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LOL Though Dark Knight may still be Hubie's more practical option thanks to his Axe and Flying banes and the fact that he already wants Lance training for Frozen Lance. Now for the other kind of magic... Seraph Knight A Swordfaire master class that doesn't suck! Granted it's more or less just Fates's Pegasus Knight, but it does its job of being the much-needed endgame class for swordies and healers that Mortal Savant and Holy Knight aren't. Certification: Sword A, Faith A, Flying B+ Class Abilities: Swordfaire, White Magic Uses x2, Canto Base Stats: 32 HP, 18 Str, 18 Mag, 14 Dex, 18 Spd, 12 Lck, 13 Def, 14 Res, 0 Cha, 8 Mov Skill Boosts: Sword +3, Faith +3, Flying +3 Growths: HP 30%, Str 10%, Mag 10%, Spd 15%, Res 5%, Cha 10% Mastery: Galeforce Fashion Emblem: Seraph Knights ride atop a snowy white, long-maned pegasus with an enormous wingspan and bright silver armor. The class outfit closely resembles Azura's, with long white sleeves, a corselet of silver mail designed after her top and a billowy skirt with white leggings and silver riding boots. And yes, that's the class outfit for everyone. Nothing changes for the guys. Nothing at all. Who I see using this class: Byleth, Yuri, Hapi, Linhardt, Ingrid, Marianne, Ignatz, Catherine, Flayn, Manuela

Brawling's legit the best choice for Guyleth, Yuri, Felix and Catherine. And I wouldn't exactly say any of them suck. Even the ones who aren't as good like Dedue, Caspar, Raphael, Balthus or Alois won't do much better than War Master either. If a unit excels at brawling, chances are it's gonna be their best option.

OMG same! Rainbow moonstone's my birthstone. I literally just shortened it to make my username lol

Dusk Wyvern (Malig Knight) Totally not designed with Magelgard and Flysithea in mind. Certification: Axe C, Reason A, Flying A Class Abilities: Black Tomefaire, Dark Tomefaire, Canto Base Stats: 32 HP, 8 Str, 17 Mag, 16 Dex, 18 Spd, 12 Lck, 17 Def, 18 Res, 0 Cha, 8 Mov Skill Boosts: Axe +3, Reason +3, Flying +3 Growths: HP 10%, Mag 10%, Dex 5%, Spd 5%, Res 10%, Cha 5% Mastery: Savage Blow Fashion Emblem: Redesigned slightly from Fates so it still looks "dark" without looking overtly "evil". After all, using Reason magic doesn't neccesarily make anyone a bad person in 3H. Instead of an undead wyvern, Dusk Wyverns simply get a jet-black wyvern with violet eyes and a silver bridle and saddle. The wyvern otherwise looks no different from Wyvern Lord's, so none of Fates's extra claws and spikes and crap. The class outfit looks slightly different too, being sort of a cross between Fates's female Malig Knight and Witch, with a little bit of Camilla thrown in too. I'm imagining something like Malig Knight's upper body armor without the cloth piece, a lightly armored version of Witch's skirt and black leg armor similar to Camilla's but without the gold. Misc: Female only (suck it, Dark Mage/Bishop), Dark Seal required, full magic access Also, just a side note, but we may want to lower the rank requirement from 40 to 30 (or just make them master classes) just so these classes can actually see some use for more than two or three chapters. By the time most characters are at Lv.40 (unless you're auxiliary grinding every Saturday), there's not all that much game left to really use, let alone master, a brand new class.

Felix definitely. Dude's totally tsundere for Sylvain lol I ship Ingrid with Ashe though. They're absolutely adorable together!

Another good choice might be Yuri. His natural class progression is sword-based, which tends to be pretty lackluster in 3H, and Wyvern Lord is out of the question since he's got banes in literally all the requirements. But he's got an amazing speed growth and his dex is good too, so he could make a pretty nice War Master dodgetank/crit machine, as long as you're willing to push through his axe bane (which you need to for Death Blow anyway) and pick up Brawl Avo +20 from War Monk. His speed means that he'll be able to reliably quad fast enemies, and his crest effect (preventing enemy counterattacks) just so happens to be a perfect fit for this setup too. Just add the Fetters of Dromi (or Chalice of Beginnings if you wanna get really crazy lol) and you're set. He also looks absolutely gorgeous as a War Master.

