Look at Veld's shiney red tome (remember when free units were special?)

[Jotari]

So, Veld is a red tome user. Am I the only one really annoyed by this? Like the generic colourless tomes are called Stone and Atlas and stuff. His weapon in Thracia is literally stone. If any unit in the series deserves to be colourless tome user it's him. But I guess colourless tome users are too special to just give away for free. This is something that kind of irks me recently too with these Grand Hero Battles. Nemesis would have been much better if he was an armoured sword unit, to give him the exatra stats to tank like he's meant to be able to. Way back when Garon definitely could have been far more noteworthy as a armoured dragon too. And Caellach doesn't even get a unit B skill for Hoplan Guard, it's just the Guard skill. In the early days Grand Hero battles were pretty cool, something of a challenge and gave you fun and interesting units, but now it seems like it's just where they dump all their old male characters that are technically important but they know won't actually sell. And they give them somewhat interesting effect, but nerf them in other ways so that they just aren't competitively viable. Not that all of them are useless, Jeorge is a pretty great buffer for a free unit and I've heard Flame Emperor is a decent merge investment for free, but largely Grand Hero Battles have been disappointing in ways I feel they shouldn't be. I know Veld is basically no one's favorite Fire Emblem villain, but damnit if he didn't deserve to be colouress, and a free clourless tome user wouldn't be the most broken thing in the world to give us at this point.

Edited January 9 by Jotari

[Hilda]

Not all GHB units can be fantastic, otherwise there would be no incentiv to summon units. I think we got a good amount of good GHB units even in the past 2 years.

Aversa
Joerge
Iago
Gangrel
Kronya
Naesala
Astram
Petrin

List goes on. And just recent  some GHB units got excellent refines with Saias Arvis Valter and Legion. I dont see your point. I think they are doing an excellent job of providing usefull units through GHB.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Red tomes are certainly less offensive than the deluge of free lance fliers with inheritable weapons.

[redlight]

There'd have made no difference in him between being colorless or red in what he is right now. He'd still have the same role and stats. People getting excited over what's basically a sticker's color at this point. I can understand some frustration over translation of a character into the game, but... They've taken a lot of liberties in the past.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Nemesis would have been much better if he was an armoured sword unit, to give him the exatra stats to tank like he's meant to be able to.

Nemesis' problem is his shitty weapon. They should have never have made those crappy first combat per phase effects.

[Jotari]

37 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Red tomes are certainly less offensive than the deluge of free lance fliers with inheritable weapons.

Yeah, I would have made Galle a Sword Flier personally. He comes with a Light Brand for trial maps (and they really should have realized that considering they put Guinevere in the same time who's only avilable on Trial Maps and has a special weapon type sage's can't normally get, which they referenced). Sword Infantry are also a dime a dozen making Nemesis (a bloody final boss, course he's in good company of underwhelming Final Bosses with Julius, Takumi, Garon and Veld now, Ashnard's pretty okay as a GHB unit though) far less exclusive.

Just now, redlight said:

There'd have made no difference in him between being colorless or red in what he is right now. He'd still have the same role and stats. People getting excited over what's basically a sticker's color at this point. I can understand some frustration over translation of a character into the game, but... They've taken a lot of liberties in the past.

Nemesis' problem is his shitty weapon. They should have never have made those crappy first combat per phase effects.

I wouldn't say making him colourless would be no difference at all. Being colourless means no weapon triangle disadvantage giving more consistent offense and defensive opportunities.

Edited January 9 by Jotari

[redlight]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I wouldn't say making him colourless would be no difference at all. Being colourless means no weapon triangle disadvantage giving more consistent offense and defensive opportunities.

He's a support like Iago that's too inconsistent to be of use in PvE. Most use you're getting out of him is in AR-D by sitting in a corner. That's what I've seen most people say about him. And people that care about that stuff already use Iago.

The argument about him being colorless has merit when he's a combat unit like Bram or H!Xane, but he's not.

