Eliwood: Knight of Lycia

[Corrobin]

For a long time Eliwood has been mid-tier, struggling due to his, admittedly, pretty good at launch weapon but weird stats. With his new Durandal refine, however, he has a new lease on life as a player-phase cavalier similar to Brave Roy and Siegbert.

 

Sword of Fire (Attack-focused Player Phase)

Spoiler

Weapon: Durandal (Swift Sparrow Refine)
Assist: Flexible
Special: Dragon Fang, Luna, Aether, Galeforce
A: Death Blow 3 (4 if possible)
B: Dull Close or a Chill (His Speed with this set isn't high enough for Desperation)
C: Flexible, Cavalry buffs, Waves or Tactics
S: Heavy Blade

This set is all about attack, attack, attack, and is probably his highest natural damage set.

 

Swift Sword Barrage (Speed-Focused Player Phase)

Spoiler

Weapon: Durandal (Swift Sparrow Refine)
Assist: Flexible
Special: Dragon Fang, Moonbow, Glimmer
A: Darting Blow
B: Desperation
C: Flexible
S: Darting Blow (We're getting this seal in the Valentines TT)

Meanwhile, here, Eliwood is a blazing speed demon.

 

[bottlegnomes]

For the first set, HB doesn't seem all that useful unless the intent is to charge for the next round of combat since as mentioned, he's not innately doubling a ton. Maybe a brazen or plain old attack +3?

For the second, I would think SS would be a better option as it's only -2 spd for +4 attack, putting +spd Eliwood at 61/47 offensive stats when initiating. Or drop the Darting Blow seal for HB to give hm 61/41 (SS) or 57/43 (DB A slot) and let cav buffs make up the difference.

As general thoughts, for either set, iceberg might not be a bad idea for specials and Sword and Axe Breaker seem like decent options for B skills. Swordbreaker lets him double people like Karla and Axe Breaker lets him punch through Wary Fighter.

Just as a formatting note, I'd include optimal assets (flaws don't really matter anymore with merge changes). In Eliwood's case, both seem pretty obvious, +atk for the first and +spd for the second, but just safe to specify.

Edited February 8, 2019 by bottlegnomes

[Frosty]

Might suggest Fury as another budget option for those who lack access to Darting Blow. Eliwood also has fairly decent RES to run either SPD or DEF Ploy.

[Ice Dragon]

Swift Sparrow and Fury are both superior to Darting Blow in the A slot for the second build, and I second @Frosty's suggestions.

I'd suggest something like

[+Atk]

Durandal [unique]
Reposition
Moonbow
Fury 4 / Fury 3 / Swift Sparrow 2
Desperation 3 / Axebreaker 3
Def Ploy 3 / Spd Ploy 3
Darting Blow 3 / Spd Ploy 3

if you have the fodder for the Ploy skills.

+Atk is slightly better than +Spd, despite the Spd focus.

Axebreaker is there because Wary Fighter is a thing.

[Anacybele]

I just pulled a free 5 star +Spd, -Def Eliwood, so glad to see this was made recently! Now I know what to give my new FE7 horsie. ^^

[BANRYU]

Is this OP still a WIP? :0 sets are very barebones with no mention of statlines or suggested IVs or anything.

[Some Jerk]

Since the Blazing Durandal refine carried over to Eliwood, I'd like to give this thread a shot in the arm with my own work:

I was originally going to save that Lull Atk/Def for an Edelgard meme, but looking at how much bulk Eliwood stood to gain from it, I couldn't not do this.

He has little issue activating Galeforce thanks to Blazing Durandal's new effects, which is good because he has 65 Atk (functionally 68 if you count Lull) and 51 Spd on initiation. He's also got 42 Def and 37 Res (45/40 with Lull) on initiation, and Atk Smoke will debuff his unlucky target post-Galeforce (52/47) so they can barely hurt him. Atk/Spd Solo gives him some Enemy Phase power as well, and his high Res makes him good at tanking magic. This is all before any buffs, and as a Cavalry they are very easy to apply to him.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Some Jerk