Mavi251 Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 (edited) Before you read further we should understand the rules by which this Tier-List was made and the restrictions/considerations that went into it. They are as follows: 1) The game is played on New Game, not New Game+ 2) No paid DLC items/benefits/characters can be used. 3) Efficient, but not LTC level play is assumed. 4) The Tier List represents my evaluation of unit performance on Maddening Mode throughout Crimson Flower after 6 playthroughs of the route. My fastest run is 19:57 with a healthy amount of messing around/testing/unnecessary exploration/doing unnecessary paralogues. I'm still mapping out a lot of the details but It's more than possible to shave 4-6 hours off of this time. S+ Tier: Edelgard: Not too much to say about this one, it should be fairly uncontroversial. She hits like a train, has access to the Peg-Knight Class, has Monster Breaker for big-hits, near-perfect availability, decent growths, and easy access to the Wyvern class line for flying and a Class-fare. Amyr is also hilariously broken, to add. Too bad her personal classes are garbage. F!Byleth: In my opinion, easy access to the Lance of Ruin (LOR) from her ability to recruit Slyvain with no requirements other than being female (lol) is the main thing that makes F!Byleth better than M!Byleth. She also can become a Peg-Knight, which is amazing for the ability to fly and access to Darting Blow. Sylvain is also an amazing guard-adjutant; recruit him before the Miklan chapter, get him a single level during said chapter and promote him to armour-knight when you're able to. On another note, She and Edlegard are among a select few who can reliably survive being exposed on enemy-phase without the use of Impenetrable Wall/Blessing, especially in the early/mid-game where it matters most. The Sword of the Creator is meh in the early game due to its weight but its 1-2 range and special Combat Art are nice. Though if you're attacking at range you're better off using an Iron Bow+ for the accuracy/lighter weight/lower cost and Curved Shot access unless you are also are exposing her on enemy phase without any means to switch her weapon. I generally focus on lances/axes on F!Byleth because of promotion requirements. The Sublime Creator Sword is fairly decent when you get it, though I rarely find myself using it. F!Byleth is solid all around, it's hard to go wrong here unless you make her a mage. Bernadetta: Probably the most controversial placement on this list. She is carried almost entirely by her early access to the Vengeance Combat Art, Pass Skill, and high-average Dexterity. Bernie's Vengeance has a C+ Lance rank requirement and synergizes well with her personal skill; this is easy to get before Chapter 5 with her boon in Lances. Bernie has easy access to the Cavalier and Peg-Knight classes early on, as well. She's one of the few units on your squad in the early game that can dish out heavy single attack damage, all she needs is a steel lance/bow and her personal skill activated for her to deal 20+ damage with Tempest Lance in the first few chapters The damage formula for Vengeance is as follows: (Missing HP + 2). This seems unassuming at first but is incredibly powerful. This means her attack value, when using this combat art, scales off her HP and STR, so her mediocre growths in those areas are almost entirely offset by their combined value and ability to boost to a class' stat bases. That said, she'll be able to use Training Lances and One-Hit-Kill (OHK) nearly every enemy generic throughout the game with 100% accuracy from the moment she unlocks Vengeance. Toss her the accuracy ring and a +hit battalion and you'll seldom need to think about accuracy. Continuing, the Paladin class has a base STR of 17 and a class modifier of +2 for a minimum physical attack value of 19. This boost, in conjunction with other modifiers like the HP +5 skill (the early game skill most people switch out) that effectively acts as a Fare-skill, battalions, strong weapons, HP boosters (Seraph robes also give her what is effectively +5 attack) and you can get to some insane numbers. Why is this important? Because every CF post-time skip map is defeat boss(es) and can be cleared quickly with warp/stride setups. She just so happens to be one of the few units who can reliably OHK even the most dangerous enemies in the game. Bernie also has access to the Pass skill via her Budding Talent. You can use this to ride/fly right through enemy formations that would otherwise hinder other potential boss killers. She also gets an insane attack bonus from the Paladin promotion due to the minimum strength stat adjustment in addition to the Class' HP boost and Lance-fare. Let's assume that you did Alois' easily one-turnable paralogue and gave Bernie the Seraph Robe you get from it. We're now at C12 and Bernie is a level 23 Paladin with roughly 41+5 HP, 20 STR and has a D-Rank battalion (Lv. 5 Empire Pegasus Co. ) that gives her +4 attack and +15 hit. Let's give her the LOR (22mt weapon) and the Str + 2 skill as well. After factoring in a STR rally, her personal skill, and other variables, this Bernie has, when using Vengeance, an attack value of 109. What does this mean in practice? !Maddening C12 Seteth has a maximum physical endurance of 97. Bernie can easily OHK him. !Maddening C12 Rhea has a maximum physical endurance of 90. Bernie can easily OHK her. Pass is useful to reach her easily. !Maddening C14 Claude has a maximum physical endurance of 92. Bernie can easily OHK him for a two-turn clear. !Maddening C15 Seteth has a maximum physical endurance of 114. Bernie is the only unit in the game who can reliably reach this value by this point in the game without grinding levels and/or stat boosters and/or getting RNG blessed. Use the +3 HP meals (which stack) to boost yourself to that number if you need to. Pass is useful to reach him easily and clear the chapter in 5-6 turns with a stride/warp setup. !Maddening C17 Rhea has a maximum physical endurance of 118. Use a +3 meal if you need to. Bernie, again, can easily OHK her by the time you reach this point assuming she gets average level-ups as a Paladin/Flier. !Maddening C17 Dimitri has a maximum physical endurance of 117. Bernie can easily OHK him by time you reach this chapter. This map can also be cleared reliably in 5-6 turns by setting up stride and warp; it can be cleared in 1-3 turns if you're willing to do some Amyr RNG abusing with an above-average strength Edelgard. This methods also ensures you don't need to survive a round against his 85 physical attack and 39 attack speed. There is a multitude of bosses that are far less durable than those listed above; Bernie easily slaps them and almost every generic you'll come across. Those that don't such as bosses with extreme physical durability like Gwendal and Gilbert are easily dispatched with effective weapons and magic. The main downside to using her in this way is that she has no enemy phase presence, restricts the use of fortify (if you're even using it) and cannot ever take a counter. However, this is almost a non-issue in an efficient playthrough as everyone except your dedicated combat units will get ORKO'd by Maddening mode enemies without the use of Impenetrable Wall/Blessing; you will need to find a way to keep people safe regardless. Thankfully FETH Maddening is among, if not the most player-phase oriented game in the franchise. She's best off of course as a Cav/Paladin/Flier, all of which have Canto and good movement; these traits in conjunction with the Pass Skill help in making sure she's safe after assassinating a target of your choice. TL:DR Contrary to the opinions of many, especially those of more prominent figures in the community, Bernie starts OHK'ing the vast majority enemies from the moment she gets Vengeance (which she can have as early as Chapter 4) and has myriad ways to reach OHK thresholds for many of every route's most dangerous bosses. She enables fast clears of CF Maddening (and Maddening in general) with minimal grinding/setup/thinking involved. She doesn't require any additional skills to function, unlike most other combat units which all pine for Death Blow and Darting Blow. The only skills she benefits strongly from is Hit+20 which is overkill in most cases if you're setting up linked-attacks for boss kills. Most units in my runs don't even promote to an advanced class before it's over. Bernie is 10/10 on CF and 9.5/10 on the other three routes. Two other units (Dedue and Cyril) also have Vengeance (both units need A-rank lances) but do not have the other traits that allow Bernie to make such excellent use of the Combat Art. PS: You can use guard-adjutants, shields, enemy bow users with poison strikes, rusted weapons (so that Bernie gets doubled), battalions and/or devil weapons to ensure Bernie gets dropped to 1HP with minimal difficulty. S Tier: M!Byleth: Mostly the same as F!Byleth, just without early flying access (which hurts) and early access to the LOR and a decent guard-adjutant in Sylvain. He does have access to Quick-Reposite but isn't that useful as he will usually be strong enough to not need it by the time you get it (which is late in the game as War-Master is a Master Class). Dorothea: Heal, physic and 1-3 range magic damage in the early game is useful. She doesn't require any special treatment if you're planning on using her as a dancer. Arguably, she's probably the best dancer option because of her high natural charm (don't have to worry about failing the dance contest/getting charm screwed) and access to the Meteor spell. She's able to equip Meteor to give an accuracy and evasion boost via supports to any of your units that enter combat in her range; it also helps with gambit damage/accuracy. She also has a boon in Black Magic which can help her hit A-Rank easier. She's fairly important in clearing maps quickly, setting up linked-attacks for boss kills, and just improving the reliability of any attack. Giving her the Thyrsus can also help with this (I don't use any combat mages so there isn't any competition for the item). A Tier: Linhart: Has warp, perfect availability, and a solid support spell list. He can also chip if you need him to. Can't really go wrong here. Manuela: She has Warp. That's enough for an A-Rank. Use her silence/ward spells to level up while other people do stuff. I suggest unlocking the magic +2 skill for slightly larger warp range, as well. Felix: I usually don't focus swords on Byleth but requirement Felix is usually worth it. You can get him fairly easily with a C or B support. He auto levels well and if recruited around C10-12 he'll be in a position to start scaling with a bit of favouritism/attention. Unlike other units, this favouritism translates into a fairly powerful unit. He also has supports with Sylvain (guard adjutant) and Ingrid (flying adjutant) that give him +1 attack per support level. Heavy Draw (+8) damage is also a decent combat art. I generally class change from Mercenary to archer then assassin then Wyvern rider or Sniper once he's gained enough skill ranks. He's among the few combat units worth using in a ground-locked class. B Tier: Ferdinand Von Aegir - team debuffer/buffer. I only use Byleth/Edelgard/Felix/Jeritiza as combat units so Ferdie doesn't get enough EXP to be combat viable. Swift-strikes is cool but requires A-Rank Lances, which sucks. I generally make him a Cavalier, give him a guard adjutant, and let him use Shatter Slash with Seal Speed to cripple select targets in the early/mid-game. This combination can make Golem/Monster-slaying really easy as well. His Crest also has a %30 chance to let him prevent a counter-attack, which is nice but never necessary. His Dex rally can help Bernie/Edel/F!Byleth reach 100% accuracy for boss kills, as well. Ingrid: She auto-levels like a beast and has generally goods stats all around. She usually has decent charm that synergizes well with her personal skill, making for a reliable offensive gambit user. She's arguably not worth training as a combat unit but she can definitely chip/finish off enemies. She has attack boosting supports with Felix and Sylvain, which can be useful. Her paralogue is also amazing as it gets you a flying B-rank battalion, the Luin (17 MT lance), and a devil weapon, along with some other less important items. This is one of the few paralogues worth doing. Jeritiza: By the time you get him you should have a team situated to clear the rest of the game. He's strong and has decent skill-ranks across the board. Lysithea: Don't recruit her pre-time skip. You can recruit her in C14 and deploy her in the month of C15 onward. She's level 29 when you recruit her post-time-skip and has excellent magic (29 at base). It is worth it to use a knowledge gem and do a single auxiliary