DehNutCase

Swift Sparrow has the same use as Escutcheon, you sacrifice maximum offense in return for surviving more counters. Useful on very glass cannons like Hana so they don't get 1HKOd before the first double. (Lucina is basically Hana but better in that department, having enough bulk to survive most blues to double for lethal.) It's basically the 'halfway' choice between L&D and Fury. Less bulk than fury, but more damage. Less damage than L&D, but more player phase bulk. It'll probably take a few more min-maxed units to appear before it's useful, however---current stat spreads favor more speed on EP over more def/res on both phases for bulk. (Edit: For glass cannons, pure spd dumping tanks obviously just want raw def/res) Doubles kill glass cannons either way, single hits rarely---unless you have a really unfortunate defensive spread like Hana---and L&D helps prevent doubles.

Brave Bow+ on Setsuna is fine, to be honest. Klein-lite is still damn good as a unit, just... not two whole tiers above Klein himself. (Wiki-logic.jpg) Unfortunately, -atk ruins units, I suggest using starter Virion instead---low offense grays are destined to debuffers at best, and Virion starts with Seal Speed. 31/31 offenses isn't bad either. Strictly worse than TKJ, but =Virion is still probably around =Setsuna's level, except with a better kit. (Silver Bow+ means he hits harder than brave bow users, 31 speed means that he can double the slower units. Seal-speed is also excellent for de-buffing. He's not top tier, but definitely usable.) Any way to turn Setsuna into Virion-lite would cost more than feathering Virion to 4*, so not much point trying to force it, I think. Edit: Just realized you want to use Setsuna, I'd still just use the L&D Brave Bow+ build, to be honest. With Luna as a special you still 1RKO half the cast. You can just merge the -Atk to a better nature afterwards, and she'll keep the learned skills. (And unlearned, but inherited skills). Wo Dao+ is just an excellent sword in general, if you can proc a special every other hit it has effectively 18 MT, 5 of which ignores weapon triangle. (Good if you're fighting blues, worse if you're fighting greens.) Even every third hit is 16MT, equal to legendary swords. Any sword unit without a legendary weapon themselves would enjoy having Wo Dao+ for the damage, you really can't go wrong with using it, to be honest. That said, Karel himself is perfectly fine as a unit, so if you don't have any sword you really want to favor, it's fine to just run Karel.

tl;dr Kagero kills all Infantry, this doesn't change. Note, however, that +Spd needs to double more things, so counters will be a problem is her HP is too low---+Atk has 14 more 1HKOs. @ Full hp, however, the difference in Infantry match-ups is only 4 units even with Distant Counter on everyone. Not big enough to matter, to be honest, and you can always just buff her attack a little. (Well, F!Corrin survives the +Atk version with 2HP since she's too slow to double, but everyone else dies pre-inheritance. To both versions.) What changes is the non-infantry matchups. +Atk kills the slower, bulkier units, while +Spd kills the faster, more fragile units. (+Atk Kagero with L&D has 1 more damage per hit than +Atk Klein with DB3 IRRC---so anything =Atk Klein kills, +Spd will kill will a double, and anything +Atk Klein kills, +Atk will. +Spd just gets more doubles.)

Interestingly enough, One-Punch Chrom (DB3 + Atk) does very well against his team, partly because he gets 2 punches in against Reinhardt, and that's just not fair with his ATK stat. (Spoiler Alert: Reinhardt dies.) Lucina fails to 1RKO because =Chrom +4 is simply bulky enough to take it with his Def (and Sword-breaker Chrom gets 2 punches in, again, simply unfair). Nowi he can't do much against---higher merge levels (6 or higher) manage to do more than 50% of her HP in damage, but that's it, he gets 1HKOd on the counter---he can work as a finisher, but the main damage has to come from somewhere else. Chrom needs Dragon Fang to kill her, which is another way of saying he won't be killing her. (Dragonic Aura needs 9 more damage at +0). Ninan is the same story, except she needs a double to KO (and drops to 17 hp even vs. +0 Chrom). A Dragonic Aura kills her, though. (you charge this by running into Lucina, with swordbreaker, you take 1 hit, deal 2 to have it primed.) With Azura, however, everything becomes a lot simpler: She chips Nowi down to 1HKO range for Chrom if you get her to tank the hit on EP (on player phase she dies due to QR). She dances to let Chrom Reinhardt and gtfo, and then kill Lucina and gtfo, then kill Ninian and gtfo. The most dangerous part of the team is Reinhardt, of course, and improper AI prediction or spacing will get Chrom killed. @ +0 for both Chrom and Azura, Azura will need Moonbow to chip Nowi low enough, otherwise she won't need a special at all. Edit: Unfortunately, the charge times don't work properly for this team with Dragonic Aura---Aether is superior since it's perfectly charged after killing Rein and Lucina. A +4 buff to Atk (replace fort res with hone Atk on Azura), will have Chrom neatly finishing Ninian in 1 hit through TA 3, to compensate for Aether's lower damage output. @Ice Dragon Don't take this too seriously, I hope. I'm just theory crafting the silliest team that can take yours down with minimum resources.

