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2 hours ago, Cysx said:

Lances get high mt relics for flexibility and boss killing, and lancefaire is on better classes. As said above Soulblade using res rather than dex is only enough to account for the base difference between Frozen Lance and itself(you need a >3.5 difference to breach that), not the one between swords and lances; plus swordfaire classes tend not to give res while lancefaire ones do give dex, so while early on it compensates since monk and mage boost res more(she won't have soulblade as a monk though), the moment she moves into a faire class that kinda just disappears(as a lv 30 Paladin she has 20.6 Dex, and as a lv 30 Assassin she has 21.8 Res). And while the levin sword is nice to have, more consistent OHKOing with higher movement and canto trumps it, imo. Lances are also just in a better place on the weapon triangle, as they check evasive swordies with swordbreaker.

The Blutgang is actually not that special for magic combat arts since it has meh might for a relic; she also doesn't need to specialize in swords to use it, it's E rank. So it depends how much you care to make Beast fang stronger, keeping in mind that swords already get rapier+ for cavalry.

Sure, I'm not saying that you can't make her into a great unit with amazing damage output by having her focus on Frozen Lance. But it's a very specific way to build her and you have to give up a lot to get to it. If you're putting her into a Lancefaire class then that means you're giving up her healing and spell utility (notably physic and silence). Swordfaire classes have the same problem, of course (unless you're putting her into Moral Savant and I'm not going to advocate for that), but you can use either combat art perfectly well in a non-faire class. You're also relying on giving her a relic lance, when most team compositions will have several other characters competing for them.

I'm also not trying to say that Blutgang is good for magic combat arts. My thought is that if she's using swords anyway, then that means she has several ranks of Sword Prowess by the time she picks up Blutgang, which can only be a good thing. It not only allows for Beast Fang, but can be used with other combat arts as well. Blutgang + Grounder is a 16 might, 100 hit magic attack that's effective against fliers. And this is a relic that theres usually very little competition for.

I don't disagree that if you're building for pure damge output, then you can do more with Frozen Lance than Soulblade. But honestly, I think there are better builds for Marianne. You can make a ridiculously high damage output build for Mercedes by putting her into Sniper, giving her a Magic Bow+ and using Hunter's Volley, or one for Constance by making her a War Cleric and using Aura Knuckles, but that doesn't mean their budding talents are top tier. Neither should we be judging Marianne's based solely on what it does when you completely build around it, but rather in what it adds to her overall kit compared to the other tools she already has.

11 hours ago, Anathaco said:

With that in mind, to answer your question, I put it as high as it is because of how good it is early game, how good it stays throughout the game, and the fact that a Dark/Holy Knight Marianne will want that lance boon. I didn’t take into account the fact that Soulblade gives swords a competition against lances, but since the damage is so similar, which one you choose just depends on the class you choose for her. So you could see frozen lance as an early game tool, but it holds up for a fair while against Soulblade, so I’d say it lasts longer than just the early game.

I do think it's still useful well past the early game. I'm just not sure I think it remains better past that point, or at least not significantly better. I suppose that if you're investing in it for the early game boost it gives then that is an incentive in and of itself to stick with it. As in, even if swords is the optimal long-term choice, it might not stay optimal once you're somewhat invested in lances? I don't know. It's definitely good, but I'm still not convinced it belongs in the top tier. I'm probably needlessly splitting hairs, though.

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39 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Neither should we be judging Marianne's based solely on what it does when you completely build around it, but rather in what it adds to her overall kit compared to the other tools she already has

Fair, but I still think Marianne's belongs where it does. Marianne will normally join with a sword rank of E+, and getting that to C+ will take longer than the three tutoring sessions she needs for Frozen Lance. In the early game, she also won't be able to utilise swords well enough to justify their use without babying. So unless you've decided on a swords build from the outset, Frozen Lance is the more accessible option.  

I think that Frozen Lance is useful even on a late-game Swordfaire build which doesn't require lance proficiency, because of the prevalence of lance enemies with Swordbreaker (especially if that sword build doesn't allow magic use). It gives you a solid option even if you don't equip the prowess skill/leave it at D rank, and on builds that aren't sword-focused, it's going to be probably Marianne's most accurate/powerful method of attack. Overall, I think it's a great addition to her toolkit. The existence of Soulblade does make it less necessary to get overall (which is why this goes below Hubert's equivalent talent) but it still brings a lot I think.

Edited by haarhaarhaar
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1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Sure, I'm not saying that you can't make her into a great unit with amazing damage output by having her focus on Frozen Lance. But it's a very specific way to build her and you have to give up a lot to get to it. If you're putting her into a Lancefaire class then that means you're giving up her healing and spell utility (notably physic and silence). Swordfaire classes have the same problem, of course (unless you're putting her into Moral Savant and I'm not going to advocate for that), but you can use either combat art perfectly well in a non-faire class. You're also relying on giving her a relic lance, when most team compositions will have several other characters competing for them.

I'm also not trying to say that Blutgang is good for magic combat arts. My thought is that if she's using swords anyway, then that means she has several ranks of Sword Prowess by the time she picks up Blutgang, which can only be a good thing. It not only allows for Beast Fang, but can be used with other combat arts as well. Blutgang + Grounder is a 16 might, 100 hit magic attack that's effective against fliers. And this is a relic that theres usually very little competition for.

I don't disagree that if you're building for pure damge output, then you can do more with Frozen Lance than Soulblade. But honestly, I think there are better builds for Marianne. You can make a ridiculously high damage output build for Mercedes by putting her into Sniper, giving her a Magic Bow+ and using Hunter's Volley, or one for Constance by making her a War Cleric and using Aura Knuckles, but that doesn't mean their budding talents are top tier. Neither should we be judging Marianne's based solely on what it does when you completely build around it, but rather in what it adds to her overall kit compared to the other tools she already has.

Well basically the way I see it, yes Marianne is a good physic user, but that's not inherently that special and thus valuable(it's *0.3 magic for healing and *0.5 for physic range, right?), while OHKOing throughout most of maddening from very early, that's pretty remarkable. Silence is also somewhat situational. But it's true that most people build her as a healer/dancer, so I can't quite pretend that this is the norm, and indeed, if you don't focus on either combat art, it matters relatively little since it probably won't see much use past the timeskip for many mobility, reliability and/or survivability reasons. As for the relics, Vengeance and Swift strike users typically don't need them outside of boss killing, and you don't need dozens of boss killers, Marianne can merely be the one if you so choose. I'm not sure if you had any other type of build in mind.

Blutgang grounder does sound pretty sweet(well, it likely won't take down pegs if it hits them, but wyverns would definitely not like it). But she starts with sword prowess 1(+5 hit)learned, and each level from there only gives +1 hit(until +2 at A), so that's not exactly a huge selling point. The avoid is probably not going to help much either on a magical build. Plus technically, everyone learns grounder, everyone can use the Blutgang, and about a third of the cast have the magic stat to make it work, so eh.

The difference with Sniper!Mercedes is that she'll be underwhelming for a veeeeery long time before the build can work, because she has no easy path to hunter's volley; 5 dura/use is also hard to sustain on magic weapons, and her accuracy can be very limited above 2 range, unless she learns hit +20 from another class she doesn't want to spend time in(unlike with magic combat art builds, she draws from magic accuracy, which is lower in most cases including hers). Edit: There's Uncanny blow, but that pushes back the build even further since it's the same tier and you need the certifications for Valkyrie to begin with
I don't have much of a horse in this race, but all things considered I don't think WC!Constance compares either. Wouldn't she have considerable survivability issues until you get brawl avoid +20? Similarly, the path to A gauntlets would either not leave her with much to work with, or would take a lot of time. Are you speaking from experience here?

I will say though, I'm not starkly against either Marianne or Hubert dropping a tier. I don't think they should, but I wouldn't jump at TC's throat if they did that.

Edited by Cysx
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45 minutes ago, Cysx said:

The difference with Sniper!Mercedes is that she'll be underwhelming for a veeeeery long time before the build can work, because she has no easy path to hunter's volley; 5 dura/use is also hard to sustain on magic weapons, and her accuracy can be very limited above 2 range, unless she learns hit +20 from another class she doesn't want to spend time in(unlike with magic combat art builds, she draws from magic accuracy, which is lower in most cases including hers). Edit: There's Uncanny blow, but that pushes back the build even further since it's the same tier and you need the certifications for Valkyrie to begin with
I don't have much of a horse in this race, but all things considered I don't think WC!Constance compares either. Wouldn't she have considerable survivability issues until you get brawl avoid +20? Similarly, the path to A gauntlets would either not leave her with much to work with, or would take a lot of time. Are you speaking from experience here?

Yeah I don't think either Mercedes or Constance have even equivalent budding talents to Marianne. Marianne's Frozen Lance is usable immediately, takes far less time to get KOs, and less maintenance to stay in KO range. Mercedes will want hit help like you say, and Constance will mainly be doing chip damage from 2+ spaces, or finishers with Mystic Blow, until A rank gauntlets (which will take a decent amount of time). Both Mercedes and Constance will require much more attention than Marianne to make use of their talents, which is why they are deservedly lower on the list.

With that being said, the eventual results for Magic Bow Mercedes and Aura Knuckles Constance will be better than Frozen Lance Marianne under normal circumstances (Lance of Ruin/Areadbhar will get Frozen Lance Marianne, with a decent set-up, to the levels of Aura Knuckles Constance, but Magic Bow Mercedes will still be out of reach unless RNG screwage).

I would say for Mercedes that she can just carry two Magic Bows (she won't need much else) if you're worried about CA durability - repair might add up, but it's still very manageable I think.

 

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3 hours ago, lenticular said:

I do think it's still useful well past the early game. I'm just not sure I think it remains better past that point, or at least not significantly better. I suppose that if you're investing in it for the early game boost it gives then that is an incentive in and of itself to stick with it. As in, even if swords is the optimal long-term choice, it might not stay optimal once you're somewhat invested in lances? I don't know. It's definitely good, but I'm still not convinced it belongs in the top tier. I'm probably needlessly splitting hairs, though.

Agreed that there’s not a significant difference between them past the early game. 
As @Cysx pointed out, the difference between Frozen Lance and Soulblade at level 30 is technically in Frozen Lance’s favour (by 2 points), assuming a Faire class for both arts. Say we were to switch Marianne from Paladin to Dark Knight, then Soulblade would have the advantage (3 damage) but the DK would get to heal, which is the path most people take for her.

The path I assumed when tiering it initially was going into Dark/Holy Knight, so basically a healer/support who just so happens to have early access to a good damage art. Between the earlier access to its art, the similar damage of said arts, and the utility of lances in one of Marianne’s prominent promotion paths, I’d say  lances beat out swords for her (especially if, as you said, you’ve already invested in lances a little).

In terms of whether the competition between training lances and swords makes her talent deserve to drop, I’d say no. Swords are a viable option for her, no doubt, but if you don’t build around them specifically then her Budding Talent offers utility in early and powerful damage, plus it makes it easier to go into a popular class path. I think these are enough to warrant it being in the top tier.

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1 hour ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Yeah I don't think either Mercedes or Constance have even equivalent budding talents to Marianne. Marianne's Frozen Lance is usable immediately, takes far less time to get KOs, and less maintenance to stay in KO range. Mercedes will want hit help like you say, and Constance will mainly be doing chip damage from 2+ spaces, or finishers with Mystic Blow, until A rank gauntlets (which will take a decent amount of time). Both Mercedes and Constance will require much more attention than Marianne to make use of their talents, which is why they are deservedly lower on the list.

