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General Weapon Refinery discussion/speculation/creation thread


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3 hours ago, Etheus said:

At worst, armors have poor combat perfomance compared to the very best of infantry units (BIke, Ophelia, etc.). Not infantry units at large. Not infantry units as a whole. A few isolated infantry units.

  

And those few units do not justify, nor require an infantry effective weapon. Most infantry units are mediocre at best, and would be needlessly nerfed because of this. Those that are exceptional would rarely be substantially impacted by this. Ophelia's job doesn't get more difficult. She dies to a stray fart regardless. Brave Ike isn't going to take substantial damage from a dagger unit regardless and will chop their face off. 

I am talking about units commonly seen in the meta or on the battlefield. That means commonly seen armors against the commonly seen infantry. And that means the best armors versus the best infantry. Mediocre and weak units are benched and are less commonly seen, so they are not worth considering. For defense, that means units like Laslow, Gwendolyn, Sheena, Arthur, etc. do not need to be considered since I honestly do not remember the last time I saw any of them.

For offense, Poison Dagger pose as much of a threat as Armor Effective Weapons does, which is not very much. Effective Weapons cannot kill properly supported supertanks, so if you want to use Laslow and Arthur as your supertank, they can definitely take a hit from Poison Dagger and survive. For non super tanks, you should not let them tank things that can kill them in the first place. If you are not going to send a Hector to tank Ophelia, you are not going to send Lukas to tank Poison Dagger; you either use the proper tank or specialized tank to Enemy Phase your enemies, or you use a non-Enemy Phase strategy like Galeforce to sweep the enemy team.

Edited by XRay
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32 minutes ago, XRay said:

I am talking about units commonly seen in the meta or on the battlefield. That means commonly seen armors against the commonly seen infantry. And that means the best armors versus the best infantry. Mediocre and weak units are benched and are less commonly seen, so they are not worth considering. For defense, that means units like Laslow, Gwendolyn, Sheena, Arthur, etc. do not need to be considered since I honestly do not remember the last time I saw any of them.

For offense, Poison Dagger pose as much of a threat as Armor Effective Weapons does, which is not very much. Effective Weapons cannot kill properly supported supertanks, so if you want to use Laslow and Arthur as your supertank, they can definitely take a hit from Poison Dagger and survive. For non super tanks, you should not let them tank things that can kill them in the first place. If you are not going to send a Hector to tank Ophelia, you are not going to send Lukas to tank Poison Dagger; you either use the proper tank or specialized tank to Enemy Phase your enemies, or you use a non-Enemy Phase strategy like Galeforce to sweep the enemy team.

We have to also consider which combat performance we are talking about enemy or player phase. Bold fighter is nuts, and nothing comes even close to a Bold Fighter Slaying Edge Zelgius with Black Luna. A special fighter Amelia is nuts too with buffs, Offensiv and defensiv especial when stacked up with Bonus Doubler Ephraim.

Enemy phase wise the best infantry supertanks are Fallen Corrin and Brave Ike, Surtr can easily match them. While Surtr cant match them during combat performance, he outmatches them by far in outside combat performance due to his C-Skill and Weapon.

It all depends on the point of view, again all those mentioned units need a specific counter. and no Poison strike Fire Sweep is not a specific counter and doesnt count, it works on anything that isnt running Null-C Disrupt as does Razzle/Dazzle Pain + Savage Blow.

Regular units need a specific built/support to counter those units, so no i dont think Armorers are in a bad spot combat wise. Especially when you consider that the next BST bump to 185 is comeing for sure. Sure Effie Sheena Gwen are in a bad spot, but so are most of the Gen 1 Infantry units without a special Refine (and even most WITH a refine).

We also need to factor in that Armorers/Horses/Fliers all have access to Goad and Wards, which is HUGE!!! Infantry does not, it took them 2 years to get on an equal footing with the other units combat wise and we are prolly gonna see Tier 4 Wards and Goads.

You dont need refined Poison daggers for Ophelia or Alm, they die to a fart. Besides Ophelia is easy enemy phased by those mentioned supertanks, and Pulse smoke counters all precharged Infantry units, its just not very common at the moment. Your concerned because of Alm, because stacking enormous amount of Def can actually hurt you. Thats 1 unit. use a Raven Tome or Ice Mirror period or a bloated high HP pool.

And Brave Ike wouldnt die to a Refined Poison Dagger anyway, so the only units hurt from this Idea are the ones that are allready suffering or not at the Top End.

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9 minutes ago, Hilda said:

We have to also consider which combat performance we are talking about enemy or player phase. Bold fighter is nuts, and nothing comes even close to a Bold Fighter Slaying Edge Zelgius with Black Luna. A special fighter Amelia is nuts too with buffs, Offensiv and defensiv especial when stacked up with Bonus Doubler Ephraim.

I have already discussed both phases of combat earlier, as well as dual phase units.

On defense, none of the Fighter skills are competitive with Infantry Pulse, not because the performance is bad, but it is bad because the units it is stuck on is bad due to low mobility. Any player with a Player Phase team can run circles around an armor unit. Bold Fighter cannot have good performance when it cannot even engage in combat to perform in the first place. Vengeful Fighter, Wary Fighter, and Special Fighter does jack shit against Counter-Vantage units, Firesweep nukes, and raw damage nukes.

When Bold Fighter does engage in combat, Infantry Pulsed Blazing nukes can often do just as well if not better since they can bypass combat buffs on their Blazing hit and are guaranteed to hit "twice" with "Desperation" automatically built in, or super "Desperation" if the unit has Hardy Bearing.

On Enemy Phase, Fighter skills have super tough competition. Seliph can achieve literally infinite bulk. BH!Ike has bulk that is like effectively 150+. Surtr can achieve high bulk, but not insanely high bulk and definitely not infinite bulk.

On offense, there is like no reason to run armor units for tanking when any unit can match armor performance via super tanking. For regular tanking, infantry units can do just as well but got twice the movement. Ward Armor (or Ward Anything) is crap when compared to M!Corrin, BH!Lucina, and Kaden, who all got Ward Armor equivalents or better on their Weapon slot.

Player Phase Galeforce armors can sort of work if the enemies are clumped together, but no reason to bother with that when you can use other movement types for Galeforce who are easier to use due to their better mobility.

For dual phase, Counter-Vantage infantry is superior to dual phase armors. Why bother hitting twice or messing with Specials when you can hit once to kill something and have better mobility?

2 hours ago, Hilda said:

Enemy phase wise the best infantry supertanks are Fallen Corrin and Brave Ike, Surtr can easily match them. While Surtr cant match them during combat performance, he outmatches them by far in outside combat performance due to his C-Skill and Weapon.

Surtr has low mobility. Having low mobility on offense is not worth the effects of his Weapon and C skill unless the player does not mind  giving up on Aether Structures.

1 hour ago, Hilda said:

We also need to factor in that Armorers/Horses/Fliers all have access to Goad and Wards, which is HUGE!!! Infantry does not, it took them 2 years to get on an equal footing with the other units combat wise and we are prolly gonna see Tier 4 Wards and Goads.

M!Corrin, BH!Lucina, and Kaden exist. Infantry not having Ward Infantry is not a big deal when the above support units exist.

1 hour ago, Hilda said:

It all depends on the point of view, again all those mentioned units need a specific counter. and no Poison strike Fire Sweep is not a specific counter and doesnt count, it works on anything that isnt running Null-C Disrupt as does Razzle/Dazzle Pain + Savage Blow.

How does Firesweep not count? Firesweep literally counters everything sans Null C-Disrupt. You do not need something to specifically counter something to count as a counter. Enemies not being able to counter attack at all is a shit ton safer than dealing tons of damage and then failing to kill and get counter killed in return. Dealing tons of damage is also reliant on the unit's Atk stat. Any archer can do Firesweep and Atk honestly does not matter too much with Poison Strike since you just need to lower the HP enough for an ally nuke to do the killing blow.

