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Best Master Class FETH


Best Master Class FETH  

41 members have voted

  1. 1. What is your favorite master class in Fire Emblem Three Houses?

    • Falcon Knight
    • Wyvern Lord
    • Bow Knight
    • Great Knight
    • Dark Knight
    • Holy Knight
    • Gremory
    • War Master
    • Mortal Savant
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22 hours ago, Anathaco said:

If you wanted to run Defiant Strength/Magic with a vantage or even a vantage/wrath build you could swap them for death/fiendish/any blow skill with little consequences (and I think the synergy with stuff like vantage and wrath is mainly what they’re useful for). Same for Defiant Avoid, since it’s mainly used for enemy phase shenanigans, but it’s also competing with alert stance and potentially wrath/battalion wrath. Still probably fairly easy to slot in though.

Equip both skills, they synergize wonderfully. If you've certified as a Falcon Knight, it's definitely reasonable to reach A+ Flight. If you're doing an enemy-phase avoid build, these two skills in tandem (plus Prowess, plus an Avoid-boosting battalion) can get you to face basically zero Hit on enemy phase.

22 hours ago, Anathaco said:

Defiant Crit confuses me even more than defiant avoid, I’m not even sure what kind of set up you’d use with it.

It synergizes greatly with the aforementioned avoid-build. The opponent misses, then you get to crit them in return. It made my Ingrid a force to be reckoned with in AM Maddening. That said, two Master-class masteries is a fairly big ask (this was done on NG+). It's a high-powered build, but high-effort as well.

7 hours ago, lenticular said:

Ultimately, it comes down to this: are you playing NG+ or are you willing to do a lot of grinding? If yes to either, then Defiant Crit might be worth looking into. If not then it really isn't. At least, I don't think it is. The benefits it offers aren't enough to justify how awkward it is to pick it up.

Wyvern Lord is already the best class for physical units. So Defiant Crit will come late, but once you get it, why not use it? It's basically a free bonus from spending time in an overpowered class.

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

With regard to that, Vantage/Wrath isn't that good in this game, and adding Defiant abilities wouldn't really help, since if they're low enough for the Defiant abilities to be active, they're likely low enough to get finished off by a gambit as well. Also, this is impractical as hell, considering that you have to master Mercenary, Warrior, and a master class AT LEAST. Especially Defiant Magic, seeing as this requires sword, axe, and magic training, which is an unreasonable ask... and this is all for something that is most likely only going to be a marginal improvement over what I already had, if it is one at all. Giving up an ability slot for a skill that does nothing unless I'm at 1/4 HP or less sounds a lot like I'd be shooting myself in the foot.

I generally agree that Defiant Mage builds are hard to make work, but mainly because there aren't that many ways to boost Crit on mages. Very few magic-users get Black/Dark Magic Crit +10, whereas the Weapon Crit +10 skills are universal. Also, the highest-Crit spells are Fimbulvetr (25) and Death (20), which have few uses (3 and 4, respectively) and low Hit (65 and 70, respectively). The Killer+ weapons, meanwhile, have 35 crit and far more uses each, while select Swords surpass even these in crit rate. Finally, very few battalions boost both Magic and Crit rates - outside of the DLC, Empire Magic Users is the only one that does so. And even with the DLC, those granting at least 15 Crit give, at best, zero extra magical damage.

Defiant Physical builds are way more doable, albeit still high effort. Getting Vantage + Defiant Strength + Defiant Crit, for instance, takes B Swords, C Lances, A Axes, and A Flight - definitely doable for male units with strengths in at least one of the latter. Vantage + Defiant Strength + Wrath is even easier, as it obviates the Flight requirement. And there are quite a few ways to comfortably drop a unit to 25% of HP or less (Guard Adjutants, the Blessing gambit, Devil weapons, or Relics on Crestless units).

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1 hour ago, LoneRecon400 said:

I also don't understand how mastering Wyvern Lord is a inconvenience but Warrior isn't. You telling me that 38 battles as a footlocked 5 mov class or as a adjutant is doable but 50 battles in the best offensive class isn't?

The big difference is the timing. You certify into Warrior at level 20, but into Wyvern Lord at level 30. Even at a baseline, that means that you're getting the skill a full ten levels earlier. Given the choice between having my build work now or having my build work ten levels from now, I'll take now please. But it's actually worse than that. The time between levels 20 and 30 typically corresponds with the end of Part 1 and the start of Part 2, which is also the part of the game that has the densest concentration of battles because that's when most paralogues unlock. You have a lot more battles after hitting level 20 than after hitting level 30.

I'm guessing that maybe you do a lot more auxiliary battles than I do? Personally, I find that if I don't use a knowledge gem, then I'll typically finish the game before my master classes have picked up their masteries, and if I do use one then I can finish up but only with maybe 3 or 4 levels left before the end of the game. If I want to get the mastery ability for master classes then I have to go out of my way to do so. If you're playing the game differently how I do then maybe you're picking them up sooner?

