XRay

802,701 Just kidding. 79,480 How do we know if our post count is accurate?

Yes. I remember you. Damn, I feel old.

For me personally, it was the severe restriction of the petting game, removal of a few of the accessories, and Saizo's and Beruka's lack of C support. Not a fan of Treehouse ever since then. To me, the localization was the biggest disappointment. My main gripe with Fates unrelated to the localization is that I could not get everyone in Revelations, missing Izana, missing Yukimura, Scarlet dying, and Gunter leaving. But other than that, I was pretty happy with Fates. I was also disappointed to learn that Treehouse handles Heroes too, but thankfully, they did not botch Heroes that much compared to what they did to Fates. Supports and romance scream Fire Emblem as much as the weapon triangle. Engage still did pretty well considering it lacked romance, but I hope that Intelligent System brings back romance in the future. On the other hand, I do not mind them dropping the weapon triangle and durability, or even better, just turn them into optional mechanics like permadeath so everyone can be happy. I also really love dress up and accessories, so I hope they further expand on that in future titles; it would be nice if they can make it as in-depth as Pokémon X and Y's character customization. Fates' base building is also really cool, but outside of Fates and Heroes (Aether Raids), I do not think that will be a consistent feature they can just slap onto any game, unlike romance and costumes.

If? EDIT: Uhh, that wasn't supposed to be a pun. Well, Fates was a huge fuck up in terms of localization in my opinion, but it did financially well. I think Awakening and every game after did well too. Engage is no Three Houses, but it still sold plenty, around the level of Shadows of Valentia. Like Shadows of Valentia, and unlike most of its modern peers, Engage stimulated our brains, but it did not titillate our hearts, and I think the lack of romance hurts it quite a bit. Hell, although Heroes does not have much romance either, we still got Summoner Support and the S rank music sounds close enough marriage for players to pretend they are romancing their favorite waifus and husbandos (and the gacha and collecting aspect certainly helps).

I think the fog of war makes her more risqué. Haha. As for the greedy thing, this is not about food nor water, nor is it a charity, so I think being greedy is fine. Just like everyone else here, developers got bills to pay and mouths to feed. And think of it another way, having Heroes around gives more financial leeway to the main series. If they accidentally fucked up and made a doodoo main game, they can point to strong interest and sales in Heroes to avoid axing the series. Just look at Advance Wars, it is still in a ditch, barely crawling around. At least it is not in the grave anymore, but it pales in comparison to its glory days, and it certainly pales in comparison to Fire Emblem. It also does not seem like they are removing Dragonflowers from those Heroes' regular Ordeals either, so Merge Ordeals is just extra rewards on top for whales who help keep the lights on.

If the nuke does not use Desperation, there is not much point in putting Wings of Mercy on the Dancer/Singer. If the nuke does use Desperation, then the Dancer/Singer should run Wings of Mercy on their B or X slot depending on if they have an exclusive Assist. Skills with close range warping and Pathfinder are nice, but they cannot compete with Wings of Mercy in terms of sheer mobility. We do not really need that mobility in PvP since enemies just comes at you in one direction, and Pathfinder is really good at paving the road for your Dancers/Singers to follow the nukes. But in PvE, it feels like Wings of Mercy is vital since the nuke is likely to zoom all around the map. Do not a lot of dual phase units have damage reduction mitigation or nullification now? Besides Save tanks, it seems like top-tier tanks these days are more dual phase units rather than Enemy Phase units.

With modern skills, it is viable to go without Desperation, but you are also missing out on the teleportation that Wings of Mercy provides. At least in PvE, I think Wings of Mercy is still very valuable to allow extra mobility since reinforcements spawn all around the map. With all the damage reduction mitigation or nullification though, it feels a little risky to rely on damage reduction to eat hits, or at least, that is what every other Focus seems like it got.

