General Weapon Refinery discussion/speculation/creation thread

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Seeing the refines for Brave Dimitri/Claude/Lysithea/Edelgard really puts into perspective how not great Brave Lyn's refine was even at its launch. She needs a do-over, man.

[Othin]

Haar's effective damage change is a neat little nod to FE10's mechanics. Wonder if they'll have Jill's refine do the same thing, whenever they get to it.

Haar and Edelgard are the two on this list I still use, so they're the ones I went for. Took the chance to 5* and merge my existing extra Haars, maybe I'll spend grails to finish the job sometime.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Othin

[Xenomata]

Not counting Haar, the only one who has an updated base weapon effect as far as I can tell is Julia.

• On the lone positive side, Brave Edelgard does not have Galeforce or Damage Reduction on her first attack.
  On the utter negative side, she is now a giant statball outside of Spd, gets hp recovery on attack, and has Guard. When will this game stop being plagued by the existence that is Edelgard...
• Dimitri looks good. Certainly... better than other DC weapon refines >.>
• Kinda looks like Claude got Failnaught/Falling Star lite for his refine (PLUS Tempo.) All goes good together and certainly makes up for the fact that he didn't get a Prf skill.
• ...ugh, Lysithea's refine is good, and makes me wish all the more that I had her...
• ...well... Sothis did technically get a remix? In the sense that she is now a little faster and has flat damage reduction?
  ...I know refines will get slightly worse over time for remixes, but this is sad even by DC refine standards...
• This girl seriously invoking her orginal refine so long ago, and I am LOVING IT. She certainly has the Res to be withstanding the typically meh PP attacks of dragons. I'm sure people will be comparing her to her recently released mother, but... I don't care, already refined.
  Only a shame that she's not able to do a whole lot about Nifls...
• I'm guessing that Wyvern Riders are weak to Thunder magic in the Tellius games? Are they... not weak to Bows as well? I'm not well-versed in Tellius mechanics. He probably would have been fine not slotting in one weakness for another, but he would have been dead to most Blue Magic anyway and hey he doesn't need to waste a slot on Iotes so no complaining.
  Refine certainly makes him more physically durable. I'm actually kinda tempted to build him up now... if only there were a Def or Atk variant of Distant Dart/Stance.

3 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Seeing the refines for Brave Dimitri/Claude/Lysithea/Edelgard really puts into perspective how not great Brave Lyn's refine was even at its launch. She needs a do-over, man.

Agreed, a refined Prf weapon really should not be easily outdone by a Grail units inheritable weapon...

Edited September 6, 2022 by Xenomata

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, Xenomata said:

I'm guessing that Wyvern Riders are weak to Thunder magic in the Tellius games? Are they... not weak to Bows as well? I'm not well-versed in Tellius mechanics.

In Path of Radiance, dragon knight classes are weak to both bows and thunder magic, but in Radiant Dawn, they lose their weakness to bows and are only weak to thunder magic. As Heroes's version of Haar is from Radiant Dawn, he is now not weak to bows.

[Xenomata]

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

In Path of Radiance, dragon knight classes are weak to both bows and thunder magic, but in Radiant Dawn, they lose their weakness to bows and are only weak to thunder magic. As Heroes's version of Haar is from Radiant Dawn, he is now not weak to bows.

Huh. That's kinda interesting actually. Would probably screw with me trying to get used to that coming off standard FE mechanics, assuming the distinction even makes a difference for RD wyverns.

[Othin]

4 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

In Path of Radiance, dragon knight classes are weak to both bows and thunder magic, but in Radiant Dawn, they lose their weakness to bows and are only weak to thunder magic. As Heroes's version of Haar is from Radiant Dawn, he is now not weak to bows.

In FE9, dragon knights are actually weak to bows and wind magic, like pegasus knights and bird laguz. Thunder magic was only effective against dragon laguz. (And fire magic against beast laguz.) Then FE10 changed them entirely from "flier" weaknesses to "dragon" weaknesses.

3 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Huh. That's kinda interesting actually. Would probably screw with me trying to get used to that coming off standard FE mechanics, assuming the distinction even makes a difference for RD wyverns.