6 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Wyvern Lord is already the best class for physical units. So Defiant Crit will come late, but once you get it, why not use it? It's basically a free bonus from spending time in an overpowered class.

If you do pick it up, then sure, why not use it? Well, provided that you have a build that is suited to it, which not all builds are. But again, I won't typically master a master tier class at all unless I go out of my way to do so.

I'm genuinely curious: for people who are routinely picking up mastery skills for master classes, about what chapter are you tending to hit level 30, about what chapter do you finish mastering the class, and how many auxiliary battles are you doing along the way?

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Add me to the list of people who rarely gets mastery skills from Level 30 classes much before the end of the game, if at all.

And even once I do, Defiant Crit is just way too situational. I have to get my unit down to low HP where everything will one-shot them (an even more stringent requirement than Vantage/Wrath). If I'm using Vantage/Wrath I probably already have 100 crit by this point. Yes, this helps my player phase at this point, since Smash becomes pretty reliable, but I'd have to swap out a skill which is a meaningful effect, especially if I care about my player phase so things like Death Blow are on the table. And of course if I'm not running a low-HP build I'm not even going to consider this skill.

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

Equip both skills, they synergize wonderfully. If you've certified as a Falcon Knight, it's definitely reasonable to reach A+ Flight. If you're doing an enemy-phase avoid build, these two skills in tandem (plus Prowess, plus an Avoid-boosting battalion) can get you to face basically zero Hit on enemy phase.

 

Oh definitely, I just meant since Mir was talking about limited ability slots then perhaps just the one might be bette if there were heaps of skills you wanted to run. Myself, I’d definitely use both, especially since my philosophy when it comes to builds is basically go big or go home- stack all the avoid I feasibly can or don’t do it at all.

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

I'm genuinely curious: for people who are routinely picking up mastery skills for master classes, about what chapter are you tending to hit level 30, about what chapter do you finish mastering the class, and how many auxiliary battles are you doing along the way?

In my last Maddening run I remember is that my earliest units started hitting level 30 at around chapter 14. For my current run it was the same, most of my units were in master classes by chapter 15.  Both runs had my earliest mastery occur during chapter 16, but the last run had me actively grinding to get that unit the last skill they wanted for their build (so a week of aux battles every month) whereas for my current run I didn’t want the mastery skill and picked it up simply because she was being thrown into hordes of enemies on a regular basis. No auxiliary battles were done other than the paralogues as they became available and the merchant one.

On average I’d say I reach level 30 by chapter 15, and master my classes by chapter 18. Most units will get their masteries even without a knowledge gem, but they won’t be around for more than 4 or 5 chapters usually.

A few notes: both runs were NG+ and while I didn’t do many aux battles post timeskip I did do a fair few in part 1 so the time it took me to reach level 30 will be earlier than most. 

Edited by Anathaco
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How is it near the timeskip is where the largest concentration of battles is fought? Most paralogue battles are starting to expire by the time Chapter 11 rolls around, and that's generally when most of my units hit Advanced classes. I find most paralogues are done before most characters even hit Advanced classes unless you purposefully delay them. I also find most units hit Master classes by Chapter 14-15, usually depending on Auto levels.

I generally play one of two ways: Either no Aux battles at all which make Class masteriers pretty non existent or I do some to quickly master something. Like there's a quest battle in Part 2 that has nothing but 8 archers on a section of a map. If you have a unit be attacked by all them for just 4 turns, that's 32 of 50 battles on two units right there. Perhaps that may qualify as grinding, but you most certainly aren't going to master Warrior that quickly either without doing the same.

If you don't purposefully go out of your way to get Defiant Crit, it will admittedly take quite a while to obtain it. But I don't see how that same logic wouldn't be applied to Warrior, espically when it is far inferior to Wyvern Rider.

Edited by LoneRecon400
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4 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

I also don't understand how mastering Wyvern Lord is a inconvenience but Warrior isn't. You telling me that 38 battles as a footlocked 5 mov class or as a adjutant is doable but 50 battles in the best offensive class isn't?

Let me ask you this then: When do you pick up mastery skills for master classes? Because I generally don't see my units mastering Master classes by the time the game is over. Even though knowledge gems are a thing, I'd probably have better uses for them than to get an ability that is just impractical in every sense of the word.

3 hours ago, Anathaco said:

Well you wouldn’t need to master all that unless you were doing a vantage wrath mage or if you were using defiant crit. If you were using defiant avoid you’d need to master falcon knight, but vantage wouldn’t be helpful (and would even defeat the purpose of the build) and wrath is more a nice option than absolutely needed. Hero isn’t a master class so defiant strength comes quicker than the other defiants, though you will need to master two advanced classes for the full build. A bit of an effort, but certainly doable in a reasonable time frame. Hell, if you want you can even end in hero for the in built vantage (both reducing the work needed to complete the build and opening up an extra ability slot for defiant strength). That being said, I’ve only ever used defiant strength on Balthus just for stacking with his personal. 


