Magic Bernie?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

5 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Fair enough. I guess I was thrown off by the inclusion of Lorenz, who I very much think of as being in the same sometimes-mage category as Ingrid (with both of them having the same growth rate for magic and strength). If you prefer to classify Lorenz as a more dedicated mage (which is reasonable, even if it's not how I think of him), then what you said makes more sense to me.

Lorenz is in an interesting spot. His "canon" class, based on out-of-house recruitment and his post-skip enemy appearance, is Cavalier. But he has a Reason boon, and his paralogue rewards him with Thyrsus, which is of no use to him in a physical class. So I'd consider him an "obvious Mage", albeit the least "Magey" one.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Well yeah, support gambits are crazy useful, but you only need one unit running Stride or Impenetrable Shield each. Most of your units will have offensive gambits, for the stat boosts they provide if nothing else.

Anecdotally, there are cases where having two Stridebots is nice. Say, "defeat Commanders" maps with multiple bosses on different parts of the map. But in those cases, neither Encloser nor stunning offensive gambits are nearly as useful as high-powered spells and combat arts.

[Dark Holy Elf]

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

Lorenz is in an interesting spot. His "canon" class, based on out-of-house recruitment and his post-skip enemy appearance, is Cavalier. But he has a Reason boon, and his paralogue rewards him with Thyrsus, which is of no use to him in a physical class. So I'd consider him an "obvious Mage", albeit the least "Magey" one.

 

For what it's worth, I feel similarly. I look at it this way: most suggested Lorenz builds are almost certain to make use of his magic stat: a Paladin with Frozen Lance, a Dark Knight, etc. A purely physical Lorenz is just an incredibly underwhelming unit... he's like Sylvain or Ferdinand but with no Swift Strikes and no axe boon (for Death Blow and/or wyvern).

By comparison, it's entirely reasonable to build a purely physical Ingrid, or Sylvain, or Bernadetta, even if they all have valid magical options.

[Barren]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

 

For what it's worth, I feel similarly. I look at it this way: most suggested Lorenz builds are almost certain to make use of his magic stat: a Paladin with Frozen Lance, a Dark Knight, etc. A purely physical Lorenz is just an incredibly underwhelming unit... he's like Sylvain or Ferdinand but with no Swift Strikes and no axe boon (for Death Blow and/or wyvern).

By comparison, it's entirely reasonable to build a purely physical Ingrid, or Sylvain, or Bernadetta, even if they all have valid magical options.

Would you also include a magic based Ignatz? He has a budding talent in reason and him having Watchful Eye and Fimbulvetr makes it easier to hit. If only he had black magic crit +10 instead of seal strength. That would be so good.

[LoneRecon400]

Cold take: Crit spells aren't good because there's no good way to stack crit like they are with regular weapons. There's no great magic crit battalions, no combat arts that increase crit, and no class bonuses or masteries that help with crit. And that's all on top of Fimbultvr having -10 crit compared to Killer weapons.

Fimbultvr and Blizzard are just bad spells in this game tbh.

[Dark Holy Elf]

48 minutes ago, Barren said:

Would you also include a magic based Ignatz? He has a budding talent in reason and him having Watchful Eye and Fimbulvetr makes it easier to hit.

Sure, for all that Fimbulvetr is still not worth much, accuracy or not (I basically second LoneRecon's thoughts, there). That said, he does have Physic, and his magic growth isn't complete garbage. He feels built for Sniper, generally, but if you wanted to build him for magic, you could. He's pretty strongly outclassed by Marianne (who has most of his spells... but a better base faith rank, better stats in the places that matter, Thoron, magic combat arts, and Silence), but nothing says you can't use both, and he does have Rally Speed and Break Shot if you value the utility of either.

[Barren]

9 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Sure, for all that Fimbulvetr is still not worth much, accuracy or not (I basically second LoneRecon's thoughts, there). That said, he does have Physic, and his magic growth isn't complete garbage. He feels built for Sniper, generally, but if you wanted to build him for magic, you could. He's pretty strongly outclassed by Marianne (who has most of his spells... but a better base faith rank, better stats in the places that matter, Thoron, magic combat arts, and Silence), but nothing says you can't use both, and he does have Rally Speed and Break Shot if you value the utility of either.

