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Design a better spell list for Byleth


Jotari
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3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

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

Having that Budding Talent so she can unlock the affinity in Faith is much more profitable to Dorothea, yes. The skill itself is even less useful to her than to Byleth though, was my point.

Of course unlocking the affinity is almost always better than the actual Ability with most Budding Talents across the board...

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1 hour ago, lenticular said:

It's worse than the basic Heal/Nosferatu/Physic lists

It frankly depends of who you give Physic to, the only units who have any use having Physic are Bishops, unit with sky-high magic and secondary healers like Dancers and Reason focused mages. Otherwise it's just a ranged Heal and is barely useful unless we're talking about units who need to stay at 100% HP like Ferdinand or Dimitri. Otherwise Recover is better because while it's locked to 1 range, it at least provide a consequent heal.

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Aura just isn't very good.

Compared to the other offensive Faith spells, or other Reason spell for that matter, not so much. Sure it's worse than most Reason spells of the same level, but that's to be expected and is applicable to Abraxas and Seraphim aswell, tho to a lesser degree for the latter. Its Accuracy isn't great, but considering that pretty much every enemy have a lesser magic avoid than physical avoid that's not a problem, in fact Accuracy is the primary reason of using offensive Magic with Byleth rather than the magic damage themselves.

Changing it for another damage spell is pointless because regardless of which spells they could have, Byleth, or anyone who isn't Holy Knight Lysithea or Constance, wouldn't be able to nuke effectively with Abraxas or Seraphim. Aura at least give this small window with the added Crit, as even among Black Spells only Bolting, Excalibur, Blizzard and Fimbulvetr have a comparable Crit bonus, and they all have an even weaker Accuracy than Aura expect for Excalibur.

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

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.

Faith LV is mostly useful for the Avoid rather than the Hit, and as i said earlier the shaky Hit of Aura is offsetted by the low Magic Avoid of most enemies you'll target with it.

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

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

Their proficiency in Faith is just a Budding Talent, and the Enlightened One proficiency in it offer nothing but faster XP gain, no abilities or massive stats gains (even if the 10% in growth and +3 in base stat is non-negligible) and considering where Byleth start in terms of stats (6 base and 35% growth) unless you mass-feed them stat boosters or get stat blessed they're never gonna be hyper effective as Magic users.

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

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. 

Where's the problem there? Byleth isn't a primary magic user, they are a physical unit first with both stats and proficiency focused on weaponry, and that's count for Enlightened One too, who have Swordfaire as it's main ability. It's only natural that their magic ability would take a back-seat, if not Byleth would just be another Robin or another Lorenz.

Edited by Soroen
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8 hours 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.

I would say their Faith list does suck pretty badly. It might be better than Heal/Nosferatu/Recover, but that's a low bar to clear. Aura isn't that good - while it does have high crit, it's not that accurate, and it's heavy, which means you only get one shot at your target, in all likelihood.

4 hours ago, salinea said:

Having that Budding Talent so she can unlock the affinity in Faith is much more profitable to Dorothea, yes. The skill itself is even less useful to her than to Byleth though, was my point.

Of course unlocking the affinity is almost always better than the actual Ability with most Budding Talents across the board...

Fair enough.

3 hours ago, Soroen said:

Changing it for another damage spell is pointless because regardless of which spells they could have, Byleth, or anyone who isn't Holy Knight Lysithea or Constance, wouldn't be able to nuke effectively with Abraxas or Seraphim. Aura at least give this small window with the added Crit, as even among Black Spells only Bolting, Excalibur, Blizzard and Fimbulvetr have a comparable Crit bonus, and they all have an even weaker Accuracy than Aura expect for Excalibur.

Problem is, Reason proficiency gives more hit than Faith proficiency does, so even those spells that you say have worse accuracy than Aura beat it out.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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The big problem with Byleth's spell list is that there's nothing noteworthy there.  Many spells in the game are generic 1-2 range attack spells.  There's some variation in terms of Mt, Wt, hit%, crit%, and uses, but many fall under this aegis.  And having a couple different options is all well and good, most of these spells have the same effect (that effect being do basic damage).

