Johnzin

Oh man I didn't know you had to get the fire attack from Gilbert dialogue. Been skipping all dialogue since it's 5th playthrough yet still forgot. I was so close to just quitting the maddening for a week or so because I legit thought after killing Randolph and still spawn peg knights. I thought was suppose to kill every enemy at the same time.

Does battalion color to their icon mean anything? Like how A ranking is colored yellow like the relics and B / C ranking seem to be silver like the sacred weapons

Yeah, can confirm you require to get the SM to get onto the Onager on the bottom right. I originally kept moving my units away from the section of the map to rush the boss. Took a lot of retries with Dimitri and vantage/killer+/battalion wrath and finally happened to kill Randolph. But without the SM reaching his destination, you have to some how route the enemy while constant respawn every other turn. Was very confusing when they spawned after Randolph died and killing everyone in their way. Its practically kinda just survive till you kill those few units bottom right

Does anyone know if BL Chapter 14 defending Garreg Mach is endless reinforcements every other turn?

Characters you recruit from other houses, do they only increase their weapon ranks in two of their proficiencies? Is there a table that can provide which characters level which rankings? I know lysithia comes with increased ranks of reason and authority instead of the better choice of reason and faith. On a different note, is there any lists that tell you what months which paralogues are available to unlock and when they expire?

Oh I wish I thought of doing the paralogues later when I was higher leveled. Felix paralogue, I couldn't get a single villager not get killed so stride rushed 3 turn with crit. No shield unfortunately. I am only Ch 14 BL. So far the buff on Ch 13 have been insane, I legit have to EP vantage killer+. Super lucky Dimitri and Byleth had before time skip. Oddly the enemies moved toward the unmoved units too that arent trained (ashe/annette). So far, I think some parts can be cheese with stride and flying for swift strike/volley Solon or hammer Edelgard. The rest of the levels seem what seems to be a great term from other posts, turtling. Moving slowly around to get a single/a few to kill on PP. I'm excited for the rest of the 8 chapters but so far I'm enjoying it much more than Hard mode. It is more of a chore to just make everyone a flyer and forget about who can't be useful in striding/flying. Since I havent completed Maddening BL, out of the half of the game I think it balances some parts such as increasing usefulness rally/effective weapons/combat arts (often didn't need, like SoV, falls off past early game Hard Mode), BATTALIONS/GAMBITS, and reasons to use Catherine/Shamir. And I have loved this difficulty so far. I dont understand people hate for the inflated stats. It's better than praying to RNGesus for Awakening reset simulator to give you what you want. Compare it to then what? Lunatic reverse FE12? How else can you make a game hard? Implement much more than inflated enemy stats and added objectives required? Is there a FE that changes the objectives based on difficulty though?

Vantage require HP < 50% too?

Does cross recruiting have inflated stats as for A+? I am guessing the A+ have weapon ranks optimal for later clases? What does Ferdie come with that makes him top of A+? Lance and Axe ranks? Requiring a C armor kind too. And do you recruit these A+ ASAP or wait to specific chapter?

1) 4 move is bad, but the 1/2*magic range really helps. It hard mode, yeah everyone is flying around and then the range may not be enough, but since everyone in maddening mode is moving so much less since positioning to live EP and kill on PP, i think that movement gap is reduced. I think byleth shines with his great growths for a physical unit to take out dangers in the front line than heal someone in the front line. 2) I agree with this, Ferdie is one of the characters that is being downgraded. He has more potential as a physical damaging unit. Paladin lancefaire 10 damage can mean alot. The -25 avoid isnt needed if you can kill enemy in one round. With a brave sword, unless hes a SM or assassin, he isnt going to have a faire. Swift strike works on any lance weapon, great for horse slayer/Assal/Indra. Increasing damage to get that ORKO without damage back is important. I think you can have a strong dancer, but I view the utility of a dancer not to be lowering a unit that could have great potential to be a power house to a dodge tank. Ferdie/Sylvain/Seteth/Cyril/Leonie have these brave weapon combat art that adds +2 damage too. Besides seteth, those 4 can have faires in that. That +14 damage prior to an enemy attack. Not every character is equal to make them all decent power houses. Characters have different utilities. Dancer allows those utilities to shine 2x a turn if needed. Swift Strike/Physics/Deadeye/warp/straight up just move again. I think dancer is an upgrade to some characters, but I do not think it is to Ferdie. Your dancer can be in the front line and not worry about getting hit, that how it should be anyways. Sure pass/siege tomes/snipers are going to be absurd but the game on Maddening seem to be about positioning your units to survive anyways.

