Something this game needs urgently. Better skill options for slow infantry.

[Faellin]

As it stands, high speed infantry get new inheritable options every month or so. While low speed infantry have been left in the dust for so long now. That their actual options for good skill options are severely limited in comparison. As it stands, their B skill options these days are basically "Quick riposte or a lull skill" since every other B skill they can really use, either sucks, is incredibly outdated and not truly helping them these days, or incredibly niche and not super helpful in a majority of matchups. While the fast units get spoon fed cool skill options like damage reduction, and null followup. Neither of which low speed units could ever hope to make use of. As it stands, the only slow infantry even worth considering using, are ones with built in auto followup, or a pref weapon that directly works off of their low speed.

What we desperately need is just better skill options for them so they can actually compete. And be remotely useful again. Especially in the B skill department. We've been getting unique side / upgrades over certain tier 4 skill lines lately. And making a few of these that benefit low speed units would be a great option: Stuff like some new quick riposte variants, and some better player phase skills for low speed units. Stuff like:

Protective Riposte: If foe initiates combat and units HP is above 70%, unit makes garunteed followup and reduces damage from foes first attack by 30%

Neutralizing Riposte: If foe initiates combat and units HP is above 70%, unit makes garunteed followup and disables foes buffs during combat, and preventing units buffs from being nullified

Heavy Blow: If unit initiates combat and cannot make followup attack, deals damage = 30% of units attack and inflicts def or res -6 on foe during combat (depending on units damage type)

Bulwark Blade: If unit's Def > foe's Def, grants Special cooldown charge +1 per unit's attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)

Warding Blade: If unit's Res > foe's Res, grants Special cooldown charge +1 per unit's attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)

They've been improving on skills like these for slower flyers and cavalry lately with stuff like some of the flow skills, guard bearing, and a few other examples. But all of those are locked out of infantry units.

Edited May 14, 2022 by Faellin

[Humanoid]

Some updated version of Brash Assault would be nice, yeah. And maybe a Windsweep that works off Atk or Def? And roll Guard into the various breaker skills. Maybe some upgrades to Drag/Knock Back?

Hell, QR3 being available at 4* would be a start...

[Xenomata]

I mean yes some of those would be possible. There's no reason for there not to be a Bulwark or Reflective Blade, but the others are ones I doubt... not really because they aren't possible, but because for some reason these guys just don't want to make Tier 4 B passives.

[XRay]

Slow infantry units got access to Tempos to trigger their Specials more reliably and to better protect themselves from Specials, so their options are not only Lulls and Quick Riposte. With Stance on A, they can completely shut down foe Specials unless the foe got Tempos of their own.

Infantry Hexblade and Infantry Breath just needs their tier 4 version to be beefed up to 2 spaces. Infantry Pulse should be beefed up to be at start of every turn. Infantry Rush, Infantry Flash, and their Def and Res versions if they make those, can have Phantom stat built into it too to make them easier to trigger.

I do not think they are going to allow skills that combine guaranteed follow up with another effect though, at least not yet, since that is more of an armor thing.

Edited May 14, 2022 by XRay

[Othin]

23 minutes ago, XRay said:

Slow infantry units got access to Tempos to trigger their Specials more reliably and to better protect themselves from Specials, so their options are not only Lulls and Quick Riposte. With Stance on A, they can completely shut down foe Specials unless the foe got Tempos of their own.

Infantry Hexblade and Infantry Breath just needs their tier 4 version to be beefed up to 2 spaces. Infantry Pulse should be beefed up to be at start of every turn. Infantry Rush, Infantry Flash, and their Def and Res versions if they make those, can have Phantom stat built into it too to make them easier to trigger.

I do not think they are going to allow skills that combine guaranteed follow up with another effect though, at least not yet, since that is more of an armor thing.

I doubt they'd make Infantry Pulse work every turn, but I can see them making it grant a constant Time's Pulse effect (only at maximum).

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Othin said:

I doubt they'd make Infantry Pulse work every turn, but I can see them making it grant a constant Time's Pulse effect (only at maximum).