As for defiant magic, wrath/vantage would be a pain, but even regular vantage can work well too- if you’ve seen Zoran’s VW Maddening run he used Vantage Lysithea to pretty great effect (and as a side note ran two vantage/wrath units as well). You wouldn’t need to train axes at all. Just reaching C swords gets you to mercenary for vantage, and the two mages with the highest magic (Lysithea and Constance) have sword boons so it’s a relatively simple task.

With regards to Vantage Wrath, the biggest issue with it is gambits, true, but in my experience it’s pretty easy to get a lot of charm and reduce the odds of getting hit. Tea parties net each character two points of charm per month and it isn’t a massive deal to do.

Anyway, I generally agree that they could have done better for master class masteries than just “quick slap a defiant on them that vaguely matches their best stat”. That being said even despite the 25% health requirement I think it’s pretty easy to get units that low, between guard adjutants, blessing, poison strike archers, etc. And while they won’t be winning any awards for “best abilities in the game” any time soon I think they do their job quite well and have their own niches*

*except defiant res. That one is garbage.

Hero isn't a master class, yes, but it's gender locked, which means if you prefer female-heavy parties (like me!), you probably won't be having one, and honestly, this game is just not a good game for Hero as a class anyhow.

The issue is, both of them have rock-bottom durability; if we're talking about Maddening, I wouldn't be surprised if enemies could one-shot them from full by the time part 1 ended.

For who? Byleth and the lords? Who are a tiny portion of the cast, needless to say.

Blessing is one use, and if you went to the gambit thread, you'd have seen that most of us who rated it didn't exactly have high opinions of it. Guard adjutants are useless if you're not doubled.

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

Wyvern Lord is already the best class for physical units. So Defiant Crit will come late, but once you get it, why not use it? It's basically a free bonus from spending time in an overpowered class.

Uh, because I'm not planning on using a build that requires low HP to work? Or because what I have to give up for it is more useful than a skill that only works when my unit is low to the point that literally anything can finish them off?

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

I generally agree that Defiant Mage builds are hard to make work, but mainly because there aren't that many ways to boost Crit on mages. Very few magic-users get Black/Dark Magic Crit +10, whereas the Weapon Crit +10 skills are universal. Also, the highest-Crit spells are Fimbulvetr (25) and Death (20), which have few uses (3 and 4, respectively) and low Hit (65 and 70, respectively). The Killer+ weapons, meanwhile, have 35 crit and far more uses each, while select Swords surpass even these in crit rate. Finally, very few battalions boost both Magic and Crit rates - outside of the DLC, Empire Magic Users is the only one that does so. And even with the DLC, those granting at least 15 Crit give, at best, zero extra magical damage.

Defiant Physical builds are way more doable, albeit still high effort. Getting Vantage + Defiant Strength + Defiant Crit, for instance, takes B Swords, C Lances, A Axes, and A Flight - definitely doable for male units with strengths in at least one of the latter. Vantage + Defiant Strength + Wrath is even easier, as it obviates the Flight requirement. And there are quite a few ways to comfortably drop a unit to 25% of HP or less (Guard Adjutants, the Blessing gambit, Devil weapons, or Relics on Crestless units).

You'd still have to worry about being ended by a gambit, then. Also, most crestless units don't exactly have high charm, which leads back to my first point (for the record, the only crestless units with decent to high charm growths are Dorothea, Leonie, Manuela, and Alois).

Edited by Shadow Mir
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33 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Hero isn't a master class, yes, but it's gender locked, which means if you prefer female-heavy parties (like me!), you probably won't be having one, and honestly, this game is just not a good game for Hero as a class anyhow.

The issue is, both of them have rock-bottom durability; if we're talking about Maddening, I wouldn't be surprised if enemies could one-shot them from full by the time part 1 ended.

For who? Byleth and the lords? Who are a tiny portion of the cast, needless to say.

Blessing is one use, and if you went to the gambit thread, you'd have seen that most of us who rated it didn't exactly have high opinions of it. Guard adjutants are useless if you're not doubled.

I’d argue that having inbuilt vantage is enough of a niche to consider using hero at least some of the time. Like, yeah, if you’re not using hero for vantage it’s nothing special, but in the context of this discussion we are talking about a pure enemy phase build, so (with the exception of “I literally can’t because screw gender locks”) why not?

Rock-bottom durability is actually an asset for these builds arguably- since vantage and defiants activate at different thresholds it’s actually a struggle for bulkier units to hit that threshold without just killing everything with vantage (a la Balthus). As for getting them to survive it depends on the situation. Some enemies will one shot them, others (mages, potentially archers before part 2) will not. A strat I’ve seen used is to cast Impregnable Wall on them turn 1, equip a devil sword or something to speed up the process, and put them in range of a few enemies. And of course once part two comes around you get access to Blessing, which makes it much simpler.