2 hours ago, Hilda said:

Regular units need a specific built/support to counter those units, so no i dont think Armorers are in a bad spot combat wise. Especially when you consider that the next BST bump to 185 is comeing for sure. Sure Effie Sheena Gwen are in a bad spot, but so are most of the Gen 1 Infantry units without a special Refine (and even most WITH a refine).

You do not need any niche skills to counter Firesweep. Firesweep does not do enough damage to be a threat in the first place. If a player has trouble with Firesweepers, super tanks have no trouble walling Firesweepers and the tank can just move up to kill the Firesweeper on Player Phase. Alternatively, the player can just run a Galeforcer or two.

Armors are in a bad spot. When is the last time you saw a lot of people using armors on offense? Or let alone anyone recommending prioritizing armor over infantry for super tanking or regular tanking? Infantry has the means to do what armors do and not be a pain in the ass to use. Whether it is nuking, tanking, or dual phasing, infantry can match or exceed armor units in each of those scenarios.

BST increase matters less than better stat distribution. An old unit with 40/40/15/40/40 is not very different from a new unit with 43/43/18/43/43 once you factor in buffs and all other methods of stat increases

And anyone can be a supertank. Once you factor in buffs, merges, etc. the stat difference between Generations and classes do not matter as much.

On defense, I do not see any point in keeping units like Chrom, Oboro, and Bartre "viable" if they are not even viable in the first place. Poison Dagger does not make them any less viable if they have no viability to begin with. Unless they are doing a theme or something, no one is putting Laslow or Selena to accompany Odin on a serious defense team.

1 hour ago, Hilda said:

You dont need refined Poison daggers for Ophelia or Alm, they die to a fart. Besides Ophelia is easy enemy phased by those mentioned supertanks, and Pulse smoke counters all precharged Infantry units, its just not very common at the moment. Your concerned because of Alm, because stacking enormous amount of Def can actually hurt you. Thats 1 unit. use a Raven Tome or Ice Mirror period or a bloated high HP pool.

SK!Alm is not a concern. Any super tank with decent Spd can easily prevent his doubles.

Ophelia is not easy to Enemy Phase with super tanks unless you build a tank to specifically deal with her. The max that you can do to pump your visible Res stat is 7. Ophelia does not care how many combat buffs you have. If you are running bonus buffs instead of combat buffs, then you also better prepare to deal with Panics, Lulls, and Dulls, that either ignores or reverses buffs.

1 hour ago, Hilda said:

And Brave Ike wouldnt die to a Refined Poison Dagger anyway, so the only units hurt from this Idea are the ones that are allready suffering or not at the Top End.

Again, Refined Poison Dagger is not killing any supertank. Once you give a super tank M!Corrin Ally Support, Summoner Support, and Blessings, practically nothing in the meta is going to kill them in one round of combat.

Additionally, if you see the enemy team using Poison Dagger and you are afraid to use your infantry super tank, you can also use Galeforce, Counter-Vantage, and myriad of other tactics to deal with that.

On offense, it functions the same as Armor Effective Weapons that you keep on the side to quickly reduce the HP of tanks or outright nuking them. Not everyone has easy access to Firesweep Bow to deal chip damage safely, but Kagero's Poison Dagger is much easier to acquire.

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I use Caineghis as my tank in AR...  And he works very well on tanking and counter killing.  So some people do use armors as tanks in AR- I don't fear Ophelia or company during light season at all.  So I use armors on offense, and I'm typically in the top 5000 (and typically 3000 during light season).  Might be a bit below what you are talking about, but armors are still plenty competitive for me.  In fact, I prefer my Cain light team over my Tibarn astra team, but there are other reasons for that as well.

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11 hours ago, XRay said:

Any player with a Player Phase team can run circles around an armor unit.

This only works if you have the space to maneuver. That is not always possible.

 

11 hours ago, XRay said:

Bold Fighter cannot have good performance when it cannot even engage in combat to perform in the first place.

Again, that is a mobility issue and not a combat performance issue. If you can make it so that the opponent is never able to initiate combat against you, good for you, but that is not the general state of the game.

 

11 hours ago, XRay said:

Vengeful Fighter, Wary Fighter, and Special Fighter does jack shit against Counter-Vantage units, Firesweep nukes, and raw damage nukes.

It is fully possible to make armors bulky enough to survive Vantage. It's also fully possible to make armors bulky enough to survive the best nukes. You're basically saying that a skill is completely useless because a specialized hard or soft counter "exists". I can make the exact same argument that Firesweep nukes do jack shit to bulky Null C-Disrupt tanks making Firesweep nukes worthless, and that's obviously a shitty argument.

 

11 hours ago, XRay said:

On Enemy Phase, Fighter skills have super tough competition. Seliph can achieve literally infinite bulk. BH!Ike has bulk that is like effectively 150+. Surtr can achieve high bulk, but not insanely high bulk and definitely not infinite bulk.

Seliph does not have infinite bulk. A neutral unmerged Seliph with refined Tyrfing has infinite 1-hit physical bulk, but only 80 2-hit physical bulk. And he's slow, so the 80 2-hit physical bulk is what he actually has. That's a lot of bulk, but it's not infinite.

A neutral unmerged Surtr has 90 1-hit physical bulk and 65 2-hit physical bulk with no passive A skill. With his default Wary Fighter, the 90 1-hit physical bulk is more relevant, which is higher than Seliph's bulk, and even if you can get around Wary Fighter, 65 2-hit physical bulk is still no slouch.

 

11 hours ago, XRay said:

Ward Armor (or Ward Anything) is crap when compared to M!Corrin, BH!Lucina, and Kaden, who all got Ward Armor equivalents or better on their Weapon slot.

11 hours ago, XRay said:

M!Corrin, BH!Lucina, and Kaden exist. Infantry not having Ward Infantry is not a big deal when the above support units exist.

Armors can benefit from Corrin, Lucina, Kaden, and Eliwood's buffs just the same as infantry units can. This is not an advantage that infantry have. There is nothing preventing an armored unit from receiving support from units with other movement types.

On the other hand, armored units can receive support from Ward Armor, which infantry have no equivalent of. Therefore, unless your team consists only of the above support units, remaining slots on the team can be armored to provide Ward Armor support, whereas you cannot do the same for an infantry tank.

 

11 hours ago, XRay said:

For dual phase, Counter-Vantage infantry is superior to dual phase armors. Why bother hitting twice or messing with Specials when you can hit once to kill something and have better mobility?

Because you cannot guarantee that you can hit once to kill something. Vantage units have their limitations and are not all-powerful.

 

11 hours ago, XRay said:

Surtr has low mobility. Having low mobility on offense is not worth the effects of his Weapon and C skill unless the player does not mind  giving up on Aether Structures.

Surtr's mobility has no bearing on the mobility of the rest of the team composition.

 

11 hours ago, XRay said:

When is the last time you saw a lot of people using armors on offense? Or let alone anyone recommending prioritizing armor over infantry for super tanking or regular tanking?

This morning.

 

11 hours ago, XRay said:

And anyone can be a supertank. Once you factor in buffs, merges, etc. the stat difference between Generations and classes do not matter as much.

That's blatantly false.

 

11 hours ago, XRay said:

SK!Alm is not a concern. Any super tank with decent Spd can easily prevent his doubles.

Define "decent Spd" and "easily". Common high-end Alm builds run 50-62 Spd on initiation before buffs and blessing bonuses.

 

11 hours ago, XRay said:

Ophelia is not easy to Enemy Phase with super tanks unless you build a tank to specifically deal with her. The max that you can do to pump your visible Res stat is 7. Ophelia does not care how many combat buffs you have. If you are running bonus buffs instead of combat buffs, then you also better prepare to deal with Panics, Lulls, and Dulls, that either ignores or reverses buffs.

