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Restricting myself purely to gameplay commentary: Byleth - In my opinion, Byleth's biggest strength is their flexibility. They have three good skill aptitudes, no skill weaknesses, and reasonably good growths at everything. I tend to decide what I'm going to do with Byleth after deciding who the rest of my A-team will be, because there's nothing Byleth can't potentially do, and do well. Hubert - I think he's one of the least useful characters in the game, unfortunately, and probably could have been better if he packed more utility magic like Silence and Rescue. Or the siege magic he uses as an NPC in all the non-Edelgard routes. Three Houses, in my opinion, has a severe problem with many characters straight up being inferior to others, and I feel that Hubert is one of the worst offenders. On the other hand, if Edelgard's not on a wyvern, Hubert makes a terrific backpack for her due to providing linked attack boosts. Dorothea - I feel that making Dorothea your dancer is a waste of her talents, honestly. She's the only natural Gremory the Eagles have access to (yes, I know everyone treats poaching Lysithea as a given), and while her spell lists aren't spectacular they're plenty serviceable, so getting her double casts of everything is great. One thing the game also doesn't tell you about is that Dorothea is one of the select characters who has access to linked attack boosts with certain characters. Manuela as Dorothea's adjutant can do a lot to help Dorothea pack a bigger punch than she seems to on paper (Might +5, Hit and Avoid +15 at A support, plus Might +5, Hit +25 on gambits), or vice versa if you want to put Manuela to work as a Swordmaster or Assassin. Notably, Lysithea and Constance do not get linked attack boosts with anyone beyond the much weaker generics. Dorothea also gets linked attack boosts with Hilda of all people, which is just baffling considering you can't recruit Hilda on Edelgard's path and the two don't even have any supports to benefit the linked attacks anyway.
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Oct 9, 2021 19:59
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Poor Hubert definitely suffers from a bad case of 'worse than Lysithea, and also Constance if DLC'. You can stuff all the magic boosters into him and his spells end up capable of OHKOing enemies...but Lysithea and Constance can also do this, and have better utility spells to boot. He's at his most useful earlygame - very fast access to a 3 range spell, a better spell list than Lysithea pre-B ranks, and he can rush his lance budding talent to get Frozen Lance and start OHKOing enemies as soon as chapter 3 with a Steel Lance. A Bow boon for Archer to get the Hit+20 skill is kinda neat, but it's not that difficult to get to D+/C bows, and on a new game playthrough I feel the authority boon isn't quite as useful as on Melee focused units as higher level magic batallions are slower to arrive (and again, Lysithea and Constance also get this!). While I think Dorothea is a worse pure mage overall than Hubert (her Magic has never been good enough, at least from my playthroughs, to get to that level where she can OHKO enemies), her utility is at least different - between Physic, Meteor, Rally Charm and her personal skill, being outclassed by the powerhouse mages doesn't mean she's just left with nothing useful to do. I do find her personal skill frustrating sometimes though - I'm trying to keep Bernadetta below her max HP for her personal skill damnit!
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Oct 10, 2021 06:08
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The way I play, there are three characters I come down to for the job of dancer. 1. Lorenz - If I'm picking him up (probably for his Relic if I'm not the Deer), I feel that this is the most reliable way to make Lorenz a productive member of the team. Lorenz's growths are such that he tends to end up with beefy defenses and mediocre offenses, and his STR and MAG are often similar to each other. Give him a physical sword and a levin sword, and Lorenz makes for a dancer who can take a hit or two if he doesn't dodge them, if that's what you need. Potentially relevant to this LP, he also has linked attack boosts with Ferdinand. 2. Marianne - Silence is a wonderful tool to have, but I've never needed double casting charges' worth of it, and Blutgang fits nicely with how Dancers work in Three Houses. Marianne is also easy to keep topped up on HP without expending healing spells. And it's not like I've ever personally played a game without recruiting her. Oh, and she has linked attack boosts with Bernadetta for some reason despite them having no supports. 3. Flayn - Not relevant to an Edelgard campaign, of course, but Flayn offers a combination of Lily's Poise, Rescue, and a back pocket Fortify on top of dancing. That's a nice package of support tricks if you accept a Dancer who's probably never going to kill anything herself and don't want her to live in Byleth's coat pocket.
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Oct 10, 2021 12:42
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For whatever reason I just use dancer for sword avoid +20 and well Petra is easily the best candidate for that. Solves the CF frontliner issue since with it pretty much every enemy has at best a 20% chance to hit her, usually closer to 0.
