B.E Maddening/OP Builds

[sanguinerose17]

Hey guys, I'm doing a ng+ maddening along with my BL ng maddening. I'm definitely doing the crimson flower route, but I was wondering what op/meme/fun (but reasonable) builds there are for the BE cast/characters below. For example I have a 100% crit/avoid Petra which I'm super looking forwards to. Not really sure on any of the other characters though. I was also debating dancer Ferdinand or Dorthea. Ferdinand has seal speed which seems super good, and a waste on a dancer, but dodge tank Ferdinand. Any thoughts are welcome! Thanks in advance! 

 

-Byleth

-Edelgard

-Hubert

-Ferdinand

-Linhardt

-Caspar

-Bernadetta

-Dorthea

-Petra

-Lysethia

-Manuela

-Hanneman

-Felix?

-Shamir?

[Stroud]

If you abuse anything you can I recommend going for Lance on Bernadetta as a primary weapon. She has access to Vengeance which is in sync with her personal skill and if you are ready to invest HP boost items you shouldn't have problems to set her up. Also she highly appreciates classes which enhance her HP growth. 

You could even mix it up as a flier in this case, but Wyvern is preferred with her growthrate. Any maps with damaging tiles are a blessing for her. Also this set up abuses Poison Strike. 
Reason is that Lance promotes her from a chipper to a OHKO unit quite early. if you succeed in setting her up. I don't know if you use DLC items, because one gives +7 Hp and sets her up even earlier for this. At least I had a lot fun. Only the last map on Church route is truly a hassle for her. Also of course Canto is a must have for this, to make it easier for attack and retreat. 

In my last chapter I set her up to do over 100 damage with Training Lance on church route (Just New Game, but DLC abuse. Without it it would have around 10 damage less maybe. I had no DB btw). Sadly its a bit stopped by a little feature the enemies had there. In case you'd rather go her for the option as a Bow Knight at the end going for Paladin works too of course. And having a bow as her secondary is never wrong. 

Also recommend having a shield on her to manipulate the damage she gets a little bit. Skills I recommend are..
Death Blow, (HP + 5!), Movement +1, Str +2, Hit +20, Lance Lv 5, Bow Lv 5. Some Maps even like Pass in case she gets to be a Paladin. I did it for some 1 Turn Strats at the end of my run.

Most important stats. HP, Str, Skl, Endgame Defense around 25 would be nice to have. Skill is important because you want to hit as good as possible with just 1 attack and no HP. 
Compared to others she does not really need speed (At some points later you want her to get doubled on playerphase). Also should be able to 1 Hit DK chapter 4 with NG+ settings. 

Outside of HP +7 from the DLC I find her built reasonable. With NG+ she should compensate this a little bit with Death Blow. 

Of course you may need some luck with HP growth, because you will hit around 55% (Intermediate) 65% (Advanced) there. Thankfully SPD - on Cavalry does not hurt her at all with that route. And more speed carrots for others. Also try to get all HP boost items you can get and stuff them in her along the way. 

I can just say I had a lot of fun and some luck with her. 

___

Chapter 19 Church route...

Spoiler

Spoiler

I say that it is not too likely to happen. But this was on my New Game Maddening run with her on Chapter 19. Turn 1. 

For other characters I let others give advice. I am just pretty confident that this has been one of the best Bernis. 

A big downer is her not having access to Hero class. With that she could learn Defiant Strength..

Edited October 1, 2019 by Stroud

[sanguinerose17]

That is a very interesting build. I was thinking of Defiant Bernie, but I didn't have enough exp with Bernie to do comfortably do it from the start. But I might try now! What do you think of defiant crit/avo then? 

[Xylaugheon Daily]

Honestly, with NG+ you can make just about anything work, assuming you have the renown to do it. Break the whole first half by equipping C level Battalions. Mortal Savant Lysithea is pretty jokes while still being really effective. Having Annette as a Falcon Knight that rallies and uses Levin Swords for offense was niche but totally worked. I'd say pick one or two units and really go nuts with them. Get really creative, and just see what happens.

[Stroud]

True, you can go pretty much bonkers thanks to early access of good battalions. About Defiant Avoid, I think focusing Berni on player phase is a bit better, Defiant crit can work but its almost overkill to give it to her with Vengeance and some enemies which would need that on theory may have protection against crit as far as I recall. A good Vengeance user also does not need crits. Doing over 300 damage looks funny on paper though. Vengeance also adds 10 to Crit rate. I'd almost would rather see 10 Hit instead of this. 