The interesting thing about Three Houses is how many spells have extra utility and how prevalent their usage can be (given that spell charges refill after every mission).  There's spells with inherent 3 range (Thoron, Mire, Death), spells with type advantage (Excalibur, Dark Spikes, Seraphim, Luna), siege spells (Meteor, Bolting), spells that impose debuffs on hits (Mire, Swarm, Banshee), healing (), and utility spells (Silence, Rescue, Warp).  And almost uniformly, the best mages in the game have access to a number of these different spells.   Byleth gets literally none of these spells.

The only thing you need to do to make Byleth a serviceable mage (and serviceable is really all they need to be given the role EO is supposed to be) is give him a teensy bit of the utility described above.  My plan: Replace either Thunder or Bolganone with Thoron (to gain access to an innate 3 range spell) and replace Aura with a brand new spell that only Byleth has access to.  This new spell would be a high tier Faith spell (in terms of a raw stat block), but would have the bonus of being effective against Dragon-type foes (specifically Dragons, and not just Demoic Beasts).  I don't think that's too huge of a buff, considering no route has more than two of those enemies in the entire game (Leonie/Lindhardt's paralogue and either the Wind Caller or Rhea).  And it would even be kinda nice from a story perspective, as it would underscore Byleth's position of being able to determine the fate of Fodlan.

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3 hours ago, Soroen said:

It frankly depends of who you give Physic to, the only units who have any use having Physic are Bishops, unit with sky-high magic and secondary healers like Dancers and Reason focused mages. Otherwise it's just a ranged Heal and is barely useful unless we're talking about units who need to stay at 100% HP like Ferdinand or Dimitri. Otherwise Recover is better because while it's locked to 1 range, it at least provide a consequent heal.

Strongly disagree. Even without Bishop's bonus, Physic restores (8 + Mag/3 + 10 from Healing Staff) HP, which will easily go well into the 20's even off of mediocre to poor magic stats. That's a substantial chunk of anyone's HP. I find this substantially more useful than Recover, especially since many magic-using classes have poor move (particularly if playing without DLC, in which case no magic-using class gets more than 4 until Master tier, except, admittedly, Enlightened One).

Over the months I've seen plenty of people say things to the effect of "you should try ____'s magic build, they have Physic". Nobody says the same thing about Recover, and there's a good reason for that.

3 hours ago, Soroen said:

Compared to the other offensive Faith spells, or other Reason spell for that matter, not so much. Sure it's worse than most Reason spells of the same level, but that's to be expected and is applicable to Abraxas and Seraphim aswell, tho to a lesser degree for the latter. Its Accuracy isn't great, but considering that pretty much every enemy have a lesser magic avoid than physical avoid that's not a problem, in fact Accuracy is the primary reason of using offensive Magic with Byleth rather than the magic damage themselves.

Changing it for another damage spell is pointless because regardless of which spells they could have, Byleth, or anyone who isn't Holy Knight Lysithea or Constance, wouldn't be able to nuke effectively with Abraxas or Seraphim. Aura at least give this small window with the added Crit, as even among Black Spells only Bolting, Excalibur, Blizzard and Fimbulvetr have a comparable Crit bonus, and they all have an even weaker Accuracy than Aura expect for Excalibur.

Crit just isn't very useful on heavy tomes, because they are bad at doubling. This means the difference between a 20 crit spell and a 5 crit spell is literally just 15% chance, and the resulting higher crit will still be way, way too low to be counted on, so it's pretty useless except as a YOLO desperation tactic to kill an enemy you can't otherwise.

One note worth pointing out about accuracy: accuracy on faith tomes is worse than it looks, compared to reason, because of how their Prowess skills work. Reason Prowess 5 gives 20 hit, Faith Prowess 5 gives only 10, scaling down as appropriate for lower levels. It's still not that bad, but Aura is definitely one of the most likely things to run into accuracy issues in the entire game (hitting magic avoid helps, but only so much).

I agree that swapping Aura for another damage spell would be fairly pointless (though Seraphim is a bit better, IMO, because of its monster weakness niche; at worst it can one-shot monster barriers from range), and would much prefer a utility spell instead; it fits someone who is already good at killing things with swords.

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41 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Strongly disagree. Even without Bishop's bonus, Physic restores (8 + Mag/3 + 10 from Healing Staff) HP, which will easily go well into the 20's even off of mediocre to poor magic stats. That's a substantial chunk of anyone's HP.

