Alm, Hero of Prophecy

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

Lv. 40 Stats:
HP - 42/45/48
Atk - 30/33/36
Spd - 27/30/33
Def - 24/28/31
Res - 19/22/25

Total: 157~158

Introduction

Alm, a young boy from the quiet Ram Village, and later leader of the Zofian Resistance, was introduced into Heroes to advertise the game he stars in, Fire Emblem Echoes. He was released six days before Echoes hit the stores in Japan, so Heroes is technically the debut of this version of Alm.

As the fourth Falchion user in the game, Alm was given rather balanced stats overall. He's not the lowest in anything among the four, nor is the best at anything in particular. While that would seem to make him a jack of all trades, the lack of defining traits unfortunately made him outclassed at every role. His 33/30 offenses leave much to be desired; his Attack stat is mediocre, and his Speed leaves him doubled by many offensive units, while not doubling many in return. His bulk is above average, but not enough to make him tanky, particularly since he is easily doubled. As such, his best options were to settle for being either a Falchion healer with Renewal, or a somewhat reusable Quick Riposte user, which limits his scope.

However, with the Refinery update of 2/8, Alm is reborn. Alm's refined Falchion not only has a welcome HP +3 and Level 3 Renewal, but also the ability to do a Brave weapon attack when he is at 100% health, at the cost of taking 5 recoil damage post-combat. This is a groundbreaking upgrade; Alm now has a 16 Might Brave Sword (double the normal, 5 more than Amiti) with no Speed penalty, with a downside that is very easily mitigated by the Falchion's own self-healing. In addition, the Falchion's Dragon effectiveness combined with this new upgrade allows him to decimate even Blue Dragons, a very dominating enemy type that would have given him trouble before. Once a master of none, Alm is now very much a top dog in Player Phase offense.

Sets

"Don't worry, Celica." (Full offense)

Spoiler

Nature: +Atk, -Res/HP

Weapon: Falchion (Special refine)
Assist: Reciprocal Aid / Flexible
Special: Glimmer / Draconic Aura / Dragon Fang

A: Death Blow 3
B: Swordbreaker 3 / Cancel Affinity 3 / Hit and Run / Renewal 3
C: Flexible
S: Heavy Blade 3

This set takes Alm's new offensive potential to the absolute limit. Built similarly to the standard Brave Sword set, Alm's version has one defining trait; the ability to run Heavy Blade. With a +Atk nature, the 16 Might Falchion and Death Blow, Alm reaches 58 Atk unbuffed, an extremely safe range for Heavy Blade. The extra Special cooldown reduction causes Glimmer to proc on Alm's second hit, greatly increasing his damage to finish off bulky opponents.

+Atk nature is important for maximum damage. While Alm's bane is not that important for this set, -Res would be the most beneficial overall to preserve his physical bulk in emergencies.

If ally support with Infantry Pulse is available, Alm can choose to swap out Glimmer for Draconic Aura to further boost firepower, to the point where it cracks Triangle Adept Nowi almost guaranteed. -HP nature would allow Infantry Pulse to activate easier, since 48 HP on neutral Alm with the refine is rather high. Alternatively, one can elect for Dragon Fang, which will be fully charged up after one kill, allowing Alm to nuke enemies even when his health is below 100%.

Alm has a few options for his B skill that change his role a bit. Swordbreaker and Cancel Affinity are offensive options. Swordbreaker allows Alm to destroy bulky Sword units such as Draug and Sigurd, also cracking Wary Fighter and preventing Vengeful Fighter on Armors, while Cancel Affinity prevents him from being walled by Triangle Adept Blues, especially TA Nowi and F!Corrin. The other two options expand Alm's flexibility; Hit and Run's movement allows Alm to dive in and still be pulled out of enemy formations, while Renewal stacks with Falchion to heal Alm for 20 HP every other turn, expanding his role to a healer with Reciprocal Aid.

"Why won’t you attack?" (Mixed Phase)

Spoiler

Nature: +Atk, -Res

Weapon: Falchion (Special refine)
Assist: Reciprocal Aid / Flexible
Special: Ignis / Glimmer

A: Steady Breath 3 / Fury 3
B: Renewal 3 / Quick Riposte 3
C: Flexible
S: Quick Riposte 3 / Atk +3

As Alm's refined Falchion does not reduce his Speed, he is essentially allowed to have a super Brave Sword without making him more easily doubled, and thus not impacting his Enemy Phase performance. This set takes advantage of that flexibility, sacrificing a part of Alm's Player Phase destructiveness to incorporate an Enemy Phase presence.

