Hrothgar777 Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 I am posting this thread to celebrate an achievement: on this day, May the 21st, 2024, around 7:00 PM Central Time, I successfully defeated Nemesis, and with it my first FE Maddening run came to a close. I know that some people here eat maddening runs for breakfast, and on Classic Mode without the benefit of New Game+. To which I answer that achievements are subjective; for me, this is a pretty big deal. It's no secret that I've been sporadically commenting on my run in a Three Houses Q&A thread. While I've seriously acted upon and benefited from some of the advice given, my postings there were mainly an excuse to talk about my ongoing experience and chart my progress. Today I am done; my only possible regret is that I didn't complete Claude's paralogue because that's a mother-effing pain and I'm not seriously motivated to do it. I already challenged myself with the turtle and Almyra paralogues, both of which I managed to beat, so whatever. This is probably the last Three Houses run I'll ever do, since I've played through all the routes. The only thing I haven't done is the Ashen Wolves DLC; if I had that, perhaps it would justify one last easy run just to see what new content the Abyss has to offer, but since I'll probably never get around to buying that I think a fifth tour of Fodlan wouldn't be worth my time. This game, which has occupied my thoughts and captured my attention on and off since I first borrowed my brother's copy to play through Blue Lions in the summer of 2019, is something I can finally move on from. Some Brief Commentary on the Run While I don't remember the exact date this run started, I know it was before Thanksgiving of last year. I stopped in January/February, perhaps stretching into March, to play through another video game trilogy (Danganronpa), and I was otherwise distracted by other life things before I remembered that I was doing this and resumed the challenge. Which is to say: it didn't take me 6-7 continuous months of nonstop grinding, but it certainly felt like a long time. Additionally, I remember the second stretch of the playthrough better than I do the first, since it was more recent. -The prologue chapter was pretty easy, I think. But it quickly went to heck in a handbasket after that. The first practice match between the Houses (not Gronder Field) was tough; I had limited money, and made the at-the-time questionable but ultimately right choice to buy a Killing Edge for Byleth. My run relied heavily on critical hit weapons, blowing through weapon durability with Combat Arts, and taking those weapons to the blacksmith when they neared the breaking point. It took me until c. Chapter 13 to start effectively utilizing gambits, namely Claude's, as a way of surviving the Enemy Phase. -The chapter where you fought Sylvain's brother also sticks out in my mind as the early chapter I remember the best. I think I took a break around this point (shorter than the aforementioned long break) when I briefly got stuck on the chapter. The long break was when I was stuck on Chapter 12 (the last chapter of Part 1). -Probably the two chapters that felt intuitively the hardest, but which shocked me when I suddenly caught a lucky break and beat them, were Chapter 13 and that one soon after (somewhere between 14-17, I think), set on the same battlefield as Chapter 12. The latter map required you to beat one guy I think, and then everything was set on fire and the enemies retreated. Part of me didn't think that was doable but I ended up not being stuck on it for very long. -A few post-timeskip maps were surprisingly easy, such as that lava map. This was early post-timeskip, and as I neared the end there were no easy maps left. -Going into Maddening Mode, I expected the enemy to have high attack, high defense, and high speed. What I didn't expect was to be near-constantly missing attacks. In short, RNG kept shafting me over from start to end of this run and I was a neurotic wreck althroughout, largely because I don't have good coping mechanisms for stress but also because it felt outright unfair at times. In hindsight, of course, RNG was 100% on my side, because if I got super unlucky then I could just rewind and try again as many times as I needed, but in the heat of the moment it never seems that way. -Lorenz is the most useless lancer I've ever laid eyes on. Late in the game, instead of benching him, I decided to try his hand at dark magic. It took some time before this paid off but eventually he became useful. But screw that, he's billed as a lancer and he can't do that with the slightest bit of competentcy. Ignatz was a useless archer at first too, but his humble demeanor made it harder for me to count it against him. I did bench him for a while and replaced him with Shamir, but I did bring him back after a while, and to my delight he'd learned Hunter's Volley, which made him viable. -Oh, and didn't like Raphael at first either. I brought in Felix, because I heard he makes for an amazing brawler (that turned out to be 100% true) but also kept Raphael, and I'm glad I did because