LordFrigid

Oh definitely. I'm not recommending it at all, don't worry. Just some random musings about my Olivia's path in life (before Azura sent her to the bench).

@Arcanite Congrats! Yeah, Olivia doesn't need to be trained up at all for that. iirc I just bumped the 2* one from the hero battle to 3* to get Dance on her and used that. I ended up bumping her to 4* later so she wouldn't kill my Arena score when I had her on the team, and training her to 40 was...it was a bit of a pain, actually.

I don't recall what the stat lines look like on the 9-5 enemies, but I ended up doing it with F!Corrin, Camilla, Lyn, and Olivia (definitely have a look at the enemy stat lines before going in with this or similar, I'd imagine you should be ok subbing Anna for Camilla). F!Corrin watched Xander, and the flier after him, kill themselves on her. Lyn's job was to eat damage from Veronica until she got Defiant Atk up to ORKO her (this is where you'd want to look at the stat lines, not sure if there are Lyn variants that can't ORKO even with Defiant Atk). Olivia danced her, and in my case, the healer was right behind Veronica, so Lyn went over and doubled her, which got Galeforce to proc. I don't remember if she got to safety, or if there was really nowhere for her to go (Corrin was still dealing with the reds to the left, with the blue mage approaching from the right). Camilla's only job was to handle the blue mage. There are probably more effective ways to deal with that map...but that's the best I could do with what I had on hand at the time.

Having watched 5* Nino tear up almost every Arena battle over the past week and a half, I'm hesitant to talk you out of this =P . +Spd/-Def would probably do it even more effectively than mine (+Def/-HP). From my perspective, Kagero would be the only other worthy person of that group. As for getting a natural 5* from the Focus...merge into the great one you have now? I'm seriously considering saving orbs for that focus because Effie & Nino are just that good.

Because my Takumi's got a Spd bane. Seriously though, the combination of those three and F!Corrin is actually my main Arena team. I'm pretty happy with sticking F!Corrin in the last slot, even though Hone Atk is somewhat redundant with Sieglinde. There are actually a lot of battles where F!Corrin's just sitting on the sidelines waiting for Nino to finish Nino-ing, but there are also battles where Dark Breath is exactly what I need to win the match (well...with no deaths). That, or I actually DO need Hone Atk 3 for a one-shot (it's pretty rare, but it happens). Back on topic, that one-shot-every-Linde thing...that's from personal experience =P . I would never be able to do that with F!Robin, so I'm hesitant to say F!Robin has emerged into usefulness. Haven't run the numbers on Reinhardt, but from glancing at his stats I don't think he can escape the Nino nuke? Edit: No, he can't. His HP+Res is lower than Linde's.

I'd say F!Robin only really has the edge over Nino versus Linde in a vacuum. A properly buffed non-Atk-bane Nino should be one-shotting every Linde. (Numbers 'n stuff below) tbh, the only instance where I can see F!Robin being better than Nino is against something so deeply entrenched in F!Robin's niche that not even Gronnblade can overcome it. Ex. a blue tome cavalier with seriously high Spd, and enough Res to not get obliterated by Gronnblade.

I was going to update my rank for the new score last night, but I ended up going to bed before the hour change =P . At the time of writing, 4592 points gets a rank of 894 (271 defense points, if that even means anything for rank...idk where 271 came from, all the other defensive wins are ~260. My best guess is that someone wasn't paying attention and mis-positioned something or just plain got in over their head).

With my current setup, yes on 4 Hectors, and probably not on 4 Takumis. Young Tiki squishes Hector, especially on the Player Phase due to Armored Blow. I don't really have anything that could take out a Takumi without eating heavy return damage though...I guess Young Tiki could, but she takes more than she does from Hector due to Weapon Triangle.That, plus Takumi doesn't have Hector's movement issues and attacks from 2-range, so even if she set up the kill on one, 2-3 others would probably run her over on the EP. Interestingly, the team I ran before my current one probably could handle 4 Takumis pretty easily with proper positioning, but I don't know if it could handle 4 Hectors.

Managed to bump my score up to 4592 (+70ish points) by switching up my team from "Nino Emblem" to Tiki (Young), Eirika, Julia, Ephraim for the higher stat total. I was a little afraid of how the team would perform without song power and without the sheer synergy of the Nino team...but I ended up running into a lot of Effies, Hectors, and Sword Lords. I guess that makes sense, since a higher rated team is more likely to be running them, but since those three things are hard countered by Julia, Tiki, and Ephraim, it was just about as stomp-y as Nino. I'll see where the rank goes after the next update, currently sitting at 3760 from the old score of 4524.

Nooo! Reina, avenge me! Other fun/theme teams I'm thinking about or have thought about... Cavs: Gunter, Jagen, Cain, and...someone. Abel maybe. Or Cecilia, because everyone's physical otherwise. Nohr: The siblings, probably substituting one of the Corrins for Xander for...obvious reasons. Problem is I don't actually have Elise or Leo so.... Hoshido: Same thing as Nohr, only missing Ryoma for this one actually (lol..."only"). Ironically I like Nohr better. I also jokingly wondered to myself about having 4 healers on a team, but I don't think I'll ever actually do it.

Congrats!

My Arena offense team. Everyone has their weaknesses covered, and it's just beautiful to watch Nino running around the map, one-shotting every Takumi variant that ever lived.

Training on Team Death From Above (Caeda, Palla, Cordelia and Hinoka) is already underway - might switch the lineup around...throw Narcian or Camilla in there at some point for some color variety, idk we need Kinshi Knights.