But overall Defiant Avoid is worth a thought, because you could possibly make a Dodgetank more Playerphase. Mind Gambits though as they still have a good chance to hit and for a few enemies this is not enough. In early game anyway. As the Base Avo needs to grow a bit. So you still may need Alert Stance though. As for Defiant Crit, you should also just mind having a good Hit rate. Good Gambits and Hit +20 help. You could go for Vantage Crit with Retribution.

But as said, with NG+ you can experiment a lot. As long as you know a bit what to do it should be good to manage. 

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

I am certain that anyone else with Vengeance can do something somewhat similar. The only other two who learn it in the game are Dedue and Cyril. Though, I suppose the reason everyone brings Bernie up with this build is her personal skill. And also the easiest access to Lancefaire classes, too, especially when compared with Dedue, who struggles to get to Paladin in a short amount of time and is better spent as an early game tank. Maybe.

[Xylaugheon Daily]

28 minutes ago, Azure, Roundabouted Out said:

I am certain that anyone else with Vengeance can do something somewhat similar. The only other two who learn it in the game are Dedue and Cyril. Though, I suppose the reason everyone brings Bernie up with this build is her personal skill. And also the easiest access to Lancefaire classes, too, especially when compared with Dedue, who struggles to get to Paladin in a short amount of time and is better spent as an early game tank. Maybe.

Her affinities are really good for it, and Pass as her Budding Talent can allow her to snipe any particular enemy you desire. I found Pass to be really useful on my Maddening playthrough. It effectively made one specific Chapters win condition a lot easier (the Shambhala map against Thales.)

[Stroud]

I bring her often up because I think that she is a bit underrated. Often with arguments which just work against her. Comparing her on a base for Archer pushes her in a less good position.
Also this was about BE in the first place. While I think that Cyril actually has quite a potential on BL and GD, he is not available in BE for a long time and only if you go for Silver Snow.
Same applies to Dedue with BL. 

 If I would go for a GD route I would try the same with Cyril and see how far he goes.  his HP growth easily hits 85%. With at least 55% he has as a character. 

I am also in favor of route differentiated Tier Lists. Because in BL you really could ask yourself if you maybe rather focus on investing in Dedue. But mind that his Def might get too high for some lategame 1 Turn fun. 

Edited October 2, 2019 by Stroud

[sanguinerose17]

@Stroud So for this Bernie build. I've only used her once previously and I think she was a bow knight. I don't remember if she mastered it, nor her skill level in lance and bow/riding. Do you think it'd still be possible to pull off the brigand/wyvern rider/wyvern lord route with the vengence build? I'd have to grow her axes from scratch. Or would it be easier just to do Paladin, like you did? You said she shines in player phase, but I'm mainly worried about her dying in enemy phase with the build. Divine Pulses are a scarce resource in Maddening (less so in NG+, but still) 

 

@Xylaugheon Daily This is my planned team atm, nothing too crazy, but some variety in there. I wanted to stick with just BE people + Lysethia + Felix for immersion. I plan on trying my best to play in free roam mode with all animations and what not. 

Byleth - Falcon Knight

Edelgard - Wyvern Lord

Hubert - Dark Knight

Ferdinand - Dancer Dodgetank

Linhardt - Bishop

Bernadetta -  Vengence Build

Dorthea - Gremory (Maybe mortal savant? I have a lot of swordies already though)

Lysethia - Dark Knight

Felix - Bow Knight

Manuela - Falcon Knight

[Xylaugheon Daily]

2 hours ago, sanguinerose17 said:

@Stroud So for this Bernie build. I've only used her once previously and I think she was a bow knight. I don't remember if she mastered it, nor her skill level in lance and bow/riding. Do you think it'd still be possible to pull off the brigand/wyvern rider/wyvern lord route with the vengence build? I'd have to grow her axes from scratch. Or would it be easier just to do Paladin, like you did? You said she shines in player phase, but I'm mainly worried about her dying in enemy phase with the build. Divine Pulses are a scarce resource in Maddening (less so in NG+, but still) 

 

@Xylaugheon Daily This is my planned team atm, nothing too crazy, but some variety in there. I wanted to stick with just BE people + Lysethia + Felix for immersion. I plan on trying my best to play in free roam mode with all animations and what not. 

