Man, I'm so late to this. I'd rank Ignatz a lot higher, in fact I'd argue he's basically essential in this route because of his stability earlygame. There's a lot of ways to play him effectively, but more generally, Hit +20 quite literally makes him your best offensive unit for quite a few chapters when enemies relative to your unit strength are strongest overall. Ignatz also gets a crapton of useful Rallies, not to mention Budding talent in Reason also is quite useful to get Seal Strength which can be really important for boss fights when your units might not always be strong enough to take counters. I'd probably also move Raphael up a tier because quite honestly it's nice to have at least one unit that has Heavy Armor boon in Maddening. Gauntlet boon also scales his damage pretty well midgame, but more importantly Raphael is probably the most practical option for mitigating enemy phase for Golden Deer house by virtue of his average stat spread as well as quick access to Armor Knight class. It's been discussed already but GD is definitely the one route where Male Byleth is better than Female. Too many earlygame combat bonuses when clumping with Hilda and Leonie to ignore, and the value of getting flying sooner I seriously doubt outweighs this if you're trying to Ironman. A lot of good Battalions can't even be used with fliers anyway, so it's not exactly all bad being landlocked.
All great points I agree with for the most part. I personally like using Ignatz and Raphael purely for their early game utility, but investing in them definitely pays off.
I'm of the mindset that besides Leonie and Lysithea, the best GD unit is Sylvain, recruited ASAP by F!Byleth. Sylvain is at his absolute best in GD, both in his own performance, and his overall synergy with the house. Sylvain perfectly fills a much needed niche in GD's early game, being a sturdy front line, to support Raphael's sometimes shaky usability. His innate combos marvelously with Leonie and Hilda for creating a very strong nucleus for harsh combat, and he can achieve some very impressive bonuses in an L formation with Hilda behind him, and Leonie beside him. +5 damage for existing is no joke, and a light weapon, plus shield, plus his bonus can make him take hilariously low damage for a Maddening unit. As far as building him, he again fills a very valuable niche; after Raphael drops off like a rock, or gets converted into a janky priest, Sylvain remains as probably the most all around durable unit in the house. You can use him as a classic mounted swift strikes spearhead unit, which frees up Leonie to invest into more hardcore bows, which I find works better for the lategame, or convert him into a front line healtank Holy Knight abomination thing that keeps the team alive while tanking and regenerating like a troll, or, if you're feeling extra spicy, make him your Dancer, get him the Dancer level advantage, combined with his overall great defensive stats, and end up with a unit that can facetank any spooky boss monster in the game, while giglio dancing in their face the entire time, backed by good enough Charm to not get sauced by Gambits, and hit his own. And then finally, despite having the certified Death Knight Killer in-house, getting the Lance of Ruin asap, and slapping that on Leonie makes DK question his life decicions even more than getting Chaos Dunked by Lysithea. Frankly, Sylvain is so good in GD, that I usually think of him more as a GD unit than a BL unit... something helped by him probably being at his weakest in BL. That also usually means I don't even consider M!Byleth for non-NG+ GD. There's no combination of advantages M!Byleth could possibly have that makes up for getting Sylvain early. I also find that generally speaking, Sylvain is a very low investment unit. He really doesn't need much in the way of limited resources to pull all of this weight in GD. I find he can end up a little Strength screwed, but even then, he's marvelous to convert more into a support and tank unit, letting you save boosters for others. Dancer goes well on him, I find a bit better than on most other GD house members, but he doesn't need it, if you have some plan for Dancer Hilda, or Torture Dancer Raphael. The only bad thing about Sylvain is that he isn't there for The Chapter That Shall Not Be Named. I don't think it's a huge deal, GD is in by far the best position to cheese TCTSNBN, and like I said, it's not like he's hungry for investment, but, still.
