Byleth would be better WITHOUT the Crest of Flames.

[MadBoar]

I was dodge tanking with falcon knight Byleth. Defiant avoid was currently activated. All the enemies around her had a zero percent hit rate. During one of the battles, she healed herself through the Crest of Flames. Defiant avoid was no longer activated. Another enemy had very small hit rate against her, but now non-zero hit. He killed Byleth. I restarted the chapter because I'm not into Diving Pulse scumming. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Oof. That's rough. Byleth's crest can do many other things, but at such low activation rates you can't really plan around it. Like the windsweep on combat arts or +5 damage on combat arts which have about a 4% chance of activating. You can go several entire playthroughs and never see the windsweep effect. Especially since it's contingent on the first effect activating. The game never points it out. You could very well have windweeped somebody that you are already killing with that combat art, or the combat art you are using IS windsweep, so it didn't make a difference in the first place. 

I think it would have been neat if Crests were voluntary, rather than being totally out of the player's control. Like if they operated on a cooldown of you attacking X amount of times, and could unleash them strategically. Then you could have some of them activate on accident, which says something about how that person has only just discovered their crest and/or has no interest in harnessing that power. There's nothing lore-wise to suggest that crests are powers that exclusively activate on accident.

Perhaps manually activated crests would only make the game more player phase oriented, but a crest effect could be a personal buff that does something only on the next enemy phase, or lasts for a full turn. For instance, reworking Ferdinands so that instead of windsweep on combat arts, he just improves his own avoid by 25 for that player phase combat art, then 10 for the resulting enemy phase. Get crazy with it.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Oof. That's rough. Byleth's crest can do many other things, but at such low activation rates you can't really plan around it. Like the windsweep on combat arts or +5 damage on combat arts which have about a 4% chance of activating. You can go several entire playthroughs and never see the windsweep effect. Especially since it's contingent on the first effect activating. The game never points it out. You could very well have windweeped somebody that you are already killing with that combat art, or the combat art you are using IS windsweep, so it didn't make a difference in the first place. 

And just in general, if you're using a combat art, you're almost always doing so with the express intention of killing an enemy on that attack. Combat arts are too resource intensive to use as chip damage unless it's something that gives range, you really need the accuracy or it's, as you said, windsweep itself.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 9/7/2022 at 6:01 PM, MadBoar said:

I was dodge tanking with falcon knight Byleth. Defiant avoid was currently activated. All the enemies around her had a zero percent hit rate. During one of the battles, she healed herself through the Crest of Flames. Defiant avoid was no longer activated. Another enemy had very small hit rate against her, but now non-zero hit. He killed Byleth. I restarted the chapter because I'm not into Diving Pulse scumming. 

Well, there are situations where your Crest can hurt you, like so. Another example is Dimitri's Crest of Blaiddyd, burning through his weapon. At the same time, it gives him the monstrously powerful Atrocity combat art. Would he be better without it? Probably not.

Likewise, Teach getting the Crest of Flames allows them to use the Sword of the Creator, the only ranged physical sword in the game. It has fairly good stats for a 1-2-range weapon, especially after its glow-up. And Teach can employ powerful combat arts with it. Would hate to lose that by losing the Crest.

There's just one unit who I think would actively benefit from not having a Crest - Bernadetta. Her Crest of Indech doesn't grant her access to any exclusive combat arts. Plus, it means she can wield any Hero's Relics without losing HP. Normally, that's a good thing... but Bernie wants to lose HP, both for her personal (Persecution Complex) and for the Vengeance combat art. She still has options (Devil Sword, Blessing, Guard adjutant), but lowering her HP with Relics would've been rad.

On 9/7/2022 at 7:05 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I think it would have been neat if Crests were voluntary, rather than being totally out of the player's control. Like if they operated on a cooldown of you attacking X amount of times, and could unleash them strategically. Then you could have some of them activate on accident, which says something about how that person has only just discovered their crest and/or has no interest in harnessing that power. There's nothing lore-wise to suggest that crests are powers that exclusively activate on accident.

Lore-wise, I kind of like it better that Crests are outside of a bearer's control. They can grow to understand them, and sense when they activate, but not mandate them. It really sells the notion that they're an alien power, beyond what humans should be capable of... even if the in-battle effect is typically underwhelming. 

Gameplay-wise... yeah, being able to control them would've been better. This game traded random Luna and Sol activations for deterministic combat arts, and I'm all for it. But they didn't extend the same paradigm to Crests (outside of some Crests allowing for one such combat art). Being able to plan around Crests would've made them something the player thinks more about.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm inclined to add this to the pile of reasons why I dislike Defiant Avoid. If you weren't using that, you'd be at full health, easily able to withstand a stray low-hit strike landing on you. Not only that, but Crest of Flames would give you a high probability to heal before the next low-% hit lands, if any ever does... making it a positive effect instead of a negative one. Thanks to Retribution, an enemy phase-focused Byleth has many, many opportunities to potentially heal.

