link arena Fire Emblem Link Arena Discussion Topic

[Tables]

So, basically, the meta should revolve around countering Nihil teams? Heh. You do realize there is a thing called "overcentralization"? Sure, a team made against Nihil will have a good shot, but why should teams have to be built around countering an specific something?

Not what I'm saying at all. Such a team I proposed wouldn't exactly be dead in the water otherwise. It might end up with somewhat of a RPS setup where Nihil team > Skill team > Stats team > Nihil team, but what's wrong with that?

[Espinosa]

I don't get what "skill teams" and "stat teams" are supposed to be... Seem like the necessary ingredients for any existing team if you ask me.

I don't see why Ike needs to be banned...He's not particularly better than any of the paladins.

Just Aether (which has lost much of its appeal with the introduction of custom skills really) and 25 SP really.

Not really. Any attack of mine wouldve put Calill in Resolve range (no way to know if she had it or not really) and the Vague KAtti crit was my best shot at outright winning the game. (vague katti works for everyone else, why shouldnt it for me, right? but welp). Anyway, if Refa had chosen to cripple my Tauro with his Nihil, I lost anyway, so I had to do whatever I could to prevent her from doing that. But there was really no way but risky moves.

You could've suicided Boyd into Calill instead of Ike, or gone for a safe attack against Mak and left Calill alone. If she sieges Tauroneo, you attack her at point-blank, or kill somebody with Tauroneo (not too hard to set up). There were many options in that match, and while each of them lead to different possible outcomes, it certainly wasn't desperate, especially with turn 1 beginning really favourable for you with that crit vs. Nasir. If you didn't let Calill eat Oscar and then go for the unreliable brave attack, you probably wouldn't have lost that one game either.

Without Ragnell or Oscar, Ike isn't really all that powerful compared to Osar, Makaman, Tauroneo, Snipers (who often KO Ike). I mean, he's stronger and his supports are amazing, but he isn't all that much stronger. I haven't run Ike on most of my teams and a lot of people, including ones who beat my Ike-less team, don't either.

Actually, Ike's supports are far from good. The gap between IkexOscar and Ike's other supporters is so big that it is why you see Parity!Ike on so many teams (which a Paladin does better I'd argue). But yeah, as a guy with 25 SP, good bulk (52+7 HP, 24 def/18+4 res) and speed, plus some potential to stall with the Runesword, Ike will always keep appearing on teams even with Ragnell/Oscar support banned.

[PKL]

I don't get what "skill teams" and "stat teams" are supposed to be... Seem like the necessary ingredients for any existing team if you ask me.

Just Aether (which has lost much of its appeal with the introduction of custom skills really) and 25 SP really.

You could've suicided Boyd into Calill instead of Ike, or gone for a safe attack against Mak and left Calill alone. If she sieges Tauroneo, you attack her at point-blank, or kill somebody with Tauroneo (not too hard to set up). There were many options in that match, and while each of them lead to different possible outcomes, it certainly wasn't desperate, especially with turn 1 beginning really favourable for you with that crit vs. Nasir. If you didn't let Calill eat Oscar and then go for the unreliable brave attack, you probably wouldn't have lost that one game either.

Actually, Ike's supports are far from good. The gap between IkexOscar and Ike's other supporters is so big that it is why you see Parity!Ike on so many teams (which a Paladin does better I'd argue). But yeah, as a guy with 25 SP, good bulk (52+7 HP, 24 def/18+4 res) and speed, plus some potential to stall with the Runesword, Ike will always keep appearing on teams even with Ragnell/Oscar support banned.

But you're assuming the Calill didnt have Vantage. If I had suicided Boyd into Calill, there was a chance it wouldve been an even worse mistake in either Vantage or Resolve (which wouldve caused another death too just because I chose wrong). You had Refa's team knowledge, but I didnt. Just, remember that for a sec.

[Tables]

I don't get what "skill teams" and "stat teams" are supposed to be... Seem like the necessary ingredients for any existing team if you ask me.

