Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 21: Lysithea

[RaIsMyPet]

16 hours ago, Hazeel said:

The problem with Felix is I can't always send him in. If there's too many enemies, he'll die whereas Lysithea can attack from a range,

Agreed

16 hours ago, Hazeel said:

kill pretty much anything that isn't an end-game brawler/monster, and then canto away.

I only have one Lysithea who can kill endgame snipers with Luna (little/no chance for Heroes), and other Lysitheas pretty much stopped one-shotting about middle of post-timeskip, and before that enemy warriors can also be problematic. It may be RNG thing, but the point is I never felt that "oh enemy is coming, but Lysithea will DEFINITELY one-shot them". In terms of early timeskip, Constance or even Annette (Annette is RNG-dependent though) can still do what Lysithea does.

16 hours ago, Hazeel said:

PP Wyvern Lords

Agreed that they are not that good. Pretty much never used them unless swift-strikers. Also the reason why I felt F!Byleth is much weaker than Male version.

16 hours ago, Hazeel said:

Of course, this isn't exclusive to Lysithea since you can give other mages Thrysus and a mounted class, though the others won't get the additional safety net against STRs from Thyrsus and either have a worse magic growth, spell list, or both. Male mages also miss out on the DLC classes entirely.

Also agreed. Look I never say Lysithea is bad, and I like her a lot even as some "heavy-chipping" unit, since it's kind of neat "utility damage" that also helps pulling enemies, and she can still occasionally kill late into the game.

16 hours ago, Hazeel said:

Common among all of them are enemies with gambits

I know. But for one, there aren't really that many gambit enemies that are both un-dealable by EP unit and hard for generic brave-artist like Sylvain to kill (e.g. too deep in enemy territory). One thing that's very common among them are "range-mismatch": too common are those snipers with 1-range gambit, or mages with 3-range attack but 2-range gambit. A more classical failure is that Shamir/sniper in CF with 5-range. They gave her another bow range+2, but her gambit is 3-range, thus making her easy fodder for retribution. Many ballistas can be dealt similarly: just stay at exactly 3-tiles away and they will normal attack you.

16 hours ago, Hazeel said:

Warp is still very useful for placing your EP units to kill as quickly as possible.

I also mentioned this as why I rate Lysithea 8/10.

13 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

There's also almost no point to 200~400 damage,

Really? From my experience monsters are abundant and being able to reliably delete the last near 200 HP bar every time is "almost no point"? What about those late game warriors and war masters? I fail to see any unit beside your own punchers who can reliably kill them. Also, without those damage, the next tier in terms of damage on PP are likely Edelgard and/or swift-strikes, discounting brave weapons quading. none of which can be so relied on for long term to delete monsters.

10 hours ago, Hazeel said:

Even then, opening the fight with sepharim or swarm is still useful IMO.

I do this too. My point is, that's utility chip, not "nuke". So far still no evidence as to why Lysithea is a "nuke".

Edited November 1, 2020 by RaIsMyPet

[Barren]

Not to nitpick, shouldn't the title of this thread be day 22? I know it's no big deal in the grand scheme of things but something I just noticed

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, RaIsMyPet said:

Really? From my experience monsters are abundant and being able to reliably delete the last near 200 HP bar every time is "almost no point"? What about those late game warriors and war masters? I fail to see any unit beside your own punchers who can reliably kill them. Also, without those damage, the next tier in terms of damage on PP are likely Edelgard and/or swift-strikes, discounting brave weapons quading. none of which can be so relied on for long term to delete monsters.

War Masters top out with HP in the 70's, nowhere near 200. Since their HP is high and this is the end of the game, yes, Lysithea will have trouble ORKOing them (though it's not impossible, if you can get her magic into the high 40's)... I already mentioned mages have trouble OHKOing at the end of the game, including her.

