What are the best Weapons for RD-Chapter 4-F-3-Blessings after SS-Rank-Weapons?

[Noni]

For if you're in the Tower and have more than one Axe/Sword/Etc.-User.

[Punished Dayni]

No joke, Wyrmslayer.

The boss of F-3 is that tough. I did beat him on Normal without, but trust me, this is a big help. As for other choices, forged/S-Rank throwing weapons, then forged silver/brave. Though another option is the Seige tomes. Partly because blessed weapons are eternally durable and because they allow faster mages to double red dragons without having to look at them. Consider of course that blessing the weapon's only necessary if that character will attack a boss with it because fair is fair, against the generics you won't need blessed weapons.

Another point, I've read somewhere Parity also ignores Mantle, but don't quote me on it.

[Vicious Sal]

Wyrmslayer for Deghinsea.

Braves for Aura's. Brave axe with an extra 10 Mt because of 2 blood tides? Sign me up. That's double value.

Parity does work on aura's.

[Dark Holy Elf]

2 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

Wyrmslayer for Deghinsea.

Braves for Aura's. Brave axe with an extra 10 Mt because of 2 blood tides? Sign me up. That's double value.

Yep, pretty much this. Besides the SS and Prf weapons these should be your other blessed physical weapons IMO. Don't bother blessing throwing weapons, you're not likely to run out of uses outside a challenge run, and you're not going to use them against bosses most likely. And definitely not Killer weapons, Mantle nulls criticals.

Mages, as mentioned, can choose between their unique tomes and siege weapons. I'd generally favour the latter with the exception of Rexflame for Calill (or a highly blessed Tormod/Sanaki who can actually double with it), since that's about the only tome that can really put in good work against the auras.

[NinjaMonkey]

6 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

Brave axe with an extra 10 Mt because of 2 blood tides?

Until Gareth gets gang-raped by spirit tails and dies (so turn 2, then).

Anyway, S Rank ranged weapons.

[Zanarkin]

2 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Until Gareth gets gang-raped by spirit tails and dies (so turn 2, then).

Anyway, S Rank ranged weapons.

It isn't too hard to end 4-F-5 in one turn, and two should be fairly doable without Gareth.

 

I can't remember much about weapons in Radiant Dawn, but I do remember finding out Wyrmslayer was great against Deghinsea and i never looked back. That was extremely useful in drafts.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Zanarkin

[kradeelav]

Ooh good question. It's a mix, imo - I lean on Braves a lot, but I remember a blessed Tempest Blade (or whatever that highest tier was for a 2-ranged sword) worked wonders with Mia against the dragons since Zihark had Alondite that run.

I mostly customize them to my team that I've pre-picked, honestly, and work towards filling any holes from the SS tier 'chosen ones'. 

 

 

[Vicious Sal]

5 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Until Gareth gets gang-raped by spirit tails and dies (so turn 2, then).

Anyway, S Rank ranged weapons.

 

Yeah except that's a bunch of crap what you said right there. Gareth will not die on 4-E-5 if anyone is playing with a baseline common sense. And here's why:

- You've fought multiple floors now where you've encountered tiles that grant bonus def/res/avo+healing. First and foremost, the player is shown this in the Bk fight. Any player who has insight will recognise that these are tools to be used and the entire 4-E-4 fight is walking towards Lehran with a patterned floor inbetween. It's spelled out by the game.

- If you're using Gareth and his Blood tide, it's probably not your first time playing. Since most players do not see the insane value of this skill when playing the first time. If a player is intent on using blood tide, they'll know how to position gareth for it to be most efficient. If they know about positioning, they'll most likely knwo about wardwoods already.

- Gareth has a base 9 Res, which is indeed low. However, the first turn gareth has him litterally doing one of two things, depending on the following: Is he carrying Nullify(can't recall if you can adjust skills in 4-E-5 preps, if not, just follow the point where he does not have it equipped)

- If he has nullify, he uses a laguz stone/gem and has 18 base res, with an additional 10 from the wardwood. That's 28 Res. 
- If he does not have nullify, he just does not transform and uses a pure water. That's still 16 + 10 = 26 res, and no effective damage.
 

- Not all spaces besides gareth will be able to attack aura's unless you're using shinon with the double bow to attack from behind him. This space can also be used to place Kurthnaga for an additional 5 Res if needed. Though if done properly, there won't be much space for spirits to attack Gareth anyway.

- All spirits double him, the wind spirits having 39 attack and the thunder and fire spirits having 36. So with a wardwood and no kurthnaga, he faces between 22 (Transformed, nullify) and 26 (Untransformed, pure water) damage from wind spirits. He has 82 Hp. That's 4 spirits needed to attack him. A 7HKO.  With Kurthnaga the numbers go to 12 or 16 damage. Yeah, he's not dying there at all. looking at a 7- or 8RKO. 

- Ashera is not going to attack with magic for a while, and in between you've got the fortify staff or ashera staff. Let's see what Ashera is doing: 

1st Turn- AoE physical attack

2nd Turn- Long range magic attack, single unit

3rd Turn- AoE magical attack

4th Turn- Long range physical attack, single unit

5th Turn- Slience everyone

6th Turn and on- Repeat order from turn 1

Oh what's that? A physical damage attack turn 1? What is poor gareth with his base 21/42 defense going to do?   Second turn you've got the single hit magic attack. Yeah, this hurst gareth. But is never doubles and he's got full Hp to tank it anyway. 