With that being said, the eventual results for Magic Bow Mercedes and Aura Knuckles Constance will be better than Frozen Lance Marianne under normal circumstances (Lance of Ruin/Areadbhar will get Frozen Lance Marianne, with a decent set-up, to the levels of Aura Knuckles Constance, but Magic Bow Mercedes will still be out of reach unless RNG screwage).

I would say for Mercedes that she can just carry two Magic Bows (she won't need much else) if you're worried about CA durability - repair might add up, but it's still very manageable I think.

 

It's not necessarily a matter of cost for Mercedes(it could be, but we have basically infinite money), it's more a matter of components, since you cannot buy Arcane crystals until around chapter... 18 I think? Making a second Magic bow + from Steel takes 6. I know I ran into this problem somewhat when going for magic assassin with levin sword, and that consumes way less uses to kill.

Anyway yes, admittedly in terms of raw damage potential both of those builds are above, but it's worth noting that it tends to be overkill anyway... and there are still the other problems I mentioned. -30 hit from 3 range on Maddening can quickly hurt and make Mercedes unreliable since she needs to hit both times to kill; doesn't help that her access to +hit skills is limited, and her own dex and lck aren't that great. At lv 40 and without a battalion, she barely passes 130 accuracy on her own in that setup, that's very low for a hunter's volley user.
From what I gather, Constance can run into this problem as well to an extent since she's one of the least accurate units in the game(107 base accuracy on the build we're discussing at level 40), and I don't know if you've ran one of these builds before, but canto/shade are godsends and almost mandatory, because even a single enemy will kill you on enemy phase. The fact that she has neither is a problem, so I assume one'd capitalize on gauntlets' high avoid and War Monk's mastery, but until she gets that her flexibility should be incredibly limited.
I do get what you're saying but, the above falls under "normal conditions" to me. They also both have much lower mobility of course. Even at their peak, I genuinely don't think they trump FL!Marianne.

14 minutes ago, Anathaco said:

Agreed that there’s not a significant difference between them past the early game. 
As @Cysx pointed out, the difference between Frozen Lance and Soulblade at level 30 is technically in Frozen Lance’s favour (by 2 points), assuming a Faire class for both arts. Say we were to switch Marianne from Paladin to Dark Knight, then Soulblade would have the advantage (3 damage) but the DK would get to heal, which is the path most people take for her.

Wait, how? She'd have 20 Dex vs 25 Res at level 30 DK.

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2 minutes ago, Cysx said:

 Wait, how? She'd have 20 Dex vs 25 Res at level 30 DK.

As in, DK with FL vs Assassin with Soulblade. I basically just removed the lancefaire. My bad, that wasn’t very clear.

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1 minute ago, Anathaco said:

As in, DK with FL vs Assassin with Soulblade. I basically just removed the lancefaire. My bad, that wasn’t very clear.

Ooooh, I see.

... Well DK does raise Mag by 2, but yeah.

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6 hours ago, Cysx said:

It's not necessarily a matter of cost for Mercedes(it could be, but we have basically infinite money), it's more a matter of components, since you cannot buy Arcane crystals until around chapter... 18 I think? Making a second Magic bow + from Steel takes 6. I know I ran into this problem somewhat when going for magic assassin with levin sword, and that consumes way less uses to kill.

Dark Merchant quest is available from Ch. 16 I'm pretty sure. I made Hanneman a Magic Bow Sniper on CF - he has an easier time getting into bows, but slightly lower relative bases and potentially less time to nurture. Even with a decent amount of investment and doing aux battles/paralogues every month, Hanneman didn't master Sniper until the month of Chapter 15. Up until that point, he had a Magic Bow, but was at most using Curved Shot (and with the timeskip it meant I didn't need to repair it). So Arcane Crystal availability shouldn't end up being a big issue.

6 hours ago, Cysx said:

Anyway yes, admittedly in terms of raw damage potential both of those builds are above, but it's worth noting that it tends to be overkill anyway... and there are still the other problems I mentioned. -30 hit from 3 range on Maddening can quickly hurt and make Mercedes unreliable since she needs to hit both times to kill; doesn't help that her access to +hit skills is limited, and her own dex and lck aren't that great. At lv 40 and without a battalion, she barely passes 130 accuracy on her own in that setup, that's very low for a hunter's volley user.
From what I gather, Constance can run into this problem as well to an extent since she's one of the least accurate units in the game(107 base accuracy on the build we're discussing at level 40), and I don't know if you've ran one of these builds before, but canto/shade are godsends and almost mandatory, because even a single enemy will kill you on enemy phase. The fact that she has neither is a problem, so I assume one'd capitalize on gauntlets' high avoid and War Monk's mastery, but until she gets that her flexibility should be incredibly limited.
I do get what you're saying but, the above falls under "normal conditions" to me. They also both have much lower mobility of course. Even at their peak, I genuinely don't think they trump FL!Marianne.

I should say I haven't run Mercedes/Constance in these builds yet (I'm planning to do both in my current run), but I can't imagine Mercedes would end up too different from my Magic Bow Hanneman, and god knows I've spent enough time writing about the Aura Knuckles build. I definitely found for Hanneman (and so can only assume for Mercedes, and Constance who will have similar weaknesses) that they can't be left within threat range - in this scenario, flying and Canto from Falcon Knight is extremely appreciated, so I understand where you're coming from about Marianne, and in this regard FK/Dark Knight is definitely better off. I can only say that in the late game, barring ambush spawns and the openings of some maps, it's not as difficult to protect your squishier units even when they advance because your Player Phase will (hopefully) be that good and you'll be clearing out everything nearby. I think the bolded line is a little bit of an overstatement, because with decent positioning/gambits you should be able to manage most late-game scenarios (Canto is great, but I've never even attempted to utilise Shade and I've gotten along just fine). 

Your accuracy concerns are very legitimate, but also rectifiable. Marianne's battalion (lol irony) will give +40 Hit and +5 Mag Atk, and there are a couple of other battalions that also support mag and have +20 hit boosts or higher. Add in an adjutant/linked attacks/accuracy ring, and Hit+20, (I assume you added in HV's +15 Hit already) and Mercedes' accuracy should end up good enough to hit from 3 spaces with confidence, and even 4 against most enemies. I showed Hanneman a lot of favouritism (i.e. I gave him a Knowledge Gem) and it didn't take him too long to master Archer - Mercedes will probably want to do the same because you have to raise her bow rank from E. Constance shouldn't need Hit +20 provided you do the other stuff because she won't face the ranged hit penalty. 

War Monk pre-mastery shouldn't be too rough for Constance, because she'll still have access to her (reduced) spell list, especially Rescue/Ward, which can be used to rack up CEXP towards mastery whenever she's free and can't attack, and Mystic Blow (unless you're using Vajra-Mushti or Killer Knuckles it's unlikely to kill, but it'll finish a chipped enemy). The ideal situation is that Constance never needs to have an enemy phase, and she should only really be put at risk of counters when trying to get a finisher with Mystic Blow or Aura Knuckles. To that end Brawl Avo +20 is a useful skill, but Pneuma Gale might be the better reward from mastery, because it allows her to convert gauntlet usage into ranged, magical chip (making it easier to raise weapon rank, and relaxing the burden on her spell charges). Either way, mastery is appreciated, but Constance won't be bad in War Monk.

Nonetheless, I completely agree that both of these builds will need a decent amount of babying, and in the meanwhile Marianne will be OHKOing. And I also agree that even the finished builds for Mercedes/Constance will have other weaknesses that FK Marianne will not. Which brings us to the thing they're supposed to do better - attack. Looking at the 10 Elites on VW Maddening, it's going to be difficult (but not impossible) for Marianne to get the OHKO. With Lance of Ruin, she'll need help (i.e. stat boosters or overleveling) for every single one of them, but she's only a point or two below the thresholds for the bottom tier of the Elites. And Spear of Assal Frozen Lance should be able to kill the cavalry (Daphnel, Blaiddyd, Riegan) straightforwardly. Constance should just about reach the thresholds to kill Gautier/Dominic, but will need a stat booster for Riegan, and probably can't kill the others without a great deal of help. Mercedes can ORKO Goneril, Gautier, Dominic, and Riegan without further help, Fraldarius depending on whether Aegis Shield triggers, and can be within a few stat-boosters of the others, though you can never be too sure with Lamine because of the Rafail Gem. This is assuming a very good set-up is in place for all of them (Mag +2, Fiendish Blow, Mag Staff equipped, class Faire skill, Mag battalion +5, or +8 if they lack a Mt adjutant, and endgame base of 35 Mag).

But the 10 Elites aren't representative of Maddening enemies in general, and I don't have enough info about late-game enemy stats to say for sure that Mercedes/Constance will regularly get kills Marianne won't. Since their attack power is their big advantage over FK Marianne, that means I'll have to concede to you that FK Marianne trumps both of these builds. 

Edited by haarhaarhaar
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10 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Dark Merchant quest is available from Ch. 16 I'm pretty sure. I made Hanneman a Magic Bow Sniper on CF - he has an easier time getting into bows, but slightly lower relative bases and potentially less time to nurture. Even with a decent amount of investment and doing aux battles/paralogues every month, Hanneman didn't master Sniper until the month of Chapter 15. Up until that point, he had a Magic Bow, but was at most using Curved Shot (and with the timeskip it meant I didn't need to repair it). So Arcane Crystal availability shouldn't end up being a big issue.

Yeah, I read a guide that said ch 19 while writing that, but apparently it was wrong, and it's 16 on every route. So you're right, for such a late bloomer build it won't really matter, or not for long.

10 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

I should say I haven't run Mercedes/Constance in these builds yet (I'm planning to do both in my current run), but I can't imagine Mercedes would end up too different from my Magic Bow Hanneman, and god knows I've spent enough time writing about the Aura Knuckles build. I definitely found for Hanneman (and so can only assume for Mercedes, and Constance who will have similar weaknesses) that they can't be left within threat range - in this scenario, flying and Canto from Falcon Knight is extremely appreciated, so I understand where you're coming from about Marianne, and in this regard FK/Dark Knight is definitely better off. I can only say that in the late game, barring ambush spawns and the openings of some maps, it's not as difficult to protect your squishier units even when they advance because your Player Phase will (hopefully) be that good and you'll be clearing out everything nearby. I think the bolded line is a little bit of an overstatement, because with decent positioning/gambits you should be able to manage most late-game scenarios (Canto is great, but I've never even attempted to utilise Shade and I've gotten along just fine). 

Oh, that in particular definitely didn't apply to Mercedes, I mean she can attack from range and all. That might still be a slight problem, but yeah.
Anyway, I'm very proactive with this stuff so that might be why. It's no exaggeration that dancing notwithstanding, Marianne killed something on 90% of turns in my playthrough; I don't think there's any way I could pull that off with Constance without her dying. I guess one doesn't have to play the way I do, but the difference between having the option to be aggressive or not, I'd say that's something.
 

