Scorched Grand Hero Battle: Valter, the Moonstone

[TheNiddo]

22 hours ago, JSND said:

Awakening at least have like the early chapter i guess

Idk how a game that is essentially giant square with some chokepoint the entire god damn game that is echoes even exist

They saw that people still bought it with Awakening.

Frankly I liked Echoes maps better than Awakenings. Barely. Neither game's maps are exactly stellar and are some of the low points for both games. But Echoes felt like it fit the playing style of the game a bit better and well... it at least can bank of the excuse of "faithfully copying the 2nd FE ever made". And well, the earlier on ship maps weren't giant squares at least. Awakening had no excuse and only had like, one ship map.

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, TheNiddo said:

Frankly I liked Echoes maps better than Awakenings. Barely. Neither game's maps are exactly stellar and are some of the low points for both games. But Echoes felt like it fit the playing style of the game a bit better and well... it at least can bank of the excuse of "faithfully copying the 2nd FE ever made". And well, the earlier on ship maps weren't giant squares at least. Awakening had no excuse and only had like, one ship map.

I felt that SoV did try somewhat with some of the later maps on Alm's side, namely the fight with the broken bridge and the Fear Mountain battle where you have Witch spam from the northeast, and regular enemies from the southeast. Yet beyond these, maybe Berkut 3 and some of the other fixed dungeon battles that the design was terrible.

Awakening did have a few glimmers, the escape from Castle Plegia being one, but overall the average map quality was low.

Every game does have its high points and low points in map design, and then there is the argument every fan makes over what is cheap and what is fair difficulty. CQ has the masterpiece of C10, but the Kitsune battle is sort of bland being just 1 type of enemy. RD generally has good map design, but stuff like 4-3 and 2-1 aren't so much. Hinoka 2's gimmick, fair. Fuga's gimmick, cheap. Inevitable End Enfeeble- debatable?

[r_n]

I replayed through Awakening shortly before playing SoV and I will go to bat on awakening every day of the week. There is just so many baffling design decisions going on in gaiden/sov maps in terms of the actual map design and the units they place in them.

I enjoy awakening's wide open maps since there's like...things? in them? Some obstacles for flavor, a bit of terrain here and there and enemies all over. Even the more wide open maps tend to have sectionalized rooms and such as is standard in the series. Aside from trash like Nah's manor I always felt engaged and enjoying myself regardless of map. I've played my fair share of FEs at this point and while I recognize other games have better design and such, i found awakening more or less enjoyable start to finish to actually play.

Gaiden/SoV has maps that are, i think, smaller, but they feel huge. There's these large swaths of nothing going on. There's entire portions of the map that MIGHT hold a single enemy who is of 0 threat to anyone and I can not figure out why. So many things in these maps are designed to just waste your time in a way awakening's didn't even if awakening's maps took longer to complete. so many times i would finish a map just glad i never have to touch it again, or feel exhausted.

I actually really enjoyed the deliverance & cipher dlc because even though the maps were completely reused, they had significantly more interesting enemy placement (and also secondary/primary objectives, always nice). It still had issues of portions of the map just sort of existing, or terrain, but over all more enjoyable and probably what they should have done to the entire game. Also helped there were no summoners.

[Lushen]

I've been thinking about Valter a lot and I think he has the potential to be as good as Camus.  Sure, he does't have DC, but he probably has the best weapon in the game right now.  I can't think of another weapon that gives 16mt and the power of two completely different effects in one.  He also appears to have a fairly reasonable stat spread.  There's no way they give him a weapon that ups his speed and has something low like 25 speed, it would be a worthless effect.

It seems like IS really wanted specials to be a big deal when you consider the release of quickened pulse, infantry pulse, slayer weapons, and now this guy.  Like they keep trying to push special based unit builds into the meta.

Also, if he has under 40hp and fury 3, any attack will put him in vantage range.  If he has below 45, he is likely to be put into vantage range by any physical attacker (assuming his defense is fairly high).  If his speed is actually 33 (they wouldn't give him a weapon that buffs his speed by 2 if his speed was much lower than 33), he will actually get 38 speed pre-buff and since he's a flier, you should be able to double anyone with buffs.  With his killer effect, he can attack 2 times accelerating his special trigger 4 times and vantage giving a 5th.  This gives him the same benefits brave users do where he will be able to use high cost specials in addition to his 16mt and +2spd/atk.

