Cysx

Brigand doesn't have range +1, but it does has a +2 str mod. That's also why people don't mind spending time in it. Beyond that, I'm not going to tell you how you should play the game(or at least not that directly, I like to hide that I'm actually a douche). It's more when it comes to a general discussion about how things work, that I couldn't really give you that it's cool to skip Deathblow. It's one of the best skills in the game for a very reasonable amount of investment, I mean it when I say it's pretty much universally expected for physical units to go for it. Does that make the earlygame a bit dull, arguably, yeah. Since people can use any weapon they want still, it's usually fine, though. Going back to your table, Ignatz does also have: +1 base strength if he went through brigand A Raphael damage support for +3 Hilda's passive to take advantage of, since he has flexible range; obviously that's if she's around Technically, access to the Failnaught on routes where it's available. So he can get by. It's just that the next two chapters get rough... and that not everyone is Ignatz. Honestly, I wish I could demonstrate but I kinda can't. In my head, if you have precisely a 1/2 chance for something to happen, on average it will happen half of the time, and in that case, half of 5 is 2.5. Maybe you took 3 as the center value as a result of it being precisely the middle between 1 and 5... but there's also 0 to consider? Idk. It's not impossible to have near perfect hit rates and it's 2 rn, so it doesn't always have to be a problem really... but yeah this would take a ton of work for sure. I mean, being a critic is the easier route, that's no secret. You put in the work and there's no taking that away, and yes, I'd definitely say those are valuable resources. Nope. That's a common question since the in-game description is unclear, but it doesn't. ------ Edits ------ But again, why would you want S+ rank if you don't want Death blow? Also, do you really make such a difference between Deathblow HV Ignatz, which you don't care much for, and Deathblow-less PBV Leonie, which you're defending? I just don't get your reasoning on that. But yes, as you said, Leonie's primary role is killing with PBV, so Deathblow solidifying that makes it an acceptable detour in general; you're also on a class with bowfaire, many people put her on a wyvern instead to get flight, which has a bit less damage and makes going through brigand a more... natural part of her growth. Either way, obviously one'd need to math it out(which is not my way of asking you to do it, please don't bother), but Im all but convinced that early PBV doesn't beat what Deathblow brings. For what it's worth. Finally, it's... it's not really a matter of preference(sorry, this is going to sound patronizing), I mean as I said, absolutely play however you like and screw me if I ever tell you not to. But the ability to kill more, it isn't advantageous in a subjective way; if one unit can kill more than another, and there's no other difference... the first one is better. This is true in easy FE games, but even more so in a context where not killing can easily mean dying. As for boosters, from my understanding we typically ignore them because it can't be assumed that any given unit will get them(outside of cases like Conquest!Xander or early FE5 Leif) and it's a genuine advantage not to need them in the first place; regardless of that, they do exist. If I'm not mistaken, people primarily fix the speed of a lot of characters so they remain competitive, and focus on maxing out the strength of one or two key units to take care of problematic enemies(such as endgame bosses), rather than spread them around. But full disclosure, I wouldn't know, I don't use them.

I honestly recalled all foot units being slowed down a bit by the swamp(and mounted ones a lot). A'ight, I yield.

I really don't get why you do that. Not only are you acting like he didn't provide proof when he very much did, but like, "bub"? Come on. Okay, stop me but (69 + 72) /2 = 70.5 +Sword prof = 90 +Keen intuition = 120 -Battalion = 110 Plus, getting three characters to act as support may not be a possibility. It's pretty much a given that people will have Claude as a flier so that's one, but yeah. ... not that this matters all that much. Reliability is nice, but only in an iron man DP-less run would her missing be that big a deal. And it's not like she's at <50 hit. That was dumb of me to even bring up.