I do think CoF does have a weird interaction with Vantage/Wrath. I remember running that on Edelgard and it's an odd experience (I assume Byleth would be similar, but having Byleth qualify for Warrior in a timely fashion is annoying). Edelgard is durable enough to easily soak a hit or two so she'd kinda go in and out of Vantage/Wrath range - healing out of it, then taking a hit and falling back in, rinse and repeat. Of course that activates at 50% instead of 25%, so there's a much larger range for you to heal out of it and still be safe; dying at 35% health is much more likely than dying at 60%.

[Shadow Mir]

Oof. That's unfortunate. Honestly, though, I'd consider Defiant whatever to be terrible and a wasted skill slot. Even Defiant Avoid and Defiant Crit, which I have seen some people praise. I'd much rather be healthy and able to take a stray hit than having to constantly worry about the next hit being a fatal one. Especially since Byleth is likely going to be one of my best units.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[MadBoar]

On 9/10/2022 at 12:26 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Oof. That's unfortunate. Honestly, though, I'd consider Defiant whatever to be terrible and a wasted skill slot. Even Defiant Avoid and Defiant Crit, which I have seen some people praise. I'd much rather be healthy and able to take a stray hit than having to constantly worry about the next hit being a fatal one. Especially since Byleth is likely going to be one of my best units.

 

On 9/10/2022 at 11:54 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'm inclined to add this to the pile of reasons why I dislike Defiant Avoid. If you weren't using that, you'd be at full health, easily able to withstand a stray low-hit strike landing on you. Not only that, but Crest of Flames would give you a high probability to heal before the next low-% hit lands, if any ever does... making it a positive effect instead of a negative one. Thanks to Retribution, an enemy phase-focused Byleth has many, many opportunities to potentially heal.

 

Byleth can not take a stray hit. The war masters can easily one round her. Their attacks have a brave affect, and so they can get through the blessing gambit. Enemy gambits can realistically hit her. You've also got enemies with absurd critical hit rates.  This was my second play through of this route, and I didn't recruit from other houses because I wanted to fight them in battle. I did a lot of one-turning throughout this run, including the 4 previous chapters, even without warp. I skipped a lot of the monastery.  All of my other units get one rounded. I had an absolutely pathetic team. Defiant avoid, retribution, blessing, and alert stance onto Byleth was the best strategy for this chapter, with my pathetic army.  You could probably guess which chapter this was on if you have played this route. I don't want to spoil it for players who haven't done this route. 

When my Byleth died due to the crest of flames, it was so bad and ridiculous that I bursted in laughter. 

Edited September 12, 2022 by MadBoar

[Shadow Mir]

13 hours ago, MadBoar said:

Byleth can not take a stray hit. The war masters can easily one round her. Their attacks have a brave affect, and so they can get through the blessing gambit. Enemy gambits can realistically hit her. You've also got enemies with absurd critical hit rates.  This was my second play through of this route, and I didn't recruit from other houses because I wanted to fight them in battle. I did a lot of one-turning throughout this run, including the 4 previous chapters, even without warp. I skipped a lot of the monastery.  All of my other units get one rounded. I had an absolutely pathetic team. Defiant avoid, retribution, blessing, and alert stance onto Byleth was the best strategy for this chapter, with my pathetic army.  You could probably guess which chapter this was on if you have played this route. I don't want to spoil it for players who haven't done this route. 

When my Byleth died due to the crest of flames, it was so bad and ridiculous that I bursted in laughter. 

Lemme guess - Azure Moon endgame?

Anyways, the moral of this story is "haste makes waste", I guess. Also, another issue I have with Defiant skills is that they are almost all tied to mastering Master classes - and in general, I don't manage to master those by the time the game ends.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[MadBoar]

11 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Lemme guess - Azure Moon endgame?

 

Haha yes. It was really fun, as it is actually among my favorite chapters in the series. I especially love the atmosphere, the challenge, the different possible strategies, and (Spoiler tag for comment about how the chapter's mechanics are connected to the story. )

 

 how the mechanics of the chapter show you how the events played out during the Tragedy of Duscur. It was a reenactment of the Tragedy, but with a different winner. On my save file with units that are at the recommended level,  I have beaten this chapter multiple times with different strategies each time. 

 

Edited September 13, 2022 by MadBoar

[vikingsfan92]

Eh I still think crest of flames is way more helpful than it is harmful. Tbh I think hp threshold skills have way more issues than crest of flames getting you out of them.  Because a lot of the times trying to get into range isn't easy because you run into enemies that do either too little or way to much damage.