Design a better spell list for Byleth

[Jotari]

Let's face it, Byleth's spell list sucks. And that sort of sucks because their unique class is meant to specialize in both magic and physical attacks.

So boom

https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Learnable_Magic_in_Fire_Emblem:_Three_Houses

There's all the magic in Three Houses. Let's design a better spell list for Byleth. One that doesn't outright turn them into a mage while still making them passably functional as one should you choose to go that route.

The one thing I really think they need is Seraphim. White Magic Avoid+20 pretty wasted by having only one white magic spell until you grind high enough to get Aura and Seraphim would give you a nice build in method to deal with monsters even when they show up unexpectedly (well assuming you have Byleth in a class with magic).

Dark Spikes is another one that could work from a functional perspective as even if Byleth has a low magic stat, effective damage would help to boost damage on certain enemies so they wouldn't fundamentally change too much as a unit while still being usable as a mage. Although I'm not sure it'd really fit Byleth's Enlightened One aesthetic to be using Dark Magic like Dark Spikes.

[Emmy]

Agneas Arrow.

Abraxas.

All she needs.

 

[haarhaarhaar]

I agree with Agnea's Arrow for Byleth (probably move Ragnarok to B and put Agnea's Arrow at A). Byleth also should have gotten Sagittae at D+ instead of Thunder. Then stick in Seraphim for Byleth's B Faith, and that's it. 

This way they get 10 spells, which are all coherent with each other and Byleth's character. It also makes sense that Byleth's spell list is equivalent to or an upgrade on Rhea's. 

[lenticular]

The other advantage to Seraphim is that it actually has a decent number of uses. Even if you do go up to A faith and pick up Aura, you're still seriously hampered by it only having three uses. The spells with high might but low uses are fine when you have a solid spell list of more basic damage spells to fall back on, but terrible if you have to rely on them for your primary damage output. Seraphim at B would definitely go a long way. I'd also be tempted to get rid of Aura entirely and replace it with Silence, but I think I like Aura too much thematically to really want to do that. I do think Silence would be more fun to play with, though.

For her reason list, I don't think I'd want to give her anything dark magic, since I don't see it really making any thematic sense. I would probably try to keep to only 4 reason spells, to avoid being as good as the pure casters, but I'd definitely change them up. I don't like spell lists that get two of fire/thunder/blizzard/wind, since they're basically redundant with each other, and I like it even less on lists with only 4 spells. That would then mean the spell distribution would have to be changed, because getting a more powerful spell at D+ would be kinda broken. I would be tempted to change it to: Thunder (D), Cutting Gale (C), Fimbulvetr (B), Ragnarok (A). Most lists stick to just one or two elements, so having Byleth's list be so variable would make her stand out as being different and other, which I think I like.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

The one thing I really think they need is Seraphim. White Magic Avoid+20 pretty wasted by having only one white magic spell until you grind high enough to get Aura and Seraphim would give you a nice build in method to deal with monsters even when they show up unexpectedly (well assuming you have Byleth in a class with magic).

I'd say they'd need to invent new offensive white magic for it to be even remotely useful - as it is, Nosferatu has 8 weight and a laughable 1 might, meaning either Byleth probably opens themselves up to being doubled, or taking advantage of White Magic Avoid +20 means having them equip Heal or Recover, and thus doing nothing in return to their attackers. The whole thing reeks of a no-win situation. What in the name of Anankos were the devs thinking?!?

[Punished Dayni]

Time to do something stupid.

I also accidentally did a thing where each spell list acts differently.

Spoiler

        Reason                Faith

D  Fire                          Heal

D+                                 Nosferatu

C  Bolganone              Recover

C+                                 Seraphim

B  Ragnarok                Restore (or Silence)

B+ Meteor

A  Agnea's Arrow   

[SoulWeaver]

I mean, personally I prefer Aeroga for my go-to spell. Or Thundaga. Thundaga is good too. /s

[Dandy Druid]

For their Reason Spell list, I'd maybe add Meteor and that's it. A lot of Byleth's themes includes Fire, so I think it's apt. Plus, they're also called the Fell Star, which Meteor would resemble lol. Meteor would either be put in or replace Ragnarok. Or I'd get rid of Thunder and move Ragnarok to be B with Meteor at A.

