How is the weapon balance in 3Hs?

[Shadow Mir]

On 2/25/2020 at 9:20 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

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.

Compared to a physical unit getting the hit AND the attack boost, it's a waste because I have to make one of my physical fliers worse and I seriously doubt the benefits would even come close to making up for this.

13 hours ago, Relytive said:

Both builds have their merits and place (mostly because knuckles are just that fucking good in this game)

I disagree with the part in parentheses - brave weapons beat the shit out of gauntlets and take their lunch money. I mean, sure, gauntlets get more benefit out of Death Blow and such, but so do braves, except they aren't saddled with their strongest weapons having less might than an iron sword without DLC. Gauntlets' already shitty case isn't helped by the fact that they cannot be used by mounted units, and some of the better classes in this game are mounted.

[Cysx]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I disagree with the part in parentheses - brave weapons beat the shit out of gauntlets and take their lunch money. I mean, sure, gauntlets get more benefit out of Death Blow and such, but so do braves, except they aren't saddled with their strongest weapons having less might than an iron sword without DLC. Gauntlets' already shitty case isn't helped by the fact that they cannot be used by mounted units, and some of the better classes in this game are mounted.

Are you currently praising a weapon category that has low accuracy and high weight over a weapon type that doesn't? Yes I am absolutely being cheeky.

With Death blow and faire, Gauntlets kill stuff dead, low mt or not, and while they're much less effective before lv20, other brave weapons/arts don't really exist either(outside of the Thunderbrand) so they still have a purpose for high strength units. Braves are awesome too, mind you, although limited in the sense that they're difficult to forge/repair. Also the Killer gauntlets(+) is a pretty dumb item that makes Grapplers/Warmasters just eat through monsters/endgame bosses lifebars in a way pretty much nothing else in this game can(at least not without the weed).

Honestly, if fliers could use them mounted, or worse yet, if we had a gauntletfaire flier class, I can guarantee you that every cynic out there would do a 180 on them. It's not a shortcoming that they can't, if anything it's pretty decent balancing.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Cysx

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

36 minutes ago, Cysx said:

Are you currently praising a weapon category that has low accuracy and high weight over a weapon type that doesn't? Yes I am absolutely being cheeky.

Brave Axe has 60 Hit?

L I T E R A L L Y

U N U S A B L E .

38 minutes ago, Cysx said:

With Death blow and faire, Gauntlets kill stuff dead, low mt or not, and while they're much less effective before lv20, other brave weapons/arts don't really exist either(outside of the Thunderbrand) so they still have a purpose for high strength units. Braves are awesome too, mind you, although limited in the sense that they're difficult to forge/repair. Also the Killer gauntlets(+) is a pretty dumb item that makes Grapplers/Warmasters just eat through monsters/endgame bosses lifebars in a way pretty much nothing else in this game can(at least not without the weed).

Seconding all this. Adding on a couple factors, though - Gauntlets (as do, yes, the pricier and less accessible Brave weapons) get a physical attack boost from their batallion with each hit. Alongside good stuff like Fistfaire and Death Blow. Moreover, Fierce Iron Fist (three consecutive strikes) and One-Two Punch (free Quick Riposte) are among the best combat arts in the game.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

Are you currently praising a weapon category that has low accuracy and high weight over a weapon type that doesn't? Yes I am absolutely being cheeky.

With Death blow and faire, Gauntlets kill stuff dead, low mt or not, and while they're much less effective before lv20, other brave weapons/arts don't really exist either(outside of the Thunderbrand) so they still have a purpose for high strength units. Braves are awesome too, mind you, although limited in the sense that they're difficult to forge/repair. Also the Killer gauntlets(+) is a pretty dumb item that makes Grapplers/Warmasters just eat through monsters/endgame bosses lifebars in a way pretty much nothing else in this game can(at least not without the weed).

Honestly, if fliers could use them mounted, or worse yet, if we had a gauntletfaire flier class, I can guarantee you that every cynic out there would do a 180 on them. It's not a shortcoming that they can't, if anything it's pretty decent balancing.

