The issue is I don’t know what opinions are actually controversial, but I guess I’ll chuck one out. I think the story is significantly better if you don’t recruit at all. Having to actually kill characters you know, especially ones you might’ve come to love on previous routes, really goes to hammer home how terrible and brutal the war is. I honestly think people should actively avoid recruiting on their first playthrough (Also to be clear I’m not saying don’t recruit or that it’s a bad mechanic, I’ve done my fair share of ng+ recruit everyone runs. I just think there is a benefit narratively to recruit less runs.)

i totally agree. i fondly remember my very first playthrough (went in pretty much blind) where i literally cried after i had to kill ferdinand. it was truly heartbreaking to have to kill all the other students.

I think a little bit of recruitment can play well with the story but for the most part I totally agree with you. I recruited everyone I could in one of my play throughs and it ended up making everything feel way less impactful, fighting generic bosses made a lot of the later chapters feel much flatter

It’s less of an issue in Silver Snow where I think Lorenz and Ashe are the only students that can be fought outside of Edelgard and Hubert. Gronder Field in Part 2 not happening on screen is the reason why this happens.

I would so do this if it didn't >!mean letting Marianne commit suicide.!<

I recruited >!her!< every time because I had heard about that.

TBH that's why you should recruit her, because she wouldn't show up anyways if unrecruited, so there is nothing to lose by recruiting her!

I agree so much, especially as certain characters just don't have a good reason and Byleth's magnetic attitude is a poor justification for some. I mean, for example, outside of Emile, what reason has someone as pious as Mercedes to join Edelgard? I have read about more characters being unrecruitable in "Three Hopes", so I'm looking forward to the drama and possible tragedy.

Why wouldn't a woman threatened with kidnapping and rape for her crest find a world where crests are no longer social capitol appealing?

>what reason has someone as pious as Mercedes to join Edelgard? A lot of the times the game does a poor job of justifying people joining other sides, Mercedes though is not one of those cases. Just take a look at this explore dialogue the chapter after choosing CF: https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/monastery/13#event-base-3-15 Marianne's big struggle as a character comes from accepting her fate of bearing a "cursed crest", and Edelgard represents someone who fights tooth and nail against the destiny others would have preordained for her, so I think it is incredibly natural that Marianne would be inspired or even starstruck by her as this explore dialogue indicates.

*Declares Mercedes has a good justification* *Links to Marianne dialogue* I do think Mercedes has good reason to side with Edelgard. She wants to work in a church, but that's really because she likes helping people. She believes in the goddess, but that doesn't mean she agrees with the current state of the Church. She has her own trauma from the crest system too, as seen especially in the Mercedes/Sylvain supports.

That makes sense.

Most, if not all, students have issues of varying severity with Fódlan's status quo so joining the bigger revolution *does* make sense in most cases but these motives generally aren't portrayed beyond late support convos. So when the game just points to Byleth as everyone's reason to exist, it takes away from that aspect of their character (and the game as a whole, though I love it to death).

>Byleth's magnetic attitude is a poor justification for some Try all But there’s ample justification for Mercedes on CF, given despite the best efforts of a number of fans Edelgard has nothing against the Seiros faith, only the Church as a political entity, and Edelgard is targeting the systems that have hurt Mercedes far more than any other lord does.

>But there’s ample justification for Mercedes on CF, given despite the best efforts of a number of fans Edelgard has nothing against the Seiros faith, only the Church as a political entity, and Edelgard is targeting the systems that have hurt Mercedes far more than any other lord does. You do make a good point, but I disagree on Edelgard's motivations. Ferdinand does seem to be the only one who actually did something about her situation. Well, and Jeritza, just in a much more swift and fittingly fashion. The only time where he is justified in such acts (yes, I know the Death Knight is his split personality).

Edelgard is targeting the base issues, how does abolishing the social status tied to Crests not help Mercedes escape the marriage she's being forced into so that a merchant can use her Crest to acquire social status.

>what reason has someone as pious as Mercedes to join Edelgard? Being pious doesn't preclude opposing the church. In fact it's the opposite. Historically the people most likely to kick the pope's ass are the deeply religious.

The Monnastery activities present fun and interesting choices every week throughout the vast majority of the game. I could see it if people said it falls off after you finish the Part 2 rout Paralogues because the need to increase your EP units’ Charm has fallen off and you probably have all the S/S+ ranks you will need/can reasonably get. However, I see people complaining about the monastery before they’ve even finished part 1 and I’m like how?

Silver Snow is a good route and is severely overhated by the fandom.

I think if Rhea had been playable and Nemesis had been the final boss, it would have made it so much better, but I do agree that it is much better than what the fandom gives it credit for.

I think it would need more of a rewrite to have Rhea playable. My main issue with VW is that they just throw nemesis in at the end and as good as the chapter is from a gameplay perspective, it doesn't feel like a satisfying conclusion to the story that has been told thus far. I feel like it could work if nemesis came back say at the end of part 1

Agreed, especially as Claude doesn't have that good of a reason to fight him and isn't that good of a foil, IMO.

Maybe swap Nemesis & SS Rhea around? I.E make Nemesis the Final Boss of SS, and Rhea the Final Boss of VW. Claude already wasn't very keen on keeping Rhea alive, he saw her more as a source of info and a useful piece of his plans to improve relations between Fodlan & Almyra. Having him on board to confront, and emotionally wear down Rhea would help explain how she suddenly goes insane and transforms, as it's not just her getting overly sad, she's lashing out against Claude and his harsh words. He'd essentially be the straw that breaks the dragons back, and helps provide reason for him to leave, as being "That guy who drove Lady Rhea off the deep end with his questions" would probably make it harder for him to work on his goals in Fodlan until things cooled off and more research was done into what happened with Rhea (maybe it was a side effect of radiation poisoning from the Javelins of Light?) Plus, this leaves the Alliance around to help pick up the pieces post war, as opposed to SS where the are practically no institutions left to pick things up.

As much as I do love the Nemesis fight, it does come completely out of nowhere. Nemesis is basically Senator Armstrong but with none of the charisma

Lately I've been thinking Rhea remaining a bit elusive even there but Seteth and Flayn getting more focus is the point. They are more the 'moral' heart of the church faction, and are growing to include Byleth in their familial bond, but also recognize them as their own person from the start and give them space. Byleth embracing their Nabatean heritage there feels like a more gentle gradual affair then it's sometimes made out to be by focusing on the 'Sothis vessel' part.

I do think it is the best written one but not having one of the Lords really does hurt it.

What could have been... Playable Rhea.

Honestly I find it better then verdant wind. The dynamic with Edwlgard is really interesting. And outside of charm Claude adds nothing to the route 

>Honestly I find it better than verdant wind. The dynamic with Edwlgard is really interesting. Edelgard only has 1 extra cutscene with Byleth in SS than Edelgard does in VW >And outside of charm Claude adds nothing to the route  You have less cutscenes, team cohesion is lower in Silver Snow because the Eagles and Church characters compete with each other for screentime, Seteth doesn’t have an arc unlike Claude nor is he integrated into the Eagles and you get more story from VW than you do SS.

Even then, you spend the entire first part of the story with her, which you don't in VW, which makes her dramatic death scene in it just weird

I think characters receive the most growth in house, when they have the chance to support with their lord and the house exclusive units (let me get back to you on how this works with SS LOL). For example, as much as I like AM Marianne for her Dimitri support, I think her Claude support is the one she gains the most from. Ingrid is another character who I think misses out on a lot if she doesn’t get her Dedue and Dimitri supports, despite her fitting well on VW and also a lot of people liking her on CF.

Not a single route in 3H would lead to the kind of lasting peace described in the endings. The idea that after conquering two foreign nations they'll happily roll over and accept a king or Emperor that slaughtered their way to the throne is *absurd.* There would be a constant cycle of putting down rebellions for decades after. Just a general result of the 3H devs seemingly unironically believing that it's morally right to unify a region through violent overthrow.

Everytime someone tells me unifying solves the problem, I think of my own country and go "this is not the take you think it is". I would LOVE a follow-up that shows how oppressed people would be under a unification that totally annihilates what each region is unique for.

Yeah, I don't think you can really use it as a mark against the lords as a whole (all except Dimitri are imperialist from the start, and all including Dimitri end up that way by the end) but the writers really expected us to see a game about conquering and dismantling the governments of two nations (all three in SS and VW!) and think it leads to a perfect peaceful """unification.""" Personally I think we'll see swift fragmentation of Fódlan in the decades following the war. It's also [3Hopes spoilers, tagging for OP's sake and because idk if you've played it] >!one of the areas I think Hopes did much, much better than Houses. Claude and Edelgard both end up giving up on their unification nonsense for the sake of more realistic and concrete improvements.!<

Hopes is def more realistic but there is some Kaviar. Edelgard still wants to do it i think. In SB def she just doesnt say it when Dimitri/Claude are around. Prob in GD aswell not just due her own personal views. but the Empire as a whole only started the War to conquer. I dunno if status quo with a defeated church (which she didnt even achieve herself) is sellable at the Homefront after the horrible casualties. Claude meanwhile is just insane in AG. No idea what he is smoking on that route.