Well obviously. It's not like if you were focusing on putting units with great stats on your team you'd somehow forget to give people skills. What I mean is in the context of what I was saying before. A Nihil team is one that uses Nihil to negate most enemy skills, running 2-3 people with Nihil and probably 1 with Parity. A skills team is one that aims to take advantage of skill combos to get kills, things like including Tauroneo for an extra Resolve, trying to catch opponents off guard with things like Vantage, using Shade/Provoke aggressively. A stats team would be one that focuses more on units with stronger stat caps and bases and supports/bonds among them, so that it's stronger on paper withour factoring in skills. It would obviously still include those strong skills - Resolve, Nihil, Wrath, good Masteries etc. but they would be less of the focus. So this kind of team wouldn't want to include Tauroneo for his Resolve, unless it fit in with the supports and it had boosters to spare.

This is all theoretical at this point. But my thinking is that:

A Nihil based team will more likely beat a skill based team. This is because the team negates many of those tricky skill combinations and beats them by superior numbers and still having some skills behind the Nihils.

A stats based team will more likely beat a Nihil based team. This is because the team has better supports and stats among it, and the Nihils make less of a difference against it.

A skill based team will more likely beat a stats based team. This is because the team has more of the strong skills, and so more good combinations of skills which can deal with many of the stats based teams better supports and stats.

Hopefully this makes the idea clear? Maybe I could try and present some form of stats based team (it'd probably be a rough draft though)?

[General Horace]

I think a better idea would see if a team that is heavily base around supports and stats in general actually would beat a Nihil based team. It's hard to build a team that's really strong statistically and supportwise.

[dondon151]

A stats based team will more likely beat a Nihil based team. This is because the team has better supports and stats among it, and the Nihils make less of a difference against it.

i think this is where the RPS triangle breaks down. the stats-based team still has to compete against skills. you have a bunch of units with (marginally at best) better stats going up against units with resolve, wrath, vantage, etc.

and let's not underestimate the effect that skills have. take tauroneo, for instance, who has atrocious stats, yet is one of the most used units because of innate resolve.

another example to illustrate the strength of nihil in a similar metagame can be seen in FE5. after i banned galzus, mareeta, finn, nanna, and delmud, everyone used trewd on their team. trewd has no supports and no other innate skills other than adept. he's already a decent unit stat-wise, and being one of the only innate nihil users makes him a staple on everyone's team. if i unbanned mareeta with the caveat that she doesn't get astra, i bet you that every team will have trewd + mareeta, because nihil is just that strong.

now to pre-empt a few counterarguments against my FE5 example:

the first counterargument that i anticipate is that trewd is a much better unit than calill or nasir are. first of all, nasir is pretty decent. second of all, calill's statistical weaknesses can largely be patched up by a large stat booster investment. supposedly this is a bad thing, but keep in mind that for the 3 other units on the team, 1 of them can be a consistently strong laguz royal, and there are still plenty of statistically robust units to choose from who don't need investment (e.g., ike and makalov).

the second counterargument would probably be, "but what about saias?" saias is terrible. he gets ORKO'd extremely consistently even with defensive investment because he has no defense and gets quadded by brave weapon users. saias is in no way comparable to calill.

the third counterargument that i will pre-empt is that FE5 and FE9 are not comparable because they are different games. this is silly. both games feature assignable skills, some of which are really strong, and consequently make nihil really strong.

finally, counterargument number four is that leif is also being used in pretty much every team. but leif is a different case, because he supports a lot of relatively weaker units, and therefore his existence makes those units more viable. you are not at a disadvantage if you don't use leif (it would just mean that you're also not using anyone whom he supports). trewd and mareeta do no such thing.

finally, the take-home point here that PKL is making is not that nihil teams always beat non-nihil teams. please don't cite an individual match as an example that a non-nihil team can beat a nihil team - that does not prove anything consequential. there are many variables that can affect the outcome of such a match, including imperfect hit rates, critical hits, and poor player decisions.

