Three Hopes General Discussion Thread

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, ZanaLyrander said:

I don't think there's enough information to go on to determine if Cleobulus is transgender honestly (though I kinda hope he's not, given that yeah, having the one and only transgender character in the game be a remorseless, sadistic monster would be unfortunate). All we really know is that Cleobulus is in disguise as a female individual, and that Thales refers to him by male pronouns. But Thales being who he is, we have no real way of knowing whether or not Cleobulus would take offense to being referred to as such, since Thales and Cleobulus never interact directly. So it's anyone's guess really.

If a man is disguised as a woman and reveals his true self to be a man, then he's a man. That's pretty unambiguous. He presents his true self as a man when the disguise is no longer warranted. Unless his true self is really a transgendered man and he only disguised himself as a woman because there's some kind of biological gender segregation on magical disguises (ie you can only disguised yourself as the sex you were born with). But that's just sort of convoluted and baseless.

[Shadow Mir]

What are some good stun breaking combos? The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Gauntlet S3 (assuming I have the numbering right).

[Anomalocaris]

39 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

What are some good stun breaking combos? The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Gauntlet S3 (assuming I have the numbering right).

Brawler S3 is one of the best. A lot of S3s are good for it. Armored Lord, Great Knight, and Archer are all similar to Brawler's, being single, powerful hits that lop off a ton of bar, while Thief's S3 is a ton of small hits that achieves a similar effect.

Bow Knight's S3 (the horse kick) is good when it actually connects, but it's a pain to get the distance right.

Gremory's S1 is pretty good for it if you launch the opponent into the air first, it keeps them held in place while the beam steadily depletes the bar.

Edited August 2, 2022 by Anomalocaris

[Dark Holy Elf]

21 hours ago, ZanaLyrander said:

I don't think there's enough information to go on to determine if Cleobulus is transgender honestly (though I kinda hope he's not, given that yeah, having the one and only transgender character in the game be a remorseless, sadistic monster would be unfortunate). All we really know is that Cleobulus is in disguise as a female individual, and that Thales refers to him by male pronouns. But Thales being who he is, we have no real way of knowing whether or not Cleobulus would take offense to being referred to as such, since Thales and Cleobulus never interact directly. So it's anyone's guess really.

One notable difference between Cleobulus and all the other bodyswappers is that she always remains in her human body, even in private (i.e. her experiments on Hapi). This suggests she actually prefers that form, which could indicate that she's trans. There are a number of possibilities. I don't think cis man is very likely, though - even if she took Cornelia's body out of expedience, the decision to dress the way she does definitely suggests that she doesn't have a purely male identity. Agreed that we don't have enough information to say for sure, though.

I've also seen it suggested that Thales' use of "he" in that one scene could just be a translation error, which might just be the simplest explanation if true.

 

[ZanaLyrander]

Just now, Dark Holy Elf said:

One notable difference between Cleobulus and all the other bodyswappers is that she always remains in her human body, even in private (i.e. her experiments on Hapi). This suggests she actually prefers that form, which could indicate that she's trans. There are a number of possibilities. I don't think cis man is very likely, though - even if she took Cornelia's body out of expedience, the decision to dress the way she does definitely suggests that she doesn't have a purely male identity. Agreed that we don't have enough information to say for sure, though.

I've also seen it suggested that Thales' use of "he" in that one scene could just be a translation error, which might just be the simplest explanation if true.

 

A fair point, Cleobulus certainly seems quite comfortable in Cornelia's form (I would even go so far as to say a little too comfortable for someone borrowing the appearance of a literal saint and dressing it up like... that). I think another possibility might be that... well, ugly as this sounds, Thales is an asshole, and while we never see Thales and Cleobulus interact directly, the way they refer to one another when talking to others indicates to me that they don't get along very well, so it's also entirely possible he's deliberately misgendering Cleobulus.

