General Weapon Refinery discussion/speculation/creation thread

[Interdimensional Observer]

Selena stole her daughter-mother's Personal Skill kicked up a notch?

By that, I mean Caeldori's Prodigy. 

Prodigy

At the start of the battle, if the enemy’s Strength or Magic (whichever is highest) is higher than Caeldori’s corresponding stat, damage +4

Edited August 6, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[bottlegnomes]

21 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Looks like the greens win the day?

How so? Raven tomes are decidedly meh and this doesn't really do anything to help Boey's performance besides opening his A slot to like fierce stance, steady stance 4, or something. That's nice, but he's in a pretty bad spot and this doesn't really save him.

Personal opinions on the rest:

• Beruka's is pretty nice. Helps her tank more and while it doesn't actively help her combat, staying alive longer means she has more time to ruin someone's day with a special.
• Selena's is very nice. Armor effectiveness is always a plus, her non-attack stats already weren't terrible, so that's a nice buff that's almost certainly going to happen, and with Special Spiral and moonbow she's getting another +10 guaranteed. +atk Selena can hit 40/48/38/35/31 against enemies with 48+ attack, and gets one attack of 58 plus A skill, plus decreasing the enemy's def by 30%. Not astounding, but pretty solid.
• Mae does what Mae does well. Nuke shit. +atk gets her 71 attack with an assist and DB3 A slot which is solid. The speed is nice, but less vital near as I can tell. She'll hit 37 neutral, which lets her double some slower stuff, but not a ton. If you went +spd, SS2/3 or something, then she could hit some fairly good speed.
• As mentioned, Boey seems like he got the short end of the stick. Of all the tome units that got wwl tomes, the one who'd love one doesn't get it?

Edited August 6, 2019 by bottlegnomes

[Humanoid]

7 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

How so?

Depends on whether the expectation for the refines were to try to make these good generalist units or if it was satisfactory to give them a clear specialist role. Boey now has a clearly defined niche where previously I couldn't see a reason to build him at all. Probably happy with him as 4*+10 but still the one who will add most utility to my barracks out of these. A happy side effect is that it means Cecilia will probably not get a Prf Raventome. 😛

I'm happier with that kind of thing than I would with something like Selena's upgrade, because while it's a large boost to her performance, it still doesn't give me a reason to use her. Well, favouritism is a valid option for those who like her, I distinctly don't. That, and Reposition is just too valuable to merge away.

As for Mae, my usual combat tactics don't involve Link skills but it looks like her new Prf is at least situationally useful without a refinement when compared against her default Owltome.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I think all of these are great, especially Beruka. I want a green merge project and I've got ten of her manuals ready to be used.

[Diovani Bressan]

For Boey, I would prefer a Owl Tome with Close Counter than a Raven Tome with Close Counter.

[bottlegnomes]

15 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Depends on whether the expectation for the refines were to try to make these good generalist units or if it was satisfactory to give them a clear specialist role. Boey now has a clearly defined niche where previously I couldn't see a reason to build him at all. Probably happy with him as 4*+10 but still the one who will add most utility to my barracks out of these. A happy side effect is that it means Cecilia will probably not get a Prf Raventome. 😛

Maybe it's differences in playstyle, but I still don't see how Boey's refinement gives him a new niche. CC is nice, yeah, but he was running Owl + CC anyway which makes up for the loss of the A skill with good positioning (granted not always guaranteed). Versus a normal raven tome, this helps him against literally 3 enemies, Leanne, Velouria, and Caineghis. The rest are all ranged anyway, so this is basically just +2ish attack against them. If you mean that this lets him run CC at all for most people given the rarity of the skill, then I'll concede that point.

Edited August 6, 2019 by bottlegnomes

[Humanoid]

4 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

Maybe it's differences in playstyle, but I still don't see how Boey's refinement gives him a new niche. CC is nice, yeah, but he was running Owl + CC anyway which makes up for the loss of the A skill with good positioning (granted not always guaranteed). Versus a normal raven tome, this helps him against literally 3 enemies, Leanne, Velouria, and Caineghis. The rest are all ranged anyway, so this is basically just +2-4 attack against them. If you mean that this lets him run CC at all for most people given the rarity of the skill, then I'll concede that point.

