General Weapon Refinery discussion/speculation/creation thread

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, XRay said:

Could not they just update the Threaten skills like how they updated area of effect Specials to have lower cooldown to make them more viable?

Yes, but until they do that (because they haven't yet), Threaten is still 2 squares of range.

[Interdimensional Observer]

A super-Threaten sounds like it'd good on Ashnard, Petrine, Bryce or Bertram when they come around. Since in PoR, both of them have the Daunt skill, which no playable could get (RD changed this of course). All it did was lower Hit and Crit by 5 in PoR, but they could make it some Threaten Spectrum or Threaten Special in FEH, no reason why they can't.

[Hilda]

Sonya:

Dark Excalibur: Deals +10 damage when Special triggers

Refine:
Black Excalibur: Special cooldown charge -1. Deals +10 damage when special triggers.
If unit’s HP ≤ 75% and foe initiates combat, unit can counterattack before foe’s first attack.

 

Boey:

Gronnowl+: During combat, boosts unit's Atk/Spd/Def/Res by number of adjacent allies × 2.

Refine:
Palisade magica: Def +3. During combat, boosts unit's Atk/Spd/Def/Res by number of allies within 2 spaces.
Unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range.

 

Lukas:

Killer Lance +:

Refine:
Phalanx Spear: Special cooldown charge -1. At start of combat, if unit's HP ≥ 50%, inflicts Special cooldown charge -1 on foe per attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)
If unit's Def ≥ foe's Def, grants Special cooldown charge +1 per attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)

 

Delthea:

Dark Aura

Refine:
Colorfull Aura: At start of turn grants +6 Atk/Spd to unit and allies using sword, axe, lance or dragonstone withing 2 spaces.
If a Rally Assist skill is used by unit or targets unit, inflicts status on foes preventing counterattacks in cardinal directions of unit through their next actions.

(yes i know it would turn Delthea into the ultimate support bot for Arena being able to grant +6 to all stats to a melee unit with Rally Defense Res and with the no counterattack status from Candlelight in cardinal directions)

Edited September 26, 2018 by Hilda

[colossus86]

3 hours ago, Hilda said:

Sonya:

Dark Excalibur: Deals +10 damage when Special triggers

Refine:
Black Excalibur: Special cooldown charge -1. Deals +10 damage when special triggers.
If unit’s HP ≤ 75% and foe initiates combat, unit can counterattack before foe’s first attack.

 

Boey:

Gronnowl+: During combat, boosts unit's Atk/Spd/Def/Res by number of adjacent allies × 2.

Refine:
Palisade magica: Def +3. During combat, boosts unit's Atk/Spd/Def/Res by number of allies within 2 spaces.
Unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range.

 

Lukas:

Killer Lance +:

Refine:
Phalanx Spear: Special cooldown charge -1. At start of combat, if unit's HP ≥ 50%, inflicts Special cooldown charge -1 on foe per attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)
If unit's Def ≥ foe's Def, grants Special cooldown charge +1 per attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)

 

Delthea:

Dark Aura

Refine:
Colorfull Aura: At start of turn grants +6 Atk/Spd to unit and allies using sword, axe, lance or dragonstone withing 2 spaces.
If a Rally Assist skill is used by unit or targets unit, inflicts status on foes preventing counterattacks in cardinal directions of unit through their next actions.

(yes i know it would turn Delthea into the ultimate support bot for Arena being able to grant +6 to all stats to a melee unit with Rally Defense Res and with the no counterattack status from Candlelight in cardinal directions)

SONYA: So the thing is, is that this refine would actually be out of line with current weapons only having 2 "non free" effects. For whatever reason IS seems to consider single instances of effective damage as "free" or not counting towards the effect total of a weapon. Take the Falcons, Dauntless Lance, Wing Sword, or Merric's Excalibur as examples. All of those weapons appear to have an extra effect but if you take away the eff damage they're in line with other modern weapons with having 2 effects. There are also free effects that come from particular weapon types as well. For example all bows get "eff flyers" for free in addition to what ever other effect they have, so B!Lyn and Innes weapons shouldn't be considered to have 2 effects.

