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Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 15: Annette


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Rules

- Ratings are assumed to be on Hard or Maddening Mode. Also, they should be based on when the unit is first available. (When rating a unit, please specify whether you are rating assuming Hard or Maddening.)

Votes need some explanation regarding their gameplay performance to be counted (unless they fall into the general parameters of the average rating, but reasoning is still strongly encouraged on those even if you just wanna quote people) — incredibly low scores or high scores without proper justification will not be counted. Don't put in some random text thinking it'd count as justification. Put in at least a little thought and give REAL reasoning.

- Numbers for votes, please - not something like "Marcus/10", etc. Proper Justification will be determined by me and whoever decides to help.

+/- ≤1 point extra regarding personality/appearance is okay, but no more.

- Votes out of 10, or something proportional to it. Makes it easy to calculate, please and thank you~!

-The rating you give to a unit assumes a good build for said unit-nothing among the lines of, "Dedue is 2/10 because he's a bad mage."

-The ranking assumes no grinding of any form, no DLC and minor, (one or two stat boosters per month) use of the Greenhouse.

- Make votes easily visible, please! "[Explanation text]: So, overall, I think X unit is a 7.5/10, with a +1 bias included for being hawt/cute/funny/etc.."

- Every ranking phase ends approximately at 20:00 PST. Do the math for your timezone, please!

-We will ask you to not use the "Not X unit" reason. Because it will be used a lot. I.E, do not say "Linhardt bad because not Lysithea."

-The Black Eagles may be assessed based on their performances in either Silver Snow or Crimson Flower, other than when not applicable.

 

Scores:

Dimtri: 9.14

Edelgard: 9.00

Felix: 8.625

Petra: 8.34

Ferdinand: 7.78

Sylvain: 7.66

Bernadetta: 7.125

Linhardt: 7.11

Mercedes: 6.756

Dorothea: 6.375

Dedue: 5.8571

Hubert: 5.525

Caspar: 4.32

Ashe: 3.69 (nice)

 

Underscore: Black Eagles

Bold: Blue Lions

Itallics: Golden deer

Purple: Faculty

Boldunderscoreditallics: DLC


Average score for Black Eagles: 6.94

Average score for Blue lions: 6.95

 

 

Day 15: Annette

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Annette is a mage with mediocre stats, a bad reason list, and a bad faith list. She's... not as bad as that description makes her sound, at least!

The not-so-good: First, the stats. 23+25% HP, 5+20% def, 4+30% res makes for some bad durability (she even loses to two physical Lions plus Byleth in res, and not by especially small margins). 7+35% speed is definitely on the low end for the student mages, which erodes whatever advantage she might gain from wind spells' lower weights (a recurring theme for wind mages in this game). 6+35% charm is mildly below average. We just rated Mercedes, so it's worth emphasizing that Annette loses to her fellow Lion mage in every relevant stat, aside from a mere +1 base magic.

Her reason list includes mostly wind spells, as mentioned, which top out at 11 might. So, even though her magic stat is solid on paper, she can expect to be towards the bottom of the spell damage curve among dedicated magic units... even Lorenz spends a good chunk of the game ahead of her. Don't expect anything useful like Thoron, either. Her faith list is somehow even more underwhelming... no Physic or Fortify, no Warp or Rescue or Silence, nothing besides the same Heal/Nosferatu/Recover that even the most magically inept units get, plus the trashy Abraxas if you want to gain another 1020 faith exp to get to A. Oh, and she's only neutral in Faith, so she'll have to wait longer than most to even get Recover (this also largely cancels out the benefits of her Authority boon).

The good: So why on earth would you use such an obviously outclassed mage? Well, she brings two unique advantages, one relevant early and one relevant late. First is her access to Rally Strength+Speed. The former is free from her personal, the latter is picked up at Authority C+. Spending only one ability slot to get such a good rally is certainly nice. Rallies definitely got a bit of a nerf compared to Awakening/Fates; they're now singletarget and range 1, and Three Houses is more of a player phase game where rallies have less chance to be decisive (a rally might let another unit kill a target, but any other mage can do the same by throwing a spell to chip... and that action actually gets you exp, weapon/authority levels, and class exp, to boot!). Still, the option is nice.

The other relevant advantage is from her relic, the Crusher. Midgame, Annette's magical combat art game doesn't really stand out... sure, Lightning Axe hits harder than Hexblade/Soulblade/Frozen Lance on paper, but in practice it's held back by a lack of good class to utilize it: either you go wyvern and miss out on a +mag battalion (allowing the other arts mentioned to surpass it) or you go Warlock/Warrior and miss out on mobility and either Stealth or Canto. However, Crusher changes this. Dust results in an attack which has 38 might, the most powerful single-hit magic attack in the game. That gives Annette the best potential magical damage from the moment she completes her paralogue until the game ends. It's up to the player to decide whether to use this from the back of a wyvern, with no skillset (besides Rally), or whether to stick to a magical class (Dark Knight is the best option for her, though takes some skill investment) and trade some damage and mobility for utility. But either way, Annette can bring something unique to the table.