Who is realisticly gonna carry a Healing Staff but a healer, offensive mage would rather have Thyrsus or the Cadeus Staff, Byleth can play around with the convoy or you can mass trade, but that's rather tedious for something which wouldn't be that great. 

On average Byleth without magic bonus, but 5 levels in EO has 20 Magic at level 30. For Physic calculation it give this: 8+20/3 (7)=15 . That's a ridiculous amount considering that even Lysithea has on average 30 HP by that point, and even the frailer physical unit are at 40 on average. And since most units can't withstand more than 1 round of combat without dodging, if you heal someone you better make it count.

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Crit just isn't very useful on heavy tomes, because they are bad at doubling. This means the difference between a 20 crit spell and a 5 crit spell is literally just 15% chance, and the resulting higher crit will still be way, way too low to be counted on, so it's pretty useless except as a YOLO desperation tactic to kill an enemy you can't otherwise.

Heavy magics aren't that useful on anyone but magical nukes, that's why Aura is one of the best of its kind because it at least open the small window of a Crit.

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

One note worth pointing out about accuracy: accuracy on faith tomes is worse than it looks, compared to reason, because of how their Prowess skills work. Reason Prowess 5 gives 20 hit, Faith Prowess 5 gives only 10, scaling down as appropriate for lower levels. It's still not that bad, but Aura is definitely one of the most likely things to run into accuracy issues in the entire game (hitting magic avoid helps, but only so much).

True enough, but in almost no situation is Byleth gonna build Reason LV. As for the Accuracy itself it can easily be fixed by battalions, especially the magical and hybrid ones who almost all give massive Hit boost.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I would say their Faith list does suck pretty badly. It might be better than Heal/Nosferatu/Recover, but that's a low bar to clear. Aura isn't that good - while it does have high crit, it's not that accurate, and it's heavy, which means you only get one shot at your target, in all likelihood.

Something being sub-optimal doesn't necessarily mean that it suck, it's like saying that Felix or Leonie have poor physical stats because Dimitri exist, or that no one should be a Sniper because Shamir would do the job better. Besides, even if Byleth were given top-tier spells like Physic, Warp or Rescue, their utility would be greatly mitigated by their poor Magic.

If you just look at the spell lists and nothing else, yes it's nothing impressive, but if you look at the context, Byleth lists are perfectly fine.

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28 minutes ago, Soroen said:

Who is realisticly gonna carry a Healing Staff but a healer, offensive mage would rather have Thyrsus or the Cadeus Staff, Byleth can play around with the convoy or you can mass trade, but that's rather tedious for something which wouldn't be that great. 

Mages don't use many weapons, so they have loads of inventory slots. They can switch between accessories easily (as easily as a physical unit changes weapons), and you get two Healing Staves relatively early. Naturally you'll give them to two people who have Physic (and/or Fortify), since they're so much easier to use than range-1 options.

As I said, there's a reason that people recommend magic builds just for Physic, and not just for Recover. Heal/Nosferatu/Recover is the worst faith list in the game. Adding Aura, which is in the running for worst offensive spell in the game, does not significantly improve it.

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53 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

One note worth pointing out about accuracy: accuracy on faith tomes is worse than it looks, compared to reason, because of how their Prowess skills work. Reason Prowess 5 gives 20 hit, Faith Prowess 5 gives only 10, scaling down as appropriate for lower levels. It's still not that bad, but Aura is definitely one of the most likely things to run into accuracy issues in the entire game (hitting magic avoid helps, but only so much).

It's even worse than that. Most of the time, Faith Prowess 5 gives 0 hit because you don't have it equipped.

There just isn't a critical mass of offensive white magic spells. Reason Prowess can be a good skill to equip, because you can reasonably expect to have a black magic spell equipped on every turn of a battle. Faith Prowess is not good to equip because you don't have white magic tomes equipped nearly as often. You get 3 uses of Aura, after which you're left with either Nosferatu or dodge-tanking with Heal, both of which are marginal at best. Using an ability slot for something like this is a big opportunity cost, so not really worth it.