As for Faith, I'd overhaul it completely and make it entirely offense-focused so their hidden talent of Faith Avo +10 is actually useful. They'd have Heal, Nosferatu, Seraphim, Silence, and Aura.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Emmy said:

Agneas Arrow.

Abraxas.

All she needs.

 

Issue with those spells is there both pretty high ranked. It would not solve Byleth's problems as a mage for the majority of the game.

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd say they'd need to invent new offensive white magic for it to be even remotely useful - as it is, Nosferatu has 8 weight and a laughable 1 might, meaning either Byleth probably opens themselves up to being doubled, or taking advantage of White Magic Avoid +20 means having them equip Heal or Recover, and thus doing nothing in return to their attackers. The whole thing reeks of a no-win situation. What in the name of Anankos were the devs thinking?!?

Yeah, as one of the skills we can primarily associate with the lord, White Magic Avoid is pretty gosh dang terrible. As someone else pointed out, not only is Nosferatu terrible, but even for Aura your stuck with just 3 uses by default. Seraphim at least would give some more mileage out of it. If they were really using their head with White Magic avoid as a budding talent they'd have given Byleth all the offensive white magic skills in the game. As far as making new white magic spells though, I'm not sure. A basic Shine or something for a low level damaging spell that isn't Nosferatau would be appreciated, but overall white magic is meant to be the support version counter part to black magic. If there's a tonne of really useful spells in it black magic would have  basically no reason to exist (like dark magic currently has).  Of course the obvious solution here would be to just give Byleth literally any other hidden talent.

While I'm complaining Enlightened One's Terrain Resistance is largely useless too. I love the design of Enlightened One, but it really does not do much to make Byleth stand out in terms of gameplay from other lords in the series.

 

[Shadow Mir]

18 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, as one of the skills we can primarily associate with the lord, White Magic Avoid is pretty gosh dang terrible. As someone else pointed out, not only is Nosferatu terrible, but even for Aura your stuck with just 3 uses by default. Seraphim at least would give some more mileage out of it. If they were really using their head with White Magic avoid as a budding talent they'd have given Byleth all the offensive white magic skills in the game. As far as making new white magic spells though, I'm not sure. A basic Shine or something for a low level damaging spell that isn't Nosferatau would be appreciated, but overall white magic is meant to be the support version counter part to black magic. If there's a tonne of really useful spells in it black magic would have  basically no reason to exist (like dark magic currently has).  Of course the obvious solution here would be to just give Byleth literally any other hidden talent.

Sure, white magic is largely meant for support, but that doesn't excuse all the offensive white magic spells being heavy to the point they're almost not worth using. This also reflects poorly on Holy Knight, which gives up a hell of a lot compared to Bishop only to get jack shit in return.

[lenticular]

One of the other problems with White Magic Avoid (and Black Magic Avoid which is almost as bad) is that it's almost useless on player phase. With Sword Avoid and Brawl Avoid, even if you aren't building around them, they can be nice to throw in just to be hit by slightly fewer counter attacks. They're not great like this, but they're definitely worth throwing into your build if you don't have anythign better. With magic, though, how often are you getting counter-attacked? All your attacks inherently have 1-2 range, which means you can attack anything that doesn't with complete impunity. And of those who do have 1-2 range, you're probably not attacking spellcasters anyway, because they usually have high res and low def. So that leaves hand axes and javelins (and their upgrades) and bosses with counter. It's better than nothing, but not by much. If you want to get any use out of it, you pretty much have to build around it and make an enemy phase dodge tank build, which brings us back to all the reasons why that is terrible and doesn't work.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Of course the obvious solution here would be to just give Byleth literally any other hidden talent.

