Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?

[LoneRecon400]

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

 Not sure who'd be up to the solo bosskill, though...

It's an easy kill with the Thunderbrand, since you only need 34 atk and 8 AS to one round him. With +4 atk battalion and Rally Strength, anyone with 13 Strength could one round with so long as they can double him.

Or you could have Catherine smack him with a mace. That works pretty well too.

Edited October 3, 2022 by LoneRecon400

[SnowFire]

Kingdom Infantry: 5/10. Seiros Mercs who you have to pay for and join a chapter later on getting training.  Usable but gets a minor score dock.  (Also, since Lure makes its reappearance, it should be noted that in the alternate world where 3H had very impactful terrain - seen in some of the Cindered Shadows maps where there's +40 Avo terrain right next to +0 Avo terrain - Lure would get more hype.  Just that doesn't really happen that often.  Would be great for getting FE6 bosses off their thrones, though!)

Kingdom Lance Co. 3/10. Agree with others, it's Jeralt's Mercs if they joined a chapter later and were slightly worse.  Not unusable or anything, but outclassed.

Kingdom Brawlers: 6/10. See Empire Brawlers, yep.

Kingdom Magic Corp: 5/10. Yet another filler mage battalion.  Also, googling it up...  Resonant Ice is -10 Hit for a measly +1 Power?  That is not a good trade.  Not a huge deal but sure, -1 vs. Seiros Magic Corps.

Kingdom Knights: 7/10.  Yep, another copy of Knights of Seiros.  Assault Troop is pretty cool.

Edited October 3, 2022 by SnowFire

[haarhaarhaar]

Kingdom Infantry - 4/10

Not particularly bad nor good. Will probably get bought but won't be fielded for very long.

Kingdom Lance Co - 3/10

At this stage, it's the worst BL battalion that gives a boost to physical attack. I'd probably leave it, as BL has slightly less battalion pressure than other routes thanks to having both Felix and later Catherine (although arguably you equip battalions on them anyway so they can earn more Authority? Jury's out on whether I should do this in the early game or not). 

Kingdom Brawlers - 5/10

See Empire Brawlers.

Kingdom Magic Corps - 5/10

I still value magic battalions at this point as above average - I'm likely to run two magic attackers and a healer once Ashen Wolves come into play, and mages are capable of doubling so appreciate Atk boosts wherever they get them. But Resonant Ice is less accurate, and there's no easy Frozen Lance availability at this point in BL, so it's less valuable than on other routes. 

Kingdom Knights - 6/10

Better stat spread than Knights of Seiros, and will see use for a while - but I much prefer Blaze to Assault Troop, so this won't score as highly as the other equivalent battalions. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Kingdom Infantry: 2.5 out of 10 Waaaay better than Empire Infantry, but still a side-grade to Seiros Mercenaries/Church of Seiros Soldiers. Those two should be leveled up by chapter 3, and there's at least two better E rank filler choices in the form of the brawlers and Lance Co. Spend your money on those instead.

Kingdom Lance Co: 4.0 out of 10. It's Kingdom Brawlers, but with a gambit swap and slightly worse stats. Still that's....pretty good for an E rank filler. Maybe you want TWO copies of Kingdom Brawlers? Especially with the Blue Lions being the most physically oriented batch of students in the game. At the very least I wouldn't expect your money would be wasted if you were committing to using all 9 units in this route.

Kingdom Brawlers: 5.0 out of 10. BL are the best students for the Brawlers. Even Felix would gladly take this over his personal, on account of it helping him equip better stuff later. +4 attack is also great assurance that Dedue's One-Two Punch can stay in ORKO range. He loves fighting in forests with that move and its +20 Hit, so the avoid boost helps him out in that environment too. 

Kingdom Magic Corps: 2.0 out of 10. Wow, I'm only just noticing the balance (?) decisions between Group Flames/Ice/Lightning. That's awful, Maybe I should have ranked the Empire one a half point higher for raw comparison sake. This battalion offers a point of protection over Seiros Magic corps but otherwise provides the same stats in exchange for the less accurate gambit. The Blue Lions have only one unit that can be considered a combat mage and I'd still choose the Seiros version for her over this.

