Hardest route for all time. (All difficult)

[drattakbowser]

- No NG+

- No Paid DLC

- With internet and amiboo

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Silver Snow, easily. You're saddled with the worst roster of units to start the game with, but you want to limit your use of Hubert and Edelgard since they eventually leave. You have no replacement for the kind of firepower that the Lords provide, and one less deployment slot for every map that's shared with the other routes in post-time skip (which is all of them except the finale). You can't recruit Catherine to help with early maps. Silver Snow has the hardest version of Chapter 13, as Seteth is largely untrained and doesn't have the base stats to do more than rally defense or repo if you grinded that out in the two weeks you had him. Silver Snow also has one less month than VW/AM. That's one less month for paralogue deadlines and grinding out S/S+ ranks. And the hardest final chapter in the game by far. The maps shared with the other routes in post time skip are so incredibly easy by comparison it often lulls the player into a false sense of security and they'll stop taking every opportunity to beef up their units on the way to the finale.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Of the three I've done on Maddening, Azure Moon. The last few maps ramp up much harder than Verdant Wind or Crimson Flower IMHO. Four same-turn-reinforcement mobile siege tome slingers, are you kidding me?

Buuut almost everyone seems to agree Silver Snow is harder, and that sounds right because of no lord + chapter 13 with one less PC and again no lord + a difficult final battle.

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

Seems like I’m in for a good amount of shit once I do Maddening.

I think I’m pretty good with my order, though. Silver Snow is going to be done dead last, and Verdant Wind first.

I can only wonder what shenanigans will come of this.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

10 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Silver Snow, easily. You're saddled with the worst roster of units to start the game with, but you want to limit your use of Hubert and Edelgard since they eventually leave. You have no replacement for the kind of firepower that the Lords provide, and one less deployment slot for every map that's shared with the other routes in post-time skip (which is all of them except the finale). You can't recruit Catherine to help with early maps. Silver Snow has the hardest version of Chapter 13, as Seteth is largely untrained and doesn't have the base stats to do more than rally defense or repo if you grinded that out in the two weeks you had him. Silver Snow also has one less month than VW/AM. That's one less month for paralogue deadlines and grinding out S/S+ ranks. And the hardest final chapter in the game by far. The maps shared with the other routes in post time skip are so incredibly easy by comparison it often lulls the player into a false sense of security and they'll stop taking every opportunity to beef up their units on the way to the finale.

Not to mention, he doesn't come with an OP batallion, like Dimitri or Claude. In fact, I found out the hard way - if he has no Batallion equipped as of chapter 12, he shows up without one in 13. I'm lucky I brought him back to Wyvetn Rider (I can't imagine doing that map with Brigand Seteth). And they don't even give you Flayn, despite her being story-important on Silver Snow, and showing up in the "let's all meet five years from now" scene. Hunting By Daybreak is such a mess on all routes, but SS has it worst, no question.

[SSbardock84]

Probably Silver Snow. Since I rely heavily on Dimitri, Edelgard, or Claude it really hurts not having them. If I had to rank them from hardest to easiest:
Silver Snow
Crimson Flower
Azure Moon
Verdant Wind
I don't think there's a too terrible difference between many of them. The last two chapters of Crimson Flower are certainly the most difficult. I think the second to last is even hardest than the final chapter. Azure Moon isn't really difficult until the final battle. As for Verdant Wind, I've only played it once the same as Silver Snow, but I don't recall any of it being challenging. Especially the final battle.

[haarhaarhaar]

10 hours ago, SSbardock84 said:

I don't think there's a too terrible difference between many of them. The last two chapters of Crimson Flower are certainly the most difficult. I think the second to last is even hardest than the final chapter. Azure Moon isn't really difficult until the final battle. As for Verdant Wind, I've only played it once the same as Silver Snow, but I don't recall any of it being challenging. Especially the final battle.

Yeah I always thought Ch.17 CF was tougher than the endgame too. I haven't played through AM yet, but had heard a lot of people complain about the siege tome users, so I figured it would be harder than CF though? Either way, agreed that SS is the hardest, and VW the easiest.

