes 5 (or 4) faculty trainings, Ignatz and Hilda just ask for ranks and stats Byleth should be getting naturally. I'll admit I took advantage of excessive grinding to get Byleth's lances to C rank in order to knock out Ashe and Leonie and save on gifts, but I also wasted a bunch of faculty training on swords trying to recruit Felix which was definitely the wrong way to go for him.

As stated earlier, TV Tropes is a website. I cannot say whether anyone who moderates it has beaten the game on Maddening mode, though...

This assumes the player is playing a very specific way (who’s to say that the player won’t garden with, say, Nordsalat Seeds instead? Especially since gardening is rather complicated in terms of yield). There’s also the fact that needing to go out of your way to get B supports with everyone will force you to contend with the fact that some supports are time-gated.  What’s more, I fail to see how Hilda’s axe rank requirement is something that should come naturally, given that in the context of Maddening, you cannot afford to be weighed down very much, which nearly all axes do because they’re heavy. Unless you’re aiming for an axe class or something...

[Flere210]

34 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

As stated earlier, TV Tropes is a website. I cannot say whether anyone who moderates it has beaten the game on Maddening mode, though...

This assumes the player is playing a very specific way (who’s to say that the player won’t garden with, say, Nordsalat Seeds instead? Especially since gardening is rather complicated in terms of yield). There’s also the fact that needing to go out of your way to get B supports with everyone will force you to contend with the fact that some supports are time-gated.  What’s more, I fail to see how Hilda’s axe rank requirement is something that should come naturally, given that in the context of Maddening, you cannot afford to be weighed down very much, which nearly all axes do because they’re heavy. Unless you’re aiming for an axe class or something...

Considering how good WL and WM are, it's very likely that you will invest in axe. Enghlitened one imo is also good enought if you want to use the proficiencies to recruit certain people.

[AxelVDP]

23 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

 Unless you’re aiming for an axe class or something...

HMMMM I'm really wondering what that class could be........................ it's not like the best endgame class uses axes or anything...

also wtf is up with your nordsalads lol, you plant flower seeds first and foremost, with extra seeds of other type to increase your yield and chances of stat boosters if need be

also, recruiting all studends, which you think it's a "no bueno" thing to do, is probably the best way to make the game easier (assuming you still train just a select few and not all of them), having access to all paralogues gives you TONS of extra XP, weapon ranks and battallions/weapons, you just need some extra planning in your run (aka you need to invest a little into it to get enormous rewards)

for me personally, I wouldn't do it either, it's kinda boring since it's tied to mostly monastery stuff, and I suspect most people think this way, also can be seen as somewhat grindy, which in the FE community is seen as some sorta sin

 

you may not find it fun, and that's ok, but it's still a valid and practical strategy (if you really wanted to play optimally you would basically grind to no end, it's the playstyle which maximizes rewards)

[LegendOfLoog]

4 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

This assumes the player is playing a very specific way (who’s to say that the player won’t garden with, say, Nordsalat Seeds instead? Especially since gardening is rather complicated in terms of yield). There’s also the fact that needing to go out of your way to get B supports with everyone will force you to contend with the fact that some supports are time-gated.  What’s more, I fail to see how Hilda’s axe rank requirement is something that should come naturally, given that in the context of Maddening, you cannot afford to be weighed down very much, which nearly all axes do because they’re heavy. Unless you’re aiming for an axe class or something...

I would be more impressed if someone actually planted Nordsalat Seeds regularly, considering you can’t buy them. The only way possible to get them requires a Yield Level of 3 on either Vegetable Seeds, Morfis-Plum Seeds, or Eastern Fodlan Seeds. You can’t do that for any of them until you have a B Professor Level, so if you’re trying to get Speed Carrots (literally the only reason you should be planting Nordsalat Seeds), you’re stuck with Pale-Blue Flower Seeds, which generally give you lots of flowers to gift. In general though, many types of Seeds will give you flowers, so it’s fairly easy to get tons of flowers for gifting purposes.

Time-gating is a little irritating, but you can still get your support levels up to reduce their skill requirements. Assuming you’re talking about Ferdinand and Caspar, a C+ support level brings their requirements down to D+.  Caspar’s requirement takes 5 Faculty Training sessions while  Ferdinand’s requirement takes 9 points, assuming no Greats.  14 points over the course of the pre-skip isn’t really that many, and assuming you’re planning properly, it should be easy enough. 

