Just finished my first Conquest playthrough! Looking for some recommendations/advice on getting more out of Fates. I also wanted to talk about my overall experience with Conquest.

[starburst]

1 hour ago, beachwalks said:

You may have noticed an overlap in the suggested skills being from the Wyvern and Cavalier class trees. Wyverns are one of the best classes in the game (especially if they can access berserker for HP +5 and Axefaire} due to high mobility, strength, defense, and speed along with the high Mt of Axes and the Dual club. And even though paladins/great knights become significantly worse in the midsection of the game the skills they offer do not. For a mag focused corrin I do highly recommend going through at least malig for flight access and trample, it's also very tanky with high magic output.

For me, the skills are the only reason to choose the Wyvern tree, and not the class themselves. Unless you are Camilla, who is broken by design, or Cornflakes, who can personalise her stats and caps, the Wyvern classes are not strong enough to one-hit nor fast enough to double. No other unit can do what Camilla does early to mid game in the same class, simply because no one else has the stats to pull it off.
This is very clear in smaller parties, where you need as much might as possible on every action, and Wyvern Lords or Malig Knights simply do not meet the offensive thresholds.

Another example, turn Elise into a Malig Knight: She will always cap Magic and Speed and produce a greater damage output (both in single and in double hits) as a Strategist, because at any given level she will have both more Magic and Speed. It is only after she gets Trample that the single hits between Malig Knight and Strategist equalise. And even then, Trample does not guarantee one-hitting, and as Strategist she will always double more enemies than as Malig Knight.

At least a Wyvern Lord can be one of your main "tanks", and therefore has an excuse for not being able to kill enemies, but specialised units like Sorcerer, Berserker or Sniper will always deliver more kills than a Wyvern Lord. And I am pretty sure that Woldssegner Keaton or Velouria also deal more damage.

In bigger parties where you can have "extra" units to deliver the kills, this is less evident, for the Wyvern tree does produce useful "extra" units. But when every action must translate into kills, the Wyvern classes are never the best option.

I would always take Nohr Noble over Malig Knight for a +Magic Corrin.

 

17 minutes ago, Arevir Wehttam said:

Yeah I’ve come to realize on my first playthrough that trying to utilize skills that proc based on low HP seems very risky (atleast from my end, as I’m still getting used to things), especially when compared to the other FE games I played (PoR & RD).

Either you did not understand how Vengeance works or you are not thinking straight. It does not trigger based on how low your HP is, but on your Skill; it triggers even if you HP is full (it simply adds no damage.) If a unit is going into Enemy Phase, it means that you already calculated the damage that would be received, and your unit cannot heal until after the phase ends anyway. If Vengeance triggers, the unit will deal more damage because it had just been hit; if it does not trigger, the forecasted scenario occurs. It is a net gain!

It is like that stupid argument against the Mess Hall or the Lottery, saying that it is better to avoid them because you cannot know what you get! 😂
If you are running in park and find 1 €, you are clearly in a better situation than you were before. It is very simple. You might want 5 €, but why would you complain about or throw away the 1 € find?! It goes against the very basis of rational behaviour.

Two completely different units like a General and a Berserker would always want Vengeance. I would not suggest to level-up them three times as Sorcerer to get it, yet the synergy among the classes is independent of the fact that both classes would obviously benefit from Vengeance. In our case, the synergy between Sorcerer and Nohr Noble is not an issue.

[Arevir Wehttam]

1 hour ago, starburst said:

2 hours ago, Arevir Wehttam said:

Yeah I’ve come to realize on my first playthrough that trying to utilize skills that proc based on low HP seems very risky (atleast from my end, as I’m still getting used to things), especially when compared to the other FE games I played (PoR & RD).

Either you did not understand how Vengeance works or you are not thinking straight.

That first part wasn’t directly related to my experience with Vengeance (I probably should’ve mentioned that). It was more so in regards to my experience trying to utilize skills such as Vow of Friendship on Silas, or Vantage of Kaze (reclassed him to Samurai for a little bit), and not having the most success, which was more than likely me not being too used to the lower HP values and enemy damage output in this game coming from PoR/RD. I gave my thoughts on Vengeance later on in the comment. With that said, in no way am I saying these skills are bad just referring to my personal experience coming from a different game to this one. 
 

