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Golden Deer Maddening Advice for a Noob


T-Doggo
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Hi all,

Firstly, thanks again for all the feedback and information, it's been incredible to help plan my run more effectively!

Second, is there anything specific I should know to avoid the post limit of three posts per day? I assume it has to do with the age of my account.

8 hours ago, Vitezen said:

What do you have against wyvern lord for Byleth? There's no reason not to have more fliers. Maybe are you scared of not being able to train him enough? If so, I understand.

Knowing Wyvern Lord is considered by many to be the best class, I thought about making Byleth one for sure! But given that I already have other characters who can fill the flier role effectively, I figured making Byleth a player phase nuke would help my team more since I have fewer units capable of filling that role. I am also assuming Byleth will have greater damage output as a War Master than a Wyvern Lord. Finally, I didn't want to run out of flying battalions with too many fliers on my team! I couldn't find a definitive answer of how many are available but I've always felt like I've needed more in the past.

This also brings up another question I had (which I believe is related to why I overlooked Hilda as a unit). What qualities make Wyvern Lord the best class? In my (limited and unoptimized) experience on hard, they were definitely good, but I didn't see them as my best units. My War Masters were stronger and my Falcon Knights were faster. Is this a case of "Although they aren't the best at any one thing, they are pretty good at a lot of things, making them overall the most versatile/best"? Not doubting that Wyvern Lords are the best class, just looking for clarification.

 

Based on the feedback, here is the new (similar) team I am considering:

Team

Ranged Units

Claude - Barbarossa; unchanged

Lysithea - Gremory; unchanged

Leonie - Bow Knight; unchanged

Cyril Ignatz- Sniper; I had several people mention Cyril was a poor choice and that Ignatz was a good pick, so it seems to make sense to have Ignatz step in as my third bow user. Sniper over Bow Knight so he still has a way to double enemies. Using another Golden Deer also helps alleviate my concerns over chapter 13.

Fliers

Petra - Wyvern Lord; unchanged

Hilda - Wyvern Lord; Hilda was also repeatedly recommended. She can replace either Ingrid or Catherine as having both Falcon Knights is probably redundant. Like Ignatz, I like that she gives me another Golden Deer to use on Chapter 13.

Ingrid/Catherine - Falcon Knight; I'll cut one to make room for Hilda. From what I've gathered, Ingrid has the benefit of being recruited with relevant skills, strengths that align with Falcon Knight, and higher SPD, RES, and CHA. Her stats also benefit a lot from being recruited as a Pegasus Knight and she has synergy with Felix/Sylvain. Catherine has the benefit of having much better STR which seems very significant and is slightly tankier. I'm leaning keeping Ingrid since Hilda seems to be a better replacement for Catherine, but not using a unit with stats/growths as good as hers seems like a shame. I could be talked either way.

Player Phase Damage Output

Sylvain - Paladin; unchanged

FerdinandPaladin; I don't necessarily want to cut him but if I'm trying to tighten up my roster to 12 (or 11) units then he seems the most expendable with Sylvain already being used. The two seem nearly identical since I'm playing male Byleth and I actually like Ferdinand's personal ability better. But I think the tiebreak is in Sylvain's favor since he gets the Lance of Ruin early.

Felix - War Master - unchanged

Byleth - War Master - unchanged; I feel like he should stay War Master over Wyvern Lord for player phase damage, especially if I drop Ferdinand.

Others

Marianne - Dancer; unchanged

Linhardt/Mercedes - Bishop; as someone said earlier, the choice is basically Warp or Fortify. Leaning Linhardt for Warp.

Edited by T-Doggo
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Use Raphael for war master instead of Felix.

Use Lorenz for dark knight instead of Linhardt / Sylvain / Mercedes

 

You are not placing enough value on chosen house units.

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12 minutes ago, AC6 said:

Use Raphael for war master instead of Felix.

Use Lorenz for dark knight instead of Linhardt / Sylvain / Mercedes

 

You are not placing enough value on chosen house units.

And I say you are overvaluing house units. 

Edited by Shadow Mir
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@T-Doggo It's my understanding that wyvern lord is a good class mostly because it's a flying class that anyone can be. However, putting a unit on a mount doesn't solve all of their problems. It will make a good unit better, but not necessarily make a bad unit good. Generally, a unit is good for melee if they can deal a lot of damage and survive enemy phase. Being a wyvern lord won't help you deal more damage, and it'll only help you survive enemy phase if you canto away from enemies and don't engage in enemy phase at all.

