General Weapon Refinery discussion/speculation/creation thread

[redlight]

18 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Why would Lewyn even want Null Follow-up?

Because follow-up negation is all that stops him from almost murdering everything on PP

[DehNutCase]

1 minute ago, silveraura25 said:

Because follow-up negation is all that stops him from almost murdering everything on PP

Don't fix weaknesses that don't exist. If you're running into Wary fighters and G-tome breakers all the time then good, they wasted their B-slots but you didn't waste yours. Send someone else in to murder those crappy units.

[redlight]

Just now, DehNutCase said:

Don't fix weaknesses that don't exist. If you're running into Wary fighters and G-tome breakers all the time then good, they wasted their B-slots but you didn't waste yours. Send someone else in to murder those crappy units.

Can't use desperation if he can't make a follow-up attack. That is a weakness.

He has issues with a bunch of extremely common foes he could easily kill if he just had the ability to make a follow-up attack. He was recommend to run lancebreaker for WF Effie, because he was doing such a good job, but just fell short in some areas (follow-up negations). His b-slot didn't have a large impact in calculations so lancebreaker was the extra oompf he needed. Before the existence NFU, he could just not deal with Lector and Myrrh. Now he can. These 3 units are incredibly common in tier 19.5 score range. Lewyn is a beast, but desperation only works if a follow-up attack exists

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JN2PVd55GIVJpxet-YKTb5yOVXmD4VnCJv20nzW6XLQ/edit#gid=476887793

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

It's inseparable from the weapon because its conditional on the special being ready at start of combat.

It's separable because for all intents and purposes, the weapon is designed to be run on a build that always has the condition fulfilled.

Just like how you can always expect your player-controlled cavalry to have Hone Cavalry buffs, you can always expect a player-controlled Saber to have his Special ready at the beginning of combat.

And even if you do consider it inseparable from the weapon, it's still both technically and functionally equivalent to Saber having +3 to all base stats and the weapon having a -3 to all stats penalty when the inverse condition is fulfilled.

 

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

If all they wanted to test was DC + Killer then they could've straight up given it to him---because his spread is pretty similar to Mercenary Ike's without any changes.

No, they can't have done that because if they found that it was, in fact, broken, they couldn't have taken it back. Adding a condition means that they can always implement a softer check (Witchy Wand, for example) rather than flat-out nullifying a class of effects with a harder counter (Null Special or Null Counter, for example).

 

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

Why would Lewyn even want Null Follow-up? G-Tomebreaker and Wary Fighter are not my idea of top B-slots to counter

Wary Fighter is common enough of a skill and is one of the few things preventing Levn from curbstomping all blue units (and many of the tankier greens with follow-up negation, like Legendary Hector and Myrrh) if he doesn't have Null Follow-Up.
 

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

Ophelia's Study Blow isn't optimal,

It's actually complete and utter shit on her.

 

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

but the fundamental rule of doubling people is:

Except Ophelia has zero reason to care to double enemies. Just like Reinhardt, you don't care about doubling enemies when you can simply kill them before they counterattack.

Ophelia's optimal build is Ophelia [+Atk] (Missiletainn, Blazing Wind, Life and Death 3, Special Spiral 3, Hardy Bearing 3 / Attack +3). At +0 with no buffs against ArcticSilverFox's Hard list set to +10 with +6/40/6/6 buffs (i.e. she's not doubling), this build hits 180-62-60 on initiation. When Ophelia is +10 with a +6 Atk buff, she hits 240-7-1. (Needs 2 tome-using allies to trigger Missiletainn's effect, which is probably the only reason Gamepedia isn't tiering her at S+.)

To put this into perspective, +10 Reinhardt [+Atk] (Dire Thunder, Moonbow, Death Blow 4, Lancebreaker 3, Quickened Pulse) +6/6/6/6 against the same opponents (lowering the Spd buff down from 40 back to 6 doesn't change anything here) only gets 166-71-11.

Edited November 20, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[DehNutCase]

36 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

It's separable because for all intents and purposes, the weapon is designed to be run on a build that always has the condition fulfilled.

Just like how you can always expect your player-controlled cavalry to have Hone Cavalry buffs, you can always expect a player-controlled Saber to have his Special ready at the beginning of combat.

