Sol vs Luna

[Jotari]

Topic... obviously I'm talking about the recurring skills and not the barely related Valentia weapons (the Awakening weapons are related since they actually give those skills).

Edited December 8, 2023 by Jotari

[samthedigital]

I can only speak from experience, so I'll talk about the games I know to some extent where Sol and Luna exist:

Engage: Getting Diamant to proc Sol enough for it to be relevant requires a lot of setup and is probably just a meme. Bonded Shield and player phase cheese also exist which are much lower effort ways of solving enemy phase. I wouldn't say that Luna in particular is good exactly, but it's probably useful more often. I'm not sure that I would count Grasping Void, but the same logic would apply.

Awakening: Sol is a one skill solution to the sustain problem. It can allow most units that get it to press start and win their way through Lunatic for the most part and to do the same thing conditionally on Lunatic+. Luna requires some more setup; I've seen it work, but I'd rather have the sustain.

Fates: I get damage by stacking raw damage skills, forges, and stats, so Sol is more useful for me by default.

edit: I also find that it can be relevant to know for certain if I'm going to kill an enemy or not in some situations. I consider topping up health to be a downside far more rarely.

Edited December 8, 2023 by samthedigital

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Sol is almost always better. Think about enemy phase: Sol can only help, by restoring the user's HP, improving their survivability. While Luna can only hurt, by killing more enemies, and giving the user more chances to take damage.

One substantial exception, I will say, is in Genealogy. Dew is the only unit with Sol by default, and his combat is... bad. He'll do very little damage, and against most enemy types, he'll get two-shot. Restoring a couple points of HP isn't saving him. Likewise for Dew!Patty. And Dew!Leen is actively hurt by this skill, since it sabotages her Miracle strats in the Arena.

Compare with Luna, which comes on Chulainn. It can help him achieve surprising one-rounds in the field, or "punch above his weight" in the Arena. Sure, it's weaker than a crit in this game, but it can stack with a crit - or with effective damage. And any of the kids can benefit - even just in the Arena, more Luna means fewer durability points to repair.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

I wouldn't say that Luna in particular is good exactly, but it's probably useful more often. I'm not sure that I would count Grasping Void, but the same logic would apply.

Luna and Sol can also proc on multi hit Engage Attacks, something that gives them more utility in that regard (though crits can be made much much more reliable). The practical benefit of this would mostly be Luna combined with Astra Storm, which is one of the most likely Emblems you'll out on Alcryst if you're using him to his full extent.

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

edit: I also find that it can be relevant to know for certain if I'm going to kill an enemy or not in some situations. I consider topping up health to be a downside far more rarely.

This is the logic that I think of over all that eks out Sol for me. I plan tactics around killing enemies, not almost killing them with a random proc finishing them off just in case. Consequently Sol doesn't need to be planned around and will only negatively impact in very niche skill interaction scenarios. Sol is more a "lucky benefit when it happens" while Luna is a "this might alter how many attacks I need to kill this turn". But ultimately proc skills are unreliable and both are usually going to be worse than other skills in skill slot competition like avoid stacking.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Jotari

[Interdimensional Observer]

Proc skills, being chance-based, are never something to be relied on as a mandatory part of one's strategies.

Since 0 HP for a player unit gets rid of them forever, relying on proc healing is very dangerous. Reliance on proc damage can be just as bad if you need a kill or else one of your guys get killed. Though I'm inclined to say it's less foolish to rely on Luna.

In a safer mindset where one does not rely on procs, and instead considers them a random small boon that lets you do just a little more, Luna's occasional extra damage is niftier than Sol's healing. I'll assume the average player isn't overloading their staffbot or two with work every turn, a situation which would favor Sol. Although, Luna damage is dependent on enemy Def or Res, which if low contributes a rather insignificant damage boost and Sol then becomes better. Luna is also better on dodgetanks, since Sol shouldn't be needed.

So which is better? Aether.😛 -Not joking, I'd go with Luna.

[samthedigital]

55 minutes ago, Jotari said:

But ultimately proc skills are unreliable and both are usually going to be worse than other skills in skill slot competition like avoid stacking.

