My favorite Raphael spell has got to be Recpver, seeing as it is unique to him and attainable at only C faith, it really isn't too bad to try and raise his faith through singing practice and reclassing as a monk so he can heal while being a viable healer option in the early game. Trust me, the payoff for this spell is *well worth* the investment.
I'm currently doing a hard ng+ set-up file for ng++ maddening and raph (already has quick riposte level 1) is undeployed pumping faith for ng++ cleric/bishop res base boosts as well as level 1 quick riposte+ renewal(20% heal every turn). With healing focus(50% unarmed) this guy will rock socks off as a Wyvern Lord w/ Retribution and a super heavy axe.
@@dddmemaybe "And thus Sothis did say to Rhea; Behold for through new game plus all is possible, even winning with the Bishop Rafael I have given the" -Sothis 4:12-15
Honestly could have even been a full heal if you select the "wait" command impo. It would have been marginally worse than Dedue still, but makes sense as he takes a breather instead of rng. A materials gifting one would definitely be very fun to randomly get like a 3% chance for a speed carrot and shit like that, but needs a cap of ~x/week or someshit so aux spam isn't further reinforced.
It's funny when something pops up in your youtube algorithm from an author you've never seen, you spot it has barely any views and then the content is amazing. This should have far more views that it does, really good video.
As weird and suboptimal as it sounds, I had some success putting Raphael through monk>priest>bishop before ending as warmaster. He's a lot easier to level up as an additional healer in the early game.
Funny story, in my first ever play though I choose the Golden Deers, and trained Raphael the most, and in the end he ended up killing nemesis and became the MVP in most of my battles.
This video taught me about the automatic stat boosts at class promotions. Obviously I noticed that sometimes units gained stats but didn’t understand why that happened. Very appreciated. I opted not to go for Thief for Raph this time but it was a great idea for Constance because she was raising swords already
Protection Tanks are really good. I’m surprised they’re not more discussed. I guess because the classes most commonly used have such low mov but Raph is pretty effective in War Master. He would have been fine in Fortress Knight in this chapter since I strided and warped him into position anyway.
After playing through maddening BL and GD already and now doing a second run through GD and finally using Raph for something other than Rally Str and Ignatz adjutant, I'm inclined to agree. Defense stacking on armor Raph has worked really well so far in the first 6-7 chapters of the game; he's often taking anywhere from 0-4 damage x2 from any physical attacker, which is hilariously weak especially given his massive HP. I use Marianne purely for white magic, so she physics and also for silences mages that show the red line in trying to attack Raph. It seems to work so well. Can't wait to get him into war master to see how that goes.
Well I gave him a shield and a axe, and that made him capable to tank almost everything. After that you give him a chevalier adjudant, and he become a rock mocking enemy attacks. I also gave him a couple of res booster to complete him and he became one of my most reliable unit in maddening.
I personally ended up having him as my highest level character in my first golden deer run and being the first character I've ever had. Reach s Plus in any skill
I want to add that even if this is more niche, if you are dedicated to the Vantage/Wrath Combo then it’s actually much better to only Certify to Thief, Master Brigand, and then only go to the Hero class since it has a built in Vantage and all you would need is only Battalion Wrath. Because you’re freeing a skill slot and not having to worry about certifying for Wrath, you are able to give him even more skills and with Hero giving Defiant Strength when mastered it really bolsters his Enemy Phase. While you miss out on Axefaire and Axe Crit from Warrior, I think just having Vantage as a Class Skill is more than worth it since you’re able to give him Defensive Tactics, Death Blow, Battalion Wrath, Defiant Strength, and any one of the prowess Skills. Plus Hero’s base Speed of 14 can potentially give another +3 to Raphael’s speed and it’s class modifier of +2 Speed allows him to hit 16. While not the best ever it’s still really helpful to Raphael if he got unlucky with his level ups even after certifying into thief. Hero can work as an endgame class but honestly I feel it should be use as the fastest way to achieve the Wrath+Vantage Combo rather keep him there.
With Raphael I think the Tomebreaker skill also is very valuable in the grappler build especially if you also have brawl avoid +20. If you also have brawl proficancy lv.5 he gets 60% avoid against magic from abilities alone. This combined with his high def and HP makes him an excellent versatile unit which is how I like to see him. One that doesn't have any weakness and can one shot most weaker enemies.