Speaking of Dimitri... how do you think he'd feel about the whole Claudelgard thing? Pre-skip, I mean. I can just picture Claude offering her a dance at the ball while Dimitri glares daggers (I had to. Sorry.) at him from the punch table lol Maybe Sylvain gets in on the act too just to screw with him :P

Edelgard's got a massive crush on Byleth though. I think Claude would have more success if he told her "Hey if you agree to stay out of Alliance territory you can marry Teach. Deal?"

Exactly! The way it is now, the whole damn route could be cut and the story wouldn't suffer one bit. Finally sat down and watched the rest of the video, and I've gotta say... Holst being an enormous beefcake with pink twintails is my new headcanon. But also, this guy pretty much nails all my major issues with VW. Only thing he doesn't really touch upon is the conflict with Houses Gloucester and Ordelia getting treated as a background event when it could've made for a more interesting story arc than Claude pulling a Dimitri and gunning for Enbarr. But making Judith recruitable, putting a greater focus on Claude's goals and most importantly cutting out the random Nemesis crap (and all the Rhea plotjacking that goes with it, this isn't SS dammit) would go a long way towards telling a better Golden Deer story. Not to mention that Claude casually popping Thales one in the forehead before he can launch the nukes would be hilariously in-character for him. I'll admit that his idea for the ending, with Claude coming to blows with his father in trial by combat, sounds like a really cool way to wrap up the story on paper. But it'll need some hella foreshadowing and definitely more than one chapter dedicated to it to read as a proper ending and not just another random final boss. I actually prefer the first idea he had for the ending, where Claude's goals for Fodlan put him at odds with Rhea and we experience a different take on SS's final battle. Of course, for this to flow nicely we'd probably need an extra chapter between Shambhala and the final boss (maybe a battle with Seteth and co. to convince them to help us fight Rhea). But personally I think Gronder should just be cut anyway, so we wouldn't wind up with over 22 chapters. Also, I love "Funeral of Flowers" and so one more final boss that uses it is a huge plus for me. Finally, I like how he said that Claude would step up as the new leader of Fodlan instead of Byleth. I never liked the whole "god emperor Byleth" thing that VW pulled at the end and I feel like Claude becoming Fodlan's new king and opening its borders to everyone is a more satisfying ending to his story. Not to mention that in CF ch.14 he literally tells Edelgard that's what he wanted to do. Anywho, those are my thoughts. Sorry that it got so long lol

Thanks! And yeah, I've seen a few CF "fix" ideas recently, but they weren't very good or completely missed the point of the route. Honestly though, CF being the shortest route doesn't really bother me the way VW's half-assed story does. It actually makes a lot of sense seeing how Edelgard is the shortest lord the Empire's starting off at such a clear advantage in part 2. They don't have to rally and make a comeback like the Kingdom or the Alliance, so they can get right to it and end the war. And it certainly helps that the route's length is offset by some truly unique story and battle experiences (taking Garreg Mach in ch.12, Hubert's paralogue, Tailtean in ch.17, the final boss). VW by comparison feels like they got lazy and didn't feel like writing a story for Claude, so they just copied one they already had. Which really sucks too because Claude's such an interesting lord, but his character arc just ends up reading as so... flat compared to the other two. I've only seen a few minutes of the video so far but I'm enjoying their take on the story. Putting a greater focus on Almyra and its politics I think gives Claude and his ideals that extra bit of depth that was missing in the game.

Literally anything would've made more sense than the Nemesis zombie shuffle lol That sounds like a really interesting rewrite. I'll definitely have to check it out. I think giving Almyra more of a presence, as well as focusing a bit more on political tensions in the Alliance (hate how the Gloucester and Ordeila conflict is pretty much given a passing mention, forgotten about and then resolved one chapter later as a damn afterthought), would've done a great deal to give VW more of its own identity.

Nah, I meant something more like a route where Byleth and the Deer actually go with him to Almyra and do their own thing instead of copying SS. I was mainly joking though, since it feels like VW got the short end plot-wise.