Tea parties are for everyone, not just Byleth + the lords. 2 charm every month will keep most characters ahead of generic enemies with gambits, at least.

I was lurking in the gambit thread, and the ratings for Blessing were low not because it’s bad, but because it’s really good at one specific niche that doesn’t see a lot of general use. This is that specific niche, so this is when you use it. As for the 1 use issue, as long as you don’t have more than 4 low hp builds then one use is all you need.

True on Guard adjutants, but if we’re talking Maddening most characters are getting doubled.

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1 hour ago, Anathaco said:

I’d argue that having inbuilt vantage is enough of a niche to consider using hero at least some of the time. Like, yeah, if you’re not using hero for vantage it’s nothing special, but in the context of this discussion we are talking about a pure enemy phase build, so (with the exception of “I literally can’t because screw gender locks”) why not?

Honestly, Hero is still pretty terrible even if you're planning to go for a Vantage build. 5 move is bad, and Swordfaire as opposed to Lancefaire/Axefaire is bad, especially for a build which needs every point of power it can get because if it's not killing things in a single critical, it's struggling to be useful.

Let's suppose there was an intermediate mastery skill which read: "+3 move, Canto". What about one which was "+2 move, Canto, flight"? What about one which was "+1 move, +a bunch of power, +20 crit"? These skills would be obviously worth getting, right? It's a no-brainer, they're better even than the already good existing Intermediate mastery skills. Move+1 is a good use of a skill slot, so these skills are downright broken.

Well, that's what mastering Mercenary represents, since it lets you upgrade from Hero to Paladin, Wyvern, or War Master to run your Vantage/Wrath build, any of which use it much more effectively.

Heck, even Warrior is better than Hero, and we've already seen discussion here that spending time in it to master it is annoying (which I agree with). While Warrior is bad, at least it has Crit+10 and gets a -faire on better weapon type than swords.

 

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5 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

I generally play one of two ways: Either no Aux battles at all which make Class masteriers pretty non existent or I do some to quickly master something. Like there's a quest battle in Part 2 that has nothing but 8 archers on a section of a map. If you have a unit be attacked by all them for just 4 turns, that's 32 of 50 battles on two units right there. Perhaps that may qualify as grinding, but you most certainly aren't going to master Warrior that quickly either without doing the same.

I would definitely consider that to be grinding, yes. If that’s how you have fun playing then that’s great and fair play to you, but that wouldn’t be fun at all for me. And no, it also isn’t quick or convenient to master Warrior (or any other Advanced class) but even without any grinding, I find that I will actually get there. Even without any auxiliary battles or grinding or any other special consideration, I’ll pick up the mastery in time just by playing the game. Not fast, but I get there. With Master classes, I find that I don’t ever get there naturally. That’s the big difference for me.

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I mean anyone can run vantage + wrath. Among those who has the easiest times getting there would be Edelgard, Ferdinand, Petra, and Claude (if you count on his budding talent) to name a few. I mean they can even all go Wyvern Lord and have defiant crit as well and just wallop enemies.

 

Battalion Wrath also works which I’ve used with Claude and he one shots things with a Killer Bow+. And Dimitri’s B.Vantage + B. Wrath is obviously amazing. In fact I’m going for this strategy with a couple of units for my Black Eagles maddening run. But’s that’s another topic for discussion. Sorry for the derail in advance.

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Just when do you expect to master Warrior exactly?

In runs where I don't use any Aux battles, I struggle to get Advanced Class masteries at all. Like I had to purposefully had to keep some units from going into master classes just so that they could reach it. Just in my last run alone I made Sylvain into a warrior, but he didn't master until Chapter 18 of Azure Moon. Had I been playing Crimson Flower the game would've already been over already.

Granted that run never recruited out of house, but you shouldn't have do that to obtain class masteries. I find that Advanced Classes and Master Classes you purposefully have to go out of your way for otherwise they’ll really will never be relevant.

Edited by LoneRecon400
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6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Honestly, Hero is still pretty terrible even if you're planning to go for a Vantage build. 5 move is bad, and Swordfaire as opposed to Lancefaire/Axefaire is bad, especially for a build which needs every point of power it can get because if it's not killing things in a single critical, it's struggling to be useful.

Let's suppose there was an intermediate mastery skill which read: "+3 move, Canto". What about one which was "+2 move, Canto, flight"? What about one which was "+1 move, +a bunch of power, +20 crit"? These skills would be obviously worth getting, right? It's a no-brainer, they're better even than the already good existing Intermediate mastery skills. Move+1 is a good use of a skill slot, so these skills are downright broken.

Well, that's what mastering Mercenary represents, since it lets you upgrade from Hero to Paladin, Wyvern, or War Master to run your Vantage/Wrath build, any of which use it much more effectively.

