Cindered Shadows Party Setups

[Bylift]

I've run CS more times than I care to admit, and here is my favorite party setup:

• Paladin Dimitri - Hero is fun but gimmicky, and you already have other sword users, and the movement and Canto is just too good to pass up. He's my Death Knight delete button if you buy him a Horseslayer. That said Hero Dimi is definitely viable in CS. Dimitri's growths really stack up after just a few levels.
• Fortress Edelgard - WAR is also really good; this is really just a pick-em situation. But I otherwise never use a fortress knight so I tend to go that route. Give her a steel shield from the shop and a pure water and listen to that glorious /TINK! sound effect. Downside is the 4 move on the last map. Womp. I like to give her a levin sword for dealing with other armors. Her good magic stat and decent sword rank makes this a pretty good choice.
• Pegasus Hilda - Since you only get 1 flying battalion and it's on Claude, I either go WAR Hilda/ Wyvern Claude OR Pegasus Hilda/Sniper Claude and give the battalion to whoever is flying. Either way works fine, but changes the roles up. Hilda WAR is strong but her hit rates with axes are pretty rough and she is a lot easier to keep safe as a Pegasus.
• Assassin Ashe - the real reason for this choice is stealth. Ashe is incredibly squishy so stealth lets him stay in the action. He can still chip with deadeye and curved shot, and I usually give him one of the steel swords right at the beginning and he's pretty useful in melee as well. Locktouch is also nice on a couple of maps with chests. Of all the characters, I find Ashe's choice of classes to be the most intriguing, and personally I really enjoy him in assassin. 6mv is also really useful especially in the 'run for your life' map. Having that extra Mv, stealth, and the retribution gambit lets him get into position and use his gambit without getting smashed. Assassin all the way.
• Bishop Linhardt - he's a healbot in CS and you need one if you're playing on Hard/Classic. I've tried playing other classes but the 10 physic charges are too important to pass up. You are going to take damage playing CS.
• Sniper Claude - Claude is held in check as a Wyvern by all the archers and is a better sniper than Ashe due to higher strength. Bowfaire plays even more to his strengths. Both choices are fine, and bows with a flying class is certainly strong and versatile. This is just personal preference.
• Swordmaster Byleth - really not any good alternate options unless you're just doing a challenge run here. Byleth swordmaster has fantastic avo and crits a lot. I'll almost always use my precious smithing stones to make an iron sword+1 and watch the enemies whiff and get doubled. Good times.
• The Ashen Wolves are what they are and don't really customize a lot. Obviously the point is to let you use the Special Classes and see what they're good at. I will say you have to make sure to equip Healing Focus on Balthus though.

I feel like the side story gets a bad rap for no reason. It's well balanced and the enemies don't just overwhelm you with inflated stats. The maps are fun and varied. The weapon triangle is accentuated with all the breaker abilities and forces you to think about who is best to pull. The retribution gambit really gets to shine.

Wondering if others like CS too and what setups/challenges you've tried?

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

I only ran CS once and I´m pretty sure the only thing I changed was Edelgard to Warrior cause otherwise she doesn´t see any action. Otherwise I am of the opinion that CS has the best maps out of all Three Houses.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Imuabicus

[lenticular]

I also only played Cindered Shadows once, but I liked it and have been meaning to get around to playing through it again. I generally found that I liked the difficulty balance in Cindered Shadows better than in the main story. CS Hard is harder than main story Hard but not as hard as main story Maddening, which I think is a good place to be. My biggest gripe with the maps was that some of them went on too long and started to outstay their welcome, but that's a fairly minor gripe (except for the final boss fight, which I didn't enjoy at all). By and large, though, it was good times.

[Bylift]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

I also only played Cindered Shadows once, but I liked it and have been meaning to get around to playing through it again. I generally found that I liked the difficulty balance in Cindered Shadows better than in the main story. CS Hard is harder than main story Hard but not as hard as main story Maddening, which I think is a good place to be. My biggest gripe with the maps was that some of them went on too long and started to outstay their welcome, but that's a fairly minor gripe (except for the final boss fight, which I didn't enjoy at all). By and large, though, it was good times.

I had a similar experience my first playthrough.

As far as the maps: they are puzzles in themselves. If you know where the reinforcements spawn you can avoid getting caught out of position. All of the maps are hard for the unprepared and a lot easier when you know what's coming and have a plan. One of the things that makes CS so much fun to play is that you can and should pull enemies with a lot of different characters depending on the type; not just with your designated dodge tank a la maddening mode.