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Oct 10, 2021 14:25
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Unit Reviews Ferdinand von Aegir  HP: 50% Str: 45% Lck: 40% Mag: 20% Def: 35% Dex: 40% Res: 20% Spd: 50% Cha: 40% Strengths: Sword, Lance, Axe, Riding Aptitude: Heavy Armor: Seal Speed: If unit damages foe during combat, foe suffers Spd -6 for 1 turn after combat. Personal Skill: Confidence: Grants Hit/Avo +15 when unit is at full HP. More Detail along with Rea's thoughts here: https://rhematic.net/fe3h_lp/updates/ferdinand/ Nat's Thoughts Ferdinand is a character that is more than he appears to be. On the surface he doesn't appear amazing, his growths aren't spectacular anywhere, running a speed coinflip and a weighted flip on his strength. His strength in all melee weapons apart from fists indicates that he wants to be a frontline physical melee unit, but his somewhat weak defense growth can get in the way of that as well and his heavy armour and riding proficiency strongly indicates that the game wants him to end up as a Great Knight. The problem is that Great Knight is an absolutely dogshit class, introducing armour weaknesses and taking movement away from the Paladin. So Ferdinand gets pigeonholed into either, becoming a wyvern lord like everyone else or never promoting out of Paladin. So what does he have going for him? Left in the role the game suggests, Ferdinand has an excellent combat art on lances at A, swift strikes allows him to brave with any lance for some brutal results, so if he comes out on the right side of strength he's going to be a monster on player phase. His sword Combat art, Sunder, is dirt cheap and runs a high crit chance as well. So he can be strong on player phase and he lacks any weaknesses which makes it easy to adapt him into new classes and roles. However, gamechanger for him is Dancer Ferdinand. Dancer grants sword avoid +20 when given to a character, meaning that they have +20 avoid with a sword equipped. Ferdinand's personal skill gives him another +15 avoid when he's at max HP. Since it's easy enough to train him in flying, he can also dip to get Alert Stance, which grants another +15 avoid if the wait action is used. Dancer Ferdinand is an absolutely amazing dodge tank and prior to the introduction of the Ashen Wolves, was easily the best combat dancer in the game, contesting Dorothea as the best overall dancer in the game. Following the introduction of the Wolves, Ferdinand's relative power fell somewhat. The Fetters of Dromi, which grant canto to the character that uses them were a bigger boon for support dancers than combat dancers, allowing the support units to get out of danger. The other problem is Yuri, who arguably is able to perform in the same dodge and speed tanking role better than Ferdinand, due to better overall growths and his own personal skill synergy. All that being said, we'll be using Ferdinand in his combat role in this LP and see if we can't find something exciting to do with him. The Plan Noble->Fighter->Archer->Brigand->Paladin->Wyvern Rider->Wyvern Lord Simple enough, dip into Archer and Brigand for Hit+20 and Death Blow, then to Paladin for Aegis. Wyvern Rider and Lord are there because technically they'll be the most effective classes for Ferdie but I'd also be happy enough sitting him in Paladin for the rest of the game.
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Oct 10, 2021 15:33
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Strength: I am Ferdinand von Aegir. Weakness: None.
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Oct 10, 2021 15:37
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The secret sauce to Ferdinand, in my experience, is bow knight. Yes, I know he doesn't have a strength in bows and doesn't get any unique bow arts. But he does have a strength in bow knight's support skills, solid physical growths (especially by comparison with the 'intended' archers), and Ferdinand has a quick route into brigand for death blow. Confidence is unusually good on an archer Ferdinand due to the accuracy issues that plague archers beyond the second tile, both offensively and defensively, and help him with the often frustratingly dodgy fliers in the game. He's also one of the characters I feel is hurt by the reintroduction of gender-locked classes. He doesn't pine for a gender-locked class quite as hard as Linhardt and Dimitri do, in my opinion, but there's no denying that pegasus knight would suit Ferdinand's talents remarkably well and he could totally pull off the miniskirt and cape.
