Altrosa

So what I’m getting is half the Golden Deer kids are OPAF in multiple classes, while the others are better off warming the bench for recruits from the rival houses. No wonder I couldn’t get a good feel on them verses the other classes. Anyone try Marianne as a cav or peg knight?

I’m having the hardest time getting going on the GD story from how confused the starter builds and bonus stats for the house’s cast is. Any suggestions on final classes to start aiming everyone for right away? (Including Byleth, of course.) The only units I’m set on are Claude being his lord job and Lysithea becoming a Gremory, but both are basically slammed into those jobs. I’ve used Dark Knight Lorenz in my BL run, and Dancer Marianne in BE. But then it gets wacky. Would Leonie function best as your main horse unit, or make her a peg knight and keep Lorenz on a horse since Lysithea will outclass him anyway. Or, make Marianne a cav/peg knight and have Flayn play heals. Ignatz a healer or sniper? Do I need an fortress or can Raph just punch stuff forever? Would Cyril have use around Claude. Blue Lion students and Black Eagles had such obvious roles, lol.

No it’s actually a full on Switch firmware update that also addressed whatever flubs up the season pass linking to the main game. Thinking the DLC pass was updated to play nice with Switch 9.0.0 before the firmware update actually hit, since it was only those who bought the pass a few days ago that had their game blue screen.

No problem, and yes. Annette and Mercedes have a new dialogue during meals after their B and A supports.

Seteth and Flayn being among my favorites verses Claude being among my least puts me in the opposite camp. I’m saving Silver Snow as my canon route and going to grind away to be able to recruit every student a faculty member possible for when the new harder modes drop.

They have another new dialogue after A rank. Some more I know of not mentioned: Dimitri/Dedue Dimitri/Felix Flayn/Seteth Bernadetta/Alois Weekly group tasks with some special dialogues include: Ingrid/Sylvain Bernadetta/Alois Lorenz/Marianne Ashe/Felix Edelgard/Ferdinand Bernie ADORES Alois. She’s always thrilled when paired with him.

Nintendo just dropped a tweet saying it will be patched tonight.

Thanks for the explanation! I had no idea!

The Western Church verses Central Church (and Eastern and Southern) dealings seems to be separate denominations of the same theology. Think Catholic verses the many Protestant churches that are all still believers of Christianity. That IRL example was the result of the Catholic Church getting corrupted from the inside by terrible leadership and greed. The central church executing Lonato’s son Christophe for his hand in the Duscur tragedy damaged Lonato’s faith in the central branch, so he turned to the Western Church. Western followers are shown pushing back against the central in every instance they pop up, and it seems their goals are to steal back the important artifacts of Seiros under the guise they have every right to them as much as the central sect does. Their pointed hatred towards Rhea is as leader of the central church is just an extension of that. (It’s HER fault the central church is a mess since she’s in charge of it.) Honestly, though, the Lonato chapter is best at showing the civil unrest of Faerghus, how splintered, brutal, and confusing the church of Seiros is, and how much power the nobles actually have over commoners. It sets the story’s tone and does serious world building. But the unknown nature of exactly what happened in Duscur leaves a whole here, too. I’m more baffled at Lonato calling Catherine “Thunderstrike Cassandra” before she corrects him but... is Catherine like Jeralt in that she’s WAY older than she looks or what?

Seteth having a child with one of the other dragon children of Sothis being incest is tricky since they were the first generation of a new species, and at that point it’s either incest or your species just ends. One thing, though, is we don’t actually know if the wife was a dragon or a human woman. Flayn being the only second generation dragon throws her crest in the air too as it could be uniquely her own, and the mother isn’t sanctified. Seteth’s S-Support with Byleth states directly he intends to aid her in the coming centuries, so he’s at least convinced Byleth has gained the dragon longevity. On the two crests thing, I thought it was called blood reconstruction? Hearing that I theorized it’s like trying to force the wrong blood type into a person, since the only two we know of that survived it were crest wielders before their surgeries.

Oh bless you. I was searching for this exact info.

Seconding Ashe having so much utility with Locktouch. Lorenz is tailor made for dark knight, and Thrysus on top of it gives him the most ridiculous range. That said, Lysithea can also use Thrysus so you could just snap him up and give it to her. Mercedes is the best healer in the game, but you need Caspar for her paralogue. Marianne makes an excellent dancer unit. Just hand her a levin sword and watch. Honestly just hand her a levin sword in any class you put her in. The black eagles are the only ones that get a bit shafted as far as being the best for a class or having special utility from my experience, mostly from Hubert being locked down. (Dorothea is built for dancer, but I feel Marianne edges her out by having a relic.)