Let's imagine that a basic Light spell existed in Three Houses, with the same stats as Fire. Then let's imagine a hypothetical unit had a spell list of Light, Nosferatu, Seraphim, Aura, Abraxus. In that case, Faith Prowess would be worth equipping, as would White Tomefaire, and every single one of the spells would be better together than they are on their own. That they are isolated is part of what makes them so bad.

5 hours ago, Soroen said:

Their proficiency in Faith is just a Budding Talent, and the Enlightened One proficiency in it offer nothing but faster XP gain, no abilities or massive stats gains (even if the 10% in growth and +3 in base stat is non-negligible) and considering where Byleth start in terms of stats (6 base and 35% growth) unless you mass-feed them stat boosters or get stat blessed they're never gonna be hyper effective as Magic users.

It also gives the ability to use magic, which is one of the defining abilities of the class. Take that away and it's basically just swordmaster with worse stats and a fancier outfit.

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1 hour ago, Soroen said:

Something being sub-optimal doesn't necessarily mean that it suck, it's like saying that Felix or Leonie have poor physical stats because Dimitri exist, or that no one should be a Sniper because Shamir would do the job better. Besides, even if Byleth were given top-tier spells like Physic, Warp or Rescue, their utility would be greatly mitigated by their poor Magic.

If you just look at the spell lists and nothing else, yes it's nothing impressive, but if you look at the context, Byleth lists are perfectly fine.

:facepalm:
These don't even compare. Dimitri is only playable on one route; if I'm not playing as the Blue Lions, I don't get to use him. But I can recruit Felix or Leonie if I didn't pick their house.

Bullshit. Adding a spell that's pretty bad to the worst Faith list in the game doesn't improve it much.

1 hour ago, Soroen said:

Who is realisticly gonna carry a Healing Staff but a healer, offensive mage would rather have Thyrsus or the Cadeus Staff, Byleth can play around with the convoy or you can mass trade, but that's rather tedious for something which wouldn't be that great. 

Mages probably won't have many, if any weapons, so they're free to have one.

1 hour ago, Soroen said:

Heavy magics aren't that useful on anyone but magical nukes, that's why Aura is one of the best of its kind because it at least open the small window of a Crit.

I don't see crits as something to be relied on, especially when you are likely going to have accuracy issues. Look at Fates's Great Club, which has astronomical crit chance. Do you think it's a good weapon? I sure as hell don't because of one glaring flaw.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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28 minutes ago, lenticular said:

a fancier outfit

Hehe don't get me started on the EO outfit

1 hour ago, Soroen said:

True enough, but in almost no situation is Byleth gonna build Reason LV.

This is part of the problem - the game gives you no good reason to build Byleth's magic, even though it probably should. Byleth fulfilling a magical niche in the way described above would make true magic builds much more attractive for them, even despite their low bases/growths. 

Ingrid's a good example - same bases/growths as Byleth, but her Faith list is a straightforward upgrade on Byleth, and she gets Thoron (which makes her otherwise bleh black magic list competitive). Her better spell list (and the fact her strength and magic growth are the same) means that sending her down a magic route can be just as viable for her. She might still have performance issues, but those are endemic to her character - and there's no expectation that she should be viable in physical and magical builds, unlike how there is for Byleth. If the devs were ever going to nail a hybrid character, it should have been Byleth, and giving them a better spell list would have been one way to do that. 

Edited by haarhaarhaar
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6 hours ago, Soroen said:

It frankly depends of who you give Physic to, the only units who have any use having Physic are Bishops, unit with sky-high magic and secondary healers like Dancers and Reason focused mages. Otherwise it's just a ranged Heal and is barely useful unless we're talking about units who need to stay at 100% HP like Ferdinand or Dimitri. Otherwise Recover is better because while it's locked to 1 range, it at least provide a consequent heal.

Compared to the other offensive Faith spells, or other Reason spell for that matter, not so much. Sure it's worse than most Reason spells of the same level, but that's to be expected and is applicable to Abraxas and Seraphim aswell, tho to a lesser degree for the latter. Its Accuracy isn't great, but considering that pretty much every enemy have a lesser magic avoid than physical avoid that's not a problem, in fact Accuracy is the primary reason of using offensive Magic with Byleth rather than the magic damage themselves.

