Mono Magic Run CF Maddening NG+ Discussion
Hello All,
I just wanted to post my experience doing a mono "weapon" (magic) run in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and just have a discussion with the community on anyone who has or is planning to do the same. I'm aware I'm far from the first to do this type of run, so if you have any links to other people's experiences (any mono weapon run, not just magic), I'd be interested in seeing what they did differently.
So far, I've done all magic (CF) and am currently doing an all swords (BL) that I'm about 75% through, both on Maddening NG+.
Because of the ease of using Magic, and the NG+, I can't really call this a challenge run, which is why I'm referring to it as a mono "weapon" run. It was just for fun anwyway, so it's not exactly like I care about bragging rights.
Oops All Spells Team:
Rules:
Everyone can only use spells, and only magical gambits allowed once they're available (which was pretty early because NG+, just a matter of training Authority) This did mean no utility gambits (except the occasional stride on Linhardt if he made it into the map), but honestly I feel utility gambits are a bit of crutch anyway, far from necessary. They're fine to use if you like them, but they were 100% unnecessary on this run, as evidenced by the fact that I beat it without them. Stride is nice to make things go faster and give options, but I've never been in a situation where I needed Stride., Wall, Shield, Retribution, etc. just feel like icing, though, nice to have, but unnecessary. Admittedly, Retribution is pretty worthless in a run where everyone outranges the enemies already, so there's that.
NG+ Skill Rebuying allowed (but it only really mattered for Lysithea and Constance because I hadn't used any of the other characters in a previous game, and I didn't have any relevant skills to rebuy for Byleth, I just trained her Authority naturally)
DLC Characters and their items and classes allowed, but not the DLC items you get by your bed at the beginning.
I used every siege tome user in the game besides Hilda (because I couldn't recruit her on this route, as far as I know)
This last one isn't specific to this run, but I like to route or come close to every map, so absolutely no Warp skipping, and despite having 5 siege tome users, no just Bolting the boss, either. I did, however make a minor exception on the final map because that map took forever and I had to reset after a few hour attempt, so I did leave one side uncleared, but I killed everyone relevant, as they all run at you when you trigger the boss.
I also like to do all available Paralogues, so I did that here. Recruited those on the team as well as Lorenz (go figure, his relic is good. Shocking, I know), Shamir, Yuri and Balthus. Other than that, all Black Eagles.
F! Byleth:
No NG+ Skill Repurchases
S Reason and S Faith
Dark Flier (I prioritize Flying as a movement type)
Reason Prowess
Faith Prowess
White Magic Avoid +20
Fiendish Blow
Black Magic Range +1/Alert Stance+
Honestly, Byleth could have been better, but she was doubling many things and she was obviously one of the best gambit useres. Biggest issues were the low spell count (which could have been helped by going Gremory instead since she wants more Nosferatu, Aura, as well as her Black Magic spells). Because of the doubling, I found she was often low on spells on most endgame maps. Highlight here was mostly White Magic Dodge tanking, since no one on the team could really take a hit.
Edelgard:
No NG+ Skills
S Reason
A Faith
Dark Flier
Dark Magic Range +1
Fiendish Blow
Reason Prowess
Magic +2
Alert Stance +
Edelgard was mostly good for chipping and Luna, since there are so many Pegasus/Falcoln Knights with high Res in this route. It also helped with Mages. Edelgard could occasionally double for part of the game and when she wasn't getting doubled, she could take a hit, but towards the end, she got doubled by everything and would die to anything just like the rest of the team. She was by far the weakest Mage besides Manuela and maybe Dorothea, and the Dark Magic Range only helping Luna and Hades was super awkward. I used her because she seemed like the only workable House Leader for magic, and she did work, but obviously she's not exactly meant for a pure magic build.
Hubert:
S Reason
B Faith
Warlock (I couldn't get him to Dark Knight by the end)
Fiendish Blow
Dark Magic Range +1
Reason Prowess
Magic +2
HP +5 (I think, I can't remember his last skill)
Basically a slow one hit Nuke. Dark Spikes took care of most horses (and even some Pegasus Knights earlier in the game), and I gave him the Fetters of Dromi for Canto. Banshee stayed relevant throughout the game, and Death crits were had. Mire basically had not secondary effect, but the extra range made it just extra uses of worse Death, so that was nice. Definitely in a tier with Lysithea and Constance by the end of the game in terms of oneshotting or coming close by the end of the game, so I was pleasantly surprised. I did run him through the Dark routes first, but I didn't really notice much of a difference.
