link arena Fire Emblem Link Arena Discussion Topic

[Baldrick]

@PKL: I think Espi was trying to say it's not safe to touch Calill anyway...

Cut supports: While I haven't personally seen OAT yet, I've been in two earth affinity spam games with Horace and I think it's not too big of a deal. Brom/Makalov is probably the worst thing to deal with.

Rexflame: How often do you see mages that aren't Calill? Though I think if Calill isn't broken as of now, Rexflame will clinch it.

[Elieson]

With one Nihil per team as a rule, banking it all on RF!Calill SERIOUSLY limits teambuilding options.

[General Horace]

if you remove her innate nihil it gives you no reason to use her and is a bad thing in my opinion

and i'd be totally ok with letting her take my nihil if she had rexflame.

like how many units can just walk in and score a guarenteed ORKO on Boyd or Makalov? If she just owns the other Nihil user on the other team its pretty unfair too.

[PKL]

Still no host for horse vs horsebird?

[Baldrick]

If we're implementing the one Nihil user per team rule, then she's quite alright even with RF.

@PKL If you still need a host in a couple of days I can do it. I could set it up now but don't expect me to be prompt with the updates until Friday Aus time.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Baldrick

[General Horace]

I agree, I'd be kinda sad that her innate nihil would be gone, but she's the best sage anyway even without it, so it's probably fine, and sages in general needed a buff regardless, and rexflame does that pretty well.

I'd be up for hosting a game with all the added stuff from fe9 (weapons/supports) if two other people are interested.

Edited April 8, 2014 by General Horace

[Espinosa]

Some games testing Rexflame would be welcome, but I wouldn't rush including it into the main metagame...

Making Nihil a skill applicable only once during team building, innate or not, provides incentive to use other Sages depending on supports, but deprives Calill of a valuable niche. I still think Nasir is the main offender, for a multitude of reasons Nihil not being the least of them to say the least.

[PKL]

I wanna test Rexflame cut supports and one Nihil per team against Espi.

And ok Baldo ill send you team soon-ish.

Edited April 8, 2014 by PKL

[Espinosa]

Yeah, up to now we haven't played a single game. And I think I haven't played for like a month myself, either. I'll make a team for that soon, but we're going to need a host too.

Also, I finalised the FE4 stats, though hit+avo will have to be added up at some later point. I noticed Horace used the old skill names during his work, so it might take a little while longer to adapt those... I'm worried about the space it takes though, so maybe a link to Horace's post is the way to go.

[General Horace]

I edited my post up at the top saying i'd host.

I also used old character names too, because the new ones are lame but honestly unless someone REALLY wants to put the effort into changing things, it's probably fine.

[Espinosa]

Wow, those Radiant Dawn portraits sure take up a lot of space (especially armours and laguz). Gonna polish their positioning within those spoilers when I wake up tomorrow morning.

[General Horace]

you could just use the headshot portraits from onsite here if you're concerned about room:

[Espinosa]

I used to think that some of the portraits were missing, but it looks like they should all be on site. I think I'll do just that, because the full portraits not only take up too much space, but they don't stand on the same line either. Very good idea.

[Espinosa]

Let's analyse the FE10 mastery skills to deduce how it would be best to nerf them. Below is the damage and outcome of each skill being proc'd against average transferless Ike who got all of his level-ups during combat (and not from BEXP), with 65 HP/32 def/15 res (no weapon equipped, Nihil not assigned):

Savage
Triples Strength and halves enemy's skill for one turn
17 (34) str Volug, SS fang (19 mt, 90 hit)
=89 damage, Ike's skl halved, 21% chance

Rend
5x Strength and prevents enemy from moving for one turn
18 (36) str Ranulf, SS claw (18 mt, 90 hit)
=166 damage, Ike stunned, 20% chance

Roar
Triples Strength and prevents enemy from moving for one turn
24 (48) str Skrimir, SS fang (21 mt, 95 hit)
=133 damage, Ike stunned, 24% chance

Ire
Triples damage
25 (50) str Gareth, SS red breath (23 mt, 100 hit)
=123 damage, 12% chance