Do I think Annette's unique pros make up for what other mages offer? No; I want my mages to have good threat range and good skillset options like Physic, Fortify, Warp/Rescue, or Meteor. Annette doesn't deliver either. And certainly, outside Lions runs, she's basically garbage, as she lacks both Crusher and earlygame rally use. But on her own team, she at least offers enough to be interesting, and I think that lets her barely edge out Ashe for me, even if I consider both prime candidates for replacement. 4/10.

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7/10. Good utility from rallies, and is a decent mage in her own right. Too bad the piece of garbage known as the Crusher is about as useful as I would expect a magic axe to be (AKA, not at all), especially since she's weak in bows and thus will have a hard time getting Hit +20 to shore that up.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Her spell list is the worst in the game among characters who want to be in magic classes. It's worse than a lot of characters who generally shouldn't be going anywhere near magic classes like Bernadetta and Shamir. It's as if someone decided to try to make a hybrid of Linhardt and Hubert, but accidentally took Linhardt's reason list and Hubert's faith list rather than the other way around (the good version of this had to wait until DLC). For stats, she has mag and dex that are both good but not amazing, and pretty much everything else lies somewhere between average and bad.

Having the combination of rally strength and rally speed  is definitely nice, but is also easy to overstate. It's definitely pretty common for that rally to make the difference between killing a unit and not. However, it does use to units to do so, and a lot of the time it's equally as effective to have one unit chip with a bow or magic, and then the second unit get the kill. Chipping first also gives experience to both units, whereas rallying gets no experience, meaning that a dedicated rallybot will quickly be left behind. There are times when rallying is better than any other option, but I find them fairly rare. Even if you aren't planning on rallying at all, having a boon in authority is always a plus, though.

I admit that I've never used Crusher, but I'm also hard-pressed to see why I'd want to. Especially since we're assuming strictly no grinding of any form, I'm going to assume thav umbral steel is fairly plentiful but not infinite. Even if it is possible to make Dust into a delete button, it has the same resource cost per use as Atrocity, or as a Swift Strikes or Frozen Lance with the Lance of Ruin. These seem comparably hard hitting, morre accurate, and requiring a lot less build set-up, which makes Dust not seem worth it. And if you're using Crusher without Dust, it's like a Bolt Axe+ except you give up on 1-3 range for only 4 extra might? That doesn't sound remotely worth it. Maybe I'd change my mind if I actually tried it, but for now, Crusher seems to be a "strictly for fun" sort of option.

Finally, I think it's worth mentioning her +might linked attacks with Mercedes and Gilbert. These are nice to have but not as impactful as they could be. Mercedes is generally going to be in the backlines and Gilbert doesn't show up until part 2, which makes both of them fairly weak for this purpose. Still better to have them than not, but not great.

Overall, I find Annette to be probably the weakest mage in the game, and don't find her other niches impressive enough to compensate for this, so I give her 4/10.

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Now we have our cheerful graduate from the school of sorcery Annette. What can I say? She just likes to sing about mountains of sweets, bake these cakes that are full of crumbs and yums to fill our tummy tummy tums! Okay I'm done. We'll see what our little cute black mage that likes to sing and dance brings to the battlefield. This is assuming hard and DLC will have no impact on my score. Though I will quickly mention that if we allow DLC, then Valkyire and Dark Flier are solid choices for her. But for the sake of keeping in line with these rules going forward, we'll going to disregard them. None of my scores have been influenced by DLC but I do apologize for not specifying if DLC has played a part beforehand.

Anyways, Annette is your typical black mage for the Blue Lions. Her magic and dex stat start with 11 and 7 respectively and both of them have a solid 50% growth. Her speed isn't that great however. She starts with a speed stat of 7 but with a 35% growth. However her reason spell list are the lightest tomes in the game in terms of weight. So that's there to compensate for her rather bad speed growth. Her strength stat starts off at 6 with a 30% growth which is slightly higher than Mercedes. Her res is okay but her HP and defense are poor. Annette possess a Minor Crest of Dominic which will occasionally preserve some uses of attack magic, meaning it will activate for both Faith and Reason spells. This crest will likely be most useful early game, when spells are a more limited resource, however, you will likely find as you progress through the game that you rarely run out of spells, if at all, as certain class skills double a unit's uses of their magic, rendering this crest's effect as largely irrelevant by the end of the game. 

