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Fire Emblem: Three Houses |OT2| Greetings, Era! Nothing to Report!
- Thread starter kuroneko0509
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did Annette bring a bird to the goddess tower in order to satisfy the "man and a woman" requirement, though
No, but she did provide another instance of her fabled singing.
One of the things I'm thinking about a lot as I get into part 2 of my Azure Moon Maddening NG+ run is how weird the game feels sometimes due to the recruitment system. Because all the characters can potentially be recruited, they also have incidental dialogue for the circumstances of any route (so I have Lysithea explaining she doesn't realy care about Faerghus, just a peaceful future for her family)... but that also kind of limits how meaningful their roles can be if they aren't recruited. I left Hilda unrecruited because it felt weird to break her away from Claude, but realistically I know she'll get a few lines of dialogue in cutscenes at most, and I kind of wonder if I should've just grabbed her anyway for her supports + monastery dialogue.
And then of course there's the knock-on effect of how empty or full the monastery is, which affects how much there is to do, and how many paralogues you can get, and so on and so forth. But then because the game rarely has more than 10 unit slots per mission (maybe 12 max IIRC, and often lower) there's not really any good way to make use of a larger army.
It's like, not recruiting much makes more sense for the story and should be more thematically interesting, but it's not really explored, and recruiting a ton should give a lot more gameplay flexibility but in practice you don't have much use for a bunch of your units. Which, granted, happens in every Fire Emblem to some extent.
And then of course there's the knock-on effect of how empty or full the monastery is, which affects how much there is to do, and how many paralogues you can get, and so on and so forth. But then because the game rarely has more than 10 unit slots per mission (maybe 12 max IIRC, and often lower) there's not really any good way to make use of a larger army.
It's like, not recruiting much makes more sense for the story and should be more thematically interesting, but it's not really explored, and recruiting a ton should give a lot more gameplay flexibility but in practice you don't have much use for a bunch of your units. Which, granted, happens in every Fire Emblem to some extent.
I understand the general sentiment of what you are saying, but felt I should just point out that in your specific example, Hilda isn't recruitable. The right hands of the other lords are stuck to them and can't go to other houses. So Dimitri/Dedue, Edelgard/Hubert and Claude/Hilda can only be used in their respective routes.
EDIT: Oh my god I just fact checked myself and I'm fn wrong. Didn't realize Hilda just broke that rule. I assumed she did the same as Dedue and Hubert... Poor Claude has no one that is infinitely loyal.
It was real weird to go through Crimson Flower with 80% of the Blue Lions recruited. I didn't quite go to the extent of having, say,
Annette kill her dad in battle
or anything, but it's funny the weird mental gymnastics you force people on your team to go through to justify sticking with you when it means fighting everyone they've ever loved and/or grown up with.
Also agree with you that the game seems to want you not to recruit people, but also kind of does. I came to think of the system as a way to dump people you didn't really care about for people who might be more interesting, but I think ultimately that means I'm just never going to use Caspar in any route.
I also think of the system as a way to save people.
Marianne, basically.
So do Flayn and Seteth ever
stop referring to each other as siblings in their relationship cut scenes? I already beat the paralogue that reveals he's her father
One of the things I like about the game being split up into different routes is that it's easy to just concentrate on your house students plus a few extras you poached from other classes, knowing you'll be able to concentrate on the rest of the cast in their route. In Awakening and Fates, I got into a bad habit of trying to grind out the entire cast to get their supports, to get their kids, to get their kid's supports, even though I could only field a fraction of those units once I hit story missions. It's a lot nicer being able to focus on a core group in any given route.
Though as I say this, I'm currently trying to figure out my roster for the church route since I'm torn between staying with my eagles that I've been raising (and farming skills for my future Maddening CF run) or putting the Knights of Serios into the roster since this is "their" route too, kind of?