Hm... With Dodge so prevalent now, I do not think it is that bad to allow infantry to be Pulsed down without any condition. A Blazing set up on a nuke with no exclusive Weapons (or got an outdated Refine) is one of the few ways that have some effectiveness at damaging Save tanks, at least on the Blazing hit, and slow infantry nukes can "double" that way on player phase, and double Life and Death should allow them to out Spd slow Save tanks.

Edited May 14, 2022 by XRay

[Othin]

13 minutes ago, XRay said:

Hm... With Dodge so prevalent now, I do not think it is that bad to allow infantry to be Pulsed down without any condition. A Blazing set up on a nuke with no exclusive Weapons (or got an outdated Refine) is one of the few ways that have some effectiveness at damaging Save tanks, at least on the Blazing hit, and slow infantry nukes can "double" that way on player phase, and double Life and Death should allow them to out Spd slow Save tanks.

You could still get them to charge it each turn, it'd just take more support - maybe multiple stacks of the upgraded Infantry Pulse.

[LoneStar]

Slow units without prf weapons have it pretty rough if they aren't Armors. I remember when Halloween Sophia was released, it's like cool free ranged flying unit, but there are so many things that makes a unit like that with her stat spread actually work.

[♠Soul♠]

I EGGREE, though I' d also cosnider Special Spiral still a decent option for a couple of tanks. I have a couple of builds, like Julius and Gatekeeper and they work off of oneshotting units back with Bonfire or Iceberg.

[Ice Dragon]

Slow units with exclusive skills have generally been pretty successful due to the fact that they get some combination of skill effects that makes up for their being slow. It would make sense, then, to implement similar effects on inheritable skills. In particular, the most impactful effects are

• Guaranteed follow-up
  • Currently, the only reliable source is Quick Riposte, which is only usable on enemy phase and is inferior to just being fast
  • Brash Assault exists, but sucks due to its restrictive HP restriction and is inferior to just being fast
  • Fighter skills and Dragon's Ire are not strictly inferior to being fast due to having additional effects, but are exclusive to armored units and dragons, respectively
• Pulse effects and Special charge rate boost to fully charge a Special for the first hit on each round of combat
  • Time's Pulse exists for player-phase units, but is only reliable with 2-cooldown Specials, forces usage of a Slaying weapon, and is inferior to running the exact same build on a faster unit
  • Special Spiral does work, but requires Infantry Pulse support to actually function for the first round of combat and requires a Slaying weapon to use stronger Special skills that are actually worth using
  • Breath skills work, but cost a significant amount of stats to run, especially since you typically want to run Quick Riposte with them
  • Infantry Pulse is mostly fine as is
  • Infantry Rush and Infantry Flash have useful effects, but are held back by their low range, which makes it hard for them to be used with player-phase units
  • Infantry Breath is absolute shit with its 1 radius, especially now that Worldbreaker exists and is better in every way other than distribution
• Damage boost if the unit cannot make a follow-up (functionally similar to the previous effect)
  • This effect doesn't exist yet on inheritable skills, but is on Fallen Dimitri's Vengeful Lance

 

Things I'd like to see to fix this:

Riposte Sword+, etc. (weapon): If unit's HP ≥ 50% and foe initiates combat, grants Def/Res+4 during combat and unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack.

Being able to offload Quick Riposte into the weapon slot opens units up to run other skills in the B slot and Sacred Seal slot, which are increasing in power faster than inheritable weapons. Unfortunately, this is definitely not happening until Armads gets a refine.

Quick Riposte 4 (B): If unit's HP ≥ 50% and foe initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack, and also, if unit and foe have the same Range, neutralizes effects that prevent unit's counterattacks during combat.

Dragon's Ire, but with half of Null C-Disrupt instead of half of Null Follow-Up.

Armors have access to Fighter skills with HP thresholds as low as 25%, and dragons have access to Dragon's Ire with an HP threshold at 50%. It's about time Quick Riposte received an update to at least match Dragon's Ire's HP threshold.

Brash Assault 4 (B): If unit initiates combat against a foe that can counter and unit's HP ≤ 75%, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack, and also, if unit's Def > foe's Def, reduces damage from attacks during combat and from area-of-effect Specials (excluding Røkkr area-of-effect Specials) by percentage=difference between stats × 4 (max 40%).

