Imaginative uses of a Dark Seal

[haarhaarhaar]

Like a lot of my runs, I've picked up a couple of Dark Seals and they sit uselessly in my inventory, because under normal circumstances almost nobody wants to be a Dark Mage. In my current run I'm nearly past the point where I'd use a Dark Seal as well, so I thought I may as well ask the community if they have any fun/interesting ways of using a Dark Seal - or whether they really aren't worth any more than the 200G/bit of Renown you'd get for selling them. In particular, I've never had a good idea for how to use Lifeseeker, without getting into strictly NG+ territory. 

In my experience so far, I've only had moderate success using Dark Seals on three occasions:

1) Hubert. Arguably the only person for whom Dark Mage/Bishop is relevant as a class, although he definitely has better options. He was a Dark Mage/Dark Bishop on my very first playthrough of the game (Hard NG Classic), and was fine - but he has done better in other classes since, and Poison Strike/Lifeseeker weren't particularly helpful on him.

2) Ignatz. I built him as a specialist in chip damage (Sniper/Bow Knight), with a detour into Dark Mage. Seal Strength + Break Shot + Poison Strike being enough to soften up just about any enemy safely except some monsters. I figured Ignatz' personal made him better for this than other candidates (Ashe, Anna, maybe Yuri?). But you never really need a specialist in chip damage, and I ended up thinking he may as well have picked up Fiendish Blow for a Magic Bow instead.

3) Hanneman. I was showing him a lot of favouritism while building him into a Magic Bow Sniper, so he dipped into Dark Mage for Poison Strike. It wasn't important before mastering Sniper, because normal Magic Bow attacks did plenty of damage and Hanneman's CAs were barely relevant. But there was one very niche use of Poison Strike, where Hanneman would delete a monster's health bar, the monster would move on to the next one, then Poison Strike would trigger, dealing solid damage to the new bar. I don't think any other effect achieves this - but realistically, Dex+4/Mag+2 would have been more generally relevant. 

Do people have any other ideas?

[Armchair General]

If they made Heartseeker an equippable skill then instead of it being an passive, then this game would have been an lot more fun. Like giving it to an Warrior kind of fun. Sure, Poison Strike has it's uses; but this is mainly against monsters. Lifetaker would work on an frontliner, but you're trading quite an few good levels in exchange for survivability.

The abilities in this game are kind of weird in the sense that you can be whatever you want; but you're limited on what's actually efficient. Being an dark bishop might be useful for an magic unit in the sense that it's built for retaliation against melee; but you don't keep Fiendish Blow or permanently learn any new spells from it.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Armchair General

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Dark Mage has a slight niche in offering 1 more point of Magic over Mage. Not only does that mean more damage from spells, but potentially more range on Physic and Warp. This makes it a good "cruising" class for male units who mastered Mage, but aren't ready for Warlock yet. And the "Miasma" skill is better than the "Fire" skill on units who already get Fire, like Lorenz or Sylvain.

Looking at things numerically, there are cases where Poidon Strike is actually better than Fiendish Blow. Against human targets with more than 30 HP, Poison Strike is actually doing more damage, assuming you don't crit or double. In these cases, it's the better option for turning "chip" into "chunk" damage. And against monsters, if you're knocking out one health bar, it can inflict chip damage on the next one. Of course, Poison Strike damage is non-lethal, so Fiendish Blow will be preferred if it makes the damage between "chunk" and "one-shot" damage.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I've had a lot of experience with Poison Strike on maddening and regret it every time. Sure the idea of using it on monsters is tantalizing, until you realize monster armor still reduces its damage by half (even if the attack in question broke that piece of armor, you need to have targeted an armor-less body part for the full 20%), and it gets reduced further by the Commander skill. The Big Turtle Boss scoffs at your poison strike as he claps back with Quick Riposte. Ultimately I wish Poison Strike was a combat art rather than an equippable skill. Especially if it were a Bow combat art. Those Maddening Archers are rock stars on the enemy's team.

Lifetaker is the sort of skill I'd like to make use of, but it's pretty poor on mages who almost never need healing in the first place due to being kept out of combat on enemy phase. And when you do give them personal sources of healing like Renewal, that's exp you're denying other mages with their excess Heal charges. Mages have the sort of shallow ability pool where you can find space for Lifetaker, but the class costs two dark seals to certify for, not one. It could be very good on a frontliner, but what physically inclined, male unit is ever sitting at a high enough level of Reason that B+ is a worthy detour? Just Recruitable Lorenz with his Cavalier boosted Strength, speed, and defense, and Ragnarok sitting at B. But even then Recruitable Lorenz leaves your party from chapters 13-17 (except on Crimson Flower, which is already the shortest route), so any detours you make with him have to be carefully considered. If he's not a level 30 unit ready to certify as a Dark Knight when he rejoins your party, then he may well fall behind. Lifetaker simply wouldn't be the ability that would help him catch up. The Paladin's Aegis or Warlock's Bowbreaker are potentially just as useful additions to his loadout.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Armchair General]

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

but what physically inclined, male unit is ever sitting at a high enough level of Reason that B+ is a worthy detour?

Either Sylvain or Byleth.

[haarhaarhaar]

4 hours ago, Armchair General said:

If they made Heartseeker an equippable skill then instead of it being an passive, then this game would have been an lot more fun. Like giving it to an Warrior kind of fun.

Agreed - it would be a good skill on players and enemies alike.

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

Dark Mage has a slight niche in offering 1 more point of Magic over Mage. Not only does that mean more damage from spells, but potentially more range on Physic and Warp. This makes it a good "cruising" class for male units who mastered Mage, but aren't ready for Warlock yet. And the "Miasma" skill is better than the "Fire" skill on units who already get Fire, like Lorenz or Sylvain.

I've done this before, although I've never actually checked out the numerical case for it. A shame that male mages are generally shafted.

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

Looking at things numerically, there are cases where Poidon Strike is actually better than Fiendish Blow. Against human targets with more than 30 HP, Poison Strike is actually doing more damage, assuming you don't crit or double. In these cases, it's the better option for turning "chip" into "chunk" damage. And against monsters, if you're knocking out one health bar, it can inflict chip damage on the next one. Of course, Poison Strike damage is non-lethal, so Fiendish Blow will be preferred if it makes the damage between "chunk" and "one-shot" damage.

