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

[Xenomata]

11 hours ago, Othin said:

I haven't tried Stall Ploy, but it doesn't sound impressive to me unless you really hate Sigurd. My inclination would be to look for someone who wants his A and B skills, and have them get Atk/Spd Solo 3 from another source.

Yeah I would never SI a unit with a Tier 4 skill like AS Solo until I had the base 3 tiers already inherited, which fortunately I do have the option (thank you Corrin)

8 hours ago, XRay said:

SD Near Trace is more relevant in my opinion, although it is also more readily available since Tana: Frelian Starlight and Ashe: Fabled Sea Knight has it.

While Stall Ploy is nice, the only unit that I can think of that has any strong synergies with is Fjorm: Bride of Rime and maybe Loki, since they are built around limiting movement. Outside of Aether Raids, Hilda: Deer's Two-Piece could be okay too since she can inflict Isolation. If you do not use any othem often enough though, then I would not bother.

If you cannot decide yet, there is always the option of turning him into a Manual and decide later down the line.

You say "readily available" and then list two units whose seasonal banners have passed and who won't be returning for a few months, one of whom I only own one copy of and the other who I do not have at all. As-is, this is the only Near Trace fodder I have available.

Of the three units you listed for Stall Ploy, I guess I most often use Loki... as one of the leads of my primary Arena Assault team, and literally only because she is the healer I own who scores the highest.

...yeah something tells me I'll be holding onto this combat manual for a while...

[Sil/phire]

would +Spd be the best IV for Vika? She can't double otherwise.

[Ice Dragon]

10 hours ago, Sil/phire said:

would +Spd be the best IV for Vika? She can't double otherwise.

+Spd is the best for general use. +Atk is usable and can help with her somewhat lower Atk stat, but I don't really think it's worth running over +Spd (unless you're building a second copy or something like that). If you're using her mostly for support, use +Res instead.

[XRay]

11 hours ago, Sil/phire said:

would +Spd be the best IV for Vika? She can't double otherwise.

I second +Res so you can use her as a support unit. Other than Mordecai, I think Vika: Sea-Dark Wing is the only the beast support unit that can debuff, and I think she can do it better in my opinion since she does not require expending an action to apply the debuffs.

[DefyingFates]

What's the best Special for B!Eirika? She gets stronger if her Special has a higher cooldown, so I was thinking of using Aether with Heavy Blade to max out her score too, is that a good idea?

[Ice Dragon]

49 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

What's the best Special for B!Eirika? She gets stronger if her Special has a higher cooldown, so I was thinking of using Aether with Heavy Blade to max out her score too, is that a good idea?

If you're running Heavy Blade, you'd preferably want to run a Special with a cooldown of 4 against opponents that can counterattack because activating a Special on every round of combat is worth more than getting the 3-6 damage off of the extra 10% Def drop... except the only one worth running is probably Dragon Fang.

However, I think the extra Def drop is really just a trap, as in, you shouldn't specifically build for that effect and ignore its drawbacks.

For example, Aether would deal damage equal to 110% of the opponent's Def, or about 66 damage on a unit with 60 Def. However, you can't land it every round of combat, and if you run Heavy Blade, you lose 4-6 Atk from the loss of an Atk-boosting Sacred Seal.

In comparison, Ruptured Sky would deal damage equal to 20% of the opponent's Atk and 30% of the opponent's Def, or about 33 damage on a unit with 75 Atk and 60 Def. However, you can run an Atk-boosting Sacred Seal, which will also apply to the hits that don't activate your Special, and you're pretty much guaranteed to activate it every round of combat. Additionally, you can run Quickened Pulse and land two Ruptured Skies on your first round of combat against an opponent that can counterattack, which would deal the same amount of damage as an Aether, but you'd have it available immediately.

Against opponents with less extreme stats, Ruptured Sky closes the gap even further. Against an opponent with 65 Atk and 30 Def, Aether would hit only 33 damage, whereas Ruptured Sky would hit for 22 damage, which allows for an Atk-boosting Sacred Seal to basically close the gap completely.