While I'm complaining Enlightened One's Terrain Resistance is largely useless too. I love the design of Enlightened One, but it really does not do much to make Byleth stand out in terms of gameplay from other lords in the series.

What if the budding talent were White Magic Uses x2? That still wouldn't be great, but would be better, and having doubled uses on Aura would make a Byleth focussed on White Magic more viable. Maybe also put White Tomefaire onto Enlightened One? That sounds like it would be fun to use, at least.

Or for a totally different design direction, what if Byleth got some sort of healing ability from their budding talent? I'm imagining something sort of like Sacrifice (from Radiant Dawn) except not terrible. Maybe have it be functionally equivalent to the Heal spell, except have it be a combat art so you can use it in any class, even non-magic classes. I don't think this would be particularly good, but it would be unique and thematic.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Sure, white magic is largely meant for support, but that doesn't excuse all the offensive white magic spells being heavy to the point they're almost not worth using. This also reflects poorly on Holy Knight, which gives up a hell of a lot compared to Bishop only to get jack shit in return.

Well I didn't say I was against making any new white magic spells at all. I just reckon they should be more utility based rather than vying with black magic. Like Banshee for example would have been pretty good as a white magic spell.

[haarhaarhaar]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

I just reckon they should be more utility based rather than vying with black magic.

Hugely back this. Even an enhanced version of Nosferatu (6 uses, higher might/hit, damage = health recovery) would be good, and great for Byleth. And there are plenty of other FE spells 3H could crib from - a version of Hammerne (maybe 1 use per map, but works on spells) would have been cool. To match dark magic's Luna, white magic could have had Corona (ignores enemy Res, halves enemy hit rate for the rest of the turn). Even just the hit rate effect on its own would be amazing. Or a white magic spell that works like Ward, but for Hit and/or Avoid (I'm envisioning a +10 buff, which decreases by 1 every turn).

[lenticular]

A lot of the most interesting utility effects were put onto gambits instead of spells ofr Three Houses. Effects like Stride, Retribution and Impenetrable Wall could all easily have been white magic spells, either as is or reworked into single-target versions.

[Anathaco]

I don’t know about anybody else,  but I think Byleth getting Entrap would be pretty cool. I love Entrap.

For Reason id leave it as is, or maybe add Meteor to it. 
 

For Faith, I’d give him the standard heal and nosferatu, give him Seraphim at C rank, Abraxas at B rank, and Entrap at A rank. His budding talent pushes him more into the combat side of faith magic, so giving him Abraxas and Seraphim is a good idea. Entrap is a personal preference, but it kind of fits? Like, plucking a unit away from its squad for your army to deal with safely:
“OK class, I’ve summoned this random imperial soldier into the middle of our class for our practical exam today.”

But yeah, the faith list IMO is the one that really needs a rework, considering it’s his budding talent.

[Barren]

Yea I wasn't exactly impressed with Byleth's faith spell list as well. I mean Recover is fine at rank C, but having no spells between that and Rank B+ up until Rank A to get Aura feels like you're putting in too much effort just for a complete list. I agree with pretty much everyone that Byleth really needed Seraphim. Hell, give him Abraxas instead of Aura so you have a nuke of a white magic spell. Or Entrap if it's like a combat based white magic spell from one of the previous games.

[Shadow Mir]

13 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well I didn't say I was against making any new white magic spells at all. I just reckon they should be more utility based rather than vying with black magic. Like Banshee for example would have been pretty good as a white magic spell.

