MaskedAmpharos

Usually, yes. However, there are a very select few units with enough speed to be able to grab a x4 attack with a Brave weapon on most of the cast. Hana is one of them. Neutral speed Hana has 36 spd at 5* level 40, with the -5 spd from Brave Sword getting offset by the +5 spd from Life and Death 3. Even with a Brave Sword+, Hana retains the same spd as the likes of neutral Lucina and Nino, which is amazing. If you manage to slap Desperation onto her and get her into Desperation range (which is easy with Ardent Sacrifice or Reciprocal Aid), you'll be able to instantly attack almost everything in the game 4 times before they can retaliate (and if you're hitting them 4x with that kind of firepower, they shouldn't be able to retaliate). Brave Sword+ and Desperation turns Hana into an absolutely terrifying nuke and gives her more damage potential than almost any other red unit in the game. There's no 46 x 1.4 anywhere in my calculations. 43 x 1.4 is for Silver Sword+ + Triangle Adept 3. 46 x 1.2 is for Ruby Sword+ + Death Blow.

I'm personally of the opinion that Hana is best with a Brave Sword+ over either of the two options you listed. However, of the two you asked about, I would say Silver Sword. Same with Olivia: Silver Sword + Triangle Adept 3, assuming a neutral 5* Olivia at level 40 attacking a green unit, will have an effective attack of 60 (28 base attack + 15 attack from Silver Sword = 43 -> 43 x 1.4 (WTA + TA 3) = 60). Meanwhile, running Ruby Sword+ against a green unit and Death Blow will nab her 55 (28 + 12 from Ruby Sword = 40 -> 40 + 6 from Death Blow = 46 -> 46 x 1.2 from WTA = 55). Even with Death Blow on player phase, an Olivia with Ruby Sword+ and Death Blow still loses to an Olivia with Silver Sword+ and Triangle Adept 3 in terms of pure damage (not to mention how much weaker the Olivia with Death Blow would be on enemy phase). EDIT: Separated the giant wall of text into smaller paragraphs for ease of reading.

This is backwards. Fortify/Hone skills do not stack while Goad/Ward/Spur skills do. The only buffs that stack are the "during combat" buffs. If you wanted to debate this, feel free to share the screenshot. I am certain I could prove that he hit those numbers with no more than a single Hone/Fortify buff if I could see the units and numbers involved.

This. Basically Nino's a lot worse on defense than offense bc the AI doesn't know to position properly to maximize buffs. Life and Death + Desperation is still great on offense, but a defensive Nino would probably want something more like Death Blow + Wings of Mercy. Wings of Mercy in general is just especially potent on defense teams, I've found.

What skill would you recommend giving him instead? Actually I'm kind of curious what kind of skillset in general you'd recommend for Alfonse, but you don't have to go through all that trouble unless you want to. I'm content with just an answer to my first question.

I mean, statistically speaking, you have a higher chance of pulling a Lon'qu of any kind than a 3* Fir (and exactly the same probability of pulling a 3* Lon'qu as a 3* Fir). That said, it's fun hearing anecdotes about how vastly different peoples' luck can be with certain units. I must have gotten 7 or more Pallas by this point, and I know people who've gotten anywhere from 0-2 but have gotten multiple Firs while I only have one. Etc etc.

I mean, once you've finished EV training a pokemon, there's no downside at all to using rare candies. But no, there's no difference in stat gains between leveling manually and leveling with shards/crystals.

I mean if you already have Anna on your team you may as well 5* her. Though I love Nino and am a heavy advocate for her damage potential, I feel like she doesn't quite mesh onto your team, which is rather barren as far as buffs go. Sure, you could add in Sharena and Seliph like you said, and that's certainly an option if you wanted to completely change your team (Sharena's quite a solid unit herself). Anna seems to fit best right now since a) she already fits on your team and b) you don't have buffs for Nino. Also Michalis wouldn't be a particularly good option on your team because his main specialty is tanking hits on the physical side, not so much magical, which your team struggles more with. If you replaced Anna with Michalis (and if you choose Michalis I'd definitely replace Anna, not take two green units to Arena), your team wouldn't be able to deal with blue mages (Linde especially, since she easily deals with Robin) and manaketes very well. Anna, on the other hand, has high speed and high res, so she'd at least be able to tank a hit from a blue mage/dragon and hit back.