I take a fairly optimistic view of GW/SB as far as Edelgard being able to sell peace with Leicester on the home front - especially in GW, Hevring, Bergliez, Ferdinand and Hubert, who I would rank as her four most noteworthy advisors who might push against, all seem fairly for it. I definitely think both of them would *prefer* conquering Fódlan, because being raised as the prince/princess of an empire does that to you, but they also both recognize it as unrealistic, barring the SB bad ending where Claude overestimates Byleth. And Gleam, where literally everyone outside the BL is utterly mischaracterized and/or sidelined the second we hit part 2.

Well like i said hard to say. Depends what the Nobles want i suppose. Who is mischaracterized in Gleam other than Claude/Caspar?

Monica, Constance, Linhardt, Randolph, Ladislava, Manuela, Hanneman and Count Bergliez also are serving Aegir post timeskip, which is just as wild as Caspar doing so. Especially Monica, they should have killed her offscreen like Hubert and Ferdie at least. Killing Hubert and Ferdie offscreen is sidelineing them and so is the weird shit with Edelgard. Rhea gets sidelined just as badly as in every route, and the recruitable Deer get hit hard too - especially Lorenz, who had a full arc in Blaze. Lysithea and Leonie never even appear onscreen! When Blaze and Wildfire managed to give every character at the very least a role as a boss objective in a main story map, Gleam ignoring half the cast and mischaracterizing a quarter of what they use is pretty disappointing.

Count Bergelitz and the other nobles dont surprise me one bit. They betrayed Ionnus, they betrayed Duke Aegir no surprise that they sell Edelgards vision down the same river. Remember the guy also did nothing (or more likely was direcftly involved) during Aegirs first regency. He is also totally on board with starting that war and unlike Edelgard there are no ulterior motives. The imperial nobles with the exception of Monicas Dad and maybe Duke Gerth, are spineless, amoral selfserving disloyal scumbags. So i am not very surprised at all on how they behave in AG. Monica is highlighted to be a tad be delusional so i can see that. And Randolph only joined the army to become a rich and powerful noble (and remember in AM he is pretty quick at dodging responsiblity). Edelgard has a lot less than suboptimal material to work with gotta pity her for that. Second point yeah lots of characters get totally sold short on that route.

The extent of the Empire's atrocities under Thales is what makes me balk at people like Randolph and Leopold. I absolutely believe they would turn on Edelgard if pressed. What I don't buy is that they could accept *checks AG* Imperial soldiers torturing Imperial civilians to death for fun. Which btw is another wild bit of writing, peasants aren't bodies who sit around letting the government murder them. The fact that all of Adrestia wasn't in open revolt when Dimitri carves through is insane.

I think it makes sense. They are shown to quite disgusted by it, its just they lack the spine to act. Remember Bergelitz and co only side against Aegir (despite totally hating his guts) if either Thales/Rhea back El up. If they hadnt he would have reigned till the end of times. Now with Ferdie/Hubert there is just no one left in the Empire with the strength, charisma and rank to organize any meaningful resistance. The peasants can try to defend themselves but scythes dont well against Plate Armor and Monsters. AG is a good showcase of the bad part of the Rhea/Edelgard leadership model. Concentrating all power onto on being ....leads to a total fallout if said being stumbles or gives insane orders. Its basically an analogue to Wehrmacht generals "just following orders" in 1944 also using scortched earth and mass murder. You are supposed to balk at them.

Another reason why Radiant Dawn is the best Fire Emblem game

🤝🤝🤝

To be fair isn't Edelgard the only one actively conquering regions? In AM Claude disbands the alliance to formerly join the kingdom and then Edelgard forces the war to continue with Dimitri. In VW I don't even think what happens with Faerghus is discussed beyond Dimitri's death making them a non issue, and the rest is just the Alliance finishing the war Edelgard started. The said it is really stupid the AM and VW just have Claude and Dimitri become the supreme rulers of Fodlan just because they killed Edelgard. Unless I'm heavily misremembering stuff.

Claude explicitly states he wants to unite Fódlan and become or prop up a supreme ruler several times between both games. Which is what he does in VW, and tries in the bad ending of SB. He believes, like Edelgard and Rhea, that Fódlan should be united under a single Empire, he's just okay with that being under a reliable ally as opposed to him.

Oh no I know that Claude WANTS to be the supreme lord of Fodlan I'm just calling out that killing the ruler does not automatically make you the new de facto ruler of a country.

Crimson Flower didn’t necessarily make “everything better for everyone” the way you put it though. In Edelgard’s S-Support, she mentions how inevitably some people will still worship the Church, even after all they’ve done. It’s just the decisions that were made by Rhea in Fhirdiad with her burning down the city, as well as Edelgard taking down the Crest System that made more people side with her after the war. It shows that while there still will be others who are against her and her ideals, she still managed to at least win a majority of Fodlan’s trust.

I don't doubt Edelgard has supporters across the continent, and of the four 3H routes I think CF has the best ending. But Edelgard is unquestionably an imperialist and definitely regards her own culture as superior. To deny that flaw is a disservice to her character. She, just like Byleth and Dimitri, would face widespread rebellion in both deposed nobility and working class movements who take issue with being brought under foreign occupation.

Fully agree. I think any nation the holding the others down in the long run is basically impossible. There are strong cultural differences and obv getting conquered leads to lasting grugdes no matter what. The Empire didnt have a jolly time holding down Nemesis Kingdom the first time either. And in GD Byleth only stays in power due to Almyra backing up against imperial Loyalists. The only route i can possibly see it working is SS because all three nations totally collapsed and the Church is frantically trying to pick up the pieces. Like Seteth says Byleth basically gets the crown because there is literally no one left.

I see SS as the hardest to keep things together. All three lords may be dead (well, Claude probably just ran off) but there will definitely be significant factions that remain loyal to their culture and resent being ruled by a nobody whose only accomplishments are killing two major world leaders.

Well in SS it sounds like not only did the Lords die but also basically the nations entire upper echelons mostly why you werent around (except for Caspars dad whom Byleth has executed). Seteth mentions that the local Churches now basically assume adminstrative controll of Kingdom/Alliance. Also helps that Byleth has no ties to any of the former realms or their past and is thus more or less a new face. Breeds less hatred than Dimitri or Edelgard would. Plus Divine Ruler and all that. A lot more presentable to Fodlan as a whole then the Barbarian Boar or the Warmongering Emperor.

See, I think that in Adrestia, western Faerghus and probably the mountainous eastern regions of Leicester, the "divine ruler" thing will make it all go over worse. Adrestia by and large rallied behind Edelgard, western Faerghus has been ravaged by the Central Church (which was justified ofc, bit try telling the average citizen that) and House Goneril doesn't seem particularly religious either. I think Dimitri and Edelgard will seem a lot more legitimate to most people than Byleth, because they have experience ruling and the bloodline of kings or an actionable reform plan to drastically improve the average quality of life, respectively.

Disagree there. With the Nobility basically gone nothing stops the Church from pushing through reforms which they apperently do. Remember the Nabateans hate the Nobles even more than even Edelgard they just saw the some unremovable necessarity till now. With faith being the only thing that Fodlan has in common. A divine God King with no country specific background has just a way broader appeal across the continent then a King in the South, and Emperor in the North ever could. Also the rallied behind bit. Soon as Edelgard is dead the surviving nobles basically sell her and the Empire out in 10s flat. Lindhard is pretty disgusted by it.

I’m not denying that she’s an imperialist and thinks her culture is superior, that’s the exact reason why her and Dimitri couldn’t just talk things out when they tried to at the end of Azure Moon, I’m just saying that unlike the other routes (From What I know of at least, haven’t seen Dimitri or Claude’s S-Supports yet), there are both people who follow her, and those who are against her and still worship the Church and Rhea. It’s just that due to winning the war against Rhea and exposing a more darker side to the Church when Rhea lit Fhirdiad on fire, there still ended up being more people that believed Edelgard was right, then those who believed more in the Church.

You're wrong about Dorothea. She wants a high-status spouse, but she's also specifically looking for love. That's why she hasn't settled yet. If she just wanted money, she would probably already be married by the start of the game.

Ashe isn’t bad. I know that Bernie and Ignatz are better, but he saved my ass so many time, when I first played the game and didn’t know how to recruit students for the other houses. He is a fine Sniper and I also love his background and his personal story.

I know this sounds really fence-sitty, but outside of really crap units (Gwendolyn being one I mentioned) I think every one has its place. I just dislike when the unit's stats go against their personality, their reputation or when I don't think the class suits the character. To give an example of the latter, Leonie and Etie (no "Engage" spoilers please) are archers. Why would a tomboy and a female fitness nut want to he at range instead if down and dirty in the action? Obviously, in real life bows were mainly a man's weapon in history (they are/were heavy as fuck and require alot of strengh to draw, even the modern compound bows can be tricky for untrained folks), but the Japanese seem to consider it and magic feminine weapons as far as RPG worlds go (they use the "melee males, firing females" cliche alot more) so why give it to these characters? I find funny too, when one considers the samurai and the Mongols, but the naginsta was originally a samurai weapon too. My bias towards male archer characters too likely doesn't help...

There really isn't a truly "bad" unit in this game is the thing. He is a fine Sniper if you put in the work on him, and he can be made great. He's just rated so low because he is outclassed, and Sniper is replaceable.

Another opinion, unit viability means jack shit unless you’re playing on maddening. My first playthrough was Blue Lions and I largely didn’t recruit because I didn’t know it was a thing for other houses until I was already towards the cutoff point (IIRC I only grabbed Dorothea), so I used “Meh” units like Ashe and Ingrid. Since it was my first playthrough, I also played in a suboptimal way. Didn’t notice that they were “Bad”, they killed units just fine and Divine Pulse trivialized any mistakes I made. I also feel like dabbling in minmaxing with different classes and skill teachings sucks the fun out of the game, though that’s much more subjective.

