Which Budding Talents are worth using? Fire Emblem Three Houses

[@RachelRoseMitchell]

My sister pointed out that you forgot a really important point in Dark Knight Sylvain's favour: he's hot. Much to consider there.

[@lsrrr3857]

Flayn: you don’t strike me as a charmer

[@waluigihentai]

I literally made him a dark knight for the outfit once and he worked super well tbh

[@guidomista3570]

he has all the profeciencies to go into it, and he rocks the look, why wouldn't you put Sylvain into Dark Knight once he got Aegis?

[@tyenevins6208]

Doing my first playthrough and I just made sylvian a dark knight, playing blue house route. Now that he has access to reason spells doing more damage without using combat arts is much easier. So is taking less damage. Sylvian isn't able to tank as much damage as id like so it helps. I also grow tired of using his sacred weapon and combat art tempest lance to kill things.

[@tyenevins6208]

Compared to dimitri it's obvious the amount of damage he can do with a normal lance and no combat art is lacking, unless you're using his weapon.

[@GregTom2]

Let's be real, if Dimitri hits something, that thing's movement on the next turn was already going to be zero. Also on all following turns forever.

[@2nii2]

Ikr seal movement is trash 🗑 😒 on dimitri if it is on maybe someone who is good at dealing chip damage like ashe or ignatz or cyril it might be somewhat useful? But no it's is on dimitri y'know the unit who gets 60% percent strength without considering changing his class

[@conorb.1901]

I think the thing that makes Edelgard's budding talent especially useless is Black Magic Crit only affects half of her spells as Fire and Bolganone are the only black magic spells she gets. The others are dark spells.

[@mickdowling982]

And The fact that if you were to go MS edelgard Black Tomefaire would only work for those two spells

[@conorb.1901]

@@mickdowling982 and she's one of three characters that get dark tomefaire at S+, so she can't even double up on faires unless she's a dark knight. I already think getting S+ is far too much work outside of new game plus, but trying to get Edelgard into dark knight just sounds awful.

[@pn2294]

Actually that might be the reason why they gave it to her So that her Black Magic wasn’t completely useless

[@malusvir]

Valkyrie and/or Dark Flier Edelgard is pretty fun, though.

[@JonSmith-hk1bq]

I'm not sure why they even bothered putting a distinction between Dark Magic and Black Magic other than legacy. With both of them being crammed into Reason Magic, all it does is mess things up for the handful of characters that have Dark Magic and don't get the Black Tomefaire perk for Warlock or Dark Flier. Particularly Lysithea and Hapi. It's like they went halfway on the subject, not wanting to eliminate Dark Magic, but not wanting to give it its own skill stat either, so the only result is a set of magic that doesn't work as well with the classes.

[@ebicbarton]

Alternative title: which plants to water.

[@chelsealtoons163]

Ashes talent is great for monsters, -5 def across multiple health bars is nothing to sneeze at. Also training him in lances is needed for Wyvern Lord which is personally my favorite class for him. It patches up his low strength and bows on flying units are amazing, especially deadeye if you can get the accuracy up on it. My entire blue lions playthrough on hard was pretty much just Ashe critting people from 7 tiles away and flying back out

[@g.n.s.153]

My problem with Shatter Slash is that it's so much inferior to Break Shot.

[@chelsealtoons163]

G.N.S. Yeah that’s true, but if you don’t have dlc or don’t wanna recruit Ignatz/Leonie then Shatter Slash is still good. And for monsters specifically you can break one shield and then use it immediately without getting countered

[@hemag3895]

To be fair, Claude should always spend time in brigand for death blow

[@shiny9690]

Death Blow on a bow is the only way to go lel

[@conorb.1901]

Every archer should get death blow

[@payjeitz4380]

Conor B. *Every physical unit should get Death Blow

[@conorb.1901]

@@payjeitz4380 brigand certification is easy enough, so there's no real reason not to

[@pav-el4047]

Came here to say this.

[@andromeda0388]

The thing with Seal Movement is that it comes with Riding, meaning Dimitri will have canto. Still not that good tbh but it’s at least put in a place where it would be useful once in a blue moon

[@AdamWithFED]

Or once in an Azure Moon you could say😏

[@lsrrr3857]

@@AdamWithFED I was actually thinking which specific situation in Azure Moon route he was referring to when he first said that.

[@malusvir]

The problem with Seal Movement is it's worse than every other option. In a broad sense, you want to keep the enemy from reaching your softer units. But you can usually just park your vulnerable unit one space further away. Or kill the enemy outright. *Or use a gambit.*

[@Edgeperor]

If you’re facing an enemy that Dimitri both won’t one-round and also needs to get away from after combat, then you probably shouldn’t have even entered combat with them to begin with

[@illialidur8244]

You should have mentioned how all the skills that give avoid also give crit avoid. It is nothing huge, but it does make them a little better than they may at first seem.

[@DC-yx9vk]

The only thing I would really disagree with is Mystic Blow on Constance. I've been trying out War Cleric Constance on NG Maddening for trolls but soon realised how potent it is because of Aura Knuckles+. She basically one shots every unit in the game once you have them and still has access to her magic in this class, so she can still use Bolting, Rescue etc but her actual damage output is higher with the gauntlets, especially because they are a guaranteed brave magic attack. Mystic Blow in itself becomes useless once you have Aura Knuckles but its useful during the phase where Constance is a War Cleric in Part 1 but you don't have the Dark Merchant yet. Plus, she eventually gets that Pneuma Gale (or whatever it's called) which is a ranged magic gauntlet combat art which is pretty cool, and brawl avoid which is quite useful. So yeah, Mystic Blow is whatever but quite useful during a certain point in the game, and War Cleric Constance is super fun and surprisingly good. It sounds like a waste of her potential but actually it's one of the best uses of a class that seemed cool on paper but feels quite non-optimal on most units in the game.