battle to quickly get her access to Warp. It doesn't matter much if she's a Gremory or Bishop, she's only useful for the X2 Warp uses. You only get to use her for the last few chapters but she's far better than she otherwise would be compared to a pre-time skip recruitment due to not needing to feed her exp, not taking up a deployment slot, or risk her getting RNG-screwed. If you don't need the extra Warper then just bench her. Shamir: Decent option to fill a slot on your team if you need it. She has the earliest access to Hunter's Volley which can be nice. C Tier: Slyvain: Not worth using on his own in my opinion but he makes an excellent guard adjutant as he auto-levels in axes. Attach him to someone who needs a guard adjutant or someone like Felix to get the most mileage out of him. His paralogue also gives a stride battalion and the LOR if you didn't recruit him before the Miklan chapter and refuse to give the LOR to Rhea. Ashe: Auto levels in axes which means that he's a good option for a guard adjutant. He is recruited via Charm/Lances which is easy enough if you're playing F!Byleth. His paralogue can be cleared quickly with preparation, it also gives a consumable item that grants +1 move. It is debatable whether it's worth doing, though. Alois: Strength/luck rally. Use him as a guard adjutant when not rallying. Annette: Is kind of a pain to recruit, but her speed/str rally is useful. Though the speed boost is seldom relevant. She can be a backup gambit user as she auto-levels in authority. Petra: She usually ends up too frail and weak to fight efficiently on Maddening, she has no strong niches to compensate for this short-coming. Hubert: Huburt is super useful even at a low level. Mire can inflict -6 DEF on an enemy from 3-range. He can deal decent chip damage in the early game, debuff, and immobilize enemies; he has an easier time doing this with range boosting items like the Thrysus. You could have 1-6 range with the Valkryie Class but that's DLC so RIP. D Tier: Leonie: She can make a decent combat unit and auto-levels well. There are simply better combat units with more useful niches/traits. Hanneman: Meh. He's a decent mage with access to Meteor which I suppose lets him function as a dancer. I haven't found a good use for him, perhaps someone has a non-meme setup for him. Lorenz: Only useful for the Thyrsus. His paralogue can easily be cleared in 1-2 turns with stride and fliers. He can do some funny things with battalion vantage if you train him as a magic unit due to most magic users having high single attack damage. E Tier: Ignatz: He has what is probably the best personal skill in the game in Hit +20. I'm trying to find some uses for him but haven't had much success. Mercedes: You don't need another long-term healer. To be fair, she is hands down the best no-nonsense healer in the game (Fortify/Physic/Heal/Restore). I always ask her to assist with missions in the early game as her ability to deal decent chip damage and heal with physic is nice. She doesn't siphon exp away from your main squad like what would be the case with offense units you might ask for mission assistance. Marianne: Mostly the same as above, just slightly worse. Raph: You don't need a bulky male fighter-type character. He's good if you're playing casually but is mostly useless in a fast play-through. Casper: Male fighter with no redeeming traits. Among the worst units in the game along with Dedue and Raph. Flayn was excluded for what I hope are obvious reasons. Feel free to disagree/offer suggestions, just keep it civil. Edited March 7, 2020 by Mavi251 Small calculation corrections. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, Mavi251 said: Hubert: Huburt is super useful even at a low level. Mire can inflict -6 DEF on an enemy from 3-range. He can deal decent chip damage in the early game, debuff, and immobilize enemies; he has an easier time doing this with range boosting items like the Thrysus. You could have 1-6 range with the Valkryie Class but that's DLC so RIP. Bold: It's also female only. 2 hours ago, Mavi251 said: Lysithea: Don't recruit her pre-time skip. You can recruit her in C14 and deploy her in the month of C15 onward. She's level 29 when you recruit her post-time-skip and has excellent magic (29 at base). It is worth it to use a knowledge gem and do a single auxiliary battle to quickly get her access to Warp. It doesn't matter much if she's a Gremory or Bishop, she's only useful for the X2 Warp uses. You only get to use her for the last few chapters but she's far better than she otherwise would be compared to a pre-time skip recruitment due to not needing to feed her exp, not taking up a deployment slot, or risk her getting RNG-screwed. If you don't need the extra Warper then just bench her. You do realize that tier lists tend to frown upon grinding, which this is? I'd consider it much better to recruit her in part 1 instead than have to grind her all the way from E+ up to B for Warp when I only have four chapters left. Edited March 7, 2020 by Shadow Mir Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoneRecon400 Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) My Thoughts over units: -I disagree with Bernie being in S+ Rank. While Vengeance is undoubtedly powerful, the setup it requires can be detrimental to skipping some maps easily compared to other options and the lack of bulk can be annoying when facing off things she can't kill in hit, such as monsters. - I don't see how Dorothea is a S tier unit. Her combat in the early game is very lack luster and lacks really any way way of fixing it that early while also doing really nothing to differentiate herself from other mages. About the only thing that makes her stand out is meteor, and by the time she obtains it most maps can already be completed 1 turn without it. While the Link Attack it can provide is alright, I'd hardly call it S tier worthy. - I also don't see how you can claim a recruited Felix for A Tier while having a Leonie ranked in D Tier when they have very similar bases, but Leonie has an easier time becoming a flier on top of having no Authority Bane and much higher base Defense. - Lysithea should not be recruited in Chapter 14 since that would mean she'd have E+ Faith. Considering that she's the only mage that learns Warp at B Faith and makes her capable of skipping chapters 5 and 6, she should be A tier at the very least. - Why is there a gap between Sylvain and Ferdinand? They're effectively pretty much the same unit. - There's no way Ashe is anything but a D rank unit. Acting as a Guard Adjutant is a role that can done by any other unit and is not exclusive to him. Are you taking in his paralogue rewards into consideration with his ranking? - While I agree with Petra's ranking, I disagree with reasoning. She has the highest base Speed out of any starting student, so she can regularly start doubling enemies once Bullheads come into effect. Having a boon in Flying means that she can also obtain Alert Stance + sooner than most and make good use out of her Battalion Wrath to destroy a lot of enemies on Enemy Phase. In general: - How is Monastery activities handled in general? Can we count on Fishing up for Bull heads to cook for extra Speed? How about Fishing for Professor EXP? What about Growing Stat boosters in the Garden? -Guard Adjutants aren't that valuable. While surviving on 1 HP can useful for unit like Bernadetta, you have to consider that it only applies when unit is being doubled, which most units aren't facing. Even when it does occur, reducing an attack by 30% at best isn't really worth much. - Most physical units also have the same 12 base Defense at level 10 considering how easy it is to certify as a Armor Knight. So I'd say most units don't have a durability lead on other units. Edited March 8, 2020 by LoneRecon400 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatManThree Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 Hanneman is often argued as one of if not the best mage in maddening mode in most cases to my knowledge outside of the addition of the abyss DLC. His nuking capabilities eliminate the need to rely on speed in a mode where trying to double things can be a nightmare. The addition of him learning Thoron and Meteor helps even more. What puts him above Dorothea in particular as a nuke is primarily his bases coupled with an extremely similar spell list where he does literally the exact same thing but without the need to double. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mavi251 Posted March 8, 2020 Author Share Posted March 8, 2020 1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said: Bold: It's also female only. You do realize that tier lists tend to frown upon grinding, which this is? I'd consider it much better to recruit her in part 1 instead than have to grind her all the way from E+ up to B for Warp when I only have four chapters left. You do realize that it takes less than three minutes in real time to do what i wrote by that point in the game, right? In the context of a 10+ hour run this is a drop in the ocean. It can add a degree of certainty as a backup option if you get magic-screwed on Manuela/Linhart. I also said she's not necessary, which she isn't. Good spot on the Huburt thing, I was moreso fantasizing about the possibility, such a shame. 1 hour ago, LoneRecon400 said: My Thoughts over units: -I disagree with Bernie being in S+ Rank. While Vengeance is undoubtedly powerful, the setup it requires can be detrimental to skipping some maps easily compared to other options and the lack of bulk can be annoying when facing off things she can't kill in hit, such as monsters. - I don't see how Dorothea is a S tier unit. Her combat in the early game is very lack luster and lacks really any way way of fixing it that early while also doing really nothing to differentiate herself from other mages. About the only thing that makes her stand out is meteor, and by the time she obtains it most maps can already be completed 1 turn without it. While the Link Attack it can provide is alright, I'd hardly call it S tier worthy. - I also don't see how you can claim a recruited Felix for A Tier while having a Leonie ranked in D Tier when they have very similar bases, but Leonie has an easier time becoming a flier on top of having no Authority Bane and much higher base Defense. - Lysithea should not be recruited in Chapter 14 since that would mean she'd have E+ Faith. Considering that she's the only mage that learns Warp at B Faith and makes her capable of skipping chapters 5 and 6, she should be A tier at the very least. - Why is there a gap between Sylvain and Ferdinand? They're effectively pretty much the same unit. - There's no way Ashe is anything but a D rank unit. Acting as a Guard Adjutant is a role that can done by any other unit and is not exclusive to him. Are you taking in his paralogue rewards into consideration with his ranking? - While I agree with Petra's ranking, I disagree with reasoning. She has the highest base Speed out of any starting student, so she can regularly start doubling enemies once Bullheads come into effect. Having a boon in Flying means that she can also obtain Alert Stance + sooner than most and make good use out of her Battalion Wrath to destroy a lot of enemies on Enemy Phase. In general: - How is Monastery activities handled in general? Can we count on Fishing up for Bull heads to cook for extra Speed? How about Fishing for Professor EXP? What about Growing Stat boosters in the Garden? -Guard Adjutants aren't that valuable. While surviving on 1 HP can useful for unit like Bernadetta, you have to consider that it only applies when unit is being doubled, which most units aren't facing. Even when it does occur, reducing an attack by 30% at best isn't really worth much. - Most physical units also have the same 12 base Defense at level 10 considering how easy it is to certify as a Armor Knight. So I'd say most units don't have a durability lead on other units. - She can't OHK all monsters from full but she can easily KO even slightly chipped monsters with Veng. Monsters with lower physical defense like the birds can also be OHK'd from full with better weaponry. Also, this is Maddening mode, when you say "skipping some maps easily compared to other options", which other options are you referring to? Preferably ones that don't require an extreme amount of favoritism or setup to become powerful. An Edelgard with 40 STR, a class-fare and Death Blow + Darting blow wouldn't be able ORKO many of the bosses I listed in Bernie's section so i'm not sure who these units you're referring to are. -Dorothea in the context of CF maddening is likely best dancer due to being able to backup heal, meteor support, has supports with the main cast, and perfect availability. She's of course carried by