Skill Inheritance Discussion.

[Elieson]

HEY WHAT'S BETTER ON MICHALIS, IOTE'S SHIELD OR FURY

 

So I just rolled a 4* +Atk/-Spd M!Robin and 4* +Atk/-Res Saizo. Tempted to scrap my 4* +Hp/-Res Roy for TA3 to give to M!Robin to replace my +Spd/-Res Julia as my staple, but Im' not sure if that's really a wise choice given the -Spd nature. Any thoughts on that?

 

Also what the heck do you do with Saizo? He's got access to Poison Strike 3 at 4* which makes for neat inheritance but I cna't think of any upper-level arena usage for it atm (I lack Pain users to combo it with, and only have Narcian w/ Savage Blow).

 

[fatboyjam]

 

27 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

For Lucina, I personally favor Fury over Defiant Speed, both because she doesn't really need the speed boost and because Fury is a reliable way to get her down to Desperation's HP threshold and because of the defensive and offensive boost it provides. As for your assist skills, I think that's fine, but you could also consider Ardent Sacrifice. She already regains 10 HP every third turn from Falchion, so you could use Lucina as a pseudo-healer for your other teammates. 

Takumi mostly looks fine to me. For support I'd probably give him something like Reciprocal Aid because he's usually in the backline and would be at highish HP. You could even pull off gimmicky stuff like using Reciprocal Aid on a low HP ally to heal them and get Takumi down to a low HP % where could kill with Vantage + Vengeance.

For Olivia, Iote's Shield is for fliers only, but I do agree with something defensive. I'd personally go with Fury, but something as simple as Def +3 would be sufficient. The rest is fine. 

For Nowi, I'm actually personally in favor of Triangle Adept over Def +3 or Defiant anything (especially because running Defiant and running Swordbreaker are counterintuitive since one wants you to be at low HP while the other wants you to be at high HP) as that would most effectively lower damage from reds. I haven't done the calcs, personally, but if you find Triangle Adept also giving you enough firepower to one-shot most reds, then I'd consider switching Swordbreaker out for Quick Riposte. Otherwise, Swordbreaker is good. 

EDIT: For Nowi's special, I actually favor a healing skill like Noontime since I think she already does enough damage as is and could use more sustain. I don't really think there are many OHKOs she secures with Moonbow that she doesn't already. That said though, Moonbow's generally a safe special option if you aren't sure what else to put there. 

 

27 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Whether you use Quick Riposte or Swordbreaker depends on what you want your Nowi to do.

If you want to score kills with her ranged counterattack (e.g. against Takumi, Robin, or red mages), use Quick Riposte. If you instead want to kill sword-users on player phase (or counterattack), use Swordbreaker.

Great, really appreciate the feedback. Thank you! I like the suggestion on Lucina and both of your comments on Nowi make sense. Now, just need to decide which direction I want to go with her. 

 

11 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

If one more person says they're giving Iote's shield to anyone that isn't a flier, I'm actually just going to jump off a cliff XD. 

Yep, my bad. 

 

[Arcanite]

7 minutes ago, Elieson said:

Also what the heck do you do with Saizo? He's got access to Poison Strike 3 at 4* which makes for neat inheritance but I cna't think of any upper-level arena usage for it atm (I lack Pain users to combo it with, and only have Narcian w/ Savage Blow).

Either give his PS3 (heh, get it? PS3?) to some other dagger user, or give it to someone like sheena, who has low attack but fairly good defenses. Saizo isn't anything to stare at, but if you give his poison strike 3 to a five star (or 4 star if you think its worth it) Felicia, then you're in the business. If you have jaffar you can give it to him too, heh heh heh

Edited March 21, 2017 by Arcanite

[Birdy]

1 minute ago, Elieson said:

HEY WHAT'S BETTER ON MICHALIS, IOTE'S SHIELD OR FURY

DEPENDS ON THE SITUATION. I TEND TO SEE LESS AND LESS ARCHERS IN ARENA, IT USED TO BE FILLED WITH TAKUMI'S BUT NOW THERE'S A LOT OF NINO'S AND EIRIKA'S FOR ME. I'D TAKE FURY IF IT'S THE SAME CASE FOR YOU.
 

What do you guys like better on +SPD -HP Nino btw, Fury + Desperation or Fury + Vantage? I want her to be a nuke. I could also give her Life and Death, but I wonder what A skill would be best in that case.

