Fire Emblem Discussion

[Jordan]

I'm only beginning this run as Black Eagles, but I'll probably be making him into either a Great Knight or Bow Knight.

[Kong Wen]

Has another been focusing on leveling up a class fully before moving on? Some class mastery skills are great while others are mediocre. Pretty sure growth rates go up with each class rank up as well so it usually felt worthwhile to me to rank up as soon as possible. Grappler and sniper classes have good mastery skills.

I only tried doing that for Byleth and Cyril. Most other characters I had in set paths so they stayed in their base classes long enough for mastery anyway, but only mastery of a couple classes along a pretty defined promotion route (like Ferdinand).

[Jordan]

Here's what I am planning for characters in Black Eagles at the moment:

Edelgard: Her custom class->wyvern lord if she masters her custom class. Otherwise I'll just keep her in her custom class.
Bernie: Bow Knight
Caspar: Brigand->Fister
Dorothea: Dancer probably, unless she gets really good stats and someone else gets RNG screwed. If she gets good stats, I'll make her a mounted mage.
Ferdinand: Wyvern Lord, though intermediately I'll likely make him a cavalier.
Lindhardt: Holy Knight
Petra: Either Brigand->Wyvern Rider->Wyvern Lord or Pegasus Knight->Wyvern Rider->Wyvern Lord.
Hubert: Dark Mage->Dark Bishop->Mounted Mage

If anybody gets rng screwed too hard, they're going to become a dancer.

Brigand is a good class because mastering it gives death blow. I'm not as knowledgeable about the mastery bonuses for other classes. I do know that the dark mage and dark bishop get poison strike and lifetaker though, which are great. Sadly, dark seals are very limited.

[The Shoemaker]

The grappler class has good mastery skills, I think a combat art that let's you strike three times. I really fumbled my Caspar though. Had no idea what route I wanted him to go so he took too long to class change. Never made it to mastery with him.

Petra worked great as an assassin-> Wyvern lord by building up her speed first and foremost.

[Jordan]

As far as I can tell, the classes outside of mastery bonuses and special skills mainly affect growths. It could theoretically be viable to stay in an advanced class. Swordmasters, for instance, have a mastery bonus that is only available in the swordmaster class, making mastering the class somewhat of a contradiction. You would normally want to master the class and then move on to something else, but it seems to be pretty viable to just keep somebody a swordmaster forever. You would miss out on slightly higher growths at best. The class oddly synergizes with some flying skills that you can learn, such as one that gives avoid if you wait. With this the swordmaster can become an impressive dodge tank that can use astra.

The biggest problem though is that non-mounted classes are just objectively worse than mounted ones by the endgame, imo. Canto and additional movement are just too powerful. The units that aren't mounted are going to lag behind, or at least have less tactical options at their disposal. In my Blue Lions run, Felix was a beast early on but fell off hard by the end. He still was a decent unit, but wasn't nearly as useful as mounted bowman Ashe (whose range was so ridiculous he might as well have been mounted artillery) or mounted mage Sylvain. Stats didn't even really matter that much, as the mounted units were generally more useful than the non-mounted ones even with worse stats. Similarly, my gremories Mercedes, Annete and Lysithea struggled in comparison to mounted mage Sylvain. In the last few levels, I even abandoned Dimitri's unique class in favor of making him a simple bow knight. In future playthroughs I will likely prioritize either upgrading characters to mounts or fliers. Three Houses is designed a bit differently from other games as riding and flying are stats you need to invest in. As a consequence, I feel like mounted units and fliers are designed to be an objective improvement over infantry. In previous games there was a bit more of a tradeoff, and you might even encounter levels where you could be seriously screwed fielding fliers or cavalry (Fates: Conquest's foxes come to mind). Both cavalry and fliers have always been kinda dominant, but never as much as in this game.

[The Shoemaker]

I also feel like the bonus bows do to flying units has been decreased, I think they used to do 3x damage? Now it seems more like 2x or even 1.5x, which makes flying units even better. Of courses there's also the late game shields you get that nullify the damage done to either cavalry or flying units.

[Kong Wen]

I also feel like the bonus bows do to flying units has been decreased, I think they used to do 3x damage? Now it seems more like 2x or even 1.5x, which makes flying units even better. Of courses there's also the late game shields you get that nullify the damage done to either cavalry or flying units.