Kingdom Knights: 6.5 out of 10. Better stats and gambit than Knights of Seiros. Dimitri and Byleth can upgrade to this so that they can let someone else play with Jeralts Mercs. Assault Troop is better than Blaze 9 turns out of 10 by virtue of having a second use. Blaze would be ideal for its armor breaking potential against a monster, but the amount of monsters you fight before chapter 8 is exactly one, unless you encounter them in auxilliary battles. And in chapter 8 BL, you've got three Fusilade batallions to choose from (one comes from recruiting Shamir, the others are purchased). Fusilade is definitely more versatile than Blaze for the Sothis paralogue, so the Knights of Seiros may very well be outdated by this point of the game.

9 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

At this stage, it's the worst BL battalion that gives a boost to physical attack. I'd probably leave it, as BL has slightly less battalion pressure than other routes thanks to having both Felix and later Catherine (although arguably you equip battalions on them anyway so they can earn more Authority? Jury's out on whether I should do this in the early game or not). 

Jury's not out for me. My Felix makes use of his personal for one and only one map - chapter 2. Because there are only three batallions to go around and surely the player is feeding kills to at least Byleth, Dimitri and Dedue. Felix should have jeralts mercs in the forced auxilliary battle of chapter 2 so that he doesn't kill the enemies as quickly and can squeeze more skill exp and batallion levels. The walk from E authority to D authority is pretty short, and it's the only part of the game where he's getting the same 1 point that every other unit is on a round of combat that don't have a proficiency.
 

On 10/1/2022 at 3:15 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Potential counter-point: Monk is a bigger upgrade for the Noble/Commoner class than any other Beginner class. The Beginner classes have low bases that rarely matter (unless you're doing something really weird, like training Linhardt in Axes or Petra in Reason), and otherwise, each class only provides a +1 modifier to a single stat. So the question is, what other difference is there? Well, Monk increases your unit's spell count, from half to full. The Linhardt who could previously only use 5 Heals per map, now gets 10. Your magic users become massively more useful upon hitting Monk. Conversely, the other classes (Fighter, Soldier, Myrmidon) can all be considered a downgrade in this regard, as they eliminate any spell access whatsoever. 

I've never thought about it that way. Slinging spells in levels 5 to 10 would be pretty cool, even if it was JUST Heal or JUST Fire. That's why Lorenz is such an early game threat, packing both Tempest Lance for kills and Fire for accurate chip damage. Dunno how many Healers I want on the squad when the free experience of that spell can only be spread so thin until it stops mattering. Draw Back is also a more versatile movement skill compared to Shove. But I think most of my physical units would prefer to get Str +2. Like HP+5, that's something they'll benefit from for so long. Byleth I think might want to try this early hybrid strategy if you're content with keeping them in Enlightened One/Sword-using classes. Myrmidon doesn't offer much. The only problem with this strategy is how far away Byleth is from their first spells - having to rely on faculty training which is a costly use of your activity points so early in the game.

[lenticular]

One thing to note here is that the Blue Lions have more reason than the other two houses to train up Authority rank early on multiple units. They have the best early game rally unit in the form of Annette, they have Dimitri who will often want to rush to A rank for B. Vantage + B. Wrath, and they also have more and earlier Part 1 paralogues than the other houses, giving quick access to a lot of nice B rank battalions. This means that their E rank battalions probably aren't seeing as much play as in other houses, and their C ranks are probably seeing a bit more play.

Kingdom Infantry: 5/10. Meh. Not bad. Also not exciting. Just meh.

Kingdom Lance Co: 2/10. These aren't awful (for their authority rank and join time), but they're simply outclassed by the other available option that have some combination of more hit, more prot, or a better gambit. I'm trying to imagine the circumstances where I'm using this, and it's tricky. Maybe if I'm doing a team of 10 physical attackers?

Kingdom Brawlers: 5/10. Literally the same as the Empire Brawlers in every respect except name. The plus side here is that they aren't competing against the Empire Archers. The down side is that you're probably rushing more units through E rank as fast as possible. The overall same score seems right, though.

Kingdom Magic Corps: 5/10. I find this pretty clearly worse than the Seiros Magic Corps by virtue of the less accurate gambit. This means that if I'm only getting one of the two, then it isn't going to be this one. So the question is, how many magic wielders am I running? Sometimes it's just going to be Annette and Mercedes, in which case this is langushing unused. Sometimes I'm going to have recruited Hapi or Constance, or I'm going to be trying a magic build on Sylvain or Ingrid, in which case this makes the cut. "Maybe I'll use it sometimes but I'm not going to be enthusiastic about it" is pretty much the definition of a 5/10 on my scoring scale.

