How is the weapon balance in 3Hs?

[Cysx]

19 hours ago, Etheus said:

I'd add Marianne as one of the best magic weapon users. She has a prf magic sword. Her offensive spell list is pretty mediocre and Levin Swords give her 1-3 range. She also has a great Mag growth that far outshines her Str growth.

 

Plus, she's one of the best dancers in the game.

Swords are honestly inferior magic weapons. The only exception is a really fast unit with tons of magic doubling(and thus ORKOing) with the Levin Sword, and without tons of weeds, that's basically just Assassin/Swordmaster Lysithea(w/Darting & Fiendish blow). The Blutgang is only good for rigging crits or killing cavalry, otherwise it just deals chip, and one range chip on maddening is not the slightest bit desirable, especially for frail magic users. They're in an awkward place in the triangle because lance units have a breaker against them and they lack an answer to enemy sword users having higher magic avoid; and unlike axes, the selection of swordfaire classes is a limitation in and of itself. Then unlike lances, they get no high might relics to OHKO bosses/beast lifebars with.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Cysx

[Shadow Mir]

7 hours ago, paladin21 said:

And getting arcane shards isn't that difficult if you feed the animals, all the animals, at least once a month.

Which requires DLC, which not everyone has or is willing to get. That being said, Arcane Crystals are buyable later on, but they're not exactly cheap.

12 hours ago, Wishblade said:

Bruh, I’ve been reading it as Annetta for some hundred hours.

It’s not that Aura Knuckles and Bolt Axe are useless. You’re just unwilling to use them. Wasting Annette’s brilliant axe talent on her pathetic magic? Doesn’t make sense to me. There aren’t many candidates to Cichol Wyvern Corps anyway, as it requires authority A and probably a strength in authority. (And if you’re on NG+ you have multiple of them). Now with the DLC, you can give her the Nuvelle Flier Corps. Unless you’re trying to ORKO Petra with Annette, things work just fine.

Since you’re unwilling to try WL Annette, Bolt Axe is worthless to you. Annette is also worthless because she is a trash mage.

And, yes, Constance. Nothing is too much input if I don’t have to overcome any weakness. In fact, she has many strengths. You’re just unwilling to try unorthodox builds. Aren’t numbers as high as 40x2 satisfying? Is that not enough as an output?

Where? Because this almost sounds like that running gag from the Pokemon anime about a certain character constantly having his name gotten wrong, and him always flipping his lid over it.

To get back to the topic at hand, I'm for unorthodox builds, but unlike you, I draw the line when it is blatantly obvious that I'm wasting that character's potential. And both of these don't just cross the line, they take a running leap over that line. I mean, it does NOT speak well of the Aura Knuckles that I have to get DLC AND go out of my way to qualify for a rather shitty class with a specific unit to get any use out of them. It gets even worse when said character is also the only feasible user of Bolting (as the other units who learn it are Hilda, who has no inclination to magic at all, and Manuela, who has a weakness in Reason; they also start at E, so good luck with that). You cannot convince me that it's okay to lose three Bolting uses just to make the shitfest that is the Aura Knuckles usable. Second, in what fashion is Annette "crippled" outside of Blue Lions???

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

Swords are honestly inferior magic weapons. The only exception is a really fast unit with tons of magic doubling(and thus ORKOing) with the Levin Sword, and without tons of weeds, that's basically just Assassin/Swordmaster Lysithea(w/Darting & Fiendish blow). The Blutgang is only good for rigging crits or killing cavalry, otherwise it just deals chip, and one range chip on maddening is not the slightest bit desirable, especially for frail magic users. They're in an awkward place in the triangle because lance units have a breaker against them and they lack an answer to enemy sword users having higher magic avoid; and unlike axes, the selection of swordfaire classes is a limitation in and of itself. Then unlike lances, they get no high might relics to OHKO bosses/beast lifebars with.

I'd say they're still better than axes magic weapon wise, considering that the only magic axes murder your AS and are deplorably inaccurate to boot - a losing combination when missed attacks cost you durability. This isn't helped by the only feasible users of them being weak in bows.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Cysx]

15 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd say they're still better than axes magic weapon wise, considering that the only magic axes murder your AS and are deplorably inaccurate to boot - a losing combination when missed attacks cost you durability. This isn't helped by the only feasible users of them being weak in bows.

Regularly used, magic weapons are largely about chip anyway, since its very difficult to double with them, meaning their weight is largely moot. Magic combat arts(or combat arts made magic through magic weapons, but the former is generally stronger) are where it's at since they can realistically OHKO throughout most of the game, and it's also where swords falter because they lack practical ways to exploit them as said above. This is not the case for axes, as they get very high mt weapons and Axefaire is on WL(we even get a magic flying battalion now, though it'll probably be in high demand), and they at least cover 2/3rds of the triangle fine.

