MaskedAmpharos

Floof says thank :D

I feel like I should have learned my lesson by now with how many streaks I've had broken because I forgot that an enemy had Wings of Mercy (I always make a point to check skills too, but I still forget). But alas. Looks like I won't be promoting to Tier 20 this week unless I blow more crests, and I'm not sure how willing I am to do that since there's no guarantee a deathless will get me into T20 to begin with :/

@Dearest Dissapointment Oh cool, glad to know Lilina still runs the raven set better. And yes, Swordbreaker is the B-skill normally run on those sets.

I feel like such a horrible human being for using Desperation Nino now ;___; @Apples

Ephraim contributes next to zero fighting tbh since, between Nino and Tharja, there isn't much I can't ORKO with one of them. Dancer support just serves to make the blades do even more of the work. I do have him there for the occasional body block though if the enemies are grouped too close together for me to get rid of everything in one turn.

Oh yeah I forgot the seal was a thing. If you have a Nino, I'd chuck her in there too to take advantage of Ephraim's buffs :D In fact, that's almost my Tempest team: Tharja, Ephraim, Nino, and Azura, with which I've been able to get 705 runs pretty consistently.

I mean, I suppose she does want to be at as low of an HP threshold as possible for Vengeance, so Desperation 2's alright for the time being. Also out of curiosity how is Ephraim giving +12? Off the top of my head, Ephraim gives either +10 (+4 from a Hone/Fortify C, +6 from Siegmund since attack bonuses are counted twice for blade tomes) or +14 depending on his assist skill (if he also has a Rally skill).

Idk I find that grinding SP at level 40 goes by far faster than people make it out to. It took me only a day to get Celica enough SP for her entire set (since I pulled her on the last day of the mage gauntlet and wanted to set her as my rep with a full skill set) even though it cost about 2.2k SP for the whole thing.

It's really not as bad as people make it out to be. A good chunk of common Arena units (including regular Lucina herself) use sets that are just about entirely inherited anyways. It just feels like Masked Lucina is more expensive, but in reality she's really no different. A regular Lucina, for example, would take Fury/Life and Death for her A-slot, Swordbreaker/Desperation/Renewal for her B, some assist skill, and Draconic Aura for her special. She's inheriting literally every single part of her set except for Spur Atk (and you may want to replace that as well). To get the same set, Masked Lucina would cost an extra 175 SP for Spur Atk. Other than that, she's just as expensive to build as regular Lucina would be. EDIT: @MrSmokestack @Rezzy @Korath88 Oh was there a club? Damn, I should have said something last night then. I got Masked Lucina last night and am up to about 40k now (still haven't spent any stamina pots), so I guess I'm joining the club too :D

That was educational, thanks! I wonder if we'll ever see their (still going to use gender neutral terms until we have something concrete) "true" form eventually, or if they'll just constantly shift throughout the story. Oh hey someone else who watches Danmachi though I only watched the first season.

I would still recommend building her for Tempest even if she's 4* because she's still capable of ORKOing Veronica with enough backup. Lunatic Veronica has 66 HP, 32 Spd, and 29 Res, which means that a red mage would need 52 Atk and 37 Spd to ORKO. Neutral 4* Tharja at level 40 has 39 Atk and 32 Spd. Darting Blow brings her speed up to 38, which is enough to double. For the 13 extra attack you need, all you need is the Atk +1 seal and three +4 buffs (only two if one of them is Hone Atk), which is reasonable for a team centered around a blade tome user.

As a colorless attacker, she's still one of the best. She isn't nearly as powerful as the likes of Brave Bow Cordelia, but if you don't have other good colorless units I'd still consider her worth using.

That's why you learn how to do damage calcs so that you're never caught by surprise :P

I mean, neither Raigh nor Lilina make for better red tome users than Tharja, so the argument is a bit moot as the only reason you would even have Raudrblade on either of them is if you really like one of the two (in which case you already don't care about optimization since you're ditching Tharja) or you really don't like Tharja. I do think it's interesting though, as I'll admit to being guilty of assuming Lilina was better than Raigh without doing calcs myself. As a side note: as far as I'm aware, Lilina's most popular set isn't actually a blade set but rather a T-Adept Raven set. Sure it looks less impressive because she has fewer ORKOs, but the purpose of the set is less to be a one-woman-army and more to reliably check greens and colorless units to allow your actual primary nuke (such as Blárblade Linde) to have free reign.

Huh. That's interesting. I didn't think the dialogue/manner of speaking in the English version suggested either gender over the other, personally.

Give Hone/Fortify to the one who needs it least. Xander, for example, mostly relies on a defensive baiting playstyle with Quick Riposte, so he appreciates the Fortify Cavalry buff more than Hone. As such, he should be the one to carry Hone Cavalry. Cecilia, on the other hand, is much more offensive, so she appreciates receiving the Hone Cavalry buff more. As such, she should carry Fortify Cavalry. That said, it's not super important who has what since an optimal cavalry team would have two each of Hone/Fortify, allowing you to give both buffs to everyone (or at least to whomever I want to receive both buffs) depending on positioning.

It's because she's my main attacker, but she can't handle everything on her own. I often need Robin to tank hits from a red mage or an archer or something, for example. The other reason is because she's the only one on my team that doesn't really want to be healed because she wants to stay in Desperation range, as well as to stay low enough for Ninian to teleport to her anywhere with WoM. Robin, on the other hand, only has Swordbreaker 2 and is easily knocked out of range by a hit or two, so healing him is important to secure ORKOs, and Ryoma takes Fury damage whenever he attacks (and sometimes I need him to tank a green mage if Nino's too low to do so), both of which are scenarios where I would want them to be healed.

