Commoner/Noble Class Only Run

[Bylift]

Has anyone successfully beaten this game on Maddening NG without leaving the original commoner/noble class?

I'd love to see it; wouldn't really want to try it. Realistically I don't see how it's possible. I've read on another topic chain that "someone" might have done this but it's unclear HOW, and specifically unclear if that was NG+ using prior class mastery abilities, or using online adjutants to gain those abilities.

Assuming no NG+, no online adjutants, no class mastery abilities at all (besides HP+5)... can it be done?

[Dark Holy Elf]

In principle I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. You still have all the following:

• magic access (half normal uses, but on the other hand your entire team will have some), both for offence and for utility like Physic/Fortify/Warp/Rescue/Silence.
• battalions and gambits (both the ability to rattle and some powerful effects like Stride and Impregnable Wall)
• combat arts, both the regular good ol' Curved Shot/Tempest Lance/Smash and powerful ones like Swift Strikes and Point-Blank Volley.
• abilities gained from skill ranks such as Weight-3 and Alert Stance+, as well as character-dependent ones like Battalion Wrath and Rally.
• accessories such as Caduceus/Thyrsus/Healing Staff, shields, rings, etc.
• powerful weapons such as relics (and their associated combat arts), Brave+, Rapier+, etc.

The big downsides are that everyone is 4 move, and damage is lower than normal because of no -faire, Str/Mag mods, or Death/Fiendish Blow. You'll also gain certain abilities (like Alert Stance+, and Prowess ranks) a bit later due to no class bonus towards skill growth. But none of this should remotely prevent you from beating the game, it'll just be harder than normal.

Perhaps I'll do this as my next 3H run.

[Bylift]

10 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

In principle I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. You still have all the following:

• magic access (half normal uses, but on the other hand your entire team will have some), both for offence and for utility like Physic/Fortify/Warp/Rescue/Silence.
• battalions and gambits (both the ability to rattle and some powerful effects like Stride and Impregnable Wall)
• combat arts, both the regular good ol' Curved Shot/Tempest Lance/Smash and powerful ones like Swift Strikes and Point-Blank Volley.
• abilities gained from skill ranks such as Weight-3 and Alert Stance+, as well as character-dependent ones like Battalion Wrath and Rally.
• accessories such as Caduceus/Thyrsus/Healing Staff, shields, rings, etc.
• powerful weapons such as relics (and their associated combat arts), Brave+, Rapier+, etc.

The big downsides are that everyone is 4 move, and damage is lower than normal because of no -faire, Str/Mag mods, or Death/Fiendish Blow. You'll also gain certain abilities (like Alert Stance+, and Prowess ranks) a bit later due to no class bonus towards skill growth. But none of this should remotely prevent you from beating the game, it'll just be harder than normal.

Perhaps I'll do this as my next 3H run.

All good points. As I'm thinking about this:

• I wonder how soon you could get to the abilities you mention like Alert Stance+/Weight -5/Move+1 without being able get flying/armor/riding skill points from combat. Would take a lot of training weeks. I'm just estimating here but I fear it could take you beyond the time skip.
• I suppose it's still possible on AM to use BV/BW Dimitri with a Killer Lance+ and retribution/stride to clear out non-monster maps.
• Imagine just how stat-screwed you could end up with no class certification base adjustments.

[haarhaarhaar]

5 hours ago, Bylift said:

Has anyone successfully beaten this game on Maddening NG without leaving the original commoner/noble class?

I'd love to see it; wouldn't really want to try it. Realistically I don't see how it's possible. I've read on another topic chain that "someone" might have done this but it's unclear HOW, and specifically unclear if that was NG+ using prior class mastery abilities, or using online adjutants to gain those abilities.

Assuming no NG+, no online adjutants, no class mastery abilities at all (besides HP+5)... can it be done?

4 hours ago, Bylift said:

As I'm thinking about this:

• I wonder how soon you could get to the abilities you mention like Alert Stance+/Weight -5/Move+1 without being able get flying/armor/riding skill points from combat. Would take a lot of training weeks. I'm just estimating here but I fear it could take you beyond the time skip.
• I suppose it's still possible on AM to use BV/BW Dimitri with a Killer Lance+ and retribution/stride to clear out non-monster maps.
• Imagine just how stat-screwed you could end up with no class certification base adjustments.