Raphael got better. He was never great, but he was serviceable. -Early on I depended heavily on Byleth as a dodge tank, but with time I lost faith in her ability to perform this role. She started out as a Killing Edge-wielding dodge tank but I ended up mostly employing her as a magic user. -Marianne initially had zero offensive ability, beyond a bare minimum Nosferatu, but when I started investing in her Reason stat that changed. Of course, she was always useful as my only party member who could use Psychic. -Lysithea was and is amazing. I already knew that from my third playthrough, which I did last year on Normal and from which I enabled New Game+ for this run. I gave her and Byleth a bump up to learn powerful magic attacks, but this didn't initially pay off. By the end, however, Luna proved a beast of an attack. -Oh, and I used Sylvain and Catherine on and off, but they didn't see that much action. Tomorrow I will post the final specs of my party as of the start of the final chapter (through a backup save file that I prepared for this reason). Anyway, yeah. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 Congratulations and welcome to the Maddening Mode Club. I'm afraid the tasty treats I left out are long expired though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrothgar777 Posted May 22 Author Share Posted May 22 (edited) I'd like to add: having now done Golden Deer, it seems to me like this was meant to be the "canon route". Edelgard wants a better world? Claude does too, but he also reconciles two continents. Edelgard starts a war in the other routes? You play through that same war in Golden Deer. You learn about the secrets of the church in Silver Snow/Crimson Flower? You get the full story here, like the backstory about humans being super advanced a thousand years ago and then starting a nuclear war in their arrogance. Nemesis is the final boss who appears among the series's final bosses at the end of Engage, and is the only Three Houses final boss who's unambiguously evil. Like, come on. Golden Deer was presented as just one of three equal options for a newbie to randomly pick from, but in practice it's the most important. What if you happened to play through this one first, and then played, say, Blue Lions? Wouldn't it seem a bit lackluster after Golden Deer had raised the stakes of the narrative far above just Edelgard's war? Oh, and 10 uses of the turnwheel when you've maxed out your Professor level was too few. 15 or even 20 would be better. There were a lot of instances where I gruelingly dragged my party to the end phase of a map, only to run out of do-overs at the last minute and then get wiped out. In these cases having just a few more chances before having to restart from scratch would've saved me a lot of time, potentially hours of my life that I could've spent doing other things. Edited May 22 by Hrothgar777 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lenticular Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 Congrats on the win! Managing to pull off something at the edge of your personal skill level is always a great feeling. 4 hours ago, Hrothgar777 said: -The prologue chapter was pretty easy, I think. But it quickly went to heck in a handbasket after that. For what it's worth, I personally consider chapters 1-5 to be the hardest part of a maddening run. There are some difficulty spikes later on too (especially chapter 13 and endgame), but I find that the early game is harder due to the lack of resources and lack of time to build your units. 1 hour ago, Hrothgar777 said: I'd like to add: having now done Golden Deer, it seems to me like this was meant to be the "canon route". I don't really think that there is a "canon route". I think they all have their own personal strengths that the others lack, so it's largely going to come down to which one resonates the best with each individual player. 2 hours ago, Hrothgar777 said: Oh, and 10 uses of the turnwheel when you've maxed out your Professor level was too few. 15 or even 20 would be better. The way that Divine Pulse was treated felt pretty inconsistent to me overall. Sometimes it feels like it's supposed to be a very limited resource that you have to use sparingly; other times it feels like it's basically just a QoL feature that you're supposed to be able to use whenever you want to. And I'm not really sure that it particularly succeeded at either approach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrothgar777 Posted May 22 Author Share Posted May 22 #1. Byleth (female), AKA "Baka" Level: 46 Class: Enlightened One HP: 58 Strength: 43 Luck: 34 Magic: 33 Defense: 28 Dexterity: 36 Resistance: 23 Speed: 31 Charm: 42 Abilities - Personal: Professor's Guidance; Abilities - Class: Swordfaire; Terrain Resistant Abilities - Equipped: Sword Prowess Lv 5; Battalion Vantage; Authority Lv 5; Axebreaker; Reason Lv 4 Battalion: Jeralt's Mercenaries, 075/075, Battalion Level 5, Exp MAX, Assault Troop, 02/02 Weapons: Killing Edge+, Iron Sword+, Sublime Creator Sword Magic: Fire, Thunder, Bolganone, Ragnarok, Heal, Nosferatu, Recover, Aura Items: Cadeceus Staff (Equipped), Light Dragon Sign, Elixir Highest Skills: Authority (S+), Sword (S), Faith (A+), Reason (A) #2. Claude Level: 45 Class: Barbarossa HP: 57 Strength: 36 Luck: 24 Magic: 19 Defense: 25 Dexterity: 41 Resistance: 14 Speed: 40 Charm: 48 Abilities - Personal: Leicester Lineage+ Abilities - Class: Charm; Bowfaire; Canto Abilities - Equipped: Bow Crit +10 Bow; Bow Prowess Lv 5; Authority Lv 5; HP+5; Close Counter Battalion: Immortal Corps, 120/120, Battalion Level 5, Exp MAX, Ashes and Dust 02/02 Weapons: Iron Bow+, Silver Bow+, Failnaught Items: Evasion Ring (Equipped), Earth Dragon Sign, Elixir #3. Leonie Level: 43 Class: Bow Knight HP: 57 Strength: 38 Luck: 32 Magic: 13 Defense: 17 Dexterity: 39 Resistance: 15 Speed: 31 Charm: 24 Abilities - Personal: Rivalry Abilities - Class: Canto; Bowfaire; Bowrange+2 Abilities - Equipped: Aegis; Bow Prowess Lv 5; HP+5; Authority Lv 4; Dexterity+4 Battalion: Alliance Brawlers Weapons: Silver Bow+, Iron Bow+, The Inexhaustible Items: Speed Ring, Elixir #4. Marianne Level: 47 Class: Gremory HP: 44 Strength: 16 Luck: 26 Magic: 46 Defense: 16 Dexterity: 28 Resistance: 34 Speed: 28 Charm: 33 Abilities - Personal: Animal Friend Abilities - Class: Black Magic Uses x2; Dark Magic Uses x2; White Magic Uses x2 Abilities - Equipped: White Magic Range +1; Faith Lv 5; HP +5; Reason Lv 5; Miracle Battalion: Seiros Holy Monks 030/030, Battalion Level 5 Exp MAX, Stride 02/02/ Weapons: Blutgang (though I didn't use it but once because she's not good with swords), Killing Edge+ Magic: Blizzard; Thoron; Cutting Gale; Fimbulvetr; Heal; Nosferatu; Physic; Silence; Aura Items: Knowledge Gem (Equipped), Elixir #5. Hilda Level: 43 Class: Fortress Knight HP: 71 Strength: 34 Luck: 36 Magic: 13 Defense: 31 Dexterity: 24 Resistance: 14 Speed: 33 Charm: 30 Abilities - Personal: Advocate Abilities - Class: Axefaire; Weight -5 Abilities - Equipped: Wrath; Axe Prowess Lv 5; Authority Lv 3; HP+5; Seal Speed Battalion: Seiros Mercenaries, 030/030 Battalion Level 5, Exp MAX, Onslaught 02/02 Weapons: Killer Axe+, Iron Axe+, Silver Axe+, Freikugel (surprisingly not that useful) Items: Goddess Ring (Equipped); Ice Dragon Sign #6. Lysithea Level: 47 Class: Gremory HP: 47 Strength: 13 Luck: 16 Magic: 55 Defense: 15 Dexterity: 43 Resistance: 27 Speed: 35 Charm: 22 Abilities - Personal: Mastermind Abilities - Class: Black Magic Uses x2; Dark Magic Uses x2; White Magic Uses x2 Abilities - Equipped: Reason Lv 5; Dark Tomefaire; Dark Magic Range +1; HP+5; Battalion Desperation Magic: Miasma, Swarm, Luna, Dark Spikes, Hades, Heal, Nosferatu, Seraphim, Warp, Abraxas Items: Thyrsus (Equipped); Wind Dragon Sign; Elixir; Dark Seal She had a battalion but didn't normally wield its gambit because its accuracy was in the toilet. #7. Raphael Level: 42 Class: Grappler HP: 74 Strength: 34 Luck: 29 Magic: 13 Defense: 28 Dexterity: 27 Resistance: 8 Speed: 24 Charm: 17 Abilities - Personal: Goody Basket Abilities - Class: Fistfaire; Unarmed Combat Abilities - Equipped: Battalion Wrath; Brawling Prowess Lv 5; HP +5; Authority Lv 4; Rally Strength Battalion: Seiros Brawlers 030/030, Battalion Level 5 Exp MAX, Disturbance 02/02 Weapons: Silver Gauntlets, Iron Gauntlets+, Steel Axe (almost never used it) Items: Critical Ring (Equipped); Sky Dragon Sign; Elixir (Honorable mention that it was the ability Fierce Iron Fist that made him viable, though I'm excluding Combat Arts from this list just for the sake of brevity.) #8. Felix Level: 43 Class: War Master HP: 63 Strength: 44 Luck: 28 Magic: 20 Defense: 24 Dexterity: 28 Resistance: 12 Speed: 43 Charm: 16 Abilities - Personal: Lone Wolf Abilities - Class: Fistfaire; Axefaire; Crit +20 Abilities - Equipped: Tomebreaker; Battalion Vantage; Brawling Prowess Lv 5; Speed +2; Authority Lv 4 He had a Battalion but I don't think he used gambit often because its accuracy was bad. Weapons: Silver Gauntlets+, Killing Edge+ Items: Speed Ring (Equipped), Thorn Dragon Sign, Elixir #9. Shamir Level: 42 Class: Sniper HP: 42 Strength: 30 Luck: 39 Magic: 15 Defense: 16 Dexterity: 39 Resistance: 14 Speed: 28 Charm: 17 Abilities - Personal: Survival Instinct Abilities - Class: Bowfaire; Bowrange +1 Abilities - Equipped: Battalion Desperation; Bow Prowess Lv 5; Close Counter; Authority Lv 4; Bow Crit +10 She didn't really use her battalion either. Weapons: Silver Bow+, Killer Bow+ Items: Prayer Ring (Equipped); Lightning Dragon Sign; Elixir #10. Lorenz Level: 41 Class: Dark Knight HP: 55 Strength: 23 Luck: 21 Magic: 29 Defense: 27 Dexterity: 23 Resistance: 29 Speed: 22 Charm: 21 Abilities - Personal: Love Quest Distinguished House Abilities - Class: Canto; Black Tomefaire; Dark Tomefaire Abilities - Equipped: Lance Prowess Lv 5; Reason Lv 5; Fiendish Blow; Battalion Vantage; Seal Resistance He hardly used his battalion either. Weapons: Killer Lance + (I hardly used it) Magic: Fire, Sagittae, Ragnarok, Agnea's Arrow, Heal Items: Snow Dragon Sign, Concoction, Elixir #11. Ignatz Level: 41 Class: Sniper HP: 41 Strength: 31 Luck: 39 Magic: 14 Defense: 15 Dexterity: 38 Resistance: 23 Speed: 29 Charm: 14 Abilities - Personal: Watchful Eye Abilities - Class: Bowfaire; Bowrange +1 Abilities - Equipped: Bow Crit +10; Bow Prowess Lv 5; Seal Strength; Rally Speed; Close Counter Battalion: Seiros Mercenaries 030/030, Battalion Level 5 Exp MAX; Onslaught 02/02 Weapons: Iron Bow+, Silver Bow + Items: Elixir #12. Sylvain Level: 38 Class: Paladin HP: 65 Strength: 3 Luck: 17 Magic: 19 Defense: 23 Dexterity: 26 Resistance: 20 Speed: 25 Charm: 28 Abilities - Personal: Philanderer Abilities - Class: Canto; Lancefaire; Terrain Resistance Abilities - Equipped: Lance Prowess Lv 5; Dexterity +4; HP +5; Authority Lv 2; Swordbreaker Weapons: Lance of Ruin; Gradivus; Iron Lance+ Items: Lampos Shield (Equipped); Elixir #13. Catherine Level: 31 Class: Swordmaster HP: 54 Strength: 30 Luck: 17 Magic: 13 Defense: 21 Dexterity: 22 Resistance: 9 Speed: 37 Charm: 14 Abilities - Personal: Fighting Spirit Abilities - Class: Swordfaire; Sword Crit +10 Abilities - Equipped: Sword Prowess Lv 5; Axebreaker; Brawling Prowess Lv 4; Authority Lv 2; Sword Crit +10 Weapons: Silver Sword+, Thunderbrand, Brave Sword Items: Pure Water; Elxir Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrothgar777 Posted May 22 Author Share Posted May 22 The above isn't completely accurate because, again, it was a separate save file that I created ahead of the last battle. I re-arranged some of the equipped abilities, and shortly prior to beating it I figured out that I could change their Combat Arts as well. And of course, some people leveled up during the battle itself. A bit more miscellaneous info about this run: I maxed out my Professor level, and all the statues in the cathedral (building off the progress I made in my third playthrough). I completed all the quests, including Hilda's impossible final quest by catching a silverfish during the final chapter. I selected Felix to become Byleth's partner when the credits rolled. Again, I completed all the paralogues that I had the option of doing save for Claude's. I recruited a handful of other units who I didn't use, such as Lindhardt, Annette, and Dorothea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lvrossem Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 Congrats on the victory! I also completed GD Maddening last year, and my character levels were nowhere near yours 😅 I considered chapters 1-6 and chapters 13-14 to be the hardest sections, everything past 14 went very smoothly due to rampant usage of Fiendish/Death/Darting Blow, and some character/class planning before the run started Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Holy Elf Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 Congrats on the win! Yeah some of the earlygame maps are definitely tough, with Chapter 5 standing out as you noted. Learning how to use gambits effectively is huge for Chapter 13, but it's a good feeling when you do. On 5/21/2024 at 8:28 PM, Hrothgar777 said: Like, come on. Golden Deer was presented as just one of three equal options for a newbie to randomly pick from, but in practice it's the most important. What if you happened to play through this one first, and then played, say, Blue Lions? Wouldn't it seem a bit lackluster after Golden Deer had raised the stakes of the narrative far above just Edelgard's war? I was kinda the opposite of the hypothetical you described, I did Golden Deer after playing-or-watching the Eagles and Lions and I found it a bit lackluster myself. I imagine it's a matter of looking for different things. I thought Zombie Nemesis made for a dreadfully uninteresting final confrontation and felt that Claude really needed some more battles designed around his story, instead of Silver Snow's. I was personally much happier with the direction of Claude's route in Three Hopes. Definitely agree with lenticular that no one route is more "canon" than the others. On 5/21/2024 at 8:28 PM, Hrothgar777 said: Oh, and 10 uses of the turnwheel when you've maxed out your Professor level was too few. 15 or even 20 would be better. There were a lot of instances where I gruelingly dragged my party to the end phase of a map, only to run out of do-overs at the last minute and then get wiped out. In these cases having just a few more chances before having to restart from scratch would've saved me a lot of time, potentially hours of my life that I could've spent doing other things. Balancing the number of rewinds is very tough. For me, I doubt I'd get close to 20 more than once in a blue moon, so I liked the tension of a lower number. But conversely, I do think in the earlygame the number is too low; having only three rewinds for Miklan's map, which is typically the longest in the game, is too few (especially given that a blind player should be almost expected to lose at least one on the reinforcements with Pass). I'm not sure what the best solution to this is. I think a separate difficulty slider would probably be the most elegant (e.g. you could set the number of divine pulses to Unlimited, Generous, Normal, Limited, or None) but I'm a big fan of customizing difficulty-related things generally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lvrossem Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 