Even I play "Hunting by Daybreak", this is the worst map in the game.

[drattakbowser]

Play this map make me weak and disappointed. Many ennemi are rush to my unit. And when my reinforcement is here it's splied. But more terrible, some unit (Reinforcement) are mandatory. 

 

This is what I call the worst map in the game.

[Armchair General]

Honestly, I think that it's one of the better maps in the game, given that you actually have an chance at losing, for once.

[Jotari]

I find Anna's paralogue less desirable to play. Bow Knight spam on a huge map just doesn't do it for me.

[Shadow Mir]

20 hours ago, Jotari said:

I find Anna's paralogue less desirable to play. Bow Knight spam on a huge map just doesn't do it for me.

I get the feeling you tried it on Maddening. I mean, I'd not throw Master class enemies in a part 1 paralogue, especially when the class in question is one of the best in the game.

RE: the chapter in question, I'd say it's really poorly designed in the context of Maddening.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I kinda enjoy playing Hunting by Daybreak but it is not a well-designed chapter. It puts way, way too much weight on how you set up your characters (five years ago) and it's possible for a player to be softlocked if they don't know about it in advance, because a lot depends on what class your Byleth is and how much you used/levelled 3-4 specific in-house characters.

Also it makes no sense to me that a fight against bandits is more challenging than the dramatic events of the previous fight. So there are multiple reasons the devs should have erred on the side of making Chapter 13 easier than it is.

 

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

I get the feeling you tried it on Maddening. I mean, I'd not throw Master class enemies in a part 1 paralogue, especially when the class in question is one of the best in the game.

 

The presence of Bow Knights makes me think it was designed as a Part 2 paralogue, which it is on CF after all. But because it involves Pallardo they had to move it to pre-timeskip on non-Eagles routes (and of course make it entirely unavailable on SS). I tend not to bother with it on non-CF routes; it does give you a lot of money, but eh, there are other ways to get it.

 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I get the feeling you tried it on Maddening. I mean, I'd not throw Master class enemies in a part 1 paralogue, especially when the class in question is one of the best in the game.

RE: the chapter in question, I'd say it's really poorly designed in the context of Maddening.

Anna's Paralogue has enemy Bow Knights on all difficulties. Generally speaking, I don't believe 3H "promotes" enemies on higher difficulties, but instead raises their level and adds more of them. That chapter is just awful - it's a rout (or survive) map, and even defeating the boss doesn't stop the reinforcements.

Oh, yeah. Uh "Hunting by Daybreak bad".

[Shadow Mir]

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

Anna's Paralogue has enemy Bow Knights on all difficulties. Generally speaking, I don't believe 3H "promotes" enemies on higher difficulties, but instead raises their level and adds more of them. That chapter is just awful - it's a rout (or survive) map, and even defeating the boss doesn't stop the reinforcements.

Oh, yeah. Uh "Hunting by Daybreak bad".

I know that, but it's really stupid on Maddening, far as I can tell by looking it up. Bow knights alone are almost 1/4 of the enemy units X_X. And the rest are mostly Warriors, Paladins, Snipers, and Grapplers, and a few mages.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The presence of Bow Knights makes me think it was designed as a Part 2 paralogue, which it is on CF after all. But because it involves Pallardo they had to move it to pre-timeskip on non-Eagles routes (and of course make it entirely unavailable on SS). I tend not to bother with it on non-CF routes; it does give you a lot of money, but eh, there are other ways to get it.

"Hey, how can we screw Silver Snow players even more? I know!"

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I know that, but it's really stupid on Maddening, far as I can tell by looking it up. Bow knights alone are almost 1/4 of the enemy units X_X. And the rest are mostly Warriors, Paladins, Snipers, and Grapplers, and a few mages.

Suffice it to say, this map is seriously overtuned for a pre-skip paralogue. And even as a post-skip romp, it's... I dunno, not particularly fun or interesting? It's a rout/survive mission with a reused map, a reused boss, and no especially compelling side objectives aside from "kill these people for their stuff."

[Jotari]

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

"Hey, how can we screw Silver Snow players even more? I know!"