Changing it for another damage spell is pointless because regardless of which spells they could have, Byleth, or anyone who isn't Holy Knight Lysithea or Constance, wouldn't be able to nuke effectively with Abraxas or Seraphim. Aura at least give this small window with the added Crit, as even among Black Spells only Bolting, Excalibur, Blizzard and Fimbulvetr have a comparable Crit bonus, and they all have an even weaker Accuracy than Aura expect for Excalibur.

Faith LV is mostly useful for the Avoid rather than the Hit, and as i said earlier the shaky Hit of Aura is offsetted by the low Magic Avoid of most enemies you'll target with it.

Their proficiency in Faith is just a Budding Talent, and the Enlightened One proficiency in it offer nothing but faster XP gain, no abilities or massive stats gains (even if the 10% in growth and +3 in base stat is non-negligible) and considering where Byleth start in terms of stats (6 base and 35% growth) unless you mass-feed them stat boosters or get stat blessed they're never gonna be hyper effective as Magic users.

Where's the problem there? Byleth isn't a primary magic user, they are a physical unit first with both stats and proficiency focused on weaponry, and that's count for Enlightened One too, who have Swordfaire as it's main ability. It's only natural that their magic ability would take a back-seat, if not Byleth would just be another Robin or another Lorenz.

Well the problem is s that the game is presenting Byleth as a physical magical hybrid unit (specifically physical faith hybrid) when they're really not. I'm sure a lot of players, myself included, grinded up their faith rank to A only to be rewarded with a very underwhelming Aura.

Edited by Jotari
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On 9/4/2020 at 7:23 PM, Soroen said:

Where's the problem there? Byleth isn't a primary magic user, they are a physical unit first with both stats and proficiency focused on weaponry, and that's count for Enlightened One too, who have Swordfaire as it's main ability. It's only natural that their magic ability would take a back-seat, if not Byleth would just be another Robin or another Lorenz.

I totally agree with this. He is designed as a physical unit, and a freaking brawler for that (and fists are banned for mages). He gets a budding talent skill that is almost useless for him (just like it is for Dorothea). His spell quantity fits a hybrid character. If something was to be changed, he should give up on of his Reason spells for a Faith one (Seraphim as a BT). There's no character that gets five spells of a given type if they don't have that proficiency from scratch, with Hapi and Constance being the exception. These two characters have almost a null list for arts (just the magic blades for Constance and their BT arts), but they were the two purely magic characters that came with two hybrid ones that needed Faith for their intended classes, thus banning them from getting the proficiency. Other than them, only characters starting with a proficiency in Faith get five spells (Lindhart, Mercedes, Lysithea, Marianne, Manuela and Flayn). For Reason it's even more restricted since not all of them get five spells (Hubert, Dorothea, Lindhart, Lysithea and Hanneman), while the other get only four.

On 9/5/2020 at 1:42 AM, Jotari said:

Well the problem is s that the game is presenting Byleth as a physical magical hybrid unit (specifically physical faith hybrid) when they're really not. I'm sure a lot of players, myself included, grinded up their faith rank to A only to be rewarded with a very underwhelming Aura.

I don't think Byleth was presented as a hybrid character. He is always depicted as a swordsman, with his Faith being developed from being in contact with Sothis. His final class also reflects this, having magic as some free utility advantage for a physical character. Having Aura instead of Abraxas is a matter of what Aura means for Fire Emblem since the first game.

As for the lists themselves, I find them pretty solid the way they are, with the exception of Seraphim not existing in his White Magic list (but like I said before, should be granted as a budding talent). I also think that Thunder only exists to give Byleth additional magic uses of a low tier magic. Having him getting more spells or more powerful ones, would make other dedicated mages redundant. Being the main character doesn't mean he has to be able to fit any role.