the dancer class, she wouldn't be anything close to S tier as a normal mage (none of the mages would be). - Felix has better offensive potential than Leonie in addition to supports that boost his attack further. He only needs D-Rank authority which is easy enough to get. Not everyone needs an A-Rank. "Lysithea should not be recruited in Chapter 14 since that would mean she'd have E+ Faith. Considering that she's the only mage that learns Warp at B Faith and makes her capable of skipping chapters 5 and 6, she should be A tier at the very least" - Good luck recruiting her and also getting her B-rank faith before C5 on New Game CF. "- There's no way Ashe is anything but a D rank unit. Acting as a Guard Adjutant is a role that can done by any other unit and is not exclusive to him. Are you taking in his paralogue rewards into consideration with his ranking?" Ashe auto-levels in axes, making him easy to promote/class change into an armour knight early on. He also has easy recruitment reqs, not everyone has these two characteristics. I also said his paralogue is arguably unnecessary. As for the Petra comments, speed is not that valuable on an efficient run of maddening. Some units can get enough speed to double the 30 AS ish enemies in the mid-game but its moreso a question of whether she can KO. Even when trained as a combat unit she struggles to do this without a load of attack boosting skills and is still at risk of dying to enemies with high single attack damage. "How is Monastery activities handled in general? Can we count on Fishing up for Bull heads to cook for extra Speed? How about Fishing for Professor EXP? What about Growing Stat boosters in the Garden?" -No, no, and when you're forced to explore/need to explore for recruitment/secret shop, etc then sure 100% focus on getting stat boosters. The point of this run isn't to use whose the most powerful in absolute terms but instead to use units that can allow you to beat the game quickly, who require minimal grinding/killing enemies, do not require a host of skills, and that cannot be derailed by RNG screwing you over. Someone like Bernie fills that bill to a tee. You use the monastery when the benefits are worth the time spent in there, otherwise, just use seminars. The Tier-List is partially based on each unit's ability to be useful with minimal tutoring. Bernie only needs B ranks in Riding/Lance (for Paladin) and C in authority for the majority of the game. You can promote her to Falcon-Knight later in the game if you manage your seminars/goals correctly. "Guard Adjutants aren't that valuable. While surviving on 1 HP can useful for unit like Bernadetta, you have to consider that it only applies when unit is being doubled, which most units aren't facing. Even when it does occur, reducing an attack by 30% at best isn't really worth much". - Sure, they' re not amazing. But they're better than most other forms of non-attack boosting adjutants and can be utilized with consistency, unlike the offense/healing adjutants. The point isn't to reduce damage, the goal of using the adjutant is to survive the enemy phase and clear the opposition out on player phase. I added that point about Bernie using them as an option to keep in mind, not something you should always do. "Most physical units also have the same 12 base Defense at level 10 considering how easy it is to certify as a Armor Knight. So I'd say most units don't have a durability lead on other units". -Durability isn't really a priority in this kind of run. You just need to survive. Use a guard adjutant, control your exposure, or use a gambit. Otherwise it's mostly about offense and how well units perform at/with various skill ranks. 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eclipse Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 Hey, it's a tier list with criteria, list, and reasoning! How do monster battles and the like play into this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) There's some nuanced takes, but the character placement in this list is kind of incoherent with the explanations given. I know how annoying it is to list explanations, since you end up repeating yourself a lot or directly comparing one unit to another for expediency, but too much seems left out, especially compared to the essay you wrote for Bernadetta. A lot of units seem to be ranked on how good their paralogues are, for one thing. But good monastery management leads to all units getting recruited in a non NG+ run so the implied opportunity cost isn't there in my eyes. Especially since Ferdinand and Caspar won't have to be recruited in this route and they take more investment than any of the students. There's also making Ignatz bottom tier while only mentioning he has the best personal skill in the game. Soooooo, where does that leave him in relation to Ashe, who almost has no personal skill? They have the same statline (Ignatz' is strictly better with much higher luck and a tiny bit more Defense). If Ashe is non viable as a combat unit, but makes a great guard adjutant due to axe proficiency, then what happened to Raphael and Caspar? They have axe proficiencies - and even armor proficiencies. When I made a tier list, I specifically avoided discussion of units based on their performance as adjutants. Because the best adjutants are just guard adjutants with linked attack supports to better units, like attaching Flayn to Byleth, Raphael to Ignatz, etc. The argument that some units have a harder time becoming guard adjutants becomes moot when said units can just be somebody else's adjutant with a rusted axe equipped. I think you ought to define how much grinding is permissable. Especially if you make the claim that Lysithea can go from E+ to B in Faith in just one auxilliary battle. The method of making her an adjutant so she sponges up skill ranks is absolutely true, but she needs a white magic spell to equip in the first place, which she lacks until you tutor her to D. And even then, D to B is going to take more than one auxilliary battle unless you're using an excessive grinding method (like rusted weapons on a priest/bishop). And while were on the subject of Lysithea, I feel like warp is far more useful pre-time skip than in CF's remaining four chapters after you recruit her at the point you suggest. Post time skip maps are usually objective-less flat plains with enemies, thus warp tends to be less vital for efficient map clears. Still a great spell, but Lysithea can use it to such greater effect on maps that actually have objectives and time limits. 2 hours ago, CatManThree said: Hanneman is often argued as one of if not the best mage in maddening mode in most cases to my knowledge outside of the addition of the abyss DLC. His nuking capabilities eliminate the need to rely on speed in a mode where trying to double things can be a nightmare. The addition of him learning Thoron and Meteor helps even more. What puts him above Dorothea in particular as a nuke is primarily his bases coupled with an extremely similar spell list where he does literally the exact same thing but without the need to double. Who is saying he's best, and have they played maddening mode? I imagine Hanneman's greatest asset over Dorothea is simply having a crest, letting you equip Thyrsus without suffering recoil damage. Then again, you may argue that's a strength in favor of Dorothea since Mages so rarely get attacked to begin with and having a damaged dorothea always gives your other magic users somebody to heal for free exp/skill ranks on any turn they don't have something better to do. Dorothea's best asset over Hanneman? Having access to dancer - especially for a tier list excluding DLC, which this thread is. Hanneman can never reach that level of utility. Furthermore, his spells outside of ragnarok don't compare to Dorothea's special dance or hexblade combat arts. Sure those are melee attacks, but the latter is extremely accurate and can finish off enemies very consistently. I also think Meteor linked attack bonuses tend to be a bit overrated, since the boost provided is just +7 to B support partners, +10 to A support partners, and +3 to units you don't support with at all. Meteor linked attack support is only ever as good as how many of those support partners you have on your active roster. Edited March 8, 2020 by Glennstavos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoneRecon400 Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, Mavi251 said: The point of this run isn't to use whose the most powerful in absolute terms but instead to use units that can allow you to beat the game quickly, who require minimal grinding/killing enemies, do not require a host of skills, and that cannot be derailed by RNG screwing you over. You use the monastery when the benefits are worth the time spent in there, otherwise, just use seminars. The Tier-List is partially based on each unit's ability to be useful with minimal tutoring. -When you say "skipping some maps easily compared to other options", which other options are you referring to? Preferably ones that don't require an extreme amount of favoritism or setup to become powerful. An Edelgard with 40 STR, a class-fare and Death Blow + Darting blow wouldn't be able ORKO many of the bosses I listed in Bernie's section so i'm not sure who these units you're referring to are. -Dorothea in the context of CF maddening is likely best dancer due to being able to backup heal, meteor support, has supports with the main cast, and perfect availability. She's of course carried by the dancer class, she wouldn't be anything close to S tier as a normal mage (none of the mages would be). - Felix has better offensive potential than Leonie in addition to supports that boost his attack further. He only needs D-Rank authority which is easy enough to get. Not everyone needs an A-Rank. - Good luck recruiting Lyisthea and also getting her B-rank faith before C5 on New Game CF. -Ashe auto-levels in axes, making him easy to promote/class change into an armour knight early on. He also has easy recruitment reqs, not everyone has these two characteristics. -As for the Petra, Speed is not that valuable on an efficient run of maddening. Some units can get enough speed to double the 30 AS ish enemies in the mid-game but its moreso a question of whether she can KO. Even when trained as a combat unit she struggles to do this without a load of attack boosting skills and is still at risk of dying to enemies with high single attack damage. -You may have wanted to lead with that comment about play style first. When people here discuss Efficiency, they usually do it from the prescriptive of clearing maps in the least amount of Turns rather than Real Time. It's why even though it'd only takes like five minutes for Lysithea to get to B Faith through Aux battles, some are going to be more leery about that than spending an hour fishing for Bull Heads. - Quadrupling with Braves tends to be enough for bulky bosses. Like a Base Wyvern Lord alone can hit 42 Speed just from various Speed boosts, almost enough to double most Maddening bosses with Brave Weapons. While it does rely on having certain skills and growths to an extent, most good units such as the lords and good recruits are capable of doing so with no more investment than most other units need. -I'd argue that the best attribute for dancer a Dancer would be having a Riding Boon for Movement +1. The extra Hit that Meteor provides kind of pales it prevents your Dancer from reaching a unit if a tile of thicket or Fire was in the way. -Leonie gets a +3 Attack Support from Alosis and has boons that are relevant to become one of the best classes in the game. What does Felix provide that makes a 3 tier gap between the two when he doesn't even have a notable statistical advantage over her? - Chapter 5 is admittedly a little of a stretch, but it's quite realistic to recruit Lysithea and have her get to B Faith by Chapter 6 as long as she willing join automatically through B support by Chapter 4. - If defensive Adjutants was all you cared about it in regards to Ashe, than literally any unit would do. It only takes 6 weeks for any unit that doesn't have bane in the relevant skills to certify as a Armor Knight without any tutoring. It's certainly not C tier worthy. I'd valued the Speed Carrot he comes with more highly than anything he claims as a unit. - Speed is quite relevant during the earlygame, but I'll admit that it's impact is quite dulled without Cooking. Still, Petra still has the capability of stacking a great amount of avoid with Alert Stance + and utilizing it Battalion Wrath to have a near 100 Crit rate. For Example. Edited March 8, 2020 by LoneRecon400 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatManThree Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 6 minutes ago, Glennstavos