builds Fire Emblem Three Houses Builds

[Phantom Agent 7]

What are some of your favourite Three Houses Builds that you have come up with? Mostly share builds that are unique and different from the main line. For example: My Yuri is an Assassin with Sword Lv5, Death Blow, Alert Stance+, Sword Avoid +20 and Lethality or Wrath and Vantage. He can be a Dancer if needed

[Barren]

There are plenty of good ones that I personally found to be effective.

Dimitri’s Battalion Vantage + Battalion Wrath. I know it’s such an easy pick and not that unprecedented but it works like a charm. Especially on maddening.

One of my personal favorites is Vengeance Bernadetta with Lance Prowess level 5, HP+5, Strength +2, Hit +20, Movement +1 while she is a Paladin. She can also go Bow Knight for chip duty as well as freeze enemies with Encloser and just swap lance for bow prowess.

[Dark Holy Elf]

3 hours ago, Barren said:

One of my personal favorites is Vengeance Bernadetta with Lance Prowess level 5, HP+5, Strength +2, Hit +20, Movement +1 while she is a Paladin. She can also go Bow Knight for chip duty as well as freeze enemies with Encloser and just swap lance for bow prowess.

Why not both? I'd personally ditch one of the stat-ups for dual prowess (probably Str+2, funnily enough, even though I'd consider it the most valuable of the three for many other builds). Lets her be more versatile.

Anyway, the build I'm probably the biggest fan of is the generic Female Wyvern Murder Machine: Axe Prowess, Death Blow, Darting Blow, Stat+2. The last skill can be a second prowess skill (to cover more different brave weapons / monster weaknesses), Weight-3, Alert Stance (most recommended for Ingrid/Petra who get to it fastest), or Hit+20 if you have the stomach for three intermediate masteries (I rarely do). Works very well for Byleth, Edelgard, Petra, Ingrid, Hilda, Leonie, and Catherine. The build performs well at all points in the game since Pegasus Knight and Wyvern Rider are both best-in-show classes for their tier. If you're running more than one copy of this build, just be aware there's only one flying battalion prior to Chapter 8 (with one footnote exception), but this is easily remedied by going Brigand first.

Lots of magic builds work very well, I'm not sure I really have a single favourite one. Valkyrie->Dark Knight with Prowess, Mag+2, Fiendish Blow, Uncanny Blow, Move+1, and Black/Dark Range+1 (sadly you'll have to do without one of these, I often actually drop Prowess since it's only 10 hit though you have to watch out for crits if you do this) is certainly ludicrously flexible for most of the better mages and it feels very good to have all the skill slots filled with such powerful abilities.

I specifically love Bow Knight Felix and feel he gets a bit slept on. It's not too hard to get his stats to the point where he one-rounds most things with a combination of Silver/Failnaught or Brave as needed, and even if he somehow just misses you can always roll the dice on a Fraldarius proc (incredibly likely for quads, in particular). Death Blow, Hit+20, Bow Prowess, and a couple stat ups. One thing I really like about this is that Felix hands out +might supports to two people and he can basically do so permanently. It's not hard to get a Felix who one-rounds , but having that range/mobility/support definitely elevates an already good unit to the next level. Another advantage of the build is that it's flexible with the RNG, if your Felix gets bad str/spd rolls you can abandon the riding training and just stay in Sniper.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

11 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Why not both? I'd personally ditch one of the stat-ups for dual prowess (probably Str+2, funnily enough, even though I'd consider it the most valuable of the three for many other builds). Lets her be more versatile.

So, on my first playthrough, I found myself doing this a lot. Units with two, or even three "prowess" skills. It felt like "well, if I'm gonna have them use this weapon type, I need the prowess skill!"

On my next playthrough (or was it my third? IDK.), I started doing just one Prowess per unit. And honestly? It felt quite freeing. All of a sudden, I had four slots for other skills, rather than three or two. I could make a unit as strong in one certain aspect as I wanted to, without any "redundancy" or "dead weight".