As I've already told you, due to the Axe proficiency giving +10 hit compared to the sword one at lv5, the Levin Sword and the Bolt Axe end up with the same accuracy past the midgame or so.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Cysx

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

10 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

To get back to the topic at hand, I'm for unorthodox builds, but unlike you, I draw the line when it is blatantly obvious that I'm wasting that character's potential. And both of these don't just cross the line, they take a running leap over that line. I mean, it does NOT speak well of the Aura Knuckles that I have to get DLC AND go out of my way to qualify for a rather shitty class with a specific unit to get any use out of them. It gets even worse when said character is also the only feasible user of Bolting (as the other units who learn it are Hilda, who has no inclination to magic at all, and Manuela, who has a weakness in Reason; they also start at E, so good luck with that). You cannot convince me that it's okay to lose three Bolting uses just to make the shitfest that is the Aura Knuckles usable. Second, in what fashion is Annette "crippled" outside of Blue Lions???

For the record, I agree with you on the point of Constance. Aura Knuckles demand A Brawling on a unit who starts neutral at E. They only have 1 range, and are stuck on classes with infantry movement. And losing 1/3 Bolting uses is a huge opportunity cost.

I still think, though, that you're underrating Wyvern Annette. She has an Axe proficiency from the get-go, making C+ (for Lightning Axe combat art) and B (for promotion and Bolt Axe) very much achievable. Moreover, a neutrality in Flight makes C rank quite do-able, especially when you have her from the get-go on BL. Even if you want her mainly for Rallying, the extra range and canto offered by a flying class is good on any rally bot. Want magical damage, Lightning Axe off a high-might axe will outdamage anything in her Reason list. Having no Faith list sucks, but let's face it, Annette's was inferior from the get-go. Moreover, she can outrange the Warlock class - even with Thyrsus, her attacking range is 8 maximum, which is identical to Lightning Axe on Wyvern (and less than Bolt Axe /+). You keep bringing up hit rate issues, I bring up ways to address it (Cichol Wyverns) , and you dismiss them as "a waste", even though a modest hit boost on shaky-hit magical damage does more against high-defense enemies than a modest hit and attack boost on physical damage. I'm not going to force you to use her, but I really think you're too quick to dismiss what I have found to be Annette's best build.

[Wishblade]

50 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

To get back to the topic at hand, I'm for unorthodox builds, but unlike you, I draw the line when it is blatantly obvious that I'm wasting that character's potential. And both of these don't just cross the line, they take a running leap over that line. I mean, it does NOT speak well of the Aura Knuckles that I have to get DLC AND go out of my way to qualify for a rather shitty class with a specific unit to get any use out of them. It gets even worse when said character is also the only feasible user of Bolting (as the other units who learn it are Hilda, who has no inclination to magic at all, and Manuela, who has a weakness in Reason; they also start at E, so good luck with that). You cannot convince me that it's okay to lose three Bolting uses just to make the shitfest that is the Aura Knuckles usable. Second, in what fashion is Annette "crippled" outside of Blue Lions???

Annette is crippled outside BL because she has no access to Gilbert or Crusher.

Talking about wasting a character’s potential, Annette’s potential is wasted when you force her into mage classes. Poor movement, poor spell list, poor speed, unable to OHKO. Even Ingrid performs better as a mage. Heck, even Hilda performs better as a mage. I had a Warlock Hilda on maddening BL no NG+. It was amazing because of Bolting. I was in need of that because there are just so many ballistas. But now you will probably accuse me of wasting her frontline potential. No pain, no gain. The same goes to War Cleric Constance. If you can’t take the loss, you can’t gain the most. I sacrificed Bolting for Pneuma Gale and Aura Knuckles and she shreds through even beasts and dragons.

For your reference, my Constance could deal 27x4 damage to The Immovable.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Wishblade

[Shadow Mir]

8 hours ago, Cysx said:

Regularly used, magic weapons are largely about chip anyway, since its very difficult to double with them, meaning their weight is largely moot. Magic combat arts(or combat arts made magic through magic weapons, but the former is generally stronger) are where it's at since they can realistically OHKO throughout most of the game, and it's also where swords falter because they lack practical ways to exploit them as said above. This is not the case for axes, as they get very high mt weapons and Axefaire is on WL(we even get a magic flying battalion now, though it'll probably be in high demand), and they at least cover 2/3rds of the triangle fine.

As I've already told you, due to the Axe proficiency giving +10 hit compared to the sword one at lv5, the Levin Sword and the Bolt Axe end up with the same accuracy past the midgame or so.