Byleth is already a good unit, so putting them on a mount just makes them better. This is the same reason why wyvern lord Hilda is good: She doesn't need help, so put her on a wyvern and make her even better. (Really she only needs help with speed, which you can fix by putting her through pegasus knight on the way to wyvern lord so she gets darting blow.) Now, here are some examples of characters that COULD be wyvern lords, but really shouldn't: Caspar, Raphael, and Ashe. None of them are strong defensively or evasively, so this immediately tells us that they aren't good enemy phase units. This means that their role is to deal damage safely by not getting hit. For Ashe, the obvious answer is using a bow. For Caspar and Raphael, they have it more difficult due to their low speed. Putting them on wyverns will have them doing single hits, getting doubled by every enemy, and dying. Instead, they should be grapplers. Grappler gives you the fierce iron fist art, which hits for 3 regardless of your speed, the best option available for their burst damage. Their goal is to hit a lone enemy in a safe space while your frontliners protect them.

In short, wyvern lord is good because it makes good units better by letting them fly. Units who have problems will need to consider specific niches. Good units like Byleth benefit from being wyvern lords because they can survive enemy phase and double.

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1 hour ago, Vitezen said:

Now, here are some examples of characters that COULD be wyvern lords, but really shouldn't: Caspar, Raphael, and Ashe. None of them are strong defensively or evasively, so this immediately tells us that they aren't good enemy phase units. This means that their role is to deal damage safely by not getting hit. For Ashe, the obvious answer is using a bow. For Caspar and Raphael, they have it more difficult due to their low speed. Putting them on wyverns will have them doing single hits, getting doubled by every enemy, and dying. Instead, they should be grapplers. Grappler gives you the fierce iron fist art, which hits for 3 regardless of your speed, the best option available for their burst damage. Their goal is to hit a lone enemy in a safe space while your frontliners protect them.

Caspar actually has a good speed growth surpassing all brawlers except Felix and drawing Byleth. His main problem is the abysmal base stats.

Ashe can be a Wyvern Lord, but he won’t be swinging axes. Instead, he’ll be a wyvern archer. It’s a choice that you can make other than the obvious Sniper.

Edited by Wishblade
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9 hours ago, Wishblade said:

Caspar actually has a good speed growth surpassing all brawlers except Felix and drawing Byleth. His main problem is the abysmal base stats.

Ashe can be a Wyvern Lord, but he won’t be swinging axes. Instead, he’ll be a wyvern archer. It’s a choice that you can make other than the obvious Sniper.

Ashe gives up hunter's volley and better range for canto. This will reduce his overall effectiveness, unless maybe your entire team is mounted and he can't keep up with them. And while Caspar might double easier, he still has a bad enemy phase. I'd assume he's going to end in grappler, and switch him over to wyvern lord if he gets lucky in his growths. Train him in axes either way.

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Alright, your new team plan sounds pretty solid, for the most part. Some thoughts, though:

14 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

Cyril Ignatz- Sniper; I had several people mention Cyril was a poor choice and that Ignatz was a good pick, so it seems to make sense to have Ignatz step in as my third bow user. Sniper over Bow Knight so he still has a way to double enemies. Using another Golden Deer also helps alleviate my concerns over chapter 13.

I'll stan Cyril forever and a day (Point Blank Volley from C+ Bows is so damn good), but when you're doing the same thing with Leonie, plus trying to bring Ignatz into the fold, I can understand forgoing Cyril. With Ignatz, be sure you build his Authority from early on - Rally Speed plus Skill can be very helpful. He can also use the Magic Bow, if magical damage is needed.

14 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

Hilda - Wyvern Lord; Hilda was also repeatedly recommended. She can replace either Ingrid or Catherine as having both Falcon Knights is probably redundant. Like Ignatz, I like that she gives me another Golden Deer to use on Chapter 13.

Yeah Hilda's great, especially as a Wyvern Lord with Freikugel.

14 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

Ingrid/Catherine - Falcon Knight; I'll cut one to make room for Hilda. From what I've gathered, Ingrid has the benefit of being recruited with relevant skills, strengths that align with Falcon Knight, and higher SPD, RES, and CHA. Her stats also benefit a lot from being recruited as a Pegasus Knight and she has synergy with Felix/Sylvain. Catherine has the benefit of having much better STR which seems very significant and is slightly tankier. I'm leaning keeping Ingrid since Hilda seems to be a better replacement for Catherine, but not using a unit with stats/growths as good as hers seems like a shame. I could be talked either way.

Ingrid is faster, and has better magic, which can actually be useful with Frozen Lance (from A Lances) or the Levin Sword. But Catherine hits harder, and her personal helps her bulk with no batallion equipped (flying battalions being relatively scarce). Totally up to you, but I'd recruit both either way to score Thunderbrand and Luín.

14 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

Sylvain - Paladin; unchanged

FerdinandPaladin; I don't necessarily want to cut him but if I'm trying to tighten up my roster to 12 (or 11) units then he seems the most expendable with Sylvain already being used. The two seem nearly identical since I'm playing male Byleth and I actually like Ferdinand's personal ability better. But I think the tiebreak is in Sylvain's favor since he gets the Lance of Ruin early.