And even if you do consider it inseparable from the weapon, it's still both technically and functionally equivalent to Saber having +3 to all base stats and the weapon having a -3 to all stats penalty when the inverse condition is fulfilled.

I expect Hone Cav on all my horses because I don't dump my C-slots for random crap, though. (Lots of people rate things like Ploys extremely highly to the point that they might not achieve the same consistency, especially if they're running extra jank like multiple Tactics---which are slot inefficient---and infantry Pulse.)

 

The main issue I have with it is that you expect Saber and only Saber to get this +3 all stats treatment alongside DC and Killer while treating the cost for it as completely free---that is, it's something Saber gets for free but no one else does. I'd say most people would rather get the +3 all stats than the DC effect, and they'd definitely rather get the +3 all stats than the killer effect.

36 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

No, they can't have done that because if they found that it was, in fact, broken, they couldn't have taken it back. Adding a condition means that they can always implement a softer check (Witchy Wand, for example) rather than flat-out nullifying a class of effects with a harder counter (Null Special or Null Counter, for example).

They'd know from the start it wasn't broken, though. The marginal improvement from going up 1 cd in special strength is 20% for the Luna line and 30% for the Glacies\Ignis lines, which is 8 and 12 damage with\vs 40 def\res. Saber only has 31 base Atk, which would have kept him in check as long as they didn't give him a bunch of stats for no reason.

 

36 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

It's actually complete and utter shit on her.

Its worst case is +4 Atk, which is decent if we ignore DB 4, since most other options only give 5.

36 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Except Ophelia has zero reason to care to double enemies. Just like Reinhardt, you don't care about doubling enemies when you can simply kill them before they counterattack.

Ophelia's optimal build is Ophelia [+Atk] (Missiletainn, Blazing Wind, Life and Death 3, Special Spiral 3, Hardy Bearing 3 / Attack +3). At +0 with no buffs against ArcticSilverFox's Hard list set to +10 with +6/40/6/6 buffs, this build hits 180-62-60 on initiation. When Ophelia is +10 with a +6 Atk buff, she hits 240-7-1. (Needs 2 tome-using allies to trigger Missiletainn's effect, which is probably the only reason Gamepedia isn't tiering her at S+.)

To put this into perspective, +10 Reinhardt [+Atk] (Dire Thunder, Moonbow, Death Blow 4, Lancebreaker 3, Quickened Pulse) +6/6/6/6 against the same opponents (lowering the Spd buff down from 40 back to 6 doesn't change anything here) only gets 166-71-11.

Then you should've suggested DB4 instead of L&D. L&D implies that you're either going to counter-kill (which requires surviving a hit), or you're planning to double (which requires either surviving a hit or some way to avoid the counter---I prefer Sacae's since it sacrifices the least amount of combat.)

 

What's the marginal improvement on L&D over Study Blow? 1 kill, 2? I'd be amazed if it's more than 5. When Spd doesn't matter the difference between Sturdy Blow and L&D is 1 Atk. The Special Spiral should be pretty redundant, too, since you should be able to just catch everyone on the enemy team in the first attack, meaning you don't need any triggers after the first one. (Except in weird maps like RD and whatnot, of course).

Because of that Chill Res should actually be optimal over Special Spiral to make it more probable your first combat succeeds (since it's +14 damage with an 100% AoE damage special, +7 from the AoE and then +7 again from hitting).

 

Edit: Actually, I'm pretty sure the calculator's just broken for Sturdy Blow. Taking it off didn't affect combat at all. 

Double Edit: No, wait, it did. Something weird should be going on though.

 

Oh, right, I forgot that Sturdy doesn't count for AoE specials, derp.

Edited November 20, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Ice Dragon]

4 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

The main issue I have with it is that you expect Saber and only Saber to get this +3 all stats treatment alongside DC and Killer while treating the cost for it as completely free---that is, it's something Saber gets for free but no one else does.

He gets the effect for free because the weapon's condition forces him to run one of two specific sets to ensure that the condition is always satisfied.

Because there is zero reason to build him in a way such that the condition isn't reliably satisfied, there is also zero reason to consider the case where the condition isn't satisfied.

 

9 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Then you should've suggested DB4 instead of L&D.

Life and Death adds to the damage dealt by Blazing Wind. Death Blow does not.

