Board 8 > Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Too early for Edelgard for smash train?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Recruited Marianne for the first time. My pictured reaction:

https://pics.me.me/ive-only-had-arlo-for-a-day-and-a-half-18708349.png

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From everyone's impressions, it kind of sounds like the game would be better overall if the Church route didn't exist and they just put more of that effort into the Edelgard route?
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KamikazePotato posted...

Recruited Marianne for the first time. My pictured reaction:

https://pics.me.me/ive-only-had-arlo-for-a-day-and-a-half-18708349.png

Marianne is basically for me what Bernadette is for everyone else, it seems.
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I had the same reaction to Bernadette too, although it took a while because her Tragic Backstory(tm) is hidden behind some specific supports. She went from a meme character to a character I was genuinely worried for almost immediately when I saw those, yeesh.

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Bernadetta never clicked for me really. It's just too hard to treat her issues seriously when the writers themselves treat it like it's all a big joke more often than not.
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Also Marianne had this perfect dramatic timing for me where I did her B Support where she talks about not getting along with her house and asking you not to bother with her, followed by her shyly asking to join my house afterwards. And it was like, oh, I guess this girl must be protected at all costs.

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Mac Arrowny posted...

From everyone's impressions, it kind of sounds like the game would be better overall if the Church route didn't exist and they just put more of that effort into the Edelgard route?

Yeah, pretty much. While getting to Crimson Flower is shoddy writing, the actual route itself is pretty decent minus some polish issues.

You could chalk up the Agarthans getting off screened to the devs not thinking they could follow up the traditional FE Dragon Endboss. Now, they could have dealt with them before the final battle against Rhea, but meh.
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Panthera posted...

Bernadetta never clicked for me really. It's just too hard to treat her issues seriously when the writers themselves treat it like it's all a big joke more often than not.

She gets a lot of development in the Crimson Flowers route. Very different (and better) than what her character ends up as in the Church route.

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Random thought: I like this game the more I play it. I wasn't as high on it as the general fanbase was after my first route (going Church first didn't help...) but the more routes I do, the more I get to see how all the characters intertwine and the different perspectives they offer. I've gotten progressively more immersed in the world. Also killing characters you've gotten previously attached to is brutal and I love it.

EDIT: Another random though - the default map camera for missions is awful, what were they thinking? First thing I do every mission is zoom out and adjust the position.

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I was kinda disappointed in the killing characters aspect. It's like one line of dialogue and that's it. Feels way better to recruit more characters and get their unique route dialogue.
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I have reset this mission 8 times because Ashe can get a level up immediately and he needs some more strength. No dice so far. The things I do for my pet favorite characters.

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The zoom thing is dumb though yes. Even playing portable I still zoom out.
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KamikazePotato posted...

I have reset this mission 8 times because Ashe can get a level up immediately and he needs some more strength. No dice so far. The things I do for my pet favorite characters.

Level up gains are set in stone at the beginning of the level, or something like that, i think? So if you're just soft resetting you might not meet much success
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Peace___Frog posted...

Level up gains are set in stone at the beginning of the level, or something like that, i think? So if you're just soft resetting you might not meet much success

They're not, as long as you restart the mission it varies. I eventually got what I wanted but it took a while, and Ashe's Str growth isn't THAT bad so maybe there's behind-the-scenes RNG I'm not aware of.

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Oh so it's just if you use divine pulse when they're the same? Good to know.

But in my old age I'm too lazy to go through resets to get better results so
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Divine pulse is still great for saving bad level ups

Just undo their action and dont use them for the rest of the map lmao

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That's no fun

I got a lot of 2-stat level ups in my GD run and still barely had trouble with anything other than Marianne's paralogue
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Mac Arrowny posted...

I was kinda disappointed in the killing characters aspect. It's like one line of dialogue and that's it. Feels way better to recruit more characters and get their unique route dialogue.

The trick is recruiting certain characters that will have unique battle dialogue with non-recruited students. And it really only truly hits in a certain route.
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My Crimson Flower playthrough I just recruited everyone I could so there wasn't much chance for that.