It's worth picking up both of them - Sylvain for early Lance of Ruin, and his paralogue; and Ferdinand for his post-skip paralogue with Lysithea. Ferdinand can actually use the Lance of Ruin nearly as well as Sylvain - he's missing Ruined Sky, but of course both get Swift Strikes. If you like Ferdie's personal skill better, I'd use him, and possibly make Sylvain a damage-boosting adjutant for Felix.

14 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

Byleth - War Master - unchanged; I feel like he should stay War Master over Wyvern Lord for player phase damage, especially if I drop Ferdinand.

Yeah War Master Byleth is good - Wyvern may be better overall, but having another Gauntlet user with Death Blow is welcome (plus, it doesn't demand spending a lot of activity points to fly). You could even leave him as Grappler, to capitalize off of Fierce Iron Fist. Up to you.

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On 3/15/2020 at 12:45 AM, T-Doggo said:

Cyril Ignatz- Sniper; I had several people mention Cyril was a poor choice and that Ignatz was a good pick, so it seems to make sense to have Ignatz step in as my third bow user. Sniper over Bow Knight so he still has a way to double enemies. Using another Golden Deer also helps alleviate my concerns over chapter 13.

I recommend you to get DB on him either along the way or through grind. Hit+20 is imo optional for him since he already has it as his personal. So don't stress to much about picking up 2 skills from intermediate.

Also don't worry about having too many bow users. Bows are the best weapon so you should be using them. It could at least be a secondary choice for units like Byleth and Petra. For all my maddening run I had at least half of my team had a bow weapon in their inventory.

On 3/15/2020 at 12:45 AM, T-Doggo said:

Hilda - Wyvern Lord; Hilda was also repeatedly recommended. She can replace either Ingrid or Catherine as having both Falcon Knights is probably redundant. Like Ignatz, I like that she gives me another Golden Deer to use on Chapter 13.

Wyvern lord are amazing so dw about having too many. 

On 3/15/2020 at 12:45 AM, T-Doggo said:

Ingrid/Catherine - Falcon Knight; I'll cut one to make room for Hilda. From what I've gathered, Ingrid has the benefit of being recruited with relevant skills, strengths that align with Falcon Knight, and higher SPD, RES, and CHA. Her stats also benefit a lot from being recruited as a Pegasus Knight and she has synergy with Felix/Sylvain. Catherine has the benefit of having much better STR which seems very significant and is slightly tankier. I'm leaning keeping Ingrid since Hilda seems to be a better replacement for Catherine, but not using a unit with stats/growths as good as hers seems like a shame. I could be talked either way.

Catherine is so busted. She makes the mid game rlly easy especially if you recruit her early. Base > growths. You could also make her a permanent adjutant for Sylvain/Felix. Thats basically +6 dmg for Sylvain and Felix if he use brave/gaunlets.

On 3/15/2020 at 12:45 AM, T-Doggo said:

Byleth - War Master - unchanged; I feel like he should stay War Master over Wyvern Lord for player phase damage, especially if I drop Ferdinand.

Its not like Wyvern Lord cant do player phase damage. Byleth with DB and brave axe should be enough.

On 3/15/2020 at 12:45 AM, T-Doggo said:

Marianne - Dancer; unchanged

Linhardt/Mercedes - Bishop; as someone said earlier, the choice is basically Warp or Fortify. Leaning Linhardt for Warp.

If you pick Marianne as your dancer I would use Mercedes

The current team lacks a lot of healing. Marianne has limited physics use and Lysithea only has heal for healing. both don't have +10 heal that comes with Bishop. Mercedes's healing abilities is better so I'd pick her. 

However, if you really want to use Linhardt, change Marianne to Bishop to have 2 good physics user. Your dancer can be anybody else. I'd recommend Lorenz cause he also has a boon in riding and house unit so he will be able to actually contribute for ch13 instead of being dead weight. Might be difficult though since he has terrible base charm.

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2 hours ago, leesangstar10 said:

Catherine is so busted. She makes the mid game rlly easy especially if you recruit her early. Base > growths. You could also make her a permanent adjutant for Sylvain/Felix. Thats basically +6 dmg for Sylvain and Felix if he use brave/gaunlets.