Yeah, availability is a big thing for me, I've pulled one unit with CC ever, and that was a +Atk Takumi so he gets to live. The only spare one I have is therefore the freebie 4* one, and I'm considering sacking him for Kronya, we'll see.

The upgrade also looks a little better thanks to refined Raventome sadly not being a thing.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Humanoid

[bottlegnomes]

1 minute ago, Humanoid said:

Yeah, availability is a big thing for me, I've pulled one unit with CC ever, and that was a +Atk Takumi so he gets to live. The only spare one I have is therefore the freebie 4* one.

The upgrade also looks a little better thanks to refined Raventome sadly not being a thing.

Huh, I legit did not realize it wasn't refinable. That's +4 attack over a regular raven tome or +3 and CC, which I do suppose is nice. I do feel like raven is a bit of a slap when he would've loved owl so much, but at least he did get CC which is nice for those of us who don't (same on Taku, though I only have the free one :P).

[Xenomata]

Wow... I was kinda right about Selena getting Wo Dao refine on Armor Slaying, just... kinda missed the part where she got racist Fury.

Beruka... she got a neat Axe. Basically the same as giving a Def refine to a Slaying Axe, but also it's a Res refine and also Guard. I like it.

And then... neither of them got Owltomes? Huh... okay.

Mae... eh. I like Death Blow, not sure it has any synergy with Atk/Spd link besides forcing her into the battle.

Boey... may as well have gotten Close Counter. But hey, can't complain about a Prf Raventome on a unit who I gave a Raventome to.

Buuuuut... nothing here I'm desperate for.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Xenomata

[XRay]

Ugh, I hate Atk stat comparisons. At least Selena's Atk is really low though, so maybe it would not be too bad.

I am not a huge fan of Links. I think Mae is just better off with Blárblade unless the player really needs that Spd Refinement.

Beruka's Axe looks great.

I think Inscribed Tome is okay. Owl tomes are not bad, but I am not sure they are viable in Aether Raids, so Raven tomes feel more applicable.

Edited August 6, 2019 by XRay

[FoxyGrandpa]

Beruka and Selena have pretty sweet new weapons and refines. Guard + Special Accel reduction is a strong, tried and true combo and fees up Beruka's B-slot and sacred seal for other options like Aerobatics and QR. Selena's Armor effictive Wo Dao is pretty nice too and her attack is low enough that she can trigger its stat boost even with a plus attack nature vs most armored foes. However, with so many strong sword prfs among sword infantry like creator sword, refined Falchions, etc. I don't think this weapon will be enough to stop her from being completely outclassed. 

Mae's weapon and refine isn't that exciting in my opinion. 

Boey's refine is cool, but I really wish he kept his owl tome instead getting a prf raven tome. While his def is good, he really needed the stat boost from owl tome to patch up his other stats. At the very least, his A slot being free lets him run skills like Traingle adept for AA / CC or Bond skills for more general in-game content.

[Kaden]

3 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

For Boey, I would prefer a Owl Tome with Close Counter than a Raven Tome with Close Counter.

If only the developers weren't allergic to giving bulky units -owl effects. Boey with the 2 spaces -owl effect boosting his Atk/Def or Def/Res to a max of +6 to those stats with the almost Close Counter unique refinement would have worked too.

Regardless, I feel like Boey's and Mae's unique refinements were made with each other in mind. Boey's physically bulky mage who could Reposition or Swap Mae and stay in range of an enemy who hopefully can deal with and the unique refinement means he can counter against anyone who isn't a dragon or running a counterattack prevention skill. Doing so, he triggers Mae's unique refinement Atk/Spd Link where the attack is mostly the important one for Boey, but the speed could prevent some doubles. As for Mae, she's out of danger and if she still has her turn, can go nuke someone else while buffed. I'm probably overthinking things, but it's cute how well they work together before and after gaining their new tomes.