I'm definitely loving my Dimitri build of Battalian Vantage, Battalian Desperation, Defensive Tactics, Critical Ring and Critical Lance+. I just have to make sure I never replenish his Battalion lol. I have Catherine slap Retribution on him and watch mages suicide right into him. It made clearing out The Silver Maiden hilariously easy. Just give him Retribution and walk him into the middle of all the mages' ranges. Dimitri the savage.
Yeah Hilda's case is a bit weird. It seems the main reason you can't recruit her on BE is because
she gets really suspicious of Edelgard and what's-her-name Kronya always hanging out with each other.
Finished my Maddening run of Blue Lions! The same-turn-reinforcement Meteor spam of the final map was incredibly tedious, but I managed to get everyone through alive and secure my anticlimactic title screen change. Felix carried the early game basically by himself, and Dimitri's brokenly-good Avoid stat was fun to abuse, but MVP came down to a tie between Bernadetta and Leonie, who quickly became unstoppable crit monsters that could functionally ignore the inflated defensive stats present in Maddening.
With the main three routes finally done, I'd say Blue Lions was easily my least favorite. Part of that is probably just me being a bit burnt out on the game overall, but its variant maps are mostly less interesting than those from the Black Eagles and Golden Deer, its story doesn't really come together, and I found Dimitri's indifference to the sociopolitical problems of Fodlan to be pretty off-putting. Even the big political thing he's supposed to care about, the Tragedy of Duscur, is
Ultimately, I think Three Houses is worse off for having so many separate routes. The map variety just isn't there to keep each campaign feeling fresh. The lords barely exist outside of their own routes, so the grand clash of personalities and ideals that the game sold itself on never really materializes. And the contrived way it sections off crucial plot information to specific routes to encourage replays is super obnoxious.
Probably still a top three Fire Emblem for me, and handily my favorite story and cast in the series, but it falls short of its own potential.
With the main three routes finally done, I'd say Blue Lions was easily my least favorite. Part of that is probably just me being a bit burnt out on the game overall, but its variant maps are mostly less interesting than those from the Black Eagles and Golden Deer, its story doesn't really come together, and I found Dimitri's indifference to the sociopolitical problems of Fodlan to be pretty off-putting. Even the big political thing he's supposed to care about, the Tragedy of Duscur, is
completely abandoned towards the end of the game in favor of punishing the bad woman, to the point that Dimitri doesn't even realize he's killed the dude responsible for so much of his suffering.
Ultimately, I think Three Houses is worse off for having so many separate routes. The map variety just isn't there to keep each campaign feeling fresh. The lords barely exist outside of their own routes, so the grand clash of personalities and ideals that the game sold itself on never really materializes. And the contrived way it sections off crucial plot information to specific routes to encourage replays is super obnoxious.
Probably still a top three Fire Emblem for me, and handily my favorite story and cast in the series, but it falls short of its own potential.
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Fully agreed. Also in agreement with BL plot line ending up rather underwhelming.
I enjoyed the split routes going from CF to AM, since allowed the game to focus in on things important to the kingdom, like the Tragedy of Duscur, while also building on the Edelgard/Dimitri relationship that was hinted at in CF. I think the game were to suffer if it tried to condense too much into a single route, even if it split off after the academy phase. Though I certainly agree that the game goes too far out of its way to obscure things at times. The parlay scene in AM is a prime example.
For a scene so late in the game, they intentionally wrote El to be so vague with her motives, when otherwise the scene acted to set up the final battle as a tragedy. I think the developers not only wanted her motives to be hidden behind taking the CF route, but they also wanted the choice to side with El to be a bit of a leap of faith. Hence why the BE route defaults to SS and they are so tightlipped on El's true goals in the other routes.
I enjoyed BL the most in the academy phase, since I found Dimitri the most interesting when he was still trying to hold it together, but you could see the cracks starting to form. It also helps that so much of the academy phase ties into the Kingdom, between Ashe and Lord Lenato, Sylvain and his brother, etc. Those beats pop when you're closer to the characters it effects.
