DehNutCase

To be fair, 'I pulled Hector on the fortune telling app' is on the level of 'I brushed my teeth this morning' in terms of how mundane it is, so people had good reason to assume it was in game.

Even ignoring S!Camilla, Wyverns still has the better spread amongst all their units. Minerva is Minerva (31/33 offenses with a legendary killer weapon), Camilla is decent 'middle-of-the-road' (like Palla), and there's Cherche for Brave Axe 2HKO duty or Michalis for Bonfire and physical walling. (Beruka would do better here... if Michalis didn't have a legendary killer weapon, meaning Beruka's slightly better bulk gets laughed off by Michalis' amazing offenses.)

Wyverns + Blue Pegs are currently a better combo than Pegs only, because Red fliers is a very small group, whereas green Wyverns has fast and strong, slow and bulky, and even middle of the road. And, of course, Wyverns also have the only flying mage at the moment.

Please, Balistas should obviously have 3 range, and to balance how OP that is, they'll have 0 move. (So they can only move during preparation or via assist skills.)

Personally I would wait for a better red flier to come along. 31/31 offenses is the 'best' among the red fliers, and that's only because Palla runs a perfectly average spread. (Worst Cordelia, for example, has superior offenses to Palla: 35/32 or 32/35 vs. 34/31 or 31/34. It'll take merely a slightly offensively inclined red flier for Palla to become obsolete.)

[] = Brackets {} = Braces () = Bat man has none

The simplest test would be to nab a Hector and give him drag back. Make a single, Hector only team. Test 3 times with only Close Counter equipped. Test 3 times with only Drag Back equipped. The difference in SP cost is 150, so it should be noticeable if SP matters more than rank.

It's not like the other colors are bad. Colorless still has Takumi for Close-Counter fodder (and the best spread of all Brave Bow+ users). Ryoma has pretty great spread too---but isn't too good as inheritance fodder, so I don't like him as much as, say, Ike or Hector. Azura, sadly, isn't common enough so Olivia will probably overtake her once people start getting the feathers to multi-merge Olivia for Arena Score.

B-Tomebreaker is rare as heck, meaning Odin can run a Counter-kill everyone set pretty well, so long as you commit to buffing and healing him. His bulk means that even greens have trouble with him. Pretty much only viable if you really like Odin, though. Vantage Close Counter Kagero with Ardent Sacrifice and some Fury 3 dudes next to her (so she uses AS to go down to vantage range), is pretty good for farming defense wins too. (I also saw a S!Camilla flier emblem team with Vantage and Close counter, which does quite alright so long as you have tons of swap abilities so everyone sticks together to buff her, and the enemy doesn't have a strong bow. [+0 Klein kills fully buffed +10 S!Camilla without problems, IRRC.]) Edit: The thing is, though, Takumi has basically the perfect color and spread for Close Counter. Enough bulk to survive 1 hit pretty easily, enough offenses to be a threat both phases. He isn't as dominant as before since everyone else got stronger relative to him (he got stronger too, but he already had a nearly perfect set, so his gains aren't as great relative to everyone else), but his spread doesn't lie.

A green focus has a really good chance of being pulled, because there are less green 5*s than any other color. Right now, for example, ~9.5% of green orbs have a 5*, and about 7% of those are Hectors. Edit: Linde is in a worse banner (no 5% base chance), and either shares her spot with Cordelia (lower pull chance per orb in return for higher 5* chance), or is alone (lower 5* chance per orb in return for higher pull chance).

Aether costs 750 SP, then, by your numbers. (Level 2 AoEs cost 300SP, 450 only after inheritance's 50% modifier). Drag Back costs 150 vs. the 200 of a typical level 3, so the difference isn't that noticeable, especially considering there are low cost level 3s out there.

Soren is basically a slightly bulkier, slightly weaker Nino. He's great. (His spread is Tharja tier.) His skills needs more work because watersweep is total shit on him (Res is one of his best stats, and he also has decent speed to double people), but he's very usable if you don't want to use Nino. Edit: The thing about Niles is that he has to counter-kill, and he can't deal with anyone except mages hitting him, so positioning and AI prediction (neither of which are that easy to learn), are paramount for using him properly. Hence why people suggest strong mages instead, since they have a player phase presence (unlike Niles).