Which completely ignores that you won't be waltzing around with level 5 prowess skills for most of the game. How Axe Prowess 5 and Sword Prowess 5 stack up doesn't mean anything when both are irrelevant for nearly all the goddamn game. That being said, I find it hard to find good reasons to use axes much in a game where weight is a thing again, except you can't offset weight penalties as easily as in (most of) the prior games where weight was a factor.

8 hours ago, Wishblade said:

Annette is crippled outside BL because she has no access to Gilbert or Crusher.

Talking about wasting a character’s potential, Annette’s potential is wasted when you force her into mage classes. Poor movement, poor spell list, poor speed, unable to OHKO. Even Ingrid performs better as a mage. Heck, even Hilda performs better as a mage. I had a Warlock Hilda on maddening BL no NG+. It was amazing because of Bolting. I was in need of that because there are just so many ballistas. But now you will probably accuse me of wasting her frontline potential. No pain, no gain. The same goes to War Cleric Constance. If you can’t take the loss, you can’t gain the most. I sacrificed Bolting for Pneuma Gale and Aura Knuckles and she shreds through even beasts and dragons.

For your reference, my Constance could deal 27x4 damage to The Immovable.

Bold: That's a laugh, considering that Ingrid and Hilda have lower magic growths and two magic spells until A rank. Also, I think you're underrating wind magic, as it's reliable, which is far more positive than I can say of the Bolt Axe and Crusher.

The rest: Even though Gilbert sucks and the Crusher makes SSB64 Link's recovery look good? Honestly, I consider the latter a candidate for most useless relic in the game - and I already have issue with the usefulness of most relic weapons, so you bet your ass I'm gonna have issue with a heavy and inaccurate relic weapon that'll do nothing but get its user killed if she doesn't kill whatever she's trying to attack with it because it's a range 1 weapon that gets her doubled by damn near everything. Also, I think "no pain, no gain" is naive, foolish, and most of all, bullshit. Besides, I am not some mad scientist who will sacrifice anything and everything for the sake of quarter-baked gimmicks, which you certainly seem to be. I mean, War Cleric Constance?? When she starts with an E in Brawling??? You must be trolling me.

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

I still think, though, that you're underrating Wyvern Annette. She has an Axe proficiency from the get-go, making C+ (for Lightning Axe combat art) and B (for promotion and Bolt Axe) very much achievable. Moreover, a neutrality in Flight makes C rank quite do-able, especially when you have her from the get-go on BL. Even if you want her mainly for Rallying, the extra range and canto offered by a flying class is good on any rally bot. Want magical damage, Lightning Axe off a high-might axe will outdamage anything in her Reason list. Having no Faith list sucks, but let's face it, Annette's was inferior from the get-go. Moreover, she can outrange the Warlock class - even with Thyrsus, her attacking range is 8 maximum, which is identical to Lightning Axe on Wyvern (and less than Bolt Axe /+). You keep bringing up hit rate issues, I bring up ways to address it (Cichol Wyverns) , and you dismiss them as "a waste", even though a modest hit boost on shaky-hit magical damage does more against high-defense enemies than a modest hit and attack boost on physical damage. I'm not going to force you to use her, but I really think you're too quick to dismiss what I have found to be Annette's best build.

And I much think you're overrating her, so... we're kinda stuck. My point is that I have to waste even more resources to suboptimal use to fix Wyvern Annette than I am comfortable with, Cichol Wyverns being one of them (obviously, I'd rather give it to someone who's, you know, physical, so that +7 physical attack actually does something). Also, I just don't like axes in this game - nearly all of them are too heavy for me to abide when you can't offset weight penalties as easily as in most prior games where weight was a factor.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Wishblade]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The rest: Even though Gilbert sucks and the Crusher makes SSB64 Link's recovery look good? Honestly, I consider the latter a candidate for most useless relic in the game - and I already have issue with the usefulness of most relic weapons, so you bet your ass I'm gonna have issue with a heavy and inaccurate relic weapon that'll do nothing but get its user killed if she doesn't kill whatever she's trying to attack with it because it's a range 1 weapon that gets her doubled by damn near everything. Also, I think "no pain, no gain" is naive, foolish, and most of all, bullshit. Besides, I am not some mad scientist who will sacrifice anything and everything for the sake of quarter-baked gimmicks, which you certainly seem to be. I mean, War Cleric Constance?? When she starts with an E in Brawling??? You must be trolling me.

Obviously you don’t have the slightest understanding of Annette. Gilbert is one of the two adjutants that can give her +3 mt. Crusher is her only chance to OHKO death knight, along with a variety of tougher enemies.