I mean, if you're going to have a budding talent revolving around magic, they should make sure it's actually worth it. And I fail to see White Magic Avoid +20 as worth it when it means either Byleth equips a heavy spell or makes themselves a punching bag (and this is ignoring the fact that as offensive magic is inherently 1-2 range, you get to attack anything that isn't 1-2 ranged as well with impunity. As if that wasn't enough, the way the magic system is in 3H further limits how useful it is). Dorothea gets it as well, but the same crap applies, even though she has more reason to invest in Faith anyway. While I'm complaining about budding talents, all the magic based budding talents on units that are clearly physically inclined are Power-Up Letdowns; Edelgard only gets two spells that benefit from Black Magic Crit +10 (her other spells are dark magic), Felix has a spell list that is shallow even compared to Lake Hylia after it's drained in seven years' time, Sylvain's Black Magic Avoid +20 is almost as bad as White Magic Avoid +20, and Balthus has it almost as bad as Felix.

[salinea]

13 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Dorothea gets it as well, but the same crap applies, even though she has more reason to invest in Faith anyway.

Dorothea doesn't even have any offensive White Magic spell asides from Nosferatu. At least Byleth gets Aura.

13 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Sylvain's Black Magic Avoid +20 is almost as bad as White Magic Avoid +20

At least Sylvain can equip a lighter Black Magic spell like Fire and go tank with it.

[Barren]

13 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I mean, if you're going to have a budding talent revolving around magic, they should make sure it's actually worth it. And I fail to see White Magic Avoid +20 as worth it when it means either Byleth equips a heavy spell or makes themselves a punching bag (and this is ignoring the fact that as offensive magic is inherently 1-2 range, you get to attack anything that isn't 1-2 ranged as well with impunity. As if that wasn't enough, the way the magic system is in 3H further limits how useful it is). Dorothea gets it as well, but the same crap applies, even though she has more reason to invest in Faith anyway. While I'm complaining about budding talents, all the magic based budding talents on units that are clearly physically inclined are Power-Up Letdowns; Edelgard only gets two spells that benefit from Black Magic Crit +10 (her other spells are dark magic), Felix has a spell list that is shallow even compared to Lake Hylia after it's drained in seven years' time, Sylvain's Black Magic Avoid +20 is almost as bad as White Magic Avoid +20, and Balthus has it almost as bad as Felix.

Maybe the devs thought that it could serve some particular small niche roles, if for example you're using an avoid tile or some bushes as a way to lure the enemy, then have them miss and have someone else take advantage of it by attacking the enemy you've successfully lured in. But that seems more like a pitfall than anything else. At least sword avoid and brawl avoid are decent filler abilities for front liners to use for both phases

[Soroen]

I don't see how Byleth spell list suck. They have 4 spells in both Reason and Faith, despite only having a Budding Talent in the latter. 

In their Faith list they have the mandatory, Heal/Nosferatu/Recover and Aura. They're nothing bad about this spell list unless every unit who doesn't have Physic or Warp has a bad spell list, and considering that they likely won't be Bishop, equipped with a Healing Staff or have a sky-high Magic, Recover is more preferable than Physic. Sure Seraphim would be nice, but then their Faith list would be overloaded considering that they aren't a primary magic user, and they already have Bane of Monsters for the monster effectiveness.

In their Reason list they have the Fire spells (Fire/Bolganone/Ragnarok) and Thunder. Heavy, low uses, high might spells wouldn't be that useful in Byleth kit since they likely wouldn't be able to nuke with it anyway. Light spells with high uses are more preferable for Byleth since they can mitigate the weight more easily than most mage and consistently double with it if they didn't get Speed screwed. A case could be made for Sagittae instead of Thunder, but since it's a C-rank spell and that Bolganone already fit that slot, it would mean learning one of them later and Byleth doesn't need to be slowed down even more.

As for Agnea's Arrow apologists.

Name	Level	Might	Hit	Crit	Weight	Range	Uses
Ragnarok	B	15	80	5	9	1~2	3
Agnea's Arrow	A	16	70	5	13	1~2	2

Ragnarok is even or better under every metric but for 1 point of Might.

In my opinion Byleth spell list is perfectly fine and there is no need to change it, especially since they shouldn't use spells that much in the first place since Levin Sword exist, and they're the foremost user of it in the game.