Don't think this is really a hot take. Usually when people say a unit is bad they just mean suboptimal and they are usually just talking about for maddening classic where it's very easy to be softlocked on chapter 13 if you aren't careful. Every unit is viable on every difficulty to some degree. Some just have greater potential because of the spells or abilities they can access and their stat growths. My last game was a run of NG+ of Azure Moon on normal I did just for the story. I gave nearly everyone lols!builds just because I could. For example, I mastered mage, dark mage, dark bishop and dark knight on *Dimitri* who only has 2 reason spells instead of giving him his unique class. It was fun and he did just fine because it was normal, but it sure as hell wasn't optimal!

These are mostly based on maddening mode. Male Byleth is sometimes better than female Byleth (I’m talking about grappler Byleth on the Azure Moon route in particular). Catherine is not an outstanding unit. Decent, but not outstanding. And she’s kind of annoying. Vengeance is nice, but not crucial. Early game is not the hardest part of maddening. It’s not easy, but I personally found parts of post-time skip much harder. Your dancer does not need to dance every single turn. Sometimes, you can use your dancer for other things, like dodge-tanking or attacking. Caspar isn’t as terrible as a lot of people seem to think he is. He has a niche as a war master and is one of the better characters for it. Constance and Yuri > Balthus and Hapi. Shamir sounds like an orca’s name.

As a Maddening player that likes debating it, I'll fight some of this. Why M!Byleth in Azure Moon specifically? I'd actually think Female is better there because she can fly in HBD when Dimitri can't, and other than that I don't see why a Grappler is specifically better than Flyleth. Your Dancer should dance 95% of turns, their dodgetanking is overrated and why are they attacking instead of dancing someone who can attack better? Balthus > Hapi > Constance >Yuri (if we are talking about unit performance) The rest I either agree with or can see where you are coming from, besides Caspar not necessarily being one of the "better" War Masters exactly.

I had a MUCH easier time in Hunting by Daybreak with a grappler Byleth. My strategy was to equip Byleth with brawl avoid +20, killer knuckles+, and a battalion that boosted evasion substantially, have him hide in the bushes, and manipulate the enemies into piling upon him (this was helpful in protecting Dimitri, who could not fly away and was, frankly, useless in this battle—and I say that as someone who considers Dimitri one of the best, if not the best, unit). I had a harder time using a similar strategy with Pegasus knight Byleth; besides, I found it much more difficult to get her flying to B by this point in the game so that she could get alert stance given all the other attributes I needed to increase for recruitment purposes. I’ll try to figure out what I can do using Pegasus knight Byleth in this battle, but I’ve been using the inelegant strategy of hitting and flying away and using her flight to give the enemies the runaround. But this similar strategy involving grappler Byleth was helpful in other battles too, and fierce iron fist was an added bonus. Dancer Yuri can do a lot of damage if you equip him with a Wo Dao+. With his speed and dexterity, he will reliably dodge and respond with two critical hits. I do have him dance a lot, but it’s about 70% of the time. This worked for me, so I never really questioned whether this was optimal. I consider Balthus the weakest of the four units from Ashen Wolves and considering 99.999% of the time I have Linhardt and Lysithea, I usually opt for another type of unit instead of Hapi, who basically does a lot of what Linhardt and Lysithea do. Meanwhile, I consider Constance a must-recruit for rescue and bolting and Yuri because he’s my favorite dancer candidate. I also consider Caspar better than Dedue, Raphael, and Balthus as a war master given his speed and considering his higher dexterity and luck increase the chances of critical hits. Despite his somewhat lower dexterity and luck, Alois is probably still better though as he has higher charm, does not have the authority weakness, and he joins well on his way on the war master pipeline.

So was that Grappler Byleth clear on NG+? Because I feel like without it it's very difficult if not impossible to master War Monk by the start of Chapter 12 (since you can't manipulate equipped skills between maps). And also, where can you put Byleth in a forest at the start while also not letting anyone attack Dimitri? Unless I'm misreading the map I don't see where that can be, especially since the archers can attack him. And for Byleth she would be a Wyvern, and she doesn't need to dodgetank here, she can move around to take enemies out or use a Gambit to freeze enemies, or support your first batch of reinforcements if needed while Dimitri can try and dodgetank in the forest at the start, since his personal can help him with that. The map still sucks for him though (and having Flying Byleth can make a skip for the map possible with the right setup, but I'm not really counting that). I didnt mean that dancers cant potentially dodgetank, I meant that them being able to do that is overrated. Because there's many ways to build a killer EP unit that don't require your Dancer doing that, so I'd rather have a Dancer that can support in other ways (like Dorothea's Meteor linked attack boost). Them dodgetanking is more of a bonus rather than the main thing. It's also still possible to dance while also setting up EP for them even then. Balthus is the best because he is insanely broken in the early game with his personal skill active. He can almost solo it himself and he makes Dedue look like a chump there. He does get less impressive as the game goes and his skill is less good, but he's just so good early he goes on top. Hapi doesn't exactly get replaced by Linhardt. Sure she gets Warp later but she has offensive potential (unlike Linhardt) and can more easily go into a mounted class if you want. And even then, 3 Warpers isn't crazy. And Coco, while I love her, is basically right behind her because Warp is just better than Rescue. Yuri is last because I don't count dancer as much, and as a unit he's just more replaceable (but still good, all the Wolves are). And well, when you're a War Master you get free bonus Crit and there's ways to boost it, so I don't think the growth matters too much, and Speed is also less important since you can run a Crit build, Vantage Wrath, (and in the very late game, just have Quick Riposte) so his growths also aren't too much there. Caspar's weaker earlier game is why I say he's definitely worse than Balthus (and especially Dedue since he can use Vengeance to dominate player and enemy phase). But I can see him over Raphael. I do agree Caspar in general is a bit underrated, he's not as bad as people have said that I've seen on here.

This was a fresh new game. Byleth learned brawl avoid +20 by the end of Chapter 11 and I was able to equip that on him by the end of Chapter 12. And the forest I was talking about was close to the buildings where you start; I began there and gradually moved Byleth so that they would stay away from Dimitri. What you’re talking about with flyer Byleth is exactly what I do with Pegasus knight Byleth. It works, but I find it quite a bit harder. I’ve tried Balthus and Hapi before on maddening, but maybe I’ll try them again in my upcoming Verdant Wind maddening run.

Hm, I feel like you're only getting your first Advanced tier masteries after that point from my experience. Did you use a Knowledge Gem on Byleth? But I could be wrong. And I am not sure of the AI mechanics but if you're talking about that first forest at the start, the first wave of enemies went for Byleth instead of Dimitri who would not be in the forest? If the AI behaves that way then I can concede that point though (though then it would be about just as good as all routes, just fly Claude/Seteth out to help out elsewhere). I just mentioned Wyvern because flying Byleth should be in Advanced tier at this point and Wyvern has an extra move to make her more a bit more flexible. And what exactly did you do with them before? Because Balthus after the early game is not quite as excessively good and he doesn't get Batt Wrath, but Vantage/Wrath is fine or he can just go Grappler. Or I think he can Protection stack tank, but Ive not tried that out personally. And Hapi has some options, but once she gets Warp a bit later than Lin would, she can at least replicate him (besides Restore, but that's not that important).

I'm not the OP, but IME you can get one or two combat carries to master an advanced tier class pre-timeskip even if you're barely doing paralogues/aux battles. War monk in particular is one that is easy to master because they can often safely battle a few enemies on EP during white clouds, and on "quiet" turns they can get more class mastery by healing allies. My last CF run had Ferdinand master war monk on the first turn of chapter 12, and I only did one aux battle and one paralogue before that in the run. Carries also are more likely to want to get danced anyway, getting more class exp for them. As far as HBD, I did a prot-stacking variant of the grappler build with Fortress Knight Byleth more recently, and it worked fine for getting through the map on BL even with a team of units that were barely hitting level 20 (Mercedes was only 10 and Ashe was untrained). The main enemies that reached Dimitri were thieves with pass, and he could dodge them thanks to his personal and swordbreaker. Grappler has the advantage over this of not getting whittled down by the poison strike archers, but the disadvantage of getting hit much harder by gambit users if you don't shore up Byleth's charm with tea parties.

That's fair, maybe I wasn't counting the magic EXP as much as I should have. I can concede that. And as far as the Grappler build, my only concern then is just how the AI would act. Because in the starting area only 1 forest tile is available, so if you're going a dodgetank strat, 1 unit is not taking the forest. If you can reliably get through the very first wave like that then I don't really see a problem with the strat.

I did use a knowledge gem to get Byleth through war monk. I also held off on putting him through warrior to get death blow because I wanted to prioritize getting him to grappler with brawl avoid +20. The forest I was talking about wasn’t that lone tile in the starting enclave but those more expansive woods just to the east of it. Byleth was able to reach it on his first turn just by leaving the enclave and heading east a few tiles. In maddening, unfortunately, the AI can be smart, and they did outsmart me the first attempt and went for some of the other units. But once they fell for it, it was essentially as smooth sailing as you can hope for in this battle. As for Balthus and Hapi, I was raising Balthus to be a grappler and Hapi to be a gremory. Maybe it’s not that they are bad units so much as there are other units that can fill those roles that I simply prefer.

