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Trickster is an awesome class


Bylift
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The more I play 3H the more I love this class. It's a true support class, and I love its utility.

The units I feel are best used in this class are Dorothea, Manuela, and Marianne. I like to give them a Levin Sword, and upgrade to a Levin+ when the Dark Magic Shop opens after the time skip. Then I add Fiendish Blow, Mag +2, Axebreaker, and duelists blow upon mastery.

I find these 3 units have great kits for the class. Dorothea and Marianne both have physic and can help in a pinch, and Dorothea still gets to use Meteor once. Manuela and Dorothea both have rally charm. Manuela gets Ward, Silence and warp*. All three of them have a magical sword combat art (Hexblade; soulblade) that can hit hard at enemy Res. To be clear, I don't think this class is going to be a good fit for every unit. But these three have shown great results in my runs.

The complaints I hear about trickster are lack of swordfaire, low mobility, half magic charges, or "X/Y/and Z class does it better". I'll address these.

  • Not having swordfaire doesn't seem to be a significant issue with my Levin sword setup because you are attacking res, not prt, and enemy res is typically lousy. Additionally, hexblade and soulblade are good arts that can deal a surprising amount of spike damage vs. res using a Steel Sword+ or stronger sword. Marianne's Blutgang art is also pretty decent. Trickster is not a PP delete button and I don't think swordfaire would change that; it's a true support class, and I find that they are able to easily one-round armors, and finish off most enemies that have been chipped, all while avoiding counter attacks with a Levin Sword or Duelist's Blow.
  • The low mobility is a legit complaint. But I just did a run with 2 tricksters in my final party and I found them helpful the entire time. Using a levin sword+ with attack range 1-3 extends effective range by a lot. Silence has a very long reach, so does physic. Bottom line these units in trickster don't need to keep up to be useful, but I never found that they "fell behind" with maybe a couple exceptions.
  • Half magic charges doesn't seem to be an issue for me either since, again, I'm still using a primary bishop physic healer, and the Levin Sword prevents them from running out of offensive spells.
  • Trickster is not a specialty class: it's a support class; a "red mage" if you will. And it's great at it! It's the only class that has both stealth AND magic. It allows magically inclined characters to be get into the thick of battle without dying, and in my opinion it's Manuela's best possible class given her boons and growths. And I even appreciate locktouch especially on maps like Shambala with all those stupid doors.

Overall, I just want to speak up for much maligned trickster class, and would encourage folks who are skeptical to give it a try. It's not a tank class, it's not a primary spike DD class, it's not a primary healer, and it's really not a "primary" anything. It is, however, in my view, the most versatile class in the game when used by an appropriate unit, and tons of fun to bring along.

 

*Also Bolting but realistically you're probably not getting her to A reason unless you grind or NG+

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I've generally been pretty underwhelmed by Trickster. I'd a bit of a hybrid class, so it's possible it will have exactly what you're looking for. After all, nothing else has Stealth AND magic use, as you note. But in general I've been happier with its competition, even for the characters you note:

  • Assassin has +1 move, extra speed, and extra damage. You give up your natural spells, but you become much better at killing with what you have; one-rounding armours with Levin and claiming OHKOs with Hexblade/Soulblade. Particular shout-out for Reunion at Dawn (VW/SS), where I've had great results with Assassin.
  • Valkyrie has +1 move, twice as many spell uses, +1 range, and +4 damage. No Stealth, but yes Canto. I think this class, above all, steps on Trickster's toes pretty badly. To top it off, it gets a really good mastery skill.
  • Warlock gives up 1 move but gets +8 damage (with spells; +3 otherwise), and 2-4x as many spell uses. This is mostly notable for Dorothea, especially since she wants to rush Reason to get S rank (Marianne has a lot more trouble even getting there).
  • Dark Flier is great, although admittedly you only get one good one.

For what it's worth I think it's better for Manuela than the others you mentioned (or indeed, other characters in general). This is because she has less reason to train Reason, so Trickster really is a low-cost option for her; it keys off two skills she auto-trains and allows her to still use Silence/Warp.

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22 minutes ago, Bylift said:

Dorothea, Manuela, and Marianne.

Wouldn´t Dorothea and Marianne just be better off with Gremory or even just the advanced mage classes, keeping in mind these classes might just not exclude each other? Gremory is basically everything that Trickster is, barring the class trick, but more stats (I haven´t run any calcs)? Dark Flier does most of what you wrote, except with a flying mount, same for Valkyrie but Horse. 

Edited by Imuabicus
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20 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

Wouldn´t Dorothea and Marianne just be better off with Gremory or even just the advanced mage classes, keeping in mind these classes might just not exclude each other? Gremory is basically everything that Trickster is, barring the class trick, but more stats (I haven´t run any calcs)? Dark Flier does most of what you wrote, except with a flying mount, same for Valkyrie but Horse. 