C in Axes happens to be the rank you need for Brigand, so even if you’re not going for an Axe class at 30, there’s plenty of reason to invest in it for Death Blow alone. Hilda’s Axe rank is also C, so it should be a fairly easy recruitment. 

 

[SnowFire]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

As stated earlier, TV Tropes is a website. I cannot say whether anyone who moderates it has beaten the game on Maddening mode, though...

This is getting a bit off-topic, but TVTropes is an exceptionally weak source to cite.  It's a wiki, anyone can edit, so it's like citing a GameFAQs or Reddit thread..  if all the usernames were removed, so you had to guess by context whether an entry knows what it's talking about or not.  Moderation exists but not generally for content matters, only for conduct matters, and even that can't stop "petty person who feels strongly Gilbert is OP and won't stand for him not being praised."   Quite a number of the people there are, frankly, "scrubs" compared to Serenes Forest types, and just plain not at the highest levels of playing the game.  And even when a particular topic is well-curated, nothing stops the most recent editor from sneaking in their own craziness.  Put things another way, if you want a good tier list, get 10 people to individually make their own tier lists, then average it, which will downplay any outlier opinions.  Don't ask 1 person to make it, then 9 of them to edit that one single original list each in a row by throwing in their own favorites.

Now that I've sufficiently ragged on it, I'll say that I contributed a bit to it myself (don't trust anyone, even yourself) and cleaned up some of the explanations over at .https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/GameBreaker/FireEmblem  , which is the closest thing to a TVTropes Tier List ( bad stuff is at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TierInducedScrappy/FireEmblem , I never edited that one personally).  I have very little faith any of it will stick for long.  Anyway, according to Whoever Modified It Last, the current TVTropes Tier List tops out with Lords / Byleth / Felix / Lysithea / Jeritza / Seteth / Ingrid / Petra / Ferdinand / Catherine / Yuri , all of whom are super-ultra-top-tier powerful enough to effortlessly solo the game.  (I guess 3H must be really easy with 13 "game breakers"?  Yeah I'd personally chop it down to just the Lords.)  Also, by definition, everyone hates low tier characters in the low list.  (Don't ask me to make any sense of the "both" list there, that's for good characters that are also bad, or bad characters that are good I guess.)

 

For the original topic of discussion, see AxelVDP - recruiting everyone is certainly doable, but it's more for completionists.  I wouldn't call it fun or particularly recommended since it makes the post-timeskip battles far less dramatic and interesting, but some people really like to do that kind of thing, so more power to them.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

This is getting a bit off-topic, but TVTropes is an exceptionally weak source to cite.  It's a wiki, anyone can edit, so it's like citing a GameFAQs or Reddit thread..  if all the usernames were removed, so you had to guess by context whether an entry knows what it's talking about or not.  Moderation exists but not generally for content matters, only for conduct matters, and even that can't stop "petty person who feels strongly Gilbert is OP and won't stand for him not being praised."   Quite a number of the people there are, frankly, "scrubs" compared to Serenes Forest types, and just plain not at the highest levels of playing the game.  And even when a particular topic is well-curated, nothing stops the most recent editor from sneaking in their own craziness.  Put things another way, if you want a good tier list, get 10 people to individually make their own tier lists, then average it, which will downplay any outlier opinions.  Don't ask 1 person to make it, then 9 of them to edit that one single original list each in a row by throwing in their own favorites.

Now that I've sufficiently ragged on it, I'll say that I contributed a bit to it myself (don't trust anyone, even yourself) and cleaned up some of the explanations over at .https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/GameBreaker/FireEmblem  , which is the closest thing to a TVTropes Tier List ( bad stuff is at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TierInducedScrappy/FireEmblem , I never edited that one personally).  I have very little faith any of it will stick for long.  Anyway, according to Whoever Modified It Last, the current TVTropes Tier List tops out with Lords / Byleth / Felix / Lysithea / Jeritza / Seteth / Ingrid / Petra / Ferdinand / Catherine / Yuri , all of whom are super-ultra-top-tier powerful enough to effortlessly solo the game.  (I guess 3H must be really easy with 13 "game breakers"?  Yeah I'd personally chop it down to just the Lords.)  Also, by definition, everyone hates low tier characters in the low list.  (Don't ask me to make any sense of the "both" list there, that's for good characters that are also bad, or bad characters that are good I guess.)