So do braves. Sure, I'll admit they don't have the best stat lines, but neither do gauntlets, as like I said earlier, short of the relic weapon that is locked behind a paywall, they have only 4 might at most. It doesn't really help matters that most of the gauntlet specialists are questionable at best and outright bad at worst, unit wise, or can be effective in other classes. Nor does it that the Fistfaire classes are male-exclusive, meaning someone who mostly uses females probably won't find much use for them. To be fair, the DLC did try to fix this... but unfortunately, it did a very poor job of it since War Monk/Cleric is extremely awkward to class into.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Cysx]

54 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

So do braves.

Well not really. There's no brave weapon/art with crit outside of gauntlets - edit: What is Hunter's volley -  for starters(and any of them would take a 3 mt brave with 30 crit, simply because that's genuinely valuable), and while monsters are generally slower, it takes a lot of speed to quad with a brave. Varies from one monster type to the other. As for endgame bosses that's generally out of reach.

It's true that Raphael and Caspar are among the worst characters in the game(then again Felix and Byleth are among the best, it's not very different from bow strength distribution in that sense), but if anything, the fact that even they become useful almost magically the moment they get access to Grappler is a pretty good indication that gauntlets are a very exploitable weapon type. As for females not really being able to use them and War Monk being a bit of an awkward class(Constance, and maybe Catherine aside), that is unfortunate, but kind of unrelated...? There's still quite a few candidates in any case; you can't make an entire team out of them, but you're unlikely to run short on a regular playthrough.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Cysx

[Wishblade]

8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

So do braves. Sure, I'll admit they don't have the best stat lines, but neither do gauntlets, as like I said earlier, short of the relic weapon that is locked behind a paywall, they have only 4 might at most. It doesn't really help matters that most of the gauntlet specialists are questionable at best and outright bad at worst, unit wise, or can be effective in other classes. Nor does it that the Fistfaire classes are male-exclusive, meaning someone who mostly uses females probably won't find much use for them. To be fair, the DLC did try to fix this... but unfortunately, it did a very poor job of it since War Monk/Cleric is extremely awkward to class into.

Wow. Praising Brave Axe while Bolt Axe is literally unusable. I’m impressed.

Relying heavily on Brave Sword/Axe/Lance/Bow? Not my stuff. How do you get that many wootz steel? Gauntlets have way higher durability, so they do not break as often, neither do they go through the trouble of farming wootz steel. Using traditional brave weapons is too much effort for too little output.

I’m not talking about accuracy, but how about the weight? Oh my goose, Brave axe is just 1 wt lighter than Bolt Axe. Even the lightest of them, Brave Sword (Bow), has 12 wt. Don’t dream about quadrupling with them, not to mention that you will be doubled to death if you missed one attack. Meanwhile, the Grapplers have really good AS because the gauntlets are so stupidly light. With a little help from stat boosters, even Constance started to quad monsters in maddening. And the males don’t need them because they have Fierce Iron Fist. Quad & triple VS double, they aren’t remotely comparable.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Wishblade

[Relytive]

8 hours ago, Cysx said:

Are you currently praising a weapon category that has low accuracy and high weight over a weapon type that doesn't? Yes I am absolutely being cheeky.

With Death blow and faire, Gauntlets kill stuff dead, low mt or not, and while they're much less effective before lv20, other brave weapons/arts don't really exist either(outside of the Thunderbrand) so they still have a purpose for high strength units. Braves are awesome too, mind you, although limited in the sense that they're difficult to forge/repair. Also the Killer gauntlets(+) is a pretty dumb item that makes Grapplers/Warmasters just eat through monsters/endgame bosses lifebars in a way pretty much nothing else in this game can(at least not without the weed).

Honestly, if fliers could use them mounted, or worse yet, if we had a gauntletfaire flier class, I can guarantee you that every cynic out there would do a 180 on them. It's not a shortcoming that they can't, if anything it's pretty decent balancing.