Erm, are you sure you're not talking about Ingrid here with the "her"? Also, lemme guess - recruiting Catherine early is dependent on flower spam. Which, as far as I know, clashes with the most efficient seeds to raise professor level being Nordsalat and Angelica Seeds. Also, I wish they actually bothered to explain the greenhouse, because gardening is complicated af and the game tells you pretty much nothing of note as to how to get good stuff from it.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Erm, are you sure you're not talking about Ingrid here with the "her"? Also, lemme guess - recruiting Catherine early is dependent on flower spam. Which, as far as I know, clashes with the most efficient seeds to raise professor level being Nordsalat and Angelica Seeds. Also, I wish they actually bothered to explain the greenhouse, because gardening is complicated af and the game tells you pretty much nothing of note as to how to get good stuff from it.

again with your nordsalat seeds jeez

unless you savescum you are NOT planting those damn seeds. what you'll be planting for the most part are the COLORED SEEDS (and mix them with other better seeds to increase your yields if you happen to have them) which yield flowers you can gift.

and 99% of players won't be assed to savescum for those seeds just to increase their chance of getting a stat boosters by like 5%-10%

at that point just savescum the results of your gardening session lol.

also, gardening for professor level is also pretty meh. the vast majority of your professor exp you get via the fishing event. which maxes out your professor level around chapter 8-9, and I'm pretty sure you won't be saving a chapter worth of time just by planting different seeds.

if you dislike grinding for the fishes, you'll also dislike grinding and savescumming for seeds. so it's not even an alternative, just an extra timesink.

 

the fact that you keep insisting every damn time about those nordsalat seeds really shows that you didn't play that much.

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5 minutes ago, AxelVDP said:

again with your nordsalat seeds jeez

unless you savescum you are NOT planting those damn seeds. what you'll be planting for the most part are the COLORED SEEDS (and mix them with other better seeds to increase your yields if you happen to have them) which yield flowers you can gift.

and 99% of players won't be assed to savescum for those seeds just to increase their chance of getting a stat boosters by like 5%-10%

at that point just savescum the results of your gardening session lol.

also, gardening for professor level is also pretty meh. the vast majority of your professor exp you get via the fishing event. which maxes out your professor level around chapter 8-9, and I'm pretty sure you won't be saving a chapter worth of time just by planting different seeds.

if you dislike grinding for the fishes, you'll also dislike grinding and savescumming for seeds. so it's not even an alternative, just an extra timesink.

 

the fact that you keep insisting every damn time about those nordsalat seeds really shows that you didn't play that much.

And you have? Because I maxed out my professor level in chapter 9 by primarily planting Angelica Seeds (which, btw, are the same rank as Nordsalat Seeds), along with the fishing event in chapter 9. That said, I also ended up micromanaging regarding lecture answers, and I also read stuff about planting the high rank seeds you can get in chapter 2 or so allows you to get to certain professor level benchmarks early, so I decided to try that (it helps that Angelica and Nordsalat Seeds grow themselves at yield levels 1 and 2). I'm unsure I could have done that if I was planting flower seeds instead...

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

And you have? Because I maxed out my professor level in chapter 9 by primarily planting Angelica Seeds (which, btw, are the same rank as Nordsalat Seeds), along with the fishing event in chapter 9. That said, I also ended up micromanaging regarding lecture answers, and I also read stuff about planting the high rank seeds you can get in chapter 2 or so allows you to get to certain professor level benchmarks early, so I decided to try that (it helps that Angelica and Nordsalat Seeds grow themselves at yield levels 1 and 2). I'm unsure I could have done that if I was planting flower seeds instead...

I have several maddening playthroughs under my belt, and I always maxed my professor rank in the chapter with the fishing event (well, in my first playthrough the chapter after)

all of this while planting standard colored seeds.

and with room to spare.

you most definetly do not need to do that kind of gardening

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6 hours ago, leesangstar10 said:

Also don't worry about having too many bow users. Bows are the best weapon so you should be using them. It could at least be a secondary choice for units like Byleth and Petra. For all my maddening run I had at least half of my team had a bow weapon in their inventory.

Would it be better to have Felix go Bow Knight then? I've cut Cyril so switching Felix to Bow Knight would give me four primary bow users.

 

On 3/15/2020 at 3:03 AM, Vitezen said:

Good units like Byleth benefit from being wyvern lords because they can survive enemy phase and double.

 

On 3/15/2020 at 2:22 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Wyvern may be better overall, but having another Gauntlet user with Death Blow is welcome (plus, it doesn't demand spending a lot of activity points to fly)

I've also been told several times now that Wyvern Lord is Byleth's best class, so I'm willing to switch them over. It also allows me to use female Byleth for free Sylvain recruit. Two questions there:

1. Am I silly for being concerned about my number of flying battalions? My fear is that I won't have enough with so many of my units flying. 

2. Is it difficult to get Byleth the skill requirements to be a Wyvern Lord? In my experience on hard, Byleth's skills were the hardest to raise. One (smaller) reason I liked War Master was because it plays to Byleth's brawling strength. Even Falcon Knight uses her sword strength, and still makes her a flyer.