Byleth - Falcon Knight

Edelgard - Wyvern Lord

Hubert - Dark Knight

Ferdinand - Dancer Dodgetank

Linhardt - Bishop

Bernadetta -  Vengence Build

Dorthea - Gremory (Maybe mortal savant? I have a lot of swordies already though)

Lysethia - Dark Knight

Felix - Bow Knight

Manuela - Falcon Knight

I definitely suggest making someone a War Master. Felix can fit that role pretty well. Ferdinand as a dodge tank makes sense with his personal, but I feel Petra does the job better. This would also free him up to either be your Bow Knight or War Master. I actually really like Ferdinand as a Bow user most of the game because his Budding Talent (Seal Speed) is so good, especially early on. I used mine has a Bow focused Wyvern Rider for along time to also add Seal Defense to his attacks before settling in Bow Knight.

 

I feel like Lysithea would much rather be Gremory for Warp. However, having Canto and eight move while wielding the Thyrsus is a sick combination. You also lose out on number of cast because of no Dark Magic x2. I feel like making her a Mortal Savant would probably be fun. Actually, I saw part of Chaz LLC's stream last night and he had Manuela as a Mortal Savant and she was actually doing work. I'm not sure exactly how viable it is, but as a meme build it seemed pretty dope.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Xylaugheon Daily

[sanguinerose17]

57 minutes ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

I definitely suggest making someone a War Master. Felix can fit that role pretty well. Ferdinand as a dodge tank makes sense with his personal, but I feel Petra does the job better. This would also free him up to either be your Bow Knight or War Master. I actually really like Ferdinand as a Bow user most of the game because his Budding Talent (Seal Speed) is so good, especially early on. I used mine has a Bow focused Wyvern Rider for along time to also add Seal Defense to his attacks before settling in Bow Knight.

 

I feel like Lysithea would much rather be Gremory for Warp. However, having Canto and eight move while wielding the Thyrsus is a sick combination. You also lose out on number of cast because of no Dark Magic x2. I feel like making her a Mortal Savant would probably be fun. Actually, I saw part of Chaz LLC's stream last night and he had Manuela as a Mortal Savant and she was actually doing work. I'm not sure exactly how viable it is, but as a meme build it seemed pretty dope.

I forgot to add

Caspar - War Master

Petra - Assassin/Dodge Tank

 

I thought about Mortal Savant Manuela, but with her weakness in reason, im not sure it's worth it on ng.

 

I am now debating doing the Church route NG Maddening with faculty and BE students mixed (since you can't recruit a lot of faculty until late pt 1). How painful do you think it'd be? 4 church members and 5 BE students. Unless Catherine/Seteth come in pt 2 super buff

Edited October 2, 2019 by sanguinerose17

[sanguinerose17]

@Stroud so in NG church, you put Bernie through Brigand? Or how did you class her?

[Xylaugheon Daily]

8 hours ago, sanguinerose17 said:

I forgot to add

Caspar - War Master

Petra - Assassin/Dodge Tank

 

I thought about Mortal Savant Manuela, but with her weakness in reason, im not sure it's worth it on ng.

 

I am now debating doing the Church route NG Maddening with faculty and BE students mixed (since you can't recruit a lot of faculty until late pt 1). How painful do you think it'd be? 4 church members and 5 BE students. Unless Catherine/Seteth come in pt 2 super buff

That's the exact run Chaz was doing with that Manuela build, actually. I assume it can be tough, considering you're missing out on a lord. That said, I've actually never done a Church Route myself (slightly burned out and upset it is apparently GD only better) so I can't say how difficult it'd be.

[Stroud]

7 hours ago, sanguinerose17 said:

so in NG church, you put Bernie through Brigand? Or how did you class her?

In NG church I just put her through Fighter > Cavalry > Paladin and left her there. Sometimes I thought about Bow Knight. But for Church route I think only the last chapter could be Bow Knight, I think Brigand could work. But I was a bit tight on Investment because I wanted her to have Movement +1. And for Vengeance at least in my run she didn't need Death Blow. 