Neither do you have the slightest idea on how to measure the effectiveness of a mage. All mages are equivalently good/trash in terms of power when they can’t ORHO. It’s just chip damage for others to finish off. Ingrid and Hilda have low mag, so what? They have access to Thoron! Having a 3 range magic places them over the majority of other mages in the game. Ingrid occasionally deletes enemies with her ice magic crit. Hilda has access to Bolting. Are they not better mages? Mag issue? Nothing I can’t fix with the many skills and battalions in this game.

It took me 9 months to get Hilda’s neutral E reason to A while simultaneously fixing her authority weakness. Is it a lot of work? Yes. Did it take a long time? Perhaps. Something starts at neutral E so you may as well stop using blah blah blah. Why don’t you talk about the many students with neutral E authority? They won’t have the chance to equip Cichol Wyvern Corps according to your reasoning. A total waste of time while Galatea’s work just as fine!

You’re staying inside your comfort zone. I’m not. May as well go beyond the furthest limit when I’m to try special builds. Annette’s axe A+ and Constance’s brawl A are nothing when I’m aiming for S+.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Wishblade

[Cysx]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Which completely ignores that you won't be waltzing around with level 5 prowess skills for most of the game.

A'ight, I can give you that it varies depending on build. But, proficiency 4 is + 8 accuracy vs +16, and proficiency 3 is +7 vs +13. I think it's fair to say C+ is achieved by the time magic weapons become relevant, and B+ is generally something that you want to reach before level 20 for certification purposes, if nothing else. So realistically at worst, the Levin Sword has +4 accuracy for a while as a result, and then +2.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

weight is a thing

Weight used to matter a lot on hard(or so we thought) because being weighed down would make the difference between doubling or not in many situations. On maddening, armors aside, enemies are now too fast for mages(as well as most units) to get ahead of the curve, whether they're weighed down or not. Even getting doubled matters less for tanks because of guard adjutants, and mages tend to not want to get hit at all in the first place; weight doesn't affect magic avoid, meaning what's left is regular avoid, which can be important, but again, not so much for mages.
In general you'd think most units are garbage if they can't double, but that's not really how it works in 3H in the end, since we've been given some new, very effective tools to work with.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Cysx

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

And I much think you're overrating her, so... we're kinda stuck. My point is that I have to waste even more resources to suboptimal use to fix Wyvern Annette than I am comfortable with, Cichol Wyverns being one of them (obviously, I'd rather give it to someone who's, you know, physical, so that +7 physical attack actually does something). Also, I just don't like axes in this game - nearly all of them are too heavy for me to abide when you can't offset weight penalties as easily as in most prior games where weight was a factor.

And my point is, it's not a waste of a resource, because it provides what it needs to provide (in Annette's case, extra hit). If you really want Cichol Wyverns on someone else, give her a worse battalion. Hell, give her no batallion, just stick the Accuracy Ring on her and call ot a day. Because if she's stuck in mage classes, there's no batallion that's gonna give her flying mobility, nor the ability to reliably one-shot high-HP low-res enemies on Maddening.

[paladin21]

16 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Which requires DLC, which not everyone has or is willing to get. That being said, Arcane Crystals are buyable later on, but they're not exactly cheap.

Where? Because this almost sounds like that running gag from the Pokemon anime about a certain character constantly having his name gotten wrong, and him always flipping his lid over it.

I'd say they're still better than axes magic weapon wise, considering that the only magic axes murder your AS and are deplorably inaccurate to boot - a losing combination when missed attacks cost you durability. This isn't helped by the only feasible users of them being weak in bows.

Feeding the animals is part of the dlc, right, but so is Constance. Maybe I've been biased by my game having the dlc installed to feeling that Annette's magic axe and Mercedes' magic bow are better sure to availability than they actually are. However there are other means to get arcane crystals. You just have to face the right type of beast in the red-marked battles. By exiting the battle to the battle selection menu, you reset the enemies you'll be up against.

Otherthan that, the weapon rank you need for both is fairly high (B), which would delay you getting them. However, you get a free repair before timeskip, and once upgraded you get 3-ranged magic with 35 uses. After timeskip, you'll eventually get the dark merchant, by I never had that much of a money problem, even before DLC, to spare some gold to get magic weapons.

There's one thing I don't quite understand: why keep you saying that feasible magic axe user being weak in bows is a problem? I'm finding it hard to add two and two with this. If they're going to use a ranged magic weapon (that can be 3-ranged), there's no actual reason to invest in an additional weapon. I agree that bows are broken with curved shot availability, but after getting that art (which I usually do for all my physical units, and it's not hard even for characters weak in bows), you have barely no reason to keep investing in them.

