[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Alliance Magic Corps: 1.5 out of 10. 

I'm going to throw that one into question. You have two native units with budding magical weapons arts, and those are both the strongest and most accurate way of dealing of damage for the two of them. Like a base Marianne is capable of finishing off enemies in Chapter 3 with this battalion at level 1 after Steel Bow Chip from Ignatz, and that's not something a lot of units can say.

It helps the two mages escape from noble that much faster. That at the very least puts it no where near the same level of Alliance Infantry.

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

Battalions here are pretty uninteresting, so I'm just going to post numbers.

Alliance infantry: 2/10

Alliance Duelist: 2/10

Alliance Brawlers: 5/10

Alliance Magic Corps: 5/10

Alliance Knights: 6/10

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

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

 Not sure who'd be up to the solo bosskill, though...

It's an easy kill with the Thunderbrand, since you only need 34 atk and 8 AS to one round him. With +4 atk battalion and Rally Strength, anyone with 13 Strength could one round with so long as they can double him.

Or you could have Catherine smack him with a mace. That works pretty well too.

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

Kingdom Infantry: 6/10. Seiros Mercs who trade +5 hit for +1 prt. I'd say that's not worth, but it's still a good early battalion.

Kingdom Lancer 3/10. A +3 attack battalion that exclusively offers some some avoid, which is pretty bad. Jeralt Mercs are pretty much a better version of this and no one really wants the avoid.

Kingdom Brawlers: 5/10. Brawlers that switch avoid for crit. Neither a are winning trade, but +4 atk is still good

Kingdom Magic Corp: 5/10. Filler Magic Battalion that you use until you get something better. Resonant Ice is worse than fire, but I don't feel it's a huge difference in performance.

Kingdom Knights: 7/10. My preferred version of Knights. +5 Atk / +4 Prt are already very good for the early game, but I also really like Assault Troop over Blaze. Being able to use it twice at an actual reliable hit rate without having to rely on rally charm is a pretty big boon early, especially with maps like Chapter 5 if you like to aggro everything immediately like i prefer to do. +5 hit is also nice, but it's not really anything too substantial. 

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

Empire Infantry: 2/10. Bad filler E rank battalion that no one should use.

Empire Warriors: 5/10. Brawlers without any of the avoid. Some people may take off points for that, but I won't. Random shot is also pretty unique, but not very useful.

Empire Brawlers: 5/10. A nice early +4 might battalion. It's certainly not going to win any awards, but it does the job just fine until something better roles around.

Empire Magic Corp: 5/10. Filler Magic Battalion that you use until you get something better. Gives +1 higher magic than Seiros, but I don't think it's worth putting it over since mages don't have strong earlygames.

Empire Archers: 8/10. About the only battalion worth discussing in this batch, i'd say, and I'd also say it's the best starting battalion period.  It gives all the bonuses that are most valuable in the early game, and Fusillade is a really nice gambit when combined with Rally Charm. Using it on Ferdinand in combination with the +charm bracelet will allow him to get 95 gambit hit on most enemies by Chapter 3, which is really nice.   

Empire Knights: 6.5/10. Fulfills the same purpose as Seiros Knights. Gives blaze and +5 charm to people with authority boon earlygame and then falls off. +1 Atk and Prt gives it a minor edge over Seiros. 

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

The batallion also crucially comes with 5 charm at max level, helping your units land the attack.

I think you get another free copy of this batallion from somewhere in the midgame, but I'd sooner sell it than make use of it.

Minor Nitpick: Most battalions get their charm from their Authority rather than level. So a C Rank Battalion always gives 5 Charm even at level 1, which is handy early.

The other free copy of this battalion you can get is on Alois, who can only be recurited by Chapter 11. So yeah, that one is not going to see much use.

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

Seiros Holy Monks: 9/10. It gives Stride at E rank by Chapter 3. Nothing more needs to be said

Seiros Sacred Monks: 2/10. About the nicest thing you can say about Resonate White Magic is that its 3 uses, so your neutral authority mages can get 8 extra authority exp if they use all three charges compared to a 1 use gambit. 

Seiros Magic Corp: 5/10. Early filler Magic Battalion that you use until you get something better.

Seiros Pegasus: 7/10. +4 Atk is the best you're going to get by the earlygame, and it keeps up by the midgame as well with flying units.   