Dorothea:
S Reason
A Faith
Gremory
Reason Prowess
Fiendish Blow
Magic +2
Black Magic Range +1
HP+5
Got Physic, I guess. In all honestly, being super slow, super inaccurate, and super weak (especially comparatively to some others on the team), meant she was just a frustrating unit to use. Healing was more or less a moot point in this playthrough since everyone was one shot by everything. The real reason she's on the team is Meteor, which provided some nice support bonuses to a majority of the team because she's a Black Eagle, and added to my siege tome spam. Would not use her in a regular playthrough again, though, as she was just so underwhelmingly weak and inaccurate. Agnea's Arrow did help her damage a bit in the end, but it was too little, too late.
Manuela:
A Reason
A+ Faith
Gremory
Fiendish Blow
Reason Prowess
Magic +2
HP +5
Rally
Speaking of unplayably bad units. This is my second attempt at using Manuela, and probably my final. Even doubling things, she couldn't kill anything, and her damage by the endgame was similar to where other mages start. I used her because she had Bolting (and Warp, but this run didn't care much for it), and her accuracy with an accuracy ring and a +30 hit battalion, rarely went over 75%. She often had 35% hit chances against a large portion of the field, especially with Bolting (which is admittedly an inaccurate spell, but Constance could hit 100% and she's far from the most accurate mage). My recommendation is not to use her even for fun. Even her personal ability is a trap. I lost her on the final map trying to use it to save Byleth from a crit, and it did save Byleth, because the Boss just crit Manuela instead. I couldn't be bothered to reset a second time to save her, so she's dead and I'm going to treat every future playthrough as such. Oh, and did I mention she was the last to get her siege tome because of her bane in reason, even with the Knowledge gem, singular goal, and constant tutoring? The game was almost over by the time she got her 35% accurate Bolting.
Hanneman:
S Reason
B Faith
Warlock
Reason Prowess
Fiendish Blow
Magic +2
Now, this professor is definitely workable, very slow, but with a high magic growth and hard-hitting spells, he could one-shot enemies, or at least chip them down to very low HP so even the weaklings like Manuela or Dorothea could finish them off. He's a big damage chipper and he did his job well. His biggest problem was his accuracy, often struggling to hit even 90% with Wind equipped. Still, he hovered in the 70s and 80s and was certainly a useable unit. Also, Meteor often stole real support slots from my unit because of his limited Support units in this run, so theres's that, but he could hurt someone with a Meteor at least.
Constance:
S+ Reason
A Faith
Gremory
Rebought A Reason from a previous playthrough
Black Magic Range +1
Black Magic Tomefaire
Fiendish Blow
Reason Prowess
Magic +2
In the top 3 for most powerful mages on the team (and in the game for that matter), along with Lysithea (obviously) and Hubert (surprisingly). She one shot almost everything in the game, including some mages, without Luna. Her Boltings hit people and Killed them. I often used all 4 Boltings (which was the point of having all the siege tomes, sure, but she was by far the best user). Not much else to say here. She's a powerful unit who gets a hard-hitting spell list and hits like a truck.
Lysithea:
S+ Reason
S+ Faith
Dark Flier
Rebought A Reason and A Faith from a previous playthrough
Dark Magic Range +1
Dark Tomefaire
Movement +1
Fiendish Blow
Reason Prowess
Everyone knows she's a magical nuke. I don't need to say much else. I personally got speed screwed on her, so she never doubled anything (including armor/fortress knights at some points, including the end), and she still one shot most things. I will admit, in the final couple levels, she had trouble one-shotting some enemies, even failing to one-shot a non-magical horse unit with Dark Spikes, but never useless, and always one of the strongest units on the team. Dark Flier because attacking from a distance and flying somewhere inaccessible to attackers was kind of her thing.
