Ike, Brave Mercenary

[Shiki]

Ike, Brave Mercenary

Stats:
40/33/24/32/17
43/36/28/35/20
46/39/31/38/23

Default Set:

Spoiler

Urvan
( - )
Aether

Steady Breath
Beorc's Blessing
Threaten Defense

One of the four original CYL winners Ike takes up the incredible Axe of his father and becomes notorious for being really hard to kill.

Looking at his stats Ike features excellent physical bulk and packs a decent Atk stat on top of it. His Spd and Res are pretty low which is not all too surprising with these kind of units. In fact he is remarkably similar to Bartre, trading HP for higher stats in everything else.

But what truly defines this form of Ike is Urvan. While it doesn't improve his offense it offers one of the strongest defensive effects in the game. 80% against consecutive attacks is nothing to laugh at and compared to similar skills like Crusader's Ward or Deflect Seals this one doesn't have any restrictions. It applies to every single form of attack and that makes Ike a very bothersome foe for hyper-offensive units like Reinhardt or Brave Lyn. So much so that even +10 variants of them with Hone Cavalry buffs and their preferred Special aren't able to defeat Brave Ike. He even survives the glasscannon memes in form of L&D Raven if the man happens to attack consecutively with Desperation.

This survivalability translates well for charging up Specials with a Breath skill, one of which he provides himself in form of Steady Breath. This gives him formidable offense paired to his defense, being able to tank hits and retaliate during the Player Phase or in the same round with a charged up Aether or Ignis which are pretty much guaranteed to kill his opponent. The former has the nice side effect of providing him a heal which helps him to engage in battles multiple times.

While Ike is most certainly a big obstacle against Firesweep or Brave weapons, he is ironically terrible against "conventional" units. Everytime he has to counter between his foe's attack he is left without Urvan's protection making him pretty much a normal Axe unit with all the issues attached to it. Sword units like Ayra or Soleil are very much capable of defeating him if they don't use Desperation. Thankfully his excellent physical bulk still translates well fighting against unit armed with Lances or Axes.
On the other hand mages are still a threat to him. -blade tomes can rack up the damage so high that Ike will be swept away in a single hit or put him so low that even Urvan can't save him.

One thing to note about him is that he isn't too affected by boon/banes. Sure, any defensive bane may make him miss the mark of survival against certain units but we're talking about quite small margins like merge levels or very specific skill sets here. Since he is one of the free picks from the CYL banner a neutral Brave Ike comes very close to performing optimally in contrast to say Brave Roy or Brave Lyn who would appreciate a Atk or Spd boon.

Overall, Brave Ike can be described as an "anti-meta" unit. He is a very strong tool against offensive menaces like Reinhardt or Brave Bow users but has average performance against normal units. Nonetheless he is a very strong unit and will most certainly not disappoint. Just don't waste your Distant Counter on him, it defeats his entire purpose as a unit.

 

Builds:

Standard (Budget)

Spoiler

Boon/Bane: +Atk/-Res or +Atk/-Spd

Urvan
Reposition
Aether

Steady Breath
Quick Riposte 3/Beorc's Blessing
(flexible)/Threaten Def 3

Close Def 3/Distant Def 3

A common theme among his builds is that his default kit provides almost everything for him.
Steady Breath will always be his optimal A passive since it synergizes very well with Urvan and Aether, allowing him to not only deal with most physical opponents but also give him more sustainability.

Quick Riposte 3 as his B passive will allow Ike to deal with units during the Enemy Phase, achieving clean kills without giving a Dancer a chance to ruin your day with consecutive attacks.
Beorc's Blessing isn't terrible but it is more situational than Quick Riposte and doesn't allow to score kills when he is attacked. For a budget option it's perfectly serviceable and especially for Arena Assault it makes a fine choice against Cavalier or Flier units.

Threaten Def 3 works well for him since he is a physical attacker but it is replaceable. Common options like Hones or Infantry Pulse will work just as well and should be chosen at your discretion.

For Seals Ike can choose between either Close or Distant Defense.
Close Def will allow him to tank Brave weapons even better. This seal also enables him to deal with dragons though he is not really omni-potent against them. Certain variants of Fae and Grima will be able to punch through his low Res and dispatch him.
Distant Def on the other hand allows him to survive -blade mages or other forms of magical nukes, making him even more annoying to deal with.

Angry Ike (Wrath)

Spoiler

Boon/Bane: +Atk/-Res or +Atk/-Spd

Urvan
Reposition
Aether/Ignis

Steady Breath
Wrath 3
(flexible)

Quickened Pulse/Heavy Blade 3/Close Def 3

Looks familiar, no?
This time around Ike isn't focused on Quick Riposte but instead relies even more on using his Special to deal game-ending damage. A Wrath-boosted Aether or Ignis will be able to annihilate 99% of the cast and thanks to Steady Breath Ike has all the tools to use it quite often.

To further his offensive potential using Quickened Pulse or Heavy Blade will allow him to charge his Special even faster though you sacrifice some of his durability.

 

Edited March 15, 2018 by Zeratul

[bottlegnomes]

I haven't run numbers but would +res, Warding Breath, DD up his bulk enough to make a meaningful difference? It takes 69 attack for a blade mage to 2HKO him then and maintains his 2 action aether for the following phase.

I feel like SB is probably still better since melees are where his special bulk doesn't come into play as often, but might be worth a mention?