War phase I enjoyed less so since Dimitri spent so much time just being a blunt object. A lot of time was spent with Dimitri making bad decisions surrounded by his group of enablers, plus Felix. I could look past that, but the part I get hung up on is what turns Dimitri around. He doesn't get better because of Byleth's support, or when Dedue comes back, but rather due to Rodrigue getting iced in front of him and lingering long enough to say goodbye. I'm not quite sure why that was what turned Dimitri around instead of plunging him further into the depths. Did he simply hit rock bottom? Would CF Dimitri have turned himself around if Rodrigue died in his arms at Arianrhod?
The fuzzieness of this important moment bothers me because it's such a huge turnaround for his character, and I just don't understand the impetus of it. Which is a shame because the character work in this game is otherwise so much stronger and so much more important than beat-by-beat plot points of Three Houses. Like I'm able to develop a very strong understanding Edelgard's character. Not only in what motivates and drives her to be so passionate and unrelenting in her goals, but also being able to identify where the turn is for that separates the El of Crimson Flowers, supported by her friends and comrades and able to maintain her ideals, from the ruthlessly pragmatic Edelgard of Azure Moon who, in her isolation and desperation, employs Those Who Slither to turn her into the Hegemon.
For Dimitri, I understand the pain he carries with him and how that weighed him down until he broke. But for identifying what was the turn that seperates the redeemable Dimitri of Azure Moon from the Dimitri of the other routes is uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh happenstance????
I enjoyed BL the most in the academy phase, since I found Dimitri the most interesting when he was still trying to hold it together, but you could see the cracks starting to form. It also helps that so much of the academy phase ties into the Kingdom, between Ashe and Lord Lenato, Sylvain and his brother, etc. Those beats pop when you're closer to the characters it effects.
War phase I enjoyed less so since Dimitri spent so much time just being a blunt object. A lot of time was spent with Dimitri making bad decisions surrounded by his group of enablers, plus Felix. I could look past that, but the part I get hung up on is what turns Dimitri around. He doesn't get better because of Byleth's support, or when Dedue comes back, but rather due to Rodrigue getting iced in front of him and lingering long enough to say goodbye. I'm not quite sure why that was what turned Dimitri around instead of plunging him further into the depths. Did he simply hit rock bottom? Would CF Dimitri have turned himself around if Rodrigue died in his arms at Arianrhod?
The fuzzieness of this important moment bothers me because it's such a huge turnaround for his character, and I just don't understand the impetus of it. Which is a shame because the character work in this game is otherwise so much stronger and so much more important than beat-by-beat plot points of Three Houses. Like I'm able to develop a very strong understanding Edelgard's character. Not only in what motivates and drives her to be so passionate and unrelenting in her goals, but also being able to identify where the turn is for that separates the El of Crimson Flowers, supported by her friends and comrades and able to maintain her ideals, from the ruthlessly pragmatic Edelgard of Azure Moon who, in her isolation and desperation, employs Those Who Slither to turn her into the Hegemon.
For Dimitri, I understand the pain he carries with him and how that weighed him down until he broke. But for identifying what was the turn that seperates the redeemable Dimitri of Azure Moon from the Dimitri of the other routes is uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh happenstance????
Yeah, I think you're probably right that they wanted siding with
Edelgard to be a leap of faith, and I think that moment actually works quite well in her own route. But having played Crimson Flower first, it's a real struggle going through the other routes dancing around what's actually happening in the plot and seeing Edelgard never speak with the other lords about Rhea controlling Fodlan. Like, the manifesto she distributes to the public in Crimson Flower presumably discloses all of that information to basically everyone, but it conveniently just doesn't exist in the other routes to prevent it from being addressed. The plot of every non-CF route is hamstrung by the need to preserve a cool twist in CF.
Another big part of the problem is Rhea disappearing almost completely from the back half of the game. I imagine this was done to prevent the lords from being outshone as key players, and I get why that's important. But if she was still around to provide some counterweight to Edelgard there easily could've been a scenario where Edelgard confronts the lords with the truth and Dimitri is convinced to side with the church anyway, or where Claude decides to chart his own course free of influence from either party. As is, both Claude and Dimitri functionally end up working for the church and defending the Crest-based class system without ever being forced to consider whether that's actually a good idea. Which is pretty unsatisfying, narratively.
