Finally finished my first ever NG Maddening Run!! (Azure Moon)

[Ari Chan]

Hi everyone.

Long time lurker here, after a long break I finally decided to get back to this game and finish a NG Maddening run just to get that shiny golden home screen (I’ve only done NG+ Maddening playthroughs before), there were lots of frustrating moments (especially early game when I’m still struggling to manage my resources, recruitments and buildpaths) but I’m happy that I beat it!

This was my final team (screenshot taken before I started ch.21 mission):

Byleth:

She definitely was a powerhouse, went with F!Byleth cause I wanted to grab Darting Blow and have at least one Flier early on (In house Ingrid sucks a lot and mine also didn’t gain a single point in Str for 5 levels straight). I only let her use sword in the first 2 chapters cause of their low Wt and high accuracy, once she got Tempest Lance she pretty much ditched swords completely and focus on leveling Axe, Lance, Authority and Flying. I fed her a bunch of statboosters in fear of ch.13 and my HBD did end up being a Dodgetank Byleth solo map cause footlocked Dimitri without Battalion VanWrath was horrible. Byleth ended up being my main carry lategame, she was a super effective Enemy Phase magnet cause of her crazy dodge and pretty much everything had 0 hit against her once she got into Defiant Avo range. I also hosted a lot of tea parties with her to ensure all of my offensive gambit holders had decent Charm so she ended up having like 67 Charm lmao. My only gripes with Byleth is that she doesn’t learn B.Wrath which would’ve made her dodgetank build even more awesome.

Dimitri:

His combat was very good in the early game (third best imo behind Byleth and Dedue). Mid game he became a monster the moment you hit B.VanWrath, his biggest advantage is not having to master several classes to gain access to VanWrath or enter low health to use it which makes him the best EP unit in the game, he can also do some PP nuking with a Brave Lance when needed. His one big flaw is that once he lost access to B.VanWrath he became pretty mediocre, ch.13 is a good example of this, the player not being able to tutor him for several chapters wasn’t a big deal since he isn’t a super high investment unit. I fed him a few Rocky Burdocks and Ailell Pomegrantes so he can reliably kill enemies with 1 crit attack.

Dedue:

Dedue was easily the MVP of my run, my guy just has everything that makes a unit good on Maddening, he carried my early game Azure Moon hard while still being extremely strong in the late game, Dedue can safely bait out enemies in the early game thanks to his base stats and personal. Him getting Vengeance means he can murder anything on playerphase (I used him to bait Death Knight in ch.4 and instantly oneshot him the next turn with a Training Lance lol), even if I didn’t want to get him to low health, One-two punch + Death Blow also ORKO enemies. I fed Dedue my DLC statboosters (asides from the speed one which went to Byleth) to make his early game even stronger. He did go missing for a few chapters post time-skip but at that point I had plenty of ways to cheese the maps so it didn’t affect me much.

Felix:

 

Felix was a pretty straightforward unit, his crest and personal makes him a killing machine with Gauntlets, not much to say here since he’s pretty much the best Grappler you can get in the game. My only problems with Felix is his Authority Bane but that was easy to work around, the lack of Darting Blow does suck though cause he would’ve been a lot better with the extra 6 speed on PP combat.

Sylvain:

Sylvain started off pretty weak but he managed to get some good level ups early on which made his path to Wyvern a lot smoother, Lategame he was my go to unit to murder those annoying siege weapon users, he also made a good bait with Alert Stance+ when needed. The bow bane was annoying though cause he really needed that hit +20 from mastering Archer.

Dorothea:

Not much to say about Dorothea here since I made her my dancer, Meteor was nice at providing linked attacks and her Rally Charm was situationally useful. I never used her for combat so the Blutgang and Levin Sword just sat there collecting dust in her pocket lol, pretty much had her gambit once to break monster barriers and that was it.

Linhardt:

Since the so-called best healer Mercedes sucks horribly thanks to her starting Faith Rank and not learning anything useful asides from Physic, Mission Assistant Linhardt became my main healer for Blue Lion starting from ch.3, he is low investment since all he does is using Physic and Warp, his wind spells are very accurate and good for doing chip damage, the occasional crit is also very nice and Excalibur is effective against fliers, later on I rarely even used him to heal so he pretty much only existed to Warp + Blessing. I do wish he had access to high-mov class like the female mages though cause those ambush spawns always jumped on his fragile 4-mov ass.