It's a tough one with chip. After a certain point, there's no practical difference in non-lethal damage, since the enemy still needs a killing blow. So any amount of damage between (enemy's HP - killing blow) and (enemy's HP - 1) leads to the same outcome. What I found with chip Ignatz was that Death Blow and Poison Strike did mean bigger chip, but it was only very irregularly the difference between requiring one finisher and two finishers. It was more relevant on monsters, but they aren't a common enough enemy for me to feel truly confident about using Poison Strike.

59 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

The Big Turtle Boss scoffs at your poison strike as he claps back with Quick Riposte

Tbf, Indech is bonkers as far as monsters go - although admittedly, you want your anti-monster stuff to work on him if it works on anyone.

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Mages have the sort of shallow ability pool where you can find space for Lifetaker, but the class costs two dark seals to certify for, not one.

Definitely a cost, but I'm not running enough Dark Mages/Bishops to be worried about this.

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

It could be very good on a frontliner, but what physically inclined, male unit is ever sitting at a high enough level of Reason that B+ is a worthy detour?

True. If I were to get a physical unit Lifetaker, I'd already be prepared to show them enough favouritism to artificially boost their Luck to 20 so they could take the exam at B Reason. But which physical build wants Lifetaker enough for it to make one of their five skills? I genuinely couldn't think of one. 

[Armchair General]

24 minutes ago, haarhaarhaar said:

But which physical build wants Lifetaker enough for it to make one of their five skills? I genuinely couldn't think of one. 

Probably, anyone who's into brawling. But then you wouldn't be getting an lot of mileage out of it. I'd say an crit build, but you might be switching out something useful in exchange for Lifetaker. And the only people who would benefit from being topped off on health is Ferdinand and Dimitri (who really doesn't need it)

 

Since the sword classes are supposed to be extremely evasive with the right characters. Certain builds on cavalry and War Masters involves lowering their own health under an certain threshold...But by then, the battle would be over. Defiant whatever is another disqualifier.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Armchair General

[haarhaarhaar]

7 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

Probably, anyone who's into brawling. But then you wouldn't be getting an lot of mileage out of it. I'd say an crit build, but you might be switching out something useful in exchange for Lifetaker.

Since the sword classes are supposed to be extremely evasive with the right characters. Certain builds on cavalry and War Masters involves lowering their own health under an certain threshold...But by then, the battle would be over. Defiant whatever is another disqualifier.

It's actually quite tough to think of one. Because the effect only activates on Player Phase, it's basically equivalent to Healing Focus on top of an attack (that kills). Which is nice enough, but there are only two situations where it's important:

a) The unit is (or during this Player Phase will be) wounded, has to deal with the coming Enemy Phase, and they have no other source of healing.

b) If a skill/build requires being above a certain amount of health.

By Ch. 14-5, when Lifetaker is reasonably available, you should also have a Physic user with a Healing Staff - so a) only happens when you're under severe pressure, and hopefully isn't common enough to make Lifetaker a mainstay in the deployment slot.

As far as b) is concerned, there are only a couple of builds that care. Off the top of my head, it's people who use Quick Riposte, and I guess dodge tank Dimitri/Ferdinand. But those are Enemy Phase builds, meaning most of their combat and potential for getting damaged won't be covered by Lifetaker. If you're sacrificing a skill slot for HP recovery, Renewal makes more sense, since that happens every turn, doesn't require extra conditions to activate, and will cover incidental cases like level-ups. Indeed, deploying a sacred weapon is arguably even better.

Am I missing anything with the above?

[lenticular]

41 minutes ago, haarhaarhaar said:

True. If I were to get a physical unit Lifetaker, I'd already be prepared to show them enough favouritism to artificially boost their Luck to 20 so they could take the exam at B Reason. But which physical build wants Lifetaker enough for it to make one of their five skills? I genuinely couldn't think of one. 

I don't think I'd go so far as to say that I'd recommend it, but I've had fun in the past putting Lifetaker on Fortress Knights. They're frequently taking damage that needs healing up, and they can do good damage which translates to decently sized heals. The idealised use case is that they take some chip damage while tanking on enemy phase, and then instantly heal it all back with a single hit on player phase. Sure, you have healers with Physic who can heal them up instead, but if your Fortress Knight can be self-sufficient then this can either free up your healer to take other actions, or can allow your tank to operate autonomously without healer support.

Fortress Knight is also not typically a very skill-hungry build. I'd want to give it Axe Prowess, Def +2 and Death Blow, for sure, but then what? Neither Armored Blow nor Pavise are particularly impressive. Weight -3/5 can be good on some characters, but Fortress Knights probably aren't going to be doubling anyway. Hit +20, Str +2, and HP +5 are all reasonable options but I wouldn't call any of them essential. Axe Crit +10 is OK if you manage to get to S rank in axes. Axefaire and Quick Riposte are both good, but require even more investment to grab than Lifetaker.

And while I've only ever done this in NG+, I do think it would be at least somewhat viable in NG as well. Fortress Knight is a very low investment build, only really caring about training axe, armour and authority, and a quick dip to D in lances for Soldier. Training Reason up high enough to also certify into Dark Bishop sounds reasonable, especially if you're willing to save scum exams and doubly especially if you're using Balthus who is strong in both axes and armor and has a budding talent in reason.

(Aside: one of the things I dislike about Dark Seals in this game is how they interact with the exam system. For most class certifications, if I fail an exam then I can just buy another seal and try again next time. The cost of trying at below 100% chance is that you have to spend extra money on seals, which is reasonable. But with Dark Seals, you have a very limited supply of them, once they're gone they're gone, and you lose them even if you fail the exam. This means that your options are either to wait until you have 100% success chance (lowering the viability of these classes even further), or you accept that you might fail and have to completely rethink your build, or you save scum the exams. I hate all of these options.)

It's definitely a build with multiple problems and I want to reiterate that. I'm not saying this is great. I'm just saying it's somewhat viable as a somewhat quirky, off-beat build.

[haarhaarhaar]

42 minutes ago, lenticular said:

(Aside: one of the things I dislike about Dark Seals in this game is how they interact with the exam system. For most class certifications, if I fail an exam then I can just buy another seal and try again next time. The cost of trying at below 100% chance is that you have to spend extra money on seals, which is reasonable. But with Dark Seals, you have a very limited supply of them, once they're gone they're gone, and you lose them even if you fail the exam. This means that your options are either to wait until you have 100% success chance (lowering the viability of these classes even further), or you accept that you might fail and have to completely rethink your build, or you save scum the exams. I hate all of these options.)

