[Current plan for character promotions]

Armored classes are pretty bad in this game, and applying Dex% Proc skills isn't really going to save them.

Not only do they get one rounded by most mages, if they get hit by an enemy Gambit they'll often just get 2 rounded since battalions make up a quater of their defense. If you ever want a durable unit, just apply a unit with Impregnable Wall.

It'd just better to go Warrior -> Wyvern Lord and use Wrath + Defiant Crit along with Alert Stance + if you want a unit for Enemy Phase.

[Current plan for character promotions]

You going to have to preface a lot first before you make something like this. Like what difficulty is this? What Route? How many Aux Battles are you willing to do? Are going to be fishing a lot? How is recruitment going to be handled?

 A lot of these also don't really make much sense, such as putting Fredinand through Fortress Knight even though he's going to be one rounding a lot of enemies with Swift Strikes so he isn't going to be hit in the first place. That goes double if you want him as a Dodgetank. 

If you want an general ideal path, you'd want to be going Fighter -> Brigand -> Archer if you're on Maddening -> whatever final class you want them in. Same with Magic units except replace Fighter and Brigand with Monk and Mage. 

Some specifics:

-Byleth, Edelgard, and Dimtri's personal classes are all rather lackluster. Byleth can't go into lord either. 

-There's no point for Byleth to go into Swordmaster as Astra can't be carried over and is terrible anyways. And unless you really like Renewal, there's not much point in going into Bishop with Byleth either. 

- Unless you're planning on Vantage + Wrath set ups, Grappler -> Warmaster due to guaranteed tripling on Player Phase after Mastering it. 

-Thrres no reason for Black Magic users to go into Dark Mage / Bishop since the class masteries don't benefit them and won't benefit from class fiendish blow. 

-No reason to put Linhardt into Warlock / Dark Bishop if you just want him to end in Bishop. 

- Sniper > Bow Knight due to Hunter's Volley. 

-Holy knight sucks due not having great offensive White Magic spells and not boosting Healing in anyway. Always go Dark Knight instead if you want a mounted Mage.

-Swordmaster is a terrible class to end up in. Use Assassin instead if you want sword for +1 Movement and no movement penalties for a lot of terrain. 

-Never give up your Dancer. Ever.

There's more issues about this list, but I think I've gone on long enough. 

[Ashe is good; Change my mind]

Having high Dexerity isn't a good selling point at all for a unit. It's only .5 Crit for every 1 point of Dex. Like compare him to Dedue, who has one of the worst Dex and Luck growths in the game. 

Even at level 40, the difference between the two in Crit is only 6 even with some of the best Dex and Luck Growths in the game. Meanwhile, Dedue has a huge Strength and Durability lead for OHKOing with crits and keeping Battalion Durablity, access to Battalion Wrath to enable Crit Strategies without mastering Warrior, and capable of being able to use Vengeance to have a amazing early game. And Dedue isn't even that great of a unit. 

Sniper would be ideal for Ashe over Bowknight due to Hunter's Volley guaranteeing he doubles, giving him another chance at criting on top of +15 Crit. 

Dancers are never ideal for combat and shouldn't really be engaging in combat over Dancing another unit. Locktouch utility is pretty lacking considering that Chest Keys are always available to buy and are cheap, and is not helped by the fact that many maps simply don't have treasures worth going after. 

Ashe just has nothing really going in his favor to make up for his low bases and lack of any notable Combat Arts. Add on the fact that he also autolevels as an enemy archer means that he has very lackluster bases outside of Blue Lions as well. All this combined makes him undoubtably one of the worst units as a In House unit and out.

[Hardest route for all time. (All difficult)]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I didn't think Poison Strike worked on him, though. Doesn't he have Commander?

Poison Strike works on enemies that have Commander.

It's only against monsters does Poison Strike Damage decrease.

[Hardest route for all time. (All difficult)]

10 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I find that... very, very hard to see when he's rocking defensive stats in the 80s with all of them alive, to say the least.

Most of those tend to be exclusive to one unit (Luna on Lysithea, who goes splat in return, and Windsweep on Byleth). Except for Poison Strike, which requires mastering a mediocre male-exclusive class, to say nothing of the fact that Nemesis will likely SPLAT! them harder than getting splatted by propeller ink (yes, that's a thing) in return. 

I just posted all the numbers behind it with a shot of it being done in practice. How exactly is it hard to see?

Posion Strikes still works with Impregnable Wall, so durablity isn't a concern in the slightest. And are you really telling me you aren't using Byleth or Lysithea in GD?

[Hardest route for all time. (All difficult)]

21 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Speaking of, does the fact that the final boss on Verdant Wind have defenses rivaling frigging Dheginsea's really seems to fly over people's heads? Because that can't be fun.

