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

[Ice Dragon]

54 minutes ago, 5PointGordin said:

You did mention a speedy build, which I am somewhat interested in. Which skills would you recommend for that?

Something like

Helm Bow+ [Spd / Def / Res] / Springy Bow+ [Spd / Def / Res] / Plegian Bow+ [Spd]
[Assist]
[Special]
Kestrel Stance 3 / Atk/Spd Unity / Atk/Spd Ideal / the Spd/Def or Spd/Res versions of any of these skills
Lull Atk/Spd 3
Atk/Spd Menace
Distant Def 3 / Spd/Res Form 3 / any of the other Spd-boosting Sacred Seals

There might also be a few other bows worth using. Keeping up with all of the seasonal inheritable weapons is a pain.

Obviously don't use Helm Bow/Plegian Bow with a Bond Sacred Seal or Springy Bow with Atk/Spd Unity.

Kestrel Stance, Steady Posture, and Swift Stance grant the Guard effect, but don't give any boosts on player phase. Unity and Ideal both grant their effects on both phases. Unity works better in game modes with more consistent debuffs (namely Aether Raids, though I don't think Norne is quite strong enough to tank in high-tier Aether Raids), whereas Ideal gives you a pretty consistent +7.

The Lull should always be Lull Atk/Spd for this build. Same with the Menace.

[Xenomata]

5 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

There might also be a few other bows worth using. Keeping up with all of the seasonal inheritable weapons is a pain.

It doesn't technically boost Spd and can't be refined, but Ninja Yumi does technically count as a "speedy" bow, albeit at the cost of defenses, by scaling additional damage with Spd comparisons.
The only unit who has it, Ninja Shinon, also carries the coveted Bow-exclusive Deadeye special, and if you can inherit up to ASsolo3 beforehand you can even grab ASsolo4 along with Ninja Yumi and Deadeye.

[Xenomata]

So... Selkie. My current +10m +10df +Spd runs refined Foxkit Fang, Glacies, Distant Counter, Lull Atk/Spd, and Even Res Wave. (along with a Res +3 seal because hey it works)

I'm thinking of giving her one of the Smoke 4 passives to improve on her ability to take hits, but I'm kind of hitting a road block as to which of the two to give her. Weighing the benefits of both:

• Atk Smoke 4 is a direct boost to her bulk (Atk -7 on enemies, Def/Res +6 for Selkie) and lets her deny the enemy follow-ups. Enemies with NFU can get through this though. As this comes from Fallen Gustav, I can also give her either Atk/Def Catch 4 or Atk/Def Near Trace.
• Spd Smoke 4 is better offensively since she would be far faster as a result, and the Dodge effect works nicely in her favor given her already high Spd. The effect can, however, be bypassed with certain skills and Prf weapon effects. As this comes from Fallen Lilith, she can also get Atk/Spd Catch 4.

Both skills, of course, can be countered with Lull effects, penalty neutralization, Unity effects, and previously mentioned specific counters, but that's still better than most Cav units not even having any better usable skill besides Menaces.

Also worth considering are, of course, other units who would be able to take advantage of Atk Smoke 4 and Spd Smoke 4 better than Selkie, but right now I'm only thinking about Selkie.

Any input?

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Xenomata said:

So... Selkie. My current +10m +10df +Spd runs refined Foxkit Fang, Glacies, Distant Counter, Lull Atk/Spd, and Even Res Wave. (along with a Res +3 seal because hey it works)

I'm thinking of giving her one of the Smoke 4 passives to improve on her ability to take hits, but I'm kind of hitting a road block as to which of the two to give her. Weighing the benefits of both:

• Atk Smoke 4 is a direct boost to her bulk (Atk -7 on enemies, Def/Res +6 for Selkie) and lets her deny the enemy follow-ups. Enemies with NFU can get through this though. As this comes from Fallen Gustav, I can also give her either Atk/Def Catch 4 or Atk/Def Near Trace.
• Spd Smoke 4 is better offensively since she would be far faster as a result, and the Dodge effect works nicely in her favor given her already high Spd. The effect can, however, be bypassed with certain skills and Prf weapon effects. As this comes from Fallen Lilith, she can also get Atk/Spd Catch 4.