This is also why the Wing Sword works, one Eff. damage is "free", the other counts as an actual effect, and flashing blade is the real 2nd effect that puts it in line with modern weapons. Breath of Fog is also an interesting weapon in that it appears to have 4 effects, but in reality the "eff dragons" is considered a "free" effect and the adaptive damage is a free effect for all breath weapons, similar to all bows having "eff flyers". So the 2 "actual" effects are Renewal 3 and the custom Bond effect.

Now I'm not going to argue all of that makes the most sense in the world but as far as i can see that's the mentality that IS has when it comes to designing weapons. In all likelihood, Sonya wouldn't receive a base effect upgrade and would get either Vantage or the Slaying effect as a refine.

BOEY: while there's nothing wrong with the refine its self, IS has passed on multiple opportunities to give weapons that canonically have 1-2 range DC in refines (i.e. Binding Blade, Eckesachs). They have also not opted to provide refines to any weapons that already have DC so i just doubt the plausibility of this until i see otherwise. That being said, if Odin and Felicia are anything to go by, IS is willing to bend their own rules when giving Pfr weapons to poor units as while their weapons would be ultra broken in another units hands, that's obviously not something that can happen in this case. So who knows they might judge Boey to be bad enough to get an "OP" weapon too.

Lukas: Same thing as Sonya basically, Things like Dauntless Lance and Deathly Dagger can only have 2 effects at base because one of those effects "doesn't count"

Delthea: Yeah this one just seems way broken. I wouldn't say Dark Aura's base effect is weak enough to justify getting an upgrade. Keep in mind that when a weapon's base effect gets upgraded/replaced it's usually because there's a skill out there that's objectively better than it, so IS can't get away with calling it a full effect(i.e. Alphonse & Celica). Regular Hone Atk doesn't have weapon restrictions, but only gives 4 Atk so there's a trade off that makes it tough to say that Dark Aura's effect is objectively worse. Maybe it could see a slight functionality upgrade, but making it give 6 spd in addition to increasing the range would be major overkill. Also I highly doubt the feint effect would be allowed to see the light of day

Hope all of this made sense.

[XRay]

40 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

Delthea: Yeah this one just seems way broken.

Since Ragnarok exists, this Dark Aura pales in comparison; 6/6/0/0 bonus buffs is nothing compared to 12/12/0/0 combat buffs. Giving 6/6/0/0 to melee units is also pretty reasonable, since they do not have the reach of ranged units. The Candlelight effect also needs set up and the right positioning, so it is not something reliable in my opinion.

Edited September 27, 2018 by XRay

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, XRay said:

6/6/0/0 bonus buffs is nothing compared to 12/12/0/0 combat buffs.

+12/12/0/0 combat buffs is behind the cost of 5 damage per round of combat and a requirement to be under 80% of HP.

It's also fully in line with other weapons, having two effects: a lopsided version of Fury 2.5 (take 1 damage for each 2 points of stats given) and Brazen Atk/Spd 3.

[XRay]

6 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

+12/12/0/0 combat buffs is behind the cost of 5 damage per round of combat and a requirement to be under 80% of HP.

That cost is small compared to the power you gain in return. In my opinion, the damage is more of a benefit rather than a cost since it helps activate the other half of Ragnarok as well as Desperation.

Edited September 27, 2018 by XRay

[colossus86]

19 minutes ago, XRay said:

Since Ragnarok exists, this Dark Aura pales in comparison 6/6/0/0 is nothing compared to 12/12/0/0. Giving 6/6/0/0 to melee units is also pretty reasonable, since they do not have the reach of ranged units. The Candlelight effect also needs set up and the right positioning, so it is not something reliable in my opinion.

I guess we can agree to disagree about the Feint skills, i haven't had much of an issue setting them up on any map where your units aren't split up at the start but i haven't done of a ton of testing either.

