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Choosing preferred gender for Byleth on Maddening mode


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Choosing preferred gender for Byleth on Maddening mode  

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  1. 1. Which Byleth do you prefer to use for your maddening run?

    • Male Byleth
      19
    • Female Byleth
      30


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4 hours ago, RainbowMoon said:

Different strokes, my dude. Female Byleth's outfit, while obviously impractical, doesn't bother me. Nearly everything about male Byleth's design does: the hair, the scowl (Byleth's supposed to have no emotions wtf), the black clothes with the bloody red pentagram thing on his chest... I could go on. Clearly it's the other way around for you, and that's perfectly fine. Not sure why you have to post your disagreement when we've already had this discussion before.

Considering the part where Byleth is supposed to have no emotions, at least at first, I'm more bothered by the female in that regard, because a smile is about as far from "emotionless" as you can get, which is not only no good when you're trying to sell me on the no emotions aspect, it's a blatant contradiction, because you're showing me the exact opposite... I won't say more than that, because there's no need to flog a dead horse.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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12 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Considering the part where Byleth is supposed to have no emotions, at least at first, I'm more bothered by the female in that regard, because a smile is about as far from "emotionless" as you can get, which is not only no good when you're trying to sell me on the no emotions aspect, it's a blatant contradiction, because you're showing me the exact opposite... I won't say more than that, because there's no need to flog a dead horse.

Not to keep this going either, but for me female Byleth's smile (I'm assuming you mean at the end of Ch.6) is more in keeping with her character because it happens at an important part of the story to show that Byleth's growing and changing as a person instead of staying the emotionless rock she was at the beginning. Jeralt even comments on it, and it makes for a nice, lighthearted moment between her and Dimitri (at least on Blue Lions) after such a grim chapter. To me it's a really sweet character development moment for someone who I feel gets overshadowed most of the time by the more complex lords.

Male Byleth's scowl on the other hand is in his neutral dialogue portrait. If you look here:

https://www.spriters-resource.com/nintendo_switch/fireemblemthreehouses/sheet/122141/

https://www.spriters-resource.com/nintendo_switch/fireemblemthreehouses/sheet/122142/

There's hardly any difference between his neutral portrait and his "angry" one. Even in his happy, concerned and blushing portraits, he looks like he's masking anger or contempt. While female Byleth's smile looks wholesome, male's looks like he's scheming or something. Female looks like she's genuinely concerned while male looks like he's trying too hard to "look concerned." And his blushing face just looks damn weird. Overall I feel like female Byleth's expressions show a gradual change from having absolutely no feelings at all to feeling pure, genuine emotion, while male's just show a perpetually moody, angry man. Which is great if you're writing a character like Felix but just feels out of place on Byleth, imo.

But again, this is just my take. I'm not trying to discourage anyone who prefers male Byleth, everyone's got their own feelings and nobody should feel forced to play a protagonist they don't like (looking at you, Corrin).

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On 4/18/2021 at 2:05 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Getting the needed flying for pegasus is pretty easy, just a D rank which is just 4-5 tutoring sessions by the time you want to be in the class. As a bonus it lets you (on non-Lions runs) recruit Ingrid with no further effort, which is desirable because her paralogue has great rewards. It's actually another little advantage female Byleth has (male Byleth probably needs to go to at least D+ via faculty training, since the first flying class he can get is Wyvern Rider).

I could argue other details here, I suspect that the main difference is that I probably value those 4-5 activity points more than you do. Especially since they're fairly early in the game when professor level is still fairly low and activity points are in shortest supply. And doubly especially since faculty training doesn't give professor xp meaning you're not only losing those 4-5 activity points, but also more of them down the line when you increase your professor level more slowly. Obviously, you sometimes need to use faculty training, dpending on what your plans are for Byleth and which units you're hoping to recruit, but I always do so somewhat begrudgingly.