I feel like I remember someone doing this when I was last active on these forums (so a couple of years ago) although I can't remember who, which isn't very helpful. But you wouldn't need to do that much differently to normal runs. Movement is the big issue, followed by healing availability in middle-to-late Part 1, and the shitshow levels become that much more of a pain (i.e. Chapter 5, Chapter 13 non-CF). The A+ skills from movement (and the Dimitri build) can really help - but it's not as if you're locked out of the game without them. I can definitely see stat screwage making a difference, but probably won't destroy the run altogether unless it's on your lord/Byleth.

Looking for a silver lining, students don't need class certs or seals so you save a little money and some teaching time? It isn't much, but it's something.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

5 hours ago, Bylift said:

Imagine just how stat-screwed you could end up with no class certification base adjustments.

Depending on the wording of the challenge, you might actually be able to certify in higher classes, so long as you never field units in them. That way, you can get the certification boosts, while holding true to the letter (if not the spirit) of such a challenge.

Conversely, a "No Certifications" run would forbid this trick. But it would allow you to use classes that you acquire without a Certification: each unit's joining class, plus ones like Dancer and Enlightened One.

[Dark Holy Elf]

3 hours ago, Bylift said:

All good points. As I'm thinking about this:

• I wonder how soon you could get to the abilities you mention like Alert Stance+/Weight -5/Move+1 without being able get flying/armor/riding skill points from combat. Would take a lot of training weeks. I'm just estimating here but I fear it could take you beyond the time skip.
• I suppose it's still possible on AM to use BV/BW Dimitri with a Killer Lance+ and retribution/stride to clear out non-monster maps.
• Imagine just how stat-screwed you could end up with no class certification base adjustments.

It's slower but not dramatically. I don't know about you but in a typical run I'd get 50 actions in Pegasus Knight (=100 flying exp) and then some number in Wyvern Rider (let's just go for 75, enough for mastery = 225 flying exp). So compared to that you're about 300 flying exp down. If you set flying as one of your two goals, and tutor it twice a month with the Cichol statue bonus, that's 2-3 extra chapters.

BV/BW would be harder to use because your Atk is much lower. Still an option, but you'd have to invest in Dimitri's Atk pretty heavily I think (e.g. stat boosters, cooking, Dedue adjutant), compared to normal.

And yeah, stat-screwing potential is higher than usual (unless you allow certifications as per Shanty Pete's legal wrangling). Fortunately you can still do all the usual recruitment shenanigans so if someone is dealt a very bad hand by stats, you can bench and replace.

[wissenschaft]

Death Knight? Who that?: Assault at the Rite of Rebirth (BL Ch 4) - Commoner/Noble Only Maddening - YouTube

Theres more than one guy whos cleared maddening with just the base classes but this guy shows some of the strategy to do it. Basically his strat involves grinding weapon ranks and he LTC several maps.

Edited April 22 by wissenschaft

[Bylift]

6 hours ago, wissenschaft said:

Theres more than one guy whos cleared maddening with just the base classes but this guy shows some of the strategy to do it. Basically his strat involves grinding weapon ranks and he LTC several maps.

Thanks for the link wissenschaft.

It looks like that run either is still in progress or was abandoned at the time skip. The last chapter mission shown was 12, and it looks like it may have been a compilation of videos from a number of runs since it is Blue Lions at one point and Black Eagle/SS on another. The last video posted was in 2021, so it appears abandoned to me.

I watched a handful of the videos (they're mostly 3-4min clips in case others are thinking about it). It's hard to tell what the runner was doing exactly because the video descriptions are vague and the comments ask but s/he doesn't give detail in response.

The runner is definitely using DLC items, specifically the shoes for Mv +2 on Byleth. I take no issue with it at all just pointing it out.

After watching, I'm struggling to understand how they did what they did without NG+.

Everyone I could see had full spell lists by Ch.5 and maybe sooner. You just can't grind magic that high that early(?) unless they're an adjutant, and I am not sure if it's common to have professor rank C or higher by then, though I suppose it's possible, but even then you have to grind Aux battles, and how can you grind that many units' magic in time?

I also noticed multiple copies of dragon claws on the Ch. 5 mission, which I believe you can only get from the Pagan Altar at that point, and I think it requires pretty high professor rank before it is available for renown purchase.

