Getting back into my second play through this time with GD. In the time skip stuff now and things just seem to be rolling better than my first time with BL. Now to get to the third battle and get my best boy back (yes I'm an Ashe stan).
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Fire Emblem: Three Houses |OT2| Greetings, Era! Nothing to Report!
- Thread starter kuroneko0509
- Start date
Ok ERA, I finally caved and purchased Three Houses, any tip for a new player. I did play a bit of the 3DS game Awakening. I think my issues is there seems to be a lot to digest and learn.
Great decision!
As far as choosing classes, don't stress, it's hard to make a wrong choice. The students will naturally lean towards certain classes as they grow, but you can experiment as much or as little you want to push them in other directions depending what you want for your team. Concentrate on one or two weapon types per student at most, generally they start with weapons suited to their "intended" classes so you can use that as a guide.
Eventually you can recruit students from other houses by levelling Byleth in specific stats or weapon types. Who you recruit is entirely up to you, but I recommend recruiting no more than 4 students from other houses due to plot reasons and because you won't be able to use everyone anyway. You also always want to make sure to train your original students in part 1 since they're forced in some maps.
Really, don't be intimidated, the game is good about teaching all its mechanics and letting you be flexible in developing your team without screwing yourself.
What difficulty do you play on?
If playing on "hard", pay attention to the tutorials, they teach you everything you need to know to be able to beat the game. Also note that additional tutorials are "hidden" under system/config menus (plus you can rewatch/reread old tutorials if you so wish).
If playing on "normal", just play the game. It's really easy as long as you're not doing utterly stupid shit like tanking with a squishy mage, or aggroing archers with a flier (I know an experienced player can do that on "normal" just fine, but a newcomer will get their arse handed to them).
Thanks, should i go normal or Casual. I really don't want to deal with perma death, but I've read you can wind back the clock ever so often to prevent it.
Normal vs Hard is your usual difficulty setting (enemies hit harder, etc).
Casual vs Classic is a matter of personal preference IMO. With abundant availability of rewinds, permadeath is basically negated. But even with rewinds, in Classic mode you can't "sacrifice" units (well, you can, but you lose them), whereas in Casual mode "sacrifices" are a potential strategy.
I'd say go with Normal/Classic due to how easy Normal tend to be, but your call.
Same-turn-reinforcements on Maddening actually wouldn't be bad if it was just same-turn-movement and not same-turn-action. I just played Rumored Nuptials and normally that paralogue is a cake walk that's mostly good for farming class mastery. On Maddening, it was a lot more intense since when enemy reinforcements came, they would already be hot on my tail while I got half my army on opposite sides of a lava field and I have to swing someone with a gambit around to stop these dudes in their tracks before they crash through my rear line.
Having enemy reinforcements to pressure me is fine as long as they are not jumping out of a closet to immediately stab my healer.
Having enemy reinforcements to pressure me is fine as long as they are not jumping out of a closet to immediately stab my healer.
That's really the dividing line for when same-turn reinforcements are well-designed or poorly-designed.
In some games/maps, they're absolutely fine, because their spawns are deliberately placed either away from the player's intended path, or well behind them, to pressure or corral them. In other games/maps, where they're used as a "gotcha" ambush to promote trial-and-error gameplay -- that's awful design.
So I'm going to start my first maddening run now on fire emblem!
im excited but I just know it's going to be hard. I'm aiming to do the Crimson Flower route.
Any tips for maddening?
also, how have people incorporated the new classes and characters from the DLC into their main team for the main story?
im excited but I just know it's going to be hard. I'm aiming to do the Crimson Flower route.
Any tips for maddening?
also, how have people incorporated the new classes and characters from the DLC into their main team for the main story?
The biggest problem for me on rumored nuptials is the ambush that spawns right at the end of the map. By that time I've already used most of my pulses and I just want to end the map at that point so I rush it and sometimes end up getting owned.