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2 hours ago, paladin21 said:

I totally agree with this. He is designed as a physical unit, and a freaking brawler for that (and fists are banned for mages). He gets a budding talent skill that is almost useless for him (just like it is for Dorothea). His spell quantity fits a hybrid character. If something was to be changed, he should give up on of his Reason spells for a Faith one (Seraphim as a BT). There's no character that gets five spells of a given type if they don't have that proficiency from scratch, with Hapi and Constance being the exception. These two characters have almost a null list for arts (just the magic blades for Constance and their BT arts), but they were the two purely magic characters that came with two hybrid ones that needed Faith for their intended classes, thus banning them from getting the proficiency. Other than them, only characters starting with a proficiency in Faith get five spells (Lindhart, Mercedes, Lysithea, Marianne, Manuela and Flayn). For Reason it's even more restricted since not all of them get five spells (Hubert, Dorothea, Lindhart, Lysithea and Hanneman), while the other get only four.

I don't think Byleth was presented as a hybrid character. He is always depicted as a swordsman, with his Faith being developed from being in contact with Sothis. His final class also reflects this, having magic as some free utility advantage for a physical character. Having Aura instead of Abraxas is a matter of what Aura means for Fire Emblem since the first game.

As for the lists themselves, I find them pretty solid the way they are, with the exception of Seraphim not existing in his White Magic list (but like I said before, should be granted as a budding talent). I also think that Thunder only exists to give Byleth additional magic uses of a low tier magic. Having him getting more spells or more powerful ones, would make other dedicated mages redundant. Being the main character doesn't mean he has to be able to fit any role.

Well no more than Byleth being an excellent physical unit makes all the other physical units redundant. As it is though this thread is examining Byleth's spell list more so than Byleth's stats. Byleth will always be held back behind other mages due to having a weaker magic stat. That's personally why I suggested magic that come with effectiveness against certain enemies as that would give useful magic utility without basically being a full time mage (unless you really want to grind up with those spirit dusts and magic class increased growth rates). It'd also tie into the whole teacher aspect by having a somewhat basic but effective method of using spells. As it stands now I think Byleth's magic is less utility even and more not useful at all. Enlightened One doesn't really offer that much compared to some other choices like Assassin or Wyvern Lord, aside from the fact that you automatically get it fairly early on. Given a Levin Sword can do everything Byleth's offensive spells can do at 3 range you're really just going Enlightened One for recover. Which is a shame because I do like Enlightened One. It's just not really optimal. Not that everything necessary has to be Optimal, but I would like a reason to use my lords prf class beyond I just kind of like it.

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8 hours ago, paladin21 said:

Having him getting more spells or more powerful ones, would make other dedicated mages redundant. Being the main character doesn't mean he has to be able to fit any role.

Byleth has 6 magic base and 35% growth (dedicated mages have 10-12 and 40-60%). She's not in danger of making any dedicated mages feel redundant, no matter the spell list.

I definitely think some more utility would have been fitting for a hybrid character, especially with the unique role Byleth plays as the teacher / supportive leader of most of the other playable characters.

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9 hours ago, paladin21 said:

Having him getting more spells or more powerful ones, would make other dedicated mages redundant. Being the main character doesn't mean he has to be able to fit any role.

Would it really given the low and fixed uses of magic in 3H? Memories of Robin surge to my mind at this assertion, they were the avatar who obsoleted Miriel, Ricken, Henry, and maybe Tharja the moment they showed up. Corrin possibly could with an early reclass render his non-Ophelia pure magical competition worthless, but that wasn't as mindlessly easy as Robin over theirs. Kris I'm not so sure of. 

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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3 hours ago, SRPG Tryhard said:

Nosferatu dodge tanking is all you need. It's balanced by its low uses.

I'd rather dodgetank with someone who can actually damage the enemy in return. Like Petra. Also, White Magic Avoid +20 is just plain bad.

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Per others, I wouldn't want to accidentally step on other character's niches.  There's other games where there's a mandatory main character that can do specialized task XYZ, and any other character that fills that niche instantly becomes suspect.  Byleth can keep very boring, simple spells like "heal person right next to me" and "do damage."