I 100% agree that Nemesis doesn't fit as a finale, and that there's no real canon route. Seiros as final boss in CF is probably the most fitting one of the 4, given how berserk Rhea gradually gets, and just the epic scope of taking down the mad Archbishop in city she set ablaze felt really neat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnowFire Posted May 24 Share Posted May 24 Congrats! As a few comments... I do think that the Golden Deer route is maybe the best route to play if your main goal is to understand the seemingly most reliable version of the backstory, as well as end Byleth's personal arc the best. While Nemesis doesn't really have much to do with Claude, having the final battle be against a Slitherer super-weapon sorta fits with the whole grudge between Byleth and the Slitherers the game sets up. (Even if it does a quite bad job of explaining why the Slitherers hate Byleth so much. They inherited the power of Sothis... so what? That's cool & all but it's not really clear how that was ever a direct threat to the Slitherers, or that Byleth would have even known or cared they existed. Shoulda been a missing plotline about Rhea's plan to use a reawakened Sothis to blow the Slitherers up once and for all, perhaps, but the narrative also has Rhea weirdly clueless about the Slitherers at times.) But to be clear I agree with others that all the routes are equally valid-ish. Just ends up with Dimitri & Edelgard's routes being more about them, while Claude & Church routes ends up being more Byleth-centric. Surprised you mentioned you had such accuracy issues. I will say that not every miss is disastrous and worthy of eating a Divine Pulse - if it's early in the turn, you can usually change up your strategy some if an unfortunate miss happens rather than having to DP it away. Also, it looks like you had a very Deer-centric team, and Linked Attacks really do a ton for fixing accuracy issues - overlapping bow ranges from Claude, Leonie, Ignatz, & Shamir should have made getting big accuracy bonuses at least somewhat doable. (Similarly, I'd say that Dex +4 as an endgame skill slot is.. questionable. Just doesn't boost Hit enough.) I think Engage had the right idea with the turnwheel / DP / Time Crystal: 10 uses flat from the start of the game. Powering up your time mastery from renown & Sothis's paralogue is flavorful but given that this is really a gameplay abstraction, probably not worth it - just let people have the pulses. I'd question about going over 10 - if you did that, then DPs would be so cheap that you could start using them whenever anything mildly bad happens, while having at least some limit means that you're encouraged to let trivial problems go. Definitely moot since you said you're probably done with 3H, but I do think that the returns from truly maxing the saint statues falls off on the last two upgrade levels. Increasing stat caps just does not matter at all when the stat caps are so ludicrously high. (Of course, it sounds like you didn't have the DLC either, so the "best" other ways to spend Renown wouldn't have even been available.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruy Posted May 24 Share Posted May 24 Congratulations. Golden Deer is also the only route I have completed on Maddening difficulty and, strangely enough, I also used Female Byleth. One question. How did you get your units to such a high level? You say Catherine didn't saw much action, but you still got her to level 31. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrothgar777 Posted May 25 Author Share Posted May 25 (edited) On 5/24/2024 at 12:00 PM, SnowFire said: But to be clear I agree with others that all the routes are equally valid-ish Yeah, sometimes my takes are spur-of-the-moment and I find myself disagreeing with them after thinking about it some more. A character study or slow-burn telling of a war can make for a worthy route even if you don't get all of the lore. That being said, the whole "four routes are four different perspectives" shtick is undermined when one route reveals a lot more information than the others. Doing GD first would be kind of like "spoiling" it, whereas in a perfectly balanced game you wouldn't get that impression. On 5/24/2024 at 12:00 PM, SnowFire said: Surprised you mentioned you had such accuracy issues. I will say that not every miss is disastrous and worthy of eating a Divine Pulse - if it's early in the turn, you can usually change up your strategy some if an unfortunate miss happens rather than having to DP it away. I'll admit that sometimes I was more trigger-happy than I should've been when it came to Divine Pulses. Sometimes I could've waited before clicking the button. That being said, a big part of being able to survive Maddening was taking out any foes in range of your units who probably couldn't survive an attack from them on Enemy Phase. A miss means somebody else has to pick up the slack, which means they're diverted from picking off a different foe, who can then go on the offensive when your turn ends. From my POV the margin of error was often razor thin. On 5/24/2024 at 12:00 PM, SnowFire