Lysithea:

B rank Warp + Mastermind combo is ridiculous, Lysithea helped me trivialize so many difficult maps (Felix’s Paralogue for example), her Warp and spell list makes it optimal to dump all Mag statbooster on her so I gave her all the Spirit Dusts/Magic Herbs that I found, by endgame she had enough mag to yeet Byleth into the throne room which immediately shut down the boss infinite range attack as well as allowing Byleth to murder all the siege tome users in that room. I had her switch between Valkyrie and Gremory depending on whether I needed the +1 range and mobility or the extra spell usage (she became pretty mediocre combat-wise once she ran out of Luna and Dark Spikes). Her accuracy was questionable early on for me but thankfully this is FE3H and there are plenty of ways to consistently get 100 hit on her.

Leonie:

You really can’t go wrong with Leonie, she has strong bases + growths, a brave combat art that allows her to work well in a high move class. I ran dual blow skills on her so she can abuse her range and double most enemies without having to rely on Point-Blank Volley or Brave Weapons. I recruited her at around chapter 8 so it took quite some time for her to catch up but she ended up being one of my better units in the end so it was worth it.

Balthus:

The only DLC student that I used cause I heard lots of good things from him, grabbed Balthus pretty early so I can have another meatshield early on, despite not getting lots of attention from me his performance was really solid. Late game him and Felix were pretty much just there to gambit and kill a couple of enemies with FIF cause of Grappler’s short range and being footlocked.

Shamir:

I got Shamir as soon as she became available and she was really good, early Hunter’s Volley makes her the best Sniper by Default, pretty much only needed to grab Death Blow and she was good to go, her high bow Rank was also very convenient cause she can grab Bow Crit and Faire way earlier than anyone else. 

Alois:

Alois base ranks and stats makes him an excellent filler unit, even though I mostly had him as adjutant he still performed well when I needed a 12th unit, he can do dual-phase pretty well thanks to One-Two Punch and VanWrath, Seteth would’ve prolly made a better filler unit thanks to flight + swiftstrike but I liked Alois more so I went with him.

 

 

Overall I think NG Maddening is only really difficult in the early game, later on it’s just a test of how well you understand the meta, a well-built team can trivialize most post time-skip maps, I definitely believe it would’ve been harder for me if I didn’t have access to DLCs, the Charlice of Beginnings, Stat Boosts and Loots I get from the extra Aux battle all made the early maps a lot more bearable. I would definitely not do another NG Maddening run again after this cause I really dislike White Clouds and only enjoy the Post-time skip maps.

 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Ari Chan

[Zapp Branniglenn]

This is the most lance-heavy roster I've ever seen somebody post about. Congrats on the victory! Dedue with 83 HP is inspiring. I wanna say he and Raph are the only units in the game that can hit a 100% stat growth, and that's HP as a War Master. 

[Mordred]

Damn two flyers to Alert Stance+.  Honestly I barely get anyone to A+ Flying ever and I don't think I have in my last few runs of FE3H Maddening.  Nice run and honestly I totally get you with not returning to maddening.

[Ari Chan]

7 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

This is the most lance-heavy roster I've ever seen somebody post about. Congrats on the victory! Dedue with 83 HP is inspiring. I wanna say he and Raph are the only units in the game that can hit a 100% stat growth, and that's HP as a War Master. 

Yeah Blue Lion just has a lot of great Lance user and I also wanted to make a Falcon Knight Byleth lol.

I didn’t give Dedue any more hp boosts aside from the +7 hp dlc item so he did naturally gain a lot of them from levelling up which is nice cause it makes running VanWrath and Vengeance really forgiving on him.

3 hours ago, Mordred said:

Damn two flyers to Alert Stance+.  Honestly I barely get anyone to A+ Flying ever and I don't think I have in my last few runs of FE3H Maddening.  Nice run and honestly I totally get you with not returning to maddening.

I just saw your post lol you had a really nice team as well!! 

I tried to make the most use out of the 2 Knowledge Gems lol, I also abuse broken weapons to quickly master class and grab necessary skills.

I can see myself doing another NG+ Maddening run but not NG, it’s nice to play it once to understand why people rate characters like Dedue so high on tier lists but I definitely won’t do it again!

[LoneStar]

Welcome to the Golden screen club. Looking through the builds I'm seeing Close Counter on some units, was it useful? I always see people talk about Close Counter, but you can just use a Mini Bow, and after the early game you wouldn't want these units to get attacked anyways.

I've done NG Maddening runs for all routes except Crimson Flower. I was half way though it, but the Three Houses drive is completely out of my system.

[Ari Chan]

26 minutes ago, LoneStar said:

Welcome to the Golden screen club. Looking through the builds I'm seeing Close Counter on some units, was it useful? I always see people talk about Close Counter, but you can just use a Mini Bow, and after the early game you wouldn't want these units to get attacked anyways.

I've done NG Maddening runs for all routes except Crimson Flower. I was half way though it, but the Three Houses drive is completely out of my system.

Close counter was definitely very useful on Leonie since she has the spd to double and bulk to survive a few hits. 