[@irritantegast2131]

Thanks you so much for your clarification. I wanted To go for her as war cleric. So she could be good with ferdinand tank. And later on, when ferdinand becomes armored knight, they will be great. Bolting is like the best, you can equip it and get linked attacks with it. Then, constance uses resque if needed to get ferdinand out. This is my third run (silver snow). Im super hyped to uncover more story with these units. And if my project fails, I still have the blue lions run to make some fun team. Thanks so much

[@jierdareisa4313]

Yeah, War Cleric Constance is a fun and semi-viable meme build, just like War Cleric Lysithea. They can erase basically anything on Player Phase with Aura Knuckles, which is awesome!... but they lose out when it comes to things like range, Canto, spell uses (like Warp or Bolting)... And these things are actually their main selling points ^^

[@Rosasau100]

Mercedes is meant to use a magic bow I believe, making her budding talent a tiny bit better

[@lilinberce9386]

Jeritza is the only dude in the game that gets darting blow.

[@baileylevanen9009]

Cause gay

[@tahamohammad8842]

The male avatar can also get darting blow in NG+

[@lilinberce9386]

@@tahamohammad8842 yeah, buuuuut that only through new game plus. You still have to master the Pegasus knight as female Byleth, finish the game, make a new game plus on that save file, choose male Byleth and then can you get darting blow on male Byleth.

[@natebardwell]

I think they were trying to tell us something. Haha

[@evansmith2832]

Dude, stop saying Lysithea's res is good. Her base and growth are *slightly* above the average among physical units, and are the worst/tied for the worst respectively for any magical unit in the game. It'll be boosted by the classes she tends toward, but only very slightly.

[@maverick5169]

4 base res and 25% Lysithea's res is trash. Byleth, Lorenz, Edelgard, Ignatz and Ingrid outperforms her in that regard

[@elgatto3133]

Not to mention how low her HP is.

[@manuelsilva9993]

Yeah she does have garbo res but warlock has a high 15 base and gremory has a higher 16 base res so no matter what her res is gonna be not bad just due to the class bases so she is saved a bit there. No joke with the boost on warlock certification she'll get like 5-8 points of res its wild

[@conorb.1901]

@@maverick5169 all of Lysithea's stats that aren't magic, skill, and speed are terrible. And even among those, skill isn't a super important stat and her speed is very much hampered by her lack of strength causing her heavy dark tomes to weigh her down a lot.

[@Jardrin]

@@conorb.1901 Still don't get why you even need Strength to lower weight for magic. Shouldn't the magic stat lower magic weight instead? Then again, balancing has always been weird in FE.

[@slanax97]

Seal skills in this game are so sad since they wear off at the end of Enemy Phase, so if you have a tank like Ferdinand with Seal Speed (and Seal Def from Wyvern) to tank a bunch of enemies and debuff them all to more easily mop them up on player phase, which sounds neat on paper, it just straight up doesn't work. also lol Seal Mov is the worst offender. If I attack something with Dimitri I expect that thing to be dead by the end of the turn at the latest. And even if I started using Dimitri as a debuff bot, -1 Mov is so irrelevant especially when gambits or Encloser (or heck, Banshee or whatever the -5 Mov spell was) exist.

[@RichardHannay]

Bow Mercedes is actually extremely good... equip her with a magic bow and master Accuracy+20 and she demolishes non-magic knights with +1 range...

[@idreadFell365]

Why I have her as a bow Knight

[@manuelsilva9993]

I cant believe they didnt give felix the high crit ice magic like whats the damn point of it otherwise like yay now you have spells with ok crit rate instead of yknow just using a wo dao+

[@hanzou1238]

It is even more pointless because the Levin Sword+ is Thoron with 5 less hit and 26 more uses per battle. As a Sword Master he will have Sword Crit +10 which works with it so if you really want magic damage just do that.

[@manuelsilva9993]

@@hanzou1238 seriously and if you're a swordmaster you can double up on sword crit +10 to get an effective +20 with s rank swords its just such a waste at least if he had fimbulvetr it could be a pretty decent meme build but nope its just wholly unviable

[@AndersonWave17]

Mortal Savant is a meme anyway dude. I promise you wont be dissappointed going bow and/or swords ranks for Swordmaster/Assassin/Sniper/Bow knight

[@conorb.1901]

@@AndersonWave17 I really like grappler Felix. He's a beast.

[@89ji76]

Manuel silva knowing three houses and it’s many other oversights, they probably just forgot

[@zephollos2789]

I find Magic Ignatz pretty great, and hes actually one of 2 characters that work well in Mortal Savant, the other being Felix. Man, Dread fighter really hit rock bottom.

[@procrazyman6853]

Yeah i put ignazt in mortal savant and gave him a wodao+ , also with blizzard and the other ice spell(dont remember the name) he has high crit chance . Felix is good with reason too and i first put him on that class and worked pretty well .