A super tank should be built with Ophelia in mind because of how common she is. I wouldn't even consider a unit to be a super tank unless they can handle Ophelia.

The highest you can pump into your visible Res stat is actually 13 if you run the Distant Def Sacred Seal. Fortress Def/Res is a thing and is one of the most common skills I see on units with Distant Counter weapons. Light season also puts another 10 points in Res from Eir's Mythic stat bonus (yes, it can get higher, but you're pretty much never going to run more than 2 of her).

Ophelia literally never runs Lull or Dull skills because of Special Spiral, and Ophelia doesn't even have the option to run Dull Close because she is a ranged unit.

 

11 hours ago, XRay said:

Again, Refined Poison Dagger is not killing any supertank. Once you give a super tank M!Corrin Ally Support, Summoner Support, and Blessings, practically nothing in the meta is going to kill them in one round of combat.

Sothe is currently the strongest colorless dagger unit in the game (Ursula ties, but has availability issues that prevent her from ever being seen used and also has skill inheritance restrictions) with 36 base Atk, and also currently has fairly decent usage numbers.

With the build +10 Sothe [+Atk] (Poison Dagger+ [Atk], Sturdy Impact, Sturdy Blow 2) [2 Duma], Sothe has 108 effective Atk against an infantry opponent (also 53 HP and 40 Def) before buffs. With an Infantry Pulsed Dragon Fang, his first hit will land for 144 effective Atk.

The infantry unit with the absolute highest ranged physical bulk on enemy phase without weapon triangle advantage or percentage damage reduction and is able to counterattack is +10 Nah (Lightning Breath+ [Def], Distant Def 4, Distant Def 3) [2 Naga], who has 133 physical bulk before buffs. That is only barely enough to survive the first hit after buffs and also only barely one-hit kills Sothe back on the counterattack (Sothe has 78 1-hit magic bulk). 

"Any super tank" is not going to cut it.

 

Edited by Ice Dragon
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3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Again, that is a mobility issue and not a combat performance issue. If you can make it so that the opponent is never able to initiate combat against you, good for you, but that is not the general state of the game.

A Player Phase team should always be one of the five preset teams. It is one of the simplest and cheapest teams to build. Not having a Player Phase team with 3 nukes and 2 Dancers/Singers is like going into Aether Raids without a super tank team.

You might be able to get by without it, but it is going to make your life more difficult.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

It is fully possible to make armors bulky enough to survive Vantage. It's also fully possible to make armors bulky enough to survive the best nukes. You're basically saying that a skill is completely useless because a specialized hard or soft counter "exists". I can make the exact same argument that Firesweep nukes do jack shit to bulky Null C-Disrupt tanks making Firesweep nukes worthless, and that's obviously a shitty argument.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Because you cannot guarantee that you can hit once to kill something. Vantage units have their limitations and are not all-powerful.

Armor units cannot survive a combination of Firesweep and any raw damage nuke. Armor units have bulk that Firesweepers can easily chip away and with 2 Dancers/Singers on the team, you have more than enough actions to kill one or two armor units per turn.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Armors can benefit from Corrin, Lucina, Kaden, and Eliwood's buffs just the same as infantry units can. This is not an advantage that infantry have. There is nothing preventing an armored unit from receiving support from units with other movement types.

 On the other hand, armored units can receive support from Ward Armor, which infantry have no equivalent of. Therefore, unless your team consists only of the above support units, remaining slots on the team can be armored to provide Ward Armor support, whereas you cannot do the same for an infantry tank.

I am not saying armors cannot benefit from super tank supporters. Armors have low mobility and their skill access, BST, and stat distribution in general is not enough to offset the low mobility.

Armor units can receive support from Ward Armor, but that is an inferior buffing unit. M!Corrin has Ward+Goad on his Weapon slot, freeing his C and Sacred Seal for more buffs. No armor out there can rival M!Corrin or the other two in terms of buffs provided.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Surtr's mobility has no bearing on the mobility of the rest of the team composition.

Having higher mobility helps lead enemies away from your flanking Aether Structure breakers. If you have Surtr engaged around the middle of the map, It is difficult to keep the last unit or two alive by moving away and sending your flankers to break Structures.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

That's blatantly false.

Sharena has 158 BST.
Summoner Support provides 13 stat points.
Merges/bonus stats provide 20/26 points.
Flowers provide 10 points.
M!Corrins provide 48 points.
That is a total of 249/255 stat points.

Armors have 180 BST
Summoner Support provides 13 stat points.
+10/Bonus stats provide 20 points.
Flowers provide 5 points
M!Corrins provide 48 points.
That is a total of 266 stat points

249/266 = 93.61%
255/266 = 95.86%
A ~6.5% difference in stats is not going to make a huge difference, and the Askr Trio has an even smaller difference during their bonus season. And once you factor in Weapons, Refinement, and other skills on the super tank, the difference is negligible.

4 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Define "decent Spd" and "easily". Common high-end Alm builds run 50-62 Spd on initiation before buffs and blessing bonuses.

Decent Spd is 50 Spd. Sharena has 32 Spd. Fensalir [Spd] provides, Summoner Support, and bonus stats provide 9. M!Corrins provides 12. That is a total of 53 Spd. Sharena is unique in that she can cheaply shut down buffs, but if a player is dedicated to making a super tank, they can run Dull Ranged before investing in Lull Atk/Spd. SK!Alms who invest in lots of Spd die in one hit, so they are not going to land two hits on you.

Slower super tanks can fudge M!Corrin's stat buffs to provide up to 6 more Spd by switching out other Drives, so M!Corrins can provide something like 12/18/9/9 if the super tank is on the slower bulkier side.

4 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

A super tank should be built with Ophelia in mind because of how common she is. I wouldn't even consider a unit to be a super tank unless they can handle Ophelia.

 The highest you can pump into your visible Res stat is actually 13 if you run the Distant Def Sacred Seal. Fortress Def/Res is a thing and is one of the most common skills I see on units with Distant Counter weapons. Light season also puts another 10 points in Res from Eir's Mythic stat bonus (yes, it can get higher, but you're pretty much never going to run more than 2 of her).

Fortress Def/Res exposes the super tank to Chills and Shrines (D), and while Ophelia is common, Panic and units that do not ignore your combat buffs are far more common. There is only so much visible stat that you can pile on to a super tank, while Drives can stack and cannot be Panicked.

I rather use a different strategy to counter Pulse teams as using a super tank to counter Pulse teams means they are less effective against more common threats.

4 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Sothe is currently the strongest colorless dagger unit in the game (Ursula ties, but has availability issues that prevent her from ever being seen used and also has skill inheritance restrictions) with 36 base Atk, and also currently has fairly decent usage numbers.

 With the build +10 Sothe [+Atk] (Poison Dagger+ [Atk], Sturdy Impact, Sturdy Blow 2) [2 Duma], Sothe has 108 effective Atk against an infantry opponent (also 53 HP and 40 Def) before buffs. With an Infantry Pulsed Dragon Fang, his first hit will land for 144 effective Atk.

The infantry unit with the absolute highest ranged physical bulk on enemy phase without weapon triangle advantage or percentage damage reduction and is able to counterattack is +10 Nah (Lightning Breath+ [Def], Distant Def 4, Distant Def 3) [2 Naga], who has 133 physical bulk before buffs. That is only barely enough to survive the first hit after buffs and also only barely one-hit kills Sothe back on the counterattack (Sothe has 78 1-hit magic bulk). 

 "Any super tank" is not going to cut it.

I guess not any super tank deal with it.

However, if the offensive player can clearly see a defensive player going after infantry super tanks, the offensive player will use a different team/strategy. And with Sothe having his own exclusive Weapon that can deal mass buffs and debuffs, I find it unlikely that defensive players will swap out a generalist Weapon like Peshkatz for Poison Dagger that is situational.