I would wager this guy would be better than Camus and Xander if you have a hone flier user.

 

I've also changed my mind about Cormag appearing in a future banner.  Considering Cormag is also a lance wyvren from SS and ilkely to have high def, decent attack, decent-high speed (at least, that's what I imagine), AND he has more of a reason to hold Cursed Lance than Valter does....Either they'll hold him off for quite a while and release him with cursed lance in which case he will be practically the same, maybe a resistance varient, OR he'll be outclassed by Valter.  This makes me sad b/c Cormag is probably my second favorite unit.

Edited August 2, 2017 by Lushen

[Kaden]

54 minutes ago, Lushen said:

I can't think of another weapon that gives 16mt and the power of two completely different effects in one.

Falchion and Naga. Both have effective against dragons, but Falchion has Renewal 2 built-in and Naga has +2 Def/Res when attacked. The difference is that Cursed Lance only has offensive effects. Falchion has sustain and Naga is good defensively sort of, but Cursed Lance? It's a legendary Killer/Slaying Lance that also has a modified Fury 1 built-in. -1 special cooldown and +2 Atk/Spd? It's like the Ylissean Summer weapons, but if they were always in effect instead requiring to be at full HP and they were legendary meaning 16 MT and locked to one character. It's also technically an 18 MT lance. The only weapons comparable in pure MT is Durandal which is technically a 20 MT sword, but only if Eliwood attacks and Folkvangr which is a 21 MT sword, but Alfonse needs to be half dead. Cursed Lance is always 18 MT until Valter bites the dust.

54 minutes ago, Lushen said:

I've also changed my mind about Cormag appearing in a future banner.  Considering Cormag is also a lance wyvren from SS and ilkely to have high def, decent attack, decent-high speed (at least, that's what I imagine), AND he has more of a reason to hold Cursed Lance than Valter does....Either they'll hold him off for quite a while and release him with cursed lance in which case he will be practically the same, maybe a resistance varient, OR he'll be outclassed by Valter.  This makes me sad b/c Cormag is probably my second favorite unit.

Cormag shouldn't be using the Cursed Lance at all. I never played Sacred Stones up to the point where you get Cormag and Duessel, but according to the wiki, and I think this is part of their support conversation, the Cursed Lance in Duessel's family was to be kept safe not used which makes sense considering how Valter went from being a pretty nasty guy to being even more nasty because of the Cursed Lance. Duessel says he doesn't have family and wanted Cormag to keep it safe since he figures a good guy like Cormag would never think of using it. Even the other lance Duessel has shouldn't be used by Cormag since Duessel apparently would only use it that's the last thing he had to defend himself which in that case, Duessel should be using it if he's not using an axe.

Edited August 2, 2017 by Kaden

[Beddlam]

41 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Also, if he has under 40hp and fury 3, any attack will put him in vantage range.  If he has below 45, he is likely to be put into vantage range by any physical attacker (assuming his defense is fairly high).  If his speed is actually 33 (they wouldn't give him a weapon that buffs his speed by 2 if his speed was much lower than 33), he will actually get 38 speed pre-buff and since he's a flier, you should be able to double anyone with buffs.  With his killer effect, he can attack 2 times accelerating his special trigger 4 times and vantage giving a 5th.  This gives him the same benefits brave users do where he will be able to use high cost specials in addition to his 16mt and +2spd/atk.

I think you are misunderstanding a couple of things about that weapon. The stat buff would be already incorporated into the stats shown for him, so the base speed of the unit in the pic is 31, meaning he will probably have a speed between 29-31, so best-case his speed is 35 with fury, which is still pretty good. Also the -1 special counter is a -1 to the base, not -1 every time he attacks, so he has the same special usage as a killer user not a brave user. He can still proc a 4-count special on his vantage attack if he doubles a unit that can counter him, but it's not quite as powerful as you were thinking.