Kingdom Knights: 6.5/10. Given my opening comments, I'm unlikely to be choosing between this and Seiros Knights, and much more likely to want to get both. And overall, they do a pretty similar job. The stats on this are a little bit better, but I value the first copy of Blaze more than the second copy of Assault Troops, so I rank them basically evenly.

[haarhaarhaar]

14 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Jury's not out for me. My Felix makes use of his personal for one and only one map - chapter 2. Because there are only three batallions to go around and surely the player is feeding kills to at least Byleth, Dimitri and Dedue. Felix should have jeralts mercs in the forced auxilliary battle of chapter 2 so that he doesn't kill the enemies as quickly and can squeeze more skill exp and batallion levels. The walk from E authority to D authority is pretty short, and it's the only part of the game where he's getting the same 1 point that every other unit is on a round of combat that don't have a proficiency

All fair points. Felix sees a lot of early game combat for me, so I'm normally comfortable he will reach his certification requirements without significant effort, meaning Authority will always be one of his goals, and potentially his focus goal depending on what Felix build I want. Since that's the case, I often alternate between fielding and not fielding battalions on him early on, depending on how challenged I feel by the map. Out of the early game, the net benefit of Authority starts outweighing the attack boost Felix gets, so the calculus then shifts towards Authority. 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Welcome back, one and all! Today, we will yet again be discussing a new batch of battalions. But first - the results show!

Spoiler

Kingdom Infantry received 7 grades, averaging out to 4.586

Kingdom Lance Co. received 7 grades, averaging out to 3.229

Kingdom Brawlers received 7 grades, averaging out to 5.257

Kingdom Magic Corps received 7 grades, averaging out to 4.671

Kingdom Knights received 7 grades, averaging out to 6.514

Well, it looks like fans are ready to ride with the Kingdom Knights! However, the Kingdom Lance Co. get the short end of the stick. Moving on...

Round 5: Layabouts from Leicester

This time, we'll be discussing more battalions that can be hired from the Battalion Guild. This batch hails from the Leicester Alliance, and therefore can only be hired if you choose to lead the Golden Deer. These five battalions all become available as soon as chapter 3. Their traits are listed below:

Alliance Infantry

Spoiler

Accessibility: E-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 3 (GD only), hire at the Battalion Guild for 1000 Gold

Gambit: Lure

Endurance: 30

Phys: 0

Mag: -2

Hit: +5 / +9

Crit: 0

Avo: +5 / +10

Prt: 0

Rsl: 0

Cha: +1

Alliance Duelists

Spoiler

Accessibility: E-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 3 (GD only), hire at the Battalion Guild for 1200 Gold

Gambit: Mad Melee

Endurance: 30

Phys: 0

Mag: -2

Hit: 0

Crit: +5 / +9

Avo: +5 / +10

Prt: 0

Rsl: 0

Cha: +1

Alliance Brawlers

Spoiler

Accessibility: E-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 3 (GD only), hire at the Battalion Guild for 1200 Gold

Gambit: Disturbance

Endurance: 30

Phys: +2 / +4

Mag: -2

Hit: 0

Crit: 0

Avo: +5 / +10

Prt: 0

Rsl: -1

Cha: +1

Alliance Magic Corps

Spoiler

Accessibility: D-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 3 (GD only), hire at the Battalion Guild for 1200 Gold

Gambit: Group Lightning

Endurance: 30

Phys: -2

Mag: +1 / +3

Hit: 0

Avo: +5 / +10

Prt: 0

Rsl: +2 / +4

Cha: +3

Alliance Knights

Spoiler

Accessibility: C-rank Cavalry

Availability: From chapter 3 (GD only), hire at the Battalion Guild for 1500 Gold

Gambit: Blaze

Endurance: 60

Phys: +2 / +4

Mag: -2

Hit: 0

Crit: 0

Avo: +5 / +10

Prt: +1 / +3

Rsl: +1

Cha: +5

Next, I will be covering my own assessment of these battalions. Spoiler-tagged below:

Spoiler

Availability: This is the last batch that will be receiving a 5 across the board. Being available as soon as chapter 3 is hard to beat.

Accessibility: As grounded E-rank Infantry, the first three all score a 5 here. The Alliance Magic Corps is D-rank Infantry, so they get a 4. And the Alliance Knights, as C-rank Cavalry, get 3.

