Jump to content

Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 15: Annette


Benice
 Share

Recommended Posts

16 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

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.

The thing is, I see very little reason to have her focus on axes, given heavy weapons and mages don't mix. The existence of Divine Pulse does not make it any less moronic, as far as I'm concerned.

Edited by Shadow Mir
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As a straight mage she excels at accuracy and minor crit rate, which I generally appreciate since mages notoriously don't kill things on Maddening mode, so you may as well be accurate in your chip damage with a slight chance to crit. I think her level 1 performance is some of the best in the game. Rally Strength won't make a difference every turn, but when she can't even heal yet and you're picking fights almost exclusively in enemy phase, that rally gives her something to do a lot of the time when your units are just moving into position to mob the next pack of enemies and somebody has to bait. Wind has SIX charges, and having ~90 accuracy before linked attack bonuses on enemies. She won't clock maddening enemies for double digit damage (she'll do what, six?), but at least she can chip without fear of retaliation unlike your tempest lance users. I could see myself training in reason just one more rank for Cutting Gale, which has 5 more MT than wind. You definitely don't need sagittae after that. But first priority is definitely grabbing Heal so she can earn experience without taking away from other units. With Reason at C and Faith at D, I think she can earn enough experience in the mage class to reach level 20, thus becoming a wyvern rally bot. All the while training to hit C-ish in flying, C+ in axes, and C+ authority. If she gets lightning axe before level 20, that will also make up for her lack of nuke spell to take a kill on a weakened enemy. And like any mage, a lumbering armor knight should be free exp.

Crusher's combat art kind of seems like a meme to me. But it's a 60 MT combat art against The Immovable so maybe that can be cool on the final phase where you can't double him anyway? Just make sure she's got a guard adjutant or Blessing to survive that guy's Quick Riposte. Since AM lacks a fight with Rhea or the paralogue against the big bird dragon, that's the only scenario where dragon effectiveness would ever matter. And yes, the right batallion can improve Crusher's accuracy since you've had many reasons already to improve her authority. I just expect Lightning Axe would contribute more overall in a playthrough than the relic would if you're using her as an unironic fighter. That combat art is sick.

I've heard people say you "need" a rally bot on maddening. Definitely don't agree. Annette is the better of the two rally bots but only provides +4 in strength, speed, and resistance. Not groundbreaking when you're past the early game. But I see the appeal if you're doing the "double wrath fortress knight solos the whole map with retribution" strategy every so often. Technically she only needs experience to get into classes with better movement/canto. If you think experience is being spread too thin in pre-time skip and your roster is too large, she may even be able to still contribute as a level 1 rally bot which is interesting to think about. Or just make her somebody's adjutant to gain experience passively. She also provides special ally bonuses to Mercedes and Gilbert, but annoyingly has an armor bane. Guard Adjutant Annette would be a big help for Gilbert's viability, I suppose. While Guard Adjutant Gilbert could boost Mage Annette's crit rate to score another OHKO here or there.

Annette can be so problematic because there's so much danger of investing all that experience into a fighter that barely turns out useable and never one rounds anything. This goes for Wyvern Annette just as much as Mage Annette. I'm willing to acknowledge more than most people that fliers in this game seldom secure the ORKO on Maddening, but stat boosters or being RNG blessed can change that, and Annette needs more than they ever would. Rallies can be a big help for other units, but I question how much they help in the late game. I have no doubt she's at least good early game where you need all the help you can get, so I'm settling on 3.5 out of 10. Not recommended for the long term, but you have no excuse not to use her at the point of the game where she can contribute most and isn't fighting over a deployment slot. 

 

Edited by Glennstavos
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shadow Mir: The context for my comment includes Wyvern Rider Annette.  If you don't consider it a priority to train axes in an Axefaire class without magic, that falls under the "Dedue 2/10 is a bad mage" level worry: that's not a build, that's self-sabotage.  The decision of whether it's worth a skill slot to set Axe Prowess or not is more interesting for Warlock or Gremory Annette, of course, but those also have more discretion over when to use magic and when to close in for an axe smack.  The accuracy of her axe combat arts are the most important when she's a Wyvern and has little other choice, so that's where I see the issue coming up.

