Rethinking my Blue Lions dancer choices... (Hard, NG+)

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I'm kinda going back and forth right now on who I should get the dancer cert for. I'd started this run thinking I'd make Flayn my dancer and have her do nothing but dance and heal for the others. But now I'm not so sure about this since I've been using Stride and Warp to cover more ground faster, and so it doesn't seem like I'll actually need someone to dance. Maybe it'd be better to cert somebody who would make good use of Sword Avoid +20 and then just continue them on their class path. The first person I thought of for this was Dimitri since I know it's a good idea to boost his evasion for the Wrath/Vantage Great Lord build. But I have him using both sword and lance. So whenever he happens to be holding a lance on the enemy phase, the skill does nothing for him. My other idea was to cert Lysithea. I already bought back Fiendish Blow and her A's in Faith and Reason, so I sent her down the Myrmidon/Thief path with a Levin Sword to boost her evasion a bit before going Bishop/Gremory. I could give her Sword Avoid on top of that, but it's really more of a safety net than anything else since she's not an enemy phase unit. And then finally there's sticking to my Flayn idea but making her a Levin Sword/Magic Bow Assassin so she can be an actual damage dealer instead of just support.

Who do you think would be the best person to cert?

Edited August 16, 2020 by RainbowMoon

[BergelomeuSantos]

Uhh..I'll try to go one by one. Just don't take my points too seriously. 

Dimitri has great potential with Sword Avoid +20 because of his Personal Skill, which gives him another +20 Avoid when his HP is full. I'd say this is better for a Avoid build rather than Vantage-Wrath because he's more likely to survive instead of taking damage and getting into the 50% HP range with this. Also, he should be using Lances (or anything that isn't a sword/punch) in Vantage-Wrath because of the higher MT and 1-2 Range options it provides, making the Sword Avoid +20 almost 100% useless in a Vantage-Wrath combo. That's a lot of Vantage-Wrath.

Flayn:..I don't think she needs to be able to deal damage. She's a dancer, she can dance people to kill things for her. And the Sword Avoid +20 doesn't really help all that much when you have horrible Spd/Lck. And I think a dancer is really useful even on Warp/Stride strats cause you can just use her to refresh the warper (wait, warp has 2 uses at this game, right?) or just give the Stride to her and open a new combatent slot or just warp her too. 

Lysithea: Why?

So yeah, I'm voting for Flayn if support and Dimitri if you want to stack avoid.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

It all depends on how you choose to play, but I would argue Stride and Warp make Dancing better, not worse.

Say you have an 8-move flier, and a 7-move dancer (due to March Ring, Fetters, or A+ Riding). Normally, you can move that flier 16 spaces with Dance support. But with Stride, they can move a whopping 26 spaces in 1 turn. Basically crossing an entire map. As for Warp, you can Dance for your Warper to get 2 units Warped in one turn. Potentially accomplishing much more than a lone unit can.

But if you've resolved not to have anyone as a Dancer... dodgetank Dimitri works, I guess. Sword Avoid +20 synergizes well with his post-skip personal. Put him on a forest tile, slap an in-the-red batallion on him, cast Retribution, and let him get to work. This would probably work best in a Swordfaire class, admittedly.

I've used Soulblade Lysithea before, but as you said, she's not much for enemy phase action. Her low strength means every magical sword will lower her AS, and therefore physical avoid.

The Flayn build sounds peculiar, but fun (side note, Magic Bow is generally worse than Levin Sword if she's an Assassin because Swordfaire). Again, though, not sure how good her enemy-phase would be.

[lenticular]

Personally, I like dancers too much to want to give one up to make a sword avoid build. Even if you don't need one for mobility, they're still great to have around for things like refreshing your best attacking unit to let them get another kill, or doing double-warp shenanigans. That said, if you don't feel that you particularly need or want a dancer in this game, then what better time to play with a sword avoid build? Dimitri sounds like a decent choice for that, or you could also go with a flier of some sort and go full dodge tank. Maybe Falcon Knight Ingrid or something? I don't see all that much advantage to putting sword avoid on an assassin since they already have Stealth as a way to avoid damge, but I can't say I've ever actually tried it.

[haarhaarhaar]

I made Lysithea a dancer on Hard NG+, and found I was rarely equipping Sword Avoid +20 - in turns where Lysithea wasn't herself dealing damage, it was better just to refresh my tank with Special Dance and then have that unit do anything, or even nothing at all (i.e. just stand in enemy range as bait, but with the added effect of Special Dance). This was also pre-DLC, and Dancer was (in my mind at the time) an easier way to get movement than classing into Dark Knight. Lysithea's magic is normally her best combat, so she may as well stay out of range if she is going to attack, rather than be a middling dodge tank.

As for dancer candidates, idk who you've recruited, but Ignatz is great as a dancer proper, and Ferdinand is another character who can make use of Sword Avoid +20 alongside their personal. If we're talking in-house, then Felix/any sword user will happily have Sword Avo +20.