As for Vengeance, I saw how it worked, although I didn’t use it, as Ophelia was the only one of my units who had it, and I didn’t really put her in any scenarios were she’d take damage, or she’d just one shot everyone she attacked as she was extremely crit happy for me, lol. Funny enough, I was actually thinking to myself how awesome Vengeance would’ve been on one of my front-liners. 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Arevir Wehttam

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, starburst said:

Either you did not understand how Vengeance works or you are not thinking straight. It does not trigger based on how low your HP is, but on your Skill; it triggers even if you HP is full (it simply adds no damage.) If a unit is going into Enemy Phase, it means that you already calculated the damage that would be received, and your unit cannot heal until after the phase ends anyway. If Vengeance triggers, the unit will deal more damage because it had just been hit; if it does not trigger, the forecasted scenario occurs. It is a net gain!

It is like that stupid argument against the Mess Hall or the Lottery, saying that it is better to avoid them because you cannot know what you get! 😂
If you are running in park and find 1 €, you are clearly in a better situation than you were before. It is very simple. You might want 5 €, but why would you complain about or throw away the 1 € find?! It goes against the very basis of rational behaviour.

Two completely different units like a General and a Berserker would always want Vengeance. I would not suggest to level-up them three times as Sorcerer to get it, yet the synergy among the classes is independent of the fact that both classes would obviously benefit from Vengeance. In our case, the synergy between Sorcerer and Nohr Noble is not an issue.

That'd be a nice mentality to cling to were it not for the low HP values meaning being low on HP is rather risky. As is, it's just idealistic.

Would you consider lost stats a net gain? Because I wouldn't, and that's a possibility with the mess hall depending on who's in charge. And it's especially bad if the cook is Felicia, Keaton or Velouria. The former in particular has a flair that makes you lose points in every stat. Putting that aside, would you consider Barracks boosts in Awakening worth factoring in? Also, I'd have issues factoring mess hall boosts in because for most of the game, only half of your party benefits - which I'd find troublesome if I need specific units affected.

At the same time, I would argue Luna is better if I wanted a proc, because Vengeance has the chance of being a dud, whereas Luna will always add damage (putting aside that procs aren't something to rely on).

Edited September 27, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 9/25/2020 at 10:21 PM, Arevir Wehttam said:

All anybody really ever recommended was being on a mount/flying or bust, and I feel like the foot/infantry units in this game are incredibly potent. Now I’m no pro or LTC player or anything, but most of my combat units were actually foot soliders, and I feel like I still got through each map pretty efficiently. Plus there is something so satisfying about killing every enemy with a critical hit haha. 

Generally I like about half my army mounted, and half infantry, that way if I absolutely need the movement of mounts, I can use pairup and separate to let my whole army use it.

 

3 hours ago, Arevir Wehttam said:

 

And after reading this.. it just seems like female Corrin is always the better choice? I mean.. you get Jakob 1 who has very strong reclass options, and you get access to an early Dwyer for some useful staffs and a friendship seal. Plus Jakob 1 just seems to be much better unit overall compared to Felicia 1.. right? If I stay with male Corrin, what’s usually a good plan for Felicia as far as reclass options go? Does she have late game utility, or not so much? Because on my hard run, Jakob was a real MvP and offered up so much utility. 

Jakob 1 is generally seen as better than Felicia 1, as Jakob can easily heartseal into a combat monster, and even without it he is useable, meanwhile Felicia needs to find some way to use her magic to be relevant in combat beyond her debuffs. Once you get her into a magic class, or superglue the Flame Shuriken you get in chapter 12 into her hands she start dishing out some solid magic damage, but she is never going to be as durable as Jakob is, and if you aren't careful she can really fall behind the xp curve while you are getting her into a combat capable state.

Another benefit to female Corrin is that you don't need to worry about running out of spouses if you are trying to recruit all the children. The number of females and males in the standard dating pool is equal before adding in Corrin, a Male Corrin will deprive one of the child generating males of a mate, unless Corrin dates one of the Corrin sexuals (Flora or Anna for females in Conquest), or goes after one of the children.