[Cysx]

I get the feeling that people don't take advantage of the fact that BL gets an early dancing battalion (and thus two for the final chapter). Never hear anyone speaking of BL so much as mention it.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, Cysx said:

I get the feeling that people don't take advantage of the fact that BL gets an early dancing battalion (and thus two for the final chapter). Never hear anyone speaking of BL so much as mention it.

Granted, the "early" dancing batallion requires A-authority, which will take a while for most units to achieve. And you only get the Opera Co for 1 chapter, versus 3 on SS and VW.

Still, it's absurd how stacked the Blue Lions' batallions are. D-rank Retribution and (second) Stride are great. And the BL paralogues give you Duscur Heavy Soldiers, Galatea Pegasus Co, Gautier Knights, and the Fraldarius battalion.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I find the dancing battalions somewhat tricky to use because you give up a lot of offensive stats to use 'em. Magic units losing ~7 points of magic makes it way harder for them to get OHKOs, everyone else loses 14+ points of damage since by that point striking twice is so easy. They're probably best on your dancer (especially since they boost avoid) or perhaps a dedicated healer/utility character, though the latter often have low mobility which makes a dance battalion less appealing.

Obviously Dance of the Gods is a great gambit, but most gambits are very useful (AoE rattle can be absolutely game-changing, Stride, Retribution, Impregnable Wall are all good), so the stats are definitely a strong consideration too.

[Cysx]

11 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Granted, the "early" dancing batallion requires A-authority, which will take a while for most units to achieve. And you only get the Opera Co for 1 chapter, versus 3 on SS and VW.

Still, it's absurd how stacked the Blue Lions' batallions are. D-rank Retribution and (second) Stride are great. And the BL paralogues give you Duscur Heavy Soldiers, Galatea Pegasus Co, Gautier Knights, and the Fraldarius battalion.

Well we usually get A in weapons around chapter 12, A authority by ch 14 on someone isn't that crazy. And Seteth does join less than 500 Wexp from it if you don't plan on using him.
Early Opera Co is nice, but yeah, that just means they're on even ground for two chapters out of seven or eight.

Ah, I did recall that they got other good things, but not what they were. Though to be fair the last three aren't exclusive.

11 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I find the dancing battalions somewhat tricky to use because you give up a lot of offensive stats to use 'em. Magic units losing ~7 points of magic makes it way harder for them to get OHKOs, everyone else loses 14+ points of damage since by that point striking twice is so easy. They're probably best on your dancer (especially since they boost avoid) or perhaps a dedicated healer/utility character, though the latter often have low mobility which makes a dance battalion less appealing.

Obviously Dance of the Gods is a great gambit, but most gambits are very useful (AoE rattle can be absolutely game-changing, Stride, Retribution, Impregnable Wall are all good), so the stats are definitely a strong consideration too.

Yeah, the unit using it will basically not fight. And you don't want it on your dancer because the point is to refresh them too, so you can dance key units repeatedly. It's a bit of setup admittedly(then again, so are most things in 3H).
I think I laid down a theoretical 1 turn clear of 22 by abusing it, a while back(can't find an AM ltc on youtube atm though, not maddening anyway), but sitting on it for a minute should allow you to easily trivialize the second part either way, not giving the siege mages a chance to pop.

Edited August 7, 2020 by Cysx

[LoneRecon400]

On August 7, 2020 at 6:35 AM, Cysx said:

I think I laid down a theoretical 1 turn clear of 22 by abusing it, a while back(can't find an AM ltc on youtube atm though, not maddening anyway), but sitting on it for a minute should allow you to easily trivialize the second part either way, not giving the siege mages a chance to pop.

The Siege mages can easily be trivialized with Sacred Shield, as contrary to it's description, it blocks all ranged attacks. So combined with Retribution, that section is pretty easy.

Edited August 13, 2020 by LoneRecon400

[Dark Holy Elf]

24 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

The Siege mages can easily be trivialized with Sacred Shield, as contrary to it's description, it blocks all ranged attacks. So combined with Retribution, that section is pretty easy.

I've never used Sacred Shield, but I have heard good things, and it's unique to BL as well, right? Definitely a big help there, I should keep that in mind for next time (my previous solutions from my two playthroughs were to set up Battalion Vantage/Wrath, or Alert Stance+ dodgetanking, both with Retribution).

