Tips for no Online, no DLC, no New Game+ Maddening Classic run?

[Silly]

I'm going to point out that Dark Spikes is somewhat overrated. It is useful for killing the Death Knight in particular, but it doesn't really have a monopoly on doing so. There are other alternatives, some of which are even better. 

The value of Dark Spikes peaks in Chapter 4, because it is your strongest option (39 might versus 28 might from Knightkneeler Steel Lance). You can definitely still kill the DK realistically with Steel Lance but you'll need to throw less damage at him if you have Dark Spikes (you will still need to damage him a little though). Overall this chapter is the one where access to Dark Spikes is the most important.

In Chapter 6, if you recruited Sylvain then the strongest option for killing the DK by far is actually Knightkneeler Lance of Ruin (54 might). Whereas Dark Spikes might need something to help finish off the kill, Lance of Ruin will cleanly one-shot the Death Knight coming from even an average lance user. Thunderbrand is also an option for dealing the majority of the damage if you happen to have Rally Speed, but it is probably your third or fourth best option (obviously Lance of Ruin is by far the best, followed by Dark Spikes).

In Chapter 8, again Lance of Ruin is the best option (you can do the paralogue for it by now if you didn't obtain it before) and you can also use Luin (48 might) or likely Silver Lance (38 might), which are all good alternative options. Dark Spikes has kind of lost its niche by this point because you have plenty of strong lances available.

For post timeskip fights with the DK, the best option is probably actually Spear of Assal coming from a Falcon Knight (42 might and likely doubles), or you can fall back to the standard "hit him with Knightkneeler" strategy. Dark Spikes is an option, but like before there are so many good options available to you at this point that it doesn't really have an important niche.

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Also, I think that Lysithea is good for a mage. She's very helpful to field in one of your few mage slots. She does most of what you want a mage to do, with her main downside compared to other good mages being bad healing utility due to lack of Physic. However, while she isn't overrated in terms of filling the mage role properly, I do believe that her combat is overrated. Some people treat her as if she is the best combat unit in the game, whereas that's far from the case. Her combat is good for a mage, but it doesn't compare to the combat capabilities of a top tier physical unit. And that is completely fine. Mages occupy a different niche, so she doesn't need to be as good as the best combat units.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Silly

[Xylaugheon Daily]

Something so many of you are overlooking about Lysithea's usefulness is her low investment and how easy to use from the get go she is. Every one of you is only considering her endgame potential (something I still believe to be understated, but whatever, you do you.) She literally is OHKOing roughly ten chapters and is about the only mage who can hope to double, something in the right circumstance can be achieved.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Xylaugheon Daily

[Silly]

11 minutes ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

Something so many of you are overlooking about Lysithea's usefulness is her low investment and how easy to use from the get go she is. Every one of you is only considering her endgame potential (something I still believe to be understated, but whatever, you do you.) She literally is OHKOing roughly ten chapters and is about the only mage who can hope to double, something in the right circumstance can be achieved.

No mage doubles anything remotely fast on maddening. And basically every one doubles armor knights.

For example, let's take a midgame map where enemies are "slowish" due to mostly having steel weapons and being in slower classes. Level 20 Lysithea has on average 13.5 AS with Miasma. You need 18 AS to double most of the enemies in chapter 8, and 23 AS to double every enemy.

If we move onto a later chapter where enemies have silver weapons, level 26 Lysithea has on average 16.5 AS with Miasma. You need 22-24 AS to double most of the enemies in chapter 11, and 29 AS to double every enemy (minus the ridiculously fast ones that are impossible to double).

Edited October 1, 2019 by Silly

[Xylaugheon Daily]

9 minutes ago, Silly said:

No mage doubles anything remotely fast on maddening. And basically every one doubles armor knights.

For example, let's take a midgame map where enemies are "slowish" due to mostly having steel weapons and being in slower classes. Level 20 Lysithea has on average 13.5 AS with Miasma. You need 18 AS to double most of the enemies in chapter 8, and 23 AS to double every enemy.