I find byleth healing situational at best, maybe if you need to heal someone up close in the front linesbecause your physic range is out. But physics on a bishop with a healing staff (chap 9? And one earlier) makes them heal much more than 25. Even if you don't have a dedicated physic healer like lind/merci/marrie, lys and dorthea (who I assume you have as non bishops) has enough inventory space to carry one of those Ceth staff/Magic Staff/ Relic staff AND heal staff to increase when needed. I think dancer Ferdie is a waste of potential, it requires him waste the dancer class or use a sword. He has swift strike and seal speed, I think Ferdie is a great character to have a dancer used on if Wyvern or Paladin, go in and Swift and canto out and do it again. Especially if you have effective weapon typing. I think neutering the dancer class just for this +20 Dodge is not an optimal usage I think the same as your byleth tanking. Calculation-wise I think it can exist. But I'm on BL Maddening NG and byleth is definitely a requirement on the front lines with felix/Dimitri/dedue. And I assume much more so in GD and BE for not having strong early game characters. getting byleth to an A in swords to me was helpful in this mode with windsweep and being a sword master for a few chapters before EO. I'm going to keep him footlocked since I find sword weight very helpful in this mode EP. I think he's a great candidate for March ring and another ring since he owns the convoy and switch doesn't effect your movement for the turn. Wasting his potential on White magic makes it harder if you chose to go Peg/Brigand or Wyv later since you need those points. If you want darting or death blow, you need to train the rankings and get instructions for byleth from my experience (axe and lance). If you choose mounted /flying. That's even more points that I find worth in movement or no terrain effected movement. And these points are still needed to train other students for important bench marks for utility during the game volley/swift strike/deadeye, spells, skills and class changes. I think training white magic for byleth can be useful only if you choose EO and do it with the excess points at the end. And just stick with swords, then maybe you can give up those two slots. Except probably get to S with crit 10, or vantage. I think EO > HK by far. The role of Byleth throughout the game is too crucial to waste on white magic Dodge tank than a better utility/damaging class. I'd even say EO only swords and mov +1 > EO white magic Dodge tanking.

For the people saying 15 use magic, can't blyeth equip heal to still Dodge tank. This seems suboptimal option too since no damage, Nos spell isn't that great damage either, but if you are aiming for Dodge tank, heal can be used without running out if you're not healing people. I think pulling it off is so much effort. C armor, B+ faith / A for aura. Staying in EO class with swords and B for flying for stance. That's going to be difficult for Mbyleth. Back to the thread original post topic, I think authority skills are not OU. Also, why are we using Pokemon tiering system? I find it confusing compared to the letter system. Most of the time I'm using gambits, it is not do higher damage, I want enemies to stay in place. Damage is not a high priority for gambits, I would be doing a combat art instead. +5 HP is so crucial early game, you get it on all your house units, even rally bots. Can be useful in mid game for your nonDeDue tanks Cost no investment for those characters and no rankings needed. I think it should be bottom of S.

I think white magic tanking is a thing that can exist, but why not do old school weapon triangle advantage. +20 avoid, axe prowess 5, with the terrain, supports and battlions. Seems easier for axe people. Or flying units alert stance. But dismounted. That's church route, so Petra seems easier to do this, or Cyril, or seteth. Much less investment