That said.  Stylistically and thematically, Byleth should have a *great* Faith list, even if one focused on raw power rather than backlines supporty stuff like a Flayn or Linhardt.  I think giving Byleth Abraxas (to go with Aura) would be a decent start, as others have noted, just giving plain more spell charges helps make setting Faith Prowess at all feel a little more worth.  This is a broader issue than just Byleth,  but really both Aura & Abraxas need buffing.  I think the devs were worried that giving Faith good attack magic would mean that Faith would be good support + damage and thus totally outclass Reason, which is fair, but they overdid it.  (Along with generally balancing high-end magic as too "balanced" - it's okay to throw some strictly-betters in as rewards for hitting A-rank, no need to give huge weights to some of the late spells.)  Just all-around buffs are probably required, especially since Aura is only used by Byleth & Marianne realistically without DLC (Yuri with DLC, although Yuri only gets like 1 charge if he stays in Trickster...), and both of those characters should have a strong, hypeable Faith spell there even if they've totally ignored Reason.  So...

  • Equipping Faith Prowess gives a small bonus to healing, making it more tempting to set.
  • Aura gets massive buffs - go to 5 uses base, go to 30 crit, 12 wgt -> 10 wgt, maybe 70 Hit -> 75 Hit.  It's...  okay now.  Still far from broken.
  • Abraxas can focus more on one-shot potential, and just get +3 might or the like.  (This will also help Faith-build Lysithea and the rare A-Faith Annette.)

I think that'd make a mage Byleth build more hypable, and not break the game or anything.  But just getting Abraxas in the name of more spell charges would still help.  Hell, nobody cares that all the combat arts look identical, go take Agnea's Arrow's animation exactly and call it "Sothis's Arrow" or something and put it in Byleth's Faith list, and give it the same stats.  That'd also help.

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8 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Per others, I wouldn't want to accidentally step on other character's niches.  There's other games where there's a mandatory main character that can do specialized task XYZ, and any other character that fills that niche instantly becomes suspect.  Byleth can keep very boring, simple spells like "heal person right next to me" and "do damage."

That said.  Stylistically and thematically, Byleth should have a *great* Faith list, even if one focused on raw power rather than backlines supporty stuff like a Flayn or Linhardt.  I think giving Byleth Abraxas (to go with Aura) would be a decent start, as others have noted, just giving plain more spell charges helps make setting Faith Prowess at all feel a little more worth.  This is a broader issue than just Byleth,  but really both Aura & Abraxas need buffing.  I think the devs were worried that giving Faith good attack magic would mean that Faith would be good support + damage and thus totally outclass Reason, which is fair, but they overdid it.  (Along with generally balancing high-end magic as too "balanced" - it's okay to throw some strictly-betters in as rewards for hitting A-rank, no need to give huge weights to some of the late spells.)  Just all-around buffs are probably required, especially since Aura is only used by Byleth & Marianne realistically without DLC (Yuri with DLC, although Yuri only gets like 1 charge if he stays in Trickster...), and both of those characters should have a strong, hypeable Faith spell there even if they've totally ignored Reason.  So...

  • Equipping Faith Prowess gives a small bonus to healing, making it more tempting to set.
  • Aura gets massive buffs - go to 5 uses base, go to 30 crit, 12 wgt -> 10 wgt, maybe 70 Hit -> 75 Hit.  It's...  okay now.  Still far from broken.
  • Abraxas can focus more on one-shot potential, and just get +3 might or the like.  (This will also help Faith-build Lysithea and the rare A-Faith Annette.)

I think that'd make a mage Byleth build more hypable, and not break the game or anything.  But just getting Abraxas in the name of more spell charges would still help.  Hell, nobody cares that all the combat arts look identical, go take Agnea's Arrow's animation exactly and call it "Sothis's Arrow" or something and put it in Byleth's Faith list, and give it the same stats.  That'd also help.

That's something that has also crossed my mind as well. It's like to wanted to balance out the classes and spell kits to the point where everything and everyone is unique and different. And while I do think they did just that, doesn't necessarily equate to being good. Faith should have gotten more of a offensive presence like you said which is also why Holy Knights are regarded as one of the worst classes to go for. Yes Marianne is technically the best candidate for it since she learns Aura and can pull off the offensive white mage. But that means sacrificing the pure healing role that a bishop provides for white tomefaire and canto. Plus bishops are far more preferred than holy knights because of obvious reasons. It's why nearly every team wants at least one bishop (maybe two in case you need a secondary physic user with maybe warp, silence, etc). 