The dude is a chump compared to the other final bosses. A 0% Growths Cyril is capable of taking him down with all the Elites alive on his Stronghold.

And that's not to mention things that can trivialize him like Luna, Posion Strike, Windsweep, or just sufficiently high stat units.

Like just compare that to how much is needed to take SS Rhea in 0% Growths.

[Hardest route for all time. (All difficult)]

On August 7, 2020 at 6:35 AM, Cysx said:

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.

The Siege mages can easily be trivialized with Sacred Shield, as contrary to it's description, it blocks all ranged attacks. So combined with Retribution, that section is pretty easy.

[Golden Deer no recruit. Good or Bad idea ?]

Any unit is useable enough with the right setup and investment, even on Maddening. While you'll being missing out on recurited unit's better stats, you can complete the game just fine.

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

2 hours ago, Cysx said:

Dang, do we have to do that? Tutoring exp is tricky business. Okay.

-----

I don't have the training weeks noted down, but I've got 48 tutoring ones for VW written down, with the second earliest one not being counted because you don't get to recharge motivation, so, 47, which roughly matches I guess?

... sooo looking at what you posted, you're assuming no tutoring before ch 11 even though she needs to unlock Paladin and you're going for solo tutoring even though that's a waste in a context where you want exp for multiple things for a while, which, yes, helps with numbers but may also be the reason why you think any of this is generous.
Most importantly, you're assuming zilch perfects, when they result in 3x to 4x exp once a session, and 2x every other time. I've done some very uninteresting but pretty thorough testing a while back to figure out the rate( I have the result of around 1000 sessions noted down with various factors, such as with talent, with bane, neutral, with/out professor guidance, with/out a +1 statue bonus, any and all combination of all of them... I did stop before getting sufficient sampling for statue 2 and combinations including that, but everything was consistent so the idea that these would affect the rates when nothing else did didn't seem to hold much water) , and extracted a pretty clear 40% good, 40% great, 20% perfect. The variation on perfects pushes this into math that is a bit advanced for me to write down a solid formula off of, but one would turn a 34 session into a 54 to 64 one, so if I'm anywhere near correct and one can expect that to happen roughly 2/3 weeks... it's pretty easy to see that your numbers are an underestimation.
It is also possible to have professor guidance available for a while if you play your cards right, and the lance +2 statue bonus is reasonably obtainable some time into the timeskip. Also ~100 rounds of combat in an entire maddening playthrough... that's not really that crazy to be honest. At least not to me. To be fair I rarely boss skip, which might be a big differentiator here.

Okay, so say her objective is S+ lances, D+ reason, B authority and I'm pretty sure I pulled off +1 move and lancefaire 2 but let's go with the minimum of C riding to savescum for Paladin.
From her base, that is a collective 3900 with talent and 860 without. Reason must preferably be done by ch 6, riding by chapter 11, and authority asap.

Reason gets 20 a week as a dual focus, aka 9 weeks to get to 180. That's roughly the very end of month 4, and no tutoring involved.
Riding gets 24 a week and needs 300. However, neutral vs talent as a focus is a 20% difference, as opposed to up to 50% for tutoring... thus considering authority is neutral, riding is best tutored. Fortunately the riding +2 statue bonus is easy to get in time, and professor guidance can be a part of it throughout if you're going for Mov+1 on Byleth. Let's assume you're not, though, so she gets a base 8 exp when tutoring. Getting a perfect will result in a 48 to 80 gain, but 5 perfects are not an average outcome by any means, so let's say the average is 60. Getting no perfect will result in 32 to 48, averaged at 40. If the 2/3 rate for a perfect is applied, this is 160 per three weeks aka ~53 a week. So, this takes 6 weeks of tutoring away from lances.
Authority requires 680 and gets 20 a week as a dual focus. 34 weeks to get there is clearly not acceptable. Authority is constantly raised through combat which can reasonably lower that number to 30(40 rounds of combat can generally have happened by the time you can be expected to reach B), but that's still much too high. So let's mix in some tutoring.
Authority is one of Byleth's specialties and also something they want to raise, which means the prof.guidance bonus can be expected all the way up to C+, if not more. Authority +1 can also be assumed relatively early; to simplify, we'll say prof guidance until C+, and Authority +1 all the way. So, that's 7 a week until C+, which taking the above ratio is ~46 a week, then 5, which is ~32 a week. I'd say that 8 tutoring sessions is a decent expectation here, which should take care of about half of the whole thing, leaving ~15 weeks of dual focus when combat is taken into account.