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2 hours ago, lenticular said:

Obviously, you sometimes need to use faculty training, dpending on what your plans are for Byleth and which units you're hoping to recruit, but I always do so somewhat begrudgingly.

That's fair, but I do think this last point is the key here. I agree with you that activity points are valuable, though fortunately this comes after the point where they're most valuable, especially if you (as I do) get Pegasus Knight as her second Intermediate class, rather than first. By this point you are at least able to sub in some flower gifts for other motivation/support boosters in a pinch.

I suppose it does depend on route somewhat. I'd argue that on non-Lions, it's a practically no cost due to the synergy with getting Ingrid (and thus Galatea/Luin/Healing Staff). A bit more on Lions, but still not bad IMO. Especially since getting in pegasus saves you on training for Byleth later... Wyvern Rider is one of the easiest Advanced classes to unlock (B/C is 980 compared to 1300+ for the classes which are solo A or B/B) and this gives you a head start on it since you start gaining flying exp in battle.

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On 4/17/2021 at 9:31 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

I usually use female because of personal preference and I'd obviously encourage anyone else to do whatever they personally prefer, too.

I do think it's got a slight advantage for gameplay, though. Not for falconknight or warmaster, but for pegasus knight: that class is much better than any other Intermediate class IMO. (And to top it off, Darting Blow is a good skill and free Sylvain is nice for non-Lions runs. Even if you don't plan to use him much, getting the Lance of Ruin in Chapter 6 without needing to waste valuable earlygame time units building Sylvain's support rank and/or Byleth's Reason is good.)

Is Darting Blow really that good in the context of Maddening, though? Because with the enemies mostly having AS of over nine bleeping thousand, I don't think it'll help much unless Byleth has had a ton of speed boosters invested in them.

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7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Is Darting Blow really that good in the context of Maddening, though? Because with the enemies mostly having AS of over nine bleeping thousand, I don't think it'll help much unless Byleth has had a ton of speed boosters invested in them.

It can be if you go up against enemies that carry steel weapons which weighs them down. In my case, Leonie as a Pegasus Knight with a forged Iron Bow with Darting Blow was able to double attack a brigand that had a steel axe. I saw that during my Blue Lions maddening run which I am currently doing right now. It was the Shamir/Alois paralogue. Plus it can be combined with weight -3 if you're looking to ensure that you'll certainly double. F!Byleth can do the same thing as a Pegasus Knight or even Assassin if you want to go down that route. You just have to consider the weight of your weapon before you take into account the likely hood of doubling an enemy. At the very least you would only be doubled by Falcon Knights since they carry weight -3, Swordmasters thank to Quick Riposte, and Assassins since they are naturally too fast to begin with.

Speedwings and Speed Carrots can help with that in the early stages of maddening and pending on how lucky you get with the speed level ups or cooking a meal that increases everyone's speed, at the very least on player phase you're less likely to be doubled pending on what class you are and which enemy you are facing.

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13 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Is Darting Blow really that good in the context of Maddening, though? Because with the enemies mostly having AS of over nine bleeping thousand, I don't think it'll help much unless Byleth has had a ton of speed boosters invested in them.

In a word, yes.

It's true that the vast majority of units will never double assassins, swordmasters, and falcon knights.  But just about every other unit in the game can be doubled on maddening.  If you prioritize fast units (Leonie, Petra, Felix, Ingrid, Yuri) and put them in fast classes (assassin, falcon knight, wyvern lord), then can absolutely keep pace with enemy units once their builds come online.  Darting Blow speeds up when that changeover happens by about 10 levels (considering that most of these units have speed growths of around 60%).  It's the main reason why the female melee units are so strong in the game, and on Maddening in particular.  Getting the ability is effectively required for any female physical unit.  I'd argue by the end game, these units are fast enough that they don't know Darting Blow anymore, but that's quibbling.