That is a fair point. Even with Fimbulvetr he’s still had to compete with other notable magic users and Lysithea just blows him out of the water unsurprisingly. But that wouldn’t be a fair comparison by any stretch. She just feels like in a league of her own.

Iggy just feels better to use as a Sniper or Assassin anyways. Seal Strength has its uses when he attacks with something like Haze Slice for extra avoid. Or if you want to potentially one round enemies with HV.

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well yeah, support gambits are crazy useful, but you only need one unit running Stride or Impenetrable Shield each. Most of your units will have offensive gambits, for the stat boosts they provide if nothing else.

Fair point. I don't know about you, but personally, most of the time I use offensive gambits, it's for crowd control (in other words, against non-monster units). The Divine Beasts are imho the only monsters that gambits would really be needed for (considering their generally high power and being 3x3 as opposed to other monsters being 2x2)... and they have actual charm stats.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

36 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Cold take: Crit spells aren't good because there's no good way to stack crit like they are with regular weapons. There's no great magic crit battalions, no combat arts that increase crit, and no class bonuses or masteries that help with crit. And that's all on top of Fimbultvr having -10 crit compared to Killer weapons.

Fimbultvr and Blizzard are just bad spells in this game tbh.

I could vaguely see a "Crit Mage" build working on NG+. Buy back class masteries for a unit who went Mercenary and Warrior in a past life, and all of a sudden you have a Vantage/Wrath Mage. It's hardly practical to get Wrath on a Mage on an NG playthrough, though. Maybe Annette or a weird build of Edelgard or Hilda, but that's about it.

1 hour ago, Barren said:

Would you also include a magic based Ignatz? He has a budding talent in reason and him having Watchful Eye and Fimbulvetr makes it easier to hit. If only he had black magic crit +10 instead of seal strength. That would be so good.

I like Magic Ignatz. I used him recently as a Trickster, as sort of a "Swiss Army 'Natz". He could Rally, he could Physic, he could do Thief stuff, and he could debuff. I recognize the irony of saying "don't half-ass two builds" while pulling this shit.

Black Magic Crit +10 would be alright with his spell list, but Seal Strength might actually be better. I've found it to be among the better Seal skills. Used on a Monster, I can weaken them so that frail units who were previously one-shot by it can survive a round of combat with it. It can also occasionally lower an enemy's AS, affecting their Avoid and doubling thresholds.

One build I think Ignatz could pull off decently well is "Magic Bow Sniper". His Strength is high enough that going through Archer without a Magic Bow isn't a complete pain (compared to, say, Mercedes or Hanneman), while his Speed is good enough that he can double select foes before achieving Hunter's Volley. Given a hybrid battalion, he can probably still do solid damage with physical bows, too, even lacking Death Blow.

4 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Fair point. I don't know about you, but personally, most of the time I use offensive gambits, it's for crowd control (in other words, against non-monster units).

Offensive gambits are the quickest way to achieve a total armor break against an enemy monster, and get that sweet, sweet ore.

Also, depending on the arrangement of enemy units, it's possible for a single gambit to hit monsters and beorc (I've been playing Tellius lately, okay?) alike.

[Dark Holy Elf]

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

Also, depending on the arrangement of enemy units, it's possible for a single gambit to hit monsters and beorc (I've been playing Tellius lately, okay?) alike.

Seconding this, and also chiming in that with the added note that many monsters have awful charm, and only the primary target's charm matters for gambits. This results in even a lower-charm gambit-user suddenly having high-accuracy rattle when a monster is involved. Offensive gambits are extremely useful in general; we talk up things like Encloser and Seraphim/Blessed Bow/Monster Blast/etc. all the time; gambits are basically that, but with an area of effect.

[lenticular]

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

Lorenz is in an interesting spot. His "canon" class, based on out-of-house recruitment and his post-skip enemy appearance, is Cavalier. But he has a Reason boon, and his paralogue rewards him with Thyrsus, which is of no use to him in a physical class. So I'd consider him an "obvious Mage", albeit the least "Magey" one.

I couldn't tell you why, but I decided to respond to this in the form of a tier list of how "magey" I consider all the Three Houses units. Why yes, I am over-thinking this. Thank you for noticing.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

I couldn't tell you why, but I decided to respond to this in the form of a tier list of how "magey" I consider all the Three Houses units. Why yes, I am over-thinking this. Thank you for noticing.