That said you're definitely overrating punchers, or underrating the other tools on your team. A wyvern lord a brave axe+, Death Blow, Str+2, Cichol Wyverns needs around 39 str (after class mod) to one-shot the war master in Shambhala, which is the tankiest one I could find looking at enemy stats, and just 34 to one-shot the ones in Enbarr 2 (VW/SS), 33 to one-shot the tankiest one on Crimson Flower. All very achievable numbers for me, and I'm not a heavy gardening abuser. On the other hand I'm not sure why you think punchers are outdoing this, since they're relying on weaker weapons... maybe Fierce Iron Fist may outperform at very specific numbers? Otherwise you're fishing for crits, and you said "reliably".

[RaIsMyPet]

46 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

War Masters top out with HP in the 70's, nowhere near 200. Since their HP is high and this is the end of the game, yes, Lysithea will have trouble ORKOing them (though it's not impossible, if you can get her magic into the high 40's)... I already mentioned mages have trouble OHKOing at the end of the game, including her.

That said you're definitely overrating punchers, or underrating the other tools on your team. A wyvern lord a brave axe+, Death Blow, Str+2, Cichol Wyverns needs around 39 str (after class mod) to one-shot the war master in Shambhala, which is the tankiest one I could find looking at enemy stats, and just 34 to one-shot the ones in Enbarr 2 (VW/SS), 33 to one-shot the tankiest one on Crimson Flower. All very achievable numbers for me, and I'm not a heavy gardening abuser. On the other hand I'm not sure why you think punchers are outdoing this, since they're relying on weaker weapons... maybe Fierce Iron Fist may outperform at very specific numbers? Otherwise you're fishing for crits, and you said "reliably".

I think one thing is fair and probably my fault: I almost never use brave weapons on self-sufficient unit; only weaker ones so they can kill but I use them for experimenting things like different builds. By "fishing" crits I think you underestimate how reliable puncher's crits are: Fraldarius soldiers with killer nuckles+ and innate WM +20 crit, brawl crit+10, that's 80 crit already, taking into account dex/luck stats, it's easy to achieve 80+ displayed crit with at least 2 hits, which translates to 96% at least one crit, which is more than enough to kill any enemy, considering it's easy to get 40 STR for Byleth or Felix. Even with 20 damage per hit, that's 80 damage 96% of time, and I'm not factoring any slight favoritism that is almost inevitable towards your better unit, like some sporadic statboosters from stories.

I also don't know why people assume WM are for EP and grappler is for PP: it's true for people like Raphael, but for Byleth or Felix it's definitely not true.

I'm not saying WM have 200 HP, you are simply diverging the point here. The thing is, without 200 damage dealers, the next tier is basically at 80s, where mages still can't reach without effective damage or occasional crit. 

As for gardening, I used extensively on two Maddening (one NG SS and one NG+ VW), and refrained from using those stat-boosters on the other two (again one NG AM, one NG+ CF), and the result is gardening has very little impact on those high-performers, assuming building correctly.

A minor point for Cichol Wyvern: I won't waste the best flying battalion (outside Immortal Corp?) on someone who needs brave axe to kill reliably, where I can just give to my crit-tank to boost her hit+crit, mainly hit against sword breakers. Edelgard doesn't need it as necessity, since she has so much strength and Amyr.

But I think everyone is prone to over/underrating certain things depending on their playstyle, we just have to agree to disagree then.

Edited November 1, 2020 by RaIsMyPet

[Shadow Mir]

22 hours ago, Hazeel said:

10/10. Best Player Phase unit in the game. Consistently kills, does so from a long range, ridiculously accurate, and gets the earliest and longest range warp, which is crucial for LTC. She's no good as an Enemy Phase unit, but that's simply not her job. Leave that to someone like War Master Byleth while Lysithea warps him around or takes care of the enemies with gambits.

EDIT: This is assuming Maddening. Hard is the same as Normal to me and frankly anyone can kill outside Maddening so Lysithea isn't quite as special there, though Warp is still nice.