Byleth has a huge starting speed stat, but their speed growth is actually only middling (45%).  What tends to happen to Byleth is that they start out extremely strong, but then tail off in utility as enemy action speed rises (and this even happens on Hard if you put them in a average class like Enlightened One).  Putting Byleth in a fast class and giving them Darting Blow is enough to keep them at parity with the majority of enemies (again, barring assassins, swordmasters, and falcon knights) for the course of the game (though they still won't be as fast as the speedsters).

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16 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Is Darting Blow really that good in the context of Maddening, though? Because with the enemies mostly having AS of over nine bleeping thousand, I don't think it'll help much unless Byleth has had a ton of speed boosters invested in them.

I'm attempting to speed-stack La Profesora for my current Maddening (NG/VW) playthrough, so I'll have an unabashedly anecdotal answer to this one in a couple months.

Oh yeah, my answer is La Profesora for all not Azure Moon routes, because you get a free Sylvain. I picked him up for chapter 2, and he's been ond of my most solid units so far. Plus, she can trigger his personal skill.

There's a hypothetical argument for El Profesor on Verdant Wind - he benefits from Hilda's personal skill, and can in turn trigger Leonie's. So if you want to make the strongest possible Teach on VW, male may be the way to go.

As for Azure Moon, I'm pretty much indifferent. La Profesora still comes with the benefit of triggering Sylvain's personal, granted. She has an easier time getting into flying classes, plus exclusive access to some magical ones. El Profesor, on the other hand, has exclusive rights to several punchy classes. So I'd pick by which particular build you're going for.

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5 hours ago, SumG said:

Byleth has a huge starting speed stat, but their speed growth is actually only middling (45%).  What tends to happen to Byleth is that they start out extremely strong, but then tail off in utility as enemy action speed rises (and this even happens on Hard if you put them in a average class like Enlightened One).  Putting Byleth in a fast class and giving them Darting Blow is enough to keep them at parity with the majority of enemies (again, barring assassins, swordmasters, and falcon knights) for the course of the game (though they still won't be as fast as the speedsters).

It's worth pointing out that Byleth gets a boosted rate of exp gain. So while it's grossly oversimplifying to say this, you can think of her speed growth as more like 50%. Still not a speed demon, but in practice, only Leonie/Petra/Ingrid/Catherine are significantly faster. Felix and Yuri have better raw numbers but not by enough to make up for the fact that they don't get Darting Blow (e.g. Felix has +1 base and +10% growth, so will be 5 points ahead at Level 41, or 1 behind after Darting Blow, before considering that Byleth will reach that level before him).

But I do agree with you overall of course. I actually think Maddening has a really cool speed curve, enemies lie all over it so getting 6 more points of speed pretty much always unlocks a new set of enemies for you to double.

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12 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It's worth pointing out that Byleth gets a boosted rate of exp gain. So while it's grossly oversimplifying to say this, you can think of her speed growth as more like 50%.

I'm not sure I agree with this.  In my playthroughs, I've not found that Byleth gets particularly farther ahead that any other unit I might use despite the personal (though that could just be playstyle).  I always attributed that more to the XP scaling the game uses, where the higher the level a unit is the less XP they earn.  I figured it effectively prevented any unit from overleveling.  Byleth may end up a level higher than other units, but I always found it within the margin of error of normal level variation I would have in my party.

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10 minutes ago, SumG said:

I'm not sure I agree with this.  In my playthroughs, I've not found that Byleth gets particularly farther ahead that any other unit I might use despite the personal (though that could just be playstyle).  I always attributed that more to the XP scaling the game uses, where the higher the level a unit is the less XP they earn.  I figured it effectively prevented any unit from overleveling.  Byleth may end up a level higher than other units, but I always found it within the margin of error of normal level variation I would have in my party.

From some notes I took a while back, 20% exp boost means that Byleth (and the lords) should stabilize at roughly 2 levels higher than other units given the same number of kills. I do agree that this is within the margin of error of normal level variation, but of course, a 5% growth difference is also within the margin of error of growth rates.

