Advice on Golden Deer Maddening (no NG+)

[Shadow Mir]

49 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Ferdinand's personal skill is outstanding

I disagree, largely because that full HP requirement is a MASSIVE sore spot by my standards. Better prepare to kiss that boost goodbye the moment he levels up HP!

[SpiceMan]

9 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Sylvain might be overall better than Ferdinand, but it's not the strict win you make it look, because Ferdinand's personal skill is outstanding. He also has a measly 1 less strength than Sylvain, so don't act like Sylvain is reaching lots of OHKOs that Ferdinand isn't.

I actually disagree that Sylvain is better than Ferdinand. Because of Ferdinand's amazing personal skill he ends up being better than Sylvain because he can dodge tank so well late game. I was merely talking about the early game where Sylvain does do better than him because 15 avo means nothing to the thieves who are the real threats of maddening, they will still reliably hit him. In regards to their only being 1 strength difference, Sylvain technically gets 3 more strength than Ferdinand because of his personal which is really useful early game as it makes him stronger and gives him enough defense to where he can act as a solid off tank. Also he has a 40% chance of doing 5 more damage on a combat art, which i'm not going to weigh heavily as that requires luck on a combat art which should ideally be killing anyway, but there are situations where that extra 5 damage can come in very handy. It's also quite useful on swift strikes later on for 2 chances. So it's not just 1 strength

 and even if it was, 1 point of damage can be the difference between killing and not.

Basically Sylvain>Ferdinand early due to stats and Personal, Ferdinand>Sylvain later due to Personal skill. 

9 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

As far as earlygame mages go, Lysithea has the same accuracy as Hubert/Dorothea (actually fractionally lower due to luck), and Marianne's is lower since Blizzard is trash. Fair that Annette / Mercedes are more accurate, I suppose (as is Linhardt). I find 4-5 uses of offensive magic adequate for earlygame maps but I play pretty quickly.

Yeah i agree with Lysithea's early game being bad, it's one of the reason I find Lorenz useful on maddening because he gets Fire and Sagittae which both have solid hit. Marianne doesn't really matter for me because I almost never attack with my healers. 4 thunder uses on Dorothea is quite terrible though. She doesn't get more until C rank which is hard to reach before chapter 2, especially since you also need to get her faith hidden talent to get heal an physic, and train her authority for early rally charm. By chapter 3 she could probably have C rank but you've still had to sit through 4 inaccurate and not that powerful spell uses. At least Hubert and Lysithea hurt when they hit, Dorothea needs to be handed kills until she's level 5 and it's quite annoying because you have to worry about whether attacking with her is good idea, Hubert and Lysithea also get quick magic combat arts which in addition to being more accurate and saving spell uses also do more damage. I think Dorothea might have the worst start of any character in the game.

 

9 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Sylvain is a free recruit for the other houses with FByleth, which actually weakens BL's case for being the strongest a bit since it means BE and GD get an extra PC, and one who happens to be reasonably solid at that. And even for MByleth, it's not hard to have him recruited by the time you get the Lance of Ruin, and even easier to have Ingrid recruited by the time you can get Luin (Ingrid's recruitment requirement is borderline trivial).

Yeah you can, but that's after chapter 1 and 2 which I consider are the hardest academy maps. After Chapter 3 I think the other houses start to pick up and become similar in strength to the BL but I can play chapter 1 and 2 much faster with BL. They're the only house where I can aggro both houses at once and still survive. I tried it multiple times with the others but Dimitri and Dedue are just too dangerous as enemies so I have to go to the left first. In chapter 2 I can get out of the starting position by turn 3 thanks to Dedue being able to tank both thieves and the Archer. With the others I had to wait at the bottom for each coming wave of enemies. Maybe it is just how I played but I noticed a big difference in these chapters

9 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It's also worth noting that Edelgard has the best bases of the lords (13/8 in the key stats compared to 12/7 and 11/8; not huge, but similar to the advantages Dedue and Ashe have which you noted).

True. Though with an Axe she had the same AS at base as Dimitri. With a sword it's more. And tempest lance is such a powerful early game move that I still consider Dimitri's start to be better than her's even with her stat advantages. 

Overall I guess I may have been exaggerating a bit because after chapter 3 the game is easy for all houses until timeskip, but I found the Blue lions much better during those difficult chapters. 

