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I vote no. It seems like he only started this thread to swing his broomstick at some strawmen.

Fair enough, but my post mentioned all the different Flayn artwork you'd see, not just shipping. Which should be more than enough to prove that you aren't the only person in the world who sees Flayn as anything but a Seteth meme.

You expect us to believe that the entire internet's worth of Flayn art is all because of you? Nobody could possibly make such a definitive claim. So you're either straight up lying or wildly exaggerating. Well, you don't seem very open to having a discussion here. You're just childishly ranting about how nobody else but you appreciates Flayn (which is far from true) and if someone tells you otherwise you jump all over them and tell them they're wrong. You're basically setting yourself up to be ridiculed. Right, because the best measure of a character's popularity is the amount of people who ship them with Byleth. By your reasoning I must hate Dorothea because I ship her with Petra. Well considering you seem to have a near cult-worship of Flayn, I don't think there's anyone who appreciates her on the same level. That hardly means everyone else hates her, though.

In all fairness, part of that is because Seteth and Flayn are so frequently thought of as a "pair" of characters that most people immediately think of them both rather than one or the other. You see the same exact thing happen with Seteth. You'd think Flayn's the only person he ever talks or cares about the way people joke about him. That's just a common side effect when you have two characters who are almost always seen or mentioned together. Do a Google image search on Flayn. Unless you drew all that fanart and shipping art and stuff I could've gone without seeing, this simply isn't true. Same. I don't like Felix at all and I have no respect for him as a character. We all have our favorite characters, yes. But you're choosing to single out Flayn as some sort of protected class that nobody should ever be allowed to joke about. All while pretty much turning a blind eye to other characters who get treated exactly the same way. You're Flayn-stanning, basically. And this is where I stop taking your topic seriously.

Yeah, unfortunately that's true of a lot of characters (Leonie, Ingrid, Marianne and even Dimitri to name a few). Certain parts of the fanbase like to treat their personality quirks or something they did once like it's their entire character. You hear people all the time saying stuff like "Leonie can't go five seconds without randomly bringing up Jeralt" or "Dimitri regularly murders children." Flayn's far from alone in that regard. The one that really gets under my skin is the treatment of Dorothea. I've seen a lot of fans talk about her like she's some kind of gold digging sex addict who slept her way into the monastery just to screw a bunch of rich guys (forgetting that she's into women too) and walk away with their money. Some people even change her backstory of being an opera singer to being a stripper or prostitute. But anyone who's actually played 3H and watched Dorothea's supports knows that, aside from her habit of flirting with people, she's not like that at all. The important thing is to remember that the people who make those comments aren't the entire fanbase, or even the majority in most cases. There's always gonna be a fringe that hates on a character or turns them into a walking punchline for no reason. But I'm sure that if you seriously asked someone their opinion of Flayn (or Dorothea, or Leonie, etc.), you wouldn't just get a lame joke answer. Yeah, I think there are a few memes that really shouldn't exist, but I don't think any of them actually go so far as to completely ruin a character's image.

Ooh, nice! I loved Edelgard's support chain with Lysithea! El showing her caring big sister side with Lyssie was such a sweet (pun intended) moment between the two of them, considering what they both suffered at the hands of TWSITD. I like to think that they stayed friends after the war, even though Lysithea had to return to House Ordelia. Still sending each other cakes from time to time and killing Agarthans and such. I personally like the idea of a route split rather than a timeskip. It's your story though, so don't feel like you have to make any decisions you don't want to. In the end it's whichever way you feel works best.

Perfect, thanks! Also, CF's the only route where Byleth can actually become Count Ordelia. On AM and VW/SS, he's appointed the new Archbishop and House Ordelia pretty much fizzles out when Lysithea marries him. If the Agarthans are involved, though, I wonder if we'll see some familiar faces from the Empire. Maybe Hubert? After all, the Empire's "war" with TWSITD is something he's been planning for quite a while. It would be interesting to see how this all ties in with Lysithea's own struggle with the remnants of TWSITD. Maybe they'll work together at some point in the story? Also, just a Fashion Emblem question, but do you think anybody will look different two years after 3H? I'm mostly asking because this would be a perfect chance for Guyleth to clean up his look a little and ditch the emo bowlcut and permanent scowl.