[Jotari]

Just now, redlight said:

He's a support like Iago that's too inconsistent to be of use in PvE. Most use you're getting out of him is in AR-D by sitting in a corner. That's what I've seen most people say about him. And people that care about that stuff already use Iago.

The argument about him being colorless has merit when he's a combat unit like Bram or H!Xane, but he's not.

You act like it's impossible he'd ever see combat in any capacity. Which if that's the case he'd be even more useless a unit in entirely. He's obviously not a front line combat unit, but if you do run into trouble with the rest of your team having him be colourless to do some final and reliable chip damage would be better than red. Speaking of Iago, I would have made him a staff unit. If we are going to have a unit who's whole point in existing is to have a weapon that has map wide debuffs, might as well make them able to heal and stuff too (and he also has hacks weapon ranks like Guinevere). Though I suppose they just wanted to give him the tome that bears his name that he never actually uses in Fates.

[Parrhesia]

He's a dark mage who uses dark magic, which is red. He's a F2P unit who doesn't share the same status as literally three units in the game, two of whom are literal voids and use that colouration to symbolise it, the third being one of the most marquee wizards in the entire game.

[Othin]

1 minute ago, Parrhesia said:

He's a dark mage who uses dark magic, which is red. He's a F2P unit who doesn't share the same status as literally three units in the game, two of whom are literal voids and use that colouration to symbolise it, the third being one of the most marquee wizards in the entire game.

Yeah, this is pretty much my thinking. It'd be cool to get a free colorless tome, and it would fit his theme, but I don't blame them for wanting to keep the weapon type more exclusive than that for now. I was already surprised that they gave it to a seasonal demote.

Especially when we're talking about the literal least-popular unit ever to make it into Heroes. I'm happy he's in the game at all, I wasn't sure it would ever happen.

[redlight]

36 minutes ago, Jotari said:

You act like it's impossible he'd ever see combat in any capacity. Which if that's the case he'd be even more useless a unit in entirely. He's obviously not a front line combat unit, but if you do run into trouble with the rest of your team having him be colourless to do some final and reliable chip damage would be better than red.

With that tome and stats it's easy to see why he'd never see combat. Regardless of color he's hardly a threat in combat. His point is to be as annoying as possible to you, the one who controls the units in AR-O. Not unreliable chip damage that doesn't do anything against you with a unit like him even if he was colorless. It's a bit of wasted effort to not have anything on him that let's him deal more debuffs. You can build up on his good Res stat for sabotage skills since his prf doesn't rely on his stats unlike Iago and he's already debuffing already as it is.

[Othin]

Personally, I consider it a big downside for a weak support unit to be colorless. A weak red mage can at least do well against some green units, but a weak colorless mage can't do well against anything. Consistent performance is for units where that performance is strong, not weak.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Parrhesia said:

He's a dark mage who uses dark magic, which is red. He's a F2P unit who doesn't share the same status as literally three units in the game, two of whom are literal voids and use that colouration to symbolise it, the third being one of the most marquee wizards in the entire game.

See that's why I'd prefer he be colourless, because we only have a few units of that status and as far as potential units for that weapon type, he's the perfect fit having a weaponi nThracia that literally has the same name as one of the colourless tomes already existing (well, at least as far as fan translations go).

1 hour ago, redlight said:

With that tome and stats it's easy to see why he'd never see combat. Regardless of color he's hardly a threat in combat. His point is to be as annoying as possible to you, the one who controls the units in AR-O. Not unreliable chip damage that doesn't do anything against you with a unit like him even if he was colorless. It's a bit of wasted effort to not have anything on him that let's him deal more debuffs. You can build up on his good Res stat for sabotage skills since his prf doesn't rely on his stats unlike Iago and he's already debuffing already as it is.

