Favorite Dragon Veins?

[DaveCozy]

Corrin and Camilla with DLC let the unit they sync with use Dragon Veins, which are determined by the class type using them. I want to get a discussion going on Dragon Veins, to get a different perspective on which ones you all find useful. I don't have DLC yet myself, but I'm including Camilla just to get discussion going around her too.

As a reminder, links to the effects of the Dragon Veins:

https://serenesforest.net/engage/emblems/corrin/

https://serenesforest.net/engage/emblems/camilla/

Of course, there's other benefits that these emblems offer too beyond Dragon Veins. Corrin with Draconic Hex and Dreadful Aura, Camilla with Soar and speed stat bonuses. Just as a few e.g. Feel free to include those too for your reasoning.

Personally, with Corrin, my favorite classes to put them on are Coverts and Mystics, slightly preferring the latter. I find that Fog and Fire are the ones I mostly default to when using Corrin!Alear, so I ended up switching Corrin to a Thief, Sage, or Celine as Vidame if I was using her in my playthrough.

My reasoning for liking Corrin on a Thief is because Knives apply Poison, which is really nifty utility combined with Draconic Hex and Dreadful Aura. Fog granting Avo+ is useful too for letting other units EP more reliably, as well as applying move penalties on enemies.

My reasoning for liking Corrin on a Sage is because 3-range (el)Thunder / Thoron access to apply Draconic Hex and Dreadful Aura from safe range. Fire also costs more move to get through, like Fog, and the damage it deals to units can also be used to set up something like Wrath on your own units (damage applies before the vein disappears on your turn). I've started preferring this one over Fog more recently myself.

What are your favorite Dragon Veins from these two emblems? What units and class do you sync them with?

[Barren]

Side note before discussing about dragon vein: I gave Ivy Corrin Emblem for a few levels until she can inherit Dragonic Hex then gave her the Celica ring afterwards. And by god it saved my ass in chapter 21 when I was facing Veyle on a huge heal tile. 

That play allowed me to have Jade score a critical hit using a forged Silver Great Axe with I think Lyn’s engraving. Whatever it is it gives higher hit and crit.

 

Then Veyle wasn’t too bad to take out from there.

 

As far as Dragon Vein, I like using Yunaka with the fog dragon vein. 60 avoid thanks to her being a covert and added crit on top of that.

[lenticular]

So far, I've only run Corrin on Dragon (Alear) and Covert (Thief Zelkov). Well, also Qi Adept Seadall in the chapter you get the two of them, but that doesn't count for much. I don't think it's really news to anyone that the fog vein is really good, especially given the synergy that it has with covert units, so I won't go into more detail on that. What I will say is that when I had Corrin on Alear, there was only one type of dragon vein that I never found a use for, which is the vines that prevent break. They seem by far the weakest to me. I mean, it's not bad, per se, but it doesn't seem worth it. Especially since you necessarily have it on either a dragon (who has all the other veins available too) or an armour (who isn't getting any personal benefit from it).

Fog is great. Fire you also talked about. Ice can effectively neutralise multiple enemies for a turn giving you breathing space. Stone can help with tanking and keeping your units alive. Water is a nice debuff that can help you take out any dodgy enemies. Healing typically isn't hugely impactful, but you can get minor incremental gains on it pretty regularly. Basically, they're all pretty good, which makes putting Corrin onto a Dragon a really strong option.

(I don't have the DLC so no opinion about Camilla.)

[DaveCozy]

1 hour ago, Barren said:

I gave Ivy Corrin Emblem for a few levels until she can inherit Dragonic Hex then gave her the Celica ring afterwards.

Yeah Draconic Hex is really strong. The debuffs make a huge difference.

58 minutes ago, lenticular said:

What I will say is that when I had Corrin on Alear, there was only one type of dragon vein that I never found a use for, which is the vines that prevent break. They seem by far the weakest to me. I mean, it's not bad, per se, but it doesn't seem worth it. Especially since you necessarily have it on either a dragon (who has all the other veins available too) or an armour (who isn't getting any personal benefit from it).

Agree, I think Vines are probably the weakest.

There's also ways to run Enemy Phase builds so that you hit first. Like the classic and proven Vantage & Wrath combo. In Engage there's units who can easily get 100% crit rates, so you're not really having issues with being broken either if you strike enemies first. As for Fracture staves, not many enemies have those either, and most of the ones that do can just be silenced safely as well before they do anything.

[Punished Dayni]

For what it's worth, I think Qi Adept's Ice blocks are kinda handy in the right circumstances. Even for cheesier applications like holding off Emblem Leif for a good few turns while getting the guys who headed to the northeast to finish up there, or right before that to hold off a mage or two beside him.

That being said if I were to use that more I'd want someone with higher defences to be using that and holding the line alongside another wall or two for a larger scale force.

That aside the one for backups sounds like it could be useful for solid mixed defence allies in the right situation, but I don't know how much it increases those, I've of course heard plenty on Flame and Fog veins (Haven't used it on Zelkov yet) and Succor can be alright, but it's not something I'd be crying out for. I'd make Camilla Corrin comparisons but I can't find the image of the AoEs again.

2 hours ago, DaveCozy said:

As for Fracture staves, not many enemies have those either, and most of the ones that do can just be silenced safely as well before they do anything.

Not to mention I feel like I rarely get breaks from them that matter? Could be they're laser focused on Maddening but I don't see it from Hard.

[Randoman]

I've mainly used Alcryst's and Zelkov's Dragon Veins. The +60% dodge they get makes them practically untouchable on Normal mode, and the +30% dodge that non-covert units get by being in their vicinity is also really handy.