It's a pretty significant buff, in particular it helps Haar act as a powerful 1-2 range tank.

[Tybrosion]

I'm content with what Haar got and like the nod to how RD dracoknights aren't weak to bows but are weak to thunder magic. Too bad I realized that I don't have any relevant skill fodder (specifically A/D Near Trace or even Atk/Def Lull) to give him right now. I was running Quick Riposte 3 in the B slot but now he doesn't need that anymore.

42 minutes ago, Florete said:

Someone hates Sothis.

They clearly put Nemesis in charge of her refine, because there was a murder here.

But yeah, Sothis's refine has the be one of the worst ones in a good while. They don't even the "Distant counter refine" excuse when CYL Dimitri is now Askr Lite.

[Ice Dragon]

Just now, Xenomata said:

Huh. That's kinda interesting actually. Would probably screw with me trying to get used to that coming off standard FE mechanics, assuming the distinction even makes a difference for RD wyverns.

Radiant Dawn essentially streamlined effective damage so that there were three groups of effective damage for magic:

• "Beast" classes are weak to fire. (Only Laguz Beast Tribe units.)
• "Dragon" classes are weak to thunder. (Laguz Dragon Tribe and dragon knights.)
• "Flying" classes are weak to wind and bows. (Laguz Bird Tribe and pegasus knights, minus Rafiel, who is grounded.)

Dragon knights ended up categorized with only the "dragon" effectiveness tag and managed to avoid being weak to wind and bows.

It's a massive buff to them since bows are pretty common, and they managed to avoid the terror of crossbows. Crossbows ignored the user's Str stat and calculated damage based only on the weapon's Mt, which meant that they had enormous Mt stats to compensate and caused them to have comically large damage numbers against other flying classes.

[Diovani Bressan]

I don't know what there were thinking with Sothis. A weak refinement, and Null C doesnt even make sense in her.

She is a candidate for worst Mythic Hero at this point, depending on how Yune's refinement and remix goes.

[Sunwoo]

2 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

I'm content with what Haar got and like the nod to how RD dracoknights aren't weak to bows but are weak to thunder magic. Too bad I realized that I don't have any relevant skill fodder (specifically A/D Near Trace or even Atk/Def Lull) to give him right now. I was running Quick Riposte 3 in the B slot but now he doesn't need that anymore.

Pretty sure Haar can't inherit Lull anyway, unless you mean Rein/Hold.

22 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Seeing the refines for Brave Dimitri/Claude/Lysithea/Edelgard really puts into perspective how not great Brave Lyn's refine was even at its launch. She needs a do-over, man.

At least Brave Lyn isn't Leo, Takumi, or Anna.

[Xenomata]

1 minute ago, Diovani Bressan said:

She is a candidate for worst Mythic Hero at this point, depending on how Yune's refinement and remix goes.

I see no reason for Yune to get a disappointing refine. She already has all the tools she needs to have a strong gameplan (debuff the enemy for strong returns), those tools just need to be made better. And unlike Eir, she doesn't have a reason to have a refine that gets unfocused from her original or player-established role. Plus she's not a DC unit, so that already makes her refine 50% better than the bare minimum.

...my bias may be showing a bit, but my argument stands.

[Tybrosion]

14 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Pretty sure Haar can't inherit Lull anyway, unless you mean Rein/Hold.

Man, I'm really bad at remembering inherit restrictions. Thanks for reminding me that fliers can't get Lulls.

My Haar does already have Atk/Def Rein 3, so I guess I will be pushing for A/D Near Trace for the B slot.

[Medeus]

Why is Rhea trying to bring back Sothis? With that refine she's not bringing anyone to salvation.

Honestly surprised with BClaude's as I wasn't expecting him to get almost everything the playerbase was asking for him. It almost checks off everything he needed to deal with what was blocking his playstyle from working, which is great because ranged fliers don't get a lot to play around with. 