Gambit: Alliance Infantry offer Lure (to no one's surprise), granting them a 3. Alliance Duelists provide Mad Melee (essentially rotated Disturbance, with an extra tile), so they earn 4. Alliance Brawlers get the aforementioned Disturbance, for 3. Alliance Magic Corps grant the kinda strong (but inaccurate) Group Lightning, for 2 points. Finally, Alliance Knights (like Seiros Knights) provide Blaze, for a solid 5 here.

Stats:

Alliance Infantry provide a healthy +10 Avoid, alongside +9 Hit (what, they couldn't spring for the tenth point of Hit?). This comes at a cost, however, of -2 Magical Attack. With no attacking or defensive boost, I can't give this more than 2.

Alliance Duelists also offer +10 Avoid, but +9 Crit instead this time (because that tenth point would've just been broken). There's a similar malus to Magical Attack, with no boost to Physical Attack or the bulk stats. This one gets a 2 as well.

Alliance Brawlers similarly grant +10 Avoid and -2 Magical Attack, but this time, they throw in up to +4 Physical Attack. Admittedly, it comes alongside -1 Resilience, but that's hardly a penalty. This squad deserves a 3.

Alliance Magic Corps grant magical boosts, much like the Seiros Magic Corps: -2 Physical Attack, +3 Magical Attack, and +3 Charm, to start. But Alliance Magic Corps miss out on 5 Hit and 1 Rsl (they still offer +4 Rsl), in exchange for +10 Avoid. A pretty lateral trade, so these get 3.

Did you think we were finally going to get an Alliance Battalion that doesn't give +10 Avoid at max level? Well, keep wishing, because that's what the Alliance Knights do! That gives them 5 Avoid over Knights of Seiros, but with 1 less Magical Attack and 2 less Resilience. Again, lateral. Give 'em a 5.

Uniqueness:

Alliance Infantry are your only source of Lure this early on in Verdant Wind playthroughs, so they get a 2.

Alliance Duelists are the only source of Mad Melee in the game. Literally the only one. This unique access awards them a 3.

While the Alliance Brawlers are far from the only source of Disturbance, they are the earliest E-rank Battalion to grant up to +4 Physical Attack. That's worth 1 point.

The Alliance Magic Corps also have something to claim their own: Group Lightning. If you want to use this gambit (for whatever reason), this is your only option. 3 points.

The Alliance Knights, though... they've got nothing. The only "unique" trait they have relative to Knights of Seiros is higher Avoid, and that higher Avoid is shared with all other earlygame Alliance battalions. 0 points.

Convenience: Just buy 'em. 2 points across the board.

Endurance: The first four of these, to no one's surprise, have 30 durability, granting them 0 points. But the Alliance Knights are a touch more survivable, with 60 durability: they get 1 point.

Experience: Pretty sure I picked up Alliance Duelists because they sound like Yu-gi-oh characters, and Alliance Brawlers for their unique gambit. Also, the Golden Deer have enough Mages for me to want the Magic Corps. They each get 1 point. The others, however, just get a 0.

Final Scores:

Alliance Infantry: 5 + 5 + (3 * 2) + 2 + 2 + 2 + 0 + 0 = 22 -> 4.4

Alliance Duelists: 5 + 5 + (4 * 2) + 2 + 3 + 2 + 0 + 1 = 26 -> 5.2

Alliance Brawlers: 5 + 5 + (3 * 2) + 3 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 1 = 23 -> 4.6

Alliance Magic Corps: 5 + 4 + 2 + (3 * 2) + 3 + 2 + 0 + 1 = 23 -> 4.6

Alliance Knights: 5 + 3 + (5 * 2) + 5 + 0 + 2 + 1 + 0 = 26 -> 5.2

Well, that just about does it! So, what do you think about these battalions? Do they make for powerful Allies? Or, are the Layabouts from Leicester far from the Beicester? Let me know below!

Edited October 7, 2022 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Bad typo.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Alliance Infantry: 2 stats, 3 gambit. E rank grounded, Chapter 3.

Apparently this has 9 hit? Two sources confirm it, so I guess so. How strange. Anyway, its only other stat is 10 avoid, which the Deer are swimming in sources of. Possibly even worse than its Empire counterpart?

In a vacuum: 2.5. Adjusted: 2/10

Alliance Duelists: 1 stats, 4 gambit. E rank grounded, Chapter 3.

Somehow has even worse stats. Way worse Jeralt's Mercenaries. At least its gambit has 60 base hit, but ugh.

