[Rate the unit 1: Alear]

Alear's got two claims to fame for most of the game: Early Exp boost from Mercurius allowing them to snowball or going the support route.

Combat wise, the early exp boost they get from Marth can enable them to promote by Chapter 8 and can allow them to one round enemies pretty easily until its nothing but promoted enemies after Solm. After that they become a pretty run of the mill combat unit until Engage +.

On the flip side, they can also not get that much exp and still be useful. +3 Atk is always useful and comes with the added benefit of +10 Hit when you unlock a C Support. That's pairs extermly well with Bonded Shield, especially since being able to support everyone skyrockets Alear's avoid. Convoy acess makes the pretty convenient at staffing since they aren't limited to 5 items unlike other units.

Divine Dragon isn't worth staying in since it doesn't help with combat while also denying other utility such as staff useage or flight.

The only worthwhile benefits dragon gets from rings would be the Omni instruct from Byleth and Veins from Corrin. Issue is with those is raw stats are less in demand since the well dropped and Alear doesn't make use of Thyrus or the stats Byleth gives, while using Corrin denies 3 range Dreadful Aura hits which are helpful for bosses.

Personal weapons aren't great. Liberation is worth forging to +1 due to its low weight, but upon promotion is thown to the wayside since steel weapons are the ideal weapons to forge when considering might, cost, and weight. Wile Glanz has literally 1 chapter of availability so it's pretty irrelevant.

Engage + is something I see to be pretty underrated. Getting +8 Speed / Def on top of +4 Strength after defeating an enemy are some of the best stat boosts you can get in this game. Add on a two tile +30 hit passive for practically everyone, a 24 might sword, and big damage from bond blast, it makes Alear and their partner of choice pretty great for the last handful of maps.

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Builds]

6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

20 + 22 + 5 + 6 + 40 + 8 + 4 = 105 Attack.

Did I miss something in my calculations, perhaps?

You're missing out on King of Beast Steak, which adds +3 HP for every time you cook it. Cooking that 4 times adds effectively +12 Atk, meaning you don't even need Rally Strength to reach the 113 benchmark.

In short, Vengence stonk

[Fire Emblem Three Houses Builds]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

 How about this, then - run Bernie in Paladin if the damage difference affects which one-shots she could achieve on a particular map, and Bow Knight otherwise? If you've Vengeance, Encloser, and the ranks for one class, then you've almost certainly got the ranks for the other class.

Thing is, Vengence is so overkill you don't need Lancefaire at all to ohko with it. Like a base Bow Knight Bernadetta is capable of reaching the 113 Atk benchmark to one shot endgame Heroes in Silver Snow without stat boosters.

There's a reason why Holy Knight Bernadetta works.

[What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?]

37 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Because Basara only makes you mediocre and its skills are not very good either.

Personally, I never really found Sniper or Master Ninja appealing. The former is competing with Kinshi Knight, and even ignoring my issues with all the ninjas in Fates underperforming regularly to the point where I end up benching them, I'm not sure that Master Ninja is THAT much better than Mechanist...

You shouldn't look at them as hybrid units, you should look at them as bulky mages. They have the same base classs defense of Spear Master, which can be pretty good considering how enemy phase heavy birth right is

Also Quixotic is good. Getting 100% Hit rates for -30 avoid is never a bad thing with how unreliable dodgetanking is in Fates. Only thing bad about it is how late it is.

Sniper has the benefit giving certain blow which can be nice aganist dodgy enemies if nothing else. A free +10 to Hit is also never bad. 

Master ninjas are great at dispatching hard enemies that are toigh for others to dispatch. They can take put enemy Sorcerers, Onmoyji, Kitsune, and other ninjas. Combined with great pair up bonuses and lock touch, there's is no way you should be benching them.

[What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Most of the S rank classes in Fates are not that good. Now, maybe it's because of Engage, but I don't really see the appeal of them; does S rank really make up for being weapon locked...? I am leaning towards "No" in most cases, with Spear Master being one of the exceptions, because the alternative is Basara. Speaking of...

Basara sucks. Some people argue it's better than Onmyoji, but I have a hard time buying that, to say the least.

Even if you didn't like Berserkers,

Master Ninja, Spear Master, Sorcerer, Maid/Butler, and Sniper are all decent classes. Really it's just Nine Tails and Swordmaster that's not great outside of Ryoma.

I dont see how you could make the argument Onmyoji is better than Basara. +2 magic and e ranked staves aren't worth having over +4 Def and HP, especially in Birthright.

[Ranking each game by Class: Brigand/Pirate/Berserker]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Spoiler Alert: Astra is not the only problem here... he also has Rend Heaven on Lunatic, and 22 crit, which will take some doing to completely negate (at least unless your name is Xander). Anyway, I only see that Dragon Vein as a trap.

Bold: Prolly because Ryoma himself is the only mandatory part of the map; you don't even have to engage anyone else.

The thing is, S rank is something you pretty much have to go out of your way to get.

Erm, isn't Elbow Room negated in that room? Elbow Room needs a space with no terrain effects, according to the game.

Units get +15 dodge from using a bronze weapon and Pair up. That's more than enough to negate his crit on on most units. Rend Heaven is dangerous, but it's easy enough to avoid being one shot.

Admittedly forgot about -Avoid tiles, but it's easy enough to squeeze out 3 damage. You could reclass him to Wyvern for Str +2 and Trample, use rally strength, or just use a +1 Bronze Lance. Point is that fighting Ryoma is not heavily dependent on the RNG.

It's worth feeding an Arms scroll to make a unit reach S rank. +2 Attack with Weapon Triangle as well as +10 Hit makes a difference. It's not like there's that many other uses for them.

