What classes did you put Byleth in and how did they do?

[LJ_Reflet]

So far I've done 4 playthroughs, Verdant Wind twice (once Normal, second Hard), then Crimson Flower, and I just finished Azure Moon (the credits are literally rolling as I type LOL). I wanted to see how Byleth would do in different classes, so I put him/her in a different class for each route. Here's which classes I chose for each path and how I felt about them:

• First time on Verdant Wind -- Thief>Assassin>Enlightened One (mByleth)
  • I chose the thief path for my very first playthrough because it was my first time playing and thought I should just keep Byleth with his natural affinity to swords. Plus, I just usually have a preference for bows, and Assassins are partially a bow class. I really enjoyed using him as a Thief/Assassin, as he was virtually untouchable and would crit almost every other hit. With the lack of a strength boost in this class path, his damage output did start to fall juuuust a little bit, but it wasn't too bad. Once I unlocked Enlightened One, I just kept him in the class. This is where I also started to train his Faith magic (just because), which I didn't really use much. I was honestly suuuper disappointed in this class mainly because of the lack of speed. I noticed that he was dodging a lot less often than when he was an Assassin. The extra strength growth was okay, but I wasn't dealing crazy amounts of damage or anything. Overall, I enjoyed him more as an Assassin than as Enlightened One mainly because of the speed growth. Enlightened One isn't a bad class per se, but it's not great and it kinda felt like a trap for Byleth.
• Second time on Verdant Wind -- Thief>Assassin>Bow Knight (mByleth, with a focus on Bows)
  • I enjoyed the Golden Deer so much I wanted to play their route a second time in a row, but I wanted to stay with the bow theme of the house. So, I put Byleth through the same Thief/Assassin path but prioritized using bows before reaching Bow Knight. I also want to mention that for most auxiliary battles, I switched him back to Assassin for the growths, and reclassed him back to Bow Knight for story missions. Don't ask me why I didn't decide to go on the Archer/Sniper path because Idk why I didn't either LOL. I did miss out on the Hit +20 from archer, which did hurt me just a tad bit when he ended up as a Bow Knight, but nothing unsalvageable. I still maintained a pretty decent hit rate even from afar. Overall, this was definitely my top favorite class. It was so much fun sniping enemies from afar and that extra speed and dex from Assassin guaranteed I would crit 5 spaces away. The biggest downside to Bow Knight-Byleth was the fact that he didn't have any combat arts in Bows other than Curved Shot. I mainly relied on basic attacks to kill enemies, but I normally dealt enough damage and had enough speed to double to ORKO most/all enemies. Other than that, Bow Knight-Byleth was a lot of fun to play.
• Crimson Flower -- Mercenary>Pegasus Knight>Falcon Knight (fByleth, with a focus on lances)
  • I honestly really, REALLY like the Pegasus Knight class, but it's a shame that it's genderlocked. I played female-Byleth on CF just so I could get a feel of the class (and I felt fByleth suited this route well HAHA). It sucks that Pegasus Knight has a really awkward transition to Falcon Knight, so instead of going straight into Pegasus Knight at level 10, I treated it as if were an advanced class and waited until level 20 to certify for Pegasus Knight. I also took this weird path because I know that Pegasus Knights do lack an extra strength growth, so I felt being a Mercenary would help with that. Achieving Vantage was also a nice bonus. Anyways, my thoughts on this class: I loved it, but it took a while for Byleth to really excel. She was a late game bloomer in this path. She wasn't as dodgy as Thief/Assassin-Byleth early game, but it ended up kicking in once I reclassed to Falcon Knight. I'm ngl tho, I had Petra as a Falcon Knight and I think she overshadowed Byleth. Also, training flying for Byleth was really hard because you only have Manuela and Seteth in part 1, and they're not available every chapter. Regardless, this is a great class and probably Byleth's best class option because of the high speed and great mobility, as well as the fact that this class is a secondary swords class making it easier for Byleth than Wyvern Lord. I probably should have skipped Mercenary and went straight for Pegasus Knight, but I think it was a reasonable choice LOOOL. Oh, and having to give up Jeralt's Mercenaries was kinda sad.
• Azure Moon -- Mage>Warlock>Dark Knight (mByleth)
  • I had pretty low expectations for this route mainly because of Byleth's base 35% growth in magic and average spell list. Honestly, it kind of met my low expectations. In the early game, he did fine and was still able to ORKO enemies because his speed was decent enough to double. However, as the game progressed, he started to fall behind with his tome damage. In the late game, I honestly really relied on Levin Sword+ to deal damage and attack from 3 spaces away. If only Dark Knight had Black Magic x2, then I would have had no problem as Ragnarok was pretty much his strongest spell, but locked to 3 uses. I also had trouble doubling so he couldn't really kill enemies unless he crit, but fortunately that happened often on the best times. Also, going down the magic path for Byleth means his damage with SotC won't be as great, but at least it saves on Umbral Steel? LOL. Overall, magic Byleth isn't bad, and he can deal pretty decent amounts of damage, but you won't really be killing much late game unless you get lucky. Levin Sword+ will be your best friend tho. However, I do wanna say being a mage with the Blue Lions was nice because their only natural mage is Annette (minus Mercedes, who's mainly a support mage), so having the extra magic really came in handy for those enemy Fortress Knights.
• I haven't done Silver Snow yet, but I feel like Holy Knight might suit the story? But I know it's a bad class and I already struggled with magic Byleth LOL. I kind of want to try War Master Byleth to throw hands tbh. Or Wyvern Lord since I know it's a good class overall?