said: Who is saying he's best, and have they played maddening mode? I imagine Hanneman's greatest asset over Dorothea is simply having a crest, letting you equip Thyrsus without suffering recoil damage. Then again, you may argue that's a strength in favor of Dorothea since Mages so rarely get attacked to begin with and having a damaged dorothea always gives your other magic users somebody to heal for free exp/skill ranks on any turn they don't have something better to do. Dorothea's best asset over Hanneman? Having access to dancer - especially for a tier list excluding DLC, which this thread is. Hanneman can never reach that level of utility. Furthermore, his spells outside of ragnarok don't compare to Dorothea's special dance or hexblade combat arts. Sure those are melee attacks, but the latter is extremely accurate and can finish off enemies very consistently. I also think Meteor linked attack bonuses tend to be a bit overrated, since the boost provided is just +7 to B support partners, +10 to A support partners, and +3 to units you don't support with at all. Meteor linked attack support is only ever as good as how many of those support partners you have on your active roster. Dorothea becoming a dancer undermines her use as a mage as she should be more often dancing and providing support, and not fighting when she becomes a dancer. Hanneman is essentially a prepromoted mage Dorothea on maddening but with less supports and no hexblade due to an extremely similar spell list and a high magic stat for nuke damage. Prior to Dorothea becoming a dancer, he functions as another heavy hitting magic user with access to 3 range tome. When Dorothea becomes a dancer he continues the job she is no longer really doing as a combat unit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mavi251 Posted March 8, 2020 Author Share Posted March 8, 2020 6 hours ago, Glennstavos said: There's some nuanced takes, but the character placement in this list is kind of incoherent with the explanations given. I know how annoying it is to list explanations, since you end up repeating yourself a lot or directly comparing one unit to another for expediency, but too much seems left out, especially compared to the essay you wrote for Bernadetta. A lot of units seem to be ranked on how good their paralogues are, for one thing. But good monastery management leads to all units getting recruited in a non NG+ run so the implied opportunity cost isn't there in my eyes. Especially since Ferdinand and Caspar won't have to be recruited in this route and they take more investment than any of the students. There's also making Ignatz bottom tier while only mentioning he has the best personal skill in the game. Soooooo, where does that leave him in relation to Ashe, who almost has no personal skill? They have the same statline (Ignatz' is strictly better with much higher luck and a tiny bit more Defense). If Ashe is non viable as a combat unit, but makes a great guard adjutant due to axe proficiency, then what happened to Raphael and Caspar? They have axe proficiencies - and even armor proficiencies. When I made a tier list, I specifically avoided discussion of units based on their performance as adjutants. Because the best adjutants are just guard adjutants with linked attack supports to better units, like attaching Flayn to Byleth, Raphael to Ignatz, etc. The argument that some units have a harder time becoming guard adjutants becomes moot when said units can just be somebody else's adjutant with a rusted axe equipped. I think you ought to define how much grinding is permissable. Especially if you make the claim that Lysithea can go from E+ to B in Faith in just one auxilliary battle. The method of making her an adjutant so she sponges up skill ranks is absolutely true, but she needs a white magic spell to equip in the first place, which she lacks until you tutor her to D. And even then, D to B is going to take more than one auxilliary battle unless you're using an excessive grinding method (like rusted weapons on a priest/bishop). And while were on the subject of Lysithea, I feel like warp is far more useful pre-time skip than in CF's remaining four chapters after you recruit her at the point you suggest. Post time skip maps are usually objective-less flat plains with enemies, thus warp tends to be less vital for efficient map clears. Still a great spell, but Lysithea can use it to such greater effect on maps that actually have objectives and time limits. Who is saying he's best, and have they played maddening mode? I imagine Hanneman's greatest asset over Dorothea is simply having a crest, letting you equip Thyrsus without suffering recoil damage. Then again, you may argue that's a strength in favor of Dorothea since Mages so rarely get attacked to begin with and having a damaged dorothea always gives your other magic users somebody to heal for free exp/skill ranks on any turn they don't have something better to do. Dorothea's best asset over Hanneman? Having access to dancer - especially for a tier list excluding DLC, which this thread is. Hanneman can never reach that level of utility. Furthermore, his spells outside of ragnarok don't compare to Dorothea's special dance or hexblade combat arts. Sure those are melee attacks, but the latter is extremely accurate and can finish off enemies very consistently. I also think Meteor linked attack bonuses tend to be a bit overrated, since the boost provided is just +7 to B support partners, +10 to A support partners, and +3 to units you don't support with at all. Meteor linked attack support is only ever as good as how many of those support partners you have on your active roster. "A lot of units seem to be ranked on how good their paralogues are, for one thing. But good monastery management leads to all units getting recruited in a non NG+ run so the implied opportunity cost isn't there in my eyes. Especially since Ferdinand and Caspar won't have to be recruited in this route and they take more investment than any of the students." I mentioned what, 4 out of a possible 9 paralogues? Three of which I stated/implied might be worth doing. I even said Ashe's is probably not worth doing. I'm honestly not sure how you got this impression. Also, you don't need to and shouldn't spend the time getting the requirements to recruit everyone in the context of a playthrough like this for what I hope are obvious reasons. "There's also making Ignatz bottom tier while only mentioning he has the best personal skill in the game. Soooooo, where does that leave him in relation to Ashe, who almost has no personal skill? They have the same statline (Ignatz' is strictly better with much higher luck and a tiny bit more Defense). If Ashe is non viable as a combat unit, but makes a great guard adjutant due to axe proficiency, then what happened to Raphael and Caspar? They have axe proficiencies - and even armor proficiencies. When I made a tier list, I specifically avoided discussion of units based on their performance as adjutants. Because the best adjutants are just guard adjutants with linked attack supports to better units, like attaching Flayn to Byleth, Raphael to Ignatz, etc". He does have what is arguably the best personal skill but that doesn't make him a good unit on CF. He'll have trouble killing anything without prior chip-damage until he masters the Sniper Class for Hunter's Volley. Spending time to get a foot-locked unit that can maybe kill one generic and will likely die if exposed on enemy phase strikes me as hardly being worth the trouble. Even if he went Wyvern it'd still take some time to get him there, time that doesn't need to be spent doing this when we have other units (Bernie/Byleth/Edelgard/Felix) that're more than capable of doing the job with less complications. Caspar and Raph do not/should not receive training, any exp they could be fed should go to primarily towards units such as Edelgard, Byleth, and Bernie. Raph and Caspar, on the other hand, would be unable to deal with many of the bosses that they'd need to face in efficient/fast run if you're using them as combat units/boss killers. Not without a healthy amount of levels and offensive skills on top of needing to engage the bosses for multiple turns without dying, anyways. There are units who can handle those bosses reliably that are also far less needy and vulnerable to the whims of bad levels. By time you can recruit Ashe/Slyvain you're able to easily promote them to armour knight with no exp or tutoring in Ashe's case, and minimal exp in chapter 5 in Slyvain's case. Also, using Flyan as an adjutant in Crimson Flower? Sure you could for a few chapters but... well you know. "The argument that.... use it to such greater effect on maps that actually have objectives and time limits" I agree that I should've clarified how much/what kind of grinding is okay, my bad there. Here what is what i think: if the purpose of grinding is to trivialize the game's difficultly then i'd say that kind of grinding should be avoided. I don't think I recommended anything that would do that, like grinding 4-7 levels and a host of skill on all of your main squad, for example. I mentioned using an aux battle for Lysthia as she'll able to level faith incredibly fast with her Mastermind skill + a Knowledge Gem. You can easily do a Faith-focused seminar and have her focus solely on Faith as a goal to get her to D-rank Faith; let's not pretend this is a big ask. I agree that you may need to do more than one aux battle, depending in Edelgard's defense stat. You can grab the Pirates in the North quest during the forced exploration at the start of Part 2; the enemies in this quest are usually weaker than those found in the regular aux battles Chapter 15 and onward. An average L27 or more Edelgard in her Armoured-Lord/Emperor class in conjunction with protection boosting shields, +def battalions, and def boosting items like the C8 giant shell, can become tanky enough to take little to no damage from some aux battles provided the enemies don't mainly use axes. Again, none of this is necessary. I wouldn't bother doing this if your Linhart/Manuela level ups are average or better but if you get magic screwed then doing some warp/stride setups might get a little more tricky. I again go out of my way to say that she's not even necessary but instead imply that she can be useful if things aren't going your way. Another thing, the units who auto-level in axes never require any tutoring, never need to be deployed in combat (even as adjutants) and can still easily access the armour-knight class, which is the entire point. Sure, you could use any random unit for it but that doesn't mean they all have an equally easy time reaching the class requirements or justify the effort spent to get them there. 5 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said: -You may have wanted to lead with that comment about play style first. When people here discuss Efficiency, they usually do it from the prescriptive of clearing maps in the least amount of Turns rather than Real Time. It's why even though it'd only takes like five minutes for Lysithea to get to B Faith through Aux battles, some are going to be more leery about that than spending an hour fishing for Bull Heads. - Quadrupling with Braves tends to be enough for bulky bosses. Like a Base Wyvern Lord alone can hit 42 Speed just from various Speed boosts, almost enough to double most Maddening bosses with Brave Weapons. While it does rely on having certain skills and growths to an extent, most good units such as the lords and good recruits are capable of doing so with no more investment than most other units need. -I'd argue that the best attribute for dancer a Dancer would be having a Riding Boon for Movement +1. The extra Hit that Meteor provides kind of pales it prevents your Dancer from reaching a unit if a tile of thicket or Fire was in the way. -Leonie gets a +3 Attack Support from Alosis and has boons that are relevant to become one of the best classes in the game. What does Felix provide that makes a 3 tier gap between the two when he doesn't even have a notable statistical advantage over her? - Chapter 5 is admittedly a little of a stretch, but it's quite realistic to recruit Lysithea and have her get to B Faith by Chapter 6 as long as she willing join automatically through B support by Chapter 4. - If defensive Adjutants was all you cared about it in regards to Ashe, than literally any unit would do. It only takes 6 weeks for any unit that doesn't have bane in the relevant skills to certify as a Armor Knight without any tutoring. It's certainly not C tier worthy. I'd valued the Speed Carrot he comes with more highly than anything he claims as a unit. - Speed is quite relevant during the earlygame, but I'll admit that it's impact is quite dulled without