Totally making a fortress knight Linhardt just to prove you wrong XD

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Totally making a fortress knight Linhardt just to prove you wrong XD

I'm reminded of the early game reviewer/showcaser who made "Linnie" a Cavalier of all things. Truly a visionary.

7 hours ago, lenticular said:

I couldn't tell you why, but I decided to respond to this in the form of a tier list of how "magey" I consider all the Three Houses units. Why yes, I am over-thinking this. Thank you for noticing.

I broadly like the list! I would probably raise Lorenz one, and retitle the tier "Better with spells or magic weapons/arts". Any of these units can work in physical classes (i.e. Wyvern Lord Hapi, Paladin Hubert, Sniper Hanneman), but they really want magical weapons or arts. ...Actually maybe Hanneman should go up a tier, since he has a great Reason list, and I don't see him as much different from Mercedes re: "Magic Bow Sniper".

Anecdotally, I quite enjoyed Dark Knight Ferdinand. He gets Thoron, so that's cool. But I don't know that I could comfortably put them above "Dubious".

Edited March 25, 2022 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Typo.

[ZanaLyrander]

 

5 hours ago, lenticular said:

I couldn't tell you why, but I decided to respond to this in the form of a tier list of how "magey" I consider all the Three Houses units. Why yes, I am over-thinking this. Thank you for noticing.

Huh, I don't think I've ever made Hubert a non-magic using class, but I admit I have seen him get strong enough to make good use of physical attacks with his lance while a Dark Knight (though I was buffing his strength a fair bit with stat-boosters, so that's not really typical). Hubert being entirely exclusive to CF seems to guarantee he doesn't get a ton of focus, but I gotta admit, he's definitely one of the strongest mages in the game. The guy hits like a truck, and I never get tired of hearing him laughing maniacally when he crits.

[Dark Holy Elf]

@lenticular 

I think it's a good tier list. My biggest quibbles, though they aren't major:

• I don't think Lorenz belongs in the same tier as Ingrid or Yuri. As mentioned, it's perfectly viable to make Ingrid or Yuri pure physical and have them never touch a spell, magic weapon, or magic combat art. With Lorenz, such a build is pretty obviously suboptimal and I don't personally think I've ever seen it suggested. When you're trying to get something out of Lorenz, the top two suggestions revolve around either his Frozen Lance or his Ragnarok at B reason. That's a significant difference to me.
• I don't really see much meaningful gap between the second and third tiers. Curious as to your reasoning. All ten of the characters here are viable in both "physical" and magical classes, but should probably have some magic in their build, since their magic stats are higher than their physical. I do agree with Linhardt on a tier of his own because his lack of combat arts means he basically never "should" be a physical class. The only one who might possibly join him is Flayn, but she does get Frozen Lance, albeit annoyingly late.
• I find Sylvain lends himself towards magic more than most people in his tier. So I think I'd move Lorenz up a tier, and Sylvain into the spot he vacates. You could possibly argue me on Sylvain bringing one or two others with him.

28 minutes ago, ZanaLyrander said:

Huh, I don't think I've ever made Hubert a non-magic using class, but I admit I have seen him get strong enough to make good use of physical attacks with his lance while a Dark Knight

His strength stat may not matter, but if you've never tried it before I do suggest giving him a go in Paladin for Level 20-29, at least. His Frozen Lance can deal very high damage. I don't ever have him use physical attacks, just one-shot things with that art. The Arrow of Indra from his paralogue is a nice option to increase his threat range and options when you get it.

[Barren]

38 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

His strength stat may not matter, but if you've never tried it before I do suggest giving him a go in Paladin for Level 20-29, at least. His Frozen Lance can deal very high damage. I don't ever have him use physical attacks, just one-shot things with that art. The Arrow of Indra from his paralogue is a nice option to increase his threat range and options when you get it.

Hubert could also pull off a Magic Bow Sniper build if you so desire as well. Of course working on his bow rank will require some effort and being able to get a Magic wouldn’t really be possible until late into part 2. So he would basically be stuck either doing pitiful damage with a physical bow for a while or just stick him into dark mage while working on bows as a side thing.
 