 

For the original topic of discussion, see AxelVDP - recruiting everyone is certainly doable, but it's more for completionists.  I wouldn't call it fun or particularly recommended since it makes the post-timeskip battles far less dramatic and interesting, but some people really like to do that kind of thing, so more power to them.

Yeah, honestly, I’d take the Game Breaker page with a box (I know the saying is “grain of salt”, but that understates it) of salt. RE: the Tier-Induced Scrappy page, I’d say units in the “both” category are cases where your mileage may vary. For example, Gonzales in Binding Blade. He’s either praised for being fast and powerful... or he’s hated for being an inaccurate axe-locked unit in a game where axe accuracy is TERRIBLE. But I digress. And I would say take that with a grain of salt as well; the final paragraph on the Tier-Induced Scrappy page says that the metagame is a constantly changing thing, so characters that were initially seen as overpowered might not be seen as such after their flaws are discovered. Sound familiar? That’s what happened to Ike in Path of Radiance. All told, it seems there’s some accuracy issues on that other page too - it first says War Monk/Cleric gets Terrain Resistance from mastering it before later saying you get Brawl Avo +20 for mastering it, but I’d say they’re right on target about all its problems.

To get back on topic... has anyone figured out who can use the War Monk/Cleric class well? Because I am seriously drawing a blank. And who else is considered in the running for worst student in the game?

Edited February 19, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Burklight]

17 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

To get back on topic... has anyone figured out who can use the War Monk/Cleric class well?

I've done some thinking on this, and as a final class I don't think it's terribly good on anyone. However, I think there's an argument to be made that if your goal is War Master, it's better to go War Monk on the way because Brawl Avo +20 > Tomebreaker. So people like M!Byleth, Felix, maybe Ferdinand and Sylvain if for whatever reason you don't want to make the latter two WLs. This obviously doesn't include Rapheal, Dedue and Casper because they probably need Fierce Iron Fist to actually kill anything and also won't be dodging much anyway.

[leesangstar10]

On 2/18/2020 at 11:17 PM, Shadow Mir said:

To get back on topic... has anyone figured out who can use the War Monk/Cleric class well? Because I am seriously drawing a blank.

Honestly its a better grappler, but thats not saying much. The only good thing you get is brawl avo, but i rather be war master for superior end game class(if im going to infantry).

On 2/18/2020 at 11:17 PM, Shadow Mir said:

And who else is considered in the running for worst student in the game?

Depends on what route you are talking about, but overall Imo its either lorenz or Caspar. Dorothea imo isn't contender for worst cause dark flier made her much better. C in flying isn't that hard and meteor+flying utility imo makes her decent.

[Relytive]

Dorothea isn't close to bottom tier. Meteor, Thoron, Psychic is extremely good flexibility. She's mid-upper tier even as Gremory/Warlock.

I've yet to produce a good Caspar, where at least Lorenz can come mounted with his lance niche, and is one of the bulkier casters in the game. Not sure anybody else competes with Casp for the bottom slot... even a later recruited Cyril would probably surpass him with decent aptitude rng.

Edited February 21, 2020 by Relytive

[Relytive]

Still not fully familiar with all GD students, though I feel like Ignatz is underappreciated. Nobody else can crit with his luck/consistency using hunter's volley and like a silver+ bow/Parthia even. I've only used him as an auto leveled late recruit (ch. 10-11), so I'm excited to see how ridiculous he can get on a VW playthrough from scratch (where he has time to get like move +1, a defiant ability or wrath even possibly, etc.)

[AxelVDP]

12 hours ago, leesangstar10 said:

Honestly its a better grappler, but thats not saying much. The only good thing you get is brawl avo, but i rather be war master for superior end game class(if im going to infantry).

Depends on what route you are talking about, but overall Imo its either lorenz or Caspar. Dorothea imo isn't contender for worst cause dark flier made her much better. C in flying isn't that hard and meteor+flying utility imo makes her decent.

