timon

That's a bit buggy btw, don't always trust it (though obviously with Divine Pulse you can just roll back). But I just almost lost a map because of a wrong targeting marker.

Rhea has literally been manipulating the whole continent, predating on people's faith for God knows how long. You're right, they're not on the same level, Edelgard has also some qualities.

Yeah that's what I meant by "cheesing it".

As I said in another discussion, when the Edelgard topic comes up we must remember that, much like Rhea, her characters changes greatly depending on the route you take. Both Rhea and Edelgard are very close to Byleth, the fact that s/he sides with or against them changes their experience and thus their personalities. Empire route Edelgard is sane and mostly rational, even has some sweet sides, she effectively becomes a revolutionary hero, in the meantime Rhea literally goes crazy. On the other hand I imagine if you side with the Church the opposite happens, with Rhea keeping her head in place and Edelgard losing rationality because she's basically fighting alone. You can't really discuss her as one character, at least not after the timeskip. That said, we can argue about methods, but I hope no one is actually disagreeing with her goals, I mean she wants an objectively better society.

One per path, Lysithea in the Eagles (I think Empire only?) and IIRC Lorenz in the Lions. btw, can you support with him? I read of people that had those timeskip recruits greyed out. EDIT: forgot to mention, those recruitments can happen even if you didn't get them as students

Good things: - Battallions and Magic (also the fact that everyone gets a spell list, makes it unique) are the big ones for me, though I'd remove Dark/Black Magic separation. - Bows, though maybe they could even nerf them a bit (Close Counter is a bit too early maybe). I also love the "free for all" class/weapon system we've got, very nice to play around and create all sorts of combinations. - Silent protagonist with choices, I know it's a controversial one, but I personally love the way they did the avatar this time, much much better than "generic answer" Robin/Corrin, even if sometimes the choices are between "yes" and "I agree", it still gives us some influence over their personality. On the other hand, there are some things that I really hope will improve: - First and foremost support system/paired endings, just let the player choose. No need for an extra "S rank" awkward conversation, just give me a button to press to get A+ between 2 characters and secure the ending, so I don't have to worry about managing a weird list of "close bonds" that no one understand to get the epilogue I want. - Avatar customisation is another, not talking much about looks as I'd rather have good animated cutscenes than change hair color, I mean gameplay wise. Let me choose if I want my character to be focused on magic, or be a tank, a cavalier, an archer, whatever. The weapon system kind of allows this to happen, but we're still limited by Byleth's stats and strengths. And stop pushing swords goddam, just stop with the legendary swords, let me choose my main weapon please (it's not that hard to design 4-5 "avatar relics" and let the player choose his focus). - Finally, class variety is garbage. As I said, I like the class system, but the classes in this game are just bad. Yes, I know Master Classes are supposedly "side grades", but we're still missing a lot. No flying mage, no lance infantry, no armored mage, a lot of gender restriction (I'm fine with Pegasus and Brawler, those make sense, but some like Dark Mage or Gremory are stupid), and some logical progression missing. Even though there's no "promotion" system, it's absurd that a Pegasus Knight is "stuck" until lv.30, or that a guy who want to fly has to wait lv.20. It's a bit all over the place really.

I wouldn't worry too much about mastery skills, unless you're going to cheese them you're getting 2 or 3 at most in the first playthrough, and forget Advanced classes' masteries, it takes a long ass time, and it's just better to go with his unique class instead of hindering yourself for a skill you're going to get at the earliest 3 or 4 chapters short of endgame. It's really nothing like Fates/Awakening where you could min max every character's skills, just roll with what you get (and the mastery skill are not even that good, with a couple exceptions). What I could unlock on most characters is HP+5 from Noble/Commoner (that's a given really) and the Intermediate mastery. I have yet to even get close to mastering an Advanced class, and I'm reaching average lv.30 on my party. For Claude I would say stick to Archer' anyway, you get hit increase so you can fly in, kill something at 5 range and fly out with Canto. Vantage is interesting but you have to get Swords up, which is a bit of a waste for Claude imo (since he wants to stick to Bows the most he can, while unlocking Axe talent). Authority is always worth it unless you're Felix (and even then, I'd argue a battallion is better than 5 dmg), and Claude probably gets some very good Wyvern squad, judging by the amazing armored battallion Edelgard gets. btw, do you actually face every student you didn't recruit? And if you do, are they replaced by equal units? Because I just had Edelgard's chapter 13 and

Hanneman is an interesting one, if you go Warlock before the timeskip you get the generic, but after that he gets his regular clothes back.

Exactly. On that topic, I'm really sad that Also the Imperial army NPCs are so very good designs, I'm sad they're not playable. Especially the warrior, why did we get Caspar when this guy's around? I secretly hope for a Jeralt recruit as well, I know it wouldn't make sense, but I just love his character. And throw in Rhea while we're at it.

No, there's a small treat when your birthday rolls around, but nothing worth "minmaxing" the day.

