Not sure what skill to inherit or who to inherit it from? Read this! (Please read before posting)

[SalShich10N]

1 hour ago, Troykv said:

I'm searching suggested abilities for a Neutral 4* Sophia o.o

I'm unsure which are the best ones for her.

That's a difficult character to work with. She has high defenses and very low speed, but she's overall mediocre thanks to her stats focusing on being balanced. You want to change her weapon to either Rauderraven or Rauderblade. Blade will allow you to, with support, deal a tremendous amount of damage. Raven allows her to have WTA vs bows and shurikens taking better advantage of her bulk. Personally I recommend Rauderraven

Going the Rauderraven route makes better use of her natural bulk. Pair that up with Weapon Triangle Advept and she'll never fear Bows or Daggers ever again. +Atk Takumi will deal about 1-2 damage twice, and eat the hit afterwards. +Atk Kagero will deal about 10 damage twice and having to eat the your attack and your turn. Keep her away from Blues, though as WTAdept affects that too. The only problem to this set would be damage, as 44 attack is not particularly stellar- Dragon Fang is fine here, as it boost damage by a lot, but if you want to optimize it Moonbow is better as you can charge after a single round of combat from being increasing your chances to kill on your turn after taking damage.

If you go the Rauderblade route, then you will want to have as much damage as possible, so for the A skill Death Blow and Fury sound good. Fury boosts damage AND bulk, but she won't be able to take hits many times due to the slow attrition, so you will want synergy. Keeping Dragon Fang is unadvised as thanks to her speed she'll never ever see a 5 charge Dragon Fang. 3 charge stuff is better, Bonfire, Iceberg, Moonbow, Luna are all good.

For the B skill you'll want a breaker of your choice, fill it with whatever you feel you need to take out the most. For the Rauderraven set I recommend a breaker to something you're neutral against, so you can cover more options, Swordbreaker covers many more units, but R Tomebreaker will allow her to tank Tharja, Snacky or Lillina who would otherwise give you troubles from range. For the C skill Threaten Res will aid greatly on your killing abilities. For the Support Skill just fill whatever you feel your team needs.

Tl;dr -  You want Sophia to be a completely different character, not designed to be "the kind of stuff you get for free". Tons of SP

Edited March 17, 2017 by SalShich10N

[MrSmokestack]

3 hours ago, SalShich10N said:

Is having Quick Riposte at 3 really that necessary? Any attack dealing 13-15 damage breaks it off, so it really always is a one hit thing outside of stuff you have WTA on. I could try and give whoever gets Quick Riposte Sol or Noontime, I have a Chrom lying there.

The last bit in what you said speaks for itself really. You have all the time in the world to get Quick Riposte available at Lv. 3 instead of rushing it onto someone at Lv. 2. It might not make a significant difference, but there's no telling when the 10% leeway could really matter.

 

Perhaps another unit will come into focus who learns the entire Quick Riposte tree at 4*. You never know.

Also late response, apologies.

Edited March 17, 2017 by MrSmokestack

[Florete]

It should be added that the 5* exclusives is referring to the highest level of the skill. Life and Death 1 and 2 can be inherited from a 4* unit, for example. Since some of the skills only have one level, you should just put the level for each relevant skill (ex. so instead of listing "Life and Death" list "Life and Death 3"). This is important because, as mentioned, some people may not think it necessary to have the highest level of a given skill.

Edited March 17, 2017 by Florete

[MrSmokestack]

10 minutes ago, Florete said:

It should be added that the 5* exclusives is referring to the highest level of the skill. Life and Death 1 and 2 can be inherited from a 4* unit, for example. Since some of the skills only have one level, you should just put the level for each relevant skill (ex. so instead of listing "Life and Death" list "Life and Death 3"). This is important because, as mentioned, some people may not think it necessary to have the highest level of a given skill.

Apologies, but this something that has been stated repeatedly, both in the post itself and in the responses to inquiries from other users. 

 

Perhaps I could have avoided all the confusion in the first place by appending the "3" at the end of the skill names. My mistake. I will update the OP once I get access to a desktop.