Which route are you thinking it'll take place after? That'll give me an idea of which character I'd like to submit. If you're open to ideas, I think it would be interesting to see your story take place after Crimson Flower. Lysithea's an Alliance noble who lent her strength to the Empire and helped Edelgard achieve her dreams for Fodlan, but the Alliance territories, including Ordelia, are still struggling to regain their footing after the war and adjust to the new Fodlan. Lysithea of course, as Countess Ordelia and the overachiever she's always been, wants to do everything she can to keep the influence of her noble house alive and play an active role in supporting her friend's new government. That's just one idea, though. I'm really interested to hear more about this project. Lyssie's one of my favorite 3H characters and I love the idea of giving her a game of her own. I think she'll make a fantastic lead and I can't wait to see how her story plays out. When the game becomes available, is it gonna be playable online or will there be a download of some sort? Sorry if that's a dumb question. I don't really know a lot about how fan games work.

Glad we could help! And thanks for putting up with our bickering lol If you decide to train up Dedue, he functions well as a War Master to help his doubling issues slightly or a Vengeance spamming Paladin/Wyvern as a substitute for Bernadetta. Dancer Ferdie's lots of fun to use, and he's sure to be a huge help on some of the more crowded Blue Lion maps (looking at you, Enbarr), especially on Maddening. As for skills, I find Sword Prowess, Sword Avoid +20, Axebreaker, Movement +1 and Special Dance to be the best combo for Dancers. Alert Stance, as Barren pointed out, isn't an ideal choice since Ferdie should be dancing every turn. Yeah, Ashe isn't all that impressive unfortunately. No fault of his own, he's just forced to compete with Leonie who's got so much more to offer. I still like to use him though. Like you said, he doesn't suck, he's just not amazing. I typically build him as a Sniper to take advantage of its Dex growth and Hunter's Volley. A nice setup for him is Bow Prowess, Death Blow, Hit +20, Close Counter and Dex +4 with a Critical Ring and a high crit battalion like Fraldarius or Goneril. His Str will always be middling unless you stuff him full of Rocky Burdocks and Energy Drops, but a crit from him should be enough to kill most normal enemies. Of course, Wyvern's always another solid choice thanks to his axe boon. Anyway, enjoy the rest of your run! 🙂

That's true. If someone's aiming to get the most uses out of Swift Strikes, then they're definitely gonna want a Dancer that isn't Ferdie, like Marianne. My point was more that Dancer Ferdie won't leave that big a gap if you're content with just one or two Swift Strikes uses per turn. Possibly even more if we bring in someone like Mercedes with the Blue Lion Dancers. Sylvain, Ferdie and Seteth attack, that's three. Marianne dances Sylvain, four. Mercedes gambits them all, seven. Marianne dances Seteth, eight. Manuela gambits them all, eleven. Marianne dances Ferdie, bringing us to a total of twelve. I'm actually tempted to try out this memetastic strategy now lol Proceeds to no-Elites bum rush Nemesis

I can't remember if Terrako played the song to go back in time at the beginning, but I know it didn't in the scene where it summons the four "new Champions" from the future. Not that it makes sense either way, since you're right about the Song of Time needing the Ocarina to work. Oh yeah, and Terrako not only has the power to go back in time but also pull people from the future through a wormhole. Good thing that's what little 5 year old Zelda decided to program it to do and not, like, toast waffles or something lol

The sad thing is, it's not even a particularly good "fix fic". There's ways to change the outcome of the story without resorting to something as cliche as time travel. Especially since the source of whole the time travel element isn't even an established thing in BotW. Why does this tiny toy Guardian that nobody's ever seen or mentioned before have a built-in time machine of all things? God only knows. To be fair, adding a "villain mode" side story would've given us a playable Kogha too, along with Sooga and Astor. And that would be a lot more believable than the guy who basically walks around with an Evil inc. business card suddenly turning unironically good.

Yeah, that's a pretty damn spot-on assessment. They definitely realized that they'd make more sales if people thought they were getting a direct prequel to BotW, and so they did everything they could to market it as one. Really begs the question of why they didn't just make it a prequel to begin with.