I pretty much always save-scum certifications, and try not to pay for seals unless I absolutely have to, so this has never occurred to me. But when you write it all out like this, it really makes me think Dark Mage/Bishop ought to be way stronger than it is.

38 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I don't think I'd go so far as to say that I'd recommend it, but I've had fun in the past putting Lifetaker on Fortress Knights. They're frequently taking damage that needs healing up, and they can do good damage which translates to decently sized heals. The idealised use case is that they take some chip damage while tanking on enemy phase, and then instantly heal it all back with a single hit on player phase. Sure, you have healers with Physic who can heal them up instead, but if your Fortress Knight can be self-sufficient then this can either free up your healer to take other actions, or can allow your tank to operate autonomously without healer support.

Fortress Knight is also not typically a very skill-hungry build. I'd want to give it Axe Prowess, Def +2 and Death Blow, for sure, but then what? Neither Armored Blow nor Pavise are particularly impressive. Weight -3/5 can be good on some characters, but Fortress Knights probably aren't going to be doubling anyway. Hit +20, Str +2, and HP +5 are all reasonable options but I wouldn't call any of them essential. Axe Crit +10 is OK if you manage to get to S rank in axes. Axefaire and Quick Riposte are both good, but require even more investment to grab than Lifetaker.

And while I've only ever done this in NG+, I do think it would be at least somewhat viable in NG as well. Fortress Knight is a very low investment build, only really caring about training axe, armour and authority, and a quick dip to D in lances for Soldier. Training Reason up high enough to also certify into Dark Bishop sounds reasonable, especially if you're willing to save scum exams and doubly especially if you're using Balthus who is strong in both axes and armor and has a budding talent in reason.

It's definitely a build with multiple problems and I want to reiterate that. I'm not saying this is great. I'm just saying it's somewhat viable as a somewhat quirky, off-beat build.

This is interesting! I like Pavise, but I haven't tended to field Fortress Knights. If I want Pavise, I normally just leave a unit in Knowledge Gem + adjutant purgatory till they get it - but this may incentivise actually running the class. I also think there's a candidate I'd actually consider for this, in Gilbert. I think he's a bottom-tier unit, and don't really tend to do much with him, but having an autopilot Fortress Knight makes sense, and unlike other characters I don't feel he's particularly wasted in Fortress Knight. Or Great Knight for that matter, which isn't far away for him skill-rank wise. 

There are obvious disadvantages to running this build with Gilbert (only Part 2 availability, neutral in Reason, it's Gilbert) but I think the pros/cons don't shake out too badly. And since I wouldn't run Glowing Ember for this, I don't hugely need Def +2 (his personal basically does the same thing), meaning he only needs to master Brigand and Dark Bishop. "only" is doing a fair bit of work in that last sentence - but I can at least now imagine using Lifetaker on someone, which is more than I could say before. 

[lenticular]

38 minutes ago, haarhaarhaar said:

I pretty much always save-scum certifications, and try not to pay for seals unless I absolutely have to, so this has never occurred to me. But when you write it all out like this, it really makes me think Dark Mage/Bishop ought to be way stronger than it is.

I won't say that I never save scum the certifications, but I do it very rarely. Not that I have a problem with other people doing it, but it's just not fun for me personally. I remember back when I did a no-monastery challenge run, I ended up running out of Master Seals, since you can only get an unlimited number from Anna's shop which you can only access from the monastery, not the menu shop. And in that run, I decided that I'd just let myself run out and not use any more master classes, rather than save scumming.

Thinking about it, one thing that they could have done with Dark Mage and Dark Bishop, which I think would have been cool, would have been to drastically reduce or even eliminate the weapon skill requirements from the certifications. Still require the level requirement, but let you grab the certification even if you're sitting at E rank Reason. That might have opened up a few interesting niche uses as a way to just give someone a little bit of magic with minimal investment.

49 minutes ago, haarhaarhaar said:

There are obvious disadvantages to running this build with Gilbert (only Part 2 availability, neutral in Reason, it's Gilbert) but I think the pros/cons don't shake out too badly.

I did think about Gilbert as a possibility for this, but I decided that his availability would probably be an issue. You wouldn't even be able to start training him in Reason until chapter 14, and then you'd have to get him up to at least a B, pass the certification, and then master the class, by which point the game would probably be over. With other characters, you'd be able to start off much earlier, and actually finish in a reasonable length of time.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, lenticular said:

Aside: one of the things I dislike about Dark Seals in this game is how they interact with the exam system. For most class certifications, if I fail an exam then I can just buy another seal and try again next time. The cost of trying at below 100% chance is that you have to spend extra money on seals, which is reasonable. But with Dark Seals, you have a very limited supply of them, once they're gone they're gone, and you lose them even if you fail the exam. This means that your options are either to wait until you have 100% success chance (lowering the viability of these classes even further), or you accept that you might fail and have to completely rethink your build, or you save scum the exams. I hate all of these options.)

Lukewarm take: the Dark Merchant should sell Dark Seals. It's literally in his name.

Of course, by the time he shows up, you're probably hitting the Master classes. So it doesn't solve the issue of scarcity.

Maybe the Dark Merchant could appear pre-skip in one chapter, before joining permanently in the post-skip? That would also provide an opening for forging more magic weapons earlier on.

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Thinking about it, one thing that they could have done with Dark Mage and Dark Bishop, which I think would have been cool, would have been to drastically reduce or even eliminate the weapon skill requirements from the certifications. Still require the level requirement, but let you grab the certification even if you're sitting at E rank Reason. That might have opened up a few interesting niche uses as a way to just give someone a little bit of magic with minimal investment.

Almost as though you're cheating the whole class system? I like it.

4 hours ago, lenticular said:

Fortress Knight is also not typically a very skill-hungry build. I'd want to give it Axe Prowess, Def +2 and Death Blow, for sure, but then what? Neither Armored Blow nor Pavise are particularly impressive. Weight -3/5 can be good on some characters, but Fortress Knights probably aren't going to be doubling anyway. Hit +20, Str +2, and HP +5 are all reasonable options but I wouldn't call any of them essential. Axe Crit +10 is OK if you manage to get to S rank in axes. Axefaire and Quick Riposte are both good, but require even more investment to grab than Lifetaker.