Edited March 17, 2017 by MrSmokestack

[Troykv]

3 hours ago, SalShich10N said:

That's a difficult character to work with. She has high defenses and very low speed, but she's overall mediocre thanks to her stats focusing on being balanced. You want to change her weapon to either Rauderraven or Rauderblade. Blade will allow you to, with support, deal a tremendous amount of damage. Raven allows her to have WTA vs bows and shurikens taking better advantage of her bulk. Personally I recommend Rauderraven

Going the Rauderraven route makes better use of her natural bulk. Pair that up with Weapon Triangle Advept and she'll never fear Bows or Daggers ever again. +Atk Takumi will deal about 1-2 damage twice, and eat the hit afterwards. +Atk Kagero will deal about 10 damage twice and having to eat the your attack and your turn. Keep her away from Blues, though as WTAdept affects that too. The only problem to this set would be damage, as 44 attack is not particularly stellar- Dragon Fang is fine here, as it boost damage by a lot, but if you want to optimize it Moonbow is better as you can charge after a single round of combat from being increasing your chances to kill on your turn after taking damage.

If you go the Rauderblade route, then you will want to have as much damage as possible, so for the A skill Death Blow and Fury sound good. Fury boosts damage AND bulk, but she won't be able to take hits many times due to the slow attrition, so you will want synergy. Keeping Dragon Fang is unadvised as thanks to her speed she'll never ever see a 5 charge Dragon Fang. 3 charge stuff is better, Bonfire, Iceberg, Moonbow, Luna are all good.

For the B skill you'll want a breaker of your choice, fill it with whatever you feel you need to take out the most. For the Rauderraven set I recommend a breaker to something you're neutral against, so you can cover more options, Swordbreaker covers many more units, but R Tomebreaker will allow her to tank Tharja, Snacky or Lillina who would otherwise give you troubles from range. For the C skill Threaten Res will aid greatly on your killing abilities. For the Support Skill just fill whatever you feel your team needs.

Tl;dr -  You want Sophia to be a completely different character, not designed to be "the kind of stuff you get for free". Tons of SP

I get it... Sophia is the worst character in the game... I guess I will have to hope for Micaiah don't be so bad.

[SalShich10N]

2 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

The last bit in what you said speaks for itself really. You have all the time in the world to get Quick Riposte available at Lv. 3 instead of rushing it onto someone at Lv. 2. It might not make a significant difference, but there's no telling when the 10% leeway could really matter.

 

Perhaps another unit will come into focus who learns the entire Quick Riposte tree at 4*. You never know.

Also late response, apologies.

But on a tank as powerful like Tiki if you have WTA you don't need Quick Riposte. Really Hector at best deals 2x12 if someone is ever stupid enough to put Life and Death on him. In my eyes Quick Riposte is a more restricted universal Breaker, which is neat. What Tiki really needs is a dragon version of Svalinn shield, though. I pray that Myrrh comes with that.

 

47 minutes ago, Troykv said:

I get it... Sophia is the worst character in the game... I guess I will have to hope for Micaiah don't be so bad.

She got hit by the "bad gacha roll", disease like most of the 3* units. Sophia does have pretty high defenses, so if anyone with enough hax time, money and dedication to their waifu they can make her into basically a more defensive mRobin.

Edited March 18, 2017 by SalShich10N

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, SalShich10N said:

But on a tank powerful like Tiki if you have WTA you don't need Quick Riposte. In my eyes Quick Riposte is a more restricted universal Breaker, which is. What Tiki really needs is a dragon version of Svalinn shield, though. I pray that Myrrh comes with that.

Effective damage negation isn't particularly optimal because you lose your A-type skill slot for the purpose of defending against 4 specific characters (since the only dragon-effective weapons are unique).

With Triangle Adept, Nowi and Corrin both have enough Def to shrug off any of the Falchion-users and eat them alive (Swordbreaker or Quick Riposte guarantees a one-round kill). Tiki does the same with Triangle Adept and Lightning Breath+ to Julia. Unlike effective damage negation, Triangle Adept is still useful against other enemies. Nowi and Corrin can slaughter everything red while taking pittance for damage with their high defenses, and Tiki has no trouble cooking Hector alive in his armor.

