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I'm pretty sure Metodey showing up as the boss of that mission was just a Red Herring to make us think the Empire was after the chalice when it was really Aelfric. The thing is, we can't assume loyalty with Metodey because he has none. He's not a soldier, he's just some douche who kills people for whoever can cut him the biggest check. Before CS, we might only know him from the time Edelgard hired him, but in CS he's clearly doing the dirty work for someone else. Aelfric hired him to pull off a "fake hostage" deal so he could fool the Ashen Wolves into giving up the chalice, which of course goes sour thanks to Hapi. But nothing points to Edelgard wanting the chalice other than that Aelfric happened to hire the same merc she uses later on. Really, what would she even do with it? Outside of gameplay I mean lol Also, random thought, but anyone else think Edelgard hired Metodey for the Holy Tomb because he's such a dick? She knows how strong Byleth and her students are, so she naturally assumes that whoever she hires won't survive the mission. So she gets the biggest scumbag she can find and hopes that he'll do his job and then do the world a favor by getting his sorry ass killed.

Ah, thanks! That'll be a huge help. I was worried I was gonna have to farm out like 50k renown just to afford everything lol

So I just started my second Black Eagles run on NG+ a couple days ago and I'm trying to buy back everyone's skill levels ASAP. But I've already blown through my initial supply of renown on Byleth and the in-house Eagles, and so I'll probably have to wait on everyone else's skills until chapter 5 when I can really start farming for more renown. In the meantime though, I have to keep training everyone in something, so they don't fall behind. It made the most sense to just set their goals to the skills I'm planning on buying back anyway, so they can at least get into the appropriate beginner/intermediate classes before ch.5. Does this mean though that the cost of buying back those skills will go down as they keep training? For instance, Sylvain had an A in lances on my last run, and when I first recruited him it was very expensive to buy back. But if by ch.5 he's gotten a C in lances just from regular training, will that make buying back the A less expensive since it's a shorter jump? Just wondering since that would probably save me a ton of renown lol

Ah, I see what you mean. It's not enough to just get rid of Rhea if Fodlan isn't united under one banner, since that just creates a power vaccum and leads to more chaos and death. Which is the exact opposite of what Edelgard wants. A unified Fodlan is necessary, even if her ultimate goal is simply to end Rhea's rule, so that society remains stable after the fact. One thing I'd point out though is that in CF and AM, Claude was actually feigning his neutrality in the war while leading the anti-Imperial faction within the Alliance. So Derdriu was in fact a strategic military target that needed to be dealt with before invading the Kingdom. Again, really good point. I guess for this one, it all depends on a couple of things: How public Cornelia's death is made, and who the "Cornelia loyalists" are truly loyal to (the Empire or TWSITD). If Hubert discreetly makes Cornelia "disappear" and Edelgard sends in Bergliez as a replacement, then they can cover it up by explaining that she's been "reassigned" or that she was implicated in an act of treason and executed (that second one's not even really a lie). If the loyalists follow the Empire, which I'd assume they do since TWSITD is such an unknown, then they probably wouldn't care that much. If they are in fact TWSITD, then Edelgard's got trouble. In the end though, I think there's just too much left up in the air to really say one way or the other. Makes for a really interesting discussion though! I'd definitely play this route if I could.

I don't really see why this would be the case. Edelgard only really cares about Rhea, as she's the one responsible for the crest system and letting TWSITD roam free. Anyone else Edelgard ends up fighting with (like Dimitri), it's because they've sided with Rhea. With Rhea gone and the Church defeated, I doubt she'd care that much about a bunch of random priests who don't have any real power or influence (anyone else big like Catherine would've almost certainly died trying to avenge Rhea) and are probably just searching for new purpose in life. Certainly not enough anyway to still see Arundel as worth keeping alive. Considering she goes out of her way on CF to get rid of Cornelia, I don't think this would really concern her. With Dimitri dead and without Byleth or Rhea to lead them, the Kingdom's anti-Imperial faction would remain in complete shambles (as bad as, if not worse than on VW) and unable to accomplish anything. Edelgard could easily just take out Cornelia and put someone else like Count Bergliez in charge instead.

I think the key difference is that Rhea's Byleth (or rather, Sothis) obsession isn't really the biggest issue people have with her. It's Rhea's actions (like the ones @Dark Holy Elf and I both brought up), and the impact they have on the plot, that earn her such a negative opinion from certain parts of the fanbase. It doesn't help either that her ideals are politically the opposite of Edelgard's, which tends to make her unpopular among Edelgard fans.

The crest stone is what allows Byleth to use the SotC to begin with though. Without it, the sword's just a really heavy hunk of bone. At the end of CF (in her paired ending with Jeritza iirc) after the stone disappears, she's actually shown using the Seiros Sword instead since the stone-less SotC is useless. Also, Rhea's a Nabatean. Even in her "human" form, she's still an insanely powerful dragon. I'm not sure one swing of the sword, even if it was at full strength, would be enough to kill her. Hubert knows exactly who Arundel is though. And I doubt any of them, especially Edelgard, would just forget about TWSITD like that. As soon as the Church was out of the picture, Arundales would be at the top of Hubie's to-shank list before he could even set foot outside of Enbarr.