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9 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

It all depends on how you choose to play, but I would argue Stride and Warp make Dancing better, not worse.

Say you have an 8-move flier, and a 7-move dancer (due to March Ring, Fetters, or A+ Riding). Normally, you can move that flier 16 spaces with Dance support. But with Stride, they can move a whopping 26 spaces in 1 turn. Basically crossing an entire map. As for Warp, you can Dance for your Warper to get 2 units Warped in one turn. Potentially accomplishing much more than a lone unit can.

But if you've resolved not to have anyone as a Dancer... dodgetank Dimitri works, I guess. Sword Avoid +20 synergizes well with his post-skip personal. Put him on a forest tile, slap an in-the-red batallion on him, cast Retribution, and let him get to work. This would probably work best in a Swordfaire class, admittedly.

I've used Soulblade Lysithea before, but as you said, she's not much for enemy phase action. Her low strength means every magical sword will lower her AS, and therefore physical avoid.

The Flayn build sounds peculiar, but fun (side note, Magic Bow is generally worse than Levin Sword if she's an Assassin because Swordfaire). Again, though, not sure how good her enemy-phase would be.

Sounds like it's best to just stick with dancer/healer Flayn then. Just the fact that I'm also using lances with Dimitri means Sword Avoid's only doing half good for him. It's really too bad I can't cert someone like Catherine who's only using swords and would benefit more from the +20 avoid. Thanks for the advice!

53 minutes ago, BergelomeuSantos said:

Lysithea: Why?

 

1 hour ago, RainbowMoon said:

I already bought back Fiendish Blow and her A's in Faith and Reason

1 hour ago, RainbowMoon said:

really more of a safety net than anything else

 

[Barren]

2 minutes ago, haarhaarhaar said:

I made Lysithea a dancer on Hard NG+, and found I was rarely equipping Sword Avoid +20 - in turns where Lysithea wasn't herself dealing damage, it was better just to refresh my tank with Special Dance and then have that unit do anything, or even nothing at all (i.e. just stand in enemy range as bait, but with the added effect of Special Dance). This was also pre-DLC, and Dancer was (in my mind at the time) an easier way to get movement than classing into Dark Knight. Lysithea's magic is normally her best combat, so she may as well stay out of range if she is going to attack, rather than be a middling dodge tank.

As for dancer candidates, idk who you've recruited, but Ignatz is great as a dancer proper, and Ferdinand is another character who can make use of Sword Avoid +20 alongside their personal. If we're talking in-house, then Felix/any sword user will happily have Sword Avo +20.

I made Ferdinand the dancer in my Blue Lions playthrough and he was a really good dodge tank since he has confidence. I even tried him out as a swordsmaster and he was pretty good as well. I know that SM pales in comparison to Paladin or Wyvern Lord for him but as for trying something different, he made it work

[ruruo]

For avo stacking I also thought of Ferdinand too. For in house, maybe Ingrid could make use of it. She would using swords if you're going towards the Falco Knight promotion, it'll stack with Alert stance, and she tends to gets a lot of speed too. If turning Ingrid into a dancer, getting her Faith up to C gets her Physic, and her talent in Riding helps with getting Mov +1. 
Otherwise I think sticking with Flayn is a good choice. 

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1 hour ago, haarhaarhaar said:

I made Lysithea a dancer on Hard NG+, and found I was rarely equipping Sword Avoid +20 - in turns where Lysithea wasn't herself dealing damage, it was better just to refresh my tank with Special Dance and then have that unit do anything, or even nothing at all (i.e. just stand in enemy range as bait, but with the added effect of Special Dance). This was also pre-DLC, and Dancer was (in my mind at the time) an easier way to get movement than classing into Dark Knight. Lysithea's magic is normally her best combat, so she may as well stay out of range if she is going to attack, rather than be a middling dodge tank.

As for dancer candidates, idk who you've recruited, but Ignatz is great as a dancer proper, and Ferdinand is another character who can make use of Sword Avoid +20 alongside their personal. If we're talking in-house, then Felix/any sword user will happily have Sword Avo +20.

Ah, that's a good point about Lys since it only works if she has the sword equipped. Tbh I was just playing around with some extra stats/skills to give her during White Clouds since NG+ let me get all her required stuff right from the get go.

Ingrid sounds like a pretty good candidate for avoid stacking, but I bought back her Falcon Knight requirements so I'm only having her use lances since Falcon's a Lancefaire class anyway.

[haarhaarhaar]

55 minutes ago, RainbowMoon said:

Ah, that's a good point about Lys since it only works if she has the sword equipped. Tbh I was just playing around with some extra stats/skills to give her during White Clouds since NG+ let me get all her required stuff right from the get go

If you're looking for a different way to go with Lys, perhaps try stacking crit on a Soulblade build? It shouldn't be too difficult to do, and since you're NG+ you could even get her Defiant Crit, which'll get you close to 100 Crit against anybody.