"Ask Fire Emblem Heroes Questions and Get Them Answered Here" Thread

[Xenomata]

@Ice Dragon I'll just quickly say my bit, cause I'm not a person who answers these kinda of questions, but I've been running +Atk -HP in Aether Raids for a long time now, and she's not needed the extra 3 points of Spd that she would have otherwise. She's been able to one-shot most any unit she attacks, and considering these units are usually being boosted by AR stat boosts she's been plenty able to one-shot the units in AA. She runs Moonbow, Swift Sparrow 3, Atk/Def Far Trace, Spd/Def Rein, and Death Blow, so she's not even the most optimally built like I assume you will be doing.

When she's able to one-round units, it doesn't feel like she needs the speed boost even if she has an Atk asset and is Ascended. What speed she does have is appreciated for breaking through Dodge skills.

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Firesweep Bow is annoying to get, is weaker than the other Firesweep weapons, and is weaker than any of the Windsweep + Null Follow-Up units I have. Double Poison Strike is also not an option because I'm not going to bother bouncing around the Sacred Seal. It's not worth it for a game mode that I just want over and done with.

Using presets means you do not have to bounce Sacred Seals around. My Team 2 preset does not use Poison Strike, but it does use Armor Boots. As for Poison Strike itself, I have not really found the need to move it around anymore since we got enough strong tank busters to finish off bulky tanks, so having double Poison Strike is not really necessary for me.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

I ran into three teams yesterday where the Save tanks had Pivot.

From my experience, the defense team does not use Pivot or any positioning Assists well, and a lot of maps already do the work for you and break up the defense team into separate clumps with obstacles, so it is pretty easy to isolate individual units.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Reminder that have exactly 2 distinct Aether Raid teams, and 5 of the 6 units are the same between them.

I think I should have specified Aether Raids super tank teams. If you have a Save tank team, then that works just as well. Arena Assault defense teams lack the preparation that Aether Raids defense teams have access to for mounting an effective defense, so they easily fall apart when facing Aether Raids styled super tank teams.

I have Ike: Brave Mercenary, Lucina: Brave Princess, Flayn, and Peony/Plumeria as my Team 7 presets. I do not remember the last time this team loss. And with a Dancer/Singer, you even have a chance to undo dumb mistakes caused by fat fingers or slippages. You probably do not even need to use Flayn and you can just use another flying healer, and you can save Flayn for another super tank team.

I also have Myrrh: Spring Harmony, Hilda: Deer's Two Piece, Nifl, and Phina as my Team 6 presets. I originally wanted to use Myrrh: Spring Harmony for Aether Raids, but her Harmonized skill got reliability issues there. The only time this team loses is because I forgot to turn on her Iote's Shield.

I am just waiting for another Flayn/Nifl to build a third super tank or Save tank team.

 

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Anyways, I'm still not really convinced that +Atk is particularly important for Duo Lyn when Igrene now exists and is a better wall breaker. Fast units have been a constant thorn in my side, and Lyn is currently the third fastest dagger in the game and is tied for the fastest unit in the game with a Brave weapon.

Lyn having the Slaying effect on her weapon also means she can viably run Lethality on Desperation builds to patch up her Atk once I get more copies of Volke.

Hm... I guess we just use units differently. Since I got quite a few Firesweepers already for chipping units, I use Lyn: Ninja-Friend Duo to finish off foes rather than to chip them, and I primarily use her against high mobility team.

[Ice Dragon]

29 minutes ago, XRay said:

I think I should have specified Aether Raids super tank teams. If you have a Save tank team, then that works just as well. Arena Assault defense teams lack the preparation that Aether Raids defense teams have access to for mounting an effective defense, so they easily fall apart when facing Aether Raids styled super tank teams.

Yes, and both of those teams are super tank teams.

One is Gustav, Henriette, 3 Mythics, and Flayn. The other is Gustav, Henriette, 3 Mythics, and Brave Eirika.

This gives me the template for all of one pre-made team, which was the point I was making.

 

46 minutes ago, XRay said:

Hm... I guess we just use units differently. Since I got quite a few Firesweepers already for chipping units, I use Lyn: Ninja-Friend Duo to finish off foes rather than to chip them, and I primarily use her against high mobility team.

In general, I can two-round kill pretty much everything even in the worst-case scenarios, so my Sweepers aren't really there to chip; they're there to two-round kill with a dancer backing them up.