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26 minutes ago, XRay said:

A Player Phase team should always be one of the five preset teams. It is one of the simplest and cheapest teams to build. Not having a Player Phase team with 3 nukes and 2 Dancers/Singers is like going into Aether Raids without a super tank team.

You might be able to get by without it, but it is going to make your life more difficult.

Armor units cannot survive a combination of Firesweep and any raw damage nuke. Armor units have bulk that Firesweepers can easily chip away and with 2 Dancers/Singers on the team, you have more than enough actions to kill one or two armor units per turn.

I could be mistaken, but...  you can't guarantee this in AR.  The bonus unit requirement makes the nuke+2 dancer setup impossible, unless you're bonus unit is always one of those three (or Eir or Naga).  That's why I strongly prefer tanks- they don't require two dancers as support.  I run Cain+2Eir+Leanne+bonus, which works 85% of the time, and since I can rarely run two dancers, much better than two dancers+nuke. So you're either taken a scoring hit or can't always have that kind of team set (unless Eir or Naga is your nuke, which I guess is possible...  But a real pain with Naga).

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Just chiming in that there are indeed a fair number of armor-tank users on AR Offense, contrary to any misconceptions.

I myself use a Winter Cecilia and Surtr together, with WCeci holding pulse smoke to deal with IP teams whilst Surtr runs armor march for her. Mobility is rarely a problem.
Due to not putting CC on WCeci/DC on Surtr, getting both pots is almost always guaranteed, with the small requirement of tanking the last enemy unit.

I haven't used a dancer on offense in Light in months, tanking with armors (and now BikeCina as a backup team) is far more consistent than player phase teams.

I also know at least 6-10 other individuals who score in the top1k of AR every season who also use WCeci, although most opt for a non-armor for her support, such as MCorrin/Kaden/Lancina/Velouria. They get around her lack of mobility with smart use of repo/smite.

Barring super-speed boosted infantry tanks, most *do not* handle common threats as well as armors can, such as LAlm or Ophelia due to lacking one shot kill potential or visible res respectively.

The only gnarly matches have been ones that are either heavy in anti-armor weaponry or aim to kill your squishy units behind the tanks.

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So, completely unrelated to the topic at hand, two weird ideas came to mind for weapon effects. Probably should be weapon effects instead of passives.

The first one is based on Final Fantasy's Gravity spell that halves or quarters the target's HP. Depending on the game or rather depending on the what it actually does in the game, Gravity can be lethal or non-lethal. That is to say, in most Final Fantasy games and games derived from Final Fantasy, Gravity and stronger versions of it halves or quarters the target's remaining HP which means it's usually non-lethal. In other games like FFIX, FFXII, and Tactics, it's based on the maximum HP of the target which means it's lethal in those games.

Anyway, the idea is an effect that uses the foe's HP which more or less makes it a HP version of Luna Arc. So, where Luna Arc's effect is "If unit initiates combat, deals damage = 25% of foe's Def. (Ignores reductions to Def from special skills like Lunar Flash.)", this effect would be "deals damage = 25% of foe's remaining/maximum HP." Probably has to be 25% because 50% regardless of remaining or maximum HP or dealing or even boosting damage would be really, really stupid. 50% of Elise's HP, the unit with the lowest HP, is 15 which even if it only worked on the first hit and made it so that's the only damage being dealt or prevented the unit from taking out a foe at full HP is still halving her HP because an effect says so. The other thing is that I don't think Heroes allows for something like 15+7 to show damage during combat. It's only for AoE specials and that's damage before combat.

For maximum HP and dealing damage, it would have to follow Luna Arc almost to a T. That is to say, "If unit initiates combat, deals damage = 25% of foe's HP." For remaining HP or boosting damage, then I could see it working on both phases instead i.e. "Deals damage = 25% of foe's remaining HP" or "Boosts damage = 25% of foe's HP."

I don't know of anyone or anything in Fire Emblem that has something that works like Final Fantasy's Gravity spell, so I don't know if there is someone where an effect like this could work. Henry only comes to mind with his localized character, but Henry's not a player phase mage and dealing 25% of his foe's remaining or maybe maximum HP might not be enough. Perhaps ToD! Henry with the HP thing being a reference to blood and vampires I guess could work, but so far, no seasonal unit without a personal weapon has received a new weapon.

The second one I guess you could call a gamble. Speed was what I had in mind, but it could work with other stats. So, a speed gamble where the effect is: "At start of combat, if unit initiated combat, grants Spd+15 during combat, but if foe initiated combat, inflicts Spd-15 during combat." Maybe a higher stat boost would be okay with how extreme the effect is; swinging the user's speed tier by three depending on who initiates. I don't think we have anyone really where a gambling or high risk, high reward effect would really makes sense without being weird like Joshua gambles, but this wouldn't really make sense for Audhulma. Makalov is the only character that comes to mind where this could work with his character as far as I know about him and that's not much, but that means he would need a personal weapon or for this to be a passive.

Now, of the current, gen 1 characters, I don't know why, but for some reason other than his high base attack, I'm thinking of Laslow. Laslow's stats are 44 HP, 35 Atk, 26 Spd, 30 Def, and 22 Res. With this speed gamble and thus, a 16 Mt personal sword, he would have 51/26 visible unbuffed offenses, 41 speed when initiating, and 11 speed on enemy phase. If Laslow initiates, then he can double anyone with <= 36 speed, but he gets doubled by anyone with >= 16 speed which is pretty much everyone except Arden with his default Brave Sword and without Follow-Up Ring. Arden using a different sword would be able to double without Follow-Up Ring. Laslow has a speed superasset, so if you wanted, a +Spd Laslow with this dumb idea of an effect would have 45 Spd when initiating and 15 Spd on defense. In the case of a unit like Laslow who has high attack, but low speed such as Frederick and Hawkeye which I don't think this would make sense for them, it can make them deceptively fast and also stupidly slow.

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1 hour ago, Kaden said:

So, completely unrelated to the topic at hand, two weird ideas came to mind for weapon effects. Probably should be weapon effects instead of passives.

The first one is based on Final Fantasy's Gravity spell that halves or quarters the target's HP. Depending on the game or rather depending on the what it actually does in the game, Gravity can be lethal or non-lethal. That is to say, in most Final Fantasy games and games derived from Final Fantasy, Gravity and stronger versions of it halves or quarters the target's remaining HP which means it's usually non-lethal. In other games like FFIX, FFXII, and Tactics, it's based on the maximum HP of the target which means it's lethal in those games.

Anyway, the idea is an effect that uses the foe's HP which more or less makes it a HP version of Luna Arc. So, where Luna Arc's effect is "If unit initiates combat, deals damage = 25% of foe's Def. (Ignores reductions to Def from special skills like Lunar Flash.)", this effect would be "deals damage = 25% of foe's remaining/maximum HP." Probably has to be 25% because 50% regardless of remaining or maximum HP or dealing or even boosting damage would be really, really stupid. 50% of Elise's HP, the unit with the lowest HP, is 15 which even if it only worked on the first hit and made it so that's the only damage being dealt or prevented the unit from taking out a foe at full HP is still halving her HP because an effect says so. The other thing is that I don't think Heroes allows for something like 15+7 to show damage during combat. It's only for AoE specials and that's damage before combat.

For maximum HP and dealing damage, it would have to follow Luna Arc almost to a T. That is to say, "If unit initiates combat, deals damage = 25% of foe's HP." For remaining HP or boosting damage, then I could see it working on both phases instead i.e. "Deals damage = 25% of foe's remaining HP" or "Boosts damage = 25% of foe's HP."