Basically a weaker version of Blue Lion Rule. Probably restricted to physical melee units. Alternatively, it could have flat damage reduction instead of percentage damage reduction, like Flow Flight and Pastel Poleaxe, though that would only be really useful if the unit could stack percentage damage reduction, which is more difficult for player-phase units.

Also, it might make sense to be a single-tier skill with Brash Assault as a prerequisite in order to have a different name.

As mentioned above, the current Brash Assault is absolutely awful, and the primary reason for this is its extremely low HP threshold, which is the same as the equally awful Defiant skills. Brash Assault's HP threshold should at least be boosted up to 75%, like Sol Katti's refine effect, and adding Blue Lion Rule's percentage damage reduction makes it easier to remain alive at low HP without the need to simultaneously run Desperation.

Stat/Stat Gambit 1/2/3/4 (A): At start of turn 1, deals X damage to unit (X=25% of HP, + 1). If unit's HP ≤ 75% at start of combat, grants Stat/Stat+2/4/6/7 to unit during combat and disables unit's and foe's skills that change attack priority.

Weaker than Brazen, but activates itself. Incompatible with Desperation and Vantage, but also disables the opponent's Desperation and Vantage. Basically here specifically for Brash Assault 4. I'm sure someone can find other uses for it, though.

Could also include Hrist's 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack.

Decisive Blow 1/2/3 (B): If unit's Atk > foe's Def during combat and unit cannot make a follow-up attack, deals damage = 30/40/50% of unit's Atk minus foe's Def.

Fallen Dimitri's Vengeful Lance. Probably restricted to sword, lance, and axe infantry.

Functionally equivalent to an instant Glimmer or half of a follow-up, but only if the unit cannot make a follow-up. This effect basically functions as a damage floor for the unit, making it so that even if the unit can't make a follow-up, they'll still deal half of the damage (excluding the chance of activating a Special).

Initiative 1/2/3 (B): If unit's HP ≥ 100/90/80% and unit initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack.
Initiative 4 (B): If unit's HP ≥ 80% and unit initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack and neutralizes effects that prevent unit's follow-up attacks during combat.

A high-HP version of Brash Assault with a very restrictive HP restriction. Intended to be used with Surge skills in order to maintain high HP.

Infantry Rush 4 (C): Infantry allies within 3 spaces gain: "If unit's Atk > foe's Atk, grants Special cooldown charge +1 per unit's attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)"
Infantry Flash 4 (C): Infantry allies within 3 spaces gain: "If unit's Spd > foe's Spd, grants Special cooldown charge +1 per unit's attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)"
Infantry Breath 4 (C): Infantry allies within 2 spaces gain: "If foe initiates combat, grants Def/Res+2 during combat and Special cooldown charge +1 per attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)"

Extend the range of all three skills by 1. Giving Infantry Rush and Infantry Flash 3 range means that any infantry unit that starts the turn adjacent to the unit with the skill will remain within range regardless of where they move (as long as they don't teleport or have +1 Movement). Giving Infantry Breath 2 range allows it to match Worldbreaker's range.

No changes to the actual effects themselves. I think they are good enough as is.

 

Also just because I think it would be fun:

Unstoppable Force 1/2/3 (B): If unit initiates combat, at start of combat, if unit's Atk > foe's Atk, unit's Spd ≤ foe's Spd-20/15/10, unit and target foe swap spaces after combat and enables【Canto (1)】.

Low speed. High mass. Pushes through and keeps going.

Alternatively, instead of granting Canto (1), it could activate Galeforce and inflict Gravity on the unit to give the unit another attack and another chance to Lunge.

I think it would be interesting to have some more novel effects like this.

[Jotari]

At this point I just really want them to put in Hawkeye (the Awakening skill, not the Blazing Blade character) as a skill which disables damage reduction skills and deals increased damage to punish them. Maybe specifically speed based damage skills so stuff like Deflect Missile is still useful. Sure there's Deadeye but that's kind of exclusive to bows.

Edited May 19, 2022 by Jotari