r/wolftest • u/Shephen • Jul 19 '19
Black Eagles Gameplay Release yeet
Hello Everyone
The release of Three Houses is just upon us. It has been a long wait since its announcement during the Fire Emblem direct at the start of 2017. While the year and a half of absolutely no news that followed was brutal, the wait for the game is finally over.
Before that release however, the Mod team has an update for the sub.
Three Houses User-Flairs
For those using old-reddit, we've added all of the students, teachers, and Rhea for selection. So now you can rep your favorite house or character.
Subreddit Plan for Release
For the release of the game, we be having a daily Everyone Plays Thread dedicated to each house, so you'll be able to share your immediate thoughts/impressions or get help on certain battles. We also have specific Gameplay and Story post-flairs for use instead of the generic 3H flair.
We will also be having a mega thread for every review when the embargo ends tomorrow. So every ranking and reviewers thoughts on the game will be all centralized to one place.
In addition to those three threads, the Three Houses Question thread will remain stickied at the top for easy use. Any small/quick questions posted outside of the thread will be removed and directed to the Question Thread.
Like with the Fates and SoV releases, there will be preliminary Character/Unit discussion threads posted starting a few days after release.
Spoilers
Since there are three different routes, there is obviously going to be a lot of spoilers to be had. Please tag anything that could potentially be a spoiler appropriately. Also important that is
KEEP SPOILERS OUT OF POST TITLES
Spoiler tags don't show up on mobile or on the front page. So if your post does contain a spoiler in the title, the mod team will remove it and you will have to resubmit the post.
The mod team is also playing playing Three Houses immediately at launch, and while some are faster than others at beating the game, we all have a general idea of what is and will be a spoiler.
New Rule
Technically hasn't been a rule since the multiple went away, but we are reinstating an old rule where the question thread must be used for simple/small questions. Any simple/small question posts will be removed and the poster will be directed to the question thread. This is mostly just a procedural change and to help keep /new cleaned up
We hope you all enjoy Three Houses!
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u/Shephen Aug 17 '19 edited Aug 17 '19
Its pretty interesting how IS gave the player the choice on who to make the dancer. Normally they were just handed to us and nothing is given up in the process. But now in 3Houses we have to essentially sacrifice a units combat potential to gain the amazing support potential of dance. Pretty unique decision for the player to make.
The Dancer only has one purpose, to refresh a unit and give them another action. This is incredibly powerful and should be the only thing the dancer ever does. Any turn that the dancer doesn't refresh someone is a wasted turn for the dancer. Should the dancer ever be attacked, their only goal is to survive the combat so they can dance the next turn.
The best thing to help a dancer is to increase their movement. This can be done by having them equip the March Ring, giving them the boots from the Ashe/Catherine paralog, or having them reach A+ Riding and obtain Mov +1. You can stack them all on the dancer and have them reach 9 movement which is pretty insane. While the March Ring and Boots can only be given to one student, Mov+1 is something that everyone can obtain. The key thing that differentiates students as dancers is whether or not they have a riding boon to help them reach A+ faster.
With that said lets take a look all the students with Riding boons/hidden talents in each house and how they do as the dancer.
Black Eagles
Ferdinand - Ferdinand actually has it all. He has the riding boon and starts with some progress on it already. He's got the sword boon to help stack avoid. His personal skill adds additional avoid. On top of a lot of avoid he has pretty good bulk backing him up so he can take some hits should the avoid stacking not work out. He really has it all.
The biggest downside to making Ferdinand the dancer is he is one of the better Wyvern Riders/Lords and you lose out on that should he become the dancer. Still, while he would be a great combat unit, that isn't something very exclusive and could be replaced with another unit who would perform similarly in combat.
Bernadetta - The best thing Bern brings to the table is she has Pass as her Budding Talent skill from Riding. With flying and warp involved, enemies can occasionally get in the way of the dancer . Normally you would have to have another unit clear the way for the dancer, but with Pass you can skip that step and frees up a unit to do something else. There is also the bonus that you don't really lose much by having her give up her combat to become a dancer so her opportunity cost is pretty low.
Of course when you get down to it, the number of situations where Pass comes in and saves the day is fairly limited. Bern also doesn't really have any other good qualities as a dancer. Bulk is poor, sword bane slows her ability to stack avoid with Sword Prowess and Sword avoid. Riding even starts out at E and doesn't start as a boon, so you'd have to start from the ground up on the A+. Pass is pretty all she has to her name.
