General Weapon Refinery discussion/speculation/creation thread

[Fabulously Olivier]

As a Michalis main, I am a bit disappointed that Beruka intrudes so far into his territory (and arguably does it better). 

 

But I suppose I'll accept their slight differences. I use SS4 on Michalis, which provides the same cooldown slowing effect and a larger physical defense boost (without a threshhold), but only on enemy phase. 

 

Michalis hits harder and is in a speed tier (max 31) that makes him less likely to be doubled by common F2P manaketes. Nowi could still potentially double him, but only with +spd.

 

Beruka has higher mixed bulk.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Etheus

[Jingle Jangle]

 I'm trying to work around Mae's refine. The death blow effect is nice but the link effect puzzles me. 30 base speed these days isn't impressive. I suppose she can be used to support another glass cannon on a team. 

[GrandeRampel]

I only asked for Beruka to go even further beyond as a tank and that's exactly what I got. Thank goodness I have 400 spare dew. Brb.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

8 hours 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.

Makes sense to me. Boey's never been great around dragons.

Edit: his VA also

Edited August 6, 2019 by Glennstavos

[silverserpent]

So...I immediately upgraded my level 1 4* Boey to 5* level 40 and refined his weapon. Also fed him my spare Klein for Fortress Def/Res 3 because why not. It's silly how he murders anything with low Res. Oh, and Atk Smoke from Kronya since I'm not building her. Kept his base Renewal since I don't have anymore feathers to make a Subaki sacrifice.

[Kaden]

6 hours ago, mcsilas said:

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.

I thought about that and I think Mae is now in a similar situation to Linus and Raven with puppet Delthea. For Linus and Raven, Linus ends up matching +Atk Raven when both are +10 merged where offensively Linus trades 1 speed for 1 attack. For puppet Delthea and Mae, puppet Delthea is like a +Spd Mae or rather +Spd Mae is like puppet Delthea since Mae just got a new tome.

So, puppet Delthea has 41 HP, 36 Atk, 33 Spd, 19 Def, and 28 Res while neutral Mae has 35 HP, 36 Atk, 31 Spd, 16 Def, and 30 Res. With +Spd, Mae has 36/34 offenses to puppet Delthea's 36/33 offenses. With their tomes, +Spd Mae would have 50/34 visible offenses and 56/34 when initiating while puppet Delthea would have 50/33 visible offenses and 54/37 offenses on both phases. Essentially, Mae trades 3 Spd during combat for 2 more Atk when initiating. Defensively, puppet Delthea would have a visible 31 Res due to Death's Res+3 and 23/35 defenses during combat due to Death granting Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 during combat.

With how neutral merging works, puppet Delthea's offenses are effectively 37/34 as her HP, Atk, and Spd are her highest stats, so they will gain +5 when at +10 merges instead of +4. +10 puppet Delthea would therefore have 41/38 offenses to +Spd Mae's 40/38 offenses. Without their weapons, puppet Delthea would match +Spd Mae in speed and have 1 more attack. With their weapons, puppet Delthea would have 55/38 visible offenses and 59/42 offenses during combat to +Spd Mae's 54/38 visible offenses and 60/38 offenses when initiating. Now, Mae trades 4 Spd during combat for 1 Atk when initiating.

Also, the rest of their stats at +10, puppet Delthea would have 46 HP, 55 Atk, 38 Spd, 23 Def, and 35 Res where her defenses become 27/39 during combat. +Spd Mae would have 39 HP, 54 Atk, 38 Spd, 20 Def, and 34 Res.

The 1 point when merge and 2 points when unmerged of Atk will count, but these two and Lilina can stack so much attack, that maybe it won't matter as much for between puppet Delthea and +Spd Mae when it comes to who they can or cannot one-shot. The 4 points of speed merged and 3 points unmerged that Delthea has over +Spd Mae may -- no pun intended -- tip the scales in favor of puppet Delthea since she would be able to double more enemies than +Spd Mae. That being said, +Spd Lilina with Life & Death or whatever speed boosting A passive is a real thing and I'm guessing it's a situation of if she can't double someone, she's likely going to one-shot them and if she can double them, then +Atk Lilina could have failed to one shot them. This probably will change with the ever increasing BST with each generation where we already have high offenses units with respectable defenses or one high defensive stat and decent HP. Anyway, with Mae, her neutral speed is already higher than Lilina's, so she can choose to have even higher speed with +Spd or have high attack with +Atk while also being like a +Spd Lilina.