[Shadow Mir]

On 10/2/2019 at 10:22 AM, Xylaugheon Daily said:

I feel like Lysithea would much rather be Gremory for Warp. However, having Canto and eight move while wielding the Thyrsus is a sick combination. You also lose out on number of cast because of no Dark Magic x2. I feel like making her a Mortal Savant would probably be fun. Actually, I saw part of Chaz LLC's stream last night and he had Manuela as a Mortal Savant and she was actually doing work. I'm not sure exactly how viable it is, but as a meme build it seemed pretty dope.

I must admit, Mortal Savant Manuela sounds very intriguing, but... What about her weakness in Reason? That's a problem. And considering that she is one of the only two units that can learn Bolting (the other being Hilda), I find it to really suck. So... How would you address that?

[Chaotix]

6 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I must admit, Mortal Savant Manuela sounds very intriguing, but... What about her weakness in Reason? That's a problem. And considering that she is one of the only two units that can learn Bolting (the other being Hilda), I find it to really suck. So... How would you address that?

Keep training Reason the whole game as soon as you get her. Keep her in Mage class once you qualify to boost her Reason skill gains in combat. Give her a Knowledge Gem too and use it when you don't need a staff on her. 

Once you get to C+ Reason and A Swords, you can start trying to qualify for Mortal Savant (requirements are only B+ Reason).

Doing that should get you to Mortal Savant possibly as early as Chapter 16, 18 at the latest. I've ranked up Hilda's Authority all the way to B in that time (she really needs it for good Flying battalions), so it should be doable.

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

So, I have a question.

How viable can we make Armored Lord/Emperor Edel? Obviously movement is a start, but how else?

[Arachnofiend]

41 minutes ago, Azure, Roundabouted Out said:

So, I have a question.

How viable can we make Armored Lord/Emperor Edel? Obviously movement is a start, but how else?

Forgetting that Wyvern Lord exists, basically. Movement issues aside Emperor is a fine class and Edelgard doesn't have other amazing axe choices anyways since she can't be a War Master, it's just that Wyvern Lord is so nuts that nothing can possibly compete with it.

[Barren]

I've always felt that way with Edelgard's Emperor Class too. Though to be fair at least 5 move for an armored unit isn't terrible. And if you wanted to give her the march ring and have someone use stride you could still make it work. But yea Wyvern Lord all the way for her. I also find it interesting that you can combine resistance +2 with her personal ability post time skip to effectively give her resistance +6 if you choose to wait (she gets Res +4 if you wait). So would that be a thing for Wyvern Lord Edelgard since WL's achilles heel (if you could call it that) would be that WL still takes considerable damage from Magic. 

So imagine Edelgard as a Wyvern Lord with Axe Prowess, Death Blow, Darting Blow, Resistance +2, Alert Stance + with an accuracy ring since I've also read that her dexterity growth could be a bit of an issue going forward. If resistance +2 isn't really worth the extra protection then something like Lancebreaker or Axe Crit +10 would be fine substitutions.

[haarhaarhaar]

4 hours ago, Barren said:

I also find it interesting that you can combine resistance +2 with her personal ability post time skip to effectively give her resistance +6 if you choose to wait (she gets Res +4 if you wait). So would that be a thing for Wyvern Lord Edelgard since WL's achilles heel (if you could call it that) would be that WL still takes considerable damage from Magic. 

So imagine Edelgard as a Wyvern Lord with Axe Prowess, Death Blow, Darting Blow, Resistance +2, Alert Stance + with an accuracy ring since I've also read that her dexterity growth could be a bit of an issue going forward. If resistance +2 isn't really worth the extra protection then something like Lancebreaker or Axe Crit +10 would be fine substitutions.

Lancebreaker is great for Edelgard like you say because of her below-average Dex/Hit (and because she uses Axes) and because there are lots of Falcon Knights in CF Endgame - obviously she can also get B axes fairly quickly so Lancebreaker sees a lot of use.

Most of the booster skills see good use in the early to mid-game when you don't have anything better to run, although mastering Lord isn't normally optimal for Edelgard anyway. Regardless, it's unlikely you'll put booster skills on your endgame party because you'll have enough stat-booster consumables by then to achieve the same effects without wasting a skill slot. The only exceptions are:

Hit +20 (you'd have to artificially boost both Dex and Charm a ridiculous amount to achieve the same effect)

Weight -3/-5 (their endgame utility is debatable, but they are normally more efficient than boosting Str enough to achieve the same effect)

Movement +1 (because everyone wants as much movement as possible and there's lots of competition for the movement-boosting items).