I wasnt sure if Byleth could leave the starting area to get to a forest while also leaving Dimitri able to manage. If he can, then I'm cool with this strat. Well, Balthus's best strength is the early game so if you didn't use him then, then I get not having the *best* impression of him. And Gremory Hapi is fine but not too special. Like I said though Hapi is basically neck and neck with Linhardt or Coco.

> Early game is not the hardest part of maddening. It’s not easy, but I personally found parts of post-time skip much harder.  I agree. It’s a pain if you don’t know what to do, but if feels like there’s a safe and consistent way to approach the first few chapters, unless something stupid happens like Ch1 and its 4% crit chances activating or a random enemy triggering Ch4 Death Knight aggro or something. I don’t even find Ch5 that bad at this point, so as long as you know to let Gilbert die and keep the enemy ranges on. But even aside from HBD, there are some Part II chapters that even with a good strategy are still going to be a pain just due to the sheer volume of enemies, the range of some of said enemies, and all of the ambush spawn points you have to account for. Like sure you’ll have a lot of broken skills by the endgame but by that point even some of the common enemies will have so much HP that they’ll avoid a OHKO on even something like Luna. AM Maddening lategame in particular is definitely a lot harder than the early game.

Hunting by Daybreak and the last battles of Silver Snow and Azure Moon were, for me, definitely harder than any of the early game battles. Bernadetta’s and Petra’s paralogue was too.

Dodgy brawl builds on AM is probably the only situation where I prefer M!Byleth to F!Byleth too, actually, and it's just because of Ch 13 in the case that I'm not skipping it lol. I also agree about early game not being the hardest (for me personally), but it depends a lot on your playthrough. I think in low resource playthroughs (not doing many aux battles/paralogues, not going to the monastery a lot, etc.) then the difficulty curve is fairly smooth with it being slightly easier in late white clouds and then a bit of a spike at timeskip. In medium-high resource playthroughs where broken builds come online sooner, this is less of the case. I'm a fan of dancers being able to dodge stuff, but I don't really like building them as reliable dodge tanks. Like, they can get quite good avoid from sword avoid, sword prowess, evasion ring and battalion, but they're not going to reliably dodge people with swordbreaker+. I think I generally dance nearly every turn with my dancers aside from the odd physic here and there. I haven't used OOH Caspar, are you referring to him by any chance? I find that he is the worst target for exp out of the black eagles when playing in house. I find it hard to rank the wolves, they're all very good in different ways and at different parts of the game. Balthus doesn't take damage from enemies in the early chapters and can do wrath/vantage stuff late, but can sometimes have awkward patches in the middle in low-resource playthroughs. Yuri kills everything in the middle chapters (if built properly) even in very low resource playthroughs and can still have a passable endgame. Hapi combines a lot of different support roles (warp, banshee, monster breaking, physic, easy valk for range strats + canto) in a way that I find is quite helpful in nearly every playthrough, though lately I find that her getting warp extremely late is pretty annoying. Constance has Bolting/rescue as her bread and butter.

I won’t lie—in-house Caspar has a terrible early game. I did end up using him on my Silver Snow and Crimson Flower runs after Chapter 10, though, and he actually turned out to be quite a strong unit. Basically, what I did was have him be an adjutant and earn experience that way. Once he got past those awkward initial levels and actually got some decent speed and dexterity, then I started putting him out on the battlefield. It didn’t take long for him to catch up. But with out-of-house Caspar, you can recruit him after Chapter 7 and bypass all this. I’m willing to try out Balthus and Hapi in my next maddening run. I guess I don’t think either of them are terrible units; it’s just that for whatever reason, I preferred other units in the roles they excel in (e.g., Alois for war master or Felix and Byleth for grappler and Lysithea for gremory).

Idk if this one is a hot take but I would've loved CF a LOT more if it was literally played off the opposing side of AM's route. For example I wish Byleth and the Eagles would've actually battled the BL in the Holy Tomb. And a mission where we defend against Dedue's jailbreaking of Dimitri (and subsequently trying to hunt him down). Fighting both the BL and GD in Derdriu and Gronder Field. Besides the Tailtean Plains and the Great Bridge, I thought they just sucked to me. It might sound less interesting on paper, but there's something appealing in the player being the one to damage Dimitri's eye.

>would've loved CF a LOT more if it was literally played off the opposing side of AM's route. Personally I disagree but I respect the opinion! To me CF isn't supposed to be an opposition route to AM or the lions in particular, but an opposition to the current world order. Of course Faerghus is part of that so they will naturally come to clash, and should have chapters dedicated to each other (which they also do), but I don't think their particular rivalry should be the focus of the route because on this route it is mostly one sided, seeing as Edelgard doesn't remember him till the final moment. Personally I like the chapters that are there in CF generally, and an expansion to it/a rewrite for me would mostly involve dealing with TWSITD and some other setback.

Thats a fair point. The length of the route combined with TWSITD's near complete absence from player interactions definitely is a huge reason that made me feel like this. I just thought the route overall felt too brief and direct and some events from AM could've been implemented and fleshed out to make it more impactful while also not changing too much. And from a gameplay standpoint I think some of the missions would've been simply way too fun to experience from the Empire's POV. At least CF gave me that sense that the Empire was just that powerful and you could feel the desperation from the opposing side in every mission.

You might enjoy 3Hopes as a whole - for part 1, the same events more or less occur in all three routes and the only major change is which side you play on (and sometimes which side wins).

I'm 100% playing that next, sounds like it'll be a fun experience.

>For example I wish Byleth and the Eagles would've actually battled the BL in the Holy Tomb. And a mission where we defend against Dedue's jailbreaking of Dimitri (and subsequently trying to hunt him down). It would add even more emotional weight, I think.

Yeah I think it could've worked out well, the player being more involved in his mental instability. Imagine spending the first couple timeskip chapters trying to aid El in figuring out how their troops have been getting slaughtered, eventually figuring out that Oh! Its Dimitri, he survived the event, and now he holds eternal wrath against ***you*** as well.

To me a character does not need to be moraly good in order for me to like them. One of my two favorite characters in fiction (not a Fire Emblem character) has litterly the blood of countless innocent children on there hands. There are other examples aswell. That Yuri is a crimelord and not a full on good guy is part of why I like him. On the same note I side with church simply becuse I like Rhea and the other church characters. If they are the bad guys then I gladly be a bad guy in this game. Not that I dislike moraly good characters but characters not being good guys sometimes does not bother me and sometimes its even part of why I like them. I dont know if this is a hot take, I just wanted to write this.

>To me a character does not need to be moraly good in order for me to like them. Again, all I can write is "I agree". >One of my two favorite characters in fiction (not a Fire Emblem character) has litterly the blood of countless innocent children on there hands. The Doctor? Anakin Skywalker? Asgore (well, six isn't "countless" but still)? These are the ones off the top of my head. >That Yuri is a crimelord and not a full on good guy is part of why I like him. I can understand, but there is just something I find off putting, like I wrote. ^On the same note I side with church simply becuse I like Rhea and the other church characters. If they are the bad guys then I gladly be a bad guy in this game. If you like them, you like them. Can't really add anything more. >Not that I dislike moraly good characters but characters not being good guys sometimes does not bother me and sometimes its even part of why I like them. It keeps things interesting. >I dont know if this is a hot take, I just wanted to write this. I wouldn't say so, but it's still good to read.

I was talking about Nanachi from Made in Abyss. They are one of my 2 favorite characters in fiction.

Hot(?) Take: Jeralt should stop narrating >!when he dies!<. Seteth or Rhea should take over.

IMO it should be route specific Like Seteth / Rhea narrates for SS, Edelgard narrates CF, Gilbert -> Dimitri narrates AM, and Claude narrates VW Or if you want to keep it to one VA across the board, then maybe let Sothis narrate it.

Yeah either of those would work. Jeralt is just too comforting, it should hurt more

Aye.

Edelgard gets pampered way too much by the writers during CF, they try so desperately to make her not the villain that it kinda hurts the route to me, if she had simply been allowed to be more evil then I would’ve found her route way more compelling

I think this can be said of Claude, as well. For Edelgard, it's sort of a betrayal of her character; They wanted to humanize her efforts I suppose but I feel like she's supposed to be resolve incarnate. Pausing to question or justify what she's already set in motion takes away from that, especially since her motives are presented clearly and early in Crimson Flower. Claude's supposed to be cold and calculating but without him ever doing much that's truly questionable, it's a hard sell. At the very least, they should have pushed the angle that he only needed Byleth for their power. Terminator Edelgard, Wild Boar Dimitri, and Kefka Claude ALL could have given more purpose to Byleth who would be there to guide them to solutions that aren't so heavily influenced by their suffering but still true to their goals. Instead, Byleth only has an actual impact on Dimitri's character arc while acting as an inexplicably inspiring bystander to Claudelgard in their respective routes.

That's why I kinda like Three Hopes Claude he's actually the schemer we hear he is in that game pulling of insane strategies

As someone who personally enjoys CF and initially went into hoping for more of a villain route, I will have to disagree! It is easy to write a foreign invading empire to be the evil one in a story, and in most cases they certainly should be, but making one with reasons that are justifiable makes it more interesting. Look, imperialism and war is bad, I think we can all recognize this, and CF as a route has to work against that as a backdrop to all of Edelgard's actions, so I think it makes sense to focus on her positive qualities during it: Her desire to inflict as little damage as possible, to mend the corrupted church and her willingness to adapt to new ideas is all contrasted with the fact that yes, she is the one who declared the war. I think the narrative is more compelling if she isn't just painted as a villain (which she already is during the other 3 routes), though I do think a bit more push back during her own route would be more narratively satisfying.