Both skills, of course, can be countered with Lull effects, penalty neutralization, Unity effects, and previously mentioned specific counters, but that's still better than most Cav units not even having any better usable skill besides Menaces.

Also worth considering are, of course, other units who would be able to take advantage of Atk Smoke 4 and Spd Smoke 4 better than Selkie, but right now I'm only thinking about Selkie.

Any input?

If you really like Selkie and she is one of your favorites, sure. I personally would not give it to her though, as she got damage output issues due to her abysmal Atk. If you are adamant about giving her one of the Smokes, then I lean towards Spd Smoke, since she already got follow-up denial on player phase.

For dual phase units and super tanks, I personally lean a lot more towards Pulse Smoke to shut down Galeforcers and Edelgard: Hegemon Husk, but I guess you can use Smokes too since they are pretty decent as well.

For Spd Smoke, notable candidates off the top of my head include the usual infantry super tanks like Ike: Brave Mercenary and Yen'fay, as they got a minimum of two stacks of guaranteed damage reduction from their Weapons and Spurn, three stacks with a support unit, four stacks after one round of combat with Speed Smoke, and the occaisional fifth stack with Vital Astra. Fliers and cavalry can more easily stack damage reduction and are a bit more reliable: Maria: Sunny Smile can get percentage damage reduction on top of her flat damage reduction, and units like Freyja and Eliwood: Marquess Pherae can more easily reach over 50% damage reduction on their own.

For Atk Smoke, besides the usual slow candidates, Mia: Budding Blade would prefer that since she is basically a gimped Ike: Close-Knit Siblings with her damage reduction from her Weapon being "off loaded" to a status effect. By the same token, if you are offloading the Dodge status effect using Eirika: Twin refulgence, Atk Smoke would be worth considering on a fast tank too.

[Xenomata]

13 minutes ago, XRay said:

If you really like Selkie and she is one of your favorites, sure. I personally would not give it to her though, as she got damage output issues due to her abysmal Atk. If you are adamant about giving her one of the Smokes, then I lean towards Spd Smoke, since she already got follow-up denial on player phase.

You say "abysmal", but with the full effect of her weapon and at max investment (+Spd) she still sits at 68 Atk. I don't know what unit group you are comparing her to, but using an example of a more recent unit with offensive advantages: Valentine Chrom with just his weapons full effects, max investment, an +Atk hits 72 Atk, only 4 points ahead of Selkie. Brave Eirika, still a pretty popular Lance Cav, hits 70 Atk with max investment, +Atk, and only her weapon.
Yes her base Atk is low, but she's still only a bit short of the above two units who people REALLY like to use. But again, I don't know what units you as the baseline.

And about her default follow-up denial: it is only if initiating on player phase, but AS4 would apply its follow-up denial after she attacks, letting the FUD extend into Selkie's EP. Its the reason I'm even wondering which would be better on her.

40 minutes ago, XRay said:

For dual phase units and super tanks, I personally lean a lot more towards Pulse Smoke to shut down Galeforcers and Edelgard: Hegemon Husk, but I guess you can use Smokes too since they are pretty decent as well.

Max investment Selkie with just her weapon only has 42 Def and 45 HP. Most Galeforcers are probably killing Selkie in one round anyway (and without a Tempo effect wouldn't be able to fully charge GF from 5 cooldown, while GFers with only 4 cd need accelerated charge to fully charge it), while the most Pulse Smoke does on Selkie with Hegemon is make her get killed with a regular attack, and not do anything at all if GF is the equipped special.

[XRay]

31 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

You say "abysmal", but with the full effect of her weapon and at max investment (+Spd) she still sits at 68 Atk. I don't know what unit group you are comparing her to, but using an example of a more recent unit with offensive advantages: Valentine Chrom with just his weapons full effects, max investment, an +Atk hits 72 Atk, only 4 points ahead of Selkie. Brave Eirika, still a pretty popular Lance Cav, hits 70 Atk with max investment, +Atk, and only her weapon.

Transformed Selkie +10+15+Atk sits at 75 Atk on player phase and 71 on enemy phase, assuming she fully wins the Res check; if she does not win the stat check at all or only partially, such as against regular bulky dual phase units and tanks where she needs that Atk boost the most, then it can dip as low as 67 Atk and 63 Atk, and may even lose access to her Flow Guard. And this is basically the ceiling of her damage output as she got nothing else to pad it.