Even just talking about viability, is he even that great? The fact that his tome targets different units each turn seems unreliable to me. Though I suppose some gravity is better than no gravity, but is that really worth an entire character slot considering we're rendering hims as combat incapable? Sticking him on a defense AR Team is all well and good, but I kind of play this game to actually use the units in it. It seems he's far more useful as an enemy unit than a player unit (much like Aversa whose weapon is pretty useless against AI teams who prefer HP tanking above anything else).

48 minutes ago, Othin said:

Personally, I consider it a big downside for a weak support unit to be colorless. A weak red mage can at least do well against some green units, but a weak colorless mage can't do well against anything. Consistent performance is for units where that performance is strong, not weak.

Eh...I guess I could see that argument, though I'd still rather him be colourless for the uniqueness factor.

[Nym]

23 minutes ago, Jotari said:

See that's why I'd prefer he be colourless, because we only have a few units of that status and as far as potential units for that weapon type, he's the perfect fit having a weaponi nThracia that literally has the same name as one of the colourless tomes already existing (well, at least as far as fan translations go).

IS has a really hard time introducing  units with more type of weapons in the Grail category.

Hell we had armor mages and cav daggers for a long time, yet we still don't have a single one in the Grail pool.

Considering they just started to give a non-5 star cav dagger in the regular pool, I wouldn't expect a free colorless tome for quite some time. And I am 99% sure it's going to be a seasonal unit when that happens, which would be detrimental for said unit in the long run.

Edited January 9 by Nym

[Othin]

13 minutes ago, Nym said:

IS has a really hard time introducing  units with more type of weapons in the Grail category.

Hell we had armor mages and cav daggers for a long time, yet we still don't have a single one in the Grail pool.

Considering they just started to give a non-5 star cav dagger in the regular pool, I wouldn't expect a free colorless tome for quite some time. And I am 99% sure it's going to be a seasonal unit when that happens, which would be detrimental for said unit in the long run.

No, they've actually been surprisingly good about that. Green dagger, red dagger, and blue bow are all weapons that appeared below 5* for the first time on grail units since the start of Book 4. Before that, we got Naesala in the first batch of beasts, and Winter Celica as the first colorless dagger armor. Just recently, our two newest TT units were Winter Felix and NY Keaton, using weapons that have only shown up below 5* once before and never on that movement type.

They've been gradually increasing the availability of unusual movement types over time, it's just a slow process.

[XRay]

15 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Even just talking about viability, is he even that great? The fact that his tome targets different units each turn seems unreliable to me. Though I suppose some gravity is better than no gravity, but is that really worth an entire character slot considering we're rendering hims as combat incapable? Sticking him on a defense AR Team is all well and good, but I kind of play this game to actually use the units in it. It seems he's far more useful as an enemy unit than a player unit (much like Aversa whose weapon is pretty useless against AI teams who prefer HP tanking above anything else).

He is more akin to Wings of Mercy to punish silly mistakes rather than exerting constant pressure like Aversa. Instead of being bamboozled on Enemy Phase like Wings of Mercy, you get blindsided on player phase where you suddenly find yourself not being able to move a unit very far. The issue with Aversa is that she is extremely predictable, meaning that it is easy to adapt your playstyle around her, or just straight up utilize a build or team composition that can absorb the debuffs and brute force past it (I got BH!Ike with BH!Lucina, and with potentially up to three Triandrias. I honestly do not care if BH!Ike loses 6 Spd). For Veld though, it takes a bit more patience, attention to detail, and experience to be able to constantly keep track who is going to be affected.

With that being said though, whether its power is on the scale of Wings of Mercy, most likely it is not. Realistically speaking, for most player phase teams, this is not even an issue since you got double or triple Dancers/Singers to get out of sticky situations, and I do not see how this is going to negatively impact super tanks very much, if at all.

If Veld inflicted Isolation on top of Gravity though, then THAT is going to be a lot more painful.