Life and Death 3 adds 12.5 damage at neutral weapon triangle to the combined damage of Blazing Wind and the first attack. Death Blow 4 adds only 8 damage. Sturdy Blow 2 adds only 4 damage.

There is no comparison.

[DehNutCase]

6 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

He gets the effect for free because the weapon's condition forces him to run one of two specific sets to ensure that the condition is always satisfied.

Because there is zero reason to build him in a way such that the condition isn't reliably satisfied, there is also zero reason to consider the case where the condition isn't satisfied.

Then why not assume Ike & co are getting similar, conditional stats? Since it's the conditional stats they want rather than the killer effect. I think that's the main issue here---you're looking at it like people want killer DC, but they'd mostly rather have a bunch of stats and not get killer than vice versa.

Just now, Ice Dragon said:

Life and Death adds to the damage dealt by Blazing Wind. Death Blow does not.

Life and Death 3 adds 12.5 damage at neutral weapon triangle to the combined damage of Blazing Wind and the first attack. Death Blow 4 adds only 8 damage. Sturdy Blow 2 adds only 4 damage.

There is no comparison.

Yeah, I forgot about that.

 

With that in mind Sturdy might actually be better than DB4, since it means you're assuming you don't have your special up round 1---which is where being able to live through random junk comes in handy, since you have to smack someone twice for special charge. Which honestly I'm fine with---she trades the higher ceiling of absurd round 1 offense for the higher floor of being able to more consistently fight without her special. And once her Special's Charged Chill Res does affect Blazing Wind damage, so her combats should look pretty similar.

[Ice Dragon]

17 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

you're looking at it like people want killer DC

That's because literally every character in the game benefits from a Distant Counter Slaying weapon more than almost any other weapon type.

Pretty much the only weapons better than Distant Counter Slaying weapons are ones with very targeted purposes, like Holsety and tome Missletainn, or weapons that have a completely broken combination of skills, like Berserk Armads.

 

20 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

she trades the higher ceiling of absurd round 1 offense

No, because Special Spiral Ophelia with the proper support (which is honestly trivial unless you're going for Arena scoring) always has her Special active at the beginning of a round of combat. Her ceiling and floor are the same level.

Missiletainn reduces Blazing Wind's base 4 cooldown to 3 cooldown due to its Killer weapon effect, and two tome allies (or one tome ally with Infantry Pulse) reduce her cooldown to zero at the start of the first turn.

Attacking an opponent activates Blazing Wind, resetting its cooldown to 3, and her first attack reduces it to 2. Special Spiral then kicks in and reduces it back down to zero for her next round of combat.

The build's only weaknesses when controlled by a player are the Halloween weapons with Guard 11 built in (Guard 3 is easily broken by Blazing Wind), Special Fighter, and Sturdy Stance 4. In game modes where it is unlikely to be running into Vantage opponents, you can run Heavy Blade instead of Hardy Bearing to counter these skills.

[DehNutCase]

10 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

That's because literally every character in the game benefits from a Distant Counter Slaying weapon more than almost any other weapon type.

Pretty much the only weapons better than Distant Counter Slaying weapons are ones with very targeted purposes, like Holsety and tome Missletainn, or weapons that have a completely broken combination of skills, like Berserk Armads.

I'm pretty sure DC and +3 all stats is better than DC and Slaying. It's a bit worse for counter-killing, but a bit better at surviving to counter kill and a bit better again at player phase (which, admittedly, I don't really care about on a melee unit that's not running Galeforce).

 

Edit: And I'm pretty sure DC + Blade as a Prf is where it's at.

10 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

No, because Special Spiral Ophelia with the proper support (which is honestly trivial unless you're going for Arena scoring) always has her Special active at the beginning of a round of combat. Her ceiling and floor are the same level.

Missiletainn reduces Blazing Wind's base 4 cooldown to 3 cooldown due to its Killer weapon effect, and two tome allies (or one tome ally with Infantry Pulse) reduce her cooldown to zero at the start of the first turn.

Attacking an opponent activates Blazing Wind, resetting its cooldown to 3, and her first attack reduces it to 2. Special Spiral then kicks in and reduces it back down to zero for her next round of combat.