[Lushen]

29 minutes ago, Kaden said:

Cormag shouldn't be using the Cursed Lance at all. I never played Sacred Stones up to the point where you get Cormag and Duessel, but according to the wiki, and I think this is part of their support conversation, the Cursed Lance in Duessel's family was to be kept safe not used which makes sense considering how Valter went from being a pretty nasty guy to being even more nasty because of the Cursed Lance. Duessel says he doesn't have family and wanted Cormag to keep it safe since he figures a good guy like Cormag would never think of using it. Even the other lance Duessel has shouldn't be used by Cormag since Duessel apparently would only use it that's the last thing he had to defend himself which in that case, Duessel should be using it if he's not using an axe.

"This lance—someone needs to master it. It's just a feeling I have. A weapon is only as good or evil as the man who wields it. In the hands of someone just, it can be a righteous weapon. In the hands of the wicked, it's a danger to all. Believe me, I have not been seduced by this lance. I merely want to see it used for the purpose for which it was forged."

Cormag wants to physically use the cursed lance because he think he can master it.  Valter has very little right to use it - he only had it for a moment when his weapon broke so he switched over to Dussel's cursed lance who took it back shortly after.  He actually gave it to Cormag because Cormag said he could wield it without being tempted.  

 

Good point about Falchion, I totally forgot.  Didn't know about Naga, I was never interested in Julia.  

And yea, I guess his speed would be 31, wasn't paying attention...that seems a bit low.  I guess on a flier team he will still have some really good speed with his weapon and fury, but not as good on infantry team.

[Tenzen12]

On 31. 7. 2017 at 4:45 AM, Sonnua said:

True, Cordelia rarely survives an attack and her only use is that to kill then reposition away to safety. I doubt Valter's addition will hurt Cordelias position in any flier emblem though if Valter can get high success as Cordelia  does during player phase, he might be a candidate that can be seriously worth considering.

 

(Sorry about double post)

 

I actually disagree with that. Cordelie doing great in enemy phase, because of her TA3, which means red mage and swords can barely scratch her...

[Ice Dragon]

6 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

I actually disagree with that. Cordelie doing great in enemy phase, because of her TA3, which means red mage and swords can barely scratch her...

Unless you are strapped for resources and can't teach her something else, Cordelia doesn't use Triangle Adept 3 because it hurts her offensive capabilities.

[Tenzen12]

Not against reds though. Even without LoD or DB she still doing great against anything that isn't green and I don't think she meant to fight these in first place.

[Ice Dragon]

10 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

Not against reds though. Even without LoD or DB she still doing great against anything that isn't green and I don't think she meant to fight these in first place.

Cordelia deletes red units with or without Triangle Adept, which means the only thing Triangle Adept does is get her killed against green enemies and prevent her from killing them.

+0 Cordelia [+Atk] (Brave Lance+, Triangle Adept 3) deals 6×2 damage against +0 Nino [=Def] (Fury 3) when she would have dealt 15×2 with no A slot at all or 19×2 with Life and Death 3.

[Tenzen12]

It also gimps her defense and allow her act as enemy phase unit with ease (which is what we are talking about now). Green can taken out by reds or greens. It's not like this is one woman show. Considering she is flyer she hardly have to get into green unit range in first place. Sure if you build her into pure glass canon she will have durability of glass, but she can much more rounded unit if she depend on teammates a bit.

[Ice Dragon]

58 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

It also gimps her defense and allow her act as enemy phase unit with ease (which is what we are talking about now). Green can taken out by reds or greens. It's not like this is one woman show. Considering she is flyer she hardly have to get into green unit range in first place. Sure if you build her into pure glass canon she will have durability of glass, but she can much more rounded unit if she depend on teammates a bit.

Cordelia's 40/22/25 bulk is too low to act as an enemy phase unit in the first place. She can take one hit, and then she's done. HP, Def, and Res are worthless stats when you never need to take a hit in the first place, which is what Cordelia is good at doing with her overwhelming offensive stats and Brave Lance+.

Because the opponent isn't always going to have a balanced team, you can't expect that you'll have enough red or green units to handle a team of all or mostly all green units, especially because the pool of red fliers is so shallow. Having your blue unit be able to chip in is a lot more useful than having her sit in the corner being completely useless.