I feel that. I could probably pay for almost a semester's worth of college textbooks with that much money @.@

You get less SP overall if you level wth shards/crystals instead of manually since you also get some SP per kill. That's probably the biggest downside, so if you don't care about SP, then there's no real difference. As for trading, I just want to be able to do something with all my excess badges tbh. Whether that's trading them in for feathers or SP or whatever else. EDIT: @Arcanite What's your current team, usually? That would help a lot. I know Lyn and Robin, but that's it.

I feel like, with skill inheritance, people are now going to be having completely different teams for Offense and Defense (I mean maybe they did already, but pre-SI I really just used my main Arena team for both offense and defense as I didn't really have better options) since some skill builds are heavily optimized for offense whereas others are more specialized for defense.

Idk man sometimes I just like to admire the well-designed chibis. Okay but really, they should add a way for us to manually see a unit's chibi sprites on the unit screen.

"Abuse" is a bit much when mages exist, but that certainly does sound like a promising combination. EDIT: @Arcanite I'd say it depends on your current team. If you don't already have magic damage then Nino, and if you do then Anna. If memory serves, your blue 5* is Robin, so Anna is certainly an option. I personally prefer Nino either way (and if you can buff her then even moreso), but I also recall you liking Anna quite a lot, which should honestly be an important deciding factor. In the end, I'll say that either Nino or Anna works, but I'd personally pick between those two. Double EDIT: Also can I just say that I love the way you talk? So much personality shines through, and it's quite entertaining to read. Meanwhile I'm too afraid to let loose on a forum I just joined, so I come off as a bit bland and robotic probably RIP.

*shrugs* Wasn't me so I can't speak for the one who told you that. Refreshing via the first stratum only costs 1 stamina though, so it's pretty cheap.

Oh good, I used Blazing Shadows for reference, and that matches up. It's reassuring to know I'm still capable of basic probability half-asleep.

Just going into the Arena isn't enough, but doing a battle in Arena will reset the tower.

I've spent about $180, which is certainly a lot more than the average F2P but a mere drop in the bucket compared to our frosty, scaly friend.

That video's for if your own units are all +10 though. I can personally confirm that you don't need a single one of your units to be over +1 to run into teams of 2-3 +10s fairly consistently in Arena.

I think I'm still in the "I hope I get this unit at all" stage despite my spending haha. Compared to the great Ice Wishiwashi I am but a small, lone fish in comparison.

Literally every single map in the entire game (all story, all paralogues, all GHBs) have been based on maps of previous games except for the Prologue/Tutorial.

There's a 58% chance of a red orb being a 3*, and there are a total of 15 red 3*s including Lon'qu. There's also a 36% chance of a red orb being a 4*, with a total of 26 red 4*s you could potentially get. Assuming I did my math right (and I just woke up so no promises), the chance of pulling Lon'qu specifically out of a red orb is .58 x (1/15) = 0.03867 for a 3* + .36 x (1/26) = 0.01348 for a 4* with a total of a chance of 0.05251 (or 5.251%) to pull a Lon'qu of any rarity from a single red orb. Given that each time you pull from a red orb, you have an approximately 5% chance of pulling a Lon'qu (the exact percentage fluctuates since the rates change slightly the more pulls you do without getting any 5*s), it's not unreasonable at all that you'd pull as much as you have without getting him. EDIT: Math was never my strong suit, so if someone wanted to double check that'd be great. I'd take no offense to being pointed out as wrong if you showed me what the right way to calculate the rates is.

You're right. They don't. I'll never say no to more damage from Goad Cavalry, of course, but at most you'll be getting +4 atk/spd out of it because in a proper Blade Cavalry team, two of the units will have Hone and Fortify Cavalry respectively for the buffs (that DO affect -blade tome attack for +30). Since one of the 4 units will be the Blade mage themselves, they obviously can't be affected by a Goad Cavalry of their own, so they'd really only benefit from an additional +4 atk/spd if the fourth unit had Goad Cavalry.

I mean in all fairness 2/3 are currently 5* only whereas the other one can be pulled at 3* and 4*, so statistically you WOULD be considerably more likely to pull Olivia. That said though, Olivia was definitely doing amazing work for me before I managed to pull my Ninian, and I've grown to really appreciate her. Hmm... I'm just a little bit sad about her artwork, personally. It's not bad at all; in fact it's quite decent in a vacuum. But when she's placed next to all my other units, the difference in art style can be a bit jarring :/

Oh my, Magekiller Camilla is more effective than I gave her credit for. I didn't think she'd be surviving even several red units (and her ability to kill all the major green threats even without G Tomebreaker is quite nice). Thanks as usual for the calcs @Ice Dragon!