I think that's sort of the tug-of-war between "versatility" and "specialization". For some players, having a unit who can perform multiple functions effectively is what's preferred. For others, it's about maximizing their effectiveness at one single function.

Let's use Bernadetta as an example. Bow Knight is "suboptimal" if I'm running Vengeance, because it lacks Lancefaire. I'm missing out on sone one-shots that Paladin would achieve. Likewise, Encloser makes less sense on a Paladin, because I have less attack range (and specifically, I can't outrange Monsters). Speaking to dual proficiencies more broadly - in any given combat, at least one of them is gonna be "dead weight". It's very bad "unit feel", in my opinion, to know that I'm running a skill that does nothing for me in the given moment.

Ironically, I really like and agree with the other builds you suggested! They're all very strong ones. "Death Blow plus Darting Blow" is excellent synergy, as is combining "Movement +1" and "Magic Range +1". In the latter case, male units are "saved" from having to choose between good skills, because they can't even get Uncanny Blow, haha.

My one change (if I were making the build, not saying yours is "wrong") comes with Alert Stance. It's a great skill, no questions asked, especially when you hit the + version. But if I know that's what I'm going for, then Death and Darting Blow make no sense for me, since they do nothing on enemy-phase (and if I'm using the "Wait" command, then I have no Player Phase). I would favor Hit +20 and one of (Weaponbreaker, Speed +2, Weight -3, Dex +4). Since those will all improve my combat performance on Enemy Phase.

[Dark Holy Elf]

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

On my next playthrough (or was it my third? IDK.), I started doing just one Prowess per unit. And honestly? It felt quite freeing. All of a sudden, I had four slots for other skills, rather than three or two. I could make a unit as strong in one certain aspect as I wanted to, without any "redundancy" or "dead weight".

I think that's sort of the tug-of-war between "versatility" and "specialization". For some players, having a unit who can perform multiple functions effectively is what's preferred. For others, it's about maximizing their effectiveness at one single function.

Let's use Bernadetta as an example. Bow Knight is "suboptimal" if I'm running Vengeance, because it lacks Lancefaire. I'm missing out on sone one-shots that Paladin would achieve. Likewise, Encloser makes less sense on a Paladin, because I have less attack range (and specifically, I can't outrange Monsters). Speaking to dual proficiencies more broadly - in any given combat, at least one of them is gonna be "dead weight". It's very bad "unit feel", in my opinion, to know that I'm running a skill that does nothing for me in the given moment.

Well, having the versatility to do multiple roles well is useful. For many characters (including Bernadetta, but not just her), her best damage is done with a melee weapon, but if she can't reach targets, she'll be reaching for a bow instead (in Bernadetta's case, there are also targets where Encloser is just straight-up more useful than her other actions, like a high-HP monster you don't want to spend other actions on this turn).

Maybe it's just me, but I don't consider Paladin Bernadetta to be a very good build. She can one-shot things at range 1, sure, but so can lots of units by this point of the game, and most of them don't require low HP to do so. The nice thing about Vengeance, though, is that it isn't as reliant heavy attack investments. If you give up Lancefaire you only lose 6 damage, not 12-24 which would be common for other builds. So you can easily go Bow Knight and also have a long-range Encloser (Paladin can enclose too, but not in a way which avoids monster counterattacks, so it's not nearly as useful IMO), as well as incredible linked attack support.

I think only having one prowess is still reasonable, mind, especially if you have Hit+20, Uncanny Blow, or are otherwise happy with your level of accuracy. Maybe even zero if you either have high luck or aren't planning to take hits with this character.

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

My one change (if I were making the build, not saying yours is "wrong") comes with Alert Stance. It's a great skill, no questions asked, especially when you hit the + version. But if I know that's what I'm going for, then Death and Darting Blow make no sense for me, since they do nothing on enemy-phase (and if I'm using the "Wait" command, then I have no Player Phase). I would favor Hit +20 and one of (Weaponbreaker, Speed +2, Weight -3, Dex +4). Since those will all improve my combat performance on Enemy Phase.