As far as Byleth goes, I feel that the devs didn't really do a good enough job making Byleth a jack of all trades character because it's obvious that the EO class is geared to be a sword class. Even when you don't purposely level up Byleth and let the EO unlock itself, it's starting magic stat is 8. It's low compared to the 17 strength stat it gets. I'm sure that nosferatu tanking is achievable on hard mode since the enemies are not that much tougher and 12 uses seems okay but could do better. But as many have pointed out when I first asked about the white magic dodge tanking, it's generally not recommended because nosferatu runs out quicker than iron sword/gauntlets dodge tanking with their sword/brawl avoid respectively. 

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20 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd rather dodgetank with someone who can actually damage the enemy in return. Like Petra. Also, White Magic Avoid +20 is just plain bad.

Works for me :^) Petra will die to WTA and breaker skills, Byleth doesn't.

The other poster got that right. Faith is balanced to not outdo Reason. And Byleth's spell list is  balanced to not make them better than even dedicated mages. Byleth has bulk that they don't, so use that.

Edited by SRPG Tryhard
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47 minutes ago, SRPG Tryhard said:

Works for me :^) Petra will die to WTA and breaker skills, Byleth doesn't.

The other poster got that right. Faith is balanced to not outdo Reason. And Byleth's spell list is  balanced to not make them better than even dedicated mages. Byleth has bulk that they don't, so use that.

Don't you need Breaker skills to have WTA in this game?

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6 hours ago, SRPG Tryhard said:

Works for me :^) Petra will die to WTA and breaker skills, Byleth doesn't.

The other poster got that right. Faith is balanced to not outdo Reason. And Byleth's spell list is  balanced to not make them better than even dedicated mages. Byleth has bulk that they don't, so use that.

Breakers are only effective when using specific weapons against other specific weapons. Also, I find White Magic Avoid +20 to be a wasted ability slot, especially when I have to waste ANOTHER for it to actually be meaningful (to say nothing of the fact that once you're out of Nosferatu, your only recourse is to let Byleth be a helpless punching bag, which is VERY questionable, and the fact that magic is inherently 1-2 ranged, meaning it won't do anything on player phase. Not to mention that Nosferatu runs out much quicker than sword or gauntlet uses). Also, I don't see how faith is balanced to not outdo reason when literally all of its attack spells have the same goddamn flaw (being too heavy), which hurts the Holy Knight class to such an extent that it's considered one of the worst classes in the game.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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21 hours ago, SRPG Tryhard said:

Works for me :^) Petra will die to WTA and breaker skills, Byleth doesn't.

That feeling when you forget Tomebreaker exists, and is omnipresent on gauntlet foes on Maddening. On the flip side, Byleth can get Bowbreaker, but it requires Reason training to get into Warlock.

21 hours ago, SRPG Tryhard said:

The other poster got that right. Faith is balanced to not outdo Reason. And Byleth's spell list is  balanced to not make them better than even dedicated mages. Byleth has bulk that they don't, so use that.

Byleth's Res tends worse than a lot of magic specialists, like Mercedes and Flayn. And their defense, while better, generally won't be enough to take two physical hits on Maddening. And very few magical batallions give a substantial Protection boost (Hevring Prayer Group, Blue Lion Magic Corps, Supreme Armored Corps sorta).

18 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Breakers are only effective when using specific weapons against other specific weapons. Also, I find White Magic Avoid +20 to be a wasted ability slot, especially when I have to waste ANOTHER for it to actually be meaningful (to say nothing of the fact that once you're out of Nosferatu, your only recourse is to let Byleth be a helpless punching bag, which is VERY questionable, and the fact that magic is inherently 1-2 ranged, meaning it won't do anything on player phase. Not to mention that Nosferatu runs out much quicker than sword or gauntlet uses). Also, I don't see how faith is balanced to not outdo reason when literally all of its attack spells have the same goddamn flaw (being too heavy), which hurts the Holy Knight class to such an extent that it's considered one of the worst classes in the game.

IMO any "Avoid+20" can be good, but for Faith, it's hurt especially by the lack of low-weight offensive light magic (which is... ironic, really). That no class combines White Tomefaire with Uses x2 hurts as well. I tried to use Bishop -> Gremory Byleth my last playthrough, and she was never especially dodgy. Holy Knight isn't especially bad in a vacuum (horse plus spells), it's just generally outclassed by Dark Knight.

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