Golden Deer Maddening Help

[cdoubleyou]

So for my first maddening playthrough, I want to go back to my first house of the golden deer. However, when it comes to long term planning, I don't have many ideas. I know I want to use all the deer for bias reasons, even if it makes the game harder, but beyond that I only have vague ideas about who I want to recruit. I'll outline below what I do have planned and what I don't. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

Byleth (female): no real plans for her yet. None whatsoever. I really don't know what to do for her.

Claude: going to go brigand for death blow, and then just sort of continue to utelize his natural strengths of sword and bow, so he can make use of both his prf weapons.

Lorenz: I kind of have a weird idea for Lorenz. I plan to bring him up to assassin, and keep him there for a long time to help his speed stay strong, and then lategame slot him into mortal savant so he can be a fast mixed offense unit. 

Hilda: probably gonna keep her very standard, brigand, peg for darting blow, wyvern. 

Marianne: the likely dancer candidate. Training her in horses and white magic

Lysithea: gunning for gremory, because I think with my slow and steady playstyle, I'll need the extra magic charges

Ignatz: no real clue for him. Maybe death blow and eventually sniper or bow knight?

Raphael: I'm definetly thinking fortress knight for him, and maybe eventually great knight for some mobility. Maybe war master would be a better line for him? I'm not too sure.

Leonie: I'm wondering about falcon knight for her, with emphasis on her Lances. Bows as a good backup for when she needs some range

Slyvain: the free recruit. I'm guessing wyvern is his strongest path forward 

Outside of these, I'm thinking student wise of Mercedes, Annette, and Dorothea. Doro primarily for a support with white magic and her personal skill, Mercedes for full support, and Annette for her potential as a rally bot.

 

I know I also need a couple guard adjuncts, but I'm not sure who for those. It's worth noting that im not going to be using Anna or the ashen wolves for this run, as I want it to be a more classic new game experience. 

 

[haarhaarhaar]

Claude may as well focus on Bows because Sword of Begalta doesn't give him anything special - honestly Mini Bow+ is a slightly better choice for him for close combat IMO because it has better crit and the chance to reply from 2 spaces

Sylvain does well in wyvern, and that's a solid build for him. Paladin is also a good shout because of Lancefaire + Swift Strikes and it matches up with his boons. Whichever you go for, run him through Death Blow because you wanna ensure Swift Strikes gets the kill.

Have been trying to get Raphael to GK on my current CF run and have given up a little because of his Riding disadvantage - he will get there, but he requires a lot of work and teaching, and may still want an adjutant to help him out. Alternatively he could be one of your guard adjutants.

Ignatz does really great in Sniper (his Hunter's Volley crits most of the time) and Death Blow would be perfect for that, but honestly he can do a lot of things - be your rally bot instead of Annette, a dancer instead of Marianne (who could be a Frozen Lance paladin) or even a hybrid Mortal Savant/Trickster. 

It does seem like you have a lot of squishy units as well - you may want to make Byleth into a class that can regularly take to the frontlines.

Alois is a pretty easy adjutant, and gives a Mt boost to Leonie (he does have a flying weakness but only needs C to get into wyverns)

Good luck with it!

Edited May 26, 2020 by haarhaarhaar

[Boomhauer007]

This is NG, no plus, right? 

The big thing that stands out is you have more characters listed than you can deploy. You really only want to deploy long term units, every little bit of skill/ class rank is a difference maker early game. 

Guard adjutants can be whoever. Ideally you decide first who is going to carry adjutants and then pick off of that in case anyone is eligible for might bonuses.

There's no reason not to dump everything into bows for Claude. Best weapon type by a lot, and having encloser early is a game changer. 

I'm not sure about the Lorenz plan. Speed is a weird stat on maddening; you need a ridiculous amount of it to double anything as the game goes, and Lorenz ends up with a pretty coinflip growth even with class bonuses. He'll also have a tough time getting any kind of a magic stat with a sub 50% growth for 90% of the game. 40% x 30 levels means, on average, he'll only grow 12 magic before level 30 through the assassin phase.