Or to break it down further: on average, 5% more growth yields 1 more stat point by Level 21, and 2 more by Level 41 (though with significant variance). Being 2 levels higher than normal is generally worth about +1 stat point. So +5% growth would be better by the end of the game, but the boosted exp is worth more for Part 1, with them being about equal in the midgame.

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On 4/18/2021 at 11:05 AM, RainbowMoon said:

Not to keep this going either, but for me female Byleth's smile (I'm assuming you mean at the end of Ch.6) is more in keeping with her character because it happens at an important part of the story to show that Byleth's growing and changing as a person instead of staying the emotionless rock she was at the beginning. Jeralt even comments on it, and it makes for a nice, lighthearted moment between her and Dimitri (at least on Blue Lions) after such a grim chapter. To me it's a really sweet character development moment for someone who I feel gets overshadowed most of the time by the more complex lords.

Male Byleth's scowl on the other hand is in his neutral dialogue portrait. If you look here:

https://www.spriters-resource.com/nintendo_switch/fireemblemthreehouses/sheet/122141/

https://www.spriters-resource.com/nintendo_switch/fireemblemthreehouses/sheet/122142/

There's hardly any difference between his neutral portrait and his "angry" one. Even in his happy, concerned and blushing portraits, he looks like he's masking anger or contempt. While female Byleth's smile looks wholesome, male's looks like he's scheming or something. Female looks like she's genuinely concerned while male looks like he's trying too hard to "look concerned." And his blushing face just looks damn weird. Overall I feel like female Byleth's expressions show a gradual change from having absolutely no feelings at all to feeling pure, genuine emotion, while male's just show a perpetually moody, angry man. Which is great if you're writing a character like Felix but just feels out of place on Byleth, imo.

But again, this is just my take. I'm not trying to discourage anyone who prefers male Byleth, everyone's got their own feelings and nobody should feel forced to play a protagonist they don't like (looking at you, Corrin).

Interesting - in the male version, his "neutral" face looks almost exactly the same as his "angry" face - the only difference I'm seeing is a different angling of the eyebrows. But in the female version, her "neutral" face is almost exactly the same as her "happy" face - it looks like a few pixels change at each end of her mouth? Maybe? I don't really find either face to be convincingly "neutral".

That said, in terms of faces... why are her eyes so goddamn huge. I get it's "anime", and female characters get huge eyes... but whereas El Profesor's are roughly to scale with his face, La Profesora's are absolutely buggin'. It's hard to unsee, and I prefer the male version's eye proportions.

4 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

From some notes I took a while back, 20% exp boost means that Byleth (and the lords) should stabilize at roughly 2 levels higher than other units given the same number of kills. I do agree that this is within the margin of error of normal level variation, but of course, a 5% growth difference is also within the margin of error of growth rates.

Or to break it down further: on average, 5% more growth yields 1 more stat point by Level 21, and 2 more by Level 41 (though with significant variance). Being 2 levels higher than normal is generally worth about +1 stat point. So +5% growth would be better by the end of the game, but the boosted exp is worth more for Part 1, with them being about equal in the midgame.

It's worth keeping in mind, though, that Teach is uniquely unable to benefit from the other half of their personal skill - that is, casting a 20% experience boost to all adjacent allies. If their students chronically take advantage of this, then they can keep up with Teach's own exp gain. And it synergizes with each Lord's skill, to make them the ultimate beneficiary (1.44x experience gain).

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3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Interesting - in the male version, his "neutral" face looks almost exactly the same as his "angry" face - the only difference I'm seeing is a different angling of the eyebrows. But in the female version, her "neutral" face is almost exactly the same as her "happy" face - it looks like a few pixels change at each end of her mouth? Maybe? I don't really find either face to be convincingly "neutral".

Now that you mention it, I can barely see any difference between the female's Neutral and Happy faces, but some how I feel there is a difference and it is more noticeable with the green hair.