Heck, even Warrior is better than Hero, and we've already seen discussion here that spending time in it to master it is annoying (which I agree with). While Warrior is bad, at least it has Crit+10 and gets a -faire on better weapon type than swords.

 

The recommendation for hero as a final class was more so as a pure low investment option (since Mir was worried about the amount of mastering he had to do for a build like this). That being said, yeah I’d definitely take War Master over Hero any day.

To be fair to Hero though, while it’s strictly inferior to most other classes you’d choose for vantage/wrath (can’t even argue “but swords get more crit” because crit +20 (WM) + Killer axe just has more crit than even the Cursed Ashiya Sword+ lmao). Let’s take, say, Ignatz, whose low strength one would think would doom a vantage/wrath build. The class path I’ve hypothetically chosen for him is Fighter, Mercenary, Warrior and then Hero to finish. This gives Ignatz 26 strength at level 30, and Strength +2 from fighter brings that up to 28. With Swordfaire, Defiant Strength, and a battalion like the Fraldarius Soldiers (7 attack and 20 crit), he has 48 attack before factoring in weapons. An armourslayer has 24 might against armours, and 8 against everything else. If we go into, say, chapter 18 in VW, the fortress knights have 50 prt (armoured blow included) and 66 health. Which… actually exactly one shots them with a crit. Ngl I was expecting to have to say “oh but hey he’s close, a couple stat boosters or raphael’s linked attack and he’ll be good to go”. As for the other enemies on that map, the Death Knight is the next bulkiest thing, with 36 prt and 68 HP. If you keep using the armourslayer and its 8 might, he’ll need Raphael’s linked attack to finish it. With the Cursed Ashiya Sword, if you use that instead, he doesn’t need any other help. Everything else on the map has lower bulk except for Caspar and the beasts- Caspar’s HP is too high for Ignatz to kill without a strong sword and a large amount of boosts (Raphael, the Cursed Ashiya Sword and seven rocky burdocks would do it, but the latter is a bit of an ask). And the beasts are, well, beasts, and the ones in that chapter specifically block critical hits while their barriers are up. 
 

Still, one of the weaker physical characters in the game is able to do pretty well this chapter even as a hero, so while it’s definitely not at all the best choice, if ease of access and investment is the main concern, this is the simplest and lowest investment way to pull off the build, and it can still do its job.

but seriously it’s not that hard to go Warmaster always go Warmaster Warmaster for life.

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8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

You'd still have to worry about being ended by a gambit, then. Also, most crestless units don't exactly have high charm, which leads back to my first point (for the record, the only crestless units with decent to high charm growths are Dorothea, Leonie, Manuela, and Alois).

Gambits can be a concern, to be sure, but not every enemy has a battalion. Aux battles, for instance, are generally devoid of battalions. And even among those who do, many have a support gambit. That said, I do agree that gambits can ruin such an enemy-phase build's day. Hence, it works better on units with high natural Charm, or with support from Rally Charm.

6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Heck, even Warrior is better than Hero, and we've already seen discussion here that spending time in it to master it is annoying (which I agree with). While Warrior is bad, at least it has Crit+10 and gets a -faire on better weapon type than swords.

I would counter that Swords are the best weapon type on enemy-phase Crit builds, since they have the highest-Crit options. That said, if you've got a build that's hitting 100 Crit with Killer Axe+, then by all means, go into an Axefaire class.

And yeah, even with the loss of Swordfaire, War Master is the best enemy-phase crit class due to innate Crit +20. It's a higher-effort build, though, particularly for units not gifted in grappling.

11 hours ago, lenticular said:

I'm genuinely curious: for people who are routinely picking up mastery skills for master classes, about what chapter are you tending to hit level 30, about what chapter do you finish mastering the class, and how many auxiliary battles are you doing along the way?

This is an estimate, but if I've invested properly into the unit... I'd say I'm getting into the class around the start of chapter 15, and achieving mastery sometime in 18. This can vary with the kind of unit and build - I was able to have Ingrid master Wyvern Lord (after Falcon Knight) going into AM Endgame, because, as a dodgetank, she was getting into a lot more battles than most other units. Basically, units who have stuff to do on Enemy Phase will achieve class mastery well before those who are just acting on Player Phase.

As for Aux battles, I'd usually do one or two "battle weekends" per month. Which is a mix of paralogues, quests, and proper Aux battles. Assuming A+ Professor Rank, let's estimate three Aux battles per month. I dunno if that's considered excessive grinding, but maybe so.

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5 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

In runs where I don't use any Aux battles, I struggle to get Advanced Class masteries at all. Like I had to purposefully had to keep some units from going into master classes just so that they could reach it. Just in my last run alone I made Sylvain into a warrior, but he didn't master until Chapter 18 of Azure Moon. Had I been playing Crimson Flower the game would've already been over already.