Ignatz is a better bow knight imo. Those debuffs are handy and he can stack his personal with the archer skill. He's never going to have a ton of strength, so his utility is better served in hit and runs than trying to KO with hunters volley. 

I'd rush for warp and dark spikes on Lysithea. Slow and steady is a very difficult way to play maddening. 

Everything else looks fine.

[LegendOfLoog]

The best option for F!Byleth is Wyvern Lord. Having a unit with fairly easy access to Death + Darting Blow is very helpful on Maddening, and Byleth is strong enough to get both by the time she certifies for an Advanced class. As always, flight and Canto helps out a lot as well. 

Assassin would help boost Lorenz’s Speed so he at least isn’t doubled, but once he promotes to Mortal Savant, he’ll lose 4 Speed and 30% of Speed growth. Lorenz isn’t a particularly fast or strong unit in the first place (not enough to double consistently), so his mixed offense will be fairly weak. You’re better off going full mage into Paladin with Frozen Lance (Dark Knight at the end optional). 

Ignatz’s ability to deal damage in the late game without Hunter’s Volley is questionable at best (even on Hard), so Death Blow + a Brave Combat Art is the way to go. Sniper is better, imo. 

I’d go Brigand -> Grappler for Raph and stay there. Raphael won’t quad very often if at all (maybe against beasts), so Grappler with Fierce Iron Fist is his most reliable way of dealing damage. He’s too slow to reliably tank against enemies, so I don’t think the armor -> Great Knight route will work well. 

Sylvain is best as a Paladin with Death Blow + Swift Strikes. Lancefaire helps quite a bit in securing one rounds, and having an 8 Move unit (eventually 9 with Move +1) who can ORKO anything in sight is super useful. 

I’d add that if you’re looking for more units, Cyril can be very good with proper investment. He learns Point-Blank Volley at C+ and joins with about a C rank in Axes and Bows, which makes him the first Brave  Combat Art user that you get, and he has easy access to Death Blow. 

Edited May 26, 2020 by LegendOfLoog

[Azz]

Honestly your plans seem sound enough however...

Lorenz, Raphael and Ignatz are pretty bad units tbh, especially on maddening however you unfortunately are stuck at least training them for chapter 13 if you don't want to lose anyone/be overwhelmed by units they can't kill. For Lorenz, assassin seems like an okay idea, but unfortunately Lorenz is so balanced stat wise, it's almost to his detriment. It would be better for him to focus on magic/cav and using frozen lance which he gets at C+. Going Dark Knight endgame then if you can if you used him enough for endgame. Raphael would also be better for Brigand then Grappler for Death Blow then Fierce Iron Fist if you want to use him. Armoured Knight/Fortress Knight is fine to have in the wings if you ever need a particular tanky unit though I find traditional tanking doesn't work very well on maddening. Though he would also work super well as a guard adjutant. Ignatz is a great rally bot but if you want him to do damage, you'll want Hunter's Volley. It's honestly just easier in the long run too since you are only focusing in two of his weapon skills (Bow and Authority) and thus are taking up less time instructing. You could get his Reason budding talent for seal strength so when he's doing chip damage early game, he decreases strength though it's not essential.

For F!Byleth, I would say Brigand-Peg-Wyvern would be best for her. She gets Death and Darting Blow and yeah that's really it. Claude also should just be going Brigand-Wyvern or Sniper too.

Leonie should definitely level bows mainly for point-blank volley. Honestly Leonie can work as a Falcon Knight or even Bow Knight tbh. Lysithea is fairly vanilla tbh for everyone on maddening I think, though definitely try to gets dark spikes and warp asap. Hidla is also quite vanilla too going Brigand-Peg-Wyvern. Overall no problems here. Marianne also works as dancer too so no problem there.

Sylvain can go between Wyvern and Paladin tbh. Swift Strike obviously like Lancefaire, but flying mobility is also very good. It's mainly personal preference tbh. One thing I would say regarding fliers is to not go ham with them. Fliers are great and all but flying battalions are very sparse and also can require higher authority ranks to use them then most battalions. I would say 4-5 fliers max tbh (Byleth, Claude (though he gets his own battalion in part 2 so you don't have to worry too much), Hilda, Leonie, Sylvain maybe).