I don't have the DLC so I'm not sure but I doubt that war monk does not have the mov penalty when going in forests (grappler has this bonus)
plus, grappler has the combat art that hits 3 times which makes it a complete nuke, other brawling classes have to sometimes rely on crits

in fact, I sometimes value grappler higher than warmaster even though they lack the extra atk and crit of the masterclass simply for these 2 reasons

 

Dorothea makes the earlier chapters of maddening almost trivial with her passive healing if you're willing to take the game slow

 

[A2ZOMG]

On 2/20/2020 at 7:15 PM, Relytive said:

Still not fully familiar with all GD students, though I feel like Ignatz is underappreciated. Nobody else can crit with his luck/consistency using hunter's volley and like a silver+ bow/Parthia even. I've only used him as an auto leveled late recruit (ch. 10-11), so I'm excited to see how ridiculous he can get on a VW playthrough from scratch (where he has time to get like move +1, a defiant ability or wrath even possibly, etc.)

In all seriousness, I would actually put Ignatz in S-tier in GD Maddening. +20 unconditional accuracy is GODLIKE earlygame and makes Ignatz one of your strongest units especially considering he starts with D bows, giving him immediate access to Curved Shot and Steel Bows. The only units who are potentially outperforming Ignatz in the first 3 or so chapters are basically Byleth (especially Male Byleth in this route), Leonie, and Claude, and even then Ignatz has better hitrates with Steel Bows than these characters do with Training Weapons. That's nothing to sneeze at.

He falls off in combat a bit lategame due to his below average Str, so I would argue in general the best way to build him is with an emphasis on Magic.  Keeping in mind Budding Talent in Reason gives him Seal Strength, which is valuable in boss battles. By going the magic route though, you can get access to another Physic user at C Faith, and Mage mastery ability Fiendish Blow can easily patch up his offense in the midgame especially since his speed is actually decent. As an added bonus, having another Heal spammer makes it easier to train Authority on Ignatz making the prospect of the ultra desirable Rally Strength far more realistic.

tl;dr even though Ignatz has below average Str/Mag growths, his incredible earlygame and even better utility scaling on top of having reasonable access to Lategame Battalion stat bonuses makes him a very good unit at all points of the game, which I think is grounds for S-tier.

Other things I would suggest for GD Maddening:

Male Byleth is better than Female Byleth in this route. Early flying utility is not nearly as impressive when for starters, getting nearly 1HKOed by 3 range Steel Bow Archers is a real issue. Furthermore for a good portion of earlygame, there's only one Flying Battalion to share, which means having more than one flier earlygame prevents one of your teammates from equipping a Battalion for combat bonuses. Male Byleth most importantly has significantly better synergy with GD house personal skills, in particular Hilda and Leonie which in turn gives him a much more stable earlygame.

Hilda is absolutely not A tier. She's actually by far your worst unit earlygame when basically for the entirety of 5 chapters she struggles to break accuracy higher than 80 with her preferred weapons, and unlike Lorenz she doesn't start with D Lances, meaning Tempest Lance is not available from the get go. And yes Hilda's personal skill is extremely valuable, but I need to stress that Hilda herself is a HUGE combat detriment earlygame. Not fast enough to avoid being doubled when using Lances, hitrates are terrible, and Faith demerit means trying to pad her resource requirements with Heal spam is significantly less viable on her. Authority demerit even hurts her in combat significantly when promoting to Pegasus Knight because it actually takes extra investment to get D Authority on her, which is the requirement for the lowest ranked Flying Battalion.

Speaking of Lorenz, in GD Maddening I would put Lorenz in A tier. Lorenz is actually a strong unit earlygame thanks to D Lances, personal skill being EXTREMELY easy to use for a free extra 2 damage in combat, and because he's male which means he actually gets to use the free damage from Hilda's personal skill as well as benefit Leonie directly when frontlining. Easy proficiencies for Magic class progression only makes things better early to midgame, especially since Fire has a very good hitrate for a Ranged attack.