Gameplay-wise, I really enjoyed Age of Calamity. Before I even started playing, being able to fight as Zelda, with movesets for both the Shiekah runes and her sealing magic, was a huge selling point for me. BotW's Zelda is my absolute favorite take on her character so far, and her gameplay in AoC doesn't disappoint. After she basically spent all of BotW trapped in Hyrule Castle playing chase the Ganon, this was her big moment to shine (and hopefully not her last one either), taking charge on the battlefield in her white goddess dress, spells blazing, flattening the everloving crap out of some monsters. As for the combat itself, the traditional Warriors gameplay blends itself perfectly with so many of BotW's mechanics (perfect dodge, paraglider, Shiekah runes) and iconic locales (admit it, we all wanted to see what Hyrule Castle and Akkala Citadel looked like back then). The greater focus on aerial attacks was such an amazing idea too, since it adds so much more variety to movesets like Mipha's, Teba's (go pluck yourself, Revali) and even Zelda's with her Cryonis attacks and Luminescent state. Really, everything about AoC's gameplay makes for a fun and unique Warriors experience. The only bits I didn't like were the slow-ass Divine Beast stages, they're awkward af to control and there's really nothing about them that I found fun. It's just mashing R until everything's dead. That feels more like a chore than anything. But whatever, it's not like there's enough of them to take away at all from my enjoyment of the game. The story on the other hand left a lot to be desired imo. Maybe I'm being a little naïve expecting that deep a story from a fighting game, but overall AoC's plot just felt too bland and cliche to really stay invested in. I didn't like Terrako at all and time travel's one of my least favorite story gimmicks unless it's really done well like in OoT and MM. I get that they wanted to tell a brand new story where the Champions survive and live happily ever after and blah blah blah, but this wasn't the way to do it. I wish they'd have let us experience the original story first, complete with the tragic ending, and then given us a "what if the Champions survived" bonus story without the time travel gimmick. I didn't like how the game advertised as a BotW prequel basically skipped over everything that actually led up to BotW. Aside from that, a lot of the other story elements felt very forced, like how the game handled Astor betraying the Yiga Clan. Instead of Zelda and the Champions suddenly having to deal with two opposing factions who are out for each other's blood as well as hers, Kogha suddenly just up and joins her! Like, I get that they're both against Astor, but Zelda still kinda wants to kill Kogha's god and for some reason he's okay with that. I guess he's just that nuts lol Overall, I was very impressed with AoC's gameplay, but I felt like the story could've used a bit more polish. But I'm happy as long as Zelda can Lysithea the hell out of some Lynels so it's all good lol

That's true of any non-Ferdinand Dancer though, even crappy ones like Raphael or Caspar. If you value Ferdie's combat potential that much, then you can always use Marianne instead since her spells are chip damage by your definition (a good mage shouldn't just rely on CAs like Frozen Lance imo, since they're 1-range only). That's three Sylvains, or possibly up to five (or even seven) if you have someone use the dance battalion on Sylvain/Ferdie and Marianne, without sacrificing Dorothea. I'm not saying that one way's better than the other, just that there's many viable options here that each have their own upsides and downsides. So I don't think we can say there's really any one best dancer, it's just which trade-off we each consider more beneficial. For you, it's Dorothea/Hilda, and for me it's Ferdie/Marianne, and there's nothing wrong with either decision. I actually kinda wanna try that seven Sylvains trick now lol

Are we comparing physical powerhouses to mages now? I'm not sure what this argument's even supposed to prove. That there are other units in the game that can kill stuff? This is completely false. And if your idea is that a mage needs to have the magic stat of Lys or Constance to do anything, then how's Marianne any better? By your definition, wouldn't she just be doing "chip damage" too? Especially since her Reason list pales in comparison to Dorothea's. Think about it this way. If Ferdie dances for Sylvain, then you've accomplished the same thing as running two Sylvains. In other words, Dancer Ferdie essentially lets you run two Sylvains and a Dorothea, which is obviously stronger than two Sylvains alone regardless of what you think about Dorothea's damage. And Dorothea gets Hexblade. A magic based attack that actually kills. Again, not true. All comments like this tell me is that you've either never used Dorothea or you completely failed to build her properly. Dorothea has absolutely no trouble at all getting into Dark Flier. Or Pegasus Knight for that matter. She can easily be running Sword Prowess, Reason Prowess, Fiendish Blow and Darting Blow as a Dark Flier before the timeskip rolls around. Again, the goal of avoid stacking on your Dancer isn't to turn them into an enemy phase nuke like Dimitri. It's to increase survivability, so that they can dance somebody who's in attack range of, say, six or seven strong enemies and not get their frail asses pounded into paste should any of those enemies still be alive on the enemy phase. What's better, a Dancer who has to tiptoe around any actual danger or one who can actually take the heat if they have to? Anyway, this is derailing into a much bigger argument so let's just call it even and move on for the sake of the topic. After all, nobody's ever gonna agree on who the best Dancer is so there's no need to keep squabbling over it.

The idea is that any allies standing within the spell's range (or at least the ones who can support with the dancer) receive linked attack bonuses. However this comes at a few costs. Having a siege spell equipped means giving up the benefits of Sword Avoid +20, which is an important skill for Dancers. Also, only three students (Dorothea, Constance and Hilda) actually learn siege spells and each of them are better off in purely offensive classes. The debate is about whether or not that trade-off is really worth it, which I don't think it is.