 

Thanks for all the input everyone! This has been incredibly informative. I think the last step will just be cutting down my roster based on all the great suggestions I've heard and finalizing a couple classes:

Team

Ranged Units

Claude - Barbarossa

Lysithea - Gremory

Leonie - Bow Knight

Ignatz- Sniper; I'll be sure to get him Death Blow as was pointed out

Fliers

Petra - Wyvern Lord

Hilda - Wyvern Lord 

Ingrid - Falcon Knight

Catherine - Falcon Knight

Byleth - Wyvern Lord; Maybe Falcon Knight or War Master?

Player Phase Damage Output

Sylvain - Paladin

Ferdinand Paladin

Felix - War Master; Maybe Bow Knight?

Others

Marianne - Dancer

Linhardt Bishop

Mercedes - Bishop

 

I realize 15 units is probably too many, so who from the above roster should be cut? Or do I use all 15 and rotate the adjutants to keep everyone leveled?

Thanks again y'all!!

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I think you should cut either Linhardt or Mercedes, I recommend cutting Mercedes cuz her paralogue requires Caspar, who you're not using. Also, heal staff adds 10 points to healing spells, so have Marianne use one when she needs to physic.

Also cut one of the fliers probably, maybe Petra, cuz she's recruited as a thief, and takes longer to get going. Don't cut Ingrid because her battalion is great, though you're incentivized to recruit her later on (around chapter 8-10) for better joining stats to make up for her low strength. Ingrid will also be useful for dealing with mages thanks to having the best resistance among your fliers.

Most of the main story chapters allow you to field 10 units, so if you have a team of 13 you can dedicate the remaining 3 to adjutants once you reach professor rank A.

Since you're benching two in-house units, it might be better to go female Byleth and recruit Sylvain earlier, to fill in the missing two slots. Have Byleth focus on swords until C rank while supporting Felix to recruit him early as well, in my playthrough I got him at chapter 6 along with Catherine. This does mean you'll be going with Falcon Knight Byleth, though with her high charm she doesn't mind being saddled with D rank pegasus battalions, which have C level battalion stats anyway.

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Number of flying battalions you can obtain within Golden deer path is 7 (including the dlc flying battalions).

 

Do you really intend to bench Lorenz and Raphael? All units in this game are strong if you know how to train them properly.

 

Experience cut gets really bad if you try to make unit x very powerful relative to enemy unit.

Absolute maximum level for unit x is (enemy unit level - 4 levels).

Suggested maximum level for unit x is (enemy unit level - 6 levels).

Edited by AC6
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10 hours ago, Crysta said:

Isn’t Cat a level requirement recruitment anyway?

Yes. You need a level 15 Byleth to recruit Catherine (and Shamir) in Verdant Wind (and Azure Moon). I've heard this goes down if you support with her, but I'm not certain. Not sure what anyone else is going on about.

8 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

Would it be better to have Felix go Bow Knight then? I've cut Cyril so switching Felix to Bow Knight would give me four primary bow users.

 

 

I've also been told several times now that Wyvern Lord is Byleth's best class, so I'm willing to switch them over. It also allows me to use female Byleth for free Sylvain recruit. Two questions there:

1. Am I silly for being concerned about my number of flying battalions? My fear is that I won't have enough with so many of my units flying. 

2. Is it difficult to get Byleth the skill requirements to be a Wyvern Lord? In my experience on hard, Byleth's skills were the hardest to raise. One (smaller) reason I liked War Master was because it plays to Byleth's brawling strength. Even Falcon Knight uses her sword strength, and still makes her a flyer.

 

Thanks for all the input everyone! This has been incredibly informative. I think the last step will just be cutting down my roster based on all the great suggestions I've heard and finalizing a couple classes:

Team

Ranged Units

Claude - Barbarossa

Lysithea - Gremory

Leonie - Bow Knight

Ignatz- Sniper; I'll be sure to get him Death Blow as was pointed out

Fliers

Petra - Wyvern Lord

Hilda - Wyvern Lord 

Ingrid - Falcon Knight

Catherine - Falcon Knight

Byleth - Wyvern Lord; Maybe Falcon Knight or War Master?

Player Phase Damage Output

Sylvain - Paladin

Ferdinand Paladin

Felix - War Master; Maybe Bow Knight?

Others

Marianne - Dancer

Linhardt Bishop

Mercedes - Bishop

 

I realize 15 units is probably too many, so who from the above roster should be cut? Or do I use all 15 and rotate the adjutants to keep everyone leveled?

Thanks again y'all!!

At this point, here's what I would do:

1. Cut Sylvain from the main roster, but still recruit him. Train him in Axe and Armor, so he can be a guard adjutant for Felix (or whoever wants one). Also Flight, so he can adjutant for Ingrid. Make Ferdinand a Paladin, possibly with Lorenz as an adjutant (just to get him levels, so Chapter 13 is more bearable).