As for Arrow of Indra I once used Annette as a Dark Knight. With the aid of Byleth’s Sacred  Power, a magic battalion that added higher magic and hit rate (I think it was Macuil Evil Repel Co.), Fiendish Blow and Magic +2, she one shots every Paladin on the last map on Crimson Flower with Knightkneeler. She also one rounds Gilbert with Arrow of Indra assuming Pavise doesn’t trigger. I believe her magic may have been around 35 or so due to good growths and a couple of stat boosters. But still I was impressed that she was able to contribute to a strong opening turn.

[Dark Holy Elf]

11 minutes ago, Barren said:

Hubert could also pull off a Magic Bow Sniper build if you so desire as well.

He can, but I'm not terribly enthusiastic about the build for him. Magic Bow Hunter's Volley is outstanding, but chews through Arcane Crystals at a fierce rate. That's fine... once you can buy them from Chapter 16/17 onwards. The problem is, in CF, the game's almost over at that point. I like Magic Hunter's Volley as a build, but only on other routes.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

His strength stat may not matter, but if you've never tried it before I do suggest giving him a go in Paladin for Level 20-29, at least. His Frozen Lance can deal very high damage. I don't ever have him use physical attacks, just one-shot things with that art. The Arrow of Indra from his paralogue is a nice option to increase his threat range and options when you get it.

If you can have Hubert master either Soldier or Monk and get him into Cavalier by chapter 5, it really helps with the tedium of that map. Since he not only has 7 move, but he can also support allies with Reposition or Draw Back. And he's your only option at that point in the game, on CF/SS, who can hit a foe up to 8 spaces away with magical damage.

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The only one who might possibly join him is Flayn, but she does get Frozen Lance, albeit annoyingly late.

IMO Flayn works alright-ish as a "Levin Sword Pegasus Knight", even before she gets Frozen Lance. In particular, having a Pegasus Knight for the Remire Village map is excellent, since there are some hard-to-reach chests.

[Dark Holy Elf]

 

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

IMO Flayn works alright-ish as a "Levin Sword Pegasus Knight", even before she gets Frozen Lance. In particular, having a Pegasus Knight for the Remire Village map is excellent, since there are some hard-to-reach chests.

Never tried it, but that does make sense (C swords and D authority in two chapters needs a little tutoring but not an unreasonable amount by any stretch, and she has the lance/flying ranks already), and you don't need to sell me on the value of fliers in Remire! And it's another differentiator between her and Linhardt, since of course Linhardt can't go pegasus. (I suppose he can go Levin Sword Cavalier, but both Dorothea and Hubert are better choices for that due their sword and lance boons respectively, should you desire to do so.)

[lenticular]

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

Anecdotally, I quite enjoyed Dark Knight Ferdinand. He gets Thoron, so that's cool. But I don't know that I could comfortably put them above "Dubious".

Yeah. I've had fun with Shamir as a Gremory in the past too (her spell list isn't bad, and her personal skill does work on magic), but I would equally consider that to be highly dubious.

6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I don't really see much meaningful gap between the second and third tiers. Curious as to your reasoning. All ten of the characters here are viable in both "physical" and magical classes, but should probably have some magic in their build, since their magic stats are higher than their physical. I do agree with Linhardt on a tier of his own because his lack of combat arts means he basically never "should" be a physical class. The only one who might possibly join him is Flayn, but she does get Frozen Lance, albeit annoyingly late.

For the characters I put in that tier, they have some combination of: higher strength growths than other mages, non-magical combat arts, proficiencies that make them well suited to strong physical classes (wyvern for Hapi and Annette, bow knight or sniper for Hanneman and Hubert). Basically, that's the tier where, if someone told me they were running a purely physical build for the character, I might start to think "huh, that's a weird off-build; definitely not optimal but maybe you can make it work" rather than just thinking "well, that's not going to be any fun at all".

As an example, let's compare a purely physical wyvern build for Hapi with a similar build for Ashe. Wyvern Lord Ashe is a real build that people use and recommend, and I have seen some people claim that it's his best class.