Cooking. Still, Petra still has the capability of stacking a great amount of avoid with Alert Stance + and utilizing it Battalion Wrath to have a near 100 Crit rate. For Example. "You may have wanted to lead with that comment about play style first. When people here discuss Efficiency, they usually do it from the prescriptive of clearing maps in the least amount of Turns rather than Real Time. It's why even though it'd only takes like five minutes for Lysithea to get to B Faith through Aux battles, some are going to be more leery about that than spending an hour fishing for Bull Heads". I 100% agree that I should've been more clear, my bad. However, I disagree with your point on efficiency; what you're referring to is specifically called a Low Turn Count run. Efficiency doesn't mean you clear every map in the least amount of turns possible, it means that you attempt to clear to maps quickly, both in total time played and turns passed. "Quadrupling with Braves tends to be enough for bulky bosses. Like a Base Wyvern Lord alone can hit 42 Speed just from various Speed boosts, almost enough to double most Maddening bosses with Brave Weapons. While it does rely on having certain skills and growths to an extent, most good units such as the lords and good recruits are capable of doing so with no more investment than most other units need." It isn't. Not for Part two, anyways. A str blessed Level 27 Edelgard with 35 str, and +5 attack battalion, death blow, class fare and a brave axe has an attack value of 63. The value cannot 2 hit KO most of the enemies I listed in Bernie's section. Even if she somehow got enough speed to quad the faster bosses, which on average she won't, even with darting blow, it would still not be enough to ORKO bosses like C15 Seteh, C17 Dmitri or C17 Dedue. Moreover, enemies like C17 Dimitri with his 85 attack and 39 AS would kill even a blessed non-armoured class Edelgard/Byleth with ease. Even if Edelgard was armoured up you'd still be rolling the dice on top of having trouble reaching him quickly with the low movement of this game's armoured classes. Also, good luck hitting 42 speed on anyone in an efficient setting; it is completely up to RNG whether people can get this fast and is thus unreliable for a play-through of this kind, in my opinion. "Leonie gets a +3 Attack Support from Alosis and has boons that are relevant to become one of the best classes in the game. What does Felix provide that makes a 3 tier gap between the two when he doesn't even have a notable statistical advantage over her?" A much better combat art (Heavy Draw at C+ vs. Leonie's PPV at A Rank), his support partners are better and more available than Alois and can be positioned/attached to Felix to grant a +2-6 attack boost, depending on their support levels. Leonie, on the other hand, would require Alois to also become a flying unit if she goes into a flying class, which can be a pain. Felix, if recruited in chapter 9 or 10, can transition quickly into an assassin or swordmaster without tutoring thanks to his sword/bow boons. He can later become a Sniper with some seminars/goal management whereas the Leonie you described would need tutoring in axes, authority, lances, and flying and need a skill like death blow to even gain the opportunity to become decent in a reasonable amount of time. Tl:dr his support partners are decent and are also worth recruiting; Felix performs better than Leonie, in my opinion, with less investment. His 55 + Class Modifier strength and speed growths also make him a little more resilient to getting RNG screwed than Leonie who who has STR growth of 40 + class modifiers. It's possible to train a Leonie and not get much strength, whereas Felix is usually at least somewhat strong on average and has independently useful, more available support partners he can use/worth with to boost his attack. "Speed is quite relevant during the early-game, but I'll admit that it's impact is quite dulled without Cooking. Still, Petra still has the capability of stacking a great amount of avoid with Alert Stance + and utilizing it Battalion Wrath to have a near 100 Crit rate". Alert Stance + is unlocked at A+ Flying, good luck getting that on anyone before the run is over. Petra will also need to have extremely high, if not 100% accuracy and the ability to OHK almost every enemy she faces otherwise she risks dying due to overexposure. Also, if there are enemies with gambits you'll need to be careful as a hit from a gambit will cripple her for the rest of the enemy phase (and into player phase), likely leading to her death. This isn't even counting enemies that could attack her at three range. It just isn't reliable enough to justify using in my opinion. That aside, the only person who makes good use of Battalion Wrath is Dimitri (Bat. Wrath + Bat. Vantage + Retribution on top of strong stats). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoneRecon400 Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, Mavi251 said: -Efficiency doesn't mean you clear every map in the least amount of turns possible, it means that you attempt to clear to maps quickly, both in total time played and turns passed. -Good luck hitting 42 speed on anyone in an efficient setting; it is completely up to RNG whether people can get this fast and is thus unreliable for a play-through of this kind, in my opinion. -Felix gets a much better combat art, his support partners are better and more available than Alois and can be positioned/attached to Felix to grant a +2-6 attack boost, while Alosis has a hard time becoming a flier on top of being rather late. Felix, if recruited in chapter 9 or 10, can transition quickly into an Assassin or a Sniper with some seminars/goal management. whereas the Leonie you described would need tutoring in axes, authority, lances, and flying and need a skill like death blow to even gain the opportunity to become decent in a reasonable amount of time. Tl:dr Felix's support partners are decent and are also worth recruiting; Felix performs better than Leonie, in my opinion, with less investment. His Growths and support parenters help prevent him form being RNG screwed. Good luck getting Alert Stance + on anyone before the run is over. Petra will also need to have extremely high, if not 100% accuracy and the ability to OHK almost every enemy she faces otherwise she risks dying due to overexposure. Gambits are an issue as are 3 range enemies. It just isn't reliable enough to justify using in my opinion. -It's not my view of efficiency, it's just how that's traditionally viewed around these parts. -The Speed base of Wyvern Lord 24. Add to that: Darting Blow (+6) Rally Speed (+4) Speed Ring (+2) Speed +2 (+2) Special Dance (+4) That's 42 Speed right there before even including any Speed Procs or even Bullheads. Really any unit can have an easy time one rounding late game bosses as long as they got a Brave Weapon and the skills to go along with it. - How is Heavy Draw better than an combat art that's pretty much trivializes almost every flier in the route? Felix also starts with only E+ Bows no matter when you recruit him compared to Leonie Autoleveling the skill. Him having more support partners isn't really relevant when they only give +2 Attack before the timeskip and they may not be deployed at all. A 15% difference in Strength is not enough to have that much of gap between the two and will not result in Leonie being RNG screwed. She starts with 16 Strength when recruited by Ch 6 with 20 Speed as a Pegasus Knight. There's no way a three tier gap that big exists between the two units. -It's quite realistic for Petra to obtain Alert Stance + before even the timeskip. Here's the math behind it. You also really underestimate her durability since she take 2-3 hits before going down with Blessing, never mind how the enemies have to get over her over 100 Avoid. While Gambits are admittedly an issue, they're relatively uncommon on enemies especially after the timeskip. Ranged attacks is also easily handled just by slapping on Retribution onto her. Quote Here what is what I think: if the purpose of grinding is to trivialize the game's difficultly then i'd say that kind of grinding should be avoided. I don't think I recommended anything that would do that, like grinding 4-7 levels and a host of skill on all of your main squad, for example. I mentioned using an aux battle for Lysthia as she'll able to level faith incredibly fast with her Mastermind skill + a Knowledge Gem. I again go out of my way to say that she's not even necessary but instead imply that she can be useful if things aren't going your way. Thing is, where would a line be drawn between trivializing the difficulty and just it being useful? Take Ferdinand for instance. You commented how far away A Rank Lances is, but using the setup you described would have him gaining +32 Lance Exp a turn. That would mean the difference between him reaching Swift Strikes and Lysithea hitting Warp is no longer then a minute or so in real time. It doesn't break the game id say, but it's a clear advantage one without grinding wouldn't have. Should that kinda of thing be allowed? Edited March 8, 2020 by LoneRecon400 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 3 hours ago, Mavi251 said: I mentioned what, 4 out of a possible 9 paralogues? Three of which I stated/implied might be worth doing. I even said Ashe's is probably not worth doing. I'm honestly not sure how you got this impression. You don't know how I got the impression you're ranking characters based on their paralogue, when you go out of your way to point out ones that are and aren't worth unlocking/doing? Quote Also, you don't need to and shouldn't spend the time getting the requirements to recruit everyone in the context of a playthrough like this for what I hope are obvious reasons. Obvious reasons that were not in the OP. From the sound of things it's a minimum-monastery psuedo speedrun that is specifically not an LTC? I only care about optimized play - even if it adds twenty hours of busy work into the run. That's just the sort of game Three Houses is. Even the hyper optimized LTCs tend to have higher play times than the casual playthroughs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mavi251 Posted March 8, 2020 Author Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) 4 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said: -It's not my view of efficiency, it's just how that's traditionally viewed around these parts. -The Speed base of Wyvern Lord 24. Add to that: Darting Blow (+6) Rally Speed (+4) Speed Ring (+2) Speed +2 (+2) Special Dance (+4) That's 42 Speed right there before even including any Speed Procs or even Bullheads. Really any unit can have an easy time one rounding late game bosses as long as they got a Brave Weapon and the skills to go along with it. - How is Heavy Draw better than an combat art that's pretty much trivializes almost every flier in the route? Felix also starts with only E+ Bows no matter when you recruit him compared to Leonie Autoleveling the skill. Him having more support partners isn't really relevant when they only give +2 Attack before the timeskip and they may not be deployed at all. A 15% difference in Strength is not enough to have that much of gap between the two and will not result in Leonie being RNG screwed. She starts with 16 Strength when recruited by Ch 6 with 20 Speed as a Pegasus Knight. There's no way a three tier gap that big exists between the two units. -It's quite realistic for Petra to obtain Alert Stance + before even the timeskip. Here's the math behind it. You also really underestimate her durability since she take 2-3 hits before going down with Blessing, never mind how the enemies have to get over her over 100 Avoid. While Gambits are admittedly an issue, they're relatively uncommon on enemies especially after the timeskip. Ranged attacks is also easily handled just by slapping on Retribution onto her. Thing is, where would a line be drawn between trivializing the difficulty and just it being useful? Take Ferdinand for instance. You commented how far away A Rank Lances is, but using the setup you described would have him gaining +32 Lance Exp a turn. That would mean the difference between him reaching Swift Strikes and Lysithea hitting Warp is no longer then a minute or so in real time. It doesn't break the game id say, but it's a clear advantage one without grinding wouldn't have. Should that kinda of thing be allowed? I lost the notes for my original response so Ill make this one short. Bosses like C15 Seteh and C17 Dimitri have 34 and 39 AS respectively. Are you going to be doubling them after factoring in the AS penalty from brave weapons? I think not. Take a look a the screenshots I attached. My L32 Edelgard with 50 str and 80 attack on initiation barely 