Yes, I've got the three of them. I actually Nino'd the map with the strategy described a few posts into this page page 3 [edit: of course this post had to be on a new page] (kill the Axe, wait for the mages to kill themselves on her, etc.). My goal with the Takumi attempt was to show that the incoming damage numbers I had forecast were indeed correct, and the team that I suggested would actually work with @TheTuckingFypo's lineup (even though it's a flop with mine, due to the Spd bane). I toyed with a bunch of things to get that stat line to where I needed it for a proper demo, actually. But I was always short somewhere.

Well, I just gave it a shot with the following: Eirika, Takumi (+Res/-Spd), Cecilia, Lyn. It was a failure because the lack of Sharena's Fortify Def (needed Lyn's spur to get the double on the Blue Mage), but I was expecting that - I just wanted to see how much HP he would have at the end WITH the Fortify Def (my guess was 2). Sure enough, he had 9 HP before the last foe (Robin) attacked, and took a 10; so he'd have had 2 HP with the Fortify (since he'd take 3 less from the Axe). I'm going to go ahead and stubbornly re-suggest Gaius/Sharena/Cecilia/Takumi here. fwiw, this is as far as I got.

Interesting. My Takumi's -Spd, unfortunately, so I'm literally 3 Spd away from being able to demo it. I'm guessing either the Axe Fighter and/or the Blue Mage survived, and sealed Takumi's Res/Def. Edit: I thought I might be able to demo with similar buffs, but I don't have room for a Def buff and Hone + Spur Spd, so I don't think it'd work. I'll run more numbers and see if I can do it.

@TheTuckingFypo I would give Gaius, Sharena, Takumi, Cecilia a shot. Basically your goal is to feed Takumi so many steroids that he can sit at the tile just to the left of the water and survive. Post-buffing Takumi will be at 40 HP, 47 Atk, 37 Spd, 28 Def, 25 Res. Sticking him just to the left of the water tile will get him hit by: Blue Mage (36 Atk, 17 Def, 32 Spd with Darting Blow): Takumi takes 11 damage, 37 Spd lets him double back perfectly for two 30s. Axe (34 Atk, 26 Def, 26 Spd): Takumi takes 6 damage, 47 Atk and 37 Spd lets him double for two 21s, perfectly killing him (map is clearly designed for +Res/-Atk Takumi) Red Mage (36 Atk, 21 Def with Armored Blow, 28 Spd): Takumi takes 11 damage, doubles back for two 26s. Robin (35 Atk, 24 Def, 25 Spd): Takumi takes 10 damage, doubles back for two 23s. Takumi takes a total of 38 Damage, living on 2HP (someone please correct me if I'm missing anything here). Blue Lance doesn't make it to him and with Sharena and Gaius Rallies Takumi should be able to take him out on the next PP. Edit: extra note, Takumi will get Vengeances in there somewhere, but idk where, and he doesn't seem to need them.

For the people with Nino - you should be able to just Nino Emblem the whole (Normal) map at a certain level of 4* Nino. Running the numbers now. I'll edit the post as necessary, but for now, fun stuff in the spoiler. Edit: Nino wants 25 Spd, 38 Atk (including Gronnblade bonuses), and enough Res to survive [74 - (3 * Res)] damage. You'll also want Olivia, who may need to eat a hit from Robin, depending on how much of that 38 Atk came from Gronnblade's buff→damage conversion. You can fiddle with the Spd & Atk numbers a little bit, notably 29 Spd will double the Blue Mage on the EP, and less Atk really only leaves the Red Mage alive. Definitely don't try it with less than 30 Atk though (incl. Gronnblade bonuses), otherwise the Axe Fighter won't die.

Well...this looks interesting. Vantage & Wary Fighter are both B skills. Hopefully they won't break that. I'm personally hoping for Svalinn Shield F!Corrin. Come at me, Falchions! Edit: Running under the assumption that A, B, & C skills would be available, it'd also be interesting to see stuff like Wings of Mercy on Olivia/Azura/Healers, Death Blow, Darting Blow, or Life and Death on ranged nukes (Nino, Julia, etc.), Knock Back on ranged nukes, Quick Riposte on...anything, but especially slow things, Wary Fighter on slow things, Death Blow on Braves...I'm just gonna stop now, because I don't want to get overhyped before it's released & explained and my dreams are crushed.

To be fair, Ephraim, Julia, Eirika, and Seliph aren't in the non-focus 5* pool of their focus group either. The focus group announcement (on the announcements board), says that the heroes will be added to the general pool once the focus is over. I forget the exact wording,

Where did you put her? It sounds like you stuck her just to the left of the water tile. You'll get better results out of putting her one tile above that, which only the axe, and the blue & red mage can hit.

Not to take away from the creativity of the Dancer/Draw Back (which is super fun to use), but if you have the buff setup Nino can just sit there after killing the Axe and eat up the Blue & Red mage on the EP.

Yup, just walked into the 1st Stratum, and that is indeed the case. I was actually guessing WT wouldn't apply to the -blade damage, on the premise that Gronnblade's description said it added to "damage dealt", and the assumption that weapon triangle only applied to the Atk stat...but the numbers say otherwise.

I'm actually looking at the opposite scenario, whether WT affects -blade damage as opposed to whether -blade damage adds on WT (that'd be hilariously broken though). The context of it being this from the post above, which I maybe should have quoted in the first place: I think it still is, it just carries through with such immense power that it doesn't care. Julia just smashs things with Naga, even Marths, for a smooth 2HKO just about every time at worst.

Well, that was almost a whole day ago, idk where I am now. But yeah, 100 points is pretty big, from what I've seen. Edit: Rank after ~1 day is 1904.