Thanks for the kind words! But frankly I think there's ample merit to both stances on this one, especially in a context where indeed, nothing stops you from just giving everyone strength/magic boosters, and indeed, you'll want S rank in your weapon. They also have limited enemy phase potential of course. Here's a list of the advantages the way I see it: - Killer weaponry durability is entirely sustained by money from very early on - There's an ample amount of 15 crit battalions; similarly, crit rings are in very low demand - Those builds don't really have weaknesses beyond very high def enemies, which are rarely dangerous or difficult to take down; they tend to deal with other generics fine with or without crits until lategame where they should have all of their tools - They shine brighter than any other when it comes to dealing with demonic beasts(since most have low luck and no proficiency, leading to easy 90+ displayed rates), and are also competent boss killers - They do not struggle with the final chapters the way many other builds do, since their ideal damage is consistently overkill - Just like in Echoes, you can abuse divine pulse to rig crits if needed, which gives them a reliability push as you have ample charges and there are few ways to use those offensively. Posting numbers for the sake of it. This is at level 30, enemies have around 25 crit avo at that point on Maddening. No S rank, it's possible but let's just not. Sniper: ~25 crit from (Dex+Lck)/2, + 35 from Killer+, + 5 from crit ring, +15 from battalion, +10 from HV = 90. 65 displayed, aka 88% chance. Grappler: ~20 crit from(Dex+Lck)/2, + 30 from Killer +, +5 from crit ring, +15 from battalion, +10 from FiF = 80. 55 displayed, aka 91% chance. Warmaster. ~20 crit from (Dex+Lck)/2, +30 from Killer+, +5 from crit ring, +15 from battalion, + Crit +20 = 90. 65 displayed, aka 88% chance. So yeah, them's the breaks. In practice, they're regular damage builds unless facing beasts or crit rigging for bosses, until the lategame where they've hopefully acquired their S rank and need to rely on crits to kill. As said, the good thing is that they're straightforward, and deal with problematic things well. But they do walk the reliability line a bit, and all of these classes are on foot as well. ------- Just as a disclaimer, haarhaarhaar did not repeat what I wrote, if anything it's the opposite(happened unwillingly, though) since everything under this is an edit. Wait, no, my argument never was that deathblow is indispensable, I was asking for a good reason to skip it. Though to be frank, guaranteeing kills on roughly half the maps, that doesn't sound awful, but then again, ch 20 has a lot of low def enemies. That's fair, though this is easy to calculate. It takes 50 rounds of combat to master Brigand, and Archer gets +2 bow exp per fight, so that amounts to a clean 100 Wexp loss. Added to the 180 *1.5(because boon) from earlier, that's 370 bow Wexp. Which isn't nothing, but still not that significant. Also, crit builds usually don't need S+ rank in the first place, as they deal enough damage already. Well, if they have Deathblow, anyway, but foregoing a +6 damage boost for most of the game in order to get a +5 one at the end... that just doesn't make much sense. Which I wish I brought up earlier. I agree, believe it or not. But wait, what was that about Deathblow getting in the way of getting S rank, then? Aaaaasutora And now I regret not looking lower earlier, because that's way more comprehensive than my walls of text... even though GD 22 isn't the kindest playground and she could easily have swordfaire² I mean she's goddamn Catherine too Out of curiosity, on what occasion did you screencap all of that? Just for research?

Yeah, that's part of the general reason(though I won't pretend that I had the math in my head or anything, it very much was an estimation); ultimately if Ignatz is left with only his P.skill as an advantage and has to play catchup too hard on death blow, Ashe starts to dominate. Probably best not to make this about Ignatz too much, but I do consider it top 10 in the game myself. Or I did before the dlc characters anyway, I'd have to look at it again. It's extremely useful in the earlygame, and even later on where some builds have enough accuracy, most would certainly appreciate it and for bow using classes specifically, there are some pretty obvious advantages(there's even room for making use of +40 hit). This also goes for brave axe wyvern builds, but then again, yeah, neutral axes/lances, and weak flight, that's too much work to overcome. I guess the question is if Ashe is better on a wyvern or as a sniper. I think I've made it clear that it's sniper afaic, but that's definitely debatable. Well the bigger thing imo is, a few dex points do not a build make. His advantage is completely negligible compared to what others have.

Yeah, that's fair, Imma edit that.

That's an interesting combination... I think I'd still rather just go for FiF, though it's admittedly not hard to justify spending some time in cavalier for Dedue. Man, it's unfortunate that we still don't seem to see eye to eye on that... Yup. That's what it does. I wasn't saying those two classes were "middling" in that sense, I am a big advocate for Grappler/Sniper over WM/BK on any character that cannot double reliably after all; what I meant is that they aren't the greatest. Swordmaster is unfortunately a lower movement class specializing in one of the more limited weapon types in the game. It's true that statistically it isn't bad per se, but yeah, let's just say that if mastering made Astra useable on every class, there's be limited reason to stay in SM. Assassin on the other hand absolutely is better, with 6 move ignoring most terrain +shade for survivability, but any Astra build couldn't ultimately take advantage of those. It's also ultimately hurt by also specializing in a low damage weapon, combined with having no Str mod or for what it's worth, growth. I also need to rephrase about Death blow; I wasn't saying that it was enough to kill everything, just going against your idea that characters might not have it, because there's almost no reason for them not to. It's the most valuable thing they can get from intermediate, especially if they're male, and brigand is a good class to be in. It also doesn't go against crit builds at all since intermediate classes provide next to nothing in that regard beyond +10% Dex growth from archer. At best it competes with hit +20 to hit reliably from farther. To be clear, in a theoretical context where those characters would need to deal 4 times their damage to start ORKOing, dex would look a bit better, it's true. But even they aren't that weak, and 3H brings up anyone with class bases and all the direct stat boosts it provides. You did forget str +2 and bowfaire in that table. For better or for worse, that's not how the game is laid down for us. S to S+ is 1080 Wexp, E to D+ is 180, boons don't come close to compensating for such a difference. Getting S rank and Death blow isn't unreasonable at all either(it typically means not having it for a month, at worse two), and even if it was, I'd definitely argue that going for +10 crit is the wrong choice. Nnot taking into account that you'd have Death blow for a good 10 more chapters, 10 isn't the difference between completely reliable and dangerously luck based, not on HV anyway. 60 crit(so 84% with the brave effect) falls into luck based, 70(91% as you said) into fairly reliable, 80(96%) basically into completely reliable, though you'd probably want a bit more still. Well uh, yeah. I thought that's what you were doing yourself to be honest, since as far as class progression goes, going through archer as opposed to brigand amount to +1 dex in 10 levels and all. Not trying to be a stick in the mud btw. I mean it, I do appreciate the analysis. I just... disagree with your conclusions. Also, I run crit builds on these characters too, I can attest that they work, many others can as well. So I'm generally on your side of the bigger argument. ... well, one of the two bigger arguments, in any case, because when it comes to the value of Dex... yeah.