I felt like the third map where you have to take down a bunch of monsters was really tough, until I learned to pull the Golems with Constance (high res vs. magic attacks; just watch out for the big Golem that has the key...) and focus on breaking their tiles. Everyone has access to a couple weapon types and a lot of characters have monster-effective attacks, so breaking them is very doable even if you split your party at the beginning.

The penultimate map is one of my favorites because I love murdering bolting mages with retribution 🙂

The final boss

Spoiler

is a pain your first time but gets a lot easier once you learn its patterns, and I find it to be more enjoyable than most 9-tile monster fights. Turn 1 I get everyone into position and tank a hit with Byleth so that turn 2 I can surround it and break its shield with gambits. After that its just a game of managing boss aggro with gambits, beating the Aelfric clones and chasing him around. When he warps and scrambles everyone, you can usually reach him with at least a couple of units and you don't have to worry about counters. Dimitri with 8mv is clutch in that battle. Also, the game throws infinite concoctions at you so you're never really strapped for healing, but you shouldn't worry too much anyway since the AOE warp attack can't take you down below 1hp.

 

[5PointGordin]

I played Cindered Shadows once as well, but I am surprised it gets a bad rap. It was pretty fun & contains one of the best chapters in the game (the one where you are running away from the golems and have to reach the checkpoints on time). The story was also pretty good & I like the ashen wolves, esp Yuri & Constance. The final chapter does suck though, ngl.

I ran most characters in their vanilla classes, didn't see much of a point in switching, though Pegasus Knight Hilda sounds interesting. I actually always make her one over a Wyvern Lord since I like the Falcon Knight class more.

The mode also made me realize that Fortress Knights are actually an incredibly good class when combined with movement tech. I never ran Forrtress knights before in the main game because 4 mov = bad, but using Edelgard with Yuri was incredibly fun since she could tank and soften up foes like Assassins with an Iron Lance and be caught up to the rest of the squad with Yuri's Foul Play. She was a godsent on the golem chasing map.

[lenticular]

2 hours ago, Bylift said:

As far as the maps: they are puzzles in themselves. If you know where the reinforcements spawn you can avoid getting caught out of position. All of the maps are hard for the unprepared and a lot easier when you know what's coming and have a plan. One of the things that makes CS so much fun to play is that you can and should pull enemies with a lot of different characters depending on the type; not just with your designated dodge tank a la maddening mode.

Honestly, the way you're describing it makes it sound less appealing to me than I remember. Different strokes for different folks and everything, but I'm not really a big fan of games where "remember what's about to happen due to having played it before" is a major factor in success. I thought that the difficulty level was pretty much dead on in my first playthrough, and while I'm not surprised to hear that knowing the maps makes it substantially easier, I still find it a little disappointing. To each their own, though. I know that a lot of people do get a lot of fun from learning levels inside out and being able to pre-empt all problems before they show up. It's just not my thing.

For the boss, my problem with the fight wasn't that I found him too hard. Rather, I found him very easy but very boring. I never felt like any of my units were ever in any sort of real danger, but the map still took forever to clear, because the boss is such a damage sponge. From memory, I think he has somewhere around about 1000hp on hard, once you account for all his health bars and his damage reduction skills. It's way too much, when you can very quickly and easily get into a pattern of dealing damage to him which you then just have to repeat over and over. Though, again, I know that a lot of people really loved that boss fight, but it just didn't work for me at all.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I used:

Swordmaster Byleth: Worked okay.

Warrior Edelgard: not gonna lie, I love the female Warrior design. It's a shame it's a bad class so I never use it... wait, except it's actually Edelgard's best choice in Cindered Shadows? Awesome. +1 move and a power/speed boost makes it superior to Fortress Knight in my eyes. Not like much of anything was killing Warrior Edelgard anyway.

Paladin Dimitri: mooooove

Wyvern Rider Claude: mooooove

Warrior Hilda: See Edelgard. Pegasus is tempting but you only gain 1 move and lose a LOT of power since there's no -faire.

Sniper Ashe: Had range I suppose. He wasn't too impressive, maybe I should have used Assassin IDK.

Bishop Linhardt: Only Physic user.

I felt CS's maps rewarded high move incredibly (the escape map, reaching Bolting mages, reaching the final boss after he warps you away) so I generally didn't regret the higher-move classes.

On 4/11/2022 at 12:17 PM, Bylift said:

Also, the game throws infinite concoctions at you so you're never really strapped for healing, but you shouldn't worry too much anyway since the AOE warp attack can't take you down below 1hp.

