General Weapon Refinery discussion/speculation/creation thread

[XRay]

1 minute ago, daisy jane said:

but why would you want 2 +10 robins?
(and robin is the only source of Blue Tomebreaker). so....i dunno.

I like the flexibility just in case I need it. I can assign each copy different Blessings.

And in case I ever get the urge to build a meme team around only F!Robins or something, in which case, I will probably have only two 5*+10 and leave the rest unmerged so I can have a harem of F!Robin doppelgangers in Aether Resort or something.

5 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Do you even know @XRay? I think he used to run three 5* +10 Reinhardts with different builds on each plus a bait unit for his Arena team.

I only have one 5*+10 Reinhardt, but the other two are highly merged. I have a fourth one at 5*+0 for copying strategy videos.

[colossus86]

13 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

but why would you want 2 +10 robins?
(and robin is the only source of Blue Tomebreaker). so....i dunno.

Also having multiple +10s of a unit could be very useful for AR due to how blessings work. I plan on having 2 +10 Aversas one day.

[bottlegnomes]

20 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Kagero's Dart... TBH, it's a little weird to me. The base effect is fine, and Kagero can definitely get it to trigger on a good number of foes. But... the special refine is just weird to me. It doesn't really enhance her general playstyle, it just makes her less likely to die in one hit. Which... that's not bad, but it is kinda weird to me.

I think that's the big thing. Kagero is squishy, like real squishy (my -atk Hrid OHKOs her with no buffs for example). This lets her pretty safely enter desperation range.

When initiating with L&D3 Kagero would be looking at
31/61/41/17/19 (+atk/-res; gets effect on enemies with < 57 atk)
31/58/44/17/19 (+spd/-res; gets effect on enemies with < 54 atk)

With the unique refinement, an enemy unit would need a very hefty 79 physical or 81 magical attack to OHKO her, assuming this works the same as other damage mitigating skills and applies after defense is subtracted. True, it doesn't change her playstyle, but it does make her a whole lot more effective, fixing both of her major issues (lowish speed and squishy). That said, I think my biggest gripe is that the weapon probably would've been better with just Swift Sparrow regarding the unique refine. Now, if she does come across someone she doesn't out-strength, she loses the bonus making her worse against enemies that are strong but squishy. I guess it does have that it opens up some EP possibilities if you want to go with a different refine for some reason. Maybe something crazy like Steady/Warding Stance 4, +def or res, def or res refinement, and Fierce Stance seal. Seems like it's asking for trouble, but might be fun as a meme build.

Edited June 10, 2019 by bottlegnomes

[colossus86]

6 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

That said, I think my biggest gripe is that the weapon probably would've been better with just Swift Sparrow regarding the unique refine. Now, if she does come across someone she doesn't out-strength, she loses the bonus making her worse against enemies that are strong but squishy. I guess it does have that it opens up some EP possibilities if you want to go with a different refine for some reason. Maybe something crazy like Steady/Warding Stance 4, +def or res, def or res refinement, and Fierce Stance seal. Seems like it's asking for trouble, but might be fun as a meme build.

I think you're underestimating the strength of this for AR. While it being swift sparrow would be fine, the fact that it can work duel phase gives it much more upside.

See can run CC, Vantage, Atk Smoke, Fierce stance. Smite her in to pick someone off, spread dagger debuffs and atk smoke to make her targets more fragile and making the atk check easier to hit. For just offense a stat refine might be better, but the effect could come in handy depending on who you want to pick off and its great for defense regardless. I'm honestly loving this weapon more and more as I think about it.

[daisy jane]

3 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

Also having multiple +10s of a unit could be very useful for AR due to how blessings work. I plan on having 2 +10 Aversas one day.

I suppose. but i guess for me because i'd rather make sure i have enough resources to +10 a lot of units not multiple copies of the same one - that just seems like a waste though i mean, favourites etc i get it. like i'm still waiting for a unit i can kill for flier formation for example. 

[Zangetsu]

I'm pretty disappointed that Kagero's Dart isn't an upgrade from the poison but beggars can't choosers.

 

As Heroes repeatedly demonstrated.

[colossus86]

Just now, daisy jane said:

I suppose. but i guess for me because i'd rather make sure i have enough resources to +10 a lot of units not multiple copies of the same one - that just seems like a waste though i mean, favourites etc i get it. like i'm still waiting for a unit i can kill for flier formation for example. 

