Golden Deer Maddening Advice for a Noob

[SumG]

18 hours ago, AxelVDP said:

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.

Dorothea is a low magic stat compared to most other mages, but all of the mages do a pretty similar tier of damage to enemies on maddening.  Most mages will do significant damage on each attack, but not enough to kill enemies in one hit.  And due to the low speed of mages, they will not be able to get a follow-up for a ORKO on anything except maybe armor knights.  You tend not to get punished even though her damage output isn't the highest.

Dorothea's benefit, despite her low magic stat, is an extremely flexible spell list.  All of her spells have fairly high Mt for their tier, which closes the power gap between her and other mages.  She gets Thoron early, which gives her a 3 range spell, which lets her attack most enemies without a counterattack.  She might have the earliest siege magic spell outside of the DLC in Meteor at A Reason (and actually be a good enough mage to use it).  She gets Agnea's Arrow, the highest might magic spell in the game.  And she learns Physic, which is highest utility healing spell in the game.

Lorenz has the same magic growth as Dorothea, but a much worse spell list.  All of his Reason spells are generic 2-range attack spells, none of which have a weakness they can exploit.  Agnea's Arrow is nice, but it's not enough.  And he has nothing useful in his Faith spell list.

[AxelVDP]

9 minutes ago, SumG said:

Dorothea is a low magic stat compared to most other mages, but all of the mages do a pretty similar tier of damage to enemies on maddening.  Most mages will do significant damage on each attack, but not enough to kill enemies in one hit.  And due to the low speed of mages, they will not be able to get a follow-up for a ORKO on anything except maybe armor knights.  You tend not to get punished even though her damage output isn't the highest.

Dorothea's benefit, despite her low magic stat, is an extremely flexible spell list.  All of her spells have fairly high Mt for their tier, which closes the power gap between her and other mages.  She gets Thoron early, which gives her a 3 range spell, which lets her attack most enemies without a counterattack.  She might have the earliest siege magic spell outside of the DLC in Meteor at A Reason (and actually be a good enough mage to use it).  She gets Agnea's Arrow, the highest might magic spell in the game.  And she learns Physic, which is highest utility healing spell in the game.

Lorenz has the same magic growth as Dorothea, but a much worse spell list.  All of his Reason spells are generic 2-range attack spells, none of which have a weakness they can exploit.  Agnea's Arrow is nice, but it's not enough.  And he has nothing useful in his Faith spell list.

I posted some calcs in another thread.

Lorenz's magic might not be high, but his dmg output is influenced by his super high mt magic spells (and frozen lance) and his personal skill.

Yes, he is not a flexible unit (as I already stated), but if you want a mage that can actually ORKO other enemies and not just do chip, Lorenz is one of those mages.

Hubert and Lysithea are the only students who beat him in raw magic power, Hanneman might too, but I personally am not well informed on him.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Ragnarok at B would be broken on any mage. It's a better Dark Spikes with higher MT and less WT. Lorenz also doesn't have to suffer the 60-80 accuracy hit rates most other mages have to deal with early game. And a strength stat to keep his AS in line. Lorenz rocks.

[Zoran]

On 3/16/2020 at 4:43 PM, 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.

You have two chances to pull either Angelica (5-Star) or Nordsalat (4-star) seeds from the barrels southeast of the main hall while exploring in chapter 1 and chapter 2 (before you have a free choice of what to plant). The other things that can spawn there are Morfis-Plum and Boa-Fruit seeds, which are functionally equivalent in terms of professor experience (500 and 400 respectively) but spawn worse stat boosters. The beautiful thing about all four of these seeds is that they grow themselves, which flowers notably don’t do, and you can’t consistently get good flower seeds until you unlock the merchant without some serious save scumming.

Nordsalat is really nice because a single seed with pruning hits nearly 50% chance of a speed booster and is dirt cheap, allowing you to dedicate your early funds to other things like battalions and good weapons. Nordsalat and Angelica seeds also grow Magdred Kirsch, an ingredient in the ridiculous Goddess Messenger meal that gives great stat boosts and 450 Professor EXP and is doable as early as chapter 3.

Motivation from support unlocks and meals will carry you through the early chapters with no worries, and once you do the merchant quest, correct use of lost items and the cheaper gifts will cover you without any need to resort to flower seeds. 

Optimized Professor EXP gain isn’t about hitting A+ rank at chapter 9, which I agree is pretty trivial if you just hoard bait and do a good number of tournaments. Rather, it's about hitting other benchmarks way sooner than you “should.” You can have adjutants before the chapter 3 mission; B rank for two adjutants (and double battles) before the merchant quest; and A rank for three adjutants in the middle of chapter 7. Not to mention that by ranking up earlier you gain more lecture points for more efficient teaching, plus more activity points that let you gain even more Professor EXP or Faculty Training or meals or whatever else you need along the way.

[leesangstar10]

On 3/18/2020 at 8:37 PM, T-Doggo said:

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

Sniper could work for him too if you need more player phase unit like Sylvain. Personally, I always grab hit+20 for all my bowknights to actually be able to hit 4 range.

On 3/18/2020 at 8:37 PM, T-Doggo said:

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.

I would say switch Petra out with Hilda mainly because of ch 13. Your main roster only has 3 units useable by turn 3 of ch 13. 