said: Definitely moot since you said you're probably done with 3H, but I do think that the returns from truly maxing the saint statues falls off on the last two upgrade levels. Increasing stat caps just does not matter at all when the stat caps are so ludicrously high. Fair. Nobody reached Lv. 50, which I'm assuming is the cap. On 5/24/2024 at 12:00 PM, SnowFire said: Of course, it sounds like you didn't have the DLC either, so the "best" other ways to spend Renown wouldn't have even been available. This. I had a lot of renown that wasn't otherwise gonna be spent, so I figured *maybe* I'd gain something on the statues. In my third playthrough, IIRC, Lysithea was the only Golden Deer who I used, so I couldn't spend my renown, say, getting Raphael up to S brawler stat and Ignatz up to S archer stat. My New Game+ utility was somewhat limited in this regard (first two playthroughs were on my brother's switch, and I didn't use much if any of Golden Deer even if that hadn't been the case). On 5/24/2024 at 1:01 PM, Ruy said: One question. How did you get your units to such a high level? I was unaware that an average somewhere in the early 40s was high. If I were to take a guess: -On a typical chapter (the last chapter was an exception), I spent only one week in Garreg Mach and spent the rest grinding. I fought every available battle without skipping any, and I maxed my professor level early, which meant I got three per week. I also gravitated toward higher level and/or monster battles, with paralogues being an arguable exception in that I often did them months after they first became available. -I took advantage of moves like Heal, Physic, and Warp, which can get you leveled up quick even on Maddening. Lysithea, Marianne, and Byleth all stood to reap windfalls. Sometimes they'd even heal somebody who only lost 1 HP. -On maps where you have to defeat the enemy commander, I never figured out a convenient way to knock them out in just a turn or two (like you sometimes see people on YouTube do, for example). I had to take the maps slow or slow-ish, which worked out to more EXP from more foes engaged and defeated. On 5/24/2024 at 1:01 PM, Ruy said: You say Catherine didn't saw much action, but you still got her to level 31 I had Catherine as an adjutant for a large chunk of the game. Same for Sylvain. Edited May 25 by Hrothgar777 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shanty Pete's 1st Mate Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 Congrats on beating the game on Maddening! I've played Maddening thrice now, but only with the Golden Deer was it an NG clear. On 5/21/2024 at 9:12 PM, Hrothgar777 said: The prologue chapter was pretty easy, I think. But it quickly went to heck in a handbasket after that. The first practice match between the Houses (not Gronder Field) was tough; Yeah, as others have said, the earlygame tends to be the toughest part of the game on Maddening. Aside from chapter 13 and the Endgame. Interesting strategy, with all the crits. On 5/21/2024 at 9:12 PM, Hrothgar777 said: What I didn't expect was to be near-constantly missing attacks. In short, RNG kept shafting me over from start to end of this run and I was a neurotic wreck althroughout, More propoganda for why Hit +20, from Archer, is the greatest mastery skill. On 5/21/2024 at 9:12 PM, Hrothgar777 said: Lorenz is the most useless lancer I've ever laid eyes on. Late in the game, instead of benching him, I decided to try his hand at dark magic. It took some time before this paid off but eventually he became useful. IMO "the strat" with Lorenz is to boost his Magic in Monk and Mage while raising his Lance and Riding. Then he can go Paladin for very solid damage with Frozen Lance. Dark Knight is an additional option - he loses some damage and move, but regains spell access. But yeah, training him as a physical lancer will be... disappointing. On 5/21/2024 at 11:28 PM, Hrothgar777 said: What if you happened to play through this one first, and then played, say, Blue Lions? Wouldn't it seem a bit lackluster after Golden Deer had raised the stakes of the narrative far above just Edelgard's war? Not really, IMO. A story doesn't have to be "grand" to be "great". The Blue Lions story has more personal stakes for Dimitri and Edelgard. I've commonly heard it called the best story of the four, although that's always up for debate. On 5/24/2024 at 1:00 PM, SnowFire said: I think Engage had the right idea with the turnwheel / DP / Time Crystal: 10 uses flat from the start of the game. Powering up your time mastery from renown & Sothis's paralogue is flavorful but given that this is really a gameplay abstraction, probably not worth it - just let people have the pulses. I'd question about going over 10 - if you did that, then DPs would be so cheap that you could start using them whenever anything mildly bad happens, while having at least some limit means that you're encouraged to let trivial problems go. My preference would honestly be "give the player infinite rewinds, but use a ranking system to make fun of the player for using it too much. Oh, and show a 'Game Over' screen when the