Ashe is probably not keeping HP+5 equipped for the whole game though, and a +2 skill isn't enough to compensate for the difference in their P.skills and the fact that Ignatz has an authority boon, imo. As for a repo, well the better it is, the worst the +2 skill, so it evens out to an extent. Admittedly, on Annette route there is less of a use for rally speed, though. But yeah, I'd say Ignatz probably becomes worse if recruited post ch 7. Around that time. That's fair, even Ignatz isn't a high priority recruit exactly. Basically it's just a way to demonstrate that they are very much not equals. Frankly on the bench meter, Ignatz is probably only 3rd of his house(behind Raph and arguably Lorenz), while Ashe is probably first of his.

Okay, on principle I like where your head's at. Crit builds can be made quite reliable in 3H(though I'm not going to lie to you, I think that's generally well known), and it's pretty fun. However, I have a few things to point out. - It's rare to have trouble killing without crits if you quad. The issue is that usually, you can't, or you die on counter, or it requires a ton of stat boosters. Also One-two punch doesn't autoquad(man, can you imagine?). What it does is make gauntlets perform a followup at +8 damage instead of a brave at +0. - The problem with Astra crits is that they compensate more than anything; it's like with your multiple hits example for rogues in mmos; it's nice, but 5 crits on 10 * 1000 damage is the exact same as 1 crit on 2 * 5000(assuming you don't get separate bonuses for critting, which granted, you often do... but that's not a thing in Fire Emblem, either way). Also Astra damage is rounded down for each hit, which doesn't help. The main issue really is that one or two crits do not guarantee a kill with Astra the way they would with everything else, which is what really matters at the end of the day. And assuming you need at least three to kill(which is far from impossible, after all that'd only result ~3.3 * damage, which isn't exactly crazy), suddenly what your Dex contributes to actually killing is lower than even for brave attacks. As for Lethality, the issue is that we're talking about mastering two middling classes to perform a combo that still doesn't give that good a chance at killing(and remember, if you don't kill at 1 range, you're likely in considerable danger). It could be a fun build, I'll give you that, but yeah. And for anything else, there's the issue of lethality actually not being needed to kill in the first place. I have to say, I don't know if lethality can trigger on 0 damage hits either. - Death blow is actually assumed on every physical unit basically. For physical units that aren't trying to maximize speed, there's hardly a better way to spend most of your intermediate tier time. Also, Bernadetta has Vengeance, she doesn't need crit builds to kill. - And the big one; while yes, Dex is made better by multiple hit attacks... well so is strength(or mag in some rare cases, or just mt in general). The reason crit is relevant regardless is as a result of being easy to raise in many cases(no thanks to Dex and Lck), and not having access to enough strength to compensate for typically lower base damage(which itself exists to limit multi-hit attacks); but if you actually have the choice, it's a bit of a no brainer. The only situation where this might be untrue is for Astra since it's the only one that actually nerfs strength... Outside of that, it's considerably more direct to buff a character's attack by 5 to 10 points to reach 2HKO thresholds, rather than stack dozens of points of dex and lck to raise crit chance.

I'm inclined to disagree. Unless recruited past the point where getting Death blow is reasonable(which shouldn't really happen, he's universally an easy recruit), I'd say Ignatz is still better even on Blue Lions. Assuming you're going for Sniper on both, in any case. Worth noting, that doesn't work on combat arts.