[Dark Holy Elf]

None of them because I'm too busy spamming Dreadful Aura to use dragon veins

Fire and fog definitely strike me as the most useful, since fire can both slow enemies down and do a little free chip damage, and fog obviously can give some nice evade bonuses. I don't think I'd want to give up 3-range Dreadful Aura long-term so mystics would be my favourite dragon vein user, but fog is good enough to consider as well, even if you have to choose between a unit well-positioned to benefit from it themselves (thieves with their 1-2) or a unit capable of 3 range (snipers/Alcryst). A certain lategame PC also has both 3 range for Dreadful Aura and access to any vein they want, so that's obviously cool.

Water has niche uses but honestly you can just use Torrential Rain for those niche uses, which has the benefit of not only applying water but also throwing Draconic Hex and Dreadful Aura on up to three enemies which is batty.

[Anathaco]

10 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

That aside the one for backups sounds like it could be useful for solid mixed defence allies in the right situation, but I don't know how much it increases those, I've of course heard plenty on Flame and Fog veins (Haven't used it on Zelkov yet) and Succor can be alright, but it's not something I'd be crying out for. I'd make Camilla Corrin comparisons but I can't find the image of the AoEs again.

The stone vein gives 3 defence and res, so its handy but nothing super amazing. Unless its a matter of one of my units needing just a couple points of def/res to survive a tricky enemy, I'd probably rather be using the fog. The stone pillars definitely have saved my bacon a few times though, so definitely not awful. I'd probably call them the third most useful after fire and fog, maybe tied with ice because that one can be pretty handy too.

I've literally never even seen what the vines look like though, that's how little use they have.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Anathaco

[lenticular]

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Water has niche uses but honestly you can just use Torrential Rain for those niche uses, which has the benefit of not only applying water but also throwing Draconic Hex and Dreadful Aura on up to three enemies which is batty.

Torrential Roar is obviously better, but also much more limited in how often you can use it. There were certainly times for me when the water vein got the job done but Torrential Roar would have been overkill. And cases where I either didn't have Torrential Roar available or was saving it for a future fight.

[Punished Dayni]

3 hours ago, Anathaco said:

The stone vein gives 3 defence and res, so its handy but nothing super amazing

I was hoping for 5, oh well.

[DaveCozy]

17 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

For what it's worth, I think Qi Adept's Ice blocks are kinda handy in the right circumstances. Even for cheesier applications like holding off Emblem Leif for a good few turns while getting the guys who headed to the northeast to finish up there, or right before that to hold off a mage or two beside him.

That being said if I were to use that more I'd want someone with higher defences to be using that and holding the line alongside another wall or two for a larger scale force.

That aside the one for backups sounds like it could be useful for solid mixed defence allies in the right situation, but I don't know how much it increases those, I've of course heard plenty on Flame and Fog veins (Haven't used it on Zelkov yet) and Succor can be alright, but it's not something I'd be crying out for. I'd make Camilla Corrin comparisons but I can't find the image of the AoEs again.

Not to mention I feel like I rarely get breaks from them that matter? Could be they're laser focused on Maddening but I don't see it from Hard.

Ice would probably be better if it wasn't only on Qi Adept and Dragon.

Using Corrin on Seadall is just counter-productive to wanting your dancer to dance. Dragon class also has a case for wanting Byleth or Celica for 3-range echoes (more-so relevant for the final join spoiler unit).

So Martial Master is the other option I can think of and that's not a very good class either. Outside of specific situations where you need Bond Shield and Chain Guard, then I guess it could be okay, but I can't think of many situations where that's necessary either. That aside, Flashing Fist Art builds with Eirika are the only other viable thing that I know Martial Master can do (and even that is very specific speedtaker/speed+ breakpoints) and that does not involve Corrin.

14 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Water has niche uses but honestly you can just use Torrential Rain for those niche uses, which has the benefit of not only applying water but also throwing Draconic Hex and Dreadful Aura on up to three enemies which is batty.

Personally I haven't been a fan of Water with Cavalry, at least not with Corrin anyways. The effect is useful for sure, but the checkerboard pattern is not so nice for your grounded units either if you want them to take advantage of the debuffed enemy. On top of that, you can just use Torrential Roar like you said, and I find usually one application is enough.

That said. Someone in a different forum told me that Camilla has a different pattern with her veins, with water being more of a 2-range + shape instead. So that seems a lot better, specially on someone like a Mage Knight given the stat boosts she gives while synced, and Soar that she provides while Engaged.

[haarhaarhaar]

Agreed about not yet finding a solid use for Corrin's vines - everything else has its place. I'd say I use either ice or fog the most on Corrin

As far as Camilla is concerned, I like her on Seadall, but mainly for Soar - the Dragon Vein ability (ice that boosts Mv, as seen in Tiki's paralogue) is cool, but I use it rarely because dancing. 

I'd say the healing effect on both Corrin and Camilla is underrated, as it's basically a free non-wait action that can provide mild healing for lots of your party. I don't even use Chain Guard much, but topping up HP on units is rarely a bad thing.

[Dark Holy Elf]

15 hours ago, lenticular said:

Torrential Roar is obviously better, but also much more limited in how often you can use it. There were certainly times for me when the water vein got the job done but Torrential Roar would have been overkill. And cases where I either didn't have Torrential Roar available or was saving it for a future fight.

Personally, there were only three times in the game I really wanted water: the bosses of Chapters 21, 24, and 25, who all have great evasion thanks to terrain, so of course it was easy to save an Engage Attack for them. Otherwise I have a pretty hard time justifying not attacking in order to lower enemy evade; especially with how backup attacks work, three attacks attacks at 70 hit is generally much better than two attacks at 100 in this game.

That said I could see water having some clever uses if you can actually make use of the checkerboard pattern to nail multiple dodgy targets.

[ruruo]

Fire! I really love the fire for it's crowd control purposes!! 🔥