Suffice it to say, this map is seriously overtuned for a pre-skip paralogue. And even as a post-skip romp, it's... I dunno, not particularly fun or interesting? It's a rout/survive mission with a reused map, a reused boss, and no especially compelling side objectives aside from "kill these people for their stuff."

Well pretty much all the paralogues are reused maps (even the ones that aren't featured in the main story are still used in multiple paralogues, generally speaking, I think the two Dragon ones are only used once, thought they turn up in skirmishes), so I wouldn't hold that against the chapter. And honestly I like that Pallardo is the villain of the chapter as he's well matched as an evil version of hyper capitalist Anna (to the extent that I would like to see him in future games, even if his design kind of sucks). So...yeah I wouldn't blame the chapter for those elements. It just sucks because of its gameplay. I guess maybe the idea is to make use of retribution (and the DLC exclusive Chalice of Beginnings/Jertiza with hsi Distant Counter which you might be expected to have), but countering isn't even the real issue, it's just that your mobbed on so many sides simultaneously, it basically becomes a crap shoot where you absolutely have to hit with every attack and gambit to make sure you have control of things.

[claudegf]

On 3/17/2022 at 5:01 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

I kinda enjoy playing Hunting by Daybreak but it is not a well-designed chapter. It puts way, way too much weight on how you set up your characters (five years ago) and it's possible for a player to be softlocked if they don't know about it in advance, because a lot depends on what class your Byleth is and how much you used/levelled 3-4 specific in-house characters.

 

100% agree with this! u really gotta be prepared for this map. learned this the hard way during my first play through lmaooo didn't research stats or classes bec i wanted to play the game with real first impressions. so none of my units had great movement or range it was so frustrating and nearly impossible (idk why i did my first play through on hard mode too rip thats on me). it became more fun during my next runs though, when i expected it. especially on maddening - its a nice challenging break from a lot of the easier maps that make me question if im actually playing maddening mode.

[Jotari]

Really it's only the opening area that's particularly painful. Once you've cleared the centre the rest of the map is quite manageable. It's less that you have to use possibly untrained characters, they're mostly safe of they stay in their corner, it's that in the beginning of the enemy density is very high and you only have two units to stem the flow.  The other units if they were more powerful would certainly be more helpful, but you're probably running into trouble even before they show up.

[wissenschaft]

This maps difficulty is not even among the different routes. Silver Snow has the worst time since Seteth just doesn't compare to the actual lords.  Also the variation of who spawns where makes some routes much harder than others. Again, Silver Snow gets shafted. Only Petra at the bottom and Caspar + Dorothea up top. Why? lol
Azure Moon is almost as bad with Mercedes and Annette bottom and Ashe and Gilbert. Meanwhile Golden Deer gets Leonie and Hilda bottom and Ignatz + Lorenz top. Forzen Lance is VERY strong for ch. 13 (high accuracy magic attack to nuke high avoid in a forest enemies) so if you've built Lorenz as a Forzen lance spamming Paladin then hes going to LOVE this map. Not to mention Claude's crazy Gambit that trivializes dealing with the initial rush of enemies in the center.

This map also rather heavily rewards meta knowledge, aka knowing everything about the map before playing it.  There are ways to skip the map if you want but also ways to far more easily beat it. One strategy for Azure Moon is to use a Dimitri built for dodge tanking in a forest with Retrubution placed on him and equip a Killer Lance+. Watch as he slaughters every last one of them! In fact, this map heavily rewards having either Byleth or your lord being a dodge tank. It makes dealing with the initial rush of enemies trivial. The map is far easier once you've dealt with them.

Overall, I think the map itself is fine, but not getting the usual setup screen is a big mistake that needlessly leads to softlocking for players playing a blind playthrough. Thats just a very flawed gameplay design that makes this otherwise interesting puzzle map needlessly frustrating.

Edited March 19, 2022 by wissenschaft

[Shadow Mir]

7 hours ago, wissenschaft said:

Golden Deer gets Leonie and Hilda bottom and Ignatz + Lorenz top.