Edited February 1, 2020 by SpiceMan

[Shadow Mir]

19 hours ago, SpiceMan said:

Golden Deer has a solid early game though and complemented by them having the easiest post timeskip makes me consider them overall the easiest route in the game. The units are good enough to do their job and while Blue lions may have stronger units the maps also get much harder for them later on the make up for it.

I got a call from Frederick, and it was one word: "Explain." Because I keep seeing comments like this, with nary a single word of explanation, and thus I am VERY highly inclined to call B.S. on these claims.

14 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Sylvain is a free recruit for the other houses with FByleth, which actually weakens BL's case for being the strongest a bit since it means BE and GD get an extra PC, and one who happens to be reasonably solid at that. And even for MByleth, it's not hard to have him recruited by the time you get the Lance of Ruin, and even easier to have Ingrid recruited by the time you can get Luin (Ingrid's recruitment requirement is borderline trivial).

I dunno about you, but I much prefer male Byleth (personally, outside of a select few games, I much prefer being a male in relationship-heavy games; this is NOT one of the ones where I'm okay with having my character be a female. Also, the less I have to say about female Byleth's design, the better), and also have better things to do than to train Byleth in Reason.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[SpiceMan]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I got a call from Frederick, and it was one word: "Explain." Because I keep seeing comments like this, with nary a single word of explanation, and thus I am VERY highly inclined to call B.S. on these claims.

Which one? GD early being solid? GD being the easiest overall? or Blue Lions having harder late game?

[Shadow Mir]

41 minutes ago, SpiceMan said:

Which one? GD early being solid? GD being the easiest overall? or Blue Lions having harder late game?

All. Three. Of Them. Because I ain't gonna lie, I find this...

Spoiler

...easier than trying to beat Maddening with a house where almost half of my initial units are virtually useless (it ain't as though Golden Deer magically skips chapter 13). Same for this...

Spoiler

...and Zero Suit Samus as The Boss. And all three of these are unfair as all get out, which is saying something.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

10 hours ago, SpiceMan said:

4 thunder uses on Dorothea is quite terrible though. She doesn't get more until C rank which is hard to reach before chapter 2, especially since you also need to get her faith hidden talent to get heal an physic, and train her authority for early rally charm. By chapter 3 she could probably have C rank but you've still had to sit through 4 inaccurate and not that powerful spell uses. At least Hubert and Lysithea hurt when they hit, Dorothea needs to be handed kills until she's level 5 and it's quite annoying because you have to worry about whether attacking with her is good idea, Hubert and Lysithea also get quick magic combat arts which in addition to being more accurate and saving spell uses also do more damage. I think Dorothea might have the worst start of any character in the game.

Base Dorothea only has 1 less point of damage than Lysithea and 2 less than Hubert; again, notable but not massive. I wouldn't bother with building for Rally Charm early, I'd much rather get Physic and Thoron.

She might even have the worst start (though her personal actually sees some use then so that's something), I don't really care to debate that; it's still not particularly bad; there's a reason she's a very widely used PC. There are no Donnels here.

 

10 hours ago, SpiceMan said:

Yeah you can, but that's after chapter 1 and 2 which I consider are the hardest academy maps.

You can recruit Sylvain for Chapter 2, actually. It even has 10 deployment slots so he's a pretty big upgrade over an empty slot.

10 hours ago, SpiceMan said:

True. Though with an Axe she had the same AS at base as Dimitri. With a sword it's more. And tempest lance is such a powerful early game move that I still consider Dimitri's start to be better than her's even with her stat advantages. 

I actually had Tempest Lance for her by Chapter 2 but that might require some luck with the ol' tutoring RNG; I don't recall. (EDIT: Checking the calendar, it doesn't require any luck, or even any tutoring at all. EDIT2: Misread the calendar, it does require some luck. Whoops!) Even if you don't (or we're talking about Chapter 1, of course), Smash isn't a bad CA either (worse to be sure, but only 2 less damage in this case, with a bit more hit and a lot more crit/Crest of Seiros). Both characters can switch to a sword/gauntlets to maximize AS if needed

 

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I dunno about you, but I much prefer male Byleth (personally, outside of a select few games, I much prefer being a male in relationship-heavy games;

That's... nice? Not really relevant for the conversation at hand. My post already acknowledged people who want to play as MByleth. FByleth is the gameplay choice though.