[Ranking each game by Class: Brigand/Pirate/Berserker]

Fun fact, you can make a chapter 25 Ryoma deal only 1 damage to a base Gunter and have hik three round him with a Brass Naginata, which with shelter dancing means you can make a base Gunter defeat Ryoma in one turn. As for how:

Ryoma in that chapter has 54 Atk, 86 Avoid, and 55 HP / 23 Def.

Base Gunther has 20 Def. By giving him a Wyvern Corrin Pair up, that's 25 with supportive. Rally Defense boosts that 29, and by using aura skills such as Lilly's poise, Rose's Thorns, Inspiration, and Demoiselle, that boosts it to 37 def. 

Add on a tonic and meal boosts it to 41 def. Using a brass naginata effectively increases it to 47 Def when considering weapon triangle. Finally, add on 3x Draco Shield and that'll total 53 Def.

In terms of attack, Gunther has a base 17 strength. The pair up give him 22 Attack, while the Aura skills give him effectively 28 Attack. Elbow room, WTA, and Brass Naginata give him 36 Attack.

Adding meals and tonic boost that to 40, while a steel shuriken debuffs effectively totals that to 42 Attack, enough to three round ryoma.

In terms of hit, Gunther has a base of 136 Hit with Corrin. Adding on WTA, 2x adjacency bonus, and Heart Seeker equals 179 Hit. Adding on tonics and special dance, that's 189 Hit.

Ryoma would have no chance to crit thanks +15 dodge from a bronze weapon and Pair up, so the only way he'd have a chance would be procing Rend Heaven 3 times in a row. And you could just heal him inbetween rounds, so there would be zero chance of death.

If a base Gunther can do it, there should have no problems having someone like Xander or Camilla take him down on a playthrough with growths.

To tie it back to the topic, Berserkers would actually be really useful aganist Ryoma with S Axes and the Dual Club, as that'd means they deal and take +4 / -8 damage from WTA him on top of getting +40 Hit and Avoid. Being able to one shot sword master with a dual club both in and out of Attack stance is pretty good niche I dont see being pulled up often in that chapter.

[How has Fire Emblem discouraged low manning? (and Should it?)]

There are some things that are obvious to limit low manning, such as exp ceilings, but here's the ones I think are worth discussing:

1. Making Enemies hit hard, but not durable 

One of the main reasons why Low manning is successful is because juggernauts have the capability of one rounding more enemies on EP than most of the team can take down on PP. A good way of fixing that is by doing the above.

FE12 is a good example of this, as Kris is one of the best units in the series, yet even they struggle to take on more than 2-3 enemies on Lunatic due to how hard the enemies hit. Not only does this prevent one man army situations, Enemies having relatively low defense also allows other units to one round enemies with a moderate amount of investment, rather than something like FE6 where even the best units struggle to one round without crits.

2. Give lower end units niches and ways to better themselves 

Earlygame units do not scale well compared to other units in a lot of games, such as with Radiant Dawn or Engage. This is typically the result of enemies scaling to the point where only through substantial amounts of investment are earlygame units like Edward or Alfred actually able to one round.

The best way to fix this is by giving them relevant niches or ways to grow themselves better, which can be done a multitude of ways. You could go the weapon route, where you give a special weapon, but Edward shows why that's not a great option. It's better to go with the more interesting skill route, such as with paragon that expires once they hit a certain level or utility skill only they get such as Chain Guard or a Guaranteed doubling skill that halves defense. There's plenty of interesting options to be had here.

3. Design Maps maps to prevent it

Most of the time the biggest thing that enables Juggernauting is just map design. Enemies need to be dangerous and / or cover each other ranges to really prevent low manning, which for a lot of fire emblems just isn't the case. Easy solutions to that would be to add enemies with defense penetrating attacks for certain units or a freeze staff that exclusively targets your strongest units. 

Also, Warp Staff has to go, at least on the hardest difficulties. The thing allows you to skip way too much combat with it.

Tl;DR: Play Berwick Saga. It really shows how removing enemy phase really spices the gameplay and removes any thought of lowmanning.

[Ranking each game by classes: Myrmidon/Swordmaster]

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

Second, did you miss the part about four extra levels?  That's the part that's actually being hyped.  The game doesn't tell you about this XP boost so it's not even a case of false advertising and feeling betrayed and let down; rather, it's a case of once you know about this, Assassin being so much better than advertised.  What you're describing is the conventional wisdom circa 2004 that all Assassin has is Silencer, which is not true, it has the experience boost as well.  Those extra levels will easily make up for the "worse promotions gains" which are only very marginally worse, unless you are going to 20/20 or care about stat caps, which should only matter if you are doing some goofy challenge in the Lagdou Ruins or the like.

How are you expected to gain four levels from silencer? Are you stacking supports or using a killer edge exclusively or something?

Because else wise I'm not seeing how you gaining that much exp from >10% proc rate.

[You must pick one character to give Knight as their Heart Seal class]

7 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Hm, if my calcs are correct and I ran it with A Lances, which is unlikely but also not overly important, you are running with a 86% chance for Ninjas and  77% chance for Master Ninjas to dodge and activate any combo of Poison Strike/Grizzly Wounds aside from the chip and less than chip the Ninjas already deal. Chances are a lil better because of Fates RNG I think, but I´m too lazy to look that up.

But, and this I´m not entirely clear about cuz I´d have to do some testing, Steel Shurikens -3 also affects the units dodge so by extension the Javelin +5 effective speed would also apply I imagine, so throw - 7 to all them hitrates. Roughly 1/4 of Ninjas survives, chunking for chip and -20/40% 

Also, i just realized this, your 15/7 Effie has 22 Def, meaning Ninjas won´t attack her unless debuffed but w/e; she has 16 spd so Steel Shuriken MN double her for 4/8, 8/16 +20/40%, Silver MN should go for  7/14, 11/22 +20/40% on her 33HP person and then there´s the Mechanists, the Automatons, the Samurai and the Swordmasters, at least one of which has an Armor Slayer and another a Dual Katana +1 from reinforcements but all of that is math I assume you´ll do/check since it´s your argument right? As I ramble, with the Silver debuff we sittin at 12 spd, enough for Samurai to double her with that sweet Quickdraw for 26+4-WTD(5,6 dmg?) damage and Silver Shuriken Mechanist should be sitting at 10/14dmg times two nevermind the Steel Shuriken LaD Mechanist in the middle of the map with his one time 17/21 dmg. 