There's not much to say really. It has decent mt and having the option to hit farther if nothing's in reach of your HV is better than to do nothing, even if you miss; it's not like there's any real competition for one of Ashe's combat art slots, either, unlike with Bernie. And mages may eventually get range, but they sure don't get HV. It also has baiting utility, especially in ch 5. Although maybe people have figured a better way now, idk. As said it'd be inaccurate to say that I like it a lot. It just used to be brought up all the time during the early days of 3H, when people would try to figure out which of the "three archers" was the best. Nowadays even in a discussion about Ashe specifically we seem to gloss over it. It's interesting if nothing else.

Ashe is extremely straightforward to build towards HV Sniper(which is likely his strongest build on maddening), I'll give him that. And while the above is true, when you introduce brave effects alongside crit builds, suddenly that 70% chance becomes a 91% chance to get at least one crit. Also Deadeye is decent utility(can't believe I'm defending it now when I used to think it was very overrated, my how the tables have turned). Until then it's mostly chip town for him, though, and people are right; Dex is a minor stat in 3H. It's unusual for FE(well, it rarely is a top end stat, but typically it's at least useful), but that's just the way things are this time. Basically it's tough to think of one thing Ashe does that Ignatz doesn't do better. He has a marginally easier road to Death Blow, and Deadeye..., that's pretty much all I can think of. And on the other hand, Ignatz gets a lot of useful tools, between better accuracy, better utility combat arts, his authority proficiency, and rally speed; they just didn't give enough to Ashe, even his personal skill could be neat if the economy wasn't so thoroughly broken in 3H. I'd argue 300 per chest isn't actually that cheap(especially since those do have a tendency to have nothing interesting in them), but who cares when you have almost infinite money the moment the shop with the lures is unlocked?

Now you're just jumping to the extreme opposite, though. Bringing up 0% growths makes sense when it strictly involves stat thresholds, as opposed to crutches like vengeance and luna(say what you will about it, but no, there's no guarantee that people will use Lysithea, and he does have 110 m.avo from a distance), which are not necessarily representative of what people will have. And the logistics of bringing him down in one turn with a warper that cannot be Lysithea, while not insurmountable, aren't simplistic. Furthermore, all four bosses are easy in a regular playthrough with preparation. SS Rhea would be a problem, if she wasn't right in front of the player. CF Rhea could be tough but she's on Raging Storm route. Meanwhile AM Edelgard is on double dancing battalion route. Though with no planning, Nemesis is among the easiest for sure, since you can lower his stats, he only has one lifebar and he moves from his defense tile.

Thanks! It seems to follow the same general principle as Palla Emblem's hard mode one. Which makes sense really. I don't think it's unfair to say AM has a harder final than VW(CF from my understanding is much more debatable), it's the fact that you have more tools for most other shared timeskip chapters that changes things a bit imo(to be fair that's not the full story, as immortal corps is definitely a huge deal as well). Also both unique AM chapters are almost asking to be trivialized, with the boss you have to kill already in range a couple turns in, even if you don't warp/dance/stride.

Yeah you know what, that's totally fair. Especially since she has good range on it by that point. I retract what I said, rescue is nice. Definitely a bunch more than that from my experience. Assuming she gets stride on turn 1 and is a good dance candidate here and there(which thanks to Canto, she often is), she can feasibly kill things almost every turn, and maps on maddening are rarely <6 turn clears normally. ...then again, warpskip I suppose. But that hurts all three of these builds really. Its definitely not outrageous, it's more of a principle thing; at heart, dlc is often pay2win content, but it's just an absolute shame to ignore entire characters, and arguably, story paralogues tied to them because of that. However, as grinding in general is not something that can be assumed, dlc grinding crosses two lines, and thus, yeah. Ironically, the fact that the rewards are good is part of the problem; the dlc stat boosters are just handed to you and I definitely consider them best left unused as well, pretty sure I'm not alone on that. To be fair, I have never even seen that chapter, and the internet isn't being helpful on this one. Is it interesting beyond its rewards, or just a reused map the same as every other quest I can think of is? Honestly, next maddening playthrough I do(whenever that happens because, gosh does 3H take time, especially the way I play it), I'm probably doing exactly that. Sounds fun and very unique.

Well we usually get A in weapons around chapter 12, A authority by ch 14 on someone isn't that crazy. And Seteth does join less than 500 Wexp from it if you don't plan on using him. Early Opera Co is nice, but yeah, that just means they're on even ground for two chapters out of seven or eight. Ah, I did recall that they got other good things, but not what they were. Though to be fair the last three aren't exclusive. Yeah, the unit using it will basically not fight. And you don't want it on your dancer because the point is to refresh them too, so you can dance key units repeatedly. It's a bit of setup admittedly(then again, so are most things in 3H). I think I laid down a theoretical 1 turn clear of 22 by abusing it, a while back(can't find an AM ltc on youtube atm though, not maddening anyway), but sitting on it for a minute should allow you to easily trivialize the second part either way, not giving the siege mages a chance to pop.