[@mickdowling982]

Mortal Savant Felix is good because Felix is good, not because he works well as a mortal savant. His spell list is awful and his magic stat is low. Getting his budding talent also directly correlates to him being in a magic class, unlike Bernie who gets pass which is useful for literally every single class

[@elgatto3133]

Levin swordmaster felix>mortal savant

[@xakuray5522]

I can't believe there are still people defending the mortal savant class, it's trash in everyway. And it's clearly not 3 uses of fimbulvetr that will solve ignatz issues. Assassin Levin sword or Swordmaster Levin sword if you really want that 10 crit completely outclass any mortal savant build

[@hussyweissshutup1275]

@@xakuray5522 its trash but its pretty fun for crack builds.

[@KingHarambe_RIP]

Dark Knight Sylvain is awesome. His magic stat is worse than natural magic users but he's so tanky for a mage. The +10 magic crit compliments this well. Plus he retains solid strength to take on high res units and to double attack consistently off heavy tomes. He's a terrific unconventional build and checking his budding talent is where it all begins.

[@Arennorman]

i did ferdinand recently as a heavy as a meme build giving him the dlc movement item and honestly seal speed on maddening is superrrrrr useful early on because it really keeps ur units from getting doubled and allows people to poke who normally wouldnt be able to

[@melo7038]

magic ignatz is the highest crit mage possible because of his spell list of blizzard, cutting gale and fimbulvetr. Fimbulvetr's low hit rate is also mitigated with Ignatz's personal skill

[@cloudy978]

I remember memeing so hard the first time I did the crimson flower route. My Edelgard did use magic I made her a Gremory and it was hilarious !

[@michaelkarim57]

Which Budding Talents are worth using? A: Probably none of them

[@mickdowling982]

*Bernadetta’s budding talent wants to know your location*

[@anaven27]

Hubert and Jeritza's are worth getting for sure. It's just...most of them.

[@daily_ditto]

Marianne’s one isn’t too bad imo. I’d trained her in lances and swords and she was incredible as a Falcon Knight but Dark Knight it probs better

[@g.n.s.153]

Ignatz with another free debuff is pretty nice.

[@michaelkarim57]

@@anaven27 Jeritza, yes. Hubert, no. All of the "turns" weapons into magic mean you do no damage on enemy phase and pretty much mean you cannot double with certain weapons.

[@chessplayer6632]

I actually think Flayn’s seal magic makes her the best res tank in the game, she can have super high res and then seal enemy magic to make them easier to pick off. Change my mind. (Although res tank is pretty niche I guess, and pegasus exists)

[@alex2143]

Agreed, but I'm not entirely sure using a mage to pick off mages is the best strategy. I've found that mages usually fare poorly against archers, snipers, bow knights and other characters that have curved shot, since not getting hit beats getting hit for low damage most of the time. In my hard playthrough, a big ol' axe to the face from a bulky wyvern rider or getting needled to death by a pegasus knight often also fixed it. As an aside: having a bunch of wyvern riders flying around with curved shot completely broke the game for me. The range and flexibility they have to play around the enemy's attack range is beyond insane.

[@chessplayer6632]

Yup, that makes sense I will add that I am playing a NG+ maddening run atm and she has been helpful to pull in magic units that my other units would just die to, then everyone else can pick them off; the seal magic is just a nice bonus

[@89ji76]

I just don’t think res tanking is often the best strategy. Best way to deal with mages imo is to one round kill them with bows or gauntlets. If there’s a group of mages too large for that, a Pegasus might not be as good at directly res tanking but can get the job done while also having many more uses throughout the battle.

[@xakuray5522]

Seals magic applies after combat, so it doesn't even help. Besides mages are pretty rare, easy to one-shot and it's even rarer to find a mage not covered by physical units with their pitiful movement. The niche you're speaking of is non existant

[@GreyWandererXD]

I think Hilda has a really good case for having Seal Speed because she can already be heavy in Player Phase (Darting Blow, Death Blow, and Armored Blow) and usually allows me to double Pegasus Knights in Maddening mode. And she is great at tanking in general, so might as well get Fortress Knight to ensure high defense. I would also say having Vantage, Death Blow, Darting Blow, Seal Speed, and Axe Proficiency. Ignatz is also perfect for Seal Strength to ensure you can affect the AS of the enemies from long range and make certain fights less scary for early game Maddening.

[@MythrilZenith]

My take on a lot of these budding talents is that turning the skill in question into a boon is almost always more important than the skill or combat art received, especially in the case for units like Dorothea who really want to use their budding talent skill in their core build but have a bane in that skill. As for the skills themselves, Frozen Lance and Soulblade are decent for memes but rarely useful enough to justify three whole teaching sessions unless you're planning on making use of a high rank later on (for instance if you're turning Hubert into a dark knight). The rest of the combat arts aren't great, and Seal is decent against monsters but against most enemies FE3H is a game of 1-rounding on player phase, and seal skills aren't even worth the skill slot most of the time, let alone the investment of a budding talent. White Magic Avoid +20 for Byleth is fairly useful as well, as it pairs well with Faith Prowess and can let Byleth become a serious dodge tank with Nosferatu who can heal himself back when he gets hurt, but having used that build once I honestly prefer the sword-focused build that lets him effectively kill things and gives him almost as high avoid, though with Enlightened One you can use both, and Nos is 1-2 range, so it's not a terrible option. The only one that truly opens up unique options that you can't do with other builds is Bernadetta's Pass, but that also assumes you aren't using a flying build, since (in most cases) you can just fly around enemies. It's nice to pair with Rescue but that's a lot of investment for a niche build.

