Dodge tanking stands out on Ferdie because he's one of the few characters that gets a skill to boost Evasion, and it's his personal, so it's more flexible. Still probably not worth the effort, though, since dodge tanking is a tad unreliable. You also forgot a slightly viable meme build; Swordmaster! Astra is a garbage combat art, but when Ferdie uses it, it has a niche use. Each hit has a chance to activate his Crest and prevent a counter. I'm not good at the math, but I'm pretty sure the odds that the enemy can counter after he uses Astra is less than 50. I think Seteth gets it into the single digits. Anyway, it's only a slightly viable option because most enemies can be killed outright on Player Phase and don't need to be safely softened up. The only exception I can think of are monsters, since their health bars are so massive, so it gives Ferdie a very niche option as a Swordmaster.
For those wondering, here is the math. If MCoC can proc on any hit of Astra, which has five hits, then you have an 83% chance to prevent counterattacks: 1 - (0.7)^5 = 0.83193 ~ 83.2% For just Swift Strikes: 1 - (0.7)^2 = 0.51 For Seteth doing the same thing (Astra, then Swift Strikes or some other brave combat art), we get the following: 1 - (0.5)^5 = 0.96875 for Astra 1 - (0.5)^2 = 0.75 for Swift Strikes
I am currently doing my first no new game+ maddening run in Golden Deer and I recently finished chapter 13. Once I finish that, I really want to try using Ferdie in CF as a Dancer. I know this isn't something that everyone can do, but the Fetters of Dromi are a really good item for Dancers that have a Crest to avoid the extra damage. I already used Ferdie as Dancer with the Fetters of Dromi, and he was a fantastic dodge tank, but it was in a NG+ file so I don't know if it was truly that amazing. I also want to point out that the Spear of Assal is really good for him thanks to the extra healing he recives by it helping to maintin Confidence active
Heavy Armor training does have the benefit of helping female Byleth with her doubling. It's resource intensive, but Byleth is one of the best PP units in the early and midgame.
@@JonoabboFE wait, thank god it's at least decent... i'm doing BL maddening and after i saw constance and ferdinand's C support i knew I had to recruit him to see the rest of the storyline, even if it made my byleth awful haha
update: i’m near the end game now and ferdinand has made an amazing dancer. i gave him the secret transport force, sword avoid +15, alert stance, and sword prowess so he hits around 100 avoid innately, then i just put him in some bushes or something. he’s not as lethal as a battalion wrath unit because he can only kill with a rapier crit, but it’s fun and moderately useful when dmitri is off on the other side of the map. his enemy phase weakness is actually a strength if you like to grind as well, i set batlhus as an adjutant on him in order to master war master and raise 400+ points of brawling to get him to S+ oops. overall a very fun unit that i wouldn’t have used if i hadn’t seen this video!
Ferdinand is such a mix bag of a unit! There's really nice tools in his kit but also things holding him back. He starts with Tempest Lance but also painfully average bases. His personal makes him very reliable early even with steel weapons but it also creates situations where you want him on the frontline but also want to be extra careful with him since healing is a lot more limited in the beginning. He's good but at the same time he needs more effort to shine until he gets Swift Strikes.
If Ferdinand was a girl he'd probably be one of the best units in the game as a falcon knight. Incredible avoid on enemy phase and swift strikes in player phase would be so good.
Hilariously enough, he and Petra are getting insane level ups, I'm still at chapter 5 about to go for some auxiliary battles to master the beginner classes to start doing the intermediate ones. Edelgard's level ups so far are awful so when I heard him saying he is stronger than Eddie I fully believed him in this timeline lol.
In my current CF playthrough I've gotten a ridiculously stat blessed Ferdinand. he consistently leveled up speed and strength to the point where he doubled and killed most midgame enemies and a few late game enemies without swift strikes. I'm aware this is an outlier but it has kind of inflated my opinion of him.
Wyvern Rider also gives him Seal Defense which along with his Budding Talent Seal Speed and his solid evasion and accuracy makes him a decent debuffing dodge tank. I mean when you can't one round multiple enemies then debuffing them all is the next best thing, but most enemies aren't usually that bulky even on Maddening. But for deleting single targets Swift Strikes is the way to go of course or any of the Brave Weapons since Ferdie has no banes.