Sorry if this is a long and clunky post, I just had a lot of thoughts LOL. Which classes did you use for Byleth? And how did you like them? I wanna see if any of you guys did Fortress Knight Byleth or something out of the ordinary haha.

Edited October 15, 2020 by kia_kula

[#1 Claude Trash]

I always just made them Enlightened One, because to me Faculty Training seemed like a waste of Activity Points compared to motivating my students. After all, there was a perfectly good class right there that allowed Byleth to harness the powers of God. First run I went exclusively physical, but latest two I did some faculty training in magic as another option. Works pretty good. But I'm gonna do my first Maddening run soon, and I'm gonna make Byleth a Falcon Knight.

Edited October 15, 2020 by #1 Claude Trash
Extra details

[whase]

Actually, I'm currently working on armor knight Byleth. I'm doing a run where everyone can only learn stuff they're bad at (Let's go priest Edelgard and archer Annette). Byleth has nothing they're bad at so I decided to go armor knight - fortress knight - great knight.

I've done way too many playthroughs already, almost each time with different classes.

War master Byleth was my strongest.
Wyvern lord Byleth was the most useful.
Mortal Savant Byleth I think was the worst.

Only classes left are Fortress Knight (current pt), Seraph Knight (coming up next), Dark Bishop and Gremory.

[Punished Dayni]

Alright, sure.

There's a ton of infantry usage, but I'm trash like that.

Spoiler

For my VW playthrough, I went Myrm -> Merc -> Thief -> EO -> Mortal Savant. Despite reaching MS and levelling in it he did hit 37 Spd and (Atk) and while I did use Levin Sword a lot he did use magic throughout the war arc.

For CF, For some reason I chose to use Swordmaster, dropping Thief for mastery (Pfft), while ending up with similar results but with lower levels.

In AM, I ended up with a similar start to CF but ended up getting War Master. I know I had less stats Vs. VW because I used two all stat buffs that month.

As for SS, I added Mage mastery, switched out Swordmaster for Hero, mastered War Master, and ended on EO again. This Byleth was very powerful, though about as fast as in AM.

With the Maddening run, that's the point where I focused on flying. I started with using Fighter instead of Myrm, mastering Brigand, Pegasus Knight and Merc (I want to master at least Archer still, but that's unlikely with everything else), then mastering Warrior and using Wyvern Rider, before mastering FK and (Hopefully) WL in the master classes. Flying Byleth has been an experience, next time I might try and make Cav Byleth happen (GK kinda ruined me after Hilda suffered so badly from it), mage Byleth kinda is too limited for me to make my main focus and Armour Byleth sounds like mistake squared.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Dayni

[SumG]

I've tried Enlightened One, Assassin, and Falcon Knight.  I'm convinced Enlightened One is a trap class on Hard or higher difficulty.  Byleth ends up too slow to be useful due to an average innate speed growth and no class bonuses.  Assassin was a bit better, but is a bit limited given it's a foot-locked class.

Far and away my favorite class to use for Byleth was Falcon Knight.  Byleth gets great use out of Darting Blow, and Falcon Knight gives the kind of buffs to speed that can turn Byleth into a powerhouse, even on Maddening.  Given that there is no sword-based flying class, I'll typically leave Byleth as a sword-using Falcon Knight (which allows for having a lance-Falcon Knight and an axe-Wyvern Lord to be able to dodgetank any enemy type).

[Anathaco]

I’ve used Byleth as an Enlightened one multiple times because I’m always too lazy to properly use him. But I have used him as a Holy Knight on Hard, which was a lot of fun actually, and as a War Master on Maddening, which probably turned out the best.

[Lief]

I enjoyed War Master and Assassin Byleth the most, though I only went FK Byleth once. Gauntlets are broken in this game, though maybe I should've stuck with Grappler cuz of the three hit combat art, I should know from how that class singlehandedly kept Raphael relevant on Maddening NG. As for Assassin, I love the stealth ability, and how it helps Byleth stay safe in the frontlines. He can even help to form a defensive line by parking him next to a tough or dodgy unit, he blocks enemies from passing but they won't focus on him at all.

