Are wrath/critical hit sets overrated?

[Dark Holy Elf]

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

Oh, that's interesting. I find that I never have as much mythril as I'd like. I do tend to use both the Spear of Assal and the Axe of Ukkonvasara, though, which I know that not everyone does. If you're using them less than I do or not at all, then I can definitely see how mythril wouldn't be an issue.

I'd say I use the Spear of Assal more often than not (any time I use at least one of Ferdinand, Sylvain, or Seteth), but I don't believe I've ever repaired the Axe of Ukonvarsara. I often do repair the Blessed Bow (and sometimes Lance) but those are only 1 each. And I don't think I've ever repaired the Inexhaustible or the Spear of Asssl more than twice (and not always that), so even high-balling my requirements I don't need more than 13-14.

The biggest variable in Mythril supply is probably whether you clear Sothis's paralogue quickly or not. If you rush down and just break the three birds en route to the boss, that's ~6, but if you take longer you'll end up fighting at least four more, which gets you to ~14 and that alone may well be enough for the entire game. Hilda's paralogue and Edelgard's paralogue provide opportunities for a few more either way, though, which helps. If you're doing AM/SS and don't bother with Hilda (reasonable enough) or Rhea's paralogue (I have a nasty tendency to forget this exists and miss the cutoff for Rhea's support), then supply is a bit tighter. I suppose you can also choose not to break the monsters in question but their barriers are fragile and they give a useful reward, so I always do (same with wolves).

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

14 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'd say I use the Spear of Assal more often than not (any time I use at least one of Ferdinand, Sylvain, or Seteth), but I don't believe I've ever repaired the Axe of Ukonvarsara. I often do repair the Blessed Bow (and sometimes Lance) but those are only 1 each. And I don't think I've ever repaired the Inexhaustible or the Spear of Asssl more than twice (and not always that), so even high-balling my requirements I don't need more than 13-14.

Rusted Mercurius, Gradivus, Hauteclere, and Parthia: "Allow us to introduce ourselves."

14 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The biggest variable in Mythril supply is probably whether you clear Sothis's paralogue quickly or not. If you rush down and just break the three birds en route to the boss, that's ~6, but if you take longer you'll end up fighting at least four more, which gets you to ~14 and that alone may well be enough for the entire game. Hilda's paralogue and Edelgard's paralogue provide opportunities for a few more either way, though, which helps. If you're doing AM/SS and don't bother with Hilda (reasonable enough) or Rhea's paralogue (I have a nasty tendency to forget this exists and miss the cutoff for Rhea's support), then supply is a bit tighter. I suppose you can also choose not to break the monsters in question but their barriers are fragile and they give a useful reward, so I always do (same with wolves).

This is kind of anecdotal, but I've found it frustratingly common that breaking a bird's shields gives... 1 Mythril. Just 1. I don't know what determines this, honestly. As for the Sothis paralogue in general, it's pretty tricky dealing with the reinforcement birds when all the monsters are aggroing you. No doubt it's possible on Maddening, but it's a bit of a chore.

[Dark Holy Elf]

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

Rusted Mercurius, Gradivus, Hauteclere, and Parthia: "Allow us to introduce ourselves."

I've played this game over a dozen times and have never seen those! Regardless, at 10 mythril, they seem obviously not worth it compared to Spear of Assal and Inexhaustible costing just 3. They'd have to be 3.33x better and they're not even close. Kinda like how forging Zoltan+ weapons is just a terrible idea because they're not even close to 2x better than Brave+.

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

This is kind of anecdotal, but I've found it frustratingly common that breaking a bird's shields gives... 1 Mythril. Just 1. I don't know what determines this, honestly.

I've looked and I can't find any data on how many they drop, they definitely drop 3 as well though (I'd assumed 50% 1 and 50% 3, but of course it's possible the probabilities are different). You can abuse divine pulse to reroll if you want (don't even need to do different actions, it must use a separate RNG from hits/crits), not that I'd assume this in discussions. I don't usually pay much attention to how much I'm getting because again, in my experience, I always get enough (and end up selling some), but I do pay attention to wootz steel and anecdotally 50/50 feels right.

[Shadow Mir]

8 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I've played this game over a dozen times and have never seen those! Regardless, at 10 mythril, they seem obviously not worth it compared to Spear of Assal and Inexhaustible costing just 3. They'd have to be 3.33x better and they're not even close. Kinda like how forging Zoltan+ weapons is just a terrible idea because they're not even close to 2x better than Brave+.

You can get them from rare monster sightings. Or some Dragon Claws.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

43 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I've played this game over a dozen times and have never seen those! Regardless, at 10 mythril, they seem obviously not worth it compared to Spear of Assal and Inexhaustible costing just 3. They'd have to be 3.33x better and they're not even close. Kinda like how forging Zoltan+ weapons is just a terrible idea because they're not even close to 2x better than Brave+.

As @Shadow Mir said, "Rare Monster Sightings" will either drop one of the Regalia, the Dragon Claws, or a Silver weapon. I generally agree that the Regalia aren't worth the 10 Mythril it takes to get them going. Not only that, but the mere ability to repair them is locked behind A+ Professor ranking. That said, playing the game with a rusted legendary weapon, perpetually in one's convoy, is a real "feels bad man" territory. It's satisfying to repair them and use them, even if it's not "worth it".

47 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I've looked and I can't find any data on how many they drop, they definitely drop 3 as well though (I'd assumed 50% 1 and 50% 3, but of course it's possible the probabilities are different). You can abuse divine pulse to reroll if you want (don't even need to do different actions, it must use a separate RNG from hits/crits), not that I'd assume this in discussions. I don't usually pay much attention to how much I'm getting because again, in my experience, I always get enough (and end up selling some), but I do pay attention to wootz steel and anecdotally 50/50 feels right.