Stealth? A gremory is going to get murdered on the front rows, same with a flier, or any other advanced magic class.

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1 minute ago, Bylift said:

Stealth? A gremory is going to get murdered on the front rows, same with a flier, or any other advanced magic class.

No Stealth, more range. Range is to some degree vairable in this game. And the attack lines are kinda iffy imo - sneakiness adds another level of "I don´t really know what the AI likes to do." 

I dunno how a Trickster keeps up any better than a Gremory to be in the thick of it. That may just be me abusing dodgetanks though.

Fliers don´t die with Alert Stance and modestly intelligent placement, especially if the have Canto (I think DF has Canto, I forget).

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31 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I've generally been pretty underwhelmed by Trickster. I'd a bit of a hybrid class, so it's possible it will have exactly what you're looking for. After all, nothing else has Stealth AND magic use, as you note. But in general I've been happier with its competition, even for the characters you note:

  • Assassin has +1 move, extra speed, and extra damage. You give up your natural spells, but you become much better at killing with what you have; one-rounding armours with Levin and claiming OHKOs with Hexblade/Soulblade. Particular shout-out for Reunion at Dawn (VW/SS), where I've had great results with Assassin.
  • Valkyrie has +1 move, twice as many spell uses, +1 range, and +4 damage. No Stealth, but yes Canto. I think this class, above all, steps on Trickster's toes pretty badly. To top it off, it gets a really good mastery skill.
  • Warlock gives up 1 move but gets +8 damage (with spells; +3 otherwise), and 2-4x as many spell uses. This is mostly notable for Dorothea, especially since she wants to rush Reason to get S rank (Marianne has a lot more trouble even getting there).
  • Dark Flier is great, although admittedly you only get one good one.

For what it's worth I think it's better for Manuela than the others you mentioned (or indeed, other characters in general). This is because she has less reason to train Reason, so Trickster really is a low-cost option for her; it keys off two skills she auto-trains and allows her to still use Silence/Warp.

Assassin is great too, absolutely.

Stealth is a terrific ability in a game where you can't draw aggro and any weak units left in range are probably going to die.

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Basically what @Dark Holy Elf said, but adding a couple more comparisons:

- Bishop gets 10 Physics instead of 3, 2 Warps instead of 1, and is more effective with either than Trickster. It also does more damage than Trickster - with White Magic, Black Magic, and even, hilariously, the Levin Sword and Soul/Hexblade.

- Mortal Savant is doing more damage still, thanks to Sword- and Black Tome-faires. It also has more spell charges than Trickster, and outside of heavily-wooded areas, has more mobility as well.

6 minutes ago, Bylift said:

Stealth is a terrific ability in a game where you can't draw aggro and any weak units left in range are probably going to die.

You can draw aggro via offensive Gambits, though. Outside of that, Hapi's ability naturally aggroes enemy Monsters. There aren't as many options for non-Monster enemies, though.

It's fine to put units performing a support function into enemy range, so long as you cast Impregnable Wall on them.

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15 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

No Stealth, more range. Range is to some degree vairable in this game. And the attack lines are kinda iffy imo - sneakiness adds another level of "I don´t really know what the AI likes to do." 

I dunno how a Trickster keeps up any better than a Gremory to be in the thick of it. That may just be me abusing dodgetanks though.

Fliers don´t die with Alert Stance and modestly intelligent placement, especially if the have Canto (I think DF has Canto, I forget).

1) Stealth guarantees 100% that if another target is available to the enemy, they will attack that target and not the character with stealth. It's pretty predictable. But yes, I agree that the threat indicators can sometimes be misleading in general.

2) They keep up better by not having to stay outside of attack range. If you're sending a super dodge/crit/avoid map-sweeper Wyvern Lord, then yeah, no one is keeping up with that.

3) Dark fliers can eventually get... OK at dodging incoming attacks IF you are using "wait" and not attacking, but you're probably gonna run out of spells quickly if you're doing that and my experience has been that it's better to just stay out of range as a Dark Flier or you're asking for trouble. Stealth avoids attacks altogether and lets you do more than "wait" on PP.

And yes, DF has Canto as well. It's an amazing class. It's mastery ability is trash but who cares.

 

I'll say again: lots of other classes do one thing or another more optimally than a Trickster, but a Trickster is a real swiss army knife support class and I think it's fun and effective to use 🙂

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

Basically what @Dark Holy Elf said, but adding a couple more comparisons:

- Bishop gets 10 Physics instead of 3, 2 Warps instead of 1, and is more effective with either than Trickster. It also does more damage than Trickster - with White Magic, Black Magic, and even, hilariously, the Levin Sword and Soul/Hexblade.