[LuxSpes]

4 hours ago, Arcanite said:

T-adept + RedRaven isnt really a combo that I like simply because of the fact that if Robin has it he can stomp on Neutrals AND Reds and can get off chip for blues. Robin never was good with green units but it doesn't make difference because the arena is mostly filled with red and blue units + bow users.

But if you still insist, sanaki is already a complete psychopath on green units and giving her neutral coverage is still kind of one-sided. She still takes Buffalo Butt tons of damage from bow users, assuming she even survives. Though the T-adept will further decrease the damage, her low health and defenses aren't really a major key in her skill set. The reason why Henry and Robin have it is because they have the fatness to take the damage from a Takumi arrow. So in summation:

If you want to have the T-adept + Raven combo:

1. Don't use sanaki because she isn't fat enough

2. If you do want five star Henry, give him T-adept because he has the appropriate defenses

3. If you have an M Robin lying around you can also give him T-adept because he is one of the top characters in the game.

Now as a direct answer to your question: is it worth to 5 star Henry (all the way from 3 star) and give Sanaki the upgraded version of that tome (11 Might)?

No, because M Robin is better, and Sanaki probably doesn't have the defense or health for that.

The reason why I'd personally prefer a T-adept/raven on Sanak instead than on Henry is that while she doesn't have Henry's tankiness, is that my particular Sanaki has, due to her nature and merging, 41 base Atk without a weapon. Meaning that with the raven tome and a +4 Atk buff, she hits 56 atk, meaning she deal effectively 78 damage to any Green and Grey units, which results in a 1HKO on any neutral natured Green/Grey unit not named Wrys. So her effectiveness for me is to act as a delete button. Meanwhile, an Henry, even with the same nature and merge bonus, only hits 42 Atk with his tome and a Rally, which translates to 58 effective attack against Green and Grey, only 2 points above Sanaki pre-TA damage. 

So while Henry makes a great defensive use of Triangle Adept, Sanaki uses it much more effectively offensively as a way to sky-rocket her damage against both Green and Grey. And it also has the benefit of allowing her of surviving most first hit from green and grey users before killing them on the riposte, so it does advantage her defensively a bit.

[Katrisa]

On 3/18/2017 at 7:12 AM, Quadon said:

Effie with a Brave Lance. She'd be supported by Hector's Goad Armor.

It made sense to me, because you'd always want to initiate the attack (because of Death blow) and a Brave Lance would be best fit for that. (I'd sacrifice my 5* Cordelia. My Effie is 4* and.... Would she keep the Brave Lance+ even when upgrading her to 5*?). Also, Wary Fighter would help her greatly, because she'd get doubled by literally everything that's not Sophia :D (Which also makes the -5 speed of the lance neglectable).

Im missing a C skill and a... Purple skill (missing the name). Would Galeforce be viable to take over as well

 

The primary problem you'll be fighting against will be mobility.  With this said Brave Lance+ is a smart weapon change on her, and would result in almost certain death when you counter attack the next player turn.  If you had someone to dance her forward she could be really scary like this.  Especially paired with Threaten Defense, allowing you to tear into them with your brave lance excessively.  Threaten Offense would be good against vantage opponents and may be the safer option.

With this said if you're also running Hector and Effie I would consider the +4 resistance buff, as Hector can take some hard hits counter killing magic users.

[Ice Dragon]

9 minutes ago, Elieson said:

So I just rolled a 4* +Atk/-Spd M!Robin and 4* +Atk/-Res Saizo. Tempted to scrap my 4* +Hp/-Res Roy for TA3 to give to M!Robin to replace my +Spd/-Res Julia as my staple, but Im' not sure if that's really a wise choice given the -Spd nature. Any thoughts on that?

Negative speed doesn't mean squat if you're using Swordbreaker, Lancebreaker, Bowbreaker, or Quick Riposte and sticking to that role. If you need Robin to play more than one role, it might give him some trouble (it's not like he double attacks the plentiful fast swords anyways, you'll mostly lose double attacks on slower enemies), but if he's there to do something specific (and he has the B passive to do that one something), he'll still do that one thing fine.

 

10 minutes ago, Elieson said:

Also what the heck do you do with Saizo? He's got access to Poison Strike 3 at 4* which makes for neat inheritance but I cna't think of any upper-level arena usage for it atm (I lack Pain users to combo it with, and only have Narcian w/ Savage Blow).