The build's only weaknesses when controlled by a player are the Halloween weapons with Guard 11 built in (Guard 3 is easily broken by Blazing Wind), Special Fighter, and Sturdy Stance 4. In game modes where it is unlikely to be running into Vantage opponents, you can run Heavy Blade instead of Hardy Bearing to counter these skills.

The assuming you have to fight a round first thing is assuming you don't have proper support, is what I meant. That is, you're running some janky ass team of Ophelia, Lyn, Azura, Cordelia or something. That's where Sturdy has a niche over other options.

It's a really crappy niche, but it does have a use. (I kind of like that it's best on the kind of low resource teams people without a lot of units might run, meaning the same time she gets her proper tome based support is the same time you can easily afford to upgrade out of her default kit.)

 

Regarding Special Spiral---my feeling is that you should be able to get the enemy team in one box without much trouble, meaning you only need one trigger for it. (Might need to swap from Blazing to Growing, but AoEs are 4* skills, so it's easier to come by than a bunch of 5* exclusives.)

Edited November 20, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Ice Dragon]

17 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I'm pretty sure DC and +3 all stats is better than DC and Slaying. It's a bit worse for counter-killing, but a bit better at surviving to counter kill and a bit better again at player phase (which, admittedly, I don't really care about on a melee unit that's not running Galeforce).

Most units don't have trouble surviving to counter kill when running one-hit-kill burst builds. Having a Killer weapon is more valuable than having Fury without recoil due to synergistic effects with Wrath.

 

20 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Edit: And I'm pretty sure DC + Blade as a Prf is where it's at.

I'd still go for Killer weapon + Litrblade (not including the +1 cooldown from inheritable Litrblade weapons). There is currently no passive skill for reducing your maximum Special cooldown, but there is a passive skill for Distant Counter.

 

23 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

That is, you're running some janky ass team of Ophelia, Lyn, Azura, Cordelia or something. That's where Sturdy has a niche over other options.

"What if you built a car from the very best car parts? Well, it would lead you to put in Porsche brakes, a Ferrari engine, a Volvo body, a BMW chassis, and you put it all together and what do you get? A very expensive pile of junk that does not go anywhere."

The niche of "I suck at building a team" is not a niche.

 

29 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Regarding Special Spiral---my feeling is that you should be able to get the enemy team in one box without much trouble, meaning you only need one trigger for it. (Might need to swap from Blazing to Growing, but AoEs are 4* skills, so it's easier to come by than a bunch of 5* exclusives.)

There are several maps where the enemy starts out split and often won't come together, and there are also common cases where enemies simply send one representative to rush at you and die while everyone else sits back to watch.

[DehNutCase]

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

Most units don't have trouble surviving to counter kill when running one-hit-kill burst builds. Having a Killer weapon is more valuable than having Fury without recoil due to synergistic effects with Wrath.

I mean, part of that would be because the losers who don't survive won't be running one-hit counter-kill builds.

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

I'd still go for Killer weapon + Litrblade (not including the +1 cooldown from inheritable Litrblade weapons). There is currently no passive skill for reducing your maximum Special cooldown, but there is a passive skill for Distant Counter.

DC + -blade can specialize better on defense, though, since they can go either Fierce Breath + whatever your Killer -blade DC set is running for even more overkill EP (since Fierce gives us 4 more Atk).

They can, technically, also specialize to player phase, but there I'd prefer Killer + -blade too. (Since Killer is way better for Galeforce.)

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

"What if you built a car from the very best car parts? Well, it would lead you to put in Porsche brakes, a Ferrari engine, a Volvo body, a BMW chassis, and you put it all together and what do you get? A very expensive pile of junk that does not go anywhere."

The niche of "I suck at building a team" is not a niche.

I'd say low resources rather than bad---although bad would come along with the territory, since it's mostly new players that have low resources.

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

There are several maps where the enemy starts out split and often won't come together, and there are also common cases where enemies simply send one representative to rush at you and die while everyone else sits back to watch.

Aren't those maps basically trivial by definition? If a team is losing to people running at you one at a time then that team is like thirteen different kinds of terrible.

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Aren't those maps basically trivial by definition? If a team is losing to people running at you one at a time then that team is like thirteen different kinds of terrible.