Also have you actually played the game on Maddening? GD's last maps are definitely the easiest of the three main routes (haven't done Maddening SS). I do agree with you that they're probably the weakest team early though; they lack anyone who hit really hard or anyone really tanky, and their mages aren't great at base. But I'd still consider them the easiest overall because I don't think the earlygames are as different as the lategame maps.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Dark Holy Elf

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Also have you actually played the game on Maddening? GD's last maps are definitely the easiest of the three main routes (haven't done Maddening SS). I do agree with you that they're probably the weakest team early though; they lack anyone who hit really hard or anyone really tanky, and their mages aren't great at base. But I'd still consider them the easiest overall because I don't think the earlygames are as different as the lategame maps.

No. I haven't even beaten the game yet. You don't think I'm that insane, do you? Anyway, I think having a terrible early game hurts more than having a bad lategame. Even if their lategame is easier, which I doubt it is, it ain't enough for me.

[Dark Holy Elf]

... If you haven't done something, you should probably leave discussion of its challenge level to people who have.

(And I'm not sure why beating the game would make you insane?)

[Shadow Mir]

Just now, Dark Holy Elf said:

(And I'm not sure why beating the game would make you insane?)

What I was saying was more along the lines of "Do you seriously think I'd try to play Maddening without even having beaten the game first?".

[SpiceMan]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

All. Three. Of Them. Because I ain't gonna lie, I find this...

  Reveal hidden contents

...easier than trying to beat Maddening with a house where almost half of my initial units are virtually useless (it ain't as though Golden Deer magically skips chapter 13). Same for this...

Sounds to me like you're just not giving the "virtually useless" units a chance. If you actually used them you'd see they have a lot of merits. Ignatz is a capable archer, one of the best i'd say because of his hit+40. He has the second highest dex and luck growths slightly behind Shamir meaning he will have a lot of crit. Pick up death blow from brigand and go Sniper and I don't see any problem with him as a unit. Hunter's volley will carry him and his amazing hit and crit will help him kill the bulkier ones too. Rally speed at D rank is insanely useful and has saved me so much on my run. being able to make a unit who couldn't double, double or one whose getting doubled stop getting doubled is amazing.

Lorenz has bulk. I know a lot of his haters like to pretend he doesn't but he does. He also has accurate high might spells and a good personal. He has the second highest hp growth in the team at 55%, a 30% def growth and a 40% res growth. He is capable of being a solid 1-2 range unit who can tank enemies on enemy phase as well as deal big damage on player phase (especially if you get Frozen Lance). From his paralogue you get Thyrsus which you can trade around your mages in battle to let all of them benefit from it. However if you want to get benefit even more from it Lorenz makes incredible use of the Pavise and Aegis effect. Him having more Hp than Defense means that the half in damage is even more important than if he was def focused. I don't know what the activation rate is so if anyone knows that would be cool but it seems to be around 40% from my experience. If you're worried about him getting doubled he is one of the prime candidates for a guard adjutant, as most of your bulky units who could need it go flyer which can't use them. If you choose Ferdinand as his guard adujtant he can also get 2 more damage which is a nice benefit. He learns Recover at C which is the best way to fully heal someone until your main healer gets to bishop with a healing staff. Finally he has great proficiency for getting into Dark Knight which is ideally where most mages would like to end up, it's just that for some units like Lysithea and Dorothea the investment isn't worth it compared to other options.

Raphael has high strength, high hp, axe and brawling proficiency, and to top it all of rally strength. Similar to Ignatz's rally speed rally strength has helped out my run immensely. Just pick up death blow and go down the grappler route and he doesn't really have problems. Sure he gets doubled but he has enough bulk not to die in a single hit, and when you do reach War master quick riposte makes him incredibly valuable, and that can be obtained easily by chapter 18 by giving him a knowledge gem. He has enough strength to round one a lot of enemies and he and Ignatz also have bond supports with each other. Yes he is probably the weakest on the team but he can work perfectly well because the War master line is so broken it can make anyone good, Raphael strength hp and proficiency's make him perfect for it. If you don't agree with anything I've said about these units then I think you just haven't actually tried using them and just benched them immediately because they weren't amazing on Hard difficulty, which is true. On hard just about anyone does these guys jobs better than them but Maddening is a different mode, and it helps their strengths shine. 