I put the skill on Shamir cause I had nothing else better to put on (she didn’t need hit + 20 as her accuracy was always at 100 without it anyway), it did end up saving her from an abush spawn cause her counterattack crit’d.

 

[Mordred]

On 11/8/2022 at 8:10 PM, Ari Chan said:

I just saw your post lol you had a really nice team as well!! 

I tried to make the most use out of the 2 Knowledge Gems lol, I also abuse broken weapons to quickly master class and grab necessary skills.

I can see myself doing another NG+ Maddening run but not NG, it’s nice to play it once to understand why people rate characters like Dedue so high on tier lists but I definitely won’t do it again!

Thanks!

Honestly I'm pretty sure I can reach A+ Flying on my runs.  It's just that I get extremely bored of monastery past a certain point and just skip most of the days to get to the next map lmao.

Yea what I enjoy about Maddening is it makes you use other characters you mightve not used otherwise.

Also I just learned that weapon faires stacked ._.

[DaveCozy]

Nice going! I'm curious about your choice for Darting Blow with Leonie; typically since she spams PBV for me, I find it better to put Str+2 on her. Did you go for a doubling build with her instead that didn't rely on that art?

[Ari Chan]

On 11/10/2022 at 11:39 PM, Mordred said:

Thanks!

Honestly I'm pretty sure I can reach A+ Flying on my runs.  It's just that I get extremely bored of monastery past a certain point and just skip most of the days to get to the next map lmao.

Yea what I enjoy about Maddening is it makes you use other characters you mightve not used otherwise.

Also I just learned that weapon faires stacked ._.

It’s weird that the Faire Skills stacked but not Blow Skills it would’ve made Dark Bishop viable lol.

On 11/11/2022 at 1:57 AM, DaveCozy said:

Nice going! I'm curious about your choice for Darting Blow with Leonie; typically since she spams PBV for me, I find it better to put Str+2 on her. Did you go for a doubling build with her instead that didn't rely on that art?

I do use PBV when needed but there are situations where it is safer to kill enemy from a safe distance that’s why I put Darting Blow on Leonie, also it allows her to quad slower but tankier enemies using brave weapons especially monsters who have gigantic health pools.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Ari Chan

[Dark Holy Elf]

Congrats on beating Maddening!

On 11/8/2022 at 11:14 AM, Ari Chan said:

My only problems with Felix is his Authority Bane but that was easy to work around, the lack of Darting Blow does suck though cause he would’ve been a lot better with the extra 6 speed on PP combat.

So the sad thing here is your Felix is, assuming most of his levels after 20 were in Grappler, almost exactly 6 points below his average speed (9 base + 37x0.55 + 3 grappler mod + ~1.6 from grappler levels = 34). So Darting Blow would just have gotten him to his average. Do agree in general that I wish he had it.

On 11/8/2022 at 11:14 AM, Ari Chan said:

Since the so-called best healer Mercedes sucks horribly thanks to her starting Faith Rank and not learning anything useful asides from Physic

I mean... until Linhardt gets Warp he's no better on this front - any advantage he could possibly have from his measly 80 extra faith exp at base is offset by the fact that you can train Mercedes before recruiting him (just using Heal in-battle alone should do it!). I definitely like Mercedes better on AM myself, but I'm not quite as high on Warp as some, especially since Lysithea does Warp better anyway, and if you need more and have DLC (as you do), Hapi is easier to recruit and offers Banshee/Death/a useful personal/female-only mage class options in addition to the Physic C + Warp A they share. As for Mercedes vs. Linhardt, she has a bunch of advantages (can help out in Chapter 13, has charm to land offensive gambits, more damage, and supports way more Lions, raising team accuracy).

On 11/10/2022 at 10:57 AM, DaveCozy said:

Nice going! I'm curious about your choice for Darting Blow with Leonie; typically since she spams PBV for me, I find it better to put Str+2 on her. Did you go for a doubling build with her instead that didn't rely on that art?

PBV is great but sometimes you want to hurt things at ranges beyond range 1, and at that point Darting Blow enabling more natural doubles (and quads, with a Brave Bow/Inexhaustible) is a big deal. If you check the screenshots Leonie has 41 speed, which is 47 with Darting Blow. That doubles a lot of things - everything except Swordmasters (who are undoublable), War Masters, and fliers (who you don't need to kill with bows, anyway).

[Ari Chan]

59 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Congrats on beating Maddening!

So the sad thing here is your Felix is, assuming most of his levels after 20 were in Grappler, almost exactly 6 points below his average speed (9 base + 37x0.55 + 3 grappler mod + ~1.6 from grappler levels = 34). So Darting Blow would just have gotten him to his average. Do agree in general that I wish he had it.