However i find Ragnarok to be a very poor comparison for Dark Aura. While it is certainly true that Ragnarok can give +12 Atk/Spd there are a few points you didn't mention

1.+12 Atk/Spd is a result of combining both of the effects of the weapon, so while giving Celica all those stats is certainly powerful, that is the only thing the weapon does. In this hypothetical situation, The bonus atk is only half of what Dark Aura does so it would make sense if Ragnarok was the more impressive weapon.

2. Dark Aura is a field buff that can potentially effect all 3 of Delthea's allies, so it stands to reason the strength of that buff has to be scaled back. The reason Yato grants stronger buffs than Marth's Falchion is because Marth has the ability to buff multiple allies at one time

3.Again comparing a self buffing weapon that only gives stats in combat is a really poor point of comparison to what is essentially a utility weapon in Dark Aura since selfish in combat buffs and selfless field buffs are basically polar opposites as far as effects go

Edited September 27, 2018 by colossus86
Grammer

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, XRay said:

That cost is small compared to the power you gain in return. In my opinion, the damage is more of a benefit rather than a cost since it helps activate the other half of Ragnarok as well as Desperation.

You can literally argue the exact same thing about Fury.

[XRay]

2 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

1.+12 Atk/Spd is a result of combining both of the effects of the weapon, so while giving Celica all those stats is certainly powerful, that is the only thing the weapon does. In this hypothetical situation, The bonus atk is only half of what Dark Aura does so it would make sense if Ragnarok was the more impressive weapon.

12 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

3.Again comparing a self buffing weapon that only gives stats in combat is a really poor point of comparison to what is essentially a utility weapon in Dark Aura since selfish in combat buffs and selfless field buffs are basically polar opposites as far as effects go

Massive self buff is superior to buffing everyone a little bit. It is more efficient for one nuke to do the work of multiple units than multiple nukes doing the work of multiple units.

6 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

2. Dark Aura is a field buff that can potentially effect all 3 of Delthea's allies, so it stands to reason the strength of that buff has to be scaled back. The reason Yato grants stronger buffs than Marth's Falchion is because Marth has the ability to buff multiple allies at one time

Her buffs are scaled back, as she buffs only melee units. Melee units cannot take advantage of their buffs to the same degree as ranged units because melee units' reach is much lower.

16 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

You can literally argue the exact same thing about Fury.

Exactly. For Desperation nukes, the only draw back to using Fury is that it gives less Atk/Spd than other A skills. Other than that, Fury is basically all positives.

For PvE, depending on the map, Fury is superior to Life and Death and Swift Sparrow for ranged fliers as they need to be in Desperation range when enemy archers show up.

[Ice Dragon]

4 minutes ago, XRay said:

Exactly. For Desperation nukes, the only draw back to using Fury is that it gives less Atk/Spd than other A skills. Other than that, Fury is basically all positives.

And makes you mostly worthless on enemy phase. Sure, you might not ever intend to use them on enemy phase, but you could have and no longer can.

 

1 minute ago, XRay said:

For PvE, depending on the map, Fury is superior to Life and Death and Swift Sparrow for ranged fliers as they need to be in Desperation range when enemy archers show up.

That's what Iote's Shield, Firesweep Bow, and Litrblade are for. Or running a single melee unit in your team (hint: two of the three flying dancers are melee units).

[colossus86]

8 minutes ago, XRay said:

Massive self buff is superior to buffing everyone a little bit. It is more efficient for one nuke to do the work of multiple units than multiple nukes doing the work of multiple units.

Her buffs are scaled back, as she buffs only melee units. Melee units cannot take advantage of their buffs to the same degree as ranged units because melee units' reach is much lower.

Exactly. For Desperation nukes, the only draw back to using Fury is that it gives less Atk/Spd than other A skills. Other than that, Fury is basically all positives.

For PvE, depending on the map, Fury is superior to Life and Death and Swift Sparrow for ranged fliers as they need to be in Desperation range when enemy archers show up.