[Ice Dragon]

Updated my initial post with analyses. A few highlights and additional observations:

 

While Sothis's refine is really underwhelming, I'm not sure it's actually all that bad. Once Atk/Spd Finish is released, I think she can run something like this:

Sothis [+Spd]
Sublime Surge [unique]
[Assist]
Sirius+
Atk/Spd Finish 4
Dragon's Wrath 4 / Lull Atk/Spd 3 / Lull Spd/Res 3
Atk/Spd Menace / Spd Smoke 4
Darting Breath

Dragon's Wrath 4 gives her a pretty sizable 55% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack, and Darting Breath in combination with Sirius+ having the offensive half of Tempo means that she'll have Finish's additional effects active pretty much all of the time on enemy phase.

 

Dimitri looks busted. Having both 40% damage reduction and roughly 12~15 points of flat damage reduction is not something to take lightly.

It's also worth noting that they specifically distributed his stats to inflict -5 Def on the opponent instead of +5 Atk to himself in addition to the more typical +5 Spd/Def/Res, which means he actually gets an effective +10 Def for the purposes of calculating the damage reduction from Blue Lion Rule. That's kind of ridiculous considering they do the exact opposite for dragons, who get +5 Atk for themselves and inflict -5 Atk on the opponent, which specifically does not benefit Dragon Wall at all.

 

On a different note, I've been doing some testing with Claude's new Deep Wounds nullification. It applies to all sources of healing in combat (not just to his weapon's effect), but does not apply to healing outside of combat. Specifically, I tested

• Passive healing support from Valentine Robin (5 HP regeneration per unit's attack in combat): Grants +3 HP per attack.
• Mystic Boost Sacred Seal (6 HP regeneration after combat): Nullified.
• Recover+ from an ally: Unable to target.

The skill description is worded differently in Japanese, and the Deep Wounds nullification is separate from the healing effect.

It's also worth noting that the value being rounded down for this calculation is the reduction to healing coming from Deep Wounds (i.e. Deep Wounds reduces the amount healed by 40%, rounded down), meaning the amount being healed is effectively rounded up.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Ice Dragon

[vikingsfan92]

Well testing my Aether raids teams against each other I can say I probably need to find a new Brave Edelgard answer. as my Summer Cadea and Ninja Corrin don't answers versus her refine and they are units I use to break through a lot of armors currently on my Astra season. Or at the very least I need a lot more merges on them. I am sure at higher merges they do better. Also I kind of want to trait change to +res instead of attack (I have used a florette so already have +def) on my Edelgard

Edited September 6, 2022 by vikingsfan92

[Xenomata]

Some refines to keep you safe on trick-or-treating night... or to make the night one of endless terror...? Or in one case, leave you in a McDonalds parking lot by yourself because he heard a noise.

• Brazen Cat Fang, the Red Beast Weapon of Lethe: Gallia's Valkyrie (Grants Spd+3. If unit is not adjacent to an ally, grants Atk/Spd+6 during combat. At start of turn, if unit is adjacent to only beast or dragon allies or unit is not adjacent to any ally, unit transforms (otherwise, unit reverts). If unit transforms, grants Atk+2 and if unit initiates combat, inflicts Atk/Def-4 on foe during combat and foe cannot make a follow-up attack.)
• Death, the Blue Tome of Delthea: Tatarrah's Puppet (Grants Res+3. Grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 during combat. After combat, if unit attacked, deals 4 damage to unit. )
• Deep-Blue Bow, the Blue Bow of Lyn: Lady of the Beach (Grants Spd+3. Effective against flying and armored foes. If foe's HP = 100% and unit initiates combat, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 during combat.)
• Bunny Fang, the Green Beast Weapon of Yarne: Timid Taguel (Grants Spd+3. Effective against cavalry foes. After combat, if unit's HP <=75% grants Special cooldown count-2. Effect [Beast(Cavalry)] [Beast (Cavalry)] At start of turn, if unit is adjacent to only beast or dragon allies or if unit is not adjacent to any ally, unit transforms (otherwise, unit reverts). If unit transforms, grants Atk+2, and if unit initiates combat, inflicts Atk/Def-4 on foe during combat and foe cannot make a follow-up Attack. )
• Razing Breath, the Colorless Dragonstone of Tiki: Torpid Dragon (Effective against dragon foes. Unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range. If foe's Range = 2, calculates damage using the lower of foe's Def or Res. )

As an initial prediction, Yarne will get some form of Canto because the original idea of him having a full-charge Galeforce after his combat ends in order to "escape" (because we were definitely going to let him do that...) pretty much matches what Canto is capable of doing.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Xenomata

[Naoshi]

[Ice Dragon]

No new weapons, so no translation notes this time.