Edited March 11, 2014 by dondon151

[Psych]

Calill might take up a lot of resources, but Largo certainly doesn't, coming with max HP, Skl, and Str. Running a Calill based team really just focuses things on her as Geoffrey and Neph do want things but aren't nearly as desperate as her . It wouldn't be smart to run both her and Tormod though. So it's not a burden to just get her as it might be to work on things like a Mist team or a brothers one.

[Tables]

Calill might take up a lot of resources, but Largo certainly doesn't, coming with max HP, Skl, and Str.

True, Largo does have a few capped stats, but without Dracoshields he dies really quickly (easily getting 2HKO'd), even with 60 HP. And you know who else would really like some Dracoshields? Yeah, I reckon you can work it out.

I'm not saying it's a worthless support, but... it certainly has it's downsides.

I think a better idea would see if a team that is heavily base around supports and stats in general actually would beat a Nihil based team. It's hard to build a team that's really strong statistically and supportwise.

Yeah, that'd be good to test out, but like you say it's hard to do. I certainly don't have the experience to make something that looks really good.

[General Horace]

honestly even with 2 dracoshields largo is still going to explode, i'd argue its almost not even worth investing in his defence. If he gets critted by a sniper or Vague Katti he's dead whether he has 17 or 13 defence, and it's easier for him to get knocked into resolve or wrath range (two skills he's likely to have) anyway without them.

I'm just actually looking at support chains with units with high stats in general, and it's hard to find a good one :(

Edited March 11, 2014 by General Horace

[Elieson]

Brom/Boyd are pretty much the leading pile in support effectiveness

Gatrie works alright with Ilyana and Sniper support, though Shinon is still a massive target that requires more investment than Rolf, and Ilyana can't really hide behind her shade with her crappy AS and even worse durability. Plus, the trio fight hard for speedwings regardless.

Your Parity!Brom+Zihark+Maurim aren't a bad combo, you just got unlucky with our battle (though a Deadeye Sniper would tear right through Maurim methinks). Mia wasn't that useful, because of her shit durability and mediocre offense, but I suspect that she'd function well with Resolve, while someone like Maurim would want Wrath and Nihil. This team demands a Royal, as speedwings are run dry through Brom and Maurim though.

Most others just aren't that great though, that I can tell. Ike+Elincia is /alright/, and Oscar/Keiran functions decently too, as the two in both sets have some semblance of durability, and neither demand that much in terms of boosters.

Mist+Boyd is too sensitive to powerful attacks.

[General Horace]

man muarim is awful, he ate literally all the energy rings and speedwings. Laguz imo need 32 speed in order to be considered at all, since it doubles most all beorc units, and it left Brom with 18 speed, which honestly makes very little difference in my mind, unless you want him tanking paladins or Boyd or something.

But Zihark/Brom/Boyd together don't need very many boosters, then you could add something like Ike or Oscar and a Royal and you'd have a pretty ok team statwise.

[Elieson]

Brom running 3 boosters in speed (the only stat he really cares about, maybe 1 robe) means that 51 attack!Boyd (Silver Axe) doesn't cut Broms HP in half, and pretty much forces swordusers that would be running the VK to run Silver (making them slightly safer to attack).

Even Zihark!VK only runs like 36 Attack, which struggles to harm enemy generals effectively unless seriously pulling for crits is considered reliable. Though, the +32 Avoid on Zihark at least helps him dodge Silvers from said generals.

The neat thing about Brom is that he can take 3 speedwings, and leave the last for Boyd. This keeps boyd safe from the occasional Mia/Zihark that hits the field. Remember, something as simple as Brave Sword Mia(with a support)_can ORKO Axe!Boyd with 34+1 attack over his 16 base Def, and zihark can do it at Base IIRC

Edited March 11, 2014 by Elieson

[Baldrick]

If you include the cut supports, Ike/Zihark/Brom/Boyd/Titania is a possible support pentagon.