In a vacuum: 2.5. Adjusted: 2/10

Alliance Brawlers: 4 stats, 4 gambit. E rank grounded, Chapter 3.

See the Empire version once again. A breath of fresh air after the previous two. In practice it's probably the most useful Brawler battalion because the Deer have the weakest battalions, but not by enough for me to change its score.

In a vacuum: 4.5. Adjusted: 6/10

Alliance Magic Corps: 4 stats, 3 gambit. D rank grounded, Chapter 3.

40 hit on that gambit's rather sad. The inferior magic battalion, but like its Kindgom counterpart still has a clear niche due to being one of two early +magic battalions.

In a vacuum: 4. Adjusted: 5/10

Alliance Knights: 5 stats, 6 gambit. C rank grounded, Chapter 3.

The knight battalions sure are similar. This is just Knights of Seiros trading a little magic/res for avoid, basically the same.

In a vacuum: 6. Adjusted: 7/10.
 

[haarhaarhaar]

Alliance Infantry - 1.2/10

Goddammit, I thought I'd left enough room for the crap tier when I looked at the Empire battalions, but clearly not. Worse than the Empire version because I'd prefer Prt to Avo from my battalion at this stage, although it's a no-buy for both. Still not the absolute pits of battalions though. 

Alliance Duelists - 1.1/10

Worse than Alliance Infantry! No thank you, but still doesn't reach the (un)holy grail of a 1 or below.

Alliance Brawlers - 5/10

As per its peers.

Alliance Magic Corps - 5/10

I think this is actually worse than the Seiros version for this route. Lysithea and Marianne both get Soulblade, so you do care about Res boosts on your mages, and this gives one less than Seiros, as well as having the worse gambit. Probably as good as Kingdom Magic Corps when adjusted for context.

Alliance Knights - 6.25/10

Worse stat spread than Seiros Knights, but has Blaze, so better than the Kingdom equivalent. Halfway between my scores for them seems fair.

Edited October 7, 2022 by haarhaarhaar

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 minutes ago, haarhaarhaar said:

I think this is actually worse than the Seiros version for this route. Lysithea and Marianne both get Soulblade, so you do care about Res boosts on your mages, and this gives one less than Seiros, as well as having the worse gambit. Probably as good as Kingdom Magic Corps when adjusted for context.

I don't believe that Resilience-boosting battalions affect the damage dealt by Soulblade. Since they don't directly increase the Resistance stat.

I agree that Alliance Magic Corps < Seiros Magic Corps, but mainly because Group Lightning < Group Flames.

[haarhaarhaar]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I don't believe that Resilience-boosting battalions affect the damage dealt by Soulblade. Since they don't directly increase the Resistance stat.

Good to know! Although yeah it won't change my grading. 

[SnowFire]

Alliance Infantry: 2/10. 

Alliance Duelists: 2/10. What the crap are these two.  Better than nothing, train that authority and get a minor Hit boost with the infantry, so they avoid the basement by dint of early join, but they are both seriously outclassed.

Alliance Brawlers: 6/10. See Empire/Kingdom Brawlers.  Nice +Physical attack battalion for the earlygame.

Alliance Magic Corp: 5/10. Resonant Lightning is even worse than Resonant Ice, but oh well, still is one of your options for +Magic battalion.

Alliance  Knights: 7/10.  Yet another copy of Knights of Seiros.

[LoneRecon400]

Battalions here are pretty uninteresting, so I'm just going to post numbers.

Alliance infantry: 2/10

Alliance Duelist: 2/10

Alliance Brawlers: 5/10

Alliance Magic Corps: 5/10

Alliance Knights: 6/10

Edited October 7, 2022 by LoneRecon400

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Alliance Infantry: 1.5 out of 10. What was the thought process in balancing the three Infantry battalions? The Kingdom's are the only one that stand up to other E rank filler.

Alliance Duelists: 2.0 out of 10. Bad, but interesting in it's bad-ness. Mad Melee has the maximum 60 base hit rate and can potentially hit three targets on both uses. Coupled with its +10 avoid boost, this can allow you to turn the tables on enemies in the forests of Chapter 3. And it's the only other battalion this early in the game that grants crit rate. To say that's it's "A Worse Jeralts Mercs" would be giving it too much credit though. With no boost to your attack to go with it, the odds of that crit mattering are significantly lessened. Among the out of control stats of early game enemies, their HP is actually lower than ours. That's why attack boosting is so potent this early on. 1200G is a major investment too. You can almost buy two mini bows with that money, and this is the Golden Deer we're talking about. If anything I think the case for this battalion gets stronger later, when you're firing Hunter's Volley with your forged Mini Bow. Ignatz loves Jeralts Mercs, but if it's still in use elsewhere, he can take this instead for some crit boosting.