Sol is actually really good in tandem with avoid stacking since it gives additional outs to survive enemy phase. It's in part what makes it such an amazing skill in Awakening. It was a key skill in both of my ironman runs in that game as a quick example.

edit: To expand on that somewhat it's really just a numbers game. If I'm relying on Sol to proc after like 4 attacks then yeah, that's not very reliable regardless of what the unit's dex stat is. An endgame Awakening unit is going to have a ~90% chance to proc Sol once in that amount of attacks (2 enemies) without factoring in other skills, but in any case it's not consistent enough for me on its own. The thing is that Sol is often paired with dual guard, low enemy hit rates, damage, etc, and that's really what makes it such a strong tool even on Lunatic. Unless the chance of death is literally 0 with a dodge tanking strategy Sol is only going to make it more reliable, and that 0% is tough to find without going Sorcerer. There are also a lot more than 2 enemies to attack on any given enemy phase; getting a few Sol procs is an inevitability when the unit is doubling and getting attacked by 10 or more enemies in a turn.

Edited December 8, 2023 by samthedigital

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, samthedigital said:

Sol is actually really good in tandem with avoid stacking since it gives additional outs to survive enemy phase. It's in part what makes it such an amazing skill in Awakening. It was a key skill in both of my ironman runs in that game as a quick example.

edit: To expand on that somewhat it's really just a numbers game. If I'm relying on Sol to proc after like 4 attacks then yeah, that's not very reliable regardless of what the unit's dex stat is. An endgame Awakening unit is going to have a ~90% chance to proc Sol once in that amount of attacks (2 enemies) without factoring in other skills, but in any case it's not consistent enough for me on its own. The thing is that Sol is often paired with dual guard, low enemy hit rates, damage, etc, and that's really what makes it such a strong tool even on Lunatic. Unless the chance of death is literally 0 with a dodge tanking strategy Sol is only going to make it more reliable, and that 0% is tough to find without going Sorcerer. There are also a lot more than 2 enemies to attack on any given enemy phase; getting a few Sol procs is an inevitability when the unit is doubling and getting attacked by 10 or more enemies in a turn.

I was being more general about the whole series. Even in your example Sol is not really the deciding factor, it's all the other skills avoiding damage that Sol just acts as insurance for when everything else fails. I'll put it this way, for most scenarios in most games if you give me a choice between renewal or skill based sol activation, I'll probably choose renewal.

[lenticular]

Sol is the better skill for enemy-phase units; Luna for player-phase. As mentioned by others, accidentally killing too many enemies on enemy phase can be a death sentence, which makes Luna bad for tanks. But on player phase, it's usually possible to make higher variance plays first and have contingencies for either eventuality. "OK, so I attack here, and if Luna doesn't proc then I can use that unit to finish them off, but if it does then the unit is free to visit that house instead." That sort of thing. And while Sol is rarely harmful, it's pretty useless on a player-phase nuke who isn't taking much damage to begin with.

But for whatever reason, IS have seen fit to mostly give Luna to armour units. Generals get it in Tellius, then Great Knights in Awakening and Fates. These are not only more enemy-phase oriented classes, but also don't typically come with high Skill for good proc rates. But if you put Luna onto a unit that's actually suited to it, like they finally did with Alcryst in Engage, then it's OK. Not great, but OK. Alcryst would definitely be a worse unit if you took Luna away and gave him Sol instead.

Of the two skills, Sol has the higher ceiling if you really build around it. There are builds and strategies that work with Sol which don't work without it. Enemy-phase units see more combats, and the larger sample size helps to make the proc chance more consistent overall. But on the other hand, the builds that it allows do mostly tend to be gimmicky or convenience builds. Yeah, you can build a self-healing tank who can solo the game, but this is generally neither the most effective nor the most fun (for me) way to play. But it is an option, at least. I've used it this way on Titania and on Corrin, but only after I got bored with the game and wanted to be done with it.

[samthedigital]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

I was being more general about the whole series. Even in your example Sol is not really the deciding factor, it's all the other skills avoiding damage that Sol just acts as insurance for when everything else fails. I'll put it this way, for most scenarios in most games if you give me a choice between renewal or skill based sol activation, I'll probably choose renewal.

In my example it's not necessarily the deciding factor, but it is an important part of the process as it's what is keeping the unit's HP topped off while soloing the entire map. It's also the player unit's stats and dual guard that is doing a large part of the work in mitigating damage otherwise; I don't usually build into avoid specifically. The same thing can be done in Conquest in a more limited fashion, but it does require more setup and good skill selection in that game. I'm also familiar with PoR where I don't find the healing to be very necessary at all (and Jill/Marcia are more relevant when Sol is actually an option), but you might be right for the other games that have Sol. I won't speak about games that I've only beaten once or twice and don't have a lot of experience with.