You're exaggerating, big time. There's no way I can see even half of what you said as true, and you're clearly ignoring her poor start (like I said earlier, her most accurate spell only having 80 base hit is not ideal early-game wise).

[RaIsMyPet]

26 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

You're exaggerating, big time. There's no way I can see even half of what you said as true, and you're clearly ignoring her poor start (like I said earlier, her most accurate spell only having 80 base hit is not ideal early-game wise).

This is so funny. When I was just lurking I never agreed with Shadow Mir's relentless attack on Hilda's hit rate, maybe partially. But for Lysithea, she does have major hit rate issue early game, or even late game without Valkyrie mastery.

[drattakbowser]

Never play Black Eagles and Blue Lions without Lysithea for me.

Edited November 1, 2020 by drattakbowser

[Hazeel]

On 11/1/2020 at 10:23 AM, Shadow Mir said:

You're exaggerating, big time. There's no way I can see even half of what you said as true, and you're clearly ignoring her poor start (like I said earlier, her most accurate spell only having 80 base hit is not ideal early-game wise).

Uhhh...

1) That's...higher than axes. And on par with or higher than lances.

2) Early game is when your units will be grouped  together and constantly feeding each other support bonus hit. It's late game where being inaccurate really hurts you.

3) Your mages shouldn't be attacking early game unless absolutely necessary. Obviously Chapter 1 (2 for non-healers) is going to be the exception to this rule due to limited spell usage, but from Chapter 3 onwards, they should be letting other units get kills and focus on healing whenever possible, even if the other units don't particularly need it. On Chapter 5, you will be able to use your free DLC renown on the statues and ease the scarcity of Maddening exp a bit, but until then your overall team will get more exp if the mages focus on healing in battle and reason via instruction, while the physical units are fed more kills.

On 11/1/2020 at 10:17 AM, RaIsMyPet said:

I also don't know why people assume WM are for EP and grappler is for PP: it's true for people like Raphael, but for Byleth or Felix it's definitely not true.

How do you make an EP Raphael? He's slow, going to constantly get doubled, and I can't see him getting that much AVO. Felix can get a decent bit of AVO and avoid doubling due to his speed and, with his relic, might have a little bit of EP utility, but I will agree he isn't suited for it either. Byleth on the other hand is definitely suited for it. Due to sheer speed that he can level up skills, I would even argue he's the best EP unit in the game.

I realize this isn't the most impressive showcase since it's only a quest battle, but it's still early TS Maddening and he's very reliable. Nearly as good at getting kills as Dimitri, except I don't have to constantly worry about sending him into an area with monsters he can't crit or ballista he can't fight. And because Byleth's EP build doesn't rely on a gambit, I don't even need to worry about him getting hit that much since his battalion's health isn't that crucial.

With about 110-130 avoid, depending on your progress and setup, I'd say he's suited for EP. War Master has no effect on his avoid, obviously, but the reason you go Grappler is for Fierce Iron Fist, which is exclusively PP oriented. The reason you go War Master is partly for crit, and partly for QR, which is EP oriented. And I know some people like to act like getting QR is really difficult or something but...it's not.

This is from my recent BL run, during one of Chapter 14's other quests. I just popped on Knowledge Gem and let Byleth dodge all the others while Dimitri was on the other side, getting his battalion whittled down for his own EP build. Only took a few turns to master and Byleth actually got done faster because I could only let Dimitri take a few hits without killing him.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Hazeel

[RaIsMyPet]

2 hours ago, Hazeel said:

Uhhh...

1) That's...higher than axes. And on par with or higher than lances.

2) Early game is when your units will be grouped  together and constantly feeding each other support bonus hit. It's late game where being inaccurate really hurts you.