Another Dancer/Singer! Nice! Oof! That is a sobering reminder. At least it helps reduce the gap a bit between old Dancers/Singers and new ones. I do not think the B slot is competitive enough yet to warrant Wings of Mercy on the X slot. I think [exclusive Dance/Sing (Assist)+Wings of Mercy (B)] is better than [Dance/Sing (Assist)+Dance (B)+Wings of Mercy (X)]. The main issue with Dance (B) is that the exclusive Dance/Sing and C skills are better at giving bonus buffs and status effects, and Desperation as an effect is absolutely critical for nukes who rely on it to use it. Offloading Desperation to a support unit can create issues, such as when a turn starts and a nuke needs to make an attack, but it does not make sense for a nuke to waste an action to do nothing, just so the Dancer/Singer can Dance/Sing the nuke just to provide Desperation. And for nukes who are not reliant Desperation, you cannot really use them with Wings of Mercy anyways.

Oh! Nice! We are getting there slowly! I think we have more Heroes than the total number of Pokémon for a while now. I feel we might surpass Digimon numbers before we finish giving Resplendents to all the launch Heroes.

Have they even finished half of all the launch day Heroes yet? I am pretty sure they do not even have half the first year Heroes. Out of the popular waifus off the top of my head, Camilla and Tharja still have not gotten theirs yet.

I guess for somewhat cheaper and universal skills in general, there are modern updates of old classic skills. You can wait for Brash Assault to pity break you. Desperation 4 (Special Hero) and Quick Riposte 4 (Rearmed Hero) are not cheap, but its lower tiers are. Desperation is nice if you like to use Wings of Mercy Dancers/Singers. Brash Assault and Quick Riposte helps you bypass Spd checks depending on the phase. If you plan to get Alfred or Ingrid: Beacon of Hope, they would be better candidates to pass off skills since they can pass the Rearmed Weapon too. If you do not really use beasts, then you can give Eitr now for Alarm Atk/Spd. You are not losing Eitr either since she is Rearmed, so you can still use her later. It is just that Alarm Atk/Spd is not as rare as her Arcane Weapon, so you can always rely on Special Hero Focus to get it again, whereas who knows when we will get Eitr again. But if you do not use beasts that much, then her Arcane Weapon does not really matter. If she was not Rearmed or Attuned, then yeah, I will be a bit more hesitant to use her since you will lose the unit.

Do not forget Potent! That skill seems pretty rare right now. For Specials and Assists, there is not any, but there are a decent chunk of B and C skills worth duplicating. Most units come with decent A skills for combat performance already, so I would not use her to inherit A skills for that purpose, but Duel skills are a consideration if you change your Arena core from time to time, and you do not want to spend Orbs specifically for scoring every time you do so. If the target unit for inheritance is a nuke and you want to change them to be more dual phase-ish, you can consider giving them Primes or any other Counters as well; and vice versa for dual phase units with Counters that you want to change to be more nuke-ish with Clashes or Flares. I would focus on B and C skills more, since the inheriting unit is less likely to have the desired skill you want, and B skills in particular affect game play a lot. For B skills of note, besides what @Ice Dragon already mentioned, there is also Spd/Def Snag if you utilize debuffs a lot, although their holders are Rearmed Heroes who can pass them down as well. Atk/Spd Link also seems pretty good with lots of extra damage, although its tier 4 version is relatively new so it might or might not be rare later, so I would hold off on that; worst case scenario, you can just wait and plan for its annual Special Heroes Focus rerun. For C skills, Fatal Smoke is relatively rare and only guaranteed available around Christmas so far, but it has a decent niche in preventing or significantly mitigate foe's healing. Def/Res Smoke is also pretty fun, but it is available through out the year on Special Heroes Foci. If you plan to inherit to a support unit, there are Still Water, Dances, Ruses, Links, and Ploys. Rafiel: Blessed Wings, Leanne, Vika, Freyr, Kaden, and Ranulf got at least decent Res and/or movement type to inherit a lot of those skills, in addition to whatever beast skills you want on them.