Knights of Seiros: 6/10. +5 Charm makes it really good at getting good blaze hit rates in the earlygame, which can be valuable. It gets points taken off for being accessible only really by Authority boon units by the time it's useful, as later on Gambit hit becomes much less of a problem with supports by chapter 5 or so.

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

58 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Another Jeralt's Merc quandry: The Caspar Paralogue. Have we ever held a discussion on the lowest investment way for Caspar to take out the Death Knight on Maddening?

I've actually done some numbers on that. You can actually get Caspar to one shot him at base Strength assuming he's recurited at chapter 12, but it requires some set up.

Still, I wouldn't put too much stock into it. The setup either requires getting him a source of Rally Strength plus Strength meals or a class mastery, neither of which I'd call low investment. Add on top of that the sizeable chance of failure, its just simply not a practical strategy.

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Well it's a unit as fast as Recruited Petra, and that's more of an indictment of how terrible her combat art loadout typically is. My recruited Petra on Maddening pretty much never got the ORKO on her doubles (flat out couldn't double many enemies of the late game). Also Swift Strikes, where'd you get that? I'm gonna need your definition of "Past the early game". 

Yuck. It takes so much investment already to hit the skill ranks necessary for level 10 and level 20 classes before your units reach those levels. it feels like a waste to set that as a study goal over something harder to raise, like an important weapon rank that they have a bane in, or a movement based skill.

I'm just going to drop this line of questioning because I feel like this topic would get derailed too much trying to bridge the gap between our play styles.

Like Swift Strikes is like gotten by Chapter 8-9, B Authority is hit in that time frames as well on pretty much all my units, and I never had any difficulty with certifying for any class. Recruited Petra in Chapter 6 one rounds as far as Chapter 17 with just a Pegasus Certification while being Strength Screwed.

That just too much of a difference in Personal Experience. So i'm just going to focus on this part.

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I'd rather have Jeralts Mercs than Seiros Brawlers. Disturbance does not compare well at all to the assault troop. The Brawlers give you one damage over Jeralts, true, but is that a fair trade for giving that unit single digit crit chance minimum on all their attacks? And certainly we can agree that 15 avoid is better than 10 avoid, and 75 endurance is better than 30? And don't forget the dozen+ rounds of combat you need for the brawlers to get these stats in the first place. Jeralts should be maxed out by chapter 3.

Disturbance may not compare well, but I'd much rather prefer Fusillade over Assault Troop.

There's no scenario where I'd accepted unreliable crit over guaranteed damage. Crits cannot be planned around, so even when you get them, it may be in a scenario where you would killed anyways. I've even had scenarios where units were killed by defeating an enemy with a crit only for that to open up a new spot for another enemy to attack to them. Low percentage crits shouldn't be considered imo.

+5 avoid is marginal in the face +1 attack I'd say. I have also literally never seen Battalion durability matter outside of battalion skills. Do you really have units who take 60+ damage regularly in a single map?

Battalion Leveling is not really not worth any consideration when you have most battalions go from 1 to max in battle. I don't think it has any role in deciding the quality of a battalion.

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

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

These are rather strange points of comparison. Seiros Archers become availableas early as chapter 6, while Kingdom Archers and the Impregnable Wall battalions can't be hired until chapter 8.

Having an enemy Archer having 40 Hit on your unit, down to 25 Hit, is a really welcome change. Especially when dodging the hit also means dodging bonus damage from Poison Strike. 

On a Brawling unit, it's effectively an extra 19% chance that at least one of their punches will be a crit. Not something to rely on, sure, but a lucky crit can free up some of your other units for other tasks at hand.

I was measuring Jeralt's performance outside of the earlygame, particularly how it stacks against other battalions for Ch 6 recruits and beyond.

Additional Avoid against enemy Archers would be useful if it wasn't for the fact that the majority of maps don't have terrain that can conveniently be used against Archers, so it's more 50- 60 hit rates, which is out of my risk tolerance level. It's only really Chapter 3 and 6 where that can be a viable strategy, and even then it only works if archers fire at 3 range.

That crit increase assumes you have a 100 hit on the target, which is far from guaranteed in the earlygame, That especially goes with how early units really want to use inaccurate Steel Gauntlets for the extra might.  

