Cysx

That is unfortunate to hear. I was under the impression death was a relevant possibility for lone units. "sigh" If the shutting down of slightly more complex approaches is already a thing now, I really hope they don't mess up with the additional difficulties. Just makes discussing the game pointless. That being said, I doubt they'll save the game from flier supremacy either way.

Most chapters deployment slots are extremely stride friendly as a matter of fact. Not counting the unit that will use the stride, typically only one or two units won't get reached, if that. Otherwise, canto is great with it for sure, though again, it depends just how much you're willing to overextend. On certain maps it is a genuinely bad idea, even on hard, as enemies don't have durability but they can certainly dish out the pain. Basically if it boils down to "When I put my mages on the worst deployment slots that I don't cover with stride, they're bad", then, yes, I guess? But is that really that fair of an argument?

The former. Effective attacks break defensive tiles in one hit rather than two. It's useful because it's more flexible and allows you to quick kill beasts without ranged gambits or potentially blocking melee range. It's just a really good opener, although it's not the only existing one for sure.

Oh, Hades isn't that great for sure, I just wanted to show how in terms of pure mt Seraphim is comparatively less impressive than in Echoes. Plus to be honest in my experience, spell users don't have a hard time killing beasts without their shields, provided they double... which Lysithea can struggle to do with Seraphim, actually. It might seem weird, but with easier access to weight -3, better strength, and lighter spells, Lorenz tends to have better AS than Lysithea. It is true that not needing extra investment later on is a good thing, although... that's the case for a lot of units, to be fair, though admittedly not quite that early. Indeed, Gremory is super straightforward for her. I think it's worth making her a DK instead, aka a better combat unit, is all. Unlike someone like Mercedes for example, who loves Gremory because fortify spamming is that much more valuable than her combat(though it's good as well).

Same here, I'm not trying to force my vision of things on you, I just like establishing things, I guess. And I do think there is only one slash sound in that cinematic, implying both hit at the same time; also you're right, Dimitri had to move a bit, but mostly just his right arm, his position barely changed at all. I could flesh this a bit more, but don't want to get into spoiler territory. Ultimately it is indeed possible that the pain made her miss, just in general. ... though I guess I didn't actually post my interpretation. I think Edelgard attacked to force Dimitri to kill her, and it was primarily her decision rather than his. I feel it's more in character for the both of them. Using the dagger can also be seen as symbolic, resulting in her giving it back to him.

Jesus that must have been fastidious. Thanks a lot.

I agree that Seraphim is really good actually, although not for damage per se, as 24 mt vs monsters isn't actually "that" impressive, and as a Dark knight, Hades has 23, for example. Ragnarok has 20 in tier 3. It also doesn't get +1 range from the S rank reason skill by virtue of being Faith magic; no, imo it's really good because it can instabreak barriers first and foremost. Luna is debatable, it has some very strong cheese potential, but that is hardly required, ever, and enemies have on average very low res(which is part of why mages are so strong in the first place). It can only get better with higher difficulties, but at the moment in terms of damage, it rarely beats Dark spikes, which itself is quite a bit behind Ragnarok or Agnae's arrow with Black tomefaire. Gremory growth rate bonuses are extremely minor(10% dex, 5% speed, woohoo). It's imo a strictly worse choice unless you need extra magic uses, there's no two ways around it(and since DK implies you got your riding to B+ or more, move +1 is right around the corner, making the mobility difference potentially even worse in practice). I didn't really mean to compare Dark knight Lorenz to Gremory Lysithea that much actually, (although Lorenz will have an easier time getting in for sure) more like, even for her DK is much better imo. I do think Lysithea can easily be spread too thin in terms of tutoring investment though. There are just so many things she wants. The result of that is typically Gremory being her endgame class, even though it's (still imo)suboptimal... or having to make choices.

Don't think I see the Marth parallels as clearly as you do, and I also didn't read Edelgard's last gesture the way you did(from a lower position, targetting the shoulder makes no sense if you're trying to do significant damage, and Dimitri didn't move an inch so it wasn't a result of him dodging), but I'm generally in agreement with all of what you said. I don't know if I'd qualify 3H as my favorite however; I had the same problem with BotW, as I adored both games but they were a bit too different to be classified among the rest of the series. That or I'm just really bad at picking favorites. In any case, nice writeup.