There are three types of stat buffs (permanent, in-combat buffs, and visible buffs), and each got their own pros and cons. — — — — — — — Permanent stat buffs are, well, permanent, for a lack of a better word. You want to use permanent stat buffs when you need to rely on stat comparisons out-of-combat. The primary drawback of permanent buffs is that certain skills inflict debuffs on units with the highest stats, but this is not really much of an issue in most cases. Life and Death is for player phase units the specializes in area-of-effect Specials (usually Blazing Wind and Blazing Light; sometimes Growing Wind or whatever their exclusive area-of-effect Special is). On the other hand, Fort. Def/Res and is for support units that utilizes their Def/Res to debuff enemies. Off the top of my head, I think Mila is the only unit that can utilize both Def/Res to inflict debuffs. Most support units only use one of their stats for stat comparisons, so while Fort. Def/Res works, it is not the most effective one. Most support units run Still Water since Res is the most frequent stat used for stat comparisons. The next most common stat used is HP, so you will want some kind of Duel skill on the A slot and a modern Squad Ace skill on the Sacred Seal slot (if you are low on resources, HP+5 will work just fine). I cannot think of any support unit that uses Def for support except Mila, so if you are not using her Res, you can slap Solid Earth on her. Still Water and Solid Earth can also be used on units that does both combat (often, but not always, Blazing nukes) and support. For example, Lilina: Firelight Leader can run Still Water on both her A and S slot to enhance the power of her Gifted Magic II Special, and help her activate whatever Sabotages and Ploys you put on her B and C slot. Only player phase units use Fury. Fury is desired for its after combat damage that inflicts onto its user, so you can use Dancers/Singers with Wings of Mercy to teleport to them. Fury's permanent stat buff is not its main selling point, since the buffs are low compared to other A skills. A secondary use of permanent stat buffs is to put them on support units so they will be less likely affected by crippling debuffs from the opponent's support units. The most popular skill for this role would be Fort. Def/Res, Duels, and Squad Ace BX. A tertiary use of permanent stat buffs is to put them on support units so they will draw debuff to themselves rather than have it inflicted on the rest of your team. — — — — — — — Skills with in combat stat buffs are the most common, varied, and (usually) reliable. With the exception of Blazing nukes mentioned above, most combat units want to utilize skills with in combat buffs, such as Flash Sparrow, Atk/Spd Prime, and Bracing Stance, since those skills often come with secondary effects on top of regular stat boosts. Flash Sparrow makes it easier to activate Specials, Atk/Spd Prime allows the unit to counter attack from any distance during enemy phase, and Bracing Stance makes it mroe difficult for the foe to activate their Specials. There are many, many, many more skills with in combat stat buffs, so which ones you use depends a lot on how you plan to use a unit. In combat stat buffs cannot be affected by the enemy in most cases, hence their reliablity. At the same time, however, the combat unit will be more vulnerable to debuffs from enemy support units, but in most cases, this is not a huge deal. And depending on your team composition and play style, you want to have as much debuffs on your team as possible, since certain Heroes and team compositions get stronger the more stat debuffs they have. — — — — — — — Skills that provide visible stat buffs are good, but only if they are not in the A slot. As far as I am aware, the only A skills that provide visible stat buffs are Defiant skills, and they suck. Visible stat buffs also do not stack, so generally speaking, you want to offload skills that provide visible stat buffs to support units, since they can often buff the whole team at once with one of their skill slots, so you can run more skills with in combat stat buffs on your combat units. Visible stat buffs are good in that they help with stat comparisons outside of combat. However, these buffs are also the most easily affected by enemy skill effects, which either renders them useless at best or detrimental at worst. In most cases though, you want to use visible stat buffs; it is pretty rare for visible stat buffs to be detrimental to you, and it is pretty easy to disable those stat buffs when you do encounter a situation where it is detrimental.

Does Pegasus Flight 4 have any niche at all? I think it is still useless against fast foes due to the lack of Spd boost. Against slow units, it feels a little weak, since all it has is just follow-up denial. It is a nice defensive effect, but it feels pretty underwhelming by itself. I think if they add guaranteed follow-up or offensive Null Follow-Up, it would be more competitive.

Hm... I remember Weapon Refine updates usually include Legendary and/or Mythic Heroes too. Are they spacing it out more and slowing that down?

That drawback is pretty bad, and her Refine is not even that crazy to begin with. She is basically stuck running low cooldown Specials. We have Gambit that makes high cooldown Specials really worth considering, but I do not think we have any effects that makes uncharged Specials worth considering. Should not Incite be fine since he wants to be alone?