Linhardt is, in my experience, an underwhelming mage, especially in the Black Eagles where you have so many options. On the flip side mine turned out quite tanky, useful to lure enemies in, and a useful healer (his crest activates a lot for me, like every other healing). Still, even Hanneman makes a better mage (no bias). Sylvain suffers from lack of a good class imo, unless you get him early and go Wyvern? I guess Dark Knight is a perfect fit, but in the meantime Cavalier really slows him down (literally). Lastly, on Shamir, I don't know if I got blessed or what, but she's amazing. I probably should add that I recruited her literally the first time I met her at the monastery (I had a meal with her and probably a slightly overleveled Byleth), and my god a sniper that early is broken. From that on I just ended up using her, and she turned out amazing (quite slow, but Dexterity through the roof so she doesn't miss even at 5 range and quite good strength).

I like her, I think she's doing the right thing, you could argue that you end up kind of in the same way in other routes, and probably with less bloodshed, but the difference is that she takes action. Imagine two men that want to get rich, one works his ass off, the other does nothing and one day wins the lottery. Sure, same result and with less sweat, but it could've gone any other way, he could've remained poor the whole life. The first man took his fate into his own hand. It's the same if we look at this world, maybe the bad doings of the Church/nobilty would come out anyways, but they don't know that, so I appreciate even more someone who actively works for a better place. Though even the biggest Edelgard fan on this world should see her (big) mistakes, associating with the dark boyz is definitely not a move you should ever make if you want to be on the "good side", she could've guessed the consequences before jumping into it (let's not forget that by doing so she basically killed Jeralt and almost killed Byleth himself). I think she's just very young and very tired of the way the world works, add in a lot of arrogance and you get some very rushed, sometimes dumb decisions. But at least she made those decisions, everyone else seems to be fine just watching, that's why I like her. Then again I'm pretty sure it's not just a matter of point of views. We're forgetting that different routes mean different circumstances, if you side with her, Byleth stays with her, keeps her sane, works as an advisor. If you side against her she's got just Hubert, everyone else against her, she obviously cares deeply about Byleth (wheter it's romantic or not) so seeing him trying to kill her doesn't help. It's the same way for Rhea btw, if you go with the Church you can keep her sane, if you go against her she goes full berserker. tl;dr: I like her a lot, but don't forget that the Edelgard of the Empire route is not the same person as the Edelgard of the other routes.

Man, first time I used Byleth's sword's combat art was right there, that Thief was literally one tile from escaping and I had a 60% hitrate. Those moments really make you appreciate Turnwheel tbh, resetting a whole map for that one object/chest/whatever is one of the things I hated in previous games.

Just don't watch the conversations if you want them to hate each other? lol what

On Dimitri it makes sense, on the others I'm not sure, by that point the Lord's authority is already sky high so you don't need the boost, and I'd rather get the humongous Strength/HP of Brigand Edelgard or have Archer Claude shoot freely at 3 range tbh.

Hubert and Shamir C rank unlocks in chapter 11. Same for Edelgard's B with Byleth. Also considering the... circumstances, I guess we could say that you must get Edelgard' C and C+ before chapter 11, if you want to see it progress further. btw does this influence what you can get with renown in NG+? Or could I theoretically buy up until A with, say, Ferdinand, in chapter 1 and recruit him on first explore?

Welp, get Rhea's B rank before chapter 11, I just found out I'm locked out of it. Which is a bit absurd considering she's an NPC and you can get support points literally only by gifts.

How long does the Church route take? Because I've read that Edel's path is shorter, but the Church is actually the easiest path? Asking because I also want to play Church first to understand Edegard's way better, but I'm kind of thinking of "rushing" through it just to see the story play out.

Spoiley question about chapter 11

You can choose that person, if you have at least a C support (I think? Maybe you need B), you need to talk to the best character in the game before the ball. (it's the gatekeeper btw)

I completely agree, but there's an exception, and that's Hubert. Warlock is literally worthless to him as he has no Black Magic, so I was thinking of making him a DarkBishop and keeping him as that forever (doubt he'll reach DarkKnight), and 20 Miasma is juicy. Let's hope I've got the right characters for that paralogue I guess, and to think I threw away the second DarkSeal because "I surely don't need it, might as well make Hanneman a DarkMage for the lols".

I agree that the first sunday is always heavily pushed to explore (there are usually a lot of events), but I always end up exploring twice a month anyways. You've got on average 3 free days, the first one is exploring, I usually use the second for battles, and now the third one is left hanging. Especially if there's lectures coming up you're probably left with unmotivated people and a kind of useless day for anything but explore (since resting is worthless, seminars become worthless after the second month, and doing 4 battles a month makes the game far too easy). At least by exploring you can get the right number of people motivated to the max (much better than rest, which is so useless it doesn't even max out) and raise some supports/get some faculty. And you get to do fishing events/use the greenhouse an extra time.

Pretty much every Marianne's support is interesting to me, but that's also because I desperately want to know what the hell her crest really is. Edelgard as well is very nice to read, as she doesn't stop herself from saying what she thinks, it makes the conversations interesting. Same rule applies for Dorothea (didn't expect her to be so blunt, but it's a welcome surprise). On the other hand I just had Ashe and Annette both C and B and what the hell? Unbearable is the right word, it's so incredibly boring, obvious and vague, even worse than some of Bern's supports. They're actually the first conversations I skipped without listening to the voice lines.

Press X. Though you can't rotate the camera while it's stopped which is a bit of a shame.

I went Paladin because Lances and Jeralt, also he's tanky enough to take some doubling. But if you're F you have access to early fly, I'd go Wyvern Lord (or Falcon, but Lord is more of a powerhouse).