[Shiki]

Not sure, if that is really worth it though.
69 Atk can be reached by Nino (full buffs with Fury or L&D) and Cecilia with Cavalier buffs. Don't have to talk about red mages, they tear him apart regardless (especially Cavalier Eirika). He can reasonably tank Blues already (Reinhardt, -blade Linde/Delthea) so there is no real need to improve him against them. Fun Fact: -Res Brave Ike tanks +10 Reinhardt with QP+Moonbow and Hone Cavalry buffs.

In exchange you definitely lose sustainability against Brave Weapons or Desperation users. This is especially noticeable against Brave Lyn with a Brave Bow+. Against Dragons Urvan is meaningless since Ike has to counter between attacks and by then he is burnt to a crisp. 27 Res is not that much against them since they tend to field 50+ Atk which is enough to 2-shot him.

[BANRYU]

I feel like it might be worth the writeup since Reinhardt still exists and having your team's green unit (not everyone can/wants to run two) not be vulnerable to being taken out by him is possibly a pretty worthwhile investment. 

There's also the blue and now especially green dragons to consider who are a lot more prevalent, with the main way to counter their weaker-def-targeting breath weapons being to run high-res melee units. 

So I think it'd be worthwhile to at least mention in the analysis, if not include a set for. 

Edited February 28, 2018 by BANRYU

[Shiki]

4 hours ago, BANRYU said:

since Reinhardt still exists

9 hours ago, Zeratul said:

Fun Fact: -Res Brave Ike tanks +10 Reinhardt with QP+Moonbow and Hone Cavalry buffs.

Sometimes I think you don't read this through before commenting ...

Anyway, I ran through the calculations with several popular dragon builds.
tldr; don't do that build. It's not worth it and it's a waste of Warding Breath
Brave Ike with QP and Close Def Seal alone deals with almost every non-red Dragon. If he can't deal against a certain Dragon build, Warding Breath + Res boon doesn't change that with the exception of Fury!Fae with Lightning Breath [Spd refine].

For my tests I used these 2 Ikes.

Spoiler

Neutral
Urvan
(irrelevant)
Aether
Steady Breath
Quick Riposte 3
(irrelevant)
Close Def 3 Seal

+Res/-Def
Urvan
(irrelevant)
Aether
Warding Breath
Quick Riposte 3
(irrelevant)
Close Def 3 Seal

Let's get Myrrh out of the way first. She is the least likely one to field some kind of PP-oriented build. Even with her default Fury and a Spd boon (which is a super one btw.) she only reaches 32 Spd which is not enough to double neutral Spd Ike without buffs.
Assuming a Atk/Def boon default Myrrh shatters against normal Brave Ikes. That means it is unnecessary to field Warding Breath against her. Obviously this translates to builds when she swaps out Fury for DC where she is even less likely to double him.
On the other hand if she retains Fury, has at least neutral Spd and receives Hone Dragon buffs she will be able to kill Ike. But the Warding Breath build doesn't fare any better, he will still get ORKO'd by her.

Next is Grima. This is surprisingly straightforward.
Either he has Bold Fighter or he doesn't. If he has it both Ike straight up die. It doesn't even matter what A passive he has or if he suffers from an Atk bane, Grima simply deals too much damage to make them survive 2 hits.
Otherwise he will die from an Aether proc. Nice and easy.
I suppose a Grima with Spd boon and Hone Armor/Dragon buff will double him as well but that's a very niche build.

For Nowi and Fae I assume their "best" PP-oriented build with Fury, Spd boon and Spd-refined Flametongue+. This means they will double him guaranteed and hit hard as they can.
Assuming no Hone Dragons regular Ike will deal with both of them. Both are defeated after Ike procs his Aether on his 2nd counterstrike.
Things changes a bit, when they receive Hone Dragon buffs. Nowi still can't win against regular Ike. Fae however starts to kill both variants.
If we consider that players want to be more general, we can swap out Flametongue+ with Lightning Breath+ which is the most common breath weapon.
This is the only case where Ike with WB and Res boon makes a difference but a very slight one. Fae will not able to ORKO this Ike and he will eliminate her with an Aether proc.
But I have to point out that this is very close. What happens is that he survives with 1 HP and can land his Aether proc against her which in turn heals him back for a decent amount.

Not going to showcase both variants of Tiki here. It's pretty obvious, I think, what happens here thanks to color advantage.

So, overall the only real difference between them is dealing with Fury!Fae with Lightning Breath but it's such a small victory and it can get overturned to a negative result far too easily. Merge Levels or even a random Drive Atk buff can knock WB!Ike out of his single HP.
Therefore I don't think this build has any merit. Ike with this default set actually deals decently enough against Blue and Green Dragons while retaining his excellent uses against physical units. WB only makes his overall match-up worse for the sake of maintaining a bit more HP and winning a single fringe case. That's not worth the resources.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Zeratul

[bottlegnomes]

Cool, just want to say thanks for looking more into it. I kind of had a feeling that was the case, and probably should've run my own numbers, but all makes sense and thanks again for looking.

[BANRYU]

Agreed, as long as you can confirm with hard data that it's not worthwhile, I'm all good. 

(and yes I'm kinda bad at thorough reading sometimes, apologies x-x will work on that)

Edited March 4, 2018 by BANRYU