My "defensive tank" build tends to use Axe* Prowess, Def +2, HP +5, Str +2, and Lance*breaker. Maybe Hit +20 over the last three if I spent some time in Archer. Death Blow is pointless on an enemy-phase build (sure I can use it for extra player phase damage, but at that point, I'm acknowledging that I'm not optimizing it around EP). Lifetaker would have the same problem for me - if I'm not attacking on Player Phase, then it won't do anything for me. But of course, other people can play their tanks differently from me.

*Or Lance Prowess and Swordbreaker - I did this on in-house Raphael for a better C13 performance. 

5 hours ago, Armchair General said:

Either Sylvain or Byleth.

By the time Teach has hit B+ Reason, I need to congratulate you, because the game is already over.

...Maybe an exaggeration, but getting Teach anywhere in Reason is a damned pain. You need Faculty Training and/or Seminars to even get to D-rank, and if you want to fight your way up towards A-rank, it's gonna take forever on the battlefield. And none of Teach's spells are particularly good or interesting - a shame, really.

5 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

a) The unit is (or during this Player Phase will be) wounded, has to deal with the coming Enemy Phase, and they have no other source of healing.

In this context, I could see Lifetaker as vaguely useful in a "solo run" context, since you don't have Physic support. Even if I imagine the optimal solo playstyle to be dodgetanking all day, every day.

5 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

It's a tough one with chip. After a certain point, there's no practical difference in non-lethal damage, since the enemy still needs a killing blow. So any amount of damage between (enemy's HP - killing blow) and (enemy's HP - 1) leads to the same outcome. What I found with chip Ignatz was that Death Blow and Poison Strike did mean bigger chip, but it was only very irregularly the difference between requiring one finisher and two finishers. It was more relevant on monsters, but they aren't a common enough enemy for me to feel truly confident about using Poison Strike.

These are fair points. I did a similar build with Ignatz (Trickster -> Mortal Savant with Poison Strike and Seal Strength). While he didn't double, he did score an unusually high number of crits, owing to his spell list. In those cases, Fiendish Blow would've done more damage. Still, Poison Strike usually "got the job done" when it came to chip. And Ignatz could still provide Physic and Rally support. He didn't need to get the finishing blow to be useful.

7 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Lifetaker is the sort of skill I'd like to make use of, but it's pretty poor on mages who almost never need healing in the first place due to being kept out of combat on enemy phase. And when you do give them personal sources of healing like Renewal, that's exp you're denying other mages with their excess Heal charges. Mages have the sort of shallow ability pool where you can find space for Lifetaker, but the class costs two dark seals to certify for, not one. It could be very good on a frontliner, but what physically inclined, male unit is ever sitting at a high enough level of Reason that B+ is a worthy detour? Just Recruitable Lorenz with his Cavalier boosted Strength, speed, and defense, and Ragnarok sitting at B. But even then Recruitable Lorenz leaves your party from chapters 13-17 (except on Crimson Flower, which is already the shortest route), so any detours you make with him have to be carefully considered. If he's not a level 30 unit ready to certify as a Dark Knight when he rejoins your party, then he may well fall behind. Lifetaker simply wouldn't be the ability that would help him catch up. The Paladin's Aegis or Warlock's Bowbreaker are potentially just as useful additions to his loadout.

Thinking on it now, "Lifetaker Frozen Lance Paladin/Dark Knight Lorenz" sounds kind of dope. Take damage, secure a one-shot healing yourself up, and ride away. Hubert is another one who could hypothetically take advantage of this. Sylvain could pull off a similar build, either with Lightning Axe or Swift Strikes. Of course, it depends on if they're built to take a hit in the first place. And even then, it's fighting for a spot amidst Lance Prowess, Fiendish Blow, Magic +2, Mov +1, Swordbreaker, Hit +20, etc.

[haarhaarhaar]

9 hours ago, lenticular said:

I did think about Gilbert as a possibility for this, but I decided that his availability would probably be an issue. You wouldn't even be able to start training him in Reason until chapter 14, and then you'd have to get him up to at least a B, pass the certification, and then master the class, by which point the game would probably be over. With other characters, you'd be able to start off much earlier, and actually finish in a reasonable length of time.

Definitely the biggest concern. But I feel like it would be a waste of Balthus (or Dedue, or Ferdinand) to get this build, whereas I don't really have other ideas for Gilbert. 

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

Thinking about it, one thing that they could have done with Dark Mage and Dark Bishop, which I think would have been cool, would have been to drastically reduce or even eliminate the weapon skill requirements from the certifications. Still require the level requirement, but let you grab the certification even if you're sitting at E rank Reason. That might have opened up a few interesting niche uses as a way to just give someone a little bit of magic with minimal investment.

It would also make their mastery skills slightly more attractive, just by virtue of greater accessibility. Just about everybody with a Reason bane could appreciate one or both of Poison Strike and Lifetaker, even just as temporary skills.

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

These are fair points. I did a similar build with Ignatz (Trickster -> Mortal Savant with Poison Strike and Seal Strength). While he didn't double, he did score an unusually high number of crits, owing to his spell list. In those cases, Fiendish Blow would've done more damage. Still, Poison Strike usually "got the job done" when it came to chip. And Ignatz could still provide Physic and Rally support. He didn't need to get the finishing blow to be useful.

Yeah, hybrid Ignatz is a solid choice for his build, and he can definitely make himself useful in other ways. 

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

Thinking on it now, "Lifetaker Frozen Lance Paladin/Dark Knight Lorenz" sounds kind of dope. Take damage, secure a one-shot healing yourself up, and ride away. Hubert is another one who could hypothetically take advantage of this. Sylvain could pull off a similar build, either with Lightning Axe or Swift Strikes. Of course, it depends on if they're built to take a hit in the first place. And even then, it's fighting for a spot amidst Lance Prowess, Fiendish Blow, Magic +2, Mov +1, Swordbreaker, Hit +20, etc.

Hubert's main issue is that Lifetaker is only relevant for about half of Part 2, and his mobility is shot for the last two maps where he's most likely to want Lifetaker. I've never tried Lifetaker on  Lorenz/Sylvain (although I can say Dark Bishop Lorenz is not impressive), but I don't know how Lifetaker justifies itself over other skills for them.

[Shadow Mir]

On Lifetaker, my issue with it is that you practically need to one-shot the opponent for it to be even remotely effective. Contrast Fates and Awakening, where it healed half your max HP when you attacked and defeated an enemy unit. While I could justify slotting it in in the other two games, it's much harder to justify using in 3H.