Doesn't that Loki we got a little while back have flier formation? And at 4 star

[daisy jane]

Just now, colossus86 said:

Doesn't that Loki we got a little while back have flier formation? And at 4 star

 

like i said. a unit i can kill 😉 

[bottlegnomes]

4 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

I think you're underestimating the strength of this for AR. While it being swift sparrow would be fine, the fact that it can work duel phase gives it much more upside.

See can run CC, Vantage, Atk Smoke, Fierce stance. Smite her in to pick someone off, spread dagger debuffs and atk smoke to make her targets more fragile and making the atk check easier to hit. For just offense a stat refine might be better, but the effect could come in handy depending on who you want to pick off and its great for defense regardless. I'm honestly loving this weapon more and more as I think about it.

Good point. I tend to forget about AR and how it's generally played. Going with +10, because why not?, and that setup, she'd effectively have 35/79/46/39/45 with +6 to all stats. If someone does happen to have whichever null skill it is, she's still probably screwed, but at least that doesn't seem to be especially common. Looking over the stats table, 79 attack does allow for OHKOing a lot of the irritating enemies, e.g. Ophelia. Bulky enemies, especially armors, would still cause problems for her—I didn't realize just how bulky they'd gotten—but at least it does give her coverage against a pretty large section of the cast.

[XRay]

23 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

See can run CC, Vantage, Atk Smoke, Fierce stance. Smite her in to pick someone off, spread dagger debuffs and atk smoke to make her targets more fragile and making the atk check easier to hit. For just offense a stat refine might be better, but the effect could come in handy depending on who you want to pick off and its great for defense regardless. I'm honestly loving this weapon more and more as I think about it.

For Counter-Vantage to work effectively, the unit needs stupidly insane high Atk and not just regular high Atk. I personally do not think Kagero falls under the stupidly high Atk category.

Kagero +Atk got 38 Atk, 15 Mt from Kagero's Dart with Atk Refinement, 7 "Atk" from Savage Blow, 7 Atk from Brazen Sacred Seal, and 6 Atk from VS!Azura for a total of 73 guaranteed Atk, and 77 Atk if her Weapon activates.

For comparison, at 5*+0, Blade mages often hit 85+ Atk, with the best Blade mages, Laevatein, and Ares, hitting 90+ Atk.

[colossus86]

Just now, XRay said:

For Counter-Vantage to work effectively, the unit needs stupidly insane high Atk and not just regular high Atk. I personally do not think Kagero falls under the stupidly high Atk category.

Kagero +Atk got 38 Atk, 15 Mt from Kagero's Dart with Atk Refinement, 7 "Atk" from Savage Blow, 7 Atk from Brazen Sacred Seal, and 6 Atk from VS!Azura for a total of 73 guaranteed Atk, and 77 Atk if her Weapon activates.

For comparison, at 5*+0, Blade mages often hit 85+ Atk, with the best Blade mages, Laevatein, and Ares, hitting 90+ Atk.

Eh I have a +10 Jeorge who's tearing up AR this season with only 52 Atk. Granted he'll have the standard +6 field buff, Fierce Stance, and Parthia (when aplicable) which only comes out to 70 Atk if its a ranged unit and it works fine. Keep in mind high defense units are very rare in AR, and then they often have their def debuffed by 7+ from a variety of effects.

A Kagero with no merges or dragon flowers can still hit around 70 atk and realistically if you're going to use a unit in AR, especially one availible at 3 star, you're going to be willing to go the mile for them. I think she has plenty of Atk.

[XRay]

12 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

Eh I have a +10 Jeorge who's tearing up AR this season with only 52 Atk. Granted he'll have the standard +6 field buff, Fierce Stance, and Parthia (when aplicable) which only comes out to 70 Atk if its a ranged unit and it works fine. Keep in mind high defense units are very rare in AR, and then they often have their def debuffed by 7+ from a variety of effects.

A Kagero with no merges or dragon flowers can still hit around 70 atk and realistically if you're going to use a unit in AR, especially one availible at 3 star, you're going to be willing to go the mile for them. I think she has plenty of Atk.

High Def units are not rare in Aether Raids, at least not rare in Tier 21. High Def units also have really high physical bulk. Neutral Caineghis at 5*+0 with his vanilla kit got 88 physical bulk at melee range with no buffs. Even neutral Tibarn got 85 physical bulk at 5*+0 when he initiates.