+Atk is the ideal boon for this set as well, as it improves both Player Phase and Enemy Phase offensive power. As physical bulk is important for this as well, -Res is the recommended bane.

Steady Breath is the premium A-skill for this Alm. With Steady Breath Ignis, Alm is capable of baiting and decimating  For Summoners without a spare Brave Ike, Fury with Glimmer is an acceptable and reliable alternative, with the additional bonus of giving Alm a slightly better Player Phase than Steady Breath.

As Alm wants to stay at full health to utilize his Special refine, Renewal for the B-skill allows Alm to quickly heal back up after baiting something on Enemy Phase, and also allows him to be a Falchion healer if needed. However, Quick Riposte is very important for making the Enemy Phase part work. If one wishes to use the Quick Riposte seal elsewhere, or does not need Alm to rely on his self-healing to recover, Quick Riposte can be the B-skill instead, and Atk +3 Seal can be substituted for additional firepower.

Due to Alm's average stats, his Enemy Phase is not as solid as some units like Hinata. However, it is still serviceable, especially with team support. Depending on your needs and the rest of your team, there may be reason to opt for this set over the all-out offense one.

"So then... Will you stand with me?" (All-rounder)

Spoiler

Nature: +HP/Atk, -Res

Weapon: Falchion (Special refine)
Assist: Reciprocal Aid
Special: Glimmer / Dragon Fang

A: Fury 3
B: Renewal 3
C: Panic Ploy 3 / Infantry Pulse 3 / Flexible
S: Heavy Blade 3 / Quick Riposte 3 / Atk +3

This set once again sacrifices some of Alm's offensive power, but this time in exchange for providing support to the team.

+Atk can never go wrong, but if one prefers their Alm to lean more towards support than offense, +HP would improve those functions. With +HP, Alm reaches 51 HP naturally with the refined Falchion, on par with neutral HP Fae, the Dragon with the highest HP; >50 HP covers most fellow melee infantry, all horses and mages. -Res is the best bane again.

Fury over Death Blow drops Atk by 3 on Player Phase, but the additional bulk assists Alm in tanking damage for his teammates when necessary, and gives him more Atk on Enemy Phase as well.

Renewal in the B-slot is highly recommended this time. Fury + Falchion recoil is 11 damage, which is too much for the Falchion's Renewal alone to cover in one heal, so Renewal keeps Alm active. It is also key to keeping Alm at high HP for Reciprocal Aiding and Panic Ploying to support the team.

The C-skills Panic Ploy and Infantry Pulse both take advantage of Alm's HP, one to debuff enemies, and the other for improving teammates. If one does not have access to these skills, however, or their team does not need these, then something else can be taken, and there would be more reason to run +Atk instead.

The Seal depends on your needs and nature chosen. +Atk and Fury puts Alm at 55 Atk, which is still high enough for Heavy Blade to be reliable. Heavy Blade Glimmer is still certainly an option, but Glimmer can be dropped for Dragon Fang if you want a charged Special that does not activate on the first round. Quick Riposte 3 allows Alm to have additional Enemy Phase presence, as he can counter kill Dragons and Hector. Atk +3 is a fairly good option for +HP Alms, as his Atk stat will not be impressive enough to be effective at Heavy Blade or Quick Riposte.

Ideas from this set can be incorporated into the full offense set, as the core of the build is generally the same, but this is listed as a separate build to discuss the offense and support dimensions individually.

Things to look out for

As Alm is now essentially a Brave Sword unit, he suffers some of those downfalls as well. The Deflect Melee Seal is still relatively rare as it is expensive to make, but it is possible that Deflect Melee Nowi/F!Corrin may appear to deal with Alm, who can ORKO a lot of their current builds. Be sure to check skills before attacking.

Steady Breath sets can stop Alm from attacking into really bulky enemies, the most common being Black Knight and Brave Ike, who can retaliate with powerful Specials, especially if boosted by Wrath. Brave Ike is doubly a problem due to Urvan's triple Deflect, which lowers Alm's damage output regardless of which Phase Alm tries to deal with him. Estucheon or Pavise can be run to stop these units from killing Alm on the counter, at the cost of Special-based firepower, which may or may not be worth it depending on your lineup or tactics.

Edited February 13, 2018 by SatsumaFSoysoy

[Kazuya]

I use Alm on my main team, so good. :) Mainly use him cuz you know.....I love Gaiden but whatever 

[BANRYU]

Quick question. It may be possible I'm misunderstanding the effect of the Falchion refine-- does it work like a brave effect, where the followup attack is consecutive? Or is it sort of like Ephraim's reverse Quick Riposte, where it enables the ability to double regardless of Speed? (I have Alm but regrettably not the resources needed to refine his blade just yet for my own testing purposes RIP)

If it's the latter, I would think... I would think Draconic Aura would work with Heavy Blade (assuming you're attacking someone who can counter, ofc) without needing Infantry Pulse to trigger it in a single round, right?