I get the feeling that people don't take advantage of the fact that BL gets an early dancing battalion (and thus two for the final chapter). Never hear anyone speaking of BL so much as mention it.

Agreed. It's a very nice change of pace as far as I'm concerned. Okay, so about the levels, I still land on the same numbers, and so does the fe3H.com average calculator. I don't mean to be offensive by saying that but, do you by any chance count 1 -> 28 as 28 levels, when it's 27? Honestly not too sure why there's this difference otherwise... Plus we're getting the same numbers for Constance. There's probably not much of a point to keep nitpicking anyway(probably shouldn't even have in the first place). It gives a good idea. Also I get the logic, but I assume lv 40 for ch 22 because it's clean before anything else. Going back far enough, that goes without saying but the average level at ch 1 would be -2. Just from experience, 30 at 16 lines up for me. So about the accuracy. I'll just skip ch 18 because the level thing isnt sorted out, and the rest I've addressed above or agree with ch 20, Constance may quad the monsters but she gets OHKOed as far as I can tell, so potentially not worth it unless the monster is stunned. And Ordelia isn't enough for 3/4 range Mercedes, unless she has hit +20. Which she might. But OHKOing is life, tho. And the worst attack amounts to the same in ch16(assuming lv 30), largely comparable in 18 because she gets the boss, 20 is bad for all three and Marianne gets Petra, and she's finally beat in ch 22 but can still take down some key targets thanks to Assal. The only thing that has meaningfully better combat for most of those builds' existence is Annete&Hit+20 Mercedes(which is admittedly pretty impressive and something I hadn't properly considered when making the "even at their peak" statement), and even still Marianne has the mobility and canto. Rescue is nice for Constance, but she doesn't have the movement to easily get back in the game after using it, so it's a commitment. Not a bad one, but having to choose neuters it imo. And heal, yeah admittedly I don't value that to an immense amount post timeskip. As for bolting, as you said it's one use. You can equip it at the beginning of your turn to help with accuracy, true, but since you don't get to act with it equipped like dancers do, you either have to pick between holding off on her attacking(which is bad because low reach units usually want to attack among the first) and not taking advantage of it. Also worth noting is that Constance only supports 8 characters, two of which are route exclusive(I guess that matters for accuracy fixing, too. I just now looked it up). ... and chip is for the weak! 'cept against monsters because you usually don't have a choice. Just you wait until I figure out how to stick a third lancefaire on her. ... that's not the last few chapters. With lancefaire² and LoR in Shambalabala, at lv 39, she has 92 atk: She OHKOs: 3 Dark bishops(the other 4 have a +4 res battalion) 7 Swordmasters 3 Heroes 2 Snipers 2 Paladins 4 Grapplers(might want the accuracy ring) 1 Holy Knight(with Assal) 1 Dark Knight(same) 1 Bow Knight 1 Wyvern lord with the Luin(Assal works too, but Luin allows an accuracy ring or Macuil, which pushes her accuracy to 83 as opposed to 68( 94.3 TH vs 79.8) Chillon(GK boss, with Assal) She OHKOes the 7 warriors but will likely have sub-optimal accuracy(she still does with an accuracy ring worth noting, pushing her at 72 hit, 84.2 TH. The Luin isn't strong enough. If she goes Macuil she misses out on the 3 battalion-less dark bishop, but gets 93.3 TH) And doesn't OHKOs: The aforementioned 4 Dark bishops 1 Falcon Knight 3 Miracle Bishops 3 Mortal Savants 2 Warmasters 3 Titanus 4 bosses including Thales. So assuming we give up on the three Dark bishops without battalions to get the warriors, she OHKOs 30 enemies out of 52 on the penultimate map. Considering she isn't aiming to solo here, that there are several high res/avo targets, and that this is a map that heavily rewards mobility, she doesn't tail off hard, if at all. That's assuming lancefaire 2 obviously. But I did it grindless without boatloads of favoritism so it's at the very least not unreasonably impossible. Also I need to be looking into that sauna thing. I know, I know, I just do that teenager gamefaqs guide thing of starting to include jokes whenever I write for too long...(^_^') As for the battalions, I don't like to consider Nuvelle attendants the same way I don't Essar. One is obtained through a dlc mission equating to grinding and the other through a payed online subscription. Beyond those, the other two are B rank, there's no way even Constance is there by ch 8. Honestly, even C might be problematic if you didn't instruct it a bunch. The question about Mystic blow is if Constance wants to drop her magic and train into something she doesn't otherwise need to make use of it. Considering it won't OHKO all the time, that's debatable I guess. Heck, technically she could work a bit harder and go archer to learn hit+20, I mean, why the heck not.