2HKOs (she deal 36 x 2) C15 Seteth with a brave axe. Are you seriously suggesting units like Petra and/or Leonie are going to be one-rounding bosses like this, especially in fast-playthroughs? This 50 str Edelgard is getting weighed down by 4 with a brave axe equipped, as well. Units like Petra/Leonie, assuming they get average level ups, will be weighed down much more by brave weapons onto top of being much less powerful. I think you're severely under-estimating the tankiness/power of some of these bosses. Also, it's wildly unfeasible to have a unit (other than Bernie) with this much attack by C15; you almost certainly will not have anyone this nearly this strong. Heavy Draw + Steel bow+ is enough to KO fliers without risking a counter whereas if you fail to kill or get an unlucky miss with PBV you're liable to taking some serious damage or getting killed (Enemy Fliers in Maddening are a little absurd). Felix can hit C+ rank before Leonie can hit A Rank. He performs better with less resources, is less vulnerable to getting str and speed screwed, and has more accessible options to augment his combat. Their combat potential is similar, Felix is just easier to use. Alert Stance+ is completely unnecessary. You would need to focus on flying to the detriment of her skills in all other areas on top of also needing to visit the monastery again and again to get the motivation needed to do what you outlined. In my opinion, It is a complete waste of time as it doesn't help us beat any map faster/with less difficulty. Sure, get swift strikes if you want but even if we trained him as a combat unit to the detriment of other possible combat units we would just be left with a unit that can maybe deal with generics. He certainly will not be one-rounding the bosses in P2 without failing to KO and/or getting killed by the boss(es). Lysithea is a special case due to her personal skill and the utility warp provides. Also, she never needs to be trained or see combat. I will again state that recruiting her isn't necessary. 1 hour ago, Glennstavos said: You don't know how I got the impression you're ranking characters based on their paralogue, when you go out of your way to point out ones that are and aren't worth unlocking/doing? Obvious reasons that were not in the OP. From the sound of things it's a minimum-monastery psuedo speedrun that is specifically not an LTC? I only care about optimized play - even if it adds twenty hours of busy work into the run. That's just the sort of game Three Houses is. Even the hyper optimized LTCs tend to have higher play times than the casual playthroughs. Paralogue rewards are a part of the possible benefits a unit can provide via recruitment. If they provide good rewards, like Ingrid's, then of course i'll mention them. I'll also add that getting the Luin/Flying battalion isn't even necessary if you have the LOR. Slyvain's paralogue isn't necessary/worth doing if you already have the LOR, either. They just provide things could in theory make a run easier, like the extra stride battalion from Slyvain's paralogue. I don't believe that I wrote anything that would imply a given unit is or is not worth using/recruiting solely or primarily because of their paralogue. If I did then I apologize. I'd love to have this become an actual speedrun, but there is still a lot of planning to do. Also, "I only care about optimized play - even if it adds twenty hours of busy work into the run"? I'm honestly not sure how to respond to this. Edited March 8, 2020 by Mavi251 Small spelling corrections. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 14 minutes ago, Mavi251 said: Paralogue rewards are a part of the possible benefits a unit can provide via recruitment. If they provide good rewards, like Ingrid's, then of course i'll mention them. So now you're not denying you rated characters based on their paralogues. The reason why I think it's a big deal is because with proper monastery busywork, you easily get all of the students on your roster, especially if you're playing CF or SS. Not having to train in Brawling and Heavy armor to recruit Ferdinand and Caspar means all recruitments can be acquired through gift spamming and other strategies. So there ends up being no opportunity cost in choosing to recruit some over others - especially if all you care about is their paralogues and rewards. I also expect an optimized playthrough to do all the paralogues to become the most powerful with rewards and experience. In my SS run, I did all the paralogues available in that route and still ended up 10-12 levels behind opponents in the final chapter, so some extra level ups in master classes can help keep you in pace with the stat inflation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mavi251 Posted March 8, 2020 Author Share Posted March 8, 2020 12 minutes ago, Glennstavos said: So now you're not denying you rated characters based on their paralogues. The reason why I think it's a big deal is because with proper monastery busywork, you easily get all of the students on your roster, especially if you're playing CF or SS. Not having to train in Brawling and Heavy armor to recruit Ferdinand and Caspar means all recruitments can be acquired through gift spamming and other strategies. So there ends up being no opportunity cost in choosing to recruit some over others - especially if all you care about is their paralogues and rewards. I also expect an optimized playthrough to do all the paralogues to become the most powerful with rewards and experience. In my SS run, I did all the paralogues available in that route and still ended up 10-12 levels behind opponents in the final chapter, so some extra level ups in master classes can help keep you in pace with the stat inflation. I never denied it to begin with. It can be apart of what may make a unit worth recruiting but it is by no means the only thing they're rated by; paralogue information was listed alongside other unit characteristics/evaluations in the OP and my subsequent posts. I again don't know how you got this impression. The point of a run like this is to use the monastery in particular as little as possible; the opportunity cost is the time you spend in the monastery doing activities. If you like playing like this then be my guest but let's not pretend it's efficient or optimal in any way. It also sounds like you have a different definition for the word "optimized". From what I can tell, you're using it as a proxy for what are known as completionist playthroughs, which are an entirely different category of run. For the record, I actually enjoy doing runs when you recruit as many people as possible. It just takes a lot of time and isn't necessary to complete the game on any route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoneRecon400 Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Mavi251 said: Bosses like C15 Seteh and C17 Dimitri have 34 and 39 AS respectively. Are you suggesting units like Petra or Leonie are going going to be doubling them let alone one-rounding them. Heavy Draw + Steel bow+ is enough to KO fliers without risking a counter whereas if you fail to kill or get an unlucky miss with PPV you're liable to taking some serious damage or getting killed (Enemy Fliers in Maddening are a little absurd). Felix can hit C+ rank before Leonie can hit A Rank. He performs better with less resources, is less vulnerable to getting str and speed screwed, and has more accessible options to augment his combat. Their combat potential is similar, Felix is just easier to use. I already shown how a base Wyvern Lord can reach 42 Speed. Even with the 14 weight Brave Axe, factoring in Death Blow and Weight -3 they'd have 37 AS without any Speed Procs or Bull Heads. Offensively, they'd need Attack 62 Attack for Seteth and 60 for Dimtiri. The Class base Strength for Wyvern Lord is 22. With: Brave Axe (35) Axefaire (40) Deathblow (46) Empire Elite Wyvern Company (54) Rally Strength (58) They'd be only 4 Strength off, which they could get either level ups, Strength +2, or + Attack Supports. And keep in mind that this is assuming no growths. In an actual Playthrough they won't even need everything listed on here. If Heavy Draw is enough to defeat flier in one shot, so can Point Blank Volley. Like the Pegasus Knights in Chapter 13 require 72 Attack to Ohko, but when a Forged Silver Bow alone can deal 39 Damage , it's an easy benchmark to reach. And while it admittedly it take more investment to reach, it can help against hard to kill enemies such as Assassins or Swordmasters. And why are worrying about Rng Screwage when Leonie has some of the better bases among the recruits? Also, anytime you want point out enemy stats, here's a useful link for that: https://imgur.com/a/dSnk6C9 Edited March 8, 2020 by LoneRecon400 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geckokujou Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) o: i disagree on ignatz/bernie & what's "important" and have some additional thoughts on others. bernie: vengeance strategy is sick but way too gimmicky for my comfort. good for assassinating bosses maybe, but in general requires too much micromanaging to drop her safely into prf skill/vengeance range (and keep her there). this also assumes you have oodles of gold to maintain vengeance's 4 cost, and without ng+/dlc grinding i sure don't. also enemies like seteth can be oneshot by lys/kind of a lot of people honestly, and enemies like immaculate rhea she can't hit without being countered and obliterated. ignatz: while i haven't looked at ignatz's actual growths, he's the only unit i trust to hit things at non arts bow knight range (i prefer sniper on shamir for hunter's volley). even with hit+20 doubled up, he struggles a bit more than I'd like without a +hit battalion. the only drawback is he doesn't get deadeye, but he does get break shot and ward arrow. felix: this is probably kinda unconventional and ngl it was originally for "haha let's make the grumpy man dance", but... I'd honestly put forth felix as best dancer? sword avoid+relic+his naturally high avd make him close to untouchable on EP (and he'll delete anything that tries). he doesn't have to switch out of swords that often either, unlike the magic-reliant dancers. i know that isn't a dancer's job, but if i can send my dancer to the front lines without them immediately becoming a liability... (come to think of it, i remember using lv 20 ninian/nils the same way at times lol). it also gives him access to recover and restore, though without ng+ he's probably not gonna get too far with his faith. he's basically groundlocked petra/ingrid that doesn't rely on alert stance, *but* also has dancer utility. tangentially related but i tried this build with yuri and it's not as good (lowkey surprised at first, but makes sense thinking about it). his avoid isn't as good and he needs to switch off swords way more often. or maybe I'm just biased towards foul play/fetters lol. fliers: alert stance+ mvp. i use petra and ingrid the same way as dancer felix. petra is bulkier and hits way harder but at the consequence of being hit more often... between them it's pretty situational who's more useful. maybe it's just that i'm shit at this game, but imo some maddening classic paralogues are close to if not straight up impossible to clear with all bonus/objectives met, without dodgetanky fliers. especially ones with protect objectives like alois/shamir and CF nader at fodlan's locket (and less so, but +fog maps as well. looking directly at you, maurice!! jerk) thoughts in general... if you're not going for LTC/warp strategies (which i feel like this tier list is heavily biased towards as opposed to just.. mm, "regular" "efficient play") then EP presence is super important. (dancer! felix!