Also also, there´s Automatons with their Saws and Big Saws, debuffing for -4, -6 Str and as off -4str we don´t 1rko MN anymore so guaranteed Poison Strike/Grizzly Wounds proccs. Ofc, all this ignores that Effie will then carry her lessend performance as well, requiring mo healing and so on and so forth.

With great precision you picked 1 out of 2 chapters you really don´t want to be attacked in and used it to make your argument. Like an ICBM to the foot.

lmao

Flimsy unit you say, when he stands to have among the highest Res stats in the game, with 5 out of 9 enemies being magic users and only one having Calamity Gate, most likely the highest avoid out of your team, having WTA over 4 of 5 Omnyojis, no doubt you put him on that juicy +1def/10avoid pillar and pegasus knights being modestly str-weak enemies.

All of that, and there is still a chance Kaze just keels over to the Spearmaster and any combination of Hayato/Luna or Falcon Knights, making all of this a cause for reset.

(Not to mention your early promoted Kaze is going to be even weaker, requiring even more ressources.)

But yeah. Guard Stance mvp here. 

Considering my own experiences with EP and all of the above where you presented 1) a good reason not to EP, 2) what might be the single most biased situation in favor of a unit you can put them in which is still a dubious situation at best, 3) you not having been capable of producing a single one argument, much less a convincing one, in favor of EP and worse even not been capable of identifying situations throughout CQ´s 28 chapter long base campaign in which EP would actually be more preferable and the fact that differences in playstyle has been completely absent from any of your remarks unless it´s to push what´s your opinion as a "basic assumption" as you call it ... yeah is bad.

Regardless; I think I´ll excuse myself from this topic now, if you would. The amount of time it takes to gather the enemy types, stats, skills, equipment, doing the math to put your statements into the appropriate broader context isn´t worth it, I realize now.

Average Effie's at 15/7 has got: HP 33.25 | Str 27.00 | Mag 0.00 | Skl 16.20 | Spd 16.25 | Lck 18.70 | Def 22.25 | Res 9.50

(Steel Shurikens speed debuffs doesn't decrease avoid, but they do innately lower avoid by 5.)  

That gives Effie 113 base Hit with Javelin, or 73 base Hit against Master Ninjas. That is low, but you can boost that to acceptable levels. Adding on Skill and Luk tonics boost that to 78 Hit. You can also bring Benny (Though Gunther and Xander also work) along for this chapter to block choke points since Ninjas won't attack him and instead focus on Effie, raising her hit to effectively 90 while next to him for +2.5 hit adjacency bonus. Add on 2 more adjacency supports and you can hit 95 hit, while inspiring song can bring that up to 99. So you can make the hit rates can be as good as you want them to be. 

The Terrain on this map is very beneficial for Effie because there's a lot of points where you can force ninjas to attack exclusively at two range through using either the dragon vein or a High Defense units. So you can filter out the regular enemies from the Ninja and get rid of the hardest enemies on the map pretty consistently on enemy phase.

There is no chance of a Kaze dying in Chapter 20. A 15/11 Master Ninja Kaze would be able to tank every hit even if they did land. He averages: HP 32.60 | Str 18.20 | Mag 0.00 | Skl 24.40 | Spd 32.60 | Lck 10.20 | Def 12.00 | Res 26.50

Kaze is facing off against 165 (with 13 extra damage from Luna) raw magic damage from 5 mages and 93 Physical Damage from 3 falcos. With a Wyvern Pair up, defense tonic, Cooking, and terrain, he has effectively 19 Def and 29 Res. 165 - 29*5 = 20 magic Damage while 93 - 19*3 = 36 Damage.

Keep in mind he's blocking every other attack with the shield gauge, so half of that damage just goes right out the window on top of the really crappy hit rates. Here's a practical demonstration of this. You could even boost his survivablity with Rallies and face no chance of death even with Luna.

I would ask you how you expect to kill Hayoto on turn 1 with Attack Stance, but you made your intention not to continue clear, so I'll stop here.

I will say though, this has been a fun discussion. 

[You must pick one character to give Knight as their Heart Seal class]

12 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Yeah, like Kaze, Niles, Nyx, Elise, Camilla, Shura, Selena, Peri, Charlotte, Azura, Spd+Corrin, Archer!Mozu, all these units with a significantly better base speed and many of them a better growth. No doubt your experience of little doubling comes from screwing your units by early promoting. 

Do you try different builds in FE, mess with units, or just repeat the most optimal builds? Because it sure as hell sounds like you play the game with a LTC guide open.

If she can easily one tap them, why would we need her to double? OHKOing is better than getting retaliated on. 

Wrong. Your doubling Effie is getting hit by all kinds of stat downs, those result in HP loss because suddenly any combination of her str/skl/spd/def/res is down and god forbid a unit with Grizzly Wounds or Poisonous Strike is in there and survives, which is going to happen because your thought experiment of quick Effie doesn´t play out in an empty room

AS also keeps your units clear of debuffs (I guess it does help with stats huh) because you can 1hko more enemies or just have a greater chance at doing so, which also frees up healers to deal chip/debuff use other staves or nuke in the case of an Elise, not having your deployment limit/2 give much more potential to get kills in a single turn, because every unit can do something, even if it´s just to pair up and increase another units stats in turn opening more options and shaky hit rates are primarily a concern if you were a certain member of this forum.