2. Cut one among Ingrid/Petra/Catherine. Catherine is the easiest to recruit (no reason not to, even if only for Thunderbrand), but hardest to train as a flier. Petra and Ingrid are both strong in flying (and a respective weapom type), but demand support ranks through giftspam and/or skill levels through activity points. I'd lean to cut Petra, since Ingrid at least is giving you Luín through her Paralogue. But if you don't think getting Petra will be a struggle, it's fine to cut Catherine.

3. Of Felix and Byleth, make one a War Master / Grappler, and the other an Assassin. I noticed you have no Swordfaire units - sword-specialists are great for luring (and dodging) enemy Axe-users. Meanwhile, Gauntlets with Crit +20 (or Fierce Iron Fist) make for a player-phase nuke. Flying will take quite a few activity points, especially if you're going male Byleth. Plus, you'll get a ton of good ground-based battalions and Swords that you can make use of.

4. Definitely recruit Linhardt for the Inexhaustible. Mercedes, I don't especially see as worth it, unless you're getting Caspar too (for their post-skip Paralogue). You could get her, and just use her as a Healing adjutant most of the time. Or you could use Mercedes, and make Linhardt your healing adjutant. I tend to think Physic + Warp > Physic + Fortify, but that's really your call.

5. If you have an extra adjutant space pre-skip, you could make Raphael a guard for someone he supports with, like Ignatz or Leonie. This could help make chapter 13 more bearable. Raph can also make Ignatz's offense more potent. But I view this tip as much less essential than the others.

So this way, we have like 12 fielded units, and 3 or so adjutants. Seems a very workable number. Again, I haven't beaten GD Maddening, so much of this is theorycrafting. 

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11 hours ago, Crysta said:

Isn’t Cat a level requirement recruitment anyway?

Yes.

7 hours ago, AC6 said:

Do you really intend to bench Lorenz and Raphael? All units in this game are strong if you know how to train them properly.

That's some really idealistic nonsense to be spouting, you know...

9 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

1. Am I silly for being concerned about my number of flying battalions? My fear is that I won't have enough with so many of my units flying. 

2. Is it difficult to get Byleth the skill requirements to be a Wyvern Lord? In my experience on hard, Byleth's skills were the hardest to raise. One (smaller) reason I liked War Master was because it plays to Byleth's brawling strength. Even Falcon Knight uses her sword strength, and still makes her a flyer.

1. No. About three, maybe four, flying battalions are good, and i mean really good.

2. Byleth would need a lot of Faculty training to get into a flying class. This is especially true if you prefer male Byleth, which I do because I cannot stand the female's design (I just think that's some Pamela Smart-level bullshit), since the only flying classes in that case are advanced tier or higher. Maybe I'm exaggerating, though...

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21 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Erm, are you sure you're not talking about Ingrid here with the "her"? Also, lemme guess - recruiting Catherine early is dependent on flower spam. Which, as far as I know, clashes with the most efficient seeds to raise professor level being Nordsalat and Angelica Seeds. Also, I wish they actually bothered to explain the greenhouse, because gardening is complicated af and the game tells you pretty much nothing of note as to how to get good stuff from it.

I mean you could also buy gifts.

15 hours ago, Lief said:

I think you should cut either Linhardt or Mercedes, I recommend cutting Mercedes cuz her paralogue requires Caspar, who you're not using. Also, heal staff adds 10 points to healing spells, so have Marianne use one when she needs to physic.

Uh but she is still prefers to dance rather than heal though. I rather just make Mercedes do all the healing and have Marianne dance. Using Lysithea anyways so no need for another warp(I'm assuming no ltc)

16 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

2. Is it difficult to get Byleth the skill requirements to be a Wyvern Lord? In my experience on hard, Byleth's skills were the hardest to raise. One (smaller) reason I liked War Master was because it plays to Byleth's brawling strength. Even Falcon Knight uses her sword strength, and still makes her a flyer.

If you spend your monastery time wisely, then no. Whenever you are at the monastery you should never do dining cause you can just use flowers/gifts for motivation, do tournaments for prof rank and just train Byleth(and gardening too, but thats obv). Gauntlets arent that great at late game. 

16 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

Would it be better to have Felix go Bow Knight then? I've cut Cyril so switching Felix to Bow Knight would give me four primary bow users.

 imo I think it is the better class for him. 

 

Also people dont realize but you can just recruit units but not use them. So you can still use weapons like thunderbrand and luin and not use said unit.

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15 minutes ago, leesangstar10 said:

I mean you could also buy gifts.

IIRC, don't I have to wait until chapter 5 before that (I think the quest that has the merchants come and open up shop upon completion opens then)?