Byleth had S+ gauntlets at chapter 4 (the first video). I am an absolutely shameless grinder and I don't know how you could get that high of a rank that early. I'm not picking at the runner here, just to be clear: I'm impressed if they got there without NG+. I just... can't see how they did it.

Regardless of whether it's NG or NG+, the runner has excellent strats and precise unit placement to exploit warp/rescue, as well as battalion vantage/crit shenanigans. I wish they had videos of post-timeskip chapters.

If anyone has has a link to a video showing a final map clear of any route using commoner only, please share!

---

Edit: found on another playlist from the same runner. I'm done questioning anything about this game. People can find a way to do absolutely anything.

 

🙂

 

Edited April 22 by Bylift

[LoneRecon400]

Its actually pretty easy to get those skills ranks. In fact, it's what some speedruns of the game on Maddening actually use.

Enemies in Aux battles don't get a bunch of bonus levels like they do in main chapter maps, so they're a lot weaker. With enough defense stacking (Battalions, Shields, Def +2, Terrain, Armor Knight Cert) you can take zero damage from enemies. If you then equip a broken weapon, you can then lure enemies to areas where your units aren't able to hit them while they hit your units for zero. Here's a decent example of this.

From there it's just a matter of mashing attack. That Bernadetta gains +3 Lance exp per battle and could have +5 if she were a Cavalier. It takes 3300 wexp to go from C Lances to S+ Lances. 5 rounds of combat per turn times 5 skill exp per round is 25 skill exp, which means it only takes 132 turns to get S+ Rank.

So you'd need to do this on 2 maps thanks to 99 turn cap, but it's perfectly doable. It's actually much faster to raise units this way rather than traditionally using the monestary, which is why the speedrun used it to get A Rank Authority on Dimtri by Chapter 2.

Also, that Commoner only run did finish. It's just not in the playlist. Here's a look of what endless stream of DLC aux battles does to an endgame.

Edited April 22 by LoneRecon400

[Bylift]

31 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Its actually pretty easy to get those skills ranks. In fact, it's what some speedruns of the game on Maddening actually use.

Enemies in Aux battles don't get a bunch of bonus levels like they do in main chapter maps, so they're a lot weaker. With enough defense stacking (Battalions, Shields, Def +2, Terrain, Armor Knight Cert) you can take zero damage from enemies. If you then equip a broken weapon, you can then lure enemies to areas where your units aren't able to hit them while they hit your units for zero. Here's a decent example of this.

From there it's just a matter of mashing attack. That Bernadetta gains +3 Lance exp per battle and could have +5 if she were a Cavalier. It takes 3300 wexp to go from C Lances to S+ Lances. 5 rounds of combat per turn times 5 skill exp per round is 25 skill exp, which means it only takes 132 turns to get S+ Rank.

So you'd need to do this on 2 maps thanks to 99 turn cap, but it's perfectly doable. It's actually much faster to raise units this way rather than traditionally using the monestary, which is why the speedrun used it to get A Rank Authority on Dimtri by Chapter 2.

Also, that Commoner only run did finish. It's just not in the playlist. Here's a look of what endless stream of DLC aux battles does to an endgame.

Hey LoneRecon400 - thanks for the link on aux battle grinding. I only wish the video would have shown how that Bernadetta managed to defeat all of those thieves after the grinding was done with only a rusted lance in her inventory. Pass is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that strategy. Still, it was helpful to see. I have a hard time striking the balance between making the enemies hard to hit and actually being able to defeat them all in the end. I wish that the convoy was available to another unit besides Byleth when Byleth isn't deployed.

 

I also found those videos showing the stage clears on final maps with commoners only, and I am satisfied that what I asked about in the beginning of the post is indeed possible, but... questions remain!

 

[LoneRecon400]

You could just give the grinded unit a proper weapon in their inventory. Or you could deploy a flier or a unit with stealth, but that doesn't fly on a Commoner only run.

DLC Aux Battles gives a random stat booster for every battle you fight. If you battle twice for straight 50 weeks, you're bound to get a lot of stats boosters.

Admittedly, that doesn't answer the question of 84 Magic Lysithea. That's literally two point away from her magic cap. My guess is they utilized the month reset glitch for that one.