[MrSmokestack]

40 minutes ago, SalShich10N said:

But on a tank as powerful like Tiki if you have WTA you don't need Quick Riposte. Really Hector at best deals 2x12 if someone is ever stupid enough to put Life and Death on him.

I didn't say anything about putting Quick Riposte onto either unit you were asking about. I simply said that Nowi makes better use of Swordbreaker and that none of your units should inherit Quick Riposte, at least for now.

[SalShich10N]

22 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Effective damage negation isn't particularly optimal because you lose your A-type skill slot for the purpose of defending against 4 specific characters (since the only dragon-effective weapons are unique).

With Triangle Adept, Nowi and Corrin both have enough Def to shrug off any of the Falchion-users and eat them alive (Swordbreaker or Quick Riposte guarantees a one-round kill). Tiki does the same with Triangle Adept and Lightning Breath+ to Julia. Unlike effective damage negation, Triangle Adept is still useful against other enemies. Nowi and Corrin can slaughter everything red while taking pittance for damage with their high defenses, and Tiki has no trouble cooking Hector alive in his armor.

They might be few, but they're also among the most common 5* out there, specially Marth and Lucina. Triangle Adept thing is really only a thing on Nowi and Corrin. When it comes to damage, Triangle Adept deals like 2 points more in damage over Death Blow, I find Swordbreaker to be far better since, that seals the kill on top of ensuring survival against Falchions. Lightning Breath+ cuts Tiki's good offensive down by a large margin, I'd rather keep her with Flametounge.

Maybe I should go with Fury 3 and Renewal and/or Sol on Child Tiki. That way her defense will also increase during the enemy turn and have better offense too.

4 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

I didn't say anything about putting Quick Riposte onto either unit you were asking about. I simply said that Nowi makes better use of Swordbreaker and that none of your units should inherit Quick Riposte, at least for now.

My bad, then. I'm gonna go with Nowi for Swordbreaker as my Tiki has too low HP for it. Without WTA she can't survive Chrom or Lucia

[Ice Dragon]

11 minutes ago, SalShich10N said:

They might be few, but they're also among the most common 5* out there, specially Marth and Lucina. Triangle Adept thing is really only a thing on Nowi and Corrin. When it comes to damage, Triangle Adept deals like 2 points more in damage over Death Blow, I find Swordbreaker to be far better since, that seals the kill on top of ensuring survival against Falchions. Lightning Breath+ cuts Tiki's good offensive down by a large margin, I'd rather keep her with Flametounge.

Triangle Adept (A) and Swordbreaker (B) are not mutually exclusive. Triangle Adept increases neutral Nowi's effective Atk against red units from 54 to 63. Death Blow from 54 to 61, but only on player phase.

On the flip side, neutral Lucina has an effective 60 Atk against Nowi without Triangle Adept, but only 45 Atk with Triangle Adept. With effective damage negation (A), you'd only reduce that down to 40 Atk and give up the damage output from Death Blow (A) and Triangle Adept (A).

 

Tiki with Lightning Breath is specifically for dealing with Julia on the counterattack.

[SalShich10N]

22 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Triangle Adept (A) and Swordbreaker (B) are not mutually exclusive. Triangle Adept increases neutral Nowi's effective Atk against red units from 54 to 63. Death Blow from 54 to 61, but only on player phase.

On the flip side, neutral Lucina has an effective 60 Atk against Nowi without Triangle Adept, but only 45 Atk with Triangle Adept. With effective damage negation (A), you'd only reduce that down to 40 Atk and give up the damage output from Death Blow (A) and Triangle Adept (A).

 

Tiki with Lightning Breath is specifically for dealing with Julia on the counterattack.

Triangle Adept is a risk, you might get better defense and offense, but you also add on your weakness. Why would you need Triangle Adept AND Swordbreaker? With Swordbreaker alone:

• Fir: 54 - 31 = 23*2 = 46. Fir has 41 HP, we have a kill
• Caeda: 54 - 34 = 20 *2 = 40. Caeda has 36 HP we have a kill
• Elwoody: 53 -32 = 22*2 = 44. Woody has 47 HP, we can't kill them all, I guess.