In regards to your first point, that's simply a subjective statement that i'd assume is based on your play style. There are plenty of situations in both PvE and arena in which multiple allies engage in combat on the same turn and in those cases there's plenty of value in buffing multiple allies. Even though the current arena meta encourages feeding all kills to a single unit that doesn't mean your other units literally never engage in combat as there are some kills you mathematically cant get with your bonus unit and sometimes you need to soften people up or tank specials.

In regards to your 2nd point, you can argue melee units don't need the same degree of buffs as ranged units since they have better BST in the first place. Also the only abilities in the game that give 6/6 buffs are Hones with move restrictions and link skills that require the use of an action.

Again i don't really understand why you want to compare a pure Combat Tome in Ragnarok and a Support Tome in Dark Aura.

One other thing I'd like to add is that refines often don't make everyone happy. Nephenee's refine was underwhelming for people who preferred her as a player phase unit. Titania's refine sucked for people who don't like/use tactics teams That's just the way it goes sometimes

[XRay]

20 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

And makes you mostly worthless on enemy phase. Sure, you might not ever intend to use them on enemy phase, but you could have and no longer can.

I guess this is where we will probably never agree. Dual phasing is nice, but it is something that I think is overvalued and unnecessary when having a solid performance in one phase is sufficient.

20 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

That's what Iote's Shield, Firesweep Bow, and Litrblade are for. Or running a single melee unit in your team (hint: two of the three flying dancers are melee units).

Iote's Shield compromises a flying Blade mage's combat performance since it serves no purpose after Desperation is activated, whereas Attack +3/Speed +3 remains useful throughout the whole battle. Firesweep Bow cannot kill things fast enough on higher difficulty PvE maps, and the lack of Distant Counter units makes Brave Bow more viable. Melee nukes are harder to extract out of enemy range since they have to go deeper into their territory.

19 hours ago, colossus86 said:

In regards to your first point, that's simply a subjective statement that i'd assume is based on your play style. There are plenty of situations in both PvE and arena in which multiple allies engage in combat on the same turn and in those cases there's plenty of value in buffing multiple allies.

In Arena, ignoring scoring, Firesweep archer and a Dancer/Singer are all you need to beat practically 100% of the defense teams sans pony teams on trench-less Arena maps. Third and forth units are entirely unnecessary outside of baiting ponies on Enemy Phase or luring them close and then kill them all at once on.

Celica is no Firesweep archer, but she comes pretty close and she just needs a green Dancer/Singer to cover for blues. The few reds that she cannot cover can be easily dealt with using any non green unit.

19 hours ago, colossus86 said:

Even though the current arena meta encourages feeding all kills to a single unit that doesn't mean your other units literally never engage in combat as there are some kills you mathematically cant get with your bonus unit and sometimes you need to soften people up or tank specials.

Unless the player screws up their team's color balance and coverage, the bonus unit's teammates do not need to buffs to kill things that the bonus unit has trouble killing.

20 hours ago, colossus86 said:

In regards to your 2nd point, you can argue melee units don't need the same degree of buffs as ranged units since they have better BST in the first place. Also the only abilities in the game that give 6/6 buffs are Hones with move restrictions and link skills that require the use of an action.

Not being able to buff ranged allies is a big deal. It restricts team composition the same way Tactics restricts team composition. The fact that Delthea cannot give everyone 6/6/0/0 buffs is a strong enough draw back to warrant 6/6/0/0 buffs for the allies that she can buff.

20 hours ago, colossus86 said:

Again i don't really understand why you want to compare a pure Combat Tome in Ragnarok and a Support Tome in Dark Aura.

Support skills are better utilized by non combatants like Dancers/Singers. For role compression, it is better to have a Dancer/Singer double as a buffer than having a nuke double as a buffer. A team comprising of buffing Dancer/Singer and super offensive nukes is better than a team comprising of a non-buffing Dancer/Singer with less offensive nukes that has buffing capabilities.