• They have the same strength growth rate (+35%), although Ashe has a higher base strength (8 compared to 6)
• Ashe is faster (9+50% speed compared to 6+40%), but Hapi has the option of picking up Darting Blow to cancel out that advantage.
• Other stats are typically less important, but are largely a wash. Hapi is better in some (eg HP, res) while Ashe is better in others (eg dex, luck). I'd say that Ashe comes out slightly on top here, but not by much.
• Hapi has a slightly easier time getting into the class, with a budding talent in axes, strength in flying and neutral lances, compared to Ashe's budding talent in lances, strength in axes and neutral flying.
• They both get one axe combat art, but neither of them are very good. Hapi has Exhaustive Strike while Ashe has Focused Strike, and I can't imagine I'm getting much use out of either of them.

Now, to be clear, I'm well aware that I'm comparing against one of the weakest physical units in the game, and I'm also aware that while they are comparable and similar, Hapi is still the slightly weaker of the two. I am absolutely not recommending this build. She's much better off as a bolt-axe wyvern, a gremory, a dark knight, a valkyrie, or various other magical build. But I do think that, at the very least, it's borderline viable. Then, consider what the best purely physical build would be for Lysithea. I don't even know. Assassin? Maybe Falcon Knight? Either way, it would be a miserable experience. So I consider Hapi to be "less magey" or "more physical" than Lysithea, in the same way that I would consider Ferdinand or Shamir to be "more magey" than Petra.

7 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I find Sylvain lends himself towards magic more than most people in his tier. So I think I'd move Lorenz up a tier, and Sylvain into the spot he vacates. You could possibly argue me on Sylvain bringing one or two others with him.

I did try to order units within tiers as well as between them. I didn't put too too much time and thought into that, and even looking at them now, there are things that I would change, but the idea was that the leftmost characters in each tier are the most magey of that tier. So I do have Lorenz as the most magey of his tier and Sylvain as second most magey as his tier, so I wouldn't argue terribly strongly against them being shunted up a tier. For me, though, I consider purely physical Lorenz to be significanly enough better than purely physical builds on anyone above him that I felt he belonged in the lower tier. Though, I definitely conceded that even that is debatable.

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

For the characters I put in that tier, they have some combination of: higher strength growths than other mages, non-magical combat arts, proficiencies that make them well suited to strong physical classes (wyvern for Hapi and Annette, bow knight or sniper for Hanneman and Hubert). Basically, that's the tier where, if someone told me they were running a purely physical build for the character, I might start to think "huh, that's a weird off-build; definitely not optimal but maybe you can make it work" rather than just thinking "well, that's not going to be any fun at all".

I have to admit, if someone said they were making Hanneman/Hubert into a sniper or bow knight and not using a Magic Bow or Frozen Lance, I would class that under "obviously suboptimal and not fun at all", myself. And conversely, I don't see why Mercedes would be especially different... she only has 5% lower Str growth than them, which, seeing as all three are being equalized at Sniper's base at Level 20, means that the gap between them will realistically never be more than 1 point. So I think they should all be on the same tier.

Interesting points on Hapi vs. Ashe. It's a well-taken point that Hapi does roughly as well as Ashe in Wyvern (Ashe's advantage in base is, again, erased by the time Hapi goes Wyvern, though is relevant while they're both in Brigand). To add, Exhaustive Strike also does have some slight niche use if you have money to burn (on paper; I've never done it myself), and Hapi's personal would let her tear through monsters with brave weapons better than her Str stat suggests she should. I'm definitely suitably convinced by your argument that pure physical Hapi has some merit as a build, even if not the one I'd pick as her best.

[Shadow Mir]

17 hours ago, lenticular said:

I couldn't tell you why, but I decided to respond to this in the form of a tier list of how "magey" I consider all the Three Houses units. Why yes, I am over-thinking this. Thank you for noticing.

Honestly, I'd consider Sylvain dubious. I've seen a lot of hype for Dark Knight Sylvain, but imho, it just rings hollow, given that he can't do anything magic related even remotely well.

[lenticular]

28 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I have to admit, if someone said they were making Hanneman/Hubert into a sniper or bow knight and not using a Magic Bow or Frozen Lance, I would class that under "obviously suboptimal and not fun at all", myself. And conversely, I don't see why Mercedes would be especially different... she only has 5% lower Str growth than them, which, seeing as all three are being equalized at Sniper's base at Level 20, means that the gap between them will realistically never be more than 1 point. So I think they should all be on the same tier.