GS is good for EP to be sure, but EP is bad in CQ, hence the many complaints about Ninjas in general, too many skills on enemies, Ninja Hell, Kitsune Hell, chapter 20 etc. The advantage of AS over GS is summarized in that it keeps more options open.

Are we really going to neglect to mention the other half other cast that does need investment to double? Half those units aren't even capable of one rounding without a pair up, and some units like Nyx and Peri don't even regularly double with steel weapons that they need to use to one round without forges. But clearly, I'm just promoting units like Xander and Leo too early. 

When did I ever imply anything even related to LTC? I raise Mozu up on the regular. That should should tell you how much I LTC. 

Doubling is generally better than ohkoing. It builds up more Shield gauge, relies less on using relatively low hit weapons like Steel, and scales much better than one shoting. The only case where one shoting preferable is in the presence of ranged enemies without a good 1-2 range option, which tend to be on the flimsy side.

You make it sound it like there's a trade off between Effie one shoting and doubling or that she can't muscle through debuffs. On the chapters where that matters, you can easily have her one shot enemies even with debuffs.

Take Chapter 17 for instance. A 15/7 GK Effie averages 27 Strength. Combined with a zerker pair up and forged javelin, that's enough to reach the 48 atk benchmark on one shotting the Chapter 17 Master ninjas even accounting for the Steel Shuriken Debuff.  And you could replace the forge with Rally Strength if you really dislike forging. You could even have her one shot the dreaded Chapter 25 Ninjas on Enemy Phase, since Silver Shuriken doesn't debuff Strength.

How the heck is Enemy Phase in Conquest bad? Those chapters you listed are some where Guard Stance shine the most. Those chapters encourage dispatching enemies proactively with gimmicks like Saizo, Illusions and the wind, which is what Guard Stance excels at. It allows units to reach the benchmark required to one round while making them substantially bulkier, allowing them to clear out sections of enemies by themselves.

Take Chapter 20 for instance. Hayato is pretty scary with his Hexing Rod, and the wind makes it easy for units to end up in his range by accident. He's guarded by 3 Falco knights, 4 Onmyoji's, a Paired up Spearfighter for attack stance, and himself having Luna. Yet, Guard Stance is capable of making flimsy units like Kaze capable of taking all those units out pretty handily on turn 1, making the map much more approachable.

If you think Enemy Phase is bad in Conquest, you really need to reevaluate it's potential.

[Emblem Tier List]

Some things I feel worth sharing:

Roy is definitely being underrated here. At max bond he gives +6 Str and can easily add on +2-3 in Str and Speed while engaged, which can really make a huge difference for a unit.  He also has really good Synergy with Max Hold out, Unyielding ++, and Wrath. That guarantees 2-3 hits worth of survivability for a Wrath unit every turn. That's afford them the niche of being able to be place in attacking distance of ranged enemies without concern.

I also think Ike's tanking capabilities are being a little understated. At max bond he effectively gives +12 Def. Combine that with Def +3, +2 from a tonic, and Ragnell, that's +22 Def on top of a 50% damage reduction. That's enough defense for enemy endgame snipers with silver bows to do mediocre damage aganist flyers.

Combining that natural bulk with innate Wrath can be a rather asine combination in the right circumstance.

Leif is the weakest ring, but he does have a use on a  warrior. The thing about adaptability is that it doesn't care what weapon your using as long as you're using the right weapon type. So if you never raise his bond, you never have to worry about switching off your forged axe for any of his weapons. Him giving +10 Crit on backup units is useful for the Killer Axe.

Celica has some really good Synergy with some skills. Echo, for example, can be used to activate Chain attacks twice against a enemy rather than once. It also can be used to apply draconic hex on two different enemies a turn, provided you're willing to inherit it. Holy Stance ++ can also be useful in taking down corrupted wyrms since they'll do some massive recoil damage to themselves. Probably need an HP tonic for that one though.

Erika Is actually very good offensive wise. Her skills are plus Attack rather than any stats, meaning they bypass any defense. While engaged, it's not uncommon to deal +10 damage on the enemy that you otherwise would not have done damage to.

Marth can be very good when combined with effective weapons. Even things like forged hammers have a hard time killing Great Knights, but with marth you can afford to slap on a Ike engraving on them and actually be able to one round them with a break.

Lucina gives a 100% protection rate with Bonded Shield as a Qi adept. That alone is really good, since it can lead to nutty stuff like this

The Fire Emblem also needs to be mentioned. As a Divine Dragon, their gauge can instantly be refilled as long as they they can quad with arts. That may sound intimidating, but it works on generals with +atk skills. Flashing fist is also a viable option with some Speed stacking.

Being able to give +8 Spd and Def on top of a rally spectrum for all other stats on a good combat unit for 4 turns is already pretty great, but passively just handing +30 Hit and Avoid is extremely helpful with hitting dodgey enemies in the lategame and increasing the reliability of your own units.

[You must pick one character to give Knight as their Heart Seal class]

On 2/12/2023 at 11:48 AM, Imuabicus said:

On a side note, neither Knights, Wyverns or Onis are midspeed enemies. These enemies also have something else in common.

Might I remind you, that her doubling plenty of mid-speed enemies was your point, one which you have only been capable of defending by shoving every mechanic up Effies speed stat imaginable. It´s consistent in the amount of ressources it requires to keep it afloat. Furthermore I fail to see why providing evidence for your point falls to me?

I´ve done math for every single of your examples? Additionally, since we derailed this thread, the main focus of my argument has been that whatever it is you are trying to argue here, is unnessecary at best and wasteful in any case.

But anyway here´s a breakdown of your prepromoted Effie, at level 10 in CQ chapter 10 with +2 lvls/chapter, and the enemies she doubles. Without all the investment, like constant steroid influx, earlypromoting Kaze (cringe), strange Rally strats, etc. Obviously gaining 2 levels per map is unrealistic, but hey, maybe it´s gonna help her.

