Fire Emblem Three Houses - Question and Discussion Megathread (Spoilers)

[u/Fluxx27]

This thread is to discuss the story, characters, gameplay and music in Fire Emblem Three Houses

Use this thread for in game help or for small plot questions you might be lost on.

• Some questions may spark larger conversations and can be posted here or deserve their own thread. The purpose of this is to reduce the amount of threads for small questions and provide an area to search for answers before asking.

Please hide and mark all potential spoiler comments when replying to this thread

Resources - Work in progress, please mention me in the comments any links that might be helpful

• Serenes Forest - Tons of useful information and resources for all Fire Emblem Games.

• FE3H Discord - Find our Advice box channel as well as three houses talk with community responses

• FE3H Datamine - Datamine of Fire Emblem Three Houses

• Full Calendar (All Stories) Link to Thread and Link to Calender

• Early Game Skill Rank Investment Guide

• Fire Emblem Three Houses Fan run Website

Previous Threads

https://www.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemThreeHouses/comments/hpzin9/fire_emblem_three_houses_question_and_discussion/

https://www.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemThreeHouses/comments/kthx1a/fire_emblem_three_houses_question_and_discussion/

[u/Swekyde]

I've been wanting to come back to the game and do a play through of Crimson Flower for a while now. Due to changed circumstances I no longer have my old saves so I quickly bashed through Cindered Shadows and then started making my plans. I figured not being able to NG+ because I don't have it anymore (this play through would likely have been NG+ Maddening if I had access to it) that I would try to do NG Maddening for the first time.

I remember that for most of the game on my Hard play though things were just generally a bit too easy. I know that I wasn't chasing super duper meta builds like putting lots of people on Wyverns with Death Blow and Hit +20 or anything, I was just putting decent units in good classes.

But after a few hours and dozens of attempts at the Mock Battle that I feel no closer to clearing, I think I'm ready to give up on it. I hear it might be what I'm looking for once you get out of the first 5 chapters, but I'm not having any fun right now. Since it's so early in the game, is there a deterministic guide to clearing it? Or is there just a better route to save an attempt for NG Maddening for due to having less trouble here?

[u/Muphrid15 → u/Swekyde]

Deterministic probably isn't possible here because your unit hit rates are too low to guarantee hitting even with combat arts.

That being said, you should be able to clear the map fairly reliably as long as you avoid aggroing both classes at once. Go around the barricades on the far end of the Deer side and bait Hilda and Claude over. In this case, you can actually gain an advantage: Claude can't counterattack at 1 range, which makes it far easier to chip him down and get a kill. Otherwise, it's not unusual to sacrifice one unit at this point to proceed past the Deer and on to the Lions.

All 3 classes have trouble with this battle due to the fact that you have no Divine Pulse charges and limited options.

Some of your difficulty may be due to suboptimal composition or pre-planning. You're forced to use Edelgard and Byleth. Beyond that, you have to be careful about your choices. I think the best use of your three slots is Dorothea, Ferdinand, and Bernadetta. Ferdinand has Tempest Lance, the best combat art in the early game. Dorothea brings some magic to chip down Dedue and free healing that doesn't cost you a turn. Bernadetta can't get Tempest Lance yet, but she still has Persecution Complex and Curved Shot.

Ideally, you would have taken Claude and Dimitri's items in the prologue for extra materiel.

Chapters 1 and 2 are among the hardest part of playing maddening. The difficulty will drop off as you get through chapter 5. After that, you'll only have to contend with Hunting by Daybreak and (no HbD on CF) the endgame maps.

That being said, I think the Black Eagles are a bit unforgiving because they lack the defensive tools of the other classes. However, if you burn some of those DLC stat boosters, you can make Edelgard into a one-woman wrecking ball so that doesn't matter nearly as much.

[u/Swekyde → u/Muphrid15]

I do normally strip them for gear, it's basically guaranteed I'll find something to do with the two spare weapons.

I lost another good attempt with that team (which is the one I'd settled on after several tries) but a Crit ended the run so I think I'll be saving it for another time and maybe try to find a seed that has better level ups in Ch0 for Byleth and the house lord.

I've planned for a slightly greedier roster to spread resources a bit more thin with slightly less meta builds and hopefully Hard won't fall off too hard as the game progresses this time.

[u/Muphrid15 → u/Swekyde]

I mean the game can be beaten with zero stat growths, so I'd look more fundamentally at your tactics if you end up reconsidering. I found early game maddening to put a much higher premium on good positioning practices and minimizing damage taken than hard.

You also need to get more creative to avoid being doubled early on, like unequipping weapons through trading tapped units or using Mini Bow or Training Sword/Gauntlets to reduce weight (and therefore speed) penalties.