Which leaves us with lances why am I inflicting this upon myself again? 14 weeks of tutoring were lost, leaving us with 33 in the entirety of VW. 24 weeks were spent as a dual focus and the remaining 25 can be solo. That's 1476 wexp. 33 tutoring at a rate vaying between 6 and 9 or 10; post timeskip(aka when the +2 statue bonus is the most likely to be on) being really heavy on tutoring, I'll average at 8. Using our lovely ratio, we get the same as riding, aka ~53 a week, which is 1749 wexp, so a total of 3225 wexp. This is 375 missing exp. At +6 per combat as a Paladin and +3 as the rest which we'll average at 4.5, that's 83 rounds of combat. From the few screenshots I have left of this playthrough, my Byleth fought 376 times, my Marianne 256 times, and my Leonie 384 times. These definitely were above average in my army and potentially are high in general, but case in point, 83 isn't unreasonable, and there's enough leeway to get it one or two chapters before 22.

 

... well that is a thing I just did. Man.

----------------

I was gonna be like "I don't know what to say man, I ain't lying". But then I went and wrote the above for some reason. As a result, I will now say

You will ignore it over my sleep-deprived body
... It's cool actually. But I'm genuinely surprised it worked for me and not others. None of the above qualifies as special to me. That's assuming I made no big mistake of course, but the fact is that it happened for most of my active cast, on two separate playthroughs...

You really have my respect for trying to math this all out. Tutoring exp is such a painful thing to calculate just due to the sheer amount of variance it has.  I'd thought mono focus and two greats would be enough replicate the rate of Perfects, but it looks like not. I'll most certainly keep in mind what you said on the rate of Prefects in any future discussions.

I will say that to be more accurate you should inculde things like Stable Duty and Gambit Authority Exp. Getting a prefect at Stable Duty with a boon will result in 18 Riding Exp, which really adds up over time. Using gambits also doubles the rate of Authority gain even if you miss, so something like 10 Gambits will result in 40 Authority Exp. 

I will say through, that the difference in the amount of battles we have is truly staggering. Like when I tried out this setup, my Marianne only had 80 battles under her belt and less than 4 of my units engaged in more than a 100 battles. Granted, I typically go for the bosses and skipped a lot of the Paralogue while also having Marianne as an Adjutant when she was Mage, but still. 

Either way, I'll concede that Marianne is a tier above Dorothea primarily due to being able to access unique Lances to be able to secure some OHKOs Dorothea cannot. It's been a very fun time debating with you and I wish discussions like these happened more.

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

2 hours ago, Cysx said:

Guard Adjutants stop most units from being ORKOed in a very large amount of situations. Besides, you only have three slots so pretty it's hasty to just assume +damage supports on any given combat unit now.

Well, why would a killer weapon be better? Sublime heaven gives +20 crit and is ranged. I mean it's not necessarily a terrible idea to give it to Dorothea if it pushes her over the edge, but I disagree with the notion that Byleth doesn't use it and that it's thus a fair assumption that it's freely available.

Needing resources that she isn't guaranteed to get is a low point. There is an argument to be made that this goes for lance relics as well, but they're in relatively low demand since brave combat art users don't need them, neither do vengeance users.

+10 hit(primarily on black eagles students unfortunately) is nice for sure, but with only light chip to provide outside of that, it's really not that remarkable. It's nice that she gets that at all, but again, I'd rather she'd keep killing things, as if I didn't value her ability to kill things, why would I even have gone for that build in the first place

I can tell you from experience that this is incorrect. I avoid aux battles like the plague and most of my combat units reach S+ around ch19/20 on maddening(sometimes earlier, though that's rare; also no CF, clearly that's not happening there). If you're sufficiently focused and keep it going for the whole game, it's very doable.

Guard Adjutants only activate on the second hit of an attack. So units will have to take a hit first for it take activate, which isn't really happening with most mages units. I'd also hesitate to use Blessing on them when it's better suited for things like dodgetanks or units using Wrath.  But I'll concede that Dorothea shouldn't automatically assumed to have an adjuatant depending on the team comp.

Sublime Heaven only hits once and isn't enough to kill on most monsters in one hit when a lot of the late game monsters hit 199 HP. The fact that almost all of them have 0 Luck also makes having more Crits a lot more consistent than normal, so it's best for Grapplers and Warmasters to take them on instead.

How are Relic Lances in low demand? One rounding benchmarks become very strict as the game goes on. So if a Swift Strikes users wants to consistently Orko the bulkier enemies, such as Grapplers or Heroes, they'll often need to make use of them.

Dorothea kills enemies at a part of the game where other units have trouble doing so in one of the harder chapters of the game and only falls off at point where almost every unit fall off of. Nobody faults Catherine for being unable to oneround late game enemies, so I don't see why it should be held against her. Especially considering that her competition needs specific weapons that other units really want to make use of on top of requiring S+ Faire to accomplish what she can't.