19 hours ago, AxelVDP said:

I have several maddening playthroughs under my belt, and I always maxed my professor rank in the chapter with the fishing event (well, in my first playthrough the chapter after)

all of this while planting standard colored seeds.

and with room to spare.

you most definetly do not need to do that kind of gardening

See above. Unless my memory is sketchy and it is possible to get flower seeds some other way before unlocking the merchants, one of whom sells seeds.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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17 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

I've also been told several times now that Wyvern Lord is Byleth's best class, so I'm willing to switch them over. It also allows me to use female Byleth for free Sylvain recruit. Two questions there:

1. Am I silly for being concerned about my number of flying battalions? My fear is that I won't have enough with so many of my units flying. 

2. Is it difficult to get Byleth the skill requirements to be a Wyvern Lord? In my experience on hard, Byleth's skills were the hardest to raise. One (smaller) reason I liked War Master was because it plays to Byleth's brawling strength. Even Falcon Knight uses her sword strength, and still makes her a flyer.

 

Thanks for all the input everyone! This has been incredibly informative. I think the last step will just be cutting down my roster based on all the great suggestions I've heard and finalizing a couple classes:

Team

Ranged Units

Claude - Barbarossa

Lysithea - Gremory

Leonie - Bow Knight

Ignatz- Sniper; I'll be sure to get him Death Blow as was pointed out

Fliers

Petra - Wyvern Lord

Hilda - Wyvern Lord 

Ingrid - Falcon Knight

Catherine - Falcon Knight

Byleth - Wyvern Lord; Maybe Falcon Knight or War Master?

Player Phase Damage Output

Sylvain - Paladin

Ferdinand Paladin

Felix - War Master; Maybe Bow Knight?

Others

Marianne - Dancer

Linhardt Bishop

Mercedes - Bishop

 

I realize 15 units is probably too many, so who from the above roster should be cut? Or do I use all 15 and rotate the adjutants to keep everyone leveled?

Thanks again y'all!!

1. Not really a big concern. Assuming you recruit Ingrid, you have about 5 good flying Battalions, so you should be fine. 

2. I haven’t had too much trouble with that, and I use F!Byleth as a flier pretty much every playthrough. Faculty Training is pretty effective, and Byleth naturally gets a lot of Skill XP from fighting more often. 

As for the roster, I wouldn’t use more than 12 units since you don’t really benefit from spreading out your XP, particularly on a mode that has fairly large XP penalties. I’d cut Mercedes since you don’t need two healers. Ingrid is also not necessary and isn’t that great imo, even if you wait to recruit her (I’d still do it to get Luin and her Battalion though). She’d be useful as an Adjutant to Sylvain or Felix though to boost their damage. I personally wouldn’t use Ignatz in the long run either. He’s really good early on for his accuracy and Rally Speed, but being stuck as a Sniper isn’t great, and he’s fairly weak as a Bow Knight. Probably best to just bench him once he starts falling off. 

 

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I don't think there is any need to have both Sylvain and Ferdinand.  They (by your admission) fill the same role.  Frankly the challenge on maddening typically isn't doing enough damage on your phase, it's surviving the enemy phase.  Then on your turn you can swarm enemies with multiple units or use gambits.  And unfortunately both of these units will be liabilities on enemy phase due to the massive speed and attack strength of enemies.  I would suggest using F!Byleth to get a quick Sylvain recruit (and also going Falcon Knight later) and leaving Ferdie alone.

Hilda can also be benched.  She's an OK unit, but she is a bit on the slow side for maddening and severely outclassed by Petra as a Wyvern Lord.

Ignatz can be used in Part 1 for his rally abilities, but his strength is just not good enough moving into Part 2.  He will be stuck doing single digit damage against all enemies except mages by the end of the game.  Once you've turned the corner in Part 1 (usually around Chapter 7-8), you should bench him. 

I don't think you should get both Mercedes and Lindhardt.  Both are primarily healers and don't have great offensive spells lists.  If think you should choose one (I prefer Mercedes) and swap the other for a more offensive minded mage.  I like using Dorothea as a 'swing' mage.  She has a good spell list (including Thoron, Meteor, and Agnea's Arrow),  as well as Physic for extra healing if necessary (or split into two parties).

I would also suggest that you make sure you get all the Golden Deer students to at least level 20 and into advanced classes prior to Chapter 13.  It's not too significant an investment and it does make that chapter much, much easier.  That way you don't have to clear the map with only two units.  Your other units won't notice the missed experience.

Also, make sure at least one of Catherine and F!Byleth sticks with swords even though they are in Falcon Knight.  You definitely want at least one unit each with Axebreaker, Lancebreaker, and Swordbreaker (preferably on your fliers).  Those abilities make dodgetanking much easier

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7 hours ago, SumG said:

Frankly the challenge on maddening typically isn't doing enough damage on your phase, it's surviving the enemy phase.  Then on your turn you can swarm enemies with multiple units or use gambits. 

This is really awesome to know. I was concerned with my damage output on player phase, hence my desire for War Masters and Sylvain + Ferdinand. I feel better cutting a paladin and switching my War Masters to other classes knowing this. Ferdinand was also going to be a pain to recruit while trying make Byleth a flier.