I don't know of anyone or anything in Fire Emblem that has something that works like Final Fantasy's Gravity spell, so I don't know if there is someone where an effect like this could work. Henry only comes to mind with his localized character, but Henry's not a player phase mage and dealing 25% of his foe's remaining or maybe maximum HP might not be enough. Perhaps ToD! Henry with the HP thing being a reference to blood and vampires I guess could work, but so far, no seasonal unit without a personal weapon has received a new weapon.

The second one I guess you could call a gamble. Speed was what I had in mind, but it could work with other stats. So, a speed gamble where the effect is: "At start of combat, if unit initiated combat, grants Spd+15 during combat, but if foe initiated combat, inflicts Spd-15 during combat." Maybe a higher stat boost would be okay with how extreme the effect is; swinging the user's speed tier by three depending on who initiates. I don't think we have anyone really where a gambling or high risk, high reward effect would really makes sense without being weird like Joshua gambles, but this wouldn't really make sense for Audhulma. Makalov is the only character that comes to mind where this could work with his character as far as I know about him and that's not much, but that means he would need a personal weapon or for this to be a passive.

Now, of the current, gen 1 characters, I don't know why, but for some reason other than his high base attack, I'm thinking of Laslow. Laslow's stats are 44 HP, 35 Atk, 26 Spd, 30 Def, and 22 Res. With this speed gamble and thus, a 16 Mt personal sword, he would have 51/26 visible unbuffed offenses, 41 speed when initiating, and 11 speed on enemy phase. If Laslow initiates, then he can double anyone with <= 36 speed, but he gets doubled by anyone with >= 16 speed which is pretty much everyone except Arden with his default Brave Sword and without Follow-Up Ring. Arden using a different sword would be able to double without Follow-Up Ring. Laslow has a speed superasset, so if you wanted, a +Spd Laslow with this dumb idea of an effect would have 45 Spd when initiating and 15 Spd on defense. In the case of a unit like Laslow who has high attack, but low speed such as Frederick and Hawkeye which I don't think this would make sense for them, it can make them deceptively fast and also stupidly slow.

The Bane skill could maybe work something similar to that. I thought about how to implement it at one point and added it to the create a hero page, on Heather, I think. But I can't remember what conclusion I came to. In any case, something like that would be really useful on infernal difficulties were enemies pack HP in the 80s and 90s.

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13 hours ago, Venmi said:

I could be mistaken, but...  you can't guarantee this in AR.  The bonus unit requirement makes the nuke+2 dancer setup impossible, unless you're bonus unit is always one of those three (or Eir or Naga).  That's why I strongly prefer tanks- they don't require two dancers as support.  I run Cain+2Eir+Leanne+bonus, which works 85% of the time, and since I can rarely run two dancers, much better than two dancers+nuke. So you're either taken a scoring hit or can't always have that kind of team set (unless Eir or Naga is your nuke, which I guess is possible...  But a real pain with Naga).

I dropped the bonus unit on my Player Phase team. I feel getting wins more easily and consistently outweighs obtaining a higher score, since I have already reached Tier 21 and I am fine with just reaching Tier 23 every week. For climbing to Tier 21, super tanking during Light Season is the easiest way to climb since Eir also provides healing.

10 hours ago, Azuni said:

Barring super-speed boosted infantry tanks, most *do not* handle common threats as well as armors can, such as LAlm or Ophelia due to lacking one shot kill potential or visible res respectively.

The difference in stats between infantry and armor is not that big. If we are just looking at the raw base BST, then yeah, the difference is pretty big. However, once you factor in skills, merges/bonus stats, Summoner Support, buffs, etc. infantry super tanks have about 95% or more of the stat points of armor super tanks.

The only thing infantry units may be missing compared to armor units is a low visible Def/Res stat for countering Blazing nukes.

Edited by XRay
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1 hour ago, XRay said:

I dropped the bonus unit on my Player Phase team. I feel getting wins more easily and consistently outweighs obtaining a higher score, since I have already reached Tier 21 and I am fine with just reaching Tier 23 every week. For climbing to Tier 21, super tanking during Light Season is the easiest way to climb since Eir also provides healing.

The difference in stats between infantry and armor is not that big. If we are just looking at the raw base BST, then yeah, the difference is pretty big. However, once you factor in skills, merges/bonus stats, Summoner Support, buffs, etc. infantry super tanks have about 95% or more of the stat points of armor super tanks.

The only thing infantry units may be missing compared to armor units is a low visible Def/Res stat for countering Blazing nukes.

In other words your are not playing competitiv (achieving highest score) which makes all your arguments moot. Of course its easier to kill things with 2-3 Dancers. Thats like running Reinhardt or Lyn or any strong nuke in an Abyssal/Infernal map. Its easy mode, because you dont have to worry about positioning much with additional Dancers.

You cant argue about competitiv play when you are not compeating yourself by trying to achieve the highest score with the proper setup: 2x mythic + main unit + dancer/support + bonus unit. That doesnt leave much room for your so called Firesweep unit to handle armorers easy lol. This also means you cant run double corrin for support. Unless your main unit, your support or the Mythic is a bonus unit.

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15 minutes ago, Hilda said:

This also means you cant run double corrin for support. Unless your main unit, your support or the Mythic is a bonus unit.

Eir is a frequent Mythic bonus unit. For supertanks, Sharena is also a frequent bonus unit.

15 minutes ago, Hilda said:

You cant argue about competitiv play when you are not compeating yourself by trying to achieve the highest score with the proper setup: 2x mythic + main unit + dancer/support + bonus unit.

I would argue that you do not need every team set up to maximize scoring. Having one or two teams that can guarantee a win without losses is more important. Having all five teams that maximizes scoring runs the risk of losing horribly because you do not have enough tools on one team to deal with multiple types of threats the defense team can pose.

Edited by XRay
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I want to add my 2 cents to the discussion:

- I use Effie (Armor) as my tank in AE. 
- I have replaced Sothe’s Peshkaz for a generic weapon, though it was barb shuriken, for Special Spiral Blazing abuse. 
- Having 4 Escape Ladder uses and now having to play just half the number of battles, losing/surrendering a random battle should not be a problem

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8 hours ago, XRay said:

Eir is a frequent Mythic bonus unit. For supertanks, Sharena is also a frequent bonus unit.

I would argue that you do not need every team set up to maximize scoring. Having one or two teams that can guarantee a win without losses is more important. Having all five teams that maximizes scoring runs the risk of losing horribly because you do not have enough tools on one team to deal with multiple types of threats the defense team can pose.

Eir  frequency as a bonus unit goes down with every Released Mythic, so that point is getting less and less valid. Sharena is a frequent bonus unit i give you that.

Not haveing all 5 Teams maximize scoreing again means you arent playing competitv, especially when one has 4 Ladder uses and the ability to double score.

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2 hours ago, Hilda said:

Not haveing all 5 Teams maximize scoreing again means you arent playing competitv, especially when one has 4 Ladder uses and the ability to double score.

Four ladder uses is no guarantee that you will not use all of them; maybe the player is having a bad week and need five, six, or even seven ladder uses. Having a team or two that ensures or nearly ensures a perfect win for 80/160 Lift is better than being wiped using a scoring team.

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The second-best way to manage AR teams would be to have 5 teams optimised for score, and if/when you run out of ladders optimise some of them for performance. The best way would be to have 5 teams optimised for performance since playing AR competitive is a bad idea.

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On 10/5/2019 at 11:37 AM, XRay said:

Armor units cannot survive a combination of Firesweep and any raw damage nuke. Armor units have bulk that Firesweepers can easily chip away and with 2 Dancers/Singers on the team, you have more than enough actions to kill one or two armor units per turn.

You seem to pretend that armors only exist on the enemy side and that the Firesweepers and nukes only exist on the player side. Both are equally fallible by the other in player hands.

Or perhaps you're just not mentioning it because it doesn't help your argument.