She has a boon in axes (oddly enough but we'll get into why it's good for her), Reason and Authority. Her banes are bows and heavy armor. Though you can still easily get her armor rank at D if you have her do a group task with Dedue from the start up until level 10. Get her axe rank at C then you would have a 100% success rate to make her an armored knight, significantly improving her defense. Her personal ability Perseverance grants her ally Rally Strength. This is a very potent ability to have from the start and she can take that further by becoming a rally bot. She gets Rally Resistance at Authority rank D, Rally Speed at Authority Rank C+, and finally Rally Movement at Authority Rank S. The boon in authority also means that she will have access to better battalions really easily. She gets battalion Renewal which is imo just a worse version of Renewal. And at Rank A she gets Battalion Wrath. It can be nice if you're combining that with Alert Stance+.

Her spell list consist of Wind, Cutting Cale, Sagittae, and Excalibur. Excalibur is the lightest of heavy tomes for her to wield. Plus it deals extra damage to fliers. Her faith spell list excluding Heal and Nosferatu, has Recover at faith rank C then Abraxas at rank A. Her spells however lack range so she needs to be close to the front lines for her to deal damage or help with healing. This also puts her at risk as she is not the fastest or bulkiest mage around so don't be surprised if he shes one rounded. Her class path generally is Monk for Magic +2 and Draw Back. Then Mage for Fiendish Blow. If you're looking to improve her attack speed, there is Pegasus Knight for Darting Blow. It helps with the fact that her tomes are really light. She is neutral with Lances and Flying. Also a neutrality in Riding. That will come into play in a bit. Annette could go Warlock which is her canon class. Double uses of black magic and Black Tomefaire allows her to deal extra damage with her spells and having 8 shots with Excalibur is nice as well. Bowbreaker is a nice filler ability for protection against snipers. There is also Gremory if you want 2x of all magic so she can function effectively as a healer as well as a offensive caster. 5 move is always nice for a mage. She could also go for Dark Knight if you want to make better use of the Rally Bot idea because she will have 7 move and Canto. If you want to improve her spell range, there is always Thyrsus Staff and maybe even movement +1 and black magic range +1.

Annette has only one combat art Axes which is Lightning Axe. She learns it at rank C+ and considering how high her magic stat is, this can effectively one shot an enemy with lower res and slightly low HP. This allows her to branch off to a strength based class despite not being quite cut out for it stat wise. Her other builds while not so straight forward, she could even go Wyvern Lord. This makes her a pseudo malig knight from Fates essentially. With her as a Wyvern Lord, she would have 8 move, axefaire, avoid +10, flight and she can make arguably better use of her rallies and Lightning Axe. Not to mention that she can use a forged Bolt Axe and her Hero's Relic Crusher. Crusher deals massive damage to dragons but it's heavy weight slows her down which can lead her to be doubled and probably killed if left unchecked. This is an Blue Lions exclusive Hero's Relic, so no go on the other routes. Though axes traditionally have a low hit rate so you might have a hard time trying to land hits. You could give her an accuracy ring to somewhat help with that, but you might still be unlucky at times. So you would probably have to muscle through her bane in bows to get a D+ rank and then have her learn Hit +20 of you were to go down the Wyvern route. Lancebreaker is nice for her to deal with Paladins and Falcon Knights. 

So overall, she is a 6/10 unit for me. She is useful throughout the game and her rallies can help you out in some situations. Her spell list though are not exactly great but serviceable. Honestly, she might not be a bad choice to bring to the team if you're only looking for a rally bot. In the mean time, she can continue to sing this time about swamp beasties. And then the flowers will start singing, just as Felix said.

 

Edited by Barren
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I do quite like Annette. Clumsy, yes, but she’s quite endearing. Unfortunately, endearment doesn’t help when it comes to stats.

     Skill Levels:      D+ Reason with a Boon is great. E+ Authority with a Boon helps immensely when setting up for her typical Rally spam. Booned E+ Axes leads into Annette’s nuking abilities. Bane in Bows and Armor are mostly irrelevant, but she could used Hit +20 from Archer for her Magic Axe Nuking.

     Abilities:     Ready for the longest Ability list? Her personal is basically Rally Strength. Annette also gets Rallies Resistance at D, Speed at C+, and Movement at S. That amounts to +4 Strength, Speed, Resistance, and +1 Move. Oi. She also gets Battalion Renewal (C) and Wrath (A), and while not recommended, but you could set up a Vantage Crit build.

     Arts:     Only Lightning Axe at C+ Axes. To be fair, that’s all she needs. Magic Nukes inbound.