It's not trivial when it's an obnoxiously built armor on a fortification tile, especially now that Fortress Def/Res is a thing.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

8 hours ago, ILikeKirbys said:

@Ice Dragon That's true (alternatively, Micaiah and Hinoka are both cheating). I guess Caeda and Clair just got the short end of the stick, huh?

i would think twice before calling 2 character who "counters one type thats meant to counter them, counters another type thats annoying, naturally counters another through base statistics, and is in a wash with Infantry and Flier" getting short end of the stick. They basically counters 70% of the game

Piece by piece, Caeda and Clair have the most absurdly cheating advantage on their weapon than every other instances of effective damage, the only non Infantry slayer that i would consider better than those is Dragon + Armor Slayer since it neutralizes bulky enemies completely

 

Mind in general i already considered Wing Sword and Rhompaia to be one of the most broken weapon in the game mind, i generally puts Armormasher on a high position too

[ILikeKirbys]

@JSND Alter Dragon Boner I was referring to the fact that, out of the gate, Caeda and Clair really only have dual-effectiveness, whereas Micaiah and Hinoka get that, a stat boost, and another skill... though I forgot about their ability to get Flashing Blade and HP +3 on their weapons, which evens things out rather well. Probably because I still haven’t given the upgrade to my Caeda.

So, yeah. Good catch. My mistake.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Weapon effectiveness looks great in a vacuum, but in the case of Caeda and Clair, it's like duct tape holding together fundamentally lacking characters. You can give Caeda or Clair armor effectiveness, but that armored unit (even red and green ones) may still not take lethal (or even significant) damage from them given their pathetic attack stats and the high defenses inherent to armored units.

[Corrobin]

1 hour ago, Etheus said:

Weapon effectiveness looks great in a vacuum, but in the case of Caeda and Clair, it's like duct tape holding together fundamentally lacking characters. You can give Caeda or Clair armor effectiveness, but that armored unit (even red and green ones) may still not take lethal (or even significant) damage from them given their pathetic attack stats and the high defenses inherent to armored units.

Well, the Flashing Blade effect helps a lot for damage, letting them spam Icebergs/Glacies to make up for mediocre Attack. And remember, they're effective against both Armor AND Cavalry, and there are a decent amount of low-defense Cavaliers to prey on-plus they can counter Mage Cavaliers.

[Diovani Bressan]

What if Veronica and Bruno become playable characters in Book III, and the next refinements are for Veronica and Bruno? Their tomes are pretty bad for the current game.

• Bruno's Valaskjálf refinement would change the Vantage 2 effect to Vantage 3, and maybe the extra effect would be a Stance Skill, since the main gimmick of the weapon is to make the foe initiaes combat. He could have Mirror Stance as his refinement, but maybe instead of +4 Atk/Res, he could have +6 Atk/Res. Or maybe he could have a Brazen Skill as his extra effect, since it would works pretty well with Vantage.
• Veronica's Élivágar refinement would change the Smoke Panic effect to include the target, and her refinement could be boost her stats if she near a Mage or Cavalry unit, making a reference to her relationship with Bruno and Xander.

Edited November 23, 2018 by Diovani Bressan

[ILikeKirbys]

@Diovani Bressan I quite like those refinements! Vaskaljalf makes sense to me, Vantage 3 + Mirror Stance 3 (going off of his NPC stats on Gamepress, ATK and RES would probably be the best stats to boost on him, and an EP boost makes sense considering Vantage) sounds like a good combination [though Vantage 3 + Brazen ATK/RES 3 could also be pretty good, especially considering that you could run Brazen ATK/RES 9 on him given that we have the Sacred Seal for that, I think MS3 is better since it'll be active before Bruno falls into Vantage range, which makes it easier for him to survive a combat to hit that range in the first place], and Elivagar really needed to include the target in Panic Smoke around the time the refined Halloween weapons happened so that's good, and the stat boost around Tomes & Cavalry (though maybe either Tomes & Swords or Infantry & Cavalry, since I don't think they mix buffs for being near certain weapon users with buffs for being near certain movement types) would be a nice touch on her (though, again going off NPC stats on Gamepress, ATK & DEF would probably be the stats to boost on her, since her SPD (22) and RES (21) probably aren't worth trying to salvage).