 

On 10/5/2019 at 11:37 AM, XRay said:

Armor units can receive support from Ward Armor, but that is an inferior buffing unit. M!Corrin has Ward+Goad on his Weapon slot, freeing his C and Sacred Seal for more buffs. No armor out there can rival M!Corrin or the other two in terms of buffs provided.

If every slot on your team is a Corrin, Kaden, etc., then there is no difference between your tank being armored or infantry.

If not every slot on your team is a Corrin, Kaden, etc., then there exists some unit on your team that is not Corrin, Kaden, etc. In this situation, if your tank is infantry, the best that extra unit can run excluding unique skills is double Drive for +6 stats. If your tank is armored, the best that extra unit can run excluding unique skills is Ward Armor + Drive for +9 stats.

Armors are tied in one case and better in the other. That's obviously an advantage for armors, not infantry.

 

On 10/5/2019 at 11:37 AM, XRay said:

Having higher mobility helps lead enemies away from your flanking Aether Structure breakers. If you have Surtr engaged around the middle of the map, It is difficult to keep the last unit or two alive by moving away and sending your flankers to break Structures.

I seem to have zero trouble disengaging low-movement units in the middle of the map (Reposition and Guidance are a thing), and if the unit remaining in the middle of the map has high movement, then your infantry tank isn't doing any better at helping your flankers.

 

On 10/5/2019 at 11:37 AM, XRay said:

A ~6.5% difference in stats is not going to make a huge difference,

I don't know why you think percentage differences matter here other than the fact that it looks good for your argument. 6.5% of 266 is 24 points of stats that you do not have somewhere. That is literally the equivalent of having a fully buffed invisible Kaden following your tank that doesn't take up a team slot or a map square. Or a free stack of Bonus Doubler. I don't know about you, but in my world, a free Kaden or Bonus Doubler is a huge difference.

 

On 10/5/2019 at 11:37 AM, XRay said:

Decent Spd is 50 Spd. Sharena has 32 Spd. Fensalir [Spd] provides, Summoner Support, and bonus stats provide 9. M!Corrins provides 12. That is a total of 53 Spd. Sharena is unique in that she can cheaply shut down buffs, but if a player is dedicated to making a super tank, they can run Dull Ranged before investing in Lull Atk/Spd. SK!Alms who invest in lots of Spd die in one hit, so they are not going to land two hits on you.

A fully invested Alm with a pure Spd focus (Darting Bow 4, Darting Blow 3, 62 Spd before buffs) has 74-84 single-hit physical bulk (40 HP, 26 Def, 8 from +10 merge, 10 from Mythic bonus on Earth weeks). A slightly more reasonable Alm (Darting Blow 4, Sturdy Blow 2, 56 Spd before buffs) has 78-88 bulk. A more annoying Alm (Sturdy Impact, Darting Blow 3, 53 Spd before buffs) has 84-94 bulk.

Alm can and does survive single hits and live to either double or get danced for another go.

 

On 10/5/2019 at 11:37 AM, XRay said:

I guess not any super tank deal with it.

However, if the offensive player can clearly see a defensive player going after infantry super tanks, the offensive player will use a different team/strategy. And with Sothe having his own exclusive Weapon that can deal mass buffs and debuffs, I find it unlikely that defensive players will swap out a generalist Weapon like Peshkatz for Poison Dagger that is situational.

I have not yet seen a single Sothe in Aether Raids run Peshkatz. Literally every Sothe runs one of Windex, Cloud Maiougi, Sky Maiougi, or Ouch Pouch. If you were going to run Peshkatz, you'd be better off running Veronica.

And I'm obviously talking about Sothe on defense teams, not Sothe on offense teams. That's obviously the player's Nah, not the oppenent's Nah. The entire concept of a "super tank" is for the player to use, not the computer.

 

On 10/5/2019 at 6:49 PM, Kaden said:

The first one is based on Final Fantasy's Gravity spell that halves or quarters the target's HP. Depending on the game or rather depending on the what it actually does in the game, Gravity can be lethal or non-lethal. That is to say, in most Final Fantasy games and games derived from Final Fantasy, Gravity and stronger versions of it halves or quarters the target's remaining HP which means it's usually non-lethal. In other games like FFIX, FFXII, and Tactics, it's based on the maximum HP of the target which means it's lethal in those games.

Anyway, the idea is an effect that uses the foe's HP which more or less makes it a HP version of Luna Arc. So, where Luna Arc's effect is "If unit initiates combat, deals damage = 25% of foe's Def. (Ignores reductions to Def from special skills like Lunar Flash.)", this effect would be "deals damage = 25% of foe's remaining/maximum HP." Probably has to be 25% because 50% regardless of remaining or maximum HP or dealing or even boosting damage would be really, really stupid. 50% of Elise's HP, the unit with the lowest HP, is 15 which even if it only worked on the first hit and made it so that's the only damage being dealt or prevented the unit from taking out a foe at full HP is still halving her HP because an effect says so. The other thing is that I don't think Heroes allows for something like 15+7 to show damage during combat. It's only for AoE specials and that's damage before combat.

For maximum HP and dealing damage, it would have to follow Luna Arc almost to a T. That is to say, "If unit initiates combat, deals damage = 25% of foe's HP." For remaining HP or boosting damage, then I could see it working on both phases instead i.e. "Deals damage = 25% of foe's remaining HP" or "Boosts damage = 25% of foe's HP."

I don't know of anyone or anything in Fire Emblem that has something that works like Final Fantasy's Gravity spell, so I don't know if there is someone where an effect like this could work. Henry only comes to mind with his localized character, but Henry's not a player phase mage and dealing 25% of his foe's remaining or maybe maximum HP might not be enough. Perhaps ToD! Henry with the HP thing being a reference to blood and vampires I guess could work, but so far, no seasonal unit without a personal weapon has received a new weapon.

Blazing Sword and The Sacred Stones had the Eclipse tome, which was the 3-to-10-Range Dark tome. It dealt damage equal to half of the opponent's remaining HP, rounded up, at the cost of having abysmally bad accuracy, low durability, and having hard locks that prevented it from performing follow-up attacks or landing critical hits.

The problem with an Eclipse-like effect is balancing it for HeroesHeroes doesn't have accuracy and durability, and restricting follow-up attacks can be blocked by running Null Follow-Up. This means you'd be unable to have a damage percentage as high as 50%, but at the same time, lower damage percentages would make the weapon completely unusable against a weakened opponent if the percentage damage was the only damage.

If you add the percentage damage to normally calculated damage, this effect can become overpowered with values even as low as 25%, so it would need to be balanced by either giving it much lower Mt than usual or restricting it to a unit with low Spd.

It's certainly doable, but it would require the numbers to be well tuned to prevent the unit from either being useless or absurdly broken.

Edited by Ice Dragon
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2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

You seem to pretend that armors only exist on the enemy side and that the Firesweepers and nukes only exist on the player side. Both are equally fallible by the other in player hands.

Or perhaps you're just not mentioning it because it doesn't help your argument.

Nukes on the defense side having access to Infantry Effective Weapons helps stop infantry from overshadowing armor units as tanks. Firesweepers are more of a threat to Player Phase teams than to Enemy Phase teams, and Firesweepers pose little to no threat to super tank teams who can just wall them off. Generalist raw damage nukes like SK!Alm and Ophelia can pose a threat to super tanks, but depending on the super tank and support set up, most raw damage nukes can be tanked with little issue.

I concede that armors are more common on offense than I thought.

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

If every slot on your team is a Corrin, Kaden, etc., then there is no difference between your tank being armored or infantry.

If not every slot on your team is a Corrin, Kaden, etc., then there exists some unit on your team that is not Corrin, Kaden, etc. In this situation, if your tank is infantry, the best that extra unit can run excluding unique skills is double Drive for +6 stats. If your tank is armored, the best that extra unit can run excluding unique skills is Ward Armor + Drive for +9 stats.