[@manuelsilva9993]

Lethality should have been an innate skill on assassins instead of terrain resistance and gotten pass as a mastery instead. Kinda weird that only 2 units in the whole game get pass well 3 cuz technically Claude

[@waluigihentai]

and one of them is DLC only. so without DLC on any non golden deer route you have 1 unit that can get pass

[@lordmango6060]

I use Byleth with Alert Stance+, White Magic Avoid+20 and Chalice of Beginnings and dude pretty much murders everything with Nosferatu

[@jdodge8006]

"Unless you're training Magic Ignatz, Just Why?" Flashbacks to my Ignatz tearing through enemies using Cutting Gale

[@TazTheYellow]

Honestly I think you nailed it in this video! If I'd have changed anything, I wouldn't have understated how worthwhile it can be to dip into Heavy Armor for Ferdinand and Hilda, at least in the early-game. It allows you such benefits as the Armor Knight cert for a few free extra points of Def, the Weight -3 ability, and, of course, the sick Shatter Slash-Seal Speed combo (yes, on either of them).

[@coldjolteon5799]

I like bow knight Dimitri, personally Also, magic Ignatz? He's a decent dancer bc sword avoid, and his magic is half decent

[@procrazyman6853]

Mostly for blizzard beacuse of his crits .

[@chessplayer6632]

I had a dancer Ignatz, pretty fun

[@gratedshtick]

I just made Wignats a Mortal Savant on my AM piss screen run

[@jakyllbased7270]

I almost always make Ignatz a mage just for all of the crits he gets

[@manuelsilva9993]

Just pit him in a magic class and he'll have like a 40% growth his magics not bad he even gets physic. MagicNatz isnt that bad at all actually.

[@Beachwalks4]

I really like Ferdinand von Aegir's budding talent, for early game maddening he can debuff some stronger enemies early game (Dark mage in forest ch.3, ch.4 death knight if he's blessed with enough speed, and put with a bow the early game speedy bulky mages etc.) and also training heavy armor to D rank is worthwhile on physical units because promoting to armor knight boost your def to 12, then switch out of class. (Helpful maddening trick) Combine this with shatter slash at C+ lances you really can cripple monsters or bosses with multiple health bars without ancient dragonskin. Of course lategame he gets swift strikes and that's gonna be his main usage since he can now 1 round enemies even if he can't double, but he could use these skills when needed for bosses. I don't remember offhand if Hilda gets debuffer combat arts but since she is an insane wyvern with darting blow access I feel more inclined to invest in her as a full-on combat unit. (Don't get me wrong, Ferdinand is an amazing wyvern too, but you can also use him as a debuffer or as a dodgetank due to his personal combined with dancer's sword avo) I find seal skills are more helpful when I try to play the game a lot faster paced and restrict myself from auxiliary battles (pretty long and grindy imo) and not every one is either a combat unit or healer. Its a nice change of pace and I like using aspects of units I haven't done before (Dorothea white magic avo dodgetank seems interesting to test)

[@demijaymes]

Yuri has the best use of deadeye, in my opinion. For me, his hit rate with it is usually around 75% with it.

[@catelyntully9494]

Increasing sword with Lysethia works, only to get certfied as Mortal Savant for the extra strength boost for the weight and then ignore that class. Is niche but hey it works.

[@evansmith2832]

The heavy armor ones are 10000% worth it. Seal speed is great on enemy phase/against monsters and bosses, you get weight -3 which is really helpful because you're gonna be using heavy axes a lot with both of them, and you get the 12 base defense at level 10 if you certify, which based on their stats will probably increase their defense by around 3 or 4

[@JonSmith-hk1bq]

It's especially great with Ferdinand if you have him master Wyvern Rider and combine it with Seal Defense. That's a pretty significant debuff even in the late game. FED, unfortunately, is way too traumatized the late-game speed demons in Maddening like Assassins that double pretty much anyone and neglects how much it helps with many enemies.

[@Rengor1997]

If you apply seal speed on enemy phase then it actually doesnt do anything as it'll clear by the time player phase rolls around. It must be applied on player phase to even have an effect.

[@franzferdinand8445]

Rengor1997 Are you german?

[@ixlness]

I thought the white magic avoid talent only affects attack spells like nosferatu and aura in byleth’s case

[@AdamWithFED]

It applies to all faith magic.

[@ThomazSDA]

This is gonna sound strange probably, but I really like Soulblade Lysithea. I was training her to get Vantage, so I figured she can go through swords and eventually use the Levin Sword+. I ended up never using Vantage, but that's besides the point. The point is is that Soulblade absolutely murders everything, but more importantly, if you're using a high accuracy sword, you will likely never miss. I remember facing a particulary strong boss (not gonna spoil) that not a lot of my units could harm very well. Lysithea was one of those in close proximity, but her spells had low enough hitrates to the point where I didn't feel comfortable to use them. But Soulblade did enough damage, with 100% hit to boot! :)

[@Jardrin]

I trained Lysithea in sword, and it ended up pretty good, even better if you manage to raise her sword rank high enough to promote to swordmaster, which automatically give her 17 Str, that's 3 less weight to worry about. Considering her magic weight, that's 3 more AS.