Also feel Lysithea is overrated. Yeah she has great offensive growths and Mastermind has some rather incredible exploits for gaining class mastery abilities, but she struggles immensely for the first two chapters due to a lack of physical weapon proficiencies and because Miasma's hitrate is terrible earlygame. Her lack of durability and being weighed down by Dark magic also generally prevents her from doing anything on Enemy phase against anything that isn't a Mage. Contrast to Lorenz who is pretty durable meaning he occasionally can avoid being 2RKOed on the enemy phase. Sure Lysithea picks up mid to lategame, but by that point Lorenz has already carried a lot of weight earlier on, and it's even debatable that he's strictly outclassed given he's among a minority of magic specialized units that actually is reasonably effective on Enemy phase.

Marianne I would argue is better than Lysithea overall. Physic >>> Warp for both surviving and for farming EXP (which also means earlier access to high tier promotions), and Marianne's slightly higher durability is also significant in avoiding 2HKOs. Until Lysithea hits the threshold where she starts doubling enemies that Marianne can't, they generally do pretty similar damage and do about equally well deleting armor knights.

Edited February 22, 2020 by A2ZOMG

[Zoran]

On 2/18/2020 at 3:44 PM, LegendOfLoog said:

I would be more impressed if someone actually planted Nordsalat Seeds regularly, considering you can’t buy them. The only way possible to get them requires a Yield Level of 3 on either Vegetable Seeds, Morfis-Plum Seeds, or Eastern Fodlan Seeds. You can’t do that for any of them until you have a B Professor Level, so if you’re trying to get Speed Carrots (literally the only reason you should be planting Nordsalat Seeds), you’re stuck with Pale-Blue Flower Seeds, which generally give you lots of flowers to gift. In general though, many types of Seeds will give you flowers, so it’s fairly easy to get tons of flowers for gifting purposes.

Nordsalat Seeds are available very early on from the barrels southeast of the main hall when exploring in both chapter 1 or chapter 2, i.e., by the time you start planting seeds of your own. That spot spawns any of the four seed types that have 4-star quality or better, and you can save and soft-reset right there to get either Nordsalat (for speed) or Angelica (for strength). All four of these high-quality seeds grow themselves at yield levels one and two.

Because you get more professor experience for using seeds with more stars, you can dramatically accelerate your professor level gains. The extra exploration points allow you to do more meals and tournaments sooner, boosting your professor rank even faster and making up for the motivation and support points you might otherwise need to get from flowers.

A single Nordsalat seed with pruning (the 500G option) is pretty much ideal every week until you get A rank. You get a 46% chance of a speed booster, the best stat to gain in the early game. You can harvest more of the seeds you need every week while also getting sellable crops like Nordsalat. The additional professor experience over flowers can get you to milestones like C rank before the chapter 3 mission, B rank in the first week of chapter 5, and A rank by the end of chapter 7, while still working in a fair amount of faculty training to get certification and recruitment requirements.

7 hours ago, A2ZOMG said:

Other things I would suggest for GD Maddening:

Male Byleth is better than Female Byleth in this route. Early flying utility is not nearly as impressive when for starters, getting nearly 1HKOed by 3 range Steel Bow Archers is a real issue. Furthermore for a good portion of earlygame, there's only one Flying Battalion to share, which means having more than one flier earlygame prevents one of your teammates from equipping a Battalion for combat bonuses. Male Byleth most importantly has significantly better synergy with GD house personal skills, in particular Hilda and Leonie which in turn gives him a much more stable earlygame.

Hilda is absolutely not A tier. She's actually by far your worst unit earlygame when basically for the entirety of 5 chapters she struggles to break accuracy higher than 80 with her preferred weapons, and unlike Lorenz she doesn't start with D Lances, meaning Tempest Lance is not available from the get go. And yes Hilda's personal skill is extremely valuable, but I need to stress that Hilda herself is a HUGE combat detriment earlygame. Not fast enough to avoid being doubled when using Lances, hitrates are terrible, and Faith demerit means trying to pad her resource requirements with Heal spam is significantly less viable on her. Authority demerit even hurts her in combat significantly when promoting to Pegasus Knight because it actually takes extra investment to get D Authority on her, which is the requirement for the lowest ranked Flying Battalion.

Outside of LTC, I agree on Male Byleth in GD.

It's trivial for Hilda to learn Tempest Lance in time for meaningful use in Chapter 2. It's reliable enough with a Training Lance at that point.