Another big part of the problem is Rhea disappearing almost completely from the back half of the game. I imagine this was done to prevent the lords from being outshone as key players, and I get why that's important. But if she was still around to provide some counterweight to Edelgard there easily could've been a scenario where Edelgard confronts the lords with the truth and Dimitri is convinced to side with the church anyway, or where Claude decides to chart his own course free of influence from either party. As is, both Claude and Dimitri functionally end up working for the church and defending the Crest-based class system without ever being forced to consider whether that's actually a good idea. Which is pretty unsatisfying, narratively.
I'd also agree that much of Dimitri's character development feels a bit arbitrary and not particularly well-earned. And like you say, his entire team (minus Felix) is
enabling him for the whole first half of the war phase, which was obnoxious to sit through and undermines the character work for a lot of the other Blue Lions.
TH pulled off the "three routes" deal way better than Fates, but I do hope the next FE game goes back to providing us one single, long storyline.
I was so mad yesterday. I was on Chapter 21 of Azure Moon, and got everyone to the end of the stage, and had Dimitri ready to counter Hubert on the Enemy Phase and kill him, when ONE REINFORCEMENT SHOWED UP, killed Annette, and then Hubert suicided on Dimitri, ending the stage. So I had to reset to save Annette. God fucking dammit.
Yeah the reinforcements on that chapter are pretty bogus. Chapter 22 pulls the same nonsense as well, just as a heads up.
Thanks for letting me know.
I was expecting the reinforcements around Hubert (most of them immediately suicided on Dimitri so it didn't matter lol), but then just the ONE showing up the next turn was just random and infuriating, since I couldn't rewind time.
I've got a couple of characters at lv16 who have mastered their current class. What do you think, should I be ambitious and switch their classes to try to master another?
If you're not in Maddening mode, it's doable. But it's much easier if you've got the Knowledge Gem. It also depends on what classes you're thinking about. There are some that aren't worth it.
I am in Maddening haha. It's mostly my White Mages -> Black Mages, but my main from Thief -> Mercenary too. I suppose the only "risk" is slight skill level loss from being in an off-class and being down 1k gold per experiment.
What units, specifically, are you thinking about, and what endgame classes are you considering? Those would be factors. Mercenary is a bit of a waste IMO - the odds are low that it will trigger and then do enough damage to kill another unit, since proc skills got heavily nerfed in this game so you're unlikely to get stuff like Vantage -> Sol/Luna -> Astra craziness like you could in Awakening and Fates. Death Blow from Brigand is usually more useful.
The main reason I prefer free battle saves to rewinds. Rewinds only work as long as you don't complete the mission.
And this game is so generous with rewinds it's not like it's a limited ressource enough to justify not having battle saves because "merit".
Not sure about late game classes yet. Still on my first playthrough and Maddening doesn't seem hard enough to warrant that type of thorough planning. But unfortunately, my protag is not eligible for Brigand. I was thinking the black mages for the +6 atk on offense ability, but it's more of a, should I risk wasting money to min-max this way? How plentiful is money? Assuming it should be rarely easy to get money once I start going for golden fish. I'm pretty much spending every penny between months as is, this month being the first exception.
Honestly its not hard to grind class masteries if you want to. Just take your tankiest character on a lower level skirmish map and have them just sit there with no weapon equipped and get wailed on by the enemy units. After their weapons break do the same thing with any other characters you want to grind mastery on. Simple.
I generally don't see much reason to max out multiple classes per tier unless the unit is an archer, and an archer that is specifically not Ignatz or Bernadetta.