This post is not saying you shouldn't use +Spd Mae or +Atk Raven because puppet Delthea and Linus are better than them or however this could be misinterpreted. I am only highlighting a situation that they are in. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses and everyone has their own character preferences. Another thing is that between puppet Delthea and +Spd Mae, their differences are more pronounced because they don't have the same tome and with Mae's Book of Orchids's base effect being Death Blow 3, she can choose to use the unique refinement or a stat refinement.

If you choose the Atk/Spd Link 3 unique refinement for Book of Orchids, then Mae can become both a player phase powerhouse who can get by on her own sometimes and a support unit. Puppet Delthea on the other hand is mainly about herself unless you give her a support skill.

Offensively, the above holds true, but with a speed refine, +Spd Mae closes the gap. Unmerged and with a speed refine, +Spd Mae would have 50/36 visible offenses and 56/36 when initiating to puppet Delthea's 50/33 visible offenses and 54/37 effective offenses during combat. In this case, +Spd Mae trades 1 Spd, in and out of combat, for 2 more Atk when initiating.

At +10 merges, +Spd Mae would have 54/40 offenses and 60/40 offenses when initiating to puppet Delthea's 55/38 visible offenses and 59/42 effective offenses during combat. In this case, +Spd Mae trades 2 Spd for 1 Atk. Keep in mind that this could bite Mae in the butt if she has the highest speed on the team and gets hit by Chill Spd or a Bright Shrine if she has the highest visible Atk/Spd.

As for puppet Delthea herself, as noted, her defenses are higher than Mae's and with Death's recoil damage, she could get into Brazen, Desperation, Escape Route, and Vantage range more safely and become a Wings of Mercy beacon over a few rounds of combat which itself is a double-edged sword as she will bleed out unlike Mae without Fury or the soon to be in the game Atk/Spd Push 4 who could stay at full HP or higher HP if that's what you're aiming. With Brazen, she can also become deceptively bulky in defense and perhaps very hard to take out with magic damage so long as she's not near death and going to take 1 damage or however little it would take to kill her at that point.

Now, onto +Atk Mae. With +Atk and unmerged, Mae has 39/31 base offenses, 53/31 with Book of Orchids, and 59/31 when initiating. Compare this to a +Atk Lilina who has 54/25 offenses and 60/25 when initiating or +Spd Lilina who has 51/29 visible offenses and 57/29 when initiating. Remember: Lilina has to choose the unique refinement as it is Death Blow 3 meaning she cannot have a stat refinement and Death Blow 3 like Mae. At +10, she'd have 57/35 visible offenses and 63/35 when initiating to +Atk Lilina's 58/29 and 64/29 when initiating and +Spd Lilina's 55/33 and 61/33 when initiating. Give +Atk Mae L&D3 and she will have 58/36 visible offenses and 64/36 when initiating unmerged and 62/40 visible offenses and 68/40 when initiating at +10. If they're getting doubled, then they're probably going to die unless they are green, have T-Adept if they're a green with average to low resistance, or have very high resistance and if they're not getting doubled, then they're probably going to die too. Slap on Special Spiral 3 on her just like you would for Lilina and watch the world burn even more.

56 minutes ago, silverserpent said:

Oh, and Atk Smoke from Kronya since I'm not building her.

Wait, Kronya doesn't have Atk Smoke 3 by default? Did you give him Distant Guard 3 from her or did you use a Kaze to give Boey Atk Smoke 3? If you gave Kronya Atk Smoke 3 and then used her to give Boey Atk Smoke 3...

Edited August 6, 2019 by Kaden

[bottlegnomes]

17 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

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.

Eh +4-6 in every stat versus +6-8 in one stat and a secondary effect seems relatively even in my book. Like I said, makes him more self-sufficient by not being as reliant on positioning, but I don't see it improving him much.

[Xenomata]

15 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

Eh +4-6 in every stat versus +6-8 in one stat and a secondary effect seems relatively even in my book. Like I said, makes him more self-sufficient by not being as reliant on positioning, but I don't see it improving him much.

Consider that Sophia got the same Prf Raventome, but got Bracing Stance refine instead.