I don't have the game on to check, but I feel like you're right. My flying units were also very dodgy and fast, so I never felt threatened by archers. In previous FE games, having an archer in range felt like a death sentence.

EDIT:

In case people don't read the TONe section of the forum, Jordan and I posted our Three Houses review here!

[The Shoemaker]

Just beat the black Eagle path tonight. Overall, game was fantastic, but the story was a but sloppily done in the second half. Too many plot threads were dropped or waited till the final chapter to expand on, and I can only assume like you all have that the details are filled in with the other stories. Personally would have preferred they covered more of the essential plot details in all story routes. It felt very odd to not know why Byleth was asleep for 5 years or what the connection between Rhea and Byleth were. There were a lot of details pre time skip that weren't really addressed either.

With that said, I still enjoyed the story, and the overall experience. Looking forward to starting a new playthrough!

[Kong Wen]

Just beat the black Eagle path tonight. Overall, game was fantastic, but the story was a but sloppily done in the second half. Too many plot threads were dropped or waited till the final chapter to expand on, and I can only assume like you all have that the details are filled in with the other stories. Personally would have preferred they covered more of the essential plot details in all story routes. It felt very odd to not know why Byleth was asleep for 5 years or what the connection between Rhea and Byleth were. There were a lot of details pre time skip that weren't really addressed either.

With that said, I still enjoyed the story, and the overall experience. Looking forward to starting a new playthrough!

Spoiler

There are two Black Eagle paths: Edelgard's and Byleth's / Rhea's. I'm assuming you beat the latter? You do find out what the connection between Byleth and Rhea is quite late in the game. I'm not sure if you need a certain support level or not, but Rhea spells it all out for you. Let me know if you want me to go into detail. It's a pretty important lore detail.

Byleth's 5-year sleep wasn't made explicit, but I assume they were "dead" / regenerating in a Sothis-infused slumber, kind of like how Seteth and Flayn sleep for long periods of time. Interestingly, waking up from that sleep is the only time you hear Sothis's voice after you merge, which makes it clear that she's "taken over" during those years.

[The Shoemaker]

Just beat the black Eagle path tonight. Overall, game was fantastic, but the story was a but sloppily done in the second half. Too many plot threads were dropped or waited till the final chapter to expand on, and I can only assume like you all have that the details are filled in with the other stories. Personally would have preferred they covered more of the essential plot details in all story routes. It felt very odd to not know why Byleth was asleep for 5 years or what the connection between Rhea and Byleth were. There were a lot of details pre time skip that weren't really addressed either.

With that said, I still enjoyed the story, and the overall experience. Looking forward to starting a new playthrough!

Spoiler

There are two Black Eagle paths: Edelgard's and Byleth's / Rhea's. I'm assuming you beat the latter? You do find out what the connection between Byleth and Rhea is quite late in the game. I'm not sure if you need a certain support level or not, but Rhea spells it all out for you. Let me know if you want me to go into detail. It's a pretty important lore detail.

Byleth's 5-year sleep wasn't made explicit, but I assume they were "dead" / regenerating in a Sothis-infused slumber, kind of like how Seteth and Flayn sleep for long periods of time. Interestingly, waking up from that sleep is the only time you hear Sothis's voice after you merge, which makes it clear that she's "taken over" during those years.

Spoiler

I chose Edlegard's path, and on the last chapter she briefly fills you in, but I'm thinking it's less information than Rhea telling you herself. A lot of the details I'm assuming based on previous info. I might wait to find out more as I play the other stories.

I have very little info on Seteth and Flayn, I had to kill them midway through Part 2 as they were on the opposing army

I think part of the confusion for Byleth going missing for 5 years was that the transition from part 1 to 2 was very sudden. Maybe it was done differently in other stories but for me I beat Rhea in chapter 12 and then the scene pretty much ended. My assumption was Byleth was crushed under the crumbling monastary, but there was no cut scene showing that.

I'd say part 2 was very lacking in cut scenes in general, which would have been nice to expand certain story moments. But I guess with how many options there are in part 2 they chose to not do any cut scenes till the end.