Hi - I tend to use Serene's Forest serenesforest.net/three-houses/characters/base-stats/ serenesforest.net/three-houses/characters/growth-rates/ Thank you!!
i built mine as a weird tank, got him renewal, brawl avoid, tomebreaker, brawl prowess and quick reposite. a avoid battalion and ring. he now avoids all magic, and just heals everything else with renewal and healing focus
To be fair you can count the number of units that don't get doubled by enemies in the early game of maddening on one hand so his low speed is hardly a knock against him. I think the speed gain from theif certification is cool but vastly overshadowed by both the strength gain from brigand as well as death blow. The ability to one round enemies on player phase with gauntlets invalidates the speed problem except on enemy phase. If you find speed to be extremely important then a rally from Ignatz is there as well. It's hard to argue against getting such a generally useful skill like hit 20. I'd still say that if you don't want to grind or master both archer and brigand the just focus on brawling and authority. Rally strength is great in the early game and his liecester mercenaries battalion at b rank gives him 15 hit to offset the loss of hit 20. As you mentioned, he has pretty terrible charm, so rather than offensive gambits, I'd go with support gambits instead. Overall grappler. Very straightforward but extremely lethal crit build. Fistfaire, brawl prowess, brawl crit, death blow, (brawl avoid or QR if you don't have the dlc). He also has monster crusher, so there's that.
“I think the speed gain from their certification is cool but vastly overshadowed by both the strength of gain from brigand as well as death blow”. You’re not gonna stay in thief just certify for it for like 3 or 4 speed at level 10, you’re still gonna go brigand for deathblow. You get to keep the base stat increase outside the class
@@monkeydgaster yooo a response that gives me an excuse to talk to someone about fire emblem! You low key just made my day! I do see your point and I agree in some cases that unorthodox class paths for bases are extremely underrated. But speed in 3H maddening is not one of those cases IMO. Going armored knight at lvl 10 on someone like Ingrid is great because bulk will always be good. Speed is only good if you are within certain thresholds (avoiding a double or getting a double). To me at least, the heavy sword investment to get C rank AND then also get C axes for brigand/DB AND likely also archer for hit 20 (since it's widely considered a no brainer for basically any combat unit), it just seems like a lot of work for questionable at best gains. Especially considering the structure of the game. At LV 10 when you are sort of in that "tower of black winds" ish part of the game, enemies become a lot easier as you start to build better units. They also get slower due to steel weapons unintentionally nerfing them so at this point maybe raph gets some doubles here and there that he wouldn't otherwise but once you get past remire calamity and more maps and paralogues have silver weapons and inflated stats what good are those 4 extra speed bases when the long runway of growth won't see you gaining much speed organically? Once hunting by daybreak starts all bets are off lol 😂. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just asking isn't it generally better to build for strengths rather than patch up weaknesses?
Raphael really didn’t impress in the early game but I’m really enjoying him as a protection tank in the War Master class. Thanks for the recommendation to stick with him.
I have used defiant skills with Raph multiple times. I think Goody basket broke it once...in an auxiliary where defiant crit and strength is overkill anyways. When it does proc Raph has 1hp so goody basket helps a little bit sense he doest have Vengence. Goody basket isn't that bad, or Im just lucky?
@@Neonlight3934 Exactly, I don't get why people say "Raph doesn't have a personal" but when low health builds are brought up suddenly his personal actually does something.
@@selfsustainedautocannibalVampi because it cant be relied on to help you because its bad. But it adds a level of unreliability that other units simply dont have for wrath builds
@@selfsustainedautocannibalVampi it means you need to be at 40% hp or 15% hp it does it luck % to avoid it of the time so at least 10% of the time each turn. The problem ks that below 50% builds require setup and good basket can require you to have to set up again. Its a hurdle that needs to be accounted for. The question is why would you use a unit with goody basket for a low hp build when you can use a unit that doesnt have goodie basket
@@boserboser6870 You can use the Aegis shield, Rafile gem and other hero's relics to keep his Hp low like Rui Freire Suárez said. Raph has the highest strength out of all the characters without crests and a might support with Ignatz. His defence is high so might be able take hits from certain enemies and not get hurt (depending on how many defence boosters you give him). He has easy access to Wyvern lord and hero (for defiant crit and strength) as well as grappler for Fierce Iron Fist. Caspar, Dedue and Alois are good at that too but they are better in War Master because they both have Bombard or One Two Punch. So it depends on if you want a War Master or Grappler, both are good picks. Raph's luck isn't even that good so the chances of goody basket actually activating when needs his low health skills and he's at 40-49% or 15-24% hp is pretty slim.