Certainly, the other skills you mentioned are good (except perhaps Dex+4, that's a bit too small an effect for me). Hit+20 has the downside of being a third intermediate mastery but it's likely the best option if you have time. But I did forget Weaponbreaker and that can be useful in a variety of ways for certain maps, e.g. in lategame Crimson Flower the pegasus knights just have way higher evade than any other non-boss enemy so investing in Lancebreaker to assure reliable hits isn't a bad idea. It's the type of thing you can swap between maps easily, since the breaker skills are ones you pick up for free just by having a weapon rank.

As for Alert Stance, it's just a nice thing to do on turns where nothing is in range. Especially for Petra/Ingrid, this is a skill they reach very easily. It can become game-breaking if you build around it, but even if you don't, you can easily reach the point where you have a character, set up primarily for mobility and offence, who nonetheless can trade an offensive action to instead reach evade levels high enough that they can easily pull in several enemies with high reliability. It's particularly useful for maps where aggroed enemies might otherwise move in undesirable directions, such as the Mercedes/Caspar paralogue.

[Barren]

@Dark Holy Elf

I can totally understand why Bow Knight Bernie might be preferred in other scenarios compared to Paladin Bernie. Encloser is going to be useful at times where Vengeance is not and that can be because of the power spike enemies gets during the 2nd half of maddening.

Strength +2 I just threw in as an option incase you don’t have the time or want to make the time to level her axe rank to D+ for Brigand’s Deathblow. Out of house Bernie would be in a better spot if you recruit her between chapters 3-5. Realistically you’ll get her at chapter 5 if she is the first student you want to recruit.

And I can agree to the consensus that anyone can achieve ORKO thresholds without needing to be at low HP dedicated crit builds not withstanding. Lysithea is a good example of someone who is extremely frail but with magic +2, fiendish blow, a magic battalion and some spirit dust she can OHKO most enemies with low enough res.

She can can also run a low hp vantage + defiant magic build as well for some extra damage but that also means you need to put her in a precarious position which most don’t want to.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Maybe it's just me, but I don't consider Paladin Bernadetta to be a very good build. She can one-shot things at range 1, sure, but so can lots of units by this point of the game, and most of them don't require low HP to do so. The nice thing about Vengeance, though, is that it isn't as reliant heavy attack investments. If you give up Lancefaire you only lose 6 damage, not 12-24 which would be common for other builds. So you can easily go Bow Knight and also have a long-range Encloser (Paladin can enclose too, but not in a way which avoids monster counterattacks, so it's not nearly as useful IMO), as well as incredible linked attack support.

Lancefaire (and the 1 Strength difference) only costing 6 damage for Vengeance (as opposed to 12 for Swift Strikes) is a solid point. How about this, then - run Bernie in Paladin if the damage difference affects which one-shots she could achieve on a particular map, and Bow Knight otherwise? If you've Vengeance, Encloser, and the ranks for one class, then you've almost certainly got the ranks for the other class.

Regarding many of your units one-shotting (or one-rounding), I guess it depends on which part of the game we're talking here. It's definitely feasible to get Vengeance Paladin Bernie online by chapter 11 or so. The only comparable-power tools I see you having at that point are other Vengeance users (Cyril, Dedue), Cyril's Point-Blank Volley, and Soulblade on Lysithea and Constance in particular. Maybe Hunter's Volley on Shamir. In most cases, the brave combat arts require hitting A in the specified weapon type, or else mastering an Advanced class. Either of which is gonna take a while. You can do "Darting/Death Blow Wyvern Rider with a Brave Axe", I suppose, but Hit rates become an issue against the wrong targets.

I do agree that getting Bernie (or any Vengeance user) to low HP is a limitation of the build. But in 3H, it may just be easier than ever to safely hit low-HP thresholds. This is thanks to Guard adjutants and the Blessing gambit. If all else fails, even the Devil Weapons can "help" toward this end.