On my Maddening run I think I wound up using a map and navigating Ingrid to the one tile where she could just fly directly to the exit with the help of a March Ring without triggering reinforcements, lol.
Whoops, it took me until my fourth playthrough to realize that Seraphim and other monster effective attacks will burn through both hits of a monster's armor in one shot.
Same. I also didn't realize it was a set number of hits and thought it was based on damage. So I was juicing all of my attacks against monster armor with combat arts, regardless if they were effective against monsters or not.
I'm still unsure of how that works after so many playthroughs lol
So, if I get it right, the rule is that it's either one "chip" if it's a "non-effective attack" (even a double attack, a combat art, or part of a gambit AoE) and two "chips" (so guaranteed barrier break) if it's a gambit impact point or a monster-effective attack?
I know about gambits but the one or two "chips" rule for "normal attacks" is still quite a mystery to me.
You have it right. One hit to break a barrier if it's a gambit's primary hit square or an effective attack, two hits of any kind otherwise -- even if they do 0 damage.
Not sure about the 0 damage, or at least, I'm pretty sure a magic-protected barrier isn't gonna break if it's hit by magic (unless it's a magic gambit where it'll break with 0 damage).
Edit: This thread sure is useful. I had a hard time finding this kind of info up until now :p
0 damage hits count. Magic of course don't work because most monsters are magic immune until you break one barrier.
Yea that's the confusing part. 0 damage hits count as long as it's a "not strong enough" result and not a "magic immune" result (magic gambits still break the barrier though, just with 0 damage).
Holy crap that's the one bit I was missing! Thank you.
Oh good, glad I'm not the only one who didn't 100% understand this stuff until way too late. The game is so focused on explaining how Gambits affect monsters that I don't think it does a very good job communicating all their other mechanics.
Overall though, I don't mind fighting monsters and I think they serve as a pretty good showcase for the shiny new feature that was Gambits. But now that Gambits are well established, I'm not sure I'm convinced that big multi-tile enemies need to return? Maddening encourages a lot of neat lateral thinking with Gambits just to survive against regular enemies, but I don't feel like my strategy against monsters has ever significantly evolved since the first fight against Miklan, and I don't know how the next game could change them up to be less rote.
What do y'all think, should monsters be a permanent fixture for the series going forward? And if so, how could they be changed up to keep them fresh?
Overall though, I don't mind fighting monsters and I think they serve as a pretty good showcase for the shiny new feature that was Gambits. But now that Gambits are well established, I'm not sure I'm convinced that big multi-tile enemies need to return? Maddening encourages a lot of neat lateral thinking with Gambits just to survive against regular enemies, but I don't feel like my strategy against monsters has ever significantly evolved since the first fight against Miklan, and I don't know how the next game could change them up to be less rote.
What do y'all think, should monsters be a permanent fixture for the series going forward? And if so, how could they be changed up to keep them fresh?
Yes, I think monsters are good, both flavorfully and mechanically. Previous final bosses in the series often felt very... flaccid, supposedly huge entities who in actuality occupied one tile.
The lower tier monsters like Miklan weren't usually super challenging, but the actual bosses were often genuine challenges that differed from anything else in Fire Emblem. My favorite was probably The Immovable from Leonie/Linhardt's paralogue.
The lower tier monsters like Miklan weren't usually super challenging, but the actual bosses were often genuine challenges that differed from anything else in Fire Emblem. My favorite was probably The Immovable from Leonie/Linhardt's paralogue.
Agreed. Despite some confusion over the finer points of shield effectiveness I confessed to earlier, I really enjoy the mechanics of the monster fights. They're a big improvement over the monsters and dragons of previous games.
Not only are they a presence on the map, but they encourage using multiple units working in concert to take them down quickly. Being able to dismantle a monster within a single turn makes me feel like the smartest man alive. Being able to bait them with gambits means I can actually have tanks be tanks for other characters, but I can't abuse that constantly because then they start doing their AoE attacks. It all seems very smartly designed.