Not to mention in addition to what you listed, there are no Brave killer equivalents/it's reasonable to double even endgame enemies with gauntlets (x4) on a character like Felix. Brave axe, lance, even sword... not so much. Gauntlets have clear advantages. Braves are great (albeit, more conservative usage is necessary because you aren't showered with wootz on no grind NG), though.

Edit: I should have read the replies as others already covered it, but yeah, killer knuckles are their own niche of power, tl;dr.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Relytive

[Vitezen]

Would you say gauntlets are good enough that it's worth making Raphael and Caspar war masters over wyvern lords?

[Wishblade]

45 minutes ago, Vitezen said:

Would you say gauntlets are good enough that it's worth making Raphael and Caspar war masters over wyvern lords?

I can’t say for sure, because, strictly speaking, War Master is not the highest tier gauntlet class. It’s just the highest tier axe class with a stupidly good +20 crit skill. However, +20 crit isn’t enough to guarantee crit in a double unless you have mastered Wyvern Lord for defiant crit.

It’s definitely worth it to make Caspar and Raphael Grapplers. It’s available 10 levels before War Master, can traverse through forests without movement penalty, and has access to Fierce Iron Fist. Grappler is a highly player-phase oriented class that gives its user very high HP growth so they can take some hits without dying. Its mastery, Fierce Iron Fist, a triple gauntlet attack, is one of the best combat art in the game and consistently ORKO. Grappler is a good endgame class for Raphael, since he isn’t fast enough to quad people in maddening to benefit from +20 crit more than Fierce Iron Fist.

Edited February 29, 2020 by Wishblade

[Vitezen]

17 hours ago, Wishblade said:

I can’t say for sure, because, strictly speaking, War Master is not the highest tier gauntlet class. It’s just the highest tier axe class with a stupidly good +20 crit skill. However, +20 crit isn’t enough to guarantee crit in a double unless you have mastered Wyvern Lord for defiant crit.

It’s definitely worth it to make Caspar and Raphael Grapplers. It’s available 10 levels before War Master, can traverse through forests without movement penalty, and has access to Fierce Iron Fist. Grappler is a highly player-phase oriented class that gives its user very high HP growth so they can take some hits without dying. Its mastery, Fierce Iron Fist, a triple gauntlet attack, is one of the best combat art in the game and consistently ORKO. Grappler is a good endgame class for Raphael, since he isn’t fast enough to quad people in maddening to benefit from +20 crit more than Fierce Iron Fist.

These are good points. And even if you want Raphael to crit, it's easier to get him to crit with killer gauntlets and dex seeds than it is to fix his speed and get him to double/quad. There's nothing stopping him from training in axes anyway if he needs them. Then I guess it just comes down to whether Raphael needs the mobility of a wyvern, which depends more on how many other mounted units you're using. However, Caspar doesn't have as much of a speed or crit problem as Raphael.

[Shadow Mir]

On 2/27/2020 at 2:55 PM, Cysx said:

Well not really. There's no brave weapon/art with crit outside of gauntlets for starters(and any of them would take a 3 mt brave with 30 crit, simply because that's genuinely valuable), and while monsters are generally slower, it takes a lot of speed to quad with a brave. Varies from one monster type to the other. As for endgame bosses that's generally out of reach.

It's true that Raphael and Caspar are among the worst characters in the game(then again Felix and Byleth are among the best, it's not very different from bow strength distribution in that sense), but if anything, the fact that even they become useful almost magically the moment they get access to Grappler is a pretty good indication that gauntlets are a very exploitable weapon type. As for females not really being able to use them and War Monk being a bit of an awkward class(Constance, and maybe Catherine aside), that is unfortunate, but kind of unrelated...? There's still quite a few candidates in any case; you can't make an entire team out of them, but you're unlikely to run short on a regular playthrough.