(CF Chapter 14) Sorry Hilda. :(
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"Magic Attack Range +2"

:o

"May halve damage"

:(

Lorenz plz
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The Thyrsus?

It doesn't reduce *your* damage. If you have the right crest, it occasionally reduces damage against you.
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Oh.

They should really have made that clear, but I guess it didn't fit in the box??
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So...

Lorenz was already a God Dark Mage taking zero damage from any enemy attacks for reasons I can't figure out.

Now he has this in his way to Dark Bishop followed by Dark Knight...

Why is Lorenz so insane? I never heard any talk of him amongst the top tier discussion. Or did I just get some REAL lucky stats?
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You might just be lucky. Lorenz is solid but he suffers from being a bit too balanced to be great at anything specific. Lysithea for example may be less durable, but the main use of magic users in this game is as player phase nukes, and she absolutely shits on him offensively. Even factoring in that he can get Black Tomefaire from Warlock while she doesn't benefit from it (or that he can get double Fiendish Blow while in Dark Bishop while she can't) her magic will still beat his by enough to hit harder anyway, then she has Dark Spikes for wrecking horses and Luna for ignoring high resistance units, and she's also faster than he is (although the gap isn't that big since his better strength means he gets weighed down less). Lorenz being a durable mage is pretty nice but I'd rather have a more damaging mage.

Also, the Thyrsus isn't unique to him. Like all Relics, it can be used by anyone with a Crest, and anyone without a Crest can still use it, they'll just take 10 damage after combat for doing so. The only benefit the specific Crest holder gets is access to the unique Combat Art for weapons, and certain bonus effects like the Pavise/Aegis thing on Thyrsus. Most people put Thyrsus on Lysithea since she has the best magic offense, but you can give to any magic user with a Crest, or even one without if you don't mind healing them sometimes (or not? I've heard the damage can't actually kill, but haven't tested it personally)
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Hmmmm, I'll have to take it into consideration...mentally I don't know if I could tolerate putting a relic on the wrong character when then other is in the active party, just a personal thing, lol.

Loren in general is fascinating in supports to me, because when people buy into his balogna, like Ignatz and Marianne, he suddenly becomes an extremely different feeling character from when people aren't into his shit?
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LapisLazuli posted...

Hmmmm, I'll have to take it into consideration...mentally I don't know if I could tolerate putting a relic on the wrong character when then other is in the active party, just a personal thing, lol.

The way I see it, he shouldn't have told me to decide what to do with it! On all future playthroughs I will always recruit him just to unlock that paralogue because Thyrsus is so damn good even if I just leave him on the bench forever otherwise <_<
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My Lorenz was really tanky early on, both Def and Res, but that's faded over time. He's still has good Res, but just average Def. And his Str/Mag are also pretty even so neither is particularly great. That said he still has ridiculous HP. He's a goddamn mage and has more HP than my Raphael or Hilda.
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Lorenz suffers from an acute case of Not-Being-Lysitheaitis.
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I also think I'm having real bad luck with Lys, because she's level 17, and 7 or 8 of those levels have been 2 point growths.
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But she doesn't have time for failure!
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A damn lie.

She lives for failure.

Now this is counterbalanced with her already approaching A rank in both Reason and Faith, as well as a B+ in Authority, of course.
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Lysithea is in the running for best unit in the game, so yeah that's some unfortunate luck.

That's just Fire Emblem though. In my first run my Shamir got maybe 5 points of Speed over the course of 25~ levels.

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Lorenz is like top 10 in Growth Rates. His dump stat is luck too so he's pretty well rounded in general with his 350 total growth.

Edel> Dimitri> Claude=Ingrid=Byleth> Manuela> Seteth=Sylvain> Lorenz=Felix=Leonie> Petra=Hubert>etc

The lowest are Lysethia (280), Dedue (290), Raph (295), Glibert (300), Bernie (305). Edelgard has 105% growth rate on Lysethia.

Add that to his great flexibility, crest, Relic (Granted you can give it Lysethia or whatever you want to do.), his solid personal skill (+2 damage while in a battalion and his easy availability (Charm is easy to get, Reason is good on Byleth. He also is recruit-able post time skip on some routes if you missed him)

He's a very good unit.
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KamikazePotato posted...