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Oct 10, 2021 15:48
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Ferdinand is just like Subaki in Fates in that he's got a really cool personal skill makes him better in combat when at full HP, and then also comes with a high HP growth that frequently makes him lose said bonuses mid-combat. He always gets either the Prayer Ring or the Goddess Ring when I'm playing as him just because of how much that annoys me. Ferdinand's also just a swell guy. He's got a great personality combination of being a much better person than his introduction would have you believe, and yet he's also enough of a dork that it's fun to see him get clowned on by others. He's also one of the few characters who seems like he's got a valid reason to join you on every single route. No matter the circumstances, he is always Ferdinand von Aegir.
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Oct 10, 2021 15:57
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My first playthrough I made him a Hero. And regretted it. As I'd already used the Boots on Byleth, and being long before the Fetters existed, his low Move meant that he just never made it to combat.
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Oct 10, 2021 18:00
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Episode 03 - Familiar Scenery - With Hunt11 Updates will come a little slower now as my Metroid Dread LP starts tomorrow.
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Oct 11, 2021 00:40
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Oh man, I never DID quite realize just how heavy Edelgard is trying to lead you to the correct answer from this early on. You go, girl.
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Oct 12, 2021 00:29
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Back to Hubert for a bit, he also suffers from Dark Mage/Bishop being weird and janky classes that are supposed to be the male exclusive magic users that just...don't get there.
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Oct 12, 2021 16:54
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Back to Hubert for a bit, he also suffers from Dark Mage/Bishop being weird and janky classes that are supposed to be the male exclusive magic users that just...don't get there. They're also hamstrung by the existence of Fiendish Blow. Fiendish Blow is something you want on every single caster, no questions asked, and the Dark Mage line just doesn't compare to the advantage that Fiendish Blow gives you. Even if you're going to use Hubert, you're going to run him as a mage for Fiendish Blow, end of story. Doesn't help that the number of characters who would even conceivably want to enter Dark Mage is very limited. Hubert is the main one. Then you have Linhardt, who you probably want in his healer role more. Then there's Felix, Sylvain, Lorenz, Ignatz, and Hanneman. But the first four all have better things they could probably be doing, and Hanneman is, in my opinion, in the running for the mechanically worst character in the game. Then you have the fact that Poison Strike is forever one of those abilities that's annoying as hell when enemies have it and not much good in player hands, and Heartseeker is merely okay. I think Hubert (and Linhardt) contributes pretty heavily to my impression of the Black Eagles as the story route that expects and relies on poaching from other houses the most. I think they're mechanically probably the weakest lineup of the bunch (Raging Storm bullshit aside), and they don't have to deal with Reunion at Dawn. The Eagles, in my book, desperately need some of the talents the other houses have, probably more so than the Lions and Deer crave poaching in their own routes.
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Oct 12, 2021 17:03
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I never had a problem with Linhardt's spell list. He's a solid healer and warp is always great. Sure he's stuck as a Bishop but I never felt that was too bad. Well until Hapi was added who is just Linhardt but better since she can be a gremory.
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Oct 12, 2021 17:10
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Cythereal posted:They're also hamstrung by the existence of Fiendish Blow. Fiendish Blow is something you want on every single caster, no questions asked, and the Dark Mage line just doesn't compare to the advantage that Fiendish Blow gives you. Even if you're going to use Hubert, you're going to run him as a mage for Fiendish Blow, end of story. Agree that you only go Dark Mage for flavor, it's really unexciting for a secret special class. Hanneman is totally useable, I've got him in my Maddening CF run right now and he's pulling his weight without any favoritism. Maddening no mage doubles anyway (or at least it's really tough, one run I gave Lysithea Darting Blow and even then she doubled almost never), and Hanneman can blast away with his excellent spell list and high MAG stat. He can also use Thyrsus, which is nice in CF because Hubert and Dorothea lack Crests. Lastly, thanks to Meteor he can give Gambit Boost to any ally, which can be huge when you really need to boost Blaze's hit chance to neutralize a group of enemies. Be nice if he had a better faith list or female classes, but he's acceptable. I'd put him above like Alois, Caspar, Gilbert, maybe Manuela depending on how much you value an additional Warp user with poor MAG on your roster. Lin has Warp, high MAG, and Physic, which means he's always worth deploying regardless of the fact that his offense is uninspiring and he's realistically going to be locked to 4 MOV forever. Edit: yeah, agree with the above post that he is an inferior version of one the DLCs.
