What kind of weapons/engravings do you employ?

[bookwormbabe29]

 

General question, but what kind of weapons do you favor? For a sword user, do you use a silver sword, silver blade, killer sword, levin sword, etc, etc. What is your 'go to' gear, favoring the double power of brave weapons, or the high crits of killer weapons? What kind of staffs do your staff uses carry? Where do you put your engravings!?

 

Nosy minds want to know. What are YOU packing? 😉

 

 

 

[indigoasis]

I'm not very far into the game myself, but I generally try to keep everyone's arsenal fairly balanced to fit the situation accordingly. I like having strong weapons, but I try to keep "weaker" weapons in everyone's inventories so I can leave enemies alive just enough after combat for another unit to come in and finish them off to soak up the EXP, so Iron weapons are a staple. Even in other FE games, they never really stop being useful, at least for me.

[EaterOfFarro]

In my playthrough, I ended up not using any silver weapons. They're pretty heavy, and upgrading them is heavy on the silver and gold. Upgraded steel is nice too because they're much lighter and they get a bit of crit.

I feel like Killer weapons are pretty good in this game, their MT is decent is and engraving them with something that boosts crit can give 60~80% crits in regular circumstances on high DEX characters. Most importantly, it is incredibly cheap to upgrade them to +5

Levin sword is really good in this game too, the MT is quite good without being too weighty (looking at you Flame Lance) and is also very cheap to upgrade. Nice to have on people due to the large amount of armored enemies in this game

I tried to make Brave weapons work, but due to no durability the MT was understandably nerfed to oblivion. Could make an argument putting it on a berserker or warrior but that's about it. A General would probably prefer a Great weapon if they wanted to hit hard (and they wouldn't mind the counter-attack). Nova is the obvious outlier since most enemies have lower RES and you probably have a magic user or two that was left behind on SPD

[Xylaugheon Daily]

Played through on Maddening, so I tried my best to optimize while spending very little. Because of this, I didn't forge anything save for my +3 Killing Edge and +2 Killer Lance until chapter 20. Engravings went on the weapons that saw the most use, though I'd say until the mid to late game I only used a few, as the price of frequently changing could get out of hand easily. For the beginning, the Tomahawk (engraved with one of the high hit rates) was all commanding. Warrior Boucheron was OHKOing left and right with that bad boy. Even in late game it is his most used weapon, though even with doubling he doesn't quite have enough damage to ORKO very often, but few do. I have the Fire Engraving on my +4 Caladbolg wielded by the goat Diamant+Ike and it isn't even fair.

[SumG]

I've been disappointed by the amount of equipment I've found viable.  Most weakness-attacking weapons are not great.  I would rather use magic weapons over armorbane weapons and anti-cavalry weapons are pretty spotty.  A wyrmslayer is OK against Wyverns, but many times you're in just as good a position by using a Silver axe or a magic weapon.  I also haven't found Killer weapons or Brave weapons very good, since their might is so low.  I've been getting the most play out of Silver tier weapons, various flavors of 1-2 range weapons, smash weapons, and magic based weapons.

 

As for some of the best engravings I've found, aside from the ones that modest improvements on almost any weapon:

Sacred emblem (Eirika) on a Thoron tome (makes the hit rate good, and mages using this tome should never face an attack so the Avo and Ddg penalties don't matter)

Radiance emblem (Ike) goes on some kind of Lightning tome (more power, can't follow up anyway, and the users should never be in combat for the speed to matter)

Academy emblem (Byleth) on a Silver Greatlance or Silver Greataxe (great to give to a lance general like Louis for enemy phase or just nuking enemies on attacks)

Awakening emblem (Lucina) on a Silver Dagger (Units that use daggers tend to be more evasive to begin with, and this let's amplify their strength.

Geneology (Leif) emblem on a Tomahawk (to improve hit rate)

 

Some engravings are also more unit-based to me than weapon-based:

Echoes emblem (Celica) goes to weapon for a front line unit with low luck (e.g. Jade or Bucheron)

Binding (Roy) Emblem goes on a General (since their defense are high enough they don't care about speed anyway).

Dawn emblem (Micaiah) on a Fighting Arts (I don't think it's particularly good, but I've seen people wonder what to do with this emblem.  You throw this on you Qi adept/master or dancer and give them a little bit more defense.  It's not like they're doing damage anyway.)

 

Edited February 8, 2023 by SumG

[haarhaarhaar]

On 2/7/2023 at 10:31 AM, Xylaugheon Daily said:

For the beginning, the Tomahawk (engraved with one of the high hit rates) was all commanding.

Seconded - Diamant couldn't land a normal Tomahawk against enemies, but Lyn's engraving was enough to turn it into his go-to weapon.

Engraving a decently light tome (Elfire/Elsurge etc.) with a high-Avo engraving is also cool. Given how many enemies have meh Res, a mage with an enemy phase is really solid. A Mystical unit engaged with Byleth gives an extra 2 range, and Elsurge in particular cannot miss (although Elfire also has good hit rates), so that's a great enemy phase if you're that way inclined. 

[DalamarTheDM]

On 2/7/2023 at 7:52 PM, SumG said:

Radiance emblem (Ike) goes on some kind of Lightning tome (more power, can't follow up anyway, and the users should never be in combat for the speed to matter)

I have Radiance engraved on a Thunder +5 paired with the Olwen Bond Ring on Citrinne. Like you said, it can't normally follow up, so +Weight is fine, but with Dire Thunder it DOES follow-up. Every time. So Radiance works great on a Thunder (specifically cannot be used on Elthunder or Thoron).

Though with Hector out now too, I think one of his skills also guarantees a follow-up under specific circumstances, so Radiance might have wider potential to discount its weight issue.

[Tombstone88]

For weapons, I find that steel, killer, and magic weapons typically give the most bang for the buck.  Steel gives good Might and Hit while not being too heavy or too expensive to forge.  Killer weapons aren't too expensive to forge and make for crit machines.  Magic weapons exploit the enemy's typically lower resistances.

For tomes, it's all about Thunder.  Most mages aren't fast enough to double anything faster than armors on Maddening, and 3 range + high damage is great.  If you're feeling cheesy, you can manipulate the game's RNG to rig an Olwen S bond ring and gain access to Dire Thunder.

 

As for engravings:

Roy/Ike (+Might, +Weight) - Best used on Thunder tomes.

Micaiah/Lucina (+Avoid mostly) - Excellent on daggers; thieves like Yunaka can become nigh untouchable with enough Avoid stacking.

Lyn/Eirika (+Crit mostly) - Excellent on killer weapons for getting those juicy high crit chances.

Marth/Sigurd (+Might, no penalties) - Good for general-purpose weapons.

Leif/Byleth (+Hit mostly) - Good for low accuracy weapons like Tomahawks.

Corrin/Celica - Not sure, I've actually never used these engravings on any of my playthroughs.

[Tyrannate]

Having a fully upgraded Wo Dao is a good investment. 

Why? Because it's light enough for virtually any character to use at any time, has a mere 5% less crit than Killing Edge when fully upgraded, and has an innate +15% more accuracy. 

It's not about the Wo Dao being one of your preferred "end game" weapons; it's about it being universally useful, whether you're slapping it on Lapis as a Swordmaster, Celine as a Vidame, Chloe as a Griffin Knight, etc. 

My only regret about Engage is that there is very little advantage to using a super lightweight weapon when your BLD is high. I would die for an ability that translates unused BLD into damage dealt (with a cap, of course). We already have the opposite - "if your weapon weighs more than your build, get +1 damage for every 1 weight over (caps at +5)." 



 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Tyrannate