link arena Fire Emblem Link Arena Discussion Topic

[General Horace]

Idk, People aren't complaining about any of this skills (almost all of which are luck based) activating, so I don't see why the Vague Katti should be banned. There's really no difference in Boyd activating Adept and ORKO'ing a unit, than someone getting a crit with the Vague Katti.

well technically people do complain but that's because it happened to them :)

Edited March 25, 2014 by General Horace

[AnonymousSpeed]

Ah, sorry, I'm not very experienced with FE4. Also, generally you don't want to have to many users of one weapon because there are limits on braves. Swords are actually one of the few exceptions because they have viable magic sword attackers. The rangell was limited to Ike and very powerful, and since Ike was good people used Ike very often, forming a metagame around him. Since any sword unit can wield the Vague Katti, I find this less of an issue.

The point about bows is very good.

See, the main -

Idk, People aren't complaining about any of this skills (almost all of which are luck based) activating, so I don't see why the Vague Katti should be banned. There's really no difference in Boyd activating Adept and ORKO'ing a unit, than someone getting a crit with the Vague Katti.

well technically people do complain but that's because it happened to them :)

Wow Horace, I was actually just about to type a point and then you made a better one.

[Espinosa]

Yeah, see, this is the whole reason I want it gone. Wrath can be played around. Brothers can be played around. But Vague Katti is just...there, waiting to hax your lower def units at any point (and turning anyone who wields it into a crit machine). Inviting hax and limiting less than 20 def units is mainly my issue with it.

VK can also be played around by attacking a unit with a bond support, a royal or a high def unit with a lance / VK of his own.

We also can't ever quite turn the Link Arena into a luck-free FE12-like thing. VK's proc just happens to be a really common one, with every team highly likely to run one (and often wishing it could have 2-3 VK users instead of one). Don't forget that when you're not attacking Boyd with it, it's pretty easy to whiff with sometimes too!

We could try a bad RNG match some time though - i.e. every proc, no matter how low, activates without the host checking anything. Like Mekkah's FE8 playthrough. Could be fun to see what's chosen in each team!

shade/provoke inclusion: this fails the litmus test for inclusion of a new mechanic.

Funny, but if we make Shade/Provoke not function in any way at all, the "Nihil Nasir is broken" problem will be gone entirely, simply because he'll be either running demi right from the start or will be likely to get whacked twice untransformed before transforming... Actually, Nihil and Parity users still reach him anyway, so maybe this won't fix the problem at all. Oh well.

If we develop the idea of limiting the number of Nihils per team, does anyone think the innate users of Nihil - both of them - should have some sort of advantage for not requiring the scroll? To make it "unique" and preserve Calill's niche primarily.

[General Horace]

Honestly I think just removing Nasir's innate Nihil and not Calill's would be ok. It's pretty fair to say that people wouldn't use her if she didn't have Nihil, looking at someone like Tormod, who has similar stats and has never been used.

Edited March 25, 2014 by General Horace

[AnonymousSpeed]

VK can also be played around by attacking a unit with a bond support, a royal or a high def unit with a lance / VK of his own.

We also can't ever quite turn the Link Arena into a luck-free FE12-like thing. VK's proc just happens to be a really common one, with every team highly likely to run one (and often wishing it could have 2-3 VK users instead of one). Don't forget that when you're not attacking Boyd with it, it's pretty easy to whiff with sometimes too!

We could try a bad RNG match some time though - i.e. every proc, no matter how low, activates without the host checking anything. Like Mekkah's FE8 playthrough. Could be fun to see what's chosen in each team!

Funny, but if we make Shade/Provoke not function in any way at all, the "Nihil Nasir is broken" problem will be gone entirely, simply because he'll be either running demi right from the start or will be likely to get whacked twice untransformed before transforming... Actually, Nihil and Parity users still reach him anyway, so maybe this won't fix the problem at all. Oh well.