Next topic: Golden Deer being overall easiest. So obviously pre-timeskip the difficulty is basically the same. I'd argue that Black eagles have it hard at the very start and Blue lions have it easier but some disagree. It's funny that you mention GD having to do Chapter 13 because I think that's the easiest version of it by far. A flying trained Claude is much better than a non flying Dimitri or a non trained Seteth. Ashes and Dust is so stupidly broken it can trivialize the start of the map. Wave attack is not as good because it requires Dimitri to be surrounded to work efficiently, Claude can easily fly past and pin everyone down without even being in harms way. Dimtiri's swordbreaker is nice but the most dangerous enemies are the Silver bow snipers which will still hit him. Claude can pick them off and canto out of range while Byleth white magic avoids. The initial reinforcements are all trained unlike Gilbert in blue lions so you can get them all to work immediately. Gilbert has a steel axe and can't hit for shit. Mercedes and Annette can't move from their spawn because of the assassins and brawlers so you really only have Ashe to properly help you (Unless you did Wyvern Annette of course). Leonie will normally be a mounted unit of some kind and Hilda is always made a wyvern so they can easily get out to help, plus they have the bulk to take a hit from the lower enemies anyway.

Chapter's 14-16 are basically the same, although flying lord on chapter 15 is nice. Playing Golden deer on chapter 17 means you don't have to fight a 7 move 3 range menace like the Blue lions do. Dimitri is scary, but he has 5 move and can be windsweeped/one shot easily. Claude is hard to approach. Both Chapter 18's can be finished very quickly as they are boss kills with a close commander, but if you choose to play both properly Cornelia's fight is much harder with all the long range magic and powered up Titanus. Plus there's the Talthum bow which you might want to wait for.

The siege on Enbarr for Golden deer can be done quickly as killing Hubert and the DK is easy when you're spawned right near them. Blue lions have to work their way up from the bottom, dealing with all the reinforcements and siege weaponry, not to mention lots of Bolting. That's a consistent thing in BL, lots of long range magic that other routes don't have much of to deal with. Oath of the Dagger is a very difficult map that I couldn't get through without losing some units even with max divine pulses. To contrast that both The city without light and A new dawn were fairly easy maps I could take my time with. No ridiculous amounts of ranged magic and no reinforcements either(If you kill Oddeus quickly which I did on turn 1 with Leonie). BL final map has Bolting mages as reinforcements when you enter Edelgard's room and they keep coming.

Edited February 1, 2020 by SpiceMan

[AxelVDP]

20 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I disagree, largely because that full HP requirement is a MASSIVE sore spot by my standards. Better prepare to kiss that boost goodbye the moment he levels up HP!

honest question: do you even play the game or just lurk the forum to make post of very dubious quality? Ferdinand's personal skill is easily in the top5 of personal skills in the game, it's crazy good. and you would easily know this if you just booted the game up and used Ferdinand.

edit: actually read the posts after. as expected you actually have not finished the game, thus explaining why you constantly make such dubious arguments.
also, maddening is actually EASY, on every house. I beat maddening with a no grind no dlc no ng+ no online no cross recruits and probably forgetting something else Crimson Flower route, which has probably the worst starting roster of all the houses, since most of your units are squishy mages with no enemy phase to speak of. Ferdinand turned out to be my best unit by FAR, and this is due to his personal skill.

people are beating maddening in no growths run, a shitty team is hardly a handicap.

you just gotta learn to abuse the broken mechanics the game offers you (gambits (both offensive and support gambit are broken), avoid tanking (oh hi Ferdinand) and so on)

Edited February 1, 2020 by AxelVDP

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

2 hours ago, SpiceMan said:

Sounds to me like you're just not giving the "virtually useless" units a chance. If you actually used them you'd see they have a lot of merits. Ignatz is a capable archer, one of the best i'd say because of his hit+40. He has the second highest dex and luck growths slightly behind Shamir meaning he will have a lot of crit. Pick up death blow from brigand and go Sniper and I don't see any problem with him as a unit. Hunter's volley will carry him and his amazing hit and crit will help him kill the bulkier ones too. Rally speed at D rank is insanely useful and has saved me so much on my run. being able to make a unit who couldn't double, double or one whose getting doubled stop getting doubled is amazing.