A solid ability setup to aim for on Maddening with most characters:
- Weapon Prowess
- Weapon Crit+10/Tome Range+1
- Weaponbreaker
- Intermediate Class Mastery (Preferably Death Blow/Fiendish Blow)
- Beginner Class Mastery (Stat+2)
HP+5 holds Weapon Crit/Tome Range's spot while leveling to S. It's a great skill for the first half of the game and tends to push units out of oneshot territory, especially on mages. The Authority ability (+damage from gambits) is also a decent temporary slot-filler for anyone with an attack gambit.
Snipers benefit from mastering both Brigand and Archer so that their Hunter's Volley hits 12 damage harder and their long-ranged hits are 20 hit more accurate. Ignatz doesn't need Hit+20 very much (he's very accurate as it is, he benefits more from Death Blow, and he needs space for his rallies anyway) and Bernadetta has an Axe bane. Of the 'canon' Archers, Ashe is the only one that really wants to master both. Close Counter replaces Weaponbreaker.
Swordsmen get poor abilities from both of their Intermediate classes, but Swordmasters can tunnel-vision down towards S+ for Swordfaire, Assassins should equip Assassinate upon mastering the class (and also want Bow Prowess for a ranged sidearm), and Heroes can pretend to be a hybrid class with Axe Prowess and Lancebreaker.
The Stat+2 skill can eventually be replaced by Weaponfaire (on long routes) or Rallies. Fliers replace it with Alert Stance. Cavalry get a fairly useless Intermediate skill on Maddening (since they'll almost never double, even with rallies) but it's made up for by Dex+8, Movement+1, and Aegis. Armor units, should you be crazy enough to use them, should equip Pavise.
The way I see it, instructing a character in a variety of skill types to certify for multiple classes for their masteries comes at the cost of delaying their Prowess/Crit/Breaker skills, which are very useful, and tends to make a unit less useful than they could be while in their off-class. Fire Emblem games on hard difficulties tend to have reversed difficulty curves (starts off very difficult and becomes easier), so hurting one's performance in the early game for the sake of making the late game easier is unnecessary.
A solid ability setup to aim for on Maddening with most characters:
- Weapon Prowess
- Weapon Crit+10/Tome Range+1
- Weaponbreaker
- Intermediate Class Mastery (Preferably Death Blow/Fiendish Blow)
- Beginner Class Mastery (Stat+2)
HP+5 holds Weapon Crit/Tome Range's spot while leveling to S. It's a great skill for the first half of the game and tends to push units out of oneshot territory, especially on mages. The Authority ability (+damage from gambits) is also a decent temporary slot-filler for anyone with an attack gambit.
Snipers benefit from mastering both Brigand and Archer so that their Hunter's Volley hits 12 damage harder and their long-ranged hits are 20 hit more accurate. Ignatz doesn't need Hit+20 very much (he's very accurate as it is, he benefits more from Death Blow, and he needs space for his rallies anyway) and Bernadetta has an Axe bane. Of the 'canon' Archers, Ashe is the only one that really wants to master both. Close Counter replaces Weaponbreaker.
Swordsmen get poor abilities from both of their Intermediate classes, but Swordmasters can tunnel-vision down towards S+ for Swordfaire, Assassins should equip Assassinate upon mastering the class (and also want Bow Prowess for a ranged sidearm), and Heroes can pretend to be a hybrid class with Axe Prowess and Lancebreaker.
The Stat+2 skill can eventually be replaced by Weaponfaire (on long routes) or Rallies. Fliers replace it with Alert Stance. Cavalry get a fairly useless Intermediate skill on Maddening (since they'll almost never double, even with rallies) but it's made up for by Dex+8, Movement+1, and Aegis. Armor units, should you be crazy enough to use them, should equip Pavise.
The way I see it, instructing a character in a variety of skill types to certify for multiple classes for their masteries comes at the cost of delaying their Prowess/Crit/Breaker skills, which are very useful, and tends to make a unit less useful than they could be while in their off-class. Fire Emblem games on hard difficulties tend to have reversed difficulty curves (starts off very difficult and becomes easier), so hurting one's performance in the early game for the sake of making the late game easier is unnecessary.