 

Ideally, Eirika would still be running Ruptured Sky for both scoring and performance. For scoring only, Aether is still fine if you can't get your hands on Ruptured Sky, but it's not at all reliable for performance, even with Heavy Blade.

For performance, if you don't have Ruptured Sky, I'd go for either Moonbow or Luna. I'd say Luna is the better choice in general because it's still reasonably reliable; you'll only potentially miss activating it against opponents that cannot counterattack, and those units typically don't have enough Def for that to matter. However, Moonbow is technically more reliable. The power difference is pretty noticeable, though, as Moonbow hits for 60% of the opponent's Def, whereas Luna hits for 90%.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Ice Dragon

[DefyingFates]

Thanks a ton, Ice!

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Ideally, Eirika would still be running Ruptured Sky for both scoring and performance. For scoring only, Aether is still fine if you can't get your hands on Ruptured Sky, but it's not at all reliable for performance, even with Heavy Blade.

And I'm embarrassed to admit I forgot Ruptured Sky was a thing. I knew there was a high-scoring low-cooldown Special out there, but my brain stopped trying after coming up with Blue Flame. In any case, it gives me an excuse to use my Divine Codes again! (I think I have enough for Byleth...)

As for the Assist Skill: she's a Cavalier, so she probably isn't going to be nearby enemies enough for Rallies to work, right? I think I have a spare Harsh Command+ I can give her though; is that a better option?

[Ice Dragon]

9 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

As for the Assist Skill: she's a Cavalier, so she probably isn't going to be nearby enemies enough for Rallies to work, right? I think I have a spare Harsh Command+ I can give her though; is that a better option?

If you're running an Assist skill for scoring, any of the 400-SP skills are about equal for performance. I don't think there's all that much of a difference in performance between the Rally Ups, the dual Rallies, and Harsh Command+.

 

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot Astra was a thing. For game modes like Resonant Battles, Heavy Blade + Astra is probably worth having as an option.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Ice Dragon

[Rinco]

Is W!Cecilia a good unit to run Far Save or is she worse than B!Edelgard (to be more specific, I have a +10 W!Cecilia and my B!Edel is only +2.)?

I'm looking at AR performance on offense, to be more clear

[DefyingFates]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

If you're running an Assist skill for scoring, any of the 400-SP skills are about equal for performance. I don't think there's all that much of a difference in performance between the Rally Ups, the dual Rallies, and Harsh Command+.

Got it, thanks!

Quote

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot Astra was a thing. For game modes like Resonant Battles, Heavy Blade + Astra is probably worth having as an option.

That came up in the Feh Channel thread too. I dismissed it because of the low SP value, but using it in Resonant Battles is a good idea, thank you very much! I'll feed her one of my many, many, many Cordelias for that, and keep saving Codes so she can get Ruptured Sky for Arena then. Solos and Blade Session would be her go-to Seals, right?

P.S. Has anyone crunched the numbers on ideal IVs for the Brave Heroes, yet? Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Another question: is Summoner Support shared between identical Heroes? For example, my current Support is Nino. If I got a second one, would she also get the buffs or only the first one? Thanks in advance!

Edited August 16, 2021 by DefyingFates

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

That came up in the Feh Channel thread too. I dismissed it because of the low SP value, but using it in Resonant Battles is a good idea, thank you very much! I'll feed her one of my many, many, many Cordelias for that, and keep saving Codes so she can get Ruptured Sky for Arena then. Solos and Blade Session would be her go-to Seals, right?

Yeah, Atk/Spd Solo or Blade Session for general use. Quickened Pulse might also be an option if you want to try to one-hit kill Fallen Edelgard with Ruptured Sky, but the margin on that might be a bit close for comfort (especially if you opt for a Duel skill instead of a performance skill).

If a Guard Sacred Seal ever comes out, that's also an option for dealing with Edelgard.

 

2 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

P.S. Has anyone crunched the numbers on ideal IVs for the Brave Heroes, yet? Thanks in advance!

Mentioned in the other topic, but I might as well put it here, too.