10 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Your accuracy concerns are very legitimate, but also rectifiable. Marianne's battalion (lol irony) will give +40 Hit and +5 Mag Atk, and there are a couple of other battalions that also support mag and have +20 hit boosts or higher. Add in an adjutant/linked attacks/accuracy ring, and Hit+20, (I assume you added in HV's +15 Hit already) and Mercedes' accuracy should end up good enough to hit from 3 spaces with confidence, and even 4 against most enemies. I showed Hanneman a lot of favouritism (i.e. I gave him a Knowledge Gem) and it didn't take him too long to master Archer - Mercedes will probably want to do the same because you have to raise her bow rank from E. Constance shouldn't need Hit +20 provided you do the other stuff because she won't face the ranged hit penalty. 

Okay, if the question is "with every top end resource in the game is her accuracy fixed", then yes, the answer is yes, yes. There's a ton of question marks here, and it's also worth noting that mastering archer + mage on her before level 20 seems like a stretch if you don't grind. If you did it on Hanneman without grinding, let alone on CF... I have frankly no idea how. As her damage output is actually comparable to that of Constance(because the latter has a considerable mag lead, unless I'm missing something), if you take away fiendish blow and a magic wand from her... she can actually start to fall short a bunch, even before the final stretch where everything goes bonkers.
Also Constance's base accuracy is 26 points lower, so she's basically in the same situation as 3 range Mercedes.

... okay, nitpicking aside, I did forget that +40 accuracy battalion, and realistically it wouldn't be in too high demand, so that's completely fair. Also, while assuming she can count on supports on a regular basis would have been dicey before dlc, her having a Constance support(so a siege tome user) also makes a pretty big difference in that regard. You're right, it can work out fine. Wouldn't bet on 4 range, but 3 range is in the clear.

12 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

War Monk pre-mastery shouldn't be too rough for Constance, because she'll still have access to her (reduced) spell list, especially Rescue/Ward, which can be used to rack up CEXP towards mastery whenever she's free and can't attack, and Mystic Blow (unless you're using Vajra-Mushti or Killer Knuckles it's unlikely to kill, but it'll finish a chipped enemy). The ideal situation is that Constance never needs to have an enemy phase, and she should only really be put at risk of counters when trying to get a finisher with Mystic Blow or Aura Knuckles. To that end Brawl Avo +20 is a useful skill, but Pneuma Gale might be the better reward from mastery, because it allows her to convert gauntlet usage into ranged, magical chip (making it easier to raise weapon rank, and relaxing the burden on her spell charges). Either way, mastery is appreciated, but Constance won't be bad in War Monk.

For starters, sorry if I'm making you repeat yourself on this subject.

She needs D+/C Faith to get into War Monk, but B for Rescue, and she's neutral. I'm not sure the investment is a priority either, especially if she's on her way to A gauntlets still. 3 uses of ward and for 1 range finishing chip... that's not great. I wasn't even thinking she'd have a WM phase without Aura gauntlets, to be honest. She's probably better off in another class until she gets there.
 

12 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Nonetheless, I completely agree that both of these builds will need a decent amount of babying, and in the meanwhile Marianne will be OHKOing. And I also agree that even the finished builds for Mercedes/Constance will have other weaknesses that FK Marianne will not. Which brings us to the thing they're supposed to do better - attack. Looking at the 10 Elites on VW Maddening, it's going to be difficult (but not impossible) for Marianne to get the OHKO. With Lance of Ruin, she'll need help (i.e. stat boosters or overleveling) for every single one of them, but she's only a point or two below the thresholds for the bottom tier of the Elites. And Spear of Assal Frozen Lance should be able to kill the cavalry (Daphnel, Blaiddyd, Riegan) straightforwardly. Constance should just about reach the thresholds to kill Gautier/Dominic, but will need a stat booster for Riegan, and probably can't kill the others without a great deal of help. Mercedes can ORKO Goneril, Gautier, Dominic, and Riegan without further help, Fraldarius depending on whether Aegis Shield triggers, and can be within a few stat-boosters of the others, though you can never be too sure with Lamine because of the Rafail Gem. This is assuming a very good set-up is in place for all of them (Mag +2, Fiendish Blow, Mag Staff equipped, class Faire skill, Mag battalion +5, or +8 if they lack a Mt adjutant, and endgame base of 35 Mag).

I tend to assume S+ rank&faire 2 at that point of the game, so that moves thing around a bunch but yeah, thankfully for Marianne several elites are mounted, although Blaiddyd is still barely out of OHKO reach due to the res +2 tile.
Your last parenthesis might be why you think Mercedes is so much stronger than the other two; her endgame magic as a Sniper is ~5 points lower than that. And Marianne's is lower as well if we're being fair. For Constance on the other hand, it's 36 or more.

Just in case, this lists stats of a vast majority of enemies in the game: https://imgur.com/a/dSnk6C9

Marianne does struggle a bit in the final chapter. Then again, to quote myself: "between chapter 13 and 20, enemy grapplers get +9 HP +6 Res, so you need +15 damage in 7 chapters to continue ORKOing, aka a bit over +2 damage a chapter. Then from 20 to 22, they get +8 HP +4 Res, so you need +6 a chapter."
So yeah, final chapters are not the place to look at to figure out how good any given unit does throughout the game. Which is not to say that they don't matter either.

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11 hours ago, Cysx said:

I don't think there's any way I could pull that off with Constance without her dying. I guess one doesn't have to play the way I do, but the difference between having the option to be aggressive or not, I'd say that's something.

I haven't run this build, and I'm no FE genius, so I can't make any guarantees. But I also tend to run fairly aggressive Player Phase tactics, with the general idea being to minimise Enemy Phase action as much as possible. And while this isn't exactly comparable, I spent some time on that CF run trying to get Hexblade Manuela/Dorothea exp/kills. I definitely ended up using Divine Pulses on them here and there, but a decent proportion of that was expecting too much (like hoping for crits from Killing Edge Hexblade, then getting the flip side of that). I imagine more careful play than that run will keep Constance safe.

11 hours ago, Cysx said:

There's a ton of question marks here, and it's also worth noting that mastering archer + mage on her before level 20 seems like a stretch if you don't grind. If you did it on Hanneman without grinding, let alone on CF... I have frankly no idea how.

In Hanneman's case, I didn't manage it before Lv 20, if that makes better sense. This was also a recruit everybody run, so I had a lot of Part 1 paralogues. Basically Hanneman did mage like normal, then I consistently made him adjutant in the archer class, and he got the Knowledge Gem from around Ch. 10 on. Hanneman cleared archer and promoted to Sniper in Ch. 11 (he was around Lv 22). Where possible, I was battling two days per month though (monastery quests + paralogues meant I wanted to do more than 3 battles per month). So yeah, possible, but it requires favouritism and work.

11 hours ago, Cysx said:

You're right, it can work out fine. Wouldn't bet on 4 range, but 3 range is in the clear

I think I agree, but would be slightly more optimistic. My Hanneman definitely felt the strain at 4 spaces, but his hit rates with adjutant Hubert, but no linked attacks were still 70-75 against enemies like cavalry in the lategame - depending on how I'm feeling I'm willing to chance that. Of course, some will be higher, some lower, but regardless I was getting a decent number of kills at 4 range with him, both in the lategame and earlier.

11 hours ago, Cysx said:

She needs D+/C Faith to get into War Monk, but B for Rescue, and she's neutral. I'm not sure the investment is a priority either, especially if she's on her way to A gauntlets still. 3 uses of ward and for 1 range finishing chip... that's not great. I wasn't even thinking she'd have a WM phase without Aura gauntlets, to be honest. She's probably better off in another class until she gets there.

Yeah I did imagine she'll be working on Faith more before Lv 20, but I guess I can't rely on that. She should also have at least 5 uses each of Fire and Sagittae, which will only double against armours, and 10 uses of Heal. I think only C Reason and C Faith by Lv20 is also a bit pessimistic, even if all her teaching is going into gauntlets, but am happy to leave that be. Anyway, she'll be doing a bit of everything before she gets to the higher ranks for gauntlets, which is OK but not amazing, but don't underestimate Mystic Blow. See below for more details.

11 hours ago, Cysx said:

I tend to assume S+ rank&faire 2 at that point of the game, so that moves thing around a bunch but yeah, thankfully for Marianne several elites are mounted, although Blaiddyd is still barely out of OHKO reach due to the res +2 tile.

Forgot about the tile, nice catch. I'm also of the camp where I don't expect S+ without grinding, and that would change things (assuming I gave Marianne and Mercedes exactly their expected Mag stats at Lv40, having two faires would bring them to a little higher than my previous calculations). 

11 hours ago, Cysx said:

Just in case, this lists stats of a vast majority of enemies in the game: https://imgur.com/a/dSnk6C9

Marianne does struggle a bit in the final chapter. Then again, to quote myself: "between chapter 13 and 20, enemy grapplers get +9 HP +6 Res, so you need +15 damage in 7 chapters to continue ORKOing, aka a bit over +2 damage a chapter. Then from 20 to 22, they get +8 HP +4 Res, so you need +6 a chapter."
So yeah, final chapters are not the place to look at to figure out how good any given unit does throughout the game. Which is not to say that they don't matter either.

That link is a huge help thank you. Let me try and compare attack now. The earliest Mercedes/Constance will have completed their build is Ch. 16, so that's where we're going to begin the comparison.

Spoiler

Marianne: Her class progression is Monk > Mage > Pegasus Knight > Falcon Knight, and for ease of argument she will enter the timeskip having had 10 levels in Mage, and having just classed into PK. So Marianne is expected to have 26 Mag, 20 Dex at Lv 28 (expected level at Ch. 16), increasing at 2 levels, and 1 Mag/Dex, per chapter. I'm going to assume Marianne always has a Silver Lance+, and can dip into Lance of Ruin/Spear of Assal/Blessed Lance where necessary. I'm also going to assume Mag+2, Fiendish Blow, Nuvelle Fliers and a Mag Staff are all available for her. That gives Marianne 67 atk with a Silver Lance+, 75 with the Lance of Ruin, 95 atk with effective Spear of Assal and 78 atk with effective Blessed Lance+ at Chapter 16.

Constance: Her class progression is Monk > Mage > War Cleric. At Lv 28, she is expected to have 28 Mag, increasing at 2 levels, and 1.3 Mag per chapter. Running Aura Knuckles+, Mag +2, Fiendish Blow, Nuvelle Attendants, Mag Staff, and a class Faire. That comes to 54 (x2) atk at Ch. 16. 

Mercedes: Her class progression is Monk > Mage > Archer > Sniper. Like with Marianne, I'm going to assume that Mercedes classes into Archer just before the timeskip. At Lv 28, she is expected to have 25 Mag, increasing at 2 levels, and 1 Mag per chapter. She is running Magic Bow+, Mag +2, Fiendish Blow, Timotheos Magic Corps, a Mag Staff, and class Faire. For Hunter's Volley, that comes to 58 (x2) atk at Ch.16, 61 (x2) atk with adjutant Annette at Ch. 16.

In Ch. 16 of VW/SS, these are the OHKO atk thresholds for different enemy types. The first row of numbers is for Marianne, the second for Constance/Mercedes (the second row is ordered to correspond to the first row, which is why it isn't in ascending order). Underlined enemies are cavalry which Marianne has effective damage for, italicised enemies are fliers which Mercedes has effective damage for, bolded enemies are monsters (for which I'm just gonna write down thresholds for the first bar of health with barriers broken).

54,56,60,63,68,68,69,70,75,80,87,88,94,98

30,35,37,39,38,47,48,49,48,51,56,60,59,54

So at Ch. 16, Constance does slightly better than Marianne (gets the monster and an extra enemy type, but Marianne can nail Ferdinand/his replacement). Mercedes outperforms both, being able to nail everyone if she runs Annette as adjutant, and only failing to get Ferdinand and Acheron otherwise.

