Fire Emblem

[mAc Chaos]

what did i just read

[Spinach]

On topic, Raphael is very viable in maddening endgame. War Master awarding Quick Riposte is absolutely busted, and his talents let him go there really easily. He's also outright one of the best Quick Riposte users because of his naturally massive HP and generally good defenses.

He easily and quickly masters WM to get QR and can easily be tutored in flying to prep him to get Wyvern Lord since he'll get his fist + axe skills up just by being used. Smash hits really hard, and hilariously, gauntlets are definitely not a meme. Brave weapons that are naturally low weight essentially solve the problem that many of the best WM candidates have: bad speed ruining their early game before they reach QR to erase speed from the game.

Ofc, Raphael isn't the BEST at this. A few other male characters do it better due to better unique passives, better growths, crests, or better bases, but since stats and growths aren't very important in maddening, but rather skills and talents, Raphael can be made relevant and will stay relevant if you actually build him right. This isn't even some niche hyperthonk build, WM into WL is optimal for every male in the game, since late game maddening you can never reach high enough speed to double everything via stats alone.

[Bloble]

If anything is the meme weapon in 3H it's swords anyway. Worst combat arts, worst stat spreads, and worst ranged options. This is what happens when you jack up accuracy to the point where sword Hit doesn't matter, and throw 2RN on top of it. But at least there's the rapier and cursed ashiya sword to keep things interesting.

[Five_X]

Also, Gauntlets are actually pretty good in the right hands

Ok, you can have this one.

[Aozaki-desu]

Bows aren't actually that strong in 3H

Words of someone who is yet to give Shamir their virginity.

. Lances similarly suck but make up for it by being in classes that pump DEX up the gills, which is entirely wasted outside of Maddening because almost nobody is that hard to hit.

Lances have best weapon arts AND the best weapons by far. They only lose to bows because they make you work to reach Hunter's Volley levels of stupidity.

If anything is the meme weapon in 3H it's swords anyway. Worst combat arts, worst stat spreads, and worst ranged options. This is what happens when you jack up accuracy to the point where sword Hit doesn't matter, and throw 2RN on top of it. But at least there's the rapier and cursed ashiya sword to keep things interesting.

I find rapiers to be kinda cheat weapons because you can only get 2 through normal play (i think you can buy one normally and get another via paralogue), but you can shop early for 3 of those things if you DLC shop (which i usually do, since they cost quite a bit of renown early on). If we count rapiers then swords own lances and axes, if we dont then yeah they suck.
Ashiya is a meme weapon though. Thunderbrand is like second best weapon in the game.

On topic, Raphael is very viable in maddening endgame. War Master awarding Quick Riposte is absolutely busted, and his talents let him go there really easily. He's also outright one of the best Quick Riposte users because of his naturally massive HP and generally good defenses.

He easily and quickly masters WM to get QR and can easily be tutored in flying to prep him to get Wyvern Lord since he'll get his fist + axe skills up just by being used. Smash hits really hard, and hilariously, gauntlets are definitely not a meme. Brave weapons that are naturally low weight essentially solve the problem that many of the best WM candidates have: bad speed ruining their early game before they reach QR to erase speed from the game.

Ofc, Raphael isn't the BEST at this. A few other male characters do it better due to better unique passives, better growths, crests, or better bases, but since stats and growths aren't very important in maddening, but rather skills and talents, Raphael can be made relevant and will stay relevant if you actually build him right. This isn't even some niche hyperthonk build, WM into WL is optimal for every male in the game, since late game maddening you can never reach high enough speed to double everything via stats alone.

No offense, but this is unreasonable-amount-of-investment wall of cope. On Lunatic, you would have to tolerate Raphs garbage early game, feed him EXP to get him to 30 early, tutor him to hit both War Master and Wyvern Lord, then max out War Master, then spec him into Wyvern Lord which is not even that tanky a class to rely on a enemy-phase talent on a unit who will take higher than 0 damage from the enemy.
By the time you are done 75% of the game is cleared, Raph is not Constance who's halfway through to level 50 before timeskip hits.
I'm not gonna deny that it would work or anything, but thats copium.

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On the topic of gauntlets, they dont survive frog litmus test.
Out of all weapon types, Byleth was the worst with gauntlets. After that run only Flayn is allowed to use them.

[Deathhappens]

On topic, Raphael is very viable in maddening endgame. War Master awarding Quick Riposte is absolutely busted, and his talents let him go there really easily. He's also outright one of the best Quick Riposte users because of his naturally massive HP and generally good defenses.