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Oct 12, 2021 18:42
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It's the 4 mobility that kills Bishop/Warlock/Dark Bishop as endgame classes for me. There's only one or two boots in the game, and a march ring precludes Thyrsus/Caudecus Staff/etc. Lin, in my book, only has Warp has something notable to his name. Dorothea, Mercedes, Ingrid, and Marianne also have Physic (and comedy option Bernie, who has shockingly good spell lists for a 25% MAG growth), and I never don't have Marianne. But I also feel that Warp just isn't as good in 3H as it is in many other Fire Emblem games outside a few cheese strats like the Fhirdiad in Azure Moon. And if you do really want Warp, well, there's someone much better at everything Lin does besides Physic around. Manuela, I've had consistently turn out pretty well. She's a victim of being objectively worse than Ingrid and Yuri, but her sky-high Charm growth means that she has meaty gambits on top of her high speed and sword proficiency as a swordmaster or assassin, and Dorothea offers her linked attack boosts to boot. Caspar and Alois, I've rarely had issues with. The thing to grasp about them is that they're not like Raphael or Dedue. They're more like Hilda, Edelgard, and Sylvain: meaty and reasonably quick fighters who can take a few hits. Alois also has linked attack boosts, and from a very useful character in Leonie. Gilbert's the other character I think of alongside Hanneman when it comes to the worst character in the game, agreed on that point.
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Oct 12, 2021 19:24
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Cythereal posted:It's the 4 mobility that kills Bishop/Warlock/Dark Bishop as endgame classes for me. There's only one or two boots in the game, and a march ring precludes Thyrsus/Caudecus Staff/etc. The issue with Caspar and Alois is that, on Maddening, they don't have enough speed to reliably avoid doubling, or to double anything slower than knights. Caspar has less strength than Hilda or El, and also cannot dip into Pegasus for Darting Blow, and unlike Sylvain, Ferdie, or Cyril they don't have automatic brave Combat Arts to give them strong player phases (I mean, Bombard for Caspar sort of counts, but not really because it's for gauntlets). And Alois, as a late joiner, is going to have to spend some time as a Adjutant backpack to pick up vital skills like Death Blow or the Archer's +20 hit. I think you're underestimating Warp as well. It's extremely good anytime you want or need to move quickly -- Remire, Sacred Tomb, lots of paralogues with vulnerable units (Mercedes/Caspar, Manuela/Hanneman, Annette/Gilbert, Felix, Hilda/Edelgard) or fleeing treasure (e.g., Sylvain, Claude). It's rare that I won't use both charges of whoever my Warp-user is, extra movement is just amazing. Smiling Knight fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Oct 12, 2021 |
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Oct 12, 2021 20:33
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Theoretically March Ring does work with Thyrsus, you just have to equipment juggle. Kind of tedious admittedly. Thyrsus is perfectly useable on non-crest mages. All it does it hurt you, it can’t kill. And late-game mages aren’t surviving poo poo with physical attackers anyways. So for Dorothea, it gives her a free if delayed activation of Defiant Mag. Hanneman is my favoured character for replacing an underperformer. Mages need very little stat to contribute to 2 shots on a unit, and Hanneman has the best balanced Reason spell book. And as said, mages don’t double anyways on Maddening.
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Oct 12, 2021 20:47
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Smiling Knight posted:I think you're underestimating Warp as well. It's extremely good anytime you want or need to move quickly -- Remire, Sacred Tomb, lots of paralogues with vulnerable units (Mercedes/Caspar, Manuela/Hanneman, Annette/Gilbert, Felix, Hilda/Edelgard) or fleeing treasure (e.g., Sylvain, Claude). It's rare that I won't use both charges of whoever my Warp-user is, extra movement is just amazing. I rarely use Warp at all, Stride and high-movement classes serve my needs pretty well. Many paralogues with vulnerable units, like Annette/Gilbert, don't have any need to rush if you understand the AI. Different tastes, I suppose. Keldulas posted:Hanneman is my favoured character for replacing an underperformer. Mages need very little stat to contribute to 2 shots on a unit, and Hanneman has the best balanced Reason spell book. And as said, mages don’t double anyways on Maddening. For me, it's Catherine. Fourdroyant Strike means that she can double anyone anytime, she has excellent bases and NPC growth because she's a swordmaster from level 1, no authority weakness so she can get good battalions quickly, and she has linked attacks from Shamir to boost her killing power further. I very rarely intend to use her at the start of the game, but she's been on the majority of my endgame teams by replacing someone who hasn't shaped up.