Ferdie is the heracles of three houses, he can be all type of physical unit, attacker, defender, buffer or debuffer, tanky or avoider, theres no frontiers on what you want of him, but, personally like more ferdie has a paladin, because for lancefaire and the boost of his stats are really balanced just like him
Ferdinand is the physical boon guy. He has a pretty easy time going from cavalier into Paladin and will be pretty happy staying in it. Minimum investment, decent outcome once he hits A rank. I also have a degenerate dodgetank build: wyvern lord Ferdi with Alert stance+, sword aoid +20 (yes going dancer only for this build), sword prowess lv.5, dodge ring and highest dodge battalion available.
I may restart it at some point! I have a new playthrough idea which is currently in the works, just ironing out the details of how I actually want to upload it.
My personal build for best boy Ferdinand Von Aegir is this: War Master ===== Vantage Dex +4 Wrath Close Counter Aegis Even if someone breaks Ferdie’s Confidence, you’ll be surprised how many Crits this man pulls out when in Wrath range.
Seems kind of unfocused--do we want him at full HP for his personal, or nearly dead for wrath but making his personal useless? Why bother with a bow-only skill on a class that grants bonuses to fist and axe, when you could either go sniper close counter or use axe/gauntlet for war master? I get making a balanced unit that's useful for a variety of situations, though.
Ferdinand was a monster paladin in my first playthrough so I was committed to not using him in my second playthrough. BUT someone said he makes a surprisingly good dancer so I decided to go for it. HE BECAME A MONSTER AGAIN. Seriously he was an unhittable dodge tank and somehow kept getting +7 and +8 level ups. He had the highest HP and strength in my team and took down Anna's paralogue alone with his training sword while Anna just hid behind him in stealth mode.
Does he need hit+20 if your using his personal (obviously if your wrathvaning thats different)? I admit double hit+20 on Ignatz is defiantly funny, same with Ferdy. In my experience it isn't necessary since a 114% chance to hit is still just 100% and increasing your hit further than 77ish% has significant diminishing returns due to how true hit works in this game. If you want to use lance against an enemy with lance breaker+ then sure it would help a lot but it would usually be better to free up an ability slot and use another weapon or unit to kill that Lance breaker+ enemy. Or maybe I'm just so insanely lucky that I can play this game on maddening without putting hit +20 on a single unit or thinking about how much accuracy battalions give me.
Hit +20 is never super mandatory, but I don't think there is much better from it. It's also worth noting that when calculating hit, you do have to factor in the enemies avoid. So for example, let's take chapter 12, Ferdie will have around 17 Dex (assuming around level 25, i used this random video as a baseline for levels th-cam.com/video/Ar8rM1snCKk/w-d-xo.html), plus 80 Hit from a Silver Lance +, plus 15 from Confidence, giving him around 112 hit. Lets throw in Lance Prowess 5 for 127, since you will have that by here too. Enemy Pegasus Knights have 29 Avoid from attack speed, 15 from LP5, 10 from Avoid +10, for 54 total avoid. 127-54 = 83 (94% True Hit), so this probably lands anyway, or the discrepency could be cancelled out with a Battalion, or, hit +20. Already at this early stage we see a minor impact, and it's worth noting that whilst Ferdie's hit will stay relatively consistent at this point, enemy avoid still has a lot of room to growroom to grow. If we jump a little further forward in the game, to around chapter 19, (around level 39, baseline vid = th-cam.com/video/-_i3_WDYwz4/w-d-xo.html), Ferdie's Dex will only be around 22, and the other factors here will be the same, for a hit of 132. However the enemy Falcoknights on this map have an attack speed of 47, avoid +10, and 15 from LP5, for an avoid of 72. This leaves Ferdie with just 60 hit, (68% True Hit), which is where we can really see Hit +20 having a major impact. It helps that it comes from archer, which is one of the better Intermediate classes anyway (imo the best after Pegasus Knight) , so it's not like it's a problem to be in the class to grab the skill. Sorry for the stupidly long reply, oops. Also, sorry if my level averages are a little off. I know I tend to rush through chapters and skip a lot of enemies more than most people so I usually try to use other sources for these.