Edited June 10, 2019 by XRay

[colossus86]

1 minute ago, XRay said:

High Def units are not rare in Aether Raids, at least not rare in Tier 21. High Def units also have really high physical bulk. Neutral Caineghis at 5*+0 with his vanilla kit got 88 physical bulk at melee range with no buffs. Even neutral Tibarn got 85 physical bulk at 5*+0 when he initiates.

I suppose our personal experiences differ then. Because I'm currently T24 and the only bulky thing I've seen more than one of is Duma. There might have also been a swordhardt somewere in there too.

Also keep in mind she doesn't need to kill everything ever to be valuable. On the occasions I do come across a very bulky team i just switch to a different strat. We have 5 offense teams afterall.

[XRay]

4 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

Also keep in mind she doesn't need to kill everything ever to be valuable. On the occasions I do come across a very bulky team i just switch to a different strat. We have 5 offense teams afterall.

Counter-Vantage units do not need to kill everything, but the more stuff they can kill, the more reliable they are. For the same level of investment, a Blade mage like Tailtiu is more effective and cheaper to build.

[colossus86]

7 minutes ago, XRay said:

Counter-Vantage units do not need to kill everything, but the more stuff they can kill, the more reliable they are. For the same level of investment, a Blade mage like Tailtiu is more effective and cheaper to build.

In theory perhaps, but blade weapons cease to function the seccond you get panicked. Also you lose 20% of your attack against certain targets which can hurt the whole one shotting thing. Additionally the special penalty on the generic ones can be siuationally really bad to deal with. Another, albeit relatively minor convern is if there's still any relevent combat after the initial turn and you're out of range of your field buffs (which can certainly happen with smites) you've lost your power. And god help you if you come across a dull skill.

[XRay]

6 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

In theory perhaps, but blade weapons cease to function the seccond you get panicked. Also you lose 20% of your attack against certain targets which can hurt the whole one shotting thing. Additionally the special penalty on the generic ones can be siuationally really bad to deal with. Another, albeit relatively minor convern is if there's still any relevent combat after the initial turn and you're out of range of your field buffs (which can certainly happen with smites) you've lost your power. And god help you if you come across a dull skill.

Being Panicked is an issue, but that is generally easy to avoid since you can simply position your Counter-Vantage unit off center to the Panic Ploy enemy or Panic Manor (D).

Special penalty is not an issue since Counter-Vantage units will only get to use their Specials 1 out of 2 rounds of combat at best if they equip Slaying Weapons, so it is better to just rely on raw Atk numbers. The only unit that really relies on Specials for their stupid high Atk is Ares with his Bonfire spam.

B slot Dulls are kind of rare in my experience. The only time I remember seeing it is when I saw M!Morgan once.

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, Xenomata said:

Kagero's Dart... TBH, it's a little weird to me. The base effect is fine, and Kagero can definitely get it to trigger on a good number of foes. But... the special refine is just weird to me. It doesn't really enhance her general playstyle, it just makes her less likely to die in one hit. Which... that's not bad, but it is kinda weird to me.

Kagero is extremely squishy and it helps keep her alive.

It's worth noting that neutral Kagero has only 53/59 bulk, which is terrible. At +10 and with +3 HP from a unique weapon refine, her bulk only hits 64/70, which is still not good considering the physical powerhouses in this game can hit 70 Atk or higher with buffs.

That 50% damage reduction effectively increases her bulk to a massive 128/140, and that's before skills and buffs.

 

1 hour ago, daisy jane said:

but why would you want 2 +10 robins?

The problem is that the cost of each copy goes up as you get more of them, meaning you would ideally want to buy the minimum number of each character as physically possible because the cost of just buying one more than you have is so inefficient given that the resource is highly limited.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[MrSmokestack]

Oscar’s refine is fantastic. I might actually build him up instead of Seth or Titania. He’ll be waiting a while though.

I’ve been wanting an excuse to build Kagero. However between having an invested Jamke and wanting to summon Cecilia merges from grails, I may have to pass.

[colossus86]

13 minutes ago, XRay said:

Being Panicked is an issue, but that is generally easy to avoid since you can simply position your Counter-Vantage unit off center to the Panic Ploy enemy or Panic Manor (D).