If I remember correctly, staff-users can't even learn Poison Strike.

Poison Strike isn't particularly good. It's there to add more chip damage on units with lower damage output, but (1) it's rare to even be using those units in the upper arena, and (2) it only works on player phase and the few weaker units you would be using typically have a support role to play on player phase like using Dance and Sing.

I suppose you can use it to break Weaponbreaker skills and Quick Riposte.

[ILikeKirbys]

So, I just pulled a 5-Star Eirika, but I have a better one already, so I wanna give her skills to someone who can make better use of them. So, should I give her Pivot and Hone SPD 1 & 2 to Effie? It seems like Effie should be able to make good use of Pivot (at least, she better, since she needs some kind of extra mobility), and Hone SPD 2 is the prerequisite for Hone Armor (right?), so she'd have utility if I ever go insane and decide I need to put an armor team together (and even if I never do, Hone SPD is hardly a bad thing to have, yeah?).

Also, would Hana with a Brave Sword be able to make good use of Quick Riposte?

1 minute ago, Birdy said:

What do you guys like better on +SPD -HP Nino btw, Fury + Desperation or Fury + Vantage? I want her to be a nuke. I could also give her Life and Death, but I wonder what A skill would be best in that case.

+SPD Nino has 39 base SPD (according to feheroes.wiki's stat calculator), which is 43 after a buff, so she could double quite a lot of units with that speed, so I'd be inclined to say Fury + Desperation would be best so Nino kills more stuff without having to eat a counterattack.
On Fury vs Life and Death, I would go with Life and Death, simply because it gives you slightly higher offensive stats before buffs (in your case, your Nino should end up with 38 ATK / 44 SPD / 14 DEF / 21 RES, which would be 42 ATK / 48 SPD / 18 DEF / 25 RES after +4 buffs to each stat, which, assuming my math is right, lets Nino do 58 damage before enemy RES is factored in and double anyone with 43 SPD or less, which is almost everyone I think, or 39 SPD or less without SPD buff, which still doubles a lot of people I think), and I'm not sure -HP Nino wants to eat 6 damage after every combat (although, if you are comfortable with that, your Nino should end up with 36 ATK / 42 SPD / 22 DEF / 29 RES, which would be 40 ATK / 46 SPD / 26 DEF / 33 RES after +4 buffs to each stat, which, again assuming my math is right, lets Nino do 56 damage before enemy RES is factored in and double anyone with 41 SPD or less, which is still almost everyone I think, or 37 SPD or less without SPD buff, which probably still doubles a lot of people, but you probably want the SPD buff more on Fury Nino: only slightly weaker than Life and Death Nino, and her defenses are much better, but losing 6 HP after every combat could lead to Nino getting killed regardless).
And Life and Death is the A Skill, so were you referring to which B Skill would be best? Because I'm fairly certain that it's still Desperation. Vantage might let Nino get a free shot on mages/archers/daggerers at low HP, but they'll probably still kill her afterward (though she could maybe kill an archer, or a daggerer not named Felicia), while Desperation lets Nino kill or at least deal large amounts of chip damage to almost anything she can double on Player Phase, which is, as I mentioned before, a lot of units.
Admittedly, I don't entirely know what I'm talking about on this one, so I could be wrong about all this. Especially any part of that that required math.

[MaskedAmpharos]

58 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Among the A+ or higher characters, with Triangle Adept 3, Nowi will one-hit kill neutral defenses variants of Lucina, Ryoma, Olivia, and Tharja and one-round kill anything she can double attack.

Oh wow, that's a lot better than I expected. Also thanks for always following through with the calcs! I should probably start doing more of my own when giving advice to people, so I can help them more than "I haven't done calcs, but this is probably a thing" and so I don't have to rely on other people (like you) to always follow up. 

[Arcanite]

42 minutes ago, LuxSpes said:

The reason why I'd personally prefer a T-adept/raven on Sanak instead than on Henry is that while she doesn't have Henry's tankiness, is that my particular Sanaki has, due to her nature and merging, 41 base Atk without a weapon. Meaning that with the raven tome and a +4 Atk buff, she hits 56 atk, meaning she deal effectively 78 damage to any Green and Grey units, which results in a 1HKO on any neutral natured Green/Grey unit not named Wrys. So her effectiveness for me is to act as a delete button. Meanwhile, an Henry, even with the same nature and merge bonus, only hits 42 Atk with his tome and a Rally, which translates to 58 effective attack against Green and Grey, only 2 points above Sanaki pre-TA damage. 