Boey at least has the freedom to choose a decent A Passive without giving up the ability to Close Counter. Sophia can either run Close Counter or sacrifice the ability for improving her ranged defense game. Either way, she is locked special refine Eternal Tome if she isn't running a different tome.

[Kaden]

11 hours ago, Etheus said:

As a Michalis main, I am a bit disappointed that Beruka intrudes so far into his territory (and arguably does it better).  

 

But I suppose I'll accept their slight differences. I use SS4 on Michalis, which provides the same cooldown slowing effect and a larger physical defense boost (without a threshhold), but only on enemy phase. 

 

Michalis hits harder and is in a speed tier (max 31) that makes him less likely to be doubled by common F2P manaketes. Nowi could still potentially double him, but only with +spd.

 

Beruka has higher mixed bulk.

The way I see it, Michalis is more like an offensive-defensive tank while Beruka is a defensive-defensive tank as redundant as defensive-defensive sounds. Hauteclere being a Killer Wo Gun axe allows Michalis to deal a lot of damage when his special activates even if when using Bonfire or Ignis, the damage he gets from those skills are lower than what Beruka could get. He's also able to get instant, Wo Gun-powered Noontime for sustain if that's up your alley and with Ruptured Sky being a thing now, he could do a number on beasts and dragons if they attack him. Beruka's Axe on the other hand is all about damage mitigation by inflicting Atk-4 and Special cooldown charge-1 on foe per attack. The Killer effect will help Beruka deal damage by lowering the cooldown of specials, but

Stat-wise, I feel like it does highlight this. Michalis has much higher attack for slightly lower raw defenses compared to Beruka. For what it's worth, his speed is higher and with Goad Fliers stacking, he could end up being able to double some units on his own. His 43 HP, 34 Atk, 26 Spd, 35 Def, and 19 Res to her 46 HP, 29 Atk, 23 Spd, 37 Def, and 22 Res; -3 HP, +6 Atk, +4 Spd, -2 Def, and -3 Res. With how neutral merges work too, his highest stats being HP,  Atk, and Def mean that after merges, those stats are kind of like 44 HP, 35 Atk, and 36 Def as they would be increased by 5 points rather than 4 points. Defensively, that means he's only 1 point off from a =Def Beruka. Hit per hit, Michalis will do more damage than +Atk Beruka who has 32 base Atk and I think with Bonfire and Ignis, he does about the same damage or maybe more. At base, 35 Def means 17 damage from Bonfire and 28 damage from Ignis while 37 Def means 18 damage from Bonfire and 29 from Ignis, but with the unique refinement, Hauteclere guarantees +10 damage when Michalis activates a special.

As for other fliers talk, Subaki would be able to use a copy of Selena's Blade very well. As a flier, Subaki can easily stack Goad Fliers and on most modes, that means Atk/Spd+12 at most. With his low base attack, he could find it easy to pass the attack check and gain Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3. Combined, that means he would be able to get Atk/Spd+15 and Def/Res+3 during combat. Neutral Subaki's stat with a 16 MT weapon would be 40 HP, 41 Atk, 35 Spd, 35 Def, and 22 Res where the underdog effect would bump him up to 40 HP, 44 Atk, 38 Spd, 38 Def, and 25 Res in combat and with three stacks of Goad Fliers, he'd have 56/50 offenses during combat. Go for a +Atk Subaki and with all of this, he'd have 60/50 offenses during combat as +Atk is his superasset. Given his speed after buffs and default Quick Riposte, he'd also likely be able to activate Glimmer, Moonbow, or Ruptured Sky and with the unique refinement, guarantee +10 damage when activating his special.

Edited August 7, 2019 by Kaden

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

Eh +4-6 in every stat versus +6-8 in one stat and a secondary effect seems relatively even in my book. Like I said, makes him more self-sufficient by not being as reliant on positioning, but I don't see it improving him much.

It's incredibly difficult to use adjacency effects in Aether Raids due to the threat of Aversa's Night, Sudden Panic, and Sabotage skills as well as the threat of dancers allowing units to walk up to your unit to attack an adjacent unit.

Furthermore, getting the +6 bonus from Litrowl is very unreliable because enemy threat ranges and terrain are very likely to impede your ability to do so. You can really only somewhat reliably get +4.

