Roy, Youthful Gifts

[XRay]

Roy, Youthful Gifts

Here is a colorless Reinhardt! To compensate for targeting Defense over Resistance, LA!Roy is colorless and got 1 more Attack over Reinhardt (LA!Roy: +Atk+Brave=45; Reinhardt: +Atk+Dire=44).

LA!Roy got tough competition from BH!Lyn. Not only can she quad attack more easily, she also comes with Sacae's Blessing, a powerful exclusive B skill that shuts down non dragon melee units. BH!Lyn also is not a seasonal unit, so she is much easier to merge.

If you are facing against LA!Roy, you might want to double check you BH!Lyn counters to make sure they can take on LA!Roy as he has a higher damage output if both can only fire off one volley.

 

Level 40 stats:

HP: 31/34/37
Atk: 32/35/38
Spd: 15/19/22
Def: 23/27/30
Res: 27/30/33

Total: 144~145

Default skills:

Weapon: Gratia
Assist: Reciprocal Aid
Special: [none]
Passive A: Death Blow
Passive B: [none]
Passive C: Bow Valor

 

Desperation — Brash Assault:
General Use

Spoiler

Nature: [+Atk/Def/Res, -HP/Spd/Def/Res]

Slaying Bow+ [Attack Refinement] / Gratia+ [Attack Refinement]
Reciprocal Aid / Ardent Sacrifice / Reposition
Moonbow
Death Blow 3 / Fury 3
Desperation 3
Hone Cavalry / Fortify Cavalry / [flexible passive C]
Brash Assault 3

His Gratia does not really stand out, but his default Reciprocal Aid and Death Blow will work nicely with Desperation-Brash Assault combo.

Desperation 3 — Brash Assault 3: If he manages to get below 50% HP, Brash Assault activates by allowing him to make a follow up attack against any unit who can counter attack, and Desperation moves his follow up attack forward. Fury helps him get below 50% HP if you have trouble getting him that low.

Brave Bow:
Arena offense, Arena Defense

Spoiler

Nature: [+Atk, -HP/Spd/Def/Res]

Brave Bow+
Reciprocal Aid / Ardent Sacrifice / Reposition / [flexible Assist]
Moonbow / Luna
Death Blow 3 / Fury 3
Swordbreaker 3 / Lancebreaker 3 / Axebreaker 3 / Desperation 3 / [flexible passive B] / Wings of Mercy 3
Hone Cavalry / Fortify Cavalry / [flexible passive C] / Savage Blow 3
Heavy Blade / Quickened Pulse / Brash Assault 3 / Attack +3 / Savage Blow 3

Why do you think I wrote about Y!Reinhardt LA!Roy?

Moonbow — Heavy Blade 3/Quickened Pulse: He can run Heavy Blade while Reinhardt can run Quickened Pulse.

Desperation 3 — Brash Assault 3: If he manages to survive and get below 50% HP,  Brash Assault activates by allowing him to make a follow up attack against any unit who can counter attack, and Desperation moves his follow up attack forward to land four hits consecutively. Fury can help make this easier to accomplish, but it is not necessary. Luna is guaranteed to activate on the fourth hit, so it helps increase his damage output.

Swordbreaker 3/Lancebreaker 3/Axebreaker 3: These are used against Distant Counter melee units offensively and defensively. It allows him to quad attack against certain enemies. And since he is so slow, the Breakers prevents the enemies from making a follow up counter attack.

Savage Blow 3 — Savage Blow 3: This can be used during Tempest Trials as units are mostly running their vanilla sets with random skills as filler, so Vantage is not a huge threat. With two Savage Blows equipped, he can quickly take down groups of enemy units.