Aether
Attacks twice consecutively, with the 1st hit having a Sol effect and the 2nd hit having a Luna effect
37 str Ike, Ragnell (18 mt, 80 hit)
=23 damage, 23 HP drained; 55 damage;
=78 damage total, 20% chance

Astra
Attacks five times consecutively 
32 str Edward, Vague Katti (20 mt, 95 hit)
=20 x 5 = 100 damage, 20% chance

Impale
4x damage
31 Nephenee, Wishblade (22 mt, 100 hit)
=84 damage, 17% chance

Luna
Triples Strength and negates enemy's defence
36 str Tauroneo, Wishblade (22 mt, 100 hit)
=130 damage, 17% chance

Eclipse
5x strength and negates enemy's defence
38 str Black Knight, Alondite (18 mt, 80 hit)
=208 damage, 20% chance

Sol
Triples damage and user recovers HP equal to damage done to enemy 
34 str Titania, Urvan (22 mt, 110 hit)
=72 damage, 72 HP recovered, 17% chance

Flare
Negates resistance and user recovers HP equal to damage done to enemy
40 mag Soren, Rexbolt (12 mt, 95 hit)
=52 damage, 52 HP recovered, 17% chance

Corona
Negates resistance and halves enemy's Accuracy for one turn
40 mag Lehran, Balberith (15 mt, 75 hit)
=55 damage, Ike's accuracy halved, 20% chance

Bane
Reduces enemy's HP to 1
Sothe, details don't matter
=Ike down to 1 HP, 19% chance

Lethality
Instantly KOs enemy 
Volke, details don't matter
=Ike KO'd, 20% chance

Stun
Triples damage and prevents enemy from moving for one turn
38 str Haar, Urvan (22 mt, 110 hit)
=84 damage, Ike stunned, 19% chance

Deadeye
Triples damage and sends enemy to sleep
36 str Rolf, Double Bow (22 mt, 100 hit)
=78 damage, Ike slept, 19% chance

Colossus
Triples Strength
37 str Nolan, Urvan (22 mt, 110 hit)
=101 damage, 18% chance

Tear
Triples Strength and halves enemy's speed for one turn
19 (38) str Janaff, SS beak (18 mt, 90 hit)
=100 damage, Ike's spd halved, 20% chance

As we can see, everything except for Flare, Corona and Bane OHKO Ike, and the differences are just various shades of the word 'overkill'.

If we keep things the way they are, we have mostly OHKO skills at our disposal, ones that score stray kills whenever the target is lacking Nihil or doesn't proc Miracle (which only exists on 3 characters and not on any scrolls).

If we want to nerf the skills to make them (usually) fail to score a one-hit KO, we have two ways of approaching the problem here:

- maintain the relationships between the skills in the original, e.g. if Impale does double damage, then Rend gives a 2.5x boost to strength (which is still overkill)

- balance all the skills to our liking, the guiding principle being playability and enjoyment. For example, Adept can proc at 40% chances and lower (higher in Resolve range) and usually doesn't OHKO when not assigned to a Laguz (Skrimir proccing Adept 2HKO Ike for example). The mastery skills have approximately halved proc rates in comparison, so it is an interesting question whether their effects should be comparable to that of skills like Adept, slightly more prominent or slightly less prominent.

I'm leaning towards the second way, but the specifics will differ. The analysis in the spoiler tag should help a lot in determining how to balance the skills, and taking additional characters into account, besides Ike, should help here (with lower HP/defence and so on).

Edited April 9, 2014 by Espinosa

[Psych]

Espinos this sounds stupid but could you include the Replacement Children for FE4? IDK someone might want them

Also I think nerfing skils individually would be better. For example, what does Impale have over Luna? I don't feel like doing the math but they seem basically the same. Stuff like Corona and Flare could also be changed to help make classes better since if we agree on a change it could allow us to buff Mages or other classes to be more viable.

[Espinosa]

Is there any point though? I mean, nobody's going to use Duadexa in Shadow Dragon arena, so why include characters that are a priori inferior? Unless some of the replacements have anything interesting to offer.

I did some of the match to show what the skills will be like in practice. Impale multiplies the outcome damage, meaning it's less effective against bulky foes, while Luna is great for armour-slaying (and hurting other bulky units like Haar or Aran) and multiplies strength (which is always higher than the resulting damage).