- Mortal Savant is doing more damage still, thanks to Sword- and Black Tome-faires. It also has more spell charges than Trickster, and outside of heavily-wooded areas, has more mobility as well.

You can draw aggro via offensive Gambits, though. Outside of that, Hapi's ability naturally aggroes enemy Monsters. There aren't as many options for non-Monster enemies, though.

It's fine to put units performing a support function into enemy range, so long as you cast Impregnable Wall on them.

Sorry for repeating myself, but I have to. Neither of those classes have stealth.

Impregnable wall is a wonderful gambit but can't be spammed or used as a substitute for stealth.

There are technically ways you can draw aggro from non-monster enemies I guess, such as by unequipping your weapon or putting a bow on someone who doesn't have close counter. But in general, they're just gonna attack your weakest unit until it's dead. Which is why stealth is so nice to have. Monster aggro is another story.

Would be cool if they would have given Fortress Knight a skill like 'provoke' that would make it the preferred target; like the opposite of stealth.

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6 minutes ago, Bylift said:

Sorry for repeating myself, but I have to. Neither of those classes have stealth.

Impregnable wall is a wonderful gambit but can't be spammed or used as a substitute for stealth.

There are technically ways you can draw aggro from non-monster enemies I guess, such as by unequipping your weapon or putting a bow on someone who doesn't have close counter. But in general, they're just gonna attack your weakest unit until it's dead. Which is why stealth is so nice to have. Monster aggro is another story.

Would be cool if they would have given Fortress Knight a skill like 'provoke' that would make it the preferred target; like the opposite of stealth.

I guess if you really want Stealth and Spells on a single unit, then Trickster has a monopoly on that combination, sure. I recognize Stealth as a convenient skill, but definitely don't hold it in as high a light as you do.

Yeah, giving Fortress or Great Knight a "Provoke" combat art for class mastery could've been pretty cool. If it's a combat art, then you get to choose when it comes into play.

32 minutes ago, Bylift said:

1) Stealth guarantees 100% that if another target is available to the enemy, they will attack that target and not the character with stealth. It's pretty predictable. But yes, I agree that the threat indicators can sometimes be misleading in general.

Worth noting that, even if you have two units in enemy range, if one of them gets "walled off" by other enemies attacking earlier in EP, then your Stealth unit is suddenly at risk. Since the "lure" unit is no longer in range of remaining enemies, even if they were at the start of EP. It's a predictable skill, yes, but it's not foolproof.

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2 hours ago, Bylift said:

The more I play 3H the more I love this class. It's a true support class, and I love its utility.

The units I feel are best used in this class are Dorothea, Manuela, and Marianne. I like to give them a Levin Sword, and upgrade to a Levin+ when the Dark Magic Shop opens after the time skip. Then I add Fiendish Blow, Mag +2, Axebreaker, and duelists blow upon mastery.

I find these 3 units have great kits for the class. Dorothea and Marianne both have physic and can help in a pinch, and Dorothea still gets to use Meteor once. Manuela and Dorothea both have rally charm. Manuela gets Ward, Silence and warp*. All three of them have a magical sword combat art (Hexblade; soulblade) that can hit hard at enemy Res. To be clear, I don't think this class is going to be a good fit for every unit. But these three have shown great results in my runs.

The complaints I hear about trickster are lack of swordfaire, low mobility, half magic charges, or "X/Y/and Z class does it better". I'll address these.

  • Not having swordfaire doesn't seem to be a significant issue with my Levin sword setup because you are attacking res, not prt, and enemy res is typically lousy. Additionally, hexblade and soulblade are good arts that can deal a surprising amount of spike damage vs. res using a Steel Sword+ or stronger sword. Marianne's Blutgang art is also pretty decent. Trickster is not a PP delete button and I don't think swordfaire would change that; it's a true support class, and I find that they are able to easily one-round armors, and finish off most enemies that have been chipped, all while avoiding counter attacks with a Levin Sword or Duelist's Blow.
  • The low mobility is a legit complaint. But I just did a run with 2 tricksters in my final party and I found them helpful the entire time. Using a levin sword+ with attack range 1-3 extends effective range by a lot. Silence has a very long reach, so does physic. Bottom line these units in trickster don't need to keep up to be useful, but I never found that they "fell behind" with maybe a couple exceptions.
  • Half magic charges doesn't seem to be an issue for me either since, again, I'm still using a primary bishop physic healer, and the Levin Sword prevents them from running out of offensive spells.
  • Trickster is not a specialty class: it's a support class; a "red mage" if you will. And it's great at it! It's the only class that has both stealth AND magic. It allows magically inclined characters to be get into the thick of battle without dying, and in my opinion it's Manuela's best possible class given her boons and growths. And I even appreciate locktouch especially on maps like Shambala with all those stupid doors.