Oh yeah, to make Bonds more competitive with current skills, nullifying negative status effects on top of negative stat debuffs would be really nice. As for Owl tomes, I think doubling it to 4 is not unreasonable, so you will get +20 to all stats if you are lucky, although realistically probably more like +12 or +16; if we can add effects on top, maybe dealing true damage and flat damage reduction based on number of adjacent allies, so like up to 10 damage dealt and mitigated, with each ally contributing 2. As for Unity, reversing negative status effects sounds complicated and unfeasible, so I guess maybe two-stats+4 for each negative status effect seems easier to implement. Forms can remove the stat boost cap, and I guess deal true damage and have flat damage reduction based on allies would be nice, with each ally contributing 1, so like up 7 damage dealt and mitigated in Grand Conquest and 6 in Pawns of Loki.

Null Special is cool. I think Nanna: Beloved Princess has parts of it, only disabling defensive Specials. I think Lucia completely disables Specials except Galeforce. Alternatively, you can run Godlike Reflexes on Lucia since the damage boost is not tied to the Special triggering. Poison Dagger is cool. I wish infantry effectiveness was more widespread. I wish they make skills with shitty conditions worth using. Adjacency requirement is ass for a long a time, but Save tanks made that requirement tolerable, so it would be cool to have Owl tomes and Bonds be more viable. Forms and Unity are a step in the right direction back then, but they never really followed through with the tier 4 version, and while the condition is easier to fulfill, practically speaking, it is still only viable with Save tanks. Finishes are the final evolution of the condition, but the condition seems kind of easy to fulfill.

Hm... I guess that means Player Phase nukes that use Potent should consider running only Galeforce, Blazings, and Godlike Reflexes then? Galeforce and Blazings trigger outside of combat. Godlike Reflexes does not trigger on the unit's hit, so it does not get wasted. Would not almost all fast infantry nukes still want Potent over any other B skill? They can easily get Pulsed, so they can almost always land an in-combat Special on the first hit, so they are very unlikely to waste a Special on the Potent hit. If they cannot land a natural nor guaranteed follow-up, Potent follow-up is almost just as good. If they can land a follow-up, Potent follow-up is quite a bit weaker, but you are still doing damage anyways, so it is still something. Not too sure about fast fliers and cavalry, but if they can easily get Pulsed too, I think they would want Potent too.

At least on Player Phase nukes, would not Potent almost always be the best B slot? You are getting an extra hit in to help charge your Special and it comes with built-in Desperation for the Potent strike. Three (or five) strikes is better then two (or four) strikes. Having a third follow-up feels like a pretty big deal.

I think it depends on how often you see Null Follow-Up and fast units. If not often, then I would go with +Atk for more damage since the Weapon already provides guaranteed follow-up, so you do not necessarily need the Spd unless you are high up in the PvP meta or something. She does not have the highest Res, but Res Refine could be an option.if you want to use her as support.