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, salinea said:

Dorothea doesn't even have any offensive White Magic spell asides from Nosferatu. At least Byleth gets Aura.

True enough, but Dorothea's best class imho requires Faith in addition to Reason, so there's that.

2 hours ago, Barren said:

Maybe the devs thought that it could serve some particular small niche roles, if for example you're using an avoid tile or some bushes as a way to lure the enemy, then have them miss and have someone else take advantage of it by attacking the enemy you've successfully lured in. But that seems more like a pitfall than anything else. At least sword avoid and brawl avoid are decent filler abilities for front liners to use for both phases

They thought wrong, then. I'd rather do that with someone who can actually damage the enemy in return instead.

[Dark Holy Elf]

A couple of people have said Meteor and that would truly be a game-changer. Byleth supports everyone (except Anna) so if s/he had Meteor that would essentially give +7 to +10 hit (+15 to +20 on gambits) to the entire team, which is, needless to say, a pretty big deal. But while I'm not sure about this gameplaywise, I do like it thematically: you'd have a teacher whose direction is making all their students more likely to succeed.

Otherwise I think Byleth's reason list is fine. Faith is definitely shaky seeing as it's their budding talent, and Aura (like the other heavy faith spells) is just kinda underwhelming compared to reason spells, including Ragnarok which Byleth already gets. I like Rescue, again thematically, for Byleth to pull their students out of trouble.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Soroen said:

I don't see how Byleth spell list suck. They have 4 spells in both Reason and Faith, despite only having a Budding Talent in the latter. 

In their Faith list they have the mandatory, Heal/Nosferatu/Recover and Aura. They're nothing bad about this spell list unless every unit who doesn't have Physic or Warp has a bad spell list, and considering that they likely won't be Bishop, equipped with a Healing Staff or have a sky-high Magic, Recover is more preferable than Physic. Sure Seraphim would be nice, but then their Faith list would be overloaded considering that they aren't a primary magic user, and they already have Bane of Monsters for the monster effectiveness.

In their Reason list they have the Fire spells (Fire/Bolganone/Ragnarok) and Thunder. Heavy, low uses, high might spells wouldn't be that useful in Byleth kit since they likely wouldn't be able to nuke with it anyway. Light spells with high uses are more preferable for Byleth since they can mitigate the weight more easily than most mage and consistently double with it if they didn't get Speed screwed. A case could be made for Sagittae instead of Thunder, but since it's a C-rank spell and that Bolganone already fit that slot, it would mean learning one of them later and Byleth doesn't need to be slowed down even more.

As for Agnea's Arrow apologists.

Name	Level	Might	Hit	Crit	Weight	Range	Uses
Ragnarok	B	15	80	5	9	1~2	3
Agnea's Arrow	A	16	70	5	13	1~2	2

Ragnarok is even or better under every metric but for 1 point of Might.

In my opinion Byleth spell list is perfectly fine and there is no need to change it, especially since they shouldn't use spells that much in the first place since Levin Sword exist, and they're the foremost user of it in the game.

That's sort of the point. They're not a primary magic user even though their unique class is a magic user with a proficiency in Faith with a budding talent to boot. 

Also no one has suggested Agnea's Arrow replace Ragnarok. Someone said Agnea's Arrow and Abraxes is all they need, someone else suggested Abaxes for nuking and one person suggested bumping Ragnarok down to B (it's at A for Byleth now, not sure where you pulled that chart from) and giving Agnea's Arrow on A (so that is to say both of them). If Byleth were to get Agnea's Arrow then it would be Aura it needs to replace as as it stands Aura is doing pretty much the same thing as Ragnarok. Though personally I'd take the extra use and crit of Aura over Agnea's Arrow. And I'd ditch both for Seraphim.

[haarhaarhaar]

1 hour ago, Soroen said:

I don't see how Byleth spell list suck. They have 4 spells in both Reason and Faith, despite only having a Budding Talent in the latter. 

