link arena Fire Emblem Link Arena Discussion Topic

[Espinosa]

dondon, I think what you're referring to as Cancel is actually Haar's skill named Guard in this game. PoR Cancel is like Great Shield, so Tibarn has an extra 37% chance to block any attack hitting him.

Full Guard on the Laguz royals sounds brutal. Then again, their attacks can also be sponged. I think nothing's stopping us from allowing one Royal per team (not sure about the metagame) and seeing how it works out.

[Icon of Sin]

Full Guard on the Laguz royals sounds brutal. Then again, their attacks can also be sponged. I think nothing's stopping us from allowing one Royal per team (not sure about the metagame) and seeing how it works out.

You can't equip the Laguz Band and the Full Guard at the same time.

Speaking of the Full Guard, there's a second one coming off Shiharam's Trial Map appearance.

[dondon151]

laguz royals don't need to equip the laguz band because they start with full gauges. so you have a full guard laguz royal to abuse for 4-5 turns before having to switch to the laguz band (unless the rule is that you can't switch).

i must have misread cancel's description, it is indeed like pavise. this definitely makes tibarn super tanky.

Edited November 4, 2013 by dondon151

[Espinosa]

You can't equip the Laguz Band and the Full Guard at the same time.

Speaking of the Full Guard, there's a second one coming off Shiharam's Trial Map appearance.

Laguz royals are able to transform when the player's turn comes, similar to Lethe ingame. However, their gauges would also deplete by time, so a Laguz Guard might be advisable to hold unequipped - when the time comes, unequip Full Guard and transform with the Laguz Band on your turn.

Though if the coin rolls the other way and the other player opens, you fail to transform immediately and have to eat an attack without countering. Tough call.

[shadykid]

sounds like time to roll out all the beorc weapon specials!

[dondon151]

i think the biggest problem with allowing the laguz royals is that in the stat booster metagame, 33 AS giffca and 32 AS tibarn can just roll over everything while being nearly impossible to kill.

[shadykid]

i think the biggest problem with allowing the laguz royals is that in the stat booster metagame, 33 AS giffca and 32 AS tibarn can just roll over everything while being nearly impossible to kill.

no statboosters

brave weapons allowed

make an extra Resolve scroll beorc-only

[Refa]

Mastery skills don't sound so bad, and having users of Sol, for example, makes things a bit more interesting with the random recovery. Only Aether is broken IMHO, especially on a Brave Sword Ike.

Deadeye is pretty broken too. Double accuracy is ridiculous.

As for triangle attacks, I think the three brother triangle attack would really limit what players decide to do with their teams, with the initial turns (before the other player kills Rolf) spent critting as many things to death as possible. I think I'm against it.

Pretty sure triangle attack is 100% hit in this game, pretty broken.

stop stealing my team jerks

ikr

Even though the only person they stole from my team is like, Ike.

Also, so far this is more intense than lolBrave weapons.

You're just jealous you didn't get to use any!

They're really not that bad - Ike with Ragnell is a lot more broken.

Make it happen!

Anyways, as far as statboosters are concerned, I think it's worth testing out a few games with them. Don't really think skills should be allowed, though (well, aside from what's already on offer, I mean).

Edited November 4, 2013 by Refa

[shadykid]

why does the Lethality activation rate say 50% on the skills page

that can't be right

can Tanith use Reinforce for extra fodder units

Edited November 4, 2013 by shadykid

[Refa]

why does the Lethality activation rate say 50% on the skills page

that can't be right

can Tanith use Reinforce for extra fodder units

Lethality best skill.

[dondon151]

lethality proc is contingent on first getting a critical hit

[shadykid]

lethality proc is contingent on first getting a critical hit

yes I know, it's listed in the skill description by not in the activation rate posted >_>

sounds like Tanith is OP in a CTF game, dem reinforcements

[dondon151]

i'm still rather curious if there's a better core than mia, rolf, largo, tauroneo or if i'm just overestimating these guys. mia is kind of a weak link due to her crappy str, but zihark really isn't that better if largo loses the hit bonuses.

it's too bad that rhys blows chunks and light magic is terrible because his support bonuses to mia and rolf are pretty good.