Overall, I just want to speak up for much maligned trickster class, and would encourage folks who are skeptical to give it a try. It's not a tank class, it's not a primary spike DD class, it's not a primary healer, and it's really not a "primary" anything. It is, however, in my view, the most versatile class in the game when used by an appropriate unit, and tons of fun to bring along.

 

*Also Bolting but realistically you're probably not getting her to A reason unless you grind or NG+

Overall, hard agree! Trickster + Dodge tank is just extremely effective and efficient.

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

Worth noting that, even if you have two units in enemy range, if one of them gets "walled off" by other enemies attacking earlier in EP, then your Stealth unit is suddenly at risk. Since the "lure" unit is no longer in range of remaining enemies, even if they were at the start of EP. It's a predictable skill, yes, but it's not foolproof.

That’s why I strongly advocate a reliable 100% crit killing dodge tank rather than a vanilla one in another thread. Properly built dodge tank 99% NEVER get walled-off, since they always kill.

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3 hours ago, Bylift said:

The more I play 3H the more I love this class. It's a true support class, and I love its utility.

The units I feel are best used in this class are Dorothea, Manuela, and Marianne. I like to give them a Levin Sword, and upgrade to a Levin+ when the Dark Magic Shop opens after the time skip. Then I add Fiendish Blow, Mag +2, Axebreaker, and duelists blow upon mastery.

I find these 3 units have great kits for the class. Dorothea and Marianne both have physic and can help in a pinch, and Dorothea still gets to use Meteor once. Manuela and Dorothea both have rally charm. Manuela gets Ward, Silence and warp*. All three of them have a magical sword combat art (Hexblade; soulblade) that can hit hard at enemy Res. To be clear, I don't think this class is going to be a good fit for every unit. But these three have shown great results in my runs.

The complaints I hear about trickster are lack of swordfaire, low mobility, half magic charges, or "X/Y/and Z class does it better". I'll address these.

  • Not having swordfaire doesn't seem to be a significant issue with my Levin sword setup because you are attacking res, not prt, and enemy res is typically lousy. Additionally, hexblade and soulblade are good arts that can deal a surprising amount of spike damage vs. res using a Steel Sword+ or stronger sword. Marianne's Blutgang art is also pretty decent. Trickster is not a PP delete button and I don't think swordfaire would change that; it's a true support class, and I find that they are able to easily one-round armors, and finish off most enemies that have been chipped, all while avoiding counter attacks with a Levin Sword or Duelist's Blow.
  • The low mobility is a legit complaint. But I just did a run with 2 tricksters in my final party and I found them helpful the entire time. Using a levin sword+ with attack range 1-3 extends effective range by a lot. Silence has a very long reach, so does physic. Bottom line these units in trickster don't need to keep up to be useful, but I never found that they "fell behind" with maybe a couple exceptions.
  • Half magic charges doesn't seem to be an issue for me either since, again, I'm still using a primary bishop physic healer, and the Levin Sword prevents them from running out of offensive spells.
  • Trickster is not a specialty class: it's a support class; a "red mage" if you will. And it's great at it! It's the only class that has both stealth AND magic. It allows magically inclined characters to be get into the thick of battle without dying, and in my opinion it's Manuela's best possible class given her boons and growths. And I even appreciate locktouch especially on maps like Shambala with all those stupid doors.

Overall, I just want to speak up for much maligned trickster class, and would encourage folks who are skeptical to give it a try. It's not a tank class, it's not a primary spike DD class, it's not a primary healer, and it's really not a "primary" anything. It is, however, in my view, the most versatile class in the game when used by an appropriate unit, and tons of fun to bring along.

 

*Also Bolting but realistically you're probably not getting her to A reason unless you grind or NG+

Honestly, I cannot agree here. It's just another wannabe generalist that fails at everything. Being a "red mage" isn't so meaningful when there are better options that don't sacrifice performance for trying to do multiple things all at once. It's not impossible to make work, but still, even on those three characters you mention, I'd get better results from the classes it tries (and fails) to compete with.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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I did try to make a late recruit Marianne a trickster in the Maddening Blue Lions run I am doing, but even with Soulblade / Levin Sword+, her damage output and utility was just not cutting it compared to my other fighters and I had to bench her. At the very least, using her in her paralogue was a bit easier since I just bolted her to heal tile above.