3) Your mages shouldn't be attacking early game unless absolutely necessary. Obviously Chapter 1 is going to be the exception to this rule due to limited spell usage, but from Chapter 2 onwards, they should be letting other units get kills and focus on healing whenever possible, even if the other units don't particularly need it. On Chapter 5, you will be able to use your free DLC renown on the statues and ease the scarcity of Maddening exp a bit, but until then your overall team will get more exp if the mages focus on healing in battle and reason via instruction, while the physical units are fed more kills.

How do you make an EP Raphael? He's slow, going to constantly get doubled, and I can't see him getting that much AVO. Felix can get a decent bit of AVO and avoid doubling due to his speed and, with his relic, might have a little bit of EP utility, but I will agree he isn't suited for it either. Byleth on the other hand is definitely suited for it. Due to sheer speed that he can level up skills, I would even argue he's the best EP unit in the game.

I realize this isn't the most impressive showcase since it's only a quest battle, but it's still early TS Maddening and he's very reliable. Nearly as good at getting kills as Dimitri, except I don't have to constantly worry about sending him into an area with monsters he can't crit or ballista he can't fight. And because Byleth's EP build doesn't rely on a gambit, I don't even need to worry about him getting hit that much since his battalion's health isn't that crucial.

With about 110-130 avoid, depending on your progress and setup, I'd say he's suited for EP. War Master has no effect on his avoid, obviously, but the reason you go Grappler is for Fierce Iron Fist, which is exclusively PP oriented. The reason you go War Master is partly for crit, and partly for QR, which is EP oriented. And I know some people like to act like getting QR is really difficult or something but...it's not.

This is from my recent BL run, during one of Chapter 14's other quests. I just popped on Knowledge Gem and let Byleth dodge all the others while Dimitri was on the other side, getting his battalion whittled down for his own EP build. Only took a few turns to master and Byleth actually got done faster because I could only let Dimitri take a few hits without killing him.

No I'm not doubting WM can be EP effective. They can. It's just I constantly see people assuming WM are FOR EP because of QR, which isn't true in Byleth or Felix case.

As for Raph, I don't think one should make him EP to begin with.

I also agree Dimitri isn't the best EP, even though he is the easiest one to build. As for Byleth, I'm genuinely curious because did you use Brawl Avo +20 with high avoid battalion? Because I can't imagine this avo in regular playthrough without AS+.

Anyway, if this is true, I would agree Byleth to be one of the best EP unit (Felix doesn't have easy access to War Monk), mainly due to it doesn't require a dancer slot like Petra/Claude, and has more leeway on battalion health. But as for the "best", I could still point out first you need to master an endgame class to be reliably effective, and WM's movement type is way worse than WL. For example, one place a Crit-tanks (as I call them) really shines is Edelgard's paralogue since it's just extremely slow to progress without this type of unit, if at all, and WM is just too slow to move around.  Also still 100% crit > ~80% crit

 

Edit: I also want to add that Petra/Claude requires only one class mastery: archer, much easier than War Monk + War Master

Edited November 3, 2020 by RaIsMyPet

[Hazeel]

It's actually as simple as stacking on AS along with everything else. Just by consistently using Flying faculty training, I can get to A+ by Chapter 17 with Seteth and Manuela as the only instructors. The fastest I've gotten it was Chapter 15, because two of my students were able to get ahead in flying and I had four instructors. I don't remember when I got normal AS, but based on my progress log, It was definitely before Chapter 10.

My units and Professor Level seemed to be going at a reasonable pace for me, so I don't feel like I even had to sacrifice much of anything in that department either.

As far as killing goes, I would say that Dimitri is the more reliable killer but, again, the issue I have with him is that I can't send him out as brazenly as I send Byleth. Dimitri can't hit ballista, he can't crit monsters, armored units might survive, and there's always the potential of him missing. I think the saddest moment in my BL playthrough was watching him missing his vantage shot in Chapter 17 against Ignatz, who was hiding in the bushes and then proceeded to two-shot kill Dimitri.