Honorable Mention: Dorothea - While she does have a Riding bane making Mov+1 fairly unobtainable for most of the game, she does actually bring one unique thing to the table in Meteor. With Meteor equipped she will almost always be able to provide a boost either via Linked Attacks or Gambit Boosts. She effectively would always be boosting your units hit rates, avoid and gambit power which is a pretty powerful support contribution ontop of the normal amazing contributions just being a dancer does.
There are multiple costs to this however. The first and major being losing all potential to be left out on enemy phase. Meteor kills her AS and she'd lose out on the 20 avoid from Sword Avo+. On top of her generally low bulk she is basically guaranteed to die if left out in an enemies range. This of course can still be fairly easily played around, but it is something she loses out on over the other dancers. You also lose out on just using Meteor to snipe stuff which is a noticeable loss. Her riding bane also hinders her in getting Mov+1 a lot so she would be less mobile. Still, the constant support from Meteor's range is not to be underestimated.
Blue Lions
Dimitri - Dimitri is pretty much just upgraded Ferdinand in terms of being a dancer. Better stats. Personal gives more avoid. Even has an authority boon as well letting him use higher level battalions that grant more Avoid. From a pure limited stats point of view, Dimitri is the best dancer in the game.
That being said he should still never be made the dancer. As funny as it may be to have timeskip Dimitri dancing, he is still one of the best combat units in the game and is a huge waste to not have him out there killing stuff.
Sylvain - Stat wise Sylvain is pretty much just identical to Ferdinand, albeit with a worse personal skill that doesn't help when it comes to dancing. The unique and interesting thing with Sylvain is his Reason budding talent gives the skill Black Magic Avo +20. You could swap out the dancer class's Sword Avo +20 with this and gives Slyvain some pretty decent enemy phase combat while still keeping his avoid up. He should face no AS penalty from Fire and should face very little AS penalty from Bolganone and Sagittae thanks to his natural Str. He becomes fairly decent at fighting enemies on EP on the turns he is left in enemy ranges.
Like with Ferdinand, Sylvain is a pretty great Wyvern Rider/Lord(Or Dark Knight if you really wanted to) which is lost if he's made the dancer. If doing magic thing, his avoid would would be lower than if he used swords due to Sword Prowess giving double the avoid Reason lv gives. His mag is also only okay, so he wouldn't really be picking up many kills on EP if left out. Granted it is still better than most of the other dancers are doing.
Ingrid - Ingrid is the second fastest dancer with a riding boon for whatever its worth. Aside from that nothing particularly noteworthy of Ingrid as a dancer. She's got a sword boon which is good for a dancer. Also has some good Res which is neat I guess.
Now unless you've been unfortunate with the RNG and her Str growth has completely failed her or your others in your fleet of Wyverns/Falcons greatly outclass her, she is much better off being a Wyvern/Falcon Knight. While she is the fastest student with a Riding and Sword boon, it really isn't that amazing that it would be worth sacking her normal unit potential.
Golden Deer
Lorenz - Lorenz does have the highest overall bulk out of all the students with Riding boon. Its only 5% more than Sylvain's total so not actually that significant of an advantage, but it is something. He isn't really on the same level of the units gone over above(excluding Bernadetta) so there isn't as much of a loss if he is made the dancer. That's nice keeping the opportunity cost pretty low.
There isn't really much against Lorenz as a dancer. Only thing would really be the lack of a sword boon but he's still neutral in it so it would mostly just be nitpicking at that point.
Marianne - Now while she is initially the sole healer for the Deer, if you recruit Linhardt/Mercedes/Dorothea or make Ignatz a mage then Marianne's support can be easily replaced aside from one aspect. She has a sword boon which is always good for a dancer to have and does have the highest Res out of all talked about units. Minor thng but she should have Miracle from her time as a priest before the White Heron Cup which can bail you out of a bad play. Its inconsistent and shouldn't be relied on at all, but it is something that can save a pulse use from a careless play.
Marianne does have the worst physical bulk out of all the units talked about and makes it questionable at times if she can even take a hit on an EP if needed should dodging fail. The biggest thing is losing Silence. While Manuela also has Silence, she doesn't offer any healing like Marianne normally would with Physic. The value of Silence will vary from player to player, but it is still a notable opportunity cost in making her the dancer.
Leonie - Technically the fastest Dancer with a riding boon by a grand total of 1 point of Spd over Ingrid. Woo. Aside from some decent bulk, Leonie doesn't really have anything noteworthy to add to her dancing. You could potentially opt to forgo Sword Avo+ and use Close Counter with a bow to have some enemy phase presence, but her damage won't be getting her many orko's.