Special penalty is not an issue since Counter-Vantage units will only get to use their Specials 1 out of 2 rounds of combat at best if they equip Slaying Weapons, so it is better to just rely on raw Atk numbers. The only unit that really relies on Specials for their stupid high Atk is Ares with his Bonfire spam.

B slot Dulls are kind of rare in my experience. The only time I remember seeing it is when I saw M!Morgan once.

You're certainly correct that proximity based panic can usually be avoided, but Vantage units are particularly vulnerable to panic applied through combat. Remember you can't run both panic and Null-C (for now anyways). 

The special thing is actually not an issue of damage for me. My Jeorge runs Noontime. Now it might seem odd to run a healing special on a Vantage unit of all things but I've found it quite handy. Normally I smite Jeorge forward and have him pick someone off to apply def smoke and make his job easier. In an ideal world I can use a bolt trap to drop Jeorge into Vantage range with no combat, but that's not always practical or desirable depending on the map. So the only way to get into Vantage range is the old fashioned way. Having noontime ready for the first person to initiate on you helps if they have some sort of guaranteed follow up or are just hella fast to make sure you don't die.

In all honesty l do feel like my aversion to blade tomes on AR offense is a bit of paranoia/future proofing on my part since I feel like the counters are right there, people just don't opt to use them for a variety of reasons.

[Ice Dragon]

7 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

You're certainly correct that proximity based panic can usually be avoided, but Vantage units are particularly vulnerable to panic applied through combat. Remember you can't run both panic and Null-C (for now anyways). 

The only way Panic can be applied through combat is for the enemy unit to actually have a chance to attack. If your Vantage unit is giving the opponent a chance to attack, you've probably done something wrong.

Enemies with skills that disable Vantage should be have already been eliminated before you attempt your sweep. Otherwise, you're just asking for trouble.

[Hilda]

36 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Kagero is extremely squishy and it helps keep her alive.

 

That 50% damage reduction effectively increases her bulk to a massive 128/140, and that's before skills and buffs.

 

For the first hit yes, but anything that outspeeds her or can double her bulk is lower, still ok but lower.

But with Deflect melee and no close counter i doubt any melee unit is gonna kill her.

EDIT: Nevermind its only on initiating an Attack.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Hilda

[Mackc2]

1 minute ago, Hilda said:

For the first hit yes, but anything that outspeeds her or can double her bulk is lower, still ok but lower.

But with Deflect melee and no close counter i doubt any melee unit is gonna kill her.

Her affect only activates when she initiates 

[Hilda]

Just now, Mackc2 said:

Her affect only activates when she initiates 

yeah i just saw it, which makes the refine kinda okeish but not overwhelmingly good.

[colossus86]

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

The only way Panic can be applied through combat is for the enemy unit to actually have a chance to attack. If your Vantage unit is giving the opponent a chance to attack, you've probably done something wrong.

Enemies with skills that disable Vantage should be have already been eliminated before you attempt your sweep. Otherwise, you're just asking for trouble.

That's certainly the case but often you can only pick off one enemy safely and if they have multiple H. bearing or firesweep type units you lay find yourself in a tough spot. Of course if you're up against such a map you probably want to do something other than Vantage. 

But as I said. A decent chunk of my aversion to balde tomes is paranoia. I hate the idea of a weapon becomming worse than a silver weapon the seccond you get a debuff applied.

Edited June 10, 2019 by colossus86

[Hilda]

52 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

That's certainly the case but often you can only pick off one enemy safely and if they have multiple H. bearing or firesweep type units you lay find yourself in a tough spot. Of course if you're up against such a map you probably want to do something other than Vantage. 

But as I said. A decent chunk of my aversion to balde tomes is paranoia. I hate the idea of a weapon becomming worse than a silver weapon the seccond you get a debuff applied.

The only units with H. Bearing are Dancer Micaiah and Ophelia usually, unless they run inherited Festival Dancer daggers. Which is not the case. Never seen one in AR. And while i do encounter Dancer Micaiah occasionally in AR Defenses as a Dancer, she is generally used as a Dancer in offensiv mixed groups. and you only need Vantage for Infantry Pulse Teams. Which dont run Dancer Micaiah due to her shitty HP stat and rather rely on Ninian, which only leaves one unit with H.Bearing: usually Ophelia.