Bolting support is nice and all, but think about what you're throwing away by making Hilda your Dancer. Her Str and Spd growths, B.Wrath and her personal Relic all make her absolutely devastating as a Wyvern Lord. Dancer by comparison is a straight up waste of her talents. I feel like one thing people forget about when choosing a Dancer is oppprtunity cost. What you're giving up to make someone your Dancer is just as important as their performance as one. Yes, you may enjoy Bolting/Meteor support, but when that's coming at the cost of Hilda's potential as a Wyvern (or Dorothea's as a Gremory/Dark Flier), is it really worth it? Personally, I say no. You take someone like Marianne or Ferdinand, however, and you're looking at a significantly better trade-off. I'm not saying Ferdie isn't a good unit, but the dude's more or less a carbon copy of Sylvain. And when you compare the two, Sylvain's available for free on every route (as long as you're playing female Byleth, which is better for Maddening anyway because Darting Blow/Falcon Knight access), he's got a much stronger early game performace and he has one of the best Relic weapons, which you can even get as early as Ch.5. Basically, as long as you have Sylvain, there's no reason not to make Ferdie your Dancer. After all, he's got both the appropriate boons, a good Spd growth and a personal that makes him perfect for the role. As for Marianne, she's got a decent Reason list but far from the best. Thoron's really all she's got in that department. No Sagittae or siege tome like Dorothea or Constance. No dark magic like Lysithea. Meanwhile she's got a good Faith list, but nothing that really satisfies the dedicated healer role better than Mercedes or Linhardt. A case could be made for a Frozen Lance Falcon Knight build if you wanted to do something interesting with her, but the simplest option is still to make her a Dancer. She's got the sword and riding boons to make it work and she can even keep up the healing if the situation calls for it. Isn't it better to have one less squishy unit to babysit though? If your Dancer can take care of themselves on the enemy phase, it means you don't have to worry as much about where you left them on the player phase. Tell that to Dorothea, who's forced to boink Linhardt for the rest of her life. Of course it would. That's why I said backup healer, not dedicated healer. If Felix is one hit away from death and Marianne can't get to Mercedes for whatever reason, isn't it good that she also has the ability to heal him up? That's all I meant, not that Marianne wouldn't normally just dance Mercedes. It's a backup option in case you get into a situation where that can't happen. As for your other two points, I think @Dark Holy Elf covered them pretty thoroughly. Also remember that Dancers aren't meant to be full-blown dodge tanks (with the possible exception of Ferdie). I'm not saying to throw your Dancer into a horde of enemies like you would a dodge tank, just that avoid stacking gives them survivability on the enemy phase which means you can afford to use them in more dangerous situations.

Hard disagree on this one. Meteor's an extremely powerful siege spell that wants to be used. It's much better in the hands of an offensive mage. Not only that, but having it equipped means she can't make use of Sword Avoid +20, which Dancers typically rely on for avoid stacking. She'll get the job done, sure, but I'd hardly call her second best when people like Ferdie and Marianne outclass her in pretty much every way. Linked attack spam also has the nasty habit of scewing up pairings, if that's something you care about. A strong case can be made for both, really. Marianne can reliably run the Movement +1/avoid stacking build while also healing with Physic as needed. Ferdie doesn't have the same healing potential as Marianne, but his personal (+15 avoid at full HP) just happens to lend itself perfectly to the Dancer build, getting close to 100% avoid as long as he's got a sword in his hand. If you'd like your Dancer to function as a backup healer, I'd say go with Marianne. But for the best avoid stacking experience, Ferdinand von Aegir's the way to go. Here's the build if you'd like to try it out: Sword Prowess Lv.5, Sword Avoid +20, Axebreaker and Movement +1 with an Evasion Ring, Brigid Hunters and a Wo Dao+. That said, Dorothea's by no means a bad Dancer and I'd never try to discourage you from playing the way you like. Personally, I just think she performs (heh) better as an offensive mage thanks to her extremely useful spell list.

Things like Axe Prowess skills, hit from battalions, Hit +20, Accuracy Ring and Dex exist to solve that very problem.

Something along the lines of Myrmidon/Soldier > Archer > Cavalier > Paladin helps him pick up some pretty useful skills. If you plan on training him at all in swords, I'd say try and spend some time in Thief too to build up his Spd and Dex. Ideally, I think you should aim for Lance Prowess, B.Vantage, B.Wrath, Hit +20 and either Swordbreaker or Desperation. That should serve him well for an enemy phase build. Also, do you plan on recruiting Marianne or Ferdinand by any chance? I'd personally consider them both better Dancer candidates than Dorothea, tbh. Dorothea's got a nasty riding bane to deal with, which might put Movement +1 just out of reach on Maddening. She's also got a pretty great spell list (Sagittae, Thoron and Meteor) that would serve her much better in an offensive class like Gremory (or Dark Flier thanks to it's mercifully low flying requirement). Marianne and Ferdie both have sword and riding boons, with Marianne serving as an excellent backup healer as well. Ferdie might actually be the best Dancer though, since his personal lets him get pretty close to 100% avoid. By stacking Confidence with Sword Prowess, Sword Avoid +20, Axebreaker, an Evasion Ring and a high avoid battalion (like Brigid Hunters), he should be able to dance people right in the thick of things without fear of dying on the enemy phase.