 Armors are tied in one case and better in the other. That's obviously an advantage for armors, not infantry.

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

I don't know why you think percentage differences matter here other than the fact that it looks good for your argument. 6.5% of 266 is 24 points of stats that you do not have somewhere. That is literally the equivalent of having a fully buffed invisible Kaden following your tank that doesn't take up a team slot or a map square. Or a free stack of Bonus Doubler. I don't know about you, but in my world, a free Kaden or Bonus Doubler is a huge difference.

For an Enemy Phase team, the stat advantage for armors still is not big enough to warrant lower mobility in my opinion.

Assuming simple set up:

Infantry
BST 158
Merges 20
Flaw Elimination 3
Flowers 10
Barrier/Guard Weapons 30 (14+5+4+7; Winter's Envoy is the closest Axe equivalent, but I will just pretend it gives 30 stat points to keep things simple)
Swap
Special
Distant Counter
Quick Riposte
Drive 3
Bond 10
Total Stats (pair of tanks): 234
Total Stats (triple tanks): 237
Total Stats (quad tanks): 240

Armor
BST 180
Merges 20
Flaw Elimination 3
Flowers 5
Barrier/Guard Weapons 30
Swap
Special
Distant Counter
Vengeful Fighter
Ward Armor 8
Bond 10
Total Stats (pair of tanks): 256
Total Stats (triple tanks): 264
Total Stats (quad tanks): 272

234/256 = 91.41%
237/264 = 89.77%
240/272 = 88.24%
240/264 = 90.91%

Armors do get stronger the more armor heavy the Enemy Phase team gets, but a quad armor team realistically is going to have at least 1 Armor March (hence the 240 and 264 comparison) so the team can reliably get Structures. An infantry team is still 90% of the BST of an armor team while having twice the mobility. Assuming 90% BST translates to 90% as effective in combat performance, having 90% of combat effectiveness with 100% more mobility merits a Refinement for Poison Dagger in my opinion. 24 stat points is significant, but not significant enough to warrant special treatment of not having Refinable Poison Dagger. Cavalry and fliers are more extreme in that they have better mobility and less stats to work with and they have Refinable Effective Weapons against them.

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

And I'm obviously talking about Sothe on defense teams, not Sothe on offense teams. That's obviously the player's Nah, not the oppenent's Nah. The entire concept of a "super tank" is for the player to use, not the computer.

I have never mentioned super tanks being used on a defense team.

I mentioned Refinable Poison Dagger being available on offense means that players can use it on a secondary team to have an easier time dealing with infantry tanks, just as how Armor Effective Weapons are currently used.

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

A fully invested Alm with a pure Spd focus (Darting Bow 4, Darting Blow 3, 62 Spd before buffs) has 74-84 single-hit physical bulk (40 HP, 26 Def, 8 from +10 merge, 10 from Mythic bonus on Earth weeks). A slightly more reasonable Alm (Darting Blow 4, Sturdy Blow 2, 56 Spd before buffs) has 78-88 bulk. A more annoying Alm (Sturdy Impact, Darting Blow 3, 53 Spd before buffs) has 84-94 bulk.

Alm can and does survive single hits and live to either double or get danced for another go.

I checked the calculator, and it does take my Sharena two rounds to kill SK!Alm. I guess I do not notice it as often since Eir heals up a lot of HP so it looked like SK!Alm only had one round of combat.

Edited by XRay
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6 minutes ago, XRay said:

Assuming 90% BST translates to 90% as effective in combat performance,

There is no way you can justify this assumption at all. A point in one stat is not equal in value to a point in another stat (much less in terms of combat performance), a point in one stat is not even equal to the next point in the same stat, and a point in one stat can have different value depending on the number of points in other stats. Percentage differences are utterly meaningless in this context.

Losing just 6 points of HP and Res means you take an effective 21 more damage from Ophelia's initial attack (counting the fact that you had 6 HP less to start with), which very easily could be the difference between surviving and dying (considering 21 damage is about 40% of a typical tank's HP). A mere 12 points of stats (about 3% of an armor super tank's stat total) can drop a unit's combat performance to zero against the most common (or maybe second-most common) Aether Raid defense nuke in the game.

Heck, not running Dull Ranged or Lull Atk/* costs you another 15 damage if the Ophelia is buffed, which is easily worth the points of raw stats you lose from fitting the skill in.

 

As a side note, to justify my own assertion that not all individual points in stats are of equal worth, it is plainly obvious that the first 20 points of Atk are, in fact, completely worthless.

Almost all fully built units have at least 20 points in Def and Res, meaning every point of Atk gained before reaching 20 doesn't contribute to combat performance, but instead contributes to reaching a baseline. However, literally every unit in the game has a base Atk of at least 20 with the most basic weapon equipped (Azama has the lowest base Atk at 21 without a weapon), meaning not only do those 20 points of Atk not contribute to combat performance, but also cost nothing to acquire since every unit already has all of those points from the get-go.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the points in Atk that let you perfectly 2-hit kill (preventing a unit from performing additional actions) or 1-hit kill (preventing a unit from either attacking twice or counterattacking) key targets are obviously worth the most in terms of combat performance. As such, individual points of Atk in the 70-80 range are clearly worth more than individual points of Atk in the 20-30 range.

It of course gets more complex from here on, but it should be pretty clear that a 1% difference in total stats cannot be justifiably equated to a 1% difference in combat performance.

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...I legit have no idea what the two of you are talking about anymore. What I see are the two giants of Serenes's FEH section having a discussion of equally giant proportion with input from the outside, meanwhile I'm over here wondering why IntSys have to be such teases about new weapon refines so often.
Like, someone get Niles off the development team already.

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7 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

There is no way you can justify this assumption at all. A point in one stat is not equal in value to a point in another stat (much less in terms of combat performance), a point in one stat is not even equal to the next point in the same stat, and a point in one stat can have different value depending on the number of points in other stats. Percentage differences are utterly meaningless in this context.

Losing just 6 points of HP and Res means you take an effective 21 more damage from Ophelia's initial attack (counting the fact that you had 6 HP less to start with), which very easily could be the difference between surviving and dying (considering 21 damage is about 40% of a typical tank's HP). A mere 12 points of stats (about 3% of an armor super tank's stat total) can drop a unit's combat performance to zero against the most common (or maybe second-most common) Aether Raid defense nuke in the game.

Heck, not running Dull Ranged or Lull Atk/* costs you another 15 damage if the Ophelia is buffed, which is easily worth the points of raw stats you lose from fitting the skill in.

 

As a side note, to justify my own assertion that not all individual points in stats are of equal worth, it is plainly obvious that the first 20 points of Atk are, in fact, completely worthless.

Almost all fully built units have at least 20 points in Def and Res, meaning every point of Atk gained before reaching 20 doesn't contribute to combat performance, but instead contributes to reaching a baseline. However, literally every unit in the game has a base Atk of at least 20 with the most basic weapon equipped (Azama has the lowest base Atk at 21 without a weapon), meaning not only do those 20 points of Atk not contribute to combat performance, but also cost nothing to acquire since every unit already has all of those points from the get-go.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the points in Atk that let you perfectly 2-hit kill (preventing a unit from performing additional actions) or 1-hit kill (preventing a unit from either attacking twice or counterattacking) key targets are obviously worth the most in terms of combat performance. As such, individual points of Atk in the 70-80 range are clearly worth more than individual points of Atk in the 20-30 range.

It of course gets more complex from here on, but it should be pretty clear that a 1% difference in total stats cannot be justifiably equated to a 1% difference in combat performance.

Luna, Moonbow and Dragonfang etc make those first 20 a little more useful. Not that this is a disagreement, I fully get what you're saying, that plus atk seal is obviously going to be more useful on Grima than Azama even though it applies the same stat total increase to both of them. I'm just pointing out something extra that is in itself rather worthless to add because that's just the kind of guy I am.