[Shadow Mir]

19 hours ago, A2ZOMG said:

In all seriousness, I would actually put Ignatz in S-tier in GD Maddening. +20 unconditional accuracy is GODLIKE earlygame and makes Ignatz one of your strongest units especially considering he starts with D bows, giving him immediate access to Curved Shot and Steel Bows. The only units who are potentially outperforming Ignatz in the first 3 or so chapters are basically Byleth (especially Male Byleth in this route), Leonie, and Claude, and even then Ignatz has better hitrates with Steel Bows than these characters do with Training Weapons. That's nothing to sneeze at.

He falls off in combat a bit lategame due to his below average Str, so I would argue in general the best way to build him is with an emphasis on Magic.  Keeping in mind Budding Talent in Reason gives him Seal Strength, which is valuable in boss battles. By going the magic route though, you can get access to another Physic user at C Faith, and Mage mastery ability Fiendish Blow can easily patch up his offense in the midgame especially since his speed is actually decent. As an added bonus, having another Heal spammer makes it easier to train Authority on Ignatz making the prospect of the ultra desirable Rally Strength far more realistic.

tl;dr even though Ignatz has below average Str/Mag growths, his incredible earlygame and even better utility scaling on top of having reasonable access to Lategame Battalion stat bonuses makes him a very good unit at all points of the game, which I think is grounds for S-tier.

If I wanted Speed and Strength rallies on the same unit I’d just recruit Annette. It’s ten billion percent more practical than trying to get Ignatz to S authority.

[leesangstar10]

21 hours ago, A2ZOMG said:

In all seriousness, I would actually put Ignatz in S-tier in GD Maddening. +20 unconditional accuracy is GODLIKE earlygame and makes Ignatz one of your strongest units especially considering he starts with D bows, giving him immediate access to Curved Shot and Steel Bows. The only units who are potentially outperforming Ignatz in the first 3 or so chapters are basically Byleth (especially Male Byleth in this route), Leonie, and Claude, and even then Ignatz has better hitrates with Steel Bows than these characters do with Training Weapons. That's nothing to sneeze at.

He falls off in combat a bit lategame due to his below average Str, so I would argue in general the best way to build him is with an emphasis on Magic.  Keeping in mind Budding Talent in Reason gives him Seal Strength, which is valuable in boss battles. By going the magic route though, you can get access to another Physic user at C Faith, and Mage mastery ability Fiendish Blow can easily patch up his offense in the midgame especially since his speed is actually decent. As an added bonus, having another Heal spammer makes it easier to train Authority on Ignatz making the prospect of the ultra desirable Rally Strength far more realistic.

tl;dr even though Ignatz has below average Str/Mag growths, his incredible earlygame and even better utility scaling on top of having reasonable access to Lategame Battalion stat bonuses makes him a very good unit at all points of the game, which I think is grounds for S-tier.

Personally I find +20 not that impressive until you can reclass to an archer. You can just combat art spam curve shot and that's usually enough for any archer to hit reliably so his early game isn't that amazing. And going to the magic route doesn't do much for him. He only has 30% growth rate and base 5. On average, he's never going to go over base mage class. So his physic range isn't going to be that great. I'd rather bench him and recruit a diff physics user than make him to a mage. 

21 hours ago, A2ZOMG said:

Male Byleth is better than Female Byleth in this route. Early flying utility is not nearly as impressive when for starters, getting nearly 1HKOed by 3 range Steel Bow Archers is a real issue. Furthermore for a good portion of earlygame, there's only one Flying Battalion to share, which means having more than one flier earlygame prevents one of your teammates from equipping a Battalion for combat bonuses. Male Byleth most importantly has significantly better synergy with GD house personal skills, in particular Hilda and Leonie which in turn gives him a much more stable earlygame.

Just dismount then if there is an archer in range. Also what makes M! Byleth better? Theres no male locked class that makes Male Byleth better other than maybe warmaster(which imo is not his optimal class). We are looking at units individually so there being only one battalion shouldn't affect it. And as mentioned in the rules too, we are not counting team synergy, also that is very niche imo and shouldn't be really factored. 