Everyone except Gatekeeper ideally runs Spd since it helps keep up with Spd creep. Gatekeeper can run Atk, Def, or Res, depending on what you want him to do.

 

2 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

EDIT: Another question: is Summoner Support shared between identical Heroes? For example, my current Support is Nino. If I got a second one, would she also get the buffs or only the first one? Thanks in advance!

Nope. Summoner Support is applied only to a specific instance of the unit, unlike Ally Support, which applies to all instances of both units.

[XRay]

18 hours ago, Rinco said:

Is W!Cecilia a good unit to run Far Save or is she worse than B!Edelgard (to be more specific, I have a +10 W!Cecilia and my B!Edel is only +2.)?

I'm looking at AR performance on offense, to be more clear

I think she is fine. Unlike melee Save armors where there are clear top candidates (Gustav: Majestic Love, Surtr: Pirate of Red Sky, Arden, etc.), for ranged armors, as long as they are slow and can run Courtly Mask and Courtly Bow, I guess they are all technically top tier for now until something more powerful comes along. While you can use melee armors as Far Save tanks, I am a bit iffy on that since you are giving up an A slot to run Distant Counter, although I guess top armor units like Edelgard: Adrestian Emperor should be okay.

For build, I would go with something like the following:
Courtly Mask
Def Refine — Res Refine
Swap
Moonbow — Ruptured Sky — Aether
(Any Bond, Unity, or Stance that boosts Def/Res) — Distant Def
Special Fighter — Crafty Fighter — Slick Fighter
(Any Far Save that boosts Atk/Def, Atk/Res, Def/Res)
Quick Riposte — Mystic Boost

Make sure you have the Guard effect somewhere, either in her kit or on a support unit, as that is the most important defensive effect in my opinion. You also want some healing too, but I think it is fine to just use healers instead of Aether or Mystic Boost, since Fatal is getting more and more common.

Edited August 17, 2021 by XRay
Just realized Steady Breath is locked to melee.

[Rinco]

11 hours ago, XRay said:

I think she is fine. Unlike melee Save armors where there are clear top candidates (Gustav: Majestic Love, Surtr: Pirate of Red Sky, Arden, etc.), for ranged armors, as long as they are slow and can run Courtly Mask and Courtly Bow, I guess they are all technically top tier for now until something more powerful comes along. While you can use melee armors as Far Save tanks, I am a bit iffy on that since you are giving up an A slot to run Distant Counter, although I guess top armor units like Edelgard: Adrestian Emperor should be okay.

For build, I would go with something like the following:
Courtly Mask
Def Refine — Res Refine
Swap
Moonbow — Ruptured Sky — Aether
(Any Bond, Unity, or Stance that boosts Def/Res) — Distant Def
Special Fighter — Crafty Fighter — Slick Fighter
(Any Far Save that boosts Atk/Def, Atk/Res, Def/Res)
Quick Riposte — Steady Breath — Mystic Boost

Make sure you have the Guard effect somewhere, either in her kit or on a support unit, as that is the most important defensive effect in my opinion. You also want some healing too, but I think it is fine to just use healers instead of Aether or Mystic Boost, since Fatal is getting more and more common.

Hmmm. I can get Courtly Mask and the Atk/Res Stance from the Codes. She already has Vengeful Fighter, so I could go with a 4 CD special and Mystic Boos seal to round up. That seems tempting.

B!Edel has better stats, but with the need of DC on the A slot I don't see where I can give her the Guard effect (unless I'm forgetting something on her skill/weapon). That and the color not being the optimal to tank dudes like Duo Lif could make me go with Cecilia even tho Edel can get more merges down the road.

I still have to farm HM on Henriette either way, so not doing anything with it these next days.

[XRay]

1 minute ago, Rinco said:

Hmmm. I can get Courtly Mask and the Atk/Res Stance from the Codes. She already has Vengeful Fighter, so I could go with a 4 CD special and Mystic Boos seal to round up. That seems tempting.

Mirror Stance is not bad and will do in the mean time, but I recommend Bracing Stance if possible. Shit hits really hard these days, so even if you are running two Flayns, Save tanks can still get overwhelmed.