If we develop the idea of limiting the number of Nihils per team, does anyone think the innate users of Nihil - both of them - should have some sort of advantage for not requiring the scroll? To make it "unique" and preserve Calill's niche primarily.

That bad RNG thing sounds fun, actually. Killer weapons would be the most powerful assets I believe.

Horace raises a good point. I really don't have enough experience with Nasir to give input, but it seems like an okay idea. Maybe if you pick Nasir you sacrifice the scroll? I don't know, that's probably a horrid idea.

[Tables]

We could try a bad RNG match some time though - i.e. every proc, no matter how low, activates without the host checking anything. Like Mekkah's FE8 playthrough. Could be fun to see what's chosen in each team!

I was once considering an 'average effect' match, which in short means that every attack has the average value of it's possible effects. So if you have an 80% (true) chance of hitting, your attack will hit guaranteed but will deal 80% damage. It gets a little more brain melty when you start having things like Aether (stuff like, your 16 damage attack is guaranteed to hit for 19 damage and you heal 4 HP, because that's the average over your proc rates, hit rates, crit rates and opponent's miracle rates), which is the main reason I've never suggested it, but it could be quite interesting. No blaming bad RNG in this one.

[PKL]

VK can also be played around by attacking a unit with a bond support, a royal or a high def unit with a lance / VK of his own.

Bond supports are few and far between. Royals shouldnt be used early because of Laguzguard and the last is precisely why I think it's bad.

@ Horace- yeah, people have complained about Aether, deadeye, guard (havent seen Adept though?) but it's really not the same. Another issue of the VK is that it can turn what would be considered a bad play into a good play based on luck. Gives the user def, so the user is harder to take down too, so you cant really do anything about the crit for quite a while. Just...watch in agony as that original unit you chose to run dies to hax. Note also, that Nihil and Parity can do something about skills with low def units but you can't do anything about +35 crit on someone.

[General Horace]

I was just using adept as an example because its pretty much an instagib if a high strength unit uses it and it activates.

and like others have said, a unit with a Vague Katti is pretty useless against Royals (even if they have a laguzguard, they'll still be outdamaged in most cases) and high defence units can attack VK users pretty much without consequence.

And lots of plays can turn good depending on luck. "If x skill activates (at a lower rate than Vague Katti crits mind you) procs, I KO, but if it doesn't, I get KO'd and the enemy has a huge advantage" is pretty common in every game

[Icon of Sin]

Furthermore, other than Nihil and Parity, nothing reduces skill chances to activate, which most people have at 25% or more.

Meanwhile, Bonds negate criticals if you're willing to play with them, Royals are completely immune to non-Wrath criticals and certain units do have high enough Luck to help against such a weapon.

it's an ok desperation attack when the reliability of Silver isn't enough, but I'm against its exclusion since there are common ways around it.

Edited March 25, 2014 by Woodshooter

[dondon151]

On a separate not, Shade/Provoke and stealing would actually pass your test:

Shade increases the use of otherwise lesser used mages.

Provoke can reduce the ability of the foe to gang up on weaker units. While more of a strategic luxury than problem solver like shade, having one without the other is odd.

false on all counts.

1. shade and provoke are currently near-useless with the prevalence of nihil and parity users around. even with the strongest form of proposed nihil limitation, each team still has 1 nihil and 1 parity user, which means that mages are not safe no matter how many layers of shade and provoke exist to protect them.

2. remember when no one used nihil or parity (before stat boosters and assigned skills)? shade ilyana was the most broken thing ever.

so the conclusion that we have right now is that shade and provoke are useless if nihil or parity have the ability to pierce through its effects, but it's overpowered if it's immune to nihil and parity. there is no legitimate justification for including a functional shade or provoke because not only is it an entirely fabricated mechanic, but it's also been repeatedly shown to either have no effect or be overly centralizing.

simplest solution with the whole nihil debate is to ban nasir. problem solved, no complex ban needed.