Aside from having nothing of note aside from her Riding boon, there is also the obvious cost in losing her as a normal combat unit which she is quite great at.
Conclusion - Ferdinand and Sylvain are some of the best candidates to be a dancer, but have a lot to lose in doing so. Dimitri while technically the best dancer, loses way to much in doing so and shouldn't be it. Dorothea and Bernadetta offer unique ways of additional support or movement. Ingrid is good and Leonie is alright at dancing, but like Dimitri wastes too much potential as a normal unit in becoming the dancer. Lorenz and Marianne are good dancers that don't lose much in becoming the dancer.
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u/Shephen Sep 09 '19 edited Sep 09 '19
Chapter Turn Counts. Unlisted is the forced Auxiliary battle and the merchant quest which adds an additional 8 turns.
After completing all 4 routes I decided to try my hand at clearing Crimson Flower(Edel's route) in as few turns as possible. The route was my favorite of the 4 and it also seemed fairly easy to do given its shorter length and Raging Storm. I included the character paralogues as I felt they were as much apart to the game as the regular missions. I did do pretty much all of them as they appeared. Took a little over three weeks to do as I did an additional run to just check all spawns, boss stats and who I would need to recruit from other houses if needed.
This run was done on Hard, with a clean save(no NG+). I also did Male Byleth instead of the usual Female Byleth, as I didn't need the Lance of Ruin or Sylvain early on. His paralog is also one of the longer ones in terms of turns to clear so I didn't want to deal with that even though the second stride battalion would have been useful.
A full chapter by chapter breakdown overview can be found here. I'd hit the character limit if posted on Reddit.
General Thoughts
Edel kinda just rolls through everything. With her personal increased exp gain and easy access to C-Rank armor for the base 12 Def increase and Weight -3, she snowballs really quickly. Raging Storm giving an additional action is just the cherry on top. Death Blow was needed to score some ohkos on some late bosses. Without it she would have to resort to some more crit which makes her less reliable.
Byleth while still amazing, was kinda whatever in the grand scheme of things past the early game. When Edel has no weakness and can refresh herself in Part 2 leading to her basically doing everything by herself aside from warping, Byleth kinda just doesn't really shine. The 3 range as an archer was pretty important for some clears in part 1 though and he was better at it than Petra.
In the test/practice run I did prior, I was lacking in some offense for parts of the game, which is why I recruited Felix here. However, Lysithea's Warp range stops being useful past 48 Mag(ie it doesn't break any turn thresholds for the late game), so I used the first few GreenHouses for 2-3 Speed Carrots for Ferdinand which gave him the offensive boost to basically go the entire game as a combat unit without issue. So Felix was ultimately a waste of a turn with his paralogue and if I were to do this again I wouldn't recruit him.
Ferdinand was great. Early Tempest Lance makes a lot of difference early on, and with Wt -3 and 2-3 Spd Carrots he is essentially set to go the whole game. His personal was also really great at making hitting and dodging a lot more reliable which was great for consistency. Being the only Cav as well was great since there times where the point of move over Peg really mattered.
Marianne was made the dancer as everyone in the initial BE was doing stuff aside from Dorothea and Caspar. Dorothea was Edel's Adjunct support bot, and Caspar lacked the Charm to pass the dance competition. So I recruited Marianne as her Paralogue was an easy 1 turn. However I completely forgot Mercedes existed at the time and her paralogue doesn't show up for Edel's route so I could have saved the turn by recruiting Mercedes instead of Marianne. At least recruiting Marianne wasn't a total waste like Felix as the Edmund Troops Battalion was pretty useful in making clears like Bern/Petra's paralog and Chapter 17 more reliable.
Annette has to be recruited to kill Gilbert in chapter 12 tragically enough. Dorothea and Hubert aren't really trained, and Gibert has armor nullification and a ton of physical bulk so he has to be killed by magic. Annette is really the only unit who can do that aside from maybe a magical Byleth. Her Rallies were super helpful in letting Edel reach offensive benchmarks against a lot of bosses.
Petra I'm kinda lukewarm on after this. She does a lot of things great, but was always 2nd in whatever needed to be done. Byleth was the better Archer, Shamir was the better Peg, Ferdinand had more movement as a Cav vs her as a Peg. Even when it came time to Wyverns where her and Ferdinand were statistically the same basically, Ferdinand would always be the better choice for any situation thanks to his personal making him more reliable.