Still, with so little information to go on, speculation doesn't get us very far. Regardless, I really wish we got to learn more about the original Cornelia, she honestly sounds fascinating, and her friendship with Anaselma, Edelgard's mother/Dimitri's stepmother, is another thing I'd like to see explored. She saved the entire Kingdom from a plague, and all she asked in return is 'please save my friend from the Empire'. There's a hell of a story there we're not being told.

[Etrurian emperor]

Cornelia always struck me as a bit more hedonistic than her peers due to her more cheerful, self indulgent and haughty attitude. As such I like to imagine Cleobulus is actually a very obese man squeezing himself into a woman's body. His normal form being more akin to chairman Bana from Xenoblade. 

 

Edited August 2, 2022 by Etrurian emperor

[Fabulously Olivier]

14 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Cornelia always struck me as a bit more hedonistic than her peers due to her more cheerful, self indulgent and haughty attitude. As such I like to imagine Cleobulus is actually a very obese man squeezing himself into a woman's body. His normal form being more akin to chairman Bana from Xenoblade. 

 

I was picturing Valtome. But this works.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Cornelia always struck me as a bit more hedonistic than her peers due to her more cheerful, self indulgent and haughty attitude. As such I like to imagine Cleobulus is actually a very obese man squeezing himself into a woman's body. His normal form being more akin to chairman Bana from Xenoblade. 

 

I didn't realize you don't actually see Cleobulus in Three Hopes. Haven't played Dimitiri's route yet. Strange how they'd invent a new Agarthan if they weren't going to give a new design, rather than just using one of the Agarthans names they already have knocking around. I remember a lot of people thought Corneria was Bias, the Gremory Agarthans you fight in Shambala (the routes where Corneria aren't otherwise dealt with). Though I suppose they wanted to use the last name of the seven sages. Though I don't know why they didn't just call Kronya or Odesse Cleobulus to finish that naming scheme. This feels like something they actually had planned out in Three Houses but never managed to fit in.

[Shotguner159]

There is unused data for Cleobulus in Three Houses. Obviously as it's unused, it could also be unfinished, but the gender of Cleobulus' character data is male.

https://mobile.twitter.com/DeathChaos25/status/1291239650980503552

[Shadow Mir]

On 8/2/2022 at 5:12 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

Cornelia always struck me as a bit more hedonistic than her peers due to her more cheerful, self indulgent and haughty attitude. As such I like to imagine Cleobulus is actually a very obese man squeezing himself into a woman's body. His normal form being more akin to chairman Bana from Xenoblade. 

Bold: You mean the drug kingpin Nopon?

Anyways, how do I get the most bang for my back with the training facility?

[Sire]

...I'm over 200 hours into Three Hopes, on my fourth campaign playthrough, and I just learned that Cooking (Kitchen Master) stacks the different effects.
-- I was under the impression cooking another meal would override the previous one, so I would only cook one meal per chapter (my go-to was filling up the Warrior Gauge and having it fill up faster). // I guess now it makes sense why I have so much cooking supplies...
== On the subject of being mistaken, Battle Instincts only makes it faster to manually charge up the Warrior and Awakening gauges. It does not restore them over time (like Shez's unique class skill). So, Battle Instincts is not as good as I thought it was.

Also, I made the mistake of lowering the difficulty (I put Three Hopes down for a while after failing at a certain Paralogue), and I forgot to put it back for two whole chapters. Guess I have to go back and do those battles again in Records for my Maddening clears...

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Anyways, how do I get the most bang for my back with the training facility?

If you want to powergame it, I would make sure you take advantage of the training boosts whenever possible.
-- There's 3 different types of boosts: Preferred Class, Partner Bonus, and Training Bonus.
=== Preferred Class is as it says, the preferred class of that character. Training in this class results in faster leveling, although one may just want to leave training in the "preferred classes" out on the battlefield instead of the training grounds.
=== Partner Bonus uses the partner's experience in a class to make training faster. In general, if the partner mastered the class and has weapon experience, they will help master the trained class faster. However, the exact specifics of how this works eludes me, as sometimes the bonuses don't seem as high as they should be (the partner mastered the entire class line, but the bonus is low.)
== Training Bonus is something that only really happens for a single chapter in Part II, but it allows for faster training in a specified weapon-type or move-type. When one reaches this option, it may be wise to train in classes the bonus applies to instead of training whatever class they were in previously.