Huh, I didn't know pulsing could actually affect this. I'll have to keep an eye out and experiment with this the next time I play. Could help when it comes to Agarthium, too.

[salinea]

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

As @Shadow Mir said, "Rare Monster Sightings" will either drop one of the Regalia, the Dragon Claws, or a Silver weapon. I generally agree that the Regalia aren't worth the 10 Mythril it takes to get them going. Not only that, but the mere ability to repair them is locked behind A+ Professor ranking. That said, playing the game with a rusted legendary weapon, perpetually in one's convoy, is a real "feels bad man" territory. It's satisfying to repair them and use them, even if it's not "worth it".

Huh, I didn't know pulsing could actually affect this. I'll have to keep an eye out and experiment with this the next time I play. Could help when it comes to Agarthium, too.

The Gradivus at least is pretty decent due to its 1-2 range.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, salinea said:

The Gradivus at least is pretty decent due to its 1-2 range.

I'd agree, even if it in this game isn't that great compared to prior appearances (primarily Archanea and Awakening). I mean, being a 1-2 range weapon in 3H that DOESN'T completely suck has to count for something...

[Dark Holy Elf]

50 minutes ago, salinea said:

The Gradivus at least is pretty decent due to its 1-2 range.

Gradivus is the only one that's interesting, yeah. Interesting to compare it with Assal since they're similar, A-rank lances: 3 more power, 1-2 range, but no horseslaying. That's a winning trade, just not "spend 10 mythril instead of 3" winning trade, IMO. Especially since lances with 17+ might are already in remarkably good supply.

Otherwise, doing non-quest aux fights always felt like a pretty big waste of time to me, I'll admit - a seminar yields similar results in a tiny fraction of the time (never mind the general superiority of Explore over other options). I've only done them rarely back in earlier playthroughs (and gave up when they refused to give me the rare monster I wanted).

 

 

[SumG]

23 hours ago, salinea said:

The Gradivus at least is pretty decent due to its 1-2 range.

I actually think the Parthia is also somewhat useful, since its power is higher than any other bow in the game besides Failnaught (which is route limited) and Bow of Zoltan+ (which you get very late in the game).  When combined with bonus damage against fliers, it can be a very strong weapon against fliers and Bird Demonic Beasts, and a significant damage increase over typical bows.  I definitely wouldn't go spamming Hunter's Volley with it, but it can certainly be useful.

Regarding acquiring these weapons, you actually do have some control over it.  When a rare monster sighting is available, when you first select the mission you can check what reward you'll get from the monster during the preparation screen.  If you select the broken weapon in the monster's inventory you can see what weapon it can be forged into (a silver weapon or one of the Gradius, Parthia, Hauteclaire, Mercurius, or Dragon Claws).  If the monster you're facing just has a generic silver weapon, you can exit the mission, reselect the rare monster sighting, and get another roll of the RNG for whichever weapon you may want.  You can repeat as many times as necessary until the weapon you want shows up.

Combined with the fact that you get a fair number of mythril from the Sothis paralogue mission, you can actually guarantee repairing one of these weapons fairly early (professor level allowing).  And what I usually do is repair the Parthia so Shamir can shoot down fliers in the middle chapters before she picks up Hunter's Volley.

Edited January 12, 2022 by SumG

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, SumG said:

Combined with the fact that you get a fair number of mythril from the Sothis paralogue mission, you can actually guarantee repairing one of these weapons fairly early (professor level allowing).  And what I usually do is repair the Parthia so Shamir can shoot down fliers in the middle chapters before she picks up Hunter's Volley.

For the record, you do have to reach A+ Professor Rank before forging it is even an option, yes? I think the earliest this can happen in an NG playthrough is by abusing the second "Fistfuls of Fish" event in month 12 pre-skip (Chapter 9, White Clouds). But I could be wrong.

Thinking of Parthia, I could see it having some use on enemy-phase bow builds, given its high might, hit, and relatively low Weight. On player phase, I'd usually prefer the Inexhaustible or a Brave Bow - barring, perhaps, those cases where those are too heavy to quad with, but I can double with Parthia. Otherwise, I just want something to spam Hunter's Volley or Point-Blank Volley with. Don't think I ever really used Parthia in 3H.

Anyway, while I'd broadly agree with those who say that Gradivus is the best of the Regalia (having comparable stats to the others, but with the addition of 1~2 range, admittedly at the cost of 10 durability), I'd like to shill Hauteclere for a minute. 80 Hit matches the Training Axe and Iron Axe+, and is only behind the Mace+ as Axuraccy goes. 40 durability goes far if you're not spamming combat arts, and 19 Might sits it only behind much less accurate weapons (Amyr, Freikugel, Devil+, Zoltan+). It's probably not "worth" the 10 Mythril, granted, but it's still a solid weapon for an Axe-specialist build.

[Barren]

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

For the record, you do have to reach A+ Professor Rank before forging it is even an option, yes? I think the earliest this can happen in an NG playthrough is by abusing the second "Fistfuls of Fish" event in month 12 pre-skip (Chapter 9, White Clouds). But I could be wrong.

Yes the first opportunity to do it is in chapter 9. I did that for all three routes of my maddening runs. It does take some time and preparation for it. You have to buy all the fishing bait every month and then eventually you just fish til it’s all gone.

It got me roughly 1 1/2 a professor rank by doing this. I was at B professor rank at that point. I got all the way to A with just a few thousand points until I reach A+. Hell I even got to A+ by the end of chapter 11.