[Eltosian Kadath]

Luna is almost always better for one simple reason, Luna is something you can include in your strategies because failing to proc Luna is a minor setback, while failing to proc Sol is a dead character. Luna is lower risk, and higher reward than Sol is. The main time Sol really helps is when you have already found a way to break that game.

[Jotari]

28 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Luna is almost always better for one simple reason, Luna is something you can include in your strategies because failing to proc Luna is a minor setback, while failing to proc Sol is a dead character. Luna is lower risk, and higher reward than Sol is. The main time Sol really helps is when you have already found a way to break that game.

Funny, I use pretty much the exact same logic to reach the opposite result. Proccing luna might have no benefit at all, there is no real difference between knocking off 50% of an enemy's HP and 75% of an enemy's HP in one round of combat, as the number of attacks needed to kill the enemy is probably going to be the same. Conversely, units, unless running some kind of desperation build, always want to be at full HP as it lets them survive the maximum amount of attacks they can with their given stats. And while you can keep HP topped up with a staff bot, the staff bot can't continuously heal everywhere at once (unless they're Tatiana, but she doesn't exist in a game with proc skills) so a character being able to heal themselves and effectively nullify a certain number of enemy attacks over a longer period of time gives them more sustainability. And sure, a Sol proc might be useless when your unit's at full HP, but a unit running sol likely won't be at full Hp after they've faced a few enemies in combat.

Individual game balance is also somewhat important. I agree that Luna is good on Alcryst, probably better than Sol is on Diamant. But that probably has less (though still something) to do with Alcryst's class as someone mentioned above, and more just to do with the fact that enemies actually are pretty damn difficult to take down in Engage. So proccing a luna often will actually make the difference between an enemy you might not otherwise be able to kill.

Tl;Dr, a lot of luna procs can be useless due to not increasing the number of attacks required to kill an enemy, while sol procs are never unwelcome and are only uselss when at full HP, which a lot of units frequently aren't.

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

there is no real difference between knocking off 50% of an enemy's HP and 75% of an enemy's HP in one round of combat, as the number of attacks needed to kill the enemy is probably going to be the same.

This I disagree with, as knocking an enemy to 50% means you to need an attack just as good as the one you just used to finish it, while an enemy that was dropped down 75% means you can use much weaker attacks to finish it, which lets you get the most out of your weaker units (or perhaps lets you use more reliable attacks, or let a unit that gets their damage through double attacking avoid the counter, etc.). This logic only really holds if you are one on one like in Pokemon or something.

 

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

And sure, a Sol proc might be useless when your unit's at full HP, but a unit running sol likely won't be at full Hp after they've faced a few enemies in combat.

They also might be useless because Sol tends to heal less than a hit's worth of damage, and when the calculation is often half the damage you dealt, that seems like a likely assumption.

Edit: I also wanted to add that ending a map with 10 HP isn't more useful than ending it with 1 HP. The HP you gain is only useful if you intend to risk losing that HP.

 

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

 

Individual game balance is also somewhat important. I agree that Luna is good on Alcryst, probably better than Sol is on Diamant. But that probably has less (though still something) to do with Alcryst's class as someone mentioned above, and more just to do with the fact that enemies actually are pretty damn difficult to take down in Engage. So proccing a luna often will actually make the difference between an enemy you might not otherwise be able to kill.

This I do rather agree with though, as I find Sol tends to be far better if you have found a way to make the game rather easy. I see this as more in favor of Luna.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Eltosian Kadath

[Armchair General]

I like both, but I honestly prefer Sol because let's face it: It occasionally turns an crappy situation into one that slightly reeks less of horse manure. But as convenient as they are, I can't really imagine someone planning their strategy around an random proc skill

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Luna is almost always better for one simple reason, Luna is something you can include in your strategies because failing to proc Luna is a minor setback, while failing to proc Sol is a dead character. Luna is lower risk, and higher reward than Sol is.