 

3 hours ago, starburst said:

For me, the skills are the only reason to choose the Wyvern tree, and not the class themselves. Unless you are Camilla, who is broken by design, or Cornflakes, who can personalise her stats and caps, the Wyvern classes are not strong enough to one-hit nor fast enough to double. No other unit can do what Camilla does early to mid game in the same class, simply because no one else has the stats to pull it off.
This is very clear in smaller parties, where you need as much might as possible on every action, and Wyvern Lords or Malig Knights simply do not meet the offensive thresholds.

Another example, turn Elise into a Malig Knight: She will always cap Magic and Speed and produce a greater damage output (both in single and in double hits) as a Strategist, because at any given level she will have both more Magic and Speed. It is only after she gets Trample that the single hits between Malig Knight and Strategist equalise. And even then, Trample does not guarantee one-hitting, and as Strategist she will always double more enemies than as Malig Knight.

At least a Wyvern Lord can be one of your main "tanks", and therefore has an excuse for not being able to kill enemies, but specialised units like Sorcerer, Berserker or Sniper will always deliver more kills than a Wyvern Lord. And I am pretty sure that Woldssegner Keaton or Velouria also deal more damage.

In bigger parties where you can have "extra" units to deliver the kills, this is less evident, for the Wyvern tree does produce useful "extra" units. But when every action must translate into kills, the Wyvern classes are never the best option.

I would always take Nohr Noble over Malig Knight for a +Magic Corrin.

Great analysis, when I was reading through the Wyvern hype coming in I was thinking of writing something similar, but I just wanted to add a bit about the value of flight which is one of the biggest benefits of the class that you glossed over.

Having even one unit with flight opens up a lot of paths, and incredibly useful tactical options that simply aren't available without it (like ferrying a unit up the cliffs of chapter 21, crossing the gap in chapter 23, using Hinoka's DV to ambush Azama from outside hexing rod range in 24, etc.). Additionally flight lets you make better use of the movement utility skills, like lunge and shelter (don't get me wrong, those are still useful on grounded units, but flight removes a lot of limitations that might otherwise keep you from getting the lunge or shelter you want). Flight, together with Lunge, and Defense rally is why I generally see Wyvern Lord as one of the better utility classes in Fates.

[beachwalks]

6 hours ago, starburst said:

For me, the skills are the only reason to choose the Wyvern tree, and not the class themselves. Unless you are Camilla, who is broken by design, or Cornflakes, who can personalise her stats and caps, the Wyvern classes are not strong enough to one-hit nor fast enough to double. No other unit can do what Camilla does early to mid game in the same class, simply because no one else has the stats to pull it off.
This is very clear in smaller parties, where you need as much might as possible on every action, and Wyvern Lords or Malig Knights simply do not meet the offensive thresholds.

Another example, turn Elise into a Malig Knight: She will always cap Magic and Speed and produce a greater damage output (both in single and in double hits) as a Strategist, because at any given level she will have both more Magic and Speed. It is only after she gets Trample that the single hits between Malig Knight and Strategist equalise. And even then, Trample does not guarantee one-hitting, and as Strategist she will always double more enemies than as Malig Knight.

At least a Wyvern Lord can be one of your main "tanks", and therefore has an excuse for not being able to kill enemies, but specialised units like Sorcerer, Berserker or Sniper will always deliver more kills than a Wyvern Lord. And I am pretty sure that Woldssegner Keaton or Velouria also deal more damage.

In bigger parties where you can have "extra" units to deliver the kills, this is less evident, for the Wyvern tree does produce useful "extra" units. But when every action must translate into kills, the Wyvern classes are never the best option.

I would always take Nohr Noble over Malig Knight for a +Magic Corrin.

I wasn't super specific on when I use malig knight for Corrin, and I agree with you that Nohr Noble is a much better endgame class. I change Corrin to Malig specifically for chapters 20-22, because I personally really like trying to use all the dragon veins to my advantage on 22 and there are annoying thickets that get in the way for cavalry. I was also thinking mostly of Camilla in regards to the wyvern class being able to consistently one round as well here.

 

With the Malig Knight elise example yes it is mostly for better bulk to leverage her personal skill being one of the main draws it is also important to consider the bolt axe here too, as the higher might compensates for elise's lost 3 points of magic at cap in terms of single hits. 