That said, there's no real rush to master classes, especially if one does multiple playthroughs on NG+. Just train classes that you want the skills for or that you don't want to play, so you can play the classes you want during actual battles.
-- My only real advice is to make sure you have an open class of the latest tier you have available unlocked, so once the character masters a class you can change their classes to begin mastering a different one (if trying to master all classes).

Edited August 4, 2022 by Sire
It was two chapters, not one...

[Jotari]

In my first playthrough I found myself being ready to promote to the next tier long before I had the capacity to do so. I ended up having a bunch of characters I don't even use mastering all the first tier classes just because there was so much exp to go around. So I'd say don't really worry about diving up the class exp. Just go for what you want and you won't have much trou me getting it.

[Dark Holy Elf]

14 hours ago, Jotari said:

In my first playthrough I found myself being ready to promote to the next tier long before I had the capacity to do so. I ended up having a bunch of characters I don't even use mastering all the first tier classes just because there was so much exp to go around. So I'd say don't really worry about diving up the class exp. Just go for what you want and you won't have much trou me getting it.

This is my experience too. I don't pay attention to partner bonuses and I still had my characters master ~3 classes per tier typically. There's more than enough time.

The biggest advice I have is to check which classes get which skills so you can focus on getting appealing skills from "off-build" classes; it took me half my first playthrough to notice you could actually do this.

[Scarlet_Wildfire]

The more I think about the good ending's Scarlet Blaze text about Leicester and Adrestia

Spoiler

reaffirming their friendship, the more I think Edelgard and Claude  are going to marry each other to unite the land and so that Claude could at least have a strong voice in how Fodlan is run as well as concessions from Edelgard

Unification via marriage. A valid tactic. It worked out for Spain at least.

 

 

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Scarlet_Wildfire said:

The more I think about the good ending's Scarlet Blaze text about Leicester and Adrestia

  Hide contents

reaffirming their friendship, the more I think Edelgard and Claude  are going to marry each other to unite the land and so that Claude could at least have a strong voice in how Fodlan is run as well as concessions from Edelgard

Unification via marriage. A valid tactic. It worked out for Spain at least.

 

 

I've been saying it was the obvious plot point for years.

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by Jotari

[Metal Flash]

13 hours ago, Scarlet_Wildfire said:

The more I think about the good ending's Scarlet Blaze text about Leicester and Adrestia

  Reveal hidden contents

reaffirming their friendship, the more I think Edelgard and Claude  are going to marry each other to unite the land and so that Claude could at least have a strong voice in how Fodlan is run as well as concessions from Edelgard

Unification via marriage. A valid tactic. It worked out for Spain at least.

 

 

Honestly, having recently finished Golden Wildfire, I like the idea of them solidifying their alliance by marrying. Many fans would be outraged, but I would still like to see it. They have some good chemistry and their goals align pretty well.

I honestly think FE could use more arranged/political marriages, plot important or other wise.

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

I've been saying it was the obvious plot point for years.

And I now admit to seeing I was wrong to doubt your idea. 

Edited August 6, 2022 by Metal Flash

[Jotari]

Was Rufus always such an unscrupulous individual? I got the impression from Three Houses that he was a cool guy doing his job of minding the Throne for Dimitri for a few years before Cornelia tragically kills him and frames Dimitri for it. But in Three Hopes he's

Spoiler

pretty much Uncle Cladius and was even behind the tragedy of Duscur! Makes one wonder why Cornelia even killed him if he was completely in the Empire's pocket. He could have just declared himself King and it would have played completely into Edelgard's  philosophy of crests being unimportant as he was apparently Lampert's older brother.

