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Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 18: Hilda


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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

Claude: 8.977

Felix: 8.625

Petra: 8.34

Ferdinand: 7.78

Sylvain: 7.66

Ingrid: 7.34

Bernadetta: 7.125

Linhardt: 7.11

Mercedes: 6.756

Dorothea: 6.375

Dedue: 5.8571

Annette: 5.5375

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: 6.82

Average score for Golden Deer: 8.977

 

 

Day 18: Hilda

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Authority banes suck, and you need a lot to make up for one. Felix manages. Does Hilda? Not quite as well, but close.

The good: Like Sylvain, Hilda is just solidly above average in every important stat. 10+45% str, 8+50% spd, 7+50% cha (best non-lord), 29+50% HP, 6+35% def... that's a lot to like. Aside from the lords, any student who beats her in str is significantly slower, and anyone who beats her in speed is at least appreciably weaker, though Petra/Leonie come close on the latter and Felix is straight-up an exception (until Hilda gets Darting Blow, anyway).

Her talent list includes axes and lances, so she's well-set to go pegasus and brigand (picking up Double Blows), and wyvern. Budding talent armour helps with Weight-3.

She also has access to Apocalyptic Flame, a monstrous 38-might attack (61 against dragons, which includes a couple notable bosses and most lategame demonic beasts) with decent accuracy (just 5 less than Silver Axe Smash). It's not as big a factor as Sylvain's or Ingrid's relics, since she has to wait until chapter 12 to get it, but that sure does hurt.

The less good: The authority bane. By far the most devastating part of Hilda's build, especially since unlike Felix, her talents strongly push her to be a flier, where high-rank battalions are that much more important. The one saving grace is that on Verdant Wind, you get Immortal Corps, and with Hilda's sky-high charm she can put it to amazing use while Claude keeps building authority and uses something like Cichol Wyverns instead.

Like Sylvain, her stats are solid but not exceptional, although they're certainly closer to exceptional than his. So while she's good, you may find yourself more enamoured of other units whose stats aren't that much worse who don't need to fight an authority bane every step of the way.

She's only available on three routes, and is notably worse on AM because of the lack of good low-rank flying battalions, and worse still on SS because of her join time. Although as usual, I'm scoring her by her best route.

Hilda gets a 7/10 (Maddening). She really is a lot like Sylvain, with pegasus/Darting Blow and slightly better stats, but has to wait 6 extra chapters for her relic and has an authority bane. I'd say that roughly balances.

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Ashe is bad but I don't think he deserves to be that low considering that he provides some early game chip damage with curved shot in AM Maddeing.

Anyway back to Hilda, I judged her based on GD Maddening.

Pros:

- Good bases and growths.

- Proficiency in Lances, Axes and Neutral in Flying means she has easy access to Brigand and Flying Classes.

- She has one of the better personals in the game which helps a lot with early game GD Maddening.

Cons:

- Authority bane means it takes a long time for her to reach C rank to use good battalions.

- Questionable accuracy especially with Axes.

- Lack of good non-Relic Combat Arts like Swift Strike or Point Blank Volley to be a late game powerhouse. 

My rating: 6.5/10

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Now we get to one of the laziest yet one of the hotter girls in the golden deer house Hilda. Hilda might be top contender for anyone's waifu (not the Mekkah kind) but this is not what this post is about. We're going to talk about her performance on hard mode and no DLC.

Hilda starts off with some okay stats despite some decent growths. 29 HP with 6 def with a 50% and a 35% growth respectively are not bad and be be easily patched up but we'll get to that. 10 strength with a 45% strength growth isn't too shabby either and having a speed stat of 8 with a 50% growth means that she'll eventually become one of the faster units on your roster. Her best trait is her charm growth of 55% with a starting stat of 7. Her biggest issue though is her dex stat and growth. Having a stat of 5 dex with a growth of 30% means that she'll have some accuracy issues going into it. Her magic and res stat are on the low side of things too. 5 and 3 with a 25% and 20% growth as well. Her personal ability Advocate gives adjacent male allies an attack boost of 3. This is really helpful in the early going, so for someone like Male Byleth, Claude, Lorenz with his personal ability or even Ignatz can get a nice damage boost to their attacks which includes combat arts. So Hilda is a nice blend of a physical attacker with a buff support.