It's crazy to consider that as much as many advantages GD gives to M!Byleth compared to other routes, Sylvain alone heavily tilts the favor toward playing female
It’s a pretty helpful list. I have some minor disagreements here and there but for the most part see this being useful to most. I tend to agree with the other comment about M!Byleth being overall stronger than F!Byleth. I feel the flying utility isn’t as beneficial as having dual phase potential. As a male Byleth is able to use his brawling boon better than neutral swords/lances for F!Byleth, and with faster access to damage/crit skills once they reach S. I’d much rather have a flier that can one round K.O. such as Leonie with doubles or Bernadetta with Vengence. Chip damage is nice but outside of Windsweep, there’s not much that unique to her. Even before I had the DLC, I was a bit underwhelmed with F!Byleth and now she no longer has that potential for better avoid with the addition of brawl avoid +20. I know you briefly mentioned it, but think that its worthwhile to go into more detail about dancer Hilda, as she’s pretty unique with her siege magic support. Pre-DLC I was able to get her to A reason by the time the dancer event occurs so she’s able to unlock it in time with solo focus and the bonus is useful, especially given a specific roster. We more or less have Byleth, Claude, Leonie, Lysithea, as givens, at least one of the Swift Strikers users/Cyril, and say Balthus if you have DLC. Let’s say for the most part you’ve had the group together for a while, once they’re A supports unlock Hilda is providing 54-57 avoid/ hit to the team, 6 might (possibly 9 since from that group there are possibly 4 males) (She gives special bonuses to Claude and Balthus and can possibly get Advocate active too.) Yes she doesn’t have access to physic but even when it’s available, it rarely get used. And as opposed to Dorothea, she doesn’t have the riding bane, so movement +1 is reachable. It does comes at the cost of a physical unit, but it’s possible to recruit a similar unit. You do mention wrath battalion for Hilda, but besides her in the Verdant Wind route you have access to 8, 9 with DLC, potential battalion wrath users while no one else is able to give similar bonuses, Dorothea and even Constance don’t have her support list. Small shoutout to her seal speed budding talent which with her long distance magic/bow use helps for early stealing, like the ch 7 evasion ring as well. With a rally speed user and her, that 10 point swing makes it much more likely to happen.
I'm still not sure the difference between male and female Byleth either way is worth more than getting Sylvain asap. I find that Golden Deer REALLY appreciates the extra sturdy body on the field early on, since Claude really doesn't handle being on the front lines like Edelgard or Dimitri, and Raphael suffers from getting doubled by weird things, and so can't always be counted on to hold the line every turn. Sylvain also gets nice mileage out of getting instruction in very different stuff than his defaults, and can be pretty nearly tweaked and customized with early recruitment. You can always sac off students you have zero intention of recruiting to serve as your front line, buuuuut... That said, I also think I've managed to have overall disproportionately terrible luck with Byleth, since I have never once had a Byleth that was a top performing unit post timeskip, and have always wound up demoting them to heal monkey, convoy stooge, and chipper, so I may also undersell the differences in Byleth, since a lackluster support unit doesn't have much room to distinguish themselves either way.
I'd argue that M!Byleth's early game is better than F!Byleth overall. Not only does he get boosted by Hilda but he also boosts Leonie and can start working on his Brawling ranks as early as Chapter 1 thanks to Raphael having Iron Gauntlets in his base inventory. If there's one house where Male Byleth shines in the early game, it's in Golden Deer. I think you're selling Lorenz a bit short. If anything he's the second easiest unit to build after Claude since he starts with Tempest Lance and has all the right boons for Dark Knight which is the best magic class available to male units. He's very cheap to build even if his damage output isn't stellar. He's not amazing but he's definitely the opposite of "High Effort". I've always considered him a cheap investement for okay returns as long as he's going the mage route of course. I prefer fixing Hilda's hit rate by simply not using axes on her it's not like she has any particularly good combat arts for them. Dancer with Bolting is great but I'm a huge fan of Sniper Hilda. Bows makes it easy to use her personal skill and Seal Speed, it's easy to get into so she can work on getting B rank battalions (you get 2 great ones in GD from her paralogue and Raphael's) and it gives her a great Combat Art to use her great Strength to kill things reliably. I also really like her as a Swordmaster but that's a very unpopular opinion. As for Ignatz, even if Shamir outshines him in raw stats his better personal skill can still makes him worth using over her as a Sniper. He's the only male unit that gets Break Shot which means he's the only one that can use it with Poison Strike (easily accessible through his budding talent that also gives him Seal Strength.) and he's such a fun Bow Knight with that build. I'm not saying that he's the only unit that wants it but the Exp Gem will help him a lot keep up with the party in terms of levels.
