Cysx

Uh. So follow up was actually meant to be pretty good then. Well, 40% outside of NG+ isn't that high I guess. In any case, as it is now you spend way more of the game in intermediate + ranks than in the basic ones, so unless they fix it...

Ch 16, only if you cleared his paralogue.

Nice! I agree with a majority of this, although I wish you mentioned gambits as well. A few things I'd add outside of those: D rank pegasus battalions have higher Cha for their rank, really helpful to have reliable gambits early on even though they don't get the best ones Victor private militia is an amazing C rank battalion. It gives +6 Atk, +15 hit, +2 Prt, +4 Rsl, and can actually be obtained at a time where C-rank is relevant, while Holst's chosens is locked to Edelgard's route midway through the timeskip. Vestra also suffers from this, unfortunately, though you do get it a bit earlier at least. Almyra mercs is probably the best E rank, at +5 Atk and with the Fusillade gambit. Characters with a strength in authority are also at a big advantage since you get B rank battalions fairly early all things considered. Those are all the lords, Lysithea, Annette, Hubert, and a bit randomly but it actually helps him quite a bit, Ignatz. Also Seteth has the big advantage of coming with cavalier unlocked and a high authority base, so he can typically be slotted in to make use of A rank dance battalions even if he never got deployed. Edit: Oh, didn't see this was bumped. Yeah, ditto, this deserves more attention for sure.

I'm pretty sure, yes, since characters under level 5 gained the noted value, and they did the same at level 20+. It's not impossible that there's more to it though.

Woops, my bad then. Can't remember that ever happening to me.

It's lost, but fishing with it doesn't give exp anyway, afaik.

Oh I'm not saying it's hard, I'm saying there's an opportunity cost. Here, you focused exclusively on reason and forewent gaining professor levels and giving stat boosts to your troops to get a spell. That being said you're very much right that Dark spikes is really good, and I didn't mean to deny that. However, first off she won't OHKO with it until Fiendish blow anyway, and second you can get it naturally and not much later with zero focus on Lysithea. As a result, if you're getting it there, it's first and foremost to kill the DK, which is asinine. Frankly I just don't get your logic here; her being able to kill the DK in ch4 would mean nothing even if she could do it from base, it's incredibly unimportant. Let's just look at the numbers once and for all. Lysithea needs 580 to get from her D base to B. She gets seven weekends before ch 4, meaning with a dual focus she'll get 24*7 = 168. So 412 left. Then she gets at best 6 weeks of full tutoring if she mvped ch 1. On average, this gives her 6 * 24 * 1.65 = ~238, so since this is an average on a still questionable value, let's say 170 points are left. She gets +6 reason every time she hits an a target in combat, which can be assumed to happen about 30 times within ch 1, 2, the forces auxiliary, and 3. That's +90. So on average she'd have 80 left normally, which can only be gotten with 2-3 seminars or getting lucky. And that's if you fed her specifically every week over other characters; that's not effortless, neither is it free, and there's pretty much nothing optimal about it. Then if you single goal her sure it'll work, but you hurt yourself long term. I'm not convinced people know how to exploit exploring all that well actually, there's a massive amount of variables to consider. And there's no denying the simple act of giving your entire team +1 spd in the first chapters is extremely valuable. As for archers, they want C first and foremost, which doesn't require seminars to be reached in a timely fashion, and you're still sacrificing opportunities to feed them and thus tutoring, meaning in the end it's not a flat gain. Individually it's even a loss, though of course you can't tutor as many people at that point. Additionally if you were trying to recruit someone, you've pretty much pushed them back a month, when early Annette or Mercedes can make a big difference. The only other who wants those seminars is Lorenz, because he's the only character in the game to get Ragnarok at B. But just like Lysithea with Dark spikes, he won't OHKO with it at that point.

You're completely right on Bernadetta, fortunately I took recordings and I just wrote it down incorrectly, it would appear. It is +0. Hilda you're likely correct as well, I forgot that she was an adjutant in ch12, so she probably gained a level that I didn't count. I'll triple check to make sure next time I reach the timeskip.