Although, I half expect these two to just come with upgraded versions of their personal tomes if/when they become playable... but if they did just get refines, I could see them getting stuff like:

Vaskaljalf [Refine] | MT 14 | This unit attacks first when attacked with HP < 75%.
Skill-Refine: When HP < 75% at start of combat initiated by foe, unit's follow-up attack occurs before foe's counterattack.

Vantage 3 + Enemy-Phase Desperation 3. Probably wouldn't be too OP on Bruno (going back to his NPC stats on Gamepress, he's pretty lackluster outside of having good SPD, and since he's a cavalry mage I don't see him getting much of a BST boost if/when he becomes playable), but it gives him the unique ability to get his follow-up attack before any counterattack regardless of who initiates (though this does require giving Bruno Desperation 3, and leaves Bruno quite vulnerable to Hardy Bearing) on top of always getting the first attack once his HP dips low enough, which could be kinda neat.

Elivagar [Refine] | MT 14 | After combat, if unit attacked, turns bonuses into penalties for target and foes within 2 spaces of target through their next actions.
Skill-Refine: After combat, if unit attacked, grants ATK/SPD/DEF/RES +4 to unit, allies within 2 spaces of unit, target, and foes within 2 spaces of target for 1 turn.

Seal Panic Smoke + Peshkatz but it's buffs for everyone. It's not as good if you have a way to get rid of Panic, but those aren't exactly commonplace at the moment so Veronica has a way to give herself and her allies +4 to all stats while giving her foes what is effectively a -4 debuff that stacks with actual debuffs (throw her a Smoke skill or two and I think you could effectively hit enemies with a -11 debuff in 1-2 stats).

On an unrelated note, if we see Distant Counter weapons get refinements at some point (I'm hoping at least a couple come with 3.0, personally), would these be any good?

Dorcas - Serene Warrior
Stout Tomahawk [Refine] | MT 16 | Unit can counterattack regardless of distance.
Skill-Refine: Grants DEF/RES +4 when foe initiates combat.

Dorcas gets a simple refinement, as Bracing Stance 2 helps Dorcas take less damage from any type of attacker on Enemy Phase (puts him at 36/39/42 DEF & 25/28/32 RES), which is probably good for him. Nothing spectacular, but it gives Dorcas the ability to tank a bit better.

Ryoma - Peerless Samurai & Samurai Legend
Raijinto [Refine] | MT 16 | Unit can counterattack regardless of distance.
Skill-Refine: Grants ATK/SPD +5 during combat when adjacent to at least one ally.

I tried to make something that would be beneficial for both Ryomas while being better for the non-Legendary version. ATK/SPD Bond 3 on Raijinto puts regular Ryoma at 52/55/58 ATK & 37/40/43 SPD during combat, and puts Legendary Ryoma at 52/55/58 ATK & 41/44/47 SPD during combat. Both of them can take advantage of this effect fairly well (L!Ryoma via stuff like Flier Formation Sacred Seal or Flier Guidance on an ally, regular Ryoma via Wings of Mercy/Escape Route or Guidance on a flying ally). Regular Ryoma probably gets a bit more out of this since he can run stuff like Steady Breath and Null Follow-Up to do better on Enemy Phase, while Legendary Ryoma probably wants to stick with a different weapon (Firesweep Bushido) but could still enjoy the ATK/SPD buff if you don't feel like giving him something else or just don't have another weapon to toss his way.

Xander - Paragon Knight
Seigfried [Refine] | MT 16 | Unit can counterattack regardless of distance.
Skill-Refine: When foe's HP = 100%, grants ATK/SPD/DEF/RES +3 during combat.

Xander gets +3 HP and +3 to all stats when against a full-HP foe, which isn't amazing, but the boost might help Xander overcome full-HP foes, or at least survive their attacks.

Fjorm - Princess of Ice
Leiptr [Refine] | MT 16 | Unit can counterattack regardless of distance.
Skill-Refine: After Special activates based on foe's attack, unit performs an additional counterattack immediately. Additional attack occurs even if unit is otherwise prevented from attacking.