main Lord is defeated, before giving the player the option to either 'rewind' or 'return to title screen'." That way, players can choose whatever kind of run they want. Go for perfect rankings by resetting? Or brute-force rewind to cut out the tedium? While also not putting the player in a position where they're forced to "rewind or reset", as 3H did. On 5/23/2024 at 1:21 PM, lvrossem said: I 100% agree that Nemesis doesn't fit as a finale, and that there's no real canon route. Seiros as final boss in CF is probably the most fitting one of the 4, given how berserk Rhea gradually gets, and just the epic scope of taking down the mad Archbishop in city she set ablaze felt really neat Of course, then you run into the objection that the Slithers were only dealt with off-screen, as a post-game note. It's a tricky position. Rhea makes the most sense as a final boss for Edelgard's route. But the choice to hand-wave away the "true enemy" comes across as deeply dissatisfying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnowFire Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 7 hours ago, Hrothgar777 said: That being said, the whole "four routes are four different perspectives" shtick is undermined when one route reveals a lot more information than the others. Doing GD first would be kind of like "spoiling" it, whereas in a perfectly balanced game you wouldn't get that impression. This I agree with, partially - I think that 3H cheats a bit by having a decent amount of "not enough room for every script line, backstories sure are mysterious!" at times, and actually hammering out precisely both A) What really happened, and B) What various parties think really happened would have done the game well (even if, after deciding this, only partial glimpses are shown to force players to do some work). As is, it's a bit too misty, but not in the good intentional Dark-Soulsy kind of way, and there are some plot points that really should have been explored a little more even in the other routes. But oh well. 3H already has an outrageously long script if you're reading everything, so eh, I can't really fault 'em too much. Quote Fair. Nobody reached Lv. 50, which I'm assuming is the cap. The cap is actually at an amazing L99, which nobody sane bothers to grind to. The way you do this is by casting big white Magic spells like Fortify on a bunch of damaged units while wearing an XP ring, as you probably guessed. The final saint statue bonuses are +5 to max stat caps, though, which, well, see here: https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/characters/maximum-stats/ These only matter if you're doing a Byleth Solo on Maddening Silver Snow or something and feeding them every single stat booster and think that having 60 Def for the final fight is more useful than 55 Def. Unlikely. (Well, the other extreme edgecase is if you're building a character "against type" - like an Assassin Raphael going from 33 to 38 max base Spd or Wyvern Rider Lysithea going from max 30 base Str to 35 Str. But in reality, the normal caps are just fine even then, since you'll have class bonuses on top of that.) Quote -On a typical chapter (the last chapter was an exception), I spent only one week in Garreg Mach and spent the rest grinding. I fought every available battle without skipping any, and I maxed my professor level early, which meant I got three per week. I also gravitated toward higher level and/or monster battles, with paralogues being an arguable exception in that I often did them months after they first became available. FWIW, if you don't have access to the DLC super-grind higher-level aux battles, I'd say that aux battles on Maddening are hardly worth it aside from the occasional Skill Ring class mastery grind if desired. If you do them, then the way to get XP is definitely White Magic, as you already noticed - the enemies just don't give enough to care. (But more generally, raw level trails off in importance a bit later in the game... defensively, enemy offense is so high that either you've found a sneaky way to survive anyway like dodgetanking or Impregnable Wall, or you just aren't leaving these units in-range. But offensively, you can already tweak for one-round KOs pretty strongly by Advanced Classes at Level 20 and Brave Weapons / Brave Combat Arts, and once you one-round, more levels don't matter much there.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 8 hours ago, Hrothgar777 said: On a typical chapter (the last chapter was an exception), I spent only one week in Garreg Mach and spent the rest grinding. I fought every available battle without skipping any, and I maxed my professor level early, which meant I got three per week. I also gravitated toward higher level and/or monster battles, with paralogues being an arguable exception in that I often did them months after they first became available. Geez. Honestly, I cannot help but say auxiliary battles are a waste of time on Maddening. They just ain't profitable enough to justify wasting a weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shanty Pete's 1st Mate Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 