Very interesting points, and I do agree with a lot of them. Like I said, GD is the one route where Male Byleth is viable and a lot of that has to do with Hilda. Though I still think the early game flying outweighs the early game damage boost that M!Byleth can make use of, but I guess it's just a matter of preference at that point. Lorenz definitely has a lot of good things going for him and he's no chump early game. But once you get into the intermediate classes, he'll really start being notably worse than the other GDs in their respective roles. Pretty solid early game unit but I wouldn't invest in him beyond that (except maybe dancer) since I find he falls short in a lot of areas. Grounded Hilda can make use of good battalions but I'm not entirely sure if the options you're providing are the ways to go. She doesn't have boons in either swords or bows, and on top of that you need to bring her authority bane up to B for the good battalions. Even without Hit+20, flying Hilda can just use Smash and have pretty good hit rates or at the very least just abuse Ashes and Dust. Axes might have poor accuracy on enemy phase otherwise but it's also important to remember that axe prowess gives the most accuracy out of the weapon skills. Finally I'm not sure if the personal skill makes Ignatz worth using "over" Shamir. He can certainly be used alongside her, but Shamir is too good to be outright replaced imo. Your first EXP gem is from the Hanneman/Manuela paralogue which is in Ch8, so Ignatz can't be -too- far behind if you want to use it to help him catch up. But if you have been using him extensively up to that point then there's no harm in doing so.
@@MrCactuar13 Yeah to me it's mostly comes from the fact that the most painful part of the early game is reaching the intermediate classes. After that your movement and stats starts catching up with the enemy. M!Byleth's advantages are more prominent during that time since they aren't inherently tied to a class. Also you get 3 good potential Pegasus Knights in GD you're not urgently in need of making Byleth one (like you would be in BL for example). Lorenz has a few nice things in his kit even he's far from having the best spells list. Ward makes him compete less for Exp and Recover is no Physic but it's still really nice to have, especially with the mobility of a Dark Knight. Swordmaster Hilda is kind of a gimmick build? It's the class that makes most use of her Crest since Astra is 5 hits. Definitely not for everyone but there's some swords that are worth using (Rapier, Cursed Ashiya Sword etc.)and personally I like using characters like her for them. As for Sniper she doesn't have a boon and yeah everyone can be a good Sniper but the class fixes just about every problems I have with Hilda as a unit. Most flying battalions either don't give Hit or very little of it and while her high Charm makes her a good user of Immortal Corps it's a Battalion any flying unit would want too. I just never been a fan of Axes on Maddening Mode outside of a few cases like Annette and Edelgard. Smash alone doesn't make me want to use an Axe user since it's mostly a gamble for crits on 1 single hit and that's not reliable enough for me. Also like I said, she doesn't have any amazing Combat Art in her kit. To me the Ignatz vs Shamir mostly boils down to she gets Hunter's Volley faster but once they both have it, the difference in stats shouldn't matter and Ignatz ends with an extra 20 Hit for the far away shots. I do agree that they're both worth using. A thing I like about Ignatz too is how versatile he is in terms of classes. Shamir seems tailor made to be a Sniper (maybe I just haven't found that one other thing she could do very well even if it's suboptimal) and she's the best one because of that but after multiple playthroughs I really appreciate when a few doors are open to a unit and you can do basically whatever you want with an extra Hit +20 for free.
I'm using quite a lot of your tips and from some other sources for my first maddening run and came up with some potential teams, now to see how far I get before I rage quit
Currently doing Golden Deer in Hard Mode. Leonie is definitely my stand out hero so far after 5 chapters. She has the highest defense in my group, regular doges and doubles, and can wield bows and lances. I think she is great.
No, I don't have any video capture software for Switch. The one clip of 3H I have on my channel was done through the native recording feature, but I'm obviously not uploading an entire playthrough 30 seconds at a time lol
ADENDUM ABOUT STUFF ON BAT WRATH: I forgot it only works on enemy phase so please keep that in mind about things I say for the relevant characters. TIMESTAMPS Intro: 0:00 Category descriptions: 3:57 Disclaimers/assumptions: 6:43 Golden Deer characters: 9:21 Repeating clip (woops): 26:45 Important recruits: 31:38 Out of house combat: 44:28 Utility: 54:30 High Effort: 1:03:20 Closing: 1:14:41 If you want to listen to a specific character just try to find them within the timestamp category otherwise this comment will be like 50 pages long
first i played normal (AM) as my first fire emblem playthrough. i then did hard (VW) and then upgraded to maddening (CF). yeah i got rolled in the early game but i persevered and beat it. upgrading from hard to maddening is a _big_ step.