[Tenzen12]

When it come to red flyers Palla is free for example and she is excellent counter for green, both defensively and offensively. Cordelia in other hand is overwhelming in offensive either way and with her default skill set she is also great  tank to bait her counter colour, which make battle much easier. With flyers free range movement I can easily imagine every single of unit run either TA or Gem weapon effectively. Bulky flyers are rare in first place so it's pretty convenient if enemy can barely chip you due WA

 

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Cordelia's 40/22/25 bulk is too low to act as an enemy phase unit in the first place. She can take one hit, and then she's done. HP, Def, and Res are worthless stats when you never need to take a hit in the first place, which is what Cordelia is good at doing with her overwhelming offensive stats and Brave Lance+.

Because the opponent isn't always going to have a balanced team, you can't expect that you'll have enough red or green units to handle a team of all or mostly all green units, especially because the pool of red fliers is so shallow. Having your blue unit be able to chip in is a lot more useful than having her sit in the corner being completely useless.

40/22/25 is actually fine for bulk, considering even after brave-lance she's sitting at a nice 30 speed, which will prevent most quads (and, since there's no brave red tome at the moment, anyone fast enough to quad Cordelia while also being strong enough to be worth worrying about will probably get OHKOd thanks to TA-3's attack buff). =Celica with L&D takes Cordelia down to 22, +Atk down to 18, -blade with +3 all stats down to 8, so tanking one mage isn't a problem, either. (+Spd Leo with both horse buffs manage the ORKO, but no one's ever going to run +Spd, L&D, -blade Leo. You avoid the ORKO with a speed buff or a res buff, anyway)

To be honest, my biggest peeve for the build is that it makes OHKOs happen too often, meaning you can't reliably use Pulse, one enemy phase double, and your brave hit 2HKO to activate Galeforce---OHKO means Galeforce is left at 1 rather than activating.

Edit: That is, Cordelia won't be a 'classic' TA-3 user that just ORKOs the advantage color while taking 0 damage, she'll be abusing her stellar player phase to erase most of the team like always, except with the option to lure mages or counter-kill melees.

 

Moreover, even if Cordelia ended up versus a green heavy team, that just means she's going to be on reposition duty, and, as a flier, she's probably the best user of reposition. (An argument can be made for horses too, but being able to airlift people across rivers/mountains/holes in the ground probably makes her reposition better than +1 range on reposition would.)

 

Mind, I wouldn't run the build myself, but I can see why dropping her offenses from a clear A down to B might be worth it to bump her bulk and counter kill up by half a tier or so. (Only half a tier since it only works on reds.) If mobility is a concern, but you didn't want to run horses for some reason, the next best thing is using TA-3 to manipulate enemy movement.

Edited August 2, 2017 by DehNutCase

[Lushen]

Is Cordelia being compared to Valter?  The two are totally different units.  

[Ice Dragon]

4 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

40/22/25 is actually fine for bulk, considering even after brave-lance she's sitting at a nice 30 speed, which will prevent most quads (and, since there's no brave red tome at the moment, anyone fast enough to quad Cordelia while also being strong enough to be worth worrying about will probably get OHKOd thanks to TA-3's attack buff). =Celica with L&D takes Cordelia down to 22, +Atk down to 18, -blade with +3 all stats down to 8, so tanking one mage isn't a problem, either.

No shit Triangle Adept is going to keep her very alive against red units, but that's literally all it does.

Triangle Adept is doing nothing for her offenses against red because she's one- or two-hit killing every relevant one regardless.

Without buffs, Cordelia fares noticeably worse against lances, losing the two-hit kill on the tankier lance users (and even more when Fury is taken into account) and losing her double attack against nearly every lance user in the game, which basically means she's dependent on at least an Atk buff to function against her own color since she can't survive taking two hits.

I've already covered Cordelia's performance against green.

 

The original post claimed Cordelia "does great on enemy phase", and that's simply not something she does well enough to be called "great". Standard Ryoma double attacks her for 10×2 damage and doesn't die to the counterattack unless Cordelia is running Swordbreaker or Quick Riposte. (Still assuming Brave Lance+.)

