Maddening - What should I be spending my time doing?

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/22/2022 at 8:47 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Pavise requires Lysithea take 75 actions (or 38 with a Gem) in an absolutely terrible class for her, in addition to a minimum of 920 skill exp in two skills she has banes, so I'd definitely throw that in "gimmick/NG+ only" territory. I already consider Thyrsus's reduction to be basically irrelevant myself. I'm not exposing Lysithea (or Lorenz) to fatal damage unless I screw up.

Ditto. I already consider it rather irrelevant when the thing itself allows mages to attack from long range, but considering who gets the damage reduction effect - a wannabe generalist and someone who has rock-bottom durability... I cannot help but laugh.

[blindcoco.studios]

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Ditto. I already consider it rather irrelevant when the thing itself allows mages to attack from long range, but considering who gets the damage reduction effect - a wannabe generalist and someone who has rock-bottom durability... I cannot help but laugh.

It could be a fun build to have a War Cleric/Monk Nosferatu tanking with Thyrsus. Annette has a crest that sometimes conserves uses of attack magic, so she (potentially) gets more Nosferatu durability & doesn't have a drawback from wielding Thyrsus. She can even build her gauntlet rank at the same time as her armor rank for pavise (and she has a boon in axes to reach that).

Still just a meme build, but it could be a funny one. 

[Shadow Mir]

41 minutes ago, blindcoco.studios said:

It could be a fun build to have a War Cleric/Monk Nosferatu tanking with Thyrsus. Annette has a crest that sometimes conserves uses of attack magic, so she (potentially) gets more Nosferatu durability & doesn't have a drawback from wielding Thyrsus. She can even build her gauntlet rank at the same time as her armor rank for pavise (and she has a boon in axes to reach that).

Still just a meme build, but it could be a funny one. 

For 6 uses. Which is enough to kill what little viability that has. And that's on top of how awful Nosferatu is.

[DaveCozy]

Chapters 1 to 5 are the most challenging start in New Game Maddening imo. I realize this thread is old and TC may not still be looking for more advice, but for other readers here I'll copy paste some notes I've shared with friends:

First thing I really recommend is to learn how the game calculates its combat values. There's plenty resources out there (Serenes included) and it's worth paying attention to that stuff. You'll always have some tools available to beat any challenge if you know the games math.

Second thing I greatly recommend is to learn the route you're doing and plan your team before you start. Know what the units you're planning to use learn as they get skill ranks and plan well in advance to set their goals and tutor them on those things to reach the needed ranks in time. Aside that, keep your main combat team to a reasonable number too; about 8 combat units is a fine number, more is doable too. You can fill the rest of your deployment slots with supporting units (with spells, rallies, gambits, or secondary effects) or chip damage, or in other words units that don't need to keep up in levels to be useful. Not everyone you deploy has to be good at a fight necessarily to be useful.

Always look at enemies and their abilities before engaging and finishing your move. Don't trust the battle forecast without first analyzing those things, lest you be surprised by a Vantage counter-attack when you engage an enemy.

Explore is by far the best choice when in the Monastery. For battles, I would recommend doing those only for quests and paralogues, and preferably at the end of the month (depends on the route and month).

I recommend doing Flayn's early fishing quest and using your bait to fish until your prof level gets to E+. Try not to miss any fish and try to wait until you get at least a red shadow (you can skip up to two fish, but take the third one to not waste bait). This will increase the amount of instructions you have for lectures. And it gives you head start into the next week with 2 activity points which is way better than 1.

Otherwise save fishing bait for Fistfull of Fish (you get a ton of money with good timing), or when you need to cook things like bullheads for +speed.

There's one week in chapter 2 where you have to choose between rest and seminar. I recommend seminar and choose Seteth, which trains lances and authority. This is relevant for female units who want to go into pegasus knight, male units with swift strikes, mages that learn frozen lance (very strong magical CA that nukes enemies), and any unit that learns rallies which are at least helpful early game (some which stay helpful further). A lot of units fall into that category. You can control who attends the seminar by setting their goals to those (Byleth + 5 other students).

Best use of activity points: cook something that boosts a stat (speed preferably) once per week, dine with your students, use faculty training to boost Byleth's ranks, tournament for money and the most prof experience. Generally I recommend going for as much professor experience as possible to get the most out of your weekends.

Gift the students you want to recruit aggressively and early. Remember you can also increase motivation of your students by giving them gifts, doing support conversations when they want to see you (only then!), and giving them their lost items. All of those raise motivation and don't cost any activity points.

Certifying classes lets you boost stat minimums for your units. Relevant e.g. is Armored Knight to boost base defense of a unit to 12.

Battalions and gambits are OP. Stat boosts for equipping them and stun-locking enemies is very helpful early-game. Stride is super useful in general and later support gambits like Impregnable Wall and Blessing can make units unkillable.

Use Combat Arts early for maximum damage to kill first before enemies even counter. Durability doesn't matter much later because most weapons are easy to repair (you can buy common ore from the market on the monastery).

Equip your lighter weapons (training ones, swords, mini bow, etc) to engage enemies on their turn if you have to bait them. Generally try to strike first though.

Edited May 9, 2022 by DaveCozy