Failing to master even one advanced classes by Chapter 18 does feel a bit on the extreme side to me (I've never heard anyone talk about failing to get Hunter's Volley by the end of CF). I'd buy it if you're going quickly, mind. It's possible I'm reaching Advanced a little earlier than you, though - I generally hit advanced classes by chapter 10, 11 at the latest, and I do a bunch of paralogues around then as well. YMMV.

I will note that mastering a Master class is dramatically later regardless; you need to gain 10 extra levels to even start, and then it requires 25 (or 12 with a gem) more actions on top of that.

@Anathaco Related but it the combination of Defiant Strength and Wrath is also extremely difficult to get, due to requiring two separate advanced masteries (of low-move classes, at that). So while Ignatz looks pretty good in VW 18 with that, I personally don't think it's especially practical. Obviously it can vary with your playstyle.

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25 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Related but it the combination of Defiant Strength and Wrath is also extremely difficult to get, due to requiring two separate advanced masteries (of low-move classes, at that). So while Ignatz looks pretty good in VW 18 with that, I personally don't think it's especially practical. Obviously it can vary with your playstyle

That’s fair enough. In my current run I didn’t master Sniper on Ignatz until during chapter 13 (which was pretty clutch when he started hunters volleying to save everyone’s life), so I imagine if he moved to another advanced class after that he’d probably get that mastery before chapter 18, but that’s just speculation. And since I’ve always just gone NG+ I’m not sure of the exact time frame in a fresh file.

also I just realised that I had Ignatz master mercenary and get vantage in that hypothetical… when he was going to end in hero for vantage lol. Way to forget the point of my entire argument.

On the bright side since he didn’t master anything from intermediate tier there’s no way he won’t have a free ability slot for defiant strength, so it’ll automatically be better than what was there before /s

Edited by Anathaco
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3 hours ago, Anathaco said:

The recommendation for hero as a final class was more so as a pure low investment option (since Mir was worried about the amount of mastering he had to do for a build like this). That being said, yeah I’d definitely take War Master over Hero any day.

To be fair to Hero though, while it’s strictly inferior to most other classes you’d choose for vantage/wrath (can’t even argue “but swords get more crit” because crit +20 (WM) + Killer axe just has more crit than even the Cursed Ashiya Sword+ lmao). Let’s take, say, Ignatz, whose low strength one would think would doom a vantage/wrath build. The class path I’ve hypothetically chosen for him is Fighter, Mercenary, Warrior and then Hero to finish. This gives Ignatz 26 strength at level 30, and Strength +2 from fighter brings that up to 28. With Swordfaire, Defiant Strength, and a battalion like the Fraldarius Soldiers (7 attack and 20 crit), he has 48 attack before factoring in weapons. An armourslayer has 24 might against armours, and 8 against everything else. If we go into, say, chapter 18 in VW, the fortress knights have 50 prt (armoured blow included) and 66 health. Which… actually exactly one shots them with a crit. Ngl I was expecting to have to say “oh but hey he’s close, a couple stat boosters or raphael’s linked attack and he’ll be good to go”. As for the other enemies on that map, the Death Knight is the next bulkiest thing, with 36 prt and 68 HP. If you keep using the armourslayer and its 8 might, he’ll need Raphael’s linked attack to finish it. With the Cursed Ashiya Sword, if you use that instead, he doesn’t need any other help. Everything else on the map has lower bulk except for Caspar and the beasts- Caspar’s HP is too high for Ignatz to kill without a strong sword and a large amount of boosts (Raphael, the Cursed Ashiya Sword and seven rocky burdocks would do it, but the latter is a bit of an ask). And the beasts are, well, beasts, and the ones in that chapter specifically block critical hits while their barriers are up. 
 

Still, one of the weaker physical characters in the game is able to do pretty well this chapter even as a hero, so while it’s definitely not at all the best choice, if ease of access and investment is the main concern, this is the simplest and lowest investment way to pull off the build, and it can still do its job.

but seriously it’s not that hard to go Warmaster always go Warmaster Warmaster for life.

This looks impressive at first glance, but then you remember it's Ignatz we're talking about, and that his low charm makes him a massive clay pigeon for enemy gambits to remove what little life he has...

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

This looks impressive at first glance, but then you remember it's Ignatz we're talking about, and that his low charm makes him a massive clay pigeon for enemy gambits to remove what little life he has...

More math? More math.

Using the same Ignatz, (but I changed his class path to archer at intermediate instead of mercenary, which doesn’t change his strength), he ends up with 12.5 charm, let’s round down to 12. Even with a battalion (the one I gave him boosts charm by 7), the picture does look pretty grim.

Now let’s factor in tea time.