Okay, so while I won't address the first half of your post, that's as a result of us basically being in agreement and me having nothing meaningful to add. That's probably fairly obvious, thought I might as well point it out. To be fair this is a game with a plentiful rewind mechanic, but 75x2 in 2 RN... that's a 76% chance to hit both, which is not terrible but ~1/4 not to kill is still a bit high for me. Boy do I have a wall of text for you! ... nah jk, we have enough on our plate as it is. Disclaimer two, before I start being a dip': I do appreciate that you took the time to do this, especially as someones who does the same, sometimes. ... no like, seriously. Respect and appreciation. I'm more of an advocate of Paladin Marianne to be honest. That's largely as a result of Nuvelle not existing back then, but even now, I value the ability to both get mov +1 and later on fai... shoot I almost did it again. Also while Nuvelle fliers is broken neat, it doesn't give that much accuracy, which makes using the lance of ruin more difficult. Also it has a tinsy 5% dex growth and that's just so cute! Rather, this and the ability to use +8 mag battalions compensate and overcome Falcon Knight's +2 skl. Regardless, even in your build there's limited reason not to put her in Paladin from 20 to 30, and honestly mostly just mage from 10 -> 20 You can go cavalier once you have fiendish blow if you don't want to spread your tutoring thin and would like to guarantee pala at 20. It's worse than peg, granted, but it happens at a relatively easy part of the game. Now that the meta has shifted so hard into abusing guard adjutants with melee units, and with Annette being almost always worth deploying even untrained, I don't think this is really happening. Although Annette could have a ranged weapon to provide a bonus to Mercedes as often as possible, for sure. You've given Marianne free relic access though, and while I frankly don't think that's quite as unlikely... sure, let's go with that. However, I'm not quite willing to just assume Mercedes having hit +20 is a reasonable way to go about it(which I I'm guessing you did since you put archer on her class path). You said it yourself, you grinded a lot to get that on Hanneman. None of the other two builds require that kind of attention, so if they're to be put on even grounding, Mercedes should really be Monk > Mage > Sniper, and aim for Edmund or Macuil. Okay, so ch 16! I don't... get your damage increases from 16 to... ... Ooooh you jumped to 18... so we're looking at their lv 34 averages here, right? That matches with your numbers. ch 20 thus! ch 22! Not spoilered, cuz it's short! - Let's not discuss S+. You included it anyway(you could have for the other two to be frank, by that point it's possible), so thanks for that. - This is definitely the part where FL!Marianne is glad the game is ending. I mean everyone is, but yeah, she's at her limit here. Not much to add. She still has her mobility(particularly for FK because swamps), but she cannot keep up with them in terms of kills, especially if they have faires. That's just a fact. -------------- Well that's where you'd be wrong, because most of these are sword users, meaning she can take advantage of swordbreaker as said above. For instance, against a ch 22 swordmaster, with Ordelia, she's at 25 + 65 + 5 + 15 + 20 + 20 = 150 vs 38 + 20 = 58 = 92 accuracy, which is 98.8 true hit. Macuil Constance on the other hand is at 17 + 80 + 10 + 30 = 137 = 79 accuracy x2, 91.39 true hit aka 83.5 chance to hit twice. We're talking ~1/100 chance of not killing vs ~1/6. And at 2 range, Mercedes can do fine with Ordelia(27 + 75 + 15 + 15 + 20 = 153) , but not at 3, where she's at 65 displayed. Both can switch to an accuracy ring and still get the kill, which is why I never said Constance was screwed in the above, but they do need accuracy fixing that Marianne doesn't(warriors and wyverns aside, fortunately for her they aren't very common), and if Mercedes wants to be universally good at 3 range, she needs Edmund, which makes her the same as Constance the whole way through(assuming no Annette) in terms of damage output. So it does matter. In passing, you mentioning a lucky crit made me recall that Marianne does get the option to try her luck with a killer/scythe of Sariel while the other two cannot really, but that ain't worth much since she dies on counter. It's a quirk. I think in your ending analysis in general(as well as in the above, but, there's only so much math we can deal with at one time), you're giving way too little place to the movement difference. While admittedly, some of it is often used to get her out of danger through canto(then again, Constance wishes she could do that), this is a flexibility Marianne gets that neither of the other two have an answer for. She also has a strength in riding, meaning move +1 is reasonably doable. I don't think I should really have to say a lot here, we all know how good movement is. Constance is strong but has 7 range to work with, while Mercedes has to pick between accuracy and damage for her battalions, limiting her. And beyond the time it takes for these builds to exist, they require a lot more effort and babying while Marianne's just doesn't, she kills for most of the game almost immediately and that's that, in ways she's the Jeigan here, and we both know how that conversation ends. Let's discuss Mystic blow hurray! - It's not just the Vajra Mushti though, is it? No gauntlets are useable for mages afaik. - Fiendish blow is indeed a stretch. Which is also true for Constance yet you didn't mention it you are biased I got you I won. - Also wow wow wow please list the stats up, I have no idea what battalion you're assuming here. And clearly without fiendish blow this is a struggle. - With fiendish blow and as a... uh... well... fighter I guess...(but then no spells... Commoner could be funny) She could do this, if your battalion choice was reasonable, which I don't know. But if both are at fiendish blow already, Marianne can be a cav or a peg, so they're still very much not on the same level. Now talking early War Cleric - You're assuming peg Marianne. - Otherwise you're right, I've been sleeping on Mystic blow, clearly. With that being said, this is only meaningful until she gets A rank gauntlets, which should not take that excessively long once you've unlocked War Cleric, and the survivability issues I spoke of would still exist with her using Mystic Blow. You pointed it out yourself, but what class is she supposed to take advantage of this as, from Fiendish blow to 20? ... oh wow. I'm done writing. Editing was for typos and a mistake I left in there about Mercedes.