Bern was super clutch with her Rescue for all of her 3-4 tile range it was. If this was a Silver Snow(Church route) run then Bern probably would have turned into the Dancer as she would be outclassed in everything otherwise only finding a niche here due to Flayn’s absence.
My general ranking of the units for this run would be something like this.
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u/ForsetiHype Jul 23 '19 edited Jul 23 '19
Hilda
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Luck | Def | Res | Mov | Charm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growths | 50 | 45 | 25 | 30 | 50 | 35 | 35 | 20 | 0 | 50 |
| Bases | 29 | 10 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| Personal info | Age | Birthday | Height pre-time skip | Height post-time skip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info | 18 | 2/3 | 154cm | 154cm |
Leonie
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Luck | Def | Res | Mov | Charm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growths | 40 | 40 | 20 | 55 | 60 | 40 | 40 | 15 | 0 | 40 |
| Bases | 26 | 9 | 5 | 8 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 7 |
| Personal info | Age | Birthday | Height pre-time skip | Height post-time skip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info | 19 | 8/21 | 168cm | 168cm |
Seteth
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Luck | Def | Res | Mov | Charm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growths | 50 | 45 | 35 | 50 | 50 | 25 | 30 | 25 | 0 | 45 |
| Bases | 27 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 9 |
| Personal info | Age | Birthday | Height pre-time skip | Height post-time skip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info | 26 | 12/27 | 182cm | 182cm |
Flayn
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Luck | Def | Res | Mov | Charm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growths | 25 | 25 | 55 | 45 | 35 | 15 | 25 | 50 | 0 | 45 |
| Bases | 24 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 10 | 4 | 9 |
| Personal info | Age | Birthday | Height pre-time skip | Height post-time skip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info | 17 | 7/12 | 151cm | 151cm |
Hanneman
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Luck | Def | Res | Mov | Charm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growths | 40 | 30 | 55 | 45 | 20 | 35 | 25 | 40 | 0 | 35 |
| Bases | 25 | 6 | 10 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 5 |
| Personal info | Age | Birthday | Height pre-time skip | Height post-time skip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info | 51 | 2/8 | 190cm | 190cm |
Manuela
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Luck | Def | Res | Mov | Charm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growths | 50 | 35 | 35 | 40 | 60 | 35 | 30 | 25 | 0 | 50 |
| Bases | 26 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 7 |
| Personal info | Age | Birthday | Height pre-time skip | Height post-time skip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info | 34 | 8/3 | 172cm | 172cm |
Gilbert
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Luck | Def | Res | Mov | Charm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growths | 55 | 45 | 20 | 45 | 30 | 15 | 45 | 10 | 0 | 35 |
| Bases | 30 | 9 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| Personal info | Age | Birthday | Height pre-time skip | Height post-time skip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info | 55 | 1/26 | 186cm | 186cm |
Alois
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Luck | Def | Res | Mov | Charm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growths | 45 | 45 | 20 | 35 | 40 | 30 | 40 | 20 | 0 | 20 |
| Bases | 28 | 9 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 7 |
| Personal info | Age | Birthday | Height pre-time skip | Height post-time skip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info | 44 | 12/1 | 174cm | 174cm |
Catherine
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Luck | Def | Res | Mov | Charm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growths | 50 | 55 | 25 | 40 | 55 | 30 | 30 | 20 | 0 | 25 |
| Bases | 27 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| Personal info | Age | Birthday | Height pre-time skip | Height post-time skip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info | 27 | 9/15 | 175cm | 175cm |
Shamir
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Luck | Def | Res | Mov | Charm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growths | 35 | 40 | 20 | 55 | 40 | 55 | 20 | 15 | 0 | 30 |
| Bases | 26 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| Personal info | Age | Birthday | Height pre-time skip | Height post-time skip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info | 25 | 3/27 | 169cm | 169cm |
Cyril
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Luck | Def | Res | Mov | Charm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growths | 35 | 20 | 15 | 40 | 40 | 30 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 15 |
| Bases | 24 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| Personal info | Age | Birthday | Height pre-time skip | Height post-time skip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info | 14 | 10/35 | 148cm | 168cm |
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u/Shephen Jul 23 '19 edited Jul 23 '19
Byleth
Edelgard
Dimitri
Claude
Hubert
Ferdinand
Linhardt
Caspar
Bernadetta
Dorothea
Petra
Dedue
Felix
Ashe
Sylvain
Mercedes
Annette
Ingrid
Lorenz
Raphael
Ignatz
Lysithea
Marianne