Bold: lol
That's pretty lousy too. At least the other two routes have a Physic user among the first reinforcements. And in all seriousness, Lorenz is most likely to be a liability anyhow.

[Dark Holy Elf]

If you read the rest of the post, you can see how a trained Lorenz can actually be an asset there; set up as a Paladin with Fiendish Blow, a Magic Staff, and +mag battalion, he can one-shot every enemy on the map. (Dorothea can do the same as a Hexblade Assassin, incidentally.) If you want to have an easy time with the northwest corner, make Ignatz the Dancer as well. The playthrough I had dancer Ignatz, Frozen Lance Lorenz, and flier Leonie/Hilda/Byleth, along with Claude's usual Ashes and Dust, is probably the most hilariously easy I've ever seen that map.

(Like you, I don't have a very high opinion of Lorenz normally. However, IMO the single biggest reason to use him is in fact this map; it's one where he excels if trained, and he's forced on it regardless.)

[wissenschaft]

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Bold: lol
That's pretty lousy too. At least the other two routes have a Physic user among the first reinforcements. And in all seriousness, Lorenz is most likely to be a liability anyhow.

I'm guessing you've never actually built Lorenz on Maddening. With Forzen Lance with average growths he will one shot the very fast assassins (is that the class?) on the map with very high hit rates because it counts as a magic attack. Forzen Lance Lorenz is one of the best units in the game for hunting by daybreak. With the build Dark Holy Elf spells out, you dont need anything but average growths (literally just 16 MAG) for Lorenz to OHKO every enemy on the map. 

Sadly Lorenz has only one good build for Maddening and thats to be a Frozen lance spammer. But its one hell of a build and helps make HBD a joke map for GD even on maddening. Incedently, Frozen Lance on Marianne is also hilariously OP and you get flyer mobility as well.

As for Ignatz, I've seen people clear Ch 13 maddening with Assassin Ignatz (crits are still really good with terrible STR growths) though I prefer Sniper Ignatz. Either way, even if hes just crit fishing at least his attacks are highly accurate. Hes not a unit you can move out on his own but you should have no trouble moving the rest of your team with flyers up to give him cover. Of note is that unique VW battalion that has impregnable wall on a flying battalion. Fly someone up and cast that wall gambit on Ignatz or Lorenz and you'll have no trouble keeping them alive while setting up a player phase to kill all the upper enemies. Both Lorenz and Ignatz, if built well will be able to secure kills, even ORKO.

Anyway, once Ignatz has access to hunters volley with Killer Bow+ hes is far from a liability. Quite the opposite in fact. Also, I see no need to have a Physics user at all. A concoction here and there is more than enough. GD can easily trivialize this map even on maddening. Did I mention Claude's gambit is INSANE?

Edited March 19, 2022 by wissenschaft

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

If you read the rest of the post, you can see how a trained Lorenz can actually be an asset there; set up as a Paladin with Fiendish Blow, a Magic Staff, and +mag battalion, he can one-shot every enemy on the map. (Dorothea can do the same as a Hexblade Assassin, incidentally.) If you want to have an easy time with the northwest corner, make Ignatz the Dancer as well. The playthrough I had dancer Ignatz, Frozen Lance Lorenz, and flier Leonie/Hilda/Byleth, along with Claude's usual Ashes and Dust, is probably the most hilariously easy I've ever seen that map.

(Like you, I don't have a very high opinion of Lorenz normally. However, IMO the single biggest reason to use him is in fact this map; it's one where he excels if trained, and he's forced on it regardless.)

The problem is, Lorenz just doesn't excel in anything. When you're talking about a game that rewards specialization, as they say, that's NO GOOD! That means his potential is very limited, as anything he can do, someone else can do better than him. Investing in someone like that is far more likely to be unrewarding than not.

2 hours ago, wissenschaft said:

I'm guessing you've never actually built Lorenz on Maddening. With Forzen Lance with average growths he will one shot the very fast assassins (is that the class?) on the map with very high hit rates because it counts as a magic attack. Forzen Lance Lorenz is one of the best units in the game for hunting by daybreak. With the build Dark Holy Elf spells out, you dont need anything but average growths (literally just 16 MAG) for Lorenz to OHKO every enemy on the map. 