If we move onto a later chapter where enemies have silver weapons, level 26 Lysithea has on average 16.5 AS with Miasma. You need 22-24 AS to double most of the enemies in chapter 11, and 29 AS to double every enemy (minus the ridiculously fast ones that are impossible to double).

Doubling certainly shouldn't be what you rely on, but she easily one of the best candidates for speed boost, which you should be growing in the garden. There is also the early speed rally access Ignatz has, and the ability to cook. And Swarm Z, her D+ Reason spell, is lighter, even if only by a point. I had a number of instances where that single point was exactly why she doubled. Are you trying to imply it's too much effort to give her some boost to do it? That's... silly.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, niveklt said:

I mean, I admit to giving her my magic stat boosters, but who else is going to be a better choice? If you think giving them to someone with low magic, you aren't dealing any damage with that character to anything late game. If you decide to give them to a healer then...??? That's literally gimping your team, so okay, sure that's favoritism to give them to your mage. 

It's called "opportunity cost". And it isn't like giving Lysithea the spirit dusts doesn't have it - I could get more physic or fortify range out of Mercedes or something.

13 minutes ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

Doubling certainly shouldn't be what you rely on, but she easily one of the best candidates for speed boost, which you should be growing in the garden. There is also the early speed rally access Ignatz has, and the ability to cook. And Swarm Z, her D+ Reason spell, is lighter, even if only by a point. I had a number of instances where that single point was exactly why she doubled. Are you trying to imply it's too much effort to give her some boost to do it? That's... silly.

Once again, opportunity cost. If I'm giving Lysithea stat boosters from the garden, I'm simultaneously making other units worse.

[Silly]

20 minutes ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

 Doubling certainly shouldn't be what you rely on, but she easily one of the best candidates for speed boost, which you should be growing in the garden. There is also the early speed rally access Ignatz has, and the ability to cook. And Swarm Z, her D+ Reason spell, is lighter, even if only by a point. I had a number of instances where that single point was exactly why she doubled. Are you trying to imply it's too much effort to give her some boost to do it? That's... silly.

Rally Speed is a huge waste on a unit that will realistically see only a single combat per turn cycle.

You're spending two player phase actions to double and kill a single enemy. That's basically exactly the same result as if you just had two generic units and they both attacked the same enemy on player phase.

Speed boosts from gardening to get her to double is a very big opportunity cost. It's possible, but it's not really something that should be high priority if you technically want to be optimal about it. Even the good physical units appreciate +speed to get over the speed threshold, but since they start out faster it takes them less boosters to get over the hump. So giving Lysithea +6 speed or whatever to double means not giving two or three different physical units +2-3 speed to double, for example. Also, physical units make better use of speed boosts (just like they do with Rally Speed) because they will see more combat in an average turn cycle.

5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

It's called "opportunity cost". And it isn't like giving Lysithea the spirit dusts doesn't have it - I could get more physic or fortify range out of Mercedes or something.

To be fair there isn't much competition for Spirit Dust. Most mages should have enough magic to have pretty much infinite range with Physic anyways, and usually they're too far away from ORKO thresholds that the Spirit Dust really doesn't make a big difference. The big reason to give people +Mag stat boosters is extending the range of Warp (or Fortify if that's your thing). So the only real competition that Lysithea has for magic boosters is likely to be someone like Mercedes as a secondary priority.

Speed boosters are a huge opportunity cost though. Many units make good use of speed and a lot of them want the speed more than Lysithea does.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Silly

[Xylaugheon Daily]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

Once again, opportunity cost. If I'm giving Lysithea stat boosters from the garden, I'm simultaneously making other units worse.

She doesn't need them to be great. I never gave her speed boosters and with cooking and rallies found tons of doubles, most of which, weren't even necessary, because again, she is able to completely delete enemies with a single spell.

 

You also didn't address the statement about her being highly viable early on with little investment. Does that imply agreement, and if so, why is that not a factor for you when determining a units usefulness.

[Cysx]

2 hours ago, niveklt said:

Yes, its very possible because of mastermind. I set her goals to reason and faith asap. Once she learned warp, I set it to reason + authority. Towards the last few chapters I instructed her to get tomefaire. 