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

On 8/6/2022 at 3:56 AM, Metal Flash said:

Honestly, having recently finished Golden Wildfire, I like the idea of them solidifying their alliance by marrying. Many fans would be outraged, but I would still like to see it. They have some good chemistry and their goals align pretty well.

 

I've definitely already seen a bit of an uptick in popularity of this ship, honestly. I don't think it'll ever rival the actual more popular ships of the characters (Byleth/Dorothea/Hubert for Edelgard, Byleth/Hilda/Lorenz for Claude?), but there's neat stuff to explore with it.

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

Was Rufus always such an unscrupulous individual? I got the impression from Three Houses that he was a cool guy doing his job of minding the Throne for Dimitri for a few years before Cornelia tragically kills him and frames Dimitri for it

While he never came off as villainous as Hopes makes him look, he was definitely a bit of a mix in Houses as well. Sylvain pretty much calls him a useless layabout who cares more about seducing women than ruling (and remarks on the irony of him being the one to say it), and Felix expresses a desire that Dimitri will be crowned ASAP because the current situation under Rufus's regency is not great.

 

Anyway, I came here to post a story. I never saw one on my first playthrough, but recently I ran into a "you can only use one unit" special mission. Naturally I set out to S rank it. The thing is, the damage limit is 30%, and instead of "30% of your combined party's health pool, i.e. ~120%" which is what this means for normal missions, it actually means 30%. I tried a few times with axe-Hilda and punch-Balthus, both of whom had the best weapon triangle matchups in the fight, but consistently it took two or often just one hit from an officer they didn't have WTA on to end my run. I'm not terrible at this game, but not good enough to avoid that.

I realize I'm being a moron and put in Lorenz instead. I take something like a dozen hits for a total of... 0% damage. Trivial S rank.

Lorenz is top tier, y'all.

[Sire]

Finally finished my 2nd playthrough (4th total) of Golden Wildfire, doing the Kill Byleth route.

Interestingly enough though, going through Records, I unlocked everything except the presumed "alternative epilogue." I was wondering why I got the same epilogue as before...
-- I wonder if Byleth counts as one part of the equation (the whole Byleth Rivalry arc), while the epilogue may actually be determinant on if you recruited everyone or killed them instead.
-- As I decided to recruit everyone anyways for training purposes, I guess I got the "Good Epilogue" despite killing Byleth. Guess there's a speedrun of the Golden Deer route that may be in the works...

At any rate, more detailed and spoiler info in the spoiler below.

Spoiler

Honestly, the "Warning: Your actions in this battle will greatly impact the outcome of the story," seems like a complete exaggeration for Golden Wildfire.
-- The only major scene change was Jeralt's death, the "ally death" (Judith for Golden Deer) and the few unique scenes thereafter. The main story beats do not change at all, it's just some fluff dialogue changes here and there.
-- That being said, I do like how Claude's actions do have consequences (Randolph dying due to Claude's scheme leads to Judith's death in the "Kill Byleth" route), which I thought was some interesting character development. I guess in the other route the power of friendship mellows out Claude a bit instead.
-- Back to the criticisms, Byleth just unceremoniously appears in a chapter saying "Fite Me" after Jeralt's death, and that's the showdown. Alois appears in the finale as an enemy, and killing Alois felt more tragic than killing Byleth.
=== I get the feeling they might have gone for the "revenge is unsatisfactory" ending with the arc, with the story also being unsatisfactory to drive home that point, but it sorta sucks since the alternative route exists. It doesn't help that the Spare Byleth route may also provide interesting story bits and lore when compared to the Kill Byleth route either.

In other words, aside from the character development from Claude losing Judith as well at the cutscenes/events surrounding Jeralt's death, the rest of the "Kill Byleth" route on Golden Wildfire sucks, especially since the main story cares little for what happens with Byleth (and Judith).

I do hear there is more drastic changes in the Scarlet Blaze "Kill Byleth" route, as one of the main chapters is different, but I wonder how much change will there be for Azure Gleam (despite losing Rodrigue who is a playable character).