I think that F! Byleth has a better early game due to Pegasus Knight like you said. But from my experience doing F!Byleth on Verdant Wind is that while she still remains useful as a flier, she doesn't really get that much better but at least as a Falcon Knight she can reliably dodge a lot of hits. I one time got her with Defiant Avoid and Alert Stance+ to the point where she has perfect avoid. M! Byleth I think has a better late game as you already said so overall I think M! Byleth feels more rewarding in the end if you like Quick Riposte. Of course F! Byleth can get Sylvain for free so that makes him as valuable as you want him to be. That said, I think you did a good job with your list. I gave Byleth the Cursed Ashiya Sword+ along with an Accuracy Ring and Cichol Wyvern Co. for consistent results in her one rounding enemies while remaining a dodge tank. My team in case you were wondering comprised of F! Byleth as a Falcon Knight, Claude as a Barbarossa, Marianne as a Dancer, Lysithea as a Gremory, Leonie as a Bow Knight, Ignatz as a Sniper, Hilda as a Wyvern Lord, Petra as a Assassin (I know it wasn't her best class per se but I didn't want too many fliers either), Felix as a War Master, Bernadetta as a Bow Knight, Dorothea as a Gremory and Seteth as a Wyvern Lord. In my case, Dorothea can provide siege tome support for Petra, Felix and Byleth. I had F!Byleth, Claude, Hilda and Seteth ride together as they can benefit from Sacred Power, Charm, Advocate and Guarding respectively so their stats would get a buff when adjacent. All four of them were fliers that had great synergy together.
Thanks for the input and the discussion! I think VW can get away with 5 fliers if you use the C Rank Alliance Wyverns but 4 is perfectly good. That flier synergy between the 4 you mentioned is just too good.
@@MrCactuar13 it is quite good yes. Hilda and Seteth also gets B. Wrath like Claude too. I usually pair it with Alert Stance +. As for Byleth having Sacred Power, that’s the ability I use when flying together with a few allies. Or a filler skill like Swordfaire for instance if I want her to fly solo. Lance prowess also is nice for added accuracy and Lancefaire as a class ability too. So if you’re looking to fly solo she could rock both Swordfaire and Lancefaire on the same set along with the defiant avoid setup like I mentioned before.
When I recommended 9 core units, I didn't necessarily mean the ones in your house. It's meant to be a mix of in house units and other recruits. I fully expect to bench units that are there to provide chip damage/rallies. My bad if that wasn't clear in the video.
give claude sword avoid +20 from dancer, alert stance, wyvern lord and batt wrath and he's able to solo 99% of maddening, nothing can hit him and he kills everything and you can get that build pretty early, barbarossa is a mistake imo.
@@MrCactuar13 Stride warping fliers to clear chapters in 2 turns is an even bigger meme though, and outside that extremely broken strat nothing in VW beats avoid claude juggernauting, which you can easily setup byCh9 or 10 so I don't really see how's that's a "meme" outside obviously obsessing with LTC and warp shenanigans to skip maps, he even has insane charm to dodge gambits. Although I will say EP builds are a lazy skilless way of playing the game, stride warp skipping is just as bad and hurts player learning even more, and you can still have claude juggernaut rooms with honestly very little investment while having a team full of PP units anyway.
@@HenriqueRJchiki I never said EP builds are bad, I even recommend plenty in this guide. I just think specifically focusing on sword avoid just hurts the team overall to marginally boost one unit. Even with EP focused strategies why would you give up your best support unit just to lock someone into using arguably the worst weapon type in the game. You don't even get a dancer until chapter 10, that's not "99% of the game". Claude doesn't need an extra +20 avoid to get single digit dodge chances, Alert Stance+ is good enough. Which by the way if you're doing Wyern Lord sword Claude means you're splitting attention between axe, lance, sword, flying, and authority meaning you slow down progress on AS+ and Bat. Wrath. You get Failnaught for free in Ch13 for crying out loud, Claude doesn't need to train for other weapons. There's nothing wrong with Barbarossa. As for Stride-Warping I already gave my rationale for why it's not as detrimental as you'd think and it's because of the EXP curve hitting hard past a certain point. My most recent run was a draft with only 9 units and Claude EP solo'd at least half the part 2 enemies, he was still only level 42 by endgame. A couple extra levels isn't going to suddenly to make certain stat benchmarks possible, cooking and gardening stat boosters are by far and away the best method to boost stats. Most of your training is going to be in part 1, and once units get to their final class (advanced or master) most of your levels beyond that don't matter nearly as much as the first 20. Otherwise Stride-Warping solves the biggest headaches with the least risk, you're much less likely to lose progress to unfortunate RNG or misplays. I'm not saying Stride Warp is the only way to play the game, but you have to at least acknowledge that they're still powerful tools in their own right and should at least factor into your core strategies.
Man, I'm so late to this.
I'd rank Ignatz a lot higher, in fact I'd argue he's basically essential in this route because of his stability earlygame. There's a lot of ways to play him effectively, but more generally, Hit +20 quite literally makes him your best offensive unit for quite a few chapters when enemies relative to your unit strength are strongest overall. Ignatz also gets a crapton of useful Rallies, not to mention Budding talent in Reason also is quite useful to get Seal Strength which can be really important for boss fights when your units might not always be strong enough to take counters.