     Magic:     Despite Annette being a power mage, she gets the Wind line of spells (Wind at D, Cutting Gale at C, Excalibur at A) and Sagittae at B. Not all that great, she would’ve liked Ragnarok or Agnea’s Arrow, but alas. For Faith she gets Heal (D), Nosferatu (D+), Recover (C), and Abraxas (A).

     Stats:      11+50% Magic and 7+50% Skill are her strong points. Like Ashe, the rest of her stats are terrible. Unlike Ashe, this doesn’t hurt her much. 23+25% Hp, 5+20% Defense, and 4+35% Resistance is nothing new. Mages are swishy. 5+30% Strength and 7+35% Speed means she will only ever double Armors and the like. 6+35% Luck isn’t great on a Mage, but alas. 6+35% Charm is the same deal as with Mercedes, she shouldn’t ever face Gambits.

     Classes:     Beginner- Monk

Intermediate- Mage

Advanced- Warlock. Or for Memes, Warrior (AXefAiRE + CRushER + boLT axE + lIghTNing aXe = PWNage)

Master- Same problem as Mercedes, None of the Master Classes work well. Warlock is better than Gremory for Annette, seeing as the former has Black Tomefaire.

          The Verdict

Strong Magic Combat. Nuking with Magic Axes. Rallies. That’s all that Annette can do, really. 4 for her stats, -1 for her non-synergistic Spell List, +1 for the Lightning Axe Nuke Damage, and +1 for the Rally Potential, for a total of 5/10. I don't count Crusher either way. It's a waste of a Relic, but that has nothing to do with Annette.

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Wow some of these Annette numbers are low... I rate her a 7/10. Her spell list isn’t the best and she’s pretty slow BUT she can rally strength, speed, and res all at once. She has good magic and dexterity, and pretty good charm, which goes along nicely with her boom in authority. If you get her C support with Gilbert post time skip you unlock the relic Crusher, which, in my experience, she can OHKO quite a few enemies with, and maybe use lightning axe if that falls just short. But people are calling it useless... huh. However her stats are on the weak side, so despite OHKO potential only from the time skip and on, she will remain at a 7.

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 I'll stick my head out and simp for Annette 8/10. 

Admittedly I've only used her in-house and I do think she's a character who's more relevant in house, and on Maddening. Rallies aren't that necessary on Hard. There's no special support with Gilbert or Crusher out of house. She does get the special support with Mercedes too, so it is an idea if you want an adjunct, to have Mercedes out of house. I don't think it's necessary to go for Wyvern, if anything I think she's better grounded at as Dark Knight, for battalions like Macuil (+7mag attack +30 hit).  

Early game she gets default Rally Attack, which is good by itself, and Rally Res at Authority D and Rally Speed at Authority C+. That's fantastic, as thanks to her Authority boon, you'll get both Rally Attack+Speed quick, and get a lot use out of it. Her spell list might not seem the best, but they're very accurate spells. For early game I value their ability to hit.

The Authority boon works well with her. It gives earlier access to good A rank magic battalions. In-house there's also the option of using Blue Lion Dancers straight out from Part 2, for double dancing shenanigans. (One use gambit that lets you dance 4 characters including your dancer). I don't think it's necessary to go for Rally Move though. With stuff like Stride, and how late you get it, it's not as relevant imho. 

Late part one/Part two is also a good time to get her going on Riding/Axes. She transitions very well from a support unit to a nuke. It keeps her relevant and flexible throughout the game.

She's arguably one of the better nukes in the game thanks to Lightning Axe. Axes have very good mt. There's Crusher on her own route. The forged 21mt Devil Axe+, was my go to weapon for her. It is very nice, and very pink. It only requires 2 Agarithium to repair. On non-CF runs that is totally fine to spam. She can also use Bolt Axe for a 3 ranged option which out classes her spells late game. Gilbert is a great out of box def adjunct for her, they have the special support bonus (+3 mt, hit/avo +10).  

All in all, I had a good time using her in house, and find her pretty underrated. 

 

 

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Annette isn't bad, it's just that you probably will have better options at almost any point of the game, particularly on Maddening.

Her stat growths are unremarkable, but totally fine (this is the case for just about every dedicated mage in the game).  And she gets a large suite of Rally abilities very early in the game, which is nice on a BL run where you have Annette in the first few chapters.  Unfortunately, that's kinda where the utility of Annette ends.  Her crest is nice enough, but running out of spells isn't really an issue after the first couple of chapters and she doesn't have the kind of high impact spells that really takes advantage of the crest.