[haarhaarhaar]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

On Lifetaker, my issue with it is that you practically need to one-shot the opponent for it to be even remotely effective. Contrast Fates and Awakening, where it healed half your max HP when you attacked and defeated an enemy unit. While I could justify slotting it in in the other two games, it's much harder to justify using in 3H.

Yeah, it's been really nerfed in 3H. Armchair General pointed to high-damage builds as a way to leverage the most out of its healing, but then those units don't really need the ability if you're building them for high damage. 

I can't speak for Fates, but my recollection from Awakening was that it really wasn't broken to begin with (and its synergy with Dark Knight was meh at best). I wonder what the reasoning behind nerfing it was.

[SnowFire]

On 11/29/2022 at 3:02 PM, haarhaarhaar said:

I can't speak for Fates, but my recollection from Awakening was that it really wasn't broken to begin with (and its synergy with Dark Knight was meh at best). I wonder what the reasoning behind nerfing it was.

It might be more about Lifetaker abusing the lower difficulties in a rather brainless way.  If you send Seth or Titania blindly charging forward and pressing end turn, they *can* die to a sufficiently large horde of scrubs.  On Awakening Normal or Hard, such a Lifetaker unit is potentially immortal and can just be brainlessly sent forward against anything that isn't an extreme tank.  (You might point out that just very high Def/Res units like Tiki or Nah, or any Sorcerer with a Nosferatu tome, are the same, and you'd be right, but hey Nosferatu was nerfed in Fates too and is still nerfed in 3H vs. its Awakening incarnation.)  I agree that on Lunatic in Awakening, Lifetaker isn't actually that amazing.  Anyway, the nerfs mean that a unit with Lifetaker on Normal or Hard in 3H can still potentially be killed in enemy phase without too many shenanigans.  (3H Nosferatu can still maybe work though for brainless Normal mode strats, unless you're trying to literally solo the map or something in which case you'll run out of charges.)

[haarhaarhaar]

6 hours ago, SnowFire said:

It might be more about Lifetaker abusing the lower difficulties in a rather brainless way.  If you send Seth or Titania blindly charging forward and pressing end turn, they *can* die to a sufficiently large horde of scrubs.  On Awakening Normal or Hard, such a Lifetaker unit is potentially immortal and can just be brainlessly sent forward against anything that isn't an extreme tank.  (You might point out that just very high Def/Res units like Tiki or Nah, or any Sorcerer with a Nosferatu tome, are the same, and you'd be right, but hey Nosferatu was nerfed in Fates too and is still nerfed in 3H vs. its Awakening incarnation.)  I agree that on Lunatic in Awakening, Lifetaker isn't actually that amazing.  Anyway, the nerfs mean that a unit with Lifetaker on Normal or Hard in 3H can still potentially be killed in enemy phase without too many shenanigans.  (3H Nosferatu can still maybe work though for brainless Normal mode strats, unless you're trying to literally solo the map or something in which case you'll run out of charges.)

Hmm I've never tried that on Awakening before, although on lower difficulties lots of builds can charge forwards and basically be fine. 

This also raises the possibility of Lifetaker boosting the healing on a Nos-tanking Byleth. Which isn't especially viable on Maddening, but is I guess a build idea. 

[haarhaarhaar]

Riffing on a few of the ideas here before, what do people think of the following use of Lifetaker:

 

Build: Wyvern Lord Ferdinand

Progression: Noble > Fighter > Brigand > Wyvern Rider (> Dark Mage cert only) > Dark Bishop > Wyvern Lord

Abilities: Lance Prowess Lvl 5, Death Blow, Lifetaker, Swordbreaker, Str +2?

Other kit: Evasion Ring, Secret Transport Force, his personal

The build idea is a self-reliant flying tank, that also has a significant Player Phase (a la the fliers of FE past). Provided he only spends a couple of levels mastering Dark Bishop, an average Ferdinand with an Iron Lance+ or the Scythe of Sariel can get to 30 AS around Lvl 35 or so. Combined with the setup above, he should then hit 95 Avo, which is at the very least par for an endgame dodgetank. Obviously better weapons will be heavier, but hopefully he will have a few more levels left to increase Spd, and/or hit a multiple of 5 with Str. Then, Ferdinand can use Swift Strikes (or attack normally, but the more damage the better) to kill something on Player Phase. The role of Lifetaker will be in maintaining his personal without anyone else using an action, keeping his Avo up for Enemy Phase.

The best criticisms I can think of:

1) You don't need Lifetaker for this build. 

I can't help but agree, but as you can see above there isn't immense pressure on Ferdinand's build (Lances are the only rank that need to go above B, there's at least one free skill slot too) so I think you could find space for it, especially outside CF. As for being needed, I'm not sure how often this version of Ferdinand will take damage in the first place, so I can't declare that it is necessary. But at the very least it'll cover level-ups, and I'm never totally confident in a dodge tank's abilities, so Lifetaker could help secure some peace of mind?

2) Reaching minimum B Reason and mastering Dark Bishop, just for the Lifetaker effect, is not worth it.

It's easy enough to use Physic, after all - but your healer(s) may have a better use of a turn, or more rarely be out of range. The heal effect could also be achieved with Spear of Assal/Blessed Lance+. But if you're using them for Swift Strikes and Enemy Phase they will quickly run out of uses, and I at least find there's enough independent pressure on my Mythril stocks to consider an alternative. And the Ochain/Seiros Shields would drag down his Avo further. In combat at least, Lifetaker is the most efficient way of keeping Ferdinand's personal working, and for this version of him the personal makes the difference between solid and maybe slightly iffy Avo. Whether it's worth this much effort or not, I'm genuinely not sure - hopefully you'll let me know what you think.

3) I'd rather have Alert Stance+ and higher Avo than a dodge tank with worse Avo and a good Player Phase. 

Again, a fair enough criticism. My only response is to say that I don't like doing nothing on Player Phase, especially if there's something I can do. There are definitely situations in which it's better to Wait (for example, early doors AM with Dedue), but by the time I have vanilla Alert Stance I can normally do something useful with an action instead of waiting, so I'd rather do that. This allows me to have my cake and eat it. Yes, I have to tolerate higher enemy hit rates, and a higher chance that I can get hit/need a Divine Pulse etc., and the min-max doctrine dictates that this is the worse choice. But it probably isn't ~so~ wrong that it couldn't work.