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Jakob 1 is generally seen as better than Felicia 1, as Jakob can easily heartseal into a combat monster, and even without it he is useable, meanwhile Felicia needs to find some way to use her magic to be relevant in combat beyond her debuffs. Once you get her into a magic class, or superglue the Flame Shuriken you get in chapter 12 into her hands she start dishing out some solid magic damage, but she is never going to be as durable as Jakob is, and if you aren't careful she can really fall behind the xp curve while you are getting her into a combat capable state.

Another benefit to female Corrin is that you don't need to worry about running out of spouses if you are trying to recruit all the children. The number of females and males in the standard dating pool is equal before adding in Corrin, a Male Corrin will deprive one of the child generating males of a mate, unless Corrin dates one of the Corrin sexuals (Flora or Anna for females in Conquest), or goes after one of the children.

Another reason Jakob 1 is much more preferable to Felicia 1 is because Jakob 2 is much worse and Felicia 2 is still a really good support unit. Jakob can't really afford to go anything other than strategist or butler by that point and his worse magic growth loses him points with staff accuracy as well as not being any good at combat if he's a strategist. Felicia's class set isn't helpful to her magic oriented nature so the maid/strategist options dont hurt her like Jakob. She also has C staves and dagger so you don't need to train her to use the flame shuriken either. Whether you use her lategame is whether you use her as a stat backpack (4 speed and 3 magic at A rank for no investment, not counting her Corrin specific bonuses) or as a staffbot, but she's competing with Flora and Izana. If you need the third staff user, she can work. @Arevir Wehttam Jakob isn't necessary early on because silas can replicate paladin jakob if vow of friendship is activated and corrin uses the dragonstone + demoiselle+ felicia's personal to tank physical attacks even at half hp or below, not to mention you are in complete control of the Hp manipulation aspect. But since you said that you've had some trouble getting the most out of that ability Jakob is definitely the safer route.

 

[starburst]

7 hours ago, Arevir Wehttam said:

It was more so in regards to my experience trying to utilize skills such as Vow of Friendship on Silas, or Vantage of Kaze (reclassed him to Samurai for a little bit), and not having the most success [...]

I know. I added the comment about the 1 € find because the issue was more related to the logic behind its use than to the skill itself.

Please, do note that while I am addressing you now, these commentaries are not about you in particular. It is nothing personal. 😉

Vow of Friendship is always a net gain, one simply takes advantage of it when it activates and heals afterwards. There is nothing to think about. If Corrin is never hit, it does not activate, and if she is indeed hit then Silas gets a bonus. Where is the problem? Would one prefer not to get a bonus?
One might want to get hit and be granted a turn of Phoenix Mode for the entire party in return. Well, I would to, but this scenario does not exist! It was never an option. I am only given a bonus for Silas, why would I not make the most out of it?

One does not plan every move with Dragon Fang or Luna or Vengeance or a critical hit in mind, but when they activate they increase the damage output. Criticising this increase on the basis that it did not happen when one wanted to makes no sense. It is the 1 € find in the park!

Moreover, when one already is in a situation where the damage output is not enough to wipe the area and the enemy might kill one of their units on Enemy Phase, one can either restart because one cannot kill it with any combination of normal hits, or one makes a bet and use units with activation skills or a high critical hit chance. The analysis is very simple: One loses without trying or one bets for a win.

If every unit had unrestricted access to all skills, I would obviously pick Trample and Aggressor and +4 Attack and +5 Speed and +30 Avoid at Level 1 on all of them. But, again, this scenario does not exist! Precisely because I am not picking an activation skill over a high fixed bonus is that I value what the activation offers and make the most out of it.

 

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Great analysis, when I was reading through the Wyvern hype coming in I was thinking of writing something similar, but I just wanted to add a bit about the value of flight which is one of the biggest benefits of the class that you glossed over.

Having even one unit with flight opens up a lot of paths, and incredibly useful tactical options that simply aren't available without it (like ferrying a unit up the cliffs of chapter 21, crossing the gap in chapter 23, using Hinoka's DV to ambush Azama from outside hexing rod range in 24, etc.). Additionally flight lets you make better use of the movement utility skills, like lunge and shelter (don't get me wrong, those are still useful on grounded units, but flight removes a lot of limitations that might otherwise keep you from getting the lunge or shelter you want). Flight, together with Lunge, and Defense rally is why I generally see Wyvern Lord as one of the better utility classes in Fates.

