Vitezen

I like Hubert, but his interactions with Byleth are terrible. This guy is supposed to be a master of tact and manipulation? "Don't disappoint me or work against me, or I'll kill you," he says. Wow, very persuasive and subtle. The way Byleth responds to his aggression is also totally unrealistic. I get that Byleth is emotionally dead, but even they would understand that they're being threatened. They're a trained mercenary. Just saying "lol okay" to someone threatening to kill you isn't plausible, and would've totally taken me out of the scene if I wasn't already dumbfounded by Hubert saying it in the first place.

You are comparing being able to dance to being able to use all your magic twice. Examine how you use her in battle and consider which would be more useful. I'd guess that you'll have more turns where Dorothea has nothing to kill/heal compared to those where a spell you need has run out.

While Edelgard is more acutely aware of the consequences of her actions, remember that Dimitri is somewhat out of touch with reality. He regularly hallucinates post-timeskip, and while he's clearly worse at that point than he was in the past, we don't actually know exactly how unstable he was at all times during White Clouds. It's unfair to say that Dimitri is absolutely evil for his actions when he isn't fully aware of reality. It's good for Edelgard to always have the greater scope in mind as she leads, but in Dimitri's warrior culture where people must work within their role, that isn't always useful. Carefully weighing the risks of fighting when you're on the battlefield, unable to escape, and facing an enemy that will do everything in their power to kill you in order to avoid being killed themselves, isn't practical. I think the game does a great job here in situating legitimate insanity next to the voluntary fervor of a soldier, and asking the viewer to decide if there's a distinction between the two. Ultimately, the tragedy of Azure Moon isn't that Dimitri is evil, it's that he's a mentally unstable person put in the wrong position at the worst possible time, and others have to suffer the consequences for actions that he can't be fully blamed for taking due to his insanity. He would be perfect as a soldier, where his love of violence could be let loose as necessary and held back by a superior who knows when it's time to stop fighting. At that moment, he would be an amazing soldier, but a poor king, yet a king is what he is.

That depends on what you mean by a genuine desire. Dimitri has been suffering from some form of mental illness his entire life. Can you say that he's fully responsible for his thoughts and feelings? But beside that point, this also relates to a bigger theme of Azure Moon, which is the ramifications of living in a military culture. While Edelgard's ideal country strives toward an enlightened and educated population that can decide things for themselves, Dimitri's culture is one of duty, vocation, and stratification. Not everyone will be expected to improve themselves in this society, but society will have a place for them. Someone who has a predilection toward violence will become a soldier, and their excesses of violence may be kept in check by a superior who is more capable of controlling them. Azure Moon and the game in general work to break down the idealization of war, but that doesn't mean a country where soldiers are honored is bad. Of course, Dimitri has his own mental problems that both help and hurt him in his culture, but just saying he's morally wrong ignores most of the commentary the game makes.

@Darkmoon6789 Dimitri's struggle with sadism conflicting with his morals isn't due to multiple personalities. He's just struggling to reconcile conflicting aspects of himself. He wants to follow his own moral code, but he also has desires that conflict with his code, and to make it worse, those desires are partly being sated by doing the things his code requires him to do. He commits egregious violence because he's trying to satisfy both of his desires. He satisfies his moral desires by punishing those he considers guilty, evil, or unjust, but also satisfies his sadistic, violent side by exacting revenge that exceeds what is deserved.

Sylvain might agree with Edelgard's goal, but I don't think he'd be willing to betray his friends to do it. All of the Blue Lions seem close-knit, and I actually can't see them leaving, except maybe Mercedes joining Jeritza. Characters like Marianne or Lysithea can defect because they don't have strong relationships with others. Sylvain has plenty of friends that he'd have to be okay with fighting against, and I don't believe he would do it.

No reason to assume the series will continue in this direction. Remember when people thought games would all be like the GBA ones? All like the Awakening/Fates ones? I enjoyed 3H, probably my favorite in the series, but things change. No one can predict the future.