I'd probably also move Raphael up a tier because quite honestly it's nice to have at least one unit that has Heavy Armor boon in Maddening. Gauntlet boon also scales his damage pretty well midgame, but more importantly Raphael is probably the most practical option for mitigating enemy phase for Golden Deer house by virtue of his average stat spread as well as quick access to Armor Knight class.
It's been discussed already but GD is definitely the one route where Male Byleth is better than Female. Too many earlygame combat bonuses when clumping with Hilda and Leonie to ignore, and the value of getting flying sooner I seriously doubt outweighs this if you're trying to Ironman. A lot of good Battalions can't even be used with fliers anyway, so it's not exactly all bad being landlocked.
All great points I agree with for the most part. I personally like using Ignatz and Raphael purely for their early game utility, but investing in them definitely pays off.
I'm of the mindset that besides Leonie and Lysithea, the best GD unit is Sylvain, recruited ASAP by F!Byleth. Sylvain is at his absolute best in GD, both in his own performance, and his overall synergy with the house.
Sylvain perfectly fills a much needed niche in GD's early game, being a sturdy front line, to support Raphael's sometimes shaky usability. His innate combos marvelously with Leonie and Hilda for creating a very strong nucleus for harsh combat, and he can achieve some very impressive bonuses in an L formation with Hilda behind him, and Leonie beside him. +5 damage for existing is no joke, and a light weapon, plus shield, plus his bonus can make him take hilariously low damage for a Maddening unit.
As far as building him, he again fills a very valuable niche; after Raphael drops off like a rock, or gets converted into a janky priest, Sylvain remains as probably the most all around durable unit in the house. You can use him as a classic mounted swift strikes spearhead unit, which frees up Leonie to invest into more hardcore bows, which I find works better for the lategame, or convert him into a front line healtank Holy Knight abomination thing that keeps the team alive while tanking and regenerating like a troll, or, if you're feeling extra spicy, make him your Dancer, get him the Dancer level advantage, combined with his overall great defensive stats, and end up with a unit that can facetank any spooky boss monster in the game, while giglio dancing in their face the entire time, backed by good enough Charm to not get sauced by Gambits, and hit his own.
And then finally, despite having the certified Death Knight Killer in-house, getting the Lance of Ruin asap, and slapping that on Leonie makes DK question his life decicions even more than getting Chaos Dunked by Lysithea.
Frankly, Sylvain is so good in GD, that I usually think of him more as a GD unit than a BL unit... something helped by him probably being at his weakest in BL. That also usually means I don't even consider M!Byleth for non-NG+ GD. There's no combination of advantages M!Byleth could possibly have that makes up for getting Sylvain early.
I also find that generally speaking, Sylvain is a very low investment unit. He really doesn't need much in the way of limited resources to pull all of this weight in GD. I find he can end up a little Strength screwed, but even then, he's marvelous to convert more into a support and tank unit, letting you save boosters for others. Dancer goes well on him, I find a bit better than on most other GD house members, but he doesn't need it, if you have some plan for Dancer Hilda, or Torture Dancer Raphael.
The only bad thing about Sylvain is that he isn't there for The Chapter That Shall Not Be Named.
I don't think it's a huge deal, GD is in by far the best position to cheese TCTSNBN, and like I said, it's not like he's hungry for investment, but, still.
It's crazy to consider that as much as many advantages GD gives to M!Byleth compared to other routes, Sylvain alone heavily tilts the favor toward playing female
nah man poaching characters is cringe me and the homies do in house only.
It’s a pretty helpful list. I have some minor disagreements here and there but for the most part see this being useful to most.
I tend to agree with the other comment about M!Byleth being overall stronger than F!Byleth. I feel the flying utility isn’t as beneficial as having dual phase potential. As a male Byleth is able to use his brawling boon better than neutral swords/lances for F!Byleth, and with faster access to damage/crit skills once they reach S. I’d much rather have a flier that can one round K.O. such as Leonie with doubles or Bernadetta with Vengence. Chip damage is nice but outside of Windsweep, there’s not much that unique to her. Even before I had the DLC, I was a bit underwhelmed with F!Byleth and now she no longer has that potential for better avoid with the addition of brawl avoid +20.