Really? Mastermind should not make a massive difference, especially when she has no enemy phase. Did you do a bunch of auxiliary battles by any chance?

1 hour ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

Something so many of you are overlooking about Lysithea's usefulness is her low investment and how easy to use from the get go she is.

Honestly her early game isn't fantastic at all; she deals mediocre damage with shaky accuracy at a point where your DP charges really count. And of course she dies to everything. She really only gets good once she hits mage at lv 10. She can equip good battalions early but has poor charisma, too.

27 minutes ago, Silly said:

or Fortify if that's your thing

I really want to hear your reasons as to why it wouldn't be someone's thing.

how many edited quotes can I fit in

2 hours ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

Dealing with Death Knight's 20~30% crit is a risk, but that doesn't mean the strategy doesn't work. you only have to bait him and take one hit, and if he doesn't crit you're in the clear to just execute and nuke him. It's not really as bad as you say. Doing it without Dark Spikes from Lysithea and using Knightkeeler instead is doable even, just much harder since you can only expect about 20-ish damage from a Knightkeeler while Lysithea can do double of that; you may need to employ extra forms of cheese that's more RNG reliant.

Getting Lysithea to B by chapter 4 is pretty tight, though. Considering engaging the DK is entirely optional, I kind of don't see the point. Learning Soulblade early allows her to OHKO much earlier too.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Cysx

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

15 minutes ago, Cysx said:

Getting Lysithea to B by chapter 4 is pretty tight, though. Considering engaging the DK is entirely optional, I kind of don't see the point. Learning Soulblade early allows her to OHKO much earlier too.

It's tight but entirely doable, even without NG+. It's optional, but clearing the center gives you a lot more breathing room and a straight line to the boss, so I feel like it's worth it. Soulblade is nice too, but I'd rather spend the points entirely on Reason until later, personally.

Edited October 1, 2019 by SatsumaFSoysoy

[Xylaugheon Daily]

2 minutes ago, Silly said:

Rally Speed is a huge waste on a unit that will realistically see only a single combat per turn cycle.

You're spending two player phase actions to double and kill a single enemy. That's basically exactly the same result as if you just had two generic units and they both attacked the same enemy on player phase.

Speed boosts from gardening to get her to double is a very big opportunity cost. It's possible, but it's not really something that should be high priority if you technically want to be optimal about it. Even the good physical units appreciate +speed to get over the speed threshold, but since they start out faster it takes them less boosters to get over the hump. So giving Lysithea +6 speed or whatever to double means not giving two or three different physical units +2-3 speed to double, for example. Also, physical units make better use of speed boosts (just like they do with Rally Speed) because they will see more combat in an average turn cycle.

That certainly is afair point. I didn't use any of my boosters until about Chapter 17 (good thing, without feeding 90% of them to Hilda, she would have been useless) so it's hard for me to recall exactly how, when, and in what way would have been optimal. But those in my team who ended up being speedy enough to double were doing it around timeskip reliably, and only ever had speed ties with those Swordmasters on the final map.

[Cysx]

2 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

It's tight but entirely doable, even without NG+. It's optional, but clearing the center gives you a lot more breathing room and a straight line to the boss, so I feel like it's worth it. Soulblade is nice too, but I'd rather spend the points entirely on Reason until later, personally.

I think people are sleeping on magic combat arts, to be honest. With a steel+, your average lv 5 Lysithea deals 26 damage before battalion, vs 18 with Miasma. Also with +15 accuracy. This helps her earlygame a ton more imo.

[Silly]

40 minutes ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

You also didn't address the statement about her being highly viable early on with little investment. Does that imply agreement, and if so, why is that not a factor for you when determining a units usefulness.

To be honest, Lysithea's early/mid game fairly similar to most mages. They all do respectable damage on player phase and can contribute chip damage without much investment, and are ridiculously frail on enemy phase. This makes all of them useful units in approximately the same way until your better physical units start breaking the important thresholds to ORKO and no longer need chip damage.

For all of the below numbers I'll assume a path of Monk -> Mage -> Warlock, and assume the mage equips their lightest available spell (which usually means Fire until they promote at level 20).