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2 hours ago, LoneStar said:

Now that you mention it, I can barely see any difference between the female's Neutral and Happy faces, but some how I feel there is a difference and it is more noticeable with the green hair.

It's a very slight difference, but looking closely at them both, her happy face definitely shows the tiniest beginnings of a smile, while her neutral portrait is more or less just a straight-faced stare. But I imagine if there was too much of a change between each portrait it would be a tad jarring. The subtle purity of female Byleth's expressions (especially in contrast to her more flamboyant outfit) is one of the reasons why I feel hers is the stronger design. She looks like a genuinely good-hearted person, like someone I'd trust if I were one of her students. Guyleth's design just puts off too much of that "emo tryhard" energy for me lol

I do see what you mean about the green hair, though I don't notice too much of a difference myself. The lighter hair color gives her face a brighter look overall, which would definitely make her smile stand out more.

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On 4/17/2021 at 5:40 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

I'd pick female Byleth purely because I think male Byleth's design is terrible. 

Yeah female Byleth dresses like a hooker but I think that's charming in an extremely dumb sort of way. Meanwhile I don't think there's even a single trace of charm in male Byleth's designs at all. Being goofy and more cute looking isn't the best reason to favor one version of a character over another, but considering Byleth is such a non entity such little things are really the only ways we can judge them on. Female Byleth is a boring character who at least manages to look goofy. Male Byleth is a boring character who also looks incredibly boring. 

I'd agree were it not for "goofy" overlapping completely with "cringeworthy" in this case. That's how scandals are born. I'd be much more likely to respect a boring, but inoffensive outfit when it comes to "who would I rather have for my teacher" than what female Byleth has going, which just screams "slut" in huge neon letters. 

On 4/18/2021 at 10:05 AM, RainbowMoon said:

Not to keep this going either, but for me female Byleth's smile (I'm assuming you mean at the end of Ch.6) is more in keeping with her character because it happens at an important part of the story to show that Byleth's growing and changing as a person instead of staying the emotionless rock she was at the beginning. Jeralt even comments on it, and it makes for a nice, lighthearted moment between her and Dimitri (at least on Blue Lions) after such a grim chapter. To me it's a really sweet character development moment for someone who I feel gets overshadowed most of the time by the more complex lords.

Male Byleth's scowl on the other hand is in his neutral dialogue portrait. If you look here:

https://www.spriters-resource.com/nintendo_switch/fireemblemthreehouses/sheet/122141/

https://www.spriters-resource.com/nintendo_switch/fireemblemthreehouses/sheet/122142/

There's hardly any difference between his neutral portrait and his "angry" one. Even in his happy, concerned and blushing portraits, he looks like he's masking anger or contempt. While female Byleth's smile looks wholesome, male's looks like he's scheming or something. Female looks like she's genuinely concerned while male looks like he's trying too hard to "look concerned." And his blushing face just looks damn weird. Overall I feel like female Byleth's expressions show a gradual change from having absolutely no feelings at all to feeling pure, genuine emotion, while male's just show a perpetually moody, angry man. Which is great if you're writing a character like Felix but just feels out of place on Byleth, imo.

But again, this is just my take. I'm not trying to discourage anyone who prefers male Byleth, everyone's got their own feelings and nobody should feel forced to play a protagonist they don't like (looking at you, Corrin).

I was more focused on their "normal" expressions. Sorry for not clarifying.

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13 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd be much more likely to respect a boring, but inoffensive outfit when it comes to "who would I rather have for my teacher" than what female Byleth has going, which just screams "slut" in huge neon letters. 

You are entitled to prefer whatever character designs you like, and I'm not going to try to change your opinion on that.

But it's quite problematic that you're implying that you would respect a woman less because of her choice of clothes. Especially since we're just talking about tights for crying out loud.

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3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

You are entitled to prefer whatever character designs you like, and I'm not going to try to change your opinion on that.

But it's quite problematic that you're implying that you would respect a woman less because of her choice of clothes. Especially since we're just talking about tights for crying out loud.