[@Moniker8858]

The problem is Lysithea has probaly the worst enemy phase in the game her best defensive stat is resistance at 25% which is terrible sword Lyshitea can be a fun gimmicky build in lower difficulties but she struggles a lot on higher difficulty

[@Coaltergeist]

Gonna point it out because I didn't see anyone else say it; fucking love the I Am Setsuna OST. Good choice

[@89ji76]

I totally misinterpreted budding talents in my first play through. I assumed it was the game trying to tell me what route that character is designed to take. But really they tend to be designed for weird alternate builds that often take the character off track. I just wish the game had been a little more clear about that.

[@baileylevanen9009]

Lol

[@Aquilenne]

I mean, in some cases they are based toward the route a character is meant to take, Dorothea wants faith for Gremory and physic access, Dimitri wants Riding for Bow Knight, Ashe wants Lances for Bow Knight, for the most part that's right though.

[@89ji76]

Fanjanhong * yup made my first Felix into a near useless unit because of this.

[@OnceandFutureSoph]

I've found Seal Strength really helpful on Ignatz through early-ish game on my maddening GD run - he used to often do a small amount of chip damage and it makes it safer for my other units to finish enemies off, especially when using Break Shot too. Same for Seal Speed on Hilda, it's really nice to throw a hand axe and give other units the chance to double/have higher Hit/Avo. Also training a bit of heavy armour is good for getting a big base defense stat. Reclassing to Armour Knight is an easy 12 Def I think, and the requirements aren't too high

[@daosxion776]

I had a playthrough where I made edelgard into a warlock with her default outfit equipped to simulate a fire emblem 4 baron with the ability to use magic and her heavy axe if needed.

[@mikeandresen7175]

I think Ignatz got a bit of the short end of the stick here. -6 Str is very good on maddening mode especially early on. not to mention you want ignatz to get into dark mage for poison strike have had a lot of fun with bow knight ignatz just nerfing the crap out of some normally scary dudes. but I'm also coming at this just from personal experience still a nice video :)

[@g.n.s.153]

Seal Speed is pretty nice if you want to steal Trade Secrets. Seal Strength from reason also bring Ignatz close to Dark Mage to give him Poison Strike. He's super great at debuff stacking.

[@xakuray5522]

Uhm, since when is Lysithea's res incredible? It's a base of 4 and a growth of 25% so 30% when in magic classes. It's really nothing crazy, she'll hardly have more than 25 maybe 30 max during endgame (so 7 to 10 added damage mod). Soulblade can be an okay option in a pinch, but you really rarely have any reason to use it

[@Neogears1312]

I think El’s a good mage who happens to be pretty physical as well. Better than her default.

[@2nii2]

She literally got better magic growth than manuela and dorothea and same magic growth as hapi and linhardt like that is interesting ngl

[@LeisurelyPanda]

Seriously? Black Magic Avoid +20 isn't worth it but White Magic Avoid +20 is? Because black magic is heavier than white magic? Nosferatu has 8 weight and Aura has 12. Sylvain's heaviest reason spell is Ragnarok and it's barely heavier than Nosferatu! Sylvain using reason is just as good if not better imo than Dorothea using faith. Byleth gets a pass because they're Byleth. I tend to use Sylvain with reason way more than I use either Byleth or Dorothea with faith, though, so maybe I'm biased.

[@chelsealtoons163]

Matt Naugle You can equip heal with zero weight and white magic avoid works with that. Cheesy as hell and you can’t attack but it can be nice to have. But yeah I agree, black magic avoid sylvain is a severely underrated tank

[@chelsealtoons163]

Chris N. I’ve used dark knight sylvain in two runs and never had a problem with him running out of spells. B reason really isn’t that hard to get either. I’ll agree that his damage isn’t great as a mage but magic gives him more utility with range and physic, it doesn’t hurt to have another healer and attacking without getting countered is always great. I don’t think magic is the best for him but I also don’t think it’s nearly as bad as you make it sound

[@LeisurelyPanda]

@@chrisn.8322 I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never had a problem getting Sylvain's magic up, especially if you get him early on. As for equipping heal, idk why you would pass up the ability to counter attack just to dodge a lot. Besides, I agree that I've never had a problem with Sylvain running out of spells. Besides, even if he did, he still tends to get good strength growths, so he could still fight. I stand by what I said. Black magic Sylvain is awesome and underrated.

[@chelsealtoons163]

Chris N. Bolt Axe is great but you can’t even get one for a while, and once you do you’re pretty limited on crystals to repair it till endgame. And its still not that hard to get his reason up, hell I got fricken Ferdinand to warlock before timeskip and he’s neutral in reason, Sylvain will have a strength once you get his talent. I can kinda agree that his faith spells are better, but if I’m training one magic Im probably gonna be training the other anyways for the extra spells

[@RoWiGRaTH]

I had no idea that Jeritza got Darting Blow. Damn, that's busted, and he's powerful enough as he is! Guess it's time for another Black Eagle run.

[@saggsman]

I unlock Claude's budding talent anyways just so he can get into brigand easier. Maybe he could go Wyvern Lord if you're stacking Death Blow, Hit + 20 and Axe Crit + 10 and Accuracy Ring. That can be a powerful set up but 7 points of durability is quite a lot to ask out of him.