So while Henry makes a great defensive use of Triangle Adept, Sanaki uses it much more effectively offensively as a way to sky-rocket her damage against both Green and Grey. And it also has the benefit of allowing her of surviving most first hit from green and grey users before killing them on the riposte, so it does advantage her defensively a bit.

Yeah but you would need a dancer to keep her out of the way of getting completely stepped on by anyone blue or pretty much anyone physical with enough speed to double for that matter. So Sanaki destroys green units hip hip hooray. Now that hector is dead, do we quiver in fear of Barst? Do we run from the hills because Arthur is gonna slice us to pieces? No we don't because there are (pretty much) only 3 viable ax users in arena, Anna for speed, Hector and distant counter, and Hawkeye who is quite bulky and has death blow + Glowing Light. Because of skill inheritance, anyone can become "viable" but do we see ax users running around reeking havoc and rummaging through people's homes, killing women, children, and man alike? (Granted, she does also mess up Nino, Julia, and especially Merric so I'll give you that)

I will say one thing though: +Attack sanaki is a monster with the t-adpet raven+ combo. But your sanaki has it easy with a +atk nature and +1 from merging. If a neutral sanaki (37 base attack) inherited Raven+ (11 might) she would only have 48 attack. Which is pretty decent but considering the fact that M Robin is flying around, and you have t-adept so you're taking even more damage, having your own M Robin with a stereotypical Sword user is better. Robin is also faster at middle speed and he gets defiant speed so if you have hone or spur speed dealing with swords is easy. Now if a neutral raven+ sanaki one hit/round KOs the majority of sword users then we'd be in business. But she doesn't so it would probably take her 2 turns which is no problem right? NOPE. She will die to most sword users because of her bad defense and speed. But Robin barely even takes damage from them because of his defense and even if he's doubled, a little hone/spur speed will help. And if he's low, he goes into defiance and then you're fine. Sanaki though, she doesn'thave defiant speed to back up on. Instead she has T-adept. So to make T-adept + Raven sanaki a little more viable you need:

Someone to take damage from Swords

Hone attack and/or hone speed which might not be necessary

Dancer to keep her from danger, again might not be necessary 

You also need to get raven+ from someone, otherwise you'll have to use reg-raven and miss 3 might.

With M-Robin you need:

Spur speed. 

Resistance tank

Now finding a viable resistance tank is way harder than finding someone to take damage from swords simply because most physical units have no res. You could have 2 mages (M Robin + [resistance tank]) but that would be a little risky. So maybe taking care of Robins weakness could be a little challenging but Sanaki would need another 5 star to get her ace in the hole.

You might be saying, "But I was saying I prefer sanaki > Henry, what is all this Robin nonsense?" Well you're right. T-Adept Henry is less than Raven Sanaki. The key is the second hit, whether or not you'll be able to live a physical hit after you attack. Which Sanaki doesn't have to worry about because they're dead lol

@mcsilas so you heard my points, and you've heard Lux spes' points.

What will you do?

[MaskedAmpharos]

Quite honestly I think the whole Sanaki vs Henry debate is heavily reliant on what other units the person in question has. For example, with Dance or Draw Back support (Draw Back being especially easy to get now), Sanaki is a lot better overall imo. But Henry's much higher defense definitely has merit too. So really it depends on what you need on a team. For me personally, I have the units to effectively deal with most non-green threats anyways, so having an automatic delete button for Hector/Julia/Nino is really all I need Sanaki to do. It's all about the team and not just about comparing units individually.

[Skala_Bundet]

I use my Sanaki to one shot any and all Hectors, no damage returned. Also you can bait all green mages (like Nino and Julia) for without taking damage. What I can really advise, is to give her sword breaker. Attack any sword user (with exception of any distant counters and even then...) and they disappear. Cymbeline power. I'd consider Raudraven+ for her if I had it... but I don't... and so much more sp cost. Haven't done the math against all opponents, so I can't tell where the one will be better than the other. Triangle adept is necessary for all free greens though.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Skala_Bundet

[Ice Dragon]

18 minutes ago, Skala_Bundet said:

I'd consider Raudraven+ for her if I had it... but I don't... and so much more sp cost. Haven't done the math against all opponents, so I can't tell where the one will be better than the other.

