Clawtopsy posted:

Petra hates the Imperial old guard, but seems to like Edelgard and the new guard plenty fine? I really don’t think it’s as dire as all that.

As for “come back with your shield or on it”, I don’t recall her ordering anything like that or saying anything like that, either.

Amppelix posted:

game's good, you should play it

unless you like absolutely cannot stand musous, i guess.

Tender Bender posted:

Endorph posted:

tbf theres some other stuff like that in the other routes. like claude saying 'btw dimitri died off screen' in golden deer with no fanfare and then hes just actually dead

Valentin posted:

yeah this is just kind of the three houses experience. very much a progressivelyworsedrawnhorse.jpg game. lots of promise early on that gets weighed down by the increasingly boring monastery loop/lack of production resources for certain routes/badly unbalanced writing (and then the deathblow, realizing you have to do white clouds four times if you want to see the rest), and a lot of it comes back to if you like the characters enough to balance that stuff out. That route absolutely gets the worst of it in many ways production-wise, though.

DrankSinatra posted:

Now that the weapons triangle isn't a thing, what does it mean to focus on a specific melee weapon? I'm playing Golden Deer and it seems like I have a lot of lance people, and so I moved a few character priorities to other things.

Also, I'm dumb and get decision paralysis in games where I can spec characters sometimes, if time ticks forwards irreversably. I spent the first two teaching sessions just kinda feeling out how stuff works, and how effective certain choices were (It seems like professor experience makes a huge difference). I have to assume I can't FUBAR things too badly if I haven't even done my first real battle, right?

Blastinus posted:

The thing is, while Byleth throwing himself in harm's way does seem like a stupid gesture, it's also a means of establishing that the character, despite seeming to be a blank slate, does have a significant character flaw of charging in without thinking. I think it's okay for a character to not always make the right decision in the heat of the moment, especially when Sothis calls him out for it in the very same scene.

quote:

- Ignatz rules hard. I've been a little lucky with some good STR growths but even without that the guy never misses which is insanely valuable against these dodgy jerks. Cannot wait for hunters volley.
- Lorenz has been doing solid work. He might fall off later but right now as a humble mage he does well and can take hits that Lysithea can't so I'm free to be risky with him. That's valuable imo.
- Balthus just seems like a better Raphael which is just cementing the latter's permanent guard adjutant duty later on. Plus he's canonical war monk guy and I want to try the dlc classes.
- Claude, Hilda, Lysithea, Marianne and Leonie are all very solid units for me. Nothing crazy like early game BL but just very good (Lysithea can be a little nuts).
- Byleth is a STR monster at the moment. In fact, I've had to unequip str+2 so other units can get exp since she often just ORKOs everything. Also pretty fast and I expect she'll be even faster once I cert into peggy which should be by the end of this chapter.
- Speaking of fast, holy poo poo Petra. Glad she comes as a thief because I forgot to get one and already noticed some things to steal in ch 6.
- Death knight was not scary at all, didn't even have dark spikes for ch 6.
- I'll hit A professor rank this month. I don't know if that's on curve or not but it seems pretty good.

quote:

- I definitely recruited Sylvain too early. There isn't enough to go around in the early chapters and he really got shafted alongside Raphael. It doesn't help that his growths have been pathetic, never above 2/level, and hardly any in strength (go train and quit playing around with girls dude).
- To that end I think I'm going to cut my losses and switch Sylvain over from flying to the cav line for earlier swift strikes. Sucks about the flying goal training he's been doing but it's not too bad. Plenty of time to get enough riding since I'm going to slow boat him a little with adjutant duty so he can get deathblow and hit+20 before paladin.
- I used Catherine a whole bunch in BL and I think it's a little dull to do the same thing twice in a row, so I decided to de-prioritize her compared to everyone else.
- I did the fortress knight cert trick for all the in house members + sylvain. While tanky Lysithea is funny I'm not sure it was worth doing for the mages since it came at an opportunity cost and anyone not name Lorenz is still likely to die. Also if they get hit it means I just need to play better.

Bluff Buster posted:

Hey, don't underestimate the Cavalry -> Paladin line. Sure you're not getting the flight or strength modifier of a Wyvern Lord, but it's still an 8 move unit with canto and lancefaire. Plus, grounded units tend to have access to better battalions than flying units. In fact, if you do Sylvain's paralogue, I believe you get one that gives stride and a lot of avoid. As long as he gets Swift Strikes, Sylvain can't possibly be a bad unit.