💦) even just as bait, like again with the CF nader paralogue i have my fliers both parked in the sky with axebreaker and singlehandedly keeping most of the wyvern reinforcements away from the main group as it turtles up the center. bc they can and will 1rko pretty much everyone else. Edited March 8, 2020 by geckokujou Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) 29 minutes ago, Mavi251 said: The point of a run like this is to use the monastery in particular as little as possible; the opportunity cost is the time you spend in the monastery doing activities. If you like playing like this then be my guest but let's not pretend it's efficient or optimal in any way. It also sounds like you have a different definition for the word "optimized". From what I can tell, you're using it as a proxy for what are known as completionist playthroughs, which are an entirely different category of run. For the record, I actually enjoy doing runs when you recruit as many people as possible. It just takes a lot of time and isn't necessary to complete the game on any route. I've never heard of a "completionist playthrough". I only see it as the difference between playing all of a game or playing some of the game. I understand wanting to restrict yourself for challenge or just saving time, but a tier list for only how you personally play or don't play the game is inapplicable to everybody else. Especially if you're completely unwilling to mention these restrictions in the OP. When I made a tier list for fun, I had a whole paragraph of what is and isn't allowed based on what I felt obscenely broke the game's challenge. I defined what I thought were acceptable forms of grinding and save scumming - since a lot of this game is just grinding by design both in and out of battle, and I made clear that units were ranked on their performance as deployed units, and not their performance as adjutants or paralogue-givers since I felt that muddied the criteria. Edited March 8, 2020 by Glennstavos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 41 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said: Also, anytime you want point out enemy stats, here's a useful link for that: https://imgur.com/account/favorites/dSnk6C9 Sorry, man, but this link doesn't work. All I got was "Oops! We couldn't find the page". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoneRecon400 Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 7 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said: Sorry, man, but this link doesn't work. All I got was "Oops! We couldn't find the page". Noted and edited. Should work now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mavi251 Posted March 9, 2020 Author Share Posted March 9, 2020 (edited) 3 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said: I already shown how a base Wyvern Lord can reach 42 Speed. Even with the 14 weight Brave Axe, factoring in Death Blow and Weight -3 they'd have 37 AS without any Speed Procs or Bull Heads. Offensively, they'd need Attack 62 Attack for Seteth and 60 for Dimtiri. The Class base Strength for Wyvern Lord is 22. With: Brave Axe (35) Axefaire (40) Deathblow (46) Empire Elite Wyvern Company (54) Rally Strength (58) They'd be only 4 Strength off, which they could get either level ups, Strength +2, or + Attack Supports. And keep in mind that this is assuming no growths. In an actual Playthrough they won't even need everything listed on here. If Heavy Draw is enough to defeat flier in one shot, so can Point Blank Volley. Like the Pegasus Knights in Chapter 13 require 72 Attack to Ohko, but when a Forged Silver Bow alone can deal 39 Damage , it's an easy benchmark to reach. And while it admittedly it take more investment to reach, it can help against hard to kill enemies such as Assassins or Swordmasters. And why are worrying about Rng Screwage when Leonie has some of the better bases among the recruits? Also, anytime you want point out enemy stats, here's a useful link for that: https://imgur.com/a/dSnk6C9 Sure, but it's far riskier to have someone like Petra/Leonie as a boss killer than units like Edelgard/F!Byleth. Almost no one except Byleth/Bernie/Edelgard and maybe Felix/combat unit of your choice are going to get a meaningful amount of combat exp. For a run like this I find that it's easier to use people who can have perform consistently with less resources and are subject to less variance. If these units fail to kill the bosses they're meant to combat then you risk being effectively soft-locked or you'll have actually complete maps the hard way, which is awful and time consuming. I also never said PBV can't defeat fliers, just that it's more risky to use than Heavy Draw due to the possibility of getting counter-attacked. We are not worried about swordmasters or assassins because units like Byleth/Edelgard/Bernie can easily dispose of them and almost every other generic. Byleth and Edelgard handle the majority of the duel phase combat in the run. If we need to tank them then we can use Impenetrable Wall to make enemy phase 100% safe; the thing has 5 uses, use em. Leonie does have some good bases, to be fair. "And why are worrying about Rng Screwage when Leonie has some of the better bases among the recruits?" Because in a run like this, with minimal fighting, tutoring and leveling, units who can be more easily rng screwed are less valuable than those that're less vulnerable to it/can mitigate it easier. Only Bernie/Edel/Byleth actually reach level 30 before my run is over and only then they just barely reach it. Every level matters. Though I understand that this is subjective. Also, amazing link. Thank you. 3 hours ago, geckokujou said: o: i disagree on ignatz/bernie & what's "important" and have some additional thoughts on others. bernie: vengeance strategy is sick but way too gimmicky for my comfort. good for assassinating bosses maybe, but in general requires too much micromanaging to drop her safely into prf skill/vengeance range (and keep her there). this also assumes you have oodles of gold to maintain vengeance's 4 cost, and without ng+/dlc grinding i sure don't. also enemies like seteth can be oneshot by lys/kind of a lot of people honestly, and enemies like immaculate rhea she can't hit without being countered and obliterated. ignatz: while i haven't looked at ignatz's actual growths, he's the only unit i trust to hit things at non arts bow knight range (i prefer sniper on shamir for hunter's volley). even with hit+20 doubled up, he struggles a bit more than I'd like without a +hit battalion. the only drawback is he doesn't get deadeye, but he does get break shot and ward arrow. felix: this is probably kinda unconventional and ngl it was originally for "haha let's make the grumpy man dance", but... I'd honestly put forth felix as best dancer? sword avoid+relic+his naturally high avd make him close to untouchable on EP (and he'll delete anything that tries). he doesn't have to switch out of swords that often either, unlike the magic-reliant dancers. i know that isn't a dancer's job, but if i can send my dancer to the front lines without them immediately becoming a liability... (come to think of it, i remember using lv 20 ninian/nils the same way at times lol). it also gives him access to recover and restore, though without ng+ he's probably not gonna get too far with his faith. he's basically groundlocked petra/ingrid that doesn't rely on alert stance, *but* also has dancer utility. tangentially related but i tried this build with yuri and it's not as good (lowkey surprised at first, but makes sense thinking about it). his avoid isn't as good and he needs to switch off swords way more often. or maybe I'm just biased towards foul play/fetters lol. fliers: alert stance+ mvp. i use petra and ingrid the same way as dancer felix. petra is bulkier and hits way harder but at the consequence of being hit more often... between them it's pretty situational who's more useful. maybe it's just that i'm shit at this game, but imo some maddening classic paralogues are close to if not straight up impossible to clear with all bonus/objectives met, without dodgetanky fliers. especially ones with protect objectives like alois/shamir and CF nader at fodlan's locket (and less so, but +fog maps as well. looking directly at you, maurice!! jerk) thoughts in general... if you're not going for LTC/warp strategies (which i feel like this tier list is heavily biased towards as opposed to just.. mm, "regular" "efficient play") then EP presence is super important. (dancer! felix!💦) even just as bait, like again with the CF nader paralogue i have my fliers both parked in the sky with axebreaker and singlehandedly keeping most of the wyvern reinforcements away from the main group as it turtles up the center. bc they can and will 1rko pretty much everyone else. The Veng strat is designed to have a way to kill the endgame bosses with a unit that can reliably reach the numbers needed to defeat them without elaborate setup/planning/grinding. The calcs I did in my OP we're almost entirely based on the Paladin Class' base strength, which is a known variable that can be planned around. She takes the guess-work out of many of the defeat boss chapters in a fast run. She's also able to kill most generic with a Training Lance, look at the chapter 4 enemies in the link LoneRecon attached. A level 7 Bernie with 31 HP, 11 STR, a 50 use training lance (4MT), and a plus 3 attack battalion (Serios Mercenaries) has an attack value of 50. This is more than enough to OHK every enemy on the map except the Death Knight and is far and away from anything I'd consider "expensive", like spamming steels and silvers. She's able to do this at a point in the game where 2-3 units are needed to kill one enemy. The value she overkill generics by only goes up as Veng scales off her Attack and HP. With a Steel lance she has an attack value of 55 and deals 37 of the DK's maximum of 46 HP. Again, she can do this at level 7. Even if we never gave her anymore exp until chapter 6 she'd still be able to OHK almost all of the generics on the map. A trained Bernie will have no trouble OHK'ing every enemy on said map. If she gets good levels she can OHK the DK too, otherwise she may need a few points of chip damage. Sure, she can only kill one enemy per turn but that's far better than units who can't kill anyone unsupported. For the sake of argument let's assume a lot of units can in theory kill bosses like C15 Seteh. How much babying/stat boosters/levels do they need? How long will it take to get them there? Especially when compared to Bernie who can nearly kill him and a load of other bosses with her level 20 Paladin bases and a few select boosts? I'm still looking for ways to use Ignatz, such a cool guy. No part of my current route involves dodge tanking, if people need to absolutely need to survive then Impenetrable Wall it is. It takes the guesswork out of planning. Alois/Shamir's paralogue can be cleared in one turn; it's a defeat boss map. I usually just have Byleth gank the boss and move on. EP phase isn't as valuable as most people, even when trained, are at risk of dying to 2 or 3 rounds of combat on EP during a maddening mode run. Especially if you're not grinding or getting a lot of kills on paralogues; if you're playing fast then you need to have a plan to survive. Crimson Flower is super bait and switch heavy so I've honestly never had trouble with this. Edited March 9, 2020 by Mavi251 Small spelling corrections for clarity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geckokujou Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 18 minutes ago, Mavi251 said: Sure, but it's far riskier to have someone like Petra/Leonie as a boss killer than units like Edelgard/F!Byleth. Almost no one except Byleth/Bernie/Edelgard and maybe Felix/combat unit of your choice are going to get a meaningful amount of combat exp. For a run like this I find that it's easier to use people who can have perform consistently with less resources and are subject to less variance. If these units fail to kill the bosses they're meant to combat then you risk being effectively soft-locked or you'll have actually complete maps the hard way, which is awful and time consuming. I also never said PBV can't defeat fliers, just that it's more risky to use than Heavy Draw due to the possibility of getting counter-attacked. We are not worried about swordmasters or assassins because units like Byleth/Edelgard/Bernie can easily dispose of them and almost every other generic. Byleth and Edelgard handle the majority of the duel phase combat in the run. If we need to tank them then we can use Impenetrable Wall to make enemy phase 100% safe; the thing has 5 uses, use em. Leonie does have some good bases, to be fair. "And why are worrying about Rng Screwage when Leonie has some of the better bases among the recruits?" Because in a run like this, with minimal fighting, tutoring and leveling, units who can be more easily rng screwed are less valuable than those that're less vulnerable to it/can mitigate it easier. Only Bernie/Edel/Byleth actually reach level 30 before my run is over and only then they just barely reach it. Every level matters. Though I understand that this is subjective. Also, amazing link. Thank you. The Veng strat is designed to have a way to kill the endgame bosses with a unit that can reliably reach the numbers needed to defeat them without elaborate setup/planning/grinding. The calcs I did in my OP we're almost entirely based on the Paladin Class' base strength, which is a known variable that can be planned around. She takes the guess-work out of many of the defeat boss chapters in a fast run. She's also able to kill most generic with a Training Lance, look at the chapter 4 enemies in the link LoneRecon attached. A level 7 Bernie with 31 HP, 11 STR, a 50 use training lance (4MT), and