It's a fair point that having 4 black magic spells, despite being neutral in Reason and not being a canon mage, is quite solid. And you're right that none of Byleth's spells are outright bad, either. But I think the reason why Byleth's spell list is commonly considered to suck is because the expectations for the player's avatar are higher than for your average character. The game should at least be tempting the player to go down the magic route for Byleth, so that the character can be a stand-in more effectively. And a more exciting/unique spell list would be the expected way to do that - at least, that's my opinion. 

1 hour ago, Soroen said:

As for Agnea's Arrow apologists.

For me it's less about Agnea's Arrow itself, but rather having 8 total uses of high-powered spells (Ragnarok, Agnea's Arrow, Aura) - only a couple of other characters get that many uses of powerful spells without the x2 skills. As a thematic bonus, it also chimes with Rhea's Reason list.

1 hour ago, Soroen said:

they shouldn't use spells that much in the first place since Levin Sword exist, and they're the foremost user of it in the game.

Completely onboard with how good Levin Sword is, and the fact that SCS's combat art scales off magic, alongside giving EO Swordfaire as its only faire, is an indication the devs also thought Byleth should be a swordie who occasionally dips into magic swords. But when you realise building Byleth for magic is not nearly as good as basically any physical build, then you diminish replay value slightly, and on a game that prides itself on its customisability, it's a little disappointing. 

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, Soroen said:

I don't see how Byleth spell list suck. They have 4 spells in both Reason and Faith, despite only having a Budding Talent in the latter. 

In their Faith list they have the mandatory, Heal/Nosferatu/Recover and Aura. They're nothing bad about this spell list unless every unit who doesn't have Physic or Warp has a bad spell list, and considering that they likely won't be Bishop, equipped with a Healing Staff or have a sky-high Magic, Recover is more preferable than Physic. Sure Seraphim would be nice, but then their Faith list would be overloaded considering that they aren't a primary magic user, and they already have Bane of Monsters for the monster effectiveness.

In their Reason list they have the Fire spells (Fire/Bolganone/Ragnarok) and Thunder. Heavy, low uses, high might spells wouldn't be that useful in Byleth kit since they likely wouldn't be able to nuke with it anyway. Light spells with high uses are more preferable for Byleth since they can mitigate the weight more easily than most mage and consistently double with it if they didn't get Speed screwed. A case could be made for Sagittae instead of Thunder, but since it's a C-rank spell and that Bolganone already fit that slot, it would mean learning one of them later and Byleth doesn't need to be slowed down even more.

I agree about the reason list, which I think is largely fine. I did suggest changing it up a bit, but I don't really have a problem with it as it is, and definitely disagree with the people suggesting pushing it up to 5 spells and adding Meteor. For my money, that would be too much, and is the sort of list better left to pure casters.

For faith, though, I do absolutely think Byleth's list is garbage. Is it better than the people who only have Heal/Nosferatu/Recover? Yes, absolutely, but that is the lowest of low bars to clear. It's worse than the basic Heal/Nosferatu/Physic lists, and it's worse than almost all lists that have more than three spells because Aura just isn't very good. I think the only four-spell lists that I would consider worse are Ferdinand's (Heal, Nosferatu, Ward, Restore) and Felix's (Heal, Nosferatu, Recover, Restore). The big problem with Aura is that it has bad accuracy and low uses, and can't mitigate these downsides nearly as well as comparable black magic spells can. For the high level black magic, most people will have the prowess skill equipped, but equipping faith prowess just to improve Aura is a big waste of an ability slot, since the only other attacking white magic you have is Nosferatu, which you want to be not using as much as possible.

And this is on a character where faith really ought to be a big deal. It's one of four skills that Byleth has a strength in (after picking up the budding talent), the Exalted One class gets the same bonus to weapon proficiency growth in faith as in swords, and obviously, there's the big storyline reason why Byleth should be really really good at white magic. Not just because they're the avatar and the avatar should be good at everything, but because it's one of the skills that's really pushed for them.