So far, I've been using Lyn mostly to snipe troublesome high-mobility units or dancers (or units like Legendary Claude who become annoying to kill if you let them initiate combat on you first), and her Atk stat hasn't really been an issue for me for that role, but using her as a more typical nuke runs me into more difficulty with fast tanks who are unaffected by Windsweep and are bulky enough to survive the initial two hits.

 

1 hour ago, Xenomata said:

@Ice Dragon I'll just quickly say my bit, cause I'm not a person who answers these kinda of questions, but I've been running +Atk -HP in Aether Raids for a long time now, and she's not needed the extra 3 points of Spd that she would have otherwise. She's been able to one-shot most any unit she attacks, and considering these units are usually being boosted by AR stat boosts she's been plenty able to one-shot the units in AA. She runs Moonbow, Swift Sparrow 3, Atk/Def Far Trace, Spd/Def Rein, and Death Blow, so she's not even the most optimally built like I assume you will be doing.

When she's able to one-round units, it doesn't feel like she needs the speed boost even if she has an Atk asset and is Ascended. What speed she does have is appreciated for breaking through Dodge skills.

It feels like that's largely a difference between the Aether Raids and Arena metas since I typically don't have Spd issues in Aether Raids, either. My Brave Eirika has 64 Spd before accounting for blessing bonuses and Atk/Spd Menace, and my Ulir has 68 Spd, and both of them consistently double everything relevant. +Atk Lyn with 67-69 Spd shouldn't really have any issues there.

Aether Raids defense relies more on positioning and trickery than on raw combat performance, whereas Arena defense doesn't give you the benefit of stacking the map to your favor, so players have to make up for it with raw combat performance, leading to Arena defense having a higher Spd cap.

Additionally, the Spd boost from Atk/Spd Solo on enemy units is less relevant in Aether Raids due to enemy units' tendency to clump up at the end of each phase, and field buffs are far less common in Aether Raids compared to Arena, making it less likely that enemy units will have extremely high Spd stats on the player's player phase in Aether Raids.

 

It looks like it might just be best to test out how well she performs with +Spd in actual gameplay before I make a final decision and see if the 8 damage or 3 Spd actually make enough of a difference. I've taken the entire week off of work for Thanksgiving, so I might be able to find some time to just spam Arena Assault runs or something. Lyn maxes out her Atk and Spd at +9 merge anyways, so I can do representative tests of her performance before committing to a merge base anyways.

[XRay]

48 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

This gives me the template for all of one pre-made team, which was the point I was making.

Do you have Ike: Brave Mercenary and Lucina: Brave Princess? Ike: Brave Mercenary just needs Distant Counter and some type of Spurn on B, or offload it to Nifl. I use three stacks of damage reduction, but two will probably be more than enough for Arena Assault.

[Ice Dragon]

14 minutes ago, XRay said:

Do you have Ike: Brave Mercenary and Lucina: Brave Princess? Ike: Brave Mercenary just needs Distant Counter and some type of Spurn on B, or offload it to Nifl. I use three stacks of damage reduction, but two will probably be more than enough for Arena Assault.

I'm not seeing how this tangent matters. How I set up my pre-made teams (and the fact that I don't) has no bearing on how I should be building my Lyn.

[DefyingFates]

Can someone recommend maps with cavs on them for the Cavalry quests, please? I'm looking for red and green ones specifically. Thank you in advance!

[Xenomata]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

It feels like that's largely a difference between the Aether Raids and Arena metas since I typically don't have Spd issues in Aether Raids, either. My Brave Eirika has 64 Spd before accounting for blessing bonuses and Atk/Spd Menace, and my Ulir has 68 Spd, and both of them consistently double everything relevant. +Atk Lyn with 67-69 Spd shouldn't really have any issues there.

Aether Raids defense relies more on positioning and trickery than on raw combat performance, whereas Arena defense doesn't give you the benefit of stacking the map to your favor, so players have to make up for it with raw combat performance, leading to Arena defense having a higher Spd cap.

Additionally, the Spd boost from Atk/Spd Solo on enemy units is less relevant in Aether Raids due to enemy units' tendency to clump up at the end of each phase, and field buffs are far less common in Aether Raids compared to Arena, making it less likely that enemy units will have extremely high Spd stats on the player's player phase in Aether Raids.

Point was, I use the exact same Duo Lyn between AR-O and AA, and she excels at both. She's all raw power in both, I even use the same team comp when using her (only difference is I'm not allowed to use three Plumerias at the same time in AA), and the fact she's able to break through the boosted defenses of AR enemies translates greatly to AA where the enemy can't really stack the same way. Plus once you get high enough in score, you don't see dancers quite as often since they're lower scoring without Duel skills, so less chances to be surprised by dancer ambushes. And hey, if she gets below 50% HP, that just makes her a WoM beacon.