 

Anyway, this is the result of me thinking about everyone's suggestions/comments etc. Would people run this? Any improvements, or criticisms I've missed?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Build: Wyvern Lord Ferdinand

Progression: Noble > Fighter > Brigand > Wyvern Rider (> Dark Mage cert only) > Dark Bishop > Wyvern Lord

Abilities: Lance Prowess Lvl 5, Death Blow, Lifetaker, Swordbreaker, Str +2?

Other kit: Evasion Ring, Secret Transport Force, his personal

That sounds... fine. Like, it's one of the best conceivable uses for Lifetaker - a unit with a strong combat art who gets an added benefit from full HP. The question, then, becomes one of "is it worth it?". When it demands at least B in Reason, atop B in Axes and A in Lances, it starts looking like a stretch. And that's before considering Flight and Authority investments. A fun gimmick, but once I've got Swift Strikes and Death Blow on Ferdinand, in a high-mobility class, he's already my killing machine. Making him vacation in Dark Bishop is time not spent one-shotting.

[lenticular]

On 11/29/2022 at 4:22 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

My "defensive tank" build tends to use Axe* Prowess, Def +2, HP +5, Str +2, and Lance*breaker. Maybe Hit +20 over the last three if I spent some time in Archer. Death Blow is pointless on an enemy-phase build (sure I can use it for extra player phase damage, but at that point, I'm acknowledging that I'm not optimizing it around EP). Lifetaker would have the same problem for me - if I'm not attacking on Player Phase, then it won't do anything for me. But of course, other people can play their tanks differently from me.

Oops. I never actually responded to this. I only meant to respond to it and then forgot.

For me, I prefer to build my tanks to be able to contribute on player phase as well. Admitedly, a big part of that is just personal preference, but I do think that there are actualy mechanical benefits to doing things that way as well. Specifically, having a strong player phase can significantly boost a tank's survival by taking out potential threats. The biggest threats to an armour tank are archers with poison strike and mages, both of whom are much better dealt with on player phase. For the archers, they'll mostly be attacking at 3+ range, so there's nothing you can do to them on enemy phase outside of shenanigans with Retribution or the Chalice. For mages, they'll typically attack at 2 range, so you can potentially counterattack with a hand axe, except that hand axes are pretty bad, and being hit by a magic attack first is also pretty bad. With a strong player phase, I have a decent shot at taking out those mages and archers before they become a problem.

Though, like you said, there are lots of different ways to build a tank, and which is best does depend a lot on how you're using them and what you're trying to do with them. I would say that your way of focusing entirely on enemy phase is probably better for a tank that is trying to hold a choke point, especially if they have other units behind them backing them up. In that case, you absolutely don't want to be moving away from your choke point to seek out a mage or archer and it also doesn't matter if your tank can't kill them, because one of your other units will be able to. On the other hand, I think that my way of building a tank works better when you're expecting a tank to operate autonomously, without as much backup. I like my sort of build better when dealing with enemies from multiple directions. In that case, it's often possible to -- for instance -- send a strong tank to deal with a handful of units to the east, leaving the rest of your army free to engage the main enmy force in the west. You can do this with your sort of tank build as well, of course, but being able to take out problematic units on player phase increases the number of potentially viable situations you can do so. And that's the sort of tank that I'm imagining for Lifetaker.

One question I do have about your build, though (if this isn't going too far off topic) : how much use do you find you tend to get from lancebreaker in that build? My initial reaction is that it doesn't sound like it would do much, even against lances. Fortress Knight evasion tends to be pretty terrible, not only because they have awful speed, but also because a lot of the battalions with high prot also have evasion penalties. So I'd assume that they aren't evading anything even with lancebreaker. And while bonus to hit is never a bad thing, I'd generally assume that I'd be wanting to get to reliable hit against everything, so the extra hit specifically against lance users wouldn't make any substantial difference. Am I missing something, or is it just something that you throw in because it's simple to pick up and there isn't much that's better?

12 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Anyway, this is the result of me thinking about everyone's suggestions/comments etc. Would people run this? Any improvements, or criticisms I've missed?

I really like this build. I don't think it's especially strong (except in as much as a Swift Strikes wyvern is always going to be strong), but I do think that it's sweet. I think that I would have fun using it. Though probably less fun getting to it. But as a lover of quirky off-builds, this one certainly seems like fun. I think that if I were to run it, I'd probably drop Str +2 for Alert Stance. I haven't done the arithmetic -- and it would depend on his exact level ups anyway -- but I doubt that losing 4 damage per use of Swift Strikes is going to make him miss very many kills, whereas it seems like it would be nice to at least have the option to use Alert Stance to boost his Avoid when you needed it. Even if you only have regular Alert Stance rather than +, that's still an extra 15 points of Avoid. I wouldn't plan on using it regularly, but it would be nice to have in my back pocket to pull out when I needed it, and my intuition is that that would be more useful than Str +2, while not killing the spirit of the build.

[Dark Holy Elf]

12 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Anyway, this is the result of me thinking about everyone's suggestions/comments etc. Would people run this? Any improvements, or criticisms I've missed?

I think this is probably one of the better uses for Lifetaker, so kudos for coming up with it, but it's still not very good IMO.

You mentioned some criticisms, but here are some more:

-Gaining 150 class exp in Dark Bishop is a significant chunk of playtime which you aren't a Wyvern Rider for. The biggest knock on Ferdinand is he's a bit of a late-bloomer, being not all that impressive aside from good accuracy prior to Level 20 and/or Swift Strikes. This build increases the time he's "not very good". I suppose you can counter by saying you can just grind in an aux fight, and that's fair, but at least for me, I don't do this and I certainly value builds less if they require this.

-The problem of "you don't have enough healing" which Lifetaker fixes is more efficiently solved by your teammates. You could deploy one more healer (defined here as "someone in a class that uses magic, preferably with Physic") than you were otherwise planning, if you anticipate a problem here. You could use Mercedes and/or Flayn for Fortify. Another benefit of using another a healer instead of Lifetaker is also that you get your hit boost on your own turn, instead of needing to wait for a kill.