* * * * *

So, after finishing this 4th playthrough, I'm tempted to put the game down for a while. While I do want to know the differences, no matter how minor, between the Spare Byleth and Kill Byleth routes for Azure Gleam and Scarlet Blaze, after 213 hours it may be time to try doing some other stuff in the meantime.
-- That said, I did try to take a break after Arval's paralogue kicked my butt (I just went to Easy to S-Rank it), but was drawn back in to keep playing anyways.

I still hope there's DLC for Three Hopes, or at least some free updates to fix some things/add new features (Fix Apex Weapon's crit rates, allowing characters to be playable in campaign missions during NG+, etc.) I guess only time will tell if Three Hopes will continue to get support or not.

 

[vikingsfan92]

Speaking of ships I wonder how Shez in general is doing.  Do people ship Shez with their Byleth pairing or have new ones for Shez? I know a lot of people are still really attached to Byleth so I can see it depending a bit on how much people like Byleth. But people do tend to ship what they like so it is kind of a unique situation with two separate player characters in the same world .

Edited August 7, 2022 by vikingsfan92

[Shadow Mir]

RE: Battalions, what's the better move to do with them: Equip one to cover a weakness (e.g. Resist Lance on a sword user) or equip something that gives me a greater advantage against a weapon that unit already excels against? OR is there a third option that is even better than either...?

EDIT: In regards to matchups, which weapon type has the hardest matchup against the weapon type they beat?

EDIT 2: Regarding effective weapons (e.g. Mace), can they be randomly obtained at any time, or must I "unlock" them first?

Edited August 8, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Sire]

17 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

RE: Battalions, what's the better move to do with them: Equip one to cover a weakness (e.g. Resist Lance on a sword user) or equip something that gives me a greater advantage against a weapon that unit already excels against? OR is there a third option that is even better than either...?

EDIT: In regards to matchups, which weapon type has the hardest matchup against the weapon type they beat?

EDIT 2: Regarding effective weapons (e.g. Mace), can they be randomly obtained at any time, or must I "unlock" them first?

1. Depends on playstyle, really.
-- If you plan on switching characters a lot, stacking advantages (greater advantage) can be good as they are unlikely to be facing enemies that grant them disadvantage.
-- If you plan on maining a single character, one may want to negate any disadvantages so one can solo the entire map with said character without much difficulty. Alternatively, get a battalion to increase the range of what the character has advantage over.
-- The third option is to just place your favorite battalion (or the unit's personal battalion, unlocked through Paralogues) and just don't worry about it.

2. Tomes vs Bows and Gauntlets vs Tomes can be a hard matchup, mostly due to the aggression of the AI. I know the "Tornado Move" from enemy Snipers is rather annoying, and if an enemy spellcaster manages to hit you with a charged attack, it can hurt a lot.
-- Enemy Gauntlets can sometimes catch one off guard due to their juggle capabilities, and enemy Lance Cavalry can be annoying when they charge forward. However, I'll say it's mostly the Snipers and Spellcasters that tend to be troublesome.

3. I think they are a random drop. Just keep in mind all normal weapons (not Relics, Sacred, or Unique) can have modifiers, so you may want to hold off on super-forging a weapon until you get a combination of attributes you want.
-- For example, I got a +80 Rapier with no attributes, as I didn't know Rapiers can drop with them.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I've definitely already seen a bit of an uptick in popularity of this ship, honestly. I don't think it'll ever rival the actual more popular ships of the characters (Byleth/Dorothea/Hubert for Edelgard, Byleth/Hilda/Lorenz for Claude?), but there's neat stuff to explore with it.

Does it count as a ship if it's purely for political reasons?

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

While he never came off as villainous as Hopes makes him look, he was definitely a bit of a mix in Houses as well. Sylvain pretty much calls him a useless layabout who cares more about seducing women than ruling (and remarks on the irony of him being the one to say it), and Felix expresses a desire that Dimitri will be crowned ASAP because the current situation under Rufus's regency is not great.

