Leon, True of Heart

[eclipse]

Why this guy's name was changed to Leon is beyond me.  The extended range of Valentia archers is definitely welcome, and since he joins up pretty early, he's great for chipping enemies on Celica's route. . .wait, wrong game.

In this game, Leon is a 4*-5* unit that comes with a nifty bow, and two perfectly serviceable skills.  He has the second-highest base Attack of archers, only being beaten by Bride Cordelia and Trick or Defeat! Jakob, both of which are event units.  He also has decent Defense, middling Speed, rather low Res, and a questionable HP pool.  In other words, take Virion, give him a better bow, and dump his extra HP into Attack and Defense.

Thanks to his stat spread, Leon's build is pretty flexible.  +Atk and +Spd give him different builds.  +Def opens up some silly options.  +HP means he can take a bit more magic flak.  +Res is a +4 bonus, and can be used as a ranged EP option (well, one EP).

5* max stats:

HP: 35/39/42
Atk: 31/34/37
Spd: 27/30/33
Def: 26/30/33
Res: 12/15/19

Red indicates a higher bane.  Blue is a higher boon.

Builds:

Fire and forget (+Atk)

Spoiler

Weapon: Brave Bow+
Assist: (flexible)
Special: Bonfire
A: Death Blow
B: -breaker
C: (flexible)
S: Attack +3

The goal of this set is to initiate and kill.  The -breaker is flexible, with the following benefits:

Sword: ORKOs all vanilla heroes except Zephiel and Sigurd.  The former can be taken out if Leon gets a Speed boost, and isn't -Spd.  Required to survive the Black Knight.
Axe: The only units that don't die outright are Brave Ike and Christmas Chrom.  But you shouldn't be attacking Brave Ike at full health in the first place!  Required to survive Dorcas and Hector.
Lance: Whether Effie survives or not depends on Speed.  Will also kill a Fjorm that has her default A skill and is next to an ally.
Bow: Jakob survives.  Barely.  Everyone else, not so much.
Tomes: Boey, M!Robin, Santa Tharja, and Henry survive.  Unless you're trying to troll any of these, a tomebreaker is probably not necessary.
Dagger: Leon kills every single dagger on initiation.  This -breaker would be purely defensive.

For some of the harder challenges (GHB and the like), -breakers are an immense help.

For dragons and staffbots, I'm only going to list those that don't die outright to the set above:

Adult Tiki/Corrin/Azama: Goes down to Moonbow + Heavy Blade (S seal, that is)
Nowi: Requires Moonbow + Defiant Atk 3 + Heavy Blade or an attack buff.  If Nowi is +Def or has Fury, find someone else to do some chip damage first!

Firesweep (+Atk)

Spoiler

Weapon: Firesweep Bow+
Assist: (flexible)
Special: Moonbow/Luna/Dragonic Aura
A: Life and Death 3
B: -breaker/Cancel Affinity 3
C: (flexible)
S: Attack +3

Since Leon won't be countered, he doesn't mind the stat drop from Life and Death.  This is the only set that I'd consider running Cancel Affinity, since he can utilize the TA flip without having to take an attack.  Unlike most sets, his special is pretty flexible.

Slaying Desperation (+Spd)

Spoiler

Weapon: Slaying Bow+ (+Spd)
Assist: (flexible)
Special: Moonbow
A: Life and Death 3
B: Desperation 3
C: (flexible)
S: Speed +3

Thanks to the Slaying Bow's lower cooldowns, it means that if Leon doubles, he'll proc Moonbow.  This set isn't as effective as the Brave set, but it'll still take out the majority of things you'll run into.  The downsides are requiring Leon to be at less than full health, and that he needs to double to secure kills.  Works best with some sort of Attack buff, since the things he fails to ORKO are by slivers of health.

Alternate Brave set (+Spd)

Spoiler

Weapon: Brave Bow+
Assist: (flexible)
Special: Luna
A: Life and Death 3
B: -breaker
C: (flexible)
S: Attack +3

+Spd gives him 33 base Speed, which turns him into a slightly inferior Bride Cordelia.  While Desperation is a B slot option, I wouldn't do that unless I had at least two more sources of Speed boosts (Drive Spd and Hone Spd or something).  Like the Slaying set above, he needs to double, or he'll fail to kill certain units.

Ranged Bait (+Def/+Res)

Spoiler

Weapon: Guard Bow+ (+Def/+Res, match it to his boon)
Assist: (flexible)
Special: Bonfire/Noontime
A: Fury 3
B: Quick Riposte 3/Guard/-breaker/Renewal/Vantage/Escape Route
C: (flexible)
S: Distant Defense 3/Deflect Missile 3/Deflect Magic 3/Quick Riposte

Thanks to the HP boost through weapon forging, Leon can turn into quite the survivor.  Deflect Magic 3 allows him to troll Reinhardt, while Deflect Missile 3 turns Brave Bow users into mere annoyances.  Distant Defense 3 is for general use.  Quick Riposte gives him doubling power, which means squishier mages die.

If Quick Riposte is moved to the S slot, his B slot gains a few more options.  Guard will mess up certain proc timings (insta-Moonbow Braves), -breaker will allow him to deal with certain speedy mages, Renewal can allow him to pull off a second QR (if you're good at stalling), Vantage is for the ultimate cheese, and Escape Route is if you really want him around for a later phase.  I'd run Escape Route with a healer, and Renewal only if Leon has time to heal up.  Noontime can be used if the goal is sustain, though he'll need to initiate and kill something squishy for best results, or if you want a bit more time for Renewal to kick in.

TODO: Input from other people.  I'm pretty sure I'm missing a bunch of things!

Revision history:

1/6/18 - added non-breaker notes as well a couple of Heavy Blade options
1/16/18 - with Quick Riposte available in a different slot, the Ranged Bait build has a lot more options!

Edited January 16, 2018 by eclipse