For recruitment, Dorothea is quite easy to recruit and makes a good dancer if you want Marianne to do smth else. If you're recruiting Mercedes, I would say Linhardt is a bit better due to having Warp rather than Fortify, tho he also requires reason rather than bows and you're more likely to train in bows so I guess it is personal preference. Annette can be a bit of a pain to recruit tho because of B faith unless you get her to like B+ support. I would also suggest Felix too tbh. He's easy to recruit and one of the best combat units with the best crest in the game and a great personal skill (which does fall off once battalions level up and eventually give more of a damage boost than his +5 but it's still great).

Seteth, Catherine and Shamir are also great combat units that don't require too much investment either besides maybe reclassing a bit for other skills like Death/Darting Blow but fulfil good niches (Swift Strike with Seteth, Catherine is a great Jeigan esque character for part 1 if you recruit her early enough, Shamir is the easiest to have master Sniper and is just the best base archer in the game). Alois can also easily become a guard adjutant too.

Hope these tips can help you and good luck!

[Crysta]

This thread provides good advice, complete with the standard 'whether or not ignatz/lorenz/raphael are gud' arguments and a happy ending.

[SumG]

I would suggest against picking up Annette.  Rally units are at their most useful in the first half dozen chapters of the game before units can really find their stride.  And it's really tough to recruit any out of house unit before then just due to the action economy.  Dorothea is a good swing mage if you don't have the DLC, but she is outpaced by both Constance and Hapi if you do have it.  Mercedes is a great white mage, and if you want a primary healer she's absolutely the character you want.

I think it would be a mistake to pass on recruiting Felix and Petra.  Those units are some of the best physical units in the game, and their massive speed is fantastic in Maddening.  

Personally, I like Byleth as a Falcon Knight.  The class really buffs up their average speed, and they already have really good strength naturally.  I usually keep her a sword-based unit, so that I can have a flying, sword-based dodgetank (great for dealing with enemy Wyvern Lords).

[Barren]

Yea Annette is really easy to pick up if you spend a battle and just have her spam rally strength on you. She gets the most rallies out of anyone else. Perseverance (Rally Strength), then she gets Rally Res, Rally Speed, then finally Rally Movement. And 3 out of the 4 rallies you'll want to use a lot.

As for rally bot ideas, I've been thinking that Annette can be either a Dark Flier with Bowbreaker and a rally if you can fit one (you could probably fit both rally speed + movement if you're willing to invest hard into authority). Otherwise I'd just stick with Alert Stance+

Valkyrie/Dark Knight also works because you can combine rallies with movement +1. Of course objectively Dark Knight offers better stat growths than Valkyrie and has 7 move as opposed to Valkyrie having 6. But Valkyrie has black magic range +1. So that's the trade of I suppose. 

Then there is Wyvern Lord with Bolt Axe and Crusher along with Fiendish Blow + Axefaire which allows her to be a pseudo malig knight basically since we don't have that class this time around. However the -5% in magic might be a slight problem depending on your perspective.

[Shadow Mir]

7 hours ago, Barren said:

Then there is Wyvern Lord with Bolt Axe and Crusher along with Fiendish Blow + Axefaire which allows her to be a pseudo malig knight basically since we don't have that class this time around. However the -5% in magic might be a slight problem depending on your perspective.

The bigger problem is that the Bolt Axe and Crusher are drearily inaccurate (both have a lousy 60 base hit). I dunno about you, but I believe how hard you hit means jack shit if you can't hit in the first place. Also, the Crusher is only obtainable in Azure Moon; not that that's a big loss, because it sucks harder than SSB64 Link's recovery.

[Barren]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

The bigger problem is that the Bolt Axe and Crusher are drearily inaccurate (both have a lousy 60 base hit). I dunno about you, but I believe how hard you hit means jack shit if you can't hit in the first place. Also, the Crusher is only obtainable in Azure Moon; not that that's a big loss, because it sucks harder than SSB64 Link's recovery.

Ha! I see what you did there. Yea those kind of weapons can be inaccurate.