Yeah I realized my Felix got spd-screwed hard, fortunately his strength remained high so he was still useful to me (Leonie on the other hand still managed to gain a lot of spd even in Bow Knight lmao). Thankfully the Aegis Shield did help him survive a couple of hits whenever he got doubled by enemies.

59 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I mean... until Linhardt gets Warp he's no better on this front - any advantage he could possibly have from his measly 80 extra faith exp at base is offset by the fact that you can train Mercedes before recruiting him (just using Heal in-battle alone should do it!). I definitely like Mercedes better on AM myself, but I'm not quite as high on Warp as some, especially since Lysithea does Warp better anyway, and if you need more and have DLC (as you do), Hapi is easier to recruit and offers Banshee/Death/a useful personal/female-only mage class options in addition to the Physic C + Warp A they share. As for Mercedes vs. Linhardt, she has a bunch of advantages (can help out in Chapter 13, has charm to land offensive gambits, more damage, and supports way more Lions, raising team accuracy).

Linhardt getting Physic earlier than Mercie means he takes less xp to reach monk for double spell usage which is huge (also no Physic in ch.2 is a pretty big disadvantage for Mercedes), Mission Assistant Linhardt becomes available from ch.3 and most likely comes with higher lv for double spell usage and Physic which Mercie struggles to get unless you spend lots of resources tutoring her. He also has a better reason spell list compared to Mercie, Hapi is pretty high investment since she doesn’t have a boon in Faith and has a bane in Authority. I also find it easier to just solo ch.13 using Byleth and only plan to have Linhardt use utility gambits (Stride, Blessing or DoTG), him not having a lot of supports with the Lions didn’t affect me much since mid-late game he often got left behind lol.

I also tend to not spend much resources tutoring the healbots on the team and uses Warp a lot which makes Linhardt the perfect unit for my playstyle.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Ari Chan

[Dark Holy Elf]

7 hours ago, Ari Chan said:

Linhardt getting Physic earlier than Mercie means he takes less xp to reach monk for double spell usage which is huge (also no Physic in ch.2 is a pretty big disadvantage for Mercedes), Mission Assistant Linhardt becomes available from ch.3 and most likely comes with higher lv for double spell usage and Physic which Mercie struggles to get unless you spend lots of resources tutoring her.

Linhardt doesn't exist for AM Chapter 2, making it moot. Chapter 3... sure, you can bring him (or Marianne) as mission assistance, and I often do too, but I'd rather give actions to a unit who can gain levels, when possible; I use my mission assist healer only on turns where lots of healing is needed. By Chapter 4, the earliest possible time for reasonable out-of-house recruitment, Mercedes is in Monk with Physic even if you never changed her goals or tutored her, provided you used her in battle.

7 hours ago, Ari Chan said:

He also has a better reason spell list compared to Mercie

Disagree with this, Mercedes's spells have higher power which, combined with potential +might from Annette, means she has an easier time dealing damage in general, and securing one-hit-kills during the midgame. Linhardt's spells are lighter which is moot because of his -3 speed, and a bit more accurate which is usually overkill because 90 magical hit is gonna land on almost everything anyway (especially if you're giving them Seiros Holy Monks, as you propose) and in the extremely rare occasions where it's not, Mercedes is more likely to benefit from supports. I suppose Excalibur can kill fliers but I always use too many bows for that to be an important niche; I prefer Ragnarok killing sword-users and snipers.

 

For the point below (the forums are acting up on my browser and I can't move the text box, sorry about the out of order reply!): (a) this is partly a Linhardt-specific problem, since Bishop is stuck at 4 move while other casters can use Valkyrie / Dark Flier / Gremory, and (b) even setting that aside, support still relevant prior to Level 20 where your units have broadly similar move stats. Gambits, in particular, benefit hugely from a B support (+15) and many units have a hard time landing them without this sort of help.

7 hours ago, Ari Chan said:

him not having a lot of supports with the Lions didn’t affect me much since mid-late game he often got left behind lol.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Another thing, niche as it may be:

Mercedes can serve as bait, maybe with Nosferatu and on the next turn heal another unit and with LtS herself too - essentially alleviating her own risk of death, while also helping out someone else.

Probably not going to happen often, with physical enemies at least.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah I tend to get a decent bit of use out of that early on. Enemies don't start one-rounding anyone of Mercedes-level bulk until Chapter 7 at the earliest, so there's some efficiency of healing you can do which is helpful. Not essential, but still nice. Especially notable against archers, since everyone takes fairly similar damage from them due to poison strike and can't counter them due to 3 range, and they're present in every single earlygame map from Chapter 2 on.