I personally do not recommend Vengeful Fighter long term. If you need cooldown acceleration, I would go with Special Fighter and run Quick Riposte Sacred Seal, or offload it to another unit (Lucina: Brave Princess or Hilda: Deer's Two-Piece). Special charge +1 is nice, but it does not really help with bulk that much.

10 minutes ago, Rinco said:

B!Edel has better stats, but with the need of DC on the A slot I don't see where I can give her the Guard effect (unless I'm forgetting something on her skill/weapon). That and the color not being the optimal to tank dudes like Duo Lif could make me go with Cecilia even tho Edel can get more merges down the road.

You can offload Guard to a support unit. Tannenbaton has Guard, and it is on Sephiran: Hoary Sovereign. He is a Special Hero though, so you will need to wait a while to get it.

Hector: Brave Warrior is another option since he already comes with Distant Counter and is blue. All he needs is just Special Fighter or Crafty Fighter and he is good to go.

[Rinco]

2 hours ago, XRay said:

Mirror Stance is not bad and will do in the mean time, but I recommend Bracing Stance if possible. Shit hits really hard these days, so even if you are running two Flayns, Save tanks can still get overwhelmed.

I personally do not recommend Vengeful Fighter long term. If you need cooldown acceleration, I would go with Special Fighter and run Quick Riposte Sacred Seal, or offload it to another unit (Lucina: Brave Princess or Hilda: Deer's Two-Piece). Special charge +1 is nice, but it does not really help with bulk that much.

You can offload Guard to a support unit. Tannenbaton has Guard, and it is on Sephiran: Hoary Sovereign. He is a Special Hero though, so you will need to wait a while to get it.

Hector: Brave Warrior is another option since he already comes with Distant Counter and is blue. All he needs is just Special Fighter or Crafty Fighter and he is good to go.

Bracing Stance I'll only be able to do if another unit comes with it, as Mila is an ongoing merge project for AR. 
I could run her with Lucina, but that's the best B skill I can get her for now. I don't have SF fodder at the moment and Crafty/Slick Fighter are hard to get as a F2P for now. (Henriette has one of those, but I'll already be using 3 of the SI spots for the Save skill, so...)

B!Hector is already running a Near Save build, he's pretty much set and only need some more merges. I'll probably run both of them togheter when the Far Save unit is ready.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Rinco

[Faellin]

What would you recomend in my situation for orb spending?

Currently my big 2 options are just going for a spark on CYL to grab Eirika, or saving as much as I can for the september mythic banner since there are 4 big targets on that i'm after Leif, Claude, Eliwood, and Chrom. Its just knowing my luck on legendary banners being pretty bad. Trying to hoard as much as I humanly can for this big run would be highly beneficial to get all of them. Which means skipping out on the garunteed Eirika for now, until she gets her FB rerun (we all know it will happen, cyl always wins the rerun twitter polls when its an option) And that extra 140 or so I save by skipping on the spark could make a huge difference to getting my 4 targets off the mythic banner.

Also on a completely unrelated note: How good is Tsubasa these days? Got a random copy of her from my free summon from this CYL banner.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Faellin

[XRay]

49 minutes ago, Faellin said:

What would you recomend in my situation for orb spending?

Currently my big 2 options are just going for a spark on CYL to grab Eirika, or saving as much as I can for the september mythic banner since there are 4 big targets on that i'm after Leif, Claude, Eliwood, and Chrom. Its just knowing my luck on legendary banners being pretty bad. Trying to hoard as much as I humanly can for this big run would be highly beneficial to get all of them. Which means skipping out on the garunteed Eirika for now, until she gets her FB rerun (we all know it will happen, cyl always wins the rerun twitter polls when its an option) And that extra 140 or so I save by skipping on the spark could make a huge difference to getting my 4 targets off the mythic banner.

Also on a completely unrelated note: How good is Tsubasa these days? Got a random copy of her from my free summon from this CYL banner.

Personally, I would prioritize guaranteed summons over Mythics and Legendaries. Mythic and Legendary Foci have a high chance of screwing people over by giving them the unit they do not want (I have Dimitri: Savior King at +10 even though I did not care about him), so unless you are sure you are fine with getting any of the three units on a color, I would avoid them.

