[How long did Three Houses take you?]

I've finished my first playthrough within 40 Hours on CF. 

Granted, I never played any Animations, Aux Battles, and gave up doing anything regarding the Monetary by the timeskip. I also skipped a lot of maps by warp skipping straight to the boss

Now an average run takes me about 25 hours, but that's with all the above plus skipping all story segements. 

[Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 31: Hanneman]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Hanneman's Wind is only 1 AS ahead of Marianne/Dorothea's Thoron, 2 behind Hubert's Mire. I'm not sure how you can plausibly claim that Hanneman has no trouble doubling armour knights, but mages with 3 range spells do.

The point wasn't that Hanneman could double while others couldn't, it was about how Mage's struggle to double Fortress Knights using 3 range spells in general. 

Like even with Weight -3, Dorothea still can't double Fortress Knights with Thoron when equipped with Thryus without eating a Bullhead.

[Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 31: Hanneman]

59 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'm not sure why you're bringing up other mages' spells, as if they can't choose the spell they need to double with. It only matters for Mire/Thoron/Death, and Marianne/Dorothea's AS with Thoron is similar to Hanneman's with Wind (specifics depending on level and whether you dipped for Weight-3).

Because mages using their 3 range level spells are slow enough to the point where they have difficulties doubling Fortress Knights. Weight -3 might mitigate these issues, but that's a substantial amount of investment considering most have an armor bane.

[Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 31: Hanneman]

17 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

If he's using a Speed Ring, he's not using Thyrsus, Caduceus, or a Magic Staff. I agree that there are ways to get him to double, but this is still a negative other mages don't worry about, so in a comparison with them, it stands out.

He doesn't have to use the Speed Ring most of the time as long as Cooking is in play. He also doesn't need a Magic Staff considering he already one rounds most Armored Enemies. 

Most mages have difficulty even doubling Fortress Knights when they're not using their most basic spell. Having Low Speed doesn't really affect a Mage's performance in a meaningful way.

[Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 31: Hanneman]

7 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Sure, there are some slower armours that he does double, and yes you can feed him speed carrots to eliminate this problem entirely, or just get slightly lucky on his spd(/str) growths but this is still a problem he faces which other mages do not, and it definitely can matter.

Bullheads exist, as does the Speed Ring. Those alone would ensure he'd be able to double almost every Fortress Knight without having to rely heavily on his Speed Growth or Stat boosters.  

[Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 31: Hanneman]

People here are really overstating Hanneman's Speed Issues, particularly against Armored Enemies. Here's the actual numbers behind that point.

While Hanneman may not be a great unit, people are really overestimating Enemy Fortress Knights if they think he can't double them. 

[Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 25: Byleth]

58 minutes ago, Anathaco said:

Ignatz' battalion is kinda bad tho, I agree with that.

How is Victor Private Militia bad? +6 Attack and +15 Hit are really great bonuses, espically since it's only C Ranked. That makes it ideal for units with an Authority Bane like Felix.

Add on to the fact the Ignatz only requires Authority to get makes it a very obtainable. I'd argue it's one of the best Paralogue battalions due to availablity.

[Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 5: Caspar]

2 hours ago, Bartozio said:

You're aware you can just train his lance rank to C for knightkeeler and dump a Lance of Ruin on him, right? It's something anyone can do, so not really relevant when rating Caspar, but felt like pointing it out to save some grinding for you.

Caspar can actually deal decent damage to the Deathknight at base level when recurited at Chapter 12.

Lance of Ruin would be too inaccurate to really be of use and wouldn't one shot anyways barring a unreliable Crit. Luin would be better, but it's really not worth rasing him to C Lances. 

[Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 0]

42 minutes ago, Benice said:

How about a compromise and say two grind battles per month?

Even that I wouldn't approve of. When it eventually only takes 25 battles to learn some of the best abilties in the game (Death Blow, Darting Blow, Hit +20), it really diminishes class management and makes it so that units never even have to fight in a class to master it.  

Plus it really skews a unit's skill exp. Even if a unit fought only 5 rounds of combat in a intermediate class, that's often more Skill Exp than they get from instructing. Add on the Knowledge Gem, and it's the main reason why some think S+ Skills are achievable when they're otherwise not very feasible for people who don't use Aux Battles or Sauna.

[Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 0]

1 minute ago, Glennstavos said:

Like I said I think auxilliary battles typically come at the cost of something better, so I wouldn't limit them at all. Just the broken/rusted weapon exploit since that doesn't necessarily happen just on auxilliary battles.

I'm curious, would you consider something like this to be a case of grinding? The player managed to master two classes in a single Aux Battle that would be difficult to master in regular battles, but they didn't resort to using broken weapons.  

I'm of the opinion that is grinding and would advocate for complete ban on Aux and Quest battles barring the merchant quest. But I imagine a lot of people wouldn't share the same stance.

[Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 0]

Before this starts, I really think that Monastery Usage should really be more clarified. How much Aux Battles should be allowed, for example? Would Paralogues or Quest Battles be treated any differently? Should Fishing for Bullheads be accepted? What about for Professor Exp? Rigging for Promotions? Stat Boosters obtained through Gardening? And what of the DLC? 

I think that these questions should be answered from the onset, since those things can really effect how a unit can perform. Like participating in Aux Battles could mean the difference of learning Death Blow from 3-5 chapters to 1-2 chapters and can lead to really differing preceptives. 

[Challenge : Silver Snow with weak team.]

What classes you make units matters a lot more than what units you use. Even though Caspar is one of the weaker units in the game, he can still consistently one round enemies as a Grapler with Firece Iron Fist even at base strength. 

A better challenge I'd argue would be to use classes that units aren't usually put into or even unfit for them, such as Great Knight Bernadetta or Warlock Petra. 

[General Build Flexing Thread]

Here.

[Magic Edelgard build ideas]

1 hour ago, RainbowMoon said:

I haven't heard such great things about Great Knight.

Btw, I'm on hard, not maddening. Maddening sounds like about as much fun as Silver Snow, imo.

Main reason why you don't hear good things about it are it's Skill Rank Requirements and Speed Penalty. But NG+ eases upon the requirements and Maddening makes the Speed Penalty not matter much.

If you're playing on Hard, than it really doesn't matter what you do, al pretty much all your units will be one rounding if built properly. Just be aware that even on Maddening, It can't beat the power of Favoritism.

[Magic Edelgard build ideas]

I'd argue Great Knight would be a good choice as a endgame class if you're playing NG +.

That may seem contradictory if you want a magic class, but it's true. Lighting Axe with something as basic as a Silver Axe + already outdamages Hades without even accounting for the 30% Res Scaling, while the Bolt Axe + provides good 3 range without having to use a +Range Magic staff. 

Sure, it doesn't have Flight, but that actually leads into it's second advantage, Ground based Battalions. With Dark Flier, you're effectively locked to one battalion, Nuvelle Filers, which doesn't give the best Hit or Protection in the world. With something like Superme Armored Corp on the other hand Edelgard can dish out damage and take it. It also makes it much easier for Hubert to Adjutant her if you're not using him.

While the -4 Speed Penalty might be a turn off, it really doesn't matter on Maddening Mode. Enemies are going to be too fast to double even with Darting Blow unless you saddle them with a lot of speed carrots and cooked bullheads. Even then, it's not likely she'll be able to one round without a bunch of premium magic herbs. One shoting is always the way to go with mages. 

If I had to recommend a class path, it'd be: Monk -> Armor Knight (for 12 base Defense) -> Mage -> Warlock (for 17 Base Magic) -> Valkyrie -> Great Knight. Axe Prowess, Uncanny Blow, Fiendish Blow, Magic +2 are the skills I'd recommend. 

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

AM just because it has the roughest Hunting by Daylight if you aren't prepared for it due to Dimitri being Footlocked.

But really, most of diffculty is really the same between the routes. I don't agree that the late game of AM is that difficult if you make the most of the tools available in the route. Between Battalion Wrath + Vantage Dimtri, Sacred Shield + Retribution, early Dance of the Goddess and a 2nd on the final map, I'd argue it has the easiest Endgame.

[Let's talk about Effective Crit]

44 minutes ago, Owns said:

Yes, this type of spreadsheet is actually a tremendous help. I'd come across the screenshots before but didn't know someone (you? I can never figure out who created these sheets) had already tabulated them too. The Azure Moon sheet doesn't grant me permission btw, looks like it isn't open to public, can you share a public version? I only looked briefly at the format of the sheets, do you know if their information is complete with all enemy stats? Would save me the hassle of confirming everything if someone knew.

Yeah, I'm the person who made both the spreadsheets and the Imgur Gallery.