I'd say that it's a little more contextual than that. If I include Luna in my strategy that's because I know that there is a low chance of failure at the very least, so it's not something to be relied on to get an important kill or in an instance where a unit is in danger when more enemies can attack them. The same principle applies to Sol; if I'm using the skill it's because I've already determined that my character has a low chance of death. So yes, Sol not proccing can lead to a dead character, but that's more of a skill issue than a problem with Sol.

[Eltosian Kadath]

52 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

I can't really imagine someone planning their strategy around an random proc skill

I think Lenticular did a good job explaining a simple way you can plan around a proc skill:

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

But on player phase, it's usually possible to make higher variance plays first and have contingencies for either eventuality. "OK, so I attack here, and if Luna doesn't proc then I can use that unit to finish them off, but if it does then the unit is free to visit that house instead." That sort of thing.

 

3 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

The same principle applies to Sol; if I'm using the skill it's because I've already determined that my character has a low chance of death. So yes, Sol not proccing can lead to a dead character, but that's more of a skill issue than a problem with Sol.

If you were never going to die, even if Sol didn't proc, what is it even doing for you? I am sure you can contrive some very specific situations where it does, but most of Sol's value is when you have a risk of death.

 

[samthedigital]

Just now, Eltosian Kadath said:

If you were never going to die, even if Sol didn't proc, what is it even doing for you? I am sure you can contrive some very specific situations where it does, but most of Sol's value is when you have a risk of death.

There is a certain amount of risk of death so to speak. It's just that it's low enough that the chance of failure is acceptable to me. I'll go back to Awakening since it's an easy example; my units will die if Sol never procs over the course of a map, but the chances of that happening are incredibly low to say the least. Conquest is also on my mind for similar reasons, but I'm not sure I want to go down that rabbit hole because it's more complicated, and your playstyle in that game is rather different from mine if I'm remembering how you play correctly.

[vanguard333]

Aether; the clear winner is Aether. That said, Aether should only really be something Ike has, and it was annoying that Chrom and Lucina had it in Awakening, so I can understand it being disqualified.

Sol gets a little bit of health back while Luna does extra damage. Since they're both random, I don't ever want to rely on either of them, and in that regard, sol is just a bit more useful; I don't want to rely on getting health back, but, if it happens, that frees up the healer to do something else. The extra damage from Luna is less useful when it happens.

In any case, I like these abilities more for the fun when they appear, not for their tactical usefulness.

[Eltosian Kadath]

42 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

There is a certain amount of risk of death so to speak. It's just that it's low enough that the chance of failure is acceptable to me.

And failing that low odds roll is not

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

more of a skill issue than a problem with Sol.

like you claimed before. Luck is an inherent problem with both of these skills, and that is far worse for Sol than it is for Luna.

 

[samthedigital]

3 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

And failing that low odds roll is not

The low odds roll is likely far south of 1% over the course of a map, so if that failure happens it's perfectly acceptable to me if that's what you're wondering. A typical map will feature maybe 30 or more enemies, so Sol not proccing like 10 times over the course of 60 attacks let alone once is low enough that I wouldn't worry about it. Empirically it checks out too given the fact that Sol has worked for me in countless playthroughs including the 2 ironmans I mentioned earlier.

[Shadow Mir]

Luna. Sol is well past its prime. It was great in the Jugdral and Tellius sagas because it had 100% health drain, but now it's a shell of its former self. A chance to drain only half the damage dealt is nothing unless you far outclass your foe. Also, the only time Sol does anything is in situations where you're risking dying... which is the exact type of situation I actively try to avoid in the first place! It's also useless if you barely drain anything. That said, I generally find skills like there to be more of a bonus than anything else.

[Robert Stewart]

Both are pretty mediocre. They're both usually chance based, so you can't really rely on any of them in critical situations. If you're relying on Sol to heal to avoid dying, you;re probably dead. If you're relying on Luna to defeat an enemy...well, you'll probably be able to do it, but you'll be in for a rough time if it never procs.

I went back and forth on which is better based on random procs that you aren't relying on. I guess in that case Sol might be better since it might save you from having to expend a healing staff or item later on. But then again, you can goose your odds of getting a luna proc by focusing on a static target like a boss, who is probably who you'd want a luna activation against most. It's hard to say, but I feel like Sol would be slightly more valuable.