I feel like Grappler is not great on Raphael as a _final_ class since he can flex Wild Abandon and War Master's strike in War Master for ~90% kill chance anyways while just being better overall. Not to mention there is still brave axes, and his deathblow+fistfaire (w/ +5 class strength) will still be lethal in the majority of cases without fierce iron fist being needed at all. You can just equip all the hp-threshold skills, wrath/vantage/quick riposte at once since they're all relatively easy to get in a final class case; with very high passive crit anyways. The killer weapon uses is heavy in many cases, but not expensive for your income at level 30+. If high hp, you hurt; they don't. Once they push you to low health, you hurt; they don't. You can even throw on a guard adjutant if the wrath crit is only ~70-90%. It's really not-much investment for a very potent dual phase unit for a scaling unit's sake. He basically just needs to hit level 30 and get some class exps and that's it; his reasonable bulk after level ~10-15 makes it pretty easy. Notably even a normally mandatory high crit battalion isn't even a strict necessity with that set-up, unlike your other enemy and dual-phase types it has a lot of baseline function in crit-rate/damage/bulk that's just innate at this stage.
I will usually make raphael my fortress knight. the only problem i have is fortress knights are extremely weak to any kind of magics and they go down so fast if hit with spells that hit more than once. I have yet to find a way to compensate for his magical resistances/weakness stat. I would like to keep him as my fortress knight but i may have to find a way to increase that stat before even making any kind of tank build.
While weakness to magic is something unavoidable for your average armored unit, you can either give him a guard adjutant to protect him from getting one shot or plant a bunch of red flower seeds for white verona (boosts res)
HARD disagree on that when an unlucky crit roll can set you back so far. I think her perf single handedly saved my run at the final map of maddening Azure Moon with a retribution battallion wrath vantage Dimitri and all those fucking siege tomes. That on top of her having Ward was immensely fucking helpful.
@@Korhi Yeah ok, in hindsight I gotta agree, in a map like that the personal skill is better than Raphael's is ever gonna be. I'll take a pretty niche, but specific use over practically no use at all
@@johannesboomsma4680 it's just a nice benefit to turn a slight crit chance on your EP unit into a 0% chance. Helps a lot with early DK kills too. Crits are fuckin annoying.
Probably my favorite entry in the series so far, I love it when weird strats like thief Raph get brought up.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate the kind words and I'm glad you are enjoying the series!
My favorite Raphael spell has got to be Recpver, seeing as it is unique to him and attainable at only C faith, it really isn't too bad to try and raise his faith through singing practice and reclassing as a monk so he can heal while being a viable healer option in the early game. Trust me, the payoff for this spell is *well worth* the investment.
To make him learn faith, the DLC class of Baltus seems a easier way to do it moreover because give magic to him is a waste.
@@Aureels I think I was joking but honestly Im not sure
I'm currently doing a hard ng+ set-up file for ng++ maddening and raph (already has quick riposte level 1) is undeployed pumping faith for ng++ cleric/bishop res base boosts as well as level 1 quick riposte+ renewal(20% heal every turn). With healing focus(50% unarmed) this guy will rock socks off as a Wyvern Lord w/ Retribution and a super heavy axe.
@@dddmemaybe "And thus Sothis did say to Rhea; Behold for through new game plus all is possible, even winning with the Bishop Rafael I have given the" -Sothis 4:12-15
Goody basket would have been okay if it got you random items for the greenhouse, or cooking materials
Honestly could have even been a full heal if you select the "wait" command impo. It would have been marginally worse than Dedue still, but makes sense as he takes a breather instead of rng. A materials gifting one would definitely be very fun to randomly get like a 3% chance for a speed carrot and shit like that, but needs a cap of ~x/week or someshit so aux spam isn't further reinforced.