They're good. I'd try to rebalance some of their abilities and work on some battalions with passive abilities. I particularly enjoy how enemy battalions can force you to think on your feet. It punishes relying on enemy phase because you can't counterattack a gambit, and getting a unit taken out of the action by a low-accuracy gambit can totally change your strategy in the same way that a critical would, without the permanent death.

We already had a similar thread, so I'll bullet point my outline. First half focuses on all houses equally. Mixture between slice of life and political intrigue as we see development for each of the lords. Dedicate some episodes to fan-favorite non-lords. Byleth isn't a member of any house and is friends with everyone. Post-timeskip, Byleth wakes up in Garreg Mach occupied by the Blue Lions. After spending a little time explaining what's happened, the Blue Lions meet with Claude and the Golden Deer in battle. Claude doesn't want to fight, but Dimitri is too crazy to understand. Byleth manages to recognize Claude's intentions and prevents everyone from killing each other. The Golden Deer join with the Blue Lions and Claude and Byleth use the power of friendship to cure Dimitri's insanity. Now sane, Dimitri still wants to kill Edelgard, but Claude says that things aren't that simple and that they need to question her, without explaining why. The team reaches Edelgard and manages to capture her instead of kill her. She doesn't go crest beast. Claude reveals that he's been keeping Rhea hostage this entire time and knows something is going on, but not what. Edelgard explains the situation with the Slitherers. Everyone is shocked. Claude and Dimitri showing mercy and understanding to Edelgard softens her and brings her to their side. The three factions all march together to destroy the Slitherers. The end.

Ashe gives up hunter's volley and better range for canto. This will reduce his overall effectiveness, unless maybe your entire team is mounted and he can't keep up with them. And while Caspar might double easier, he still has a bad enemy phase. I'd assume he's going to end in grappler, and switch him over to wyvern lord if he gets lucky in his growths. Train him in axes either way.

@T-Doggo It's my understanding that wyvern lord is a good class mostly because it's a flying class that anyone can be. However, putting a unit on a mount doesn't solve all of their problems. It will make a good unit better, but not necessarily make a bad unit good. Generally, a unit is good for melee if they can deal a lot of damage and survive enemy phase. Being a wyvern lord won't help you deal more damage, and it'll only help you survive enemy phase if you canto away from enemies and don't engage in enemy phase at all. Byleth is already a good unit, so putting them on a mount just makes them better. This is the same reason why wyvern lord Hilda is good: She doesn't need help, so put her on a wyvern and make her even better. (Really she only needs help with speed, which you can fix by putting her through pegasus knight on the way to wyvern lord so she gets darting blow.) Now, here are some examples of characters that COULD be wyvern lords, but really shouldn't: Caspar, Raphael, and Ashe. None of them are strong defensively or evasively, so this immediately tells us that they aren't good enemy phase units. This means that their role is to deal damage safely by not getting hit. For Ashe, the obvious answer is using a bow. For Caspar and Raphael, they have it more difficult due to their low speed. Putting them on wyverns will have them doing single hits, getting doubled by every enemy, and dying. Instead, they should be grapplers. Grappler gives you the fierce iron fist art, which hits for 3 regardless of your speed, the best option available for their burst damage. Their goal is to hit a lone enemy in a safe space while your frontliners protect them. In short, wyvern lord is good because it makes good units better by letting them fly. Units who have problems will need to consider specific niches. Good units like Byleth benefit from being wyvern lords because they can survive enemy phase and double.

What do you have against wyvern lord for Byleth? There's no reason not to have more fliers. Maybe are you scared of not being able to train him enough? If so, I understand.

It's impossible to say without knowing how the next game will be balanced. Also, something to note is that this game didn't have playable shapeshifters.

These are good points. And even if you want Raphael to crit, it's easier to get him to crit with killer gauntlets and dex seeds than it is to fix his speed and get him to double/quad. There's nothing stopping him from training in axes anyway if he needs them. Then I guess it just comes down to whether Raphael needs the mobility of a wyvern, which depends more on how many other mounted units you're using. However, Caspar doesn't have as much of a speed or crit problem as Raphael.

Would you say gauntlets are good enough that it's worth making Raphael and Caspar war masters over wyvern lords?