  Reveal hidden contents

1/20 - 10spd -> chapter 10
3/20 - 11spd -> chapter 11
5/20 - 12spd -> chapter 12
7/20 - 14spd -> chapter 13
9/20 - 15spd -> chapter 14
11/20 - 16spd -> chapter 16
13/20 - 17spd -> chapter 17
15/20 - 18spd -> chapter 18
17/20 - 19spd -> chapter 19
19/20 - 20spd -> chapter 20
20/20 - 21spd (28) -> chapter 21

Breakdown of enemy speed in respective chapter:

10 - 9-19spd
11 - 9-23spd
12 - 9-22spd
13 - 6-21spd - she doubles Knights and Wyverns, the slowest enemy in the game. Damn do they have high Def, if only there was some other stat we could target.
14 - 11-20spd
16 - 9-24spd - would you look at that, Effie doubles Dark Mages, also slow enemies. Chapter 8 Dark Mages have 5 SPD for reference.
17 - 17-27spd
18 - 15-23spd - Boss has WF, so no doubling. sad great speed stat noises
19 - 15-30spd - Thank god Effie can double Beastrune Kitsune as a Great Knight now. Otherwise this Beastkiller might have gotten bloodstains on it.
20 - 21-27spd 
21 - 10-26spd - Stoneborn have WF. sad great speed stat noises
22 - 19-37spd
23 - 22-28spd
24 - 20-35spd
25 - 24-40spd
26 - 22-32spd - If only WF didn´t exist on these Stoneborn. Bah, there´s no way a unit could double without speed at this point in the game right?
27 - 15-41spd - Phew, make sure these Shrine Maidens are REALLY dead.
28 - 17-37spd - Damn these 13 SPD Generals with their WF.

In conclusion, I´mma go ahead and say your early promoted Effie, with an unreasonable lvl gain and thus higher than normal speed stat, barely doubles the slowest of enemies, but that just leads to 2 more scenarios: attacking into high Def targets, which require additional investment into her Str stat or she attacks squishies who are probably getting OHKO-ed either by shit stats (Mages) or Effective weaponry.

pays 2k for skill and babies for a map - calls it no investment

happy Mozu noises

How do I reset irl?

This sentence is uniquely funny to me, considering Effie shares the CQ spot for the highest STR growth, is in a class with the second highest growth for a total of 80% growth no matter the promotion (lest you go Maid for w/e reason) )a PS that specifically increases dmg when BIG STRONG and a quick support building with the second highest STR-PU in CQ that also adds extra accuracy. Add to that a shit spd base and a coinflip growth with a slight dip in your favor in GK and you´d think it´s obvious we have a unit perfectly set-up for inflicting heavy if not ohko-ing amounts of damage with a single attack and possibly effective damage for them Generals, but no, here we are, trying to double slow enemies who coincidentially also happen to have high DEF and the lowest RES on the map. Also this being Fates, where STR/MAG have no real fall-off in usefulness considering attack stance exists, and the fact that the Brave Lance becomes available right before lategame, would allow Effie to peruse her dmg output even then, but Attack Stance existing hasn´t yet caught on, 7 to 8 years after release. 

No, Effie can double mid speed enemies like Spear Masters, Master of Arms, Blacksmiths, Basaras,  Kinshi Knights, Heroes, Berserkers and Faceless. But of course, if you're not going to give her the readily available resources to do so she wouldn't be able to. Not many units in Conquest can regularly double without those things. 

It's not like Effie is the only recipient of these resources either. Every unit should get a good pair up that helps their stats, tonics to reach benchmarks for the map, and rallies later on to be able to one round easily. It's not like i'm saying she should be eating every speedwing or having Azura dance for her every turn for special dance. It's just the basic assumption of what every unit should get.

How is it babying to feed a unit kills? Babying would imply you need to set up kills for them using other units. That Kinshi was able one round the majority of enemies on the map. That's not babying, that's just called being a useful unit who can move on to help the entire team without a drop of exp afterwards.

It's not her like her Strength goes away if you don't give her a Strength Pair up. She can still one shot a decent chunk of enemies without one. And I don't understand how you can say Strength / Magic don't fall off with Attack Stance.

Attack Stance is just straight up inferior to guard stance in most cases. Attack Stance does nothing to help with stats, does not build shield gauge, does not block enemy attack stance, can have shaky hit rates on the non supporting units (especially with brave weapons), and is difficult to utilize on Enemy Phase. The only thing Attack Stance really useful for is the accuracy bonus, which is more of a nice to have than anything actually necessary. 

[Post-Maddening Debrief]

Some thoughts:

Alear: While not great out of box, they can actually snowball pretty hard with Marth in the beginning. Get them to Bond 10 after Chapter 5 and they can use Mercurius for double EXP gain, which provides quite the notable bump in EXP gain. Makes them capable of getting Cantor faster than anyone else to better use their personal. And yeah, Engage + is the way to go with them. It effectively provides +8 Spd and Def with +4 to all the other stats after a kill on top of just passively providing +30 Hit and Avoid to every unit. It can be worth not even giving them a ring since engage + replaces the ring you're wearing.

Diamant: I'd say the power you're seeing is more from Ike rather than Diamant. Ike just makes anyone incredible, as effectively giving +12 Def on top of a 50% damage reduction is already amazing. But adding a way to gain an additional +5 Def, naturally giving +4 Str, all on top of Wrath and Reposition? That's just insane. It was enough for Merrin on the first playthrough to have near 40 Defense while maintaining the speed to double the majority of enemies and had near 100 Crit rates on enemies. Who you put Emblems on makes a huge difference which is why...