Tea time unlocks in chapter 4, and each character can get up to two points of charm from perfect tea times during each month. Which means that accounting for all the chapters it’s available (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18) that’s 14 chapters where Ignatz can potentially get two points of charm if you’re diligent enough (and since gambits are a big weakness for this build you should be)

That brings his total charm up to 19+28= 47. The highest charm stat of any enemy on that map is 33, and you only need 6 more charm than the enemy to get the maximum avoid buff of -30 hit to their gambit. And since the highest base hit of any offensive gambit on that map is Resonant Flames with 60, he has a 30% chance to get hit by that guy’s gambit, bring it up to 40 or 50 at the absolute most due to enemy linked attacks (honestly I don’t know if they have a different bonus than player ones lol). Hell, you could cut Ignatz’s tea allowance to one per month, and he’ll equal that 33 charm threshold- meaning rally charm also brings him over the line. 
 

And I’d argue two activity points a month aren’t a massive issue especially considering Byleth is receiving these charm boosts too.

Edited by Anathaco
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8 hours ago, Anathaco said:

More math? More math.

Using the same Ignatz, (but I changed his class path to archer at intermediate instead of mercenary, which doesn’t change his strength), he ends up with 12.5 charm, let’s round down to 12. Even with a battalion (the one I gave him boosts charm by 7), the picture does look pretty grim.

Now let’s factor in tea time.

Tea time unlocks in chapter 4, and each character can get up to two points of charm from a perfect tea time. Which means that accounting for all the chapters it’s available (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18) that’s 14 chapters where Ignatz can potentially get two points of charm if you’re diligent enough (and since gambits are a big weakness for this build you should be)

That brings his total charm up to 19+28= 47. The highest charm stat of any enemy on that map is 33, and you only need 6 more charm than the enemy to get the maximum avoid buff of -30 hit to their gambit. And since the highest base hit of any offensive gambit on that map is Resonant Flames with 60, he has a 30% chance to get hit by that guy’s gambit, bring it up to 40 or 50 at the absolute most due to enemy linked attacks (honestly I don’t know if they have a different bonus than player ones lol). Hell, you could cut Ignatz’s tea allowance to one per month, and he’ll equal that 33 charm threshold- meaning rally charm also brings him over the line. 
 

And I’d argue two activity points a month aren’t a massive issue especially considering Byleth is receiving these charm boosts too.

I dunno about you, but from where I'm standing, that's an indication that there is a VERY serious problem if he needs that much tea parties... That's well beyond excessive, and you know it. Also, I don't know about you, but I find it hard enough to justify having tea parties, let alone doing so EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER WITH THE SAME CHARACTER. Even more so early on, when having a tea party means not doing other stuff that can benefit me more (and frankly, this continues even into the later portions of the game)..

Edited by Shadow Mir
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I think to some extent real time should be a concern in these conversations (so it's certainly a legitimate advantage to me that, say, Claude doesn't need nearly as many tea-times to pull off the same build), but the general point that you certainly can get anyone's charm high late in the game is well-taken.

Time units are also quite limited early on (i.e. spending 2 units in chapter 4 is actually kind of a big deal IMO, though in fairness the charm boosts are useful immediately for offensive gambit reasons) but this eases up pretty quickly.

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48 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I dunno about you, but from where I'm standing, that's an indication that there is a VERY serious problem if he needs that much tea parties... That's well beyond excessive, and you know it. Also, I don't know about you, but I find it hard enough to justify having tea parties, let alone doing so EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER WITH THE SAME CHARACTER. Even more so early on, when having a tea party means not doing other stuff that can benefit me more (and frankly, this continues even into the later portions of the game)..

I’d see it as excessive if you had 2 or 3 vantage/wrath units and they all needed this much charm, but is two activity points a month really an inconvenience at all after, like, chapter 9 or 10? Assuming you cap professor rank at about that point you have 10 activity points from then on, so surely you can spend a couple. If you were using them on faculty training or advanced drills, then yeah it’s a loss that will add up over time, but will it completely derail your planned build? Seriously, will it, i honestly don’t know. I can do the math for stats but skill xp math terrifies me for some reason. Go figure. And if you were planning on using it to motivate some of your students there’s always other methods for that.

As for justifying tea parties… well low charm on enemy phase builds is an issue and tea time is a solution that doesn’t require fanatically greenhouse farming charm boosters to fix it (and btw that’s my definition of excessive, just in case you’re curious). I’d think that would be justification enough.

23 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think to some extent real time should be a concern in these conversations (so it's certainly a legitimate advantage to me that, say, Claude doesn't need nearly as many tea-times to pull off the same build), but the general point that you certainly can get anyone's charm high late in the game is well-taken.

Time units are also quite limited early on (i.e. spending 2 units in chapter 4 is actually kind of a big deal IMO, though in fairness the charm boosts are useful immediately for offensive gambit reasons) but this eases up pretty quickly.

Fair points. I guess it’s worth reiterating in general (partially because at this point I keep forgetting what the topic up for debate was before this, so I honestly need to remind myself) that the Ignatz thing was more of a… proof of concept, for lack of a better term, than any serious recommendation. Many other units are way better equipped for it- better strength (Balthus, Dimitri, etc), better charm (Claude, Dimitri, etc), less skill training and masteries required (Dimitri). In short, just use Dimitri.