You mention Alert Stance, and counter that it's nice not to have to use it and still have a player phase. I completely agree. Yet, even looking at that build, I think it would be improved in many ways by using Alert Stance(+) in place of Lifetaker. Even if you have Ferdinand attack things on the vast majority of player phases, there will be times he can't reach anyone (or other people can kill them instead), and on those turns, he can boost his avoid by 15 or 30 and go bait some more enemies safely. Additionally, Alert Stance is effectively free for this build, and AS+ is certainly a smaller investment than Lifetaker.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

For me, I prefer to build my tanks to be able to contribute on player phase as well. Admitedly, a big part of that is just personal preference, but I do think that there are actualy mechanical benefits to doing things that way as well. Specifically, having a strong player phase can significantly boost a tank's survival by taking out potential threats. The biggest threats to an armour tank are archers with poison strike and mages, both of whom are much better dealt with on player phase. For the archers, they'll mostly be attacking at 3+ range, so there's nothing you can do to them on enemy phase outside of shenanigans with Retribution or the Chalice. For mages, they'll typically attack at 2 range, so you can potentially counterattack with a hand axe, except that hand axes are pretty bad, and being hit by a magic attack first is also pretty bad. With a strong player phase, I have a decent shot at taking out those mages and archers before they become a problem.

 

Those are all fair points. I do like to cast Retribution on my Defensive tank if I'm going up against Archers or the rare Mage, and tend to keep them equipped with a Silver or Killer weapon to maximize damage. That said, I do also like to keep a Brave Axe (or Lance) on them, in case I want to attack on Player Phase. In those cases, Death Blow would be welcome. Usually, though, I'll be doing something else with their player phase, such as self-healing, a support gambit, or a repositional combat art.

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

Though, like you said, there are lots of different ways to build a tank, and which is best does depend a lot on how you're using them and what you're trying to do with them. I would say that your way of focusing entirely on enemy phase is probably better for a tank that is trying to hold a choke point, especially if they have other units behind them backing them up. In that case, you absolutely don't want to be moving away from your choke point to seek out a mage or archer and it also doesn't matter if your tank can't kill them, because one of your other units will be able to. On the other hand, I think that my way of building a tank works better when you're expecting a tank to operate autonomously, without as much backup. I like my sort of build better when dealing with enemies from multiple directions. In that case, it's often possible to -- for instance -- send a strong tank to deal with a handful of units to the east, leaving the rest of your army free to engage the main enmy force in the west. You can do this with your sort of tank build as well, of course, but being able to take out problematic units on player phase increases the number of potentially viable situations you can do so. And that's the sort of tank that I'm imagining for Lifetaker.

That's one big difference - I don't typically intend my defensive tank to operate autonomously. Rather, it functions as a sort of "vanguard", drawing hard-hitting and/or fast physical enemies in. Just behind the tank (or as close as possible while staying out of enemy range) is a number of player-phase oriented units (say, with multi-strike combat arts or hard-hitting spells). They'll finish off everyone lured in last turn, I'll physic up the defensive tank, and then push the tank further into enemy territory. That's my "ideal" method, although admittedly it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes I do put them on a "chokepoint", blocking off Swordmasters or Grapplers, in a way to buy time for the rest of my army to confront more pressing threats somewhere else.

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

Though, like you said, there are lots of different ways to build a tank, and which is best does depend a lot on how you're using them and what you're trying to do with them. I would say that your way of focusing entirely on enemy phase is probably better for a tank that is trying to hold a choke point, especially if they have other units behind them backing them up. In that case, you absolutely don't want to be moving away from your choke point to seek out a mage or archer and it also doesn't matter if your tank can't kill them, because one of your other units will be able to. On the other hand, I think that my way of building a tank works better when you're expecting a tank to operate autonomously, without as much backup. I like my sort of build better when dealing with enemies from multiple directions. In that case, it's often possible to -- for instance -- send a strong tank to deal with a handful of units to the east, leaving the rest of your army free to engage the main enmy force in the west. You can do this with your sort of tank build as well, of course, but being able to take out problematic units on player phase increases the number of potentially viable situations you can do so. And that's the sort of tank that I'm imagining for Lifetaker.

Lancebreaker is essentially a free +20 Hit against enemy lance users (Cavaliers, Pegasus Knights, Paladins, Falcoknights). It's not as good as Hit +20, but it comes for free with B Axes, rather than demanding Archer mastery. Of course, having both skills provides extra security, particularly against enemy types with class-innate Avoid boosts (fliers)*. The entire advantage of "defensive tank" over "just cast Impregnable Wall" is the ability to damage the target on enemy phase (well, and the whole not-having-to-cast-a-support-gambit-every-turn), so if I'm not whittling the foes down on EP, then I may as well just be using an Impregnable Wall lure. The extra Avoid from the skill can allow for a rare dodge, but it's not the draw of the skill on this build.

*Same applies for Swordbreaker on Lance-oriented builds. Roughly half the foes on a map like "Hunting by Daybreak" are Sword infantry, and while they don't have any class Avoid boosts, they're still among the more evasive enemies. Any extra Hit against them is appreciated.

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

-Gaining 150 class exp in Dark Bishop is a significant chunk of playtime which you aren't a Wyvern Rider for. The biggest knock on Ferdinand is he's a bit of a late-bloomer, being not all that impressive aside from good accuracy prior to Level 20 and/or Swift Strikes. This build increases the time he's "not very good". I suppose you can counter by saying you can just grind in an aux fight, and that's fair, but at least for me, I don't do this and I certainly value builds less if they require this.

This is tangential, but I've been gaining a new appreciation for "earlygame Ferdinand" on my latest CF playthrough. Apparently, his personal ability affects gambit hit rates while he's at full HP. Who knew? Coupled with his decent Charm stat, he's actually one of my most accurate gambit users, while also making him a safe choice to put in range of foes with offensive gambits.

Of course, if I needed to raise his Reason from day 1, he probably wouldn't be as good. I've run Dark Knights Ferdinand before, and he was the definition of "fine, I guess".

[Dark Holy Elf]

 

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

This is tangential, but I've been gaining a new appreciation for "earlygame Ferdinand" on my latest CF playthrough. Apparently, his personal ability affects gambit hit rates while he's at full HP.

Yeah, earlygame Ferdinand isn't terrible by any means, and he is the most accurate non-lord at launching gambits. Rightly or wrongly, it's still a pretty common knock on him (and Ingrid, who is remarkably similar).

In general the game is pretty consistent about "any ability/equip that affects hit after all other calculations also affects gambit hit", so Hit + 20 / Ignatz's personal / Ferdinand's personal / Uncanny Blow / Accuracy Ring all do. What's somewhat unintuitive is that anything that affects evasion does not affect gambit evade (including Ferdinand's personal, again... and sadly, Caspar's as well, since it's listed as an avoid debuff instead of an accuracy buff), definitely a case of asymetrical rules.