Now to Chapter 18. From here on out, Marianne also gets a Faire and an extra +2 dex for going from PK to FK. Marianne's atk is now 75/83/103/86, Constance's is 57, Mercedes' is 60/63.

58,67,70,72,73,79,83,86,86,93,96,102,102,105

37,41,42,51,40,50,57,60,60,55,57,74,68,58

Marianne is notable in being able to ORKO the Death Knight (also important because he starts running away on this map), but otherwise Constance gets an extra two groups of enemies, and Mercedes gets an extra three over Constance, including the monsters. They will still have to leave Linhardt to your physical units, however. 

Here's Chapter 20. I know that there's no month in between Chapter 19-20 VW, but I'm gonna pretend that these guys will get four levels between Ch. 18 and Ch. 20 because my calculations are easier as a result. Marianne's atk is 78/86/106/89, Constance's is 59, Mercedes' is 62/65.

70,73,78,79,80,81,86,87,89,91,91,93,94,96,107,110,135

43,44,45,47,48,49,51,65,62,62,62,65,66,69,74,72,71

As you might guess from the numbers, there are lots of high-res enemies in this map, meaning Constance is only as helpful as Marianne for ORKOs. It's worth pointing out that Marianne is now very reliant on Lance of Ruin for her KOs, whereas previously Silver Lance+ could do most of the work. Mercedes does better than both of them, but is still only just on the kill threshold.

Here's Chapter 22 (Endgame). Marianne's atk is 80/88/108/91, Constance's is 62, Mercedes' is 64/67.

78,80,89,92,92,94,96,96,99,99,103,104,105,105,108,110,110,110,111,113,120, and I didn't bother with Nemesis.

46,50,54,56,59,54,66,60,60,63, 67,   71,  72,  73,  74,  75,   67,  76,  74,  75,   84

I don't personally believe in S+, and a second Faire would change things a bit. Marianne can do very little OHKO work without it (a couple of the elites with Spear of Assal, the Flying Birds, and one assassin) but Constance remains very usable, and Mercedes is as usual doing bits. Fraldarius has the 84 threshold, and Mercedes gets up to 83 with effective damage, so she actually falls just short with the revised calculations (pray for a lucky crit I guess).

Obviously I've omitted four other story battles + paralogues etc. where these builds are competing. I've also omitted talking about numbers for the accuracy concerns from earlier - it's true there are lots of high-avoid enemies, but I think that Marianne won't fare that much better than Constance or Mercedes in this regard, especially running Lance of Ruin, so with your usual accuracy-boosting things it's basically a level playing field (sometimes, all of these guys are gonna miss, and we're gonna have to deal with it, probably with a Divine Pulse). But to me at least, I think all this shows there's a case for each of them. Mercedes has the best output of the three, so regularly gets KOs that the others don't, and those KOs will always be from range. Constance gets some access to her great spell list, meaning she's the most adaptable of the three, while still getting lots of KOs. Marianne has flying and Canto, and before these other builds reach their peak, in the early to mid-game where there are fewer mages and those mages tend to be less juiced up, Marianne will be getting the most OHKOs. The fact that Marianne is great for 2/3 of the game, and still relevant for most of the last 1/3, makes lances Marianne better overall than fists Constance or bows Mercedes, but she tails off harder in the lategame, which is very worth taking into account.

P.S. While Marianne will be straightforwardly more powerful than Mercedes before she masters Sniper, Mystic Blow is actually a surprisingly competitive tool on Constance, and will net her a fair chunk of the OHKOs that Marianne can get, even before Aura Knuckles is available. 

Spoiler

For reference, the Chapter 8 thresholds (first time the above set-ups become even remotely possible for these units) as according to the link, are as follows: 43, 47, 47, 48, 50, 54, 57, 57, 72, 74. Assuming Lv 14 and Marianne had already gotten Fiendish Blow (probably unrealistic though) Lance of Ruin gets 66 raw atk, Silver Lance gets 57. That's enough to OHKO everyone but Solon and the Death Knight (because no Spear of Assal yet). Constance's Mystic Blow with her set up at this point (and Steel Knuckles) gets 51 raw atk, 55 with Vajra-Mushti, which isn't too far behind (though she'd have to switch out of Mage to use it, which is probably a dealbreaker).

Chapter 14 OHKO thresholds: 51,53,54,56,57,59,65,66,70,70,70,72,76,77,88. The only units Marianne can't OHKO in this map with Lance of Ruin and the above set up (74 atk) are the Warlocks, Falcon Knights and Randolph, and she will have 66 raw atk with Silver Lance+. War Cleric Constance gets 66 raw atk with Silver Knuckles, 69 with Vajra-Mushti.

So, Constance's Mystic Blow is worse than Marianne's Frozen Lance, but it isn't awful (especially compared to the average damage output of your physical units). This brings up a related point - Constance is relatively unlikely to double with her spell list, meaning that before she unlocks Fimbulvetr, Mystic Blow is far and away her best offensive output. And only Agnea's Arrow/Abraxas with Tomefaire will outdamage Vajra-Mushti Mystic Blow. Point being, Mystic Blow is actually a bit better for her than it would first appear, especially in the early game, and it's easy to get (although tough to use because of the class restriction). Food for thought requiring her placement in the tier list? After all, Felix is far less likely to get an OHKO with BMC + 10.

 

Edited by haarhaarhaar
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Not going to respond to things individually, but there have been some interesting and well-made arguments in here. I'm still not 100% sold on Marianne's frozen lance, but I've decided it is something that I want to try for myself, since the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and what have you. It'll probably be a while before I start my next play through, mind, but you've collectively convinced me to give it a shot, at least.

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3 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

So, Constance's Mystic Blow is worse than Marianne's Frozen Lance, but it isn't awful (especially compared to the average damage output of your physical units). This brings up a related point - Constance is relatively unlikely to double with her spell list, meaning that before she unlocks Fimbulvetr, Mystic Blow is far and away her best offensive output. And only Agnea's Arrow/Abraxas with Tomefaire will outdamage Vajra-Mushti Mystic Blow. Point being, Mystic Blow is actually a bit better for her than it would first appear, especially in the early game, and it's easy to get (although tough to use because of the class restriction). Food for thought requiring her placement in the tier list? After all, Felix is far less likely to get an OHKO with BMC + 10.

I'm using Mystic Blow currently on my Maddening run. She's only Level 6, but I've made her a fighter and am planning to move her into Mage for FB. While she's not one-shotting at the moment, her damage is still really good. The big issue, and the reason it's so low is, as you say, the class restriction. You could stay in Fighter until Level 20, which is probably not so bad, but it gimps her performance until War Monk. You could switch her to mage and then not use Mystic Blow, thus only letting her train brawling through instruction and taking longer. Or you could make a desperate attempt to train her in Swords (she starts with E+, has a boon, and needs D+ for a 60% chance for mercenary/thief) so she can use her brawling in an intermediate class (but then this experience could go to getting A brawling faster). 

Her position basically becomes a toss-up between whether the high potential damage outweighs the time and effort it takes to get there- Mercedes is higher than her because, while going sniper ruins her healing, the damage is quite significant if you do go that route, and she has Waning Shot as a situationally useful art if she sticks with healing. Hapi is lower because Exhaustive Strike doesn't quite work as her crutch if she takes the Axe route, and her damage is best served against monsters, which, while threatening, are not on every map. Felix/Balthus I rated as I did because they can just grab their budding talents and use them, so they have ease of access but almost no reason to do so. 

I can see the argument going both ways, but I see the point about the higher payoff by the end than Felix/Balthus. I'll slot Constance below Mercedes for now, because the math seems to be on the side of Mercie. 

What this now does is makes me reconsider Hapi's placement though- I had it lower than Felix and Balthus because her talent, while potentially useful, left her locked out of her spell list, while the other two could still make use of their original strengths and have magic as a side trick that they use maybe once every couple maps. But going by the thought that Constance should go above them because of a higher payoff in the mid-late game, should Hapi follow her?

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9 hours ago, Anathaco said:

What this now does is makes me reconsider Hapi's placement though- I had it lower than Felix and Balthus because her talent, while potentially useful, left her locked out of her spell list, while the other two could still make use of their original strengths and have magic as a side trick that they use maybe once every couple maps. But going by the thought that Constance should go above them because of a higher payoff in the mid-late game, should Hapi follow her?

Hmm that's interesting. I mean, Hapi can technically use Exhaustive Strike even in magical classes, and with Bolt Axe it deals more magical damage than her spells. Having to use up an entire weapon every time to get the best effect is annoying, but there's no opportunity cost for Hapi running an extra CA (whereas Edelgard/Sylvain/Balthus/Felix actively don't want the skill or the boon in physical builds). But I think it's still less useful than those guys, because she needs B axes to get Bolt Axe, and unless you have the limited-availability Crusher, that means Exhaustive Strike will deal physical damage (except against mages, that will probably be less than her spells). For example, as a Lv10 Mage with a Steel Axe (average 10 Str) she gets about 40 Atk, which is probably enough to kill an early game mage (but probably nothing else).  

The Black Magic Gang (dorkiest gang name ever but I love it) will at least be able to make decent use of their skills from the moment they unlock their spell list, and Sylvain's probably stands on top of the others still. None of them can get especially high crit rates with magic, but it's better than nothing, and statistically speaking it means they'll crit (and get kills) during the time it takes Hapi to get B axes to start dealing threatening damage with Bolt Axe Exhaustive Strike. The earliest she could use Bolt Axe+ is Ch.10 - expecting Level 18 Mage, that's 21 Mag and 47 atk, which is still only enough to kill armours and monsters. So yeah, Hapi I think will still remain at bottom, but my estimation of her budding talent has risen slightly.

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Okay, so while I won't address the first half of your post, that's as a result of us basically being in agreement and me having nothing meaningful to add. That's probably fairly obvious, thought I might as well point it out.

19 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

I think I agree, but would be slightly more optimistic. My Hanneman definitely felt the strain at 4 spaces, but his hit rates with adjutant Hubert, but no linked attacks were still 70-75 against enemies like cavalry in the lategame - depending on how I'm feeling I'm willing to chance that. Of course, some will be higher, some lower, but regardless I was getting a decent number of kills at 4 range with him, both in the lategame and earlier.

To be fair this is a game with a plentiful rewind mechanic, but 75x2 in 2 RN... that's a 76% chance to hit both, which is not terrible but ~1/4 not to kill is still a bit high for me.

19 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

I'm also of the camp where I don't expect S+ without grinding

Boy do I have a wall of text for you!
... nah jk, we have enough on our plate as it is.

Disclaimer two, before I start being a dip': I do appreciate that you took the time to do this, especially as someones who does the same, sometimes.
... no like, seriously. Respect and appreciation.

19 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Marianne: Her class progression is Monk > Mage > Pegasus Knight > Falcon Knigh

I'm more of an advocate of Paladin Marianne to be honest. That's largely as a result of Nuvelle not existing back then, but even now, I value the ability to both get mov +1 and later on fai... shoot I almost did it again. Also while Nuvelle fliers is broken neat, it doesn't give that much accuracy, which makes using the lance of ruin more difficult. Also it has a tinsy 5% dex growth and that's just so cute! Rather, this and the ability to use +8 mag battalions compensate and overcome Falcon Knight's +2 skl.
Regardless, even in your build there's limited reason not to put her in Paladin from 20 to 30, and honestly mostly just mage from 10 -> 20 You can go cavalier once you have fiendish blow if you don't want to spread your tutoring thin and would like to guarantee pala at 20. It's worse than peg, granted, but it happens at a relatively easy part of the game.