[Espinosa]

Added new polls now that we're far more experienced with this and know where our problems really do lie.

The previous ones were more or less transparent in their outcome, except many different ways of going about Ike's Oscar support and Ragnell are possible.

[Icon of Sin]

Question 1 : Reinforce can stay. It does some chip damage to bow users in general but only the Falcoknight is really worth it, and against a team without Snipers they die easily, being especially worthless if the opposite team is pretty bulky. Corrosion is interesting enough, but shouldn't completely destroy counters or else it really obsoletes Guard. Nihil's fine as it is, stealing is mostly useless, I'll get to dragons next paragraph, and I don't enjoy Shade/Provoke much.

Question 2 : Restricting boosters would be a good thing. One max per stat seems fair. It's that or give them the royal treatment, since we didn't ban those yet.

Question 3 : Kill them off. Moreso Shade than Provoke.

[Elieson]

Nasir belongs in meta just like fae and myrrh belong in meta; not. Ena with Renewal and current restrictions isn't nearly as game changing.

Stealing isn't a GBA thing and IMO its a lame idea to even include volke without it. If you want to include stealing then its not really GBA mech. That said, I think it's an alright addition, just that its a gimmick, and should be treated as such.

Shade and provoke are fine how they are

[AnonymousSpeed]

I say keep shade/provoke as is. The reason being is if part of my strategy is to keep someone in the back, and I don't go first, my plan is screwed.

[General Horace]

for the poll things;

1: i'm really ok with everything on there staying, but dragons comes with an asterisk.

2: I think dragons would be a lot less ridiculous if they had maybe the same stat restrictions, but were totally restricted on skills. Idk about Ena since noone uses her, but Nasir really needs to be toned down.

3: i'm cool with shade/provoke.

[Baldrick]

Reinforce is just extra work for the host IMO.

Shade and Provoke could be made more strategic.

Stealing is alright

Corrosion I'm neutral on. It may make things more frustrating.

Nasir should be nerfed if not removed outright. Ena is alright I think?

Nihil should stay, but definitely be nerfed in some way.

Banning custom skills/boosters on Nasir seems fairest.

[Refa]

Any more restrictions on Nasir and he'd be useless. Might as well ban him in that case IMO.

Nasir belongs in meta just like fae and myrrh belong in meta; not. Ena with Renewal and current restrictions isn't nearly as game changing.

Fae and Myrrh are both in their respective average metas...

[Baldrick]

What about if Nihil couldn't be paired with any other skill? Nasir is ridiculous mostly because he has 25 SP on top of Nihil, and a Nihil team would have less in the way of skills to call on and so be less likely to beat a team that relies on strong units and supports.

[dondon151]

reinforce gone

shade/provoke gone

stealing gone

corrosion is kind of a bad skill so i don't see how it would even affect match outcomes.

[PKL]

Weirdly, after using it a lot, I've grown fond of Shade/Provoke. Currently all they do is attract Nihil and Parity users though which is a shame. But thats a problem with Nihil/Parity more than anything.

I say ban on both the dragons. Theyre annoying and just slow down progress of the match as well as make for some pretty broken combos. Speaking of, you do realize there will be split opinions between the ones that want something gone from ENAsir and the ones that think theyre fine? I mean, theres only one theyre fine and the others are multiple, so its almost like its rigged.

I voted get rid of everything else. Including Reinforce stealing corrosion etc. because theyre needlessly complicated and a chore for the host.

Edited March 12, 2014 by PKL

[Baldrick]

Obviously those who think dragons are too strong must come to a consensus and all vote that.

Shade as it currently works is made obsolete by Provoke, since any unit that can ignore Provoke also ignores Shade.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Obviously those who think dragons are too strong must come to a consensus and all vote that.

Shade as it currently works is made obsolete by Provoke, since any unit that can ignore Provoke also ignores Shade.

True.