Sadly Lorenz has only one good build for Maddening and thats to be a Frozen lance spammer. But its one hell of a build and helps make HBD a joke map for GD even on maddening. Incedently, Frozen Lance on Marianne is also hilariously OP but you get flyer mobility as well.

Dude, I've had a hard time trying to get anything out of him on hard mode. What in the name of Anankos possesses you to think he has anything resembling a prayer on Maddening???

14 hours ago, wissenschaft said:

One strategy for Azure Moon is to use a Dimitri built for dodge tanking in a forest with Retrubution placed on him and equip a Killer Lance+. Watch as he slaughters every last one of them!

Spoiler alert: that requires luck, and lots of it. Oh, and Battalion Vantage/Battalion Wrath ain't gonna help you here. . .

Edited March 19, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[wissenschaft]

32 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The problem is, Lorenz just doesn't excel in anything. When you're talking about a game that rewards specialization, as they say, that's NO GOOD! That means his potential is very limited, as anything he can do, someone else can do better than him. Investing in someone like that is far more likely to be unrewarding than not.

Dude, I've had a hard time trying to get anything out of him on hard mode. What in the name of Anankos possesses you to think he has anything resembling a prayer on Maddening???

Spoiler alert: that requires luck, and lots of it. Oh, and Battalion Vantage/Battalion Wrath ain't gonna help you here. . .

Ah I mean, I've used Lorenz in a Maddening clear to OHKO consistently throughout the mid-game. *shrug. I'd count that as excelling at something. He requires some babysitting to get there but Tempest Lance is pretty strong even on maddening. If you need Lorenz to take a hit in Enemy Phase then unequip his weapon and enemies shouldn't be able to double him anymore in ch 2. Lorenz's build is mage into cavalier (instruct his Reason to get into Mage and then lance until he gets C+ to unlock Frozen lance). Oh and what possessed me to try using Lorenz on maddening is a youtube video of a player using Lorenz to one shot everyone in ch 13. lol The point of the video was that Lorenz didn't need any stat boosters to be able to do this. His average growths with Frozen Lance leads pretty easily into OHKO benchmarks. That peaked my interest.

As for Dimitri retribution strategy, Yes it does require luck but its doable. There are various ways to stack evasion on dimitiri to get this to work. And yeah this build is very much designed to help those getting soft locked with their Battalion Vantage/Wrath build. It requires a whole bunch of resets for sure but its help people clear the map when they thought they were soft locked. Its not the best option but its an option that has worked for people.

Edited March 19, 2022 by wissenschaft

[wissenschaft]

6 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

Edit: I wish I could delete double posts myself.

Edited March 19, 2022 by wissenschaft

[Jotari]

Lorenz is underrated. Yeah, he's not fantastic, but he's still a mage and mages are pretty dang good in Three Houses. He won't be one rounding, but few units do one round in Three Houses. He'll still deal solid enough damage to set up or finish off kills.

Edited March 19, 2022 by Jotari

[wissenschaft]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Lorenz is underrated. Yeah, he's not fantastic, but he's still a mage and mages are pretty dang good in Three Houses. He won't be one rounding, but few units do one round in Three Houses. He'll still deal solid enough damage to set up or finish off kills.

I actually think building Lorenz as a mage is a trap. Its a very mediocre build (warlock Lorenz will just feel subpar) meanwhile frozen lance + high MT lances will let him OHKO even on maddening in the midgame. Lorenz should be spamming Frozen Lance the moment its unlocked. He should learn Fiendish blow and then just spam Frozen lance. You can dumb mag+ stats into him to keep the one shot gravy train going if you want but late game its fine to just let him deal strong chip damage as a dark knight. If you've gotten to the point where frozen lance's damage is falling off then congrats, you can beat the rest of maddening no problem.