Okay but that's kind of my original point; is it worth doing all of that to make killing one completely optional boss easier? And considering the investment, is that really something worth praising Lysithea for? Furthermore... Thats a decent point, but I find it highly arguable. Skipping on exploration like that kills your prof exp gains(thus your level, thus your activity points, and at that part of the game it snowballs backwards, hard), your ability to tutor more students, to cross-recruit, etc. Even just three activity points are >1000 p.exp at this point since gathering at the greenhouse can give 500. It also stops you from cooking to boost everyone's stats, which is self explanatory but no less pivotal. Additionally there are many things worth rushing for when it comes to professor levels; adjutants for +damage/accuracy on key units, additional monthly gold of course, an acceptable number of tutoring points(6 is probably when it gets comfortable, and that's at B), +1 motivation from meals at A... and you need to reach B/B+ before you can really start working on Byleth's ranks without sacrificing something else. A seminar with Hanneman and his D+(?) Bow rank on the other hand , will give your units 30/38 bow exp with a strength. That's really not a lot especially if you're giving up on tutoring them as a result, and very few need the Reason in the GD. Sounds pretty complicated to low turn either way, considering the enemy density nearby the boss. I don't doubt people will do it, but you'd need specific builds for several characters I'd wager; not just Lysithea.

Yeah, but to be fair that doesn't help Lysithea much since they don't have a support together. For most people outside the black eagles, it's only +3. Accuracy definitely gets easier to fix as time goes on. It takes a bit though, especially if you don't always move your characters together.

You can randomly get it from barrels near the main hall on month 1 and 2, and beyond whenever there's loot there. It's a pretty decent chance(and reloading changes what you get every time), and allows you to get 500 exp from the greenhouse from the first week on(after you've used Dedue's seed of course), getting more seeds of it to repeat the process. It's likely optimal for a few weeks, then I assume you'd want to get stat boosters more.

No, I just had Fiendish blow already. + Magic is very easy to cook for if you're going for prof exp rather than stat boosters with the greenhouse, though I didn't have that, I went with speed. As I also precised, I don't use stat boosters, and no one has rally magic on the team. She could have been slightly above average however. It should have looked something like 21 Mag +4.2 from dex + 2 (from mag +2) + 3 from frozen lance + 17 from Luin + 7 from fiendish blow + 3 from magic wand + 3 from battalion = 60. Don't have Dimitri's stats, does that fit? Let's see, so taking a fighter from chapter 2, they have [(14 speed + 6 lck)/2] + 7 from axe prowess 3 = 17 magic avoid Lv 2 Lysithea has 80 + [(8 Dex + 4 Lck)/2] + 7 from reason prowess = 93 accuracy. 93 - 17 = 76, and that's one of the least dodgy enemies of that chapter. Edited because axe prowess 3 is 7 avoid, not 8.

Yes, basically if your entire reason for hitting B rank is killing the DK, I don't think it's worth it in comparison. And you could admittedly also focus on faith instead, but that argument goes both ways. Marianne is another case entirely, she can build off of Frozen lance in ways Lysithea cannot, since lancefaire is on classes with canto, it's stronger and so are lances, and you get lance relics that she can take advantage of. I don't use stat boosters, but my Marianne was still able to OHKO Dimitri with the Luin, during the second mock battle. Truth be told she's the main reason I think those arts are underestimated, not Lysithea. But still, it applies. Okay, we're not talking early earlygame then, my bad. Also she admittedly has a spot in the mock battle by virtue of being your only unit that can deal good magic damage at that point, that is absolutely true. But beyond that, yes, ~70% accuracy is shaky, and her damage is just not that remarkable. To be fair I didn't try on her. I did on others though, and they certainly didn't hit B. You get 7 tutoring sessions before that chapter, a few of which you cannot take full advantage of because you don't get a chance to refill your units' motivation. And you say it's not rng based, but I can't help but wonder if getting screwed with tutoring could make a difference.

I think people are sleeping on magic combat arts, to be honest. With a steel+, your average lv 5 Lysithea deals 26 damage before battalion, vs 18 with Miasma. Also with +15 accuracy. This helps her earlygame a ton more imo.

Really? Mastermind should not make a massive difference, especially when she has no enemy phase. Did you do a bunch of auxiliary battles by any chance? Honestly her early game isn't fantastic at all; she deals mediocre damage with shaky accuracy at a point where your DP charges really count. And of course she dies to everything. She really only gets good once she hits mage at lv 10. She can equip good battalions early but has poor charisma, too. I really want to hear your reasons as to why it wouldn't be someone's thing. how many edited quotes can I fit in Getting Lysithea to B by chapter 4 is pretty tight, though. Considering engaging the DK is entirely optional, I kind of don't see the point. Learning Soulblade early allows her to OHKO much earlier too.