20 hours ago, colossus86 said:

One other thing I'd like to add is that refines often don't make everyone happy. Nephenee's refine was underwhelming for people who preferred her as a player phase unit. Titania's refine sucked for people who don't like/use tactics teams That's just the way it goes sometimes

I personally do not care what Intelligent Systems come up with. It is not like the special Refinement is the only Refinement available, there are still stat Refinements.

[Kaden]

Eh, thought about it, mentioned it in another thread in passing. A weird idea for the Princess of Gra, Sheena.

Gra's Protector: 16 Mt. "Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1)." Unique refinement: "If unit’s Res ≥ foe’s Res+5, foe cannot make a follow-up attack."

It was just a thought about a resistance check version of Myrrh's Great Flame. Perhaps it's too powerful considering resistance is generally lower than defense and it's not like armors or greens need another Omnibreaker. Still an idea that I wanted to play around with.

Someone already talked about Clive being given his lance from SoV early on, https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/81253-general-weapon-refinery-discussionspeculationcreation-thread/&do=findComment&comment=5165200, but its anti-armor combat art was made into its unique refine which is a bit weird as no weapon that has effective damage needs to choose its unique refine so far and it would suck if Clive would have to choose that just to gain effective damage while others don't or have effective damage against two movement types for their weapon's base effect. Anyway, considering one new lance that havs been introduced since then, specifically the Gae Bolg, I feel like this might be an interesting set of effects for the knight of Zofia.

Clive's Lance: 16 Mt. "Effective against armored foes. In combat against an armored foe, grants Atk/Def+5 during combat." Unique refinement: "If unit initiates combat, grants Atk+6 during combat."

So, Clive's Lance in SoV has three combat arts: Wrath Strike, Armorcrush, and Lunge. The focus of the idea for Clive's Lance in Heroes is completely anti-armor with effective damage and the attack and defense boost effect borrowed from Quan's Gae Bolg. I did toy with the idea of it also having a resistance boost since there are armored mages and dragons, but that might be too much even though his lance would only target one movement type instead of three like Quan's. Wrath Strike is translated as Death Blow. It's literally Death Blow in SoV. I did think about Fierce Stance at first, but Wrath Strike, like the other combat arts in SoV, requires that you initiate combat, the opposite of Fierce Stance. I guess it could work in a sense of removing the stat boosts against armored foes and having its base effect be effective damage against armors and Fierce Stance 3 while keeping its unique refinement as Death Blow 3 which would allow Clive to have +6 damage on both phases.

I've been thinking about Mathilda a lot lately since I kind of want her to my next merge project, but I'm not sure what lance she would get other than simply giving her Rhomphaia where Clair actually has her own lance in SoV that probably would not have been as good as Rhomphaia's Wing Spear to Caeda's Wing Sword in Heroes.

Long spiel about Mathilda and why I chose Saunion and Sol as new weapon ideas for her.

Spoiler

Like Clair and Clive, Fernand has his own lance, Emperor's Lance is Rudolf's, Gradivius is obvious to who it would belong to, and Berkut gains Kriemhild at the end of the game which means either they're going to save it for a corrupted Berkut alt or maybe give it to Berkut in the future. That leaves Blessed Lance, Duma's Lance, Saunion, Sol, and Venin Lance which exists and isn't anything special so I'm going to ignore it.

Blessed Lance I feel like it should be an inheritable lance that Conrad introduces with maybe Azura gaining a personal version of it. While Duma is a manakete, they could give him Duma's Lance if they choose to make two versions of him: pre-maddened Duma as a lance unit and post-maddened Duma as a manakete. It would still work for Mathilda, however, its Vendetta combat art which would be Vengeance in Heroes, wouldn't really play well with Mathilda's low HP. That's if it's translated as Vengeance and not Wrath which at that point they should give it to Duma or someone else since a lance Berserk Armads would sell; Duma's Lance also increases critical by +10 so that could be translated as special cooldown count-1.