The problem is that my experience doesn't mesh with yours. I've only gotten two units to S+ in all of my playthroughs, and one of those was Shamir. That's why I figure to fall back on numbers instead. Speaking of...  

There's 49 weeks of Training during the entirety of VW. If we assume that Marianne had a boon in Lances the entire time and studied it solely for +36 exp a week the entire game, that'd be 1,764 skill exp. Assuming that we start tutoring her in Lances after finishing Authority, Riding, and Reason by around Chapter 11, will give her 25 Weeks of training. We'll also assume that she gets two greats every week. Combined with the Indech +1 Instruction bonus will result in +34 Lance Exp a week. That gives a total of 2,614 Skill exp. So with all of that, she'd need to fight 98 battles as a Paladin to reach S+ even with all of those generous assumptions. 

Now if you throw in Sauna into that, it all becomes a mess and probably explains the disparity. I really dislike it for the amount of favoritism it brings, but if you use it I can't really fault you for that.

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

53 minutes ago, Cysx said:

A Manuela pairup was a bit of a stretch even back when we didn't know how Guard adjutants worked(and I meant, I used to bring those up a lot for Annette, so I'm not particularly happy about it). I'd say the same for the SCS, especially on a map where the beasts have dragon attribute.

Dorothea is only competitive because of rapier existing, in a chapter where most of the targets she'd struggle with are vulnerable to it. If we're looking for an actual differentiator, let's take Claude's paralogue. It's available form ch 17 onward, I'll assume level 34. With her 67 attack, she OHKO nothing. Not a single enemy on that map. Marianne cannot really deal with the warlocks, and of course doesn't OHKO the boss or the worms(still deals much higher damage), but she does the rest.

I'd rather push into swordfaire/lancefaire 2 to keep OHKOing in Shambala than go Meteor, and lose Stealth, though. The issue is that swordfaire 2 doesn't salvage Dorothea the way it does Marianne. And despite what we both said, that also allows the latter to deal with a bunch of targets in VW 22(archers/snipers of course but also grapplers, swordmasters, assassins and cavaly including Elites with Assal.

I still disagree with that conclusion. We don't have to keep going, though.

Why wouldn't she be allowed a Manuela Adjutant? Adjutants aren't so valuable that she can't be afforded to be given one, especially when Blessing exists for all your 1 HP needs. Sublime Creator breaking barriers is pretty unneeded since Byleth doesn't much damage with the barriers up and would prefer a Killer weapon for actually engaging one. A Curved Shot from a Blessed Bow would accomplish the same thing it's needed for without being retaliated against.

Paladins and Armored Units make up a good amount of the enemy composition on the majority of maps. To discount them among the enemies isn't really accurate representation. Besides, Dorothea would be able to ohko the Assassins and Snipers in Claude's Paralogue with a Maneula Adjutant. Side question: is Blutgang effective against Wyverns? Because I wouldn't think Marianne would have good hit rates against 88 Avoid enemies.    

S+ Faire skills take too much investment to reach without a substantial amount of Aux battles.  Like going from E -> A Rank requires 1320 Skill exp, while going to A -> S+ requires almost double that at 2280 Skill exp. Besides, providing +10 Hit to a good amount of units is probably just as valuable as a endgame combat unit with how dodgy some of the endgame enemies. And a lot of units require chip damage to finish off enemies which Dorothea would be decent at doing with Thoron.

I disagree with your conclusion but I wouldn't mind still going. Its always fun to argue about unit quality. 

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'm honestly rather skeptical about building either Dorothea or Marianne for magical combat arts as their optimum build. All they'll be able to do is run around and try to OHKO at range 1, while having durability of paper and no skillset options.

And it's a build that falls apart if they get even a bit magic-screwed (admittedly, I don't use stat boosters much, so they probably improve a bit if you do). Both of these characters shine because of their skillset options: 2HKO anything at huge range (thanks Thoron), Physic, linked attack synergy (especially for Dorothea with Meteor).

And in Dorothea's case, it's not like her Agnea's Arrow even does that much less than her Silver Sword+ Hexblade... it's 4 less might, but actual mage jobs (e.g. Warlock) tend to have more mag than Assassin.

They have Canto and Stealth to avoid any enemies that may come their away, so low bulk isn't that much of an issue.

Being Rng screwed in any stat, especially attacking ones, doesn't really exist in this game due to the presence of Advanced class bases and so many ways to increase damage output. 

Assassin means that Dorothea can just equip a Magic Staff to make up for any class mods that lacks. Most mages don't want to give up Thryus or Cadueus Staff to make up for their lack of movement. And they can both make use of the Levin Sword + if they want ranged chip damage.

[What class is the ideal carrier of Opera company volunteers/blue lion dancers?]