I really think this topic would have to depend on the mode and style. Holy knights are trash in every way, canto with weak heavy magic with low use. Even dodge tanking would burn through all your magic uses. On hard mode, where 2x white magic is not needed for healers then sure a holy knight can be used but still not the best. But all the main healers you get are physics users. And you want warp 2x on hard mode with how everyone viewed hard mode. Since hard mode was optimizing finish the game by warping a some to 1 turn everything or use Lysthia to dark spikes, 2x magic is worth more than faire. Especially with the lower enemy stats. Bishop is better. Gremory is best for lys, maybe annette if you actually use her. Hubert can just do infantry classes with +1 range reason instead, even though he'll lag behind. Which he would on a mount anyways since hard mode is just wyvern emblem. All mages will lag behind on a mount or not, they arent going around and leaving themselves there for enemy dense phases like physical units. The only reason to dark knight or holy knight seems to just be if you want to try out the class. But utilitywise, I dont see a reason since the maps are low turned in Hard mode if your playing that way. Maddening, you are more often trying to survive and not 1 turn everything. Bishops are more important with 2x + increased heal. High movement is great, but i dont often use all my movement stat on every unit because you need to position it to surve EP, not wipe out whole sections on the map with one unit like hard mode. So Dark and Holy knights seem even worse, just get Reason S to do longer range for chip or killing enemies. This might be different since maybe you want that canto on dark knight but the investment may not be worth with lower exp from tutoring/goals. tldr; Holy and Dark master classes are bad. Hard lets you try the master classes if youre not trying to do efficient playthroughs

I am on chapter 7 on BL NG Maddening. For BL route, I think Cyril is underrated if you get him as early as possible in the month and get his bow rank to C+ with goals / individual lessons for Point Blank along with Flying/task. He isnt as squishy as you think either, he quickly replaced Ashe as a archer, but chose the Brigand route for Death blow & point blank helps out. I would guess this would be also good for GD. I am also wondering if it is even possible to get master class abilities. The earlier classes with noble/commoner, beginner, and intermediate have been obtainable before the next tier classes, but this mode seem to require lots of chip damage from everyone that even without grinding and normal paralogue and main battles could be enough to have some use of the abilities. I would not hype of War Master if you can only use this ability for a chapter.

I have played all 4 on hard mode (BL > E!BE > GD > Church in order I played). Storywise I liked playing GD more, getting an outsider perspective even though some parts of it doesnt make sense such as keeping face of the Alliance being neutral for a few chapters while leader of the Alliance is part of an attacking force against the Empire. GD > Church > BL / E!BE Church also gave a good amount of background even though a lot of overlapping storyline and they infiltrated Fort Merceus with costumes but it was stated by Cluade on GD.... It gave more information to me why the story was happening. Even though I played BL first and I love that house characters much more than any other house, their story to me left me so many questions about Duscur, Dimitris/Edel mom, final Boss Edel. TWSTD wasnt even apparent to my first playthrough. Why did they cause bloodshed for Edel? E!BE directly after BL, there could be more with TWSTD. I wish the fleshed out throughout more chapters about Edel relationship with Dimitri too

I think a good in between is if you have the DLC, they give over powered stat boosters that can help out a lot, but still not too broken since it only help out a single unit greatly or several units slightly.

I am so confused how certain combat arts that are based on your stats add damage, such as sublime heaven and ruptured sky. It seems like vengeance doesn't follow same calculation too.

I have not started Maddening mode, finishing last final Church route. I wonder if the same system for hard mode still applies. I would be guessing striding and flying around and leaving single man flying armies into every spot is not viable anymore. And 1 turning might be a little bit more difficult with lower magic for lys warp. Would people rather have her get B in reason first for spikes and warp later? Would thresholds for stats just not be high enough to for flyers to finish chapters with stride/warp or warp/spikes?

Claude - his story class. Archer and sniper pre-time skip M!Byleth - Enlighted (trained +1 move from riding + shoes + march ring helps). Wyvern can help with all the terrain from final map but practically only person with sword. stole catherines too Hilda - brigand > wyvern Raph - brigand > warrior > war Ignats > archer (+20 hit) > sniper >bow knight Marriane > priest> bishop Flayn > Dancer Leonie > cav>paladin >bow knight Lorenz > cav> Paladin Lysithia > mage>priest>gremory (2x warp is better than anything that can be offered, plus getting fiendish blow) byleth, lorenz, ignatz and leonie had A+ riding to get the +1 move. People say marriene can use a magical sword relic and lance arts. but her growths suck for combat. healing someone else better for that role is better than having her fill in that role. all the horseback were OKAY. they werent great.

That does sound unfortunate. I have completed this paralogue several times and it is hard going in blind. SImilarly to Petra's where reinforcements comes in around the map because the original objective changes when shes gets closer to a part of the map. Although, you are able to reset the game using the soft reset method (minus + plus + L + R) same time or home button/close software. As long as you didnt save after the paralogue. It may just take you back to when you were battle preparing or worse, before that too, but it solves the issue of the deaths of characters.