Not only are they a presence on the map, but they encourage using multiple units working in concert to take them down quickly. Being able to dismantle a monster within a single turn makes me feel like the smartest man alive. Being able to bait them with gambits means I can actually have tanks be tanks for other characters, but I can't abuse that constantly because then they start doing their AoE attacks. It all seems very smartly designed.
Monsters are neat, but I'm not sure I'll want them to return every time, or at least not in large quantities. I fear if they become too common, they'll lose their appeal. Also under "normal" difficulty settings (read: not Maddenning), they kinda feel like a reason to force you to burn your offensive gambits, especially with the armor break loot. I'm not sure how I feel about this whole "saving gambits" things.
Also, about gambits, one thing I like about them is how they mean enemy units can now survive enemy phase. That's both annoying AND a nice change of pace.
Also, about gambits, one thing I like about them is how they mean enemy units can now survive enemy phase. That's both annoying AND a nice change of pace.
About gambits: They probably emphasize the lack of a "decent" difficulty setting.
Right now, except for Maddening where they allow for much needed lateral thinking due to the brutality of this mode, gambits: 1/ have a ton of utility against monsters, 2/ are wasted on "normal" enemy units, 3/ are useless on most bosses (gambit immunity). So they're just monster fighting tools.
As much as I loathe boss-specific immunities, I could accept it if there was more incentive to use gambits against "normal" enemy units, i.e. if there was a difficulty setting above "Hard" which wasn't brutal up to the point where gambits are more used for their lateral effects (retribution, blessing, etc) than their advertised effects (multi-tile damage and massive enemy debuffing).
Right now, except for Maddening where they allow for much needed lateral thinking due to the brutality of this mode, gambits: 1/ have a ton of utility against monsters, 2/ are wasted on "normal" enemy units, 3/ are useless on most bosses (gambit immunity). So they're just monster fighting tools.
As much as I loathe boss-specific immunities, I could accept it if there was more incentive to use gambits against "normal" enemy units, i.e. if there was a difficulty setting above "Hard" which wasn't brutal up to the point where gambits are more used for their lateral effects (retribution, blessing, etc) than their advertised effects (multi-tile damage and massive enemy debuffing).
In Hard I found myself using gambits against bosses a good amount. They were a good way to whittle down bosses with Counterattack without retaliation before committing to a blow-for-blow. Before my Golden Deer playthrough, my go-to strategy was to rain gambits down on him until his health was within range of a Knightknealer combat art. But then later I got Lysithea and she told him to go eat shit, lol.
A bit late as I have already purchased it, but any views on the story/battle ratio. Very chatty game at the moment, I want to fight!
Thanks, Not played FE since sacred stones! It's changed a bit!
It depends on your play style. But if you want to watch/read all cutscene/dialog, yeah that's probably more than half the playtime.
Anyone gone with the Black Eagles?
How are y'all using the new classes from the dlc into the main game?
How are y'all using the new classes from the dlc into the main game?
Currently doing AM, made Annette and Marianne Dark Fliers and they're beautiful. I have no idea how to use the other classes though. Trickster Felix might work but is it really better than Swordmaster? Battle Monk for Annette was something I considered but the design is hideous so I probably will never use the female version of the class.
For BE I want to try Dark Flier Dorothea. I also wonder how viable Trickster Ferdinand is. It's really dumb how Hubert can't be a Dark Flier or a Valkyrie because he'd be perfect for both.
When I get around to doing SS as my final route my plan is to use mostly teachers/church staff since I've mostly ignored them. Thinking Trickster Manuela, Battle Monk Hanneman, and Dark Flier Flayn.
Would you mind spoiling this for me? I have read the entries in that library but what you're hinting at isn't bringing up any past events. Thanks!
I'm doing NG+ Maddening run with BE right now. I'm just short of level 20 so I haven't stepped into the DLC classes yet, but I'm building towards it.