 

A good tip I found on Maddening is to have all physical fighters master Brigand for Deathblow, stacking it with the innate faire skill on advanced classes. Without at least DB or a faire you do pitiful damage. Gauntlets with both get an extra 10 damage for each hit, and since gauntlets always strike twice on attack.....you do a lot of damage...and that's before you quad monsters. Assassin for Swordfaire also helps with Byleth's sword combat arts, especially Windsweep, which allows him to get free damage on tough bosses.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I've done a bunch of different builds. All on Maddening except the first. I almost always keep sword prowess on her just so Sword of the Creator will be an option.

Thief -> Enlightened One. This was from my first run. It's very vanilla and not great, she was badly outclassed by my fliers. Although a bit of magic is nice, it's not really enough.

Pegasus Knight -> Enlightened One -> Falcon Knight. Getting Darting Blow makes everything better. Still camped in Enlightened One since it was free during Advanced tier, and pegasus knight damage becomes pretty poor during that. Super-fast falconknight at the end is great, of course.

Brigand or Pegasus Knight -> War Cleric. I've done this one twice. Punch everything to death, dodgetank with Avo+20. I'm not the biggest fan of brawling but this was certainly one of my favourite builds for it because of the evade and quadding potential making it more than a one-trick pony. MByleth could go War Master for a stat boost, which would improve the non-Darting Blow version... maybe? An extra healer is never bad.

Brigand/Pegasus Knight -> Wyvern Lord. I've done this one twice as well, notably including on SS because I knew that's where I'd need the most help. It's the best build in the game IMO and Byleth does it... quite well. Maybe not quite the best, but not too far from it.

And I'm obviously forgetting a couple playthroughs here, but I feel like I've always made her one of these four classes ultimately.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Myrmidon/Priest -> Thief -> Assassin/Enlightened One: First playthrough, so I had no idea what I was doing, and just followed the proficiencies. Still, it was Normal mode, so this worked fine. Also I really like the EO's mastery skill.

Soldier -> Pegasus Knight -> Falcoknight: I forget if I did any Advanced class here. Fliers are busted in this game, so Byleth did well here. Darting Blow and Reposition were great. The lance and flight ranks took some work, though.

Fighter -> Brigand -> Warrior -> War Master: Tried going all-in on Axes, with Gauntlets on the side. It probably would've worked better to train in Gauntlets from Brigand, then go Grappler. I got Wrath, but had little use for it.

Monk -> Mage/Priest -> Bishop -> Gremory: Wanted a Byleth that's all-in on magic. Even in magical classes, their Strength roughly kept pace with Magic. Sacred Galewind Shoes kept them from irrelevance, but it was hardly worth it, with a poor spell list.

For the near future, I think I'll try Bow Knight Byleth. I've never trained them in Riding, while they've only used bows on the side. I don't expect it to be any good, but I want to try them in every build at one point or another.

[GarEEE]

I've done 3 Maddening Playthroughs so far, which I'll include my Byleth builds in here. I never went for Brigand for paths that don't naturally make use of axes or stuff like that, as I don't have fun metagaming in 3H.

 

•  Crimson Flower - No NG+. Enlightened One (Myrmidon->Thief->Swordmaster)
  • Byleth did alright and was my second best unit after Wyvern Rider Petra. She did good damage with her Brawling weapons and could take one enemy at a time. Thanks to her Heal spell she could also heal allies, when she wasn't needed for battle in a turn or not able to participate in it due to not reaching. She did a good job as kind of a hybrid between a melee brawler and a mediocre assist unit between fights. 7/10
• Verdant Wind - NG+. Falcon Knight (Soldier->Pegasus Knight->Wyvern Rider)
  • Byleth as Falcon Knight was really good. She could dodge tank decently without much investment and could ORKO many opponents. Not to mention that she had awesome mobility thanks to being a flying unit, which also allows other units to make use of her +20% exp personal a lot more often. Not perfect in my playthrough though as she didn't have as much strength as I'd have like her to. 9/10
• Azure Moon - NG+. War Master (Fighter->Brawler->Grappler)
  • If I ever want to obliterate an enemy, War Master Byleth had it covered. He literally ORKOs everything! No matter, if the enemy is a mage, Fortress Knight, dodgy thief, monster with its guard still in place or a boss monster w/o guard on its last massive healthbar, War Master Byleth can ORKO it. He has really good strength to make great use of gauntlets, has great accuracy, great crit rate ~35%- even without equipping crit-weapons-, and also has good speed to not get doubled often and quadruple enemy monsters and slower enemies. He doesn't have good defence in my run, but thanks to Quick Reposte he can at least take 1, sometimes 2 enemies in enemy phase. His main draw back is his mediocre mobility due to being foot-locked, which you can probably partially salvage by reclassing him to a Grappler after mastering War Master. Also note, that I didn't put him in Brigand class so he would do even better, when playing more optimally. 9/10