I don't see why you're going on and on about crit since unless you build around getting really high crit scores, you'll have to plan around them not getting invoked anyway. Also, monsters are generally not the highest priority on my kill list; like I said, those would be assassins and swordmasters, which can double pretty much everything. I don't see most monsters as threatening enough to warrant something specialized in killing them when they're easy pickings for a turn once all their armor is gone, which is usually all I need to put them down. Well, that, and most of them aren't that threatening anyway. Anyway, my issue with gauntlets is that they're completely one-dimensional - if you're going to be one-dimensional, it'd help if, you know, the one thing you're good for isn't replicatable by other means that have other uses in addition to your one good point (in this case, brave weapons). . . or that you don't have glaring weaknesses that cripple you to the extent your good points are overshadowed.

At the same time, I'd argue them needing to reach an advanced class to stop sucking only showcases just how bad they are, with Caspar in particular often considered as arguably the worst student in the game. I mean, would YOU be willing to drag Raphael along for that long despite the fact that he's pretty much going to be the worst unit on your team??? What's more, I'd correct your point about there being quite a few candidates for gauntlets to pretty much require favoring male units, thanks to nearly all the gauntlet specialist classes being male only.

Edited March 1, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Wishblade]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I don't see why you're going on and on about crit since unless you build around getting really high crit scores, you'll have to plan around them not getting invoked anyway. Also, monsters are generally not the highest priority on my kill list; like I said, those would be assassins and swordmasters, which can double pretty much everything. I don't see most monsters as threatening enough to warrant something specialized in killing them when they're easy pickings for a turn once all their armor is gone, which is usually all I need to put them down. Well, that, and most of them aren't that threatening anyway.

That’s where you are wrong. Grapplers are some of the best units at taking out enemy swordmasters and assassins with their Fierce Iron Fist. I know crits aren’t reliable so I always refuse to let my Grapplers become War Masters. Swift Strike Paladins are powerful, but they are not always powerful enough to ORKO swordmasters by themselves. Grapplers, on the other hand, has Fierce Iron Fist that strikes thrice. Most Grappler candidates have respectable str growth. If you spend the slightest effort to give them Death Blow and a good physical battalion, ORKO’ing swordmasters and assassins is 100% achievable without any crit.

As for monsters, it’s not that Grapplers are required to delete them. It just saves your other units to deal with other enemies. Their crit avoid is so low that Grapplers are usually able to secure a crit and ORKO them. In exactly which lategame chapter do you see an isolated monster?

Edited March 1, 2020 by Wishblade

[Cysx]

54 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I don't see why you're going on and on about crit since unless you build around getting really high crit scores, you'll have to plan around them not getting invoked anyway. Also, monsters are generally not the highest priority on my kill list; like I said, those would be assassins and swordmasters, which can double pretty much everything. I don't see most monsters as threatening enough to warrant something specialized in killing them when they're easy pickings for a turn once all their armor is gone, which is usually all I need to put them down. Well, that, and most of them aren't that threatening anyway

Well, here's the thing, you'd think a 60% crit rate is unreliable, but when applied twice it becomes a 84% chance to get at least one crit, and thrice is ~93%. Crits are strong enough in FE that even getting one makes a massive difference. I get the feeling you're going to tell me that's not reliable enough, and to that I'll say, it's plenty for me! Also note than WM may only hit twice, but they get +10 crit than FIF users, so it evens out the odds.
Now admittedly it takes a bit of effort to get to 60% displayed crit with FiF, but it's doable.
 

The reason I brought up monsters is because Assassins and SMs are comparably something more builds can reasonably ORKO(including gauntlet users). It's not necessarily about monsters being dangerous either(although they can definitely be very problematic if you have many other things to deal with, play maddening, etc), the goal is clearing them faster. As for endgame bosses, I'm unsure how easy it is to take down the final boss of SS in particular in one turn without gauntlet users(again, all is possible with nigh infinite stat boosters, though), and they're really helpful for the AM one as well. I hear both are pretty tough maddening chapters when cleared "normally".

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

if you're going to be one-dimensional, it'd help if, you know, the one thing you're good for isn't replicatable by other means that have other uses in addition to your one good point (in this case, brave weapons). . .