Edited April 22 by LoneRecon400

[SnowFire]

Going that hardcore into DLC Aux Battles seems like it'd be so anti-fun that it'd kill the point of the challenge...  that said, some broken weapon grinding with a Knowledge Gem might definitely be legit with such a challenge.  Your damage is going to be lower due to no *-faires in the Advanced / Master classes and no Deathblow / Fiendish Blow, so this is a time where hitting S+ for getting a -Faire the "hard way" would be notably helpful so your damage keeps up.

I'm hesitant to hype it up too much, but for those who fork out the $$ for Switch Online, one of the random effects from the glowy squares is to increase weapon XP, as well as restore gambit usages?  Maybe depleted spell usages as well (not 100% sure)?  That seems like it'd be fairly potent (if RNG) in such a run when gambits are more important and spell charges are limited.

[LoneRecon400]

Yeah, you don't need to go that deep into aux battles. The challange is plenty beatable without doing so. I was just explaining how you could feasibly gain such skill ranks in such a short amount of time.

I will say that on casual playthroughs though, it's much faster at rasing skill ranks than actually utilizing the monestary. I'd would've gotten burnt out on this game completely had I not used this trick to avoid the monestary. 

[haarhaarhaar]

3 hours ago, SnowFire said:

I'm hesitant to hype it up too much, but for those who fork out the $$ for Switch Online, one of the random effects from the glowy squares is to increase weapon XP, as well as restore gambit usages?  Maybe depleted spell usages as well (not 100% sure)?  That seems like it'd be fairly potent (if RNG) in such a run when gambits are more important and spell charges are limited.

The gambit/spell charge/weapon use/battalion hp restoring normally pairs with level exp (IIRC you can get weapon exp, but not much or often). But yeah, definitely can come in handy for a run like this.

[Bylift]

On 4/24/2022 at 7:53 AM, SnowFire said:

Going that hardcore into DLC Aux Battles seems like it'd be so anti-fun that it'd kill the point of the challenge...

I agree.

Not saying it's impossible, because people are amazing at this game, but watching those videos has me scratching my head at HOW they got so strong so early and achieved stats I've never seen, and I suspect it may have been NG+ for some of the reasons I mentioned above. Possibly some rigging as well. Which is totally fine either way. By no means am I denigrating what they did or accusing anyone of cheesing. I mean, grinding to S+ in the commoner class in a weapon by Chapter 4 is a FEAT. I wouldn't hold it against anyone to just use renown instead and skip all of that.

On 4/24/2022 at 7:53 AM, SnowFire said:

I'm hesitant to hype it up too much, but for those who fork out the $$ for Switch Online, one of the random effects from the glowy squares is to increase weapon XP, as well as restore gambit usages?  Maybe depleted spell usages as well (not 100% sure)?  That seems like it'd be fairly potent (if RNG) in such a run when gambits are more important and spell charges are limited.

At most you will find 2 of the yellow swirlies that give XP and usually only 1 per battle. They give some XP, but not a lot. Additionaly they randomly restore 1 used gambit, a small handful of spells, some battalion endurance (which maybe you don't even want), or some weapon endurance (bleh). Since as you noted the bonus is RNG based, you are likely to get something you didn't want, so it's probably not much of a factor.

22 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Yeah, you don't need to go that deep into aux battles. The challange is plenty beatable without doing so. I was just explaining how you could feasibly gain such skill ranks in such a short amount of time

I haven't done the math but I think you need several thousand weapon XP to reach S+ in any weapon. With the 99 turn limit, no statutes, and commoner class, you are getting what... 1 or 2 weapon xp per round of combat, and if you're surrounded you're getting max 8xp per turn, so you might get 700 or so if everything goes right.

This person had max ranks not only in weapons, but also spells (warp!) for multiple characters by chapter 4, when the first video is posted. It's gotta be either NG+ or some truly next level early game maximization.

[LoneRecon400]

It takes Byleth 3560 Brawling exp to go from E+ -> S+ brawling.

In a Commoner class they gain +3 Brawling Skill for each round of combat. 3 times 5 rounds of combat per is 15 skill exp a turn.

3560 skill exp / 15 per turn equals 238 turns. So you'd only need 3 aux battles to pull it off.

You can tell that this was grinded rather than NG+ as:

1. Byleth has an odd amount Authority since there's no reason to go to S Rank Authority.

2. There's no adavanced battalions like ones from paralogues.

3. No one else has abnormal ranks except for Byleth, Lysithea, Balthus, and Constance.

4. They did the same broken weapon trick with Balthus to get Lysithea and Constance up. You can get Adjutants as early as Chapter 3 if you rig for 5 star greenhouse seeds for Proffessor Ranking.