She has a boon in lances and axes with a budding talent in heavy armor. By unlocking her budding talent in heavy armor, she gets seal speed. A handy skill to get early on when doubling someone on hard or even maddening mode can be difficult at first. Plus also if you raise her axe rank at C and then heavy armor at D she can certify in the armored knight class by level 10, she'll gain a nice defense boost up to 12. And that's assuming that you don't decide to keep her in the armored knight class. If you do though, her defense will go up while her speed will take a notable hit. Her bane in faith magic and authority hurts her as well because while she has a high charm stat growth and can be a decent user of offensive gambits, she'll level up her authority rank very slowly. So you might want to at least raise her authority rank up to D so if you were to take her to a flying class she can equip a flying battalion. She also starts with a E+ in lances as well as a D rank in axes so she has early access to Smash and easy access a but afterwards to Tempest Lance. She also gains an additional lance combat art Shatter Slash which is nice for the defense debuff on enemies and monsters. The rest of her axe combat arts are Spike which is a tweaked version of Smash and then Diamond Axe. Diamond Axe is no doubt strong but like her low dex rate, it has hit rate issues. Hilda also possess a Hero's Relic, the magical Axe Freikugel. This enables her to use Apocalyptic Flame. This combat art lowers the enemy's strength by 6. In fact there is a common ultra debilitate combo of Apocalyptic Flame, Seal Speed and Seal Defense by mastering Wyvern Rider. This combo alone helps out only in a handful of situations because it debuffs strength, speed and defense all at once. However as you can use this combat art so many times before it breaks and you usually want to save it for the last couple of battles. Not to mention that enemy bosses tend to be immune to stat drops as well.

Speaking of class options, Hilda can go down to either Soldier for better dex which is at least in my opinion the better option as defense +2 can be okay but reposition on a flier can be very helpful. Fighter is another good option for her in case you want to increase her damage output instead with strength +2. She has very easy access to Brigand for the Death Blow ability as well as a easy access to Pegasus Knight with Darting Blow. Thanks to her neutrality in flying she can stay as a flier as early as level 10. She also neutral in bows so grabbing Hit +20 from the archer class would be certainly beneficial for her as well. From there her best advance class would easily be Wyvern Rider then later on either Falcon Knight or Wyvern Lord. Most opt to go for Wyvern Lord since her flying around with her Hero's Relic axe is really cool. Hilda also other options as well. The armored knight route I mentioned earlier can let he easily be a Fortress Knight. This can be fine in certain battles Hilda is a shockingly decent tank that can hold choke points. Just make sure that she doesn't have to deal with archers with poison strike, magic and of course fast swordmasters, heroes and assassins that can carry axebreaker+. She also has a neutrality in riding so she can also go down the Paladin and Great Knight routes. But again, like the armored knight classes, her speed will take a hit and generally speaking, flying is the better option.

Oddly enough she can even go down the magic route. Despite the fact she has a bad magic growth she is only of the only three units in the game if you count DLC's Constance to get Bolting. Manuela also has access to Bolting as well but she has a bane in reason magic. Hilda however is neutral in reason magic. She gets Thunder at rank D, Thoron and rank C and then Bolting at rank A. If you take her down the mage route and maybe stop by archer for that hit +20 like I mentioned before she can be a good warlock with Bolting support as she would have 4 shots with it thanks to 2x of black magic and deal extra damage thanks to Black Tomefaire. She would also want a battalion that raises magic, magic +2 and fiendish blow as well. You could also make Hilda your dancer. She has a very good charm growth and her strength and speed isn't too bad either. Plus it would help out her authority bane a little bit. Dancer Hilda can also provide Bolting Support similar to Dorothea's Meteor support. Her being able to provide a might, avoid and hit rate boost from 10 panels away is an attractive option in it of itself.