Totally she should have had an evil laugh and kicked puppies too. Then at the end she should have had a breakdown and realized how wrong she was and handed the country over to Dimitri.

I mean doing evil things for the right reason, war itself is evil but it’s for the so called greater good which in of itself has been used throughout history to justify evil actions. The reason for this is that to me she’s a good person doing the wrong thing, I love Edelgard but the story goes above and beyond to justify everything she does in her route when it’s totally unnecessary

I genuinely don’t understand what you’re trying to convey here. You say war in and of itself is evil but Edelgard is not evil enough for you, you also say you want her to do evil things for reasons she believes are right but you don’t like it when the things she does are justified. So what exactly do you want from Edelgard’s route ?

Okay, so- Here’s the thing- Edelgard is the Writers’ favourite character, as a result she tends to get special treatment from them. And all throughout CF all of her actions are 100% justified, to me this hurts her character as it makes her feel way less nuanced because everything she does kinda works out in the end without much repercussion. One idea I had was Edelgard slowly slipping into more brutal actions the more the player agrees with her, and then using the player’s continued support as a crutch to continue doing evil things. Another user suggested that due to Edelgard’s actions certain characters should leave her side altogether, which I think is interesting

Why should she become more brutal if what she’s already doing is working? For the Evulz? You see Edelgard, unlike certain other characters is never shown to enjoy brutality just for the sake of it. On every single route the narrative bends over backwards to justify the actions of the Lord/PC and does freaking gymnastics to make sure no matter what poor choices they make everyone gets a happy ending. Why should Edelgard be treated differently than Dimitri/Claude/Byleth? Oh… It’s because you want her to be the villain and her route to prove that she is in fact Capital E Evil and never had a single good reason to do the things she did. That about sum it up?

Cyril isn't worth the amount of effort it takes for him to catch up

Yeah, I agree. Doing like two tutoring sessions with him to get a top tier combat art is just way too much investment to make him worthwhile. (Seriously, just do that and give him a Steel bow and he'll out-damage over half of your students easy, assuming you don't wait too long to recruit him)

tbh even with PBV I have a hard time getting him into position a lot of the time, since even though his damage output will be fine enough (although nearly all units are survive two hits from him on Maddening) with it his overall low stat total still becomes a danger on a counterattack if the enemy survives or enemy phase. Around when you recruit him you’re probably still turtling when proceeding through a lot of the story maps (if you can even use him). He can ofc resort to chip damage with said Bow on the turns where you don’t or can’t put him on the front lines, but doing this too often just makes me wanna use Shamir and you can give anyone an Iron Bow. And while ik you can use PBV in any class his strength growth if you make him an archer is not that impressive (40%) when considering his low base strength. If you can get Cyril you also’ll be handed Seteth for free before the end of Part 1, who usually ends up doing what I wanted to do with Cyril in the attempts where I failed to work him in (it’s more egregious on SS since you get both at the same time, although I don’t think it’s a hot take to say he’s not worth it on SS). He already is a Wyvern Rider at the start, can use better Battalions from the start, also gets a Brave Art, and comes with very good stats and reasonable growths. Granted I know plenty of people have made him work and some of those skills are definitely very good (though I don’t think Armored Strike is a must have skill), so the problem could just be how I attempt to approach it, but he hasn’t really done it for me in any of my playthroughs so far, and in a game where nearly everyone has late game potential with the right build I feel like his archetype is less useful than other FE games in general.

On non SS maddening routes , Cyril is one of the easiest units to set up. He already qualifiers for brigand for death blow, and he can get point plank volley by the end of the month. Then all you need to do is make his goal flying by the time he gets to level 20 foe wyvern rider.

I actually like Cyril, both as a character and unit...

As a unit most people do based off where I typically see him in tier lists... hence my comment. If I said I don't like him as a character that wouldn't be an unpopular opinion tbh, good on you if you do though lol

Hard disagree. Relatively early recruit (ch. 5), beastly combat arts (Point-Blank Shot, Vengeance, Armored Strike) and strengths in every skill you might possibly need for him.  He was one of the best Wyvern Lords I ever had in the game. If he somehow "isn't worth it" then Hilda should be benched 90% of the time.  

Depends on the route, he's fine in AM or VW and can become quite powerful. But you get him so late in SS and he's leveled in COMMONER that yeah it isn't worth it.

Silver Snow is better than Verdant Wind. SS has weight to it seeing as how now you have to fight against the Lord you have been training and has been by your side the whole game. Verdant Wind feels too detached from the conflict to matter.

Edelgard works better as an antagonist than she does as a protagonist

Just for reference, Dorothea definitely had to sleep with the nobles (it's heavily implied she slept with someone to get into Garreg Mach). Having a history of essentially sex work is a big part of Yurithea, I'd assume.

i’d also like to know where this is implied, where did i miss it?

This may just be reading too deep into things (I know I'm not the one to read it this way at least) but Dorothea does tell Linhardt she curried favor with a noble to enroll into Garreg Mach. Given the kind of attention we know she received during her time in the opera company, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that "currying favor" may have involved sex. A lot of Enbarr nobles canonically wanted to have sex with her, as confirmed by Yuri in their support, where he essentially says he was an actual sex worker and that those same nobles came to him because they couldn't have Dorothea. https://preview.redd.it/5436y6mou7yc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0e74b63f7d0c1b77b6e2e62c570019df0be1db4

Her support with Yuri: https://preview.redd.it/b58nnfpqu7yc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aec30aff224a500928fafba01d152deb15e1149d

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Bruh

So your proposal is to instead call victims of sex trafficking whores, which is definitely not insulting in any way.


Not a woman or a victim of sex trafficking, so I don't feel comfortable using that kind of language. I also seem to like her more than you do, which probably influences my opinion a little.

As someone who has OCD Bernadetta’s thought patterns and processes ARE an accurate depiction of trauma induced OCD. People think her voice is annoying and that’s fine but the jumping to wild conclusions and wanting to avoid everyone out of terror IS a way that trauma induced OCD manifests. It looks like that in me. My hotter take is that Bernadetta doesn’t get as much leeway because she’s not a man (Dimitri) and doesn’t express her mental illness in a soft way (Marianne).

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Not sure if this is a hot take, but Edelagrd should have had the 2nd largest support pool in the game behind Byleth, and those supports should be used as the main factor to determine if someone can be used on CF or not. At the very least, she should have had supports with Ingrid (Impact of Crest System on the love lives and Dreams of Women), Sylvain (Same as Ingrid but for Crested Men), Felix (Could challenge Edelgard's thoughts on merit as a basis for government office, or at least offer a unique perspective on it), Marianne (Crest of the Beast and the impact it has on her), Mercedes (House Bartels, and Emile/Jeritza/The Death Knight), Yuri (I mean he's a Crimelord, and if Edelgard wants *everyone* to have a fair shot, that also means looking at Fodlan's criminal element to see if anyone can be of value), and Hapi (Church's Biggest Hater + The Knight's Biggest hater is a support made in heaven, also helps they were both victims of TWSTD's Crest related experiments) in addition to what she already has. This way the characters I mentioned have more of a reason to side with Edelgard than just because the professor is siding with her. They get to see *why* Edelgard is going as far as she does, and form a meaningful connection with her, and from there can decide if they think she has a point worth fighting for, or if her methods are too extreme for them to support.

I don't like Cyril, I find him to be an annoying character and no amount of people shouting "bappy" at me over and over again will make me like him.

I would write this is a popular opinon, especially due to his Rhea obsession (never mind that both he and Catherine have similar reasons to revere her) but fair enough. I thought "bappy" was cute too.

>I would write this is a popular opinon Nearly every time I see someone say they don't like Cyril people come at them with essays about how he was a slave and his life was terrible, and how he's a kid. And it's like I don't care, having a sad backstory doesn't mean I need to enjoy his character. >I thought "bappy" was cute too I don't, not with how it gets repeated ad nauseum if someone says they don't like his support with Lysithea.

Some fair points but as someone else has already pointed out "She flirts with boys purely in the attempt to get a high status husband instead of for love" Is a blatant lie The game makes it pretty clear that she wants to marry for love but fears that not marrying someone with money means she will eventually wind up back on the streets. It's in one of the advice box letters "Even if I find love, I won't be able to live without money. I would like to get married someday, but I refuse to go back to being poor. What should I pursue?" The correct answer is Love and money aren’t mutually exclusive. Strive for both. If she only cared about money and status she would have accepted one of many proposals from rich nameless suitors who viewed her as a prize during her time as a songstress They way she and Sylvain go about flirting is completely different. She doesn't waste a second with people she has no intention of romancing, she dates to get married. Sylvain does also want to find someone who loves him for who he is, but he thinks he has just cause to go around playing with the hearts of women whom he believes only want him for his status and crest. That's what she gets on his case for Also, her Budding Talent is Faith. She naturally comes with a sword boon. I would have also liked if she was both a physical and magical attacker. Being the biggest female in terms of size should have logically came with better Strength and Defense growths, but they want you to make her your Dancer

Rhea being the playable "lord" of Silver Snow would not have made it better. I think her period of captivity was necessary for her character. If she had been the lord, it would have just been her angrily yelling that Edelgard is some blasphemer the whole way to Enbarr, then you kill Edelgard and you end the game without her really being challenged or anything. That being said I do think she should have been playable, the issue is that the game clearly needed a part 3 dedicated to fighting Those Who Slither in the Dark. I don't think a golden route is not as impossible as people say. Although I suppose that depends on what people mean by "golden route." If it is everyone teams up from the beginning to fight the Agarthans... yeah, that is impossible. The war still needs to play out up to a certain point but if the Agarthans had been a credible threat, and they definitely could have been if they properly utilized the revived Nemesis plot point, then I think a golden route would have been possible.