Eliwood: Marquess Pherae sits at 73 Atk, but it is not dependent on stat checks so it is always on. And against bulky foes like dragons and beasts, he got effective damage to significantly increase his damage output to help overcome their bulk.

Eirika: Pledged Restorer sits at 70 Atk, but that is always on too, and she gets a massive boost in damage output from Slaying, Tempo, and true damage from her Weapon and Moonlight Bangle. And she got effective damage on top of that against armor units.

1 hour ago, Xenomata said:

You say "abysmal", but with the full effect of her weapon and at max investment (+Spd) she still sits at 68 Atk. I don't know what unit group you are comparing her to, but using an example of a more recent unit with offensive advantages: Valentine Chrom with just his weapons full effects, max investment, an +Atk hits 72 Atk, only 4 points ahead of Selkie. Brave Eirika, still a pretty popular Lance Cav, hits 70 Atk with max investment, +Atk, and only her weapon.

Dodge works on both phases, so I like that better, and you are not having redundant effects. I guess technically you are not having redundant effects with two stacks of follow-up denial on player phase since they do stack, but not many tanks are going to run two stacks of guaranteed follow-ups either.

Atk Smoke should help her win the Res check more easily though. As for the follow-up denial part, I guess it depends on your access to the relevant support units. In my opinion, getting Dodge as a status effect is slightly more difficult since I do not think guaranteed summons was a thing yet when Eirika: Twin Refulgence was released, but you can simulate follow-up denial with Byleth: The Fódlan Star and he can be guaranteed summon a few months ago.

1 hour ago, Xenomata said:

Max investment Selkie with just her weapon only has 42 Def and 45 HP. Most Galeforcers are probably killing Selkie in one round anyway (and without a Tempo effect wouldn't be able to fully charge GF from 5 cooldown, while GFers with only 4 cd need accelerated charge to fully charge it), while the most Pulse Smoke does on Selkie with Hegemon is make her get killed with a regular attack, and not do anything at all if GF is the equipped special.

As a super tank with support she should be able tank Galeforcers, unless they Lunge her out of support range or something. I am not sure about killing Edelgard: Hegemon Husk, but she should be able to withstand her attacks for at least two turns with Atk/Def Solo 6 and two Elimines.

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Xenomata said:

You say "abysmal", but with the full effect of her weapon and at max investment (+Spd) she still sits at 68 Atk. I don't know what unit group you are comparing her to, but using an example of a more recent unit with offensive advantages: Valentine Chrom with just his weapons full effects, max investment, an +Atk hits 72 Atk, only 4 points ahead of Selkie. Brave Eirika, still a pretty popular Lance Cav, hits 70 Atk with max investment, +Atk, and only her weapon.
Yes her base Atk is low, but she's still only a bit short of the above two units who people REALLY like to use. But again, I don't know what units you as the baseline.

Selkie has 72 effective Atk on player phase, but the problem is that 12 of those points rely on a visible Res comparison, which will give her a lot of trouble against bulkier units like all of the recent bulky dragons and Fallen Edelgard.

Fallen Edelgard has the same visible Res as Selkie (45 with maximum investment and no Asset), meaning Selkie is stuck with only 60 Atk before passive skills if you cannot use visible buffs or debuffs to make Selkie's Res higher. For comparison, a fully invested Duo Dagr (she's on my Arena core and is "good enough, but sometimes doesn't cut it", so can serve as a benchmark) with no Asset has 65 Atk before passive skills.

 

Despite Chrom's high Atk, he relies heavily on effective damage to break tanks, and that leaves him easily tanked by high-Def units that don't take effective damage. His effectiveness against bulky opponents is also hindered by the fact that he typically runs Deadeye, which scales negatively with the opponent's Def. Chrom can overcome this by running Bonfire instead of Deadeye like Thorr, but this costs him the ability to break through percentage damage reduction.

Despite Eirika's lower Atk, she is much harder to wall even if she doesn't get effective damage due to having a Special that scales extremely positively with the opponent's Def. The combination of Moonlight Bangle and Luna results in nullifying 90% of the opponent's Def, and Moonlight Bangle having the offensive half of Tempo prevents the opponent from stopping the Special activation.