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Oct 12, 2021 21:04
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Stride does cover that same niche, that's a good point. I guess I don't use it too much because it feels more 'unfair.' Which is totally illogical, especially when instead I'm like warping battalion wrath/vantage Dimitri with a pre-injured battalion into the midst of enemies. Maybe because Warp was around in earlier games and Stride was not?
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Oct 12, 2021 22:10
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Unit Reviews Petra Macneary  HP: 45% Str: 40% Lck: 45% Mag: 25% Def: 30% Dex: 50% Res: 15% Spd: 60% Cha: 35% Strengths: Sword, Axe, Bow, Flying Weaknesses: Reason, Faith Personal Skill: Hunter's Boon: Grants Crit +20 when foe's HP is ≤ 50%. More Detail along with Rea's thoughts here: https://rhematic.net/fe3h_lp/updates/petra/ Nat's Thoughts It is hard to properly explain just how broken Petra is. She ranks among the top five characters in the game (in my opinion) in terms of what she can do, which is straight up annihilate most of Maddening's midgame. Across six chapters from 13-18 in Verdant Wind, Silver Snow and Azure Moon she will break the game in two; on her native route she's merely incredibly strong if not completely insane. So what's going on? On face Petra is your typical Myrmidon. She's fast, accurate but only has moderate strength growth with terrible defenses. On Maddening this is actually quite good to start off with. Her speed means it's very rare that anything will double her and that means that her low defenses don't matter too much because as low as they are, very few things will actually kill you in one hit in Maddening. Her personal skill has some use to it, she gets a lot of doubles so the second hit of those doubles tends to get the benefit. She ends up as a rather strong defensive piece on this difficulty as a result of her speed and her tendency to the Assassin line which helps sure it up and her strength in flying and axes mean that she can easily get into Wyvern Lord/Falcon Knight as she likes. That said, she's not taking two enemy defensive zones all that easily and if you simply looked at growth you'd notice her strength gain isn't all that hot, meaning she can end up doubling but failing to kill. Of course that ignores what breaks the game. Petra has a dex growth of 50% and a luck growth of 45%. This puts her combined growth at 95, just below Claude at 105 and tied for second best in the game, but of course Petra is a girl who can get Darting Blow. In Three Houses, critical strike chance is determined by this formula: (Weapon Crit) + [(Dexterity + Luck) / 2] + (Ability bonus) + (Equipment bonus) + (Battalion bonus), where ability bonus is the bonus you get from any skills you have. This means the average of your Dexterity and Luck Growth is your crit growth and Petra's is absolutely bonkers. There are two swords in Three Houses, the Wo Dao+ and the Cursed Ashiya Sword+ that grant 40 and 50 crit respectively and surprise surprise, Petra specialises in sword usage. The classes she leans towards going for, all generate significant bonuses to crit growth and Swordmaster in particular will grant Sword crit as a native ability. In Three houses, critical strike avoidance is determined by this formula: (Luck) + (Ability bonus). Even in Maddening most enemies dumpster their luck like it is going out of style. Realistically this means that Petra, with a crit sword and built for crit, will crit every single enemy in the game on every single hit she performs. As long as you even slightly manage or boost her strength, she will be monstrous. Nothing (human) will survive a single hit from her and if anything does, she's got the speed to double and crit them down. The only downside is that on Crimson Flower the Ashiya Sword isn't available so crit chances and power will be slightly lower than normal. This build has carried every single Maddening run I have done and Petra is the absolute best in the game at it. Well, except for maybe one other character. The Plan Petra is on the bench because I'm using the other character in my playthrough. Much as I love her, Petra doesn't have all that much that's interesting to say on Crimson Flower outside of a certain support that I really love.
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Oct 12, 2021 23:17
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Alternatively, consider how bonkers archers are in Three Houses and give Petra a Killer Bow+, or The Inexhaustible for guaranteed double hits with the potential for quadruple. I maintain that Bernie is actually the third-best archer in the Black Eagles despite being stereotyped as the house's archery specialist.
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Oct 12, 2021 23:24
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...poo poo, I just now realized that the reason Petra has a Celtic surname is because she's from one of the two places named after Jugdral characters, aka the setting that's nothing but Celtic references.