Edited March 25, 2014 by dondon151

[Refa]

I was just using adept as an example because its pretty much an instagib if a high strength unit uses it and it activates.

and like others have said, a unit with a Vague Katti is pretty useless against Royals (even if they have a laguzguard, they'll still be outdamaged in most cases) and high defence units can attack VK users pretty much without consequence.

Noone attacks Vague Katti users with Royals because it'd be a war of attrition when you could actually accomplish something worthwhile. Giffca does like 11 damage to Ike/turn (Tibarn does 10, Naesala does 8 twice), Ike does 6 damage to him (same to Tibarn, 10 to Naesala) assuming Laguzguard. The best high defense units are Paladins with 32DEF if they have capped DEF/Knight Ward/Vague Katti and they take 9 damage from Giffca, 7 from Tibarn, and 5 from Naesala twice. Yeah, you outdamage (kind of) but they're probably killing all of your other dudes while you're slowly whittling away one guy.

Considering the best high defense units are Vague Katti!Paladins, it'll just leads to stall wars; Generals don't qualify because Calill makes Generals useless. I mean they do more damage if they use a different weapon (19-20 on Ike, 16-17 on Paladins with a Silver Lance) so it's definitely the optimal thing to do, but I wouldn't call it without consequence (especially since noone puts Nihil on Paladins so you're suspect to skills if the Vague Katti user has Nihil). Also think about this. How many times has a skill proc actually radically changed the outcome of the match over an errant critblick?

Furthermore, other than Nihil and Parity, nothing reduces skill chances to activate, which most people have at 25% or more.

Meanwhile, Bonds negate criticals if you're willing to play with them, Royals are completely immune to non-Wrath criticals and certain units do have high enough Luck to help against such a weapon.

it's an ok desperation attack when the reliability of Silver isn't enough, but I'm against its exclusion since there are common ways around it.

That's a silly argument to make. The player can choose who he wants to give Nihil or Parity to, so it adds an element of strategy and control. If you get blicked by a skill, you can blame yourself for not giving the right skills to the right person. What do you do to prevent Vague Katti?

1) OK, let's look at the bond supports.

Ike -> Soren

Elincia -> Ike

Elincia -> Bastian

Elincia -> Geoffrey

Elincia -> Lucia

Elincia -> Kieran

Tanith -> Marcia

Tibarn -> Ulki

Tibarn -> Janaff

Geoffrey -> Kieran

With noone using Soren, Bastian, Lucia, Marcia, Ulki, or Janaff (because they suck) that makes a good deal of these irrelevant. Oh, and any of the bonds protecting Ike/ the Paladins are also largely useless because noone is greatly distressed if their super high DEF unit gets critblicked. So that makes bond protection a nonentity.

2) Royals are good yeah, but a player won't be attacking Royals with the Vague Katti, so I'm not quite sure what your point was.

3) Units with over 25 luck (not counting Royals because yeah): Rhys, Mist, Reyson, Elincia.

[Randa]

VK can also be played around by attacking a unit with a bond support, a royal or a high def unit with a lance / VK of his own.

We also can't ever quite turn the Link Arena into a luck-free FE12-like thing. VK's proc just happens to be a really common one, with every team highly likely to run one (and often wishing it could have 2-3 VK users instead of one). Don't forget that when you're not attacking Boyd with it, it's pretty easy to whiff with sometimes too!

We could try a bad RNG match some time though - i.e. every proc, no matter how low, activates without the host checking anything. Like Mekkah's FE8 playthrough. Could be fun to see what's chosen in each team!

Funny, but if we make Shade/Provoke not function in any way at all, the "Nihil Nasir is broken" problem will be gone entirely, simply because he'll be either running demi right from the start or will be likely to get whacked twice untransformed before transforming... Actually, Nihil and Parity users still reach him anyway, so maybe this won't fix the problem at all. Oh well.