The reason to use Raudhrraven+ is to get Triangle-Adept-boosted weapon triangle advantage against colorless units. It's for when you don't already have an answer to Takumi, Klein, and Kagero and need a delete button for them.

[BANRYU]

Wondering what proc is best to use for LoD + Desperation Nino. Was planning on Iceberg, but she has about 30 Res, which isn't QUITE enough to hit the optimal threshold that @Sire mentioned a page or two ago... I have several Pallas, but being as Moonbow is a proc in such high demand, I was planning to withhold using them just yet if possible... So what else would be advisable? or is Iceberg/Moonbow pretty much her best option?

[MaskedAmpharos]

3 hours ago, Elieson said:

So I just rolled a 4* +Atk/-Spd M!Robin and 4* +Atk/-Res Saizo. Tempted to scrap my 4* +Hp/-Res Roy for TA3 to give to M!Robin to replace my +Spd/-Res Julia as my staple, but Im' not sure if that's really a wise choice given the -Spd nature. Any thoughts on that?

 

Also what the heck do you do with Saizo? He's got access to Poison Strike 3 at 4* which makes for neat inheritance but I cna't think of any upper-level arena usage for it atm (I lack Pain users to combo it with, and only have Narcian w/ Savage Blow).

 

With skill-inheritance, +Atk/-Spd is actually quite good on M!Robin since he doesn't particularly care about the speed drop. Against colorless units like Takumi he takes little to no damage anyways (and low speed means he gets doubled more which means faster charges for his special), and breakers help him do his job regardless of speed. 

I'm not sure there's any use offensively for Poison Strike since it's better to outright delete an opponent than do chip damage. But I personally have Poison Strike on my Jaffar (and might add Savage Blow too) on my defense team because I'm mean <3 

[Elieson]

6 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

With skill-inheritance, +Atk/-Spd is actually quite good on M!Robin since he doesn't particularly care about the speed drop. Against colorless units like Takumi he takes little to no damage anyways (and low speed means he gets doubled more which means faster charges for his special), and breakers help him do his job regardless of speed. 

I'm not sure there's any use offensively for Poison Strike since it's better to outright delete an opponent than do chip damage. But I personally have Poison Strike on my Jaffar (and might add Savage Blow too) on my defense team because I'm mean <3 

Thought the lower speed might be an issue, but I guess you're right, if I'm nuking stuff, I don't care if I get doubled back or not since they're dead before their doubling speed triggers. 

[Okigen]

Hey guys, what is a good skill for -atk +def Eirika? Her main purpose is to buff the team and tank some hits that Linde can't take, though I need her occasionally to kill green too.

And why we are at this... Is it a good idea to give Linde either vantage + fury or desperation + fury? Just thinking Fury may help trigger those skills earlier and may save Linde's life.

Edited March 21, 2017 by OKigen

[mcsilas]

Fair enough on the Sanaki discussion, I think I'll hold off for a while since someone else probably needs the feathers. My Sanaki is +HP and -Def, for what it's worth. I do like the Swordbreaker idea actually, i just thought I needed Colorless coverage to kill archers/Kagero faster- I just wanted to find out numbers-wise T-adept Red Raven vs Cymbeline.

i did use Sully with Sanaki last season though for Draw Back which was very effective.

also i did pull m!Robin recently but he has 3 stars and is -Atk/+HP, so he needs...quite a bit of time and investment.

 

 

 

[Sire]

2 hours ago, BANRYU said:

Wondering what proc is best to use for LoD + Desperation Nino. Was planning on Iceberg, but she has about 30 Res, which isn't QUITE enough to hit the optimal threshold that @Sire mentioned a page or two ago... I have several Pallas, but being as Moonbow is a proc in such high demand, I was planning to withhold using them just yet if possible... So what else would be advisable? or is Iceberg/Moonbow pretty much her best option?

I heard my name mentioned. Was I summoned?

The easy way to remember this is "if you have more DEF/RES than your enemies, run the DEF/RES Special Skills. If you have less DEF/RES than your enemies, run Moonbow or Luna." I just said 30 for a more casual comparison. If it is below 30, then other options become more valuable. That, and I was not really comparing Glimmer or Draconic Aura (which one should when really trying for efficiency.)

For your question, I am going to assume you are running a Neutral ATT 5* Nino (33 ATT) , wielding Gronnblade+ (+13 ATT), and running Life and Death (+5 ATT). So, Nino has 51 ATT. Then if you have a Neutral RES Nino, you will have 21 RES (26 - 5 = 21) or if RES Boon, 25 RES (30 - 5 = 25).