LOL that's perfect! I'm just glad CF and AM don't do that for their final chapters. Would've been really awkward if the Black Eagles decided to hoof it back to the monastery for a tea break between Tailtean and Fhirdiad. Sounds like an idea for a better VW route lol Claude just packs up and says "Screw y'all, we're going back to Almyra!"

Riegan's Law, after the chill Claude fans who sit back and watch as the constant flame wars between Edelgard and Rhea/Dimitri fans rage on.

Hot take: Jeralt's murder was actually planned by Thales and Solon in an attempt to alienate Edelgard from Byleth. One of them (most likely Solon) found out about the Flame Emperor's little conversation with Byleth after Remire and knew exactly why she wanted Byleth's help (namely, to cut Thales and Solon from throat to scroat). So they sent Kronya to kill Jeralt, hoping that would color Byleth's opinion of Edelgard to the point that she'd never join her. Of course, their whole plan goes straight to hell on the Black Eagles path when the Sealed Forest battle shows Byleth just how much Edelgard hates the Slithers and wants to (in Dimitri's voice) kill every last one of them. Especially if you're like me and send Edelgard to get the kill on Kronya and Solon personally. That's just my take though. The most likely answer is that Kronya, being the petty little shit that she is, killed Jeralt because she felt like it and then Solon said "Hey I can work with this."

Yeap, that's the trouble with morally-grey characters. On the one hand, you get far more compelling, human characters than sticking to the old fashioned "good guys vs. bad guys" schtick. On the other, you get the endless internet nitpick wars where people inevitably try to pigeonhole them into one of those roles.

All any of this tells me is that you haven't listened to a word I've said. They're not fighting for their lives. They're fighting by their own choice. The only reason their lives are in danger is because they chose to try and protect something (the holy tomb and the stones) that they have no personal attachment to or reason to protect other than that Rhea told them to. Believe it or not, most sane people don't jump in and risk their lives trying to stop a robbery after the robber says they won't die if they just stay put. Because not dying is something most people value more than saving other people's stuff. Then you throw in the fact that the robber in this case is a close friend and I can't even begin to imagine why Byleth and co don't just step aside and let her take the stones. Once again, I think @Dark Holy Elf hit the nail on the head: I think it's time to just face it. CF chapter 11 is a bad look for everybody involved. Edelgard for robbing the tomb and threatening her friends, and Byleth's class for starting an unneccesary and deadly fight with the person they were about to side with anyway. First of all, I've already explained multiple times how you've completely misjudged Edelgard's reasoning. And second, do you realize what a tone-deaf comparison that is? I mean, you're more or less equating a robber who genuinely doesn't want to hurt her friends with someone who uses violence, manipulation and emotional/psychological abuse and to deliberately mistreat the person they claim to love for no reason other than their own sick, warped and utterly self-obsessed definition of what love is. That might come across a tad insensitive to real life abuse victims, just saying. At this point though, I'm just done with this discussion. It's not going anywhere and we just keep arguing the same things over and over. We're clearly never gonna see eye to eye on this so let's just forget about it and move on.

Ah, my mistake. I guess I never made the two of them fight so I didn't realize they had any unique dialogue. But of course that's not to say they wouldn't have a slightly better understanding of each other before they're at war. It would be interesting to see a support chain between them begin after chapter 6, where they bond over both being survivors of TWSITD's experiments. Maybe if they reach A-support before the route split, Flayn could even become recruitable after defeating her in chapter 15.