If we develop the idea of limiting the number of Nihils per team, does anyone think the innate users of Nihil - both of them - should have some sort of advantage for not requiring the scroll? To make it "unique" and preserve Calill's niche primarily.

I kinda wanna try this. Anybody else up for it. Edited March 25, 2014 by Randa

[Elieson]

Noone attacks Vague Katti users with Royals because it'd be a war of attrition when you could actually accomplish something worthwhile. Giffca does like 11 damage to Ike/turn (Tibarn does 10, Naesala does 8 twice), Ike does 6 damage to him (same to Tibarn, 10 to Naesala) assuming Laguzguard. The best high defense units are Paladins with 32DEF if they have capped DEF/Knight Ward/Vague Katti and they take 9 damage from Giffca, 7 from Tibarn, and 5 from Naesala twice. Yeah, you outdamage (kind of) but they're probably killing all of your other dudes while you're slowly whittling away one guy.

Considering the best high defense units are Vague Katti!Paladins, it'll just leads to stall wars; Generals don't qualify because Calill makes Generals useless. I mean they do more damage if they use a different weapon (19-20 on Ike, 16-17 on Paladins with a Silver Lance) so it's definitely the optimal thing to do, but I wouldn't call it without consequence (especially since noone puts Nihil on Paladins so you're suspect to skills if the Vague Katti user has Nihil). Also think about this. How many times has a skill proc actually radically changed the outcome of the match over an errant critblick?

That's a silly argument to make. The player can choose who he wants to give Nihil or Parity to, so it adds an element of strategy and control. If you get blicked by a skill, you can blame yourself for not giving the right skills to the right person. What do you do to prevent Vague Katti?

1) OK, let's look at the bond supports.

Ike -> Soren

Elincia -> Ike

Elincia -> Bastian

Elincia -> Geoffrey

Elincia -> Lucia

Elincia -> Kieran

Tanith -> Marcia

Tibarn -> Ulki

Tibarn -> Janaff

Geoffrey -> Kieran

With noone using Soren, Bastian, Lucia, Marcia, Ulki, or Janaff (because they suck) that makes a good deal of these irrelevant. Oh, and any of the bonds protecting Ike/ the Paladins are also largely useless because noone is greatly distressed if their super high DEF unit gets critblicked. So that makes bond protection a nonentity.

2) Royals are good yeah, but a player won't be attacking Royals with the Vague Katti, so I'm not quite sure what your point was.

3) Units with over 25 luck (not counting Royals because yeah): Rhys, Mist, Reyson, Elincia.

Suddenly, I have an Anti-Crit team in mind.

Any wanna vs?

[Refa]

Sure, I could make a crit happy team to take you on.

[Elieson]

Wat rules? Avg Boosters as current w/ VK allowed? (1 Nihil per team)?

[Refa]

I thought it'd be same rules as the tournament? I don't think anything's been finalized towards Nihil yet.

[Elieson]

Alright.

Well, I'm just about finished building it; if a host exists, we can run the

Crithax v AntiCritHax Match

[PKL]

Alright.

Well, I'm just about finished building it; if a host exists, we can run the

Crithax v AntiCritHax Match

I hear PKL is a host.

[Refa]

I made my team. It uh...may have veered off from its original goal, but it'll still be amazing.

EDIT Sent it to PKL.

Edited March 25, 2014 by Refa

[General Horace]

does anybody want to try a game where 15 units are randomly selected and the two entrants select their teams from them like a draft? I'd host or play in it.

[Elieson]

As long as Sothe is banned, I'd go for this I was about to suggest a Draft match, where the Host picks as if he were a 5th player, banning select picks

[General Horace]

yeah, fair enough, sothe is THAT bad.

[AnonymousSpeed]

I kinda wanna try this. Anybody else up for it.

I already said I was interested, I believe some others are as well.

[Randa]

Okay. So is anyone willing to host.

[General Horace]

i could if you wanted, I suppose.