Edited November 4, 2013 by dondon151

[Refa]

i'm still rather curious if there's a better core than mia, rolf, largo, tauroneo or if i'm just overestimating these guys. mia is kind of a weak link due to her crappy str, but zihark really isn't that better if largo loses the hit bonuses.

it's too bad that rhys blows chunks and light magic is terrible because his support bonuses to mia and rolf are pretty good.

Honestly my only issue with your team is that you should've stucken with Vantage on Mia, which is far more reliable than Astra. Being able to counter with a Brave Sword before taking a hit is really good. Also Rolf is supposed to be really good as well? Dunno about the rest since untested and all, but theoretically seems fine.

[dondon151]

yeah on second thought, vantage makes mia much more difficult to work around. her damage output is really a bit disappointing, though. she tinks generals with the brave sword, but astra doesn't help with that at all. i sort of envision her getting killed by a sniper all the time, but a team without a sniper or general has a bit of a hard time killing her because she always gets a last stand.

[Espinosa]

it's too bad that rhys blows chunks and light magic is terrible because his support bonuses to mia and rolf are pretty good.

Snowy would be really happy to hear you say this in a different setting.

Sniper's Deadeye may be invaluable, but a Sniper without Shade (which is both of them right now) is also probably first priority to kill.

Without supports, Mia has 39 atk with a Silver Sword forge which should be penetrating everything at least a tiny bit (still 6 damage to a KW lance-wielding General). 30 atk with the Brave Sword is undershelming, with KW Makalov receiving 3 damage per hit, not doubled (in contrast to other Pallies sans Astrid who has some other problems) 2 if equipped with a lance (which is a likely scenario since you have 2 Brave Lances to assign).

To be honest, even Brave Sword Ike comes close to tinking KW Generals (35 atk against 32+1 WTD defence), but 2 chances at Aether and the doubling make it risky to engage Ike this way.

Makalov's only problem seems to be his 22 skill, which is a little bit lower than other Paladins', but with forged weapons it should be good enough still. Mist, on the other hand, has only 15 skill which is worrying, but no stat boosters/braves being in/SMs and Naesala around also spells out death for Mist regardless.

But yeah, Makalov should like start appearing on people's teams or something. Sol + 27 AS + 27 KW def + weapon triangle options make him pretty appealing if theoryFEing.

I think I'll add the Laguz royals stats to the OP and I might also include acc/avo/crit/cev bases to my table because now that I think about it, with skill, speed and luck having constant formulae games are far quicker to run when you already have these stats prepared in advance, and you can easily add up and do reduction without a calculator this way, which is much more efficient than looking up skill, speed, luck each time. Supports make some difference, though, but I think that's something I should've done from the start anyway.

[Espinosa]

I just remembered that for a triangle attack to kick in, Oscar, Boyd and Rolf must all three be equipped with bows for the brother triangle attack to be used. As destructive as it is, for the following turns the player is welcome to target any of the brothers at 1-range, not to mention the cost of forming a team with all three brothers present. Rolf seems like a staple even without the three brothers theme, and Oscar is solid in spite of being doubled by SMs, but Boyd really suffers from having 24 AS, which leaves him vulnerable to being doubled not only by SMs but also Ike, Marcia and Tanith (who sounds like the best Runesword user with 29 Atk hitting res).

The Marcia/Tanith/Elincia triangle is quite bad because there are only two Full Guards around and it's hard to imagine a team without a bow user to snipe the third one (most likely not OHKOing w/o a crit, Silver forge or a brave, but Elincia is also doubled by SMs).

One strategy that could be kinda cheap is making a team of your triangle plus Shinon with his innate Provoke skill. Until Shinon is dead, you cannot do anything about the triple damage going on. Shinon needs 31 atk to be 4HKO'd by an SM (sans Lucia who has 28 AS) which is achieved by Zihark and Stefan, but Mia needs an attack support to take Shinon out in one round assuming nothing misses (she could also die first to a triangle attack but Vantage!Mia gets to act first and isn't entirely unlikely to KO the aggressor). There's also Astra and Adept + crit to be taken into account though. Shinon is also one-rounded by a successful Brave Axe attack off 30 str (Boyd/Largo).