19 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

adjutant Annette

Now that the meta has shifted so hard into abusing guard adjutants with melee units, and with Annette being almost always worth deploying even untrained, I don't think this is really happening. Although Annette could have a ranged weapon to provide a bonus to Mercedes as often as possible, for sure.
You've given Marianne free relic access though, and while I frankly don't think that's quite as unlikely... sure, let's go with that.
However, I'm not quite willing to just assume Mercedes having hit +20 is a reasonable way to go about it(which I I'm guessing you did since you put archer on her class path). You said it yourself, you grinded a lot to get that on Hanneman. None of the other two builds require that kind of attention, so if they're to be put on even grounding, Mercedes should really be Monk > Mage > Sniper, and aim for Edmund or Macuil.

Okay, so ch 16!

Spoiler

 

Okay, so I didn't question that initially, but... why level 28? The recommended level is 31. Looking at diverse playthroughs, 30 seems more accurate which also means there was no point for me to argue for lancefaire on Marianne down here, and that all my math that you won't get to see as a result is wrong. Obviously this primarily matters for my side of the argument because of Marianne being on the lower end when it comes to damage here... Interestingly, you said lv 28 but gave the lv 30 averages('cept for Constance), so... idk? Do we agree or not?

... I'll, uh, just skip the numbers this time around; with what you gave them and my assumption that Mercedes does not have hit +20, Constance and Mercedes have accuracy issues here(from 3 range for Mercedes), even as enemies ch16 have low m.avoid, apart from the boss(es). Worth noting, with the lance of ruin and Nuvelle, Marianne's isn't looking too cute either, but to be fair she doesn't need to hit twice to kill(under 90 on 2 RN, chance to kill is 5 to 15% lower than chance to hit for the other two as a result of that, which is partially why I keep bringing up accuracy).

Granted, there's Macuil to consider as said above(Ordelia isn't available yet). +7 Mag, +30 accuracy, that works. The issue being that it's A rank, which Constance can have reached thanks to her strength, but Mercedes, that's unlikely. If she can't, Edmund only gives 5 mag.


As a result of all the above, when it comes to ch 16 if we're assuming level 30, obviously the picture is different for Marianne especially(+5 from faire), Constance gains +1 mag but loses 1 from Macuil, while if Mercedes is using Edmund, she loses 3.

- The demonic beast first bar is 108/64
- Mercedes killing Ladislava is pretty neat.
- At 72/80/100 atk, Marianne(yeah I'm reusing your formatting, it's good stuff), Marianne OHKOs everything but the bosses, often relying on the LoR.
- Constance doesn't change
- Mercedes with Edmund has Constance's output. With Annette she's a bunch better.

 

I don't... get your damage increases from 16 to...
... Ooooh you jumped to 18... so we're looking at their lv 34 averages here, right? That matches with your numbers.

Spoiler

- Okay, it's the second time you halve the demonic beast's res, so it's probably no accident. Does breaking their shields halve their res? I don't think that's a thing...?
-  Caspar has lancebreaker, so Marianne cannot really engage him even to finish him off. Not a correction, just pointing it out.
-  The assassins and swordmasters here have 52/51 magic avoid. Marianne can have swordbreaker, but Constance will have to run Edmund to kill them reliably(she's at 52/53 base accuracy vs them), which would lower her output a bunch for that chapter. Macuil is probably still a more balanced choice(since you're still 1 mag too low on her afaict), but she pretty much has to pick on leaving the assassins alone with Macuil(<85 accuracy doesn't fly), or not ORKOing Caspar and the battalion-less Dark Bishop. Either way, this makes her output very comparable to Marianne's, in terms of groups.
- Speaking of which, we shouldn't be counting in groups really. The bishop is alone for example, so are the two dark bishops in their own group, meanwhile there are 6 assassins.
- For Mercedes, she could have reached A Authority by now, so with Macuil her damage is a mere -1 of your forecast, which doesn't really change anything. She misses out on the lone bishop/ battalion dark bishop without Annette.

- Honestly all three are pretty close here in terms of killing. Mercedes' advantage amounts to very little and unless I'm wrong on Demonic beasts shields, she doesn't OHKOs their first bar on her own. Regardless, the damage meant to break the shield can push all three in ORKO range. She doesn't ko through the shield, so that doesn't amount to anything.

ch 20 thus!
 

Spoiler

 

- Your damage for Marianne corresponds to Paladin with a +8 battalion, but not Falcon Knight. I think that might be because you said she got 1 Dex per chapter, when she only gets +0.8 as a Falcon.
- With that being said, the recommended level for ch 21 VW is 40 rather than the expected 39. Ch 19 is at 35, and due to its nature and me not having a save file there, I don't know about ch 20 VW. Ch 20 BL however recommends 39, which would be even higher, so... maybe we're undershooting at this point?
... ch 20 Silver Snow suggests lv 40, but that's a different situation.

Anyway.

- Yeah, Enbarr 2 is always filled with high res enemies. It's pretty bad for measurement of how good magic based units are, so I'm not going to expand too much on this one. Probably. I do appreciate that you took the time here especially, though.
- Constance will likely not kill Petra reliably(66 M.avo). And she has the skill that reduces accuracy from range by 30, so Mercedes faces the same issue. Marianne has swordbreaker and cleanly kills with a silver+... as a Paladin.
- Same as above for the demonic beast, not that it changes much... Actually, Constance and Mercedes are much more likely to ORKO after shield breaking chip than Marianne. That's something.
- 3 Warriors with lancebreaker+ which Marianne won't be able to hit reliably with the lance of ruin, even though she'd OHKO.
- 2 Heroes, 4 Swordmasters, 2 Grapplers +2 with battalions, and, for what it's worth 6 Miracle Bishops have >40 M.avo (respectively 49, 53, 46, 56, 43). Macuil should be expected for both C and M, which means Mercedes narrowly misses out on a bunch of kills with and without super Annette. Then again, if we're undershooting the global level, that's not a thing.

- A pretty bad chapter for everyone, notably for Marianne(in terms of pure damage anyway) and Constance. As you said.
- It's worth noting that getting S+ for very straightforward builds before the 19-20VW marathon is possible, without grinding. Wait, I wasn't supposed to say that. Regardless, if you play fast it ain't happening most likely.

 

ch 22! Not spoilered, cuz it's short!

- Let's not discuss S+. You included it anyway(you could have for the other two to be frank, by that point it's possible), so thanks for that.
- This is definitely the part where FL!Marianne is glad the game is ending. I mean everyone is, but yeah, she's at her limit here. Not much to add. She still  has her mobility(particularly for FK because swamps), but she cannot keep up with them in terms of kills, especially if they have faires. That's just a fact.

--------------

19 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

it's true there are lots of high-avoid enemies, but I think that Marianne won't fare that much better than Constance or Mercedes in this regard, especially running Lance of Ruin, so with your usual accuracy-boosting things it's basically a level playing field

Well that's where you'd be wrong, because most of these are sword users, meaning she can take advantage of swordbreaker as said above. For instance, against a ch 22 swordmaster, with Ordelia, she's at 25 + 65 + 5 + 15 + 20 + 20 = 150 vs 38 + 20 = 58 = 92 accuracy, which is 98.8 true hit. Macuil Constance on the other hand is at 17 + 80 + 10 + 30 = 137 = 79 accuracy x2, 91.39 true hit aka  83.5 chance to hit twice.
We're talking ~1/100 chance of not killing vs ~1/6. And at 2 range, Mercedes can do fine with Ordelia(27 + 75 + 15 + 15 + 20 = 153) , but not at 3, where she's at 65 displayed.
Both can switch to an accuracy ring and still get the kill, which is why I never said Constance was screwed in the above, but they do need accuracy fixing that Marianne doesn't(warriors and wyverns aside, fortunately for her they aren't very common), and if Mercedes wants to be universally good at 3 range, she needs Edmund, which makes her the same as Constance the whole way through(assuming no Annette) in terms of damage output. So it does matter.
In passing, you mentioning a lucky crit made me recall that Marianne does get the option to try her luck with a killer/scythe of Sariel while the other two cannot really, but that ain't worth much since she dies on counter. It's a quirk.

I think in your ending analysis in general(as well as in the above, but, there's only so much math we can deal with at one time), you're giving way too little place to the movement difference. While admittedly, some of it is often used to get her out of danger through canto(then again, Constance wishes she could do that), this is a flexibility Marianne gets that neither of the other two have an answer for. She also has a strength in riding, meaning move +1 is reasonably doable. I don't think I should really have to say a lot here, we all know how good movement is.

Constance is strong but has 7 range to work with, while Mercedes has to pick between accuracy and damage for her battalions, limiting her. And beyond the time it takes for these builds to exist, they require a lot more effort and babying while Marianne's just doesn't, she kills for most of the game almost immediately and that's that, in ways she's the Jeigan here, and we both know how that conversation ends.

Let's discuss Mystic blow hurray!

- It's not just the Vajra Mushti though, is it? No gauntlets are useable for mages afaik.
- Fiendish blow is indeed a stretch. Which is also true for Constance yet you didn't mention it you are biased I got you I won.
- Also wow wow wow please list the stats up, I have no idea what battalion you're assuming here. And clearly without fiendish blow this is a struggle.
- With fiendish blow and as a... uh... well... fighter I guess...(but then no spells... Commoner could be funny) She could do this, if your battalion choice was reasonable, which I don't know. But if both are at fiendish blow already, Marianne can be a cav or a peg, so they're still very much not on the same level.

Now talking early War Cleric

- You're assuming peg Marianne.
- Otherwise you're right, I've been sleeping on Mystic blow, clearly. With that being said, this is only meaningful until she gets A rank gauntlets, which should not take that excessively long once you've unlocked War Cleric, and the survivability issues I spoke of would still exist with her using Mystic Blow. You pointed it out yourself, but what class is she supposed to take advantage of this as, from Fiendish blow to 20?

... oh wow. I'm done writing.

Editing was for typos and a mistake I left in there about Mercedes.

 

Edited by Cysx
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19 minutes ago, Cysx said:

Okay, so while I won't address the first half of your post, that's as a result of us basically being in agreement and me having nothing meaningful to add. That's probably fairly obvious, thought I might as well point it out.

To be fair this is a game with a plentiful rewind mechanic, but 75x2 in 2 RN... that's a 76% chance to hit both, which is not terrible but ~1/4 not to kill is still a bit high for me.

Fair enough - I've learnt that I'm quite forgiving as far as hit rates go amongst FE players.

20 minutes ago, Cysx said:

Boy do I have a wall of text for you!
... nah jk, we have enough on our plate as it is.

Disclaimer two, before I start being a dip': I do appreciate that you took the time to do this, especially as someones who does the same, sometimes.
... no like, seriously. Respect and appreciation.

Hehe I read what you said on a different thread about it, so I'm not gonna dismiss S+ out of hand or make you argue for it again. I'm actually closer to your style of play than I am to the people you were arguing with - I attempt to rout most maps, but as quickly as I can, I heavily favour Player Phase, and only ever use warpskip strategies when I'm tired/low on battery (which isn't very often). I have gotten S+ with grinding before, but I can't figure out why I'm not getting enough battle experience to reach S+ in normal play. Ah well. 