[Wishblade]

1 hour ago, paladin21 said:

There's one thing I don't quite understand: why keep you saying that feasible magic axe user being weak in bows is a problem? I'm finding it hard to add two and two with this.

He’s probably saying that you want to master archer for hit +20. Which is, to me, totally unnecessary. There are so many practical ways to fix the hit issue and archer mastery doesn’t even make it to the top half of the list.

Back to the topic, I still think Magic Bow is the most worthless of all magic weapons. It is true that Mercedes is a potential Magic Bow user, but there are some aspects that make it inferior to Bolt Axe Annette.

Magic Bow has below average damage. To fix this, you want a class with Bowfaire. The only classes with Bowfaire for non-Claude characters are Sniper and Bow Knight. They have less movement than the wyvern classes, and unlike Assassins or Trickster, you can’t traverse through different terrains without movement penalty. Magic Bow generally covers less ground than Bolt Axe or Levin Sword. (You can snipe but it gets inaccurate)

You may want to say that Curved Shot gives you extra range, but that’s where the next problem, the most serious of all, comes in: the durability and the fixing cost. Combat arts causes a weapon’s durability to drop quickly. The problem isn’t as obvious on non-bow magic weapons because of a tremendous flaw only bows possess: there doesn’t exist a bow combat art that deals magic damage. No other ordinary weapon can share Magic Bow’s burden and its durability will be depleted within no time. The cost to repair will be something significant.

Like someone has said before, magic combat arts using normal weapons usually deal more damage than normal combat arts that uses magic weapons. Not being able to use the former in bow classes also makes the idea less appealing.

There is one more problem. Mercedes is one of the best healer in the game. Faith is pretty unbalanced between characters, so making her an offensive character means losing the best healer. Of course this isn’t the main concern. Just as I can sacrifice Bolting for War Cleric Constance, you can also sacrifice healing utility for Sniper Mercedes. Perhaps Hunter’s Volley works wonders on Magic Bow Mercedes, which I haven’t been able to try.

 

Edit: The argument above is based on the assumption that you’re going all bow on Mercedes. It’s not necessary in hard mode, but in maddening you generally want to let your units focus on the fewest things possible to achieve maximum results. If you’re not going all bow, I suggest going all reason so Mercedes gets black magic range +1 at S reason as soon as possible. S reason easily nullifies all your motivation to use the Magic Bow.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Wishblade

[Shadow Mir]

13 hours ago, Wishblade said:

Obviously you don’t have the slightest understanding of Annette. Gilbert is one of the two adjutants that can give her +3 mt. Crusher is her only chance to OHKO death knight, along with a variety of tougher enemies.

Neither do you have the slightest idea on how to measure the effectiveness of a mage. All mages are equivalently good/trash in terms of power when they can’t ORHO. It’s just chip damage for others to finish off. Ingrid and Hilda have low mag, so what? They have access to Thoron! Having a 3 range magic places them over the majority of other mages in the game. Ingrid occasionally deletes enemies with her ice magic crit. Hilda has access to Bolting. Are they not better mages? Mag issue? Nothing I can’t fix with the many skills and battalions in this game.

It took me 9 months to get Hilda’s neutral E reason to A while simultaneously fixing her authority weakness. Is it a lot of work? Yes. Did it take a long time? Perhaps. Something starts at neutral E so you may as well stop using blah blah blah. Why don’t you talk about the many students with neutral E authority? They won’t have the chance to equip Cichol Wyvern Corps according to your reasoning. A total waste of time while Galatea’s work just as fine!

You’re staying inside your comfort zone. I’m not. May as well go beyond the furthest limit when I’m to try special builds. Annette’s axe A+ and Constance’s brawl A are nothing when I’m aiming for S+.

Such naive idealism...

Anyway, I don't give a rat's ass what the Crusher allows Annette to do when it puts her in peril of exploding like a Prinny. Playing Russian Roulette with your units' lives is stupid. Or did you forget this is a strategy game? Sure, this game has Divine Pulse, but still, I'd rather avoid scenarios where I'll need it if what I do doesn't work out. Also, Gilbert's probably best as a guard adjutant. Which means you're devaluing him as well as Annette with your Wyvern Annette gimmick. Good job there, mate.

Authority is always a worthwhile investment. Brawling isn't when you have shit for strength. There's a world of difference there.

Don't give me this "comfort zone" BS. It's called "pragmatism". Ergo, I aim for practical things that will help me succeed; no BS about achieving S+ rank or anything like that (sure, you get a -faire out of it, but that doesn't change the fact it's too much effort for too little profit). Even S rank isn't worth it if you aren't a mage (mages get extra magic range, so it's worth it for them).