Lorenz has bulk. I know a lot of his haters like to pretend he doesn't but he does. He also has accurate high might spells and a good personal. He has the second highest hp growth in the team at 55%, a 30% def growth and a 40% res growth. He is capable of being a solid 1-2 range unit who can tank enemies on enemy phase as well as deal big damage on player phase (especially if you get Frozen Lance). From his paralogue you get Thyrsus which you can trade around your mages in battle to let all of them benefit from it. However if you want to get benefit even more from it Lorenz makes incredible use of the Pavise and Aegis effect. Him having more Hp than Defense means that the half in damage is even more important than if he was def focused. I don't know what the activation rate is so if anyone knows that would be cool but it seems to be around 40% from my experience. If you're worried about him getting doubled he is one of the prime candidates for a guard adjutant, as most of your bulky units who could need it go flyer which can't use them. If you choose Ferdinand as his guard adujtant he can also get 2 more damage which is a nice benefit. He learns Recover at C which is the best way to fully heal someone until your main healer gets to bishop with a healing staff. Finally he has great proficiency for getting into Dark Knight which is ideally where most mages would like to end up, it's just that for some units like Lysithea and Dorothea the investment isn't worth it compared to other options.

Raphael has high strength, high hp, axe and brawling proficiency, and to top it all of rally strength. Similar to Ignatz's rally speed rally strength has helped out my run immensely. Just pick up death blow and go down the grappler route and he doesn't really have problems. Sure he gets doubled but he has enough bulk not to die in a single hit, and when you do reach War master quick riposte makes him incredibly valuable, and that can be obtained easily by chapter 18 by giving him a knowledge gem. He has enough strength to round one a lot of enemies and he and Ignatz also have bond supports with each other. Yes he is probably the weakest on the team but he can work perfectly well because the War master line is so broken it can make anyone good, Raphael strength hp and proficiency's make him perfect for it. If you don't agree with anything I've said about these units then I think you just haven't actually tried using them and just benched them immediately because they weren't amazing on Hard difficulty, which is true. On hard just about anyone does these guys jobs better than them but Maddening is a different mode, and it helps their strengths shine.

In addition to what was said about Ignatz, I want to reiterate that his Authority strength means once his Charm starts to fall behind, he can easily transition from running CC via offensive Gambits to the high-grade utility Gambits. Impregnable Wall and Blessing are both stupidly good.

Doesn't Thyrsus just give Aegis and Pavise as though they were on a unit's skill bar, so it'd be Dex%? I still advocate for Dancer Lorenz. He gets it right when his Mage shenanigans where he can double Cavs are falling off and the magic focus of Dancer still lets him throw out an emergency Ragnarok if Dance is somehow not the optimal choice.

Admittedly, I haven't tried Raphael in War Master, but I can't see giving up Fierce Iron Fist being a particularly good idea for him. I gave him a metric ton of favouratism when I ran Deer and he was still missing one rounds with uncomfortable frequency with Fierce Iron Fist. Going back to just two hits with his gauntlets is not something I'd care for. Also, seconding the value of Rally Str. My quadders appreciated it a rather lot. Mind, there's also been times I've lamented that he has to be the one who has it because an extra 12 damage is something he'd have also appreciated (if I were to do a non-blind Deer run, I'd probably consider stealing Annette to that end).

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, SpiceMan said:

Sounds to me like you're just not giving the "virtually useless" units a chance. If you actually used them you'd see they have a lot of merits. Ignatz is a capable archer, one of the best i'd say because of his hit+40. He has the second highest dex and luck growths slightly behind Shamir meaning he will have a lot of crit. Pick up death blow from brigand and go Sniper and I don't see any problem with him as a unit. Hunter's volley will carry him and his amazing hit and crit will help him kill the bulkier ones too. Rally speed at D rank is insanely useful and has saved me so much on my run. being able to make a unit who couldn't double, double or one whose getting doubled stop getting doubled is amazing.

Lorenz has bulk. I know a lot of his haters like to pretend he doesn't but he does. He also has accurate high might spells and a good personal. He has the second highest hp growth in the team at 55%, a 30% def growth and a 40% res growth. He is capable of being a solid 1-2 range unit who can tank enemies on enemy phase as well as deal big damage on player phase (especially if you get Frozen Lance). From his paralogue you get Thyrsus which you can trade around your mages in battle to let all of them benefit from it. However if you want to get benefit even more from it Lorenz makes incredible use of the Pavise and Aegis effect. Him having more Hp than Defense means that the half in damage is even more important than if he was def focused. I don't know what the activation rate is so if anyone knows that would be cool but it seems to be around 40% from my experience. If you're worried about him getting doubled he is one of the prime candidates for a guard adjutant, as most of your bulky units who could need it go flyer which can't use them. If you choose Ferdinand as his guard adujtant he can also get 2 more damage which is a nice benefit. He learns Recover at C which is the best way to fully heal someone until your main healer gets to bishop with a healing staff. Finally he has great proficiency for getting into Dark Knight which is ideally where most mages would like to end up, it's just that for some units like Lysithea and Dorothea the investment isn't worth it compared to other options.