That's just Fire Emblem though. In my first run my Shamir got maybe 5 points of Speed over the course of 25~ levels.

I've had four empty level ups in Three Houses. All of them on Shamir.

Still been good though. Bow Knight is just that good. Same with my Lysithea getting horribly speed screwed (if I counted right, she ended up 9 points below average) but still being great because her magic held up and that's pretty much all that matters because Thyrsus + high magic is just so bonkers. Honestly she could have had 1 HP and 0 Def/Res and still been a vital part of my team, I don't think a single attack got thrown at her the entire second half of the game anyway.
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I think I've had 2 0 level ups? 1 on Catherine and the other on Lysethia. Was kind of shocked on both of them really since they are both heavily skewed towards 3 stats. I might have had more tho.
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Bow Knight is completely busted. +2 Bow Range, 8 Movement, and Canto? It helps that there's a lot of enemies considered Flying in this game.

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It has really bad growth bonuses though. Like, beginner class level growths.
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If you're a Bow Knight you don't need growths.
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Claude / Ingrid supports have been amazing.
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https://kotaku.com/fire-emblem-hacker-makes-the-gatekeeper-playable-and-h-1837484315

Justice at last
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you guys what the fuck

my dedue keeps getting tiny boosts in level ups, and they're for shit like magic and res

damn you rng
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Snrkiko posted...

you guys what the fuck

my dedue keeps getting tiny boosts in level ups, and they're for shit like magic and res

damn you rng

SythaWarrior posted...

The lowest are Lysethia (280), Dedue (290), Raph (295), Glibert (300), Bernie (305). Edelgard has 105% growth rate on Lysethia.

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Dedue is that low? Geez, mine must be blessed. Dude gets HP and Def on every level plus Str more often than not. Bernie doesn't seem anywhere near that bad and Ashe feels like legit the most garbo unit I've ever seen in Fire Emblem. No joke he got 7 two-point level ups in a row.
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The fact that Dedue's are that bad but he's still a God beast a testament to him being the best character
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Xiahou Shake posted...

https://kotaku.com/fire-emblem-hacker-makes-the-gatekeeper-playable-and-h-1837484315

Justice at last

Bless
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LapisLazuli posted...

The fact that Dedue's are that bad but he's still a God beast a testament to him being the best character

The same can be said for Lysithea, but it still explains all those failures she has no time for.
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Oh, I see now. The overall growth rates dont paint a very clean picture. What really matters is where their rates are in the stats you care about, and Dedue with no class mods is already above 50% in all the stats he's likely to care about. Ashe by comparison has shit Str growth and really only naturally excels in Spd and Dex, while being so low in everything else because of an even-ish spread that even class mods will have you counting on luck for him to turn out worthwhile.
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oh good so it's not just me that ashe sucks for

im dropping him asap
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My Ashe turned out pretty good...after a bit of help. Was worth it. Bow Knights.

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Xiahou Shake posted...

Oh, I see now. The overall growth rates dont paint a very clean picture. What really matters is where their rates are in the stats you care about, and Dedue with no class mods is already above 50% in all the stats he's likely to care about. Ashe by comparison has shit Str growth and really only naturally excels in Spd and Dex, while being so low in everything else because of an even-ish spread that even class mods will have you counting on luck for him to turn out worthwhile.

Yeah overall growth totals are meaningless. Characters that try to balance physical and magical performance end up high in those while being inferior at either to units that do it naturally. Lysithea has the lowest growths in the game, but the best offensive growths for any magic unit (plus some very potent spells for things like Dark Knight nuking) so no one cares that she has bad growths in stats that she rarely has any reason to even use.

Though Dedue is a bad example since his speed is awful, and to top it off he's weak in flying so Wyvern is out for patching that up with its high speed base (Raphael can get into Wyvern Lord easily enough since he's neutral in flying, and Wyvern Lord will always have minimum 24 speed, so that automatically makes him outspeed the slow enemies and avoid being doubled by most of the mid-speed ones, so he's better off in the long run than Dedue despite an even worse growth)
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