Overall, I would give Hilda a solid 7/10. Advocate will help you out quite a bit early on and with her being neutral to a number of weapons like swords and bows she can gain pretty access to a number of classes and make the most of them. Her hit rate issues may bring her down at times but with a good setup she'll finally get off her lazy ass and fight and look pretty doing it.

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Lazy, lazy. Her stats are at odds with her character, though. Maybe having her life on the line helps her to actually fight well?

     Skill Levels:      Boons: E+ Lance, D Axes. 2 out of the 3 needed for Wyvern Lord. Budding Talent in Armor. One word on this: NO. Get the Skill from it, but don’t go any further down that path. Her Banes are In Faith and Authority. The Authority Bane in particular is quite bad. But time will mend that problem.

     Abilities:     Advocate helps the Golden Deer immensely. This is easily exploitable given that they are mostly Archers with Curved Shot. She gets Battalion Wrath at C Authority. With her Axe Boon, she’ll easily get that Crit build working.

     Arts:     Her Lance Art is Shatter Slash (C+), which helps against Monsters. Her Axe arts are mostly garbage, with Spike (C+) and Diamond Axe (A). As a side note, everyone seems to obsess over good Arts. You only get to use them on Player Phase, which makes them at best a Delete-this-unit-now button, or 2 if you Dance them. You can get much more done on Enemy Phase than Player Phase, even in TH.

     Stats:     Hilda’s Stats are oddly reminiscent of Ferdinand. 29+50% Hp is good, but her 6+35% Defense and 3+20% Res allow enemies to eat through that quite quickly. 10+45% Strength and 8+50% Speed are Ok Offensive stats. She has one of the highest non-Lord Charms at 7+50%. Like other Physical units, her Magic is useless, at 5+25%. 5+25% Skill is also bad, but there are ways of covering for that.

     Classes:     Beginner- Fighter or Soldier for Repo

Intermediate- Brigand for Death Blow, Archer for Hit +20 (She needs it), and Mercenary for Vantage

Advanced- Warrior for Wrath and then Wyvern

Master- Wyvern Lord

          The Verdict

Hilda serves as a powerful frontliner. She would’ve been even better if War Master wasn’t gender-locked. I would recommend Wrath + Vantage + Battalion Wrath + Alert Stance+ + Axe Prowess. Hilda is one of the stronger Golden Deer at 8/10. Also, Freikugel is absurd. 23 Might for the win.

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It's time for the laziest, most casually racist character that I still kinda like somehow.

Hilda! HILDA!

Spoiler

Her bases and growths are actually alright. 10+45% Str is pretty good, while only slightly better than than plenty of those we've talked positively about, it should help prevent her being too behind the curve, while 5+25% Mag can be safely ignored. 8+50% Spd is also good, again it's not as significant as 60%, but she will be very capable of getting speed throughout so long as you're not as stupid as me first time. One concern I have is her 6+30% Dex, which is not only low but she specialises in a weapon type with lowish accuracy as it is, making it worse. 29+50% HP is pretty good too, with that supplemented by 6+35% Def to give a decent unit for physical attacks but at 3+20% Res don't expect her to handle magic. 6+35% Luk , though at least with 7+50% Cha she should be well able to use gambits (though whether she can use good ones is another story).

Her Strengths and Weaknesses are alright enough. Lance + Axes are a very nice combo of strengths to have for class access and for using certain weapons. She has Weaknesses in Faith (no loss) and Authority (definitely an issue, hurts her quite significantly). She gets a budding talent in armour which gives her Seal Spd, which can definitely have its uses earlier on and makes Weight -3 easier too.