My Lyn with +8 dragonflowers is hitting 72/59 offenses per hit before allies support her, so at worst she's only being partially affected by Dodge skills. Needing to be faster is irrelevant as a Brave unit so long as you get the first two hits in and they kill (which a Moonbow trigger helps)

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

Can someone recommend maps with cavs on them for the Cavalry quests, please? I'm looking for red and green ones specifically. Thank you in advance!

Tomorrow's Special Training maps are the Workout series. The Normal difficulty maps have 3 red and 1 green cavalry units for 5 SP per run, and the Hard difficult maps have 3 red and 2 green cavalry units for 10 SP per run.

 

1 hour ago, Xenomata said:

Point was, I use the exact same Duo Lyn between AR-O and AA, and she excels at both. She's all raw power in both, I even use the same team comp when using her (only difference is I'm not allowed to use three Plumerias at the same time in AA), and the fact she's able to break through the boosted defenses of AR enemies translates greatly to AA where the enemy can't really stack the same way. Plus once you get high enough in score, you don't see dancers quite as often since they're lower scoring without Duel skills, so less chances to be surprised by dancer ambushes. And hey, if she gets below 50% HP, that just makes her a WoM beacon.

My Lyn with +8 dragonflowers is hitting 72/59 offenses per hit before allies support her, so at worst she's only being partially affected by Dodge skills. Needing to be faster is irrelevant as a Brave unit so long as you get the first two hits in and they kill (which a Moonbow trigger helps)

Eh, I find dancers to continue to be prevalent in my score range (748-762). It's basically all Duo Peony due to her having a built-in 190 Duel effect, and Legendary Azura is still common enough in Water seasons (and often paired with Legendary Chrom for extra annoyance).

As for the "as long as you get the first two hits in and they kill" part, I've been doing some simulations, and neither +Atk nor +Spd are really consistent. +Atk does land two-hit kills pretty often, but the overkill is small enough that enemy Def bonuses are enough to let Dimitri survive (and Hana survives if Lyn doesn't have a Sacred Seal). +Spd fails a lot of one-round kills, but reasonably consistently succeeds in activating Windsweep... as long as I have a Sacred Seal on her.

This situation is annoyingly complicated. The obvious solution is to just use a Floret.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm just going to have to field test this and get better data on what exactly I should expect to need to go up against. Or just give her the Floret and not have to deal with this.

[XRay]

8 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

I'm not seeing how this tangent matters. How I set up my pre-made teams (and the fact that I don't) has no bearing on how I should be building my Lyn.

I guess my point is that the more guaranteed wins from presets you have, the less Lyn: Ninja-Friend Duo matters as a unit, since you will have more strong nukes to choose from in less amount of matches. If Lyn: Ninja-Friend Duo is already having trouble against fast tanks for you, then I do not think you should keep investing in her unless she is one of your most used unit and/or favorites so she can keep up with the Spd creep. Even if you can keep pouring resources into her, there will eventually be a point where she cannot keep up with the Spd creep anymore, and at least in my experience, I think it makes more sense to hit a tank where they are weak in rather than where they are strong in.

[Xenomata]

5 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

This situation is annoyingly complicated. The obvious solution is to just use a Floret.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm just going to have to field test this and get better data on what exactly I should expect to need to go up against. Or just give her the Floret and not have to deal with this.

She's certainly one of the better candidates for a Floret... for a resource that currently is hard capped in how many we can possibly have.

On the subject of the dancer stuff... huh. Guess I've just been... lucky?

Edited November 24, 2021 by Xenomata

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Xenomata said:

She's certainly one of the better candidates for a Floret... for a resource that currently is hard capped in how many we can possibly have.

On the subject of the dancer stuff... huh. Guess I've just been... lucky?

I am not sure she needs the Floret though. I am of the opinion that super tanks and Save tanks should have priority on rarer resources like Summoner Supports, Flowers, and Florets. While player phase units can certainly benefit from them, because of just how the game works (player phase battle forecasts, players have finer control on picking battles on player phase, etc.), mechanically, I feel player phase units have less need for rare resources and maximum investment compared to enemy phase units. The last nuke I merged to +10 is a second copy of Cordelia: Perfect Bride, but I did it primarily because seeing one copy at +10 and the other copy at +8 or +9 kind of bothered me aesthetically, not because the last few merges (or any of the previous merges for that matter) did anything too mechanically signficant.