Personally, I feel like Boey and Mae are definite winners. Boey is our first unit with a weapon that has Close Counter, albeit, one you have to refine to have that effect and one that doesn't work on dragons which is where Julia comes in, but only against dragons. Thing with Boey is I'm not sure which asset he would want. +Atk is more damage, it bumps him up from an average 29 base neutral attack to a more respectable 32 base attack and would scale well with T-Adept if you mainly want him to be T-Adept -raven mage with almost Close Counter; +Def means he can take more damage from physical hits which unless they're running a Firesweep weapon, Watersweep, or whatever else preventing counterattacks, he should able to counter back; and +Res would be good for dealing with mages and healers considering Boey's base neutral resistance isn't good to say the least at 18. With the Boey-Mae thing, +Spd would be an option too since he'd have 30 base speed and Atk/Spd Link would give him 36. Go ham on Boey by having him inherit Bonus Doubler or somehow getting Ardent Durandal to work on him and he'd have 42 effective speed.

Mae's simple to use and you don't need to refine it to get a lot of it like with Caeda and Clair getting double effective damage weapons, Cherche and Klein getting personal Brave weapons, Felicia being able to target the lower defensive stat with her Plate, or Nino, Odin, and Tharja gaining personal -blade tomes without the +1 special cooldown penalty effect. It's a Death Blow 3 tome and just give her Death Blow 3 or L&D3 and there you go, Mae will go on a tear.

Beruka can become very tanky with her axe's unique refinement and she's up there with Boey and Mae. She will have to play around with her HP, but by default neutral Beruka's defenses are effectively 41/26 with the unique refinement's Atk-4 on her foe during combat. If they're in range of Tharja's Hex's Anathema effect which inflicts Atk/Spd-4 on foes within spaces of Tharja, then it goes up to 45/30 effective defenses and also, 27 effective speed. Anyway, back to Beruka, Fortress Def/Res would boost her defenses up to 43/28 outside of combat and 47/32 in combat. At +10 merges, it becomes 47/32 outside of combat and 51/36 in combat. +Def and +Res would increase the stat by 3, but +Atk might be a good option to make up for some of the attack loss from using Fortress Def/Res. Steady Stance 4 and Warding Stance 4 would work as well by extending the Guard effect to as long as she's not dead when her foe initiates and the +8 to the defensive stat. And of course, Distant Counter is an option if you don't want her to just be a wall when attacked by ranged units.

Selena's Blade I'm not so sure on. I haven't summoned a Kliff and I don't know how well his Sagittae's effect works. Selena's is weaker, but less stricter for her to pass its requirements and gain Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3 in combat, but maybe it being the unique refinement while the base effects being anti-armor and Killer would have worked better or maybe Guard instead of the underdog effect. A weird Special Spiral effect if her allies activate or even allies and nearby foes activate their special might have allowed her to do some wacky things. Regardless, after its unique refinement, it's like an Armorslayer Wo Dao and both swords are good for their own reasons.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Kaden

[Hilda]

oh man Boey ._. your refine ._.

I allready run a Litrblade close counter Boey. This refine does nothing 😕 well it frees up his A-Slot but i loose so much attack. At least i can slap now Bonus doubler on him. I mean he has abyssmal Attack, was it too much to ask for a something different then a Raventome!

Grats on Beruka for becomeing the most tankiest physical green flier! (she was it allready before but now even more lol)

Edited August 6, 2019 by Hilda

[Ice Dragon]

4 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

this doesn't really do anything to help Boey's performance besides opening his A slot to like fierce stance, steady stance 4, or something.

Opening up his A slot to skills like Fierce Stance, Steady Stance 4, or something is a pretty big deal. There are a lot of skills that have come out recently that are extremely good for enemy-phase units that units like Boey simply couldn't make use of because they had to run Close Counter in that slot.

 

[Stroud]

Selena gives me a headache. I don't know about her special refine. While it looks nice at first I'd rather want her to have additional stats including HP which she needs as a speedtank. 
If I give my Selena res refine she would have 47/50/40/37/37.

With enemies which have higher attack than her she would have really solid stats. Enemies who have less attack than her are not really a threat, because she can easily tank them. Also I have no A skill and Seal included. If I pull a Kliff I might consider giving his A skill to her. I would not mind her having the attack before the refine with hitting higher stats. Dang its quite good I think. I played my Selena with Armorslayer anyway so it is an improvement.

As for Beruka oh boy, This is good.

