Bylift

Has anyone successfully beaten this game on Maddening NG without leaving the original commoner/noble class? I'd love to see it; wouldn't really want to try it. Realistically I don't see how it's possible. I've read on another topic chain that "someone" might have done this but it's unclear HOW, and specifically unclear if that was NG+ using prior class mastery abilities, or using online adjutants to gain those abilities. Assuming no NG+, no online adjutants, no class mastery abilities at all (besides HP+5)... can it be done?

I like the Aegir Astral Knights for infantry Avo tanks. I so rarely have Lysithea and Ferdinand both on my runs that I only have one copy of this on my NG+ chain but it's pretty solid. Death Knight's battalion or Brigid Hunters works good too. Prt probably isn't that important because even with +10 your unit is going to get killed quick if it takes any hits especially from lance users. Since you're doing NG+ and not trying to prove anything to anyone I'd definitely give your swordmaster quick riposte. Enemy swordmasters all have it so why shouldn't yours? 🙂

I am also in this camp -- I like my dodge tanks to serve primarily as bait and secondarily contribute on PP. Otherwise why even bring the others along. I have built successful map-sweeping 1-char-army units and while it can be satisfying, I prefer to savor my victories and get kills with my whole army in a bait-and-surround fashion. I also tend to armor break every monster I can even when it serves no purpose like on the final maps. Why? Because f(*&^ 'em that's why. I also really like to use "sub-optimal" setups like Sword Avo +20 Swordmaster Ferdinand* as a dodge tank. Or Brawler Dimitri with Brawl Avo+20 and Renewal as extra insurance that his personal ability stays up. I've used Great Knight Byleth with Alert Stance+ on maddening NG+ just to see if it works (of course it does Byleth is a boss). I've even used dodge-focused Assassins to bait in enemies. There are dozens of ways to do this and they're all fun despite/because of their flaws. I feel like flying units enjoy too many advantages over infantry/cavalry and so I like these setups a lot. That said, I'm not able to point out anything in the OP's build where I can say "yeah that's a poor choice." Overkill? Definitely. But that's the whole idea. *(Gotta give him +1 or +2 shoes though; that 5mv is a serious drag)

This is pretty well thought out, thanks for posting. I've always liked sword avo tanks because sword prowess gives a little more avo than other weapons besides gauntlets. IMO Rapier+ is probably the overall most effective weapon in the entire game for its low weight, crit, high durability, ease of repair with regular smithing stones, and effectiveness vs. some of the tankiest units (armor/horse). It's a natural choice for an avoid tank if you want them to also kill. For those of us who are reading and not doing the math, what do the Avo, Hit, and Crit values end up being with your build at around Lv. 40? Just a range is fine. In my mind I'm thinking this is probably between 110-120 Avo without AS+. I think once you reach about 110-120 avo, you're pretty much out of any danger, facing 0-10% hit rates on final maps. Some exceptions being the highly accurate sniper turrets. It's true that once you have a dodge tank it's GG. I also don't like battalion abilities but that's in large part because I don't like menuing and hate having to individually select which battalion to replenish. (Lazy, I know.). Lots of things on the build where you could say "yeah, but this and that is more optimal/unnecessary/doesn't do X in Y situation." Also lots of other weapons/units/battalions that work just fine. But overall I think it's a great build and a fun thought experiment. I have to say that for dancer, I use one on about half of my runs and on the other half I give someone Sword Avo. Dancer class is awesome but Swo Avo +20 is also a one-of-a-kind resource and if you are using the dancer class, then Sword Avo+20 is being squandered because you'll likely never attack or defend with a sword (you'll be dancing!). Thoughts on Ferdinand? His personal ability is very strong on an Avo Tank.

Man... now I'm starting to doubt myself on this. I'll reload a save before the final battle if I have one and check. I am pretty sure it doesn't kill you but I could be instead thinking of the constant poison effect that exists on the penultimate map.

It's amazing what people can do. I suppose I should be more specific about 3H. I don't think it would be possible as described by Imuabicus on maddening. Imagine the party you use in the mock battle thrown into the final map on any route. Barbecued chicken.