• Lysithea averages 20.4 attack with 9.5 AS at level 10, 23.9 attack with 12 AS at 15, and 30.4 attack with 14.5 AS at 20.
• Hubert averages 20.95 attack with 9.05 AS at level 10, 24.2 attack with 12.3 AS at 15, and 31.45 attack with 13.55 AS at 20.
• Annette averages 18.5 attack and 9.15 AS at level 10, 21.5 attack and 11.9 AS at 15, 31.5 attack and 15 AS at 20.
• Mercedes averages 18.5 attack and 9.6 AS at level 10, 21.5 attack and 11.6 AS at 15, 31.5 attack and 15.6 AS at 20.
• Marianne averages 19.5 attack and 8.6 AS at level 10, 22.5 attack and 10.6 AS at 15, 32.5 attack and 12.6 AS at 20.
• Dorothea averages 18.6 attack and 8.6 AS at level 10, 21.1 attack and 10.6 AS at 15, 31.6 attack and 12.6 AS at 20.
• Linhardt averages 17.5 attack and 7.6 AS at level 10, 19.8 attack and 9.6 AS at 15, 29.55 attack and 15 AS at 20.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Silly

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

3 minutes ago, Cysx said:

I think people are sleeping on magic combat arts, to be honest. With a steel+, your average lv 5 Lysithea deals 26 damage before battalion, vs 18 with Miasma. Also with +15 accuracy. This helps her earlygame a ton more imo.

It's true, but it's also 12 sessions of instruction devoted to Sword, and as you've said, hitting B Reason is tight. I got Frozen Lance on Marianne, which lets her do actual damage to enemies, but at the same time I couldn't get Thoron as quickly. I do like how they improve options, but in hindsight I'm not sure which is more worth sometimes. For Lysithea though, I'm definitely wary. Especially since the points can also go to Faith or Authority.

Edited October 1, 2019 by SatsumaFSoysoy

[Xylaugheon Daily]

26 minutes ago, Cysx said:

Honestly her early game isn't fantastic at all; she deals mediocre damage with shaky accuracy at a point where your DP charges really count. And of course she dies to everything. She really only gets good once she hits mage at lv 10. She can equip good battalions early but has poor charisma, too.

Getting Lysithea to B by chapter 4 is pretty tight, though. Considering engaging the DK is entirely optional, I kind of don't see the point. Learning Soulblade early allows her to OHKO much earlier too.

So, level ten mage is still pretty early. Also, I couldn't count the times her damage saved my ass painstaking work, such as versus Dedue and Dimitri in the mock battle. She had the most MVP slots for me, for whatever value you want to slap on that. Shaky accuracy? That's a bit of a hyperbole.

 

B Rank Reason isn't what I'd call tight, as I achieved it easily enough (train her Reason every week and solo Reason studies nearly got me B by the Chapter,) but that is semantics. It takes dedication, but isn't, by ant means, hard or RNG dependant.

[Cysx]

9 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

It's true, but it's also 12 sessions of instruction devoted to Sword, and as you've said, hitting B Reason is tight. I got Frozen Lance on Marianne, which lets her do actual damage to enemies, but at the same time I couldn't get Thoron as quickly. I do like how they improve options, but in hindsight I'm not sure which is more worth sometimes. For Lysithea though, I'm definitely wary. Especially since the points can also go to Faith or Authority.

Yes, basically if your entire reason for hitting B rank is killing the DK, I don't think it's worth it in comparison. And you could admittedly also focus on faith instead, but that argument goes both ways.

Marianne is another case entirely, she can build off of Frozen lance in ways Lysithea cannot, since lancefaire is on classes with canto, it's stronger and so are lances, and you get lance relics that she can take advantage of. I don't use stat boosters, but my Marianne was still able to OHKO Dimitri with the Luin, during the second mock battle.
Truth be told she's the main reason I think those arts are underestimated, not Lysithea. But still, it applies.

1 minute ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

So, level ten mage is still pretty early. Also, I couldn't count the times her damage saved my ass painstaking work, such as versus Dedue and Dimitri in the mock battle. She had the most MVP slots for me, for whatever value you want to slap on that. Shaky accuracy? That's a bit of a hyperbole.