I find comparisons of the healers in Chapter 2 fairly questionable since they don't compete (the only question is if you drop them for a Wolf, if you have the DLC), but for what it's worth I actually find LtS makes Mercedes quite useful there; someone's gotta bait the archer present in a couple of the formations, so why not someone who can equip a 0-weight weapon to avoid doubles/criticals (C2 archers have 10 speed and 10 crit, so both are issues) and who can heal themselves for free as part of another action? And for what it's worth, she can take a hit from every single enemy in that fight, which isn't true for base Linhardt or Marianne.

[Shadow Mir]

13 hours ago, Ari Chan said:

He also has a better reason spell list compared to Mercie

Explain. Because I cannot see it at all.

 

[Armchair General]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Explain. Because I cannot see it at all.

Excalibur is slightly better than Ragnarok in terms of crit chance and accuracy. It also makes short work of the occasional flier; otherwise you'll be. He also gets Cutting Gale as an extra spell slot, IIRC. Of course, you'll be missing out on 4 points of damage if choose Excalibur over Ragnarok (which is slightly heavier.)

But without factoring in their growth rates, Crests, and their personal skills; it's mainly raw damage with AoE healing versus Warp shenanigans with accurate attacks that have an higher  chance at critting someone. However, Mercedes does have an higher magic cap than Linhardt, so the raw damage argument will eventually answer itself. Only real problem that'll pop up is her running out of spell uses.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Armchair General

[Ari Chan]

13 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Linhardt doesn't exist for AM Chapter 2, making it moot. Chapter 3... sure, you can bring him (or Marianne) as mission assistance, and I often do too, but I'd rather give actions to a unit who can gain levels, when possible; I use my mission assist healer only on turns where lots of healing is needed. By Chapter 4, the earliest possible time for reasonable out-of-house recruitment, Mercedes is in Monk with Physic even if you never changed her goals or tutored her, provided you used her in battle.

Mb, should’ve clarified the first part, I was comparing in house Linhardt vs in house Mercedes for chapter 2 and why her starting faith rank makes her early game worse than in house Linhardt and Marianne. I actually fielded Mercedes in ch.2 + 3 and she failed to reach C rank for Physic by ch.4, guess I need to spam all of her heal usage.

14 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Disagree with this, Mercedes's spells have higher power which, combined with potential +might from Annette, means she has an easier time dealing damage in general, and securing one-hit-kills during the midgame. Linhardt's spells are lighter which is moot because of his -3 speed, and a bit more accurate which is usually overkill because 90 magical hit is gonna land on almost everything anyway (especially if you're giving them Seiros Holy Monks, as you propose) and in the extremely rare occasions where it's not, Mercedes is more likely to benefit from supports. I suppose Excalibur can kill fliers but I always use too many bows for that to be an important niche; I prefer Ragnarok killing sword-users and snipers.

I also should’ve made this part a bit clearer, I used Linhardt’s spells mainly to chip so I value the accuracy more (occasional crit is nice as well) and most of the time he did enough damage for my other units to finish the enemy off but will give Mercedes a try whenever I got a chance if she’s reaching ~90 hit and can OHKO enemies with Annette support like you said!

14 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

For the point below (the forums are acting up on my browser and I can't move the text box, sorry about the out of order reply!): (a) this is partly a Linhardt-specific problem, since Bishop is stuck at 4 move while other casters can use Valkyrie / Dark Flier / Gremory, and (b) even setting that aside, support still relevant prior to Level 20 where your units have broadly similar move stats. Gambits, in particular, benefit hugely from a B support (+15) and many units have a hard time landing them without this sort of help.

Tbh I stated it above that Bishop’s low mobility only became a problem when he got ambushed by reinforcements but this was more on me for not looking up ambush spawn locations whenever I attempted a map. Usually after casting all 2 warps and blessing I had him sit back and use physic whenever needed (rarely happens anyway since I don’t have my units use heal much post-time skip)

8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Explain. Because I cannot see it at all.

Accuracy + Crit from Wind spells > slight damage advantage from Fire Spells especially when you mostly use your healers to do chip damage and Linhardt always did enough for my other units to finish the enemy off anyway (and if he crits then my damage dealers can focus on other enemies instead). Later on they’re both gonna see little to no combat at all cause mid-late game maddening meta is all about oneshotting the enemies with stuffs like Swift Strike, Hunter’s Volley, FIF, etc. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

36 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

I actually fielded Mercedes in ch.2 + 3 and she failed to reach C rank for Physic by ch.4, guess I need to spam all of her heal usage.

That's a bit surprising. Even if you just left Faith as one of her two goals, there are seven months before Chapter 4's battle, which means 24*7 = 168 exp on Maddening. It only takes 11 uses of Heal to get to 200 (D->C), easily done by using Heal in the aux fight, Chapter 2, and Chapter 3.