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Oct 13, 2021 02:15
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Stride covers the same ground as Warp which makes Warp not as batshit as the other games but it's still an incredibly tool. Caspar kinda sucks on Maddening. He needs to be able to one round kill anything he hits to be of use because he is almost never going to survive enemy phase, and there are far far better options to fill that niche. He has to get lucky on his growths to even be able to kill in one round. His best use is as an Armor Knight backpack. Alois is also mostly wretched on Maddening. He won't be able to kill much of anything and he sure can't take hits.
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Oct 13, 2021 03:14
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Petra can also 100% evade crap up to and including the final boss. She doesn't give any fucks.
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Oct 13, 2021 03:18
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Yeah Petra is completely insane. Maddening was my first time using her and she came out of nowhere to be a complete shitwrecker. She basically can perform on Maddening to the level of fan favorites like Rutger and Aira can perform on their games in Normal.
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Oct 13, 2021 04:27
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RevolverDivider posted:Stride covers the same ground as Warp which makes Warp not as batshit as the other games but it's still an incredibly tool. Also, don't forget about the Opera Company battalion. Having an extra dance in your back pocket, potentially on a horseback character, can be clutch.
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Oct 13, 2021 13:58
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Unit Reviews Linhardt von Hevring  HP: 30% Str: 30% Lck: 45% Mag: 45% Def: 30% Dex: 40% Res: 45% Spd: 40% Cha: 20% Strengths: Reason, Faith Weaknesses: Axe, Brawling Personal Skill: Catnap: If unit takes no action except Wait, recovers up to 10% of max HP. More Detail along with Rea's thoughts here: https://rhematic.net/fe3h_lp/updates/linhardt/ Nat's Thoughts Linhardt is serviceable, that's the best that can be said of him. He's the Black Eagle's healer, mirroring Marianne and Mercedes in the other houses. His spell list reflects this, with access to some of the better white magic spells in Physic and Warp. Physic especially allows him to support the Eagles through the midgame effectively and keeps him way out of the action they way he wants. Like all mages, on maddening he'll explode if anyone looks at him slightly funny. His Black Magic list isn't really anything to write home about though. Excalibur at A is the only really strong spell, good for exploding fliers, but other than that, Wind is actually a pretty good basic spell because of the accuracy on Maddening. Unfortunately there are problems. The first is that Lin suffers from being a man. No access to Dark Flier and Gremory limits him significantly in the endgame. Additionally early, as we've shown on this run, Dorothea does what he's intended to do better on the hard early maps. By the time he gets to physic there's a good chance you'll have managed to get Dorothea's faith in line and be on the way to getting her physic, but additionally you'll probably have poached a caster or two. (Especially given how easy it is to get Constance) Beyond that, there's little else to say. Lin isn't going to break the game, but you won't be owning yourself if you use him. The Plan Lin is being used early for healing charges, but he's quickly going to be replaced out. He saw a lot of play in Rea's LP (primarily because Adan married him) and like a lot of the Eagles, he's often less interesting on his own route than he is on others. We'll see a little of him later though.
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Oct 13, 2021 21:02
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One of the other shortcomings to Linhardt is how narrowly focused he is. Three Houses is an extremely open-ended game in terms of how you can build characters, I think to its outright detriment when it comes to making an interesting gameplay challenge, and most characters have a variety of ways you can conceivably go with them even if there's one or two clear paths. Linhardt... really doesn't. His stats in general aren't great, if fine for his intended job, but they also mean he has trouble branching into other roles. His skill aptitudes are fine for what he's intended to do, but again don't give him a leg up into anything outside the foot casters. Being a man he doesn't have access to the great caster classes, and in terms of spell selection he's a serious victim of other characters being capable of everything he is but better. Lysithea has Warp, Flayn and Annette have the wind magic lines, Stride makes Warp less amazing than it used to be, and Dorothea can cover the Physic need nicely. My first impulse when I made my one Crimson Flower campaign was to try to make Linhardt my dancer, but he starts off with a near-bottom ranked Charm score and has the lowest Charm growth in the game. When the time for the contest came, Linhardt wasn't capable of winning even with the practice boost to his Charm score. I like Linhardt as a character, but I've never had any success with the man as a serious unit on my roster. Any time I poach him, it's just for pairing purposes (and unlocking his paralogue with Leonie).
