Jump to content

Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 38: Balthus


Barren
 Share

Recommended Posts

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 and no stat booster items

- 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

Byleth: 9.05

Edelgard: 9.00

Claude: 8.977

Felix: 8.625 

Lysithea: 8.472

Petra: 8.34

Leonie: 8.2

Jeritza: 8.2

Ferdinand: 7.78

Catherine: 7.7556

Sylvain: 7.66

Ingrid: 7.34

Hilda: 7.31

Yuri: 7.28

Seteth: 7.2273

Bernadetta: 7.125

Linhardt: 7.11

Marianne: 6.9769

Mercedes: 6.756

Shamir: 6.65

Dorothea: 6.375

Cyril: 6.0454

Dedue: 5.8571

Alois: 5.75

Annette: 5.5375

Hubert: 5.525

Ignatz: 4.88

Flayn: 4.583

Caspar: 4.32

Hanneman: 4.18

Lorenz: 3.8077

Raphael: 3.7273 

Ashe: 3.69 (nice)

Manuela: 3.1

Gilbert: 2.27

Anna: 1.978

 

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: 6.543

Average score for Faculty: 5.57 (rounded, it was a very very long number)

Average score for Ashen Wolves: 7.28

Edited by Barren
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9/10 (Maddening)

Balthus IMO is the strongest of the Ashen Wolves. At first glance he seems like a better version of Raphael, with high strength (12 + 50%), defence (8 + 45%) and HP (29 + 50%). I say better because his weaknesses aren’t as polarising as Raphael’s, despite still being pretty low, with 6 + 30% magic, 8 + 30% speed and 5 + 30% res. His weakest stats by far are his Dex and luck though (5 + 25% and 3 + 20%, respectively) which result in a unit with poor hit unless/until you can get some skills or battalions to patch that up. Hit rate isn’t a massive deal in this game since there are so many ways to fix it but it’s still a flaw.

Balthus has an absurd amount of boons, the highest in the game iirc. He’s proficient in swords, axes, brawling, reason (with his budding talent), faith, and armour- 6 boons in total. Realistically reason won’t see much use at all and Faith will see sketchy use at best, but still. He compensates for this by having some annoying banes in bows and flying, making it tricky for him to patch his accuracy or go Wyvern Lord, along with a bane in lances which is whatever. 
 

In terms of abilities and arts he learns rally strength, battalion desperation, Bane of Monsters, Diamond axe, armoured strike, draining blow and mighty blow. Rally strength is the only real noteworthy thing here which is why I lumped everything together. His spells are equally mediocre, learning fire, Bolganone and ragnarok on the reason side and seraphim and restore on the faith side. So there’s little point to making him a mage despite his proficiencies, thanks to mediocre magic and spells.

So what about Balthus is so good? Well let me introduce you to my candidate for best personal skill in the game, King of Grappling. *slaps skill* This baby can fit so many stats in it. +6 strength/defence, to be precise. Needing to be below 50% health is a bit tricky, but Balthus is bulky enough that it won’t be much of an issue activating or maintaining. With this personal skill he basically becomes Dedue 2.0, without vengeance but freely recruitable and doesn’t miss a fair chunk of the timeskip. His massive bulk trivialises early chapters even on maddening, and when physical tanking falls off later on the massive strength boost his personal gives lets him keep up by outputting massive damage. Hell, if he takes a detour through hero with that sword boon of his, defiant strength + KoG + gauntlets basically gives him power to rival a vengeance hit, though admittedly much later. Still, assuming you use him, Balthus won’t fall off and will consistently be a heavy hitter until the end. Just keep him away from War Monk and in Grappler/War Master.

So overall I’m giving Balthus a 9, accounting for a 0.5 bias. I’d give him the full + 1, but 9.5 feels a little too high even for me- hit issues + generally being a bit too straightforward prevent even this Balthus stan from ranking him that high. So 8.5 + 0.5 gives him his final rating of 9.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel like the devs must have realized that most of the slow but strong axe-and-punch dudes (Caspar, Raphael, Alois) were a bit undertuned, because Balthus is a straight upgrade on all of them.

The good: 11+50% strength and 7+45% defence should look familiar: it's Raphael again. His HP is a little less good, but still well above average at 28+50% (similar to Sylvain). His personal skill, however, can push these even further: below half HP, he gets +6 strength (essentially vaulting him to game-best while it's active) and defence, which also gives him some neat tanking options (although defence boosts when you're already injured are hard to take advantage of except against low-atk enemies). It also synergises very well with Vantage/Wrath builds; Balthus is likely the best user of such builds in the game, as such.