a plus 3 attack battalion (Serios Mercenaries) has an attack value of 50. This is more than enough to OHK every enemy on the map except the Death Knight and is far and away from anything I'd consider "expensive", like spamming steels and silvers. She's able to do this at a point in the game where 2-3 units are needed to kill one enemy. The value she overkill generics by only goes up as Veng scales off her Attack and HP. With a Steel lance she has an attack value of 55 and deals 37 of the DK's maximum of 46 HP. Again, she can do this at level 7. Even if we never gave her anymore exp until chapter 6 she'd still be able to OHK almost all of the generics on the map. A trained Bernie will have no trouble OHK'ing every enemy on said map. If she gets good levels she can OHK the DK too, otherwise she may need a few points of chip damage. Sure, she can only kill one enemy per turn but that's far better than units who can't kill anyone unsupported. For the sake of argument let's assume a lot of units can in theory kill bosses like C15 Seteh. How much babying/stat boosters/levels do they need? How long will it take to get them there? Especially when compared to Bernie who can nearly kill him and a load of other bosses with her level 20 Paladin bases and a few select boosts? I'm still looking for ways to use Ignatz, such a cool guy. No part of my current route involves dodge tanking, if people need to absolutely need to survive then Impenetrable Wall it is. It takes the guesswork out of planning. Alois/Shamir's paralogue can be cleared in one turn; it's a defeat boss map. I usually just have Byleth gank the boss and move on. EP phase isn't as valuable as most people, even when trained, are at risk of dying to 2 or 3 rounds of combat on EP during a maddening mode run. Especially if you're not grinding or getting a lot of kills on paralogues; if you're playing fast then you need to have a plan to survive. Crimson Flower is super bait and switch heavy so I've honestly never had trouble with this. ignatz has the best timeskip glow up, honestly!! i love how he got more confident post timeskip ;; and also changed his hairstyle thank god// rn I'm near the end of a church run and I've got him running crit ring/edmund troops/mini bow+ and an extra hit+20. even with access to deadeye, I'd count myself lucky to get a 3+ range hit from ashe/shamir (or bernie). that aside though😂 not being able to survive multiple rounds of combat implies getting hit. with ingrid in particular that's never been a significant concern; by the time she has alert stance+ i'm already seeing 0% pretty often. imonit's also not fair to say bernie gets those kills completely unsupported, since the rest of the party is basically helping her get in range/escorting/etc.. her weakness in swords means i doubt she'll be hitting sword prowess lv 5 and that +hit makes a difference. ive done all routes on maddening, cf and gd on classic so far (though tbf none of those except my 1st bl run was a fresh file). none of them had any grinding, only paralogues and the occasional ore/meat trip. re: vengeance strat, wouldn't it still be accurate to call that a kind of gimmick playstyle? ...there's probably a better word... honestly my main disagreement is with the assertion that this tier list applies to general CF on "efficient, but not ltc" (hence "regular") play. the alois paralogue is easy to 1tk yeah, but.. most ppl aren't playing the game like that... what you're describing sounds like a playstyle with a specific goal like any other kind of (ltc/in house only/etc) run, in this case being "1hko boss"? +assumes the player has familiarity with spawns, what can do this or can't do that in [specific context] and so on. EP not being important i suppose we shall have to disagree on haha. you're right abt maddening enemies being lethal, but if you're not using warp/rescue (and tbh even if you are), there's situations where you can't just charge in, or you can't see where enemies might be and *someone* will have to duel- possibly multiple enemies in one turn- may as well be the few units who have less than 20% chance of being hit as opposed to 50+. you don't *have* to move fast and play offensively to survive maddening classic.. you certainly can but you can also turtle through every map with smart planning; it just comes down to personal playstyle and at the end of the day the goal is to have fun, yknow? what about rout maps with clumps of enemies that only move once in range? (that being said idr if cf even has much of that..) enemies like the wyvern spawns in the cf nader paralogue will get around whatever blockades you try to make thanks to terrain; if something is bulky enough to take a hit without dying then they're probably slow enough to get doubled and will certainly be killed on the 2nd/3rd if they're lucky engagement. you can't play offensively on that sort of map (or marianne, leonie/lin paras off the top of my head) just bc in nader's case they're out of most units' range and also spawn infinitely every turn afaik. i can't count it out off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure lys can't warp far enough to get bernie in range (even assuming flier movement, which means no guard adjutants). she'll get swarmed and die without support, but vengeance won't be useful if she's got impenetrable wall up unless she's also using a devil weapon and at this point i think it's safe to call that non-standard play. and same thing for p much any map with a monster boss. o: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mavi251 Posted March 10, 2020 Author Share Posted March 10, 2020 On 3/8/2020 at 10:02 PM, geckokujou said: ignatz has the best timeskip glow up, honestly!! i love how he got more confident post timeskip ;; and also changed his hairstyle thank god// rn I'm near the end of a church run and I've got him running crit ring/edmund troops/mini bow+ and an extra hit+20. even with access to deadeye, I'd count myself lucky to get a 3+ range hit from ashe/shamir (or bernie). that aside though😂 not being able to survive multiple rounds of combat implies getting hit. with ingrid in particular that's never been a significant concern; by the time she has alert stance+ i'm already seeing 0% pretty often. imonit's also not fair to say bernie gets those kills completely unsupported, since the rest of the party is basically helping her get in range/escorting/etc.. her weakness in swords means i doubt she'll be hitting sword prowess lv 5 and that +hit makes a difference. ive done all routes on maddening, cf and gd on classic so far (though tbf none of those except my 1st bl run was a fresh file). none of them had any grinding, only paralogues and the occasional ore/meat trip. re: vengeance strat, wouldn't it still be accurate to call that a kind of gimmick playstyle? ...there's probably a better word... honestly my main disagreement is with the assertion that this tier list applies to general CF on "efficient, but not ltc" (hence "regular") play. the alois paralogue is easy to 1tk yeah, but.. most ppl aren't playing the game like that... what you're describing sounds like a playstyle with a specific goal like any other kind of (ltc/in house only/etc) run, in this case being "1hko boss"? +assumes the player has familiarity with spawns, what can do this or can't do that in [specific context] and so on. EP not being important i suppose we shall have to disagree on haha. you're right abt maddening enemies being lethal, but if you're not using warp/rescue (and tbh even if you are), there's situations where you can't just charge in, or you can't see where enemies might be and *someone* will have to duel- possibly multiple enemies in one turn- may as well be the few units who have less than 20% chance of being hit as opposed to 50+. you don't *have* to move fast and play offensively to survive maddening classic.. you certainly can but you can also turtle through every map with smart planning; it just comes down to personal playstyle and at the end of the day the goal is to have fun, yknow? what about rout maps with clumps of enemies that only move once in range? (that being said idr if cf even has much of that..) enemies like the wyvern spawns in the cf nader paralogue will get around whatever blockades you try to make thanks to terrain; if something is bulky enough to take a hit without dying then they're probably slow enough to get doubled and will certainly be killed on the 2nd/3rd if they're lucky engagement. you can't play offensively on that sort of map (or marianne, leonie/lin paras off the top of my head) just bc in nader's case they're out of most units' range and also spawn infinitely every turn afaik. i can't count it out off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure lys can't warp far enough to get bernie in range (even assuming flier movement, which means no guard adjutants). she'll get swarmed and die without support, but vengeance won't be useful if she's got impenetrable wall up unless she's also using a devil weapon and at this point i think it's safe to call that non-standard play. and same thing for p much any map with a monster boss. o: "ignatz has the best timeskip glow up, honestly!! i love how he got more confident post timeskip ;; and also changed his hairstyle thank god// rn I'm near the end of a church run and I've got him running crit ring/edmund troops/mini bow+ and an extra hit+20. even with access to deadeye, I'd count myself lucky to get a 3+ range hit from ashe/shamir (or bernie)". Agreed, Ignatz is a gem. Marianne is a close second for me. Also, having a good bow unit(s) for SS final pays dividends, there are so many strong flying enemies on that map. "not being able to survive multiple rounds of combat implies getting hit. with ingrid in particular that's never been a significant concern; by the time she has alert stance+ i'm already seeing 0% pretty often. imonit's also not fair to say bernie gets those kills completely unsupported, since the rest of the party is basically helping her get in range/escorting/etc.. her weakness in swords means i doubt she'll be hitting sword prowess lv 5 and that +hit makes a difference." If the hit rate is more than 10% I just assume they'll always get hit. It's not really feasible to get Alert Stance+ via seminars; it takes too long. Bernie doesn't solo or anything, she just assassinates bosses on Player Phase with consistency and minimal setup/grinding. The Devil Sword is moreso to take the 10 fixed damage to help get her to 1hp on turn one or two, she doesn't even have to kill or hit anything with it. Getting the Devil Sword isn't necessary, either. "honestly my main disagreement is with the assertion that this tier list applies to general CF on "efficient, but not ltc" (hence "regular") play. the alois paralogue is easy to 1tk yeah, but.. most ppl aren't playing the game like that... what you're describing sounds like a playstyle with a specific goal like any other kind of (ltc/in house only/etc) run, in this case being "1hko boss"? +assumes the player has familiarity with spawns, what can do this or can't do that in [specific context] and so on." 100% fair. For the record, most of my playthroughs are casual; they're more enjoyable overall. The run does assume you have familiarity with what units can do certain things with certain weapon/skill ranks at certain levels, etc. It especially requires you to know ambush/reinforcement zones, specifically chapters 5, 12, 14, 16, 17, and especially 18/Final. Special shout-out to chapter 3 for being kind of irritating at the start. "EP not being important i suppose we shall have to disagree on haha. you're right abt maddening enemies being lethal....+. you don't *have* to move fast and play offensively to survive maddening classic.. you certainly can but you can also turtle through every map with smart planning; it just comes down to personal playstyle and at the end of the day the goal is to have fun, yknow?" Perhaps I shouldn't have said EP isn't important. Rather, you can't rely on clearing out a whole squad of enemies on EP like in the GBA/SNES titles; the enemies are just roaming blobs of stats. That said, personal playstyle > all. Fun is the most important thing. I wouldn't recommend that anyone play Nader's paralogue, it's awful to play and has terrible rewards. Bernie is kept out of range on EP, it's pretty easy for her to do this as a Cav/Flier. Everyone except Byleth. Edelgard, Jeritza, Felix (or another combat unit) usually need to be kept safe/out of range on EP, except the occasional time where someone like Ferdie with a guard adjutant baits a single unit. It doesn't change too much about how the route (and maddening in general) is played. In my opinion, at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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