Guard Bow/Gratia:
Arena Assault

Spoiler

Nature: [+Def/Res, -Spd/Def/Res]

Guard Bow+ [Defense Refinement] / Guard Bow+ [Resistance Refinement] / Gratia+ [Resistance Refinement]
Reposition / Swap / [flexible Assist]
Moonbow
Distant Def 3 / Steady Stance 3 / Warding Stance 3
Bowbreaker 3 / Quick Riposte 3 / Cancel Affinity 3
[flexible passive C]
Distant Def 3 / Quick Riposte 3

LA!Roy can counter himself and BH!Lyn. +Def and all skills in RED are a requirement if your LA!Roy is +0 and the enemy is LA!Roy is +10 and is utilizing Moonbow-Heavy Blade/Quickened Pulse with Hone Cavalry buffs. If the enemy LA!Roy is using Guard 3 and/or got Fortify Cavalry too, then the enemy LA!Roy can survive and you might be screwed. Things in red can be swapped for things in black for countering mages, but Fortify Cavalry buff is a requirement to reliably tank them.

Firesweep:
Fun

Spoiler

Nature: [+HP/Atk/Def/Res, -HP/Spd/Def/Res]

Firesweep+
Reposition / [flexible Assist]
Moonbow / Growing Wind
Death Blow 3 / HP +5
Cancel Affinity 3 / Poison Strike 3 / [flexible passive B]
Savage Blow 3 / Hone Cavalry / Defense Ploy 3 / Panic Ploy 3 / [flexible passive C]
Savage Blow 3 / Poison Strike 3 / Attack +3 / Heavy Blade 3 / Defense Ploy 3 / Panic Ploy 3 / HP +5

Pony healers can do this better and heal, but he targets Defense instead of Resistance and can run Cancel Affinity to take on Raven mages. LA!Roy Jenkins might get you killed if you attempt to use this in Arena since a combat units or Dancer/Singer could have been used instead.

+HP/Def/Res: +Atk is obviously better, but having a defensive boon may help him survive being doubled by non Arena units (Arena units will just outright kill him if they are properly built). Additionally, +HP/Res will help him run Ploys; he will need one or two HP +5 for more reliable Panic Ploys though.

Refreshing Bolt:
Arena defense

Spoiler

Nature: [+HP/Def/Res, -Atk/Spd]

Refreshing Bolt+ [Defense Refinement] / Refreshing Bolt+ [Resistance Refinement]
[flexible Assist]
[flexible Special] / Miracle
Bracing Blow 2 / Armored Blow 3 / Warding Blow 3 / Fury 3
Cancel Affinity 3 / Guard 3 / Pass 3
[flexible passive C] / Atk Smoke 3 / Spd Smoke 3 / Savage Blow 3 / Atk Ploy 3 / Spd Ploy 3 / Def Ploy 3 / Res Ploy 3
HP +5 / Defense +3 / Resistance +3

This is for torturing educating players using Wings of Mercy.

 

Edited February 13, 2018 by XRay

[bottlegnomes]

Yeah, I have to say I like how their solution to Brave Lyn breaking the game was let's make physical Reinhardt.

I know it's by no means ideal, but would firesweep, double savage blow be worth considering for a meme build to semi-imitate pain staffers?

[XRay]

25 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

I know it's by no means ideal, but would firesweep, double savage blow be worth considering for a meme build to semi-imitate pain staffers?

I think it is a waste of a Reinhardt LA!Roy to build him that way, but it sounds fun. I will add it in.

[Absolute Zero]

That guard bow set is kinda niche, neglecting his fantastic res by running bowbreaker, and moonbow is a pretty big waste of the fantastic damage LA! Roy gets from Iceberg/Bonfire. QR + Iceberg suffices against most archers, and anyhow straight wrecking bows is something Cecilia already does better anyway.

I think a more generalist tank build is better for him with the guard bow, considering , and he doesn't need bow breaker to deal with other LA! Roy or BH! Lyn. With an Atk boon and hone cavalry Roy can one-shot BH! Lyn up to +4 at = def/hp, and up to +9 at -def/hp, the two most commonly taken banes for high merge Lyns, and anyway both BH! Lyn and LA! Roy get blown up by quick riposte Iceberg 

Imo a Guard Bow set should look something like:

Enemy Phase Tank (Horse Emblem Arena Assault/Generalist)