His talent list includes axes, brawling, armour, and faith, so he's perfectly set to go for any punching classes, and decently well set to go to Wyvern too.

The less good: 7+30% speed is obviously disappointing, although it's notably better than Raphael at least. His res and charm are both 4+30%... again, below average, but not as bad as some of his most obvious competition.

He's got banes in lances and flying, which do make wyvern a bit tougher to reach (although quite doable)... and bow as well, so forget archer builds for him.

Overall, Balthus is a clear upgrade on Raphael in particular (he even gets Rally Strength). If you can get mileage out of his personal skill, he can do some nasty damage indeed. If you can't he'll probably feel a bit underwhelming, nowhere near the offensive level of the likes of Felix or Catherine, but not bad. It works out to a pretty average score overall. Balthus gets a 5.5/10 (Maddening).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Balthus, considered on Maddening.

The Bad

As stats go, Baltie suffers from a few weak point. These are based on picking him up as a level 3 Noble, in chapter 2. His Luck (3 + 0.20x) leaves him vulnerable to crits, while his Dexterity (5 + 0.25x) undermines his accuracy. As offensive gambits go, his Charm (5 + 0.35x) is just okay. As for his Speed (8 + 0.30x), it starts solid, but doesn't necessarily hold up in the long run.

He has a few bane areas, to his detriment. A bane in Lances, and another in Riding, conspire to discourage him from most mounted classes, Paladin especially (and Dex +4, Move +1). His other weakness is in Bows, so Sniper and Bow Knight are out of his reach. You'd think he'll have a hard time with Archer, but he has a trick - if recruited in chapter 3/4/5, he'll join as a Fighter, with D Bows. So he has Curved Shot from the start, and can get Hit +20 to make up for his low accuracy. Also, he joins with E+ Authority, which, depending on his time of joining, may or may not be good.

What else? Well, as spells go, his Reason list is super-boring - just the fire sequence. He also doesn't get many good Faith support options - only Restore. To his credit, he gets a ton of combat arts, but most of them are... c'mon, Bane of Monsters? Diamond Axe? Draining Blow? Mighty Blow? Nothing to construct a build around, at least.

The Good

Balthus is principally strong in the armor knight areas. His HP (29 + 0.50x) is quite good, and in tandem with his Defense (8 + 0.45x) makes for some serious physical bulk. His Strength, too, is a standout (12 + 0.50x), letting him deliver gteat damage. His Magic (6 + 0.30x), while not high, is surprisingly decent for a physical unit - as is his Resistance (5 + 0.30x), letting him survive a spell or two.

As for proficiencies, he has more than a few boons to his name. He joins strong in Axes (D+), so going Brigand for Death Blow is a no-brainer. And Gauntlets (D+) give him a great player-phase tool, while affording an easy route to Grappler or War Master. His Sword boon (E+), too, is surprisingly useful - he can certify as a Thief to bump up his Speed and Dexterity, and in the long-run, Hero and Assassin are hardly the worst options. While he joins with E Armor, a boon lets him certify in Armor Knight, get Weight-3, and it makes Fortress Knight an easy build. Being Flight-neutral, too, makes the Wyvern classes realizable. He also comes strong in Faith (E), so War Monk can be a good pick for hybrid offense. Finally, if you want him getting Fiendish Blow for magical damage, unlocking his budding talent in Reason is a must.

Balthus has quite a few other neat tricks under his jacket. On the magic side, he does get Seraphim to help deal with monsters. And his budding talent grants Black Magic Crit +10 - not something to bank off of, but it could land a surprise kill. His Armored Strike combat art, too, can work with his high Defense stat. He also gets Rally Strength, to support physically-offensive allies.

His Crest, too, I think is worth its own discussion. The Major Crest of Chevalier has a 50% chance of restoring HP after a combat art - not the best, but it can aid his survival. The bigger deal, I think, is how it interacts with the Vajra-Mushti - granting the Eviscerate combat art. Since this hits the target in their lower defensive stat, he can use it to take a serious chunk out of high-Def, low-Res enemies. Moreover, having a Crest is a huge boon in its own right. Most units oriented toward Armor or Brawling builds (Caspar, Dedue, Raphael, Gilbert, Alois) are lacking one. So unlike those units, Balthus will take no penalty with the Vajra-Mushti or the Aegis Shield.