 

B Rank Reason isn't what I'd call tight, as I achieved it easily enough (train her Reason every week and solo Reason studies nearly got me B by the Chapter,) but that is semantics. It takes dedication, but isn't, by ant means, hard or RNG dependant.

Okay, we're not talking early earlygame then, my bad. Also she admittedly has a spot in the mock battle by virtue of being your only unit that can deal good magic damage at that point, that is absolutely true. But beyond that, yes, ~70% accuracy is shaky, and her damage is just not that remarkable.

To be fair I didn't try on her. I did on others though, and they certainly didn't hit B. You get 7 tutoring sessions before that chapter, a few of which you cannot take full advantage of because you don't get a chance to refill your units' motivation. And you say it's not rng based, but I can't help but wonder if getting screwed with tutoring could make a difference.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Cysx

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

1 minute ago, Cysx said:

Yes, basically if your entire reason for hitting B rank is killing the DK, I don't think it's worth it in comparison. And you could admittedly also focus on faith instead, but that argument goes both ways.

Marianne is another case entirely, she can build off of Frozen lance in ways Lysithea cannot, since lancefaire is on classes with canto, it's stronger and so are lances, and you get lance relics that she can take advantage of. I don't use stat boosters, but my Marianne was still able to OHKO Dimitri with the Luin, during the second mock battle.
Truth be told she's the main reason I think those arts are underestimated, not Lysithea. But still, it applies.

Huh, that's pretty great. I think Frozen Lance on Marianne is 100% worth getting for sure. But Thoron is also so good.

[Xylaugheon Daily]

13 minutes ago, Cysx said:

I think people are sleeping on magic combat arts, to be honest. With a steel+, your average lv 5 Lysithea deals 26 damage before battalion, vs 18 with Miasma. Also with +15 accuracy. This helps her earlygame a ton more imo.

My issue is that the usefulness stops after achieving the necessary rank. In the beginning, I find it far more beneficial to invest in something you'll continue to use. And that art is only outpacing her spells for a bit. It is interesting, though, and I'd certainly like to experiment with it. Ultimately I value it as equal to anything else, just different.

[Xylaugheon Daily]

18 minutes ago, Silly said:

To be honest, Lysithea's early/mid game fairly similar to most mages. They all do respectable damage on player phase and can contribute chip damage without much investment, and are ridiculously frail on enemy phase. This makes all of them useful units in approximately the same way until your better physical units start breaking the important thresholds to ORKO and no longer need chip damage.

For all of the below numbers I'll assume a path of Monk -> Mage -> Warlock, and assume the mage equips their lightest available spell (which usually means Fire until they promote at level 20).

• Lysithea averages 20.4 attack with 9.5 AS at level 10, 23.9 attack with 12 AS at 15, and 30.4 attack with 14.5 AS at 20.
• Hubert averages 20.95 attack with 9.05 AS at level 10, 24.2 attack with 12.3 AS at 15, and 31.45 attack with 13.55 AS at 20.
• Annette averages 18.5 attack and 9.15 AS at level 10, 21.5 attack and 11.9 AS at 15, 31.5 attack and 15 AS at 20.
• Mercedes averages 18.5 attack and 9.6 AS at level 10, 21.5 attack and 11.6 AS at 15, 31.5 attack and 15.6 AS at 20.
• Marianne averages 19.5 attack and 8.6 AS at level 10, 22.5 attack and 10.6 AS at 15, 32.5 attack and 12.6 AS at 20.
• Dorothea averages 18.6 attack and 8.6 AS at level 10, 21.1 attack and 10.6 AS at 15, 31.6 attack and 12.6 AS at 20.
• Linhardt averages 17.5 attack and 7.6 AS at level 10, 19.8 attack and 9.6 AS at 15, 29.55 attack and 15 AS at 20.

So, the earlier the map, the more even the slightest advantage is crucial. You also forget, you know, that she uses Dark Magic, with effects like Seal Speed and ignoring enemy Resistance. If you don't capitalize on those abilities, that's on you.