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

53 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Even without Hit +20 or linked attacks, your accuracy is in a better state than it was in chapter 2. Your level 15 archer's probably still curve shotting, your brigand's probably still smashing or using 105 base hit training gauntlets+.

Even without terrain, Dodging enemy 60-80s IS game changing on Maddening. Suddenly your frontliner doesn't need a physic or reposition after killing or chip damaging a dude on player phase. I've had several bad enemy phases that I just let play out, but I got that unlikely dodge and it saved me a pulse, probably several pulses. 

Fistfaire is doing more to keep them above the threshold for ORKOing than the difference between Jeralts and +7 attack batallion. You also began this post under the pretense that you'd talk about "past the early game" not "past the time skip". 

Before Chapter 8 your D rank batallion options are remarkably meh on all routes. The biggest benefit to achieving D rank authority in chapters 2-7 is "alright, I have a wider selection of filler choices than Seiros Mercenaries"

The difference between the early to mid White Clouds is that some units are aren't going to be using +Hit Combat Arts with Training Weapons as much and need +Hit Battalions to make up for the difference. A recruit like petra is going to prefer doubling to one round rather than using a Combat Art to chip, while other units like Sylvain benefit since Swift Strikes doesn't give Hit like Tempest Lance. 

It's not a good strategy to bank on getting lucky dodges, even if you aren't planning on it. It should be assumed that every enemy hit is going to land so you can always prepare for the worst case scenario and avoid deaths.  Even if you thought 70-80 hit rates was still worth banking some dodges on, there a multitude of battalions that provide only -5 avoid less for better benefits like the brawler battalions and Seiros Archers.

 +4 damage will make a pretty big difference in the amount of enemies a unit can one round, especially with guantlets. One rounding benchmarks on Maddening are difficult to reach especially when enemies start to promote. I also think most people here would agree that the majority of unit get B Authority before the timeskip, even if you do use a multitude of units.

I mean, there's not even buyable E Rank battalions that gives +Magic Attack. Even if you were limiting physical battalions, Seiros Peg Knights and Empire Archers are still good reason to raise to authority. Even if those were unable, it'd still be a good idea to raise authority as getting B authority in a timely manner requires you to pretty much have it as weekly goal until you obtain it.

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

32 minutes ago, haarhaarhaar said:

I remember from another thread that you don't use too many units, and I think that affects this point a lot. For example, by Ch 2 on a NG Maddening run I'm taking seriously, I'm recruiting Sylvain, with all the Ashen Wolves coming up the next month, potentially Lysithea too if I'm desperate to kill the Death Knight, I'm using everyone in house, and sharing training across all of them. That already takes me over ten units, so superior E-rank battalions do matter to me, even if focused training on characters can get you to D-rank Authority quickly.

Even if you are recuriting 6 different units, 5 those are neutral in Authority, meaning it would only take 1 peiord of instruction plus 3 weeks of weekly training to get D Authority. At that low skill level, its irrelevant at how many units you're using, 100 Authority exp an easy benchmark to reach with a lot of gain.

Even if that wasn't case, the other E Rank Battalions just have a competitive edge over Jeralt Mercs. Seiros Mercs grants hit, Brawler Battalions give +4 Atk, and Holy Monks enable Stride. That's already 5 battalions over Jeralt at E Rank, nevermind at higher ranks.

Overall Jeralt Mercs should not getting high scores it is getting when it's not even the best battalion you have at the start, let alone later on in the game.

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

I'm going to throw into questions how useful Jeralt Mercs is past the earlygame. My reasoning is as follows: 

1. Recruited units would really prefer Hit rather than Crit and Avoid. Recruited units often lack Hit due lacking supports for Link Attacks, not being able to obtain to obtain Hit +20 in a timely manner, and only providing 1 charm for Assault Troop. To give an example of that charm difference is,  Hilda when recruited in Chapter 6 only has 14 Charm while enemies without battalions average around 15. And she has some of the highest base and growth rate in Charm among all the units.

2. The Statboosts it provides are not substantial. Avoid only matters on dodge tanks as anything greater than 30 enemy Hit is just too inconsistent. Alert Stance users can't use it since it's not a flying battalion while brawl avoid users really need a +7 Atk battalion to offset low gauntlet might. That really just leaves Dancers, who never really see combat anyways.  