It'd have to be class that doesn't see a lot of combat, as it initially has a starting attack value of -5 Atk and Magic Atk, only growing to 0 Atk and M Atk at max level. It shouldn't be put on a Dancer either, considering that the gambit can be used to refresh them as well.

What I like to do is grab a unit with a Authority Boon that I'm not using (Annette, Ignatz, Lysithea, or Seteth) and just stick them into Cavalier and have them brought to maps exclusively to use that Gambit. Might seem like a waste, but that Dance of the Goddess is so much of a gamechanger that it can go so far as to one turn some of the final maps.

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

16 hours ago, Cysx said:

You're kind of proving my point, to be honest; some of these OHKOs are exact, and she struggles to do the same on many targets in the next and previous chapter; every enemy has low res in 13.

Axe and Lance users can abuse relic might to compensate when they fall short. Dorothea cannot, because swords don't get high mt relics and has only the Rapier instead. The point is that Marianne deals 5 more damage with the same tools, has an combat art that scales, relics, and a higher growth.

It's not an exaggeration to say that once these builds stop killing, they struggle to be of any use, so I still disagree that there's no meaningful difference here. Needing a tank around to perform just cannot be argue not to be a limitation in my eye either, and stealth isn't a proper replacement for canto, or especially not for +2 mov (possibly +3) or even flight. In one case it's possible to keep up if you were ahead(which Dorothea isn't, and that's the problem), in the other it's just not a thing.

Then let's see at what point where Marianne ohko's while Dorothea stops, shall we? I think Chapter 18 is a pretty good example of this. Here are the enemy stats for that chapter while here are their averages with their attack values. 

As you can see Dorothea is still pulling her weight this late into the game by being able to Ohko pretty much every non mage enemy barring the Swordmasters. And even then, she can still take out them if you really wanted to without stat boosters by either using a Manuela adjutant or even using the Sublime Creator Sword, which typically doesn't see much use Byleth's hands in my experience. Really, it's not until Chapter 20 does Dorothea start to fall off in terms of being able to Ohko, which is also the point that pretty much every mage starts to fall thanks to enemy HP increasing dramatically by that point on onward. 

The fact that she can remain competitive even without a 22 might Lance for the majority of the games really shows that there's not much of a gap in their combat. And yes, while Stealth isn't as useful as Canto, It's not like you need dedicated tank to make use of Stealth, as any unit with Impregnable Wall will make them completely ignore her as long as they're in range. Combined with the fact that she doesn't suffer from terrain penalties and can promote to a magic using class to make use Meteor Linked Attack as Magic users fall of gives her a competitive niche.

So while Marianne might have her advantages, I don't think it's enough to claim an entire tier difference when Assassin Dororthea Ohko's a great many of the same enemies that Marianne is.

Also as a side note, I take issue with claiming that Marianne as a capable as a flier due to the lack of flying magical battalions. Even if you gave her the only one in the game, it only has +5 Hit, making the use of something like the Lance of Ruin pretty sketch considering it's 65 base hit.

It wouldn't be impossible mind you, but you'd have to setup a good deal of link attacks for it to be consistent on dodgy enemies, such as Swordmasters or Grapplers, or otherwise grind out Valkryie for Uncanny Blow.

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

7 hours ago, Cysx said:

Lower reach, no canto for flexibility if nothing else, and difficulties reaching OHKO numbers on anything the rapier isn't effective against(due to Hexblade, swords, and herself being on the weaker side) still make a pretty big difference imo. Haven't actively checked the numbers, though.

Also I'll be the first to say that stealth is great, but you do need to play around it in ways that aren't always the most practical.
Honestly magic assassin works quite a bit better if you get to levin sword doubling thresholds from my experience. The problem being that those are very high.

Well lets test the numbers then, shall we? We'll use HBD as our example as that where Magic Combat arts shine the most by ignoring terrain and being able to consistently to ohko enemies with good hit rates. An average level 26 Dorothea has around 22 Magic. Combine that with:

22 Base Magic 

24 Mag +2

30 Fiendish Blow

36 Gloucester Knights

41 Sword Faire 

54 Silver Sword +

61 Hexblade 

64 Magic Staff

 

As you can see, that's enough to Ohko every enemy on the map, while she can also avoid being targeted by them if you had say a dodgetank in range to make use of the terrain. Rapier is also found earlier in the game in Manuela's Paralogue or at the Pagan Altar if you want another.

 

Now, while she will fall off thanks to begin unable to ohko enemies in the lategame, every Mage falls off at the end game due to how ridiculous the enemy HP Growth is. Like take a look at this example. So while it may not look that way on paper, Assassin Dorothea is pretty equal to Soul Blade / Frozen Lance Marianne  in practice. As such they should really belong in the same tier together. 