Thanks in general for writing a really comprehensive reply (and the appreciation) - SF has a lot of people who argue in good faith, and those are the best kind of arguments. 

29 minutes ago, Cysx said:

I'm more of an advocate of Paladin Marianne to be honest. That's largely as a result of Nuvelle not existing back then, but even now, I value the ability to both get mov +1 and later on fai... shoot I almost did it again. Also while Nuvelle fliers is broken neat, it doesn't give that much accuracy, which makes using the lance of ruin more difficult. Also it has a tinsy 5% dex growth and that's just so cute! Rather, this and the ability to use +8 mag battalions compensate and overcome Falcon Knight's +2 skl.
Regardless, even in your build there's limited reason not to put her in Paladin from 20 to 30, and honestly mostly just mage from 10 -> 20 You can go cavalier once you have fiendish blow if you don't want to spread your tutoring thin and would like to guarantee pala at 20. It's worse than peg, granted, but it happens at a relatively easy part of the game.

Yep Paladin is a better choice for her - I just didn't want to assume she was raising Lances, Swords, Flying and Riding, but it is perfectly possible. If she doesn't go through PK then raising flying is a bit of a pain I think, and if she does it before Lv20 it might impact her numbers slightly. 

31 minutes ago, Cysx said:

Now that the meta has shifted so hard into abusing guard adjutants with melee units, and with Annette being almost always worth deploying even untrained, I don't think this is really happening. Although Annette could have a ranged weapon to provide a bonus to Mercedes as often as possible, for sure. You've given Marianne free relic access though, and while I frankly don't think that's quite as unlikely... sure, let's go with that.
However, I'm not quite willing to just assume Mercedes having hit +20 is a reasonable way to go about it(which I assume you did since you put archer on her class path). You said it yourself, you grinded a lot to get that on Hanneman. None of the other two builds require that kind of attention, so if they're to be put on even grounding, Mercedes should really be Monk > Mage > Sniper, and aim for Edmund or Macuil.

Yeah I didn't want to assume adjutant Annette, but I figure that OHKO Mercedes is still one of the best uses for her, so it's worth consideration. 

On Maddening, 10 levels is more than enough time to master Mage the normal way - that's an advantage Mercedes has over Hanneman. Seeing as it barely took me a chapter (with paralogues/quests and KG) for Hanneman to master Archer, I wasn't very fussed about assuming Hit+20 for Mercedes. It'd be tougher for Constance because of her tutoring/goals, but Marianne could master another intermediate class in this time period too IMO (like Peg Knight) - I didn't include anything like that because it just wasn't important to her build. 

36 minutes ago, Cysx said:

Okay, so I didn't question that initially, but... why? The recommended level is 31. Looking at diverse playthroughs, 30 seems more accurate which also means there was no point for me to argue for lancefaire on Marianne in ch 16, and that all my math that you won't get to see as a result is wrong. Obviously this primarily matters for my side of the argument because Marianne being on the lower end when it comes to damage here... Interestingly, you said lv 28 but gave the lv 30 averages('cept for Constance), so... idk? Do we agree or not?

I just worked backwards from assuming Lv40 at Ch.22 - forgot about expected levels for chapters. My numbers should work for Lv 28 though. 

Spoiler

Marianne: Base + 9*Mag/Dex + 10*(Mag+10)/(Dex+10) + 8*(Mag/Dex)

       Mag      11   +      9*0.5       +                 10*0.6               +        8*0.5      = 25.5 round to 26

       Dex        6     +      9*0.4       +                 10*0.45             +       8*0.4      = 17.3, +2 for Peg Knight dex boost, 19.3. I said 20 earlier, so I guess that's wrong. If Paladin, then it would be 20. 

Marianne's Atk: Wpn Mt*Effectiveness + CA Mt + 0.3*Dex + Mag + Skills + Bonuses

Skills = Fiendish Blow (+6), Mag +2. Bonuses = Mag Staff (+3), Nuvelle Fliers (+7)

Lance of Ruin                   22*1                 +      3     +  0.3*19  +   26   +    8     +      10     = 74.7, round to 75. Which comes out same as what I said earlier (Paladin would be 80 with the Faire, 81 with a better battalion than Nuvelle).

Mercedes' Mag:  10 + 9*0.5 + 10*0.6 + 8*0.5 = 24.5, round to 25

Skills = Fiendish Blow (+6), Mag +2. Bonuses = Mag Staff (+3), Timotheos (+8), class Faire (+5)

Mercedes' Atk:     8*1 + 1 + 25 + 8 + 16 = 58 (and with Annette, 61). 

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

As a result of all the above, when it comes to ch 16 if we're assuming level 30 obviously the picture is different for Marianne especially(+5 from faire), Constance gains +1 mag but loses 1 from Macuil, while if Mercedes is using Edmund, she loses 3.

- The demonic beast first bar is 108/64
- Mercedes killing Ladislava is pretty neat.
- At 72/80/100 atk, Marianne(yeah I'm reusing your formatting, it's good stuff), Marianne OHKOs everything but the bosses, often relying on the LoR.
- Constance doesn't change
- Mercedes with Edmund has Constance's output. With Annette she's a bunch better.

I mean, moving these guys up to Lv 30, which we can do, will change things drastically, and now Marianne can get everyone bar the bosses. Assuming my earlier setup, Constance can get the same OHKOs as Marianne (except Ferdinand), and Mercedes can now get everybody except Acheron and the monster without Annette.

Here's why I'll continue to assume my original setup, despite accuracy concerns.

Spoiler

Constance's base accuracy with AK at this point is 101. Mercedes' base accuracy with Magic Bow/HV is 111. Nuvelle Attendants doesn't help that, but Timotheos (which is available and +8 Mag) gives a 10 Hit boost, bringing Constance to 111 or Mercedes to 121. Like I said earlier, I think Hit +20 is a reasonable get for Mercedes, but I'll act as if it isn't there for now. Marianne's base accuracy with LoR/Frozen Lance at this point is 103. Nuvelle Fliers adds 5 Hit, bringing her to 108. Even assuming Paladin, the only other +8 Mag battalion reasonably available at this point is Timotheos, bringing her to 113. 

It's worth pointing out that Marianne'll be at base 123 with Silver Lance+ (128 with Spear of Assal), which is far more serviceable, and can also equip Swordbreaker, which is a big boon. And since sword enemies are consistently some of the highest-avoid enemies in the game, that is very important. The flip side is -20 against Axe users. Armours should still be manageable (and straight mages can deal with them so no biggie), but warriors/WLs will be difficult. Extra hit against sword enemies is more valuable overall IMO, because your other units will also struggle hitting them, but there are lots of axe enemies in the game that Marianne will not be useful against. 

What does that mean overall? For starters, you're right that I probably oversimplified talking about accuracy before. There will be a fair few enemies with mag avo of 50+. Some of these will be sword users, which Marianne certainly does better against, and very few of these will be axe users. At this specific stage, though, Marianne needs Lance of Ruin for at least half of her OHKOs (and that proportion will only rise). So with LoR Marianne's displayed hit will be roughly Constance's and Mercedes. Things are still worse for Constance/Mercedes - with displayed hit 70, Constance/Mercedes are about 68% likely to land both hits, and Marianne is 82% likely to land one. While that gap gets smaller as displayed hit rises, it still needs to be considered. It means either Constance/Mercedes are going to have to change set-up to rectify this, or start using linked attacks. The former means dropping their atk thresholds, but in this map that does nothing to Constance, and only stops Mercie from getting Ferdinand. The latter can be quite difficult to do. 

Basically you're right, and accuracy is a bigger concern than I gave it credit. But it's already affecting Marianne too, and soon Marianne won't be much better than Mercedes/Constance when it comes to hit rates. So I can change the setups I originally used, but in this map that would mean increasing Constance's hit without much changing the OHKOs she can get, and not doing anything for Marianne. As Marianne slowly tails off, in OHKOs and accuracy, Constance will get better battalions to help. So I'm not too fussed about changing Constance's setup. Mercedes is a different bag, because you want her range to be as high as possible. So if I change her battalion to Essar or Edmund, Mercedes loses Ferdinand again, but that's it. And I can keep changing my choice for every map, depending on how they turn out, but if Marianne stays in FL there's nothing she can do.

 

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

I don't... get your damage increases from 16 to...
... Ooooh you jumped to 18... so we're looking at their lv 34 averages here, right? That matches with your numbers. Well apart from Mercedes being 1 point too high still.

- Okay, it's the second time you halve the demonic beast's res, so it's probably no accident. Does breaking their shields halve their res? I don't think that's a thing...?
-  Caspar has lancebreaker, so Marianne cannot really engage him even to finish him off. Not a correction, just pointing it out.
-  The assassins and swordmasters here have 52/51 magic avoid. Marianne can have swordbreaker, but Constance will have to run Edmund to kill them reliably(she's at 52/53 base accuracy vs them), which would lower her output a bunch for that chapter. Macuil is probably still a more balanced choice(since you're still 1 mag too low on her afaict), but she pretty much has to pick on leaving the assassins alone with Macuil(<85 accuracy doesn't fly), or not ORKOing Caspar and the battalion-less Dark Bishop. Either way, this makes her output very comparable to Marianne's, in terms of groups.
- Speaking of which, we shouldn't be counting in groups really. The bishop is alone for example, so are the two dark bishops in their own group, meanwhile there are 6 assassins.
- For Mercedes, she could have reached A Authority by now, so with Macuil her damage is a mere -1 of your forecast, which doesn't really change anything. She misses out on the lone bishop/ battalion dark bishop without Annette.

- Honestly all three are pretty close here in terms of killing. Mercedes' advantage amounts to very little and unless I'm wrong on Demonic beasts shields, she doesn't OHKOs their first bar on her own. Regardless, the damage meant to break the shield can push all three in ORKO range. She doesn't ko through the shield, so that doesn't amount to anything.

  • My number should be Lv 32 averages (am I missing something?). From here on in my original post I just scaled the numbers according to their stat increase, so my original figures shouldn't be wrong either, including Mercedes
  • Monsters are my mistake. I think I must have confused 50% damage halving from barriers as something to do with the monster's stats, rather than an independent effect.
  • Yeah I didn't take into account breaker skills in general - important for Marianne, (because lots of Axe units have poor Res), but not a concern for the other two. 
  • As for the swordsmen, they're an issue for Mercedes and Constance, true. Mercedes may have to go to 2 spaces, and Constance will want linked attack help. Worth noting that Marianne is soon gonna struggle even with Swordbreaker, because she's gonna start requiring Lance of Ruin for most things.
  • Yeah I couldn't be arsed to write out individual numbers of enemies, and that did obscure the comparison. 

The fact that now the characters are all 2 levels higher than I first predicted means that nothing has changed in terms of gettable thresholds even if I were to downgrade Mercedes/Constance's builds. Of course, taking accuracy into account does change things, although linked attack potential also remains. 