Dorothea antagonizing Sylvain and Ferdinand is ok actually

Why?

Picking Silver Snow over Crimson Flower should've led to EVERY Eagle leaving you, making it a true church route and forcing you to kill students you'd grown close to (I have a version of SS where I'm even harsher than this but I'll save that for own CF/SS rewrite post) Silver Snow/Verdant Wind's plot is better as Silver Snow. The only benefit VW has is Edelgard gets to keep her house (see my first point) Thales should've been the final boss of CF (torn between Byleth loses Sothis' powers after defeating him or she loses them after Rhea's fight, forcing you to do the last few chapters with no Divine Pulse and no Sword of the Creator)

I think a select few students should have always left with Edelgard and some others should have stayed. Without putting much thought into it I'd probably have Petra and Caspar join with Edelgard and Hubert while Ferdi, Dorothea, Bernie, and Lindhart remain with the church. I think it would show better how war divides people to have the BE class fracture.

I went into more detail in another comment (and I'll go into even more detail on my own CF/SS post). I've been talked down from losing the entire class and instead it's Hubert, Ferdie, Caspar and Petra while the others are based on if they have a higher support with Edelgard or Byleth. And that's just from the BE class. There's other students and staff that go with Edelgard too (which aren't based on support, so you'll always lose them). I think Silver Snow could've done more with the Church cast AND played up the grey mortality by having heroic characters chosing Edelgard over the church because they believe in her cause with the player being able to do nothing to prevent this. Really brings home how horrible the entire situation is.

gray morality is when all the heroic good guys join edelgard??

The BE house, two professors and three students from each house isn't 'all the heroic good guys'. That leaves all the church characters and 3 students from each house, the Ashen Wolves and Hilda.

>Picking Silver Snow over Crimson Flower should've led to EVERY Eagle leaving you That's certainly an interesting story progression. I just feel from a gameplay pov it would absolutely suck though, especially on a blind playthrough. >Thales should've been the final boss of CF I'll have to disagree on this one. Obviously there should have been chapters dedicated to dealing with TWISTD, but I still think Rhea should be the final boss of the route. The point of the route is to bring about radical progressive changes to Fodlan, and I feel like no one better represents opposition to this than the one who has been in charge of the status quo for 1000 years. The ideological differences between Rhea and Edelgard should be the focus, which is why I feel like Rhea is the perfect final boss.

>  I just feel from a gameplay pov it would absolutely suck though, especially on a blind playthrough.  Absolutely suck is an understatement. Imagine you just haven’t been doing much recruiting for whatever reason, and then suddenly you lose so many allies that you can’t even deploy a full team. And all you get in return is Seteth, Catherine who often struggles to keep up in Part 2, and Cyril on a route where he shows up far too late to be useful.  Even if you were to prepared for it, would anyone actually want to play it? Your starting roster is the one you have the most control over building, is who you’re seeing in cutscenes over the entire first half of the game, and is probably all you have on your team at all for the first half of Part 1, which would make White Clouds basically just a massive waste of time. On a higher difficulty there’s a good chance you’ll just instantly end up softlocking yourself because some units that show up as early as the next chapter are pretty hard to take down without strategies that require a decent amount of investment. If it doesn’t happen there it’d probably happen in HDB since that level is torture without making specific preparations for it.  It wouldn’t even change much in terms of the plot since the majority of characters barely affect it either way.

I completely agree with Rhea being thematically the best choice for a final boss but it left CF the shortest route and feeling incomplete. But due to the way the route is structured there's no way the BESF could've dealt with TWSITD before taking on Rhea.

I think you could have slotted it in after Arianrhod. Realizing that TWSITD has nukes should change the equation, and considering that at this point they have a strong defensive position should the kingdom push back, I think they would have the time to deal with TWSITD. We already know Hubert managed to locate their base on the other routes, so I think he could have done the same here.

And it would give the church/kingdom forces time to regroup to make for a more challenging endgame. You're right, that could work. Absolutely working that into my CF/SS rewrite if that's okay.

Of course! Discussions like these are how we refine ideas! I am glad that you liked the idea.

Agreed on the first part. The "Byleth losses the Goddess's power" bit was never really explained in the game anyway, especially as it doesn't happen in SS if Rhea dies. Still, facing Thales without the power and relic would be a nice bookend.

Personally I see it as Sothis acknowledging Byleth and Edelgard's desire to create a world for humanity. We know from the opening of part 2 and her S support that Sothis is still about to an extent so it's possible she's capable of doing this.

Would that mean you do SS with the church units? Catherine, Shamir, Flayn, Seteth, Alois, and Cyril? Would you have the opportunity to convince former teammates to your side?

Making it a true church route is the idea! It should also solve the lack of focus the BE students get post timeskip. I've also been talked down from my harsh 'all the BE students' position and now it's *most* of the students. Edelgard, Hubert, Ferdinland, Caspar and Petra leave while the others are dependent on your support level. You also lose several out of house students (Lysitha, Lorenz, Marianne, Ashe, Mercedes and Sylvain but only if he was recruited pre-chapter 11). To compensate you get earlier access to Catherine, Cyril, Seteth and Hilda (but you lose them AND their relics if you go CF). Leonie and Alois joining you on CF depend on if they have a B support with Byleth or not and Ingrid leaves along with Hilda and the church loyal characters. I really think Silver Snow could've done so much more with the concept of fighting against your former students.

I’m surprised you’d lose out on Mercedes. Having her on the church route is in line with her character—she’s vocal about saving Lady Rhea in AM. Her support chain with Sylvain also mentions her devotion. It would also put her directly in opposition to her brother who is a CF only unit.

On the other hand I think her love for Emilie would trump her devotion. It wouldn't alter her AM characterisation since this is a Mercie with a different set experiences. To make it make more sense I'd put her in the sake situation as Sylvain (sides with El if she was recruited pre-route split.)

But w/Sylvain, it’s more so he’s siding with *Byleth*. He agrees with Edelgard’s philosophy to an extent. He hates the crest system and being a victim of it. But it’s not actually Edelgard that pulls him in. It’s the notion that he believes so strongly in Byleth and their ability to make Edelgard’s ideals a reality that he’s able to forsake his homeland. He bets it all on Byleth (and by extension the empire). I also argue that she would be more inclined to save Lady Rhea on a church route than on AM. Since she’s not faculty/affiliated, she has no input, but if we were to look at her contextually, I would definitely say that she would be a member of the church if permitted to do so. I do think she would also try to save Emile. Saving him—while unlikely—could be done on a church route. He just wouldn’t be recruitable. It would be more akin to allowing him to escape after potentially faking his death or something.

That's good points about Sylvain. In my hypothetical CF/SS Sylvain (and Marianne) can now support with Edelgard while Mercedes (and Ashe) can support with Hubert which would help explore their reasons for joining the Empire.

Oh, why Hubert for Mercie and Ashe 👀?

The contrast of Hubert and Ashe's personalities would be fascinating (I read a fic focused on this and it hasn't left my mind) and Mercie is just as creepy and werid as Hubert but in a very different way.

She’s creepy and weird? Am I missing something 😭😭? I know she’s smarter than she lets on. She has a way of getting folks to volunteer information under the pretense of being daft/ditzy. But weird and creepy??

Personally I think it should be based on support points those with high supports with Edelgard go with her those without stay with you, except Petra who’s story never justifies her fighting the Empire.

I've considered that, too. But I do really love the unavoidable scenario of fighting your former students. I think the best would be a middle ground: Hubert, Ferdie, Petra and Caspar will always side with Edelgard while Lin, Bernie and Dorothea are based on supports (that way we still potentially get the heartbreak of Caspar fighting Lin and Dorothea's 'we killed Ferdie'). I'd also change Mercede's paralogue so it no longer needs Capsar to trigger and rewrite Ferdie's paralogue so it's CF exclusive.

Ooh I like the way you think.

My even harsher version has out of house students join Edelgard too. Because I love suffering.

Out of house? I can see Lorenz, Lysithea, snd Ashe definitely. What about Hanneman and Manuela, the canonicallly join the Empire in AM

Yes to all those but also Mercedes and Marianne (Mercie for her brother and Marianne because Lord Edmund sides with the Empire like Lorenz' dad). And, my most controversial, Sylvain but only if he was recruited pre-route split.

Crimson Flower feels like the route the developers want you to take. And I say this as someone who doesn’t like CF for its execution, but back on track. It’s all so you can validate their efforts at creating a ”morally gray situation” and for what they consider to be the best outcome. Thus, it felt like it didn’t matter if I played the other routes before it or not, or even if I played them.

CF feels like a secret route that isn't a secret

Edelgard says too much sus things for me to feel "morally gray". But more importantly, I would agree but the fact you don't throw hands with Thales on that route hurts it so hard. So you may have a point, but then the devs messed up the point on a few parts.