Okay, first of all, Byleth and co don't have any horse in the race. Byleth, and by extension her class, is literally Rhea's blunt killing tool all throughout White Clouds. Every month from chapter 2 onward, Rhea's said "Go chop this guy's head off" and Byleth does. Outside of paralogues, there's never an instance of "What does Byleth/Dorothea/Ingrid/whoever want?" And so there's no reason it should be any different in chapter 11. Byleth and co are protecting the stones simply because Rhea said so. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if half the class didn't even know what the stones are or why they're important. And second, you're applying gameplay to a discussion about story. Canonically, all the Black Eagles survive chapter 11. If we're talking about story then only story deaths (Jeralt, Rodrigue, etc.) matter. It's not fair to say "Well what if Bernie dies?" when she can literally die at any point on any route and everyone just acts like she never existed. Already explained why this isn't true. Not doing it again. What the hell is this even supposed to mean? You're obviously being sarcastic, but doesn't that weaken your argument a smidge since Metodey dying is obviously a good thing (and possibly even intentional on Edelgard's part)? I have to say, this is absolutely spot-on. Perfectly explains why I (and many others) can sympathize with Edelgard even after what went down in the tomb. What this really boils down to, @Jotari, is that I see Edelgard's actions in the holy tomb as forgivable and you don't. And that's fine, but you're not gonna change my opinion and I'm not gonna change yours. So let's just put the argument aside and agree to disagree on this.

Pretty sure she only thinks that way about Rhea. We never really get to hear how she feels about Seteth or Flayn. But she's perfectly willing to let them both escape unharmed in chapter 15, so I think it's pretty safe to assume that she doesn't take the same issue with them.

True. Though I doubt he killed any of them in one hit without anything resembling a fight like OP suggested.

It's not really adding a new support chain, but I wish Sylvain and Marianne had an A-support together. Marianne's one of the few women who Sylvain drops his "charmer" facade around and acts more true to himself, treating her like a friend and genuinely trying to help. I was pretty disappointed that their support chain ended at B, especially since they never even began to discuss how the crest system impacted both their lives. Overall, I think Sylvain needs more A-supports. More times than not I end up with his solo ending just because I've paired off all his potential partners. I also feel like Rhea having no supports outside of Byleth was a huge missed opportunity.

She was armed and prepared to kill them, but had no desire to. That's all I was pointing out. I never tried to whitewash her actions in the Holy Tomb or argue that it wasn't a crappy thing to put her friends through. At that point in the story, Edelgard's basically resigned herself to the fact that by declaring war on the Church, she's making enemies of Byleth and all her classmates except Hubert. She knows that what she's about to do will endanger their lives, and so all she can hope is that it won't ever come to her being forced to kill them. Crimson Flower isn't even a thing she sees happening. Which is why on CF chapter 12, before leading them into battle against the Church, she takes the time and asks her classmates if they're sure they want to follow her and gives all of them the option to leave if they're having second thoughts. It's up to you whether or not you can forgive Edelgard for chapter 11, but either way comparing her to a remorseless wife beater is hardly fair.

No, it's literally robbery. Her goal in the tomb is to steal the stones, not to kill anybody. It's like when someone irl walks into the bank and says "Nobody move, or I'll shoot." They're not actually hoping to use the gun on anyone, they're carrying it for intimidation to make getting the money easier. That's exactly what robbery is. I'm not saying it wasn't a dirty move on Edelgard's part (that's what makes her an anti-hero, after all), but it's a hell of a lot better than comparing her to an abusive husband. Agreed. The only route that actually did chapter 11 right was Azure Moon. The whole time I was playing that mission on my way to Crimson Flower, all I could think was "Why the hell am I even doing this?" The Immaculate One escape sounds like a much better idea, and it would flow perfectly into CF's version of chapter 12 where once again the roles are reversed. And even if they were too lazy to do a complete rewrite, just saving the "OMG it's Edelgard!" reveal until afterwards would've made all the difference as well. But I suppose in the end it doesn't really matter imo. I enjoy the rest of CF so much that I can forgive chapter 11 for its lazy writing.

I agree, that chapter was very poorly thought out. Especially since the Black Eagles version of it is the only one where the Flame Emperor reveal happens before the battle. Like, if they'd just done it the same way as the other two houses where she's unmasked at the end of the fight, the choice being afterwards would've made much more sense. As for her intentions in the tomb, she wasn't trying to kill Byleth or any of the Black Eagles. That's why before the fight even starts, she tells them all to stay put and not interfere with the theft. She brought her soldiers and hired Metodey though, because she's well aware of the odds they won't listen to her. She doesn't want to kill any of them, but she knows she may be forced to. Also, even if for whatever reason the Eagles cooperate and let her take the stones, Rhea certainly won't. In which case she's definitely gonna want backup.