Annette has the worst spell list in the game for any dedicated magic user.  She does not have a 3-range spell.  She does not have any siege magic. She doesn't have any magic that grants debuffs.  She doesn't even get a good high damage spell like Agnea's Arrow or Hades.  She doesn't get any good spells to attack enemy types (Dark Spikes, Seraphim, or Luna). Her Faith list lacks Physic and does not have any utility spells (Rescue, Warp, Silence, etc.).  The only spell that is not a generic 1-2 range attack spell is Excalibur, and that spell hits a weakness that can also be hit by any unit holding a bow.

The magic axe Wyvern Lord build is cute, and fringe usable on Maddening.  With a Bolt Axe+, she can get up to 3 range attacks and the Bolt Axe even has good Mt to boot.  But it is a very slow build (due to the Bolt Axe's weight) and expensive to repair.  Damage output is similar enough to mages that you might use, but will not have any access at all to healing magic, unlike traditional mages.  If we're considering this in the context of no DLC, it does get a bit of a boost as the magic attack build with the best mobility (though I would still rather use a Dark Flier now that the DLC is out), and that isn't worth nothing.  Her Hero's Relic plays well with this build, but since you can only get it on the BL path (and can only get her paralogue on the BL path) it's a niche point.

Annette is marginally usable on BL, but not usable on any other route.  I'll give her a 4/10, buoyed by the fact she's at least useful on one route.

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6/10 (Maddening)

Honestly most people have said the main things about her. Her stats are functional, her spell list less so. Anyway a few things that I will add:

Lightning Axe’s damage is so much nicer than her spells I honestly wonder why I ever bothered with reason beyond mastering mage. For context, a training axe, using lightning axe with Annette’s base 4 res, literally matches her strongest spell, Excalibur, at 11 might. And it will only get stronger once she gets better axe rank and better res. I’ve definitely come around to the magic combat arts recently, and Annette with Lightning Axe is one of the better users of them.

In terms of my next point I should be honest and say I never got Crusher because the one BL run I did I didn’t realise I had to raise Annette’s support with Gilbert. I have used the bolt axe, which has even less hit than Crusher, and I had very few problems with it. Annette’s Dex and luck are quite good/decent (7 + 50% and 6 + 35%, respectively) resulting in decent hit even with Crusher’s low hit- Axe Prowess giving 20 hit at max level helps too (and she should be at or almost at A+ by the time she gets Crusher). Finally, if you go the flying route with her, she can use a decent hit boosting battalion (since the only magic flying battalion is DLC) like Cichol Wyvern Corps, or if she stays in an infantry class then she can use a battalion that boosts both magic and hit, like her own personal battalion which comes free with Crusher. Add linked attacks and even Crusher will have good hit rates against most enemies.

But yeah that’s my take on Annette. I think she deserves credit for her power with Lightning Axe and Crusher, but ultimately the fact that she’s a mage who fails at being a proper mage definitely hurts her score. And I am totally making her a Great Knight for my next playthrough to fill my Great Knight quota. Plus I just like dumb ideas.

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  • 6.5 / 10 on Hard

The good:

  • Good Mag base and growth for a magic-oriented unit.
  • Proficiency in Reason & Authority: ideal to learn spells more quickly and certify Warlock or Gremory, as well as easier access to strong battalions.
  • Minor crest of Dominic: no penalty using Thyrsus, and very occasionally conserving a spell usage is a nice bonus.
  • Rally Strength from personal ability and Speed at Authority C+: very useful to boost her teammates’ combat performance.
  • An accurate, although unexceptional 2-range Reason list including Excalibur for effective flying damage (although overshadowed by relatively easy access to Bow).
  • Up to +3 Mt with Mercedes and Gilbert, useful on the field or as adjutant.

The mixed:

  • Can go magic Axe build thanks to proficiency in Axe, Lightning Axe combat art at C+ Axe and good Mag growth, but each build has its pro & con, and magic axes’ relatively low accuracy may also require some attention to improve their reliability (Accuracy ring, prioritising high Hit battalions, or even a detour to Archer without DLC, etc).
    • Wyvern has Axefaire and Flying Canto starting from Lv.20, but no access to spells, no available magic flying battalion assuming no DLC, limited Hit bonus from flying battalions, and Mercedes or Gilbert needs to fly if assigned as her adjutant.
    • Dark Knight can potentially do more damage than Wyvern thanks to Mag+2 class boost and access to grounded magic battalions, as well as more Hit bonus from battalions, access to guard adjutant and retain her spell usage, but mobility will be a bit more limited than Wyvern, and she’ll need to raise Reason, Riding and Lance in addition to Axe and Authority, and there’s no mounted magic class before Lv.30 in vanilla base game.