I'm really not convinced that Mercedes' earlygame is worse than Marianne's or Linhardt's. Both die to a number of enemies Mercedes doesn't, and have completely useless personals instead of a useful one. In Marianne's case, she also has an awful starting attack spell (and also a worse starting reason rank) - we can debate the 3/90 Fire vs the 2/100 Wind, but the 3/70 Bizzard is obviously much worse than either. Granted, Marianne pulls ahead of both when she gets Frozen Lance and/or Thoron.'

That said, I don't consider their relative performances at a point in the game where I'm definitely using all three to be that significant, I care about them once benching them for a different Physic user becomes an option. And in that light, I'm relatively less of a fan of Linhardt because I find he gravitates towards the bench during mid part 1, once Dorothea and potentially a various recruited characters match his only good point (Physic) while having better reason lists and/or combat arts and/or stats, and he can only really stay on the team via the promise of Warp.

 

[Ari Chan]

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'm really not convinced that Mercedes' earlygame is worse than Marianne's or Linhardt's. Both die to a number of enemies Mercedes doesn't, and have completely useless personals instead of a useful one. In Marianne's case, she also has an awful starting attack spell (and also a worse starting reason rank) - we can debate the 3/90 Fire vs the 2/100 Wind, but the 3/70 Bizzard is obviously much worse than either. Granted, Marianne pulls ahead of both when she gets Frozen Lance and/or Thoron.'

That said, I don't consider their relative performances at a point in the game where I'm definitely using all three to be that significant, I care about them once benching them for a different Physic user becomes an option. And in that light, I'm relatively less of a fan of Linhardt because I find he gravitates towards the bench during mid part 1, once Dorothea and potentially a various recruited characters match his only good point (Physic) while having better reason lists and/or combat arts and/or stats, and he can only really stay on the team via the promise of Warp.

I guess my playstyle is completely different than yours hence why I didn’t value her personal lol. I didn’t use her to tank at all since my Dedue was already good at drawing aggro from most units already and I would much prefer if she got 3 additional Physic uses for ch.2 without having to rig lectures and spend activity points on choir. I also tend to make use of those free vulneraries that you get early on whenever possible.

While I agree that Dorothea becomes better than Linhardt mid-game, it won’t take that much time before Linhardt reaches Warp after she got Physic (Dorothea starts at E rank and has a bane in Faith before it becomes a boon via budding talent). Dorothea also falls off hard unless you make her a dancer, she has a good list but lacks the Magic to take advantage of it unlike Constance and Lysithea. Hexblade is also a pretty mediocre magic combat art compared to Frozen Lance.

Also towards lategame I barely use Physic so having my healer be able to do something asides from healing is a huge plus in my book, for example Linhardt can reposition my less mobile units or let Sylvain oneshot annoying siege weapon users. His Warp certainly isn’t as gamebreaking as Lysithea’s but combined with Stride it was still very useful to me.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Ari Chan

[Shadow Mir]

Personally, I find Linhardt being stuck to Bishop is a negative when compared to the female mages. It's not bad, per se, but it means he's limited in terms of his usefulness relative to them (technically, he CAN go Holy or Dark Knight, but... that's a lot of work for not much improvement, honestly).

Edited November 13, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Ari Chan]

9 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Personally, I find Linhardt being stuck to Bishop is a negative when compared to the female mages. It's not bad, per se, but it means he's limited in terms of his usefulness relative to them (technically, he CAN go Holy or Dark Knight, but... that's a lot of work for not much improvement, honestly).

Even if Linhardt had access to female classes, Bishop would still be his best class since Warp + Physic are his biggest assets and none of the female mounted class has x2 white magic or white magic heal + 10 for Linhardt to take advantage of, plus Physic usually has enough range that he doesn’t need the extra mobility to reach people to heal. Offensive-wise Linhardt has exactly one good spell by late-game which is Excalibur and that is nowhere as useful as Warp. Mercedes also doesn’t benefit much from Female-exclusive class as well, she has a bad Reason list and would much prefer having stronger heals and extra Physic usage (or ditch healing altogether for a Magic Bow Sniper build that can actually kill on player-phase). Marianne and Flayn are the designated healers that benefit greatly from DLC classes since they have the tools to take advantage of their mobility and skills.

Hubert is the one that got majorly fucked by being a male mage, he had a good Reason List + Frozen Lance so Valkyrie would’ve been the perfect class for him, Dark Bishop is a bad class and if he goes Paladin to spam Frozen Lance he has to forgo his spell list. By the time he reaches Dark Knight, late game CF is really anti-cav which limits his overall usefulness.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Ari Chan

[Dark Holy Elf]

11 hours ago, Ari Chan said:

I guess my playstyle is completely different than yours hence why I didn’t value her personal lol. I didn’t use her to tank at all since my Dedue was already good at drawing aggro from most units already and I would much prefer if she got 3 additional Physic uses for ch.2 without having to rig lectures and spend activity points on choir. I also tend to make use of those free vulneraries that you get early on whenever possible.