As for Magic +2 and Draw Back, I'd say it's always worth it on every magic unit. Mages aren't really starved for skills like physical units are anyway, and even non-offensive units get use out of it with extended range for support spells. Strength +2 is also nice to have if you don't have any other skills to equip, especially for someone using gauntlets. I still leave it on for some units even in the endgame.

As for the War Monk, uhh... you can try it out and it's not a terrible class, but I don't think you get much out of it either. Even though Balthus is supposed to be the premiere War Monk, he really doesn't have good magic or spells to make it better for him than say Warmaster or Grappler. Still, if you are leveling up Balthus' faith you might as well give it a shot and see how it works for you.

Sleng Teng posted:

What about spd+2? Petra already seems pretty fast but I think I could use swap in similar situations to shove. I really like the movement arts to be honest, I use canto reposition constantly.

Bluff Buster posted:

Honestly, I've never felt the need to get either Speed +2 or Swap. Darting Blow from Pegasus Knight usually covers the speed well enough, and +2 speed isn't as significant in Maddening when the fastest enemies will be way too fast for even Petra to naturally double. As for swap, I feel like it's the weakest repositioning art since you're replacing one unit in a bad spot with another unit in that same bad spot. I might be underselling Swap though; I have had times were map geometry and unit traffic prevented me from using Reposition, where Swap would have been useful, and Canto nullifies the weakness I just pointed out. It's up to you if that's worth it.

Also, I really wouldn't worry about the class growth rates, especially if you're trying to master classes. An extra 10% growth rate is just an average of one extra point over ten levels, and as you might have noticed, enemies have super stacked stats in Maddening that's only going to keep getting higher. As long as you focus on good abilities, gambits, battalions and combat arts, even characters getting unlucky level ups can perform well enough.

As for your Grappler vs. Warmaster dilemma, I generally think of Grappler as the better player phase class thanks to Fierce Iron Fist, the unique Combat Art for the class that hits three times, while the Warmaster does better during the enemy phase, especially if he also has some form of the vantage/wrath combo. Again, it depends on what you want your units to do.

Prurient Squid posted:

I think I'm going to get back into this game and play it on hard with permadeaths and no save scumming and just see where that gets me. Since I've forgotten literally everything about how the game works and how to buys swords and stuff and how combat works and how the routes diverge from one another, I expect to have a hard time.

edit:

So I bought the expansion pass for the first time. Also, I need my joy cons to recharge because I haven't used the Switch in a good long while. But I'll be playing the game soon enough.

Prurient Squid posted:

Well it's been a week since I made the post above and I played about 20m which was the opening cutscene up to the start of the tutorial fight.

I'm going to eat some sausages in baked rolls while my joycons charge and then actually play the game.

edit:

And, as I said above, I'm expecting to do terribly.

edit:

I'll go with Dimitri because I don't think I've done that before.

Zulily Zoetrope posted:

War Monk is a punch class with some magic, so it's good for strong classes who also have a spell list you like. It is also a punch class that allows girls. Balthus doesn't make the best headliner because he also has access to War Master and his spell list is just okay.

It is, however, a class that lets someone like Edelgard use magic without tanking her physical stats, and also she has the stats to tear people in half with her bare hands if that appeals to you.

Zulily Zoetrope posted:

War Monk is a punch class with some magic, so it's good for strong classes who also have a spell list you like. It is also a punch class that allows girls. Balthus doesn't make the best headliner because he also has access to War Master and his spell list is just okay.

It is, however, a class that lets someone like Edelgard use magic without tanking her physical stats, and also she has the stats to tear people in half with her bare hands if that appeals to you.

Amppelix posted:

War monk has both the coolest magic animations and the coolest brawling animations, so there's no reason not to just be in it all the time tbqh

Amppelix posted:

War monk has both the coolest magic animations and the coolest brawling animations, so there's no reason not to just be in it all the time tbqh

Blaziken386 posted:

the fashion's not great

Metis of the Hallway posted:

Hang on. Sorry but trickster finger gun animations are definitely the superior magic animations.