Lorenz weakpoints are the early game before his frozen lance nuke build is complete and the late game where his OHKO potential drops off. But again, the final maps of maddening GD are not as hard as just reaching them in the first place. I don't think Lorenz is worth using outside GD but damn, hes an MVP of GD maddening just because Frozen lance is SO good. People usually say just use Marianne Frozen Lance build but to that I say, what if I want her to be GD's dancer? Also, you can just use both Lorenz and Marianne as Frozen lance spammers. Mariane can also use Soulblade in an assassin/Mortal Savant build for similar results. It can be a bit tricker to hit OHKO benchmarks with swords and Soulblade but its perfectly doable. 

Oh and people point out that Lorenz and Marianne will be too squishy on maddening for such builds. To that I say, the key to maddening is making sure only your designated tanks (dodge tank, Impregnatable wall, or Vantage/Wrath bot) are ever attacked by enemies. So its actually perfectly fine for your whole team to be super squishy since they are never going to be attacked. All of maddening is pulling small groups of enemies and killing them all in your player phase. Use gambits to lock enemies in place if you can't kill a whole group in one turn.

Edited March 19, 2022 by wissenschaft

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The problem is, Lorenz just doesn't excel in anything. When you're talking about a game that rewards specialization, as they say, that's NO GOOD! That means his potential is very limited, as anything he can do, someone else can do better than him. Investing in someone like that is far more likely to be unrewarding than not.

Lorenz excels in one-shotting enemies as a Paladin with Frozen Lance. You could say it's his "specialty". And of course, Swordbreaker gives him a hit advantage over a majority of enemies in chapter 13. That's all he needs to accomplish to be "good" in my book.

...Huh, @wissenschaft basically said all that in more words. I second what they have to say.

EDIT: @Jotari Lorenz absolutely can one-shot enemies on Maddening with Frozen Lance. Assuming he has Lancefaire, Fiendish Blow, Magic +2, and a Magic-boosting battalion. He might need a high-Mt lance (i.e. Luin, Horseslayer situationally) and/or Magic Staff against bulkier foes, but he can hit the necessary benchmarks.

Edited March 19, 2022 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Added @Jotari.

[MagicCanonBalls]

First blind walkthrough is no fun for sure, but subsequent runs are a lot more exciting because I get to plan ahead. Probably my most memorable Silver Snow battle is Enlightened Byleth with Nosferatu tanking in forest tile while Seteth struggling to stay alive on Maddening setting.

[Barren]

On 3/20/2022 at 11:00 AM, MagicCanonBalls said:

First blind walkthrough is no fun for sure, but subsequent runs are a lot more exciting because I get to plan ahead. Probably my most memorable Silver Snow battle is Enlightened Byleth with Nosferatu tanking in forest tile while Seteth struggling to stay alive on Maddening setting.

For me I had Seteth with Defense +2 and Felix’s Aegis Shield for added defense. Plus Seteth’s defense is quite respectable enough for him to be taking like 4 - 6 points of damage per hit from regular thieves and mercenaries. Obviously Assassins and Snipers give him trouble. Brawlers do nearly nothing to him. He still gets doubled regardless at that point but giving him defense +2, aegis shield and maybe even a giant shell if you want makes him incredibly bulky.

Byleth I just make the enemies bunch themselves up for a AoE battalion like using Blaze or Resonant Lightning. I always bring a couple of people with swordbreaker.

[Bylift]

I love that people are still getting mad at this map 3 years later 🙂

I hated this map so hard, but now it's my favorite chapter.

To everyone struggling: you're in good company.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 3/23/2022 at 8:28 AM, Barren said:

For me I had Seteth with Defense +2 and Felix’s Aegis Shield for added defense. Plus Seteth’s defense is quite respectable enough for him to be taking like 4 - 6 points of damage per hit from regular thieves and mercenaries. Obviously Assassins and Snipers give him trouble. Brawlers do nearly nothing to him. He still gets doubled regardless at that point but giving him defense +2, aegis shield and maybe even a giant shell if you want makes him incredibly bulky.

Where did you find the time to do acquire Defense +2? You only have chapter 12 with him, so unless you're doing a lot of auxilliary grinding (wait, do you even get aux battles that month?), he won't have any class mastery skills in his toolkit on NG.