I'm going War Monk for dodge tank Ferdinand since mastering that class gives Fist avoid +20. A good alternative to having to dedicate my dancer to being a dodge tank for Sword Avoid +20.
Making Lysithea a Valkyrie to abuse the extended magic range plus Thrysius.
Dorothea already had levels in flying (for Alert Stance) from being a dodge tank Bishop in a previous run, so right now she's a Levin Sword wielding Peg Knight, on her way to being a Dark Flier. She's putting in work with the Levin Sword and Hexblade, but her real contribution is flying around with the Alliance Wyvern Co battalion from my Golden Deer run, dropping Impregnable Wall on any units that are in danger.
i find that having at least one trickster on the field is amazing for re-positioning your other units, Dorothea is my trickster as of now because it really fits her role of a mixed attack and support unit well between her passive and rally charm plus hexblade can chew through enemies like noone's business
How well does having a non-Yuri Trickster work, since his Fetters allowing him to canto after using Foul Play is what made it actually useful and not just swapping one unit in a bad position for another? Or do you just slap the Fetters on whoever the Trickster is and just eat the reduced benefits and/or the extra damage taken after attacking?
something that's always bothered me
does Dedue die if you defeat him before he transforms? like when he's talking to Dimitri it doesn't really sound like he is dying
the reason why yuri was so integral in cindered ashes was because the other characters had limited options for movement particularly edelgard and linhardt, like Dorothea is less useful in that regard but i feel she makes up for it with her siege tome and general utility for. for example if you wanted to move bernadetta to take out a flying enemy but it would put her in striking distance of another you can't reach this turn you can use foul play to move bernie out of range and as long as you have a front liner ready to take the hit dorothea will be fine, also if you really want to i don't think the fetters would damage her if you just used foul play anyway. you don't want mage type units to be taking physical attacks anyway so the pavise isn't really useful anyway, and if you wanted them to engage in combat you can just unequip the fetters before you attack, the canto part doesn't need Yuri's crest anyway
That's definitely true. Monsters/dragons in the older games never really managed to feel meaningfully different from regular enemies, and I think Three Houses succeeds in that regard. And the progression where monsters activate more and more skills as you knock out their health bars is great.
But the whole process of deploying AoE gambits to break armor, denying them a turn, and then cleaning up on the following turn started feeling monotonous for me only a few hours in. So I'd hope that the next game either uses monsters more sparingly or gives them a few more tricks up their sleeves.
Like, in XCOM, one thing boss enemies are really good at is introducing threats which snap players out of their comfort zone and force them to immediately change up their strategy to avoid a unit death. Their abilities are super scary and give each boss type a lot of personality, and I think Fire Emblem could stand to move in that direction if monsters are gonna be a recurring thing.
It definitely does feel like Hard wasn't really balanced around gambits, yeah. They're plenty strong, but there's just not much reason to use them when your team can consistently wipe every in-range enemy off the map every turn. Maddening does a pretty good job of encouraging AoE gambit use against normal enemies, I think, but it'd be nice for them to be more relevant on the "default" difficulty next time around.
Anyone can use Fetters, but you're better off putting it on your dancer.
Pretty sure he does. The "alternate ending" you get out of it seems pretty clear about that.
Edit: English VA may be different, but Japanese VA is unambiguous IMO.
Edit 2: That variant is amazing. Best ending for them.
Fetters works equally well on Trickster and Dancer. Anyone can benefit from its Canto effect, but the defensive effects are exclusive to Yuri's crest. However, like with all other relics that benefit a specific crest, you can actually have the Crest-exclusive effect on anyone by giving them the relevant NG+ crest stone. (That'll also negate the damaging penalty non-Crest-bearers incur for using a relic.)
I completely forgot about the NG+ crest stones. My first playthrough was CF so when I loaded up NG+ and the game is all "You can just slap extra crests on whoever" my immediate reaction was NOOOOOOOOOOOPE
Yes. He's a goner. That is the route you chose. Why question what happens to him? Though I will admit the English dub makes it slightly more ambiguous.