Now see THAT would be an interesting story for the DLC to take. There is enough dirt on Rhea that writing in a path where you join the Slithers is pretty reasonable, especially with all the lies surrounding the church and noble system. Maybe that could show us more of the past war between Nemesis, Seiros, and the “heroes” as we could hear about it unfiltered.

You are correct with all of the Church characters and Dedue.

Larger text. Almost every UI asset has the real estate for a larger font so this design choice is a mess.

I had a long post here noting a bunch of random thoughts, but the general deal is Rhea is really terrible as a religious leader. I guess much of that comes from her building the church on a series of lies, but her actions and inaction over the church just oozes indifference. I guess I’m just baffled by a society built upon a religion that doesn’t preach, or try to spread itself, or learn more about itself or its own figures. It’s a huge hole that feels very deliberate. Take it at face value, or not, who cares. Just don’t be mean to me or I’ll fucking kill you💙 She really only pulls it off because the crests and the holy weapons are tangible and powerful and she wrote them in as gifts from the goddess. I also saw no major doctrine about any sort of afterlife or heaven, which could be why so much inhumane action follows the crests around. Honestly I can’t tell if that’s a plot hole or by deliberate design for the player to notice.

I was able to recruit Lorenz in the BL run during the mission you also fight Ferdinand and Ladislava. I specifically defeated him with Byleth, and I had to option to spare him. Scoring the kill with Byleth is the only method to open the option to recruit in battle, it seems.

Byleth/Dedue Lorenz/Marianne Ingrid/Silvain Annette/Mercedes Honestly I wanted Annette to marry Dimitri but she stuck to Mercedes (can’t blame her) and Dimitri went solo. Felt extra bad since I married Dedue and took his best bro away so we could just chill and garden for the rest of our lives. 😅

I started my BE route last night. I want to do Crimson Flower first, and my biggest goal is to recruit as many students as possible and to bork the enlightened class to make Byleth a nosferatank holy knight, as she was always meant to be. After that, I want to prepare for some lunatic and maybe infernal shenanigans when we get the new difficulty patched in. New Game + giving me all these resources to grind makes me want to aim for the absurdly difficult stuff I normally avoid.

I think I’m sold on making Marianne a dancer my next run. I felt like she was built for Holy Knight, but I must’ve been stat screwed since she was a far better Bishop in the part of the game before I started to really hit master classes. Her relic being a sword and utility as a healer still being there makes it fit together. Otherwise, I tried both Annette and Flayn as dancers and found Annette to be far superior as she has better means to defend herself. I had already recruited Lorenz and slotted him into a dark mage, and was already set on mortal savant Felix, so losing Annette as a warlock didn’t make much difference.

I didn’t find BL’s final map that terrible, either, but I went very ham on building up my healers, and the RNG gods favored Ingrid that day when she double crit Edelgard’s final phase into oblivion. To only fight to actually give me some hell was Marianne’s paralogue.

Lysithea appears as a Gremory in the BL route, too, but she doesn’t use her default look in either case.

Falcon Knights can’t use magic, but Enlightened One exists. I was able to make Byleth into a healer like I wanted but next time Holy Knight is the goal. Budding talents aren’t worth it unless you REALLY want that class. You can new game+ a save file that isn’t completed. Also adding to the authority being SOOO important.

I assume, and mostly want, a prequel story of some kind, since we still have a ton of gaps to fill regarding the Red Canyon and the dragon race.

Dislike to like; Silvain - Normally the womanizer types drive me up the wall, but his supports where he explains his issues and the responsibilities and tragedy associated to his crest, it made his behavior come off more like a coping mechanism. He’s otherwise very kind and tight with his friends. Edelgard - I played BL first, was stunned that she was basically the villain all along, loved to hate her, and then I started digging more and more into her route, and now I think she’s one of the best characters I’ve seen in a long while. Like to dislike; Lorenz - At least in the Golden Deer route. He was one of my favs after recruiting him in my BL run, but his role as a foil/rival to Claude makes him feel so much scummier than he had in BL, where he was determined to do what he thought was the right thing. Claude - To be straightforward, I think he’s boring. He feels like the most generic lord of the three. Honestly, I’ve noticed playing the Golden Deer route has made me like most of its unique cast LESS than I had otherwise. Most come off more like a personality quirk than a well rounded character, which is unique to the GD story, as Marianne and Lorenz were both awesome to me in my BL run. I think I may just dislike the GD’s dynamic over the old friendships of BL and the dealings with internal drama of BE. GD feels weaker overall.