 

As far as what C skill to give to Selkie, I'm not really sold on either Atk Smoke or Spd Smoke mostly because I don't think Selkie really has any business fighting on enemy phase in the first place. I'd personally run Def/Res Menace and have a teammate supply Atk and Spd buffs.

[Dylan Corona]

So I'm unsure of who to give the new arcane bow to.

L. Lyn, B. Lyn, Rath or Bow Florina. 

I can show stats, but if one shines more than the others let me know and I'll share. I can't have more than one screenshot haha 

Edited March 22, 2023 by Dylan Corona

[Ice Dragon]

10 hours ago, Dylan Corona said:

So I'm unsure of who to give the new arcane bow to.

L. Lyn, B. Lyn, Rath or Bow Florina. 

I can show stats, but if one shines more than the others let me know and I'll share. I can't have more than one screenshot haha 

Legendary Lyn and Brave Lyn both lose access to their Sweep effect because equipping an Arcane weapon prevents the unit from equipping exclusive skills.

Swift Mulagir grants around +17-20/+10 offenses and Feud compared to Arcane Nastrond's +13-15/+8 offenses, Slaying effect, and first-hit damage reduction. Even when considering that Laws of Sacae II grants fewer stats than tier-4 A skills, Arcane Nastrond is at best only a side-grade. Arcane Nastrond is really only worth running over Swift Mulagir if you're also running Deadeye + Atk/Spd Finish 4 or some similar build.

Brave Lyn and Rath have nearly identical offensive stats with maximum Dragonflowers (unless you have Resplendent Brave Lyn) with the only notable difference between them being their color and Brave Lyn's access to Sacae's Blessing. The only major advantage Arcane Nastrond has over Whitecap Bow on fast units is the fact that it has first-hit damage reduction, but that becomes irrelevant if the opponent cannot counterattack at all. I'd lean towards Whitecap Bow on Brave Lyn if you're sticking with Sacae's Blessing.

Rath is expected to get a refine around the end of this year or the beginning of next year, which is still a ways off, and Rath being a 4-star unit means he'll likely get a refine that is less powerful. However, it's probably going to come with at least +8/+8 in offenses and another couple effects and will probably be at least competitive. It's up to you whether you care to wait.

Ascended Florina's weapon is slightly weaker than Arcane Nastrond, but is intended to be used in a support role, as it has the same teleportation effect as Ash's Opening Retainer. If you want Florina to be used more offensively, Arcane Nastrond should work on her, though you'll probably want to switch out her A skill for either Atk/Spd Catch 4 or Remote Sparrow.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

So, the game was unusually kind and gave me not only the free Fomortiis from winning AHR, but also a SECOND free one with my free summon. The only fodder I'd be interesting in giving to summon from him is his B skill, but I'm not sure anyone really wants it? Caineghis is the beast unit I use the most, but I'm not sure it would be better than any of the other high-tier B skills he can have. I already have Caineghis running Special Fighter 4 in his B slot.

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

So, the game was unusually kind and gave me not only the free Fomortiis from winning AHR, but also a SECOND free one with my free summon. The only fodder I'd be interesting in giving to summon from him is his B skill, but I'm not sure anyone really wants it? Caineghis is the beast unit I use the most, but I'm not sure it would be better than any of the other high-tier B skills he can have. I already have Caineghis running Special Fighter 4 in his B slot.

Unless you absolutely need the guaranteed transformation, it's typically better to run armor-exclusive skills or other tier-4 skills over Beast Follow-Up on armored units because Beast Follow-Up lacks any of the other nice skill effects that those skills have.

Beast Follow-Up is fairly unique in that it's one of the few skills that grants a reliable guaranteed follow-up on player phase, and I think it's best used for that purpose. If you're just running it for enemy phase, you're better off running Quick Riposte 4 or the Quick Riposte Sacred Seal, after all. Units like Keaton, New Year Kyza, and Flame Mordecai are probably good options.

[Dylan Corona]

Felt like this was the wrong thread 

Edited April 15, 2023 by Dylan Corona
Delete please