@@JonoabboFE An Iron lance+(90hit) + swift strikes would probably be good enough to kill late game falcons but if it isn't there are more accurate lances like Gravidicus, Luin(both 90hit) and Sycthe of Serial(100 hit), giving a more reasonable 70-80 displayed hit(82-92 true hit). But being able to hit with a silver lance is a good backup plan in case your good lances are in Lysithea's pocket for some reason and she's on the other side of the map. You are forgiven for the long comment.
Id like to see a video on the frozen lance mages like Lysithea, Hubert, Lorenz. People talk up SS and PBV all the time, but you cam get Frozen Lance a lot earlier on these three and it effectively does the same thing, OHKO everything on Maddening. Marianne can even do it going from Mage -> Pegasus, skipping advanced and going straight Falcon. Its just absolutely insane lol
Great analisys, as usual! I use Ferdie as a tank and debuffer, and let the kills to the other units. Equiped with itens that revover HP , Confidence is more reliable, but lvl up still messing things up.
idk why this is showing up on my feed now years after i played 3H, but i still click. it's a good look into him but i think you conflated 'dodge tanking' with 'ep monster'. the former just indicates luring and soaking up attacks whereas the other goes beyond that and adds murder. when i used him as a dodge tank dancer/brawler/WL, i actually don't want him to kill on ep much at all due to the noted confidence and level up conflicts. he's a chip ep guy rather than dimitri ep guy. he survives well enough even when confidence drops or a lucky gambit hits as long as the build has gone far along enough...as long as you weren't too careless in positioning.
“Confidence deactivating” relatable
Mood
Dodge tanking stands out on Ferdie because he's one of the few characters that gets a skill to boost Evasion, and it's his personal, so it's more flexible. Still probably not worth the effort, though, since dodge tanking is a tad unreliable.
You also forgot a slightly viable meme build; Swordmaster! Astra is a garbage combat art, but when Ferdie uses it, it has a niche use. Each hit has a chance to activate his Crest and prevent a counter. I'm not good at the math, but I'm pretty sure the odds that the enemy can counter after he uses Astra is less than 50. I think Seteth gets it into the single digits. Anyway, it's only a slightly viable option because most enemies can be killed outright on Player Phase and don't need to be safely softened up. The only exception I can think of are monsters, since their health bars are so massive, so it gives Ferdie a very niche option as a Swordmaster.
For those wondering, here is the math. If MCoC can proc on any hit of Astra, which has five hits, then you have an 83% chance to prevent counterattacks:
1 - (0.7)^5 = 0.83193 ~ 83.2%
For just Swift Strikes:
1 - (0.7)^2 = 0.51
For Seteth doing the same thing (Astra, then Swift Strikes or some other brave combat art), we get the following:
1 - (0.5)^5 = 0.96875 for Astra
1 - (0.5)^2 = 0.75 for Swift Strikes
I am currently doing my first no new game+ maddening run in Golden Deer and I recently finished chapter 13. Once I finish that, I really want to try using Ferdie in CF as a Dancer.
I know this isn't something that everyone can do, but the Fetters of Dromi are a really good item for Dancers that have a Crest to avoid the extra damage. I already used Ferdie as Dancer with the Fetters of Dromi, and he was a fantastic dodge tank, but it was in a NG+ file so I don't know if it was truly that amazing.
I also want to point out that the Spear of Assal is really good for him thanks to the extra healing he recives by it helping to maintin Confidence active
Heavy Armor training does have the benefit of helping female Byleth with her doubling. It's resource intensive, but Byleth is one of the best PP units in the early and midgame.
True, Weight -3 can be somewhat useful, especially on F!Byleth with Darting Blow.
@@JonoabboFE wait, thank god it's at least decent... i'm doing BL maddening and after i saw constance and ferdinand's C support i knew I had to recruit him to see the rest of the storyline, even if it made my byleth awful haha
update: i’m near the end game now and ferdinand has made an amazing dancer. i gave him the secret transport force, sword avoid +15, alert stance, and sword prowess so he hits around 100 avoid innately, then i just put him in some bushes or something. he’s not as lethal as a battalion wrath unit because he can only kill with a rapier crit, but it’s fun and moderately useful when dmitri is off on the other side of the map. his enemy phase weakness is actually a strength if you like to grind as well, i set batlhus as an adjutant on him in order to master war master and raise 400+ points of brawling to get him to S+ oops. overall a very fun unit that i wouldn’t have used if i hadn’t seen this video!