[haarhaarhaar]

On 12/4/2022 at 4:19 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

A fun gimmick, but once I've got Swift Strikes and Death Blow on Ferdinand, in a high-mobility class, he's already my killing machine. Making him vacation in Dark Bishop is time not spent one-shotting.

On 12/4/2022 at 2:18 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Gaining 150 class exp in Dark Bishop is a significant chunk of playtime which you aren't a Wyvern Rider for. The biggest knock on Ferdinand is he's a bit of a late-bloomer, being not all that impressive aside from good accuracy prior to Level 20 and/or Swift Strikes. This build increases the time he's "not very good".

Yeah, this is just true, isn't it. Well, I tried, Dark Bishop.

On 12/4/2022 at 1:39 PM, lenticular said:

I think that if I were to run it, I'd probably drop Str +2 for Alert Stance. I haven't done the arithmetic -- and it would depend on his exact level ups anyway -- but I doubt that losing 4 damage per use of Swift Strikes is going to make him miss very many kills, whereas it seems like it would be nice to at least have the option to use Alert Stance to boost his Avoid when you needed it. Even if you only have regular Alert Stance rather than +, that's still an extra 15 points of Avoid. I wouldn't plan on using it regularly, but it would be nice to have in my back pocket to pull out when I needed it, and my intuition is that that would be more useful than Str +2, while not killing the spirit of the build.

I had a quick look at some numbers. An average Ferdinand on this build is hitting about 30 Str at Lvl 35, and will hit 36 Str at Lvl 45. Using Death Blow, a +7 battalion, and 18 Mt Lance of Zoltan+ (you get the base version from his paralogue) as our benchmark, Swift Strikes has 69x2 Atk as a Lvl 45 Wyvern Lord, and 71x2 with Str+2 in the mix. This makes the difference for ORKOing a couple of Grapplers in AM endgame and a fair few Falcon Knights in SS endgame (ofc Areadbhar/LoR obviates the need for Str+2). I haven't scanned through earlier chapters for thresholds, so there may be more. But Str +2 may matter less if you're fishing for crits via Swift Strikes instead of using high-Mt lances, Alert Stance with his personal does make Ferdinand that much safer, and dodge tanks are especially good for those endgame maps. So yeah, it's a toss-up.

Of course, simply subbing in AS/AS+ for Lifetaker as suggested above makes even more sense, I suppose.

On 12/4/2022 at 2:18 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Another benefit of using another a healer instead of Lifetaker is also that you get your hit boost on your own turn, instead of needing to wait for a kill.

Yeah this isn't something I had taken into account before, and could definitely make a difference. 

On 12/4/2022 at 2:18 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

AS+ is certainly a smaller investment than Lifetaker.

I agree that Alert Stance is basically free, but the gap between AS+ and Lifetaker isn't as big as you'd think.

Take as given B Axes from Wyvern Rider and B Flying to class into Wyvern Lord, since both straight Wyvern and Lifetaker Wyvern Ferdinand need to get that far. A+ Flying is 1080 WEXP on top of that.

On the other hand, E to B Reason is 680 WEXP of tutoring. Then there's mastering Dark Bishop. If Ferdinand had spent the time mastering Dark Bishop in Wyvern Rider/Lord, they would have gotten an extra 375 Flying WEXP. So the cost in Flying WEXP of getting Lifetaker is 1055 WEXP, which is slightly less than needed for A+ Flying, albeit with a more rigid distribution of tutoring to combat.   

Of course, on top of the WEXP comparison, there is the cost of being in Dark Bishop stats-wise, and smaller gains to Lance WEXP/inferior combat for the period spent in Dark Bishop. Which can all be mitigated by Knowledge Gem adjutant-ing, but this in itself is a use of resources that straight Wyvern Ferdinand doesn't necessarily require. I think everything put together does make AS+ a smaller investment, but not by that much.

Edited December 6, 2022 by haarhaarhaar

[Dark Holy Elf]

On 12/5/2022 at 5:02 PM, haarhaarhaar said:

agree that Alert Stance is basically free, but the gap between AS+ and Lifetaker isn't as big as you'd think.

Take as given B Axes from Wyvern Rider and B Flying to class into Wyvern Lord, since both straight Wyvern and Lifetaker Wyvern Ferdinand need to get that far. A+ Flying is 1080 WEXP on top of that.

On the other hand, E to B Reason is 680 WEXP of tutoring. Then there's mastering Dark Bishop. If Ferdinand had spent the time mastering Dark Bishop in Wyvern Rider/Lord, they would have gotten an extra 375 Flying WEXP. So the cost in Flying WEXP of getting Lifetaker is 1055 WEXP, which is slightly less than needed for A+ Flying, albeit with a more rigid distribution of tutoring to combat.   

Of course, on top of the WEXP comparison, there is the cost of being in Dark Bishop stats-wise, and smaller gains to Lance WEXP/inferior combat for the period spent in Dark Bishop. Which can all be mitigated by Knowledge Gem adjutant-ing, but this in itself is a use of resources that straight Wyvern Ferdinand doesn't necessarily require. I think everything put together does make AS+ a smaller investment, but not by that much.

Fair enough, but a couple notes:

-Needing only B reason is a pretty generous assumption for the build. Ferdinand doesn't average that much luck until Level 36. Level 26 if you want to give him the only pre-timeskip Goddess Icon (which is fair, it's not super in-demand, but does increase the level of investment in my books). I suppose you can lower this to around 20 if you also get a +luck food from gardening, or if a recruited character joins with it (I admit, I don't recall). Trying to certify at 30% can also take quite a bit of time (both real life time, since savescumming is required in the case of Dark Seals, and simply that it can easily take more than a month of trying).

-I probably put more weight than you on the cost of being in Dark Bishop, and certainly, if we're talking about investment, the cost of using one of your two Knowledge Gems there. Also, the nice thing about Alert Stance+ is that, if you do in fact need more investment elsewhere, you can slow down your access of it and stick with Alert Stance in the meantime. It'll certainly still come, just a chapter or two later, because flying training can just pile up post-timeskip (especially if you have flight group task available, although Move+1 does present some competition). All this adds up to me considering even Alert Stance+ significantly less investment overall.