Check back on this post later. I will edit it with images kept in spoiler as I don't have my switch with me at present. But to give you a text based answer...
actually two notes of intrigue since that post was made. the first one relating to the kingdom's origins as well as Leicester. Recall Edelgard's declaration of war on the church. A running theme with this game is that a majority of bad things that are associated with the church are actually the work of Agarthans or someone else. While there are errors that give misdirection, with a discerning eye you can more or less understand the context which confirms that no, church didn't split up the empire contrary to Edelgard's rhetoric. Whether or not they took advantage of that agarthan orchestrated split is another discussion but that's not what we're discussing here.
The 2nd intrigue would be the world romance to perdition and what happens to Byleth at the end of part one. To fully understand this, you cannot play crimson flower because the 2nd intrigue requires a person of interest who doesn't show up in this route for some reason. But before I answer this... Have you beaten the game already? And if you have what routes have you completed so far? I don't think I'm spoiling anything but in case you didn't complete a route yet as we have had some late comers in this thread, I'm taking precaution unless you wish to be fully spoiled in which case I'll oblige.
The 2nd intrigue would be the world romance to perdition and what happens to Byleth at the end of part one. To fully understand this, you cannot play crimson flower because the 2nd intrigue requires a person of interest who doesn't show up in this route for some reason. But before I answer this... Have you beaten the game already? And if you have what routes have you completed so far? I don't think I'm spoiling anything but in case you didn't complete a route yet as we have had some late comers in this thread, I'm taking precaution unless you wish to be fully spoiled in which case I'll oblige.
seeing how there is a lot of sharing between SS, AM, and VW. I assume she shows up there as well but I haven't confirmed it yet. She only shows up... Once, twice or not at all for CF part 2. The following is my conjecture. In the end of part one, Byleth is sent crashing to their demise off a cliff by thales. Most would assume Byleth dies and it is a fair assumption. Who the hell survives a fall like that?
in the romance of the world perdition, it is said that Sothis is one who resurrects. When Byleth goes to meet with their respective house leader (not Dimitri though.) , usually they ask what was Byleth doing. Your responses are either A: 'I was sleeping' or B: 'I was dead'. Before, I thought the latter was Byleth attempt at humor. But now the latter may actually be plausible given that Sothis herself has a running theme regarding resurrection. And the magic wielding lady here supports that given she seemingly predicted Byleth's supposed demise exactly as it played out in the cutscene. Yet as we all know Byleth survived the fall where anyone else would have surely met their end right then and there. Which begs the question. Did Byleth survive and simply fell into a comatose state to recover severe wounds or did Byleth actually die yet enter a state of recovery where their resurrection would eventually come? Byleth is more or less Sothis incarnate at this point of the story so it's a bit plausible.
Also, I'm in the middle of info gathering myself so this may change depending on potential route exclusive info if there are any. Though regrettably I'm stuck in part one at present with BL. Speeding to part 2 is painful. I regret not having a save at chapter 12 for each route. Not making that mistake again.
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Thanks, want to get the gist of the story so I can pick my favourite characters, but not needing to discover every nuance. Looking foreword to playing it. Switch is perfect for this type of game.
I dunno I always thought the whole "I was sleeping/I was dead" to be kinda interchangeable. Byleth was in a limbo is all. I'm not sure the actual details are relevant. I mean Byleth is basically a dragon god at this point, so the concept of "dying" is probably more akin to sleeping than dying. Plus dragons are known to regenerate by sleeping when fatally wounded.
The church is definitely shittier than ever, but a lot of what Edelgard believes is also heavily recontextualized, if not outright debunked.
Sometimes, beautiful things happen: during Anna's paralogue, the mission ended on the 7th turn, with Anna delivering an attack that did 7 damage with a 77% hit rate, and got a 7-stat level up. These things can't be scripted.
