FE:3H Speedrun Overview

FIRE EMBLEM: 3 HOUSES SPEEDRUN COMMENTARY

This is a somewhat detailed overview that you can read for more information about the run that isn't obvious in the video.

This is ran on normal/classic difficulty because it's fastest. No I am not running maddening mode because the point of speedruns is to go fast.


TRICKS / GLITCHES / RNG

1. It is technically possible to RNG manipulate via the switch clock - however it hasn't been made consistent, and even if it were, it would never be worth resetting for RNG manipulation mid-run because of this game's ridiculously long loads.

2. Monday Mission Bug - If a chapter mission falls on a Monday, and if you Skip straight to the mission, then the previous week of instructs will be treated as if it never happened, so everyone will miss out on a lot of experience. Of course, this has never been patched (and likely never will be, because good game). This affect the verdant wind route, though it's not really a timeloss since that route needs to stop on some weekend for a faith seminar anyways..


OVERVIEW

Byleth is the main carry for part 1, and her stats are extremely important for the run. Strength is easily the most important. Magic and Charm are the least important, though magic boosts Ruptured / Sublime Heaven a bit.

Female Byleth is used primarily for recruiting Sylvain, as he's the best dancer option for all routes except Azure Moon. This is also useful for getting the Lance of Ruin in silver snow.

Birthday 12/01 is usually used since it's one of the fastest birthdays to menu, and it's a date where Byleth's birthday will only be celebrated once in part 1 and never in part 2 (birthdays cost time). The exception is Crimson Flower, because part 2 starts in month 12.

Until the Enlightened One promotion, this run uses Thief Byleth which gives +2 speed and dex, and +10% growth in both. The main advantage of Thief is having no terrain penalties in thickets/forests, which is notable in a handful of maps.

In Part 2, the House Lords take over because we exploit the timeskip autoleveling mechanics of normal difficulty (see TIMESKIP AUTOLEVELS). We certify them as Wyvern Riders because wyverns are lol (Claude gets his own wyvern).


GOALS

Explanations for why the goals are set appropriately:
- Any Unit with Riding - learn Dexterity+4. I.E. a free +4 hit +2 crit for part 2.
- Edelgard with Armor - learn Weight-3
- Any House Lord with Axe/Flying - certify as the Wyvern Rider. Need B Axe C Flying
- Lysithea/Linhardt/Manuela with Faith - Warp
- Annette with Faith - learn Recover to speed up chapter 6 a little bit
- Annette with Authority - hit A Authority to use Blue Lion Dancers by part 2
- Shamir with Authority - hit A Authority to use Retribution by chapter 18 silver snow
- Any other unit with Flying - Flying teaches almost no abilities. This is a very fast menu and results in the unit learning almost nothing, which is what we usually want since it wastes less time from instructionals. One exception is Gilbert, where I set him to Armor + Flying, because solo Flying teaches him Alert Stance, whereas due to his high base armor rank, he won't learn anything from armor for a while. So he learns absolutely nothing.


NOTABLE BATTALIONS
- Jeralt's Mercs - very good battalion. E rank and gives +15 avoid +10 crit to Byleth during the times she needs the bulk the most.
- Seiros Holy Monks - lol stride lol
- Blue Lion Dancers - exclusive to blue lions route. A broken battalion with a gambit that refreshes up to 4 units again (including your dancer)
- Any arbitrary flying battalion - Whatever flying battalion is available that's C rank or lower and gives as much hit as possible. Put on Byleth in part 1 to level it up a bit, then traded to Edelgard/Dimitri to boost their attack and hit.
- Indech Sword Fighters / Black Eagle Peg Co / Kingdom Archers - All provide the Retribution gambit. This allows targetted units to counterattack anything for the next 5 turns. Very broken. Kingdom Archers is D rank (lol), whereas the others are A Rank.


TIMESKIP AUTOLEVELS

During timeskip, every unit will gain a set number of auto-levels. However, in normal difficulty, any unit below level 20 will be auto-leveled up to level 20 as their current class.

Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude are special cases though. They will first auto-certify as their respective advanced lord class at their current level by the end of part 1, then they will gain auto-levels as that class until they hit level 20. This is extremely broken if you keep them at level 1 of all of part 1, because their stats will all bump up to the base stats of the armored lord / high lord / wyvern master before any autolevels begin.

To put it into perspective, if Claude is level 1 by timeskip, his base strength will jump from 11 to 17 as a level 1 unit, then gain 19 levels on top of that. It's pretty common to see the house lord start part 2 with over 30 strength as a level 20 unit.

For Silver Snow, Seteth gains one autolevel, so it doesn't really do much.