The not-so-good:

  • A lacklustre Faith spell list, no Physic or other noteworthy utility-oriented spells.
  • Low Spd growth among mages, thus lower potential to double some of the non-armour enemies on Hard.
Edited by DriftingWaterBottle
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8 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The other relevant advantage is from her relic, the Crusher. Midgame, Annette's magical combat art game doesn't really stand out... sure, Lightning Axe hits harder than Hexblade/Soulblade/Frozen Lance on paper, but in practice it's held back by a lack of good class to utilize it: either you go wyvern and miss out on a +mag battalion (allowing the other arts mentioned to surpass it) or you go Warlock/Warrior and miss out on mobility and either Stealth or Canto. However, Crusher changes this. Dust results in an attack which has 38 might, the most powerful single-hit magic attack in the game. That gives Annette the best potential magical damage from the moment she completes her paralogue until the game ends. It's up to the player to decide whether to use this from the back of a wyvern, with no skillset (besides Rally), or whether to stick to a magical class (Dark Knight is the best option for her, though takes some skill investment) and trade some damage and mobility for utility. But either way, Annette can bring something unique to the table.

I hard disagree with this. The Crusher, and by extension Dust, is TERRIBLE, with vomit-tier accuracy, which isn't helped by using the magic hit formula (how hard you can hit means jack shit if... you know how this sentence ends). Not to mention it's 1-range. Considering it's an axe, and thus heavy, it also means Annette is gonna make like a Prinny and go ka-BOOM if for whatever reason she doesn't kill whatever she's attacking. All of this adds up to.... UNACCEPTABLE!!!

Edited by Shadow Mir
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2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I hard disagree with this. The Crusher, and by extension Dust, is TERRIBLE, with vomit-tier accuracy, which isn't helped by using the magic hit formula ( how hard you can hit means jack shit if... you know how this sentence ends). Not to mention it's 1-range. Considering it's an axe, and thus heavy, it also means Annette is gonna make like a Prinny and go ka-BOOM if for whatever reason she doesn't kill whatever she's attacking. All of this adds up to.... UNACCEPTABLE!!!

The magic hit formula honestly helps Annette more than anything IMO. While her Dex is better than her luck, neither stat is bad at all. And enemies have to rely on luck to reach high magic avoid as well- most enemies in this game have lower magic avoid then regular avoid. Add the fact that magic hit also ignores terrain, and ironically Crusher could be your MOST reliable option in some (admittedly uncommon, but still existent) situations.

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@Shadow Mir If Annette's accuracy is a problem, put her in a ground class and giver her Edmund Troops. I could run numbers to show how she can reach 100 accuracy against even relatively evasive enemies (with other battalions, even!) but you'll ignore them like always.

As Anathco mentioned, the magic hit formula is an advantage, if anything, not a disadvantage... enemies almost always have more speed than luck, and ignoring terrain is a big deal in this game.

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1 minute ago, L3xandr3 said:

I think the point is that the Crusher doesn't use Magic Hit, but normal Hit.

That's incorrect, actually. Anything which deals magic damage, incuding both magic weapons (Levin Sword, Bolt Axe, Crusher, etc.) and magic combat arts (Hexblade, Frozen Lance, Dust, etc.) always uses the Magic Hit formula.

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I rather considered Annette as a support than as a combat unit. Rally attack and speed is essential in maddening. Technically I would compare her with a dancer for just supporting and not seeing any combat. Well, she's an average mage at best, but it'd be a waste to use her for this.

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2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I hard disagree with this. The Crusher, and by extension Dust, is TERRIBLE, with vomit-tier accuracy, which isn't helped by using the magic hit formula (how hard you can hit means jack shit if... you know how this sentence ends). Not to mention it's 1-range. Considering it's an axe, and thus heavy, it also means Annette is gonna make like a Prinny and go ka-BOOM if for whatever reason she doesn't kill whatever she's attacking. All of this adds up to.... UNACCEPTABLE!!!

I don't find her having as bad hit issues as you'd think she would. Axe Prowess 5 gives +20 hit, and a lot of magic battalions have great hit bonuses. Add linked attacks to the equation, if anything, she has surprisingly good accuracy with axes.  

 

 

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I was just talking over in the 2D tier list thread about Annette, and about various cheezy things you can do if you're willing to hard-focus skill training on her so she can squeeze out a Fortress Knight certification.  Anyway, Annette wins the "Most Improved" unit from the DLC, as Dark Flier / Nuvelle Flyer Corps are absolutely her jam, making use of her flying talent well.  You'll probably want to qualify as a Wyvern Rider as well for the base stats, but Dark Flier is a truly perfect fit for her.  She still has issues and greedily really wants Thrysus as well (she's not much of a healer so Caduceus is probably better on Mercie / Marianne / etc.) which is not guaranteed if Lorenz isn't on the team, but a DF build is solid when DLC is considered.  Not amazing, but it's good.