I see. Guess I was a bit burned out on ancillary part 1 dialogue and supports by the time I first played Azure Moon (my fourth route in Three Houses). This still seems like a radical change for the character. I think they could have gotten away with just Cornelia alone as a boss. Also, what actually triggers this attempted coup? The timeline changing for Edelgard's route makes perfect sense as it jumps off the Monica plot, and the ramifications of what she does there changes the outcome of the entire game, but Claude and Dimitiri's plots are almost like filler. Rufus doesn't attempt his coup in Three Houses because he's just not in the mood? Cornelia does say something about not being able to contact Thales as a result of Edelgard's coup and goes ahead on her own authority but even then it's a bit silly that Rufus and Cornelia would just sit on this plan for months in the original timeline until Cornelia gets board or something and just kills Rufus instead. What would actually make more sense retroactively for Three Houses is if Dimitri actually did kill Rufus in private.

And Claude's timeline changes because Shahid just doesn't exist in Three Houses for some reason.

[Sire]

So, I decided to try a "NG+ speedrun" of Golden Wildfire, using the Vanguard Whistles for the first time ever to clear the regular battles (since I S-Ranked everything on Maddening during a previous playthrough).

I can see this method being useful for trying to use the Training Grounds, getting Stat Boosters, as well as Forge Materials easily.
-- The downside is going through the tutorial missions each time, which takes say 30-60 minutes, as well as constantly trying to skip cutscenes and waiting for loading screens.

Honestly, while it is likely the most effective way to min-max, I may just end up just doing Record Keeper missions instead to cut off the downtime so I can actually play and mess around instead of wait through loading screens.
-- At the moment Shez is nearly capped in all stats (save for Res), while Claude is 120 with some capped stats. I'm debating on resetting Claude's level so he can try to get the other stats without heavy need for stat boosters, but that may just be too much effort...

* * * * *

Speaking of multiple playthroughs, I wish there was a way to skip the tutorial chapters. Sitting through them each time sucks.
-- Also, I wish Holst wasn't an NPC or at least scaled properly in his debut chapter. A Level 15 fighting Level 100+ enemies is not a good look for the famed Holst.

[Archeleon]

7 hours ago, Sire said:

So, I decided to try a "NG+ speedrun" of Golden Wildfire, using the Vanguard Whistles for the first time ever to clear the regular battles (since I S-Ranked everything on Maddening during a previous playthrough).

I can see this method being useful for trying to use the Training Grounds, getting Stat Boosters, as well as Forge Materials easily.
-- The downside is going through the tutorial missions each time, which takes say 30-60 minutes, as well as constantly trying to skip cutscenes and waiting for loading screens.

Honestly, while it is likely the most effective way to min-max, I may just end up just doing Record Keeper missions instead to cut off the downtime so I can actually play and mess around instead of wait through loading screens.
-- At the moment Shez is nearly capped in all stats (save for Res), while Claude is 120 with some capped stats. I'm debating on resetting Claude's level so he can try to get the other stats without heavy need for stat boosters, but that may just be too much effort...

* * * * *

Speaking of multiple playthroughs, I wish there was a way to skip the tutorial chapters. Sitting through them each time sucks.
-- Also, I wish Holst wasn't an NPC or at least scaled properly in his debut chapter. A Level 15 fighting Level 100+ enemies is not a good look for the famed Holst.

Definitely would recommend resetting levels and leveling up as a certain class to acquire desired stats. If you are smart about it you can get very high on the stats with minimal booster investment. I made myself a calculator that predicts somewhat accurately what stats will look like leveling as each class. Don't underestimate getting some quality time grinding on each character as you learn about their personal and level up their Combat Arts/Spells. I personally am not going for full 120 stats on everyone as it would be very painful to get 120 Def on Lysithea for example. Will I get Hubert's Mag to 120? For sure.