I know you briefly mentioned it, but think that its worthwhile to go into more detail about dancer Hilda, as she’s pretty unique with her siege magic support. Pre-DLC I was able to get her to A reason by the time the dancer event occurs so she’s able to unlock it in time with solo focus and the bonus is useful, especially given a specific roster. We more or less have Byleth, Claude, Leonie, Lysithea, as givens, at least one of the Swift Strikers users/Cyril, and say Balthus if you have DLC. Let’s say for the most part you’ve had the group together for a while, once they’re A supports unlock Hilda is providing 54-57 avoid/ hit to the team, 6 might (possibly 9 since from that group there are possibly 4 males) (She gives special bonuses to Claude and Balthus and can possibly get Advocate active too.) Yes she doesn’t have access to physic but even when it’s available, it rarely get used. And as opposed to Dorothea, she doesn’t have the riding bane, so movement +1 is reachable. It does comes at the cost of a physical unit, but it’s possible to recruit a similar unit. You do mention wrath battalion for Hilda, but besides her in the Verdant Wind route you have access to 8, 9 with DLC, potential battalion wrath users while no one else is able to give similar bonuses, Dorothea and even Constance don’t have her support list. Small shoutout to her seal speed budding talent which with her long distance magic/bow use helps for early stealing, like the ch 7 evasion ring as well. With a rally speed user and her, that 10 point swing makes it much more likely to happen.
I'm still not sure the difference between male and female Byleth either way is worth more than getting Sylvain asap. I find that Golden Deer REALLY appreciates the extra sturdy body on the field early on, since Claude really doesn't handle being on the front lines like Edelgard or Dimitri, and Raphael suffers from getting doubled by weird things, and so can't always be counted on to hold the line every turn. Sylvain also gets nice mileage out of getting instruction in very different stuff than his defaults, and can be pretty nearly tweaked and customized with early recruitment. You can always sac off students you have zero intention of recruiting to serve as your front line, buuuuut...
That said, I also think I've managed to have overall disproportionately terrible luck with Byleth, since I have never once had a Byleth that was a top performing unit post timeskip, and have always wound up demoting them to heal monkey, convoy stooge, and chipper, so I may also undersell the differences in Byleth, since a lackluster support unit doesn't have much room to distinguish themselves either way.
This was an amazing guide and you deserve way more viewers for this.
Thank you so much! Honestly I'm surprised this video is still tracking so many views long after its initial upload
I'd argue that M!Byleth's early game is better than F!Byleth overall. Not only does he get boosted by Hilda but he also boosts Leonie and can start working on his Brawling ranks as early as Chapter 1 thanks to Raphael having Iron Gauntlets in his base inventory. If there's one house where Male Byleth shines in the early game, it's in Golden Deer.
I think you're selling Lorenz a bit short. If anything he's the second easiest unit to build after Claude since he starts with Tempest Lance and has all the right boons for Dark Knight which is the best magic class available to male units. He's very cheap to build even if his damage output isn't stellar. He's not amazing but he's definitely the opposite of "High Effort". I've always considered him a cheap investement for okay returns as long as he's going the mage route of course.
I prefer fixing Hilda's hit rate by simply not using axes on her it's not like she has any particularly good combat arts for them. Dancer with Bolting is great but I'm a huge fan of Sniper Hilda. Bows makes it easy to use her personal skill and Seal Speed, it's easy to get into so she can work on getting B rank battalions (you get 2 great ones in GD from her paralogue and Raphael's) and it gives her a great Combat Art to use her great Strength to kill things reliably. I also really like her as a Swordmaster but that's a very unpopular opinion.
As for Ignatz, even if Shamir outshines him in raw stats his better personal skill can still makes him worth using over her as a Sniper. He's the only male unit that gets Break Shot which means he's the only one that can use it with Poison Strike (easily accessible through his budding talent that also gives him Seal Strength.) and he's such a fun Bow Knight with that build. I'm not saying that he's the only unit that wants it but the Exp Gem will help him a lot keep up with the party in terms of levels.
Very interesting points, and I do agree with a lot of them. Like I said, GD is the one route where Male Byleth is viable and a lot of that has to do with Hilda. Though I still think the early game flying outweighs the early game damage boost that M!Byleth can make use of, but I guess it's just a matter of preference at that point.
Lorenz definitely has a lot of good things going for him and he's no chump early game. But once you get into the intermediate classes, he'll really start being notably worse than the other GDs in their respective roles. Pretty solid early game unit but I wouldn't invest in him beyond that (except maybe dancer) since I find he falls short in a lot of areas.
Grounded Hilda can make use of good battalions but I'm not entirely sure if the options you're providing are the ways to go. She doesn't have boons in either swords or bows, and on top of that you need to bring her authority bane up to B for the good battalions. Even without Hit+20, flying Hilda can just use Smash and have pretty good hit rates or at the very least just abuse Ashes and Dust. Axes might have poor accuracy on enemy phase otherwise but it's also important to remember that axe prowess gives the most accuracy out of the weapon skills.