[Xylaugheon Daily]

27 minutes ago, Cysx said:

Okay, we're not talking early earlygame then, my bad. Also she admittedly has a spot in the mock battle by virtue of being your only unit that can deal good magic damage at that point, that is absolutely true. But beyond that, yes, ~70% accuracy is shaky, and her damage is just not that remarkable.

To be fair I didn't try on her. I did on others though, and they certainly didn't hit B. You get 7 tutoring sessions before that chapter, a few of which you cannot take full advantage of because you don't get a chance to refill your units' motivation. And you say it's not rng based, but I can't help but wonder if getting screwed with tutoring could make a difference.

Is it only 70%? I honestly don't remember it being that bad, I was remembering low 80s. Also, I suppose I misspoke. It wasn't RNG for me, but she honestly got a lot of work in early game for me, so it's hard to say how much battle experience counted towards that.

 

I'm going to go start a new file and only tutor Lysithea to see what results get me to what rank by that Chapter. I'll come back and share my findings so we might have a less subjective reference point to talk from, because I'm leaning enough on my personal experience that I should speak a little more carefully.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Xylaugheon Daily

[Silly]

7 minutes ago, Cysx said:

Marianne is another case entirely, she can build off of Frozen lance in ways Lysithea cannot, since lancefaire is on classes with canto, it's stronger and so are lances, and you get lance relics that she can take advantage of. I don't use stat boosters, but my Marianne was still able to OHKO Dimitri with the Luin, during the second mock battle.
 Truth be told she's the main reason I think those arts are underestimated, not Lysithea. But still, it applies.

As far as I can tell, assuming an average level 20 Marianne (which is possible at this point but pushing it a little bit), you're about 6 damage off of killing Dimitri with Frozen Lance (depending on how strong your battalion is). +Magic is hard to cook for, so let's assume that's out of the question. You can make up the extra damage by getting C Authority instead of the D I assumed (would add +1 damage), growing magic stat boosters, and potentially having rally magic.

Just now, Xylaugheon Daily said:

So, the earlier the map, the more even the slightest advantage is crucial. You also forget, you know, that she uses Dark Magic, with effects like Seal Speed and ignoring enemy Resistance. If you don't capitalize on those abilities, that's on you.

In the first few maps Lysithea does less damage and has less bulk than Hubert, and people certainly aren't clamoring about how top tier he is, are they? Hubert also has debuffs which can help out in the first few maps.

Past about chapter 5 or so, unless your unit sucks really badly then any two units combined should reasonably be able to kill a generic enemy, so the main thing that matters is meeting ORKO thresholds. These are generally most easily met by physical units (since they have the best chance of doubling), so most of the time your magic units are best suited to utility work, or to supplementing your weaker units damage. Pretty much every mage can do that reasonably well.

4 minutes ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

Is it only 70%? I honestly don't remember it being that bad, I was remembering low 80s. Also, I suppose I misspoke. It wasn't RNG for me, but she honestly got a lot of work in early game for me, so it's hard for me today how much battle experience counted towards that.

I believe Lysithea has 92.5 base hit with Miasma at level 1. As far as I can tell, the enemies on that map have about 10-12 magic avoid, except for Ferdinand who has around 25.

[Cysx]

16 minutes ago, Silly said:

As far as I can tell, assuming an average level 20 Marianne (which is possible at this point but pushing it a little bit), you're about 6 damage off of killing Dimitri with Frozen Lance (depending on how strong your battalion is). +Magic is hard to cook for, so let's assume that's out of the question. You can make up the extra damage by getting C Authority instead of the D I assumed (would add +1 damage), growing magic stat boosters, and potentially having rally magic.

No, I just had Fiendish blow already. + Magic is very easy to cook for if you're going for prof exp rather than stat boosters with the greenhouse, though I didn't have that, I went with speed. As I also precised, I don't use stat boosters, and no one has rally magic on the team. She could have been slightly above average however.
It should have looked something like 21 Mag +4.2 from dex + 2 (from mag +2) + 3 from frozen lance + 17 from Luin + 7 from fiendish blow + 3 from magic wand + 3 from battalion = 60. Don't have Dimitri's stats, does that fit?