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

This I disagree with, as knocking an enemy to 50% means you to need an attack just as good as the one you just used to finish it, while an enemy that was dropped down 75% means you can use much weaker attacks to finish it, which lets you get the most out of your weaker units (or perhaps lets you use more reliable attacks, or let a unit that gets their damage through double attacking avoid the counter, etc.). This logic only really holds if you are one on one like in Pokemon or something.

For a game with bulky enemies like Engage, sure. For most other title, no not really. You will be killing most generic enemies in 1-3 attacks in most games, unless you're intentionally farming a helpless enemy with your chippers, and the times where Luna both procs and you are fighting an enemy where thst difference of necessary number of attacks matters is going to be quite situational. Bosses might sometimes take more attacks to take down, but honestly Fire Emblem bosses pre Engage have always kind of sucked. They're either sitting ducks where the number of attacks to take them down is irrelevant because you have full control of the encounter, or they move and are reasonable dangerous meaning you're whipping out your high end legendary weapons and mowing them down with about the same amount of difficulty as the generics.

9 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I think Lenticular did a good job explaining a simple way you can plan around a proc skill:

If you were never going to die, even if Sol didn't proc, what is it even doing for you? I am sure you can contrive some very specific situations where it does, but most of Sol's value is when you have a risk of death.

This feels like thinking that is very individual moment thinking then full map thinking. It's not about saving a unit from one individual attack, it's about longer scale sustainability. If I send out a bulky unit that can tank ten enemy attacks before dying, I will have to expend either their own turn or a staff it's turn healing them after about seven attacks to remain safe. Less if I have a healer with free turns. However if that same bulky unit can heal the equivalent of one attack in every three, then suddenly they can take 13 or 14 more enemy attacks before a turn needs to be expended somewhere in healing. And this is combined with actual healing as a lot of the time you might not even be able to heal a unit directly from low to full HP and want the extra top up. In other words, it's not about saving a unit from an individual attack that might kill them, it's about extending how long they can be in battle before turns need to be expended to replenish their sustainability (the exact numbers I've used are obviously demonstrative, I'm just trying to show the logic, the numbers will probably be a lot lower and Sol might not even proc between heals, but you will probably have to heal the same units multiple times over the course of a map if they're seeing a lot of combat).

Edited December 9, 2023 by Jotari

[Armchair General]

On 12/8/2023 at 8:42 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

If you were never going to die, even if Sol didn't proc, what is it even doing for you?

Potentially saving an trivial amount of gold?

[Shadow Mir]

On 12/8/2023 at 6:52 PM, Jotari said:

This feels like thinking that is very individual moment thinking then full map thinking. It's not about saving a unit from one individual attack, it's about longer scale sustainability. If I send out a bulky unit that can tank ten enemy attacks before dying, I will have to expend either their own turn or a staff it's turn healing them after about seven attacks to remain safe. Less if I have a healer with free turns. However if that same bulky unit can heal the equivalent of one attack in every three, then suddenly they can take 13 or 14 more enemy attacks before a turn needs to be expended somewhere in healing. And this is combined with actual healing as a lot of the time you might not even be able to heal a unit directly from low to full HP and want the extra top up. In other words, it's not about saving a unit from an individual attack that might kill them, it's about extending how long they can be in battle before turns need to be expended to replenish their sustainability (the exact numbers I've used are obviously demonstrative, I'm just trying to show the logic, the numbers will probably be a lot lower and Sol might not even proc between heals, but you will probably have to heal the same units multiple times over the course of a map if they're seeing a lot of combat).

On paper, this sounds great. But in practice, I wouldn't be so sure. For the most part, a unit wouldn't be seeing 10 rounds of combat in one enemy phase unless they were killing everything that attacked them, because otherwise the enemy would eventually run out of spaces to attack from. The immediate vicinity also factors into this; a narrow hallway has less spaces to attack from than a wide open area. Of course... That's ignoring the fact that any unit who takes 10 hits to kill is probably really overpowered compared to who they're fighting. Or an inherently defensive class or unit.

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

a unit wouldn't be seeing 10 rounds of combat in one enemy phase unless they were killing everything that attacked them, because otherwise the enemy would eventually run out of spaces to attack from.

Units can be fighting for more than one turn before being healed. Unless it's end game Gaiden/Shadows of Valentia where you can afford to spam Fortify every turn. The numbers are just demonstrative of the concept. Even one extra hit in four is meaningful.