 

13 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

but no one's ever going to run +Spd, L&D, -blade Leo

I believe there's one somewhere in the 720-734 range (not sure about the nature), but it only has a Hone Cavalry buff instead of both buffs.

 

10 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Is Cordelia being compared to Valter?  The two are totally different units.  

Yes. Because apparently Cordelia "does great on enemy phase".

[Tenzen12]

Alright, alright saying she she doing great wasn't put in best way. She is doing great on enemy phase against Reds. That's right way to say that and actually it's good enough. I still wonder why you always putting emphasis on offense when we talk about defense though. Triangle adept on Cordellia is clearly meant for later. Anyway Why I shouldn't send green units against tanky lances instead? Cordelia can finish it if that isn't enough. 

Triangle adept units by nature can't exist in vacuum as long as you accept it lot of things became much easier. Including using Cordelia as tank.

[Ice Dragon]

37 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

I still wonder why you always putting emphasis on offense when we talk about defense though.

Because that's what Cordelia's stats look like. And because Brave Lance+ is literally the worst 5-star lance in the game on enemy phase.

 

39 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

Anyway Why I shouldn't send green units against tanky lances instead?

Maybe there's a red unit standing right behind it. Maybe your green unit was already expended tanking a Reinhardt. Maybe your green unit is dead. Maybe your green unit is Titania and the blue unit has Ridersbane and Cancel Affinity (and isn't Mathilda).

Things happen and you can never be assured that you'll always be fighting in ideal situations.

[Tenzen12]

Brave Lance isn't really issue with Cordelia speed and attack though, and TA give bump her defense and res a lot despite of her stats. She is excellent tank when it come to red while her offense is almost unchanged. It's high return for low cost. 

And honestly chances that I will have to need bait red  mage or sword is much higher than any of examples you noted. 

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

Brave Lance isn't really issue with Cordelia speed and attack though, and TA give bump her defense and res a lot despite of her stats. She is excellent tank when it come to red while her offense is almost unchanged. It's high return for low cost. 

And honestly chances that I will have to need bait red  mage or sword is much higher than any of examples you noted. 

I suppose you just have a different idea of what an "excellent tank" is because I find taking half of your health in damage to a unit you're at weapon triangle advantage to with Triangle Adept is pretty damned lackluster.

[Tenzen12]

I never seen red took half of her damage though, well I never seen her took full buffed blade attack so maybe you mean that? Against normal enemies she usualy   takes single digit damage. You would need enemy double to get anything more and there is only few who can do that. She can tank two or even three red attacks and destroy them on her turn, in many cases enemy self-destruct in their phase even.

[eclipse]

On 7/31/2017 at 4:18 AM, Sonnua said:

Apologies for it.

Well it's a good thing in a way because we don't have too.many flier teams in arena to fight against. Fighting them for the 7th win won't be highly desirable.

I run an archer with a Brave Bow+.  Flier Emblem doesn't concern me overly much (yet).  Iote's Shield exists (and would honestly be pretty funny on Valter), but a lot of things don't do well against 54x2 damage, pre-Defense.

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, Tenzen12 said:

I never seen red took half of her damage though, well I never seen her took full buffed blade attack so maybe you mean that? Against normal enemies she usualy   takes single digit damage. You would need enemy double to get anything more and there is only few who can do that. She can tank two or even three red attacks and destroy them on her turn, in many cases enemy self-destruct in their phase even.

Ryoma and Lucina with Fury 3 (or Attack +3) deal 10×2 damage. Those are the benchmarks for tanking swords.

Cordelia can't kill them on the counterattack without Quick Riposte or Swordbreaker or a buff to Atk. And if she can't kill Ryoma in one round of combat, he's got Vantage up (or the opponent will have a target for Wings of Mercy).

[Tenzen12]

Well with TA3 she can still take him out when she is initiate. And if she doesn't initiate she still 2RKO  even if she still indeed loose more than half hit points, but at that point she still can take another hit from most of other reds anyway. That's great tanking ability in my book. 

Edited August 2, 2017 by Tenzen12