Ferdinand is such a mix bag of a unit! There's really nice tools in his kit but also things holding him back.
He starts with Tempest Lance but also painfully average bases. His personal makes him very reliable early even with steel weapons but it also creates situations where you want him on the frontline but also want to be extra careful with him since healing is a lot more limited in the beginning. He's good but at the same time he needs more effort to shine until he gets Swift Strikes.
Agreed!
If Ferdinand was a girl he'd probably be one of the best units in the game as a falcon knight. Incredible avoid on enemy phase and swift strikes in player phase would be so good.
Just found your channel recently, very cool series. Love all the detail in these. Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much!
Just started CF Maddening and planning to make Ferdie a Wyvern Lord.
Definitely a great choice for him!
Hilariously enough, he and Petra are getting insane level ups, I'm still at chapter 5 about to go for some auxiliary battles to master the beginner classes to start doing the intermediate ones. Edelgard's level ups so far are awful so when I heard him saying he is stronger than Eddie I fully believed him in this timeline lol.
In my current CF playthrough I've gotten a ridiculously stat blessed Ferdinand. he consistently leveled up speed and strength to the point where he doubled and killed most midgame enemies and a few late game enemies without swift strikes. I'm aware this is an outlier but it has kind of inflated my opinion of him.
Petition to rename this video to "Breaking Down: Ferdinand VON AEGIR - Fire Emblem: Three Houses Ferdi Analysis"
Where do I sign?
like your stuff man
Thank you!!!
Wyvern Rider also gives him Seal Defense which along with his Budding Talent Seal Speed and his solid evasion and accuracy makes him a decent debuffing dodge tank. I mean when you can't one round multiple enemies then debuffing them all is the next best thing, but most enemies aren't usually that bulky even on Maddening.
But for deleting single targets Swift Strikes is the way to go of course or any of the Brave Weapons since Ferdie has no banes.
Ferdie is the heracles of three houses, he can be all type of physical unit, attacker, defender, buffer or debuffer, tanky or avoider, theres no frontiers on what you want of him, but, personally like more ferdie has a paladin, because for lancefaire and the boost of his stats are really balanced just like him
My Ferdinand ALWAYS ends up speed screwed, so ironically enough, Swordmaster class in SS really saved my bacon.
Thanks for another one 👍🏻
Thank you for the continued support!
NG+ ferdinand is a BEAST
Ferdinand is the physical boon guy.
He has a pretty easy time going from cavalier into Paladin and will be pretty happy staying in it. Minimum investment, decent outcome once he hits A rank.
I also have a degenerate dodgetank build: wyvern lord Ferdi with Alert stance+, sword aoid +20 (yes going dancer only for this build), sword prowess lv.5, dodge ring and highest dodge battalion available.
Such good content
Thank you so much!!!
Nice videos! Btw will you be continuing the "Unit roulette challenge"? The start is super fun !
I may restart it at some point! I have a new playthrough idea which is currently in the works, just ironing out the details of how I actually want to upload it.
@@JonoabboFE I used your rules as inspiration and I'm currently doing my own playthrough, I also randomized Byleth's gender and the route.
@@dariustubilda5053 I hope it goes well for you!!
My personal build for best boy Ferdinand Von Aegir is this:
War Master
=====
Vantage
Dex +4
Wrath
Close Counter
Aegis
Even if someone breaks Ferdie’s Confidence, you’ll be surprised how many Crits this man pulls out when in Wrath range.
Make him a warrior with the crit passive axe crit at s rank and then jeralts mercs for mor avoid and crit then throw him in the bushes
Seems kind of unfocused--do we want him at full HP for his personal, or nearly dead for wrath but making his personal useless? Why bother with a bow-only skill on a class that grants bonuses to fist and axe, when you could either go sniper close counter or use axe/gauntlet for war master? I get making a balanced unit that's useful for a variety of situations, though.
