MaskedAmpharos

Fixed it for you. Don't you dare crush my dreams like that. Nephenee will be in this game. She will D:

I'm personally not as concerned about not getting the 3rd versions of breakers on backline ranged characters since the only real difference is the HP threshold at which you lose the skill, and if you're positioning right, they shouldn't really be getting hit. If you get an Arthur I'd still say go for it. Also yeah, I also forgot about Fury and Quick Riposte working against each other. I think the Noontime healing should be sufficient to make up for the Fury damage (it's on a CD of 2 with Eldigan's weapon for godssake it's going to activate literally every round of combat), but if not, then yeah HP +5 or Def +3 may be better.

If you have a M!Robin, there's honestly no need at all for another anti-Takumi. The opposing team could literally be 4 Takumis, and all you'd need to do is toss Triangle Adept Robin into the middle for a free win. I don't think he even takes damage unless he's -Def or the Takumi is +Atk (in which case I think he takes, like, 1 damage per hit). As a bonus, if you give Robin Swordbreaker or Lancebreaker, he can wipe any swords/lances clean off the map on player phase too. Honestly Robin is one of the characters that I think benefited the most from skill inheritance being added.

Ah okay I see what you're saying. I actually agree with you on the goofy/ridiculous aspect, which is ironically why I didn't think of Beruka. I feel like she comes across as a pretty silent and stoic character through the story, with most of the "obsessively talking about it" being in supports, which feels repetitive because with how the supports are structured, she's essentially saying the same thing "for the first time" to multiple different characters. So I still buy her being actually dark and cold.

I'm not sure how to word it exactly, but there's a subtle difference in my mind between "edgelord" and "emotionless killer". EDIT: The all-Jaffar team though. @Ice Dragon know what's up

Oh yeah, I could make a team based off the Awakening trio (not sure who the fourth person would be though) EDIT: Oh yeah, I could throw in Lucina for a time traveler team. Nice call @Roflolxp54 Team Edgelord sounds pretty great. Not sure who I'd go with actually (though probably not Beruka as she doesn't quite strike me as 'edgy' compared to the others) Oh my, you really thought this out. I'm actually excited to try this out (not that I'll ever get enough units for all this) :O

I think your team is decently balanced, though it's difficult to optimize your units with your current team comp. Lyn and Takumi don't give Nino any buffs, and without them Nino is just decent. Ursula honestly functions way better with Blarblade than her default tome, but again, buffs. I wouldn't say it's "relatively easy", but good positioning will generally help a lot more than specific changes to your team. That said, if you posted your available units, we might be able to help you with teambuilding (probably on the questions thread instead of here though).

You could also give him Quick Riposte (Subaki is a free unit on rotation, and he gives it) to let him double on enemy phase regardless of his speed.

If Eirika's main purpose is to buff and tank, I'd recommend giving her Fury in her A-slot or at least some form of defense (like Def +3 or HP +5). Drag Back and Hone Spd are fine for her B and C skills. For her assist, I'd give her Rally Def/Res (whichever buff the rest of your team doesn't cover / whichever you need more) to further cement her niche as a support. Her special should probably be defensive since she's mainly support, so something like Escutcheon/Sacred Cowl. As for Linde, I think Fury + Desperation is better for her since she has the high speed to take advantage of Desperation on player phase.

I mean the point isn't necessarily to make a good team :P I can't wait to have an Arena defense team of 4 Jaffars (or at least 4 ninjas) with Poison Strike and Savage Blow >:D Is it viable? Probably not. But it'll be fun for me at least.

...in hindsight, that's probably why Arena's more competitive this season. Everyone's strapping Fury on all their units, which boosts their BST by a hefty amount.

Yeah I get that. I honestly only put Swordbreaker on Robin because I didn't want to get rid of an exclusive event character like that. Arthur also gets Lancebreaker though, so you could always hold out for him? Until then it's probably best to go with Kagero, especially since it sounds like you currently use her a lot anyways.

Eventual teams I want to build include: Team Black Fang: Nino, Jaffar, Lloyd, Ursula Team Blazing: Lyn, Eliwood, Hector, Ninian Team Gauntlet: Lucina, Eirika, Ephraim, Chrom The Meme Team: Nino, Ephraim, Takumi, Lute Wrys The Whitewings: Catria, Est, Palla, Minerva Parental Bonds: Roy, Eliwood, Hector, Lilina (maybe replace two with Chrom and Lucina) I'm sure I could think of more given the time, but those are some off the top of my head