[@jonathanrussell6525]

I agree with a lot of this list, but there's a few exceptions, at least from my experiences: Byleth white magic avo +20 was never all that useful to me, as the white magic attack spells Byleth gets aren't the greatest. Sure you can use it while equipping a support magic and dodge tank, but there are better dodge tank options that can actually attack enemies back IMO. I just rarely found it worth the skill slot. Felix Black Magic Crit +10 I actually got a lot of mileage out of. I've made Felix a Mortal Savant in two playthroughs, one being no NG+ Maddening, and have gotten great mileage out of it. His Mag isn't stellar, and he has a poor spell list, but he's ace at landing crits already and his magic covers the areas he struggles IMO (it's an excellent armor-killer namely, and I think Thoron has better crit than Levin Sword+ which is nice at range) Like, I have found him a surprisingly valuable Mortal Savant even in Maddening, and use his magic regularly. Sylvain, well, I would just say that I had good results with Dark Knight Sylvain, but I still didn't find black magic Avo+20 all that great cause he seemed to be poor at dodging even with it. Lastly, I think it's a little glossed over how light an investment getting a bidding talent is. It's 12 teachings, which is done within 3 sessions at full motivation. This takes a month worth of teaching days, two at most depending on how you spend your days off. So for skills with a good talent but little reason to stick with the skill I think it's still worth it. But yeah, I liked the list. ^^

[@pettankousei3126]

Seal Speed is good for farming trade secrets and Enemies with stealable equipment (e.g. Ladislava's Aurora shield). yeah, some characters have a combat arts that can lower speed. Just in case that they cannot lower their speed, you have Ferdinand Von Aegir and Hilda to do the job. In maddening, some holders of trade secrets has few more points their speed stat to your designated stealers, that is why Seal speed ability helps. Just my two cents. :)

[@swhawk]

The weapon arts that deal magical damage have some niche uses. Namely, when you want more accuracy and/or crit rate against certain enemies. For example, I used Lysithea's Soulblade to kill Petra on Maddening with a 100 hit rate using a Wo Dao+ (I didn't need the crit to get the kill, but the Wo Dao+ was the only sword in Lysithea's inventory). All other attack options had significantly less accuracy because Petra had Keen Intuition, and the accuracy of Soulblade tends to be higher than Lysithea's spells because: - Base Hit for weapons is higher than the base Hit of most Lysithea's spells - Hit with weapons is depends only on Dex (which is very high for Lysithea), while hit for spells depends only on Luck (which, in Lysithea's case, is much lower than her Dex). (Of course, against enemies that don't have ludicrous amounts of Avoid, you are better off using Spells. From the mid-game onwards, with the appropriate batallion and equipped skills, Lysithea's spells can have 100% hit rate against most enemies, including those with Tomebreaker+)

[@lynscherer7821]

Counterpoint, Lysithea gets a lot out of Valkyrie, which grants uncanny blow as a mastered ability, which, at least in my experience, solves all her accuracy problems even on maddening. Soulblade seems ok for damage, and I guess you could get extra crit, although I think most mages don't get much out of it. I have had phenomenal success with Ingrid spamming hexblade though, so there's definitely something there.

[@swhawk]

@@lynscherer7821 My Lysithea had Uncanny Blow equipped at that point. Yet, her spells had below 100 hit chance against Petra. Only Soulblade was a certain kill. But, I agree. Uncanny Blow is an amazing ability. Uncanny Blow and the Hit boost from Macuil Evil Repelling Co. are the reason why my Lysithea was able to attain 100% hit with her spells against common baddies, including those with Tomebreaker+. But Petra with 90+ Avoid and Keen Intuition had to be dealt with using Soulblade. Also, yeah, you're right about mages not getting much out of the extra crit rate, especially Lysithea, who can kill just fine without banking on crits. Another thing on the note of Uncanny Blow: You can have 100% accurate gambits if Lysithea's charm is high enough. Group Lighting has 40 base hit, then you add 30 if Lysithea has 6 more charm than the enemy (which is attainable with her if you do enough tea parties), and then you add 30 from Uncanny Blow, you get 100. Yeah, Uncanny Blow is an amazing ability.

[@Aquilenne]

Also it allows you to use anti-movement type weapons while still targetting Res. I heard that Lysithea's Soulblade + Anti-armour combination is the main armourkiller in 0% growth rate runs.

[@diegobrandomtg]

I like seal strength on my ignatz because he never really got enough strength to one round so I put him through dark mage for poison strike, since he can still rally regardless and thats what he’s mostly doing early game, so it’s kinda just free if your ignatz is underperforming

[@doomguy676]

I like mariannes one so i can make her a holy knight tbh

[@Mary_Studios]

To be fair to Balthus his reason spell list is good (as in has a decent amount of spells that you get) and if you make him a war monk he will have access to spells to use in his class. so I think you could do that. his budding talent is honestly one of the only ones I would consider doing for the Ashen Wolves. Also I feel for like some characters they just randomly assigned them spells and didn't care about their list because there are some characters who forever have weaknesses in faith and reason but have plenty of spells and then those who have hidden talents for them don't always have the best list. Really bugs me about that.

[@procrazyman6853]

Frozen lance is one of my favorites

[@maverick5169]

Falcoknight Marianne is dope, I'd use Frozen Lance and Levin Sword over her inaccurate (and weak) spells anyday, even now that we have Dark Falcon.

[@cartooncritic7045]

Uncanny Blow I think patches up Marianne's accuracy issues with her spells, and since most people raise her as a Dark Knight anyway I think spending some time in Valkyrie wouldn't be a bad idea for her. Frozen Lance is still dope, though.

[@maverick5169]

@@cartooncritic7045 That is an option I guess, but mastering the skill feels less immediate than Peg > Paladin > Falcoknight. Even a training lance is a delete button :D I remember my first CF playthrough, when Maddening wasn't a think, Marianne 1shotted Catherine!