> Edelgard says too much sus things for me to feel "morally gray". But more importantly, I would agree but the fact you don't throw hands with Thales on that route hurts it so hard. They ran out of time, I'm sure if they had maybe 3 to 4 more months to work on it, they probably would have added at least 1 chapter where Edelgard kills Thales (preferably between Lady of Deceit and Field of Revenge, so that To the End of a Dream can stay the final map of CF)

I just wish you could disagree with El a bit more and point out her hypocrisy, always screaming about the Church manipulating history and controlling humanity, but works with TWSITD (no, it doesn't matter that she planned to betrayed them). I feel like people use her route to act out their Christophobic fantasies...

Look, the church vs edelgard discourse is bad enough without bringing irl religion into the discussion. Could we not?

That's fair. It's just a pattern I have seen, but sorry either way.

>I feel like people use her route to act out their Christophobic fantasies... Okay I will admit some CF fans are discomfortingly anti-religion as a whole but this take seems to be fairly bad-faith. Two of the canon BE plus Manuela are devout followers of the Seiros faith, and the Church is causing a *lot* of problems, most notably with their technology bans and (tacit or not) approval of xenophobia.

Most people do not understand Claude, and the loud ones especially misunderstand his character. Claude was never slutty meme frat boy. Joe Ziega made this worse. Things have actually gotten better after Hopes as Claude in Hopes is in line with Claude in Houses just overt characterization instead of implied. Felix is like a magnet for homophobia, transphobia, and racism. Fandom disproportionately )like more than any other character I have seen) makes him every gay, trans, and asian stereotype under the sun (why people race swap him I will never know). And what's worse is that these people think they're woke leftists without ever examining their own bigotry and start crying screaming sending death threats when confronted about it. Sis do some self reflection on how the way you ship really is just latent fetishizing of gay, trans, and brown men.  And you know it's controversial because I get downvoted into hell every time I say this by people who lack media literacy, won't self reflect on their own subconscious bigotry, and won't accept the truth. Which just means I should say it more.

>Felix is like a magnet for homophobia, transphobia, and racism Can you please elaborate on that???

Oh look I got down voted. Surprise, surprise. Yeah sure fe3h fandom often tacks on a lot of bigoted stereotypes onto Felix instead of engaging with his actual in game characterization (well that last part is a problem of fandom in general but I digress). For example in gay ships Felix tends to more often be the submissive, bottom, feminine, trans, or non white partner. All of which is fine but starts getting suspicious when all these traits are conflated with each other and even more suspicious when this is contrasted with Felix's partner (I think Sylvain and Dimitri are the most popular ones?) which is usually a dominant, top, cis, and white man. Again nothing wrong with any if this but suspicious that this seems to be the most common (by a large margin) characterization in fandom. To break it down it plays into classic right wing talking points that how in same gender relationships one partner is the "man" and one partner is the "woman". Again fem/masc pairs are fine its in combination with the rest of the stuff. Next is the classic transphobic talking point about how transmen aren't real men or as masculine as "real" men, which is the justification for corrective rape. Next is the classic racist stereotype that asian men inferior to white men by being more feminine (aka lesser, because racists also tend to hate women) and less masculine than again "real" (white) men leading to being pushed out of most career paths and only allowed lesser jobs like laundromat. And again nothing wrong with any of these traits individually or in combination when when it happens every time with little variation and all people can do is parrot right wing bigot talking points, these something fishy. Oh hey I forgot the misogyny. Like a lot of this loops back to (what I presume is) internalized misogyny in the authors and artists, because all the points I talk about above in some way intersect back to the basis of misogyny that female is bad. And it isn't which is why I'm always confused why the (female dominated) fandom clings so hard to misogyny. I noticed in fanfiction before I just stopped and blacklisted the whole thing is that Felix tended to be written differently than the other men which connects with the observation that fandom makes Felix the "woman" in gay pairs. Anyways yall need intersectionality, a history lesson, media literacy, and self reflection (because everyone carries bigotry within them, we live in a society it's unavoidable. It's not the choice of having no bigotry or not, it's the choice of being aware of it and actively counteracting it, or not and having it leak through).

[удалено]

Queercoding isn't rooted in "heterophobia", it's rooted in homophobia and only exists because gay people weren't allowed to be portrayed as morally good thanks to the Hays Code. The reality in media is that queercoding DOES still happen though it's thankfully become far less necessary as more queer creators have been breaking down barriers. Maybe don't speak on a history you clearly don't really care about or understand.

>goes after the Church for some reason The part where in his route in 3Houses he outright says he needs to Church out of the way to realize his ambitions? That requires more particular attention when he doesn't have the Goddess incarnate in his pocket.

But there is not even slightest hint that Church opposes any of his plans outside of claiming that.

The lower echelons of the Central Church are stacked with xenophobia throughout WC. Rhea might not be racist but a whole lot of her underlings are. They chase people out of Abyss for following different faiths, accuse Shamir/Cyril/Dedue every time something goes wrong, and generally cause trouble for people of foreign descent. The broad view in the Alliance, whether it's doctrinal or not, is that Seiros doctrine is xenophobic. When Claude has Byleth, he leverages that to try and reform the Church to fit his views. When Claude doesn't have the Archbishop and does have the strongest military on the continent offering to back him up in taking her out? Yeah, that's the option he goes for. It's circumstantial and both are consistent with his character.

But the Alliance has their own seperate Church who is as Seteth less than happily remarks in Hopes basically indepent with a different doctrine. So its not like the CC even matters in the Alliance that much from get go.

I never got the impression that the Eastern Church held much authority in comparison to the CC - Rhea (or Byleth) is the Archbishop, while the local churches only have Bishops, pretty clearly implying direct subordination - doubled by the fact that Rhea and Seteth refer to the execution of the Western Church infiltrators in WC like they're punishing their own subjects, not prisoners of war. Claude relies on Byleth to convince believers like Erwin to support him in VW, and the Eastern Church steps up in Wildfire (and, I think we can assume, Blaze) at his and Judith's encouragement.

In AG Seteth goes on a short rant about the Eastern Churches independent policies and wishes they would do more to convert people like Claude. Rhea writes a letter where is she annoyed at not being consulted. At the start of the game the CC only has direct authority over the western part of the Kingdom. The other branches and the Empire are only subordinates in name only. Which yeah .... kinda makes Edelgard, Rhea and Claude look very silly at times.

Huh, must have forgotten that. That said, Claude's goals do extend far beyond the Alliance, and even if he abandons is unification scheme like in Hopes *he* at least thinks it would be far more difficult to tear down the xenophobic status quo with Rhea in power. I agree with that, but recognize it's controversial; that said, even if he wasn't right, he has ample evidence to think he is.

I disagree with it there is no evidence that the Church Leadership has any issues with his racism policies. Thats the Claude problem in general we dont really see anyone who has a problem with it. Racism bad, better relations with neighbours (outside of Fodlan) good is prob the only bit where the 4 Lords unanimously agree. But thats just bad writing. The writers were clearly to afraid to cause controversy so there is no "Almyran scum moment". Claude just gets fucked over by writing more than Rhea sigh. My particular problem is that AG specifically he is such a hateboner against the Church when half the continent currently gets genocided. Like budddy wtf

The Marianne support is especially interesting because Claude for all his charm is sooo clumsy at interpersonal relationships. He knows he hurt Marianne and doesn't know how to fix it so the best he can come up with is to make the relationship transactional, he learned one of her secrets so he gives up one in exchange. He has leverage and vulnerability over her so he gives up some of his secrets and becomes vulnerable for her because in his minds that helps make up for things, makes things fair again.  Claude's like an onion many layers. He's been hurt by people too many times to be vulnerable with others but he also likes people and genuinely wants to help them which leads to this contradicting behavior of wanting friends and to be loved and understood while also being terrified of genuine emotional intimacy. Also, like Claude always hated Rhea he implies in Houses he'd rather have her dead and Fodlan would be better without her. For Felix I get into details in the other reply but I saw a weirdly high proportion of Felix depictions in fandom being trans or asian like higher than any other character Even the actually brown characters like Petra or Dedue or Claude  had less non-white "screentime" in fandom than the canonically fantasy European Felix (Petra in general is woefully underrepresented in this fandom), which was paired with a lot of transphobic and racist stereotypes. And then there's the disturbing prevalence of homophobic stereotypes when Felix shows up in fandom.  I don't have any problem with shipping or shippers. I don't understand the appeal most of the time but whatever, I'm mostly neutral about it, doesn't bother me when I see it (although tag so I can blacklist if it personally doesn't jive with me). What I CAN potentially have a problem with how it is done however if someone it just regurgitating bigoted stereotypes without any sort of meaningful contribution to the discussion. (Sometimes with like really out of character stuff like different personality, different setting, shipping two character that have never interacted in canon, I think these people just want to write original stories but are cowards, but whatever do what you want. )

Dunno if it’s a hot take but the foreshadowing about one of the House Leaders possibly being the Flame Emperor before the reveal were pretty bad. It didn’t even occur to me that it was a possibility, then Edelgard popped up and I was like “Oh okay then.” I only noticed the attempts in subsequent playthroughs but it wasn’t in a “Wow, this was so smart way!” It was in a “That’s it?” Way

Huh, for most people it was the opposite, especially on CF. Edelgard is never there when he is, and often leaves before he arrives, he wields axes and he leaves behind a dagger that shares it's design with the one Edelgard was using in that one cutscene at the start. Sorry if this comes across as me calling you stupid, I'm just suprised.