To go into it in a bit more detail, on Maddening mode, everybody who isn't explicitly built for tanking tends to explode into a piñata against sufficiently scary enemies, like Grapplers.  (Even Mercedes, who got some hype yesterday for being a comparatively durable mage, still got one-round KO'd in a Reunion at Dawn attempt that I eventually reset a week or so ago.)  So..  this isn't a problem unique to Annette or anything.  This doesn't mean Maddening mode is impossible; it just means you never plan on average-to-frail durability units getting hit.  So WR Annette with a heavy weapon like a Silver Axe Lightning Axe is hoping to OHKO the enemy (after they've been chipped first, if needed) then fly back to safety, laughing at the other enemies who can't catch up to her.  If she can't do that, she'll chip at range 3 with a Bolt Axe+, which very few enemies can counter (archers / snipers she'll go to range 1 and Lightning Axe instead), then still Canto back to safety.  Her slowness from using heavy weapons doesn't matter in these cases.  And unlike Warlock, Canto makes it much easier for her to end her turn in safety and not in surviving enemy threat range, especially a non-Thrysus Warlock.  Like I said before, I gave Annette a low rating, all of this has issues - but they aren't really accuracy or the mere fact that she's using heavy weapons.  (Give Annette +10% Magic growth to improve her one-shot potential, and I'm considerably more interested in all of this in a non-DLC run, say.)

Edited by SnowFire
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm ngl, I was reading advice from forums, guides, etc. on an ideal way to build Annette because I didn't know what to class her as, and a LOT of people SWORE by Wyvern@Bolt Axe+ Annette. So, I decided to give it as shot and spent majority of the first half of the game training her in flying, axes, lances, and reason. Since this was a lot already, I just ignored Faith, making Gremory not an option should this build have failed.

Oh man, did I screw the hell up.

Yeah, Bolt Axe+ is great and it gives her a strong 3-range option, but it's 65 hit is unreliable and should Annette fail to hit, she's pretty much gone. She won't be even be able to dodge or double because of her low speed (and strength which I hear lowers weight). On top of that Crusher is locked to 1-range, and despite being one of the strongest magic weapons in the game, it's terrible on Annette. Using it will force her on the front lines and relying on her killing enemies in one hit. Even then, poor positioning may prove fatal for her. Also, Wyvern Lord doesn't have access to magic so the 2 magic axes will be her only option. To be fair, I relieved her of her accuracy issues by equipping +hit battalions and an accuracy ring, and Bolt Axe+ on Warlock Annette was pretty reliable if her wind spells couldn't kill. I ended up reclassing her back to Warlock for a good chunk of the game and started grinding her Faith like crazy in the end so she could just end up as a Gremory super late game. I got her certified at level 38--basically the end of the game.

I take full responsibility for messing up Annette LOL. I should have just rallybot-ted her when I realized it wasn't working out for her. Just put her in a magic class and plug a Bolt Axe+ on her LOL. Had she been conceived a generation or 2 earlier, she would have competed with Camilla as a Malig Knight, but sadly she was created in a FE generation that lacks a Magic+Axe class.

I feel like I have no place in critiquing Annette properly because of how bad I screwed her over, but I'll just continue with my usual format and keep it brief.

The good:
She ties with Lysithea and Dorothea for having the second highest base magic and falls short to Hubert at 11+55% magic. As the game progresses she will trail behind both Hubert and Lysithea in damage. Other than being a mage, what Annette is known for is her access to great rallies. Her personal is basically a built-in Rally Strength, then she learns Rally Resistance, Speed, and Movement at Authority D, C+, and S respectively. Rally Resistance and Speed will come fairy early game if you train her in Authority and it will prove to be very useful especially early game--even late game as well.