Yeah, I read a guide that said ch 19 while writing that, but apparently it was wrong, and it's 16 on every route. So you're right, for such a late bloomer build it won't really matter, or not for long. Oh, that in particular definitely didn't apply to Mercedes, I mean she can attack from range and all. That might still be a slight problem, but yeah. Anyway, I'm very proactive with this stuff so that might be why. It's no exaggeration that dancing notwithstanding, Marianne killed something on 90% of turns in my playthrough; I don't think there's any way I could pull that off with Constance without her dying. I guess one doesn't have to play the way I do, but the difference between having the option to be aggressive or not, I'd say that's something. Okay, if the question is "with every top end resource in the game is her accuracy fixed", then yes, the answer is yes, yes. There's a ton of question marks here, and it's also worth noting that mastering archer + mage on her before level 20 seems like a stretch if you don't grind. If you did it on Hanneman without grinding, let alone on CF... I have frankly no idea how. As her damage output is actually comparable to that of Constance(because the latter has a considerable mag lead, unless I'm missing something), if you take away fiendish blow and a magic wand from her... she can actually start to fall short a bunch, even before the final stretch where everything goes bonkers. Also Constance's base accuracy is 26 points lower, so she's basically in the same situation as 3 range Mercedes. ... okay, nitpicking aside, I did forget that +40 accuracy battalion, and realistically it wouldn't be in too high demand, so that's completely fair. Also, while assuming she can count on supports on a regular basis would have been dicey before dlc, her having a Constance support(so a siege tome user) also makes a pretty big difference in that regard. You're right, it can work out fine. Wouldn't bet on 4 range, but 3 range is in the clear. For starters, sorry if I'm making you repeat yourself on this subject. She needs D+/C Faith to get into War Monk, but B for Rescue, and she's neutral. I'm not sure the investment is a priority either, especially if she's on her way to A gauntlets still. 3 uses of ward and for 1 range finishing chip... that's not great. I wasn't even thinking she'd have a WM phase without Aura gauntlets, to be honest. She's probably better off in another class until she gets there. I tend to assume S+ rank&faire 2 at that point of the game, so that moves thing around a bunch but yeah, thankfully for Marianne several elites are mounted, although Blaiddyd is still barely out of OHKO reach due to the res +2 tile. Your last parenthesis might be why you think Mercedes is so much stronger than the other two; her endgame magic as a Sniper is ~5 points lower than that. And Marianne's is lower as well if we're being fair. For Constance on the other hand, it's 36 or more. Just in case, this lists stats of a vast majority of enemies in the game: https://imgur.com/a/dSnk6C9 Marianne does struggle a bit in the final chapter. Then again, to quote myself: "between chapter 13 and 20, enemy grapplers get +9 HP +6 Res, so you need +15 damage in 7 chapters to continue ORKOing, aka a bit over +2 damage a chapter. Then from 20 to 22, they get +8 HP +4 Res, so you need +6 a chapter." So yeah, final chapters are not the place to look at to figure out how good any given unit does throughout the game. Which is not to say that they don't matter either.

Ooooh, I see. ... Well DK does raise Mag by 2, but yeah.