To bypass all the math and explanation, just run Draconic Aura (+15 Damage per proc, if Nino has 51 ATT) for your Nino's Special Skill. 
* * * * *
To simplify matters, we first need to determine the benchmark value for Iceberg. For 21 RES, Nino will deal 10 damage per Iceberg proc. (21 * 0.5 = 10.5 -> 10 Damage) For 25 RES, Nino will deal 12 damage per Iceberg proc. 10 and 12 extra damage sounds nice, but they are pretty low compared to bonus damage from elsewhere.

Since (color)blade weapons adds buffs to damage dealt, Nino may actually benefit from running Glimmer which increases damage dealt by 50%. As for actual values, Nino will need to consistently deal at least 20-24 damage, before Glimmer kicks in, to beat Iceberg as a special skill. The higher the damage Nino does, the better Glimmer becomes. Just remember that actual damage is modified by the Weapon Triangle! (So, Nino will deal more damage against Blues, but less against Reds. This will also affect Glimmer's bonus damage when it procs.)

Another 3 charge skill is Draconic Aura, which adds +30% to your ATT. Since Nino has 51 ATT, she will deal 15 damage per proc. (51 * 0.3 = 15.3 -> 15 Damage) 15 damage per proc is pretty good, and 15 bonus damage is what I use as a benchmark for special attacks.

Lastly, there is Luna. Luna is the "last resort" damage skill if none of the other options are good. Since Draconic Aura deals 15 damage per proc, for Luna to beat DA, the enemy needs to have 30 or more RES (there are just 19 characters with 31 or more RES, if the Stats Chart is accurate!). Keep in mind that there are not many "RES Tanks" out there and many people prefer -RES as their Bane, so I would not recommend Luna for Nino. // By extension, this also means that I do not recommend Moonbow, unless you really want that small increase in damage every 3 charges.

If you really wanted to go that extra mile, we can compare Glimmer to Draconic Aura. For Glimmer to beat DA, Nino needs to deal at least 30 or more damage. Now, as I don't have a fancy spreadsheet or calculator around, I will not be able to run all the numbers to see which one is better (see Elieson or Ice Dragon for that). To keep things simple though, just run Draconic Aura. It is more consistent than Glimmer (almost always +15 damage), and some may even say it looks cooler.

So, Draconic Aura (3 Charge -> 4 Charge due to Gronnblade+), is what I would suggest running for your Nino. I hope this helped! // Now, for some more generic calculations and tips, see the spoiler.

Spoiler

DEF/RES Specials vs Moonbow & Luna
General Notes
- If you are a magic user, Luna & Moonbow are less desirable as there are not many "RES Tanks" worth it to bypass 50% or 30% of their RES. You are far better off running a different skill if you have to resort to Luna or Moonbow for bonus damage. Even Reprisal or Vengeance may give you better damage output.

30 or more DEF/RES: Pick up Bonfire, Ignis, Iceberg, or Glacies, no question.
- Bonfire/Iceberg deal 15 damage per proc. (User DEF or RES * 0.5 = Extra Damage)
- Ignis/Glacies deal 24 damage per proc. (User DEF or RES * 0.8 = Extra Damage)
- For Luna to beat Bonfire/Iceberg, the enemy needs to have 30 or more DEF or RES. (Target DEF or RES * 0.5 = Extra Damage)
- Bonus: The current highest base DEF is 39 while RES is 36. This means a "max" of 19/31 and 18/28 bonus damage is possible. (Base Felicia deals 28 bonus damage per proc of Glacies, and she runs it by default. Didn't expect that, did ya?)

28-29 DEF/RES: Lean towards the DEF/RES special skills, but Moonbow/Luna can work.
- Bonfire/Iceberg deal 14 damage per proc.
- Ignis/Glacies deal 22 damage per proc.
- For Luna to beat Bonfire/Iceberg, the enemy needs to have 28 or more DEF or RES.

26-27 DEF/RES: Lean towards Moonbow/Luna, but the DEF/RES skills could be nice for consistency.
- Bonfire/Iceberg deal 13 damage per proc.
- Ignis/Glacies deal 20 damage per proc.
- For Luna to beat Bonfire/Iceberg, the enemy needs to have 26 or more DEF or RES.