Furthermore, +4 Spd is pretty much wasted, so it's really only +4 Atk, Def, and Res.

Furthermore, his Res is abysmal, so you're probably not actually ever going to use it except in an emergency, so it's really only +4 Atk and +4 Def.

Furthermore, that +4 Atk is actually +1 Atk because Inscribed Tome has 3 more Mt than refined Gronnowl+.

So the actual comparison is pretty much +2 HP, +1 Atk, and +7 Def for Gronnowl+ [Def] versus whatever A skill you put with Inscribed Tome [unique], making it much harder to argue in Gronnowl's favor.

The high-end A skills you can run with Inscribed Tome range in

• Fierce Stance 3: +6 Atk
• Sturdy Stance 4: +8 Def with Guard 11
• Triangle Adept 3: about +22 Atk and +25 Def against colorless and about +11 Atk and +12 Def against blue.
• Distant Def 4: +8 Def with Dull Ranged 3

[XRay]

12 hours ago, Jingle Jangle said:

 I'm trying to work around Mae's refine. The death blow effect is nice but the link effect puzzles me. 30 base speed these days isn't impressive. I suppose she can be used to support another glass cannon on a team. 

I do not think Book of Orchids works all that great with Player Phase teams. Book of Orchids not only significantly underperforms Blárblade even with Spd Refinement, the special Refinement is also redundant since most Dancers/Singers should already be the primary buffers. If it was a regular Hone Atk/Spd buff or something, then I think it has some value, but as a Link skill, Mae also has to waste her turn to Assist someone.

[Ice Dragon]

13 hours ago, XRay said:

If it was a regular Hone Atk/Spd buff or something, then I think it has some value, but as a Link skill, Mae also has to waste her turn to Assist someone.

Mordecai Smite/Kaden strats. That's literally the Link meta right now.

Edited August 7, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[XRay]

4 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Mordecai Smite/Kaden strats. That's literally the Link meta right now.

Kaden is for Enemy Phase supertank teams.

I forgot about Mordecai, but Mordecai can buff all your stats by 6/6/6/6 and debuff all enemy stats by -4/-4/-4/-4. Those huge stat bonuses help ensure whoever he Smited can Galeforce or activate Blade effect properly. The closest Mae can do is buff all your stats by 5/5/6/6 and Sabotage one enemy stat, and the Sabotage does not work on defense teams with loose 2-range formation.

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, XRay said:

Kaden is for Enemy Phase supertank teams.

I forgot about Mordecai, but Mordecai can buff all your stats by 6/6/6/6 and debuff all enemy stats by -4/-4/-4/-4. Those huge stat bonuses help ensure whoever he Smited can Galeforce or activate Blade effect properly. The closest Mae can do is buff all your stats by 5/5/6/6 and Sabotage one enemy stat, and the Sabotage does not work on defense teams with loose 2-range formation.

Have Mordecai punch Mae to get your Link buffs, then use Mae as a Wings of Mercy beacon for other units, dancers, or whatnot.

[XRay]

10 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Have Mordecai punch Mae to get your Link buffs, then use Mae as a Wings of Mercy beacon for other units, dancers, or whatnot.

If you are going to have Mordecai smash Mae, Mae might as well be using Blárblade to kill stuff.

[Kaden]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

If you are going to have Mordecai smash Mae, Mae might as well be using Blárblade to kill stuff.

Now I'm wondering if you think unique refined Forblaze is worse than Rauthblade+ for Lilina.

[XRay]

3 minutes ago, Kaden said:

Now I'm wondering if you think unique refined Forblaze is worse than Rauthblade+ for Lilina.

Rauðrblade cannot do Special spams.

[Hilda]

I think the Raventome refine is garbage on Boey in retrospectiv. The Close Counter is nice, no question, but Boey had no problems before dealing with colorless Daggers and Bow units due to his high Def. He lacks punching power to finish the job without a special.

In that regard Close Counter with a Atk/Def Form 3 would have been nice

Or a skill that accelerates his Special trigger when his DEF is higher then the opponents DEF,

Just something to alleviate at least one of his 3 weakness:
weak Attack
slow Spd (fast melee units or bold fighter armorers can still kill him if they trigger a special), which deminishes his Bulk.
weak Res

I get not everything can be patched and love his role as a close counter mage. Hell my +10 Boey has Close Counter as a skill but he runs a Litrblade. The refine should have at least patched 2 out of the 3 weaknesses. The Raventome basicly did not much for him. He didnt have problems against colorless bows adn daggers before, and its not gonna let him face colorless dragons by any means lol.