8 hours ago, paladin21 said:

Feeding the animals is part of the dlc, right, but so is Constance. Maybe I've been biased by my game having the dlc installed to feeling that Annette's magic axe and Mercedes' magic bow are better sure to availability than they actually are. However there are other means to get arcane crystals. You just have to face the right type of beast in the red-marked battles. By exiting the battle to the battle selection menu, you reset the enemies you'll be up against.

Otherthan that, the weapon rank you need for both is fairly high (B), which would delay you getting them. However, you get a free repair before timeskip, and once upgraded you get 3-ranged magic with 35 uses. After timeskip, you'll eventually get the dark merchant, by I never had that much of a money problem, even before DLC, to spare some gold to get magic weapons.

There's one thing I don't quite understand: why keep you saying that feasible magic axe user being weak in bows is a problem? I'm finding it hard to add two and two with this. If they're going to use a ranged magic weapon (that can be 3-ranged), there's no actual reason to invest in an additional weapon. I agree that bows are broken with curved shot availability, but after getting that art (which I usually do for all my physical units, and it's not hard even for characters weak in bows), you have barely no reason to keep investing in them.

No argument there. I just think assuming someone has DLC is not a good assumption to make in arguments. By the way, beasts don't drop Arcane Crystals.

Yeah, I was thinking about mastering Archer for Hit + 20, as I find the 60 hit rate on the Bolt Axe very, very unappealing, and the magic hit formula doesn't help matters. It's likely to cause me a lot of Divine Pulses when it keeps missing against the crap I absolutely need dead *cough Assassins cough Swordmasters hack*.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Wishblade]

8 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Such naive idealism...

Anyway, I don't give a rat's ass what the Crusher allows Annette to do when it puts her in peril of exploding like a Prinny. Playing Russian Roulette with your units' lives is stupid. Or did you forget this is a strategy game? Sure, this game has Divine Pulse, but still, I'd rather avoid scenarios where I'll need it if what I do doesn't work out. Also, Gilbert's probably best as a guard adjutant. Which means you're devaluing him as well as Annette with your Wyvern Annette gimmick. Good job there, mate.

Authority is always a worthwhile investment. Brawling isn't when you have shit for strength. There's a world of difference there.

Don't give me this "comfort zone" BS. It's called "pragmatism". Ergo, I aim for practical things that will help me succeed; no BS about achieving S+ rank or anything like that (sure, you get a -faire out of it, but that doesn't change the fact it's too much effort for too little profit). Even S rank isn't worth it if you aren't a mage (mages get extra magic range, so it's worth it for them).

Oh boy, what do we have here? Bold enough to assume my builds are going to require Divine Pulse. Like 100% hit rate OHKO is going to be bad? I don’t think you are meant to use Divine Pulse to save your enemies’ lives.

It’s a strategy game. I know that. If you’re worrying that your units are going to explode while having Canto, it means your strategy isn’t worth any attention.

Gilbert is best at guard adjutant? Huh? We have Dedue on the same route and he works just as fine as a guard adjutant. He even outperforms Gilbert by giving Dimitri +3 mt. Why not add +3 mt and +10 hit to Annette while it’s basically free? Too much effort while all Wyvern Rider requires is flying C? It doesn’t even require 1 full month to throw him up a wyvern! Hit issue there, hit issue here, whereas one of the best solution is right in front of you and you fails to even notice it.

Brawling requires strength. Now I think someone is getting the wrong idea. What type of damage does Mystic Blow deal? Magic. What type of damage does Pneuma Gale deal? Magic. What type of damage does Aura Knuckles deal? Magic. Strength doesn’t even matter. Weight issue? War Cleric sends your strength from any unsalvageable number to 17.

Ah yes, pragmatism, such fancy words for laziness. Too much effort for S+. Too much effort for S. Too much effort for A. You may as well throw away your weapons and quit this silly war. Exactly how much effort do you have? Do you skip every single month and play it like traditional FE? This is Three Houses, not Binding Blade or Path of Radiance where you don’t have character customization. You are given the freedom to customize your units and yet you don’t even appreciate the freedom. Why play Three Houses while there are better games for you?

[vanguard333]

One trick I absolutely love doing is forging a Levin Sword and giving it either to Byleth or to Marianne if she's on my team, as it gives them a 1-3 range magic weapon whenever they might need that extra range (or simply to not be targeted by archers). I do enjoy the weapon system in Three Houses, as I find it gives me a lot of opportunities for creative strategies like that.

[LegendOfLoog]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

the magic hit formula doesn't help matters. 