I think Forged Levin Swords + Silence is really nice, especially if you combine it with a skill like Poison Strike, which I did on Yuri. However, even for this combo, I would rather go Mortal Savant thanks to not having halved uses of Spells, on top of Swordfaire and Black Tomefaire (And Mortal Savant itself is just a poor man's dark knight). Really, the halved use of spells is the big dealbreaker that I have with this class. If that restriction didn't exist, then the class would be a more appropriate sidegrade / alternative to Bishop. However, it does, so I generally feel less inclined to use it.

That being said, I am willing give the class another try on a Golden Deer run Maddening run. Part of the reason I think it didn't work with Marriane was because I recruited her so late. I am planning to use a lot more armors in this run, so I'd imagine Foul Play would be nice to position them.

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Trickster is a class that I want to like but have always found disappointing whenever I've actually tried it. Its biggest draw is the combination of Stealth and spellcasting, and I assume that any Trickster build is going to want to try to take advantage of both of them. If you aren't, then there's really very little incentive to be in Trickster to begin with. Yes, Foul Play and Lucky Seven both exist, but neither is particularly impressive (though Foul Play can be quite nice on Yuri in the Cindered Shadows campaign). But generally speaking, if you aren't going to be casting spells, then you're almost certainly going to be better off as an Assassin, and if you aren't going to be using Stealth then you're probably better off in any number of other classes, from Bishop to Valkyrie to Mortal Savant and more.

The problem that I've found is that there isn't much incentive to be using spells and stealth at the same time. Keeping spellcasters away from the front lines is pretty easy in Three Houses. Increased range options are easy to come by, as are classes that have spellcasting and canto. That's not to say that situations never come up where you can benefit from attacking with a spell and then being in Stealth. They do. But I've found them to be rare, and even rarer if we're only considering situations in which Stealth is effective but the alternatives wouldn't be equally as effective.

So, we're essentially left with a class that is sometimes using stealth and sometimes using magic, but largely using them separately. Maybe using stealth after hitting a Soulblade and then being in Stealth on one turn, and then healing someone with Physic on the next turn. This is the Jack of all trades generalist approach mentioned by the OP but, again, it's never really worked well for me. Giving it some thought, I think that I've put my finger on one of the reasons why I don't really like this sort of build. It's fairly easy, in Three Houses, to make builds that excel in one area and are still able to perform adequately at some other task. For instance, I might build someone primarily as a healer but also train them in reason so that they can contribute some meaningful chip damage if they need to. Or I might have a Sniper who is built primarily for one-turn kills with Hunter's Volley, but they can also debuff with whatever bow combat art they happen to have (Encloser, Ward Arrow, Break Shot, etc.). Or there's the simple fact that gambits exist. Every unit in the game has some degree of extra utility baked in just by having a gambit.

What this tends to mean, at least for me, is that I don't get much use out of a versatile generalist. If I have some sort of task that I need to perform on a given turn, then I probably have someone who can perform it decently well already. And I can do that without having to have a character that doesn't excel at a primary function. I'm sure that playstyle has a big effect on this one, but it's not a class that I've got much value from.

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On 4/15/2022 at 7:56 PM, Bylift said:

The units I feel are best used in this class are Dorothea, Manuela, and Marianne.

Having tried all three of them in this class (with the same logic you wrote out at the top bar utilising Stealth), I've invariably felt like Trickster has let me down. All three of their selling points just felt watered down when they were in the class.

More generally, being a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none in a game that encourages and rewards specialisation would already have been a hard sell. But when mages can use swords, the only things Trickster does uniquely well are the Foul Play and Stealth combo. In fact, I'd venture this is the way the devs imagined the class would be used (Foul Play to switch with a squishy on the frontline, Stealth so your tank(s) deal with the EP, and then repeat, or have them be extra damage with Duelist's Blow/magic combat art, or extra healing). Problem is, this necessitates a certain style of play to incentivise such a unit, one that isn't encouraged by the game more broadly (i.e. because of Master Classes and everyone being able to use the main weapons). It is, however, kinda encouraged by CS, which is another reason to praise those levels!

Anyway, its growths are designed for magic weapon users, many of whom would prefer the extra damage from a Faire class or extra magic or whatever, and you then have to weigh up combat benefits vs maintaining this play style (spending a deployment slot as cover for the rest of your army). Trickster often loses that contest, which is why I think it's so unpopular (and of course all the other reasons people have mentioned above). 

On 4/15/2022 at 7:56 PM, Bylift said:

*Also Bolting but realistically you're probably not getting her to A reason unless you grind or NG+

As someone who also did this on NG+, really don't bother. Bolting on Manuela wasn't worth the effort even though she had A ranks with a few of my main units, and if you have the DLC anyway, just let Gremory Constance do the damage. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't see what's so special about Trickster either. Every time I've tried it I feel I can be doing anything it does with a better unit that focuses on one of those aspects - sure you could argue that you lose the swiss army knife, but to me that sounds more like a compliment; why not focus on using a better tool suited for the job than a tool that is built to be so multipurpose it isn't really comfortable to handle. Just following the metaphor here.