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

51 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I definitely rather strongly disagree with the notion they're exceptional units. Even with the builds you're posing, they

-don't get Fierce Iron Fist until 150 class exp into Advanced Tier, which is likely over half the game for most playstyles

-run an offence which is entirely range 1, foot-locked, non-canto, player phase only.

-have solid but not truly exceptional offence; due to the lower power of gauntlets, many other characters can muster similar offence with 2 hits from Hunter's Volley or Wyvern Lord Brave Axe, and those have greater mobility or range. Units with high speed (+Darting Blow) can output even more damage via doubles with high-mt weapons and quads.

- That's 38 Battles with the Knowledge Gem. That can easily be gotten before the Timeskip depending on the stance of Aux Battles/ Paralogues / Quest Battles.

-They have 1 Movement more than most advanced Classes, don't suffer form terrain penalties, and can kill many units before they even have the chance to strike. It's not like many units are going to see much combat on Enemy phase when they're going to be lacking Deathblow and Link Attacks.

-They're not as good as Snipers or Wyverns, I'll concede to that. But Wyverns are limited by Flying Battalions and Wootz Steel, while Snipers are hindered by 5 movement and Terrain penalties, so its not like you can have nothing but them.

-Grapplers also have their own niches, such as being to get rid of Monsters with their high chance to crit 3 times in a row and dealing good damage against tough opponents, such as the the Final Bosses with Dragon Skin since have an Extra Attack trumps having more Attack when it's being divided by 2. 

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

59 minutes ago, Myssdii said:

I mostly remember Caspar in my last CF run, Because of how low his authority is, there was no way I could give him a strong battalion, and sadly he had really bad level ups in strength, barely reaching above 30 as a Grappler in the final chapter. Not saying that I'm making my Caspar case a generality, but I find it a bit unfair to add things like Defiant Strength that needs Hero mastery, a specific character locked B-rank battalion when both Raphael and Caspar have a weakness in authority, as well as S+ rank which is nearly impossible to get in maddening without extensive focus and/or grinding, and stats boosters.

Like I said in my first post, you can make any unit work with proper investment, so your argument is still valid that Grapplers aren't bad units objectively (never said they were objectively bad, just that in my experience, I wasn't particularly amazed by them, they just work).

I was just using Skills such as Defiant Strength or S+ Fist Faire to account for no Growths. You can easily discount those in real playthrough with growths. Likewise, Gonreil was also used as a example. You could replace that quite easily with say, Empire Snipers for +5 Attack and +10 Hit while still being at C Rank Authority. Heck, getting Caspar to B Authority isn't even that much of investment as a he doesn't need any other skill once he reaches grappler. 

But still, even using that 30 Strength Caspar as an example (which is actually his average at level 40), he can still orko enemies in the Final map of CF. Like discounting the Defiant Strength and S+ Fist Faire and replacing Gonreil with Empire Snipers and Killer Gauntlets with Silver Ones, the above combo still gives him 54 attack. That's enough to one round all the generic enemies barring Fortress Knights, who he can just rely on crits if you much have him attack them. 

And I never claimed you were saying they were as bad units. I'm just claiming that they're exceptional units once they hit FiF.

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

58 minutes ago, Myssdii said:

For the Grappler part, I've always built Caspar, Raphael and Dedue this way.

I guess after 3 maddening runs, I've been a bit disappointed by the power of gauntlets in late-game, could be me not having luck or particular gameplay affinity with these kind of units.

I mean, even if you were playing with 0% growths, you could still get them to orko with enough investment. Like take a look:

20 War Master Base Strength 

22 Str +2

28 Death Blow

36 Gonreil Valkyries

39 Killer Gauntlets +

44 Fist Faire

45 FiF

46 Grappler Class Mod

54 Defiant Strength

59 S+ Fist Faire

60 Rocky Burdock from Ralph Recruit

That's enough to orko almost every generic enemy in the final map of Azure Moon, even the War Masters. And in a growths playthrough, you could replace Defiant Strength and S+ Fist Faire with 13 procs of Strength, or through other means such cooking Ogma Wolverine, Rally Strength, or using a Hilda Adjutant in the case of Balthus.

So even if you were the most unluckiest person on the planet, Grapplers could still be very good units.

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

6 hours ago, Myssdii said:

- My final argument to place Bernedetta in high A-tier and not S is that she's a bit more harder to use in the second half of the game where you have more siege enemies and same-turn high movement reinforcements that can threatened her while she's low HP. 

- I put Marianne in low A-tier as she has a bit more build variability than other mages. She has really good combat arts that scale really well, with Soulblade and Frozen Lance, and the proficencies to go for high movement + Canto classes to utilize them safely. She's one of the rare units, with Annette and Lorenz, that can still remain an efficient magic-damage dealer without going through pure mage classes in the long run.