It's funny when something pops up in your youtube algorithm from an author you've never seen, you spot it has barely any views and then the content is amazing. This should have far more views that it does, really good video.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!
As weird and suboptimal as it sounds, I had some success putting Raphael through monk>priest>bishop before ending as warmaster. He's a lot easier to level up as an additional healer in the early game.
I'm leveling him as a bishop... with a bow...hahaha
Not to mention this addresses his otherwise crippling Resistance stat.
Funny story, in my first ever play though I choose the Golden Deers, and trained Raphael the most, and in the end he ended up killing nemesis and became the MVP in most of my battles.
Love to hear it!
Very nice and thorough, I appreciate all the research and practicing you did for this video!
This video taught me about the automatic stat boosts at class promotions. Obviously I noticed that sometimes units gained stats but didn’t understand why that happened. Very appreciated. I opted not to go for Thief for Raph this time but it was a great idea for Constance because she was raising swords already
Balthus: Exists
Raphael: all right imma head out
Once you get the quick riposte and brawl avoid combo going, he becomes indestructible.
I want to buy him a bigger shirt that shirt is STRUGGLING to stay closed
Raph is just too wham for clothes.
i just made him my dancer bc sexy ancient greek outfit lol
I never thought of classing him into thief
10:20
You also have to go through the Myrdidon skill and the +2 speed is something Raphael really appreciates.
I'm just commenting to say I'm liking this series. 👍
I'd love to see an analysis on Leonie!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it!
Leonie would be a great one to do!
*Holy Knight Raphael*
Passive would of been decent-ish if it was 33% of his health and activation chance was 1.5-2 X luck stat
Recpver. I love this series.
Thank you!
This guy is Lysithea’s guard adjutant and he does a great job
Protection Tanks are really good. I’m surprised they’re not more discussed. I guess because the classes most commonly used have such low mov but Raph is pretty effective in War Master. He would have been fine in Fortress Knight in this chapter since I strided and warped him into position anyway.
After playing through maddening BL and GD already and now doing a second run through GD and finally using Raph for something other than Rally Str and Ignatz adjutant, I'm inclined to agree. Defense stacking on armor Raph has worked really well so far in the first 6-7 chapters of the game; he's often taking anywhere from 0-4 damage x2 from any physical attacker, which is hilariously weak especially given his massive HP. I use Marianne purely for white magic, so she physics and also for silences mages that show the red line in trying to attack Raph. It seems to work so well. Can't wait to get him into war master to see how that goes.
Well I gave him a shield and a axe, and that made him capable to tank almost everything. After that you give him a chevalier adjudant, and he become a rock mocking enemy attacks. I also gave him a couple of res booster to complete him and he became one of my most reliable unit in maddening.
I personally ended up having him as my highest level character in my first golden deer run and being the first character I've ever had. Reach s Plus in any skill
I want to add that even if this is more niche, if you are dedicated to the Vantage/Wrath Combo then it’s actually much better to only Certify to Thief, Master Brigand, and then only go to the Hero class since it has a built in Vantage and all you would need is only Battalion Wrath. Because you’re freeing a skill slot and not having to worry about certifying for Wrath, you are able to give him even more skills and with Hero giving Defiant Strength when mastered it really bolsters his Enemy Phase. While you miss out on Axefaire and Axe Crit from Warrior, I think just having Vantage as a Class Skill is more than worth it since you’re able to give him Defensive Tactics, Death Blow, Battalion Wrath, Defiant Strength, and any one of the prowess Skills.
Plus Hero’s base Speed of 14 can potentially give another +3 to Raphael’s speed and it’s class modifier of +2 Speed allows him to hit 16. While not the best ever it’s still really helpful to Raphael if he got unlucky with his level ups even after certifying into thief. Hero can work as an endgame class but honestly I feel it should be use as the fastest way to achieve the Wrath+Vantage Combo rather keep him there.
He has 50% Strenght Growth? Then how the hell do I keep getting screwed with that Stat when I use him?