Based on this and other feedback I've gotten, here is the (very, very close to) finalized team:

Team:

Ranged Units

Claude - Barbarossa

Leonie - Bow Knight

Felix - Bow Knight; replacing Ignatz as a bow user if he gets cut, good class for Felix regardless

Lysithea - Gremory

Fliers

Petra - Wyvern Lord

Catherine - Falcon Knight

Byleth - Falcon Knight; Flier Byleth seems like the way to go. I like Falcon Knight since I want to use swords for Windsweep which seems useful for chipping enemies on maddening. Is it worth it to train axes for Wyvern Rider as an advanced class?

Others

Sylvain - Paladin

Linhardt or Mercedes - Bishop; still undecided but it seems like either will do the job effectively

Marianne - Dancer

 

Additional Units: (Units I'm on the fence on based on mixed feedback I've received, but 1~2 will be added to main roster) 

Hilda - Wyvern Lord; She'll probably be on the team, but interesting that for all her recommendations I've also been told to cut her. High STR, but not fast enough to double? Low accuracy combat but high accuracy gambits? She seems interesting for sure.

Ignatz - Sniper; His selling point seems to be his usefulness early game, where he'll be used regardless. Felix is stronger/faster but Ignatz definitely plays the support role better.

Dorothea - Gremory; I've been told a few times I need more magic offense, she seems like the best solution

Ingrid - Falcon Knight; Seems like a solid unit, but also probably inferior to Byleth/Catherine as Falcon Knights. Could be a good adjutant for Felix/Sylvain. I'm partial to her so I'm a little bummed I don't think she'll make the cut.

 

Thanks again for all the great input everyone, I've learned a ton about what to expect on maddening and recieved many great suggestions. I think I made the original post with the intent to find the "perfect" team but have since realized from all the suggestions that everyone's opinion on what is"best" definitely varies. There is no "perfect" roster! I appreciate everyone's help and am looking forward to starting this run!

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1 hour ago, T-Doggo said:

This is really awesome to know. I was concerned with my damage output on player phase, hence my desire for War Masters and Sylvain + Ferdinand. I feel better cutting a paladin and switching my War Masters to other classes knowing this. Ferdinand was also going to be a pain to recruit while trying make Byleth a flier.

Based on this and other feedback I've gotten, here is the (very, very close to) finalized team:

Team:

Ranged Units

Claude - Barbarossa

Leonie - Bow Knight

Felix - Bow Knight; replacing Ignatz as a bow user if he gets cut, good class for Felix regardless

Lysithea - Gremory

Fliers

Petra - Wyvern Lord

Catherine - Falcon Knight

Byleth - Falcon Knight; Flier Byleth seems like the way to go. I like Falcon Knight since I want to use swords for Windsweep which seems useful for chipping enemies on maddening. Is it worth it to train axes for Wyvern Rider as an advanced class?

Others

Sylvain - Paladin

Linhardt or Mercedes - Bishop; still undecided but it seems like either will do the job effectively

Marianne - Dancer

 

Additional Units: (Units I'm on the fence on based on mixed feedback I've received, but 1~2 will be added to main roster) 

Hilda - Wyvern Lord; She'll probably be on the team, but interesting that for all her recommendations I've also been told to cut her. High STR, but not fast enough to double? Low accuracy combat but high accuracy gambits? She seems interesting for sure.

Ignatz - Sniper; His selling point seems to be his usefulness early game, where he'll be used regardless. Felix is stronger/faster but Ignatz definitely plays the support role better.

Dorothea - Gremory; I've been told a few times I need more magic offense, she seems like the best solution

Ingrid - Falcon Knight; Seems like a solid unit, but also probably inferior to Byleth/Catherine as Falcon Knights. Could be a good adjutant for Felix/Sylvain. I'm partial to her so I'm a little bummed I don't think she'll make the cut.

 

Thanks again for all the great input everyone, I've learned a ton about what to expect on maddening and recieved many great suggestions. I think I made the original post with the intent to find the "perfect" team but have since realized from all the suggestions that everyone's opinion on what is"best" definitely varies. There is no "perfect" roster! I appreciate everyone's help and am looking forward to starting this run!

I'd use Hilda over Petra.

1) you don't have to bother recuiting her (and without Bernadetta, Petra does not even give you a paralogue)

2) you'll have an easier chapter 13

3) Hilda will give/receive more support bonuses with linked attacks due to her having more supports with the rest of the squad

if you notice you're getting bad level ups in the early game you can still try the Petra route, but I'd have her as a backup.

Dorothea is pretty weak as far as mages go. if you really wanted a purely offensive mage, you have to look no further than Lorenz. He's easily one of the most dmg dealing magical units in the game. his downside being that he offers little else.

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