On 4/15/2022 at 2:56 PM, Bylift said:

The complaints I hear about trickster are lack of swordfaire, low mobility, half magic charges, or "X/Y/and Z class does it better". I'll address these.

  • Not having swordfaire doesn't seem to be a significant issue with my Levin sword setup because you are attacking res, not prt, and enemy res is typically lousy. Additionally, hexblade and soulblade are good arts that can deal a surprising amount of spike damage vs. res using a Steel Sword+ or stronger sword. Marianne's Blutgang art is also pretty decent. Trickster is not a PP delete button and I don't think swordfaire would change that; it's a true support class, and I find that they are able to easily one-round armors, and finish off most enemies that have been chipped, all while avoiding counter attacks with a Levin Sword or Duelist's Blow.
  • The low mobility is a legit complaint. But I just did a run with 2 tricksters in my final party and I found them helpful the entire time. Using a levin sword+ with attack range 1-3 extends effective range by a lot. Silence has a very long reach, so does physic. Bottom line these units in trickster don't need to keep up to be useful, but I never found that they "fell behind" with maybe a couple exceptions.
  • Half magic charges doesn't seem to be an issue for me either since, again, I'm still using a primary bishop physic healer, and the Levin Sword prevents them from running out of offensive spells.
  • Trickster is not a specialty class: it's a support class; a "red mage" if you will. And it's great at it! It's the only class that has both stealth AND magic. It allows magically inclined characters to be get into the thick of battle without dying, and in my opinion it's Manuela's best possible class given her boons and growths. And I even appreciate locktouch especially on maps like Shambala with all those stupid doors.

Overall, I just want to speak up for much maligned trickster class, and would encourage folks who are skeptical to give it a try. It's not a tank class, it's not a primary spike DD class, it's not a primary healer, and it's really not a "primary" anything. It is, however, in my view, the most versatile class in the game when used by an appropriate unit, and tons of fun to bring along.

Those combat arts are 1-range and while admittedly strong, you're probably carrying other swords to use those with I'm assuming. Otherwise I think your levin swords (+) are going to be difficult to repair, since arcane ore isn't the easiest thing to get. Also you could just use those arts in other classes too that have either better mobility or magic.

I don't see much purpose to Duelist's Blow honestly. In general, avoiding is much more useful when you're baiting enemies, during their turn. Not so much when you're engaging enemies. It's a similar complaint I have with Armored Blow; while +6 def sounds good, it's usefulness is limited because it only works against the enemy you attacked on your turn only, so it's not helping you tank hits. Not to mention that since you're choosing which enemy to engage, if you're relying on avoiding the hit then it still involves some luck, when you could just kill the enemy instead and take having to avoid a counter out of the equation.

Why not just use Bishop if you want to cast spells from range? You get x2 uses, better magic stat for more range on those spells, and higher healing. Does it really matter that they don't have Stealth when Bishops should rarely ever be in combat? Let alone in enemy range if you position your units properly. If stealth is what you're looking for, then why not go Assassin? 6 move and unpenalized movement through forest tiles makes them easily better at stealth strats.

Frankly, I think you're also overrating Stealth. For it to work you really need a Fortress Knight stacked to the teeth with protection boosts, or a War Master, or a vantage/wrath crit tank, or an avoid tank... or something similar near the Stealth user in general. All which except for Fortress Knight take several skill ranks to build out, so it's not something that will come online until the last 1/3rd of the game at best. That's my experience in Maddening, without an enemy phase dedicated unit, either the Stealth user's allies are likely dying, or if no allies are close they get targeted anyways and die cuz both Assassin and Trickster are very frail too.

Not saying there aren't scenarios where Stealth isn't good; in Cindered Shadows, I let Dimitri carry Vantage as Hero + Battalion Wrath, purposely brought his battalion endurance to red, and let Assassin Ashe carrying the Kingdom Archers to give him retribution - he erased every non-monster non-armored enemy that attacked him with a forged killing edge and they all ignored Ashe nearby. My point is though that you need something like that for Stealth to be useful.

Locktouch seems highly redundant to me in this game, where keys cost 300g and you get a lot of money.

In general I think the whole jack of all trades thing is the issue with the Trickster, they don't do anything particularly well and that's why I feel it's overall an outclassed class 😛

Only thing I overall agree with is that Swordfaire isn't a big loss, since most swords in general don't OHKO in Three Houses Maddening; not unless you do a crit build like I described above.