Hopes and predictions, then:

Lethe: Brazen Cat Fang

Base effect is

• Permanent +3 Spd
• Atk/Spd Solo 3
• Standard transform condition and cavalry transform effect

It's pretty likely that the base effect's condition will be updated to a Blow-or-Solo condition like pretty much all other similar weapon effects.

Lethe is a standard offensive cavalry unit, and her base weapon effect is just stats, which makes her a general-use unit with no real specialization. Her base kit consists of Moonbow, Spd/Def Solo, and Hone Beasts, which also doesn't say much. Because of this, it's hard to guess if they will keep her a general-use unit or give her a specialization, and if so, what specialization it will be.

What her base kit does say is that she's intended to tank a counterattack and land her Special on her follow-up.

As a beast unit, she doesn't have access to Flow, so she would prefer to get Null Follow-Up on her weapon. She's unable to land her Special if the opponent has Guard or if the opponent cannot counterattack, so she would like to either get Tempo, which she also doesn't have access to, or a Special charge rate boost. Since she's supposed to be tanking a counterattack, she'd also like damage reduction on the first hit.

Fallen Delthea: Death

Base effect is

• Permanent +3 Res
• +4 to all stats
• If unit attacked, unit takes 4 damage after combat

This set of refines is full of units with no direction, and Delthea continues the trend. Death just grants stats and a small amount of recoil. Her base kit consists of Glacies, Death Blow, and Even Atk Wave and is also just stats.

I'm expecting the refine to grant a teleportation effect on top of whatever combat effects they give it.

Summer Lyn: Deep-Blue Bow

Base effect is

• Permanent +3 Spd
• Effective damage against armors
• With Blow condition or if opponent's HP is 100%:
  • +4 to all stats
• Bow common effect

Deep-Blue Bow appears to be a wall breaker with its effective damage against armors and Lyn's default Sturdy Impact, but it's hindered by Lyn's low Atk stat, poor bulk, and lack of access to Null Follow-Up.

Lyn has no Special by default and ideally would like to run Deadeye and receive effects that allow her to guarantee its activation in every round of combat. In a perfect world, this would be Null Follow-Up, Tempo, Slaying, and either +1 Special charge rate (or -1 Special cooldown at the start of combat) or the Brave effect. In a more perfect world, it would be Null Follow-Up, Slaying, and -2 Special cooldown at the start of combat.

Additionally, she needs a better defensive effect than relying on Sturdy Impact. Percentage damage reduction and Sweep are both likely effects, as they can be found on other versions of Lyn.

Yarne: Bunny Fang

Base effect is

• Permanent +3 Spd
• Effective damage against cavalry
• If unit's HP is 75% or lower after combat:
  • -2 to Special cooldown
• Standard transform condition and cavalry transform effect

Yarne is clearly intended to have his HP drop below 50% and then spam Escape Route and Galeforce. The problem is that if he's running Escape Route, he has no way to keep himself alive once dropping below 50% HP since he can't simultaneously run Desperation.

Ideally, he gets Miracle when above 50% HP to allow him to safely drop below 50% HP and either Desperation or Sweep below 50% HP to keep him alive.

Since base Bunny Fang's only stat boost is the permanent stat effect, it's likely that it will get an update to its base effect to grant +5 Atk/Spd or something similar on top of the likely stat boost from the refine effect. Yarne certainly needs it since his Spd is pretty lackluster otherwise.

Fallen Tiki: Razing Breath

Base effect is

• Effective damage against dragons
• Distant Counter
• Dragon common effect

Another unit with no direction. Distant Counter weapons typically don't get much from refines with the exception of CYL units, so I don't expect much.

Fallen Tiki is the only fast colorless dragon armor, but her Spd stat is quite outdated by modern standards, and she gains no boost from her weapon. On release, she was intended to be a dual-phase unit, but her bulk was already unreliable on enemy phase at her release. Additionally, she has no access to Dodge, and her ability to use Dragon Wall is hindered by her low Res stat.