Getting Lysithea up to Warp ain't hard since she has Mastermind. That gives +6 Skill Exp a battle, so she can get S+ Faith from almost a single Aux battle.

Edit: Here's an actual example of this in action.

Edited April 25 by LoneRecon400

[Bylift]

3 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Edit: Here's an actual example of this in action.

This is very impressive. Apparently I greatly underestimated early game grinding(!)

[triabolical]

On 4/22/2022 at 12:51 PM, Bylift said:

It looks like that run either is still in progress or was abandoned at the time skip. The last chapter mission shown was 12, and it looks like it may have been a compilation of videos from a number of runs since it is Blue Lions at one point and Black Eagle/SS on another. The last video posted was in 2021, so it appears abandoned to me.

I watched a handful of the videos (they're mostly 3-4min clips in case others are thinking about it). It's hard to tell what the runner was doing exactly because the video descriptions are vague and the comments ask but s/he doesn't give detail in response.

The runner is definitely using DLC items, specifically the shoes for Mv +2 on Byleth. I take no issue with it at all just pointing it out.

After watching, I'm struggling to understand how they did what they did without NG+.

Everyone I could see had full spell lists by Ch.5 and maybe sooner. You just can't grind magic that high that early(?) unless they're an adjutant, and I am not sure if it's common to have professor rank C or higher by then, though I suppose it's possible, but even then you have to grind Aux battles, and how can you grind that many units' magic in time?

I also noticed multiple copies of dragon claws on the Ch. 5 mission, which I believe you can only get from the Pagan Altar at that point, and I think it requires pretty high professor rank before it is available for renown purchase.

Byleth had S+ gauntlets at chapter 4 (the first video). I am an absolutely shameless grinder and I don't know how you could get that high of a rank that early. I'm not picking at the runner here, just to be clear: I'm impressed if they got there without NG+. I just... can't see how they did it.

Regardless of whether it's NG or NG+, the runner has excellent strats and precise unit placement to exploit warp/rescue, as well as battalion vantage/crit shenanigans. I wish they had videos of post-timeskip chapters.

If anyone has has a link to a video showing a final map clear of any route using commoner only, please share!

Some of the Blue Lion Map were on NG+, as I just wanted a video to highlight the strats but didn't want to replay the early chapters, this would be chapter 5, and 6. Paralogues and timeskip maps on Blue Lions are on NG. I did uploaded the Blue Lions exclusive chapters. Entirely of CF and SS is on NG.

S+ gauntlets is indeed doable. It took the forced aux battle in Chapter 2, Chapter 2, and another aux battle in Chapter 2. Balthus adjutant was used to get Constance's magic rank if I remembered correctly. Chapter 4 is on NG, despite Chapter 5 and 6 are on NG+. I don't know how that came to be.

The Azure Moon Endgame video is just a silly video to one turn the map with the month glitch abuse. I did play the map but it wasn't interesting to actually show. It was basically using a dodge tank to avoid the boss's attacks and slowly killing everything.

These are the first set of video I uploaded and are very slow and probably do not have any details in the description. 

 

 

 

[Bylift]

On 5/20/2022 at 1:40 PM, triabolical said:

Some of the Blue Lion Map were on NG+, as I just wanted a video to highlight the strats but didn't want to replay the early chapters, this would be chapter 5, and 6. Paralogues and timeskip maps on Blue Lions are on NG. I did uploaded the Blue Lions exclusive chapters. Entirely of CF and SS is on NG.

S+ gauntlets is indeed doable. It took the forced aux battle in Chapter 2, Chapter 2, and another aux battle in Chapter 2. Balthus adjutant was used to get Constance's magic rank if I remembered correctly. Chapter 4 is on NG, despite Chapter 5 and 6 are on NG+. I don't know how that came to be.

The Azure Moon Endgame video is just a silly video to one turn the map with the month glitch abuse. I did play the map but it wasn't interesting to actually show. It was basically using a dodge tank to avoid the boss's attacks and slowly killing everything.

These are the first set of video I uploaded and are very slow and probably do not have any details in the description.

Appreciate the explanations, thank you. And my hat is off to you for destroying this challenge and making it look easy 🙂