That's fair. I haven't looked recently but I"m pretty sure Dragon Aelfric also gets QR and some other nasty abilities as you take down it's health bars. Again, not gonna die on this hill. I don't have strong feelings about the final boss battle. It doesn't ruin the CS experience or define it for me. If anything, I feel like the penultimate map is the real Finale, and is very fun to play.

I've wondered this too. At first a "no growth" run sounds impossible, but when you factor in class minimum stats, stat boosters, abilities like death blow etc. I can see how it can be done. What you're describing sounds like it would be absolutely impossible in 3H. Maybe possible in Sacred Stones? Some units come pre-promoted with pretty good stats and weapon ranks, so you might be able to field a party that isn't completely useless. Would be a real challenge though.

Sorry for repeating myself, but I have to. Neither of those classes have stealth. Impregnable wall is a wonderful gambit but can't be spammed or used as a substitute for stealth. There are technically ways you can draw aggro from non-monster enemies I guess, such as by unequipping your weapon or putting a bow on someone who doesn't have close counter. But in general, they're just gonna attack your weakest unit until it's dead. Which is why stealth is so nice to have. Monster aggro is another story. Would be cool if they would have given Fortress Knight a skill like 'provoke' that would make it the preferred target; like the opposite of stealth.

1) Stealth guarantees 100% that if another target is available to the enemy, they will attack that target and not the character with stealth. It's pretty predictable. But yes, I agree that the threat indicators can sometimes be misleading in general. 2) They keep up better by not having to stay outside of attack range. If you're sending a super dodge/crit/avoid map-sweeper Wyvern Lord, then yeah, no one is keeping up with that. 3) Dark fliers can eventually get... OK at dodging incoming attacks IF you are using "wait" and not attacking, but you're probably gonna run out of spells quickly if you're doing that and my experience has been that it's better to just stay out of range as a Dark Flier or you're asking for trouble. Stealth avoids attacks altogether and lets you do more than "wait" on PP. And yes, DF has Canto as well. It's an amazing class. It's mastery ability is trash but who cares. I'll say again: lots of other classes do one thing or another more optimally than a Trickster, but a Trickster is a real swiss army knife support class and I think it's fun and effective to use 🙂

Assassin is great too, absolutely. Stealth is a terrific ability in a game where you can't draw aggro and any weak units left in range are probably going to die.

Stealth? A gremory is going to get murdered on the front rows, same with a flier, or any other advanced magic class.

Hey Dark Holy Elf - appreciate your thoughts. I totally agre re: female WAR. I'm not going to die on the hill of arguing "this boss fight is fun" since that's entirely subjective; but I will say that the fact that it can take people so long to finish is an indication that it is challenging, at least on your first blind playthrough. As to "how can it kill you?" If you stand in its range it will hit and kill you. If you try to attack it it will counter and kill you (except the same turn that it warps). If you fail to kill all of the clones it spawns each turn, they will hit you with magic. So, it's not terribly different from all the other major boss battles in 3H at the end of the day, it's just got some quirks. Chasing around those ridiculous Aelfric clones is a hassle. But the fight only takes 10min if you have a plan.