[Barren]

5 minutes ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Lancebreaker is great for Edelgard like you say because of her below-average Dex/Hit (and because she uses Axes) and because there are lots of Falcon Knights in CF Endgame - obviously she can also get B axes fairly quickly so Lancebreaker sees a lot of use.

Most of the booster skills see good use in the early to mid-game when you don't have anything better to run, although mastering Lord isn't normally optimal for Edelgard anyway. Regardless, it's unlikely you'll put booster skills on your endgame party because you'll have enough stat-booster consumables by then to achieve the same effects without wasting a skill slot. The only exceptions are:

Hit +20 (you'd have to artificially boost both Dex and Charm a ridiculous amount to achieve the same effect)

Weight -3/-5 (their endgame utility is debatable, but they are normally more efficient than boosting Str enough to achieve the same effect)

Movement +1 (because everyone wants as much movement as possible and there's lots of competition for the movement-boosting items).

I figured Lancebreaker was a worthy option because on how axes work in this game. Even when getting Hit +20 from Axe Prowess Level 5, Falcon Knights are a pain to land a hit on and having that extra hit really helps. You can even combine that with the accuracy ring to have even better hit. Weight -3 should be easy for Edelgard to obtain even when not going for a heavy armor build. Movement +1 is a great ability regardless also. It's what I always slap on when I'm on a riding class because of canto. It's pretty hard to combine it with flying (not counting NG+). I mean Ingrid could in theory pull it off but that seems more possible on normal mode than on maddening. Plus 8 move is still plenty great

[haarhaarhaar]

41 minutes ago, Barren said:

It's pretty hard to combine it with flying (not counting NG+). I mean Ingrid could in theory pull it off but that seems more possible on normal mode than on maddening. Plus 8 move is still plenty great

Yeah agreed - I just about managed it on Hard with Ingrid in VW, but that was at the cost of getting Death Blow and Alert Stance+ (I ran her through Cav and Paladin instead of Brigand and Wyvern so I could continue to train Lances and Swords). It's probably possible if you grind and abuse aux battles though.

[Barren]

1 hour ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Yeah agreed - I just about managed it on Hard with Ingrid in VW, but that was at the cost of getting Death Blow and Alert Stance+ (I ran her through Cav and Paladin instead of Brigand and Wyvern so I could continue to train Lances and Swords). It's probably possible if you grind and abuse aux battles though.

And that's why I like to experiment with such things on normal mode. I even once did Dark Flier Ingrid before transitioning to Falcon Knight because I was curious to see how well Transmute would work for a FK. It turned out rather well when hit with magic but it depends if you have said transmute user bait in the enemy mages and warlocks. 

 

I was even considering Ingrid to be a Dark Flier because I had her master Mage, Pegasus Knight, Warlock then Dark Flier afterwards because of how Bowbreaker in conjunction with being a flier using magic would be a great idea. It is a great idea though her spell list is Blizzard, Thoron and Fimbulvetr. It can use white magic too most notably physic and seraphim. With a spell list like that being backed by Black Tomefaire, It's serviceable enough I think although I would say that anyone with a higher magic stat and probably a better reason magic pool that isn't dark could probably pull off dark flier better.

 

Regardless of who you chose as a Dark Flier, I like to throw in Reason Prowess Level 5, Fiendish Blow, Bowbreaker, Alert Stance+ and maybe Black Magic Range +1 to actually fend off enemy Snipers

[haarhaarhaar]

Ingrid has great hit/avo, but low magic growths for a magic attacker, and Dark Flier doesn't help with that, even with Tomefaire. I've been having a fair bit of trouble making her into a powerful magic attacker - she works great as a dodge tank, but can't often get kills (am running her in a magic sword build currently). She does have a good Faith list though, and Thoron at C makes her a decent mage, if lacking in stopping power.

Your Dark Flier build looks quite good. I personally tend to out-snipe Snipers where I can (Caduceus Staff with a 3-spell and/or Thyrsus do the trick before S-rank, and I don't normally run more than two attack-oriented mages in a party) because mages normally do better on player phase than on enemy phase (they're just too brittle, unless you're in one of the few situations where an enemy phase is magic-heavy), but in fairness I've never tried to make an enemy phase mage. How did it go?