[@maverick5169]

@@naiRISE766 You shouldn't annoy a girl with an axe!

[@cartooncritic7045]

Da Maverick Blast I think Marianne’s spell utility is too useful to go to waste, especially in Golden Deer where she’ll be your only healer for a long time. Frozen Lance Falcon Knight is still really fun, but keeping Marianne as a caster isn’t inherently worse than that build. It’s just a different way to use her toolkit.

[@MagnusZero]

While Mercedes's Budding Talent itself isn't too great, I think Sniper Mercedes herself is heavily slept on, primarily with Magic Bow+ down the road for the extra range. It takes some work, but giving her Fiendish Blow (+6 Magic for initiating combat) before going Archer -> Sniper is a deadly combo. Then when she masters Sniper, Hunter's Volley paired with all that magic power is a brave weapon combo that decimates almost anything on player phase. Only downside is Magic Bow's 9 weight will undoubtedly slow her down to where she NEEDS Volley for almost every player phase attack, which is strenuous on durability (unless you got ridiculously blessed with lots of speed level ups). While availability for the bow is less than desirable, you *can* get one earlier than Ch.14 on NG+, if you inherit Professor Level B+ and forge one. At least forging allows you have more than one to rely on.

[@oniuserjh]

i look at things like exhaustive strike and astra and wonder what they were smoking when they thought these were reasonable

[@NoNameTheFirst]

No qualms with the list. I will say that Deadeye is a nice skill against siege units. A bow knight with a high hit battalion and potentially hit + 20 (or 40 for Ignatz) makes deadeye a phenomenal combat art for dealing with siege units. It’s also a nice skill to have for hit & run tactics, but bow knights can outrange most attacks rendering Deadeye largely superfluous.

[@d3-ll754]

Unlocking Budding Talents is 6 Faculty Training sessions for Byleth, and 12 Instruction Sessions for all other Units. As for my opinions: White Magic Avoid +20 (Byleth, Dorothea), Black Magic Avoid +20 (Sylvain) Extra Evasion is hardly ever unappreciated, and Evasion-boosting Skills also grant an equal amount of Crit Evade. Byleth and Sylvain have to use their rather lackluster Magic lists, but Dorothea learning Physic means this works out well for her. Frozen Lance (Hubert, Marianne), Soulblade (Lysithea) These Combat Arts are tricky, because the game says they scale off the user's Dexterity (or Resistance, in Lysithea's case), but in reality they do in fact scale off their Magic, with roughly a fourth of their Dexterity/Resistance being added onto it. So it can be a great Magic-conserving tool for all of them, or if you just want to do stuff like Killer Lance+ Frozen Lance/Wo Dao+ Soulblade for Critblicking fun. Pass (Bernadetta, Anna) Anna's ho-hum as a Unit but an additional Rescue-user and potential Trickster never hurts, and Bernadetta's sheer damage potential and extreme frailty should she utilize that potential begs for an easy way out of hairy situations, be that running away through enemies, or running up to the boss to end the Map faster, saving her life in turn. Break Shot (Ashe), Waning Shot (Mercedes), Seal Strength (Ignatz), Seal Magic (Flayn), Seal Speed (Ferdinand, Hilda) Debuffing the enemy stats can come in clutch when you least expect it. I will fight you on this. Diamond Axe (Claude) Not only does this let Claude more easily get Death Blow, but Diamond Axe is also just hideously strong. Great for those skin-of-your-teeth moments where something desperately needs to die.

[@xander0901]

Jeritza gets busted with Darting Blow.

[@malts6774]

what's that song playing around 4:10? i remember it from somewhere but can't find it for the life of me.

[@simonbergeron3281]

I'm pretty sure it's from I am Setsuna. At least most other tracks are from that game.

[@TheIrishYoshi]

I'm doing a run of Golden Deer where I put everyone on a path that uses their budding talent. I'm gonna make Ignatz and Lysithea into Mortal Savants

[@Chibuga]

I agree with the seal abilities being lack luster, but I think you are sleeping on Seal Movement. Putting it on a canto unit allows for easy abuse. It can easily completely shut down units with no range and Archers. Hit them at the range they can't counter, run away and have a unit with reposition nearby to get out of range. They legit can't fight back. Also training in armor is really good for the intermediate armor class certification because it forces a permanent defense increase to 12 early for fragile units. You don't even need to use the class to get the boost. That is very useful especially on Maddening. Overall though the magic combat arts are definitely the best.

[@shiniselune399]

Seal speed on dodge tank ferdinand is pretty dope.

[@Calvados656]

Ive found Deadeye to be an incredibly useful combat art to have personally (I havent played on madness yet so maybe it loses a lot of value).

[@daeschle4724]

I really do think that Ferdinand's bodying talent is so much better then Ashe's. Seal Speed isn't worth it in my opinion, but -6 Speed on an Enemy can be so extremely good in some situations and could prevend your other units from getting doubled or give your other units the chance to double themselves, while Ashes Shatter Slash is a combat art, so the effect isn't working all the time, it's not a good combat art as well and the -5 Def is so nieche. It could help you killing a few armored units, but why would you attack armored units with physical attacks in the first place? I really do think while Ferdinand's bodying talent is really situational, Ashe's bodying talent is just straight up useless. The only thing that could be a reason for prefering shatter slash is that Ashe has to invest in Lance's, because he used to be something like Bowknight or a Wythern Lord, while armored units and especially armored Ferdinand are just straight up trash (I'm really sorry). In my opinion you could use Ferdinand in so many other roles then an armored unit. You could literally train him as a Wythern Lord or even a magic unit. Ferdinand isn't even a proper magic user, but I would rather train him in reason instead of armor. It's so ridiculously trash, I really dislike heavy armor so where's the point in the first place? So in conclusion, seal speed is garbage, because you have to invest time in skilling in heavy armor, while shatter slash is garbage, because it's straight up garbage.