Finally I'm not sure if the personal skill makes Ignatz worth using "over" Shamir. He can certainly be used alongside her, but Shamir is too good to be outright replaced imo. Your first EXP gem is from the Hanneman/Manuela paralogue which is in Ch8, so Ignatz can't be -too- far behind if you want to use it to help him catch up. But if you have been using him extensively up to that point then there's no harm in doing so.
@@MrCactuar13 Yeah to me it's mostly comes from the fact that the most painful part of the early game is reaching the intermediate classes. After that your movement and stats starts catching up with the enemy. M!Byleth's advantages are more prominent during that time since they aren't inherently tied to a class. Also you get 3 good potential Pegasus Knights in GD you're not urgently in need of making Byleth one (like you would be in BL for example).
Lorenz has a few nice things in his kit even he's far from having the best spells list. Ward makes him compete less for Exp and Recover is no Physic but it's still really nice to have, especially with the mobility of a Dark Knight.
Swordmaster Hilda is kind of a gimmick build? It's the class that makes most use of her Crest since Astra is 5 hits. Definitely not for everyone but there's some swords that are worth using (Rapier, Cursed Ashiya Sword etc.)and personally I like using characters like her for them. As for Sniper she doesn't have a boon and yeah everyone can be a good Sniper but the class fixes just about every problems I have with Hilda as a unit. Most flying battalions either don't give Hit or very little of it and while her high Charm makes her a good user of Immortal Corps it's a Battalion any flying unit would want too. I just never been a fan of Axes on Maddening Mode outside of a few cases like Annette and Edelgard. Smash alone doesn't make me want to use an Axe user since it's mostly a gamble for crits on 1 single hit and that's not reliable enough for me. Also like I said, she doesn't have any amazing Combat Art in her kit.
To me the Ignatz vs Shamir mostly boils down to she gets Hunter's Volley faster but once they both have it, the difference in stats shouldn't matter and Ignatz ends with an extra 20 Hit for the far away shots. I do agree that they're both worth using. A thing I like about Ignatz too is how versatile he is in terms of classes. Shamir seems tailor made to be a Sniper (maybe I just haven't found that one other thing she could do very well even if it's suboptimal) and she's the best one because of that but after multiple playthroughs I really appreciate when a few doors are open to a unit and you can do basically whatever you want with an extra Hit +20 for free.
I'm using quite a lot of your tips and from some other sources for my first maddening run and came up with some potential teams, now to see how far I get before I rage quit
Good luck on your run and take things easy!
Almost thought you forgot Lorenz.
Currently doing Golden Deer in Hard Mode. Leonie is definitely my stand out hero so far after 5 chapters. She has the highest defense in my group, regular doges and doubles, and can wield bows and lances. I think she is great.
Did you ever record a maddening playthrough for TH-cam?
No, I don't have any video capture software for Switch. The one clip of 3H I have on my channel was done through the native recording feature, but I'm obviously not uploading an entire playthrough 30 seconds at a time lol
ADENDUM ABOUT STUFF ON BAT WRATH: I forgot it only works on enemy phase so please keep that in mind about things I say for the relevant characters.
TIMESTAMPS
Intro: 0:00
Category descriptions: 3:57
Disclaimers/assumptions: 6:43
Golden Deer characters: 9:21
Repeating clip (woops): 26:45
Important recruits: 31:38
Out of house combat: 44:28
Utility: 54:30
High Effort: 1:03:20
Closing: 1:14:41
If you want to listen to a specific character just try to find them within the timestamp category otherwise this comment will be like 50 pages long
Awesome!
first i played normal (AM) as my first fire emblem playthrough. i then did hard (VW) and then upgraded to maddening (CF). yeah i got rolled in the early game but i persevered and beat it. upgrading from hard to maddening is a _big_ step.
Congrats on your accomplishment
I think that F! Byleth has a better early game due to Pegasus Knight like you said. But from my experience doing F!Byleth on Verdant Wind is that while she still remains useful as a flier, she doesn't really get that much better but at least as a Falcon Knight she can reliably dodge a lot of hits. I one time got her with Defiant Avoid and Alert Stance+ to the point where she has perfect avoid. M! Byleth I think has a better late game as you already said so overall I think M! Byleth feels more rewarding in the end if you like Quick Riposte. Of course F! Byleth can get Sylvain for free so that makes him as valuable as you want him to be. That said, I think you did a good job with your list. I gave Byleth the Cursed Ashiya Sword+ along with an Accuracy Ring and Cichol Wyvern Co. for consistent results in her one rounding enemies while remaining a dodge tank.