There are clever things you can do to make that fight easier, of course (it is 3H, the number of options at your disposal is crazy), but since we're discussing the relative challenge of the routes I definitely think it's fair to note that we need to bring these things up; the CF/VW endgame final fights fall by much more conventional means.

[vikingsfan92]

Don't know about the hardest but I do think the fact that CF is the shortest get underestimate as a difficulty thing that it is.  The fact you don't get a month between chapter 11 and 12 is also a thing. Oh and you only get one week between chapter 12 and 13 which especially for new playthroughs is spent exploring the monastery since its the first post time skip monastery time.

[Dark Holy Elf]

In fairness, the one week CF gets in chapter 13 is one more than any other route gets, although as you note it is offset by two missing weeks in chapter 12.

That said most consider Reunion at Dawn / Hunting by Daybreak the hardest fight in this sequence (especially if you've benched certain house members) so CF not having it makes it a bit easier.

[Cysx]

15 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Here's the LTC. Credit goes to Ceilingisupthere.

The Siege mages can easily be trivialized with Sacred Shield, as contrary to it's description, it blocks all ranged attacks. So combined with Retribution, that section is pretty easy.

Thanks! It seems to follow the same general principle as Palla Emblem's hard mode one. Which makes sense really.
 

15 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

There are clever things you can do to make that fight easier, of course (it is 3H, the number of options at your disposal is crazy), but since we're discussing the relative challenge of the routes I definitely think it's fair to note that we need to bring these things up; the CF/VW endgame final fights fall by much more conventional means.

I don't think it's unfair to say AM has a harder final than VW(CF from my understanding is much more debatable), it's the fact that you have more tools for most other shared timeskip chapters that changes things a bit imo(to be fair that's not the full story, as immortal corps is definitely a huge deal as well). Also both unique AM chapters are almost asking to be trivialized, with the boss you have to kill already in range a couple turns in, even if you don't warp/dance/stride.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Cysx

[vikingsfan92]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

In fairness, the one week CF gets in chapter 13 is one more than any other route gets, although as you note it is offset by two missing weeks in chapter 12.

That said most consider Reunion at Dawn / Hunting by Daybreak the hardest fight in this sequence (especially if you've benched certain house members) so CF not having it makes it a bit easier.

Thing is that doesn't just apply to the first map it applies to the whole campaign.  You have two weeks less of training time (which is up to 6 training battles with max professor level) for the entirety of part 2 and less time to prepare for the end because its upon you quicker. It is also at the time where the difficulty jumps up the most (the timeskip) that you miss out on those two weeks.  Difficulty is not just about map design and maps the build up is important too and I think that often goes undersold in favor of maps. Maps are much much easier to notice and point out than this as they are more memorable than grind time but I still think it is a thing that very much is a factor.

I also think 13 cf is a little undersold difficulty wise personally. Sure sure you can say 13 is worse in the other routes but that doesn't mean 13 cf is super easy. Bear in mind not all players like to go for the fastest win possible even if it makes the map easier.

Edited August 8, 2020 by vikingsfan92

[Dark Holy Elf]

8 hours ago, vikingsfan92 said:

You have two weeks less of training time (which is up to 6 training battles with max professor level) for the entirety of part 2 and less time to prepare for the end because its upon you quicker. It is also at the time where the difficulty jumps up the most (the timeskip) that you miss out on those two weeks.

It's actually only just one less week (i.e. up to 3 training battles, or one explore). Non-CF has two weeks in Chapter 12 and none in Chapter 13, CF has none in Chapter 12 and one in Chapter 13.

I think it's a fair point that CF does ramp up in terms of levels a bit faster - CF chapter 18 has level 45 enemies compared to Level 42 on VW (and AM?) chapter 18, for instance, although SS falls in the middle due to missing out on Gronder. My own experience is that this isn't that big a deal, but I can see feeling differently.

[Shadow Mir]

On 8/3/2020 at 9:04 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Not to mention, he doesn't come with an OP batallion, like Dimitri or Claude. In fact, I found out the hard way - if he has no Batallion equipped as of chapter 12, he shows up without one in 13. I'm lucky I brought him back to Wyvetn Rider (I can't imagine doing that map with Brigand Seteth). And they don't even give you Flayn, despite her being story-important on Silver Snow, and showing up in the "let's all meet five years from now" scene. Hunting By Daybreak is such a mess on all routes, but SS has it worst, no question.