Edited November 24, 2021 by XRay

[DefyingFates]

12 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

and the Hard difficult maps have 3 red and 2 green cavalry units for 10 SP per run

Perfect! Thank you so much, Ice!

[Ice Dragon]

10 hours ago, XRay said:

I am not sure she needs the Floret though. I am of the opinion that super tanks and Save tanks should have priority on rarer resources like Summoner Supports, Flowers, and Florets. While player phase units can certainly benefit from them, because of just how the game works (player phase battle forecasts, players have finer control on picking battles on player phase, etc.), mechanically, I feel player phase units have less need for rare resources and maximum investment compared to enemy phase units. The last nuke I merged to +10 is a second copy of Cordelia: Perfect Bride, but I did it primarily because seeing one copy at +10 and the other copy at +8 or +9 kind of bothered me aesthetically, not because the last few merges (or any of the previous merges for that matter) did anything too mechanically signficant.

There's a very notable difference between Florets and the other resources that you've listed. Florets affect exactly one stat, whereas merges, Summoner Support, and Dragonflowers affect all stats. The cost is the same for Summoner Support and Dragonflowers whether the unit uses one stat or all five stats, meaning you get more bang for your buck when giving them to units that use more of their stats. Conversely, Florets only affect one stat, meaning as long as the unit in question uses at least two stats, you're getting a similar amount of benefit.

As such, I consider fast Brave units to have the highest Floret priority (tied with a few other unit types) for two reasons: First, they have a harder time using team support to make up for stat deficiencies, and second, the probability that a shift in the meta will change which stats the unit needs to boost with Assets is virtually zero.

[SoulWeaver]

In my quest to pull the last Camilla merge I have managed to free pull Inigo, Surtr, and two Caeda-Plumeria. Would have rather got Severa than any of those but the Red pool is the Red pool so I sure wasn’t touching that mess.

Anyhow, who likes Flow Refresh best, and which bane is better for the harmonic to take, -SPD or -DEF? Both are +RES.

[Ice Dragon]

30 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

In my quest to pull the last Camilla merge I have managed to free pull Inigo, Surtr, and two Caeda-Plumeria. Would have rather got Severa than any of those but the Red pool is the Red pool so I sure wasn’t touching that mess.

Anyhow, who likes Flow Refresh best, and which bane is better for the harmonic to take, -SPD or -DEF? Both are +RES.

Flow Refresh is extremely niche since it competes with Desperation, Lull, and Trace. If you want to use it, you typically want to put it on a bulky unit that will appreciate the healing and doesn't mind taking hits, like Duessel, a unit that already has a survivability effect built in on their weapon and would appreciate getting the offensive half of Null Follow-Up, like Ingrid, or a unit that's running Surge Sparrow and can therefore forgo Desperation.

Harmonic Caeda wants to not be -Spd.

[XRay]

37 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

In my quest to pull the last Camilla merge I have managed to free pull Inigo, Surtr, and two Caeda-Plumeria. Would have rather got Severa than any of those but the Red pool is the Red pool so I sure wasn’t touching that mess.

Anyhow, who likes Flow Refresh best, and which bane is better for the harmonic to take, -SPD or -DEF? Both are +RES.

You ideally want to pair Flow Refresh with Surge Sparrow for lots of healing. Flow Refresh by itself is okay, but not really that great either since it's healing kind of sucks, and Null Follow-Up by itself is not good enough justify the crappy heals.

-HP would be ideal, but -Def is fine too. You want low bulk in Resonant Battles so it is easier to maintain Wings of Mercy.

[Faellin]

Would fallen male Morgan be a good user of close counter? Just free summoned a Takumi, and he's the only one in my roster who would probably work with it due to his defensive stats and auto followups

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, Faellin said:

Would fallen male Morgan be a good user of close counter? Just free summoned a Takumi, and he's the only one in my roster who would probably work with it due to his defensive stats and auto followups

I would personally prefer either Close Reversal or Close Foil to get some stats on top, but yes, Fallen Morgan is one of the few units that can use Close Counter without significant team support.

[Faellin]

Just got a ninja Shinon. So, would this Sedgar work well with that Ninja bow and deadeye fodder combo? I'm approaching the trait fruit needed to IV swap him to +speed, and have enough grails to get him to +7 merges the moment he hits the shop as well.

 

[XRay]

6 minutes ago, Faellin said:

Just got a ninja Shinon. So, would this Sedgar work well with that Ninja bow and deadeye fodder combo? I'm approaching the trait fruit needed to IV swap him to +speed, and have enough grails to get him to +7 merges the moment he hits the shop as well.