24 minutes ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

Is it only 70%? I honestly don't remember it being that bad, I was remembering low 80s.

Let's see, so taking a fighter from chapter 2, they have [(14 speed  + 6 lck)/2] + 7 from axe prowess 3 = 17 magic avoid

Lv 2 Lysithea has 80 + [(8 Dex + 4 Lck)/2] + 7 from reason prowess = 93 accuracy.

93 - 17 = 76, and that's one of the least dodgy enemies of that chapter.

Edited because axe prowess 3 is 7 avoid, not 8.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Cysx

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, TWrex said:

So what exactly is it that you think Lysithea is being overhyped on?  Do you think she is overhyped on being the best mage?  What units are better than her and why are they better?  Does she really receive a deafening amount of hype on any boards discussing unit tiers, particularly maddening?  I'll admit I'm not someone who has perused this forum a lot but of the discussions about unit tiers it seems like most people consider her good but not broken or anything.  To me it seems like Lysithea's weaknesses are low movement and not being able to enemy phase.  Personally low movement doesn't seem like much of a detriment in Maddening difficulty as turtling seems like a better strategy overall, there aren't many if any units in this game who are able to tank more than like 2 enemies without dying so having big movement doesn't really help as much since you should keep your units grouped up anyways.  Not being able to enemy phase does hurt but again since most units can't tank more than a few enemies at once this also feels like not a huge issue. 

 

I don't know maybe it's just the way that I play that I find her valuable?  My strategy in Maddening thus far has been using ranged units to safely chip down enemies then send in my physical units to clean up without getting hurt and Lysithea fulfills this role perfectly.  Yes other mages can do this as well but she seems to be the best one at it thanks to her spell list and growths.  I mean I guess you could sub her out for any other archer unit who can enemy phase while still providing chip damage but compared to my Shamir, Claude, and Leonie none of them have been capable of one rounding an enemy yet like Lysithea has.  The only exception to this is against fliers where they gain bonus damage or Claude and his Failnought.

I mean I guess if I could only pick one character to solo the game with Lysithea would be at the bottom of my list but that's not how I'm ranking my characters.  Lysithea serves her role as a long range nuke well and I consider her just as useful as some of my physical units.  Basically her direct competition would be comparing her to my archers and where she lacks an enemy phase she makes up for it with a stronger player phase.

 

What specifically do you think is being overhyped about her?

Her combat prowess. Like said by someone else here, she's worse off than Hubert starting out, yet everyone worships the ground Lysithea walks on like mindless fanboys, in addition to clamoring she's top tier, while Hubert gets no such treatment. I wonder why... Also, she's not that much better off than other mages.

3 hours ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

Dealing with Death Knight's 20~30% crit is a risk, but that doesn't mean the strategy doesn't work. you only have to bait him and take one hit, and if he doesn't crit you're in the clear to just execute and nuke him. It's not really as bad as you say. Doing it without Dark Spikes from Lysithea and using Knightkeeler instead is doable even, just much harder since you can only expect about 20-ish damage from a Knightkeeler while Lysithea can do double of that; you may need to employ extra forms of cheese that's more RNG reliant.

Chapter 6 ends faster via killing him directly vs trying to take out everyone else, including the ones that don't actually aggro you.

Warp access in general makes you one of the best units in any Fire Emblem game. Niime is highly regarded in FE6 simply because she joins with A staves and can instantly start Warping you, even though she's garbage in combat. Same goes for Sleuf in Thracia. Having early Warp + having good contributions early game (the hardest part) definitely makes Lysithea stand out in terms of efficiency, and it's hard to measure how good units are without considering that to at least some extent.

Tomefaire is nice, but consider that Dark Magic in general has higher Might than normal Black Magic. The lowest Might spell Lysithea has is Swarm, which is the same Might and Weight as Thunder, the highest Might basic Black Magic spell, but with an additional debuff. Dark Spikes is 13 Might, higher than Thoron by 4, and the only Black Magic spells that have more than that are Agnea's Arrow and Ragnarok, and neither have the utility of horseslaying. Hades beats those two spells in Might as well with 18. Lysithea even has Luna that ignores Res, which actually gives her a way to deal with high Res units without even investing into other weapon types. Lysithea will be 100% going into Gremory anyway, though, which has a +2 Mag modifier over Warlock as well.