Tiki ends up having to pick between either having some semblance of bulk with the rare Dragon's Wrath or having an almost-functional Special with Special Fighter and currently can't have both.

Functionally, Fallen Tiki was a largely failed prototype for Fallen Edelgard, and it's unlikely Tiki will actually get the tools to compete because beast armor weapons have the excuse that they're "not actually Distant Counter weapons". I'm not really going to bother guessing what Tiki will get because Fallen Edelgard is her direct competitor, and she's not going to get anywhere close, so it's not going to matter.

[Jotari]

How busted would it be if Delthea got effectiveness against all unit types as a refine? The weapon is called Death after all. And at this point I'm thinking permanent effective damage really wouldn't be that insane at all. Shiida basically has it in two different incarnations.

[Diovani Bressan]

6 hours ago, Naoshi said:

Dimitri is the next Blue in line, same for Edelgard on Green. Would be cool if they skipped Fallen Corrin and have Claude earlier, so all 3 house leaders can get refinement at the same time. The 4th unit on the banner would be a seasonal... and in this case would be Halloween Hector on the red color. Then add 3 more refinements that are not part of the New Powers banner, which are Yune, Legendary Eliwood and Cynthia.

[Ice Dragon]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

How busted would it be if Delthea got effectiveness against all unit types as a refine? The weapon is called Death after all. And at this point I'm thinking permanent effective damage really wouldn't be that insane at all. Shiida basically has it in two different incarnations.

I don't see any reason why they would, given that Death is a weapon from the main series and not a Heroes-original weapon, and effective damage is one of the few weapon properties that actually consistently gets preserved in Heroes.

After all, Legendary Caeda's Wing-Lifted Spear (despite its name in English, it's actually just a prefixed Wing Spear) doesn't have all of the effective damage against weapon types that Feather Sword and Dolphin-Dive Axe have.

 

8 minutes ago, Diovani Bressan said:

Dimitri is the next Blue in line, same for Edelgard on Green. Would be cool if they skipped Fallen Corrin and have Claude earlier, so all 3 house leaders can get refinement at the same time. The 4th unit on the banner would be a seasonal... and in this case would be Halloween Hector on the red color. Then add 3 more refinements that are not part of the New Powers banner, which are Yune, Legendary Eliwood and Cynthia.

Given that there is only one more Special Hero from Book 3 waiting for a refine and that there is a pretty substantial time gap between Duo Hector's release (October 2019) and where the other categories currently are in their backlogs (Yarne was June 2019, Fallen Delthea was May 2019), I think it's likely that they'll skip releasing Special Hero refines for a couple months while the other categories catch up.

[Diovani Bressan]

20 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Given that there is only one more Special Hero from Book 3 waiting for a refine and that there is a pretty substantial time gap between Duo Hector's release (October 2019) and where the other categories currently are in their backlogs (Yarne was June 2019, Fallen Delthea was May 2019), I think it's likely that they'll skip releasing Special Hero refines for a couple months while the other categories catch up.

I can see your point of view, but that could delay the seasonal refinements by a lot considering that starting on Book 4 it became very common to have at least 2 Prf weaon per seasonal banner. After Halloween Hector's refinement in November:

• Glorious Gifts (Winter) will take 2 months because of Sothis and Marth: December and January.
• Renewed Spirit (New Year) will take 3 months because of Alfonse, Lethe and Selkie: February, March and April.
• Lovely Gifts (Valentines) will take 2 months because of Alm and Rudolf: May and June.
• Familial Festivities (Spring) will take 3 months because of Idunn, Fir and Est: July, August and October (I am skipping  September because of CYL 5 refinement).
• The Start of It All (Young Heroes) will take 4 months because of... well... everyone on that banner: November, December, January and February (even though Young Marth shares weapon with Phina, and outside Legendary Azura no other dancer got a refinement... I still believe he will get a refinement. Being it on the refinement for Rapier or getting a new weapon like how happened to Linus, like... Legacied Rapier or something).

This covered the possible seasonal refinements for 2023.