The bad:
Despite being Blue Lions' only designated mage (bar Mercedes), her unfortunately suffers from a poor spell list. While wind magic isn't bad and Excalibur specifically is effective against fliers, they fall short of damage and lack a 3-range option. This can be relieved with Thyrsus--in which she has a crest so she can use it without penalty. Or she can use Caduceus Staff, which is much more easily available. Or you know, Bolt Axe+ LOL. But you gotta get her to B Axes if you want to use it. Aside for her mediocre Reason spell list, her Faith spell lacks anything outstanding as well. She gets Recover and Abraxas, leaving much more to be desired. 

Overall, with a -1 from my personal experience messing her up, I give her a 5/10. She is a strange magic-oriented unit that can deal decent damage with her wind spells and can utilize magic axes, but suffers from a mediocre spell list in both Reason and Faith. She is also considered to be the best rallybot in the game, in possession of Rally Strength, Speed, Resistance, and Movement. She has potential to go down a magic-focused axe path, but this path is very gimmicky. I'm not gonna doubt that she can prove to be an magic axe goddess, but it just didn't work out for me.

Edited by Tenma
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Annette, assessed on AM Maddening.

The bad

Annette's physical bulk is miserable, with an HP of 23+0.25x and Defense of 5+0.20x. Her Resistance is surprisingly poor for a mage, too, at 4+0.30x. Her Strength is just 6+0.30x, too, limiting her physical build viability. She suffers from the earlygame mage dilemma, too, wherein she starts with only one spell at half-uses. As for her Reason list, she misses out on any longer-range spells. And on the Faith side, Recover plus Abraxas is hardly impressive. Looking at proficiencies, she's weak in bows, so certifying as an Archer (and then mastering the class with no spells) is something of a struggle. Her other bane is in Armor - while certifying as an Armor Knight is very much doable, getting Weight-3 is an uphill battle.

The good

Annette hits hard with spells, with a Magic stat of 11+0.50x. Her Dexterity, at 7+0.50x, is quite impressive too, aiding her in hit and crit rates. Her Reason proficiency (and starting at D+) means she learns new spells quickly. And while she has no longer-range magic, her spells have solid hit rates and use counts - and Excalibur is notable for its flier effectiveness. Her Crest of Dominic provides a 10% chance of preserving a spell charge, while letting her wield Relics without penalty.

She also has a proficiency in Axes, so Armor certification isn't too bad, and the Wyvern classes are very achievable. But she has bad strength? Well, she has a few tools to make up for that - Lightning Axe is a godsend, letting her deliver heavy magical damage with a high-Mt weapon type. And on a Hammer, no Armor is safe from being one-shot. Bolt Axe+ provides a welcome 1~3 range option, giving her an absurd attacking range of 11 as a Wyvern Lord. And she gets the Hero's Relic Crusher - a strong magical attack in its own right, but with Dust, she can hit devastatingly hard.

There's one more proficiency to mention, and it's a big one. Authority gives her earlier access to stronger batallions - if she's made a flier, she won't get any magic-boosting options (assuming no DLC), but I've found her effective enough with a hit-boosting one. More significantly, however, Annette can Rally. She learns them in Resistance (D), Speed (C+), and Movement (S). And this is on top of a personal skill that's just Rally Strength by another name. This means, from the moment she joins, she can provide Rally Strength on any given turn. The combo of Strength and Speed, I'd say, is enough to make her into the best Rally support unit in the game. Dimitri, Felix, Sylvain... any of your physical units will appreciate thr boost. While she gains no EXP from this, she doesn't necessarily need it just to Rally. If she has any flaw, it's that there's too much she wants to do (Attack? Rally? Heal? Gambit? Repositional?) on amy given turn.

The verdict

Annette may be frail, but she isn't your typical mage. She has high magic, and gets some good spells, but they're far from the best the game has to offer. Her proficiency in Axes seems a waste - until you remember that each route is contractually obligated to support an Axe Girl, and unlock the power of Lightning Axe (and Bolt Axe, and Crusher). And with Rallying, she can provide a welcome offensive boost to a key ally, at the cost of doing anything else with her turn. She's an odd duck, but I wouldn't have her any other way. All things considered, I rate Annette a 7 out of 10.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/24/2020 at 1:45 PM, SnowFire said:

Shadow Mir: The context for my comment includes Wyvern Rider Annette.  If you don't consider it a priority to train axes in an Axefaire class without magic, that falls under the "Dedue 2/10 is a bad mage" level worry: that's not a build, that's self-sabotage.  The decision of whether it's worth a skill slot to set Axe Prowess or not is more interesting for Warlock or Gremory Annette, of course, but those also have more discretion over when to use magic and when to close in for an axe smack.  The accuracy of her axe combat arts are the most important when she's a Wyvern and has little other choice, so that's where I see the issue coming up.