- For Balthus and Alois, I have yet to use them in a maddening playthrough, so their placement is based on how I judged other warrior/brawlers types that I actually used (Dedue, Caspar and Raphael). I always find these units kind of underwhelming.

-I agree Ingrid needs babysitting in the first couple of chapters, but she can quickly become one of the few units that can double in maddening, and her high res makes her consistent at countering mages. She's a unit that scales really well, especially in AM where she occupies a unique spot as a high mobility/high resistance unit. For her recruitment, she comes as a Pegasus Knight starting chapter 6, which makes her bases really good, even though she lacks some good early skills. She gets a huge boost when getting her hands on Luin, which unlocks pretty early in the game.

-Those things are easy for Bernadetta to survive with the right setup. Juts let her equip the Prayer Ring ring for 5% healing a turn and apply Impregnable Wall on her. Sure, she'll deal a little less damage, but Vengeance is typically overkill anyways.

- The problem with including Marianne in that tier is that every unit with a magic combat can consistently ohko for a good portion of the game and still have a way to stay safe. Like Hexblade Dorothea may not look that impressive on paper, but add on the fact that she can use effective weapons such as the Rapier and that Assassins that don't get targeted when there's any other target in range, Marianne doesn't really justify being put up tier imo.

- Simply put them through Fighter -> Brigand -> and Grappler and have them master all of those classes to be useful. Grappler has a class exclusive Combat art called Fierce Iron Fist, which allows a unit to hit 3 times in a row regardless of Speed. That's usually more than enough for Grapplers to orko and be consistently useful by the lategame. 

- It is rather easy for any female to regularly double on Maddening as long as you're giving them Dartin Blow and cooking up Bullheads. Like look at how fast a average Byelth can be with the right investment. Having high resistance also isn't really a niche that needs to be covered, especially in AM considering that it's the only route that has the Sacred Shield Gambit to block all ranged magic, including Siege Magic. Her recruited stats aren't anything particularity special compared to other recruits. Luin also only has the might as a regular Silver Axe + which unlock only 1 chapter away from it, so it's really not that exciting barring it's accuracy for Swift Strike users.

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

12 hours ago, Myssdii said:

 

While I agree with your General playstyle, I disagree with some placements:

-Berndetta should really move to S tier if you units like Sylvain or Felix in there. Being able to cosistently ohko enemy units  in the early game with Vengence when even the lords are struggling to do so is a massive boon. 

-Marianne should be dropped to a tier. There's really nothing that distinguishes her form the rest of the mages in B Tier.

-All Warp users should be S Tier at least. You don't even need a high range to break some maps wide open. 

-Balthus is one best early game units thanks to his personal and can get Fierce Iron Fist to fix up any issues he may have with Speed, so A Tier for sure.

-Ingrid should fall a tier. Her middling bases in Blue Lions and lack of good auto leveling skills as a recurit dont really really fit A tier in my eyes. Even when given the investment to be a dodgetank, she doesn't have Battalion Wrath to really capitalize on it.

-Alois should go to B tier for being a pretty good out of the box unit. Like a base 27 Strength combined with C Authorthy and Armor on top of being nearly to B+ Brawling is really good. Only thing he's really missing Deathblow, which can pretty easily gotten with the Knoweldge Gem. 

[Lorenz is a good unit: change my mind]

15 minutes ago, Cysx said:

 2 points are 2 points. Would you argument have been exactly the same if that was his natural average, considering his p.skill?

"Frozen Lance will be stronger than Ragnarok with a Steel Lance + anyways."
On warlock at level ~20, not quite. And range is nice.

It'd take him 660 Reason exp to go from C Reason -> B+ Reason to have chance of certifying as a Warlock for +2 Magic. Considering that he wants B Lances, B Authorithy, and C Riding at the very minimum, it can be tough to fit in all of that in a timely manner . Especially if you want B Faith for Ward like TC does.

The Steel Lance remark was refering to when Lorenez was a mage. By the the time he becomes a Warlock, Silver Lances still manages outdamage Ragnarock even considering Black Tomefaire thanks to it's 30% Dex Scaling.  

[Lorenz is a good unit: change my mind]

19 hours ago, FireEmblemFan3475 said:

You are ignoring are ignoring growth rates, like you said at the beginning. Growth rates factor in and completely some of the thing you've said: marianne has 25% less defence than lorenz, meaning she will never have similar defensive capabilities,  their magical capabilities differ by 10% (not much) meaning marianne only has a slight edge here.

Also, if that mage is going to one round your physical unit (take raphael as an example, even though he sucks.), thats still 14 less damage taken, meaning raphael will live. So ward does help. A LOT.