That said, this thread is over in no-DLC land, and Annette is probably the worst Lion under such rules - and EASILY the worst Lion outside of House.  The good for Annette is that magic is quite good in the earlygame, and Rallies are decent.  Early game Maddening enemies are incredibly tanky and terrifying, but frequently have garbage Res, so chipping them down with magic from afar is super-helpful.  (This goes double if they're sitting on +evasion terrain, which magic ignores.)  Wind also sports good accuracy and a decent number of uses.  So earlygame Annette carries her weight, doing solid work in C1-C5 or so.  Annette's magic build just doesn't scale at all, though; she ends up weirdly slow, Wind tomes are heavier than they should be (Hey IntSys, just let A-rank Reason/Faith spells be all-around better as a reward for training, no need to make Excalibur / Abraxas / Aura / etc. so heavy), her Faith list is garbage, her only utility is in eventually killing fliers which are dangerous to safely approach as a 4-Move Warlock (especially if not given favoritism like Thrysus!).  Honestly, she should probably just be a Wyvern Rider who Lightning Axes people in the face - at least she has mobility and Canto that way.  It also makes her more helpful on the dreaded Reunion at Dawn map where she's an "early" joinee (so benching her entirely is not really recommended), as she can fly over to help out Dimitri / Byleth more quickly and safely then.  She eventually becomes a flying mage without a +Mag battallion whose "spells" are Bolt Axe+ and Crusher / Dust, so discount Dark Flier that at least sports Axefaire.  (The other option, of course, is Dancer, but that barely counts - "stick her in Dancer because she sucks otherwise" isn't much of an endorsement).  Meanwhile, out-of-house, she misses out on her strong earlygame, and she starts training flying late, so RIP, guess you're doing a vanilla Warlock-with-an-axe build.  With no DLC, if we ignore supports for a moment, I'd say Hanneman is probably the better mage choice over Annette if you're considering changing it up around C6/C7 or so, which is just a sad thing to say.  (In reality, you'd probably still keep Annette in an AM playthrough just because supports are good, but it's close.)

Annette gets a 3/10.  (Maybe a 5/10 with DLC, but moot for this thread.)

Edited by SnowFire
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3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

@Shadow Mir If Annette's accuracy is a problem, put her in a ground class and giver her Edmund Troops. I could run numbers to show how she can reach 100 accuracy against even relatively evasive enemies (with other battalions, even!) but you'll ignore them like always.

As Anathco mentioned, the magic hit formula is an advantage, if anything, not a disadvantage... enemies almost always have more speed than luck, and ignoring terrain is a big deal in this game.

Which is dependent on having recruited Marianne. Also, you' re still in melee range with a mage. Other than against archers, that's about as smart as robbing a police station.

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My favorite overachiever Annette. She’s an okay mage, dents low res units. Her spells are also light so she can double stuff on Hard mode. Recover is a good heal if she’s doing nothing else. However her main strength is her support capability. Her personal skill is Rally Strength, the she gains Rally Resistance, Speed, and Movement. So excellent rally bot, and she has a strength in authority, so she gains access to high ranking battalions early on. 
For classes she can go with Warlock or Dark Knight for offense. For extra move for Rally support she can go into a flying class or cavalier to end up in Dark Knight. She benefits from Dark Flier and Valkyrie, but those are DLC. 
She has Lightning Axe and Dust from Crusher as combat arts. She can nuke stuff from the high might of axes and her good magic stat, but axes have pretty low hit. 
My Rating: 6.6/10. I gave her +0.1 out of favoritism bias.

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1 hour ago, ruruo said:

I don't find her having as bad hit issues as you'd think she would. Axe Prowess 5 gives +20 hit, and a lot of magic battalions have great hit bonuses. Add linked attacks to the equation, if anything, she has surprisingly good accuracy with axes.  

Axe Prowess 5 is gonna be irrelevant for most of the game unless you were having her focus heavily on axes for whatever reason, considering getting it needs an A+ in axes.

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The closest thing we get to Rallyman?

Annette sings her stats out

Spoiler

Her bases and growths certainly are a part of her issue. 11+50% Mag is one of the best in the game, which mostly affects her attack. 6+30% Str is pretty limiting and ends up limiting what she can do with non-magic damage. 7+35% Spd is kinda troubling, I seemed to feel like she was slower than I'd like, but I go into this later. 7+50% Dex is pretty solid but she's not too concerned about having very high Dex as it stands, though it does help with axes. 23+25% HP and 5+20% Def is very bad and 4+30% Res isn't much better, hell her base is bad too for actual tanking. 6+35% Cha and Luk is not much to write home about either.