If I'm understanding correctly I think it should be: 
Battle start: CD 3 -> Alm initiates: CD 1 (assuming Heavy Blade procs) -> enemy counterattacks: CD 0 -> Alm procs DA

At least, that's how it works for my Wo Dao Cammy who I run with DA and Heavy Blade. 

 

EDIT: Also, haven't had the chance to test this yet but. I'm very curious as to whether the refinement effect will still allow Alm to double if he has Windsweep. 

Edited February 10, 2018 by BANRYU

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

2 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

Quick question. It may be possible I'm misunderstanding the effect of the Falchion refine-- does it work like a brave effect, where the followup attack is consecutive? Or is it sort of like Ephraim's reverse Quick Riposte, where it enables the ability to double regardless of Speed? (I have Alm but regrettably not the resources needed to refine his blade just yet for my own testing purposes RIP)

It's literally Double Lion. It's a Brave attack. I hear the English description is a bit ambiguous about it.

[BANRYU]

4 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

It's literally Double Lion. It's a Brave attack. I hear the English description is a bit ambiguous about it.

okay cool, that helps clear things up. I should think it would actually work with Windsweep then, which would make it a pretty interesting possibility. Assuming +Spd and Death Blow, Alm can hit 43 effective speed with Phantom Speed 3, but depending on his intended target(s) (IE, if he's made to go after dragons), he can probably even get away with +Atk.

Misses out on Heavy Blade action of course, but I'm sure that could have its uses as well. 

Edited February 10, 2018 by BANRYU

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

9 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

okay cool, that helps clear things up. I should think it would actually work with Windsweep then, which would make it a pretty interesting possibility. Assuming +Spd and Death Blow, Alm can hit 43 effective speed with Phantom Speed 3, but depending on his intended target(s) (IE, if he's made to go after dragons), he can probably even get away with +Atk.

Misses out on Heavy Blade action of course, but I'm sure that could have its uses as well. 

Windsweep doesn't really matter, though. They're either dead in those two hits (the Sweep does nothing), or they're left alive for all sorts of low HP shenanigans to happen, and you probably should have had someone else eliminate that threat.

[Shiki]

Windsweep only turns Alm into a poor man's Firesweep bot. He has to dedicate his B Slot, Sacred Seal (he needs Phantom Spd) and potentially his A slot for that while anyone else with high enough Spd can just run a Firesweep Sword and have more freedom with his passives.

One niche build Alm could run is Fury + Wrath. I'm not mistaken the recoil of Falchion and Fury immediately drops him to Wrath range, meaning he can proceed to annihilate something with his charged-up Special in the next attack. Unfortunately you lose 1 HP too many otherwise you could just run until his HP comes back up with his Falchion.

Should have named the offensive set "I'll crush these bastards".

Edited February 10, 2018 by Zeratul

[Ledrert]

The way I use Alm is going full speed. +Spd IV, +Spd seal and Darting Blow. Mine, at +2, hit 37 Spd, 43 at Player phase. With the Falchion refinement, he can Quad against opponents with 38 or less speed. That's pretty strong.

[TheNiddo]

Minor nickpick about the history section there:

"He was released six days before Echoes hit the stores in Japan, so Heroes is technically his debut game!"

He was in FE2. He's older than Sigurd even; the only FE Lord that's older than Alm is Marth. He was also a DLC einherjar in Awakening if you want to get technical. So its more like Heroes was his 3rd game, not his debut. 

[Absolute Zero]

I think dragon fang is worth a mention (IMO it's his best option) in conjunction with Heavy Blade, as it only costs Alm a couple of KOs against a few bulky blues, and gives him massive OHKO potential, allowing him to retain his offensive presence even with Double Tiger offline. With it charged he picks up every almost every kill he forfeits, even with Double Tiger offline. And with a +6 atk buff only Shiro, Subaki, and W!Robin avoid the OHKO at neutral, with Lukas and Effie also surviving at +Def. It also has the benefit of allowing him to 1-shot any TA Nowi build when charged.