Raphael has high strength, high hp, axe and brawling proficiency, and to top it all of rally strength. Similar to Ignatz's rally speed rally strength has helped out my run immensely. Just pick up death blow and go down the grappler route and he doesn't really have problems. Sure he gets doubled but he has enough bulk not to die in a single hit, and when you do reach War master quick riposte makes him incredibly valuable, and that can be obtained easily by chapter 18 by giving him a knowledge gem. He has enough strength to round one a lot of enemies and he and Ignatz also have bond supports with each other. Yes he is probably the weakest on the team but he can work perfectly well because the War master line is so broken it can make anyone good, Raphael strength hp and proficiency's make him perfect for it. If you don't agree with anything I've said about these units then I think you just haven't actually tried using them and just benched them immediately because they weren't amazing on Hard difficulty, which is true. On hard just about anyone does these guys jobs better than them but Maddening is a different mode, and it helps their strengths shine. 

The problem, as I see it, is that with Maddening's experience cuts, I'd have to choose who to prioritize to succeed. Raphael in particular requires waaaaay too much work to become anything even remotely resembling decent - trying to make him good in Maddening is comparable to trying to raise Larvesta into Volcarona. Or Deino into Hydreigon. (In case you don't know what I'm talking about, the Pokemon in question were introduced in the fifth generation [Black & White]. Larvesta requires you to raise it to level 59 before it can evolve into Volcarona. Deino requires level 50 just to evolve into its middle form Zweilous... which then needs to be raised to level 64 before it finally evolves into Hydreigon. And that's putting aside their other issues; Larvesta in its debut generation needed to be hatched from an egg that you can only get about 2/3 of the way through the game and has to be raised from level 1. Deino isn't catchable until Victory Road, aka when you're at the Elite Four's doorstep. And its ability makes its moves less accurate, meaning you better get used to missing.) His poor stats damn near everywhere but HP and Strength kill his bid for being a good unit - he won't double anything ever, he'll frequently get doubled (and his defense ain't nearly good enough to make up for this), which is especially bad when one of his specialties requires him to be in melee range (aka, he's almost always taking counters; this is even worse because he's doubled by damn near everything), and if a mage so much as glares at him, he'll fold like a Shedinja that got hit by *insert damaging Fire/Flying/Dark/Rock/Ghost move here*, or entered into Sandstorm, Hail, Spikes, or Stealth Rock. Yeah, no. If I have to put in an amount of effort I can only describe as Herculean (he needs an ability from mastering a Master tier class, which aren't relevant until level 30 [which I consider too damn long to be dragging around deadweight], among other things), the payoff damn well better be worth it. He ain't exactly what I'd call worth it, nor does he even come close; it ain't like he becomes the Fire Emblem equivalent of Gyarados or something. RE: Rally Strength, I'd probably be better served poaching Annette for that purpose, considering she gets Rally Speed too. Lorenz is at the opposite extreme. He can't do anything well, which makes him hard to fit into a team as a result. His bond with Ferdinand doesn't help his already low viability much considering the latter is the hardest student to recruit. While he can easily get into Dark Knight, there's the part where I find most cavalry classes underwhelming in this game, and Dark Knight is no exception, especially considering the effort needed to get into it. RE: Ignatz, if I have to rely on sheer dumb luck for him to contribute, he's already in a shitty position since I'll have to plan around critical hits not happening anyway. I will admit that Rally Speed is useful though, even if, as stated earlier, I'd rather just poach Annette and use her instead.

I'll deal with your other points later.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Crysta]

I was wondering if we were really playing the same game after hearing some of what you’ve argued... and apparently we aren’t! Three Houses Maddening isn’t Poke’mon, and conventional wisdom that applies to older titles does not always apply. 

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Crysta said:

I was wondering if we were really playing the same game after hearing some of what you’ve argued... and apparently we aren’t! Three Houses Maddening isn’t Poke’mon, and conventional wisdom that applies to older titles does not always apply. 

My point was more that Raphael requires a metric ton of investment and resources to be anything resembling good in Maddening, and even then, that doesn't make up for all the time he was a liability and the worst unit on the team.