I'm getting cammed over there
Recpver is my favorite faith spell.
It is really underappreciated, I barely ever see anybody talk about Recpver.
With Raphael I think the Tomebreaker skill also is very valuable in the grappler build especially if you also have brawl avoid +20. If you also have brawl proficancy lv.5 he gets 60% avoid against magic from abilities alone. This combined with his high def and HP makes him an excellent versatile unit which is how I like to see him. One that doesn't have any weakness and can one shot most weaker enemies.
is there a website that shows the growths and stats like you have above? Great video BTW instant like from me.
Hi - I tend to use Serene's Forest
serenesforest.net/three-houses/characters/base-stats/
serenesforest.net/three-houses/characters/growth-rates/
Thank you!!
i built mine as a weird tank, got him renewal, brawl avoid, tomebreaker, brawl prowess and quick reposite. a avoid battalion and ring. he now avoids all magic, and just heals everything else with renewal and healing focus
got him into healing(monk and priest), then war monk, then bishop/grappler, and then warmaster
Raphael video? Analysis as well!?!?! That's a sub from me :D
To be fair you can count the number of units that don't get doubled by enemies in the early game of maddening on one hand so his low speed is hardly a knock against him. I think the speed gain from theif certification is cool but vastly overshadowed by both the strength gain from brigand as well as death blow. The ability to one round enemies on player phase with gauntlets invalidates the speed problem except on enemy phase. If you find speed to be extremely important then a rally from Ignatz is there as well.
It's hard to argue against getting such a generally useful skill like hit 20. I'd still say that if you don't want to grind or master both archer and brigand the just focus on brawling and authority. Rally strength is great in the early game and his liecester mercenaries battalion at b rank gives him 15 hit to offset the loss of hit 20. As you mentioned, he has pretty terrible charm, so rather than offensive gambits, I'd go with support gambits instead.
Overall grappler. Very straightforward but extremely lethal crit build.
Fistfaire, brawl prowess, brawl crit, death blow, (brawl avoid or QR if you don't have the dlc). He also has monster crusher, so there's that.
“I think the speed gain from their certification is cool but vastly overshadowed by both the strength of gain from brigand as well as death blow”.
You’re not gonna stay in thief just certify for it for like 3 or 4 speed at level 10, you’re still gonna go brigand for deathblow. You get to keep the base stat increase outside the class
@@monkeydgaster yooo a response that gives me an excuse to talk to someone about fire emblem! You low key just made my day!
I do see your point and I agree in some cases that unorthodox class paths for bases are extremely underrated. But speed in 3H maddening is not one of those cases IMO. Going armored knight at lvl 10 on someone like Ingrid is great because bulk will always be good. Speed is only good if you are within certain thresholds (avoiding a double or getting a double).
To me at least, the heavy sword investment to get C rank AND then also get C axes for brigand/DB AND likely also archer for hit 20 (since it's widely considered a no brainer for basically any combat unit), it just seems like a lot of work for questionable at best gains. Especially considering the structure of the game. At LV 10 when you are sort of in that "tower of black winds" ish part of the game, enemies become a lot easier as you start to build better units. They also get slower due to steel weapons unintentionally nerfing them so at this point maybe raph gets some doubles here and there that he wouldn't otherwise but once you get past remire calamity and more maps and paralogues have silver weapons and inflated stats what good are those 4 extra speed bases when the long runway of growth won't see you gaining much speed organically? Once hunting by daybreak starts all bets are off lol 😂.
I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just asking isn't it generally better to build for strengths rather than patch up weaknesses?
Raphael really didn’t impress in the early game but I’m really enjoying him as a protection tank in the War Master class. Thanks for the recommendation to stick with him.
I have used defiant skills with Raph multiple times. I think Goody basket broke it once...in an auxiliary where defiant crit and strength is overkill anyways.
When it does proc Raph has 1hp so goody basket helps a little bit sense he doest have Vengence. Goody basket isn't that bad, or Im just lucky?
@@Neonlight3934 Exactly, I don't get why people say "Raph doesn't have a personal" but when low health builds are brought up suddenly his personal actually does something.