Bolt Axe doesn’t use the Magic Hit formula. Both magic weapons and magic Combat Arts use the Physical Hit formula and Magic Avoid. 

[Cysx]

16 minutes ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Bolt Axe doesn’t use the Magic Hit formula. Both magic weapons and magic Combat Arts use the Physical Hit formula and Magic Avoid. 

They do, though! As for Combat arts it just depends on the weapon type, if it's magical, magic accuracy, if it's physical, physical accuracy, both targeting magic avoid. From what I can tell anyway.

[LoneRecon400]

7 minutes ago, Cysx said:

They do, though! Combat arts it just depends on the weapon type, if it's magical, magic accuracy, if it's physical, physical accuracy, both targeting magic avoid. From what I can tell anyway.

Can confirm this is the case.

Here's a Magic Weapon in use.

Here's a Magic Combat Art in use.

[LegendOfLoog]

50 minutes ago, Cysx said:

They do, though! As for Combat arts it just depends on the weapon type, if it's magical, magic accuracy, if it's physical, physical accuracy, both targeting magic avoid. From what I can tell anyway.

My bad, the unit I was using to check had basically the same Dex/Lck stat (oops). 

[paladin21]

9 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

No argument there. I just think assuming someone has DLC is not a good assumption to make in arguments. By the way, beasts don't drop Arcane Crystals.

Yeah, I was thinking about mastering Archer for Hit + 20, as I find the 60 hit rate on the Bolt Axe very, very unappealing, and the magic hit formula doesn't help matters. It's likely to cause me a lot of Divine Pulses when it keeps missing against the crap I absolutely need dead *cough Assassins cough Swordmasters hack*.

I just checked it, and now I don't know where I got my stock of arcane crystals pre-timeskip. I had quite a few of them along three Levin swords.

16 hours ago, Wishblade said:

Back to the topic, I still think Magic Bow is the most worthless of all magic weapons. It is true that Mercedes is a potential Magic Bow user, but there are some aspects that make it inferior to Bolt Axe Annette.

Magic Bow has below average damage. To fix this, you want a class with Bowfaire. The only classes with Bowfaire for non-Claude characters are Sniper and Bow Knight. They have less movement than the wyvern classes, and unlike Assassins or Trickster, you can’t traverse through different terrains without movement penalty. Magic Bow generally covers less ground than Bolt Axe or Levin Sword. (You can snipe but it gets inaccurate)

You may want to say that Curved Shot gives you extra range, but that’s where the next problem, the most serious of all, comes in: the durability and the fixing cost. Combat arts causes a weapon’s durability to drop quickly. The problem isn’t as obvious on non-bow magic weapons because of a tremendous flaw only bows possess: there doesn’t exist a bow combat art that deals magic damage. No other ordinary weapon can share Magic Bow’s burden and its durability will be depleted within no time. The cost to repair will be something significant.

Like someone has said before, magic combat arts using normal weapons usually deal more damage than normal combat arts that uses magic weapons. Not being able to use the former in bow classes also makes the idea less appealing.

There is one more problem. Mercedes is one of the best healer in the game. Faith is pretty unbalanced between characters, so making her an offensive character means losing the best healer. Of course this isn’t the main concern. Just as I can sacrifice Bolting for War Cleric Constance, you can also sacrifice healing utility for Sniper Mercedes. Perhaps Hunter’s Volley works wonders on Magic Bow Mercedes, which I haven’t been able to try.

Edit: The argument above is based on the assumption that you’re going all bow on Mercedes. It’s not necessary in hard mode, but in maddening you generally want to let your units focus on the fewest things possible to achieve maximum results. If you’re not going all bow, I suggest going all reason so Mercedes gets black magic range +1 at S reason as soon as possible. S reason easily nullifies all your motivation to use the Magic Bow.

Actually, this run was a wild one. For a while I had Annette as a tank and Mercedes as a sniper while Dedue, Felix and Dimitri were doing the magic job as dark mages/bishops. I thought hard mode was the difficulty for it, since if some combinations didn't work at this level, they wouldn't be viable at maddening. Annette and Mercedes performed wonders there (Mercedes as an Archer sniper with the magic bow worked great at range 4). The boys on the other hand... they were pretty good using weapons (as mages), and at some point they could deal some magic damage. Weight was no issue for them though.

[Relytive]

The debate over aura knuckles Constance kind of reminds me of the BK/Sniper Felix vs. WM ones. In general, I'd argue that the Felix with a Bow and range is optimal more often than the latter (similarly to Grem/Lock/DF Constance), but people undervalue his ability to utilize aegis shield fully with killer knuckles as an infantry unit. He, similarly to aura knuckles Constance, has the ability to completely trash boss/beast bars (including final map ones) in a way that only Edelgard with Aymr can surpass (and even then, he does it more consistently because you need the Raging Storm crits).