Ivy: ... You were not impressed with Ivy. People who praise her combat potential typically either give her Olwen or leave Lyn on her. Lyn is actually not bad choice, since her magic is good enough to one round the majority of enemies in the game, but it is a pretty in demand ring. Her Hit rates can be pretty easily fixed with engravings like Lief. Failing that you could always rely on Bond forger in the lategame.

Kagatsu: It is indeed not worth putting Lyn on him. He really wants something that gives him strength so that he can cleanly one round in the lategame. Ike and Roy are a pretty good fit for him instead.

Fogado: There's no reason to keep him in his personal class since it only gives him 13 Strength. Promoting him to warrior gives him 19 base Strength and 18 Speed, which is higher strength than what Kagatsu has while having the same speed growth at 70%. He can still use the Radiant Bow as well, as a maxed Ike Engraved Radiant Bow has a massive 81 Might. That's enough to one shot all but endgame Griffons even with 7 base magic. 

Pandreo: Yeah, his combat is pretty slept on since it doesn't look too impressive at base and requires losing staves to really utilize. He's probably the best combat mage in the game though.

Panette: There's really no salvaging her speed since she starts slows and doesn't have a good growth. But having the highest Strength in the game gives her the opportunity to make good with brave weapons or utilizing Wrath + Vantage. Halberdier is also a really good option for her    

Merrin: A good way of using her would be to focus on being an Axe Wolf Knight. She has 9 build at base and 21 base speed, which lets her use a Lyn Engraved Killer Axe for only -1 Speed. That makes up for her low strength pretty well while still retaining a good 1-2 range option.

Goldmary:  I could see such a setup working well. But I gotta ask, was she able to double the really fast things like Heroes or Griffins in your experience? I'm unsure if she could or not.

Saphir:  One setup you could've tried is using her with Ike as a Halberdier. She can inherit Axe power +2 at base. Combine that with Urvan, she can swing around a 25 might weapon that requires nothing to forge and doesn't require any levels to hit 53 Atk.

[What are the best/ worst classes (and class types) in general?]

21 hours ago, Tyrannate said:

Remember that this is a late game weapon. 
20 Might is incredibly strong for a Sword. It'll allow you to really experiment with Engravements without having to worry whether you're going to critically hit hard enough. 
105 Accuracy is going to make you super accurate on Maddening. And before anyone asks: no, having more than 100% accuracy is not redundant. Going up against high avoid opponents - some with their own skills - on maps with terrain and special tiles will teach you quickly that you're going to want 100% accuracy at all times; and even with 105 base accuracy, that's no guarantee that will be the case. Especially when, as I've said before, one miss in Maddening can be the difference between losing a unit or winning the round. It even indirectly boosts critical rate, as a missed attack = no crit. 
Having a weapon with extremely high damage and extremely high accuracy is going to benefit tremendously from having any innate crit. Getting 10 is actually rather good, because you can easily combine this with, say, Fates for a 40% base crit chance while still having 18 might (and that's before adding in things like Sword Power for another +10 might). 
12 weight is unfortunately a little on the heavy side, but more importantly, not heavy enough to slow down a maxed BLD Swordmaster. And since you won't be getting any S-ranked Swords until late game anyway, this shouldn't be an issue. If it is, however, there are ways of reducing its weight. 

So yeah, Caladbolg is all that and a bag of chips. Perhaps it takes playing on Maddening to realize that, though - lesser difficulties don't rely nearly as much upon accuracy and speed. 

+5 Caldablog requires 50 Silver, which is probably more than half the Silver that you get throughout entirety of the game. Even if you did have that much silver laying around, it'd be more conductive to spread around multiple forges rather than just one weapon that isn't even that good. It is unreasonable to forge it to that level.

Accuracy is a non issue in the late game with the amount of ways it's adjustable, even ignoring Engravings. The Ch 24 Boss has the highest Avoid in the game for a boss at 134 Avoid. That may sound like a lot until you realize that +30 Avoid is coming from terrain. Hit them with a Corrin's Torrential Roar and that causes them to lose 70 Avoid. Add on Bond Forger, and that effectively drops their avoid to 34 Avoid. Accuracy is never concern that isn't fixable in the lategame.

Crit Engravings should be reserved for Killer Weapons exclusively. With Wrath, it is feasible to hit near 100 crit rates on enemies, which is far stronger than just having higher might. Even without Wrath, the difference of +30 Crit from an actual Killer Weapon is quite noticeable and is pretty consistent on a Lyn Ring user.

Getting to capped build is very unreasonable on most units, even with excessive grinding. Using Alear as an example, even after a 100 Levels in Swordmaster, they still wouldn't be able to reach to be able to their 12 build cap. And there are no places where you can grind for those kinda of levels in the main game.

So no, there is no use cases where Caladbolg is anything more than a slighter stronger silver sword. Something much simpler like a +5 Steel Axe would be much better than it, considering it has 19 Might, 75 Hit, and 10 Weight while costing 45 less silver. Of course, Swordmasters couldn't use the thing. But I think that says a lot about the quality of the class.

[What are the best/ worst classes (and class types) in general?]

The regular S Rank Sword ain't even anything special in this game. A +5 Steel Sword is 15 might and 6 weight, while the S Rank Sword has 15 might and 12 weight and is ridiculously expensive to forge. Like it costs 15 silver just to get it at 18 might at +3. That is pretty far worth it.

[Wolf Knight, what's the point?]

It provides +1 Mov and Strength in exchange -2 Def over Thief. It's a winning trade, though admittedly only a marginal one.

On Maddening though, Wolf Knight becomes a lot more useful since it'll actually allow units to use terrain unlike Covert Units. Maddening enemies don't attack units if they have 0 hit, so covert bonuses aren't really that great becuase of it. And with enemies running 140-170 Hit in the lategame, being able to add +30 avoid while getting enemies to attack is pretty useful.

[Which weapons are best suited for different Engravings?]