@@selfsustainedautocannibalVampi because it cant be relied on to help you because its bad. But it adds a level of unreliability that other units simply dont have for wrath builds
@@boserboser6870 How often does goody basket heal you above 50%/25% and break your defiant/wrath setups?
@@selfsustainedautocannibalVampi it means you need to be at 40% hp or 15% hp it does it luck % to avoid it of the time so at least 10% of the time each turn.
The problem ks that below 50% builds require setup and good basket can require you to have to set up again. Its a hurdle that needs to be accounted for.
The question is why would you use a unit with goody basket for a low hp build when you can use a unit that doesnt have goodie basket
@@boserboser6870 You can use the Aegis shield, Rafile gem and other hero's relics to keep his Hp low like Rui Freire Suárez said.
Raph has the highest strength out of all the characters without crests and a might support with Ignatz. His defence is high so might be able take hits from certain enemies and not get hurt (depending on how many defence boosters you give him). He has easy access to Wyvern lord and hero (for defiant crit and strength) as well as grappler for Fierce Iron Fist. Caspar, Dedue and Alois are good at that too but they are better in War Master because they both have Bombard or One Two Punch. So it depends on if you want a War Master or Grappler, both are good picks.
Raph's luck isn't even that good so the chances of goody basket actually activating when needs his low health skills and he's at 40-49% or 15-24% hp is pretty slim.
Raph just got MVP on the Great Bridge chapter. I didn’t even have Bat Wrath active. Quick Riposte is really good.
I feel like Grappler is not great on Raphael as a _final_ class since he can flex Wild Abandon and War Master's strike in War Master for ~90% kill chance anyways while just being better overall. Not to mention there is still brave axes, and his deathblow+fistfaire (w/ +5 class strength) will still be lethal in the majority of cases without fierce iron fist being needed at all. You can just equip all the hp-threshold skills, wrath/vantage/quick riposte at once since they're all relatively easy to get in a final class case; with very high passive crit anyways. The killer weapon uses is heavy in many cases, but not expensive for your income at level 30+. If high hp, you hurt; they don't. Once they push you to low health, you hurt; they don't. You can even throw on a guard adjutant if the wrath crit is only ~70-90%. It's really not-much investment for a very potent dual phase unit for a scaling unit's sake. He basically just needs to hit level 30 and get some class exps and that's it; his reasonable bulk after level ~10-15 makes it pretty easy. Notably even a normally mandatory high crit battalion isn't even a strict necessity with that set-up, unlike your other enemy and dual-phase types it has a lot of baseline function in crit-rate/damage/bulk that's just innate at this stage.
My favorite male character. I like meatheads in fire emblem.
I will usually make raphael my fortress knight. the only problem i have is fortress knights are extremely weak to any kind of magics and they go down so fast if hit with spells that hit more than once. I have yet to find a way to compensate for his magical resistances/weakness stat. I would like to keep him as my fortress knight but i may have to find a way to increase that stat before even making any kind of tank build.
While weakness to magic is something unavoidable for your average armored unit, you can either give him a guard adjutant to protect him from getting one shot or plant a bunch of red flower seeds for white verona (boosts res)
Yeah but you didn't mention dancer Raphael
In all my playthroughs, this guy's stat growths have always been an absolute disaster. Dancer's the only viable slot for him.
question: why do you avoid auxiliary battles? from the playthrough Ive seen(granted its little), you ahvent done any fight you didnt have to
Get him Renewal, Seiros shield, and Ukonsvara
The only personal skill worse than Raphaels is probably Manuela's
HARD disagree on that when an unlucky crit roll can set you back so far. I think her perf single handedly saved my run at the final map of maddening Azure Moon with a retribution battallion wrath vantage Dimitri and all those fucking siege tomes. That on top of her having Ward was immensely fucking helpful.
@@Korhi Yeah ok, in hindsight I gotta agree, in a map like that the personal skill is better than Raphael's is ever gonna be. I'll take a pretty niche, but specific use over practically no use at all
@@johannesboomsma4680 it's just a nice benefit to turn a slight crit chance on your EP unit into a 0% chance. Helps a lot with early DK kills too. Crits are fuckin annoying.
They just copy pasted the skill from Velouria which I think is lame
The Chad caspar vs. The virgin Raphael