Mastering Classes

[ChaosStar0]

Okay I was wondering, as I don't have three houses yet. How many classes can you easily master per character? This is to determine which classes to grab for planned builds. So is it 5? 7? 4?

[Shadow Mir]

At the very least, Noble/Commoner is an easy master, as it only needs 20 points to master. I can't say much more than that.

[ChaosStar0]

Really? No idea how many others you can easily master in a game? Is it that much RNG?

[LegendOfLoog]

It just depends how many Aux battles you do. If you do a lot, you can probably get nearly as many skills as you want. If you're doing none, maybe 4 or 5 depending on the unit.
Aux battles are basically side battles you can do on the weekends with your Activity Points. 

Edited July 15, 2020 by LegendOfLoog

[ChaosStar0]

Okay, so say your doing the side battles once or twice a month and only doing the ones that cost you activity points on Normal difficulty. How many classes can a character master at that rate?

[lenticular]

It depends how much favouritism you show to a unit, honestly. If you use someone in all battles, make sure they're acting every turn, give them a knowledge ge, etc. then they're going to be more easily mastering skills than someone who doesn't. It also depends on your play style. If you're the sort of person who likes to meticulously clear all enemies on every map, you'll be mastering a lot more classes than if you like clearing maps in one turn using stride, dance, and warp. Also bear in mind that different classes take different amounts of class xp to master so it's a lo easier to master beginner classes than master classes. And so on and so forth.

As a rough estimate, if you plan properly, I'd say you can reasonably expect for anyone to master noble/commoner, one beginner class, one intermediate class, and one advanced class. Or noble/commoner, one beginner class, and two intermediate classes. As an upper limit, you could maybe manage noble/commoner, one beginner class, two intermediate classes, one advanced class, and one master class. More than that is possible, but would be extremely ambitious to aim for if you aren't planning a whole lot of grinding.

[ChaosStar0]

My current plans for the students and Cyril have them at 7 classes. The Church characters are at 5, except Hanuman who is at 4.

[Anathaco]

I think the most I got on my first playthrough was noble/commoner, 1 beginner, 2 intermediate, 2 advanced, and 1 master. I was on hard mode, and I did do a fair few auxiliary battles (I can't remember how much, maybe like 1 week a month, so 3 battles). If you grind a fair bit more than I did for your students, I think your plans should definitely be possible, and if you can't achieve them for whatever reason, then there's always NG+.

[whase]

On a normal mode New Game file, I'd stick with 1 class from every block. You could probably do 2 intermediate classes, but I wouldn't go for 2 from any higher classes unless you plan to do a lot of additional battles.

[Myssdii]

You'll mostly need to master classes when they bring you a good skill, or a specific combat art AND it's your final class (like Sniper's Hunter's Volley, which you can only use as a Sniper). Most of the good class skills are from Intermediate classes (Blow skills, Hit+20, Vantage...), and very few from Advanced/Master classes (only worth getting are maybe Wrath and Quick Riposte).

You can still unlock your Advanced/Master class for the stat boosts at the required level (20/30), and revert back to your old class if you need an Intermediate class skill.

Overall, I'd say most character builds will not require more than 3 class masteries to work, and most will do fine without, especially in the lower difficulties where skills matter less. Early classes will be mastered most of the time before you reach the level requirement for the next tier, so don't bother much with them, they'll come naturally.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 7/15/2020 at 1:44 AM, ChaosStar0 said:

My current plans for the students and Cyril have them at 7 classes. The Church characters are at 5, except Hanuman who is at 4.

I wouldn't focus so much on the "number of classes mastered". Some masteries just aren't worth the effort. Instead, try to figure out a general build for each unit, and which masteries you'll need to get there. For physical attackers, especially those using Gauntlets, Brigand is a no-brainer (for Death Blow). For mounted/flying units, mastering Soldier gives the ever-useful Reposition support art. If you're interested in an enemy-phase build, you may want Vantage from Mercenary, and Wrath from Warrior. A mastery isn't really a reward in its own right - the rewards are the skills and/or arts each one offers.

[Owns]

The answer to this question depends somewhat on what difficulty you'll be playing. Normal mode gives higher exp and enemies will go down faster meaning you'll have less time/opportunity to master classes. My first game on Normal some of my units didn't end up master a Master's level class before I finished the game. I also got impatient with how easy it was and skipped to the end of the last few months so maybe that's why.

I haven't tried Hard but on the Maddening Run I just finished I'd say without any excessive grinding, it's reasonable to master 6 classes on some characters, maybe not all. Maddening in particular gives you ample opportunity to 'build' since enemies take much more hits to kill. I might be wrong about this but my understanding is that points towards class mastery come from actions, ie 1 action = 1 point, until you reach the required points to master. This is unrelated to level experience. The higher the class level the more points needed to master so for this reason, you can master more classes on Maddening by the end of the game. Equipping a Knowledge gem increases mastery points per action but I don't know the specifics.

For your reference, I had 6 of my core characters master only 4 classes. Byleth mastered 8 classes (excessive). I went with a high investment hybrid build for Sylvain who mastered 7 classes. Felix mastered 6, Dedue mastered 5 classes. This was with some minor grinding but nothing excessive. By that I mean I might've prolonged a couple of fights to get some extra points, particularly for sylvain but never using any 0 damage skills or grinding strategies where an enemy infinitely self-heals etc. No patience for that, I just squeeze as much as I can until the enemies die on a few fights here and there. Not sure if this is even really considered grinding, more of a exp/skill points distribution management lol. But I guess I did intentionally use lower damage hits at times, so...

Anyway if you're playing on Hard, expect to master fewer classes on average without grinding, and even fewer for Normal. But like @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said, it's not about the number of classes you master, it's about what makes sense for your build. In the end you only have 5 ability slots and 3 combat art slots to use on a character and some mastery skills are class exclusive.

Edited July 18, 2020 by Owns