I gave Fjorm an effect that helps her deal with stuff like Sacae's Blessing, Dazzling Staff, Firesweep weapons, Windsweep, the Flash/Candlelight status, and other abilities that prevent counterattacks. The additional attack does not occur between the two hits of a Brave weapon (because IIRC those are considered one attack), but it would interrupt hits chained together via Desperation, and (I'm not sure if I explained this all that well in the Skill-Refine blurb) the additional attack isn't counted as her regular counterattack, so if she's able to counterattack like usual, then combat would go like this:

Enemy Attack [Ice Mirror Activates] > Leiptr!Counterattack > Regular Counterattack, if possible( > Enemy Follow-Up Attack, if possible [if Fjorm can counterattack in this combat, then Ice Mirror probably activates again because it has 2 Cooldown and Fjorm attacked twice before this] > Leiptr!Counterattack, if Ice Mirror activated > Regular Follow-Up Counterattack, if possible)

Probably isn't especially great for her, but it's something.

Edited November 23, 2018 by ILikeKirbys

[Diovani Bressan]

@ILikeKirbys I liked your refinement ideas.

Bruno's Vaskaljalf with Vantage 3 + Enemy-Phase Desperation 3 is a good idea, and makes him a great candidate for Close Counter, which it will not be a problem in arena because he will have a low BST for being a cavalry mage (the higher BST for this class right now is 145) and will score low. If the player wants to get a higher score and use Bruno, the player will need to not use Close Counter and use B Duel Cavalry instead (once the skill become available).

Veronica's Elivagar with Seal Panic Smoke + Peshkatz is interesting, but, like you said, it can be a problem if the enemy team have a have a way to get rid of Panic, as a example a healer with Restore+. With Restore+, the enemy's unit will lose the panic stat and have +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res, which is basically Harsh Command in healing form.

Dorcas with Bracing Stance and Ryoma with Atk/Spd Bond work pretty well, and I liked that you referenced Xander's Personal Skill from Fates, Chivalry, in his refinement.

Your idea for Fjorm's refinement is really good.

We could add a refinement for her sister too:

Gunnthrá - Voice of Dreams
Blizzard [Refine] | MT 16 | Grants Res+3. Grants bonus to unit's Atk = total penalties on foe during combat.
Skill-Refine: At start of turn, inflicts Res-7 on foe on the enemy team with the highest Res through its next action.

Basically Chill Res 3, so it will works pretty well with her tome.  And, if this effect didn't interest the player, the Res refinement is still a good option, giving Gunnthrá another Res+3, so it would increase her ploy potential. 

Also, Gunntrhá's B-Skill, Chilling Seal, target the foe with the lowest Def, which can also be the foe with the highest Res too, so Gunnthrá can inflict - 6 Atk/Spd and -7 Res on the same unit.

Edited November 23, 2018 by Diovani Bressan

[ILikeKirbys]

1 minute ago, Diovani Bressan said:

@ILikeKirbys I liked your refinement ideas.

Bruno's Vaskaljalf with Vantage 3 + Enemy-Phase Desperation 3 is a good idea, and makes him a great candidate for Close Counter, which it will not be a problem in arena because he will have a low BST for being a cavalry mage (the higher BST for this class right now is 145) and will score low. If the player wants to get a higher score and use Bruno, the player will need to not use Close Counter and use B Duel Cavalry instead (once the skill become available).

Veronica's Elivagar with Seal Panic Smoke + Peshkatz is interesting, but, like you said, it can be a problem if the enemy team have a have a way to get rid of Panic, as a example a healer with Restore+. With Restore+, the enemy's unit will lose the panic stat and have +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res, which is basically Harsh Command in healing form.

Dorcas with Bracing Stance and Ryoma with Atk/Spd Bond work pretty well, and I liked that you referenced Xander's Personal Skill from Fates, Chivalry, in his refinement.

Your idea for Fjorm's refinement is really good.

We could add a refinement for her sister too:

Gunnthrá - Voice of Dreams
Blizzard [Refine] | MT 16 | Grants Res+3. Grants bonus to unit's Atk = total penalties on foe during combat.
Skill-Refine: At start of turn, inflicts Res-7 on foe on the enemy team with the highest Res through its next action.

Basically Chill Res 3, so it will works pretty well with her tome.  And, if this effect didn't interest the player, the Res refinement is still a good option, giving Gunnthrá another Res+3, so it would increase her ploy potential.