Lower than 25: Pick up Luna or or Moonbow.
- Bonfire/Iceberg deal 12 damage per proc.
- Ignis/Glacies deal 20 damage per proc.
- For Luna to beat Bonfire/Iceberg, the enemy needs to have 24 or more DEF or RES. Many common enemies (outside of most mages and colorless units) have more than 24 DEF. If you are running a magic unit and for some reason have no better special skill for damage, I would say pick up a different special skill instead.

Draconic Aura & Dragon Fang
Draconic Aura:
- To deal 12 damage, the user must have more than 40 ATT.
- To deal 15 damage, the user must have more than 50 ATT.
- To deal 18 damage, the user must have more than 60 ATT.
- Bonus: An Effie with a positive ATT nature, using Life and Death, equipped with a Silver Lance, and under the effect of Hone Armor (+6 ATT/SPD) has 69 ATT. She will deal 20.7 -> 20 bonus damage per proc of Draconic Aura.

Dragon Fang:
- To deal 20 damage, the user must have more than 40 ATT.
- To deal 25 damage, the user must have more than 50 ATT.
- To deal 30 damage, the user must have more than 60 ATT.
- Bonus: The Super Effie from above will deal 34 bonus damage per proc of Dragon Fang.

Tips:
- Try to aim for 15 bonus damage per proc of a damage skill. So, this means...
-- 30 DEF/RES for Bonfire & Iceberg.
-- 50 ATT for Draconic Aura
-- 30 HP Lost for Vengeance
-- 30 Damage for Glimmer (Remember, "Damage" is after taking in all the calculations, such as subtracting the foe's DEF or RES. // The author occasionally uses the term "damage"  for ATT bonuses, but here is the actual "true damage" definition.)

- If you can't reach 15, aim for 12 bonus damage minimum. If you can't reach that, then I recommend using a different special skill entirely.
-- 24 DEF/RES for Bonfire & Iceberg.
-- 40 ATT for Draconic Aura
-- 24 HP Lost for Vengeance
-- 24 Damage for Glimmer

- I apologize if this ends up being shared somewhere and suddenly all the Arena teams have optimized special skills.
- Nino tried her best.

[Ice Dragon]

All this talk of Nowi reminds me that I need to start making decisions about my Nowi's skills, so I'm going to ask for some help. Triangle Adept 3 is a given to prevent Falchions from ruining her day, but I can't decide between Swordbreaker and Quick Riposte. My Nowi is +10 [+Atk, -Res].

Calcs incoming (not including Florina, Donnel, Virion, and Gunther, who I don't have definitive stats for, Karel, whose Wo Dao I haven't yet implemented, and staff-users, who don't matter):

Against +0 vanilla skills:

• Quick Riposte is by far better because it has identical performance as Swordbreaker against red units (one-round kill against all red units on both player and enemy phase).
• Quick Riposte Nowi gets an enemy phase one-round kill on every non-green unit in the game except Jagen, Gwendolyn, Niles, and +Res Felicia. Swordbreaker Nowi only manages a one-round kill against about 10-20% of non-green units.

Against +0 Fury 3:

• Quick Riposte Nowi fails to one-round kill +Res Roy on player phase by 1 HP, otherwise identical performance as Swordbreaker against red units.
• Quick Riposte loses no other one-round kills and gains a one-round kill against =Res Niles due to losing Warding Blow for Fury.

Against +10 vanilla skills:

• Quick Riposte Nowi takes two hits from +Res Lucina and neutral defenses Marth on enemy phase instead of one, but one-round kills them back.
• Quick Riposte Nowi can only one-round kill Lucina (not +Res), Olivia (not +Res), Ryoma (not +Res), Ogma (not +Res), and Hana on player phase. Swordbreaker Nowi one-round kills all swords on player phase.
• Identical performance on enemy phase against sword-users.
• Quick Riposte Nowi gets notable one-round kills on enemy phase against Takumi, Klein (not +Res), and all dagger-users other than Kagero and Felicia, none of which Swordbreaker Nowi can achieve.
• Of note, no red unit without a Falchion (not even Tharja with vanilla Eirika buffs) is capable of doing enough damage to Nowi to disable Quick Riposte in one round of combat.

The biggest problem is that I don't know if I even care about her player-phase performance. The only thing Quick Riposte does worse on enemy phase is her matchup against +Res Lucina and neutral defenses Marth where they survive the first hit, letting them double attack before dying, but Quick Riposte performs significantly worse on player phase.