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Oct 14, 2021 21:18
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Unit Reviews Bernadetta von Varley  HP: 35% Str: 35% Lck: 25% Mag: 20% Def: 20% Dex: 55% Res: 30% Spd: 50% Cha: 35% Strengths: Lance, Bow Weaknesses: Sword, Axe, Brawling, Heavy Armor Aptitude: Riding: Pass: Allows unit to pass through spaces occupied by foes. Personal Skill: Persecution Complex: Grants Atk +5 when unit is not at full HP. More Detail along with Rea's thoughts here: https://rhematic.net/fe3h_lp/updates/bernadetta/ Nat's Thoughts Bernadetta is a fairly marmitey character. Some people think she’s one of the most outstanding units in the game, others don’t really care for her and this I also find runs true of her personality as well. So what’s going on with her? The first thing to talk about is Persecution Complex. A lot of people will swear by this ability and with good reason. +5 MT when not at full HP is excellent. It’s very easy to activate because if Bernie ever gets an HP growth in a map then she sits one below max and her complex comes online. This means that early, when you’re getting levels quite quickly, she’ll hit hard. You can even do some cooky stuff like running a fruit of life on her and having her eat it at the beginning of the map to gain +1 Max HP and increase her power. But the problem is that outside of Persecution complex, Bernie is not good. She has poor strength growth and speed that’s a coinflip. Crucially she’s running an Axe weakness so getting her into Brigand is a lot more work than you’d like it to be. There’s an out there maddening build based on Lance Bernadetta. Her lance combat art is Vengeance which scales damage based on missing HP. In theory if you get her to the right HP threshold, she becomes an absolute menace in melee, being able to oneshot large portions of the maddening enemy portfolio. For my money it’s more trouble than it’s worth, but Pegasus knight Bernie is not out of the question. The Plan Bernie is off the table for this LP. She got a lot of shine with Rea and like many of the Beagles, there isn't too much that's exclusive to her on her own route.
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Oct 16, 2021 17:21
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Vengeance Bernie is hilarious but she’s not a particularly spectacular unit on Maddening. I used her in CF Maddening but by midgame she was completely outshone by Shamir
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Oct 16, 2021 18:28
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I tend to pick up Bernie because I like her as a character but not use her in combat. Pegasus Knight Bernie's been my best experience with her, but in part because of something not mentioned: Bernie gets Pass via her hidden talent for riding. She's not a 'watch me solo half of Oath of the Dagger on the enemy phase' like you can build Ingrid to be (I've seen a video where Ingrid no joke deletes upwards of twenty units, on Maddening, during the enemy phase in Oath of the Dagger), but she can be serviceable. Also, my first Silver Snow game I made Bernie my dancer (she may be horrified when you pick her, but she blushes and sounds so pleased with herself when she wins) and she wound up killing the Death Knight in part two with a double crit on a rapier+.
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Oct 16, 2021 18:49
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Y'know, I've never actually looked at Bernie's growths before. That strength growth surprises me. I've been phenomenally lucky I guess, as every time I've used her she's turned out a monster, getting faaaar more strength than that growth would imply. She's the one who beat the Death Knight early on in my very first playthrough. But seeing those growths.... yeah I wouldn't take the chance on Maddening.
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Oct 16, 2021 19:52
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Bernie is plagued by the same problems the 3 archers all have. Their stats just suck. They have the worst bases with the lowest strength, worst defenses, and mediocre speed out of all your starting physical characters. So on Maddening, they don’t do damage, tank, or do utility. They’re not even good to poach because enemy Archer growths are bad, so they don’t get a boost at that point like the other kids do. Not helping the Archer you start with is that Curved Shot, while amazing, is really bad to start with. It might take your Archer from doing 4 damage to 5, wooooo. Meanwhile, the Lance users are doing a Tempest Lance for generally half-shorting enemies at worst due to Tempest Lance being the best. The axe users are using Smash to shore up their accuracy and hit reasonably hard, and the Sword characters are generally doing alright due to having the lightest weapons and therefore reasonably capable of doubling. Bernadetta has the best chance to dig her way out of the Archer hole, and most of the time I found Persecution Complex hard to activate and just putting her up to doing maybe ok damage. She’s having issues leveling due to doing bad damage, may not even get her HP up, and getting her injured usually means unequipping her weapon to avoid being doubled and letting someone whack her, which is bad for momentum and just feels dumb.
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Oct 16, 2021 23:40
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For a second I was a little confused with your statement about 'all' the archers having bad stats/strength growth. Then I remembered that the 'intended' archer for the GD is NOT Leonie, it's Ignatz. In which case I agree. No opinion on Ashe, as I to this day haven't done a BL playthrough. In regard to Curved Shot, it's actually amazing. It's not about the miniscule damage it gives, it's about the +1 range and increased accuracy. You use it to reliably chip down an enemy into the range that you can oneshot them with another character and not have to eat a counter. Or to finish off an enemy that's just barely hanging on.