In contrast, Byleth doesn't face these risks. Even if he failed to kill Ignatz due to hit rate, there's a very low chance he would have gotten damaged. And even if he did, it wouldn't matter. In part because QR prevents enemies from doubling and in part because he doesn't rely on his his battalion's health. If Dimitri's battalion dies, he's borderline useless for the rest of the map and I have to spend another week whittling it down. Again, for reference, mastering WM actually took less time than whittling Dimitri's battalion to 1/3 and I don't have to worry about losing QR from damage.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Hazeel

[RaIsMyPet]

26 minutes ago, Hazeel said:

It's actually as simple as stacking on AS along with everything else. Just by consistently using Flying faculty training, I can get to A+ by Chapter 17 with Seteth and Manuela as the only instructors. The fastest I've gotten it was Chapter 15, because two of my students were able to get ahead in flying and I had four instructors. I don't remember when I got normal AS, but based on my progress log, It was definitely before Chapter 10.

My units and Professor Level seemed to be going at a reasonable pace for me, so I don't feel like I even had to sacrifice much of anything in that department either.

As far as killing goes, I would say that Dimitri is the more reliable killer but, again, the issue I have with him is that I can't send him out as brazenly as I send Byleth. Dimitri can't hit ballista, he can't crit monsters, armored units might survive, and there's always the potential of him missing. I think the saddest moment in my BL playthrough was watching him missing his vantage shot in Chapter 17 against Ignatz, who was hiding in the bushes and then proceeded to two-shot kill Dimitri.

In contrast, Byleth doesn't face these risks. Even if he failed to kill Ignatz due to hit rate, there's a very low chance he would have gotten damaged. And even if he did, it wouldn't matter. In part because QR prevents enemies from doubling and in part because he doesn't rely on his his battalion's health. If Dimitri's battalion dies, he's borderline useless for the rest of the map and I have to spend another week whittling it down. Again, for reference, mastering WM actually took less time than whittling Dimitri's battalion to 1/3 and I don't have to worry about losing QR from damage.

I see. That seems nice and I will give it a try sometime.

Your experience with Dimitri agrees with mine as Dimitri can miss, can let armors survive, may miss even 99% crit since 1RN, ballistas, monsters, etc. Personally I devised Petra's build which I recommend you try it if you haven't. It's Sword Avo, Sword Prowess, Hit+20, BW, and AS+, ideally with Cichol Wyvern later on. WoDao+Rapier obviously.

Compared to Byleth, the con is you need to give her Dancer for sword avoid, and it's somewhat more attention demanding since pre-timeskip you still want a regular dual-blow Petra, while Byleth doesn't get Darting blow anyways. For enemy lancers you better also give her evasion ring and/or A-support adjutant. The pro is for one, you can finish the build at around Ch10 already; secondly, basically same level of kill power as Dimitri partially thanks to Petra's speed that can double up to wyverns/heroes naturally with just a tiny nudge, as well as rapier's effective damage; thirdly, you can afford using silver sword while still maintaining around 50% crit. It also features "almost mindless" invincibility as your Byleth (usually Petra's avoid is higher around 130~150 (and earlier since AS+ compared to AS), so leaving a good buffer to deal with lancers, also why I want some additional setup; in this regard, gauntlets are indeed better.)

It's not hard to reach 1/3 battalion by the way: every house has a weak yet high authority unit in Hubert, Annette and Ignatz, and guard adjutant in Caspar, Dedue, and Raph. In Silver Snow you don't have Hubert but have Seteth. So give them battalion and guard adjutant, 1-HP them two times during any battle you are all set. In my recent BL NG I got like 4 of those for Dimitri in early post-timeskip.

Edited November 3, 2020 by RaIsMyPet

[Ari Chan]

On 11/1/2020 at 10:52 AM, RaIsMyPet said:

This is so funny. When I was just lurking I never agreed with Shadow Mir's relentless attack on Hilda's hit rate, maybe partially. But for Lysithea, she does have major hit rate issue early game, or even late game without Valkyrie mastery.