[Nym]

2 hours ago, Othin said:

No, they've actually been surprisingly good about that. Green dagger, red dagger, and blue bow are all weapons that appeared below 5* for the first time on grail units since the start of Book 4. Before that, we got Naesala in the first batch of beasts, and Winter Celica as the first colorless dagger armor. Just recently, our two newest TT units were Winter Felix and NY Keaton, using weapons that have only shown up below 5* once before and never on that movement type.

They've been gradually increasing the availability of unusual movement types over time, it's just a slow process.

I wouldn't call them 'surprisingly good' at that. More 'ok' I would say because there's good units there and there, but sometimes they gave us units with nothing new in terms of skills or unique flavor. Take Eremiya for example or Travent. At least Gale has Guard Lance. Naesala is unique and very appreciated.

Also, those daggers you mentioned are seasonal units. We already starting to see that seasonal grail units are going to be inferior to those that can get refine (Arden went from zero to hero). The only exception I can think is dancer Eldigan because he counters Mila.

Although I agree it's a slow process.

[Fabulously Olivier]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, I would have made Galle a Sword Flier personally. He comes with a Light Brand for trial maps (and they really should have realized that considering they put Guinevere in the same time who's only avilable on Trial Maps and has a special weapon type sage's can't normally get, which they referenced). Sword Infantry are also a dime a dozen making Nemesis (a bloody final boss, course he's in good company of underwhelming Final Bosses with Julius, Takumi, Garon and Veld now, Ashnard's pretty okay as a GHB unit though) far less exclusive.

I wouldn't say making him colourless would be no difference at all. Being colourless means no weapon triangle disadvantage giving more consistent offense and defensive opportunities.

I have thought the same thing. Leif's light brand isn't amazing, but it's not like f2p sword fliers are particularly saturated, and it would have absolutely stood out. 

[Roflolxp54]

I'm a bit annoyed that he is yet another red tome unit with a status tome but at the same time, I can rest assured that I'm not really missing out on him by not dumping resources other than level-up crystals. And there are other things to complain about like availability of skills (ie. tier 3 Solo A-skills, first released in late 2018, are still premium skills).

[Tybrosion]

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

Nemesis would have been much better if he was an armoured sword unit, to give him the exatra stats to tank like he's meant to be able to.

Nemesis’s main problem was that he was a GHB in the first place. He easily could’ve been a Mythic but I guess they had no slot available for him at the time after they gave most of them to Heroes.

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, XRay said:

He is more akin to Wings of Mercy to punish silly mistakes rather than exerting constant pressure like Aversa. Instead of being bamboozled on Enemy Phase like Wings of Mercy, you get blindsided on player phase where you suddenly find yourself not being able to move a unit very far. The issue with Aversa is that she is extremely predictable, meaning that it is easy to adapt your playstyle around her, or just straight up utilize a build or team composition that can absorb the debuffs and brute force past it (I got BH!Ike with BH!Lucina, and with potentially up to three Triandrias. I honestly do not care if BH!Ike loses 6 Spd). For Veld though, it takes a bit more patience, attention to detail, and experience to be able to constantly keep track who is going to be affected.

With that being said though, whether its power is on the scale of Wings of Mercy, most likely it is not. Realistically speaking, for most player phase teams, this is not even an issue since you got double or triple Dancers/Singers to get out of sticky situations, and I do not see how this is going to negatively impact super tanks very much, if at all.

If Veld inflicted Isolation on top of Gravity though, then THAT is going to be a lot more painful.

But does he have any viability in the hands of the player or is purely a unit you don't have to bother merging at all and throw on a defense team?

 

5 hours ago, Tybrosion said:

Nemesis’s main problem was that he was a GHB in the first place. He easily could’ve been a Mythic but I guess they had no slot available for him at the time after they gave most of them to Heroes.