The again, the big reason I defend this is because my own personal Nowi is +Spd/-HP. This means that if I put in her A slot Spd +3, she reaches 36 Speed, which means, as far as greens go, only Brave Axe+ Cherche, +Spd Minerva, Life and Death or Fury 3 Anna, Julia, and buffed +Spd Nino can kill her. All of which are extremely situational.

Edited March 18, 2017 by SalShich10N

[Ice Dragon]

16 minutes ago, SalShich10N said:

Triangle Adept is a risk, you might get better defense and offense, but you also add on your weakness. Why would you need Triangle Adept AND Swordbreaker? With Swordbreaker alone:

• Fir: 54 - 31 = 23*2 = 46. Fir has 41 HP, we have a kill
• Caeda: 54 - 34 = 20 *2 = 40. Caeda has 36 HP we have a kill
• Elwoody: 53 -32 = 22*2 = 44. Woody has 47 HP, we can't kill them all, I guess.

The again, the big reason I defend this is because my own personal Nowi is +Spd/-HP. This means that if I put in her A slot Spd +3, she reaches 36 Speed, which means, as far as greens go, only Brave Axe+ Cherche, +Spd Minerva, Life and Death or Fury 3 Anna, Julia, and buffed +Spd Nino can kill her. All of which are extremely situational.

Triangle Adept is useful if you want more than one round of combat out of your Nowi and your opponent has at least one Falchion-user. As much as she survives a hit from a Falchion without Triangle Adept, she's not going to have enough HP left to fight another round against anything.

Furthermore, once you get familiar with the game's AI, it's not difficult to keep green units away from her. Even if Triangle Adept amplifies her weaknesses, it doesn't matter if her weaknesses simply can't reach her.

[Troykv]

2 hours ago, SalShich10N said:

She got hit by the "bad gacha roll", disease like most of the 3* units. Sophia does have pretty high defenses, so if anyone with enough hax time, money and dedication to their waifu they can make her into basically a more defensive mRobin.

But I'm unsure if she has something to do it's own even when it's gived dedication... it feels so painfully pointless... She is just a worse version of Tharja, Lilina, Sanaki and the Robins (in whatever style are one deciding to focus her... she is just the worst one always... and that bothers me a lot, I can't play with her now without feeling I'm playing the game wrong)... At least other 3-4 Star Characters seems to have a niche, or will be actually benefitied for the inherit system.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Troykv

[MrSmokestack]

12 minutes ago, Troykv said:

But I'm unsure if she has something to do it's own even when it's gived dedication... it feels so painfully pointless... She is just a worse version of Tharja, Lilina, Sanaki and the Robins (in whatever style are one deciding to focus her... she is just the worst one always... and that bothers me a lot, I can't play with her now without feeling I'm playing the game wrong)... At least other 3-4 Star Characters seems to have a niche, or will be actually benefitied for the inherit system.

There is no "right" or "wrong" way to play a game, Heroes much less so.

 

If you genuinely like the character and want to use them, then their viability should be the least of your concerns. Sophia is most definitely harder to use than the rest of the red mages available, sure, but to say that the effort put into making typically "weaker" characters work is wasted is not necessarily true.

Deciding whether to keep trying to use her is up to you at the end of the day, though.

[Ice Dragon]

5 minutes ago, Troykv said:

But I'm unsure if she has something to do it's own even when it's gived dedication... it feels so painfully pointless... She is just a worse version of Tharja, Lilina, Sanaki and the Robins (in whatever style are one deciding to focus her... she is just the worst one always... and that bothers me a lot, I can't play with her now without feeling I'm playing the game wrong).

I think Sophia wouldn't be so bad if she weren't red. Her biggest problem is that she has a mostly unnecessary role as a mixed defensive red mage when the game is already saturated with red units and where pure offense is the dominant meta due to the scale of engagements.

With the plans for defense missions and enemy reinforcements, defensive roles might see more use in events even if they remain overshadowed in the arena's short engagements.

 

If it helps, take this inspirational quote:

Quote

Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled Trainers should try to win with the Pokémon they love best. I like your style. You understand what's important. Go on — — the Champion is waiting.

Play the game in the way that you enjoy it the most.

[Troykv]

47 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

There is no "right" or "wrong" way to play a game, Heroes much less so.