3 hours ago, Cysx said:

Constance will likely not kill Petra reliably(66 M.avo). And she has the skill that reduces accuracy from range by 30, so Mercedes faces the same issue. Marianne has swordbreaker and cleanly kills with a silver+... as a Paladin.
- Same as above for the demonic beast, not that it changes much... Actually, Constance and Mercedes are much more likely to ORKO after shield breaking chip than Marianne.
- 3 Warriors with lancebreaker+ which Marianne won't be able to hit reliably with the lance of ruin, even though she'd OHKO.
- 2 Heroes, 4 Swordmasters, 2 Grapplers +2 with battalions, and, for what it's worth 6 Miracle Bishops have >40 M.avo (respectively 49, 53, 46, 56, 43). Macuil should be expected for both C and M, which means Mercedes narrowly misses out on a bunch of kills with and without super Annette. Then again, if we're undershooting the global level, that's not a thing.

  • Ah Petra, you're a nightmare for everybody. IIRC this map has few stairs and impassable walls, so running Paladin Marianne sounds reasonable. 
  • Constance will be able to quad these monsters, so no problemo.
  • Lysithea battalion can be in effect by this point, so I'm not that worried about Mercedes.
3 hours ago, Cysx said:

While admittedly, some of it is often used to get her out of danger through canto(then again, Constance wishes she could do that), this is a flexibility Marianne gets that neither of the other two have an answer for. She also has a strength in riding, meaning move +1 is reasonably doable. I don't think I should really have to say a lot here, we all know how good movement is.

Movement is a big deal, no doubt. But Marianne has the worst attack of the three, and the only thing she is capable of is OHKOing. Actually, she could do OK chip with Levin Sword+/Blutgang, so that isn't fair. Mercedes has the advantage of no/fewer counters, so even if HV doesn't kill, it's better chip, and there's also good old Curved Shot. Constance can have her spell list/Pneuma Gale. Since she doesn't care about getting the mythical S+ Depending on your mindset, she can pivot to training Reason/Faith after A+ Fists. Pneuma Gale will be better chip than Levin Sword+ and Blutgang (it has no chance of doubling, but tbh there aren't many enemies Marianne can double who wouldn't fall to Frozen Lance anyway), Rescue is great IMO, and even one use of Bolting is good for linked attacks/a Hail Mary shot. Don't forget little old Heal, too. 

Movement is a huge bonus, and I didn't mean to undersell it. But Marianne is beginning to tail off attack-wise as Mercedes/Constance continue to do well, so there's less and less she can do with her movement the closer you get to the end of the game, whereas Mercedes and Constance's advantages grow in utility during this stretch of the game. 

3 hours ago, Cysx said:

Constance is strong but has 7 range to work with, while Mercedes has to pick between accuracy and damage for her battalions, limiting her. And beyond the time it takes for these builds to exist, they require a lot more effort and babying while Marianne's just doesn't, she kills for most of the game almost immediately and that's that, in ways she's the Jeigan here, and we both know how that conversation ends.

I think the accuracy/damage choice gets easier for Mercedes as time goes - her attack also (afaict) remains solidly above Constance and Marianne even if the choice goes accuracy. But yeah, Marianne is getting OHKOs basically from day 1, has early flying capability, and is still competitive for a while even once these builds get going. So I think overall I have to concede that FL Marianne is better. As a parting shot, Marianne tails off harshly in the last few chapters where Constance and Mercedes still do well. So, to your original phrase "Even at their peak, I genuinely don't think they trump FL!Marianne", I don't think that's completely true.

3 hours ago, Cysx said:

Let's discuss Mystic blow hurray!

- It's not just the Vajra Mushti though, is it? No gauntlets are useable for mages afaik.
- Fiendish blow is indeed a stretch. Which is also true for Constance yet you didn't mention it you are biased I got you I won.
- Also wow wow wow please list the stats up, I have no idea what battalion you're assuming here. And clearly without fiendish blow this is a struggle.
- With fiendish blow and as a... uh... well... fighter I guess...(but then no spells... Commoner could be funny) She could do this, if your battalion choice was reasonable, which I don't know. But if both are at fiendish blow already, Marianne can be a cav or a peg, so they're still very much not on the same level.

Now talking early War Cleric

- You're assuming peg Marianne.
- Otherwise you're right, I've been sleeping on Mystic blow, clearly. With that being said, this is only meaningful until she gets A rank gauntlets, which should not take that excessively long once you've unlocked War Cleric, and the survivability issues I spoke of would still exist with her using Mystic Blow. You pointed it out yourself, but what class is she supposed to take advantage of this as, from Fiendish blow to 20?

  • Yeah exactly, that's what I meant to say
  • Lol meant that comment to extend to Constance, wasn't trying to be disingenuous. 
  • I meant just about the same set-up as the beginning of the post. Prowess will be lower, but in theory Nuvelle Fliers/Timotheos/Nuvelle Attendants are all available by this point. Though yes Fiendish Blow is very optimistic. 

 

  • Yeah I was, Paladin will do better.
  • B rank to A will take a couple of chapters I imagine. So not super relevant I guess, but it makes War Monk Constance competitive before Aura Knuckles, which is the big takeaway
  • Yep gauntlets being locked from mages (and brawler from women) is a hell of an issue. I mean, Constance won't need 10 levels to master Mage, so maybe she could scramble for Thief/Merc? But she'll lose growths/stat boosts and she'll need to train swords, but now she can train gauntlets... idk. 

 

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On 8/5/2020 at 1:04 AM, haarhaarhaar said:

Thanks in general for writing a really comprehensive reply (and the appreciation) - SF has a lot of people who argue in good faith, and those are the best kind of arguments. 

Agreed. It's a very nice change of pace as far as I'm concerned.

Okay, so about the levels, I still land on the same numbers, and so does the fe3H.com average calculator. I don't mean to be offensive by saying that but, do you by any chance count 1 -> 28 as 28 levels, when it's 27? Honestly not too sure why there's this difference otherwise... Plus we're getting the same numbers for Constance.
There's probably not much of a point to keep nitpicking anyway(probably shouldn't even have in the first place). It gives a good idea.
Also I get the logic, but I assume lv 40 for ch 22 because it's clean before anything else. Going back far enough, that goes without saying but the average level at ch 1 would be -2. Just from experience, 30 at 16 lines up for me.

So about the accuracy.

Spoiler

- My numbers don't match yours(though they could if Constance hasn't reached A+ so I'm only going to look at the other two); at 28 Mercedes should have (25 dex + 17 lck)/2 = 21 + 75 + 15 + 15 if she's at A+ bows, 11 if she's not, so 122/118, while Marianne has 19 dex + 65 + 5(from FL) + 15/11 = 100/104. Again, not that this changes everything(in fact it helps Mercedes), I'm just detailing so that maybe we can't get what's wrong here.
- Honestly, I'm actually going back and forth about Hit +20. It does put Mercedes in a position where she cannot contribute and has to hog your one knowledge gem for 2-4 battles, but it's not like she's irreplaceable as a mere Physic bot(Fortify being a different matter, but she won't have that most likely), and it happens during a fairly paralogue-heavy part of the game.
... then again, so many people want the knowledge gem at this point. And if she doesn't have it, 50 battles is a lot.
- Breakers are actually not tied to weapon for enemies, but merely to class it seems. So Fortress knights and Great Knights don't have it, it's only warriors and WL afaik. To be fair, Constance struggles with WLs too due to their high m.avo(the ones in Claude's paralogue are at 51 for instance). And pegs... well only Mercedes can really kill those usually anyway. But they do have among the highest M.avo in the game(Fraldarius has 67, and due to their battalions those in Silver Snow 21 have 70).
... but yeah, Marianne falters vs warriors.
- I don't really
- Ch 16 isn't the best example of a chapter with high avo enemies, as there are no sword/gauntlet users/fliers. Only the bosses really stand out. But even there, yeah, it's safer/more practical to run accuracy battalions on both Mercedes and Constance. Worth noting, Marianne has access to the Luin as a pretty nice compromise throughout.
- To hit consistently throughout the game, Marianne needs ~120-130 accuracy, since she can rely on swordbreaker. Even with the Lance of ruin, this is a score she achieves fairly easily with Ordelia. This leaves her with accuracy issues on warriors, pegs, wyverns, and grapplers, if she uses the LoR. So she's not completely immune to them, but should usually be fine. Her accuracy also doesn't grow significantly slower than the others'(at + 4.5 every ten levels vs 5.025 for Mercedes and 2.775 for Constance).
Constance needs 125-140 accuracy, and has comparable accuracy scores to LoR Marianne. That's against normal enemies, against highly evasive ones she needs roughly 20 more. This progressively makes +8, and then +7 battalions not ideal. She can equip an accuracy ring and still kill fortunately, but she still needs the Edmund push. You can also choose to ignore high avo enemies; there are more of those than in Marianne's case, but Constance+Macuil is honestly a pretty solid combo.
Mercedes needs the same but reaches it much easier, and to be fair, she can probably just 2 range highly evasive enemies; but even against regular ones, at 3 range she's basically the same as Constance, and at 4 range she's Constance vs highly evasive enemies. Unless she has hit +20, and then she can basically just run Macuil with an accuracy ring in her pocket and be fine.
Bottom line, I'd definitely say there's a difference between at least Constance and Marianne(at least Pala Marianne, indeed).

I'll just skip ch 18 because the level thing isnt sorted out, and the rest I've addressed above or agree with

ch 20, Constance may quad the monsters but she gets OHKOed as far as I can tell, so potentially not worth it unless the monster is stunned. And Ordelia isn't enough for 3/4 range Mercedes, unless she has hit +20. Which she might.

On 8/5/2020 at 1:04 AM, haarhaarhaar said:

Movement is a big deal, no doubt. But Marianne has the worst attack of the three, and the only thing she is capable of is OHKOing.

But OHKOing is life, tho. And the worst attack amounts to the same in ch16(assuming lv 30), largely comparable in 18 because she gets the boss, 20 is bad for all three and Marianne gets Petra, and she's finally beat in ch 22 but can still take down some key targets thanks to Assal. The only thing that has meaningfully better combat for most of those builds' existence is Annete&Hit+20 Mercedes(which is admittedly pretty impressive and something I hadn't properly considered when making the "even at their peak" statement), and even still Marianne has the mobility and canto. Rescue is nice for Constance, but she doesn't have the movement to easily get back in the game after using it, so it's a commitment. Not a bad one, but having to choose neuters it imo. And heal, yeah admittedly I don't value that to an immense amount post timeskip. As for bolting, as you said it's one use. You can equip it at the beginning of your turn to help with accuracy, true, but since you don't get to act with it equipped like dancers do, you either have to pick between holding off on her attacking(which is bad because low reach units usually want to attack among the first) and not taking advantage of it. Also worth noting is that Constance only supports 8 characters, two of which are route exclusive(I guess that matters for accuracy fixing, too. I just now looked it up).

... and chip is for the weak! 'cept against monsters because you usually don't have a choice.

On 8/5/2020 at 1:04 AM, haarhaarhaar said:

As a parting shot, Marianne tails off harshly in the last few chapters where Constance and Mercedes still do well.

Just you wait until I figure out how to stick a third lancefaire on her.
... that's not the last few chapters. With lancefaire² and LoR in Shambalabala, at lv 39, she has 92 atk:

She OHKOs:
3 Dark bishops(the other 4 have a +4 res battalion)
7 Swordmasters
3 Heroes
2 Snipers
2 Paladins
4 Grapplers(might want the accuracy ring)
1 Holy Knight(with Assal)
1 Dark Knight(same)
1 Bow Knight
1 Wyvern lord with the Luin(Assal works too, but Luin allows an accuracy ring or Macuil, which pushes her accuracy to 83 as opposed to 68( 94.3 TH vs 79.8) 
Chillon(GK boss, with Assal)

She OHKOes the 7 warriors but will likely have sub-optimal accuracy(she still does with an accuracy ring worth noting, pushing her at 72 hit, 84.2 TH. The Luin isn't strong enough. If she goes Macuil she misses out on the 3 battalion-less dark bishop, but gets 93.3 TH)
 

And doesn't OHKOs:
The aforementioned 4 Dark bishops
1 Falcon Knight
3 Miracle Bishops
3 Mortal Savants
2 Warmasters
3 Titanus
4 bosses including Thales.