Come on now. You can't possibly think that exposed midriff and a short skirt are appropriate for a teacher. Do YOU think that a woman can show up on a school campus dressed like the female Byleth is, and NOT cause a firestorm on campus??? Because I definitely do not.

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Come on now. You can't possibly think that exposed midriff and a short skirt are appropriate for a teacher. Do YOU think that a woman can show up on a school campus dressed like the female Byleth is, and NOT cause a firestorm on campus??? Because I definitely do not.

Ffs, we've been over this one before...

This isn't a real life, modern day military school campus. This is a Fire Emblem game.

It doesn't matter if a real life military instructor wouldn't be caught dead dressing like Byleth on campus. In a medieval fantasy setting, that's about as valid a complaint as griping that the students don't all march around in identical U.S. army uniforms, or that everybody can have tea parties whenever they please, or that they answer to the bloody Church. This isn't real life, so don't expect real life. Clearly there's no such thing as a dress code at Garreg Mach, considering Raphael seems to have thrown away his uniform's jacket, Dorothea and Lorenz are free to accessorize however they want, and Manuela's allowed to dress way more inappropriately than Byleth. Hell, speaking of Manuela, apparently professors at Garreg Mach are free to behave like drunken fools on the job without any repercussions too. And say nothing of Hanneman stalking around after every student whose crest catches his eye, including his boss's "sister". None of that shit would fly on a real life military campus, and yet it's all just everyday happenings here in Fire Emblem. So a professor in a fantasy setting doesn't dress like a professor would in real life. What's new there?

And yes, it's extremely offensive and wrong to label a woman a "slut", fictional or not, based entirely on her clothes or appearance. Disliking a character's design because of personal taste is one thing, but encouraging sexist stereotypes just makes you an ass.

 

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On a campus that already has Manuela? Absolutely. As for the topic itself, FByleth on all difficulties. Peg knight, the darting blow that comes with it, and a better design? No contest.

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It's fine to like or dislike outfits, but even if we accept it as a given that a player hates F-Byleth's default outfit, that still isn't a reason to avoid F-Byleth.  That's a reason to go to the wardrobe option in the monastery and change it to something else.  It takes like 10 seconds.  I think her default outfit is doofy too, but whatever, that just means I change it to something better like the fancy ball outfit.  (M-Byleth too, actually, I rather like his naturalist outdoorsy type outfit.)

Anyway, from a Srs Gameplay perspective, I think the differences are largely too minor to care, unless you are planning on making Sylvain a core team member on a non-Lions run and want that early recruit.  I might be biased because I think the "lazy" option of just leaving Byleth in Enlightened One forever is fine, including on Maddening, which is entirely identical between genders and frees up a bunch of boring Monastery faculty training.  After you clear Reunion at Dawn, some sort of spectator Byleth that just cheerleads nearby archers w/ Sacred Power & heals & tanks occasionally is just *fine* and requires less training.

The benefit of early-recruiting Sylvain when not planning on seriously using him is pretty minor since the DLC gave M-Byleth the Ashen Wolves if you really want an early recruit for some missing coverage, and early Lance of Ruin is not really THAT significant - even if that's your only prayer vs. the C6 Death Knight, whatever, just clear the chapter the alternate way then, Dark Mage isn't that good. (It can also mess up your ability to unlock Rhea's paralogue, for all that the reward from that is pretty niche...  not an issue on a CF run of course).  I'd be more down for the "recruit Ingrid even if not using her" hype since Galatea Pegasus Co. is genuinely one of the best batallions in the game, although non-Lions Byleth skipping Flying (more reasonable for M-Byleth than F-Byleth) can just substitute meals & gifts for doing that, so eh.  Darting Blow is genuinely good as others have noted if you want a Combat Flying Byleth, but I wouldn't really call it required.  Obviously Falcon Knights / Wyvern Lords are great but you can have other characters handle it on Maddening, it doesn't have to be Byleth necessarily, so you just make sure somebody else can cover that if you're not making Byleth the flyer.