 

If you genuinely like the character and want to use them, then their viability should be the least of your concerns. Sophia is most definitely harder to use than the rest of the red mages available, sure, but to say that the effort put into making typically "weaker" characters work is wasted is not necessarily true.

Deciding whether to keep trying to use her is up to you at the end of the day, though.

 

46 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I think Sophia wouldn't be so bad if she weren't red. Her biggest problem is that she has a mostly unnecessary role as a mixed defensive red mage when the game is already saturated with red units and where pure offense is the dominant meta due to the scale of engagements.

With the plans for defense missions and enemy reinforcements, defensive roles might see more use in events even if they remain overshadowed in the arena's short engagements.

 

If it helps, take this inspirational quote:

Play the game in the way that you enjoy it the most.

I guess I'll try the Red Raven Sophia, I have a 3* Henry I don't plan to use.

[SalShich10N]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Triangle Adept is useful if you want more than one round of combat out of your Nowi and your opponent has at least one Falchion-user. As much as she survives a hit from a Falchion without Triangle Adept, she's not going to have enough HP left to fight another round against anything.

Furthermore, once you get familiar with the game's AI, it's not difficult to keep green units away from her. Even if Triangle Adept amplifies her weaknesses, it doesn't matter if her weaknesses simply can't reach her.

And here is where playstyle and team composition comes into play. How many battles does your Nowi even get to fight? I was blessed with a +Atk Linde and +Spd Takumi on top of my +Spd Nowi and Neutral Tiki, so poor Nowi doesn't get to see much action as normally each unit in my teams take down one enemy. Hell, one of the reasons I want to give good skills to my Tiki is so she stops being just a "Press in case of Hector" button.

Bullshit map layouts can cause her to get targeted even if you avoid it. I do get too that Greens are currently the least common type of enemy, but they could rise at any moment and I don't want to waste SP and time on something she already does well against. If I were to run Weapon Triangle Advantage on Nowi, however, I'd put Lancebreaker instead of Swordbreaker. That way she can cover all reds on top Blue units like Catria, Cordelia and Sharena.

5 minutes ago, Troykv said:

I guess I'll try the Red Raven Sophia, I have a 3* Henry I don't plan to use.

If it makes you feel any better, now that Inheritance is a thing and a Minerva focus is coming, you might see more Green units for her to fuck up. I wouldn't say she's entirely a worse Robin. Robin does have low resistance so even Tharja can kill him if he doesn't carry Triangle Advantage. Sophia can play the defensive role more straight.

[Shiro]

so I plan on using my catria +7 who has the skills draw back luna life and death drag back and hone attack i want t ocombo this with ninian along with a colorless tome sanaki and hector what skills do you think i should put on sanaki hector and ninian preferable skills on ninian which i lack atm because other than escape i dont find her kit useful. and she is a +speed - def or i have a +hp -spd ninian would would be bound to get doubled a lot.

[eclipse]

1 hour ago, Troykv said:

But I'm unsure if she has something to do it's own even when it's gived dedication... it feels so painfully pointless... She is just a worse version of Tharja, Lilina, Sanaki and the Robins (in whatever style are one deciding to focus her... she is just the worst one always... and that bothers me a lot, I can't play with her now without feeling I'm playing the game wrong)... At least other 3-4 Star Characters seems to have a niche, or will be actually benefitied for the inherit system.

So, rather than making Sophia fulfill a role she wasn't meant to, take a look at what she CAN do.

At neutral 5*, she'll have 40 HP, 46 Atk (assuming her best natural weapon), 19 Spd, 28 Def, and 29 Res.  Doubling sucks.  However, it takes 48 physical MT or 49 magic MT to ORKO her.  She's going to have a bad time if the likes of Ephraim/Linde walks up to her, but the same holds true for most red units.  Since her Speed is going nowhere, focus on what she's good at, which is surviving the vast majority of the cast.  Give her Henry's -raven tome and Triangle Adept, and she can tank archers/daggers that aren't Kagero.  Or give her Tharja's -blade tome, throw a ton of buffs on her, and laugh as she murders a lot of things in one hit.

Heroes has a lot of options - if you like someone, find a way to make them useful!  Skill inheritance opens up a lot of possibilities!

[Ice Dragon]

4 minutes ago, SalShich10N said:

And here is where playstyle and team composition comes into play.