4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Certainly, the other skills you mentioned are good (except perhaps Dex+4, that's a bit too small an effect for me). Hit+20 has the downside of being a third intermediate mastery but it's likely the best option if you have time. But I did forget Weaponbreaker and that can be useful in a variety of ways for certain maps, e.g. in lategame Crimson Flower the pegasus knights just have way higher evade than any other non-boss enemy so investing in Lancebreaker to assure reliable hits isn't a bad idea. It's the type of thing you can swap between maps easily, since the breaker skills are ones you pick up for free just by having a weapon rank.

Yep, the Breaker skills are a map-by-map thing for me. If I'm facing a map with few or no enemy Swordies, then Swordbreaker doesn't really make sense. But if there are a ton of Assassins and Swordmasters (two of the hardest classes to hit), then it just makes sense.

My point with Hit +20 was not going for it in addition to Death and Darting Blows, but in place of those ones. That said, it might not be fair to imagine "if I'm including Alert Stance on a build, then I need to build around it." You can, I suppose, have a flier who is mostly-optimized for player-phase combat, but also "just happens" to have Alert Stance as an occasional EP lure. My personal preference would be to do them as two different builds (i.e. Player-Phase Wyvern Edelgard, Enemy-Phase Wyvern Petra), but you do you.

1 hour ago, Barren said:

She can can also run a low hp vantage + defiant magic build as well for some extra damage but that also means you need to put her in a precarious position which most don’t want to.

Broke: Getting Defiant Magic Lysithea to low HP for higher spell damage.

Woke: Getting Defiant Magic Lysithea to low HP for 2 more tiles of Warp range.

I've never done this before, but it totally seems like something an "LTC with NG+" player would try to pull.

[LoneRecon400]

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

 How about this, then - run Bernie in Paladin if the damage difference affects which one-shots she could achieve on a particular map, and Bow Knight otherwise? If you've Vengeance, Encloser, and the ranks for one class, then you've almost certainly got the ranks for the other class.

Thing is, Vengence is so overkill you don't need Lancefaire at all to ohko with it. Like a base Bow Knight Bernadetta is capable of reaching the 113 Atk benchmark to one shot endgame Heroes in Silver Snow without stat boosters.

There's a reason why Holy Knight Bernadetta works.

Edited April 9, 2023 by LoneRecon400

[Dark Holy Elf]

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

Regarding many of your units one-shotting (or one-rounding), I guess it depends on which part of the game we're talking here. It's definitely feasible to get Vengeance Paladin Bernie online by chapter 11 or so. The only comparable-power tools I see you having at that point are other Vengeance users (Cyril, Dedue), Cyril's Point-Blank Volley, and Soulblade on Lysithea and Constance in particular. Maybe Hunter's Volley on Shamir. In most cases, the brave combat arts require hitting A in the specified weapon type, or else mastering an Advanced class. Either of which is gonna take a while. You can do "Darting/Death Blow Wyvern Rider with a Brave Axe", I suppose, but Hit rates become an issue against the wrong targets.

Hmm, playstyle thing here, but I definitely find I tend to easily have the A ranks I really gun for by Chapter 11 (despite my preference for spreading tutoring between around ~9 units), and certainly Frozen Lance is going to one-shot during this part of the game too, so that adds quite a few more names... and we can go back to our friendly wyvern build here too. A Wyvern Rider with Death Blow and a Silver Axe+ has a minimum of 18+3+5+6+17 = 49 atk before battalions (so 54 to 56 depending on battalion) before considering possible Str+2, stat boosters, anything less than minimum strength, and +might supports. This is already enough to 2HKO every human enemy except armours and bosses (and you could get armours with a hammer-type weapon if you wanted) until after the timeskip, at which point (non-Shamir) Hunter's Volley and Fierce Iron Fist potentially enter the fray as well.