First question is (entirely matter of opinion): Is it worth more to guarantee a one-round kill against swords on player phase or to deal significantly more (usually) non-lethal damage on enemy phase?

Second question is (even more a matter of opinion): Which would you less want to fight against?

Edited March 22, 2017 by Ice Dragon

[MaskedAmpharos]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

All this talk of Nowi reminds me that I need to start making decisions about my Nowi's skills, so I'm going to ask for some help. Triangle Adept 3 is a given to prevent Falchions from ruining her day, but I can't decide between Swordbreaker and Quick Riposte. My Nowi is +10 [+Atk, -Res].

Calcs incoming (not including Florina, Donnel, Virion, and Gunther, who I don't have definitive stats for, Karel, whose Wo Dao I haven't yet implemented, and staff-users, who don't matter):

Against +0 vanilla skills:

• Quick Riposte is by far better because it has identical performance as Swordbreaker against red units (one-round kill against all red units on both player and enemy phase).
• Quick Riposte Nowi gets an enemy phase one-round kill on every non-green unit in the game except Jagen, Gwendolyn, Niles, and +Res Felicia. Swordbreaker Nowi only manages a one-round kill against about 10-20% of non-green units.

Against +0 Fury 3:

• Quick Riposte Nowi fails to one-round kill +Res Roy on player phase by 1 HP, otherwise identical performance as Swordbreaker against red units.
• Quick Riposte loses no other one-round kills and gains a one-round kill against =Res Niles due to losing Warding Blow for Fury.

Against +10 vanilla skills:

• Quick Riposte Nowi takes two hits from +Res Lucina and neutral defenses Marth on enemy phase instead of one, but one-round kills them back.
• Quick Riposte Nowi can only one-round kill Lucina (not +Res), Olivia (not +Res), Ryoma (not +Res), Ogma (not +Res), and Hana on player phase. Swordbreaker Nowi one-round kills all swords on player phase.
• Identical performance on enemy phase.
• Quick Riposte Nowi gets notable one-round kills on enemy phase against Takumi, Klein (+Res), and all dagger-users other than Kagero and Felicia, none of which Swordbreaker Nowi can achieve.
• Of note, no red unit without a Falchion (not even Tharja with vanilla Eirika buffs) is capable of doing enough damage to Nowi to disable Quick Riposte in one round of combat.

The biggest problem is that I don't know if I even care about her player-phase performance. The only thing Quick Riposte does worse on enemy phase is her matchup against +Res Lucina and neutral defenses Marth where they survive the first hit, letting them double attack before dying, but Quick Riposte performs significantly worse on player phase.

First question is (entirely matter of opinion): Is it worth more to guarantee a one-round kill against swords on player phase or to deal significantly more (usually) non-lethal damage on enemy phase?

Second question is (even more a matter of opinion): Which would you less want to fight against?

If Nowi is your main counter to swords then I'd personally prefer Swordbreaker to ensure she fills her niche, but I would otherwise prefer Quick Riposte. 

I would definitely be more scared of Quick Riposte (if I didn't have Julia) because I don't have a Falchion unit and generally rely on melee blues to kill her, in which case Quick Riposte is more threatening to me. 

[DehNutCase]

@Ice Dragon

I mean, I would be tugging Selena along, meaning Julia probably won't be far behind, so Ninian just explodes no matter her set-up. (Even if I didn't have Julia---she's pretty rare---Minerva's going to be in the next banner.)

That said, I think Quick Riposte will be better considering the point of a dancer is being able to pass her player phase to someone else if needed.

[Ice Dragon]

5 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

That said, I think Quick Riposte will be better considering the point of a dancer is being able to pass her player phase to someone else if needed.

Nowi, not Ninian. I already know what I'm doing with Ninian.

[Arcanite]

@Ice Dragon Question 1. Deal more on enemy phase.

Question 2. Quick Riposte is definitely definitely definitely way harder to fight, seeing as how M Robin is my Nowi "answer". I have Anna in the back who helps but usually, if anyone dies on my team it's her. And if anyone dies at all, 3 times out of ten it's because of a Nowi team. Also why I use Astra instead of galeforce on Lyn. (which is more than you think considering why the other 7 times out of 10.)

[DehNutCase]

19 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Nowi, not Ninian. I already know what I'm doing with Ninian.

Oops, blue dragons all look the same to me.