Her Strengths and Weaknesses are about what you'd expect. Her strength in Axes is something that comes into its own if you get here Paralogue but otherwise can help her access some of the better classes, while Reason and Authority are really nice for what she already has. Weakness in Bows isn't nice though, while Armour is nothing she wants unless you want to try and raise her Def early on, which I don't think becomes an essential thing to do.

Her magic is alright enough; Reason has Wind, Cutting Gale, Sagittae and Excalibur, nothing special but she has flying effectiveness and slightly higher crit; Faith has H + N, Recover and Abraxas, which is disappointing unless you want Abraxas and it's big might, but being neutral will delay it especially if you use her for rallies.

Her personal, Perseverance, just gives her Rally Str. This on it's own would be only alright (in moments it'd be very good), but she has skills to augment using her personal. She has a minor Dominic crest, which gives her a 10% chance of conserving attack magic, similar to Mercedes it's nice if it happens.

She has one combat art, Lightning Axe. It at least works off her good magic and alright Res so does good damage. Thankfully authority skills are where she shines, getting Rally Res, Rally Spd, Rally Mov and Battalion Wrath. Battalion Renewal also exists I guess, but she has four rallies.

Her paralogue being locked to AM is so dumb imo. The Crusher would be really nice to have outside AM, partly because of it taking magic hit into calculation and partly because it works off her magic.

How did I find her?

Spoiler

I pretty much only used her on AM, focusing on magic, where she was more similar to Mercedes than I remembered. On paper. She had more magic (but 3 points is a bit low for a +10% growth), but despite having the same Spd I always found her struggling more in combat. Her much lower Res also came a cropper in the final map where I lost her because of the bloody siege weaponry.

I did recruit her in Maddening, essentially because it was there and I had the chance to.

Trying the route of offence with Annette felt like it didn't work out all that well. Annette has a nice niche in rallying Mov and Spd eventually, so Rallybot Annette WL is a worthwhile strat, though how she's getting the ranks to certify and rally and the levels to get there's another question. It's a shame her support magic isn't all that great and how rallying can be very nice but I rarely found it essential and she only gets of note Str + Spd at A rank. Because of all that I can't go above 6/10 imo and unlike some I don't find it likely I'll change my mind. 

Edited by Dayni
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1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

Axe Prowess 5 is gonna be irrelevant for most of the game unless you were having her focus heavily on axes for whatever reason, considering getting it needs an A+ in axes.

I gave Annette a pretty low rating, but this is ridiculous.  If you plan on using magical axes, of course you're going to focus heavily on axes for a very good reason (reason: you plan to attack with an axe), and nobody is implying refusing to set Axe Prowess until it hits rank 5; you set whatever rank you have.  Axe Prowess 3 is Hit +13 and very easily accessible and relevant for most of the game.  As is already noted, magical combat arts have a better hit formula and are good for sniping units in forest tiles and the like.  So Dust (/Lightning Axe) isn't actually "vomit-tier accuracy".

I know that you've had a round with various posters on character's alleged accuracy issues already, but let's just accept your criticisms as valid for a moment.  What if axes did have bad accuracy?  Even if they did, 3H (and Echoes) are games that are the most forgiving in the series about such issues, thanks to Divine Pulse (/ Mila's Turnwheel).  So this is still a massively overblown worry.  Let's say you have an 80% true hit chance attack (so ~67 or so displayed hit) that absolutely must connect for your plan to work; in other words, it's not opportunistic chipping that if it misses, whatever.  You have 10 charges of Divine Pulse post-Statue improvement & Sothis paralogue.  This means that on average, you can risk 50 (!) of these 67-displayed hit must-land attacks per map, which is completely more than you'd ever need.  So...  whatever, accuracy is just not a big deal in 3H unless it's really gone in the tank at sub-50 Hit, which it should only really happen for the likes of long-range Deadeye chipping.  This isn't like trying to use FE6 Gonzales at the end of a long, grindy map to land a must-hit axe attack or risk a reset, which sure, is definitely a drawback.  3H has DP, so any accuracy issues are hugely mitigated by this.

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15 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Axe Prowess 5 is gonna be irrelevant for most of the game unless you were having her focus heavily on axes for whatever reason, considering getting it needs an A+ in axes.

If I'm using Lightning Axe then yeah, I want to focus heavily on axes. I already need a C+, so by that point, I'm committed. In Annette's case I think it's fine to drop Reason after hitting A, or even earlier like B+, if you don't care for Excalibur. Faith is totally ok to drop. I tend to just finish at C for Recover, but honestly I think it's ok to drop it at D for Heal. 

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