That's a really good point. Corrin's definitely much more established as a character, while a lot of Byleth's actions and decisions are left up to interpretation, so the player can characterize her however they choose. I'd actually thought of bringing up that dialogue as well, but then I wasn't quite sure if that was something Byleth actually saw/heard or only the player. Agreed. And it only gets worse in hindsight when you find out that Rhea's technically Byleth's grandma, which makes the scene read as very incest-y on future playthroughs. Fantasizing is one thing. Actually doing it to someone (your own granddaughter, no less) while they're unconsious is another. And also you can't convince me that Byleth's lap would be the pillow if she did it with Dimitri.

Thanks! The funny thing is, I'd never really thought about Silver Snow's story all that much before I played Conquest. Now that I see the similarities, I really wish they'd given SS a bit more depth as a story to explore the Church and its characters more fully. Unfortunately, it ends up reading very much like the rough draft route. I mean, Edelgard's motives are given a lot of foreshadowing in White Clouds. There's her dialogue with Byleth after the Lonato and Miklan chapters, the Flame Emperor scene after Remire and then both her C-supports with Byleth. I think by the time the big decision rolls around, Byleth has at least a pretty good idea as to why Edelgard's doing what she's doing. I agree though that Byleth's motivation for siding with the Church is a bit fuzzy. By chapter 11, she's seen a few hints that something's not right with the Church, or at least Rhea (Jeralt's diary, the creepy lap pillow scene, Rhea's disappointment when something didn't happen to Byleth when she sat on the throne), but unfortunately none of those things ever really get brought up again until the very end. So Byleth's reasoning pretty much goes unexplained for the whole route. Ah, that's another interesting take! Byleth's certainly gotten to know Edelgard better than Rhea in White Clouds, so CF could definitely read as staying loyal to the "familiar side" (like Conquest), while SS is siding with some relatively unfamiliar faces like on Birthright. It all depends on how you look at it, really.

I didn't bring up AM and VW because story-wise I don't think they share many common threads with Conquest. The OP seemed to be asking if CF's story was the closest to Conquest's, and I explained why I thought it was actually SS that had the most in common.

I'm sorry, I'm a little confused about what you're trying to say. But the whole idea of the comparison is that Byleth's loyalty is torn between the Church and Edelgard, just like Corrin when he's forced to choose between his two families. And in both cases, to side with one is to betray the other. All I was talking about was why I think the Silver Snow route has a lot in common with Conquest.

Exactly. Balancing wouldn't simply entail buffing Swordmaster to unrealistic proportions, but also toning down Falcon/Wyvern (probably Bow Knight too) a bit so they aren't as universally good. Because the way they are right now, they've basically got everything a physical unit wants with minimal to no drawbacks. There's no reason not to use them aside from axe/flying banes, and even those can be easily worked around. I don't really see the point of this. We've got archers and mages who can hit enemies from even farther away. Why have, say, Felix kill that enemy from two spaces away when Lysithea or Leonie can do it from four? Turning Swordmaster into a middling ranger class doesn't really accomplish much, tbh. The topic is called "How would you change Swordmaster?", not "Let's make a new master class for swords." The idea is to make Swordmaster a stronger advanced class that would see more use, like Assassin or Sniper. The goal was never to make it on par with/better than Falcon or Wyvern.

Because to buff it significantly enough to outclass Falcon and Wyvern, we'd have to make it a flying class, buff its stats to high hell and likely give it another skill or at least a better mastery ability. At which point, it's hardly "Swordmaster" anymore, let alone an advanced-tier class. It's just Falcon/Wyvern but with a sword, which isn't the goal here.

I mean honestly, the route that seems the most like Conquest to me is Silver Snow. I'm actually playing through my first Conquest run right now and I feel like they share a lot of the same story/character elements. SS Byleth, for instance, makes a very similar choice to Corrin's in Conquest, where she decides she must remain loyal to the Church even though they aren't as righteous as they first seemed, rather than side with their enemy who may in fact have had the right idea all along. Rhea shares a lot of similarities with Garon as well. While she's clearly a far more tragic character, her actions being the result of delusions and misguided beliefs rather than Garon's outright malice, Rhea's poor leadership (stunting humanity's technological growth and failing to do anything about TWSITD or the crest system before it was too late) is ultimately what pushed Fodlan to the brink of war. As such, Byleth's choice, just like Corrin's, is to remain hopeful that she can save the Church and reform it from within instead of letting it pay the price for its leader's irresponsibility. Even Seteth to a certain degree comes across very similar to Xander in that he's the one person who's truly close to Rhea, seeing her almost as family, and who continues to see the good in her despite knowing the poor decisions she's made. But by the end, when Rhea fully succumbs to her madness, even he realizes that she's too far gone to be reasoned with and must be stopped for the sake of Fodlan. Crimson Flower by comparison feels more like a darker version of Birthright, where Byleth, upon realizing the injustices of the Church, doesn't believe there's any good in siding with them and instead chooses to fight for Edelgard's cause, which she sees as more noble. And the unfortunate truth is, in both cases, neither choice is particularly wrong.