[Ice Dragon]

4 hours ago, XRay said:

If you are going to have Mordecai smash Mae, Mae might as well be using Blárblade to kill stuff.

Mae running a Link skill in her B slot prevents her from running things like Desperation or Wings of Mercy or Escape Route or other options that are actually viable in Aether Raids.

 

30 minutes ago, Hilda said:

Just something to alleviate at least one of his 3 weakness:

It's called Triangle Adept. +20-something Atk and +20-something Def against colorless relative to Gronnowl+ without the need for a Special activation is nothing to scoff at when one of the best nukes in the game is physical colorless.

[Kaden]

4 hours ago, XRay said:

Rauðrblade cannot do Special spams.

Okay, then what is stopping Mae from using Book of Orchids and doing the same thing?

I know the base effect of Forblaze is Chill Res, so when it hits Lilina's target, she's going to be able to do even more damage and I know that blue mages already have Ophelia as the best Special Spiral option, but if Mae can stack attack like Lilina and go on a special spamming spree with Special Spiral, then why does that make Book of Orchids underperform compared to Blarblade+ while unique refined Forblaze doesn't compared to Rauthblade+? Mae's offenses are higher than Lilina's at 36/31 base neutral offenses to 37/25. If Chill Res doesn't hit her target, then with Mae with a MT refined Book of Orchids would match Lilina in attack or Mae can go for a speed refinement for higher overall offenses.

Ophelia is the best blue mage with Special Spiral, but with unlimited resources and because you could, I'd give it to puppet Delthea, Ishtar, Mae, Tailtiu, and might as well give it to regular Delthea, Linde, and whoever else. Same dealio with giving Sonya Special Spiral when Lewyn exists and when unique refined Dark Excalibur's Quickened Pulse 2 is crappy compared to Ophelia's Killer effect and Mage Pulse that includes her, so it's a guaranteed Quickened Pulse 1 with her being the only mage on the team. At least Sonya can guarantee 10 damage when activating a special, but I digress.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Kaden

[Baldrick]

2 hours ago, Kaden said:

 then why does that make Book of Orchids underperform compared to Blarblade+ while unique refined Forblaze doesn't compared to Rauthblade+?

Mae’s speed advantage is mostly irrelevant for special spamming since you’re trying to one-shot, whereas with a blade tome she can use Desperation instead of Special Spiral. Chill Res is also an excellent effect for any one-shot mage because it will tend to hit the enemy with the most magical bulk.

[XRay]

4 hours ago, Kaden said:

Okay, then what is stopping Mae from using Book of Orchids and doing the same thing?

I know the base effect of Forblaze is Chill Res, so when it hits Lilina's target, she's going to be able to do even more damage and I know that blue mages already have Ophelia as the best Special Spiral option, but if Mae can stack attack like Lilina and go on a special spamming spree with Special Spiral, then why does that make Book of Orchids underperform compared to Blarblade+ while unique refined Forblaze doesn't compared to Rauthblade+? Mae's offenses are higher than Lilina's at 36/31 base neutral offenses to 37/25. If Chill Res doesn't hit her target, then with Mae with a MT refined Book of Orchids would match Lilina in attack or Mae can go for a speed refinement for higher overall offenses.

Ophelia is the best blue mage with Special Spiral, but with unlimited resources and because you could, I'd give it to puppet Delthea, Ishtar, Mae, Tailtiu, and might as well give it to regular Delthea, Linde, and whoever else. Same dealio with giving Sonya Special Spiral when Lewyn exists and when unique refined Dark Excalibur's Quickened Pulse 2 is crappy compared to Ophelia's Killer effect and Mage Pulse that includes her, so it's a guaranteed Quickened Pulse 1 with her being the only mage on the team. At least Sonya can guarantee 10 damage when activating a special, but I digress.

Hm... I guess Mae can do similar things to Lilina. Lillina is still tiny bit better due to Chill Res, but Mae can practically kill almost everything with Blazing spam too.

Challengers List: Against Hard List. Both sides +10 with 6/6/6/6 bonus buffs. Challengers have Specials ready.