Also, lorenz can use magic bow and frozen lance to great effect, even without being in a magical class

I've just shown evidence to contrary of Lorenz being substantially bulkier with it this. Class bases are more relevant than growths will ever be and as a sreult most units won't turn too differently form each other in areas they are not proficient in

Lets put that Ward example to the test then. An Average Level 29 Raphael has 11 Resistance, or 17 with Ward. Now compare that to enemy mages in Ch 14. As you can see, even with some of the highest HP Growth in the game, he still one rounded while enemy mages only only grow stronger.

The said could be said for any magically inclined unit. Heck, certify Ignatz as a Warlock while having him stay as a sniper and he'll blow Lorenz out of the water with Shining Bow Hunter's Volley.

Quote

That's basically why Lorenz usually wants to unlock Warlock to bump his base up(and is really happy his p.skill is what it is). This keeps him in the OHKO game for quite a bit longer. But, it's a bit of a commitment and means he'll likely get to paladin slightly later. At least he'll have Ragnarok to bide his time.

It really doesn't make that much of a difference for Lorenz since he already has a decent a growth. It only makes a 2 point difference for him on average. Frozen Lance will be stronger than Ragnarok with a Steel Lance + anyways.

[A tier list: feel free to argue]

Tier lists for this game really need Rule Sets otherwise it's just mess since people play this game very differently.

For Example:

   - How much Monastery usage is being allowed? Would something like Fishing be included? How about would Fishing to raise Professor Rank be treated any different? How should Gardening for Stat Boosters be treated? What about Rigging for Promotions? 

    - How should Aux Battles be treated? Like what's preventing somebody for using them to grind out for master good class masteries like Death Blow or Quick Riposte? To the extreme side, what is preventing people from Grinding to S+ skills? Should Quest Battles be treated any differently? The Merchant Quest Battles?

     - How should recruited units be treated? Because there is sometimes very large gap in  performance between the same unit, like Cyril or Hilda in Sliver Snow vs Azure Moon / Verdant Wind.

...and so on. I'd think clarifying those question could really help a list like this.

What that being said, here are some of my thoughts:

• Aint no way Rapheal and Manuela are bottom tier. Rapheal having Rally Strength for the beginning of the game really helps when combined with Ignatz's Rallies while Maneula has Warp, which is enough utility to keep her mid tier at worst.
• Bernadette is High tier at least thanks to Vengeance, as is Deude and Cyril.
• Jeritza has some of the best bases in the game, so no way is he next to Caspar.
• Mercedes, Ignatz, and Lorenz are all way too high for not really having the skill set to back it up.

[Lorenz is a good unit: change my mind]

Can we dispel the notion that any unit in a mage class is capable of surviving several rounds of combat? Only considering Growths is such a narrow minded view of the game that it doesn't really tell anything at all in practice. Like lets look a Lorenz's durability in a map that actually tests it, Hunting by Daybreak.

The recommended level for that map is Level 27, so here's what Lorenz's Averages look like for that level. Now take that average 48 HP, 18 Prt, and 18 Speed and compare it to the enemies he'll be facing in that chapter. As you can see, he gets doubled by everything in the map without even wielding a weapon, gets one rounded by all the promoted enemies while also loses more than half his HP from the unpromoted ones. Having a Dex % chance of halving damage doesn't matter if the unit in question cant survive multiple rounds of combat. If you have him as a Paladin instead he would be capable of taking some hits thanks to it's class mods, but that leaves him solely reliant on Frozen Lance. And keep in mind enemies only grow to be substantially more threatening as more and more of them promote.  

And can I also refute that Lorenz is the only magically inclined unit that can take hits? By letting any mage take the Armor certifications it can let a unit like Marianne, who even with an Armor bane only takes 4 weeks to gain the ranks to certify, can achieve similar levels of durability as Lorenz. 

Speaking of Marianne, what is Lorenz doing that makes his contributions worth more than the +4 base magic she comes with on top of learning Frozen Lance faster as budding talent rather than at C+ Lances? You can also see the rather substantial difference Magic in the paladin example I've posted above. And with how quickly maddening inflates HP, Lorenz will stop ohkoing very quickly into the timeskip while Marianne will not until the very tail end of the game.

And what is Ward doing that makes it worth mentioning? Enemy mages hit too hard for any physical unit to avoid being one rounded regardless and mages don't do enough damage to worth justify using it. Nobody likes using Hanneman for that spell, so why is Lorenz different in that regard?

In short, while Lorenz is usable as unit, so is any other unit with the right setup and investment. With having no stand out Stats, Combat arts, Skills, or Boons, he puts himself at lower end of the unit spectrum.

[Maddening Team Builds Examples]

Well here's a Maddening GD playthough i did recently.

It was my 5th Playthough with no DLC involved. It was also a very relaxed Playthough, as I'd would rout some of the earlygame maps for Class Mastery so it can't be really used too seriously. But if you want something to reference, there you go.