Do not forget double Slaying since both Kattis increase Crit. Make her a dagger unit so she can throw her swords, and it comes with Close Counter because swords are melee weapons. Actually, she launches her swords with Mulagir, so her dagger is effecive against fliers too. And according to Fandom, in the original game description, it states that it is effective against infantry too, so her dagger is now effective against everyone. And give her unconditional dual phase guaranteed follow-up and Desperation to improve upon her Heroes version of Sol Katti, and might as well giver her unconditional Vantage, Null C-Disrupt, and Potent too to increase that synergy. Since her shtick is Sweep in Heroes, give her Firesweep, and if she triggers Vantage on Enemy Phase, she gets Firesweep on Enemy Phase so the foe cannot hit her. And since she is a ranged unit, she cannot run Galeforce, so her Weapon has Galeforce. Might as well give her 3 cooldown Lethality to make her Special special, and reduce foes' Def/Res by 100% because we need to powercreep Black Luna. And throw in Deadeye too since she launches her daggers/swords with a bow, and boost it by 200% extra damage to outdo Astra. And if Special triggers, she can Galeforce after combat; Edelgard cannot be the only double Galeforce queen. And throw in Tempo and before-and-after-combat Time's Pulse so her Special cannot be stopped. And actually, make her Special a defensive Special, so she gets unpierceable damage reduction; and throw in flat damage reduction too for extra protection; and since her Special is a defensive Special, as long as it is charged, she gets 100% Lethality and 200% Deadeye on every strike she lands. And as long as her Special is charged, she also gets OmniGrowingBlaze, precombat damage, and Divine Vein (All), and of course, it triggers on both Player Phase and Enemy Phase; she wins battles before battles even start. She is also borrowing Florina's pegasus, and since Florina's pegasus flew around carrying both of them for the past three years and Florina is not with her right now, Lyn is a flying unit that comes with movement+1 status effec. And since Florina's pegasus is a good boy/girl who likes to meet everyone, she treats all allies and foes as Pathfinders. And since Lyn is a Galeforce empress, she also gets Galeforce on her exclusive A, B, C, S, X, and E skills. And she comes with a Duo/Harmonized skill button with extra Galeforce for doodoo and giggles. And the Galeforce goddess can trigger Galeforce on Enemy Phase, immediately ending the opponent's turn. And for extra shit and Skittles, each skill is over a page long, and we need Ice Dragon and Pheonixmaster1 to decipher the crytpic language. Emblem Lyn powercreeps Embla's Ward. She does not need invincibility if you cannot even hit her on Player Phase! Except Hardy Bearing I guess. She makes Enemy Phase viable again. I feel tired and hyper at the same time. I drank over 400mg of caffeine yesterday and woke up at 2am today.

Ah, I see. I have not thought about that before. But I guess my counter argument would be that would not another nuke still be better, since they are more mobile and have better offensive range? Sure, the Save tank can better protect forward positions of your nukes, so if it is going down, your most forward nukes are still there to exert pressure, but would not replacing the tank with another nuke accomplish similar results? With all nukes, if the opponent initiates, you will most likely lose your most foward nuke, so the amount of space you can pressure gets pushed back a bit, but at the same time, you might be in a more forward position in the first place since you are not waiting for your Save tank to catch up. That is true too. And if the player is bringing a Save tank, I assume the best Save tanks right now would be Edelgard: Adrestian Emperor and Edelgard: Snowfall Future since they do not need their C slot for mobility? On the other hand, since Enemy Phase combat performance is almost irrelevant, can it be argued that almost any Save tank is about as good the first two, since they do not need their Sacred Seal slot for perfomance and can just run Armored Boots instead? I mean, the HP condition on Armored Boots hardly matters at this point, since if you are getting damaged at all, you are probably going to die very soon within the same round of combat. The main difference separating those two Edelgards and the rest is that those two Edelgards are less affected by out-of-combat damage from Blazing nukes and Savage Blow, but I am not sure how common out-of-combat damage is. I do not remember Blazing nukes being super common since most players prefer flying and cavalry nukes for better mobility. While I remember I used Savage Blow a bit because I could not outfit everyone with Def/Res Smoke, feels like most opponents I face have Def/Res Smoke on almost everyone.

I just realized something, with all the pre-combat damage that is un-Dodgeable nor mitigable in any way, is there still a point to bring a Save tank? You might as well just run another nuke since tanks and nukes both die in one round of combat.

Stats from merges, Flowers, Supports, Blessings, Emblem, etc. do help, but how valuable it is depend on the type of unit you are running and the mode you are trying to tackle. If you are running a Spd super tank or Spd Save tank and want to have an easier time in higher tier PvP, you absolutely want to juice up those tanks as much as you can afford, as Spd is a highly competitive stat and they need that stat to function properly. Besides scoring, for anyone else though, stats still matter, but you can cut corners here and there and you should still be fine in most cases. Not sure if -HP is valuable enough on some nukes to miss out on stats from merges/Flowers/Emblems/etc. in PvP these days (assuming you do not need them for scoring), but it should still be pretty good in PvE where stat creep is not as bad, and you get to save Orbs/Grails/Flowers since you want to keep them at +0+0+0.