Roy @ Guard Bow+

Atk+/ Res+/ Def+ Spd- 

Refinement: +Res/+Def

Assist: Reposition/Flex

Special: Iceberg

A: Distant Defense 3

B: Quick Riposte 3 / Cancel Affinity 3

C: Cavalry Buff 3 / Flex

S: Distant Defense 3 / Quick Riposte 3

With this set Roy reaches either 48/48 or 45/51 defenses on enemy phase, capable of shrugging off ranged attacks with ease, tanking doubles and firing back a nasty extra 24/25 damage iceberg on top of his already amazing base atk. +Res is probably the more useful refine as mages are more common and tend to output more damage per hit than bows. After fortify Cavalry Brave Bow users running Luna need to hit 54 Atk to kill neutral def Roy (-25 from Luna + 3 x 4 = 37>36) At +0 vs +10, at +Atk with Death Blow only Bridelia and Leon have the Atk to hit that 3 damage per round baseline necessary to Luna kill LA! Roy with a quad unbuffed) (Other LA! Roy cannot quad unless they have hone cavalry or non spd- and you don't). They have to hit 57 if they are packing moonbow.

Obviously like any horse unit Roy performs best with access to Cavalry buffs, both hone and fortify being of great use to him. Also with fortify support you have the option of shedding a distant defense layer to run Cancel Affinity and QR as a seal, which allows Roy to tank and defeat TA-Raven mages, only leaving Thani/Keenwolf, and the rare Non-TA Raven tomes as a magical threat.

Edited February 11, 2018 by Absolute Zero

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Absolute Zero said:

most archers

Most archers I currently see are BH!Lyn and sometimes BB!Cordelia and TOD!Jakob. There is no point in having a build that targets weaker archers if they are not even seen in the Arena.

1 hour ago, Absolute Zero said:

he doesn't need bow breaker to deal with other LA! Roy or BH! Lyn

If LA!Roy +0 wants to be LA!Roy proof, all nature and bolded skills are mandatory. If you can get him merges, buffs, or other wise boost his bulk he can run other boons. If the enemy LA!Roy uses Hone Cavalry buffs, Bowbreaker is mandatory since the enemy LA!Roy will have enough Speed to perform a follow up attack. At +0, assuming LA!Roy operates independently, he needs +Def and all those mandatory skills just to survive.

10 hours ago, XRay said:

Nature: [+Def, -Spd/Res]

Guard Bow+ [Defense Refinement]
Reposition / Swap / [flexible Assist]
Moonbow
Distant Def 3 / Steady Stance 3
Bowbreaker 3
[flexible passive C]
Distant Def 3

+Def and all bolded skills are a requirement if your LA!Roy is +0 and the enemy LA!Roy is +10 and is utilizing Moonbow-Heavy Blade/Quickened Pulse with Hone Cavalry buffs.

An enemy LA!Roy may look something like this, and it is not uncommon to see them if you run a merged armor team as Team 1.
+Atk -Res +10
Brave Bow, Moonbow
Death Blow
Heavy Blade
6/6/0/0

2 hours ago, Absolute Zero said:

moonbow is a pretty big waste of the fantastic damage LA! Roy gets from Iceberg/Bonfire.

Not all BH!Lyns run Brave Bow, so Iceberg is not always guaranteed to activate; LA!Roy does not need a Special to kill BH!Lyn, but it is better to be safe than sorry and activate it anyways. Against enemy LA!Roy, Moonbow is mandatory since the enemy LA!Roy may run Gratia instead; Iceberg does not activate in time whereas Moonbow does. Leaving an enemy at low HP instead of killing them is almost always a bad idea (I should make a build around that for Arena defense). It is not uncommon for enemies at +10 to occasionally run some of their vanilla skills to make them less susceptible to meta counters.

In general, frequency of activation is more important than occasional bursts of damage, since occasional bursts are not as reliable. On the other hand, if the unit already does an insane amount of damage, then damaging Specials are not necessary at all and they should run Aether or Galeforce instead for scoring. You can make them run higher damage Specials, but they are less likely to activate them and they do not give you additional scoring.

[XRay]

I just ran the calculator to test your build. I could not edit my previous comment (the website said it was too old to edit), so I have to Galeforce.

