Everyone Using Their Weakness (GD Maddening NG+)

[Graveless]

A while back I decided to see if the added power of New Game + would make Maddening completable while sending everyone down really poor class choices. I also heavily limited recruitment, only allowed to recruit people at Support B and I wasn't allowed to give gifts to anyone not in my house.

I'm about to go to the story battle of Chapter 15 and the results have been very interesting. 

For student class choices, I didn't quite go for the worst possible(Raph isn't using magic), but going after weaknesses primarily and never using strengths once I got past the second chapter(it was close to unavoidable on maddening because I didn't have enough healing to not use Marianne). For added challenge, only those with a bane in riding or flying were allowed to go to mounted classes. 

Current class progression for my actually used characters.

• Byleth(M)
  • Monk > Mage > Dark Mage > Enlightened One(just wielding magic)
• Claude 
  • Fighter > Brawler > Priest > Grappler > War Cleric
• Lorenz 
  • Fighter > Brawler > Dancer
• Hilda
  • Monk > Mage > Bishop > Brigand > War Cleric
• Raphael
  • Fighter > Archer > Cavalier > Sniper = Paladin(swaps depending on map)
• Lysithea
  • Fighter > Armor Knight > Fortress Knight = Warrior(swaps between most useful for the map)
• Ignatz
  • Fighter > Brigand > Wyvern Rider
• Marianne
  • Fighter > Armor Knight > Fortress Knight
• Leonie
  • Monk > Priest > Bishop = Gremory
• Flayne 
  • Fighter > Armor Knight > Fortress Knight
• Yuri
  • Brigand > Wyvern Rider
• Ingrid
  • Monk > Priest 
• Seteth
  • being trained toward Bow Knight, but hasn't seen deployment

Several things that I didn't expect have come out of doing this, especially using classes that I normally completely ignore. 

For one, I need to enemy phase a lot because I don't have the movement to player phase. This made the armor knights, and Leonie who is def and speed blessed so she can nos tank, the MVPs of the pre-timeskip. Someone needed to be able to survive enemy phase and no one else had enough defense to do it. In the war phase, this has fallen off a lot thanks to magic enemy's being mixed into many formations. 

An armor absorbing blows and dealing some chip, then having a gauntlet or magic user finish things off has been the main solution for most chapters. 

Lysithea in particular is far and away my most effective character. Her innate meant that she has higher skill ranks than the others and was one of the few who could qualify for her classes at the min level. She made it to the Bolt Axe / Silver Axe tier long before anyone else, also hitting A rank bows, and high authority meant that she had her pick of the really good battalions for many chapters. I'm not sure if she'll be able to hit the 60+ def I need for late game without boosters, but I'm shifting my greenhouse over to that so I still have an immortal wall.

Lack of healing was one of the larger problems.

Leonie was the only person with Physic for the longest time, but her lackluster magic means that it isn't too good. Instead, Byleth and Hilda needed to take over big heals with Recover's larger base. This hasn't proven to be that much of an issue because my units are often kept right next to each other thanks to the wall of armor. Claude and Hilda having a combat art for their own recovery has also been great. 

Claude and Hilda have taken over for Marianne as evasion tanks thanks to War Cleric's mastery skill and their innately high speed. Lysithea has awful res, so they need to pick up any mages and no enemy having gauntlet breaker as an innate skill means that they can go after anything. Tome breaker on Claude is a godsend here, I wish I could give it to Hilda.

Getting reasonable authority levels has been one of the larger challenges. Most units need their goals focused on shoring up whichever weaknesses they need to be training, along with all of my instructs per session. 

For other class picks and recruitment, Lorenz got a lot of bad levels so he became the dancer by default. Ingrid was someone with Physic and a reasonable Magic growth. Yuri could become a flier. I forgot Seteth came automatically and hadn't planned for him.

Like most Maddening runs, the first three chapters and chapter 13 were the hardest. I had to break my rules at one point and use a bow on Claude to get through the latter. Neither he(without gauntlets) nor Byleth were capable of taking hits and I ran out of battalion uses before reinforcements showed up. 

[Emmy]

Ooh, good luck with this. And for the record, i have Leonie as a great knight and she does really good with a little bit of faith!