While I agree that Dorothea becomes better than Linhardt mid-game, it won’t take that much time before Linhardt reaches Warp after she got Physic (Dorothea starts at E rank and has a bane in Faith before it becomes a boon via budding talent). Dorothea also falls off hard unless you make her a dancer, she has a good list but lacks the Magic to take advantage of it unlike Constance and Lysithea. Hexblade is also a pretty mediocre magic combat art compared to Frozen Lance.

Also towards lategame I barely use Physic so having my healer be able to do something asides from healing is a huge plus in my book, for example Linhardt can reposition my less mobile units or let Sylvain oneshot annoying siege weapon users. His Warp certainly isn’t as gamebreaking as Lysithea’s but combined with Stride it was still very useful to me.

Yeah, I guess so!

It's less about drawing aggro; more that if any enemies do hit her, it's more efficient in the long run. Like sure, you can let that enemy archer hit Dedue, but if you put both Mercedes and Dedue in range the archer will likely attack Mercedes instead, doing around the same damage (Dedue's better defence being offset by eating more damage from Poison Strike, and also getting doubled if you left an axe or lance equipped on him) but being healable for free. With Mercedes you can safely put her in range of an enemy and not worry about it; in fact you should.

Dorothea needs 300 exp to get to Physic on BE, Linhardt needs 1140 exp to get to Warp. Even with a bane active for part of that, there's a very significant amount of daylight between these two events.

If you don't value Physic I just don't see the value of Linhardt at all, at least in a file with DLC access. At best, he'll get two useful turns with Warp and then twiddles his thumbs, all while having 4 move. I'd rather use Hapi who can do the same in a class with more move and has Banshee/Death, if I want a second Warper. Dark Flier Constance for Rescue is also an option - her big disadvantage compared to Hapi/Linhardt is no Physic, but if you don't care, then... *shrug*? Now granted, I personally do value Physic quite a bit, so I do keep Linhardt sometimes, but he's definitely one of the Eagles I at least think about benching.

Dorothea gives the entire rest of the BE team Hit+10/GambitHit+20 just by existing (okay, just +7/+15 for Bernie)  I never bench her on Eagles runs if I'm trying to play remotely optimally. She's worth making the Dancer rather than benching if you're not happy with what she offers otherwise, something Linhardt can't claim. There's a reason she's the most-deployed unit in the game.

6 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

Even if Linhardt had access to female classes, Bishop would still be his best class since Warp + Physic are his biggest assets and none of the female mounted class has x2 white magic or white magic heal + 10 for Linhardt to take advantage of, plus Physic usually has enough range that he doesn’t need the extra mobility to reach people to heal.

Linhardt would absolutely prefer Gremory to Bishop if he could get it. Even as a big fan of Physic, +1 move, +0.75 warp range, and +3 damage is easily worth -9 healing since the Healing Staff exists. Since you claimed you barely use Physic lategame it'd be even more of a no-brainer choice. He doesn't need move to reach people to heal, but he does need it to reach people to Warp them, or to use gambits, or kill armour knights.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Dark Holy Elf

[Ari Chan]

22 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Linhardt would absolutely prefer Gremory to Bishop if he could get it. Even as a big fan of Physic, +1 move, +0.75 warp range, and +3 damage is easily worth -9 healing since the Healing Staff exists. Since you claimed you barely use Physic lategame it'd be even more of a no-brainer choice. He doesn't need move to reach people to heal, but he does need it to reach people to Warp them, or to use gambits, or kill armour knights.

Lmao I brain farted and completely forgot Gremory existed lol (even though I made Lysithea one), yes he would’ve been much better as a Gremory.

24 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Dorothea needs 300 exp to get to Physic on BE, Linhardt needs 1140 exp to get to Warp. Even with a bane active for part of that, there's a very significant amount of daylight between these two events.

If you don't value Physic I just don't see the value of Linhardt at all, at least in a file with DLC access. At best, he'll get two useful turns with Warp and then twiddles his thumbs, all while having 4 move. I'd rather use Hapi who can do the same in a class with more move and has Banshee/Death, if I want a second Warper. Dark Flier Constance for Rescue is also an option - her big disadvantage compared to Hapi/Linhardt is no Physic, but if you don't care, then... *shrug*? Now granted, I personally do value Physic quite a bit, so I do keep Linhardt sometimes, but he's definitely one of the Eagles I at least think about benching.

Dorothea gives the entire rest of the BE team Hit+10/GambitHit+20 just by existing (okay, just +7/+15 for Bernie)  I never bench her on Eagles runs if I'm trying to play remotely optimally. She's worth making the Dancer rather than benching if you're not happy with what she offers otherwise, something Linhardt can't claim. There's a reason she's the most-deployed unit in the game.