I thought Verdant Wind has it worse - you don't get the healer until the hard part is over, unlike in Moon (where you have the good luck to get Mercie early) and Snow (Dorothea should have Physic by then). Especially since Lorenz and Ignatz will likely struggle to hold off whatever comes for them.

Speaking of, does the fact that the final boss on Verdant Wind have defenses rivaling frigging Dheginsea's really seem to fly over people's heads? Because that can't be fun.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[LoneRecon400]

21 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Speaking of, does the fact that the final boss on Verdant Wind have defenses rivaling frigging Dheginsea's really seems to fly over people's heads? Because that can't be fun.

The dude is a chump compared to the other final bosses. A 0% Growths Cyril is capable of taking him down with all the Elites alive on his Stronghold.

And that's not to mention things that can trivialize him like Luna, Posion Strike, Windsweep, or just sufficiently high stat units.

Like just compare that to how much is needed to take SS Rhea in 0% Growths.

Edited August 8, 2020 by LoneRecon400

[Shadow Mir]

10 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

The dude is a chump compared to the other final bosses. A 0% Growths Cyril is capable of taking him down with all the Elites alive on his Stronghold.

And that's not to mention things that can trivialize him like Luna, Posion Strike, Windsweep, or just sufficiently high stat units.

Like just compare that to how much is needed to take SS Rhea in 0% Growths.

I find that... very, very hard to see when he's rocking defensive stats in the 80s with all of them alive, to say the least.

Most of those tend to be exclusive to one unit (Luna on Lysithea, who goes splat in return, and Windsweep on Byleth). Except for Poison Strike, which requires mastering a mediocre male-exclusive class, to say nothing of the fact that Nemesis will likely SPLAT! them harder than getting splatted by propeller ink (yes, that's a thing) in return. That said, I ended up feeding most of my stat boosters to Byleth, because pretty much no one else could face him and not get squashed like a bug in the process.

[LoneRecon400]

10 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I find that... very, very hard to see when he's rocking defensive stats in the 80s with all of them alive, to say the least.

Most of those tend to be exclusive to one unit (Luna on Lysithea, who goes splat in return, and Windsweep on Byleth). Except for Poison Strike, which requires mastering a mediocre male-exclusive class, to say nothing of the fact that Nemesis will likely SPLAT! them harder than getting splatted by propeller ink (yes, that's a thing) in return. 

I just posted all the numbers behind it with a shot of it being done in practice. How exactly is it hard to see?

Posion Strikes still works with Impregnable Wall, so durablity isn't a concern in the slightest. And are you really telling me you aren't using Byleth or Lysithea in GD?

[Dark Holy Elf]

The VW final boss only has ~100 HP (even on Maddening) and no barrier. He's not trivial because the rest of his stats are good (for all that comparisons to Dheginsea's defences are completely unwarranted*), but I tend to agree that he's one of the easier final bosses, and also I personally find him easier than Macuil and Indech as well. Saying Lysithea goes "splat" in return ignores that he can't counter if he's dead, so at worst she can be used as a good finisher (even a pretty standard Lysithea should be able to manage half his HP). At best, you use Blessing so she can survive a counter. You also have Claude who can safely bait him after using Fallen Star.

I didn't think Poison Strike worked on him, though. Doesn't he have Commander?

 

*EDIT: Oh, I see, his defences are in fact around the same as Dheginsea's numerically. Is that what you mean? That said, PC attack stats in Three Houses are way higher than in Radiant Dawn: not only are the raw str/mag stats potentially higher, but you have -faire, Death/Fiendish Blow, battalions, cooking, and combat art might modifiers which allow you to stack your attack way higher.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Dark Holy Elf

[LoneRecon400]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I didn't think Poison Strike worked on him, though. Doesn't he have Commander?

Poison Strike works on enemies that have Commander.

It's only against monsters does Poison Strike Damage decrease.

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 minute ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Poison Strike works on enemies that have Commander.

It's only against monsters does Poison Strike Damage decrease.

Thanks for the correction! I remember that the equivalent Fates skill nulled poison strike so I assumed 3H was the same. Good to know (and certainly raises my opinion of Poison Strike).