Alliance Brawlers: 4.5 out of 10. Relevant stats and a 60 hit gambit with two uses. Hard to ask for more on an E rank battalion. Especially with the Golden Deer having demonstrably worse gambits than the other routes at this specific point of the game.

Alliance Magic Corps: 1.5 out of 10. I'm going to throw up. It provides no hit rate, and the gambit has 20 less accuracy than the Seiros one. 

Alliance Knights: 5.0 out of 10. The other routes have a version of this that is strictly better than the Knights of Seiros. But this is only better by the slimmest margin (5 more avoid for 2 res). Knights of Seiros is the worst C rank battalion that I've ever used, so that's not high praise. I'm not a big fan of Blaze on just any map, but it's worth mention that Ignatz should hit C authority relatively early and his personal skill grants him +20 hit, so he's a good candidate for big gambits on that alone. Doesn't change my rating, but you'll still reasonably purchase one or both of these.

[LoneRecon400]

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Alliance Magic Corps: 1.5 out of 10. 

I'm going to throw that one into question. You have two native units with budding magical weapons arts, and those are both the strongest and most accurate way of dealing of damage for the two of them. Like a base Marianne is capable of finishing off enemies in Chapter 3 with this battalion at level 1 after Steel Bow Chip from Ignatz, and that's not something a lot of units can say.

It helps the two mages escape from noble that much faster. That at the very least puts it no where near the same level of Alliance Infantry.

Edited October 8, 2022 by LoneRecon400

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

17 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

I'm going to throw that one into question. You have two native units with budding magical weapons arts, and those are both the strongest and most accurate way of dealing of damage for the two of them. Like a base Marianne is capable of finishing off enemies in Chapter 3 with this battalion at level 1 after Steel Bow Chip from Ignatz, and that's not something a lot of units can say.

Do you usually unlock these girls' budding talents by the chapter 3 battle, though? I tend to think of Faith as their biggest priority. Marianne wants C Faith ASAP for Physic, whereas Lysithea wants B Faith for Warp. Plus, each of them needs training in Authority to even equip a Magic-boosting battalion. This is especially true of Marianne, who is Authority-neutral and starts at E (rather than E+ with a boon).

[LoneRecon400]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Do you usually unlock these girls' budding talents by the chapter 3 battle, though? I tend to think of Faith as their biggest priority. Marianne wants C Faith ASAP for Physic, whereas Lysithea wants B Faith for Warp. Plus, each of them needs training in Authority to even equip a Magic-boosting battalion. This is especially true of Marianne, who is Authority-neutral and starts at E (rather than E+ with a boon).

Marianne starts with D+ Faith (180), so she can get C Faith (300) by Chapter 3 just with weekly goals. Same goes for her Authority.

Lysithea can unlock Soulblade while still getting B Faith in Chapter 5 with Sauna. Granted, according to my numbers it requires her using white magic ~25 times. So she may have to resort to using Nosferatu a couple times, but it's totally doable.

Edited October 8, 2022 by LoneRecon400

[Zapp Branniglenn]

2 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

I'm going to throw that one into question. You have two native units with budding magical weapons arts, and those are both the strongest and most accurate way of dealing of damage for the two of them. 

Soulblade will still be there if they're equipped with Stride instead. I don't have my mages kill things, they chip and support.

[LoneRecon400]

15 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Soulblade will still be there if they're equipped with Stride instead. I don't have my mages kill things, they chip and support.

Mages should be first in line to get kills in the earlygame to get into monk to obtain an actual acceptable amount of spells. +3 Magic Attack really makes a difference in doing that, especially since that's one of the better offensive options by that point.

I just don't see the argument for putting Alliance Mages on par with some of the worst battalions in the game when it does serve a proper use unlike the other 1-2 score battalions.

Edited October 8, 2022 by LoneRecon400

[Zapp Branniglenn]

11 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

I just don't see the argument for putting Alliance Mages on par with some of the worst battalions in the game when it does serve a proper use unlike the other 1-2 score battalions.