As for activity points, would you say it was about fair to start spending two a month once you reach 6 points (so, like C+ I’d memory serves)? Since one point each week can go to tea time while the other 5 can go towards motivating your core team? Honestly I’m kinda guessing at this point, but my thought process is literally just “do two teatimes from the very beginning, dashing Ignatz is best Ignatz” so I’m legitimately curious what a more functional plan would be like.

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3 hours ago, Anathaco said:

In short, just use Dimitri.

CF/VW/SS Players: "My goodness, what an idea! Why didn't I think of that?"

3 hours ago, Anathaco said:

As for activity points, would you say it was about fair to start spending two a month once you reach 6 points (so, like C+ I’d memory serves)? Since one point each week can go to tea time while the other 5 can go towards motivating your core team? Honestly I’m kinda guessing at this point, but my thought process is literally just “do two teatimes from the very beginning, dashing Ignatz is best Ignatz” so I’m legitimately curious what a more functional plan would be like.

So you're spending zero points on Cooking, and the stat boosts it offers? How about the Tournament, which gives quite a bit of Professor Rank? Perhaps the biggest of all you're missing is Faculty Training. Any Professor build outside of the basic Myrmidon -> Thief/Mercenary -> Assassin/Hero/Swordmaster/Enlightened One really won't be possible. Not to mention, missing out on building ranks for out-of-house recruitments.

Activity Points are always a trade-off, and if you're consistently committing a point to one activity (say, tea with Ignatz), that's one less point that can be targeted toward anything else. And this is before engaging with the unreliability of tea time - your target unit might turn down your offer, and even if you get a great teatime, the Charm boost isn't guaranteed. 

Edited by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Typo.
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4 hours ago, Anathaco said:

I’d see it as excessive if you had 2 or 3 vantage/wrath units and they all needed this much charm, but is two activity points a month really an inconvenience at all after, like, chapter 9 or 10? Assuming you cap professor rank at about that point you have 10 activity points from then on, so surely you can spend a couple. If you were using them on faculty training or advanced drills, then yeah it’s a loss that will add up over time, but will it completely derail your planned build? Seriously, will it, i honestly don’t know. I can do the math for stats but skill xp math terrifies me for some reason. Go figure. And if you were planning on using it to motivate some of your students there’s always other methods for that.

As for justifying tea parties… well low charm on enemy phase builds is an issue and tea time is a solution that doesn’t require fanatically greenhouse farming charm boosters to fix it (and btw that’s my definition of excessive, just in case you’re curious). I’d think that would be justification enough.

Let me put it this way then: When is having a tea party ever a better option than any of the following:

  • Tournaments
  • Sharing a meal
  • Cooking
  • Faculty training

Because I have a hell of a lot of trouble deciding that tea parties are a better use of my activity points than any of the above. Even more so early on.

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Can I just say I that people really underestimate how plentiful Activity points are outside the earlygame? 

You can easily B+ Rank Professor ranking by Chapter 7 without doing even any fishing or tournaments. That’s 8 Activity Points and 6 Lecture points. Even with 3 meals and cooking, that’s still 4 activity points left over. It’s more than plenty to afford 1 Tea Party a week.

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

Activity Points are always a trade-off, and if you're consistently committing a point to one activity (say, tea with Ignatz), that's one less point that can be targeted toward anything else. And this is before engaging with the unreliability of tea time - your target unit might turn down your offer, and even if you get a great teatime, the Charm boost isn't guaranteed. 

For what it's worth, the charm actually is guaranteed if you get a "truly" perfect tea time, which includes the favourite tea, then four correct responses after that. (Of course, if you're not using a guide, it can still be difficult to get.)

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19 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

For what it's worth, the charm actually is guaranteed if you get a "truly" perfect tea time, which includes the favourite tea, then four correct responses after that. (Of course, if you're not using a guide, it can still be difficult to get.)

Interesting - I knew there were varying odds with performance, but couldn't find a source specifying that one such rate was 100%. Not that I'm doubting it.

Now, is there any science to what causes a unit asked to tea to turn the invitation down?

5 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

You can easily B+ Rank Professor ranking by Chapter 7 without doing even any fishing or tournaments. That’s 8 Activity Points and 6 Lecture points. Even with 3 meals and cooking, that’s still 4 activity points left over. It’s more than plenty to afford 1 Tea Party a week.

In my ongoing VW Maddening NG run, I got B+ Professor Rank by chapter 8. So chapter 7 seems plausible, at least.

That said, if I'm planning to go Battle the next weekend, I'll definitely want more than 3 meals, to ensure that at least 12 units are ready to be tutored. So this part likely varies between whether you're doing "Explore every weekend", or "alternate Explore/Battle".

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