|
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.
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2021 19:59
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 09:41 |
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2021 12:42
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2021 15:48
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2021 17:03
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2021 19:24
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2021 21:04
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2021 23:24
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 13, 2021 13:58
|
|
|
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).
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2021 21:18
|
|
|
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+.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2021 18:49
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2021 01:53
|
|
|
Ah, Caspar. Perpetually a victim of 'almost good enough.' Now, I genuinely do like using on-foot gauntlet troopers, but Dedue and Raphael have better non-speed physical combat growths and get the brave effect on gauntlets anyway. You could put Caspar on a wyvern, but Ferdinand, Petra, and Edelgard do that better (and Sylvain, and Hilda if you're not on CF). His trait sounds good for debuffing enemies, and there's definitely combo potential with Leonie there, but Caspar just rarely seems to pan out well. All told, he's probably the character I poach the least often in the game.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2021 20:19
|
|
|
To be honest... I think Constance is broken, in a bad way. One of my biggest gameplay issues with Three Houses is how the game's open-ended class development and ease of poaching makes many characters redundant when you can so easily get other, better options. The mages in particular suffer from this, Hubert and Linhardt are kneecapped immediately by not being women, and Annette can be quickly disregarded except as a rally bot. Everyone not named Lysithea and Marianne, in my book, struggles to provide a reason to pick them, whether it's Dorothea's access to Meteor or Mercedes' access to Fortify. And then here comes Constance who is just better again than Lysithea, herself already one of the most unbalancing characters in the game. Constance is emblematic of the reasons I dislike 3H's mechanical design of characters in general, and Cindered Shadows in particular. If you buy Cindered Shadows, you are making a conscious choice to make your character composition weaker by not getting Constance, which is trivially easy. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Nov 1, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2021 15:35
|
|
|
Natural 20 posted:They must have had a reason, even if it's lol sexism, I'd still like to know. With brawlers, at least, the earliest news about it in Japanese claimed that brawling was based on gladiatorial combat in-setting - their outfits show it, and in the Enbarr map you can see a big colosseum in the background. If I had to guess, I'd suppose it was an effort to differentiate characters despite how open-ended character options are.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2021 17:03
|
|
|
ApplesandOranges posted:The punchy dudes also suffer from this, since Balthus pretty much stomps Caspar and Raphael hard and the only thing Dedue has going for him is that his Personal is amazing for early game. Yeah. It speaks to my extreme disappointment with 3H's DLC in general. Plus how I feel like all of the Wolves are always two or three steps ahead of everyone else in the plot. 3H has a number of problems I wish it had gotten DLC to fix, instead of a story about something that I, at least, felt didn't need any additional explanation, a couple of overpowered new recruits (and they're all poorly written in my book), an overpowered new item or two, and four new classes that vary between meh and broken.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2021 01:17
|
|
|
Shamir is the only default archer I tend to actually keep as an archer unless I'm on Azure Moon. Besides being a crit machine, she benefits more than most from your dancer's attentions thanks to her personal and it's possible to fit her out as a murderous enemy phase trap for ranged units. And while it's not applicable to Crimson Flower, for anyone else taking notes for home in general, Shamir gets linked attack boosts from Catherine - herself an excellent unit who can be acquired at the same time unless you're the Black Eagles - whereas of the other archers, Ashe has no linked boosts and Bernie has no actual supports with the person she links with.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2021 02:32
|
|
|
Keldulas posted:And I guess you tend to think of Ignatz as an Assassin since he doesn't get mentioned? Yup. My best results from Ignatz have always been from treating him like a classic myrmidon type. I almost always deploy 2-3 archers in my a-team, and pick them from Shamir, Felix, Leonie, Petra, Ferdinand, and Lorenz. Or, if I'm on Azure Moon, Ashe or Bernie because Deadeye on a Bow Knight with Failnaught can snipe That Fucker on the final map from the starting room, instantly removing a huge headache.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2021 02:40
|
|
|
ApplesandOranges posted:Leonie's also generally sold as an 'archer' and I'm assuming you keep her as one. She's also a pretty darn good one since she gets a bonus from Alois support. Leonie defaults to cavalier/paladin, actually. Bow knight is just something she can also suggest you tutor her in. I pick up Leonie almost every game, and I usually use her as a bow knight, but I've also had a lot of success with Leonie on a pegasus. Leonie's already fast, and a pegasus makes her faster. It's not too hard to get Alois onto a wyvern to be her adjutant for linked attacks, her personal meshes nicely with the abundance of men who like to buzz around on wyverns, and you're guaranteed to get the Spear of Assal to give her a very strong non-Relic lance option.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2021 16:30
|
|
|
Natural 20 posted:From my view she is arguably the best physical unit in the game, competing with Claude and Edelgard in my mind. This is the only part of your post I disagree with. In my book, neither Claude nor Edelgard belong in a conversation about the best physical unit in the game. To me, that's a conversation about Dimitri, Felix, Catherine, Ferdinand, and Leonie. Dimitri's hamstrung by his awkward class path, Felix by his Authority weakness, Ferdinand by his personal getting off to a slow start (and Dimitri nay-sayers, note that Dimitri gets Ferdinand's personal baked into his own in part two), and Catherine by her pre-promote nature. And personality-wise, I love Leonie with everyone who's not Byleth. Along with Marianne, she's one of the characters I poach every run.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 18, 2021 21:27
|
|
|
ApplesandOranges posted:Wait you're knocking all those you list but what's wrong with Claude or Edelgard? Edelgard's growths just aren't great if you overlook her MAG and CHA. 55 STR, yes, but her HP growth is the same as Dorothea and Ingrid and Leonie, and her DEX, SPD, and DEF are all worse than iffy. Since it's nigh impossible to get her MAG working in concert with her STR, my experience with Edelgard is that her big saving graces are Raging Storm and that she's easy to put on a wyvern. Look past her MAG and her growths are very similar to Hilda: good, and a solid piece for the army, but not great. Then again, in my one CF game I was expecting her to get the Sword of Seiros that she has in every other route, and the Shield of Seiros that every other route gets (both of which are attuned to the Crest of Seiros which only Edelgard of the playable units has), so I made her a Dancer and worked on her flying with the goal of making her an immortal dodgy tank who would rapidly regen any blow that did hit her.  Claude just isn't great, in my experience, until part two. Even then, I find his main utility is in buzzing around constantly picking off weak enemies and troubleshooting due to the ridiculous threat range he presents. I've tried, a number of times, to make him a more direct combat unit and it's just never worked well.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 19, 2021 13:23
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 09:41 |
|
|
Clawtopsy posted:Like we know you dislike Edelgard but “she’s an overrated unit” is a heck of a spicy take on one of the arguably best, if not the best units in the game She has Raging Storm. Beyond that, I honestly just rate her as a second tier character. She's in the vein I place Ingrid, Petra, Seteth, Hilda, Shamir, and Claude (and on the magical side, Dorothea, Mercedes, and Marianne). A very good unit, but not the best outside her one unique trick. Yeah, she's an amazing wyvern. There's a lot of those. Her personal class is mediocre and she has extreme difficulty combining what I see as her particularly unique thing - her 50% or better STR and MAG - beyond the gimmicky role of Dancer, whose other unique property for combat doesn't apply if she's toting Aymr. Heck, Seteth arguably belongs in the top tier. Even in a hypothetical fifth route where everyone's on the same side, I just don't think I'd use Edelgard beyond the beagles' early game except for if she gets Raging Storm to abuse. The way I play, I do most of my killing in the enemy phase. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Nov 19, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Nov 19, 2021 21:09
|
|