I also consider Balthus' personal ability to be one of the truly great ones. "King of Grappling", in spite of its name, has little to do with fists - it's more like "Resolve" than anything else, providing a stat boost (specifically, +6 Strength and +6 Defense) when HP falls below half. The defensive boost can help him turn low-damage hits into no-damage, and survive where he otherwise would not. And the strength boost bolsters his enemy phase damage output. Specifically, he can combine it with Wrath (from Warrior), Vantage, and Defiant Strength (from Hero) for a build that, with the right setup, kills anything. Defiant Crit (from Wyvern Lord) is amother good pickup, and War Master (Crit+20) can make for an ideal endpoint.

The Verdict

This rough-and-tumble noble has a few things going against him - his spells and combat arts are generally lackluster, his Dexterity and Luck are miserable, and his banes in the "Bow Knight" areas limit his class options somewhat. Otherwise, however, the deck is stacked in Balthus' favor. He deals excellent damage on player phase, and with the right skills (including his personal), it only becomes better when he's under attack. His physical bulk is among the best in the game, and his Crest (and personal) help with it. Death Blow is an easy get, and depending on his time of recruitment, Hit +20 isn't too bad either. And his roads to strong classes like Wyvern Lord, War Master, and Fortress Knight are fairly simple. Finally, he has enough magic that he's not totally out of his element doing hybrid offense. There are few I'd rather have in my corner in case of a scrap, and I'm happy to rate Balthus an 8 out of 10.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Happy-go-lucky idiot here. I have nothing else to say on his character.

     Skill Levels:      Boons in Sword (E+), Axe (D+), Brawling (D+), Faith (E), and Armor (E). Banes in Lances, Bows, and Flying. Talent in Reason. So, Wyvern is heavily discouraged and getting Hit +20 is a pain.

     Abilities:     King of Grappling is the best Personal. Early game, he’s easily your best tank, even in Maddening. Late game and he deals great amounts of damage with Gauntlets. It also synergizes with Vantage+Wrath, so much so that I recommend it. His other abilities are Rally Strength (D) and Battalion Desperation (B). The Rally is Ok at least.

     Arts:     Bane of Monsters (C+), Draining Blow (C+), Mighty Blow (A) bad, etc, etc. Diamond Axe (C+) is of marginal use. Armored Strike (A) is pretty good.

     Stats:     29+50% Hp, 12+50% Strength, and 8+45% Defense are solid. It’s all downhill from there. 6+30% Magic, 5+30% Resistance, and 5+35% Charm are weak. His Dexterity (5+25%) and Luck (3+20%) are straight up atrocious. Not as good as Dedue, but then, who is when it comes to tanking?

     Classes:     Beginner- Fighter

Intermediate- Mercinary for Vantage, Brigand for DB, Armor for tanking

Advanced- Warrior for Wrath, Grappler for Fistfaire and FIF, Fortress for tanking

Master- War Master

          The Verdict

Early on, his Personal carries him. Latter on, it still buffs his stats a considerable amount. He’ll demolish anything he initiates on. If he hits. That’s his biggest problem. Yes you can get him to D+ Bows to get Hit +20, but even then, he will have some accuracy issues. Supports definitely help. Wyvern is doable, but there are so many better candidates. Vajra-Mushti is very strong, with the best stats of all Gauntlets, but Eviscerate isn't the best art*. 7.5/10, All hail the King.

 

*Does anyone know if Eviscerate uses you Strength for hiting on enemy Res? If so, the I'd bump his rating up +.5

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Time to talk about the King of Grappling himself Balthus. This giant bruiser likes to show off his bod for the ladies to get their fill and remain in constant debt too. So many bounty hunters so little time. But we're here to talk about his performance overall on the battlefield. This is assuming hard.