The Crit is likewise absolutely worthless without anything to boost it significantly. Going from 55 -> 65 crit with a Killer Axe+ Smash isn't consistent enough, while using Wrath is a bad idea since battalion hit is one the most important aspects of that setup with Vantage. 

3. It takes only 2-3 weeks to reach D Authority for even a unit with a bane. With only 1-2 weeks of instruction and weekly training, a unit with a bane can reach D for much useful battalions, such as Seiros Archers which gives +15 hit, +10  and provides Fusillade, or be able use to use utility battalions such as Kingdom Archers for Retribution or any of the Impregnable Wall Battalions. 

Overall, I fail to see why this battalion should be used over the alternatives once they become available. The most use you can get out of Jeralt mercs past the earlygame is throwing it on a dancer. I'd rather use Seiros Mercs over it.

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

Jeralt mercs- 5/10.

Avoid and Crit aren't something you want in the earlygame, and by the time stacking avoid becomes a viable option, there are better options available. It only giving 1 charm also leaves units pretty vulnerable to enemy gambits even if you do decide to use it for that. It also makes using Assualt Troop pretty unreliable earlygame without Rally Charm.

Church of Seiros Soldiers- 3/10.

A purely defensive battalion is extremely bleh. You put it on a unit for 1 or 2 chapters and then forget it immediately afterwards. About the only thing it's useful for is preventing mages from being one rounded by a surpise archer in Chapter 3 if you haven't memorized where they are. 

Seiros Mercs- 7/10.

A pretty solid battalion relative to when you get it. +10 Hit is very appreciated in the early game with how inaccurate units are at the beginning. Bumping hit rates from 80 to 90 makes them much accurate considering true hit. +3 Atk and +2 Prt  are also not bade for E Rank. 

[Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?]

I feel like a lot of this is going be repeating "this battalion is okay / outclassed."

But I guess it'll be interesting to see how much stock people will put into availability and how much a good gambit makes for medicore to bad stats, I suppose.

I gotta ask, though, could we cut off the battalions that  are just completely useless? The youth battalions for example is guaranteed to get a 1/10 rating, and there's not much discuss about it.

[Are dodge tanks too good?]

29 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

 I'm not instructing the same units every week, I place priority on units about to hit notable benchmarks like a good combat art, class certification, or new letter rank in Authority. It generally results in all units getting about the same amount of attention across the entire run as my in-house units have long ago met important skill goals and can get the rest naturally as the run progresses.

Using units equally is something I don't do. Typically I focus exclusively on 5-6 units and and leave the rest as is. But that really doesn't explain the huge gap in time.

Are you getting units to go through multiple class masteries? Because the amount of battles a unit goes through really makes a difference. Like if you do the cookie cutter Death, Darting, Hit +20 setup, that's 300 exp out of 680 to reach B Authority on a neutral unit. 

Also, an in-house Ingird could Alert Stance + by Chapter 9 with the DLC Sauna. Willing prove it if you want to see the numbers.

[Are dodge tanks too good?]

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

-Experiences-

OK I just got to ask, how exactly would you describe your play style? More specifically, Are you Instructing the same units every week? How many class masteries do you plan to get on them?

Because in my experience, B Authority is gotten by chapter 7-8 on most units and advanced class ranks are pretty easy to hit. Of course, I also use everything in the monastery to my advantage even if it costs irl time. How would you say your playstyle differs?

Also a small note: Adjutants bonuses do get applied on Enemy Phase. 

[Three Houses Character Builds Dump]

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

A Riding-neutral unit will gain 3 Riding XP per battle in the process, which translates to 225 XP over 75 battles. For Riding-boon units (i.e. Marianne, Hapi), this becomes 4 * 75 = 300 XP, while any with a bane (i.e. Dorothea) will instead gain 2 * 75 = 150 XP.

It's actually more than that. A neutral unit gains +2 Exp for fighting with whatever skill they use plus the class bonus, so they'd gain +5 Riding Exp for every round of combat they fight in valkryie.

So if you master Valkyrie, that's actually 375 Riding Exp for a neutral unit and 450 with those with a boon.

[Three Houses Character Builds Dump]

Yeah that's way later than when I usually get them. Last time I tried getting a neutral unit A+ Flight, they got it by Chapter 11.

Of course, I always focus hard on a handful of units rather than use a whole team equally. If you don't instruct every week, get the statue bonus, and don't use sauna, that sound about right to me.