I personally gave it to Nino (and also inherited BoL on her) since she was the one mostly attacking, which gave her the opportunity to heal the rest of my party back up.

Huh. So it seems. Guess my internet's just being glitchy then, don't mind me.

Brave Bow+ is obviously optimal, but even a regular Brave Bow is devastating in the hands of Bride Cordelia. Cordelia is a powerful enough unit that her with a regular Brave Bow (and not +) still has a better offensive matchup spread than the average unit (-Atk Cordelia with the earlier set but with Brave Bow instead of + still has a better matchup spread than +Atk Gordin with Brave Bow+ and Death Blow 3. That's how good Bride Cordelia is) EDIT: Shoutout to @MrSmokestack for double posting, which let me squeeze this post in right after my last one without technically double posting :P

I mean, same attack as Linde but better speed inherently means a better unit, right? Unless the issue is that you've already dumped a bunch of SI on your Linde and don't want to grind SP again on Caeda, which is understandable. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now, but instead I'm going to be playing Fate Grand Order once that comes out in two weeks, which means I'll be juggling two gachas at once. Which is an absolutely horrible idea. Don't do it. Neutral nature is always serviceable since there aren't actually that many cases where a different nature makes a huge difference (some units need +Atk to get specific ORKOs or +Spd to get certain doubles they wouldn't normally, but usually it's not that big of a deal). It's especially not that big of a deal on a dancer, who shouldn't really ever be seeing much combat in the first place, so yes, your neutral Olivia is perfectly fine. Ruby Sword, Fury, and Wings of Mercy is the overall best set for Olivia imo, but if you're on a budget, then her default Silver Sword, Triangle Adept, and WoM should serve you just fine. I would train them up. Having a large collection of units to choose from is always good, and the free units we get are mostly all solid units. Neutral nature is perfectly fine on them, so I would go ahead and train them up.

Ah, I'm sorry you didn't get Cordelia :/ Congrats on the +Atk Caeda though! Judging by your Linde's nature, Caeda should edge her out as a Blárblade user, so you have that going for you at least. If it makes you feel any better, I spent 200 orbs pulling only colorless without getting Cordelia. I do still think that this is a good banner to pull on in theory, but gacha will be gacha.

It's funny how much HM Tharja has over most of my other units even though I don't like her simply because Desperation Tharja completely breaks Lunatic Tempest.

Cordelia's best set by far, regardless of nature, is Brave Bow + Life and Death + Desperation + Luna. The assist skill can either be a positioning assist like Reposition, or you can run Ardent Sacrifice to take you down to Desperation range without entering combat. With your Cordelia's nature and the Atk +1 seal, she has a matchup spread of 114 wins, 4 losses, and 17 draws (when in Desperation range). To give you an idea of how ridiculously good this is... A +Atk Reinhardt with Death Blow 3, Lancebreaker, and the Atk +1 seal has a matchup spread of 111 wins, 7 losses, and 17 draws. A +Spd, -Atk Cordelia kills more units than a +Atk Reinhardt. Just let that sink in for a minute. That's how broken Bride Cordelia is, and I'm honestly amazed so few people are talking about her. But I digress. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ As for Lucina, there are two builds that are commonly run with Lucina. One build is Fury + Swordbreaker, which makes her more of a strong duelist and overall solid unit. This set would normally take a repositioning assist skill such as, well, Reposition. The other build is more glass cannon oriented and uses Life and Death + Desperation. It has slightly more wins than the Fury build but also, predictably, more deaths. A repositioning assist is always solid, but this build could also take Ardent Sacrifice to get into Desperation range without needing to enter combat. Both builds want Draconic Aura for their special, but Luna will do if you don't have DA fodder. The first build is the overall balanced choice while the second build prioritizes damage output over survivability. Both are good sets though, so make your choice based on personal playstyle preference (and fodder availability). One niche build you could run is Renewal + Ardent Sacrifice/Reciprocal Aid, which allows her to act as a pseudo-healer in Tempest Trials since she can heal her allies with her own HP then heal that back up with Renewal + Falchion. The above builds are mostly centered around her Arena performance, but if survivability in the Tempest is an issue, then this third build is something else to consider. Most of the set would be pretty similar to the above builds. You still want Draconic Aura or Luna, and you probably still want Fury. The main difference is what you do with the B slot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For both units' C slots (and this advice applies to any other unit in the game as well), it largely depends on what your team needs since C skills are team, rather than individual, oriented. I personally recommend taking a Hone/Fortify/Spur aura that your team lacks and needs, such as Hone Atk or Hone Spd. Breath of Life has its niche in Tempest, but overall I wouldn't recommend it. Savage Blow is just meh to me, personally. 7 chip damage is nice but doesn't offer nearly the same amount of utility has boosting your allies' stats by 4 (especially attack and speed which can be just what you need to land the ORKO when you couldn't before). If you wanted to give them a more individualized C skill though, Threaten Def is the overall best option for Bride Cordelia. Since she's ranged, she can stay just barely out of range so that the Threaten triggers on her phase without the opponent hitting her on the enemy phase right before. Anyways, hope you found the advice helpful! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ tldr: Bride Cordelia: Lucina:

Bridal Blessings, easily. 1) It's limited 2) It has some of the best units in the game. An optimized Brave Bow Cordelia has more kills than even Reinhardt and is easily one of the most terrifying units in the entire game. Alongside that, Bride Charlotte is the lance infantry with the highest base attack, making her a prime Brave Lance candidate, and Bride Caeda is literally the fastest mage in the game, of any color or class type. Bride Lyn is the worst unit of the four and even then, she's a decent unit with good unique skills to inherit (and is also the fastest healer in the game, which is good for survival). She's just the worst because the other three are that good. Honestly, if you don't pull from this banner, you're doing yourself a disservice.