Looking at it, the AM one is actually incomplete so I'll just withhold it for now. The Black Eagles one (which include SS and CF) is pretty in depth and includes all of an enemies stats, how their stats change with different weapons, battalions, and even benchmarks such as how much speed to double or the amount attack to kill with a crit in one hit.

Only thing it's missing really is the paralogues from potential recruits. Other than that, it should have everything you need.

[Let's talk about Effective Crit]

19 hours ago, Owns said:

That's pretty neat actually and I've been working on something similar myself actually, a battle predictor basically. One that's user friendly and can automatically get stats of enemies, weapons, equipment, etc. that one would select from a drop down menu. I'm hoping to share at least a working version soon even if incomplete to see if anyone wanted to help populate the statistics to be used (mainly enemy stats).

I don't know if it would be useful for you, but there are these available if you want them:

Black Eagles Enemy Stats Spreadsheet

Azure Moon Enemy Stats Spreadsheet

Imgur Gallery for enemy stats on all maps (barring DLC)

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

7 minutes ago, Cysx said:

I honestly recalled all foot units being slowed down a bit by the swamp(and mounted ones a lot). A'ight, I yield.

It slows down mounted units a lot, but they can just simply dismount. Swamp doesn't do anything to infantry units movement wise.

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

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

Nemesis has 110 avoid 

Getting three characters to act as support may not be a possibility. It's pretty much a given that people will have Claude as a flier so that's one, but yeah.

Thought that Keen Inutution gave +20 Avoid, not 30. My bad.

So long as you have Dance of the Goddess and some movement tools to get past the intial bad terrain, you can send pretty much any unit that's not a non mounted mage down there for Link Attacks. For example.

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

51 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'm assuming the elites are dead and will be attacking at 1 range.

You don't even need to do that to get a good hit rate on Nemesis. He has 69 Speed and 72 Luck with all the Elites alive, so combined with Sword Prowess, Keen Intuition, and his Battalion, that's only a 100 Magic Avoid.

With a base Gremory Lysithea:

• 65 Luna
• 79 Base Dex + Luk
• 99 Reason Prowess
• 129 Maculi
• 139 A rank Adjutant
• 169 A rank Link Attacks x3
• 179 Accuracy Ring
• 191 Rally Dex/Luk/Special Dance

That's 91 Hit right there without anything too special going on. If you added Uncanny Blow or gave her Edmund Troops, that's a 100 Hit right there.

[Let's talk about Effective Crit]

2 hours ago, Cysx said:

Out of curiosity, on what occasion did you screencap all of that? Just for research?

Just trying to contribute to the thread. It was just on a casual playthrough I had that laying where I made Catherine a Wyvern Lord. 

Actually had to grind her out in Swordmaster like this since I didn't bother to raise swords or master Swordmaster.

[Let's talk about Effective Crit]

If anyone wants to see an example of how Astra works in practice, see here. (Though kind in mind with similar amounts of investment, things like This are possible.)

Also TC, i gotta ask, how much Aux battles do you do? Because if you participate in a lot of them, it can really skew a unit's Wexp. Like fighting an extra 20 battles as a Swordmaster with a grant an additional 100 Sword Exp without even a boon.

[Let's talk about Effective Crit]

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

Also One-two punch doesn't autoquad(man, can you imagine?). What it does is make gauntlets perform a followup at +8 damage instead of a brave at +0.

While it doesn't automatically do so, One Two Punch does work with Desperation. If you don't mind mastering Cavalier, that can be really good on a Warmaster Dedue. 

[Current plan for character promotions]

39 minutes ago, ChaosStar0 said:

Dex% chance to reduce Bow and Magic Damage by half isn't good? On good Dex units that would get obliterated by Magic? Does not compute.

Because even if it procs, more often than not it won't save the unit.

Take Gilbert for example. Guy has 60 HP and 7 Res with 17 Dex at base. Now let's assume he came with Aegis and compared him to the mages right after his join chapter on Maddening.

As you can see, even with having it proced once, it still wouldn't matter aganist the Warlocks. Granted, he could use Pure Water, but if you think that's enough to survive the late game mages, you have another thing coming. Like just take a look at the mages in Chapter 22. And they make of the bulk of the enemy force in that chapter.

In short, taking hits in Maddening is just not very feasible without setup, and even then it's very easily countered.