On 5/26/2024 at 12:58 AM, Shadow Mir said: Geez. Honestly, I cannot help but say auxiliary battles are a waste of time on Maddening. They just ain't profitable enough to justify wasting a weekend. At a certain point in the post-skip, the "optimal" use of a weekend is... whatever the player wants to spend it on. Do I grind tedious battles for some scraps of EXP, skill ranks, class mastery, occasional rare ore, and overkill gold? Do I go to the monastery for tedious dining, gardening, and cooking for slight stat buffs? Do I save myself some time - and sanity - for an underwhelming seminar? Hell, I could even save more time if I "Rest". Beyond monastery-ing once a month, and playing the paralogues, everything else is pretty much cherries on top. Maybe there's a certain stat benchmark, or skill rank, I need to reach by month's end, that would inform my choices. But most of the time, I don't think it makes a huge difference. Grind if you want, monastery if you want, or else save some time and skip ahead. ....Is what I WOULD say, were I not terminally min-max pilled. Must. Acquire. Multiple. Advanced. Class. Masteries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrothgar777 Posted May 28 Author Share Posted May 28 (edited) On 5/25/2024 at 11:58 PM, Shadow Mir said: Geez. Honestly, I cannot help but say auxiliary battles are a waste of time on Maddening. They just ain't profitable enough to justify wasting a weekend. I would defend my approach on the grounds that, given what I knew at the time, it made perfect or near-perfect intuitive sense. Aside from the occasional drop of a permanent stat-boosting tonic in the Greenhouse, or renown from quests (which a single visit to the monastery per month can let you clench), the monastery has basically three things to offer: 1. The temporary buff from cooking; 2. The boost to weapon skills (also mostly from cooking, which raises motivation); and 3. Raising Byleth's weapon skills so he can teach more efficiently at the start of the week. Early into the game I used my renown to buy a higher Reason and Faith skill for Lysithea, and a higher Reason, Faith, and Sword skill for Byleth. The results felt underwhelming, as they didn't immediately turn either Lysithea or Byleth into a beast, as both were underleveled at the time. I understood that weapon skills were useful, but it didn't seem to me that they could wholly compensate for poor stats. Even if it buys you useful Combat Arts, it's not like you can use these during every combat (for example, during Enemy Phase), and sometimes doing so is less optimal than just attacking normally (for example, if you could strike twice to greater effect, or you need to conserve weapon durability). Furthermore, even with my approach, many units besides Byleth and Lysithea did eventually max out/almost max out the skill I most wanted maxed out: for example, archery for Claude and Shamir. Heck, at a certain point I literally ran out of useful skills to teach Lysithea, so I started doing random crap like archery or horsemanship. Finally, it's a waste to not use your last free week grinding, since the game doesn't let you cash out on any motivation accrued before throwing you into the chapter battle, and in the month following you'll similarly be thrown into your first week without being given such a chance beforehand. The temporary buff from cooking is just that: temporary. Thus, it made no sense to place all my eggs in this basket. Suppose, for example, that you buffed your Strength +4 every month (from visiting the monastery four weeks), and your average unit gained 1 level per chapter battle at the end of the month, equating to +1 one strength on average, or +5 strength for the month. In contrast, suppose that, from visiting the monastery once and then grinding the rest of the month, your average unit levels up twice, equating to +2 strength which compounds over the long haul. Just 4 chapters into this experiment, your strength from grinding is equal to your strength from visiting the monastery, and subsequently it will outpace such. And if you don't continue to visit the monastery 4 times a month, you won't even be able to keep these gains. Of course, you can only specialize in buffing 1 stat to this degree per chapter, whereas with a student you're guaranteed a minimum of 2 stats increased per level up, if not as many as 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8. In other FE games this might be justified by switching to a newer, more highly leveled unit halfway through. But Three Houses doesn't give you any new units post-timeskip, which is a pretty big chunk of the game. Though I'll concede that perhaps this is a viable strategy pre-timeskip, since the starting level of a unit once recruited seems to increase with the chapter this happens in. There are probably reasons why all of the above^ is an incomplete or flawed analysis, and the more experienced userbase of Serenes Forest could explain to me why I was wrong in hindsight. But again, at the time this reasoning appeared solid. Edited May 28 by Hrothgar777 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.