I can't possibly be the only one that systematically uses stride on 6+ units on turn 1. And if you're going to say "well the move discrepancy is still there", you only need so much move unless you're going straight for the boss, and don't necessarily want to overextend with your fliers. Outside of like, ch 5, I frankly can't think of a chapter where you need more to move almost halfway across the map and have enemies in your reach for a few turns from there. This is with a PP mindset admittedly, which as always is going to ultimately be deemed inferior unless difficulty modes get really crazy, but I think it's worth bringing up. From my experience you don't even need to hit him, aggroing certain key enemies around him will trigger him as well. Though I'm unsure how I did it. Well, what gifts though? The game provides very few at that point(4 or 5), and gardening for flowers significantly hurts your prof exp gains from the Greenhouse, which I assumed would matter to an extent.

It's actually fairly easy to get OHKOs with Lorenz as well despite his lower Mag, as he gets the two strongest black spells(helps a bit with the low uses), a bonus from black tomefaire in tier 3(unlike Lysithea), and +2 from his personal. His lowish speed is also offset ever so slightly by his higher strength. Thyrsus is also absolutely better on a Dark knight, one cannot talk about what's optimal and then argue against that; Lysithea herself doesn't really want Gremory if she's used as a combat mage. In general people automatically putting it on Lysithea has resulted in a lot of tunnel vision I feel, as even mages that get damaged by using it can take massive advantage of it as long as constant healing is happening, which is possible and potentially optimal. One shoting the Death knight is proving less and less useful by the day, too. And Dex doesn't really matter for mages. I'm seeing this a lot, and I just don't understand it. Characters that can be exposed should be when it's useful(basically 99% of the time), and ones that cannot shouldn't be, that's all there is to it, it has virtually nothing to do with class. Lorenz can be exposed, other mages can; if Lysithea usually cannot, that's a disadvantage. If a turn 1 stride is assumed, mages can be fighting on the front lines for a majority of chapters despite their low move, this isn't Echoes. If they're lagging behind, a second stride is also possible.

He got some actually workable bases for once, I guess.

Actually I took it for granted because I always had one, but it's the Retribution gambit, and may not be available freely on GD? Maybe?(Blue Lions get an D rank one though it seems? Why do they get the best battalions?). Indech Sword fighters is the battalion I got it from on that run.

Brave weapons are better with death blow because their purpose is to kill before counter. They also tend to be a bad choice against fast units because of shaky accuracy, but that's beside the point. From my experience, quadding doesn't happen naturally in that many cases(darting blow aside, indeed). With gauntlets, it does. That's the main point.

Keep in mind that there exists a buyable battalion on every path with a gambit that gives up to 6 units unlimited counter range for five turns, aka essentially the entire chapter(I tried, it even counters 10 range tomes with 1 range weapons). That being said, it is true that gauntlets aren't the best at EP regardless. Their true strength is that quadding with them is excessively easier than with a brave of any kind, with more uses and better accuracy to boot.

Yeah, Warrior isn't even part of the picture, in pretty much any scenario I can think of. Grappler is a better infantry class and Wyvern rider a better axe class. You still want to go Brigand for Death blow, though.

That's a good point to bring up(not a huge spoiler, but still:) Regardless, something I failed to mention is that if you have no intent to go all the way to Warmaster, you can relocate 100% of your axe training into something else(such as cavalry for Move+1). Dedue starts at D+ axe, which is enough to pass the brigand exam.

Yes, only two batches before the timeskip. Pretty sure Seteth&Flayn's paralogue gives one flying battalion(among other things), though it's A rank. My cleared GD file has 5 flying battalions +2 I didn't buy.

The Flayn chapter specifically is such a self-made problem, it's straight up bizarre. That being said, I do believe you get a (worthless) accessory and additional affinity points for both Flayn and Seteth if you do it early. Which isn't worth it at all, and I'm not even certain, I'll check on my next run. Outside of that, yeah, we could definitely have used a few mid-month chapters. Similarly, chapters that don't have you go back to the monastery in between could have happened a bit more often, post-timeskip especially. I don't think the system cannot work, the player just needs some novelty here and there.