6 hours ago, Absolute Zero said:

Enemy Phase Tank (Horse Emblem Arena Assault/Generalist)

Roy @ Guard Bow+

Atk+/ Res+/ Def+ Spd- 

Refinement: +Res/+Def

Assist: Reposition/Flex

Special: Iceberg

A: Distant Defense 3

B: Quick Riposte 3 / Cancel Affinity 3

C: Cavalry Buff 3 / Flex

S: Distant Defense 3 / Quick Riposte 3

With this set Roy reaches either 48/48 or 45/51 defenses on enemy phase, capable of shrugging off ranged attacks with ease, tanking doubles and firing back a nasty extra 24/25 damage iceberg on top of his already amazing base atk. +Res is probably the more useful refine as mages are more common and tend to output more damage per hit than bows. After fortify Cavalry Brave Bow users running Luna need to hit 54 Atk to kill neutral def Roy (-25 from Luna + 3 x 4 = 37>36) At +0 vs +10, at +Atk with Death Blow only Bridelia and Leon have the Atk to hit that 3 damage per round baseline necessary to Luna kill LA! Roy with a quad unbuffed) (Other LA! Roy cannot quad unless they have hone cavalry or non spd- and you don't). They have to hit 57 if they are packing moonbow.

That does not work against BH!Lyn [+0, +Atk, Mulagir, Luna, Swift Sparrow, Heavy Blade] nor buffed Blade mages +0 with Heavy Blade. Fortify Cavalry is a requirement to tank those, but if BH!Lyn got Hone Cavalry, even Fortify Cavalry will not save LA!Roy.

I will add it in since it can counter Celica [+0, +Atk, Ragnarok, Luna, Swift Sparrow, Heavy Blade], but if she got merge +1, runs Death Blow, or a Hone Attack 1 buff, LA!Roy will die. Similarly, if Celica got Atk Tactic buff, even Fortify Cavalry will not save LA!Roy.

[Absolute Zero]

17 hours ago, XRay said:

Most archers I currently see are BH!Lyn and sometimes BB!Cordelia and TOD!Jakob. There is no point in having a build that targets weaker archers if they are not even seen in the Arena.

Ok then what is the point of running an enemy phase build if it only counters 3-4 units that the player phase build reliably kills without sacrificing Roy's utility (Especially since firesweep bow is fairly common for 2 of them)? My whole point is that building the enemy phase build that way overspecializes Roy to the point of being useless if there are no archers (or fliers, I guess) on the enemy team, and it's overkill unless you are running +0s against +10s for some reason. You don't want dead weight in Arena Assault that's why I offered a much more versatile build. It doesn't handle those two units you designed the build specifically for as well, but it's not useless if neither of them are on an opponent's team. 

16 hours ago, XRay said:

That does not work against BH!Lyn [+0, +Atk, Mulagir, Luna, Swift Sparrow, Heavy Blade] nor buffed Blade mages +0 with Heavy Blade. Fortify Cavalry is a requirement to tank those, but if BH!Lyn got Hone Cavalry, even Fortify Cavalry will not save LA!Roy.

Even a neutral atk LA! Roy one shot's neutral def/hp Lyn before she can get the second shot after hone cav. Again, with an Atk boon and hone cavalry Roy (at +0) can one-shot BH! Lyn up to +4 at = def/hp, and up to +9 at -def/hp, the two most commonly taken banes.

And no one would ever use a 3 charge special and heavy blade with mulagir, Lyn doesn't have the defenses to run a set that requires a trade to proc her special. It would also keep her from always proc'ing against units that can't counter.

As for heavy blade heavy buffed units, yeah no one can reliably tank those (unless they ignore buffs), but the deadliest in the meta right now are fliers and get blown up before their special goes off, and a fair few of the non-fliers are squishy enough to get one-shot by Roy after hone cav. 

I guess I'm just trying to understand why you think a build designed to handle only 2 units is somehow any good for a mode like Arena Assault.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Absolute Zero

[Ice Dragon]

10 minutes ago, Absolute Zero said:

I guess I'm just trying to understand why you think a build designed to handle only 2 units is somehow any good for a mode like Arena Assault.