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I'd argue
the pamphlet isn't needed in the other routes because Rhea gets captured and the church is effectively neutralized for at least five years.
The Fort Merceus chapter in Silver Snow finally breaks the mold of things being a 1:1 copy of Azure Moon. It's weird as hell how the boss just flees the map and you don't suffer by it. After the first chapter of Crimson Flower, I was ready for the condition to shift such that I had to stop him.
Oh my, Silver Snow Maddening Chapter 13 is an absolutely brutal map, took me a few tries just before I wouldn't die immediately. Lured out and killed a swordie first, then sent Seteth down to help Petra when she showed up, and moved Byleth up into the forest where he proceeded to somehow dodgetank everything (while also spamming an Elixir I had in my convoy) while using a couple crucial gambits to stall out a few units, namely the assassin. Had Dorothea meteor the archers going after Byleth out of the picture, and Caspar and her handled the occasional straggler who headed to their corner. Map cleared up once you get by the initial wave, by man, the initial wave is downright brutal on Maddening.
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It sounds like a bad time, mostly with
losing Edelgard and Hubert midway through
About what level range should I have my characters at by the end game? (Doing BL on Hard/Classic)
41-43 worked out well enough for me. The beginning of the last map was a bit harrowing, but after that it was manageable.
Just picked up the game again at Chapter 5...in the middle of moving and won't be playing my PS4 for at least the next couple of weeks. Sad that I missed the zeitgeist, but I'm sure I'll have a great time nevertheless.
Fire Emblem problems, I remember when I first played the GC version when I lost my precious Titania
In terms of the route split, it's interesting that despite being the shortest Crimson Flower is the best route in terms of giving all the Lords proper screen time and acknowledgement
(some general spoilers for all routes)
I'd honestly argue that if it hadn't been for a certain missing story beat at the end this route it would be the objective best in terms of overall story, even with the missing lore. Given the scenario of the route it's honestly the only route that really needs to touch on every aspect of the conflict post-timeskip and it shows.
(some general spoilers for all routes)
- Edelgard doesn't need to be explained
- Claude actually schemes, you get good insight to his character, and he's presented fairly.
- Dimitri doesn't die like a chump, is in a far better place mentally than any other route, and you get good insight into his ideals - particularly in the big battle
- Rhea might go crazy but it's totally justified and she bafflingly has the best role here than in any of the "5 years in a dungeon" routes iirc (haven't done Church myself). How is this the only one where she isn't MIA for such a huge chunk lol
- Claude actually schemes, you get good insight to his character, and he's presented fairly.
- Dimitri doesn't die like a chump, is in a far better place mentally than any other route, and you get good insight into his ideals - particularly in the big battle
- Rhea might go crazy but it's totally justified and she bafflingly has the best role here than in any of the "5 years in a dungeon" routes iirc (haven't done Church myself). How is this the only one where she isn't MIA for such a huge chunk lol
I'd honestly argue that if it hadn't been for a certain missing story beat at the end this route it would be the objective best in terms of overall story, even with the missing lore. Given the scenario of the route it's honestly the only route that really needs to touch on every aspect of the conflict post-timeskip and it shows.
Given how what's missing is so poorly addressed in other routes, I'd say that's almost a pro for that route instead of a con.
And yeah it's the route that makes the most thematic sense.
For that "missing story beat" in CF, I was actually okay with it, figuring that
And after finally completing GD after CF and BL, I feel that works even more, what with
Granted, it still would have been fun to play some of that out, but it still fits for me.
the Slitherers/Agarthans were so fucked that they didn't even get any screen time dedicated to getting dismantled.
And after finally completing GD after CF and BL, I feel that works even more, what with
Hubert's posthumous message about having detected Shambala after they launched missiles at Fort Merceus. And so, with him and Edelgard alive in CF, and Arianrhod being bombed, they've got their number even moreso.
Granted, it still would have been fun to play some of that out, but it still fits for me.
What was missing from CF is the Gronder field battle.
The only scenario where 2 against 1 would make sense.