Her magic is very limited. Reason gives her Thunder, Thoron and Bolting, which is weird in that she's one of the units to get siege magic and thus good option for support with linked attacks, but she hasn't much else support wise, partly because her Faith is awful at H + N and Recover.

Her personal skill Advocate allows males allies to do +3 damage when next to her, which is alright enough but she gets nothing for herself. Her crest, Minor Goneril, prevents enemy counterattacks 30% of the time when using combat arts, which is not bad, but her issue is a lack of combat arts beyond the default ones.

Her combat arts aren't all that good, with her best being Shatter Slash in lances, while her Axe CAs are Spike (Just worse Smash) and Diamond Axe (With her accuracy, jeez no). She gets one Authority skill, but it's Battalion Wrath, so at least it's good.

Freikugel is such a nice thing to add on for her and it can work with her crest. Shame it also has low hit and the effect on her relic's CA isn't as good.

How did I find her?

Spoiler

For my VW run, I made a hideous mistake. I chose to have her go down the armour line. This was a mistake. She ended up with 20 Spd. 20. Absolutely disgusting? You're right there. Her Str wasn't all that good for what it was worth and she seemed to be held back by it. 35 Def and 62 HP was the one thing she had going for her and she was a deadweight. I only blame myself.

She died in CF and AM.

In SS I just managed to get her in Part I, then focused on getting her mastery in Brigand, PK and Warrior. She was useful throughout Part 2, even if she was only alright Spd wise at 34 in WL, she was still handy throughout. Her massive HP certainly proved useful as well, bigger than in VW.

Maddening is where I really got to see her get going. Even early on she was crucial in removing DK in Chapter 4 by tanking him and only taking 1 hit and wrecking him in Chapter 8 with the horseslayer in the chest.  She got a pretty good 37/37 in FK by the end, while being good enough in her other stats (especially Cha), though HP was sadly the lowest. She got A Lances, A+ Flying and S Axes, while also pushing to C+ authority without any lessons in it (I think) and C armour for Weight -3 (while for some stupid reason (using the unforged stuff and FK access) getting to C Swords). And the masteries! Noble, Soldier/Fighter, Merc/Brigand/Archer/PK, Warrior, FK/WL, she had a ton to tools to work with and she was always a solid pick, though getting Archer earlier could have helped her be more reliable, even if she had somewhat better dex than in the other routes.

Hilda does have stuff going for her and I have to warn people I have a mostly positive view of the GD generally, though it won't be enough to rate her higher than 7.5/10. I don't think she's a unit good enough to give 8/10 partly because of her speed and combat arts, combined with Authority weakness.

Edited by Dayni
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Wow some of these Hilda ratings are low... I actually give her an 8/10. Her strength and speed are pretty good, although she is held back a lot by an authority band, despite having high charm. She only has talents in axes and lances, which is an odd list with her authority bane, but I suppose it helps getting into wyvern lord, one of the best classes in the game (have fun with that neutral flying though). She also doesn’t have any noteworthy combat arts, I would say. She does give access to Freikugel, a powerful axe relic, however its combat art can be fairly unreliable because Hilda’s 30% dexterity with her base gives her quite the hit issues, even if other combat arts can mend that. She’s still a pretty good physical unit with her strength and speed, just not THE BEST.

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Hilda might the unit hit hardest moving from Hard to Maddening.  She is in that awkward range of speed where she can consistently get follow-ups on Hard, but can't on Maddening.  She can maintain her relevance based on her stats longer than a number of the other units in a similar situation (Ferdinand, Sylvain) due to access to Darting Blow, but lacks any type of powerful Combat Art that can keep her relevant on its own.  And that's a shame, as the rest of her stats and growths are very respectable, and she has a good array of boons and banes to boot.