Balthus is similar to Raphael and Dedue in a sense but there's more to it than that. His HP and Strength growths are his highest points, they both share a 50% growth. His defense growth at 45% is also note worthy. The rest of his stats are either below average or quite low. Balthus' magic, speed and resistance have a 30% growth. His charm has 35% growth, dexterity at 25% and luck at 20%. So he would be pretty slow and less likely to land or avoid crit, as well as land gambits. He can however can take quite a lot of punishment. Quite literally too thanks to his personal ability King of Grappling. This grants him +6 in strength and defense when under 50% health. Balthus can potentially turn low damage attacks he takes to suffering no damage whatsoever. Balthus bears the major Crest of Chevalier which allows him to restore HP equal to 30% of damage dealt when using Combat Arts. Balthus also has a Hero's Relic the Vajra-Mushti. This allows him to have access to the Eviscerate combat arts which targets the enemy's lowest defense stat whether its defense or resistance so he always has a way to punch holes for you.

Balthus has a boon in swords, axes, brawling, faith and heavy armor with a budding talent in reason magic. That's a lot of areas for him to do well in. His banes consist of lances, bows and riding. This obviously means that classes like Paladin, Bow Knight and Sniper are very hard for him to pull off. However, there is a neat trick you can do: recruit him between chapters 3 - 5, he'll have a D rank in bows with Curved Shot unlocked off the bat. So he can get to rank D+ and have a good chance to certify as an archer. His only sword combat art he gets is Bane of Monsters, unfortunately this is situational at best. His list of axe combat arts contains Diamond Axe at rank C+ and Armored Strike at rank A. Diamond Axe hits incredibly hard but unless you have Hit +20 it's really unreliable. Armored Strike can be okay as long his defense stat is high enough to make a difference. His brawling combat arts has Draining Blow at rank C+ and Mighty Blow at rank A. Draining Blow is meh at best and Mighty Blow while powerful not as useful as something like Bombard or One-Two Punch. This would mean that he'll want to rely on class exclusive CAs like Fierce Iron Fist or in the case of War Monk, Pneuma Gale which is a 2 range magic attack for the class. 

His faith spell list has Seraphim at rank C+ then Restore at rank B+. Seraphim is always nice to help deal with monsters but his magic stat is quite low for him to take advantage of, and Restore on occasion can be helpful when being rattled by gambits. When unlocking his budding talent in reason he gets Black Magic Crit +10 like Edelgard. Though his reason spell list has Fire at rank D, Bolganone at rank C and Ragnarok at rank A. Edelgard at least has a reasonable magic growth and can go into magical based classes like Valkyrie and Dark Knight. Balthus, not so much as he would only be taking advantage of this by using the Warlock class. 

For class paths, he should always go to Fighter to gain Strength +2. He can go to Archer if recruited as mentioned earlier above so he may get Hit +20. Then Brigand for Death Blow. If you're working on his Heavy Armor, he can get Weight -3 at C rank which can be okay for him when going down the brawling route since gauntlets generally allows him to double. Armored Blow from Armored Knight can be basically a budget Windsweep where he could take minimal damage from physical attacks especially when King of Grappling activates. Death Blow also combines really well with his personal ability. Thanks to his sword boon, he could go Mercenary to learn Vantage and go Hero (Hey remember that class? No? I don't blame you). With that class, you can learn Defiant Strength. If you want to combine that Defiant Strength with Vantage and Wrath from the Warrior class and Death Blow, his damage output can reach an astronomical +20 strength when initiating combat. +14 strength and +6 defense when on enemy phase. Not to mention if you raise his authority high enough for him to have access to better battalions and get higher defense and resistance to boot. Holy shit that is ridiculous.

Vantage and Wrath, especially when a War Master would absolutely decimate everything in his path. And you think Dimitri is OP. Balthus is a pretty damn close second because he needs to be on the verge of death to achieve that kind of damage. War Monk is actually a good class for him (at least as a pit stop to other classes) because he can get Brawl Avoid +20. This helps him dodge a number of attacks. Especially when combining that with Grappler's Tomebreaker which gives him a way to stand up to Mages. Balthus can even go Wyvern Lord if you're willing to muscle through his lance weakness and his neutrality to flying. At least axes is one of his boons. War Master grants him a crit +20 in addition to Fistfaire and Axefaire. War Master's Strike is a solid CA exclusive that hits every enemy effectively. Quick Riposte is quite valuable as well. Fortress Knight is only there for Pavise but his dex growth isn't high enough to take advantage of it. Balthus gets Rally Strength at rank D which is a nice tool to have to increase an ally's attack. He also gets Battalion Desperation at Authority rank B. which is not the best for him since his speed is quite low

