Imaginative uses of a Dark Seal

[haarhaarhaar]

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Needing only B reason is a pretty generous assumption for the build. Ferdinand doesn't average that much luck until Level 36. Level 26 if you want to give him the only pre-timeskip Goddess Icon (which is fair, it's not super in-demand, but does increase the level of investment in my books). I suppose you can lower this to around 20 if you also get a +luck food from gardening, or if a recruited character joins with it (I admit, I don't recall). Trying to certify at 30% can also take quite a bit of time (both real life time, since savescumming is required in the case of Dark Seals, and simply that it can easily take more than a month of trying).

I assumed B Reason and 30% certification because I was assuming only B Axes/Flying when either build attempts the Wyvern Lord cert - that would also need 20 Luck and leave you with 30% chances, and classing into Dark Bishop doesn't need to happen much before then. Of course, Dark Bishop does involve a literal extra certification you're at RNG mercy for, but it's already what I was expecting to do for Wyvern Lord, and you could be trying for both concurrently, so yeah it's not a big deal to me. 

And, at my count, there are three 'free' Goddess Icons in Part 1 - one from saving the greens in Ch. 3 rewards, one from Anna's first Peculiar Trend quest (which requires doing any three non-paralogue battles, you get more than three battle quests in Part 1 so I think it's fair game), and one from an NPC in the Abyss in Ch. 12. Yes, two of those are DLC, and all three are easily missable, but given there's next to no demand for them I think it's fine to assume you give one to Ferdinand. Although I didn't get a single Miracle Bean from anyone I recruited my current run - maybe there's a chance there's one on a BL recruit or I recruited someone at a level where they don't come with stat-boosters. 

6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I probably put more weight than you on the cost of being in Dark Bishop, and certainly, if we're talking about investment, the cost of using one of your two Knowledge Gems there. Also, the nice thing about Alert Stance+ is that, if you do in fact need more investment elsewhere, you can slow down your access of it and stick with Alert Stance in the meantime. It'll certainly still come, just a chapter or two later, because flying training can just pile up post-timeskip (especially if you have flight group task available, although Move+1 does present some competition). All this adds up to me considering even Alert Stance+ significantly less investment overall.

I think you're right on both counts. As long as they keep the Knowledge Gem the entire time (which is definitely an investment as you say), mastering an Advanced/DLC class via adjutant can take anyone as little as two levels. Even with Swift Strikes, I'm not likely to be so reliant on Ferdinand that I'll miss him that much for that period of time, so I'm not too concerned about the cost of being in Dark Bishop. As for Alert Stance+, there's definitely more freedom in how you get it compared to Lifetaker, and having an inferior version already available means Ferdinand doesn't miss it nearly as much as pre-Lifetaker vs. post-Lifetaker. Although you could flip that point on its head and say that for Ferdinand, vanilla Alert Stance is enough (and potentially drop Str +2 from the build above as lenticular suggested). 

[Dark Holy Elf]

13 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said:

And, at my count, there are three 'free' Goddess Icons in Part 1 - one from saving the greens in Ch. 3 rewards, one from Anna's first Peculiar Trend quest (which requires doing any three non-paralogue battles, you get more than three battle quests in Part 1 so I think it's fair game), and one from an NPC in the Abyss in Ch. 12. Yes, two of those are DLC, and all three are easily missable, but given there's next to no demand for them I think it's fine to assume you give one to Ferdinand. Although I didn't get a single Miracle Bean from anyone I recruited my current run - maybe there's a chance there's one on a BL recruit or I recruited someone at a level where they don't come with stat-boosters. 

I didn't even know about that Abyss reward... huh. Is that non-CF only? In addition, there's also one in Falling Short of Heaven (which, well, Catherine is free for two routes, and Ashe is an easy pickup and worthwhile because Shoes of the Wind are so good), so yeah, luck boosters are more common than I was remembering! Definitely inclined to withdraw my complaints on that front.

FWIW I wouldn't apples-to-apples compare B reason for Dark Bishop with B axes/B flying for Wyvern Lord, because the latter doesn't need those ranks until Level 30, while presumably you'll want to go to Dark Bishop at Level 20 so you can have Lifetaker for as long as possible. So that's a lot of extra time to at least get to flying B+ and reach 50%, for instance.

[haarhaarhaar]

8 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I didn't even know about that Abyss reward... huh. Is that non-CF only?

Yeah, it is. So CF is one short, although I guess it's relatively foolhardy to try for Lifetaker Wyvern Ferdinand there anyway.

8 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

In addition, there's also one in Falling Short of Heaven (which, well, Catherine is free for two routes, and Ashe is an easy pickup and worthwhile because Shoes of the Wind are so good), so yeah, luck boosters are more common than I was remembering! Definitely inclined to withdraw my complaints on that front.

I did this paralogue recently and I don't remember there being a Goddess Icon there (the droppable stat booster is a Secret Book I think) - I do know the wiki has it listed as a reward, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong on that front.

9 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

FWIW I wouldn't apples-to-apples compare B reason for Dark Bishop with B axes/B flying for Wyvern Lord, because the latter doesn't need those ranks until Level 30, while presumably you'll want to go to Dark Bishop at Level 20 so you can have Lifetaker for as long as possible. So that's a lot of extra time to at least get to flying B+ and reach 50%, for instance.

I'm not sure actually. I think it probably isn't optimal (or that important) to pick up Lifetaker at Lvl 20 or immediately after.

At Lvl 20 Wyvern Rider, Ferdinand's AS won't be higher than 20 on average. Before B-rank Authority he can get +10 Avo from a battalion on GD and +5 otherwise, so assuming B Lances you can get up to 70-75 Avo against non-sword users, which is good but a bit shy of confident. For a flying dodge tank, I'd want at least 90 Avo. Assuming B+ Lances and B Authority, an average Wyvern Lord Ferdinand can get there at Lvl 32 or so. Obviously, if your standard for acceptable Avoid is higher/lower then the level threshold should reflect that.