[Crysta]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

My point was more that Raphael requires a metric ton of investment and resources to be anything resembling good in Maddening, and even then, that doesn't make up for all the time he was a liability and the worst unit on the team.

I benched him in my Maddening run, but even then he required less babying in my end than Caspar did on hard: he has enough HP to eat doubles from most non-magical things and has the strength to actually kill said things. Assuming they’re not part of a horde, punching mages before they could do serious damage was actually one of my favorite things to use him for in the limited time I did field him.

But YMMV or whatever. It’s better to just say that than to use Pokémon gameplay to make up for your own lack of actual experience with the mode, since this isn’t a Pokemon forum.

 

 

 

[SnowFire]

I think this thread got derailed a bit, but as a lurker here - Shadow Mir, not to gatekeep or anything, but I'd echo the recommendations of others to at least give playing the game on Maddening first a shot, and then offer advice, rather than the other way around.  If you want to dip your toe in, an NG+ where you keep statue levels but nothing else is a good "lite" experience that makes the early game and skill planning a little less rocky and more forgiving.

A) Ferdinand's passive is awesome (although for the topic at hand, Ferdie has annoying recruit requirements for the Deer, as discussed already).  What you describe about level-ups is a hilarious occasional bad beat, not an actual downside.  Do the math; he's gonna level up 35-38 times over the course of a game. How many of those level-ups were on enemy phase and thus uncontrollable, bearing in mind that enemies I don't want to kill will likely be at full health and kills provide all the XP?  And how many of those enemy-phase level-ups were followed by another combat?  And how many of those combats were so lethal that Ferdie got KO'd from nearly full health?  And when he did get KO'd due to additional combats after a level-up, how often was that due to the loss of the passive 15 evade, not vanilla bad luck?  It's merely a funny use for a Divine Pulse once every three playthroughs.

B) No, you don't need to focus XP on Maddening.  This isn't Awakening where low-manning solves everything.  Maddening is very player-phase centric, and your player phase gets better the more legitimate threats you can field, which means building the whole team.  The sole exception might be focusing XP on Byleth if you want to recruit the CoS faculty ASAP in the earlygame, but that's about it.

C) Raphael is not a particularly high tier unit on any mode, but "high investment" is weird?  Give him some gauntlets and punch some mages out, the end, that's what you do with him.  Doesn't require much training and stat boosters don't matter for him except maybe Strength since everything else is unsalvageable.  (Could be semantics, but I'm assuming a "high investment" unit is one that cares about all their stats, wants expensive weapons, and wants to go exotic build paths to unlock their best stuff.  By that standard, Raph is straightforward and cheap.)

Edited February 2, 2020 by SnowFire
typo

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

My Raph definitely wasn't getting enemy mages with a one-two from normal gauntlet attacks. I needed to get him Str +2, Death Blow and mastered Grappler before he really started contributing via Fierce Iron Fist. Not exactly the highest investment, but still not really a great situation. While mine was a little Str screwed, bringing him up to average wouldn't have changed his 3HKOs into 2HKOs (though it might have made some of the Fierce Iron Fists that missed kills actually secure the kills).

The same build felt way easier to get going on Caspar because of his personal giving +10 Hit on his targets and Bombard softening how much the pre-Fierce Iron Fist period of gauntlet damage sucks.

[Crysta]

Actually, you’re right. The early game mages are beefier than I remembered (it’s been awhile).

TBD on Caspar.

[SpiceMan]

12 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Admittedly, I haven't tried Raphael in War Master, but I can't see giving up Fierce Iron Fist being a particularly good idea for him. I gave him a metric ton of favouratism when I ran Deer and he was still missing one rounds with uncomfortable frequency with Fierce Iron Fist. Going back to just two hits with his gauntlets is not something I'd care for.

Sorry I didn't make that clear. I meant go War master for QR and then drop down to Grappler again. By "War master line" I really just meant the Brawling classes.

Edited February 2, 2020 by SpiceMan

[SpiceMan]

12 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Doesn't Thyrsus just give Aegis and Pavise as though they were on a unit's skill bar, so it'd be Dex%?

I mean it could be, but it activated way more than it should have for my units. My Mercedes only had around 17 dex, yet the Rafiel gem would proc and save her life every 2nd hit or so. The amount it's activated just doesn't seem to add up to the amount it should if it were dex%. Idk though it's just my experience with it. 