Spoiler

CHALLENGER LIST  
Lilina (5*+10 +atk -def)  
Weapon: Forblaze  
Special: Blazing Light  
A: Life and Death 3  
B: Special Spiral 3  
S: Heavy Blade 3  
Upgrade Path: 5  
  
Mae (5*+10 +atk -def)  
Weapon: Book of Orchids  
Special: Blazing Light  
A: Life and Death 3  
B: Special Spiral 3  
S: Heavy Blade 3  
Upgrade Path: 1  

 

[bottlegnomes]

On 8/6/2019 at 8:27 PM, Xenomata said:

Consider that Sophia got the same Prf Raventome, but got Bracing Stance refine instead.

Boey at least has the freedom to choose a decent A Passive without giving up the ability to Close Counter. Sophia can either run Close Counter or sacrifice the ability for improving her ranged defense game. Either way, she is locked special refine Eternal Tome if she isn't running a different tome.

I'm not saying he got the worst, just that the primary effect isn't great for him. CC is undoubtedly great. But yeah, Sophia fared quite poorly as well.

 

On 8/6/2019 at 11:06 PM, Ice Dragon said:

The high-end A skills you can run with Inscribed Tome range in

• Fierce Stance 3: +6 Atk
• Sturdy Stance 4: +8 Def with Guard 11
• Triangle Adept 3: about +22 Atk and +25 Def against colorless and about +11 Atk and +12 Def against blue.
• Distant Def 4: +8 Def with Dull Ranged 3

Actually putting numbers together you get (using your comparison numbers):

• Fierce Stance: +5 atk/-2 HP/-7 def
• Sturdy Stance 4: -2 HP/-1 atk/+1 def/ guard 11
• Tri Ad: CC + Raven helps him against literally 3 enemies. All the rest are ranged anyway, so +4 (6?) atk/-whatever your choice of Raven refine would be a more apt comparison of you're going with this build. As mentioned though, I blanked on Raven's not being refinable.
• DD4: -2 HP/-1 atk/+1 def against ranged/-7 against melee/+Dull Ranged 3

Sturdy Stance is the big one because of how much better its guard effect is. DD4 does open his seal slot by letting him run QR in the B slot in place of DR. I think Fierce Stance is a seal, so sure, that's good too if he's running it, but he's squishier against melee. Or swap in CD and let him keep the melee bulk but lose the attack.

The whole AN and panics thing is fair, so as said, it makes him more independent. But to the stat comparisons, even using your numbers, even the high end A skills aren't a huge advantage.

[redlight]

Cecilia
Aircalibur: Adds total bonuses on unit to damage dealt.
Refinement: At start of turn, if unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Atk/Spd +5 to unit for 1 turn.

Clarisse
Lethal Bow: Effective against flying units. Unit and enemies cannot use counterattacks.
Refinement: Grants Atk/Spd+5. Inflicts Def/Res-5.

Gray
Zweihandler: Effective against cavalry units. Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1).
Refinement: Grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3. Unit takes 6 damage after combat.

Mathilda 
Solar Arc: If unit initiates combat, deals damage = 25% of foe's Def. Effective against cavalry foes.
Refinement: At start of combat, if unit's Res ≥ foe's Res, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3 during combat.

[Ice Dragon]

25 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

Actually putting numbers together you get (using your comparison numbers):

I separated them out so that it looks less cluttered.

 

25 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

CC + Raven helps him against literally 3 enemies.

Just because you have Close Counter in your build doesn't somehow make it so that ranged opponents stop existing.

Triangle Adept + Close Counter + Litrraven is superior to Close Counter + Gronnowl against every single blue and colorless unit in the game (except those that run Cancel Affinity, which is still not very common).

The important part is not the Close Counter, but the fact that he's the only unit in the game that can run all three effects at the same time, which lets him cover a large range of opponents on either phase.

 

25 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

The whole AN and panics thing is fair, so as said, it makes him more independent. But to the stat comparisons, even using your numbers, even the high end A skills aren't a huge advantage.

They are because the numbers on Gronnowl+ are for the best-case kind-of-reliable scenario when you have 2 adjacent allies. This is reliable in Arena, which is where I do most of my comparisons for, but for Aether Raids, you're lucky to have even 1 adjacent ally.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Ice Dragon