Assuming Str +2, Death Blow, B Lances, no Dark Bishop, and Secret Transport Force, Lv 27 Ferdinand's Player Phase Atk with a Training Lance+ (to facilitate max AS/Avo) is 40 Atk, only likely to double Fortress Knights and one weirdly slow Paladin in Ch. 14 on Church routes, who he can't ORKO. With a Silver Lance+ and Tempest Lance, that's 58 Atk, which can get a couple of Mages and an Archer on that map. With Horseslayer+ Tempest Lance or Silver Lance+ Knightkneeler, he could get four Cavaliers but still can't get any Paladins, and with a Brave Lance+ he can pick up a Mercenary, a Warlock, and a Dark Bishop. However, his max Avo falls to 80 with a Silver Lance+, and a little bit lower with the other lances - Randolph and his Warriors are packing Lancebreaker+, and the extra weight puts most enemies on the map into doubling range (and thus ORKO range) against Ferdinand.

My point with the above snapshot is that even a standard version of the Ferdinand build isn't fully online in the late Lvl 20s, with the power to kill maybe a quarter of enemies or less and avoidance rates that are a bit on the unreliable side. Given that this is true, Lifetaker isn't yet worth it, since it isn't activating that often, and even when it does his personal still doesn't put him into safety. So, Lifetaker shouldn't be a priority when the rest of the build is also not ready. Once Swift Strikes (i.e. consistent ORKOing) and acceptable Avo that isn't destabilised by Swift Strikes has been achieved, is when Lifetaker should be introduced into the skillset. I suggested before that you could get to this point with Lvl 35 Ferdinand, so attempting to class into Dark Bishop around the time Ferdinand is aiming for Wyvern Lord would give you plenty of time to pick up Lifetaker before Lvl 35. 

Put another way, you normally wouldn't expect Alert Stance+ before Lvl 35, if not well after, and people price that in when they consider building a unit around it. Lifetaker is accessible earlier, but is most relevant for the latter part of Ferdinand's combat, so a build plan should treat it similarly. 

[FashionEmblem]

If you have the DLC, can you turn in seals at the Pagan Altar for some renown? I remember being able to turn in weapons, but am unsure of items. If so, maybe the dark seals can help you cross a threshold to unlock another statue bonus.

The Dark Mage line just does so little for you in gameplay. Poison Strike and Lifetaker are pretty meh. I find that with Maddening's depressed exp curve, there's usually enough time to master 2 intermediate classes before hitting level 20. Thus, if you want to avoid mastering a physical class (e.g., Archer for Hit +20) on a male mage, going for Poison Strike off Dark Mage is better than Miracle from Priest. Though, when you think about that a bit deeper, there are only 3-4 male mages in the cast—Hubert, Linhardt, Hanneman, and hybrid Lorenz. At the earliest, Hanneman joins you at level 15, so he just wants to focus on mastering Mage. Lorenz and Hubert both have Frozen Lance, so they can just go into Cavalier to spam it with mobility after mastering Fiendish Blow. That leaves Linhardt, who ultimately just wants to be a Physic/Warp bot, so he won't be getting much out of Poison Strike anyhow.

Then, pretty much no one wants Dark Bishop. Any character who learns black magic prefers Warlock to Dark Bishop (innate Fiendish Blow can't be stacked with the mastery, making it redundant and worse than Black Tomefaire, and Black Magic x2 >> Heartseeker). Of the five characters that learn dark magic, two learn a mix of black and dark (and would rather be in physical classes) and three are gender-locked out of Dark Bishop anyways. That leaves just Hubert, whose shallow white magic list and faith bane makes Bishop an unappealing alternative.

Except, I would rather use him as a Paladin spamming Frozen Lance. Hubert's spell list focuses on range instead of power (no Hades, no Luna), so he can easily get more damage out of Frozen Lance (even Dark Spikes can be mimicked with a Horseslayer). I find Paladin's increased mobility and Canto compensates well enough for the lost range, and the 17 base strength to offset more weapon weight doesn't hurt. And, if range is your preference, I honestly think Sniper can also be a better choice than Dark Bishop for Hubert. The class will bring him up to 17 base strength at level 20, and his 30% strength growth isn't much worse than the 35% strength growth of the canon student Snipers (who also struggle to get above 17 strength before level 20). He still falls behind them in physical damage since he likely gets Fiendish Blow instead of Death Blow, but Magic Bow will do crazy damage combined with Hunter's Volley. Of course, Arcane Crystals are hard to come by, especially on the shortened Crimson Flower, but you can get lucky finding them around the monastery or you can feed the animals with DLC or potentially buy them from other players with Switch Online. Honestly, maybe it even makes sense to get Death Blow for Hubert going Sniper; his Magic Bow will do lots of damage even without Fiendish Blow and he will be about as strong a Sniper as Ashe and Ignatz physically to use Silver and Killer bows.

The final insult to injury for Dark Bishop is that the one character who is inclined to use the class is exclusive to the route where you get the fewest Dark Seals. Without fighting the Death Knight after Chapter 8, you can get three seals pre-skip and are guaranteed one in Jeritza's inventory after the skip. Since unlocking Dark Mage is required to certify into Dark Bishop, Hubert requires 2/4 total available Dark Seals; really just feels like everything is stacked against Dark Mage/Bishop. At least they are fun classes to use in Three Hopes, even if Dark Bishop is an odd fit for Linhardt's preferred Master Class.

Edited December 21, 2022 by FashionEmblem