On 3/18/2020 at 8:37 PM, T-Doggo said:

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

I would say replace her with Lorenz. Again because of ch 13.

On 3/18/2020 at 8:37 PM, T-Doggo said:

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?

Yes. Even if you are not planning on going wyvern lord, she should still train in axe to become wyvern rider. Making her assassin or any other advance class kinda makes her worse imo than Pegasus knight. It also shouldn't be that difficult since you would only need C in axes for a chance to pass(flying requirement should be met at this point so no worry there)

Personally, I think wyvern lord is a better class for her cause more damage. Also you can still use windsweep as wyvern lord. Falcon knight provides no benefit when using a sword other than skill exp. 

Also in the current main roster, there is only one axe user so even more reason to make her into wyvern.

[T-Doggo]

Generally, what seeds should I be planting each week? I don't necessarily need a super in-depth breakdown, but the game doesn't really explain how gardening works and I haven't seen a super detailed tutorial/strategy. I assumed I would want flowers given the number of students I'm trying to recruit, but how does gardening for stat boosters and professor exp fit in?

[AxelVDP]

11 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

Generally, what seeds should I be planting each week? I don't necessarily need a super in-depth breakdown, but the game doesn't really explain how gardening works and I haven't seen a super detailed tutorial/strategy. I assumed I would want flowers given the number of students I'm trying to recruit, but how does gardening for stat boosters and professor exp fit in?

the colored seeds. pale blue for speed, purple for str, and yellow for magic. depending on what you need obviously

there's hardly anything else to know if you really don't want to minmax to the extreme. planting colored seeds will get you by easily

[Zoran]

14 hours ago, T-Doggo said:

Generally, what seeds should I be planting each week? I don't necessarily need a super in-depth breakdown, but the game doesn't really explain how gardening works and I haven't seen a super detailed tutorial/strategy. I assumed I would want flowers given the number of students I'm trying to recruit, but how does gardening for stat boosters and professor exp fit in?

1. 1x Nordsalat + Prune (400 PEXP, 46% Speed, and sustains itself reliably) or 2x Angelica + Prune (500 PEXP, 52% Strength, need to pull 2+ seeds each week to sustain itself) all the way until A professor rank.

You can buy flowers after the chapter 5 merchant quest, but you get all you need to recruit ~3 units and motivate everyone for the next several chapters just by spending 2,000 G every month on the cheapest gifts and doing a couple of meals per week. You have to buy specific flowers over and over again because they don’t grow themselves. That money is better spent on good battalions, weapons, seals, and forges.

The extra professor experience for harvesting high-quality seeds matters most in chapter 3, where those 400-800 more points let you hit C rank early. That means extra money next month, early adjutants, and more activities that let you build a PEXP lead compared to a flower-planting strategy; you slowly trade away your lead by doing slightly more meals instead of tournaments later on. Nordsalat and Angelica seeds also produce high-value crops that you can sell for money or (especially with Magdred Kirsch) use for cooking.

2. Buy all the bait every month once you have the merchants unlocked (which you should do ASAP). Spend 5-star bait on Fish of Mystery days looking for Goddess Messengers, and hoard everything else until the chapter 9 Fistfuls of Fish event. This will carry you to A+ rank and eliminate all your money problems.

3. Once you have tons of cash and A professor rank, there are a few strong planting setups, all with max cultivation level:

1. Ideally, Yellow x2 + Angelica x2 + Nordsalat. 36% magic booster, 40% strength, 19% speed, 95% total. Nordsalat seeds at this level will grow Angelica seeds, but eventually you’ll run out of the premium seeds.
2. Nearly as good, with more flowers, is Yellow x2 + Purple x2 + Nordsalat. 36% magic, 36% strength, 19% speed, 91% total. I would run this once I’m out of Angelica if I still have Nordsalat seeds available.
3. Then transition to flower-based setups with seeds you can buy. Purple and Mixed Herb give STR, Yellow gives MAG, and Pale-Blue gives SPD.
   • Purple x2 + Yellow x2 + Mixed Herb: 49% STR and 34% MAG, 83% total.
   • Yellow x3 + Purple + Pale-Blue for more magic: 51% MAG, 17% STR, 17% SPD, 85% total.
   • Pale-Blue x3 + Purple + Yellow for speed: 51% SPD, 17% STR, 17% MAG, 85% total.

If you really need one stat in particular, you should plant Purple x3, Yellow x4, or Pale-Blue x5. These have worse overall success rates than the mixtures above. Angelica x5 or Nordsalat x4 are much stronger but are not very realistic.

Edited March 21, 2020 by Zoran

[AC6]

Break even situation: you hit D professor level on 10/6 (chapter 3)

Break even situation: you hit C professor level on 21/7 (chapter 4)

Break even situation: you hit C+ professor level on 25/8 (chapter 5)

Break even situation: you hit B professor level on 7/10 (chapter 7)

Break even situation: you hit A professor level on 7/12 (Fistfuls of Fish event day - chapter 9)

Break even situation: you hit A+ professor level on first free day post time skip (chapter 14)

 

If you optimise garden correctly and fishing correctly, you could hit these professor levels earlier.

Edited March 21, 2020 by AC6