Asides from the obvious like putting Lyn, Corrin, and Eirika on killer weapons or wrath user:

Michiah is best used on a Smash weapon on a dodgetank so that unit combat doesn't have to eat a counter when initiating and has a good weapon for enemy phase.

Roy should go on to a hammer. Enemy generals get exponential bulkier to the point where most physical weapons weapons will deal 0 damage, so having a good weapon for them is quite useful.

Ike should go on to a brave bow to help shore up their might since they're very weak otherwise and it's pretty hard to double fliers. Going from 12 to 21 effective might is a pretty big difference.

[So, what difficulty have you chosen?]

21 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

@JotariHow are enemy stats? Did they scale them back relative to 3 Houses (special mention to 14 AS thieves in goddamn chapter 2)?

Here's some Maddening stats if you want to see them.

Overall its been a smooth ride thus far. Only the Chapter 5 boss has been really noticeable, and he can be taken out with emblem skills pretty easily

[From Houses to Hopes: AM Maddening Log]

3 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

My issue was more stacking evasion alongside it for a decent Enemy Phase. Brawl Prowess Lv 5, Avo+20, Death Blow, Fiendish Blow, Mag+2 are presumably the required skillset to hit that War Master threshold and maintain Avo, with a Magic Staff thrown in - but that involves leaving out at least Str+2 and Hit+20, and not equipping an Evasion Ring for that attack. Against enemies like War Masters, both my Hit and Avo with that setup are a bit too low for my comfort. 

Here's a practical demonstration of the offense of a hybrid grapple, while here are the dodge rates. (Didn't have Mocking Bird on hand, so had to change the battalions between the two. Still gives a good enough impression.)

While it depends on the unit, some units don't even need the magic staff to one round. The hit rates also tend to be decent due to magic hit formula.

[From Houses to Hopes: AM Maddening Log]

3 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Ch. 14? No the paladins I was talking about were pre-timeskip (and I wasn't suggesting Mercedes would get those either, just that they were the kinds of enemies that you couldn't kill merely by doubling with gauntlets). Conveniently, I have recorded the stats on this thread for Catherine and Mercedes just prior to timeskip, and my boosted Catherine would only have gotten the kill on the Ch. 12 paladin with Vajra-Mushti and the Nuvelle battalion (although I didn't field her on that map, and the Nuvelle battalion had competition from other units). Mercedes wouldn't have killed that Paladin either, but she did get kills on that map (ie against Pegasi and anything she could double). My Catherine probably would have hit more thresholds than Mercedes on that map overall, but only because she could quad enemies.

I'm guessing this is with Brawl Prowess 5, Brawl Avo+20, Evasion Ring, Mockingbird's Thieves, adjutant/linked attacks and base speed? For me, none of that is coming together before Ch. 16 at the earliest and it involves delaying FIF at least a couple of chapters. And you're giving up some of the things you needed to get your units to ORKO thresholds with Aura Knuckles in the later game (maybe Spd growths will free up some of those tools but it's not a given). You may not 'need' Speed for a viable dodge tank, but you really do want it for your build. Since the build started as a way to optimise Player Phase magic attack, it seems odd now to pivot most of your resources to a half-decent Enemy Phase and lose attack power in the process. 

You're explicitly willing to buy Aura Knuckles with Renown, so I don't know why you're concerned about resources when it comes to Magic Bow users. And I'm still not convinced that any old hybrid Grappler will have an effective Enemy Phase - they might be able to tank attacks here and there, but not as a matter of course without giving up ORKO power pre-FIF. My main issue with the idea is that building for evasion and physical attack and magical attack is too much for one build - either you miss out on being effective in one/multiple areas, or the build is delayed too much to be truly good. 

Even so I do think that a hybrid Grappler is a potent build (with or without good Avo), especially post-FIF, but a mage that goes Magic Bow Sniper is less finicky (you only need to build for one specialism) and has higher range.

Those paladin in Chapter 12 have 49 hp and 24 defense. An level 24 Catherine War Monk Catherine averages around ~28 Strength. Adding +24 Atk (Death B., Empire Knights, fist faire, nimble combo, silver gauntlets), she has no trouble in being able to one round every generic on the map even without Nuvelle or the Relic. It's only really after ch 16 where every enemy is promoted do Fist users really need to start hitting more than two hits.

I've gotten that setup completed by Chapter 14. Of course, it's heavily dependent on how many paralogues are completed and whether you do aux battles. I don't use aux battles, but I do pad out the number of battles by using Impregnable Wall and have placing units right in the middle of groups of enemies .

It's not that difficult for units to keep up with magic damage even without a +7 mag atk battalion. It only takes 6 points of attack from the bishop class base (15) to be able to one round Warmasters with Aura Gauntlets and Mocking Bird. Those are some of the bulkiest enemies in the game that most units struggle to one round even with brave arts, yet they crumple pretty easily in the face of brave magic attacks.

The thing about Grappler compared to Snipers is that they're not completely dependent on a singular weapon. Aura Gauntlets are really an off weapon that is for getting rid of fortress knights and very bulky late game enemies. Most of the time they're content using steel gauntlets.

[From Houses to Hopes: AM Maddening Log]

20 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

So, we need to hit 70 Attack. Add it all up, and we have an offset of 32. So to reach 70 Attack, we need a raw Magic stat of 38. That's... okay, that's a lot by chapter 14. I can't imagine anyone but Lysithea or Constance hitting it by that point.

Ah, but what about magic specialists with Bow combat arts? Mercedes has Waning Shot (4), so she only has to hit 34 Magic. Same for Hanneman with Ward Arrow, or Schism Shot on Hubert. And then there's Heavy Draw (8), which means Hubert could kill with just 30 Magic. That's still a lofty goal, but we've gone from "essentially impossible" to "plausible, with the right set of tools, support, and a dash of luck"

At level 30 going from monk -> mage -> 15 archer -> Sniper, Mercedes averages 25 Magic. That's a pretty far cry from the 31 she needs to hit, even with an Annette support.