Easy. The Seiros version is better in every way. So you get that one, stride, and the white magic one. Your mages are set.

[LoneRecon400]

1 minute ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Easy. The Seiros version is better in every way. So you get that one, stride, and the white magic one. Your mages are set.

You'd seriously rather get Seiros Holy Monks over Alliance Mages?

Bruh

Edited October 8, 2022 by LoneRecon400

[Dark Holy Elf]

18 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I don't have my mages kill things

I'm curious: do you manage to consistently reach Level 5 by the end of chapter 3 with this philosophy? Hopefully you agree that's an important benchmark.

I basically agree with LoneRecon here completely. Heck, even if you only use mages for chipping, +3 damage makes them notably better at that! The Deer have a lot of lower-power characters who appreciate every bit of oomph in connecting two-hit kills (even Claude, relative to the other lords).

[Zapp Branniglenn]

20 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

You'd seriously rather get Seiros Holy Monks over Alliance Mages?

Bruh

Yeah? +10 hit. Better gambit. Same amount of res, spam it for more authority before the map ends. What is Lysithea going to do with 10 avoid?

17 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'm curious: do you manage to consistently reach Level 5 by the end of chapter 3 with this philosophy? Hopefully you agree that's an important benchmark.

 

Well in my last run I was low manning with four units, and they hit level 6/5/6/5 by the end of chapter 2. If I was using 3 mages on top of that i can't imagine they'd be far off by the end of chapter 3. 

Quote

I basically agree with LoneRecon here completely. Heck, even if you only use mages for chipping, +3 damage makes them notably better at that! The Deer have a lot of lower-power characters who appreciate every bit of oomph in connecting two-hit kills (even Claude, relative to the other lords).

Claude is weaker than the other lords for half the game, that's true. But the class as a whole is a pretty cohesive unit. It's totally normal to take advantage of everybody's damage boosting passives, Rally Speed and Strength, and chipping away at enemies with ranged attacks while someone else comes in with the tempest lance. Doesn't matter how much damage Miasma does if it misses.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Zapp Branniglenn

[LoneRecon400]

46 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Yeah? +10 hit. Better gambit. Same amount of res, spam it for more authority before the chapter ends.

...I seriously don't understand how Hit on mages is apparently so vital that it's worth equipping a 0 atk battalion for.

That goes double when you gave Seiros Mercs, a battalion that gives the same amount of Hit plus 3 Atk, a half point better than some of the worst battalions in the game.

Edited October 8, 2022 by LoneRecon400

[lenticular]

Alliance Infantry: 1/10 and Alliance Duelists: 1/10. The worst battalions we've looked at so far, though not quite bad enough to warrant a 0/10 score. About the best thing that can be said about these is that there isn't as much competition here as there is in the other houses. Even so, these are such a small step up from "literally nothing" that I probably wouldn't want to spend the money on them. When you're getting thoroughly outclassed by "what if I buy a second copy of the Church of Seiros Soldiers?" you know you've done something wrong. If we're looking for plus points, +9 Hit on the Infantry isn't awful, and Mad Melee on the Duelists is kind of OK? If you combined both of those onto a single battalion, it might even be able to sneak up as high as as 1.5/10. But alas, no.

Alliance Brawlers: 5.5/10. The same battalion as their Empire and Kingdom equivalent, but I'm giving them a slightly higher score since their competition is that much worse.

Alliance Magic Corps: 4.5/10. My first instinct with these was to treat them the same as the Kingdom equivalent: if I'm running two (or fewer) mages, then I'm not running these; if I'm running three (or more) then I am. And after consideration, I still think that's mostly true. Except that I'll ammend that to say that if I'm running three mages then I'm probably running this. But my disdain for Group Lightning is such that I can certainly imagine running something else. I can imagine running Lorenz and preferring the Church of Seiros soldiers for the prot and the better gambit. I can imagine running Hapi and not feeling that this was worth the effort of raising her Authority up to D rank. So, yes, I do think that this is worse than the Kingdom equivalent, but I'm still using it enough of the time that it doesn't score much worse.

Alliance Knights: 6.5/10. I was looking through the older rankings I'd given to compare scores and make sure I was staying consistent, and apparently when I was rating the Knights of Seiros, I said that the Alliance Knights were better than the Knights of Seiros. I'm not entirely sure what past-lenticular was thinking. These are virtually identical, and any difference between them is too close to call. So they get the same score as all the other C rank Knight battalions we've looked at so far.