Linhardt should also spend more time using his faith spells compared to Dorothea though so the gap is a bit closer than that, usually getting to A rank with a boon doesn’t take that much time and even if I bench Linhardt mid-game he can still rejoin the team later the moment he gets Warp. (I usually have enough room for both anyway, considering out of the BE cast only Caspar is truly garbage and not worth salvaging when you can grab Balthus who immediately outperforms him out of the gate)

Asides from Lysithea, Linhardt is pretty much the only other easy way to get more Warps without spending lots of resources on tutoring (Hapi is neutral in Faith and doesn’t autolevel if you recruit her later, Manuela’s Warp range is trashy and her Warp also comes later). Although I don’t value Physic that much, running no Physic at all is a bit too risky for me so I didn’t use Constance (or Flayn), plus Dark Flier Rescue Constance also requires more resources to train than warpbot Linhardt.

Dorothea is definitely pretty much my #1 go-to pick for Dancer even OOH, I’m just saying that her and Linhardt fulfills  different niche for me, one gives additional Warp and the other provides linked attack boost for the entire, I don’t care much about their offense cause there are better units for that role.

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 minute ago, Ari Chan said:

Linhardt should also spend more time using his faith spells compared to Dorothea though so the gap is a bit closer than that, usually getting to A rank with a boon doesn’t take that much time and even if I bench Linhardt mid-game he can still rejoin the team later the moment he gets Warp. (I usually have enough room for both anyway, considering out of the BE cast only Caspar is truly garbage and not worth salvaging when you can grab Balthus who immediately outperforms him out of the gate)

Yeah Caspar is the only BE I would actually broadly recommend benching, for what it's worth. And it's absolutely fair that you can bench Linhardt for a while and bring him back... in fact I've definitely done that. On multiple occasions I've found Linhardt fills a role of the 11th or 12th unit; not one of my core team and frequently benched during paralogues, but someone I pull out when deployment is high, because "can use Physic and Warp" is better than what an underlevelled physical unit can offer.

3 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

Asides from Lysithea, Linhardt is pretty much the only other easy way to get more Warps without spending lots of resources on tutoring (Hapi is neutral in Faith and doesn’t autolevel if you recruit her later

I think you're underestimating Hapi as a low-investment Warper. Get her in Chapter 3 when she has a D rank, set her goal to faith and prioritize faith spells for her either in battle or as an adjutant, to taste. Yes she gets Warp around 2 chapters later than Linhardt due to neutral instead of boon (a bit later if you use her reason spells a lot), but she'll still get it with no problems. I guess it depends how quickly you want a second Warper. It's quite easy to get by the timeskip if that's your priority, even with minimal tutoring (though it'd probably take mono-focus for much of that time). Once she does get it, she's just a better Linhardt (reason list, class options). And there are maps where she'll contribute more than him before then; in particular she just breaks Sothis's paralogue with her personal + Impregnable Wall. Banshee is also very neat and helps her clearly outclass Linhardt during the pre-either-of-them-having-Warp phase.

14 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

Although I don’t value Physic that much, running no Physic at all is a bit too risky for me so I didn’t use Constance (or Flayn), plus Dark Flier Rescue Constance also requires more resources to train than warpbot Linhardt.

Yeah that's fair! I don't know if the investment gap is as large as you think it is - keep in mind Constance needs only B faith instead of A, which more than offsets boon vs neutral - but I obviously I'm not going to argue that you should run no Physic at all. (Flayn gets Fortify, at least, but it's late and Flayn has some investment issues because her start is so bad, E reason E authority in Chapter 7 whyyy).

20 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

I don’t care much about their offense cause there are better units for that role.

The main place I care about their offence is killing armours, which actually is kinda annoying for my physical units. I generally want my magical units to kill armours and then otherwise provide utility (faith spells, linked attacks, Hapi's personal, Rally I guess). They can also provide chip against unusually durable enemies like bosses and lategame War Masters (non-CF), but any mage does that competently (though mounted mages do it better just because they reach more enemies, ditto mages with Thoron/Mire/Death). But otherwise I overall agree - you don't use mages for pure offence in this game.

(I mean, you can. I've done an all mage run. Shockingly easy even though one-shots are rare. But it's not optimum.)

[Mordred]

Maybe it's just me but I find healers in general getting benched mid game and late game of FE3H.  There are very few times where I have thought a healer was essential especially with utility gambits or just mages having nothing better to do a lot of turns mid and late game then heal.  I think having Linhardt is going to generally be better than Mercedes who only really has a better offensive spell list when Linhardt's spell list should generally be enough and they generally aren't looking to be attacking a lot anyways.  As Linhardt actually can open up new strategies while Mercedes will generally not I would say Linhardt is someone to consider more often than Mercedes.