Your guess is as good as mine. Literally, since it's the same. Hard workers or people who train a lot seem to cover most of the +3 gains, while peaceful or lazy people tend to be at +1, and the others are at +2. We also know some of the +3 people fought a lot during the timeskip; Dimitri was being Dimitri, Leonie has been doing mercenary work, Felix has been fighting a lot even if he betrayed Faerghus and wasn't in Fraldarius all that time(so Edelgard's route)... Most importantly I think this is meant to give context rather than bring up questions. Like, "oh, this person has gained +x levels, that gives a slightly better idea of what they've been up to during the timeskip". Although the game seems to expect the player to notice these gains, and that didn't work out all that well.

Did you get Warp on that file? Black tomefaire + Warp sounds impossible. Edit: ... but she's a Gremory, so that was a dumb question.

I copy paste the quote from the new post box to the edit, personally. Might not be the most practical way though. Each student gets a fixed amounts of levels after the timeskip: Edelgard: +2 levels Hubert: +2 Ferdinand: +3 Linhardt: +1 Caspar: +3 Bernadetta: +0 Dorothea: +2 Petra: +3 Dimitri: +3 Dedue: +4 Felix: +3 Sylvain: +2 Ashe: +2/+5 if rerecruited Mercedes: +1 Annette: +3 Ingrid: +2 Claude: +2 Lorenz: +2/ not sure if rerecruited, about +5 I believe Ignatz: +2 Raphael: +2 Lysithea: +3/??? if rerecruited. Hilda: +1 Leonie: +3 Marianne: +1 Seteth: +1 Flayn: +0 Hanneman: +1 Manuela: +1 Catherine: +1 Shamir: +1 Cyril: +3 Byleth doesn't get anything, just like Flayn.

That happened on hard too, it's a result of the game throwing enemies of lower tiered classes at you that give less exp, but chapter 2 already mixes in many archers, thieves, etc, and same for chapter 3. I didn't use every unit in my house this run(didn't train Raphael and Hilda was chipping and providing positional support for most of the earlygame), but I definitely don't think it's impossible or even that difficult. Optimal being another story entirely.

Something I don't see a lot but definitely helps a ton is: Use. Speed. Cooking. Do it as much as you can, every week if possible.

That's correct, assuming they like the answer. You can tell by how they react; unfortunately the students don't like the same things, and the right answer for the asking student will not always be the one others want. This also might affect prof exp to an extent, it's a pretty confusing design choice.

Thanks a lot for sharing! I'm pretty glad they did this, and also a bit confused that there are things I disagree with on there(Reserve/Fortify isn't 4x Live/Heal's exp for example, that's just factually wrong from what I've seen many, many times). Regardless, it's really good to have a combat exp formula now, and the 105% exp at equal levels definitely sounds like what might have tripped me up; the idea that you'd only get the base exp gain when fighting an enemy 1 level stronger than you didn't occur to me. Otherwise I'd need to look deeper to tell if I 100% agree, not that it matters much when I didn't produce a formula myself. Also no mention of a -5 level cap to the underleveled exp bonus, so I potentially didn't research that thoroughly enough. I did notice a reducing of support exp gains past a certain point, but a much more drastic one and only for the Dance action(as in, past ~20 turns/uses it'd stop giving exp altogether), so this is clearly not what they're talking about. Considering healing uses are generally depleted past turn 20 and that's beyond the scope of my testing anyway, I likely just missed it.

I think Sniper is actually the floor for character performance, for physical units anyway. If you can do nothing else better, you should go Brigand/Archer -> Sniper and stay there, because it allows almost anyone to kill reliably and reasonably safely.

I'm currently on my fourth profile as we speak. There's so much optimization possible during the monastery phase, I go back very often. Plus I don't want to lose my cleared/almost cleared saves because there's a lot of useful data on them, although not everyone will care for that. Edit: Oh woops, forgot I didn't check this thread in a while... thought that was the last page:x

Something I'm noticing more and more is that difficulty through basic level inflation poses one very specific problem; characters will no longer suffer from lowered exp gains if you overuse them, and thus... well you're left with no incentive not to overuse them. On paper, anyway. Added to the fact that only a few early battalions raise damage(aka not everyone can get a damage raise and you have to make choices), adjutant slots are limited and we can farm stat boosters... I'm not too optimistic on how the maddening meta will evolve. That being said, it's pretty challenging at the moment, and that's very welcome.