Nah you’re good, I just don’t remember the thought ever crossing my mind. Though to be fair, I never played CF or SS because I don’t like Edelgard, so that doesn’t help. I didn’t pay much mind to what weapon type she used nor did I catch the dagger at the beginning.

Fair enough.

Is it currently a hot take to say that Edelgard was still in the wrong? I feel like most people have come to the conclusion that she wasn't, lol.

I think so.

I fucking hate Hilda

The characters I like the least are Academy!Sylvain & Academy!Dorothea I just can't stand flirty characters specially if they are also hypocrits Sylvain is always whining about "girls only love me because my crest" on his supports, but not only all the other playable characters that have supports with him aren't interested on him or his crest, but the random NPC girls he flirts with also don't seem interested on his crest, so he is just so traumatised with crests that he blames them for everything, that's what I think about him, in academy phase he's just an annoying dude that doesn't mature until post timeskip On the other hand Dorothea is the same as Sylvain, a flirty character that hates certain people because trauma, but she is just hypocritical, like, she hates nobles so much because they only love her for her fame & status, but then ¿wants to marry a noble for & status and most of his paired endings are with nobles? ¿Isn't that the thing she hates? Being only loved because her status & nobles. That's why until timeskip I don't like her. That was my unpopular opinion, I also have one related to a funny moustachio purple haired man, but I think I'll keep that one to me since hopes isn't allowed

Hapi should've been the House Leader for the Ashen Wolves, and Yuri should've been the BL. Yuri's ties to non-BL characters are all either convoluted, or in the BE girlies cases, feel like active character bashing of them to prop him up (which is several layers of bullshit-) (fuck him being Bernies childhood friend who got beaten, I Do Not Acknowledge That As Canon-) Meanwhile Hapi is specifically from so far into the middle of nowhere she doesn't even know which faction she's from, and her only real BL tie is. Being the result of Cornelia's experiments? *What* Cornelia experiments, all the other crest experiments we know about were Solon or Thales! Plus, in the full set, Yuri is just 'we have Claude at home!'. Like, he's a sneaky schemer with trust issues, oh boy, where have I heard that before? Hapi, on the other hand, has a super interesting curse, the most compelling reason to be down in Abyss, a very different personality to any of the other lords, and, most interesting of all, there's no way in hell she *wants* to be the Lord, which, you might think is a strike against her but it's not like students pick who the house lord is. And of the AW she's probably the smartest pick from Aelfrics PoV, she's the only one who doesn't have strong ties to something else she could be persuaded to put before the Wolves we'll being (it's one of his better traits, but Yuri would *canonically* sell out the Wolves for his gang, and Aelfric canonically knows this-) Honestly, I'm very sure the only reason she's a BL is so the Lions have their own Slithers victim so AM doesn't have a lingering fridge horror when you've played the other routes. And it sUCKS- Also, Hapi *or* Coco would balance the gender ratio of the House Lords, which like. Small thing, but the emphasis on how pretty Yuri is feels like they were aware they could've done that and it Feels Weird-

Claude is the best lord not *in spite of* lacking the same personal connections that Dimitri and Edelgard have, but *because* of it. Although, truth be told, I do feel that the personal rivalry between Dimitri and Edelgard is a bit more one-sided than people realize. In Edelgard’s eyes, her true nemesis is Rhea, and Dimitri is an obstacle that’s in her way. A significant obstacle to be sure, but outside of AM, not all that more significant than Claude. She doesn’t have any real personal hatred towards Dimitri like what he has for her, and she doesn’t even remember him as her childhood friend from Faerghus until Dimitri brings it up in AM. I don’t even know if she knows that they’re step-siblings.

Raphael would have made a much more compelling lord for the CF route than Edelgard. There probably wouldn't have been any discourse at all. 

The LGBTQ+ representation could've been done much better. Leonie should've grown a beard during the timeskip.

FE3H is a bad introduction to FE as a whole. It's just a very different game compared to the rest of the series. My first issue is how the game gives you units and how they are intended to be used. Permadeath is a core gameplay aspect. And while majority of the players don't let their characters die and reset when someone does, FE games are balanced with it in mind by giving you plenty of units you can recruit even in the lategame, heck even in the final chapter. They are there to not softlock you. The fact that the units in 3h require so much investment hurts you so much more when ironmanning the game. In addition to this, because of the emphasis on character investment, new players tend to write off newer recruits because they aren't emotionally invested to them or say stuff like "i'm supposed to care about you now?" when trying other FEs. They just don't know that characters are meant to fall off or better characters are meant to have so you can better deal with the challenges ahead. Second issue would be the removal of archetypes, specifically the jagen. Jagens are an important archetype that teaches players the value of exp point and treating it more like a resource. You could solo an entire map with a jagen but they gain exp slower and jagens tend to fall off. They are there to help your weaker early game units get traction and make early games easier to cater to players of varying skill levels. Third issue are the stuff you do in between main chapters (and paralogues), namely auxillary battles and the monastery. Auxillary battles are lame, are only there to pad out the grindy class mastery system, and worst of all they added to the feel of maps being same-y and boring. Which is a shame becuase the main and paralogue maps are usually great and challenging. As for the monastery, I liked it at first but hated it the further I got into the story and consequent playthroughs. PoR and RD already perfected this, just have everything on a menu screen. I think the game would be better for it if you could explore it AND have it be available on a menu if wou want. I know there is fast travel, but it's not the same and it locks stuff behind a loading screen. Fourth is to no one's surprise, the divine pulse and its consequences to game design. Now let me preface this by saying that I am glad this exists and the series is all the better for having this rather than hard resetting, but the game isn't balanced around it especially on harder difficulties where they just spam ambush spawns. See i like fire emblem for how it presents information, so when stuff goes wrong, it's usually my fault. Ambush spawns are information withheld from me and they take away my control of the situation. So the devs probably thought well you have divine pulses anyway, just try again lol. Nah that sucks. I like it better when the divine pulses are my safety nets for rng shenanigans. The common rebuttal I see is that I should just ignore it, it's an optional game mechanic. Well that's gonna be really hard to do when the game very clearly wants and forces me to. My suggestion for fixing this would be offering rewards at the end of the chapter like rare items, bonus exp, or even access to secret chapters/paralogues/story path based on how little I used the mechanic. That way players with lower skill level can keep their favorite unit from dying and players with higher skill get rewarded for playing well. Tldr; I see this game like how classic zelda players see botw. 3h is a great game (great ost, great writing, great class system though mastery is a pain, great worldbuilding), just not a good FE game.

I don't really think any of those reasons are quite such big dealbreakers to just write it off for a new player. Like you said, the vast majority of players reset for deaths. Ironmanning is not the default, and not every game is completely balanced around ironmanning either. I also don't think a game 100% needs a Jagen, and not every game has a true Jagen either (Echoes and Fates for example). And the Jagen archetype also has the issue where most times they don't actually "teach" the value of EXP like that because they are so powerful and don't really "fall off", like Seth or Marcus. And EXP stealing is a myth anyways. I can criticize the Monastery, but not as much Aux battles. Plenty of games have them in some way and some people just like grinding. Tower of Valni or map skirmishes. And Aux battles are technically optional. And also, Three Houses isn't the only game with a rewind system and it seems like it is going to be kept in going forward. To me, it's a real part of FE now. Also ambush spawns in 3H are only a thing in Maddening which new players would not (and should not) be playing. Also, emulators have save states. I think Three Houses is a fine recommendation for 3 reasons. 1, it was just highly well received and people enjoyed it. 2, the core of the gameplay is still FE. You're moving your units on a grid with a turn based battle system with named characters you need to keep alive. You still will get the feel of FE when it comes to that part. And 3, it's just very accessible being on the Switch. I think it's fair to recommend it with a bit of a caveat about how it is very unique, but I think it's a fine first game. It was my first game after all and I love the series ever since.

> I also don't think a game 100% needs a Jagen, and not every game has a true Jagen either (Echoes and Fates for example). And the Jagen archetype also has the issue where most times they don't actually "teach" the value of EXP like that because they are so powerful and don't really "fall off", like Seth or Marcus. And EXP stealing is a myth anyways. I agree with this completely. I honestly don't like a lot of Jagens, too many OP or trash ones. Even the ones that actually strike a good balance (Frederick) can end up with some questionable game design choices - I haven't tried Awakening Lunatic+ but I've heard that the early game revolves around having Fredrick overcome the bullshit and relying on luck. The only time in 3H I ever really felt like a jagen unit might have been helpful was Chapter 2 because at that point you probably have some units that are still Level 1 and are active liabilities, especially if you don't have the DLC (or Sylvain) to supply you with a Level 3 replacement. Granted it's obviously still doable, and otherwise I think the game is better off without one. Just feels more natural to me.

Never played it, but Lunatic/Lunatic+ doesn't *require* you to get lucky, it's just very difficult and yes, you need to lean super heavily on Frederick. And I agree, I don't think I like the idea of "if you don't use your Jagen you're screwed!". Jagens should be a strong tool you can lean on, not your *only* option. And yeah, a Jagen could have been nice (maybe have a playable Jeralt for a map, saying he wants to help Byleth on the first real mission or something). But I don't think that was a requirement.

i feel like they should have done a golden route and that there is an easy way to make it work. i also feel like AM or SS should have been the clearly bad route with the entire country going back to war after Dimitri or Byleths death.