Aside from good all around stats, there isn't much remarkable about her.  Her crest is good, but on Maddening you're hoping not to take to many counterattacks to begin with.  She does get a Hero's Relic, and it has the benefit of being the only Hero's Relic that's an axe aside from Aymr (which is only available on BE).  The budding talent in armor is nice, but armor is the weakest weapon proficiency in the game and Seal Speed tends not to be very useful.  She has an easy enough path to Wyvern Lord and can pick up Darting Blow along the way, which helps her, but she still typically pales in comparison to the dominant offensive forces in the game.

There is also the added difficulty of recruitment.  On AM, she's an easy recruit, but on SS she can't be recruited until Chapter 13, which means that it's harder to get her off of her default build if that is desired.  And on BE, she can't be recruited at all.

Overall, I'll give Hilda a 6/10.  I grew to like her character, but ultimately she just doesn't make the cut.

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1 hour ago, L3xandr3 said:

As a side note, everyone seems to obsess over good Arts. You only get to use them on Player Phase, which makes them at best a Delete-this-unit-now button, or 2 if you Dance them. You can get much more done on Enemy Phase than Player Phase, even in TH.

The reason for this is because on Maddening, enemy stats are so absurdly high that leaving anyone open to enemy phase attacks can spell doom for them. It's a much more effective strategy to either delete or neutralise enemies on player phase and to do so using the fewest units possible.

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It’s time for Killda, I mean Hilda. She’s pretty strong, being able to chunk any enemy. Her personal skill grants make allies extra might, so a lot of her golden deer friends can benefit from this, which is very useful in early game Maddening. She has a strength in axes, so Brigand is a natural choice. Going into Pegasus Knight is really good too. Her budding talent in heavy armor lets her get weight -3 relatively quick and she can be a decent Armor Knight if you want. Her biggest flaw is her low dexterity, especially with axes, but she can get Hit +20 to patch it up.

With the high might of axes, Spike does a lot of damage. Apocalyptic Flame from Freikrugel is a nice delete button. Shatter Slash with seal speed can be nice to debuff monsters. You get Gonreil Valkyries from her paralouge, and it is one of the best battalions. Too bad she has a flaw in authority so she needs a lot of focus on training authority to be able to equip it. 

For classes Wyvern Lord is too good, Falcon Knight is fine too. Her good speed and strength growth lets her use the class very well. Again her authority is bad so she won’t realistic be able to get stuff like Cichol Wyvern Co. Sucks that she can’t get into War Master, because that would be great on her as well. She can probably be a decent dancer, she learns Bolting for the wide range Linked Attack bonus and her personal skill is good for support.

My Rating: 7.6/10. A little bonus for being best friends with Marriane.
 

Edited by LoneStar
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I like her. 10/8 Strength and speed is one of the better starts in the game. Having double digit strength from the get go gives her a one up on most other students' AS that helps avoid doubles despite wielding an axe. Her skill levels are just the bare minimum "one is E+, one is D". And obviously she seems like she's missing a flying proficiency. Armor's good enough though. She's definitely one unit where I consider going for Weight -3/-5, and I don't consider that often since most students with an armor proficiency are men who become brawlers that naturally mitigate their weapon's weight - on top of a shield. The Seal Speed budding talent will see use in the immediate early game, then once more in the Sothis paralogue, so I recommend pushing for it first. It should leave the skill somewhere in E+, allowing for an armor knight certification which tends to get her defense up to speed later. From there you can keep going since she has no combat arts to push for. That personal skill is excellent. 3 more damage on hit is no joke in early game when movement is low. If she's one movement short of reaching the next enemy, she can still provide as much as 12 damage to two more engagements (Byleth and Raphael using gauntlets), and Ignatz especially would be lost in a realm of 4 damage curved shots if not for Hilda's consistent help as he fires from her shadow.