And by trun three you're most certainly done with Ashera, if not done a turn earlier already. 

- Final point, wardwoods and positioning gareth won't be possible together, right? Wrong. Wardwoods are literally strewn about Ashera's location:

 
(I'm not going to comment on the placement of the units in the pic, not my playthrough, no clue what the player's strats/stats etc were. )
You can see where the cursor is hovering, on a medium blue tile. That's a wardwood. And wow look at the staggering amount of those all in places Gareth would love to stand!

 

So yeah, maybe you get him killed on turn two, and in that case I'd recommend looking at the tools available more and maybe learn from them.


TL DR; Gareth good for what he needs to do, hard to get killed. 19/20/21 Mt brave weapons good.

Especially since braves can quad under the right circumstances. Which lolS-ranged weapons can never do.

 

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

You don't actually need Nullify; none of the spirits hit weakness. Their elements are just flavour.

That said Gareth can absolutely die to Ashera's magic attack on turn 2. It definitely can double (with an effective AS of 28) and I've personally seen it one-shot Gareth by doing so. As you say, though, Wardwood can spare him (he needs 25 res to survive, as she has 65 atk and he has 82 HP... and you already noted how Wardwood + transforming gets him to 28).

Edited March 14, 2021 by Dark Holy Elf

[Vicious Sal]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

You don't actually need Nullify; none of the spirits hit weakness. Their elements are just flavour.

That said Gareth can absolutely die to Ashera's magic attack on turn 2. It definitely can double (with an effective AS of 28) and I've personally seen it one-shot Gareth by doing so. As you say, though, Wardwood can spare him (he needs 25 res to survive, as she has 65 atk and he has 82 HP... and you already noted how Wardwood + transforming gets him to 28).

You're right, my bad. I'm so deep into my RD hack that I forgot that spirits don't normally do eff damage. 
that makes the entire thing even more trivial. You transform turn 1, and pure water turn two if gareth is not going to be surrounded enough.

That brings him to to 35 Res, 40 if you really want to make sure and place Kurthnaga next to him. Congratulations. Gareth takes 0 damage from all spirits and cannot die to Ashera's single target magic attack.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

SS weapons have the highest priority since they're most powerful and accurate weapons (aside of Alondite).

Prf weapons like Amiti and Lughnasadh (if you got somehow Leonardo with capped speed) are also best choices.

Brave weapons are incredibly inaccurate against final bosses who all have five authority stars.

They are only good, if the using unit has a support with heaven affinity (Tibarn or Elinica), or making use of triangle attack shenigans.

I never blessed a brave weapon since they're not forced to oneturn Ashera.

Blessing the wyrmslayer is not entirely recommended either unless three locked sword users are brought or Ena died before E-3.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Zan Partizanne

[OriginalRaisins]

Peshkatz is highly underrated. I find myself bringing Volke to the tower more and more (he's amazing and you should try using him more often) and it's a pretty smart move to let Sothe hold a Peshkatz while Volke holds the Baselard. Sure, this means that Sothe won't have any blessed weapons (unless you trade a Peshkatz back) but Sothe sucks, so who cares. Double blessed weapons for Volke.

[Dark Holy Elf]

On 3/19/2021 at 10:26 PM, Zan Partizanne said:

Brave weapons are incredibly inaccurate against final bosses who all have five authority stars.

This isn't really true. Brave weapons have the same accuracy as iron weapons, which is on the high end for non-SS weapons.

Obviously SS weapons get highest priority, no argument there, both due to power and hit. Vague Katti, Wishblade, Urvan, and Double Bow should all be blessed if you have a viable user for each.

But the question is explicitly about what you bless past those, and at that point brave weapons are a pretty good choice, especially for someone with higher strength.

Take someone like Nolan. I'll use his Level 15 stats and ignore bonus exp shenanigans for simplicity. 35 str, 36 skl, 30 luck. That's 197 hit with the Brave Axe, even assuming no hit from supports. +10 per Blood Tide. It's not very useful against Dheginsea because his def is too high. Sephiran does not have authority stars, with one Blood Tide you're already at 88 displayed hit. Against the side auras your displayed hit is down to 72 (again, one blood tide) but on the other hand, you're hitting for 42 damage (x2 with Nasir) which outdamages everything, even Urvan. So if you bring two axe-users to endgame (hardly unreasonable, a bunch of them have great endgame performances), Urvan + Brave Axe are by far the two best choices (certainly better than Tarvos, for instance).

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Bolting - or any siege tome. Getting unlimited uses out of weapons that are supposed to be super-limited is hilariously fun. And Bolting has the added advantage of being effective against 4-E-3 dragons.

[OriginalRaisins]

On 3/22/2021 at 2:43 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Bolting - or any siege tome.

Any siege tome is much better. Bolting is really hard to get and you likely won't have one.

That said, the journey to acquiring a bolting tome is hilariously fun and you get a nice payoff. Time for Ilyana to wreck face in the dragon chapter with her Bolting and Rexbolt ^_^