Edited by DaveCozy
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On 5/2/2022 at 2:24 PM, DaveCozy said:

Only thing I overall agree with is that Swordfaire isn't a big loss, since most swords in general don't OHKO in Three Houses Maddening; not unless you do a crit build like I described above.

I'd consider it a fairly big loss for magic sword builds. Hexblade/Soulblade can definitely get OHKOs without a crit, especially during that midgame stretch where Advanced classes are online... but it's harder to get them as a Trickster than an Assassin, Warlock, or Valkyrie (or later, Mortal Savant/Gremory). Obviously Trickster has at least advantage over each of those classes individually, but I've definitely felt the loss of Swordfaire, especially since "uses magic, but also has a sword combat art" is one of the more natural fits for the Trickster class given its skill prereqs.

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While I mostly agree with the criticisms regarding Trickster, I do have a couple of points to bring up about Duelists Blow.

I do see where Duelist Blow in this game feels limited in a sense that it doesn’t really contribute too much since Alert Stance + exists so Duelist Blow can’t hope to compete against dodge tanking against a number of enemies as opposed to dodge tanking against one. But there a couple of applications where I can see the skill being an okay choice.

Not counting Wind Sweep of course, you could for example use Axe Breaker and Duelists Blow against Edelgard on a non a Crimson Flower route where she is rocking Hit +20 and Axe Prowess level 5 which effectively gives her a Hit +40. Add counterattack on top of that there is little room for safely engaging her. Why this combo could work is because if you’re able to inflict damage with a Levin Sword + like you brought up then you could in theory inflict decent damage as long as Rally Magic and/or Lucky Seven cooperates with you. Even Lucky Seven I wouldn’t find reliable. But there is a chance that it can add a +5 to the stat that you wanted.

 

Duelist Blow can sync with Combat Arts like One-Two Punch, Hit and Run and Haze Slice allowing more avoid during Player Phase. Hit and Run along with let’s say Seal Defense in general is a good combo when doing a debuff along with Lancefaire damage when making Ingrid a Falcon Knight so she would reliably dodge and help make a follow up kill for Sylvain much easier with Swift Strikes or something similar to this effect. It has to been during your turn though for this to work so think carefully on that.

 

Foul Play can be nice for movement tech to help out a Fortress Knight get in range to do something meaningfully. You probably would want to couple that with stride, warping, and maybe even dancing to pull some cute plays.

 

And people have already mentioned Stealth working only when set up properly but Assassin does it better due to Swordfaire and 6 move. Though I guess the spell access does make it a swiss army knife that other people already brought up.

 

It is a utility class that can work in certain scenarios but I do agree that there are better options personally.

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3 hours ago, Barren said:

Not counting Wind Sweep of course, you could for example use Axe Breaker and Duelists Blow against Edelgard on a non a Crimson Flower route where she is rocking Hit +20 and Axe Prowess level 5 which effectively gives her a Hit +40. Add counterattack on top of that there is little room for safely engaging her. Why this combo could work is because if you’re able to inflict damage with a Levin Sword + like you brought up then you could in theory inflict decent damage as long as Rally Magic and/or Lucky Seven cooperates with you. Even Lucky Seven I wouldn’t find reliable. But there is a chance that it can add a +5 to the stat that you wanted.

 

Duelist Blow can sync with Combat Arts like One-Two Punch, Hit and Run and Haze Slice allowing more avoid during Player Phase. Hit and Run along with let’s say Seal Defense in general is a good combo when doing a debuff along with Lancefaire damage when making Ingrid a Falcon Knight so she would reliably dodge and help make a follow up kill for Sylvain much easier with Swift Strikes or something similar to this effect. It has to been during your turn though for this to work so think carefully on that.

Lucky Seven is a really hard skill to plan things around. Not impossible, but it involves the kind of pre-planning for a level that only tough challenge runs or (maybe) LTC clears would demand. So unless you're being really meticulous about the prep work, it won't affect your strategy, so it can't be a reason justifying equipping Duelist's Blow.

The Duelist's Blow + avoid-boosting CA synergy is only worthwhile on a unit built for doing Player Phase melee chip, that you also don't want to suffer counters. But you very rarely need to build a unit specifically for this, because just about everyone can do it, and many normal strategies, like attacking bow users from one space and physical fighters from two or more, achieve the same effect on Player Phase. You also normally have options to mitigate counters received on Player Phase after the fact (like healing/good positioning), so avoiding counters on Player Phase is only occasionally a priority. Given that so many standard tools can make up for not having Avo on Player Phase, going through Trickster to get it, with all its other disadvantages, isn't worth the time. I only equip it if a skill slot would be empty otherwise.