Pretty much this. Even a buffed Swordmaster is never gonna be better than Falcon/Wyvern.

I doubt it'll end up being all that game-changing, especially since many of those characters already do better outside of the sword classes entirely (Falcon Ingrid, Wyvern Petra, War Master Felix, etc.)

Yeah, sorry for derailing for a bit there. I just feel like Byleth's design gets way more flak than it deserves, considering this is a fantasy world we're talking about where outfits clearly aren't meant to be realistic. But then again, I'm the odd one who actually likes her Enlightened One design for how hilariously tacky and over-the-top it is lol Anyway, so far I agree with the points @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate brought up. I think the problem with Swordmaster is that, unlike Assassin or Sniper, it just doesn't carry itself well enough for a final class. But for anyone not named Byleth, it's the only purely sword-based final class available. Higher mov, a stronger combat art and Avoid +10 would give SM so much more to work with, especially when combined with Vantage/Wrath antics or Sword Avoid +20.

I'd definitely recommend getting Lysithea, Lorenz (for Thyrsus), Leonie, Ingrid, Mercedes and Sylvain from the other houses. Hilda's typically another good student to recruit, but unfortunately her wonky recruitment window on SS means you won't have much time to build her as strong as the others. I think Marianne deserves a mention as well, since her unique set of strengths makes her one of the best Dancer candidates (though Ferdinand's another great choice). She's also notably one of the few characters who disappears completely post-skip if she wasn't recruited. It's never said what exactly happens to her, but given what we learn about her crest in her paralogue, it might be a good idea to recruit her just to be on the safe side. If you have the dlc, you may also want to recruit Constance since she's essentially a second Lysithea stat-wise with access to Bolting, one of the best spells in the game. Her paralogue also gives you the only flying mage battalion if you're interested in making anyone a Dark Flier.

You'd hear them about Manuela too, cause she shows off way more skin than Byleth. She wouldn't get a free pass irl just because she's having a mid-life crisis. There are clear rules about what you can and can't wear to work, and having an excuse like Manuela's doesn't mean you're just allowed to break them. My point was that Garreg Mach doesn't seem to have any such rules, seeing as everyone's perfectly fine with Byleth and Manuela dressing the way they do. Now if you just don't like female Byleth's design because in your opinion it doesn't look good, then that's a completely different story. I already said the same exact thing about male Byleth. But applying real life rules to the way a fictional character chooses to dress isn't a good argument.

Thanks! I think I'll go with Camilla, then. I like Nyx with Leo and Felicia's already married to Corrin. Is it wrong that I'm picturing a pissed-off Xander chasing Odin down a dark alley with Siegfried in a knife-grip? lol

To be fair, you did say in that thread that Witch Felicia would perform well enough, as opposed to Flora who's just too damn slow to fight at all. I know healer Felicia is the best way to go, but I got the impression that Witch was at least a viable alternative. Sorry if I misunderstood, though. She's already got Darting Blow from Pegasus, so I can always just reclass her back to Maid and give her a Flame Shuriken so she can fight and heal as needed. So she's Lysithea with a really bad aim, basically lol I'm not really looking to make her tanky, seeing as she's a mage and all. Thanks for the advice about the stat boosters though. I'm hoping those will at least cut down on her accuracy issues. Sucks that she isn't a better unit though, she's low-key one of my favorite characters in Fates.

I'll admit, I'm not a fan of their flimsy reasoning behind the whole kids thing (or really anything involving the parallel worlds), so that's kinda why I like to ignore the child paralogues. But Ophelia seems like a pretty interesting character and her paralogue's got a ton of nice rewards so I might just go ahead and make an excpetion for her. I just need to figure out who I should marry Odin to (why can't it be Niles?!) since I don't wanna screw up any of my other pairings. Glad to hear I'm not missing out on much from the others though. Didn't you recommend Witch Felicia though...? Should I take a different route with her? She's a Pegasus Knight right now. If it's more reliable, I could master seal her up to Falcon and have her use staves and maybe a Bolt Naginata if she can get her hands on one in Conquest. Is Nyx really that bad? I'm not benching her, even if she sucks. But is there a class that helps her better than Witch? I've got her in Dark Knight atm. Maybe Dark Flier as a final class?

Ah, kinda sucks that it's RNG-based, but as long as I get two I can at least forge it once and Felicia won't have to waste a skill slot on Shadowgift.

Damn, that does sound incredibly useful. Hard to pass up three good spells and Spirit Dust, especially when I've got three mages on my team. Guess it's time to get Odin hitched lol Not gonna lie, I thought Disrobing Gale was a joke spell when I read the flavor text lol I'll definitely keep an eye out for it though. If I get one it's totally going to Leo just for the sheer hilarity of a distinguished Nohrian prince using his finely honed magical skill to... pants people. I've got one Moonlight so far. I think Odin or somebody just randomly handed it to me. Do I just need to luck into another one if I'm playing offline?

Perfect, thanks! So if I just hand them each a forged Thunder, Lightning and Mjolnir I should be set? How important is Calamity Gate though? I'd rather not do any of the child paralogues if it's possible to get by without them.