Like Dayni mentioned, Fiendish Blow is a must-have for your mages and Hit +20 is always useful. I also like to pick up Darting Blow for all the women (even mages) but that may be a bit of a hassle on Maddening unless you're going for Dark Flier. You should at least aim to get it on your fliers (especially Ingrid) though, since they'll be passing through Pegasus anyway. Just a side note though, I wouldn't go out of my way to get Death Blow on Dimitri. As an enemy phase nuke, he'll do better with skills like Hit +20, Desperation, Swordbreaker and maybe Aegis.

Agreed that Windsweep has some utility before War Master becomes available, but you're essentially arguing that it's worth staying in a sword class for the whole game just for this one CA. You have to consider the opportunity cost here. Swordfaire classes just aren't that good. You'd be gimping any character's potential by keeping them in one. Assassin's the only one I'd consider useful, and even then it's outclassed by Falcon/Wyvern/War Master builds. Every character geared towards swords, including Byleth and Yuri, have better class options. Just look at Petra, our "canon" Assassin. Even she's better off ditching the sword and hopping on a wyvern. I'm not saying you can't beat the game using sword classes, you have every right to play how you want. But telling people that swordies are better units than War Masters becuase of Windsweep is a straight up lie. That's fine. I never said War Masters relied on crits anyway. Did you miss the part where I said gauntlet users make highly effective dodge tanks thanks to the weapon's low weight and Brawl Avo +20 from War Monk/Cleric? And that's not even adding in Byleth and Yuri's speed. Letting the enemy counter isn't exactly gonna kill them that easily. Only a moron would use Swift Strikes? What the hell are you on, dude? Having Brave effect on cheaper weapons like Silver+ and Killer+ is extremely useful mid/late game when people like Sylvain and Seteth may have trouble doubling faster enemies like Swordmasters. Vengeance Bernadetta is a risky playstyle, I'll grant you that. But played right she's essentially a boss delete button and a better Death Knight killer than Lysithea. Hit +20 is typically a thing people pick up if they plan to use Raging Storm a lot. And Agarthium really isn't as bad as people make it out to be. I got tons of it from the Titanus in the Arianrhod chapter, and you can grind it out in desert monster battles too. Hell, the Dark Merchant even sells it sometimes. Again, you're free to play how you want. But you can't just go around making false claims based solely on personal bias. I have my odd playstyle preferences too. I like to recruit and use Ashe simply because I like his character. But I'm not gonna start telling people that Ashe is objectively better than Leonie, because that's just wrong.

Manuela's not a bad unit, she's just a weird one lol It almost feels like the game doesn't really know what she should be. She can be a Bishop, but she's not a great one. She can be an Assassin, but she's not a great one. She'd make a pretty good Dancer, but she's not allowed to be one. The dlc gave her Trickster too, but that's kind of a meh class to begin with. That said, I'd probably try a "magic Falcon Knight" build with her, using a Levin Sword. Her stats are similar enough to Ingrid's that she should be able to pull it off fairly easily. For a class path, taking her through Mage > Pegasus Knight > Trickster > Falcon Knight picks up Fiendish Blow, Darting Blow and Duelist's Blow. Just add Sword Prowess, Alert Stance and an Evasion Ring and go to town. Only hangup is that she's limited in battalion choices this way. Nuvelle Fliers Corps is the only flying magic battalion and you can only get one of it without NG+.

What exactly is so special about Windsweep that you'd choose it over everything War Master has to offer? Never mind the fact that Byleth doesn't get it until A in swords, it's a fairly underwhelming CA. It's not a brave art like Swift Strikes or an utterly broken one like Vengeance or Raging Storm. The only thing that stands out about it is that enemies can't counterattack. Which isn't all that impressive when Byleth and Yuri should be getting one round kills on the player phase anyway. Dead stuff can't counterattack either. Yuri even gets the added bonus of his crest doing the same thing as Windsweep on regular attacks that can (and will) double. I'm not sure why you'd stay in a sword class for this and pass up a War Master build that has insane crit and avoid on top of being able to reliably quad.