If we agree on any given nerfs, they could be "tried" by being entered into the little calcs I proposed (preferably with some additional targets).

[Espinosa]

My attempt:

Savage: 3x str -> 1.5x str; still halves enemy skill

Rend: 5x str > 2x str; stuns (this is still offence capable of OHKOing a "squishy" target like an SM, but an Adept proc from Ranulf achieves the same anyway, and is more likely)

Roar: 3x str -> 1.5x str; stuns

Ire: dragons are banned I think

Aether: Luna halves defence instead of nullifying it; otherwise, it's fine and comparable to PoR Aether

Astra: halved damage rounded down on the 5 strikes

Impale: 4x damage -> 2x damage?

Luna: 3x str + 0 def -> 1.5x str + halved defence

Eclipse: BK is out definitely

Sol: 3x damage -> 1x damage, maybe 1.5x since Paladin caps suck? still full recovery

Flare: it's all right and tome users suck anyway

Corona: Sephiran doesn't suck, in spite of lacking supports, but this skill is kinda bad regardless

Bane: sure, let it stay the same

Lethality: I want to say 50% when critical but isn't that actually higher than the 20% chance considering Volke's insane +crit fixed skill? idk

Stun: 3x dmg -> 2x dmg; stuns - could be nerfed to a more consistent (with the other skills) 1.5x multiplier if people think Haar and Jill are valid characters to be used in the meta

Deadeye: 3x dmg -> 1.5x dmg

Colossus: 3x str -> 1.5x str is enough and maybe too much considering 60 str Reavers chop off lots of heads @ max HP already

Tear: 3x str -> 1.5x str

"1 Laguz per team" (with instant transformation for everyone) and "no royals/Giffca/dragons" seem like good rules to start off with.

I have the character portraits ready, so we can have our first test battle sometime very soon.

Some mechanics-related questions that I don't remember the answer to anymore:

- is it right that a hit needs to connect in order to proc a skill activation?

- skill activations can still crit, right?

Edited April 9, 2014 by Espinosa

[Elieson]

Still, the meta is gonna feature primarily Swordmasters and the occassional General/Marshal. Maybe a few laguz. I don't see much else working out with the Speed caps as they are for 3 tier bullfudgery

[Espinosa]

Well, speed isn't everything. In the current PoR customisation meta, how prominent are the SMs, Naesala, Lethe/Janaff, Volke? Not very much.

SMs are squishy as hell, too.

Generals face some competition from Halbs, wyverns and other bulky units who boast higher speed.

Laguz generally seem very hard to adapt to link arena playability, hence my proposal to limit it to one non-royal/dragon per team.

[Espinosa]

Also, everyone besides Ike and Lehran can only SS-rank one single weapon rank (that you don't get to choose), correct?

[dondon151]

Well, speed isn't everything. In the current PoR customisation meta, how prominent are the SMs, Naesala, Lethe/Janaff, Volke? Not very much.

that's a poor comparison. FE9 doesn't have as many classes that are doubled by other units purely by virtue of spd cap, and FE10 doesn't have laguzguard.

[Espinosa]

It's not clear how to handle Laguz in general. "1 non-royal/dragon per team" seems like a good starting point, but even somebody like Lyre could turn out to be stronger than most of Beorc. I suppose extrapolating the game's mechanics into Link Arena settings is severely complicated by the fact there are no third tier enemies in the game, hence all the mastery skills being different shades of overkill.

But really, SMs are struck back hard enough in a counterattack and their low HP/def caps don't help them much. Resolve/Nihil SMs might become a thing though (with re-assignable skills).

Perhaps we just need to play some games and then it'll become transparent what shoudl be done (or indeed, we could discover that the metagame is impossible to play in a clever way).

[Espinosa]

PM'd my team for the match against PKL (cut weapons / supports) to Horace.

Also, it appears that we have all the resources necessary to start LAing FE4 and FE10, so if anyone wants to test these metas, post here. I'll be ready to host a few games.

[Psych]

I volunteer for FE4, since I feel more comfortable through that game. The only thing I'd wonder about is if we keep generations separate

[General Horace]

i'll take you up on the fe4 game if there are no other takers