[@banriswirl6414]

Anna will usually have a notably higher magic stat than Bernie, so she'll be better as pass rescuing. Better speed and luck make her better at dodge tanking after the rescue, as well if necessary. If Anna had supports, she'd probably be better Bernie.

[@yukil.spencer3848]

I did byleth sword + faith build so she can do Nosferatu, heal and be able to attack both long and close range

[@ZeroRanger423]

Okay, on the one hand, Edelgard seems to be pushed towards axes and physical weapons, but on the other hand, not only does she have a decent growth in magic, but her special class is one of the few that has access to magic, so why wouldn't you do your best to use that? To be clear, I'm defending edelgard using magic, not her budding talent. Also, the reasons why I would use axes on Claude are bowbreaker and wyvern rider movement. I feel like movement in this game is really important, and I would personally take movement over hunter's volley.

[@noukan42]

Edelgard has Annete syndrome in that her best spell is Bolt Axe+.

[@Shadowzdota]

I mean wouldn't you get bow on Yuri for assassin anyways?

[@blankblank6214]

Magic Sylvain is great

[@ShadeShepard13]

I am that mad builder and made Edelgard a dark flyer >:D because I am doing a no exclusive class run XD

[@franzferdinand8445]

I just finished a mage only run and now I'm doing a trickster only run on maddening NG+.

[@2nii2]

She was great as trickster and dark flier ngl better than her unique calss honestly

[@armorbearer9702]

I mostly agree with you. Most of these budding talents are not that useful. Why can't Marianne get Black Magic Crit+10 or Black Magic Avo +20? I think Bernadetta, Anna, and Ferdinand were lucky and got a decent budding talent. The reason for Ferdinand is that it is useful for weakening groups of enemies or boss killing. No enemy is immune to sealing in this game. Ferdinand has great survivability no matter what class you put him in. He can be rushed by a couple of units and easily survive. Because of his great hit rate, he can reliably apply the speed debuff to multiple enemies. These enemies become easy to hit. Same thing applies to bosses. Ferdinand is basically a great initiator.

[@chimplebarberry1527]

for me the only thing ignatz dominates is the bench, i immediately replaced him with sylvain

[@wesnohathas1993]

In short, almost none of these bonuses are worth getting on their own merits alone, but they add an extra incentive to take a character down a less conventional path.

[@waver5794]

aka meme builds

[@natebardwell]

Mercedes you completely missed the point. Mercedes bow is a white magic bow build, with +3 might and +1 range on a magic bow+ it absolutely destroys. It's definitely a NG+ build but it's disgusting. Especially since you can that to sap or sniper her for volley and do easily 80-90 damage, it's certainly late game but absolutely shreds.

[@jamesoakes4842]

One correction: Lysithea's Res stat is kinda garbage actually. She starts at 4 and has a 25% growth. Both Lorenz and Marianne in her own house blow that away.

[@blankblank6214]

Mortal savant Felix is pretty good

[@shadowchinchi]

What music is this?

[@simonbergeron3281]

I'm not sure if all the tracks are from that game, but at least most of the music he uses is from I am Setsuna.

[@brainwasher9876]

Don't dismiss mage Edelgard. She's got Hades, one of the strongest straight up mt spells in the game, and Luna, which is just as busted. She also has a decent magic growth.

[@Artavios]

This video is just a really low energy "naaah, I don't thiiiink that's great. Naaaah, I wouldn't do that. Naaaah, that suuuucks"

[@btu1734]

I used magic Edelgard before. She awful tbh. Then again, she was incredibly speed screwed and her raw damage wasn’t bad, but please just go in a flying class or something. I forgot to say this when I first sent this, but I don’t think I’ve ever used an armor knight. Actually, I used great knight Ferdinand once, then switched him back to paladin because I hated it

[@afgcinc7206]

I think that it wasn't really necessary to talk about these, because it's essentially one or two are fine, and all the rest are not worth the time.

[@nevertakeaway]

Shatter slash + gaunlets is good but Ashe isn’t a good unit anyway lol, maybe for a Blue Lions only run. Yuri’s deadeyes is ok. Jeritza is great but since he’s only CFp2 then he might not be the best character

[@cartooncritic7045]

Him being locked to one route in Part 2 is more of a power limiter than anything else. He still pretty much completely eclipses every other cavalry unit, can very easily achieve S+ Lances without too much training, has exclusive access to Counterattack with needing the Retribution Gambit, and that free Darting Blow just pushes him into Top Tier territory. If he were available on other routes, he’d be one of the best units in the whole game. He’s still one of the best units in CF even with his limitations, though.

[@irritantegast2131]

Just because someone isn't good does not mean you should not use him

[@joaocisne556]

Mercedes Sacred weapon is a Bow

[@skins4thewin]

In other words.... No. Just a big fat no. Shortest video ever lol.

[@adamquek1095]

Pass

[@beasthaven1571]

Another skill build video for maddenning

[@penpenultra]

So you don't like fun I see.

[@flight_knight_]

None of them lol