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

I do agree that getting Bernie (or any Vengeance user) to low HP is a limitation of the build. But in 3H, it may just be easier than ever to safely hit low-HP thresholds. This is thanks to Guard adjutants and the Blessing gambit. If all else fails, even the Devil Weapons can "help" toward this end.

It's absolutely doable, of course (though all those methods have downsides), but between the extra trouble, the fact that this unit now can't be left in enemy range, and the need to avoid incidental healing, I definitely don't look on it that fondly once I have so many other tools that do the same job without the fuss. I'm a much bigger fan of Vengeance around Chapter 4-8 or so when the ability to one-round isn't as widespread. That said, I think Bow Knight Bernadetta with Vengeance is still a solid build, because "can one hit kill but also has bow knight threat range and Encloser" is now good enough to justify the extra trouble once again.

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

My point with Hit +20 was not going for it in addition to Death and Darting Blows, but in place of those ones. That said, it might not be fair to imagine "if I'm including Alert Stance on a build, then I need to build around it." You can, I suppose, have a flier who is mostly-optimized for player-phase combat, but also "just happens" to have Alert Stance as an occasional EP lure. My personal preference would be to do them as two different builds (i.e. Player-Phase Wyvern Edelgard, Enemy-Phase Wyvern Petra), but you do you.

I generally think Hit+20 is less potent for this build than either Death or Darting Blow, though of course Darting Blow leaves the picture for someone like Claude or Felix, who have the right stats for the build otherwise. But for women (and Jeritza), It's just much easier to patch up hit in other ways. Siege tomes and bow knights are wonderful things, and even as far as accessories go the Accuracy Ring provides a larger share of one of these skills than does the Speed Ring or the (non-existent) Power Ring.

 

I'm not going to argue against either purely player-phase or enemy-phase focused builds for this, they're very good! To be clear I'm mostly considering this a player phase build, I'm just arguing that Alert Stance(+) is still often a good option on such a build, again mostly for Petra and Ingrid who get there with minimal trouble. At that point it becomes kinda like a breaker; in fact you could even swap it out for a breaker depending on the fight.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

5 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Thing is, Vengence is so overkill you don't need Lancefaire at all to ohko with it. Like a base Bow Knight Bernadetta is capable of reaching the 113 Atk benchmark to one shot endgame Heroes in Silver Snow without stat boosters.

Bow Knight at base has (32 + 2 =) 34 HP, and (17 + 1 =) 18 Strength. Assuming HP +5 and Strength +2, these become 39 and 20, respectively. Vengeance grants 2 extra damage, plus 1 for each point of HP lost. Base Bow Knight Bernie can lose up to 38 HP without dying, meaning a boost of 40 damage from the combat art. Of course, Persecution Complex gives her +5 damage. Let's assume she's running Goneril Valkyries (+8 physical attack), and is using the mightiest available lance (the Lance of Ruin, with 22 Might). Death Blow adds 6 damage, too. And hey, let's even give her a Rally Strength. So, how much power are we talking here?

20 + 22 + 5 + 6 + 40 + 8 + 4 = 105 Attack.

That's a monstrous power level, but not quite the benchmark you mentioned. The extra 6 damage from Paladin (same HP, 1 more Str, Lancefaire) brings us closer, but still doesn't cross it. Did I miss something in my calculations, perhaps?

Of course, this is all just a thought experiment. In reality, a Bernie who certifies in Paladin at level 20 will have accrued around 20 more levels, and plenty of Strength and HP levels-up, by the time Endgame comes. Still, it's an interesting exercise, in case I ever get to play a 0% growths mod of the game.

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Hmm, playstyle thing here, but I definitely find I tend to easily have the A ranks I really gun for by Chapter 11 (despite my preference for spreading tutoring between around ~9 units), and certainly Frozen Lance is going to one-shot during this part of the game too, so that adds quite a few more names..