Saunion and Sol are the two that remains. Saunion is a 2-3 range lance that has Swap (Swap), Defensive (-5 damage from physical attacks), and Archballista as its combat arts (Range +2). It'd be weird for a melee weapon to not work at 1-range, so let's say it has Distant Counter instead. Yeah, I don't see them suddenly giving a Distant Counter weapon like that, especially since Mathilda would be summonable unlike the Black Knight, Camus, and Xander and at 3* to 4* no less. So, let's ignore Archballista.

Defensive would either be Close Def, Steady Stance, or Vidofnir's effect, but expanded to bows and daggers. Mathilda's not exactly physically tanky with her 35 base neutral HP and 24 base neutral defense, but either one would help her. With Close Def, however she could run Distant Def as her A passive or seal to have 30/40 defenses on enemy phase and regardless of range. With Distant Def as her A passive, she'd be able to stack either one for more defense and resistance at the range you choose or whatever seal you want and as her seal, she could run Distant Counter to counter at all ranges barring skills that prevent her from doing so and with pretty good defenses. Or you could just stack three Close Defs for +18 Def/Res, 42/52 defenses, against 1-range units. Steady Stance would work similarly. That just begs the question of what its unique refine would even be.

Alternatively, Defensive could be translated as a damage reduction skill similar to Escutcheon and Pavise or maybe have Shield Pulse as one of its effects, but that would require Mathilda needing to run a defensive special to make use of Shield Pulse.

Sol is much more straightforward. In Gaiden, it restored 5 HP every turn while in SoV, its one and only combat was Solar Thrust which grants +20 Mt and +15 to Hit. So, pretty much Renewal or even Recover Ring and Death Blow. Alternatively, you could go for Awakening's version of Sol which is a sword, that grants Sol, the skill. Either way, Mathilda would have really good sustain with Sol being able to recovery health passively and even by activating a special.

Saunion: 16 Mt. As noted in my spiel, Archballista translated Distant Counter was omitted since I don't think the developers would give a character without a personal weapon a Distant Counter weapon (at this point in time) and especially to one who can be summoned as a 3* and 4*.

Base effect/Unique refinement ideas:

• Defensive translated as a defense boosting skill:
  • If purely against physical damage, then "If foe initiates combat and uses sword, lance, axe, bow, or dagger, grants Def+7 during combat" (Vidofnir, but expanded).
    • If this happens or the Close Def option happens, then Vidofnir better get a refine soon because this would suck for Tana let alone the fact that a Safeguard version of her lance would trade 1 defense for being able to work against all units.
  • If simply a defense boosting skill, then "If foe initiates combat, grants Def+6 during combat" (Steady Stance).
  • If against 1-range units, then "If foe initiates combat and uses sword, lance, axe, or dragonstone, grants Def/Res+6 during combat" (Close Def).
• Defensive translated as a physical damage reduction skill akin to Escutcheon or Pavise:
  • "If foe uses sword, lance, axe, bow, or dagger, reduces damage from foe's first attack by 50%" (Physical version of Divine Tyrfing).
  • "If foe uses sword, lance, axe, bow, or dagger, reduces damage from foe's attacks by 30%" (Stupid idea that's probably busted).

Saunion's a bit weird. I don't really know what would work as a base effect if those are its unique refinement and vice versa. The "I can't think of anything" answer would be special cooldown count-1 because that works for everything. My stupid answer is if it's for the physical damage reduction ideas, then special cooldown count-1 and either effects for its base effects and Shield Pulse as its unique refinement as Mathilda being a cavalry unit cannot use Shield Pulse on her own which would set her apart. With the right skills, she'd be hilariously tanky against either 1-range or 2-range physical damage units. That's probably too powerful, though, especially with the second option of reducing damage by 30% for all attacks.

Sol: 16 Mt. "At the start of every second turn, restores 10 HP" (Renewal).