And if both Dragon Fang and Double Tiger are online, pretty much everything dies. (He one rounds every neutral unit in the game after a +6 attack bonus)

If you only need 1 KO out of Alm on any given turn Double Tiger is online, Draconic Aura and Glimmer are probably better options but Dragon Fang allows Alm to make use of dancer support and snag multiple kills, or stay out on the front line and snag an OHKO on enemy phase. Overall it makes Alm less tied down to needing full hp and gives him a little more flexibility in how you use him. 

 

Edited February 10, 2018 by Absolute Zero

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

Finished the write-up, WIP tag removed.

8 hours ago, Zeratul said:

One niche build Alm could run is Fury + Wrath. I'm not mistaken the recoil of Falchion and Fury immediately drops him to Wrath range, meaning he can proceed to annihilate something with his charged-up Special in the next attack. Unfortunately you lose 1 HP too many otherwise you could just run until his HP comes back up with his Falchion.

Should have named the offensive set "I'll crush these bastards".

It's hard to coordinate using Wrath on the next turn with a Falchion user sometimes, so while it's possible, I wouldn't really recommend it, especially because of the HP thing. Dragon Fang without Wrath already destroys pretty much everything anyway, as Absolute Zero below mentioned.

7 hours ago, Ledrert said:

The way I use Alm is going full speed. +Spd IV, +Spd seal and Darting Blow. Mine, at +2, hit 37 Spd, 43 at Player phase. With the Falchion refinement, he can Quad against opponents with 38 or less speed. That's pretty strong.

Killing enemies in two hits is almost always better than relying on quads, as there are times when you won't be able to quad (Swordbreaker, getting killed by the counter hit, or simply not fast enough). Your build will face problems against fast but not fragile units like Lucina, Marth, Ayra and Amelia, and some units like Brave Ike and Winter Tharja will just hit you with a Special when you could have killed them in two hits (I did actually calc these btw). It's not that it doesn't function, the build just isn't as reliable as Death Blow, even if your Alm is +Spd.

4 hours ago, TheNiddo said:

Minor nickpick about the history section there:

"He was released six days before Echoes hit the stores in Japan, so Heroes is technically his debut game!"

He was in FE2. He's older than Sigurd even; the only FE Lord that's older than Alm is Marth. He was also a DLC einherjar in Awakening if you want to get technical. So its more like Heroes was his 3rd game, not his debut. 

I meant to say his Echoes version, but I probably shouldn't have written the intro at 2 am lol.

2 hours ago, Absolute Zero said:

I think dragon fang is worth a mention (IMO it's his best option) in conjunction with Heavy Blade, as it only costs Alm a couple of KOs against a few bulky blues, and gives him massive OHKO potential, allowing him to retain his offensive presence even with Double Tiger offline. With it charged he picks up every almost every kill he forfeits, even with Double Tiger offline. And with a +6 atk buff only Shiro, Subaki, and W!Robin avoid the OHKO at neutral, with Lukas and Effie also surviving at +Def. It also has the benefit of allowing him to 1-shot any TA Nowi build when charged.

And if both Dragon Fang and Double Tiger are online, pretty much everything dies. (He one rounds every neutral unit in the game after a +6 attack bonus)

If you only need 1 KO out of Alm on any given turn Double Tiger is online, Draconic Aura and Glimmer are probably better options but Dragon Fang allows Alm to make use of dancer support and snag multiple kills, or stay out on the front line and snag an OHKO on enemy phase. Overall it makes Alm less tied down to needing full hp and gives him a little more flexibility in how you use him.

It's more than just on bulky Blues (though Draconic Aura does crack Effie which is ridiculous), you lose kills on Halloween Jakob, Close Def Sigurd, Fury Ayra and Steady Breath Vanguard Ike as well by dropping Glimmer, and this is +0 vs +0 too (fighting enemies with up to +5 merges over your units is quite common). It's not the end of the world, but the the first two are quite annoying.

That being said, Dragon Fang is a valid option, and I added it to the first build. Depends on how you want to use him, yeah. Draconic Aura is still the dumbest thing I've ever seen since it only requires one Infantry Pulse to crack 90% of the game on turn 1 lol.

[Absolute Zero]

1 hour ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

you lose kills on Halloween Jakob, Close Def Sigurd, Fury Ayra and Steady Breath Vanguard Ike as well by dropping Glimmer, and this is +0 vs +0 too (fighting enemies with up to +5 merges over your units is quite common). It's not the end of the world, but the the first two are quite annoying.

Ah I was running my maths at a +6 buff that's why I missed those guys. Yeah if you're not packing Dark Aura or Attack Tactics support you definitely want to be able to handle those guys. 

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

Cancel Affinity added to the full offense set. Slipped my mind, but mostly because he kills some TA Nowis without it anyway.