I think the benefit of Quick Riposte for M-Byleth is even more abstract - that requires grinding up Byleth's axe rank a bunch, then grinding up QR itself, then having QR in time for it to probably not matter since Byleth is more of an early-game carry than a lategame one.  It's obviously good if you're doing some kind of solo / duo challenge or just want Byleth to be your lategame carry anyway, but it's a stretch.

Edited by SnowFire
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Actually, there is the officer outfit which is probably more appropriate wear for the setting, though it's DLC. So if you think F Byleth's default outfit is too revealing, there's that. 

As for me, as a matter of habit in recent times, I've been playing as the female protagonist when that option is available. Whether it is Pokemon, Persona 3, or Three Houses. I don't know why though. And I'm really looking forward to see her marry Dorothea or Edelgard.

Edited by henrymidfields
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On 4/22/2021 at 5:22 PM, SnowFire said:

It's fine to like or dislike outfits, but even if we accept it as a given that a player hates F-Byleth's default outfit, that still isn't a reason to avoid F-Byleth.  That's a reason to go to the wardrobe option in the monastery and change it to something else.  It takes like 10 seconds.  I think her default outfit is doofy too, but whatever, that just means I change it to something better like the fancy ball outfit.  (M-Byleth too, actually, I rather like his naturalist outdoorsy type outfit.)

Anyway, from a Srs Gameplay perspective, I think the differences are largely too minor to care, unless you are planning on making Sylvain a core team member on a non-Lions run and want that early recruit.  I might be biased because I think the "lazy" option of just leaving Byleth in Enlightened One forever is fine, including on Maddening, which is entirely identical between genders and frees up a bunch of boring Monastery faculty training.  After you clear Reunion at Dawn, some sort of spectator Byleth that just cheerleads nearby archers w/ Sacred Power & heals & tanks occasionally is just *fine* and requires less training.

The benefit of early-recruiting Sylvain when not planning on seriously using him is pretty minor since the DLC gave M-Byleth the Ashen Wolves if you really want an early recruit for some missing coverage, and early Lance of Ruin is not really THAT significant - even if that's your only prayer vs. the C6 Death Knight, whatever, just clear the chapter the alternate way then, Dark Mage isn't that good. (It can also mess up your ability to unlock Rhea's paralogue, for all that the reward from that is pretty niche...  not an issue on a CF run of course).  I'd be more down for the "recruit Ingrid even if not using her" hype since Galatea Pegasus Co. is genuinely one of the best batallions in the game, although non-Lions Byleth skipping Flying (more reasonable for M-Byleth than F-Byleth) can just substitute meals & gifts for doing that, so eh.  Darting Blow is genuinely good as others have noted if you want a Combat Flying Byleth, but I wouldn't really call it required.  Obviously Falcon Knights / Wyvern Lords are great but you can have other characters handle it on Maddening, it doesn't have to be Byleth necessarily, so you just make sure somebody else can cover that if you're not making Byleth the flyer.

I think the benefit of Quick Riposte for M-Byleth is even more abstract - that requires grinding up Byleth's axe rank a bunch, then grinding up QR itself, then having QR in time for it to probably not matter since Byleth is more of an early-game carry than a lategame one.  It's obviously good if you're doing some kind of solo / duo challenge or just want Byleth to be your lategame carry anyway, but it's a stretch.

The blurb about the outfit would hold water were it not for the other outfits being DLC, which means anyone who doesn't like female Byleth's outfit and doesn't have - or can't afford - the DLC is outta luck.

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Then they can just play M!Byleth for aesthetic reasons like you if it bothers them. No one actually cares.

I chose F!Byleth because I prefer to fly sooner in Maddening. I'll probably try out M!Byleth eventually but I've burnt out on Three Houses.

Edited by Crysta
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