Agreed, he should have been saved for a mythic, but I guess they reasoned he wouldn't sell nearly as well as the Three Houses protagonists and Rhea (who'll no doubt be a mythic eventually), so the choice was either throw him in somewhere else or wait a few years before releasing him as a mythic (by which point we could probably have a new Fire Emblem game with more mythic fodder). Still though there were other options than Greil units, they could have put him in a banner with the Agarthans. And I like how Nemesis's affect reflects how he's fought in Three Houses with the rest of your army serving as the elites powering up. They just couldn't make it ridiculous broken because he's a free unit so it went to far in the other direction and made him just sort of unremarkable.

[XRay]

11 minutes ago, Jotari said:

But does he have any viability in the hands of the player or is purely a unit you don't have to bother merging at all and throw on a defense team?

In player hands, he is too unreliable, so I personally would not use him on offense.

On defense, I am not too sure if he is good or not, but I am leaning towards not good. The surprise factor is definitely there to catch players off guard, but I am not sure the effect is crippling enough to really punish mistakes.

For example, a Wings of Mercy Ophelia will surprise players and definitely punish mistakes. A Wings of Mercy Wrys on the other hand would definitely surprise players, but I highly doubt he would do anything to punish mistakes.

Edited January 10 by XRay

[Parrhesia]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

See that's why I'd prefer he be colourless, because we only have a few units of that status and as far as potential units for that weapon type, he's the perfect fit having a weaponi nThracia that literally has the same name as one of the colourless tomes already existing (well, at least as far as fan translations go).

Grey tomes are special in large part because they are rare. It's Bramimond's and to a large extent Xane's selling points and fits in seamlessly with their character. Hell, being a green bow was meant to be Legendary Lyn's thing - what, honestly, does she have apart from that and nice art? And that's been diluted now. Longer grey tomes can keep special, the better.

As for the weapon:

1) Stone/Atlas are filler names for irrelevant tomes. No unit is going to come in at 5* with Atlas+.
2) Look at the animations of Stone. It's throwing rocks at people, not petrification, which has always been and continues to be associated with dark magic.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Parrhesia said:

Grey tomes are special in large part because they are rare. It's Bramimond's and to a large extent Xane's selling points and fits in seamlessly with their character. Hell, being a green bow was meant to be Legendary Lyn's thing - what, honestly, does she have apart from that and nice art? And that's been diluted now. Longer grey tomes can keep special, the better.

As for the weapon:

1) Stone/Atlas are filler names for irrelevant tomes. No unit is going to come in at 5* with Atlas+.
2) Look at the animations of Stone. It's throwing rocks at people, not petrification, which has always been and continues to be associated with dark magic.

I could use the exact same logic of being part of the void as an aspect of dark magic in the series. Braimmond did use the ultimate Elibe dark tome after all, not the ultimate Elibe unaligned tome. And I'm not suggesting we make dozens of colourless time units, I get that it should be exclusive, I'm saying this one character it fits and would be nice to have easy access to. The only other character in the series I'd call on to get a colourless tome would be Ashera.

Edited January 10 by Jotari

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Edited February 13 by Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[XRay]

2 hours ago, Deirdre an Bhróin said:

I also wish he came with unique skills. The TT units so far have been fine with skills, but the GHB units keep on getting the same chill and opening skills. I would have appreciated QR3 on his slot B for his base kit instead of Chill Res (?). Even WoM could’ve been a better skill, despite BK being another Greil unit w/ it. I’d say desperation in 2020 as well if it wasn’t for his abysmally low speed. I think he should have been given swift stance with that garbage speed stat just so Ronan on this banner can be foddered for all 3 of his high scoring skills.

In regards to Spd, low Spd is actually a good thing. What you do not want is middling Spd.

High Spd is obviously beneficial. Low Spd is also beneficial for enemy phase, as the unit can rely on being doubled to trigger a stronger Special. Middling Spd on the other does not provide you with the benefits of high Spd, and it does not provide the benefits of low Spd consistently either as you cannot rely on being doubled enough to trigger a stronger Special.

Veld's 26 Spd is not horrible, but it is not great either. If it were lowered to like around 20 or less, that would be ideal.

Edited January 10 by XRay