Red Hectors, free Red Hectors for everyone! This guy sure knows how to Min/Max. Edit: Forgot to say thanks, so thanks.

Would you happen to have a source on Zephiel's stats?

At that point you might as well leave your defense team Ryoma only. That said, I'm pretty sure it tries to match you with similar teams. That is, 1 high level unit and 3 backpacks would fight 1 high level unit and 3 backpacks, if possible.

All equipped skills change your arena rating, it's part of the April update.

Nah, I'm going to leave the A-slot empty to make lowbies cry. Their tears fuel my feather count.

+Spd/-Res here. : ^)

No. (It doesn't stack with enemies carrying it, either.)

You should see my other lineup. Anyway, I don't have luck, I have a lot of dice. I started the re-roll train almost immediately after learning how it worked, and took a few days rerolling for a line-up I liked. Even now I do some 'casual' rerolls when I'm bored in case one of them gets absurd luck.

I liked Minerva as a unit in heroes to begin with, she was one of my first 4 5*s. (Leo, Azura, Klein, and Minerva were my first 4.)

A free poison strike that's worse than the rank 1 version. (3 damage versus 4, due to def/res damage reduction). A free poison strike that also gives 3 to speed, meaning even L&D would only secure doubles if you were 2 spd faster to begin with. Edit: Fury 3 is strictly better than L&D 1, and L&D 1 is quite good as a skill.

I can like units without being in love with them.

Have you heard the news about our Lady and Savior, no-L&D Minerva? With Fury 3 her bulk and offenses are basically cheating.

Who would've thought giving two things that mean almost the same thing almost the same name would cause confusion? Seriously, this is like those language design idiots who think making all colors have a single prefix, but a different suffix was a good idea. There's a reason blue sounds different from green. Imagine colors being loq, loc, lob etc. and trying to figure out which is which when spelled\pronounced.

@ILikeKirbys Do not underestimate Kagero's 35 base Atk. Poison Dagger+ might have shitty MT, but she can 1RKO a fair amount of slow or fragile non-infantry even with Poison Dagger. 5 MT is only 2 less than a brave bow+, meaning anything Klein can 2HKO (L&D is 1 less than Death blow), Kagero can kill with a double. And that's a lot.

Drag-back performs identically to Hit & Run if you can 1RKO. It fails to drag back into unpathable terrain is the one downside, meaning your flier won't move back if it's on a mountain against a grounded unit that lives. I run Drag-back Cordelia because it gives her 'faux-range,' basically moving her to where Klein would be after combat. Better offenses at the cost of 1 square less reach compared to Klein. Edit: The wiki loves +Spd builds because they enjoy hitting 4 times for 0 damage more than twice for lethal. It's the same reason Setsuna's so high.

Just run a flier. Fliers have the same BST (and thus the same offenses and bulk) as infantry. Cordelia, for example, has 35/35 offenses, which is Lucina level (34/36). That's the glass cannon choice, however---Kagero can put a serious dent into Cordelia even with Poison Dagger+ thanks to her Atk stat. Minerva, on the hand, just laughs---just don't run L&D, it makes her so much more vulnerable to getting 1 rounded by random mages, L&D 1 at most if you must, and run a Hp seal.

Hey! I'll have you know Armor-slayer Draug with QR can 1RKO Effie on defense. Armor-slayer Draug has no weaknesses! Kappa.

Interestingly, Alfonse actually does the best of all the starting 3 when you put them on auto-battle to grind low level stratums. He has the best bulk of all of them (Sharena comes close, but doesn't have his sheer numbers and self-sustain), so he ends up just slaughtering people in hordes. (Anna has issues staying alive even though I run Alfonse furthest from the healer, and Anna & Sharena next to the healer.) Makes me wonder if he wouldn't like Fortress def instead of death-blow, can't kill him if he just takes your double to charge his Sol faster.

Derp. We were arguing over nothing, then. Edit: That feeling when you argue for 3 pages only to find out we agreed in the first place.

But is being better with multiple hones\fortifies good enough that having worse pre-buff and 1-buff coverage worth an entire tier increase over S!Lucina? I'm not arguing S!Lucina > Nino, I'm arguing that they belong in the same tier.

Wind tends to have the best AoE (+ shaped, then either square shaped or more damage.) Just take a look at all of them and pick the one you like most or is least costly to get. (Wind might be the best, but it's pretty rare. The Square version is Merric only, and the more damage version is Hinoka and Navarre, both rare units.)