You don’t need Uncanny Blow, one of the A rank Magic Battalions (Macuil Evil Repelling Co.) gives 50 hit rate at max rank and reaching A Authority on Lysithea mid game isn’t hard considering she has a Boon in Authority + Mastermind. In my AM and VW Maddening playthrough her accuracy late game rarely drops below 100 with that Battalion equipped, even Luna has around 90 hit rate against a lot of bosses.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Ari Chan

[Anathaco]

8 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

You don’t need Uncanny Blow, one of the A rank Magic Battalions (Macuil Evil Repelling Co.) gives 50 hit rate at max rank and reaching A Authority on Lysithea mid game isn’t hard considering she has a Boon in Authority + Mastermind. In my AM and VW Maddening playthrough her accuracy late game rarely drops below 100 with that Battalion equipped, even Luna has around 90 hit rate against a lot of bosses.

Mild correction that Macuil Evil Repelling Co only boosts hit by 30, not 50. The highest hit boost from a battalion is 40, from Edmund Troops.

Anyway I second this point overall, Linked attacks + a decent hit rate on your battalion fixes basically any accuracy issues a mage may face. The very early game can be a problem though, since supports take a bit to build up, and you don’t get many good battalions or items like the accuracy ring.

[Ari Chan]

13 minutes ago, Anathaco said:

Mild correction that Macuil Evil Repelling Co only boosts hit by 30, not 50. The highest hit boost from a battalion is 40, from Edmund Troops.

Anyway I second this point overall, Linked attacks + a decent hit rate on your battalion fixes basically any accuracy issues a mage may face. The very early game can be a problem though, since supports take a bit to build up, and you don’t get many good battalions or items like the accuracy ring.

Oops my bad, but yeah there are many ways to stack hit rate late game on magic units and their attacks ignore terrain bonuses so they rarely miss. Also I didn’t recall seeing that many Tomebreakers (is there even a plus version for it?) compared to other Breaker skills.

[Shadow Mir]

18 hours ago, Hazeel said:

Uhhh...

1) That's...higher than axes. And on par with or higher than lances.

2) Early game is when your units will be grouped  together and constantly feeding each other support bonus hit. It's late game where being inaccurate really hurts you.

3) Your mages shouldn't be attacking early game unless absolutely necessary. Obviously Chapter 1 is going to be the exception to this rule due to limited spell usage, but from Chapter 2 onwards, they should be letting other units get kills and focus on healing whenever possible, even if the other units don't particularly need it. On Chapter 5, you will be able to use your free DLC renown on the statues and ease the scarcity of Maddening exp a bit, but until then your overall team will get more exp if the mages focus on healing in battle and reason via instruction, while the physical units are fed more kills.

1) You're probably using combat arts, which tend to have extra hit tacked on to them, often.

2) Which probably won't amount to much since it's only on player phase, and second, they need supports to go online iirc. Also, I'd say being inaccurate is as bad in the earlygame, if not worse since you can't cover for low hit as easily then..

3) Some mages might not be able to learn Heal by chapter 2. Also, this sounds like it'd make them end up in their Noble/Commoner phase for even longer, which is only shooting myself in the foot when they want out of that asap.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[RaIsMyPet]

1 hour ago, Ari Chan said:

You don’t need Uncanny Blow, one of the A rank Magic Battalions (Macuil Evil Repelling Co.) gives 50 hit rate at max rank and reaching A Authority on Lysithea mid game isn’t hard considering she has a Boon in Authority + Mastermind. In my AM and VW Maddening playthrough her accuracy late game rarely drops below 100 with that Battalion equipped, even Luna has around 90 hit rate against a lot of bosses.

Yeah that's fair. Actually I do give her battalions for that. It's just recently DLC classes are so good so I kind of forgot. My bad.