21 hours ago, A2ZOMG said:

Speaking of Lorenz, in GD Maddening I would put Lorenz in A tier. Lorenz is actually a strong unit earlygame thanks to D Lances, personal skill being EXTREMELY easy to use for a free extra 2 damage in combat, and because he's male which means he actually gets to use the free damage from Hilda's personal skill as well as benefit Leonie directly when frontlining. Easy proficiencies for Magic class progression only makes things better early to midgame, especially since Fire has a very good hitrate for a Ranged attack.

Except mage classes are super underwhelming in this game. And of course, team synergy should be a reason why a unit should be ranked higher. I agree early game he's pretty good, but falls off super fast.

 

[A2ZOMG]

6 hours ago, leesangstar10 said:

Personally I find +20 not that impressive until you can reclass to an archer. You can just combat art spam curve shot and that's usually enough for any archer to hit reliably so his early game isn't that amazing. And going to the magic route doesn't do much for him. He only has 30% growth rate and base 5. On average, he's never going to go over base mage class. So his physic range isn't going to be that great. I'd rather bench him and recruit a diff physics user than make him to a mage. 

Just dismount then if there is an archer in range. Also what makes M! Byleth better? Theres no male locked class that makes Male Byleth better other than maybe warmaster(which imo is not his optimal class). We are looking at units individually so there being only one battalion shouldn't affect it. And as mentioned in the rules too, we are not counting team synergy, also that is very niche imo and shouldn't be really factored. 

Except mage classes are super underwhelming in this game. And of course, team synergy should be a reason why a unit should be ranked higher. I agree early game he's pretty good, but falls off super fast.

 

+20 means consistent hitrates with Steel Bows, which means Ignatz actually is a better damage dealer than most of your team in the earlygame. Being able to safely and consistently hit enemies from 3 range with Steel even if they have terrain advantage (which isn't actually uncommon earlygame) is really useful.

Also I don't get why you would say team synergy doesn't matter. Team synergy is literally a huge part of playing this game and making the most of your units. The fact of the matter is earlygame is significantly easier with Male Byleth on GD Maddening because Leonie and Hilda exist. Leonie is one of the few other units that makes a reasonable frontline in GD other than Byleth earlygame, and Hilda's personal skill is +3 damage for males. You're going to tell me that doesn't drastically affect earlygame performance, where survival in general is actually a real issue? That I would argue significantly outweighs access to Pegasus Knight class, where by the time you actually have access to this, your team in general has more options to not die.

I also don't know where you get that Mages are somehow underwhelming in this game.  Magic literally saves you gold earlygame and lets you hit lower enemy Res stats. Access to Heal spam means you get an earlier power spike with quick access to Fiendish Blow and more EXP for levels/Authority a lot faster than other classes. This is on top of keeping your team alive and also building supports. The only thing not making Mages outright gamebreaking is the lack of a non-DLC flier class. Being a Mage in this game also doesn't stop you from using tools like Break Shot to cripple enemies.

Yeah Ignatz has bad Str/Mag growth. He also excels in Authority and gets Rallies from ranking Authority, keeping in mind lategame Battalions can offer up to +8 atk that can't be RNG screwed. Considering that a lot of how you don't die in this mode is carefully picking enemies off on the player phase, I'm not seeing where Ignatz magically falls off lategame in terms of overall usefulness. Sure if you go Archer/Sniper route then his bad attack matters because you're limiting him from an avenue of utility and accelerated EXP gains, but you don't have to sacrifice his useful Bow combat arts in the Mage route, and his spell list is more than good enough.

 

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

If I wanted Speed and Strength rallies on the same unit I’d just recruit Annette. It’s ten billion percent more practical than trying to get Ignatz to S authority.

Yeah but that's not the only reason Ignatz is super good. He's generally one of the strongest earlygame characters in GD thanks to super reliable hitrates even with Steel. Annette also doesn't get Physic but instead gets Recover, and she's also generally a lot slower.

Having incentive to rank an Authority strength is good, since lategame Battalions can offer highly competitive combat stat bonuses anyway.

Edited February 23, 2020 by A2ZOMG

[Shadow Mir]

7 hours ago, A2ZOMG said:

Yeah but that's not the only reason Ignatz is super good. He's generally one of the strongest earlygame characters in GD thanks to super reliable hitrates even with Steel. Annette also doesn't get Physic but instead gets Recover, and she's also generally a lot slower.

Having incentive to rank an Authority strength is good, since lategame Battalions can offer highly competitive combat stat bonuses anyway.