While your team does need a green unit more than 3 reds, you don't seem to have a lot of buffs for Nino. She's still a pretty decent unit even on her own, but she won't really get to shine with your current team comp. Instead, I would personally replace either A!Tiki or Leo. M!Robin with Swordbreaker basically does the same thing as Abel but better, so you could also replace Abel with Robin. That said, with how red-heavy the meta is, there's no harm in having both. Kagero is a great unit, but I'm always hesitant to recommend her because of how much she drags your team's BST rating down. If that's not a concern though, she's also a good pick. Now, if you wanted me to pick one, I'm going to say M!Robin with Lancebreaker, replacing either Tiki or Leo. Why? Because Nino doesn't particularly shine on your team, but Robin with Lancebreaker would take care of most blue lancers, essentially filling in part of would Nino's role would have been. Abel can be kept to deal with swords since Robin won't have Swordbreaker if you go this route. EDIT: @NecroJade I agree with Banryu. I'd go for a tank build since he's -Atk but keep Fury instead of replacing it with another A-slot because the all-around boost helps a lot more than just boosting a single stat (and that stat would receive the same boost as Fury anyways). Noontime is an amazing special on Eldigan. The healing offsets Fury's self-damage, and because of Eldigan's weapon, the cooldown is basically nonexistent. Plus, even at -Atk, Eldigan's base atk is good enough to get plenty of healing from it. I also agree with Quick Riposte and Threaten Atk. For his assist skill, I'd consider Draw Back if you can get it as it provides amazing utility, and Eldigan can take advantage of it more than many other characters because he has 3 mov. tldr - I would go with... Assist: Draw Back Special: Noontime A: Fury B: Quick Riposte C: Threaten Atk

Oh sorry, let me clarify. What do you do with your Arena swords? After I'm done with Arena, I also usually grind up units, but I'm not sure what else to do during Arena (which I do every day for the daily quests). Unless you meant you grind levels during Arena as well? Yeah, that's fair. I focused on building a good team first, not necessarily of favorites (though I don't dislike any of the characters) to get a steady feather income so that I can upgrade my actual favorites faster, whom I then use after securing a decent rank. It's definitely pretty hard to break out of the 1001-5000 tier though :/ I've only managed to do it twice, and that was only because one of the bonus characters (Eldigan) also happened to have a really high stat total. Since I have to squeeze in a different bonus character every rotation (many of which have meh BST), I'm probably not going to rank that high for a long, long time. It already seems like I'm going to fall out of top 1k by the end of this season :(

What do you guys do after you get a good deathless run? Do you continue to try and reach a new high score or just mess around with random teams or whatever else? If I think I know who the next season's bonus characters will be, and I have one of them (in other words, if a new banner came out and I pulled someone from it), I might experiment with team comps using them. Otherwise I kind of just mess around with random teams that I wouldn't use for serious ranking (stuff like an all-cavalry team or an all-ninja team or an Awakening-themed team, etc) just for fun.

If Julia is +Atk or Takumi is -HP or -Res then yes. Otherwise though, neutral Julia can't OHKO neutral Takumi with Death Blow. EDIT: It's actually really funny to me how exact the numbers are. +Atk Julia with Naga has exactly 52 attack, which becomes 58 with Death Blow 3. Neutral Takumi has 18 res, so after subtracting res, she deals 40 damage to Takumi. Neutral Takumi has exactly 40 HP.

I mean, it's balanced out by giving cavalry units such horribly low BST that no one sees them in higher tier arena despite their effectiveness. That said, I've always thought that balancing units' use in Arena via arbitrarily distributed base stat totals was silly, but it is what it is. Also I really hope we get ranged fliers soon (Aversa where). It seems a bit unfair that people are out here building full teams of cavalry mages while fliers can only do so much with their hone/goad buffs because they lack a ranged option.

Eh, I don't think IS would be too bothered by making beastslayers affect just cavalry and not pegasus knights (and eventually laguz/taguels). In fact it'd be easier for them since they can just program the weapon to be effective against units with the horse symbol. Would it be 100% faithful to the original game? Well, no, but I don't think it's such a big deal that they'd be okay making it cavalry-only for balancing purposes.

I mean yeah I order my team as best I can to take advantage of buffs and positioning (I have Effie, Ninian (with Hone Atk), Julia, and Ryoma so that Effie and Julia get Hone Atk while Ryoma also gives Julia a spd buff).

Makes me wonder if they'll eventually add in beastslayer weapons to the game so that niche mages aren't the only hard counter to cavalry.

Blarblade Ursula one-shots both of those just saying :P Assuming, I calculated correctly, the max damage Ursula can do before factoring in stuff like WTA or resistance is 82 assuming an optimal setup with Blárblade+, Hone/Fortify/Goad Cavalry, and Death Blow. Crazy stuff. This is assuming optimal setup, of course, but even without all of that, Blarblade Ursula can still one-shot a pretty hefty chunk of the metagame.

Shows how little I know. I should probably refrain from giving out advice so freely before making sure I have all the facts straight...or just refer back to your research to double check. It's reassuring that either way I gave him the right answer though, as I'd feel bad if it turned out Draconic Aura was better, and you came running in with a big fat "OBJECTION".

That'd be a great strategy if I knew what Arena map I was going to spawn on :/

Definitely Bonfire. Just comparing pure damage, Bonfire wins out by a tiny margin (Draconic Aura boosts Michalis' attack from 50 to 65. Bonfire's bonus damage is 50% of his 35 defense, which translates to 17.5 bonus damage on top of his 50 attack for a total of 67.5) If you factor in the opponents' defense, Bonfire wins by an even larger margin since, if I'm understanding these skills' mechanics correctly, Draconic Aura adds to your attack before the opponent's defense is factored in while Bonfire adds to damage dealt AFTER attack-def calculations, meaning it basically ignores defense when calculating damage. I'm fairly certain Glacies/Iceberg works that way with Res, so it follows that Bonfire/Ignis would act the same way.