He easily and quickly masters WM to get QR and can easily be tutored in flying to prep him to get Wyvern Lord since he'll get his fist + axe skills up just by being used. Smash hits really hard, and hilariously, gauntlets are definitely not a meme. Brave weapons that are naturally low weight essentially solve the problem that many of the best WM candidates have: bad speed ruining their early game before they reach QR to erase speed from the game.

Ofc, Raphael isn't the BEST at this. A few other male characters do it better due to better unique passives, better growths, crests, or better bases, but since stats and growths aren't very important in maddening, but rather skills and talents, Raphael can be made relevant and will stay relevant if you actually build him right. This isn't even some niche hyperthonk build, WM into WL is optimal for every male in the game, since late game maddening you can never reach high enough speed to double everything via stats alone.

Raphael is a good bruiser, but as an outright tank he sucks. He has like, negative RES growth and his DEF isn't /that/ good to compensate.

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White Clouds ch.11

Few pages back:

Rhea, actually, did Nothing Wrong

This chapter:

Professor, kill Edelgard at once.

To flee is futile, wicked girl. The Church of Seiros will raise its entire army against you until you have been captured and punished!

That crime will never be erased, even if you burn in the eternal flames and spill all your blood into the goddess's soil!

[Aozaki-desu]

[Bloble]

HP, it turns out, is in fact a tank stat

[Spinach]

This is literally a normal amount of useage lol. It's also the route you take any male character on maddening if you actually want consistent clears. This isn't even some theory craft or out-of-the-way character progression, it's incredibly easy.

I'm just going to assume you've done maddening once or twice and never touched it again.

[Aozaki-desu]

Consistent clears
Enemy phase
pick one

also i did lunatic like 12 times including CF and SS no-pulse ironmans

[Spinach]

Then you should know how easy it is to go WM and then WL. Unless you are doing some restricted run to challenge yourself, you can master WM in a single aux battle. I am also deep into the double digit run count, I don't even like Raphael, but he is actually fine due to the sheer stupidity of quick riposte and his naturally high bulk.

[Aozaki-desu]

I'm not using warmasters. If i make an enemy phase unit you betcha its a trash can.

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but my last few runs it was pretty much uno trashcan and the entirety of my team was player phase.

[Spinach]

If you are LTCing, sure, you're right. Raphael doesn't belong in an extremely optimized run. Otherwise, no, he is actually fine. A few other units outperform him in his niche (which is not tanking, tanking in maddening doesn't exist), but that is because instead of just being good they are insane.

But if you want to spiral down the route of "only the way I like to play is right and any other way is shit and wrong" then it can just be leveled back at you. Memeruns with "bad" characters and trying to find ways to actually make them useable is the way I enjoy the game. Unfortunately some people are terrible no matter what, like Ashe, but that's the game. Not everyone has an obtuse niche that becomes useful.

[Aozaki-desu]

If you are LTCing, sure, you're right. Raphael doesn't belong in an extremely optimized run.

I'm not LTCing, thats autistic and boring, however

(which is not tanking, tanking in maddening doesn't exist)

this is wrong, it absolutely does exist. You do need to build for it though, which is fine since if you could make a tank on the cheap on lunatic it would not be at all difficult.
Raph is going to die a few times if you build him like that and that does not appeal to me even if i'm not ironmanning but you do you

But if you want to spiral down the route of "only the way I like to play is right and any other way is shit and wrong" then it can just be leveled back at you. Memeruns with "bad" characters and trying to find ways to actually make them useable is the way I enjoy the game

you are arguing that using Raph is okay and fine and normal and then also admit he is a shit unit that you are pouring prime levels of investment into. Which was my entire point, you can do it, its just gonna cost you so much.
Confused Frog JPG
Its like when i made WL Ingrid that one time and she fucking soloed BL final map (not entirely, but she was pretty much a lynchpin, she killed more than half of fucking enemies on the map by herself).
And i thought "damn Ingrid good" and then i looked at her classsheet and skillsheet and my second thought was "no shit she is good i spent like 80% of the game leveling her"

[Spinach]

I've never said he's shit, you are equating "not being the best" with being bad. I'll reiterate that getting him to WM and WL is not a serious investment nor is it an obtuse progression route. He's always in a class he's decent at while going that way. Merely using a unit as they are normally used is not some magic over-investment with a deep cost. It's not some selfish memebuild that requires funneling tons of kills and every single week of tutoring to get Raphael into. Playing the game and using him will get him there.