Both builds have their merits and place (mostly because knuckles are just that fucking good in this game), so preference isn't really worth arguing over. As far as Annette goes, coming from someone who did BL NG blind first and used her as a pure mage with occasional rallies, WL Annette on subsequent playthroughs was just... multitudes more useful with a Bolt Axe and her combat art. Her spell list is just too limited as a pure caster, with Excalibur hardly feeling worthy of a deployment slot. Add in flying mobility and a harder nuke button and all of the sudden she's a flexible utility unit also capable of not only chipping, but deleting enemies herself. For example, Mercedes was hitting enemies harder, while also providing fortify/physic support. It felt so lopsided with her next to Merc and Lysth.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Relytive

[Relytive]

I will say though that WM Felix is much less meme, largely in part to his ability to utilize frequent aegis procs/better frontline bulk. You don't even need to raise authority on him as a recruit (his one true drawback typically), he can just use Jeralt's mercs and have all the extra crit and avoid he needs to help him nuke and have respectable dodge chance on top of defense/res/pavise/aegis.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Relytive

[Wishblade]

1 hour ago, Relytive said:

The debate over aura knuckles Constance kind of reminds me of the BK/Sniper Felix vs. WM ones. In general, I'd argue that the Felix with a Bow and range is optimal more often than the latter (similarly to Grem/Lock/DF Constance), but people undervalue his ability to utilize aegis shield fully with killer knuckles as an infantry unit. He, similarly to aura knuckles Constance, has the ability to completely trash boss/beast bars (including final map ones) in a way that only Edelgard with Aymr can surpass (and even then, he does it more consistently because you need the Raging Storm crits).

Both builds have their merits and place (mostly because knuckles are just that fucking good in this game), so preference isn't really worth arguing over. As far as Annette goes, coming from someone who did BL NG blind first and used her as a pure mage with occasional rallies, WL Annette on subsequent playthroughs was just... multitudes more useful with a Bolt Axe and her combat art. Her spell list is just too limited as a pure caster, with Excalibur hardly feeling worthy of a deployment slot. Add in flying mobility and a harder nuke button and all of the sudden she's a flexible utility unit also capable of not only chipping, but deleting enemies herself. For example, Mercedes was hitting enemies harder, while also providing fortify/physic support. It felt so lopsided with her next to Merc and Lysth.

The point is that, just because it’s my preference doesn’t mean you can call it worthless. It provides a niche (brave magic attack) that I have yet to see in any other build.

There is one build that can surpass Edelgard with Aymr. Defiant crit Vengeance with killer lance. I’ve seen people do this and the numbers go as high as >100 damage, 100 hit and 100 crit.

As for Felix, I personally prefer Grappler because I tend to place more combat in player phase. If you give up his axe skills, he can focus on brawl and authority, aiming at S+ and B respectively. I gave him a battalion with high crit (Goneril Valkyrie) and I enjoyed every Fierce Iron Fist with double fistfaire.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Wishblade

[Relytive]

44 minutes ago, Wishblade said:

The point is that, just because it’s my preference doesn’t mean you can call it worthless. It provides a niche (brave magic attack) that I have yet to see in any other build.

There is one build that can surpass Edelgard with Aymr. Defiant crit Vengeance with killer lance. I’ve seen people do this and the numbers go as high as >100 damage, 100 hit and 100 crit.

As for Felix, I personally prefer Grappler because I tend to place more combat in player phase. If you give up his axe skills, he can focus on brawl and authority, aiming at S+ and B respectively. I gave him a battalion with high crit (Goneril Valkyrie) and I enjoyed every Fierce Iron Fist with double fistfaire.

To be clear, my stance was that it is actually a good setup, including on NG maddening routes. I wasn't bashing it. I myself have an aura knuckles Constance on a VW NG run atm, I know how strong it is 😛

[Relytive]

And I also agree that grappler Felix on non-CF routes is also very good (comfortably lets you get that S+ gauntlet rank). I was just saying he is so strong with killer knuckles in wm that you can legit get away with like E authority and jeralts mercs. Just did a CF run where he ended up with S gauntlets barely, and A axes, D Auth, and he wiped the the final bosses up bars himself.

[Wishblade]

4 minutes ago, Relytive said:

To be clear, my stance was that it is actually a good setup, including on NG maddening routes. I wasn't bashing it. I myself have an aura knuckles Constance on a VW NG run atm, I know how strong it is 😛

That’s good news to hear. I wasn’t criticising you. There’s just one person in this thread who kept calling my builds worthless.