If you just need a single copy or two, Mythic and Legendary Foci are not too bad, but if you already have them, I would not bother merging them as it is really expensive.

[Faellin]

10 minutes ago, XRay said:

If you just need a single copy or two, Mythic and Legendary Foci are not too bad, but if you already have them, I would not bother merging them as it is really expensive.

Yeah this is just me chasing single copies. I don't typically aim to +10 any 5 star exclusives, unless it kinda just happens via random pity breakers and 4 star specials. And the odds of all 4 of my targets lining up again on another legendary banner in the future seems pretty low.

Plus, there will be a CYL rerun with sparking later from the forging bond reruns. So its not like i'm losing my only chance for Eirika this way.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Faellin

[Rinco]

1 hour ago, Faellin said:

What would you recomend in my situation for orb spending?

Currently my big 2 options are just going for a spark on CYL to grab Eirika, or saving as much as I can for the september mythic banner since there are 4 big targets on that i'm after Leif, Claude, Eliwood, and Chrom. Its just knowing my luck on legendary banners being pretty bad. Trying to hoard as much as I humanly can for this big run would be highly beneficial to get all of them. Which means skipping out on the garunteed Eirika for now, until she gets her FB rerun (we all know it will happen, cyl always wins the rerun twitter polls when its an option) And that extra 140 or so I save by skipping on the spark could make a huge difference to getting my 4 targets off the mythic banner.

Also on a completely unrelated note: How good is Tsubasa these days? Got a random copy of her from my free summon from this CYL banner.

Akariss recently had a video talking about having projects and saving orbs in his Youtube channel. Maybe checking it out can give you some perspective and help you weight your options.

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Faellin said:

Also on a completely unrelated note: How good is Tsubasa these days? Got a random copy of her from my free summon from this CYL banner.

She is decent, but I do not think she is anything special. She got Desperation on her Weapon and that is about it.

[Xenomata]

This has been bothering me for too long now.
Does Brave Edelgard get more benefit from +Atk or +Def?

54 minutes ago, XRay said:

She is decent, but I do not think she is anything special. She got Desperation on her Weapon and that is about it.

I mean she does also have Cav/Armor effectiveness off what becomes base 54 Atk as long as her relatively simple condition is met. It's just so tame compared to the tools that other Lance fliers have to work with, and 54 Atk with effective damage but no guaranteed follow-up or NFU effect means she's one of the weaker ways to off bulky Armors.

[XRay]

22 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

This has been bothering me for too long now.
Does Brave Edelgard get more benefit from +Atk or +Def?

I think +Atk/Def/Res are all good.

As a dual phase unit, +Atk is more valuable in my opinion since she will have a stronger player phase, and I think it is better to deal with the most threatening stuff on player phase and then chill during enemy phase.

If you are using her primarily as an enemy phase unit, I lean towards +Def/Res (I personally lean towards Res for more balanced bulk). As a Save tank though, she will be so bulky that honestly +Atk/Def/Res can all work, although I still lean towards +Res a bit more since hard hitting stuff like Líf: Undying Duo exists.

[kradeelav]

4 hours ago, Faellin said:

Yeah this is just me chasing single copies. I don't typically aim to +10 any 5 star exclusives, unless it kinda just happens via random pity breakers and 4 star specials. And the odds of all 4 of my targets lining up again on another legendary banner in the future seems pretty low.

Plus, there will be a CYL rerun with sparking later from the forging bond reruns. So its not like i'm losing my only chance for Eirika this way.

There's also the CYL freebie banner (different than the tickets or the sparking), if you just want to guarantee getting one copy of Eirika.

[Faellin]

18 minutes ago, kradeelav said:

There's also the CYL freebie banner (different than the tickets or the sparking), if you just want to guarantee getting one copy of Eirika.

I already used that for my copy of Marth

[Karuu30]

Is Fury 4 useful these days? I am thinking of a build for Pelleas with some investment, so should I look for another option or is it good?