Glad you liked them! Hadn't considered Close Counter for Bruno (I figured his low DEF would make that not such a good idea), but yeah, he could totally run it. It'd probably work pretty well with Darting Stance 3 Seal and/or a SPD buff or two from teammates to make sure he doubles.

I don't see Restore+ very often, so I'm not sure how big of a problem it is, but yeah, it would be quite a thorn in Veronica's side. Especially if we get more methods of dispelling Panic in the future (though it could be good if Vero attacked before her allies, since then they could then benefit from it without having to worry about the Panic effect being dispelled).
Your refinement idea is probably better on the whole though, since I'm sure keeping Veronica near a mage and/or cavalier (or, in my case, Reinhardt) for a +5 to two stats is easier than finding someone she'll be able to initiate against and survive.

Glad you liked the Ryoma & Xander refines, they took a few tries to make into something I was satisfied with (mostly Ryoma, since my original idea of giving it a Wo Dao effect would've just clashed with L!Ryoma's Bushido, and I wasn't satisfied with representing Fates!Bushido via ATK/DEF Bond 3, so I went with ATK/SPD Bond 3 to still give more damage and give an indirect lessening of damage by preventing follow-ups from more enemies).

I like the Blizzard refinement. Chill RES 3 on a unit with Chilling Seal is something I really approve of (especially if they both hit the same unit, that's +19 damage right there), hell just refineable Blizzard in general is something I'd like to see... though I feel like they'd reduce the bonus stats on a non-Chill RES refine since Gunnthra already gets RES +3 on her weapon (so it'd probably end up as RES +2, which is still 30 base RES, 35 with her default Fortress RES 3, and thus pretty alright for her).

[Diovani Bressan]

31 minutes ago, ILikeKirbys said:

though I feel like they'd reduce the bonus stats on a non-Chill RES refine since Gunnthra already gets RES +3 on her weapon (so it'd probably end up as RES +2, which is still 30 base RES, 35 with her default Fortress RES 3, and thus pretty alright for her).

I don't know... Male Corrin didn't have this treatment, and if you refine his Yato with a Def or Res refinement, he wil have +6 Def or Res

Edited November 23, 2018 by Diovani Bressan

[ILikeKirbys]

10 minutes ago, Diovani Bressan said:

I don't know... Male Corrind didn't have this treatment, and if you refine his Yato with a Def or Res refinement, he wil have +6 Def or Res

I completely forgot about the Yato’s All Stats +2 (I only remember the massive buff Corrin gives his support partner), but you’ve got a point there.

Nice catch.

[Hilda]

On 20.11.2018 at 4:27 PM, Etheus said:

Weapon effectiveness looks great in a vacuum, but in the case of Caeda and Clair, it's like duct tape holding together fundamentally lacking characters. You can give Caeda or Clair armor effectiveness, but that armored unit (even red and green ones) may still not take lethal (or even significant) damage from them given their pathetic attack stats and the high defenses inherent to armored units.

duct tape yes, but that duct tape is very strong and is exactly what they needed.? their weapon make them awesome with their stats. They are the best counter to Dragon Armorers, regular Armorers and regular Dragons which is like the current Arena meta. And they are also excellent at baiting Cavalry mages and melees (depends) which is like 90% of the Aether raids meta. My Clair basicly turns Aether raids into a hoola hoop crazy raid even baiting Brave Bow Lyns with Iotes Shield and the support of Regular Marth + Distant Def while taking 0 dmg from Veronica and Reinhardt at the same time and annihilating them all on Playerphase.

[Kaden]

@Ice Dragon, it would be underwhelming for some, but what do you think about Armads's unique refinement being Wary Fighter 3, but without preventing Hector from making follow-up attacks? So, basically a health check version of Great Flame. And of course, this is in addition to its Quick Riposte 2 being upgraded to Quick Riposte 5 regardless of whatever upgrade path you take for regular Armads.

[Ice Dragon]

5 hours ago, Kaden said:

@Ice Dragon, it would be underwhelming for some, but what do you think about Armads's unique refinement being Wary Fighter 3, but without preventing Hector from making follow-up attacks? So, basically a health check version of Great Flame. And of course, this is in addition to its Quick Riposte 2 being upgraded to Quick Riposte 5 regardless of whatever upgrade path you take for regular Armads.

Too good. Because Thunder Armads.