And you are absolute right, mate. I agree with all of your points about the importance of flight. It opens up many gameplay options. It was the counter argument that I expected.
Yet, and you will agree with me on this, a party of ten Wyverns is unequivocally less effective than a diverse, specialised party of ten. Even though the hype suggests the opposite. As if having access to the Wyvern class were an end by itself.

 

1 hour ago, beachwalks said:

I wasn't super specific on when I use malig knight for Corrin, and I agree with you that Nohr Noble is a much better endgame class.

Mine was more a commentary on the Wyvern class tree than about your choice. It was not about you in particular, mate.
I have fun using Wyverns, but I do not idolise them like others (not you) do.
 

1 hour ago, beachwalks said:

With the Malig Knight elise example yes it is mostly for better bulk to leverage her personal skill being one of the main draws it is also important to consider the bolt axe here too, as the higher might compensates for elise's lost 3 points of magic at cap in terms of single hits.

You still need to factor Speed, but I would go even further and argue that the Bolt Axe is the only way to equalise the damage output of Malig Knight and Strategist Elise.
Access to flight and, ironically, to Rally Defence are the main reasons why I would pick Malig Knight Elise.

Edited September 27, 2020 by starburst
Tone and grammar to make it impersonal.

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, beachwalks said:

With the Malig Knight elise example yes it is mostly for better bulk to leverage her personal skill being one of the main draws it is also important to consider the bolt axe here too, as the higher might compensates for elise's lost 3 points of magic at cap in terms of single hits. 

On the other hand, Elise having low skill and using a weapon that has rather poor hit sounds like it can only be a recipe for disaster.

3 hours ago, starburst said:

Vow of Friendship is always a net gain, one simply takes advantage of it when it activates and heals afterwards. There is nothing to think about. If Corrin is never hit, it does not activate, and if she is indeed hit then Silas gets a bonus. Where is the problem? Would one prefer not to get a bonus?
One might want to get hit and be granted a turn of Phoenix Mode for the entire party in return. Well, I would to, but this scenario does not exist! It was never an option. I am only given a bonus for Silas, why would I not make the most out of it?

Being a bonus that requires you to willfully do something stupid to even have any impact, I would sooner look at it as the candy bar in a big pile of manure, but hey. I cant't argue it's a net gain when the conditions are too much to ask (have one of my few reliable frontliners - the main character, at that - go below half health and stay unhealed? That sounds about as smart as robbing a police station).

[Arevir Wehttam]

19 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Jakob 1 is generally seen as better than Felicia 1, as Jakob can easily heartseal into a combat monster, and even without it he is useable, meanwhile Felicia needs to find some way to use her magic to be relevant in combat beyond her debuffs. Once you get her into a magic class, or superglue the Flame Shuriken you get in chapter 12 into her hands she start dishing out some solid magic damage, but she is never going to be as durable as Jakob is, and if you aren't careful she can really fall behind the xp curve while you are getting her into a combat capable state.

Thanks for the extra information in regards to Felicia. I’ll definitely slap the Flame Shuriken on her when I get it, as I didn’t have much use for it last time. 

 

16 hours ago, beachwalks said:

Jakob isn't necessary early on because silas can replicate paladin jakob if vow of friendship is activated and corrin uses the dragonstone + demoiselle+ felicia's personal to tank physical attacks even at half hp or below, not to mention you are in complete control of the Hp manipulation aspect. But since you said that you've had some trouble getting the most out of that ability Jakob is definitely the safer route.

Thanks for the tip. I need to really try and incorporate the positioning based skills more into my gameplay, as I do use them on occasion, but I feel like I forget about them rather often. As for Silas, I’ve actually been using him a hell of a lot more without Jakob being around, and it’s a nice change of pace (even though it’s definitely a bit tougher).

[Arevir Wehttam]

16 hours ago, starburst said:

Please, do note that while I am addressing you now, these commentaries are not about you in particular. It is nothing personal. 😉

 

No worries, I don’t take anything personal. Everything I’ve come across since I started posting here has been nothing but good information, and I’m glad to be able to take it all in and learn something new 🙂