The main thing is that Nino and Cecilia happen to be green mages, and decent ones at that (Nino being better before inheritance), which covers Ike's biggest weakness: Mages in general, especially blue ones. You can run Niles with Fury 3 and QR to counter kill mages, or Felicia, but neither has the same offensive presence as Nino or an SI'd Cecilia. If you can manage to pull a Soren and run him your team would probably get a lot stronger, too.

Don't forget to mind the positioning and unit turn order. (Units without assists always go before units with assists, and melees go before ranged (assist trumps range, however)). The FEheroes wiki has a nice page on maps and starting positions, so use that to keep your dancer and most threatening unit together.

I feel like a dick whenever I get defense wins like this. I mean, how does a 4* team even get matched with mine : / (It's still a defense win, though, cheers for 500 feathers.)

Nope, I just derped, is all.

...I have no idea why I thought she had the Brave Lance tree.

Fight Calculators: http://andyiverson.me/apps/fehmasssimulator/ https://rocketmo.github.io/feh-damage-calc/ Re: Merge inheritance Merged units learn all the potentials from the sacrifice, and have them 'learned' as well if the sacrifice had them learned. Edit: To answer your question, yes, although 5* Effie knows Brave Lance already.

I imagine running Swap on a few of your units would let Effie move a lot quicker. (A 2 move unit with swap next to any other unit gives the other unit an effective +1 to move, since it can swap 1 square forward in all 4 directions. Reposition is occasionally better, but swap is the most reliable.)

Neither of those help against the people I have problems with. (Melee infantry are never a problem even with dancer support. Mages are annoying as hell since Klein has -Spd, meaning everyone and their grandmothers double him. Horses come in two varieties: food and horse emblem, horse emblem horses destroy Lukas and Sharena since they have either amazing bulk or offenses---not both, fortunately, meaning Cordelia tends to sweep without problems. Food is food.) I have Zephiel for bait duty this season, anyway. (Wary Fighter does work.)

Dancers are a lot easier to deal with once AI prediction gets better. I used to get trashed because I always assume the dancer plays optimally (meaning my 'safe spots' get narrower and narrower as the enemy team approaches, and it's hard to attack from the safe spots when the enemy doesn't move as far forward as I expected), these days I just take a bit of a risk after seeing the first turn order. (If Dancer goes after another unit, I just assume it'll always do that unless I leave someone in range. It'll probs bite me in the ass on occasion, but playing 100% safe just means I'm 100% screwed with my current lineup.)

God dammit Navarre, why couldn't you have been like Zephiel. Dude does work even @ 4* vs 5* multiple merge douchebags. This guy knows exactly how to Min-Max. (He beat a Bonfire Sheena with Distant Counter to death because he's Zephiel and Sheena isn't---the rest of my team was Cordelia (lol vs. Sheena), Azura (lol vs. Sheena), and Klein (lol vs. DC Sheena).)

Is there any functional reason to run Moonbow? It's not like having it up gives Tharja perfect coverage (it gets maybe 1 or 2 more wins out of over 100 units), and the few that leak through buffed Tharja should be covered by someone else regardless. Reprisal outdamages when damage taken > opponents Res, obviously, although it's even more niche than Moonbow. The way I see it, the special on someone like Tharja is literally just another slot to stuff a +point skill in. Edit: I mean, if you value the 1 or 2 matchups over guaranteed arena points, go for it, but I know I'd rather go for the arena points, given that the special slot pretty much does nothing anyway. Tharja isn't Setsuna, who needs a special to kill things.

Aether and Galeforce gives the most arena score. (Skill + score is based on SP cost.) Edit: So, strictly speaking, everyone should be using either Aether or Galeforce.

Every time I look at Clair's spread I go: 'Hey! That's 36 speed, wonder why I thought she's---oh, right, she paid 9 Atk for 1 Spd over Cordelia.' When Felicia has a better shot at being viable than you, your spread has issues.