That does not explain why the hell I would want to waste time and instruction points trying to get Ignatz to S authority for Rally Strength when anything over A rank is unnecessary and it’s infinitely more practical to just recruit Annette instead.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[A2ZOMG]

 

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

That does not explain why the hell I would want to waste time and instruction points trying to get Ignatz to S authority for Rally Strength when anything over A rank is unnecessary and it’s infinitely more practical to just recruit Annette instead.

It's not nearly as huge of an opportunity cost with instruction as you're implying when the vast majority of that Authority rank you can easily farm in normal gameplay with Heal/Physic spam.

It is considerably less practical for Archer Ignatz, which on top of slower EXP gains, Mage class having better bases/growths + Fiendish Blow, and magic classes not stopping you from using Break Shot anyway...yeah. Archer/Sniper Ignatz is pretty meh and demands too many resources to maintain.

Again though considering the practicality of healing in mage classes and that Physic is on Ignatz's faith list, magic classes basically do the Authority instruction for you after you at least get a D in Faith.

Edited February 23, 2020 by A2ZOMG

[Shadow Mir]

51 minutes ago, A2ZOMG said:

 

It's not nearly as huge of an opportunity cost with instruction as you're implying when the vast majority of that Authority rank you can easily farm in normal gameplay with Heal/Physic spam.

It is considerably less practical for Archer Ignatz, which on top of slower EXP gains, Mage class having better bases/growths + Fiendish Blow, and magic classes not stopping you from using Break Shot anyway...yeah. Archer/Sniper Ignatz is pretty meh and demands too many resources to maintain.

Again though considering the practicality of healing in mage classes and that Physic is on Ignatz's faith list, magic classes basically do the Authority instruction for you after you at least get a D in Faith.

Yeah, never mind the fact that you still need S rank in authority, which you have yet to address the impracticality of. Or that Physic only has five uses unless you’re a Bishop or Gremory, the latter of which he’s locked out of. Or that Ignatz won’t have good range with Physic.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Relytive]

Finished a second NG CF maddening run, using some characters I didn't the first go around. I mostly agree with the OP's list, but I would say Dorothea is A, maybe A+ tier (her shaky early game is more than made up for with physic support, meteor, agneas, thoron, and her ability to nuke with a levin sword+). She's maybe the only legitimate mortal savant in the game making use of both faires well, and as a lock hits extremely hard while providing good secondary healing with a healing staff boosted physic in her inventory. 

Hubert passed my Lysithea on BOTH runs in magic, which was rng blessed and cursed in a way, but banshee/mire is really goddamn good, though Hapi could probably do his job better now as a valkyrie. Still, I think he is A tier on CF consistently locking units in place and dropping defense for Petra/Ferd, etc. to cleanly finish them off. He just needs one of the magic +hit battalions and maybe a cadeceus and he's chillin.

Caspar once again fell behind to the point where he was just a  nuisance to try to bring, despite me liking his character. He's easily the worst character in the game, that includes Ashe.

I love Lindhart, but after playing all routes, I value Mercedes over every other dedicated healer. Warp is nice, but fortify with her crest is useful so often. She lets you make suboptimal plays and get away with it consistently on EVERY route, and she is always your highest level unit because of the experience gains from physic/fortify (no grind BL, she ended up at 51 for me). On top of that, she has respectable speed growth which allows her to avoid doubles from enemies late game that other mages can't, and nukes with Ragnarok when needed. She is S tier on AM for me, A+ every other route. Absolutely worth the recruit effort regardless of who you side with.

I'm in the Ferdinand Swordmaster/Dancer club firmly now. If you want SS, get Sylvain, or Seteth depending on route. He is literally untouchable with his personal/as+/sword avoid and hits harder than the flier girls with sword mts, and Petra for example I value more as a static flier on every map/an axe user, so he more flexibly can switch to dancer for you when needed. He may be the best Fetters users after Yuri as well, that I've used at least (you don't even need to put an evasion ring on him thanks to his passive).

Edelgard is stronk, but easily the weakest of the lords, while taking Aymr into consideration. Hilda can basically do what she does on VW or BL with an early enough recruitment, where Claude and Dimitri can virtually solo their routes final maps built correctly.