May just be a playstyle thing. I can't recall getting anyone to A-rank anything pre-skip on NG Maddening. ...Maybe Claude with Bows, since he doesn't really care to invest in anything else as a Barbarossa.

Looking at Frozen Lance on a bases Mage -> Paladin Lorenz, he'll have 10 Magic and (14 + 2 =) 16 Dex. Throwing on Mag +2 and Dex +4 brings us to 12 and 20, respectively. Let's give him the Lance of Ruin (22 Mt) and a +8 Magic battalion (Nuvelle Attendants, I think it was?). His personal ability means 2 more damage, too. Lancefaire gives 5 damage, and let's say he's holding a Magic Staff for 3 more. Of couse, Fiendish Blow is 6 damage. Getting back to Frozen Lance, it adds 3 + Dex x 0.3 damage, or in this case, 9. So it looks like:

12 + 22 + 9 + 8 + 2 + 6 + 5 + 3 = 67 Attack.

That's... okay, yeah, that's probably one-shotting quite a few enemies. I was originally thinking it would only really do so with the Ridersbane. And this is ignoring that anyone in this build will realistically have higher Magic by this point.

...And now I'm just remembering that, ess than a year ago, I was defending the honor of Frozen Lance Lorenz as "totally being able to get one-shots in chapter 13". Not sure why I was doubting him (and Marianne, and Hubert) just now. Huh.

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I generally think Hit+20 is less potent for this build than either Death or Darting Blow, though of course Darting Blow leaves the picture for someone like Claude or Felix, who have the right stats for the build otherwise. But for women (and Jeritza), It's just much easier to patch up hit in other ways. Siege tomes and bow knights are wonderful things, and even as far as accessories go the Accuracy Ring provides a larger share of one of these skills than does the Speed Ring or the (non-existent) Power Ring.

To the Speed Ring's credit, it's acting on both phases. If we're comparing the Speed Ring to Darting Blow, then we should compare the Accuracy Ring to Uncanny Blow. In each case, the skill is thrice as effective as the equippable, but only when initiating combat.

In this light, I'd argue that Hit +20 actually looks better, not worse. Speed +2 is doing the same thing as the Speed Ring, while Hit +20 has double the effect of the Accuracy Ring. Looked at another way, Speed +2 does one-third of Darting Blow, while Hit +20 does two-thirds of Uncanny Blow.

Anyway, broadly agree that Death and Darting Blows are excellent on physical attackers with solid speed who initiate combat. I'm just leery of them in cases where you're Waiting (for Alert Stance) a good chunk of the time. The exact PP:EP ratio where it's better to forgo the Blow skills is subjective, of course, but I'm probably not using them if it's 50:50 or lower.

[Dark Holy Elf]

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

Looking at Frozen Lance on a bases Mage -> Paladin Lorenz, he'll have 10 Magic and (14 + 2 😃 16 Dex. Throwing on Mag +2 and Dex +4 brings us to 12 and 20, respectively. Let's give him the Lance of Ruin (22 Mt) and a +8 Magic battalion (Nuvelle Attendants, I think it was?). His personal ability means 2 more damage, too. Lancefaire gives 5 damage, and let's say he's holding a Magic Staff for 3 more. Of couse, Fiendish Blow is 6 damage. Getting back to Frozen Lance, it adds 3 + Dex x 0.3 damage, or in this case, 9. So it looks like:

12 + 22 + 9 + 8 + 2 + 6 + 5 + 3 = 67 Attack.

That's... okay, yeah, that's probably one-shotting quite a few enemies. I was originally thinking it would only really do so with the Ridersbane. And this is ignoring that anyone in this build will realistically have higher Magic by this point.

...And now I'm just remembering that, ess than a year ago, I was defending the honor of Frozen Lance Lorenz as "totally being able to get one-shots in chapter 13". Not sure why I was doubting him (and Marianne, and Hubert) just now. Huh.