So assuming we give up on the three Dark bishops without battalions to get the warriors, she OHKOs 30 enemies out of 52 on the penultimate map. Considering she isn't aiming to solo here, that there are several high res/avo targets, and that this is a map that heavily rewards mobility, she doesn't tail off hard, if at all. That's assuming lancefaire 2 obviously. But I did it grindless without boatloads of favoritism so it's at the very least not unreasonably impossible.
Also I need to be looking into that sauna thing.

On 8/5/2020 at 1:04 AM, haarhaarhaar said:

Lol meant that comment to extend to Constance, wasn't trying to be disingenuous. 

I know, I know, I just do that teenager gamefaqs guide thing of starting to include jokes whenever I write for too long...(^_^')
As for the battalions, I don't like to consider Nuvelle attendants the same way I don't Essar. One is obtained through a dlc mission equating to grinding and the other through a payed online subscription. Beyond those, the other two are B rank, there's no way even Constance is there by ch 8. Honestly, even C might be problematic if you didn't instruct it a bunch.

The question about Mystic blow is if Constance wants to drop her magic and train into something she doesn't otherwise need to make use of it. Considering it won't OHKO all the time, that's debatable I guess. Heck, technically she could work a bit harder and go archer to learn hit+20, I mean, why the heck not.

Edited by Cysx
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3 hours ago, Cysx said:

Okay, so about the levels, I still land on the same numbers, and so does the fe3H.com average calculator. I don't mean to be offensive by saying that but, do you by any chance count 1 -> 28 as 28 levels, when it's 27? Honestly not too sure why there's this difference otherwise... Plus we're getting the same numbers for Constance.

Like, it's definitely a mistake I could make, but I rechecked my original calculations in my reply, which came out to the same numbers and definitely counted the right levels. But yeah not worth nitpicking, I'm sure it's something silly I skipped over. 

3 hours ago, Cysx said:

Bottom line, I'd definitely say there's a difference between at least Constance and Marianne(at least Pala Marianne, indeed).

Marianne is basically limited to Nuvelle Fliers as a FK, which would make things a lot more even. But yeah, pre-endgame, Paladin Marianne probably does edge Constance, at least because Marianne is killing tougher enemies reliably (like high-avo sword users). 

2 hours ago, Cysx said:

ch 20, Constance may quad the monsters but she gets OHKOed as far as I can tell, so potentially not worth it unless the monster is stunned.

With Brawl Avo+20, she'll get 59 Avo (Brawl Prowess 5, Lv38 and 19 Spd). Resulting in 39 displayed hit for the monsters, and roughly 31 true hit - not the best, but not awful either.

3 hours ago, Cysx said:

But OHKOing is life, tho. And the worst attack amounts to the same in ch16(assuming lv 30), largely comparable in 18 because she gets the boss, 20 is bad for all three and Marianne gets Petra, and she's finally beat in ch 22 but can still take down some key targets thanks to Assal. The only thing that has meaningfully better combat for most of those builds' existence is Annete&Hit+20 Mercedes(which is admittedly pretty impressive and something I hadn't properly considered when making the "even at their peak" statement), and even still Marianne has the mobility and canto. Rescue is nice for Constance, but she doesn't have the movement to easily get back in the game after using it, so it's a commitment. Not a bad one, but having to choose neuters it imo. And heal, yeah admittedly I don't value that to an immense amount post timeskip. As for bolting, as you said it's one use. You can equip it at the beginning of your turn to help with accuracy, true, but since you don't get to act with it equipped like dancers do, you either have to pick between holding off on her attacking(which is bad because low reach units usually want to attack among the first) and not taking advantage of it. Also worth noting is that Constance only supports 8 characters, two of which are route exclusive(I guess that matters for accuracy fixing, too. I just now looked it up).

Yeah it's a fair point that Constance isn't significantly better in practice before endgame, especially given Marianne has effective weaponry available. And yeah I had assumed Balthus, Mercedes, Byleth are coming with you in VW (just because Balthus > Raph, always Byleth, and we've been discussing Mercedes all this time), but that may not be a fair assumption to make.

I tend to use Rescue as makeshift movement for someone else (advance my Rescuer, and then use Rescue to bring forwards a unit who hasn't moved yet). Obviously it's helpful for extracting units in a pinch too, but my point is just that I don't think Rescue has to keep Constance out of the action. And, y'know, no single one of Rescue/Ward/Bolting x1/Heal/Pneuma Gale/Mystic Blow is gonna clinch Constance, but as a package deal it's not at all bad. It isn't +2 movement, flying and canto, but it will mean Constance can always do something useful, even passively. 

Marianne is at most getting 5 Lance of Ruin kills per map, and after that her added value is mainly gonna be in effective-damage kills, which Lysithea can also compete for. So her flying will only be of limited use after Turn 5, precisely because OHKOing is life. Being selective about what Marianne kills can of course prolong her utility, but it's a concern because FK/Paladin limits that utility to OHKOs/basic chip. 

3 hours ago, Cysx said:

With lancefaire² and LoR in Shambalabala, at lv 39, she has 92 atk:

Mmm I hadn't looked into Shambhala's numbers, and I had assumed no second faire. But even without it, Marianne's not doing awfully. Constance still gets more kills, and there are enough non-dodgy enemies for Constance to be solidly useful, though hit help will be appreciated. 

3 hours ago, Cysx said:

As for the battalions, I don't like to consider Nuvelle attendants the same way I don't Essar. One is obtained through a dlc mission equating to grinding and the other through a payed online subscription. Beyond those, the other two are B rank, there's no way even Constance is there by ch 8. Honestly, even C might be problematic if you didn't instruct it a bunch.

Yeah Essar is pushing it I think. But given that our debate assumes the DLC, I don't think it's outrageous to assume one-off DLC quests like what gets you Nuvelle Attendants - especially given that this one quest gives you three amazing battalions. It's comparable to a merchant quest in the main game IMO - not actually essential, but very reasonable to get and brings a lot to a run. I wouldn't assume Anna quests and the like, but this seems OK. 

B rank Authority is too high to expect for Ch. 8 though, that is true. 

3 hours ago, Cysx said:

The question about Mystic blow is if Constance wants to drop her magic and train into something she doesn't otherwise need to make use of it. Considering it won't OHKO all the time, that's debatable I guess. Heck, technically she could work a bit harder and go archer to learn hit+20, I mean, why the heck not.

Archer Constance running around with gauntlets on Maddening feels like a recipe for disaster, but that kinda makes me want to use it more hehe.

But yeah, I think you'd have to be quite a meticulous player to make use of Mystic Blow Constance before Lv20 - like planning out chapter strategies well in advance. Not undoable, but it would be effort.

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12 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

I tend to use Rescue as makeshift movement for someone else (advance my Rescuer, and then use Rescue to bring forwards a unit who hasn't moved yet).

Yeah you know what, that's totally fair. Especially since she has good range on it by that point. I retract what I said, rescue is nice.

12 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Marianne is at most getting 5 Lance of Ruin kills per map, and after that her added value is mainly gonna be in effective-damage kills, which Lysithea can also compete for. So her flying will only be of limited use after Turn 5, precisely because OHKOing is life. Being selective about what Marianne kills can of course prolong her utility, but it's a concern because FK/Paladin limits that utility to OHKOs/basic chip. 

Definitely a bunch more than that from my experience. Assuming she gets stride on turn 1 and is a good dance candidate here and there(which thanks to Canto, she often is), she can feasibly kill things almost every turn, and maps on maddening are rarely <6 turn clears normally.
...then again, warpskip I suppose. But that hurts all three of these builds really.

12 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Yeah Essar is pushing it I think. But given that our debate assumes the DLC, I don't think it's outrageous to assume one-off DLC quests like what gets you Nuvelle Attendants 

Its definitely not outrageous, it's more of a principle thing; at heart, dlc is often pay2win content, but it's just an absolute shame to ignore entire characters, and arguably, story paralogues tied to them because of that. However, as grinding in general is not something that can be assumed, dlc grinding crosses two lines, and thus, yeah. Ironically, the fact that the rewards are good is part of the problem; the dlc stat boosters are just handed to you and I definitely consider them best left unused as well, pretty sure I'm not alone on that.
To be fair, I have never even seen that chapter, and the internet isn't being helpful on this one. Is it interesting beyond its rewards, or just a reused map the same as every other quest I can think of is?

12 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Archer Constance running around with gauntlets on Maddening feels like a recipe for disaster, but that kinda makes me want to use it more hehe.

Honestly, next maddening playthrough I do(whenever that happens because, gosh does 3H take time, especially the way I play it), I'm probably doing exactly that. Sounds fun and very unique.

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2 hours ago, Cysx said:

Definitely a bunch more than that from my experience. Assuming she gets stride on turn 1 and is a good dance candidate here and there(which thanks to Canto, she often is), she can feasibly kill things almost every turn, and maps on maddening are rarely <6 turn clears normally.
...then again, warpskip I suppose. But that hurts all three of these builds really.

Yeah this only really becomes an issue nearer the end, where Marianne is reliant on Lance of Run for a lot of kills. It doesn't have to be a critical concern, but later maps can definitely last longer than 5 turns.

IIRC, I did clear the palace and Shambhala fairly quickly, but I was also a bit overleveled near the end of VW, and I didn't attempt to route either of those maps (I remember it being not that difficult to not trigger the AI for many enemies). But Ch. 19/22 took a bit of time (reinforcements are a pain in Enbarr town, and I didn't realise you don't have to kill all the Elites so Ch. 22 was another route). 

Of course, warpskip can deal with VW Ch. 19/20 in 1 turn, but I'd imagine Ch. 21 needs 2 turns, and so at least 2 units to survive a pretty strong enemy phase (opening layout also doesn't help). Ch. 22 is probably possible, but only with specific builds, and isn't generally doable by warpskip. So at least those last couple of chapters, I'd expect to take >5 turns normally.

2 hours ago, Cysx said:

Ironically, the fact that the rewards are good is part of the problem; the dlc stat boosters are just handed to you and I definitely consider them best left unused as well, pretty sure I'm not alone on that.
To be fair, I have never even seen that chapter, and the internet isn't being helpful on this one. Is it interesting beyond its rewards, or just a reused map the same as every other quest I can think of is?

Mmm the fact the DLC stat boosters are just handed to you is exactly the problem with them, I felt. At least with quests there is a semblance of working for what you get. But yeah, I hadn't really thought of 'proper' quests as grinding before - if a quest has generic rewards or text, like with Anna or nameless NPCs, then fair enough, but some quests, like this one, feel like they're a small step up in significance. Totally get why you'd reject doing it though.

I have done that quest, and I remember absolutely nothing about it apart from that Constance (I believe) gives that quest to you in the Monastery - something about picking up new soldiers, or capturing deserters, or something? Which means it probably wasn't very interesting gameplay. The DLC does have a couple of interesting quests, though I don't think this was one of them. 

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