Edited by Jotari
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44 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

...I legit have no idea what the two of you are talking about anymore. What I see are the two giants of Serenes's FEH section having a discussion of equally giant proportion with input from the outside, meanwhile I'm over here wondering why IntSys have to be such teases about new weapon refines so often.
Like, someone get Niles off the development team already.

I'm thinking that maybe they do have to be such teases.

 

Subjectively speaking, weapon refines are quite possibly the second most exciting monthly addition to the game for me. I look forward to them on a comparable scale to actual banners. And given how much of our new banner space is wasted on seasonal guff now, I may actually anticipate WR updates more than banners.

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7 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

There is no way you can justify this assumption at all. A point in one stat is not equal in value to a point in another stat (much less in terms of combat performance), a point in one stat is not even equal to the next point in the same stat, and a point in one stat can have different value depending on the number of points in other stats. Percentage differences are utterly meaningless in this context.

For Spd tanks, the BST gap does not make much of a difference. But what does make a difference is access to Vengeful Fighter and dragon Breath effect. I picked LD!Tiki and LA!Eliwood because they have similar stat spreads compared to Sharena, with balanced stats all around. I picked both for comparison since there are no 180 BST Lance armor.

Sharena:
107:50:91
Sharena with Hexblade:
139:49:60

LD!Tiki:
154:37:57
LD!Tiki with Moonbow:
143:37:68

LA!Eliwood:
136:47:65
LA!Eliwood with Moonbow:
114:47:87
LA!Eliwood with Hexblade:
146:47:55
LA!Eliwood with Moonbow and Hexblade:
142:45:61

Challengers: Against Hard List merge+10 with 6/6/6/6 buffs. Challengers have max Flowers. Sharena has Atk/Spd/Def+3. LD!Tiki and LA!Eliwood got Def/Res+8. When comparing Sharena to LD!Tiki, I enabled Hexblade effect so they are on equal footing.

Spoiler

CHALLENGER LIST  
Sharena (5*+10)  
Weapon: Vanguard+  
Special: Moonbow  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Quick Riposte 3  
S: Atk Spd Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  
  
Tiki (LD) (5*+10)  
Weapon: Water Breath+  
Special: Luna  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Vengeful Fighter 3  
S: Atk Spd Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  
  
Eliwood (LA) (5*+10)  
Weapon: Vanguard+  
Special: Luna  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Vengeful Fighter 3  
S: Atk Spd Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  
    
Tiki (LD) (5*+10)  
Weapon: Water Breath+  
Special: Moonbow  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Vengeful Fighter 3  
S: Atk Spd Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  
  
Eliwood (LA) (5*+10)  
Weapon: Vanguard+  
Special: Moonbow  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Vengeful Fighter 3  
S: Atk Spd Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  

For Def/Res tanks, the stat gap does make a difference. Skill access does not make much a difference for Surtr, but it does make a difference for Hawkeye. Better stat distribution makes a difference. Since Hawkeye had a lot of wasted points in Spd, I decided to reallocate some of it to see how much of a difference it makes. I did not bother testing Hexblade since I did not need to involve dragons.

Hawkeye:
81:103:64
Hawkeye with 1 pre-charge to simulate Vengeful Fighter:
95:97:56
Hawkeye with Spd-5 debuff and Def+5 bonus buff to simulate minmax stats:
105:93:50
Hawkeye with 1 pre-charge, Spd-5 debuff, and Def+5 bonus buff:
113:88:47

Surtr:
157:50:41
Surtr with Bonfire
154:50:44
Surtr with Bonfire and Quick Riposte:
152:50:46

Challenger List: Against Hard List merge+10 with 6/6/6/6 buffs. Challengers have max Flowers. Hawkeyes have 3/0/3/3 combat buffs. Surtr has 0/0/8/8 combat buffs.

Spoiler

CHALLENGER LIST  
Hawkeye (5*+10 +def)  
Weapon: Sack o Gifts+  
Special: Bonfire  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Quick Riposte 3  
S: Atk Def Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  
  
Hawkeye (5*+10 +def)  
Weapon: Sack o Gifts+  
Special: Bonfire  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Quick Riposte 3  
S: Atk Def Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  
  
Hawkeye (5*+10 +def)  
Weapon: Sack o Gifts+  
Special: Bonfire  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Quick Riposte 3  
S: Atk Def Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  
  
Hawkeye (5*+10 +def)  
Weapon: Sack o Gifts+  
Special: Bonfire  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Quick Riposte 3  
S: Atk Def Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  
  
Surtr (5*+10 +def)  
Weapon: Sack o Gifts+  
Special: Ignis  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Vengeful Fighter 3  
S: Atk Def Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  
  
Surtr (5*+10 +def)  
Weapon: Sack o Gifts+  
Special: Bonfire  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Vengeful Fighter 3  
S: Atk Def Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  
  
Surtr (5*+10 +def)  
Weapon: Sack o Gifts+  
Special: Bonfire  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Quick Riposte 3  
S: Atk Def Bond 3  
Upgrade Path: 3  

For Spd tanks, between infantry and armor, what infantry is missing out on is killing power due to lack of Vengeful Fighter. Their bulk is relatively similar however.

For Def/Res tanks, the difference between infantry and armor in stats translates to a much bigger performance difference.

However, if we look at the best tanks the game has to offer, infantry's Seliph and BH!Ike blows armors' best straight out the water. I will concede that Poison Dagger might not need a Refinement immediately since it might heavily impact offensive players who are still using other infantry as tanks, but if those two infantry tanks become more and more common on offense, I would argue that Poison Dagger Refinement would definitely be necessary in the future, preferably with a Firesweep effect against Infantry. Seliph is super easy to merge for veteran players and BH!Ike does not need a lot of merges to be effective.

BH!Ike:
186:0:62
Seliph:
202:11:35
Nagi:
184:44:20
Idunn:
211:26:11

Challenger List: Against Hard List merge+10 with 6/6/6/6 buffs. Challengers have max Flowers. Infantry have 6/0/0/0 buffs. Armors have 8/8/8/8 buffs. Idunn has Demonic Breath active.

Spoiler

CHALLENGER LIST  
Ike (Brave) (5*+10)  
Weapon: Urvan  
Special: Ignis  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Lull Atk Def 3  
S: Quick Riposte 3  
Upgrade Path: 5  
  
Seliph (5*+10 +atk)  
Weapon: Tyrfing  
Special: Reprisal  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Lull Spd Def 3  
S: Quick Riposte 3  
Upgrade Path: 5  
  
Nagi (5*+10 +def)  
Weapon: Ethereal Breath  
Special: Ignis  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Special Fighter 3  
S: Quick Riposte 3  
  
Idunn (5*+10 +def)  
Weapon: Demonic Breath  
Special: Bonfire  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Vengeful Fighter 3  
S: Close Def 3  

 

 

8 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

...I legit have no idea what the two of you are talking about anymore. What I see are the two giants of Serenes's FEH section having a discussion of equally giant proportion with input from the outside, meanwhile I'm over here wondering why IntSys have to be such teases about new weapon refines so often.
Like, someone get Niles off the development team already.

We are discussing whether Refinable Poison Dagger should be introduced. I am arguing it should be introduced because infantry is starting to overshadow armor.

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2 hours ago, XRay said:

We are discussing whether Refinable Poison Dagger should be introduced. I am arguing it should be introduced because infantry is starting to overshadow armor.

Calling it now: Jakob's Tray will inexplicably have effective damage against infantry and because why not, beasts as well.

Or the update drops a bomb on us with Virion's Dignified Bow having effective damage against fliers and infantry as its base effect followed by whatever unique refinement it'll have like Sudden Panic or Aversa's Night's effect.

Edited by Kaden
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