My Ferdinand routinely has a 0% chance to get hit when attacking on player phase now, I've really been underrating him as a unit til this playthrough.
And I kinda didn't want it to be true, but there's just no real reason to field Marianne when Hapi does basically everything she does, except better. I'll still recruit her every game of course, but it's hard to justify deploying her anymore.
And I kinda didn't want it to be true, but there's just no real reason to field Marianne when Hapi does basically everything she does, except better. I'll still recruit her every game of course, but it's hard to justify deploying her anymore.
I wouldn't go that far. The Church of Seiros is definitely a mess but it is not to the point where it is beyond redemption.
There are definitely problems but the good news is that it's hella fixable and is already on a path towards the better (Byleth eventually becoming archbishop AM, or becoming King/Queen of Fodlan in VW, Byleth going Greek pantheon in SS splitting the work between themselves and Rhea.)
Even as I say this, I will not downplay it's problems as they are significant (Negligence, cover-ups regarding christophe, cover-ups regarding medical and technological progress as noted from the shadow library, some other things that I for some reason am not remembering.)
Negligence comes first for me. Reason is that at most of the tragedies that occur only happen due to negligence from the Church of Seiros. Edelgard and Lysithea wouldn't had have such tragic childhoods had Church been much more prudent hunting Agarthans down from the beginning.
This poor lady wouldn't had this terrible fate dealt to her had the church not been so hands off with the nobility:
I have more to say about this but I'll drop off here for now. I will edit to add more text once I've gathered my thoughts and more importantly, much needed sleep.
Finally. Y'all normally think the cult of personalities would stick on ya after awhile. Not me. The lady above and the little boy below sticks on me after seeing it for the nth time.
There are definitely problems but the good news is that it's hella fixable and is already on a path towards the better (Byleth eventually becoming archbishop AM, or becoming King/Queen of Fodlan in VW, Byleth going Greek pantheon in SS splitting the work between themselves and Rhea.)
Even as I say this, I will not downplay it's problems as they are significant (Negligence, cover-ups regarding christophe, cover-ups regarding medical and technological progress as noted from the shadow library, some other things that I for some reason am not remembering.)
Negligence comes first for me. Reason is that at most of the tragedies that occur only happen due to negligence from the Church of Seiros. Edelgard and Lysithea wouldn't had have such tragic childhoods had Church been much more prudent hunting Agarthans down from the beginning.
This poor lady wouldn't had this terrible fate dealt to her had the church not been so hands off with the nobility:
As fucked as this is. That negligence also shows the church lacks the power to actually reign in on the nobility. Which is not really surprising seeing as the knights of Seiros usually don't move out unless the church receives a report or request from kingdom, empire, and Leicester nobility. Church for better or worse actually relies on the nobility for it's "soft power.".
I have more to say about this but I'll drop off here for now. I will edit to add more text once I've gathered my thoughts and more importantly, much needed sleep.
Finally. Y'all normally think the cult of personalities would stick on ya after awhile. Not me. The lady above and the little boy below sticks on me after seeing it for the nth time.
It's not just lore I screenshot. I have more than this but I don't upload every single screenshot to twitter or Facebook. I wish I could upload to imgur directly from switch... I strongly dislike twitter and Facebook.
I think I get your point and can agree at least in part but...
The church being a mess due to incompetence rather than malevolence doesn't negate that fact that it's a mess.
In my run, Hapi has been hyper-cursed with minimum stat gains on level ups. I don't think I've heard her say anything on the level up screen other than "eh, baby steps".
I'm not sure how any of that reads as "fixable", especially when step one to fixing the church is to completely overhaul the leadership its had for the past 1000 years. And that was only made possible by something as drastic as Edelgard imprisoning Rhea and completely kicking over the status quo. Sounds like "fixing" the church is indistinguishable from tearing down the church as it stood and completely rebuilding it.
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