The more I play 3H the more I love this class. It's a true support class, and I love its utility. The units I feel are best used in this class are Dorothea, Manuela, and Marianne. I like to give them a Levin Sword, and upgrade to a Levin+ when the Dark Magic Shop opens after the time skip. Then I add Fiendish Blow, Mag +2, Axebreaker, and duelists blow upon mastery. I find these 3 units have great kits for the class. Dorothea and Marianne both have physic and can help in a pinch, and Dorothea still gets to use Meteor once. Manuela and Dorothea both have rally charm. Manuela gets Ward, Silence and warp*. All three of them have a magical sword combat art (Hexblade; soulblade) that can hit hard at enemy Res. To be clear, I don't think this class is going to be a good fit for every unit. But these three have shown great results in my runs. The complaints I hear about trickster are lack of swordfaire, low mobility, half magic charges, or "X/Y/and Z class does it better". I'll address these. Not having swordfaire doesn't seem to be a significant issue with my Levin sword setup because you are attacking res, not prt, and enemy res is typically lousy. Additionally, hexblade and soulblade are good arts that can deal a surprising amount of spike damage vs. res using a Steel Sword+ or stronger sword. Marianne's Blutgang art is also pretty decent. Trickster is not a PP delete button and I don't think swordfaire would change that; it's a true support class, and I find that they are able to easily one-round armors, and finish off most enemies that have been chipped, all while avoiding counter attacks with a Levin Sword or Duelist's Blow. The low mobility is a legit complaint. But I just did a run with 2 tricksters in my final party and I found them helpful the entire time. Using a levin sword+ with attack range 1-3 extends effective range by a lot. Silence has a very long reach, so does physic. Bottom line these units in trickster don't need to keep up to be useful, but I never found that they "fell behind" with maybe a couple exceptions. Half magic charges doesn't seem to be an issue for me either since, again, I'm still using a primary bishop physic healer, and the Levin Sword prevents them from running out of offensive spells. Trickster is not a specialty class: it's a support class; a "red mage" if you will. And it's great at it! It's the only class that has both stealth AND magic. It allows magically inclined characters to be get into the thick of battle without dying, and in my opinion it's Manuela's best possible class given her boons and growths. And I even appreciate locktouch especially on maps like Shambala with all those stupid doors. Overall, I just want to speak up for much maligned trickster class, and would encourage folks who are skeptical to give it a try. It's not a tank class, it's not a primary spike DD class, it's not a primary healer, and it's really not a "primary" anything. It is, however, in my view, the most versatile class in the game when used by an appropriate unit, and tons of fun to bring along. *Also Bolting but realistically you're probably not getting her to A reason unless you grind or NG+

1 - It's true I probably would have had a hard time with Armors, but interestingly there are none on SS Ch. 21(!), or the dubstep map either (EDIT - I guess great knights count so strike that). Obviously a rapier dodge tank is better for those. Rapiers are OP 2 - It's all good man things come across certain ways when read vs. spoken. I appreciate the spirited discussion with people like me who know way too much about a silly game 🙂

Awesome. I tend to get stuck in my ruts of farming things that get me strength boosters and not Zanado Treasure Fruits, and I don't like to fish so I seldom have Goddess Messengers. What you did is optimal. Nice!

Hey RalsMyPet, Thanks for the reply, just a couple responses: Brigid Hunters gives extra crit, lots of avoid, at least some extra damage and is B rank. It also has base 60 hit (20% better than most wide-area gambits like resonant F/L/I). I think it's a great battalion on a non-flying dodge tank. Since this was NG and females only, I'm not sure you would have chosen a different battalion from what was available on this run. I'm not sure why you would suggest it's a "mistake" to give someone a battalion with high AVO. That seems like a pretty uncontroversial tactic. Yes you lose it temporarily if you get rattled, that's the premise of this discussion and why I gave information about Petra's charm stat vs. the enemies. Another thing you said earlier was that "all gambits are blessing" and that certainly isn't the case on SS Ch. 21; maybe it is true on other maps. We can debate about whether it is a "bad build" or whether War Monk is a "bad class" (yes Brawler/War Master is better but they're gender locked) but I wasn't trying to make the most optimal thing possible or suggesting that I had built the ultimate map-sweeper, I was having fun, and it worked very well. Petra never took damage other than from the gremories' gambits (there are at least 2 of them btw). She had plenty of crit and ORKO punch with Killer Knuckles+ and could safely attack anything on PP without fear of counter. She was a monster. As I said earlier, you can draw whatever conclusions you want from my experience that I shared, and it sounds like you are claiming victory, which is fine. Others might say that I burned a lot of resources just to make her on-par with enemy charm, and she still got rattled twice (not by the Pegs, mind you). I think my own conclusion is that Petra is an amazing unit, one of my favorites in the game, and can do anything you want her to, including dodging. But her charm does need to be addressed in some way, either by cooking and boosters like I did, or rally charm and tea parties (yay!) as others have suggested, or maybe a different battalion (though we disagree on that one). That said, her base and growths in charm are lacking, IMO. Had I not done anything to specifically address her charm, she would have had a value of 30-35 going into that battle, and that could have been ugly.