To go into it in a bit more detail, on Maddening mode, everybody who isn't explicitly built for tanking tends to explode into a piñata against sufficiently scary enemies, like Grapplers.  (Even Mercedes, who got some hype yesterday for being a comparatively durable mage, still got one-round KO'd in a Reunion at Dawn attempt that I eventually reset a week or so ago.)  So..  this isn't a problem unique to Annette or anything.  This doesn't mean Maddening mode is impossible; it just means you never plan on average-to-frail durability units getting hit.  So WR Annette with a heavy weapon like a Silver Axe Lightning Axe is hoping to OHKO the enemy (after they've been chipped first, if needed) then fly back to safety, laughing at the other enemies who can't catch up to her.  If she can't do that, she'll chip at range 3 with a Bolt Axe+, which very few enemies can counter (archers / snipers she'll go to range 1 and Lightning Axe instead), then still Canto back to safety.  Her slowness from using heavy weapons doesn't matter in these cases.  And unlike Warlock, Canto makes it much easier for her to end her turn in safety and not in surviving enemy threat range, especially a non-Thrysus Warlock.  Like I said before, I gave Annette a low rating, all of this has issues - but they aren't really accuracy or the mere fact that she's using heavy weapons.  (Give Annette +10% Magic growth to improve her one-shot potential, and I'm considerably more interested in all of this in a non-DLC run, say.)

TBF, I'm not sold on this, because there are only so many good flying battalions to go around, especially in Azure Moon (which is NOT helped by the fact that the only magic flying battalion is DLC). It seems to be nowhere near practical, either. Not to mention I'm generally skeptical about builds that revolve around spamming magic combat arts. And honestly, if I'm thinking in the context of Maddening, Wyvern Annette is even more of an impractical gimmick than it already is.

Edited by Shadow Mir
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/24/2020 at 7:45 PM, SnowFire said:

 (Give Annette +10% Magic growth to improve her one-shot potential, and I'm considerably more interested in all of this in a non-DLC run, say.)

See, I would ignore the flier/Wyvern hype. On a no-DLC run there isn't a good flying magic Battalion at all. I've tried Dark Flier Annette and found that really underwhelming (there's no bonus magic growth with the class. Speed is nice, but Annette is already slow with 35% growth). Also the DLC flying magic battalion doesn't give a decent bonus for Hit. 

I like staying in a magic class, then goes Dark Knight with her. It keeps her magic growth, and offer the advantages of canto. If you're in BL, glue Gilbert to her, if not glue Mercedes. That's a free +3 mt, +10 hit/avo when their support builds. Then a Spirit Dust or two if needed. And it should be reliable enough. I'm surprised that there isn't more people who have used Dark Knight Annette. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 11 months later...

so I came on this site bc somebody sent me this thread saying how much serenes forest hates annette, I thought it wouldn't be that bad but it is.

annette is a unit who is great at support and opens up kills for a lot of earlygame units and also makes enemy phasing early game easier with said units, with sheer rallies alone she is giving plus 4 strength, resistance and speed and essentially plus 1 AS. annette helps on every single route she is in and is worth recruiting just because of how good her rallies are. with her help monsters like, byleth catherine the lords shamir can all enemy phase better allowing them to significantly boost their AS by 5 due to rally str plus rally speed and also adds on a bit of resistance and other support options for annette arent as bad as people are saying, recover should be topping off most units for early game and healing late game you don't need honestly for her support alone I would give her like a 7/10.