We've been over this already... And yes, gauntlets do have shortcomings, it's a fair thing to say.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

At the same time, I'd argue them needing to reach an advanced class to stop sucking only showcases just how bad they are, with Caspar in particular often considered as arguably the worst student in the game. I mean, would YOU be willing to drag Raphael along for that long despite the fact that he's pretty much going to be the worst unit on your team??? What's more, I'd correct your point about there being quite a few candidates for gauntlets to pretty much require favoring male units, thanks to nearly all the gauntlet specialist classes being male only.

The argument still stands, though; if you put Caspar on a Wyvern on madd, he'll still be pretty awful, many have tried. Grappler on the other hand, salvages him, proving that it's an effective class. Doesn't mean you have to use Caspar, it's an example(although if you're going SS, he's one of your key units in ch 13. So it's a pain, but it's not pointless at least). And I did drop Raphael on my VW run so I can't really defend him.

Competent male units with a gauntlet proficiency are Felix, M!Byleth, and Alois. If you're BL, there's Dedue. If you have the dlc, there's Balthus. If you absolutely want more, well, Caspar and Raphael can generally work as late recruits(no blow, but better base strength). Is that less than other weapon types? Yes, yes it is. But you do have options still, and either Grappler with FIF or WM tend to be the best builds of most of these characters(Felix being very debatable).
... About Alois, he joins with Grappler all but unlocked and a solid strength base. He's no Seteth but he ORKOs things with even less investment. He's not a bad unit.

[Wishblade]

7 hours ago, Cysx said:

As for endgame bosses, I'm unsure how easy it is to take down the final boss of SS in particular in one turn without gauntlet users(again, all is possible with nigh infinite stat boosters, though), and they're really helpful for the AM one as well. I hear both are pretty tough maddening chapters when cleared "normally".

I don’t think 1-turning the Immaculate in SS is practical, especially in maddening. It’s not particularly useful either. You see, I’m an advocate of nuke build myself, and it took me 3 turns to finish her off with 2 gauntlet users (Constance and Balthus).

As for the AM one, I have 1-turned Hegemon on maddening before with Dance of the Goddess gambit and a Grappler Felix. (My motivation is that I don’t want to deal with Bolting reinforcement.) However, unlike Hegemon, the Immaculate doesn’t have trash stats. Apart from high crit avoid, she also has Ancient Dragonskin that halves all damage received, effectively putting her health above 1200. Now that’s something disgusting to 1-turn.

Still, Constance and Balthus helped a lot by deleting the white beasts and golems wherever they go.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Wishblade

[Cysx]

30 minutes ago, Wishblade said:

I don’t think 1-turning the Immaculate in SS is practical, especially in maddening. It’s not particularly useful either. You see, I’m an advocate of nuke build myself, and it took me 3 turns to finish her off with 2 gauntlet users (Constance and Balthus).

Did you take advantage of a dancing battalion? I've only roughly theorycrafted it, to be honest(and done it on hard, but that's pretty different obviously). I am aware of the stats though.

 

[Wishblade]

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

Did you take advantage of a dancing battalion? I've only roughly theorycrafted it, to be honest(and done it on hard, but that's pretty different obviously). I am aware of the stats though.

 

No, I didn’t use dancing gambit against the Immaculate. If I had used it, it would probably have been reduced to a 2 turn KO. You need quite some crits, and probably 2 or more Grapplers/Warmasters, to KO her in 1 turn.

And then you would want to spend a lot of time doing tea parties considering the Immaculate’s disgustingly high cha. I didn’t spend much effort in it, and that’s one reason why my KO took 3 turns.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Wishblade

[UNLEASH IT]

3H just kinda reinforced my opinion that Weapon Durability doesn't function well in a game where you have access to non-limited armory between every battle, especially in a game that gives you much money. I would have preferred if they took the fates system and tried to improve on it. The repair system removes clutter so that's nice. 

Edited April 18, 2020 by UNLEASH IT