Hapi:
S+ Reason
A Faith
Valkyrie
Reason Prowess
Faith Prowess
Fiendish Blow
Uncanny Blow
Dark Magic Range +1
Best utility mage in the game as far as I'm concerned. Her faith spells didn't come into play much in this run, but Physic and Warp in the Faith spell list are two of the most sought after spells in the game. Seraphim did a lot of work for me (hence the Faith Prowess). On her reason list, Miasma lowers Strength, Banshee lowers movement, and Swarm lowers Speed. She needs a lot of help to hit things (Uncanny Blow and +30 hit from her Batallion), but when she hits something, it dies, or it's weakened enough to not do much else. I used Banshee a lot to just freeze enemeies in place or severely hamper their movement.
Anna:
A Reason
A Faith
Gremory
Reason Prowess
Fiendish Blow
Magic +2
Anna gets Meteor. Anna gets no damage, even with a Magic Staff. Anna gets a lot of speed and can double enemies with Fire and Thunder, and only sometimes can kill them. Anna has no Supports and eats a Linked Attack Slot with Meteor equipped. In all honesty, this is my second attempt with Anna, and like Manuela, likely my last. I tried swords and bows before, but the lack of damage hurt, and even with Magic, the lack of damage hurts. She's not good at anything, and actively hinders your team by eating up linked attack slots, which makes her even worse than Manuela. But hey, she had Meteor, so I had to use her for this run.
The eleventh slot was mostly just filler. Early game I tried other Black Eagles and Sylvain as mages, but they all sucked abuot as much as I expected. Later, I tried Jeritza out as a Mage, but he's not so great with magic, either. I had Linhardt in at some points, but he just Strided and then stayed at the back of the map if he did anything at all. He did take a hit from a Falcoln Knight in the final chapter and died so that others may live.
Notable Things:
Anti-Magic Barriers are dumb and I thought I might have to end the run or cheat at one point because of them, but then I found out (through trying it) that magic gambits do 0 damage, but still damage barriers. Still made those Golems a pain to fight, but it was at least possible.
White Magic that's not Seraphim was pretty useless on anyone besides Byleth, and even there, it's only useful for the dodge, so you could just equip Heal anyway, but I liked having Nosferatu and Aura to deal damage on the counterattack so I could set up kills for the next turn, and on the offchance Byleth did get hit, Nosferatu was nice to heal back up with. I think I used Warp and Rescue a total of like 3-4 times across all units and all maps. Only one of those was a warp where Lysithea warped Edelgard from the chest to a battle on the final map. The rest were Rescues for like two squares if I couldn't Draw Back someone out of a danger zone. Since I was routing all maps, warp skipping wasn't an option, and no one person could really tank a part of the map themselves. As much as people like to say Warp is useful outside of LTC, I just never had a situation where it was more useful than attacking (which usually meant killing of freezing something on the units that had it like Lysithea and Hapi). Even on Manuela, I would rather Silence than Warp most of the time. Linhardt didn't get much actual training, so I don't think he even had Warp for the majority of the game, and since he only went on missions with 11 slots and I didn't use him as an Adjutant, he was so underleveled, his warp range was probably like 5, if that. I just don't see the utility in it outside of skipping maps, in which case it becomes the most valuable spell in the game, I guess. Rescue is just worse Warp, and admittedly, the 2 or so Rescues I used for two tiles probably could have been warps for 2 tiles, so there's that, I guess.
Petra/Bernadetta Paralogue was difficult. I had to play with 2 less slots (which wasn't so bad because of my 9 person team, but still obnoxious as a concept), 2 dead weight units, and to top it all off, there's not always somewhere safe to leave them. The reinforcements ate many divine pulses, and then even when you take it slow to deal with them, the enemies just escape and you lose anyway. I had to reset this map twice, after using all Divine Pulses. This probably means I'm just bad, but playing through this map 3 times was not fun, and lugging around two dead weight units with me while I did it, was less so. Luckily, Magic doesn't care about all the bushes enemies love to hide in, and Catherine does not take magic as well as Hubert, so I had those going for me. Holy Knights, on the other hand, don't even always die to Dark Spikes or Luna, so those were a nightmare. Boltings and Meteors were a godsend on this map. I'll just end this rant by mentioning it probbably didn't help that I didn't have a single unit who could take a hit from anything, and the map plays fairly cramped, so staying out of surviving enemy range was extremely difficult.