Yeah, even Lorenz without Warlock certification or a pocket Ferdinand averages nearly 16 magic at this point (assuming Monk->Mage, his average growth is a bit over 46% and 7+19*.46 = 15.74), so that's an extra 6 points, or more realistically lets him free up the Lance of Ruin for someone else. 

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

To the Speed Ring's credit, it's acting on both phases. If we're comparing the Speed Ring to Darting Blow, then we should compare the Accuracy Ring to Uncanny Blow. In each case, the skill is thrice as effective as the equippable, but only when initiating combat.

It's true, Speed Ring and Speed+2 do help for enemy phase unlike Darting Blow, but if you care about enemy phase offence enough for this to be a significant worry than it should be easy to see the value of Alert Stance here.

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

Anyway, broadly agree that Death and Darting Blows are excellent on physical attackers with solid speed who initiate combat. I'm just leery of them in cases where you're Waiting (for Alert Stance) a good chunk of the time. The exact PP:EP ratio where it's better to forgo the Blow skills is subjective, of course, but I'm probably not using them if it's 50:50 or lower.

Hm, the ratio I start using Death Blow is much lower than that. I use Death(/Fiendish) Blow on virtually everyone if I'm feeling "optimal". It just takes 33% of their combat taking place on player phase for it to equal Str+2 (well, arguably a bit more, because Str+2 helps with AS in some situations), and even lower there's a case to just use both Str+2 and Death Blow. Another thing helping Death Blow specifically is that player phase actions are more likely to have multiplers, with the exception of Wrath builds, since you double more (if you have Darting Blow), and several effects (braves, gauntlets, Swift Strikes, and both Volleys) allow extra multipliers only on player phase, all of which Death Blow amplifies, and all of which are popular on units who can't get Darting Blow. I also tend to just plain value player phase actions more, even more than numbers might suggest, though I'd have to disentangle how much of that is purely psychological.

But for what it's worth I was thinking of builds which put more player phase emphasis than 50:50.

[LoneRecon400]

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

20 + 22 + 5 + 6 + 40 + 8 + 4 = 105 Attack.

Did I miss something in my calculations, perhaps?

You're missing out on King of Beast Steak, which adds +3 HP for every time you cook it. Cooking that 4 times adds effectively +12 Atk, meaning you don't even need Rally Strength to reach the 113 benchmark.

In short, Vengence stonk

Edited April 10, 2023 by LoneRecon400

[Whisky]

Falcon Knight is a good option for Bernadetta too! It gives her Lancefaire (with 1 less Atk than Paladin) and flight for maximum mobility. One thing the grounded classes have over Falcon is being able to use a Guard Adjutant to make it easy to get to 1 HP without dying, but there are other ways to do that with Falcon too. Bernadetta is a really versatile unit. She can even be a Rescue support unit as a magic class, Dark Flier if you have the DLC (which I don’t).

[asm335]

GigaChad Jeritza as a Wyvern Lord equipped with Sword Prowess, Battalion Desperation, Battalion Wrath, Darting Blow, Vantage and Empire Elite Wyvern Co. as his battalion. Mercedes acting as his adjutant.

Edited April 12, 2023 by asm335

[Bylift]

One of my favorite builds:

Brawler with:

- Gauntlet lv. 5

- Brawl Avo +20

- Death Blow

- Tomebreaker or Quick Riposte

- Str +2/Fistfaire

Killer Knuckles+

Add a battalion with +15 or +20 avoid and youve got a really dodgy unit that doesn't need alert stance and can EP/PP pretty comfortably. Warmaster works great too with that +20 crit and +5str class bonus, but I prefer Brawler for FIF and Thief type movement (uninhibited through bushes; nice on a lot of maps).

 

[vercio]

My great accomplishment on this Three Houses Golden Deer run is a Bow Knight Felix with Bow Crit+10, Bow lv. 5, Death Blow, Vantage and Close Counter. This paired with a Killer Bow+, a Critical Ring plus Felix's personal skill and crest make him a deadly threat that can destroy units on both player and enemy phase regardless of range.