 

Edited August 6, 2019 by Stroud

[Ice Dragon]

Selena would be pretty awesome with the set

Selena's Blade [unique]
Moonbow
Fury 4
Wrath 3
Time's Pulse 3
Brazen Atk/Def 3

And I see they still have a phobia of using the word "sword".

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

16 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Selena would be pretty awesome with the set

Selena's Blade [unique]
Moonbow
Fury 4
Wrath 3
Time's Pulse 3
Brazen Atk/Def 3

And I see they still have a phobia of using the word "sword".

one day they will use Tsurugi over Sword and you will like it!

[Ice Dragon]

5 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

one day they will use Tsurugi over Sword and you will like it!

And they were doing so admirably recently with Shadow Sword, Rowdy Sword, and Creator Sword.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[Fabulously Olivier]

It's strange that they gave Boey an incomplete CC. Leaving out dragonstones is just giving Boey the middle finger for no good reason. It's not like he was in a good place before, and I daresay he isn't now.

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Etheus said:

It's strange that they gave Boey an incomplete CC. Leaving out dragonstones is just giving Boey the middle finger for no good reason. It's not like he was in a good place before, and I daresay he isn't now.

His Res kind of really sucks, though. 18 base Res is really, really bad, and even blue dragons are going to be shredding through it, even with investment. He would die anyways, so losing the ability to counterattack doesn't hurt him much.

 

EDIT: Also side note on Boey, he now has a pretty reliable one-hit kill against Alm when he's running Triangle Adept and Fierce Stance. A fully buffed, fully merged Boey even one-hit kills a fully buffed, fully merged Alm running Mirror Impact (as long as Alm doesn't have a Res boost on his Sacred Seal).

And I haven't seen a Cancel Affinity Alm on defense yet (though I figure it's because he'd get trivialized by Wary Fighter and Bowbreaker... and Boey can run Bowbreaker to cover that case).

Edited August 6, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[redlight]

1 hour ago, Etheus said:

It's strange that they gave Boey an incomplete CC. Leaving out dragonstones is just giving Boey the middle finger for no good reason. It's not like he was in a good place before, and I daresay he isn't now.

He was having a hard time against blue dragons already EP with owltome+CC. Especially Nowi.

Boey should've had something more on the raventome effect like maybe owl or breath effect, but CC against physical damage dealers is very good as it frees up the A slot for something like Sturdy Stance 4. Or heck, the long awaited CC+raventome+TA+Xbreaker combo

Mae is okay. AA unit, but that's a bit costly as 200 dew isn't cheap. Otherwise fine. Kills reds and supports allies.

Selena I'm pleasantly surprised with, but I will never use her because of her art.

Beruka is good. Makes use of both weapons that were the most popular on her. Will build her in the future if I have dew to spare. But Boey first right now

[Michelaar]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

And I see they still have a phobia of using the word "sword".

Selena's Sword doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nicely as Selena's blade if you ask me.

I'm very happy with all the refines, especially with my boy Boey's.

[mcsilas]

Loving these set of refines. Beruka really likes the Guard effect, good thing I haven't given Dorcas to her yet (although at least that axe has no HP threshold).

Might build a Selena now, although I only have a +Atk one left. Should I wait for a +Spd one or is +Atk going to interfere with her weapon effect that it makes a difference?

Boey is interesting, I was already using him as an anti-bow raven tome, so the higher Mt would be good and being able to counter most melees help charge specials. I wonder if the new weapon affects what the better booon is- +Def or +Atk? 

As much as Atk stacking Mae is tempting, I feel like maybe +Spd is better on her? Her main difference with Lilina is a better Spd stat that it can be useable with support. Maybe Darting Blow seal seems fun on her.

[Ice Dragon]

7 minutes ago, mcsilas said:

Might build a Selena now, although I only have a +Atk one left. Should I wait for a +Spd one or is +Atk going to interfere with her weapon effect that it makes a difference?

The things that are actually threatening have like 15+ more Atk than she does. An extra 4 Atk isn't going to screw anything up.

[YotsuMaboroshi]

7 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

And I see they still have a phobia of using the word "sword".

TBF, the weapon was localized as Selena's Blade back in Fates.  So they're at least being consistent there.