Field of Revenge was way easier than I was expecting by how difficult everyone made it out to be. I killed everyone who turns into a monster before they turned (including Dedue, who is a joke to this team) except the very first guy who turns. I thought the mages would be difficult, but luckily, Luna exists, and even with High Res, Mages just don't have high HP, so some powerhouses, like Constance could just kill them through their high res. I spent the first couple turns Silencing the Bolter with Manuela, since she din't really have anything else to contribute anwyway. The hardest part was Rhea, who took a dodge and three units to take down the turn she came out. Counterattack in general was very difficult for this run. 3-5 range on most units and siege tomes on over half the team feel really nice until Counterattack means you literally can't attack a unit you can't oneshot (or in some cases where units have both Vantage and Counteratack, at all) unless your name is Byleth or Edelgard.
The final Boss was basically soloed by Byleth (with a little help from her friends) for what felt like a thousand turns. The first turn, I gambited the barriers away and went all out with the team (whose combined efforts couldn't even take down one healthbar if I recall correctly). Almost everyone got doubled and murdered by the boss, the only notable exception being Edelgard who got doubled, but barely didn't die, but was still risky because two chances at crits. Byleth didn't get doubled and could take one non-crit hit if her evasion failed her, but it did bring her to near death. Luckily, no one else had anything to do except heal her and Byleth up, so that was nice I guess. The rest was White Magic Avoid until I ran out of White Magic Spells (of which I saved all of them on this map) and dipping in and out of range to fight her for the next century until she finally hit and crit Byleth, at which point, the last Divine Pulse was used to put Manuela next to Byleth, and the boss just crit her instead. But I won, so...
This was only my second route (third if you count Cindered Shadows), the first being Verdant Wind, but man, if this isn't the worst, least fun boss in the game, I don't know what is. Ancient Dragonskin makes it a slog, the boss oneshots almost everyone on my entire team, so I'm reliant on dodge. Counterattack defeats the entire fun of my entire run with long range and siege tomes. Everything about her was just anti-fun. I was never more bored in this game than fighting her. There wasn't even a clever tactic I could use because her entire kit is just designed around removing options from the player. Rant over, I guess, and I am aware of Silver Snow Final boss, but since they're so similar I lump them together into one boss to rant about. Oh, one more thing about the slog of this boss was because of Byleths limited Spells, I basically had to play the entire map a unit down just to save up all my spells for the grindfest that she was. Ok, now Rant Over, I promise.
So... yeah, that was my all spells run. Overall, magic is pretty powerful in this game, mostly due to the majority of enemies having low res, and range abuse (especially with every siege tome user in the game but Hilda). Mages tending to be squishy is a considerable downside, but since this is a Player Phase oriented game, mages end up playing like anything else, kill everything before it kills you. There are a few things designed to make mages struggle, like a few high-res enemies, and anti-magic barriers which nearly threatened to make this run impossible, but overall, there's not much that punishes magic in this game, even less so when you play a diverse team and have units who can take hits who can block for your glass cannons in the back. This was a fun run and I would recommend anyone curious to try it out. It's very doable and can be rewarding to try to position your units in ways that don't end with them dead (since most attacks will leave them dead). I wouldn't recommend the all-siege-tome subtheme, though, especially Anna and Manuela. They're just not worth playing on your team no matter what you're doing (unless it's a worst units in the game run, or you just really like them). I was pleasantly surprised by Hanneman's raw power, but he still wasn't up there with my top three. Hubert was the biggest surprise, keeping up with Lysithea and Constance in damage output. For that reason alone, I would recommend Crimson Flower for a run like this. And they start with more mages, including Linhardt, who gets Physic and Warp, and Excalibur (for the High Res Falcon Knights) if that's your thing. Dorothea, while one of the weaker mages, was still serviceable as well.
Like I said above, the entire point of this post was just for discussion about this game I like and this run I did for fun. So if you have any questions, comments, etc., feel free to leave them and join the discussion! Again, if you have any links to other monoweapon runs (any mono run, not just magic), I'd be happy to check out what other people are doing as well, extra points if there's a video playthrough, but not required.