In fact I did use rally charm for engaging Rhea and breaking her shield. That said, I didn’t boost Petra because others had better chance to hit and bigger gambits. Poison tactic isn’t the worst but resonant fire/lightning can take out her whole shield in two shots. Mercedes and Flayn did the honors. I had trickster Manuela and Valkyrie Dorothea and rally charm equipped on both. I humbly submit that cooking for charm in the final month of SS is a good idea unless you’re able to do Fodlans best or some such. Even then, I’ve had to burn pulses on low-chance gambits missing vs. Rheas shield before and it’s no bueno. Agree it might not be ideal on all routes though.

The death knight MOVING was one of many “welcome to thunderdome” moments in my first maddening run. I’m impressed your Mercedes could actually damage him at all. Giving her the “kill” is a nice touch. Can you share specifics on what she was using? Considering it’s your first run on maddening and all the builds you’re using I don’t think you ever need to apologize for using renown. Thanks for updates!

I tend to divide my forces in 2 on the final SS and AM map. So, two dodge tanks is helpful. To each their own. I don’t know what you mean by weak Petra. She was a War Monk with brigid hunters, evasion ring, brawl 5, and brawl avo+20 and had 118 avoid. After breaking Rhea’s shield, she essentially soloed the rest of the final boss battle. But anywho… —- ABOUT CHARM: So I finished my latest SS maddening run today and on the final map my Lv. 43 Petra had base 29 Charm (I had given her +4 or +5 in black pearls or golden apples, mind you). I cooked up 3 charming soups the final month (+6ch) and she had her brigid mercenaries (Edit: hunters, not mercenaries lol), which is +7. In total her charm was 42. Enemies charm stats on that map can be looked up but I recall seeing gremories with 46 charm (lol) and resonant lighting. Enemy Falcon Knights only had 38. Heroes and various Cavalry had charm hovering around 40. Rhea’s charm is an insane 52 lol. She got rattled twice on the map which led to pulses. So, IDK man. I tried pretty hard to build her charm. I could have done more tea. I could have done one more charming soup if I had the nordsalat. I could have given her a different battalion with more charm, but she needed the AVO and her paralogue battalion is really well suited to her build with the extra crit and avoid. I didn’t give her all of my charm boosters but I gave her more than her fair share, and at the end of the day she was about on par with the enemies on the final map. Just one data point. But I think it’s fair to say if you REALLY WANT to make Petra resistant to gambits, yes it’s possible, just like most things in this game.

Hi haarhaarhaar I'm in a similar place, having come back to FE3H after playing Triangle Strategy after about a year hiatus. I'm on record about how much I like Cindered Shadows so I'd suggest running that on Hard first before you start a 40-70hr journey on Maddening. But I'm admittedly in the minority about that I think. I am quite enjoying my ladies-only challenge run (NG, SS, maddening). Maybe consider that, or a gentlemen-only run on Blue Lions or Golden Deer? Also had fun doing a no-mounts challenge run.

I'm on Ch. 16 of SS and using War Monk Petra AND Wyvern Ingrid. I'm fairly sure I gave Petra a couple stat boosters for charm, but can't remember exactly. When I get to the last map I'll let you know what their charm stats are doing vs. the enemies. I realize it's just one data point. I respect calculations but every run is different. So I may be drawing on personal experience to a fault. Too bad It's a ladies only run. I could have been using heroes otherwise! 🙃

I've done similar things using other units and had the same result. I'll try using BW with Petra though. I just don't like using an ability slot on something like that and getting it set up beforehand sounds tedious to me, but what the hell. Not to dredge this up again, but Petra or Ingrid still run into issues with enemy gambits (/ducks)

Now that IS interesting. I didn't realize there was an on-screen limit. Does the same limit apply to the WM reinforcements? The AM final map has so many triggers and quirks. I just had a hell of a time beating it my first maddening run with no bow knights, a lousy dodge tank in Ingrid, and no idea what to do while Edelgard was critting my team from the other side of the map. I got at least 2 game overs and when I finally solved the map it took over 3 hours of high-stress gameplay. That was the map that really made me appreciate retribution and impregnable wall.

Can you even use divine pulse on the rivalry of the houses? Or did you mean in an aux battle. On ordinary NG, I usually get 1-2 game over screens on this map unless I use the DLC stat boosters. It's not easy! I didn't catch if this is NG+ or not? I read this is your first maddening run, and with these creative builds I hope it is 🙂 Thanks for the update!