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Oct 17, 2021 01:45
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I used Ashe in my one trip through CF, actually, because he sides with the Empire (well, with the Kingdom collaborators to the Empire) by default. Same with Lorenz. This is what I meant when I said that Bernie's the third best archer in the Eagles in my book. I think Ferdinand and Petra are just plain better for the job if you don't have another plan for them, and Persecution Complex is too finicky for my taste on a unit as fragile as Bernie tends to be. Keldulas posted:Their stats just suck. They have the worst bases with the lowest strength, worst defenses, and mediocre speed out of all your starting physical characters. I will defend Ignatz resolutely... but not as an archer. In my experience he's actually a really good swordmaster or assassin, doing the classic myrmidon thing with his sky-high luck, plus his authority boon means he's usually rocking one of the good battalions ahead of most of the cast.
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Oct 17, 2021 01:53
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The one run of Maddening I did of GD I used Ignatz as a healer and let him die on reunion at dawn because lol gently caress it, he was good bait to give me some breathing room and I had long since dropped him.
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Oct 17, 2021 02:03
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One of the biggest problems Bernie faces on Maddening is that it's extremely difficult to activate Persecution Complex safely early on, and without it, she's pretty dire without a bunch of good levels. She's one of my favorite characters in the game, but as a unit she has some real problems on Maddening.
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Oct 17, 2021 02:21
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Weeble posted:In regard to Curved Shot, it's actually amazing. It's not about the miniscule damage it gives, it's about the +1 range and increased accuracy. You use it to reliably chip down an enemy into the range that you can oneshot them with another character and not have to eat a counter. Or to finish off an enemy that's just barely hanging on. I did say that Curved Shot is amazing in my statement. In fact, literally every physical unit I run has a Bow and Curved Shot, since it's just D rank bows. Sometimes you just need a super accurate 2 range attack, sometimes you can roll the dice to land the 3 range. Edelgard hilariously in my CF run became extremely handy with it with a Steel Bow (despite the Bow penalty). It absolutely does nothing to help the designated Archers at the beginning of the game. theshim posted:One of the biggest problems Bernie faces on Maddening is that it's extremely difficult to activate Persecution Complex safely early on, and without it, she's pretty dire without a bunch of good levels. The most dire part about your statement here is imagine the situation with the archers WITHOUT that skill. Edit: And yeah, Leonie is broken. She has no business having defense that high, with speed that high, and still has adequate strength on top of that. Keldulas fucked around with this message at 09:26 on Oct 17, 2021 |
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Oct 17, 2021 09:21
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Unit Reviews Caspar von Bergliez  HP: 55% Str: 45% Lck: 40% Mag: 25% Def: 30% Dex: 45% Res: 20% Spd: 45% Cha: 25% Strengths: Axe, Brawling Weaknesses: Bow, Reason, Authority Personal Skill: Born Fighter: Adjacent foes suffer Avo -10 during combat. More Detail along with Rea's thoughts here: https://rhematic.net/fe3h_lp/updates/caspar/ Nat's Thoughts Oh Caspar. Caspar is here to punch people and occasionally bash their head in with an axe. To an extent this works, even on Maddening, gauntlets, with their brave effect are very good. My own playstyle, tends to shy away from them though. You can't brawl on a mount and I have stronger plans for what grounded characters can do. In theory Caspar can also try to act as an enemy phase wall, running quick riposte and wrath to dunk enemies with crits, but he runs into problems. Caspar's growths and statline don't really support what he wants to do on Maddening. He's actually quite fast; but often he's not fast enough to deal with the real threats on Maddening meaning his low defenses see the big single hit enemies power through him and the fast double hit enemies double him down. The weakness in authority really doesn't help either with Battalions being a great source of stats deeper into the game. And unfortunately for him, he doesn't have a crest or a personal skill that plugs this gap reasonably. So all you can do with him is run him as a Brawler and hope that he comes out okay with strength and speed. But the Brawler archetype in general results in a lot of issues around mobility in this game. The Plan Caspar's being subbed out. If i were playing super tryhard I would have used Balthus straight away, but I have another plan.
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Oct 17, 2021 12:27
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