The tier boundaries are very fuzzy, so I certainly wouldn't object if you wanted to move Mercedes up a tier or Hanneman down a tier, for example. Hanneman especially, I found somewhat hard to place because of the implications of his late join time, which typically makes it trickier to run successful off-builds with him. So on reflection, maybe he should be in the same tier as Mercedes, for that reason. I had similar problems at the other end of the spectrum with Seteth and Gilbert. Seteth has a very respectable 8+35% magic stat and a fairly decent reason list, but actually turning him into a mage requires going back to grab mag+2 and fiendish blow, which is awkward.

But to compare Hubert and Mercedes, as purely physical archers, Hubert has:

• A slightly improved strength growth. It's not much, but it's not nothing.
• More and better combat arts. Heavy Draw, especially can really help compensate for lower strength.
• A quicker start, since he starts with E+ in bows and proficiency, rather than E and a budding talent.

Comparing purely physical archer builds for Hubert and Ignatz, in terms of raw damage, Ignatz will do slightly more damage to start with due to slightly higher strength, then Hubert will do slightly higher damage once they get to C+ bows thanks to Heavy Draw (except in cases where Ignatz is fast enough to double, but I wouldn't bank on that happening often), with that gap growing a bit at level 20 when their strength is equalised when they cetify into Sniper, then their damage will be the same once they learn Hunter's Volley, and then finally Ignatz can expect to move ahead very slightly in the late game as his 5% higher strength growth takes effect.

As in the case of Ashe vs Hapi as Wyvern Lords, I do still think that Ignatz is a better unit (due to his higher crit chance and his utility through Break Shot, Ward Arrow, and Rallies) but I think it's close enough to be illustrative of why I think of physical bow Hubert as being sub-optimal but not terrible.

And finally, let's compare magic bow sniper Hubert with regular bow sniper Hubert. I think it's obvious that, once the build is up and running, the magic version will be doing more damage. But I think it's equally non-controversial to say that the non-magic version requires much less effort to pull off. You have access to physical bows from level 1 as opposed to needing to get to B rank bows and have a steady supply of Arcane Crystals. This also means that, as you're picking up relevant skills along the way (str+2 and Death Blow for the physical build and mag+2 and Fiendish Blow for the magic build), they are actually benefiting you immediately. In turn, this means that you can actually use bows as your main weapon as you are leveling up, rather than training them in the background, ready to switch to once the build finally starts to come together. Which means that it's a build that requires much less training as well. So, from the persepctive of "is there ever a reason to run the physical build, or is the magic build just strictly better in every meaningful way?" then I'd say yes, there is a reason.

Of course, the whole endeavor is very fuzzy and very hand-wavey, and I definitely don't claim that my definitions and demarcations are the one true objectively right answer. But at the very least, I hope that this rambling is enough to let you understand my thought process.

12 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Honestly, I'd consider Sylvain dubious. I've seen a lot of hype for Dark Knight Sylvain, but imho, it just rings hollow, given that he can't do anything magic related even remotely well.

Can't say I agree with that. I've never been hugely impressed with his magic either, but I do think it's quite clearly better than any of the units I put in dubious tier.

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

I broadly like the list! I would probably raise Lorenz one, and retitle the tier "Better with spells or magic weapons/arts".

Oops. Just realised that I meant to reply to this before but forgot. I tried to keep the tier names as short as I could, just so that it fits on the label better. Your version is definitely more descriptive, but if I were left to my own devices, I'd end up writing an explanatory paragraph for each tier name, and I firmly banned myself from doing that.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

37 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Oops. Just realised that I meant to reply to this before but forgot. I tried to keep the tier names as short as I could, just so that it fits on the label better. Your version is definitely more descriptive, but if I were left to my own devices, I'd end up writing an explanatory paragraph for each tier name, and I firmly banned myself from doing that.

Haha. I can respect that degree of self-control.

57 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Honestly, I'd consider Sylvain dubious. I've seen a lot of hype for Dark Knight Sylvain, but imho, it just rings hollow, given that he can't do anything magic related even remotely well.