Because that's what an Arena Assault build does. Arena Assault allows you to counter pick your opponent's team, meaning it is valuable to have a unit that is guaranteed to win against a handful of common threats.

You see that unit on your opponent's team, and you know that you are guaranteed to take that kill.

 

21 minutes ago, Absolute Zero said:

And no one would ever use a 3 charge special and heavy blade with mulagir, Lyn doesn't have the defenses to run a set that requires a trade to proc her special. It would also keep her from always proc'ing against units that can't counter.

63 neutral magic bulk (71 at +10 merge) that negates both Litrblade's effect and Litrraven + Triangle Adept's effect says otherwise.

Failing to activate her skill in one round of combat (and surviving) means she can be Repositioned out of reach and ready on the next turn or Danced to hit someone else with a fully charged Luna.

As a reminder, an Arena defense team only needs to kill one of the player's units to be considered successful.

[Absolute Zero]

26 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

55 minutes ago, Absolute Zero said:

I guess I'm just trying to understand why you think a build designed to handle only 2 units is somehow any good for a mode like Arena Assault.

Because that's what an Arena Assault build does. Arena Assault allows you to counter pick your opponent's team, meaning it is valuable to have a unit that is guaranteed to win against a handful of common threats.

You see that unit on your opponent's team, and you know that you are guaranteed to take that kill.

 

Fair point, thank you for the explanation. 

28 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

63 neutral magic bulk (71 at +10 merge) that negates both Litrblade's effect and Litrraven + Triangle Adept's effect says otherwise.

Failing to activate her skill in one round of combat (and surviving) means she can be Repositioned out of reach and ready on the next turn or Danced to hit someone else with a fully charged Luna.

As a reminder, an Arena defense team only needs to kill one of the player's units to be considered successful.

Another fair point, I totally neglected her magical bulk.

[XRay]

6 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

63 neutral magic bulk (71 at +10 merge) that negates both Litrblade's effect and Litrraven + Triangle Adept's effect says otherwise.

Totally forgot about his default bow. I will add that in.

[mampfoid]

I got a +DEF/-SPD Roy and already gave him QR3 (with Brave+). Currently he is my best candidate for DD3 and I'm considering to give him Guard Bow. If I did the Guard/DD3/DD3/QR3 thing on him, what ranged units should he evade? 

[XRay]

2 hours ago, mampfoid said:

I got a +DEF/-SPD Roy and already gave him QR3 (with Brave+). Currently he is my best candidate for DD3 and I'm considering to give him Guard Bow. If I did the Guard/DD3/DD3/QR3 thing on him, what ranged units should he evade? 

As usual, avoid Celica with Luna-Heavy Blade. Celica running Moonbow can be tanked if she does not stack her Attack with +Atk, Life and Death, and Attack +3.

Avoid Reinhardt, BH!Lyn, and LA!Roy buffed with Hone Cavalry. However, If they are not buffed, they can be tanked.

I do not recommend using him to tank Blade mages, but LA!Roy [+Def, -Spd, Guard Bow [Res], Iceberg, Distant Def, Quick Riposte, Distant Def] can tank some Blade mages (Nino, Tailtiu, Tharja) [+Atk, Glimmer, Fury, Heavy Blade, 4/4/0/0]. If they run Moonbow-Heavy Blade or got more buffs, they cannot be tanked.

[mampfoid]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

As usual, avoid Celica with Luna-Heavy Blade. Celica running Moonbow can be tanked if she does not stack her Attack with +Atk, Life and Death, and Attack +3.

Avoid Reinhardt, BH!Lyn, and LA!Roy buffed with Hone Cavalry. However, If they are not buffed, they can be tanked.

I do not recommend using him to tank Blade mages, but LA!Roy [+Def, -Spd, Guard Bow [Res], Iceberg, Distant Def, Quick Riposte, Distant Def] can tank some Blade mages (Nino, Tailtiu, Tharja) [+Atk, Glimmer, Fury, Heavy Blade, 4/4/0/0]. If they run Moonbow-Heavy Blade or got more buffs, they cannot be tanked.

That's a big part of the major threats. Bows and daggers are better tanked by Ravenmages. I don't know if it's worth the investment then.