This isn't like when I decided to raise Lysithea to master every single class, weapon type, and max all of her stats because she is cute and I like her. THAT is investment. This is just the route Raphael goes. It's the route anyone goes if they're slow with high HP, because WL with QR is busted as hell.

The only cost to raising Raphael this way is the opportunity cost of fielding him at all, because another unit who you like could be out there on the field instead of Raphael. There is no cope because I don't even like Raphael, I actually dislike him a fair deal, but I can easily see how his attributes can be used and made into a fairly impactful unit.

Which is why I have only used him about 4 times, because he is ugly and I don't like slow hard hitting characters. The times I have decided to raise him, it has been simple and straightforward. Just some regular participation and setting him to train on flying and whichever other skill he's falling behind on will passively bring him up to the requirements. He is a low impact character until he gets on a wyvern, but you can put people on wyverns decently fast, and wyvern classes are stupid good, so he begins to make an impact pretty easily just smashing things and getting out until you reach 30 to get him QR.

[Deathhappens]

Lysithea deserves all that investment and more.

As an aside, now that I've gotten to the more climactic chapters I can honestly say I don't really like Claude, which is... somewhat of a demerit in a story he's supposed to be the protagonist to.
He's just... too cool with everything. Seeing someone you thought for sure was dead or gone, five extremely difficult and tumultuous years since the last time you met, in a meeting that was a chance in a million they'd even remember even if they were alive is definitely not the kind of thing you're supposed to casually laugh off like that.

[Malgos]

If anything is the meme weapon in 3H it's swords anyway. Worst combat arts, worst stat spreads, and worst ranged options. This is what happens when you jack up accuracy to the point where sword Hit doesn't matter, and throw 2RN on top of it. But at least there's the rapier and cursed ashiya sword to keep things interesting.

It's pretty funny how swords are usually not that great in quite a few Fire Emblems despite usually being the Lord's weapon of choice.

Then you should know how easy it is to go WM and then WL. Unless you are doing some restricted run to challenge yourself, you can master WM in a single aux battle. I am also deep into the double digit run count, I don't even like Raphael, but he is actually fine due to the sheer stupidity of quick riposte and his naturally high bulk.

Ah, I forgot aux battles even existed probably another part of Three Houses I don't like much. As someone that lost interest in his 5th playthrough around I dunno chapter 7 or so I'm not sure I can talk much about it, but it felt like classes gained really slow experience on maddening and since you need to master them that sucked. As I said before I don't really like the grindy feel of Three Houses and it's monastery.

I'm not LTCing, thats autistic and boring, however

Not really into that myself as well, although I aim to try and play as fast I can, even while playing a game blindly. So at least the spirit of it is kinda my thing. Also I've got to admit it was pretty interesting to see Dondon151 pull some crazy maneuvers for his LTCs, but some of it is also just having insanely good RNG.



Seeing all this discussions kinda makes me want to try and pick it up again to actually be able to talk about it, but at the same time it kinda feels like Fates and I have little desire to go back to it, but they did add a difficulty, after I've beaten all routes, I haven't beaten before so I sorta feel compelled. Not having finished that run didn't stop me from starting a new run of Fire Emblem 6 though, so 3H will still be on hold unless this thread ignites my passion to actually buckle down on the Monastery grind again.

[Aozaki-desu]

If you do DLC aux battles they make every lunatic run like 20hr long and offset the exp penalty that you get
you can also just do normal missions instead but those are much less efficient
and by less efficient i say they are dogshit holy hell why are normal aux battles are so bad is beyond me
and dont even start me QUESTS

[Spinach]

It was fun. Would not do again tho.

[Aozaki-desu]

Lysithea deserves all that investment and more.

As an aside, now that I've gotten to the more climactic chapters I can honestly say I don't really like Claude, which is... somewhat of a demerit in a story he's supposed to be the protagonist to.
He's just... too cool with everything. Seeing someone you thought for sure was dead or gone, five extremely difficult and tumultuous years since the last time you met, in a meeting that was a chance in a million they'd even remember even if they were alive is definitely not the kind of thing you're supposed to casually laugh off like that.

you arent getting any drama in Golden Deer, its Linhardt of all four routes

maybe i should tune Yuzu and get that modding going so that Sothis can murder everything
but i'm too deep in the crusades it will take me like a month to get out
too deep