Sylvain's magical niche is as a dodgy lure for enemy Bow users. Black Magic Avoid +20, Bowbreaker via Warlock mastery, and Reason Lv. 5 give him a baseline of 50 Avoid against enemy Bow users. And this is before considering his stats or battalion bonuses. Couple this with the fact that Snipers and Bow Knights tend to attack from as far away as possible (thus cutting into their Hit rates), and it's pretty unlikely for Sylvain to be hit. And with the Thyrsus equipped, he can even strike back!

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

4 hours ago, lenticular said:

But to compare Hubert and Mercedes, as purely physical archers, Hubert has:

• A slightly improved strength growth. It's not much, but it's not nothing.
• More and better combat arts. Heavy Draw, especially can really help compensate for lower strength.
• A quicker start, since he starts with E+ in bows and proficiency, rather than E and a budding talent.

 

Ooh, didn't know about Heavy Draw. Yeah, that's enough to convince me there's a gap there, at least a small one.

 

4 hours ago, lenticular said:

And finally, let's compare magic bow sniper Hubert with regular bow sniper Hubert. [...]

Even with 8 extra points devoted to strength over magic via skills, Magic Bow will frequently outdamage other bows in Hubert's hands... enemy res is often much lower than their prot, and Hubert has at least 6 more points of Magic than Strength. In particular, he likely one-rounds enemy armour knights with it, which his physicals struggle to scratch. So even if you're building him for mostly physicals, Magic Bow is a good option that will improve his performance, and I would definitely get him one. Frozen Lance also likely claims kills that other options won't, particularly before Hunter's Volley, e.g. using Horseslayer against cavalry. So... I'd definitely say that Hubert should use his magic options, even as a mostly-physical Sniper.

Additionally, another major downside to this physical Hubert build: you proposed getting Str+2 and Death Blow, but that means no magic use in Beginner and Intermediate tier. So you trade Hubert's normally solid earlygame with Mire and Banshee (which magic Sniper Hubert builds keep) for a fighter/brigand with 6+30% strength, who will be the unquestioned team LVP.

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Honestly, I'd consider Sylvain dubious. I've seen a lot of hype for Dark Knight Sylvain

You really can be contrary at times; of all the names in the viable mages tier, you pick out the one you've seen the most hype for? Have you considered the fact that this build gets hyped is not because we're a bunch of idiots, but because he legitimately is better than most other "physical" characters using magic and a lot of people have in fact experienced this?

Incidentally my last playthrough was cavalry only (a minor challenge run since it soft-banned all the good intermediate mastery skills). I ran Dark Knight Sylvain alongside Paladin Ferdinand and I can assure you the former was clearly more useful in Master tier, essentially claiming all the same physical kills (Ferdinand's Lancefaire was offset by Sylvain's slightly higher strength, personal skill, and +might supports) while having Physic and armourslaying capabilities. Ferdinand did have +1 move, which isn't nothing, but Sylvain having far more useful actions when neither could reach melee range more than offset this.

 

[Barren]

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

You really can be contrary at times; of all the names in the viable mages tier, you pick out the one you've seen the most hype for? Have you considered the fact that this build gets hyped is not because we're a bunch of idiots, but because he legitimately is better than most other "physical" characters using magic and a lot of people have in fact experienced this?

Incidentally my last playthrough was cavalry only (a minor challenge run since it soft-banned all the good intermediate mastery skills). I ran Dark Knight Sylvain alongside Paladin Ferdinand and I can assure you the former was clearly more useful in Master tier, essentially claiming all the same physical kills (Ferdinand's Lancefaire was offset by Sylvain's slightly higher strength, personal skill, and +might supports) while having Physic and armourslaying capabilities. Ferdinand did have +1 move, which isn't nothing, but Sylvain having far more useful actions when neither could reach melee range more than offset this.

 

 To add to your point if either Ingrid or Felix can provide a link bonus for Sylvain assuming their support is that A or A+, he gets a +3 attack bonus in addition to +10 hit/avoid. Sylvain can even use Gloucester Knights Co. as a battalion for +5 magic and +10 hit or Mockingbird Thieves for the same buffs but add in 10 avoid. And female Byleth can activate Philanderer and have Sacred Power. With both of those combined, Sylvain gets another +5 attack and takes 5 less points of damage. If you want to add rallies from Annette or Ingrid (she gets rally magic) on top of that, you can.