Unique refinement ideas:

• If based on Solar Thrust, then "If unit initiates combat, grants Atk+6 during combat" (Death Blow) or perhaps "If unit initiates combat, grants Atk/Spd+4 during combat" (Swift Sparrow).
• If based on Awakening's Sol sword which grants Sol the skill and Solar Brace, then "Restores HP = 30% of damage dealt when Special triggers. (Stacks with effects of skills like Sol.)"

[bottlegnomes]

@Kaden Safeguard also grants +7, and for all intents and purposes, the hypothetical saunion works against all enemies, as you named all the  physical weapon types. There's some edge cases like deactivating Great Breath, but those are incredibly rare from what I remember, to the point where it would basically be functionally identical. Then again, I may be missing some big ones because it's late and I'm known for not paying that much attention to things in this game. Also, 50% is an aberration, Sigurd being the only one. Seems like they tried it on him, but thought it was too powerful, and dropped it to 30% go everyone else.

If you did shield pulse, that seems like a decent refine option with whatever defense boost as the base effect. Obviously, not everyone would pick it, but it doesn't seem like it'd be any less worthwhile than some existing unique refinements. Inherit DC to her, and she could turn into a Fjorm-lite of sorts.

Edited September 28, 2018 by bottlegnomes

[Kaden]

10 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

Safeguard also grants +7, and for all intents and purposes, the hypothetical saunion works against all enemies, as you named all the  physical weapon types. There's some edge cases like deactivating Great Breath, but those are incredibly rare from what I remember, to the point where it would basically be functionally identical. Then again, I may be missing some big ones because it's late and I'm known for not paying that much attention to things in this game.

Yeah, I messed up on that, but I can't edit my post for some reason. Happens whenever I do large posts for some reason. Anyway, the first option for Saunion wouldn't work on Great Flame unlike the second and third options. Physical damage includes the weapons I listed, axes, bows, daggers, lances, and sword while magical damage includes dragonstone, staves, and tomes.

9 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

Also, 50% is an aberration, Sigurd being the only one. Seems like they tried it on him, but thought it was too powerful, and dropped it to 30% for everyone else.

The only problem I have with that is the units given weapons with percentage-based damage reduction skills after Sigurd are all ranged units, Jeorge, regular Leo, and regular Micaiah, and all target ranged units, any foe using tomes for Jeorge, Leo, and Sigurd for that matter and armored foes using bows, daggers, staffs, and tomes for Micaiah. As ranged units, Jeorge, Leo, and Micaiah would all be able to counterattack without needing Distant Counter unlike Sigurd. Micaiah is also the only unit with a percentage-based damage reduction skill that affects physical damage, bows and daggers. That said, ranged units tend to have weaker effects or have more restrictions for some things like they get less stats from stat refines or none at all if they choose a unique refine or if they're a healer since Dazzling/Wrathful Staff are kind of unique, they don't have access to all of the specials, particularly the defensive ones where Sacred Cowl and Aegis would make sense for them, etc. It makes sense, though, considering ranged units are stronger when they can safely attack most units, healers and mages target resistance which tends to be lower, mages have access to the busted -blade tomes, and among other things.

So far, we've yet to be introduced a unit with a purely physical or 1-range damage reduction effect on their weapon nor have we been introduced another 1-range unit with a magic or ranged damage reduction effect. For the former, L'Arachel getting a refine for Ivaldi that lets her take 30% less damage from physical damage could work to emulate its home game's +5 defense boost instead of relying on L'Arachel somehow having decent defense with +3 Def from Ivaldi and her 17 base defense. For the latter, there's Gray, Saber, and Tobin getting new swords and the remaining playable Dread Fighters, Deen, Jesse, and Kamui, of Gaiden/SoV who in SoV, have Apotrope that reduces magic damage by 50%. They could just come with weapons that require them to be refined to gain the damage reduction effect be it 50% less for the first hit or even 30% less for all hits. I've talked about this in the general discussion: https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/68256-fire-emblem-heroes-general-discussion-and-links/&do=findComment&comment=5313971.