Dedue and Alois are the only ones to get One-Two Punch, and Trickster is a pain for both of them. Not to mention Avo +20 still probably wouldn't make enough of a difference to them on Maddening, and neither of them are desperate to avoid counters on Player Phase.

The reason I think Duelist's Blow exists is, again, for magic CA users, to fix their survivability on the frontlines, thus making them more viable attackers when standard physical attacks don't work. Because the attack benefits of Trickster (or indeed, most hybrids) aren't strong enough to allow most characters to get OHKOs, these units are inevitably consigned to chip damage (and they rarely have the health to survive a Player Phase and Enemy Phase). But at that point, we zoom out and look at all the other things those people could be doing instead of being a Trickster, and decide it isn't worth our while. 

 

But then, there's Anna. Whose growths and proficiencies are built for Trickster, gets Pass, and a free Thief certification if you wait long enough to recruit her. She doesn't have supports, so will never be a top-tier unit, and doesn't have good enough Mag to one-shot things. It's a toss-up with everything mounted, but you could very well argue for Trickster Anna being one of her better classes, since she also can't do anything particularly well. Even still, Duelist's Blow is a hard one to justify her equipping because she has good access to Sword Prowess/Axebreaker/Bow Prowess/Darting Blow/Fiendish Blow/Pass/Mv +1/Mag +2/Res +2, which in my head all take priority over Duelist's Blow (Res +2 for Soulblade/mage-tanking, Mag +2 for Hexblade/boosting Rescue, and for me a small boost to damage > a big boost to Player Phase avoid). Maybe if a map has only a few axe users, it would replace Axebreaker - but that's still the only scenario I could imagine equipping it. 

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@haarhaarhaar

Those are good points for sure. I was just mentioning the occasional applications of duelist blow which can be a thing. But yes 99 out of a 100 times duelist blow is pretty much not worth it. It’s hard if not impossible to carve out it’s niche.

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3 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

But then, there's Anna. Whose growths and proficiencies are built for Trickster, gets Pass, and a free Thief certification if you wait long enough to recruit her. She doesn't have supports, so will never be a top-tier unit, and doesn't have good enough Mag to one-shot things. It's a toss-up with everything mounted, but you could very well argue for Trickster Anna being one of her better classes, since she also can't do anything particularly well. Even still, Duelist's Blow is a hard one to justify her equipping because she has good access to Sword Prowess/Axebreaker/Bow Prowess/Darting Blow/Fiendish Blow/Pass/Mv +1/Mag +2/Res +2, which in my head all take priority over Duelist's Blow (Res +2 for Soulblade/mage-tanking, Mag +2 for Hexblade/boosting Rescue, and for me a small boost to damage > a big boost to Player Phase avoid). Maybe if a map has only a few axe users, it would replace Axebreaker - but that's still the only scenario I could imagine equipping it

I never considered using Anna. That could be a decent fit for her.

On my OP I really try to acknowledge that Trickster isn't ideally suited for any one specific role. Physically they are outclassed; their magic is cut in half; they can't be primary healers or spike damage dealers, and the 5Mv is a legit problem. But in a game where you have as many as 12 units and often have 1-2 powerhouses and an assorted cast of helpers, I think a trickster (or two) is worth having around.

Currently I'm using Yuri in his "cannon" class as Trickster using his relic for the first time, and I'm impressed with how good he's been. He is extremely dodgy (44 speed at level 38 lol) and deals a lot of damage with a Rapier; has Restore, Silence, as well as Deadeye for bow chipping. Really useful in a lot of situations. The relic's innate pavis/aegis effect helps with survivability with his low HP.

As for Duelists Blow... yeah. It's fun to use but absolutely not worth an ability slot towards the end of the game, especially for Yuri since he has windsweep at C+ anyway.

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On 5/9/2022 at 7:07 PM, Bylift said:

On my OP I really try to acknowledge that Trickster isn't ideally suited for any one specific role. Physically they are outclassed; their magic is cut in half; they can't be primary healers or spike damage dealers, and the 5Mv is a legit problem. But in a game where you have as many as 12 units and often have 1-2 powerhouses and an assorted cast of helpers, I think a trickster (or two) is worth having around.

I think Trickster very easily could have been a legit good class, if they just gave it 6 move and full-count spells. Even given those benefits, it wouldn't be "strictly better" than any other Advanced or Master classes. Not as much damage as Assassin or Mortal Savant; not as many spell uses as Warlock or Gremory; not as much move as Dark Knight or Dark Flier; not as strong healing as Bishop. But it'd still feel more competitive, if they didn't kneecap it so hard. Imposing halved spell uses on a class that demands B Faith, when the one that requires D Faith or Reason gets them in full, is just absurd.

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