I do not recommend Deadeye. I would stick with Luna (along with Desperation) for performance, or Ruptured Sky for scoring.

[Ice Dragon]

48 minutes ago, Faellin said:

Just got a ninja Shinon. So, would this Sedgar work well with that Ninja bow and deadeye fodder combo? I'm approaching the trait fruit needed to IV swap him to +speed, and have enough grails to get him to +7 merges the moment he hits the shop as well.

12 minutes ago, XRay said:

I do not recommend Deadeye. I would stick with Luna (along with Desperation) for performance, or Ruptured Sky for scoring.

I disagree. Deadeye is fine, especially because it's fucking free when inheriting Ninja Yumi. Ruptured Sky is a complete waste of resources unless you're swimming in Byleths.

[XRay]

23 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I disagree. Deadeye is fine, especially because it's fucking free when inheriting Ninja Yumi. Ruptured Sky is a complete waste of resources unless you're swimming in Byleths.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot it comes with the bow. I still would not use it though unless you want it for scoring.

[Faellin]

If I used a forma soul on brave Micaiah, and have her original self decently merged and invested in, would you say her legendary is worth going for in my case?

Normally I follow a 2 out of 3 rule for legendary banners. And in my case, Bramimond was a top priority for me, but got him off my free summon. And not in dire need of spare legendary Corrin's (also didn't help she also showed up on my free summon ring) So colorless this month went from god tier for me, to "i'm not sure if I should continue"

 

Edited November 30, 2021 by Faellin

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Faellin said:

If I used a forma soul on brave Micaiah, and have her original self decently merged and invested in, would you say her legendary is worth going for in my case?

Do you need anything that Legendary Micaiah can do?

Legendary Micaiah is quite different from Brave Micaiah, but is very similar to regular Micaiah. The primary differences between Legendary Micaiah and regular Micaiah are Legendary Micaiah's superior stats (a +0+0 Legendary Micaiah hits harder than a fully invested regular Micaiah), stronger Assist skill, and status as a Wind Legendary Hero.

If you are in need of a second Micaiah armor counter for Arena Assault or a Wind Legendary Hero, it's probably worth getting at least one copy of Legendary Micaiah. Otherwise, regular Micaiah basically does the exact same thing, just not quite as well.

[Xenomata]

So I had asked earlier about the two Grail Ninja girls, and now that I'm less confident in making a decision between the two than ever, I took a second look at available grail units that I could focus on instead. The list I made is below, from oldest to newest, and mostly keeping Arena Assault, Abyssal hero battles, and Resonant/Limited battles in mind, as my core AR teams are doing just fine for where I want to be. All unit comparisons are toward the units in my army, and not toward any units currently retired in my barracks.

• Xander: Solid physical defense, goodish Atk, follow-up denial on weapon, DC weapon opens up A slot. Mostly an AA unit as AHBs will be too powerful for him to last, especially with low Res. Harsh competion from other Red Fates units in Siegbert, Keaton, Soleil, Nyx, and Flora.
• Camus: Good Atk/Spd/Def, DC weapon opens up A slot, healing on attacks provides sustain. Again, mostly AA for same reasons above. Not much competion as far as blue SD/NMotE units are concerned, his main competitors being Roderick, LegTiki, and Harmonized Halloween Tiki (and Duo Young Palla, though she feels more specialized)
• Arden: High def, dual-phase Brave weapon with Atk/Def boosts and Guard, Prf B passive enables follow-ups on both phases (probably can be replaced with Vengeful or Slick Fighter for Save build), only issue is his Res. Competes with Sigurd, LegSigurd, and LegSeliph, but none of them operate the way Arden does at all.
• Panne: throwing her in since she's a personal favorite unit among Awakening units, and her Solo game isn't that bad (cav effectiveness is a nice bonus) Main competition would be Cordelia and maybe Sumia, with Nowi being far more defensive and LegLucina being ranged.
• Ashnard: High amount of Atk/Def penalties (especially after A/D Near Trace and Atk/Def Rein are applied, both of which my Forma Ashnard has), good defensive stats, innate Iotes Shield. Main competition would be Winter Altena and Black Knight.
• Young Innes: High Atk/Spd after weapon effect, strong Special Triggers. His only competition is regular Innes, and tbh I don't have as many strong Sacred Stones units as I do in other titles (limited to Duo Young Eirika, Brave Eirika, Spring Marisa, Spooky Myrrh, and occasionally Amelia)
• Ninja Hana and Ninja Shamir are still on the table as well.

Young Innes seems like the "strongest" among the above units, though if there's something I'm missing about any of the above please let me know.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Xenomata