Hubert, in comparison, averages only 28 Magic. And the paladins in CF are even bulkier, requiring 75 atk to one shot in chapter 14. Keep in mind he has around the same Magic as Lysithea does.

It's just unfeasible for Magic Bow Snipers to one shot promoted enemies. Unless they're a flier, enemy HP is just too massive for that.

[From Houses to Hopes: AM Maddening Log]

1 hour ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Grapplers still need to have top-tier Speed and Brawl Avo +20. I wouldn't take it as a given that a grappler (especially a character built for using Aura Knuckles) is both reliably dodge tanking and getting ORKOs in the lategame.

Not sure it's that simple. Magic Bow Snipers are still able to get kills pre-Hunter's Volley. If they have a solid CA (Waning Shot, for example), that puts Magic Bow attacks in the region of top-tier spells which is enough to get kills in the period either side of the timeskip - it shouldn't be too long after the timeskip that Hunter's Volley/FIF becomes available. On the other hand, grapplers with decent Str (ie not Hanneman) likely need to crit, quad or have an above-average Str stat to ORKO in Part 2 without FIF. My Catherine on this run started needing three hits to kill tougher enemies like Paladins once they were introduced just before timeskip, whereas even at her highest relative strength Constance was unable to ORKO using physical attack without a crit - both were in War Cleric but I think the experience is comparable. Given this, I think there isn't a huge difference between the two builds before they master their respective classes, but Sniper probably does edge it as they are more likely to be able to attack enemies and earn Class EXP that way. 

I do think Aura Knuckles Grappler (using FIF) specifically requires more investment than Magic Bow Sniper. It'll depend on what unit you use for the grappler - Grappler Yuri is lower-investment than Grappler Hanneman, for example. But Snipers do win out - apart from the reasons above, the general utility of raising Bows (ie to pick up Hit+20) and having ranged attacks can't be undersold. 

My Magic Bow Mercedes this run was not very far at all from ORKOing everything at endgame, and only had a couple of enemies she struggled with prior to that point. Not having an Enemy Phase was a disadvantage of hers - but like I said above, there's no guarantee that Aura Knuckles Grapplers do.

You don't need to have high speed to dodge tank. You can hit 90 avoid with mocking bird just off of base stats alone. It's not going to have amazing enemy phase combat, but having some is better than having none.

There's not really point where regular magic bow units without HV are one rounding enemies that grapplers are not. Like you bring up ch 14 paladins, but a magic bow sniper would need 70 atk to one shot them without Hunter's Volley. That's well beyond the range of any Sniper, combat art or no.

Grapplers can also master the class much faster since they can get involved in more than one player phase action a turn.

A Hybrid grappler may cost most investment, but it's a lot more flexible in what it is able to do unlike magic bow Snipers, who only offer overkill player phase combat and are extremely reliant on getting lucky with arcane crystals to actually be of use.

[From Houses to Hopes: AM Maddening Log]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Hm, I don't think I agree. Being able to kill things at range 2-4 is hugely flexible compared to range 1; it's the same reason Hunter's Volley is more highly-regarded than Fierce Iron Fist for vanilla physical builds. Also, Aura Knuckles need double the arcane crystals to create in the first place (and you don't get a random one handed to you like the Chapter 14 Magic Bow), and require an A rank, so the bow build does come online earlier. The main reason, in my view, to go with Aura Knuckles is if you plan to get something out of spell access, since Hunter's Volley is limited to a class that excludes that. One-range infantry just aren't top-end performers in this game otherwise IMO. Someone like Constance being able to kill anything at range 1 and also use Rescue or Bolting (including its linked attack properties) is a superior build to someone who can only do the former.

I'd argue grapplers are more flexible with their positioning than snipers, since they can easily be built for dodgetanking so they don't have to really worry about being placed the range of even multiple enemies. 

You could just buy Aura Gauntlets from the pagan stature. Would not need to waste arcane crystals forging it or having to wait A+ Professor Ranking that way.

The rank maybe steeper, but magic bow snipers are even worse off as they're pretty gimped until they master Hunter's Volley. Meanwhile grapplers are one rounding pretty consistently once they pick up deathblow and only really need Aura Gauntlets for fortress knights and very bulky endgame enemies.

I'd argue the opposite actually. Range setups tend to be inferior to 1 range setups simply becuase they require more investment, often fail to one round in the late game, and have no enemy phase to speak of. Having the capability of being able to engage more than enemy on player phase is more valuable than overkill offense.

[From Houses to Hopes: AM Maddening Log]

4 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

They'd need around 22 Mag to kill War Masters at AM endgame assuming Mag+2, Fiendish Blow and Gloucester Knights, which Grappler Yuri hits naturally at Lvl 42, and Grappler Balthus at Lvl 47.

It's actually a lot lower than that. Those War Masters have 75 hp and 18 res, so you only need 43 attack to one round them.

With Aura Gauntlets Might (2), FiF (3), Fiendish Blow (9), Leicester Dicers (16), Fistfaire (21), Magic Staff (24), and Mag +2 (26). That only makes them need 17 magic which they can get from certifying as a bishop. Yuri could even afford not to pick Mag +2 with his personal.

While they also might not be able one round mortal savant with Aura Gauntlets, they can do so with using regular silver ones. Adding 28 attack (Faire, fif, Str +2, Death B., Dicer, Silver Gaunt, personal) they'd only 30 Str to one round 63 hp and 36 def, which they do reach on average at level 40.

Overall, using Aura Gauntlets on a Grappler gives you an even better performance than a Magic bow sniper since they don't even have to have high magic or heavily reliant on a CA to pull off being a hybrid. Brawl Avoid +20 is also a good excuse to level faith, so it's not even that much of an ask. It's only needing Fiendish Blow that really holds back this setup.