Overall, I think Balthus is a damn good unit. 8/10 for me. Balthus may be slow and at times a little shaky with his hit rates, but when recruited at the right time and trained in the right areas, he can be an great addition to the team. No doubt one of the better units to use in the game at least in my opinion. It is understandable if you feel he is a bit overrated but honestly, he is worth the try.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, L3xandr3 said:

*Does anyone know if Eviscerate uses you Strength for hiting on enemy Res? If so, the I'd bump his rating up +.5

I’m pretty certain it does, it takes your physical attack but uses the enemy’s resilience if that’s lower than their prt.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Balthus the King of Grappling. Pretty good physical stat growths with 50% Strength and 45% Def. So he’s pretty tanky early on, and with his personal ability he gains even more Strength and Defense when he is <=50% HP. He brings Relic Gauntlets from his paralogue, so that helps him or any other Grappler deal with Maddening enemies better, before Fierce Iron Fist or War Master. He has a flaw in bows so getting into Archer will take some time, but if you recruit him while he is a Fighter he will have some Bow rank, so that helps. 

I’m not too big of a fan of his combat arts. Bane of Monsters can deal some heavy damage to monsters, but you are investing into swords which you don’t care for too much, and Death Blow with Gauntlets does a similar job. Draining Blow is okay to finish off something and heal in the process. I rate Caspar higher than him in the early game because he at least has a Brave combat art. His paralogue provides a decent battalion in Leicester Dicers Corp, which grants +7 Str and Mag, so a good boost to anyone especially mixed units.

For classes the standard Grappler and War Master are excellent. War Monk isn’t as min-maxed as War Master, it’s supposed to be mixed, but I think Balthus is better of otherwise. He doesn’t make the best use of Brawl Avoid because of his low speed, but you can stack evasion pretty easily. He has a flaw in Flying and he’s slow so I don’t think Wyvern is the best, but he can still Brave Axe things.

He advertises War Monk, but what benefit is there? Budding talent in Reason gives him Black Magic Crit, but his spells don’t have innate crit... okay. Then he learns Restore at A rank Faith, and Seraphim can do a decent chunk to monsters, but I’d imagine he does similar damage by just attacking. The class is good on sand maps because it counts as a Mage class, so there’s something.

My rating: 7/10. He has some weirdness, but he out does the other tanky axe bois. 

Edited by LoneStar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7.5/10, Balthus is the result of the devs going “hey guys what if one of those slow but strong axe and brawling guys was good?”. He’s rocking nice 50% growths in strength and HP, with a good 45% in defense as well, balanced out by his 30% in res, magic, and speed (not that magic should be seeing much use), 35% in charm, 25% in dexterity and 20% in luck, he is a very lopsided unit, and not the last one we’ll be seeing. What helps to make him shine are his boons and banes, since for boons he has swords, axes, brawling, faith, armor, and a (useless) budding talent in reason. His weaknesses are lances, bows, and riding, which don’t really effect him all that much except for bows stopping him from efficiently fixing his hit issues, but according to another post I read here if you recruit him in chapter 3 he has D+ bows which is very nice, you might want to grab him then if you want to use him long term. In chapter two he joins with D+ in axes and brawling which great, and E+ in authority is decent in its own right. As far as combat arts, his only notable ones are diamond axe and armored blow (which scales off defense) which are nice for good damage output, and his reason spell list is just the fire spells with his faith spell list adding seraphim and restore on top of the normal spells, although none of this really matters since he shouldn’t be doing much with magic. He also gets rally strength from D authority, which shouldn’t be hard to get from E rank, which is a good rally and thus always handy to have around. We can’t talk about his abilities without mentioning his personal though, which grants him plus six strength and defense when his HP is equal to or less than 50%, which won’t make too much of an impact on him since has high HP and is a tankier unit, although it might be a bit tricky to pull off, it could have him survive where otherwise he would not and that is very useful. Lastly, when using his relic, Vajra-Mushti, he gets access to the Eviscerate combat art, which does damage based off of whichever of the enemy’s defensive stats is lower, once again great for higher damage output. He is helped further by his early potential joining time in every route, although is held back by his low dexterity (as much as one can be held back by hit issues in three houses) and luck that’s low enough for crits to be somewhat worrying, and potentially speed depending on what you decide to do with him, since he really likes gauntlets and is very tanky so that might not matter as much. Either way, he gets a 7.5/10.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

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