It's not necessarily a matter of cost for Mercedes(it could be, but we have basically infinite money), it's more a matter of components, since you cannot buy Arcane crystals until around chapter... 18 I think? Making a second Magic bow + from Steel takes 6. I know I ran into this problem somewhat when going for magic assassin with levin sword, and that consumes way less uses to kill. Anyway yes, admittedly in terms of raw damage potential both of those builds are above, but it's worth noting that it tends to be overkill anyway... and there are still the other problems I mentioned. -30 hit from 3 range on Maddening can quickly hurt and make Mercedes unreliable since she needs to hit both times to kill; doesn't help that her access to +hit skills is limited, and her own dex and lck aren't that great. At lv 40 and without a battalion, she barely passes 130 accuracy on her own in that setup, that's very low for a hunter's volley user. From what I gather, Constance can run into this problem as well to an extent since she's one of the least accurate units in the game(107 base accuracy on the build we're discussing at level 40), and I don't know if you've ran one of these builds before, but canto/shade are godsends and almost mandatory, because even a single enemy will kill you on enemy phase. The fact that she has neither is a problem, so I assume one'd capitalize on gauntlets' high avoid and War Monk's mastery, but until she gets that her flexibility should be incredibly limited. I do get what you're saying but, the above falls under "normal conditions" to me. They also both have much lower mobility of course. Even at their peak, I genuinely don't think they trump FL!Marianne. Wait, how? She'd have 20 Dex vs 25 Res at level 30 DK.

Well basically the way I see it, yes Marianne is a good physic user, but that's not inherently that special and thus valuable(it's *0.3 magic for healing and *0.5 for physic range, right?), while OHKOing throughout most of maddening from very early, that's pretty remarkable. Silence is also somewhat situational. But it's true that most people build her as a healer/dancer, so I can't quite pretend that this is the norm, and indeed, if you don't focus on either combat art, it matters relatively little since it probably won't see much use past the timeskip for many mobility, reliability and/or survivability reasons. As for the relics, Vengeance and Swift strike users typically don't need them outside of boss killing, and you don't need dozens of boss killers, Marianne can merely be the one if you so choose. I'm not sure if you had any other type of build in mind. Blutgang grounder does sound pretty sweet(well, it likely won't take down pegs if it hits them, but wyverns would definitely not like it). But she starts with sword prowess 1(+5 hit)learned, and each level from there only gives +1 hit(until +2 at A), so that's not exactly a huge selling point. The avoid is probably not going to help much either on a magical build. Plus technically, everyone learns grounder, everyone can use the Blutgang, and about a third of the cast have the magic stat to make it work, so eh. The difference with Sniper!Mercedes is that she'll be underwhelming for a veeeeery long time before the build can work, because she has no easy path to hunter's volley; 5 dura/use is also hard to sustain on magic weapons, and her accuracy can be very limited above 2 range, unless she learns hit +20 from another class she doesn't want to spend time in(unlike with magic combat art builds, she draws from magic accuracy, which is lower in most cases including hers). Edit: There's Uncanny blow, but that pushes back the build even further since it's the same tier and you need the certifications for Valkyrie to begin with I don't have much of a horse in this race, but all things considered I don't think WC!Constance compares either. Wouldn't she have considerable survivability issues until you get brawl avoid +20? Similarly, the path to A gauntlets would either not leave her with much to work with, or would take a lot of time. Are you speaking from experience here? I will say though, I'm not starkly against either Marianne or Hubert dropping a tier. I don't think they should, but I wouldn't jump at TC's throat if they did that.

Lances get high mt relics for flexibility and boss killing, and lancefaire is on better classes. As said above Soulblade using res rather than dex is only enough to account for the base difference between Frozen Lance and itself(you need a >3.5 difference to breach that), not the one between swords and lances; plus swordfaire classes tend not to give res while lancefaire ones do give dex, so while early on it compensates since monk and mage boost res more(she won't have soulblade as a monk though), the moment she moves into a faire class that kinda just disappears(as a lv 30 Paladin she has 20.6 Dex, and as a lv 30 Assassin she has 21.8 Res). And while the levin sword is nice to have, more consistent OHKOing with higher movement and canto trumps it, imo. Lances are also just in a better place on the weapon triangle, as they check evasive swordies with swordbreaker. The Blutgang is actually not that special for magic combat arts since it has meh might for a relic; she also doesn't need to specialize in swords to use it, it's E rank. So it depends how much you care to make Beast fang stronger, keeping in mind that swords already get rapier+ for cavalry.

We may have a tough time having a civilized discussion as people if you're just gonna diss 3H and Wargroove in the same breath. ... but seriously, you're kinda being rude. Regardless, that was my point. We are hardcore(which is just one word among others I could have used, I'm not trying to say we're special, just very experienced and dedicated), the panel likely isn't, not when it comes to strategy games at the very least.