So, I think it's tough to say without there being another melee unit being given a similar weapon. If, say, Jesse shows up with Apotrope on his sword and it only reduces magic damage by 30% for the first hit, then sure, it was probably a one time deal for Sigurd. At the same time, while Divine Tyrfing is powerful, it feels like the developers are one upping everything or just want to make everything powerful which makes sense since people don't like their favorite characters being bad. Mediocre is fine, but bad, numerically, on paper, in practice, whatever, is probably a definite no for most people. At times, it just feels gross. For one, I feel like BH Lucina, Roy, and by extension Arden, Deirdre, and Tailtiu got shafted when boosted stats became the norm shortly after. Anyway, I digress.

[bottlegnomes]

@Kaden That's a good point. I suppose we would have to wait, and it's not like Mathilda is killing it in terms of bulk already. If anything, it'd benefit her less since Sigurd dumps res, but that only really matters half as much due to the decrease being percentage based, while Mathilda dumps some def and, importantly, some HP. And yeah, definitely know what you mean with the topping themselves. All L!Tiki needs to be the highest scoring unit in the game is to not get her super bane :\

[Titamon]

Ninian

Frost Breath: 16 MT. Unit can counterattack regardless of distance. If foe's range = 2, damage is calculated using lower of foes def or res.

Unique refine: If Sing or Dance is used, target and unit are also granted Def/Res+6.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Titamon

[colossus86]

Just some ideas i had

Leif: base effect is fine but for the refine "if special is triggered by units attack, units special targets the lower of foe's def or res on activation"

This is the best idea i could come up with to make the weapon both better and more faithful to Leif's version of the weapon. Adaptive damage on every attack like Felicia would probably be overkill for him.

Oboro: Waterwheel (NEW) standard 16 mt base effect is Close def 3. Eff refine will be Guard 3.

While it might not seem too sexy i think this is both a faithful recreation of Waterwheel (it gives def/res and critical evade in fates) and would allow Oboro to stonewall both red and blue threats particularly those of the bold fighter variety.

[Corrobin]

Why don't we have Slaying tomes (outside of Mjolnir and Excalibur) that are inheritable?

[colossus86]

1 hour ago, Corrobin said:

Why don't we have Slaying tomes (outside of Mjolnir and Excalibur) that are inheritable?

My guess is that initially they felt that there were very few good units that have good res so mages didn't need the extra offense.

Nowadays it's so hard for a non pfr to actually outperform a bladetome IS just isn't bothering with generic tomes

[Corrobin]

8 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

My guess is that initially they felt that there were very few good units that have good res so mages didn't need the extra offense.

Nowadays it's so hard for a non pfr to actually outperform a bladetome IS just isn't bothering with generic tomes

*Points to my Triangle Adept Raventome mages*

BOI.

[colossus86]

17 minutes ago, Corrobin said:

*Points to my Triangle Adept Raventome mages*

BOI.

I feel you dude my TA Lyon puts in so much work in AA every week

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, colossus86 said:

Just some ideas i had

Leif: base effect is fine but for the refine "if special is triggered by units attack, units special targets the lower of foe's def or res on activation"

This is the best idea i could come up with to make the weapon both better and more faithful to Leif's version of the weapon. Adaptive damage on every attack like Felicia would probably be overkill for him.

Oboro: Waterwheel (NEW) standard 16 mt base effect is Close def 3. Eff refine will be Guard 3.

While it might not seem too sexy i think this is both a faithful recreation of Waterwheel (it gives def/res and critical evade in fates) and would allow Oboro to stonewall both red and blue threats particularly those of the bold fighter variety.

Does Light Brand still retain its original effect? Because it could potentially end up doing less damage if the enemy's Res is five less than their defense.

[colossus86]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Does Light Brand still retain its original effect? Because it could potentially end up doing less damage if the enemy's Res is five less than their defense.

Yeah it keeps the original on hit effect