Her dex can be low enough to the point of being obnoxious, and that gets exasperated when she's a flier with a lower draw of batallions. Choosing whether she should be a flier or the double wrath fortress knight is a tough call. I often find her switching builds to meet the next map's needs. Not every map has terrain that can be flown over, but some maps have siege tomes that you can't counter with Retribution. She's fantastic as a fortress knight but potential access to darting blow and a good speed growth make it so her speed stat is never the dump stat like it is for other units like Raphael. And since she's not a man, she can't clutch easy kills as a grappler or pick up quick riposte in the late game. Mounted classes can't wield gauntlets at all, though if you've given up prematurely on her being a flier, you can keep her in brigand or the armored classes and punch people to death just fine. She has trouble as a flier due to the authority bane. Your fliers are fighting over that first D level flier batallion, and it's usually reserved for the recruitable flier, like Ingrid. Though I think it warrants mention since this is a VW rating, it's a much more manageable bane when you have her from level 1 to work on it passively as a second study goal, and you do want her to work on it so her charm stat can blast opponents with some of the larger gambits. That's another point against being a flier, flying gambits are almost exclusively just two tiles in front of you.

Geared towards two meta builds, but a master of neither. I rate Hilda a 7 out of 10. I'm a little reluctant to go that high but the way I see it, she'll only fail to contribute if the player is sabotaging her in some way or if it's an act of God (RNG screwage). Plus her early game is one of the best between her level 1 stats and personal skill and that's what really pushes you past the 5 range. Dorothea provides a special ally bonus for her, but they have no support conversations so it never translates into extra MT. She can be Claude's guard adjutant in pre-time skip to add 4 damage to his Hunter's Volleys for a bit, but I doubt he needs the extra boost or is getting doubled as regularly as other units.

Edited by Glennstavos
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6 hours ago, Agro said:

The reason for this is because on Maddening, enemy stats are so absurdly high that leaving anyone open to enemy phase attacks can spell doom for them. It's a much more effective strategy to either delete or neutralise enemies on player phase and to do so using the fewest units possible.

I've played Maddening on SS, BL, and VW. I would think I would know. That is a strategy. Just as Dodge Tanking and Vantage + Double Wrath builds are strategies. I'm not saying they aren't good, just that units don't live or die by them. Except for Bernie. She needs Vengeance, or she's in the same boat as Ashe. Anyways, enough of the off-topic, eh?

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1 hour ago, L3xandr3 said:

I've played Maddening on SS, BL, and VW. I would think I would know. That is a strategy. Just as Dodge Tanking and Vantage + Double Wrath builds are strategies. I'm not saying they aren't good, just that units don't live or die by them. Except for Bernie. She needs Vengeance, or she's in the same boat as Ashe. Anyways, enough of the off-topic, eh?

While I agree that enemy phase builds are more effective than player phase ones, I think the reason people place so much value on arts is the fact that very few units have enough of a presence on enemy phase to be a threat. Someone like Dimitri is rated extremely highly because of his enemy phase, but other units struggle to replicate that, or they can but it takes more work. Arts are seen as the substitute for that, as a good combat art means that a unit can dominate on player phase rather than enemy phase (because often even the good units like Ferdinand or Sylvain fail to one round without their arts). But yeah this may not be the best place for this discussion, I just wanted to throw my hat in the ring here.

Anyway, as for Hilda herself, I haven’t used her enough to confidently give her a rating, and so I think I’ll sit today out.

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FWIW, I definitely find 3H a pretty player-phase focused game, by FE standards. Outside of Dimitri, EP builds range from finnicky to super finnicky. Maintaining both the HP<50% conditional and the BHP<33% conditional at the same time is ugh.

Oh yeah, it was already mentioned by @LoneStar, but to add to my earlier comments is that one cool bonus about Hilda is that even if her early levels are bad, you can switch her over to the Dancer route, and let her support the rest of the VW team (+ Cyril, Seteth, Ferdinand, Sylvain, etc.) with Bolting, and this also frees her up to focus on letting her use her personal to support as well.