annettes combat is really hated here because apparently she has got the "worst spell list in the game" 1) 3 range is overated, thoron, mire and death are good spells but not having them doesn't make you bad 2) her spells don't lack might you guys are just lying cutting gale and saggitae only have 1 less might than bolganone and 2 less than thoron and getting mages to ohko isn't hard with fiendish blow and battalions

what people are also forgetting is that annette has significantly higher authority than most other mages for most of the game giving her better access battalions like kingdom magic users and gloucester knights etc so the damage gap isnt like a thing, if anything annette should probably do more damage than most mages for most of the game.
for the mage wyvern mixed build annette this solves her "range problem" by giving her 8 move and flyer movement, her high authority gives her access to some good battalions for this and more importantly lightning axe shreds through most enemies, at worst with base annette with a training axe she has 11 might and she gets this at only C+ axes, it baffles me to see people calling annette bad and weak once at C+ axes she can have at minimum 22 attack, sure this may take a few chapters like maybe you get it at chapter 5 but still, also for late game I just wanted to mention mace lightning axe shreds armours.

overall annette is a really good unit and you are all just crazy saying she is "borderline unusable" and then rating mercedes 6.75 annette gets 8/10 edit: maddening

Edited by Kcrow
forgot to specify whether hard or maddening
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Kcrow said:

annette is a unit who is great at support and opens up kills for a lot of earlygame units and also makes enemy phasing early game easier with said units

Rallies are an interesting issue; I recommend reading the thread about them that is still on page 1 of the forums. Obviously if you have a very high opinion of Rallies than Annette starts to look good (she is pretty much the best Rally user), but a lot of people don't. The arguments are laid out in the thread on the subject. You're obviously free to disagree, but it may help you understand where people are coming from.

6 hours ago, Kcrow said:

annettes combat is really hated here because apparently she has got the "worst spell list in the game"

If mages are able to one-shot enemies (as you note, they often are), then being able to do so at 3 range is better than doing so at 2 range, right? And even if they're just chipping, having more flexibility for positioning is great, especially when you consider that mages are stuck at 4 move until Level 20 (and without DLC, until Level 30). It also sometimes lets you avoid specific counters (e.g. from monsters). Nobody said that not having 3 range automatically makes a mage bad (after all, Lysithea got high scores), but it's a nice boon for sure.

Additionally, you completely failed to acknowledge her faith list; among dedicated house magic users, only Hubert's is comparably bad (and his Reason list is far better, due to D+ Mire and C Banshee). If I train most other mages, I get someone who can use Physic, Warp, or Rescue, which are all cool. I don't get that from Annette, which is disappointing. I don't personally find Rally nearly as useful as those tools.

6 hours ago, Kcrow said:

what people are also forgetting is that annette has significantly higher authority than most other mages

Early on, it's easy to get anyone to D authority for the basic magic battalions (you get five training weeks before the first fight where you can use them), and even if you don't someone's gonna use the E-rank Stride battalion which is great.

Kingdom Magic Users is a C rank battalion available in chapter 8. While a nice battalion, it's easy to get anyone to C authority by chapter 8. Gloucester Knights... yeah, sure, maybe she gets this one a chapter or two before her competition. It only has +1 magic on Kingdom Magic Users, though. And it doesn't take long for other magic users get to B rank as well, which is enough to use almost all the good magic-boosting battalions for the rest of the game, both offense-oriented (Timotheos, Ordelia, Edmund, Gloucester, Nuvelle, School of Sorcery [AM], Vestra/Supreme Armoured [CF]) and utility (Blessing). So while Annette has a brief window where she may scrounge up an extra point or two of magic (and other stats) due to being a battalion rank up, this at best offsets the fact that her spells are less powerful than those of most mages. Additionally, the fact that she's only base neutral in faith (most other mages have a boon) erodes this advantage.

The authority boon is most relevant if you plan to rush her to be a carrier of Blue Lions Dancers. She is definitely one of the best candidates for this. But that's kind of a back-handed compliment seeing as Blue Lion Dancers ruins the combat of anyone who holds it, so I'm more inclined to give it someone I don't think is that great to start with. It's also not a super-unique advantage, as recruited Ignatz/Lysithea and Seteth can all get there pretty quickly too (as well as Dimitri but... yeah).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...