Ferdinand was a monster paladin in my first playthrough so I was committed to not using him in my second playthrough. BUT someone said he makes a surprisingly good dancer so I decided to go for it. HE BECAME A MONSTER AGAIN. Seriously he was an unhittable dodge tank and somehow kept getting +7 and +8 level ups. He had the highest HP and strength in my team and took down Anna's paralogue alone with his training sword while Anna just hid behind him in stealth mode.
Does he need hit+20 if your using his personal (obviously if your wrathvaning thats different)?
I admit double hit+20 on Ignatz is defiantly funny, same with Ferdy. In my experience it isn't necessary since a 114% chance to hit is still just 100% and increasing your hit further than 77ish% has significant diminishing returns due to how true hit works in this game. If you want to use lance against an enemy with lance breaker+ then sure it would help a lot but it would usually be better to free up an ability slot and use another weapon or unit to kill that Lance breaker+ enemy.
Or maybe I'm just so insanely lucky that I can play this game on maddening without putting hit +20 on a single unit or thinking about how much accuracy battalions give me.
Hit +20 is never super mandatory, but I don't think there is much better from it. It's also worth noting that when calculating hit, you do have to factor in the enemies avoid.
So for example, let's take chapter 12, Ferdie will have around 17 Dex (assuming around level 25, i used this random video as a baseline for levels th-cam.com/video/Ar8rM1snCKk/w-d-xo.html), plus 80 Hit from a Silver Lance +, plus 15 from Confidence, giving him around 112 hit. Lets throw in Lance Prowess 5 for 127, since you will have that by here too.
Enemy Pegasus Knights have 29 Avoid from attack speed, 15 from LP5, 10 from Avoid +10, for 54 total avoid.
127-54 = 83 (94% True Hit), so this probably lands anyway, or the discrepency could be cancelled out with a Battalion, or, hit +20. Already at this early stage we see a minor impact, and it's worth noting that whilst Ferdie's hit will stay relatively consistent at this point, enemy avoid still has a lot of room to growroom to grow.
If we jump a little further forward in the game, to around chapter 19, (around level 39, baseline vid = th-cam.com/video/-_i3_WDYwz4/w-d-xo.html), Ferdie's Dex will only be around 22, and the other factors here will be the same, for a hit of 132.
However the enemy Falcoknights on this map have an attack speed of 47, avoid +10, and 15 from LP5, for an avoid of 72.
This leaves Ferdie with just 60 hit, (68% True Hit), which is where we can really see Hit +20 having a major impact.
It helps that it comes from archer, which is one of the better Intermediate classes anyway (imo the best after Pegasus Knight) , so it's not like it's a problem to be in the class to grab the skill.
Sorry for the stupidly long reply, oops. Also, sorry if my level averages are a little off. I know I tend to rush through chapters and skip a lot of enemies more than most people so I usually try to use other sources for these.
@@JonoabboFE An Iron lance+(90hit) + swift strikes would probably be good enough to kill late game falcons but if it isn't there are more accurate lances like Gravidicus, Luin(both 90hit) and Sycthe of Serial(100 hit), giving a more reasonable 70-80 displayed hit(82-92 true hit). But being able to hit with a silver lance is a good backup plan in case your good lances are in Lysithea's pocket for some reason and she's on the other side of the map.
You are forgiven for the long comment.
Id like to see a video on the frozen lance mages like Lysithea, Hubert, Lorenz. People talk up SS and PBV all the time, but you cam get Frozen Lance a lot earlier on these three and it effectively does the same thing, OHKO everything on Maddening. Marianne can even do it going from Mage -> Pegasus, skipping advanced and going straight Falcon. Its just absolutely insane lol
Great analisys, as usual!
I use Ferdie as a tank and debuffer, and let the kills to the other units. Equiped with itens that revover HP , Confidence is more reliable, but lvl up still messing things up.
idk why this is showing up on my feed now years after i played 3H, but i still click. it's a good look into him but i think you conflated 'dodge tanking' with 'ep monster'. the former just indicates luring and soaking up attacks whereas the other goes beyond that and adds murder. when i used him as a dodge tank dancer/brawler/WL, i actually don't want him to kill on ep much at all due to the noted confidence and level up conflicts. he's a chip ep guy rather than dimitri ep guy. he survives well enough even when confidence drops or a lucky gambit hits as long as the build has gone far along enough...as long as you weren't too careless in positioning.
I mean, who also has now downside skills