Considering they do not care about Choose Your Legends refinement skipping everyone else, I see no problem in Seasonal refinements continuing though Book 4 while the normal heroes stay behind.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Diovani Bressan

[Ice Dragon]

13 minutes ago, Diovani Bressan said:

I can see your point of view, but that could delay the seasonal refinements by a lot considering that starting on Book 4 it became very common to have at least 2 Prf weaon per seasonal banner. After Halloween Hector's refinement in November:

• Glorious Gifts (Winter) will take 2 months because of Sothis and Marth: December and January.
• Renewed Spirit (New Year) will take 3 months because of Alfonse, Lethe and Selkie: February, March and April.
• Lovely Gifts (Valentines) will take 2 months because of Alm and Rudolf: May and June.
• Familial Festivities (Spring) will take 3 months because of Idunn, Fir and Est: July, August and October (I am skipping  September because of CYL 5 refinement).
• The Start of It All (Young Heroes) will take 4 months because of... well... everyone on that banner: November, December, January and February (even though Young Marth shares weapon with Phina, and outside Legendary Azura no other dancer got a refinement... I still believe he will get a refinement. Being it on the refinement for Rapier or getting a new weapon like how happened to Linus, like... Legacied Rapier or something).

This covered the possible seasonal refinements for 2023.

Considering they do not care about Choose Your Legends refinement skipping everyone else, I see no problem in Seasonal refinements continuing though Book 4 while the normal heroes stay behind.

Even if they release Duo Hector's refine next month and release 1 Special Hero refine each month after that to try to not fall behind, they're going to fall behind eventually if they don't start releasing 2 Special Hero refines each month.

With a schedule of 1 Special Hero refine each month, the Special Hero backlog will fall behind the standard pool backlog around December 2023 or January 2024 (which is around when the standard pool backlog will reach the 2020 Fallen Heroes banner at the same time the Special Hero backlog reaches the 2020 Young Heroes banner).

Yes, that's still a year away before they'll start to fall behind and be forced to change the number of refine "slots" awarded to each unit type per month, but if they're going to be forced to do it anyways, there's no reason why they couldn't just let the standard pool refines catch up first. Then we'd at least be getting refines for weapons of comparable strength each month instead of suddenly seeing refines for weapons with noticeably stronger base effects on the Special Heroes side of things.

 

At least, that's how I would plan things if I were in charge. But I'm not in charge, and IS has shown that they can make strange decisions.

[Diovani Bressan]

12 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Even if they release Duo Hector's refine next month and release 1 Special Hero refine each month after that to try to not fall behind, they're going to fall behind eventually if they don't start releasing 2 Special Hero refines each month.

With a schedule of 1 Special Hero refine each month, the Special Hero backlog will fall behind the standard pool backlog around December 2023 or January 2024 (which is around when the standard pool backlog will reach the 2020 Fallen Heroes banner at the same time the Special Hero backlog reaches the 2020 Young Heroes banner).

Yes, that's still a year away before they'll start to fall behind and be forced to change the number of refine "slots" awarded to each unit type per month, but if they're going to be forced to do it anyways, there's no reason why they couldn't just let the standard pool refines catch up first. Then we'd at least be getting refines for weapons of comparable strength each month instead of suddenly seeing refines for weapons with noticeably stronger base effects on the Special Heroes side of things.

 

At least, that's how I would plan things if I were in charge. But I'm not in charge, and IS has shown that they can make strange decisions.

I totally agree with you. They should increase the amount of refinements per month, and honestly... not only for seasonals. Only 3 Normal Heroes + 1 Seasonal + 1 Grail in months without Legendary/Mythic Remixes is not enough.

Honestly, they should double that to 6+2+2, and have 2 New Powers banners with four units each. Or at least increase the normal and seasonal ones, for 4+2, and have 2 banners with three units reach.

They could even use this increase of refinements to go back and give refinements to old units like the dancers and staff units, including the two seasonals dancers with Prfs Azura and Micaiah.

[Sunwoo]

I am irrationally upset about how there isn't a single 4-star demote unit getting a weapon refine. For fuck's sake, they arguably need more help than the 5-stars. It's going to take forever to get through the few demotes we have if they keep on putting off units like Bantu and Tanya and Ross.