WTF. I'm with lenticular in that I already thought this map was both easy and boring, but I had assumed this attack could kill, like the other final boss AOE attacks absolutely can. Knowing that it can't... how the heck do you actually lose?

[Bylift]

Hey Dark Holy Elf - appreciate your thoughts. I totally agre re: female WAR.

I'm not going to die on the hill of arguing "this boss fight is fun" since that's entirely subjective; but I will say that the fact that it can take people so long to finish is an indication that it is challenging, at least on your first blind playthrough.

As to "how can it kill you?" If you stand in its range it will hit and kill you. If you try to attack it it will counter and kill you (except the same turn that it warps). If you fail to kill all of the clones it spawns each turn, they will hit you with magic. So, it's not terribly different from all the other major boss battles in 3H at the end of the day, it's just got some quirks.

Chasing around those ridiculous Aelfric clones is a hassle. But the fight only takes 10min if you have a plan.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'd definitely argue length isn't necessarily an indication of challenge, myself. Easier to see in more standard JRPGs: take an existing easy boss (whom you can out-heal) and triple its HP, you'll have a boss who takes a long time, but still an easy one.

1 hour ago, Bylift said:

As to "how can it kill you?" If you stand in its range it will hit and kill you. If you try to attack it it will counter and kill you (except the same turn that it warps). If you fail to kill all of the clones it spawns each turn, they will hit you with magic. So, it's not terribly different from all the other major boss battles in 3H at the end of the day, it's just got some quirks.

I was being hyperbolic with "how can it kill you" of course, but... well, for me, needing to scrounge up enough healing before that attack was used (while still killing the clones) was perhaps the only time in the fight I felt pressured at all. To elaborate on your responses: you can stop it from hitting people you don't want it to via gambits. You can avoid it killing you on player phase by not attacking when a counter will kill you.You can stop the clones by killing them. The AOE move required less brainless approaches to keep everyone alive, I (incorrectly) thought.

Other monster bosses were generally much tougher for me. Some of them have nasty skills like Quick Riposte or Wrath you have to plan around, and/or just significant base crit, and may come at the end of a tricky map which has already eaten into your Pulse uses. Admittedly I'm comparing Maddening maingame bosses to Hard Umbral Beast here.

[Bylift]

13 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'd definitely argue length isn't necessarily an indication of challenge, myself. Easier to see in more standard JRPGs: take an existing easy boss (whom you can out-heal) and triple its HP, you'll have a boss who takes a long time, but still an easy one.

That's fair. I haven't looked recently but I"m pretty sure Dragon Aelfric also gets QR and some other nasty abilities as you take down it's health bars.

Again, not gonna die on this hill. I don't have strong feelings about the final boss battle. It doesn't ruin the CS experience or define it for me. If anything, I feel like the penultimate map is the real Finale, and is very fun to play.

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/11/2022 at 2:17 PM, Bylift said:

Also, the game throws infinite concoctions at you so you're never really strapped for healing, but you shouldn't worry too much anyway since the AOE warp attack can't take you down below 1hp.

wtf
I swear that  I once saw a unit get defeated by that attack (iirc, it does 1/4 MAX HP damage).

[Bylift]

5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

wtf
I swear that  I once saw a unit get defeated by that attack (iirc, it does 1/4 MAX HP damage).

Man... now I'm starting to doubt myself on this. I'll reload a save before the final battle if I have one and check. I am pretty sure it doesn't kill you but I could be instead thinking of the constant poison effect that exists on the penultimate map. 

[5PointGordin]

So I decided to start a new CS playthrough. I finished the first two chapters, and once again, Edelgard is proving to be the MVP. I gave her a steel shield and her tanking prowess is unmatched

Her ability to block chokepoints and soften up enemy Assassins / Brawlers with an Iron Sword is invaluable since the mode doesn't have tools like Reposition or other movement assist combat arts to allow for more risky strategies PP strategies. She can enemy phase extremely well due to just not taking any damage from the enemy. My only complaint is that her accuracy is less that desirable. I don't even find her movement to be an issue since my other, more mobile units are usually just cleaning house after she's soften'd up the enemy.

I decided to pick Female Byleth this time around since I've never used her before and she is similarly wrecking house as an enemy phase monster. Her bulk is still good with a Steel Shield equipped. Unlike edelgard, she is a bit more reliant on dodging to reduce damage, though she is more than capable of taking hits. She's more reliable at chipping the enemy on enemy phase due to doubling and having better accuracy than Edelgard.