Very true. If the skills don't work for your play style or team composition, then so be it, they won't work.

However, since I have no idea what you're trying to argue against me about anymore, I'll return to my original point: Effective weapon negation skills are unnecessary on dragons. Triangle Adept can be used to perform the same role, but at the same time be useful in other situations.

 

4 minutes ago, SalShich10N said:

How many battles does your Nowi even get to fight?

None. Her stat total is too high (merged to +10), and using her risks having Ryoma (+0) fall behind too far when I face teams with multiple high-merge units. I'm saving her for after the April update, and hopefully, I'll have bothered to merge my Ryomas by then.

[Shiro]

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

Very true. If the skills don't work for your play style or team composition, then so be it, they won't work.

However, since I have no idea what you're trying to argue against me about anymore, I'll return to my original point: Effective weapon negation skills are unnecessary on dragons. Triangle Adept can be used to perform the same role, but at the same time be useful in other situations.

 

None. Her stat total is too high (merged to +10), and using her risks having Ryoma (+0) fall behind too far when I face teams with multiple high-merge units. I'm saving her for after the April update, and hopefully, I'll have bothered to merge my Ryomas by then.

how many +10 units do you have so far? ive probably bought about 3.5k orbs worth and i only have a 2 high + units to show for it. i do have almost every 5* but not a lot of dupes

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Shiro said:

how many +10 units do you have so far? ive probably bought about 3.5k orbs worth and i only have a 2 high + units to show for it. i do have almost every 5* but not a lot of dupes

All of my merged units at level 40:

• +9 Lucina [+Atk, -Res]
• +10 Lucina [+Spd, -Res]
• +10 Ephraim [+Spd, -Res]
• +10 Nowi [+Atk, -Res]
• +10 Robin (M) [+Spd, -Res]
• +2 Reinhardt [+Atk, -Spd]
• +9 Julia [neutral]

And at level 1 (waiting for a recipient with a good nature):

• +5 Seliph
• +9 Eirika
• +5 Camilla
• +8 Fae
• +9 Julia

Also countless unmerged duplicates because I'm both a perfectionist and horrendously indecisive (a really bad combination). You can check the Google Sheet linked in my research thread if you're curious. I have all of my pulls since about a week into the game on it (the Data Pool tab is missing the past week or so because I've been lazy).

[SalShich10N]

12 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

However, since I have no idea what you're trying to argue against me about anymore, I'll return to my original point: Effective weapon negation skills are unnecessary on dragons. Triangle Adept can be used to perform the same role, but at the same time be useful in other situations.

None. Her stat total is too high (merged to +10), and using her risks having Ryoma (+0) fall behind too far when I face teams with multiple high-merge units. I'm saving her for after the April update, and hopefully, I'll have bothered to merge my Ryomas by then.

I'm just discussing possible skills for Nowi and just follow the conversation. I use her fine and at worst I've found +6 units. Some are clearly hackers that get banned quickly, too powerful people are still not that common. Then again, I do run Olivia too sometimes so that brings down my stat average.

[Shiro]

3 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

All of my merged units at level 40:

• +9 Lucina [+Atk, -Res]
• +10 Lucina [+Spd, -Res]
• +10 Ephraim [+Spd, -Res]
• +10 Nowi [+Atk, -Res]
• +10 Robin (M) [+Spd, -Res]
• +2 Reinhardt [+Atk, -Spd]
• +9 Julia [neutral]

And at level 1 (waiting for a recipient with a good nature):

• +5 Seliph
• +9 Eirika
• +5 Camilla
• +8 Fae
• +9 Julia

Also countless unmerged duplicates because I'm both a perfectionist and horrendously indecisive (a really bad combination). You can check the Google Sheet linked in my research thread if you're curious. I have all of my pulls since about a week into the game on it (the Data Pool tab is missing the past week or so because I've been lazy).

I regret not pulling more in the first and second weeks now xD the things i would do for a +10 julia

[Eleanore]

A quick question, does anyone know if triangle adept works with the raven tomes? I know it doesn't work with sapphire/ruby/emerald weapons since those are just weapons with the skill bult in, but raven tomes just give an advantage at all, not increase it like those.