My team in case you were wondering comprised of F! Byleth as a Falcon Knight, Claude as a Barbarossa, Marianne as a Dancer, Lysithea as a Gremory, Leonie as a Bow Knight, Ignatz as a Sniper, Hilda as a Wyvern Lord, Petra as a Assassin (I know it wasn't her best class per se but I didn't want too many fliers either), Felix as a War Master, Bernadetta as a Bow Knight, Dorothea as a Gremory and Seteth as a Wyvern Lord. In my case, Dorothea can provide siege tome support for Petra, Felix and Byleth. I had F!Byleth, Claude, Hilda and Seteth ride together as they can benefit from Sacred Power, Charm, Advocate and Guarding respectively so their stats would get a buff when adjacent. All four of them were fliers that had great synergy together.
Thanks for the input and the discussion! I think VW can get away with 5 fliers if you use the C Rank Alliance Wyverns but 4 is perfectly good. That flier synergy between the 4 you mentioned is just too good.
@@MrCactuar13 it is quite good yes. Hilda and Seteth also gets B. Wrath like Claude too. I usually pair it with Alert Stance +. As for Byleth having Sacred Power, that’s the ability I use when flying together with a few allies. Or a filler skill like Swordfaire for instance if I want her to fly solo. Lance prowess also is nice for added accuracy and Lancefaire as a class ability too. So if you’re looking to fly solo she could rock both Swordfaire and Lancefaire on the same set along with the defiant avoid setup like I mentioned before.
Have do without NG+/DLC/Recruit.
Enemy to be careful is Felix and Petra.
I've done 3 maddening runs and have never not been able to get all 9 characters in the house to lv 5 by the start of the chapter 3 mission.
When I recommended 9 core units, I didn't necessarily mean the ones in your house. It's meant to be a mix of in house units and other recruits. I fully expect to bench units that are there to provide chip damage/rallies. My bad if that wasn't clear in the video.
give claude sword avoid +20 from dancer, alert stance, wyvern lord and batt wrath and he's able to solo 99% of maddening, nothing can hit him and he kills everything and you can get that build pretty early, barbarossa is a mistake imo.
Sword avoid EP units are a bad meme that need to go away
@@MrCactuar13 Stride warping fliers to clear chapters in 2 turns is an even bigger meme though, and outside that extremely broken strat nothing in VW beats avoid claude juggernauting, which you can easily setup byCh9 or 10 so I don't really see how's that's a "meme" outside obviously obsessing with LTC and warp shenanigans to skip maps, he even has insane charm to dodge gambits. Although I will say EP builds are a lazy skilless way of playing the game, stride warp skipping is just as bad and hurts player learning even more, and you can still have claude juggernaut rooms with honestly very little investment while having a team full of PP units anyway.
@@HenriqueRJchiki I never said EP builds are bad, I even recommend plenty in this guide. I just think specifically focusing on sword avoid just hurts the team overall to marginally boost one unit. Even with EP focused strategies why would you give up your best support unit just to lock someone into using arguably the worst weapon type in the game. You don't even get a dancer until chapter 10, that's not "99% of the game". Claude doesn't need an extra +20 avoid to get single digit dodge chances, Alert Stance+ is good enough. Which by the way if you're doing Wyern Lord sword Claude means you're splitting attention between axe, lance, sword, flying, and authority meaning you slow down progress on AS+ and Bat. Wrath. You get Failnaught for free in Ch13 for crying out loud, Claude doesn't need to train for other weapons. There's nothing wrong with Barbarossa.
As for Stride-Warping I already gave my rationale for why it's not as detrimental as you'd think and it's because of the EXP curve hitting hard past a certain point. My most recent run was a draft with only 9 units and Claude EP solo'd at least half the part 2 enemies, he was still only level 42 by endgame. A couple extra levels isn't going to suddenly to make certain stat benchmarks possible, cooking and gardening stat boosters are by far and away the best method to boost stats. Most of your training is going to be in part 1, and once units get to their final class (advanced or master) most of your levels beyond that don't matter nearly as much as the first 20.
Otherwise Stride-Warping solves the biggest headaches with the least risk, you're much less likely to lose progress to unfortunate RNG or misplays. I'm not saying Stride Warp is the only way to play the game, but you have to at least acknowledge that they're still powerful tools in their own right and should at least factor into your core strategies.