[Three Houses Character Builds Dump]

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

 Basically, I am assuming a slower rate of advancement than you are, which means that the gap as of chapter 8 is narrower, which means that there's more time for Manuela's strength in flying to help her catch up.

I'm curious, when exactly in your own personal experience would you expect a unit who is neutral in Flight to reach A+ Flight ?

[Three Houses Character Builds Dump]

7 hours ago, lenticular said:

That said, I would be interested in seeing your numbers, because the result that you've got surprises me. 

Alright let's show the numbers.

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

I'm going to be using In house Hilda as the baseline since she's neutral in flight and can access Pegasus Knight. I'm going to assume she gets Alert Stance + by Chapter 12.

It takes 1780 Flight Exp to reach A+ Flight and she starts with 0.  There are 25 training sessions by Chapter 12, so if we assume that Hilda has Flight as her weekly goal and goes on Flight Patrol, that will give her a baseline of 28 Flight exp a week. We will also assume that she only fights in 50 battles as a Pegasus Knight and 30 battles as a Wyvern Rider, which adds up to 350 Flight Exp.

1780 - (28*25) - 350 = 730 Flight Exp which she will need through instructing. With the Cichol statue bonus, a good sauna bonus, and assuming she gets a prefect every other week, she gains ~40 Flight Exp per instruction. 730 / 40 = ~18 weeks. That means she needs to be tutored starting Chapter 5, which is coincidentally when the statutes and sauna unlock.

Keep in mind that this is a rather conservative approach. You could get more flight exp by fighting more fights in a flying class, accounting for great flight patrols, getting great saunas, or being more favorable in instruction.

But what about Manuela? Well for starters, she joins after missing 15 training sessions and only has D flight to show for it. That means she needs 1680 Flight Exp, and even with a boon there's no way she's getting that by the time skip (only 10 sessions from Chapter 8 to 12). I estimate instead she's going to get Alert Stance + by Chapter 16 (non-CF).

From Chapter 8 to 16 there is a total of 18 Training sessions. Applying the same assumptions on her, she gains 36 Flight exp a week, 200 from a Pegasus mastery with the knowledge gem, and 180 Flight exp from Wyvern combat. 

1680 - (36*18) - 380 = 652 Flight Exp required from instruction. Assuming she gets ~50 Flight exp per week, that's 13 weeks of instructions. That's particularly bad when you also realize that means only 5 weeks to focus on Authority, Lances, Axes, and Bows for the typical class masteries.

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

Now all of this being said there are somr pretty major assumptions in these calculations, especially in regards to how many battles are being fought. But even if you disagree with that assumption, I believe it can be shown that the availability difference is a pretty substantial issue that makes Manuela a lot worse than other options.

[Three Houses Character Builds Dump]

I seriously don't understand how people tolerate the monestary slog but draw the line at tea parties.

Like you guys are telling me you don't mind Fishing? Because I really do and never do it as a result. But I'd never leave it out when talking about stacking speed on a unit.

[Three Houses Character Builds Dump]

I don't think real time should be considered a factor. If it was, it would be better to just ignore the monastery entirely since Aux battles provide a much faster mean of raising Skill Ranks.

But I'm just going to fold on that. No sense in talking about the benefits if nobody is actually going to play that way.

[Three Houses Character Builds Dump]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd honestly consider a build that requires me to shit away a lot of activity points and time on tea parties to be effective to be far inferior to one that doesn't.

It's literally 2 activity points a month. Sure in the early game it's not worth it, but when youre sitting on 8 activity points? You can afford it.

Really, the best to handle enemy gambits is to take them out or not enter their range at all. But people like taking the risk, so I'm just pointing that charm growth isn't that relevant.

[Three Houses Character Builds Dump]

13 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Sure. which is why I did specifically say that Maneula isn't as good as others listed and that her late joining time was a weakness.

Here's a question: When exactly do you think Manuela will be able to hit Alert Stance +?

Because by mathing it out and basing on my experince, I came to the conclusion there's a 4 chapter chapter difference from Manuela learns it compared to a in house student who is neutral in flight.

Thats a pretty significant gap in performance if that were true. But those calculations is almost entirely dependent on many battles a unit faces. So when would you expect Manuela to hit Alert Stance and many fights in a flying class would you expect her to be in?