Yas Queen: Fire Emblem Three Houses: Crimson Flower Maddening

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Yas Queen: Fire Emblem Three Houses: Crimson Flower Maddening

Smiling Knight: May 31, 2011

Faillen Angel posted:

For what it's worth, DLC adds two more. Men and women get three each of same-sex, playable character S-ranks that end in marriage.

Hmm, but why do that when instead, I could S-rank ~~~~Gilbert~~~~.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2021 16:17

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 13:32

Smiling Knight: May 31, 2011

Eimi posted:

Having never played maddening, I always appreciate Byleth's solid growths because she's one of the few CF characters that can really take a hit, the other three being El, Ferdie, and Petra (she can't take a hit but she won't get hit). The rest of the crew feels REALLY flimsy, but then my Caspars have always sucked. Fortunately with DLC and creative recruiting you can close those tanky gaps, but it always felt like the achilles heel of the CF team and why Byleth feels so pivitol here.

Black Eagles absolutely have the toughest first few chapters on maddening for exactly this reason, imo. They have no one who starts with more than 6 defense. The Blue Lions, on the other hand, have Dimitri with 7 defense, Sylvain with 6 + 2 from his personal ability, and of course Dedue with his monstrous 8 + 4 from ability. Golden Deer have Raphael with 30 HP, 7 defense, and Leonie with 7 + 2 from ability.

These minor defense discrepancies might seem insignificant, but when most of your army is getting doubled by every enemy, and healing is limited, they make a huge difference (BE do have Dorothea for free healing, but it doesn't fully compensate for taking a lot more damage whenever you're luring enemies out unless you're standing around a real long time).

Caspar might the worst student character. He doesn't have the bulk to tank, doesn't have the strength to reliably two-shot like Dedue or Raph, but like them still gets doubled frequently and has poor Cha and authority. All he can do is go for the wyvern escape hatch, but wyvern salvages everyone in this game.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2021 13:23

Smiling Knight: May 31, 2011

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.

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.

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.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2021 18:42

Smiling Knight: May 31, 2011

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.

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.

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

# ¿ Oct 12, 2021 20:33

Smiling Knight: May 31, 2011

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?

# ¿ Oct 12, 2021 22:10

Smiling Knight: May 31, 2011

Raging Storm is unbelievably powerful, the best single unit ability in the game, but I do think that Dimitri's battalion wrath/vantage is not too far behind -- on demand almost invincible enemy phase that cleanly wipes even endgame enemies is really, really good.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2021 23:02

Smiling Knight: May 31, 2011

Natural 20 posted:

The issue I take with Battalion Vantage/Wrath is the degree of dedication it takes to obtain before Dimitri has his tantrum.

Broadly on New Game, either, you forgo Death Blow and Hit+20 on Dimitri to make him work during the tantrum, or you don't and he functions in the midgame.

It's very powerful but Dimitri feels like he's completely crippled before it. Actually it's more like he's crippled by his axe weakness and this helps him back from the brink.

Yeah, I did have to forgo Death Blow to get it set up, but once it gets rolling you don't need player phase. Hit +20 is totally doable though, that's only a couple weeks' worth of lessons. I didn't find Dimitri crippled before Vantage/Wrath either, he still has top of the line physical stats to fall back onto, along with Tempest Lance and enough Charisma to delete one entire dangerous enemy group with Blaze.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2021 14:35

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 13:32

Smiling Knight: May 31, 2011

Annette's early Rally Speed can help deal with the Chapter 4 Death Knight, at least, which is not nothing!

# ¿ Dec 1, 2021 16:35

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