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Hilda, considered on VW Maddening

The Bad

Her Magic (5+0.25x) and Resistance (3+0.20x) stats aren't very good, turning her away from magical builds. And her Dexterity (5+0.30x) is quite low as well, hurting her hit rates. Her Faith list is abysmal, while her Reason list veers on the short side as well. As proficiencies go, she's weak in Faith, further undercutting her magical potential. Moreover, she has an Authority weakness, making it harder to grow into stronger batallions. Finally, the combat arts she gets (Spike, Diamond Axe, Shatter Slash) are okay, but nothing out-of-this-world.

The Good

Hilda does have a few good stats going for her: HP (29+0.50x), Strength (10+0.45x), Speed (8+0.50x), and Charm (7+0.55x). Her bulk is undermined somewhat by iffy Defense and Resistance, but there's no question that she hits hard on the physical side. Her speed lets her double many slower foes, while her Charm makes her good at offensive gambits (ironic, considering her Authority problem).

Speaking of proficiencies, she has her boons as well, in Lances and Axes. And starting out neutral in all movement types keeps most physical classes easily attainable for her - Pegasus Knight and Brigand are easy for the Blow skills, while Archer is definitely doable too. Later on, she can go into classes like Paladin, Wyvern Lord, or Falcoknight. One more thing - a budding talent in Armor. So Armor Knight certification and Weight-3 aren't too much struggle. And later, Fortress Knight amd Great Knight are hardly her worst options. This talent also gives Seal Speed, which can have occasional debuff utility.

Returning to combat arts, she does get a very strong one - Apocalyptic Flame. It gives a massive (+15) boost onto the already-strong Axe, plus Dragon effectiveness and increased hit. Also, in case the target survives, it inflicts Strength-5 on the foe. Along with Shatter Slash, this attack can synergize with Seal Speed to "debuff stack" against stronger foes, namely monsters. And the Crest which grants this art, that of Goneril, grants a 30% chance of Cancel after an art. Of course, these effects are nice, but don't matter if you just kill the foe in the process (as Hilda is wont to do). Her other personal trait, her personal skill, buffs adjacent male allies, and especially synergizes well with Sylvain and Seteth.

One return to "magic Hilda" - her Magic stat is bad, and both her magic lists are short. But damn, does she get some gems on the Reason side! Thoron and Bolting, with their increased range, are two of the best black magic spells around. Hilda is neutral in Reason, so Mage and Warlock will take time, but are very much reachable. She can stay a Warlock, or train in Riding for more move as a Dark Knight - all the while offering strong ranged magic. She won't do as well as her physical versions, but it's an interesting "niche build" to consider.

The Verdict

Hilda is a lazy bum who doesn't go to Church, and isn't very good at leading a batallion. She gets some neat spells, but her Magic lets her down. But honestly, she hits hard on the physical side from the get-go, and her speed and charm will keep up nicely. Low hit rates can undermine her, but there are ways to address this. In the cases where she doesn't kill, she gets a few neat tools to debuff the target. And with her proficiency set, some of the best physical classes (Paladin, Falcon Knight, Wyvern Lord, Fortress Knight) come naturally to her. All in all, I consider Hilda to be an 8 out of 10.

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10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

FWIW, I definitely find 3H a pretty player-phase focused game, by FE standards. Outside of Dimitri, EP builds range from finnicky to super finnicky. Maintaining both the HP<50% conditional and the BHP<33% conditional at the same time is ugh.

Oh yeah, it was already mentioned by @LoneStar, but to add to my earlier comments is that one cool bonus about Hilda is that even if her early levels are bad, you can switch her over to the Dancer route, and let her support the rest of the VW team (+ Cyril, Seteth, Ferdinand, Sylvain, etc.) with Bolting, and this also frees her up to focus on letting her use her personal to support as well.

Tbh retribution dodge tanking is really easy and effective for the units that can pull it off. Kill rate is lower than Dimitri but survival is more or less the same.

I agree that TH is player phase oriented, but heavy enemy phases are absolutely not exclusive to Dimitri.

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