Edit: Sorry for double post, this was meant to be an edit of the first comment but I mucked up.

Edited February 2, 2020 by SpiceMan

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, SnowFire said:

I think this thread got derailed a bit, but as a lurker here - Shadow Mir, not to gatekeep or anything, but I'd echo the recommendations of others to at least give playing the game on Maddening first a shot, and then offer advice, rather than the other way around.  If you want to dip your toe in, an NG+ where you keep statue levels but nothing else is a good "lite" experience that makes the early game and skill planning a little less rocky and more forgiving.

A) Ferdinand's passive is awesome (although for the topic at hand, Ferdie has annoying recruit requirements for the Deer, as discussed already).  What you describe about level-ups is a hilarious occasional bad beat, not an actual downside.  Do the math; he's gonna level up 35-38 times over the course of a game. How many of those level-ups were on enemy phase and thus uncontrollable, bearing in mind that enemies I don't want to kill will likely be at full health and kills provide all the XP?  And how many of those enemy-phase level-ups were followed by another combat?  And how many of those combats were so lethal that Ferdie got KO'd from nearly full health?  And when he did get KO'd due to additional combats after a level-up, how often was that due to the loss of the passive 15 evade, not vanilla bad luck?  It's merely a funny use for a Divine Pulse once every three playthroughs.

B) No, you don't need to focus XP on Maddening.  This isn't Awakening where low-manning solves everything.  Maddening is very player-phase centric, and your player phase gets better the more legitimate threats you can field, which means building the whole team.  The sole exception might be focusing XP on Byleth if you want to recruit the CoS faculty ASAP in the earlygame, but that's about it.

C) Raphael is not a particularly high tier unit on any mode, but "high investment" is weird?  Give him some gauntlets and punch some mages out, the end, that's what you do with him.  Doesn't require much training and stat boosters don't matter for him except maybe Strength since everything else is unsalvageable.  (Could be semantics, but I'm assuming a "high investment" unit is one that cares about all their stats, wants expensive weapons, and wants to go exotic build paths to unlock their best stuff.  By that standard, Raph is straightforward and cheap.)

Come on, man. I admitted not too long ago that I haven't even beaten the goddamn game yet. You earnestly think I'm stupid enough to try swimming in the deep end before learning how to swim???

Anyway...

A) I consider it an actual downside, because - breaking news - not everyone is lenient with stuff like that. Compare to Petra or Ingrid, who don't have to worry about randomly having everything become more accurate vs them.

B) True, this isn't Awakening, but still, I'm not going to waste experience on units that don't offer anything of note, like Raphael. Speaking of...

C) Yes, I'd consider Raphael a high investment (and high maintenance) unit, considering that pretty much all his stats suck, and gauntlets don't help much when he needs four numbers to go in his favour and if they don't, he's getting severely damaged at best, and at worst, the show's over for him (this isn't helped by the fact he's weak in bows and thus will have a hard time getting into Archer to pick up Hit +20)..

Edited February 2, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Crysta]

We expect you to play the mode before wading in with sweeping generalizations and 100% certainty that you’re right and demanding we correct your assumptions. That is not unreasonable.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Crysta said:

We expect you to play the mode before wading in with sweeping generalizations and 100% certainty that you’re right and demanding we correct your assumptions. That is not unreasonable.

I'm not saying it's unreasonable. I'm just saying that before I move on up, I'd at least like a few completed runs under my belt. Is that seriously too much to ask? I at least want to know what I'll be up against, rather than blindly charging in. This being said, would you take someone who insists Raphael is good on Maddening seriously? Because I can't help but laugh at that notion.

[AxelVDP]

15 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'm not saying it's unreasonable. I'm just saying that before I move on up, I'd at least like a few completed runs under my belt. Is that seriously too much to ask? I at least want to know what I'll be up against, rather than blindly charging in. This being said, would you take someone who insists Raphael is good on Maddening seriously? Because I can't help but laugh at that notion.

nobody is insisting that Raphael is good.  there's only one guy advocating that he is useable. and he is. because even on maddening everyone is still useable. the game is far from impossible and you can still use gimmicks and suboptimal stuff. yeah, it might make things slightly harder, but so what? it's not like you're softlocking your save because you've made shit decisions through the game.

and even then, how could you be so sure and cocky/arrogant in your responses if you don't even have a run completed to form decent and informed opinions on the game?!?