That's very rough math though. Effective damage multiplies the weapon's mt, not the user's strength. Note that the game also cuts decimals, so 0.3*5 often won't result in 1.5. If the main hit had dealt 26, instead of 39 the result will be (7*5) = 35, which is about 1.35(but a slightly extreme case); Astra also lowers accuracy. However, yes, if you throw an astra at a mounted unit with a rapier in hand, it will likely crit once or twice and take it down(though armors are still out of your reach). Which I agree isn't useless, it's just not worth 9 uses.

Hit +20 does(it doesn't have the same skill name after all). I've heard the faire skills do to, but I haven't tried myself.

Indeed, E to C is shorter than A+ to S, but without a strength it still takes a while and thus considerable investment; about a month. I didn't mean to say that they were the same though, you're right, they're not. I think it's fair to assume any team has a dedicated healer, and there's limited reason for that person not to be Mercedes, meaning you have Fortify with 2/4+ uses. In that context, and just coming out of a BL run, I can say that there's limited use for an additional Physic user; not none, but it's not hugely important. Although the exp gain part is absolutely true, well class exp anyway, since Physic gives a really paltry amount. But it's true that Mage doesn't master itself. Also, we can acknowledge that pure combat mages are likely also going to be left behind, period, when it comes to efficiency, so I guess my point didn't amount to much. If you're playing "normally" however, an early stride and + range accessories tend to be enough to keep them relevant for entire chapters combat-wise, from my experience.

I won't deny that her Faith list is awful; however, I think as time goes on it's going to be assumed more and more that mages meant for long term use will focus on riding on top of reason, not only because of Dark knight, but also because they really want both S-rank reason and A+ rank Riding asap, leaving limited place for the rest. Even if C Faith isn't a huge investment, it's still a while without a strength. Having +1 range/+1 move a month earlier as opposed to Physic isn't a horrible choice. Also, Excalibur fits an effectiveness niche. I don't think that can be denied.

The thing is, blaming a character for not having situational spells only goes so far, because most situational spells in this game really give new meaning to the word, as they have extremely limited use counts on top of other caveats(accuracy for Thoron, limited OHKO potential for the other two). And she does get most of the best black 1-2 range spells in terms of combat(better crit, uses, weight, and accuracy so good she doesn't need to spend a slot on the black magic prowess) plus one of the three effective spells there are, allowing her to take out fliers on enemy phase while getting doubled, among other things like sniping flying beasts, or just ORKOing pegs period. Magic range is also fairly flexible in this game, since you get a +1 range accessory on every route and +1 range at S; and of course, the master class has canto. So not having 1-3 or above is manageable in a general sense. And in terms of pure damage because I assume that's where we're going next, It's easy to say "she doesn't have Ragnarok, thus she sucks", but Ragnarok has 3 uses. You'll use it once or twice per chapter past tier 3. Not at all, that's my bad, genuinely thought you did.

Agreed, although getting weight -3 on more people has made me gain a new appreciation for Sagittae as well. In general reliable spells with high amounts of uses are really important outside of LTC. A bit of a tangent but, I take the fact that someone like Annette is widely considered to have a bad spell list(although I'll agree on the Faith side of things) as a sign that people kinda underrate weight, and awareness of Black tomefaire not affecting Dark magic is still relatively limited.

That is only true if you consider Dex and Lck important stats, when the matter of fact is, they're not exactly essentials. +5% Str/Spd is nice, but not that big a deal either. Though it is cool that Sniper gets something (Hunter's Volley is really nice too), you don't beat + 3 mov, canto and range +2. The latter of which Sniper should really have gotten too, but alas... Even dismounted, Bow knight has +3 spd and +1 move. It's just... better, unless your archer has bad enough speed that they need to rely on Hunter's volley or something. Anyway, don't worry about stats. It's still one of the best classes in the game, while Sniper, is, well, not that.