A risk that I don't think is worth it when I have to deal with this multiple times just to get him off the map, especially since he's going to be initiating on you unless you have Stride. 

By the time I'm ready to open the door to his room, odds are everyone else except for the units in his room is dead (also, this chapter has the one March Ring that you can get). And at this point, she's been knocked off her perch. Hard. (If I really wanted to do it, Lance of Ruin + Knightkneeler is more effective if I recruited Sylvain or am leading the Blue Lions)

Warp is nice, but what else does she have going for her? 

Sure, dark magic is stronger, but at the cost of accuracy. That's a losing trade, far as I'm concerned (after all, having all the power in the world means jack shit if you whiff). And it doesn't help her case that Lysithea has very poor luck, which is part of the magic accuracy formula. Which is relevant with Hades Omega and Luna, where I wouldn't be surprised to see her having shaky accuracy on whatever she's trying to attack, even if it's not super evasive.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Silly]

22 minutes ago, Cysx said:

No, I just had Fiendish blow already. + Magic is very easy to cook for if you're going for prof exp rather than stat boosters with the greenhouse, though I didn't have that, I went with speed. As I also precised, I don't use stat boosters, and no one has rally magic on the team. She could have been slightly above average however.
It should have looked something like 21 Mag +4.2 from dex + 2 (from mag +2) + 3 from frozen lance + 17 from Luin + 7 from fiendish blow + 3 from magic wand + 3 from battalion = 60. Don't have Dimitri's stats, does that fit?

I forgot about Fiendish Blow. That would likely do it.

+Mag is hard to cook because the ingredient is like impossible to find on an average playthrough.

[Cysx]

10 minutes ago, Silly said:

I forgot about Fiendish Blow. That would likely do it.

+Mag is hard to cook because the ingredient is like impossible to find on an average playthrough.

You can randomly get it from barrels near the main hall on month 1 and 2, and beyond whenever there's loot there. It's a pretty decent chance(and reloading changes what you get every time), and allows you to get 500 exp from the greenhouse from the first week on(after you've used Dedue's seed of course), getting more seeds of it to repeat the process. It's likely optimal for a few weeks, then I assume you'd want to get stat boosters more.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Cysx

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

6 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

A risk that I don't think it worth is when I have to deal with this multiple times just to get him off the map, especially since he's going to be initiating on you unless you have Stride. 

By the time I'm ready to open the door to his room, odds are everyone else except for the units in his room is dead (also, this chapter has the one March Ring that you can get). And at this point, she's been knocked off her perch. Hard. (If I really wanted to do it, Lance of Ruin + Knightkneeler is more effective if I recruited Sylvain or am leading the Blue Lions)

Warp is nice, but what else does she have going for her? 

Sure, dark magic is stronger, but at the cost of accuracy. That's a losing trade, far as I'm concerned (after all, having all the power in the world means jack shit if you whiff). And it doesn't help her case that Lysithea has very poor luck, which is part of the magic accuracy formula. Which is relevant with Hades Omega and Luna, where I wouldn't be surprised to see her having shaky accuracy on whatever she's trying to attack, even if it's not super evasive.

It's worth it to me. But I guess this is pointless. I actually find it worse to Stride up to him since he's on his Avo tile and has three mages around him.

Sylvain does it better, yeah, but I don't think that's particularly a demerit on Lysithea's part.

Not much since her combat falls off much like how every mage's combat mostly falls off late game. She and Dorothea are the only Reason-oriented mages that have an actual good Faith support spell though, which is why she and Dorothea remain relevant while Hubert sort of doesn't. She also isn't straddled by ASpd problems, fortunately.

The argument was that Dark Magic's innately higher Might made the Black Tomefaire case less important. Her accuracy is mostly fine. It's not like it's hard to raise in this game anyway with Supports. Especially since you can abuse something like Dorothea's Meteor to give 10 range Supports.