Triangle attacks were 100% accuracy too, right?

And I updated the character list with a lot of new data which should make running matches a lot more convenient.

For fun, here's a list of top characters by avo/accuracy:

Avoid

92 - Naesala

81 - Ulki (w/ his skill), Mia, Tibarn

80 - Giffca

79 - Mist

78 - Lethe, Elincia

77 - Janaff, Volke, Tanith

Ike has 105 avo with A Oscar, so Naesala's natural support can't be anything too impressive (we've seen how hard Earth supports are to break without Deadeye though).

Hit (not including weapons, otherwise Ena is actually more accurate than Nasir)

99 - Tibarn

86 - Giffca

84 - Naesala

77 - Volke, Janaff

76 - Zihark, Elincia, Nasir

Tibarn has the highest percentage of skill activation (37% Cancel/Pavise).

Also, testing something:

Edited November 4, 2013 by Espinosa

[dondon151]

i don't think provoke and shade should have any effect in link arena battles. provoke especially would force players to limit their options both when creating and battling teams. shade isn't as bad but ilyana blows anyway - the only thing it would do is ensure that she keeps donating support bonuses to some pretty decent units (gatrie, mia, zihark, lucia if stat boosters are in), but once it's down to her as the last unit remaining, she dies instantly to anything with a brave weapon.

i also don't think that the triangle attack should be allowed in any metagame. if you get one off, you have a free 100% accuracy 43+ atk critical hit. that instantly drops anyone not a general. in the no boosters metagame, boyd can die instantly to a unit with 28 spd, but if team boyd goes first and picks off the unit with 28+ spd, and the opponent doesn't have another 28+ spd unit, then breaking the triangle is pretty hard. in the boosters metagame, boyd no longer gets doubled if he takes 2 speedwings, so that's even worse. and if you introduce forges, 48+ atk ORKOs generals.

[Espinosa]

Must've messed up the calculations there - you need 42 atk with a brave weapon (Brave Lance has 11 mt, Brave Axe only 10 mt surprisingly), so the characters who don't double Shinon who can 2HKO him with a brave weapon are Gatrie, Boyd and Largo, all needing a support combination that grants +2 atk.

If boosters are in, then Boyd is doubled no more (except by Naesala, and he needs 2 Speedwings to reach his cap of 27 AS); however, Rolf is 2HKO'd by 41 atk (w/ braves) which also requires either an offensive support for the characters listed in the first paragraph or the proccing of a skill/crit.

Ilyana seems pretty good to me if Shade has the effect of hiding her until the other 4 are dead. 42 atk w/o supports targeting Res with Rexbolt hits very hard (beats Mist and Elincia's Runesword attacks), doubling and 2HKOing KW Brom and non-KW Gatrie. It's also good chip against most units, and 27% Flare/26 crit gives her a chance to do extra damage (OHKOing if crit). With an offensive support, Ilyana 2HKOs Ike and 81 hit with Rexbolt is reliable enough (unforged silver sword is 80 hit).

WRT Laguz royals; it makes sense to allow only one per team because you can only call one of them within one game file. A metagame with 3 royals on each team wouldn't be very fun either, I guess.

I suppose it's best to keep triangle attacks banned for now.

Edited in a new poll but the previous votes are still there somehow so fuck that.

[Espinosa]

Also I tested some mechanics-related things ingame, some discoveries:

1. Adept with braves activates before the whole attack as such (twice when doubling) and not on each separate brave attack. So if Zihark with Brave Sword activates Adept, he will land 4 hits on the target (and Adept will be checked before he starts attacking at all).

2. Deadeye's accuracy boost is indeed always active, so Shinon attacking a cat will have 100% hit displayed.

Going to test Astra and Aether next but I expect it will be the same as Adept. Testing Aether will be hard because I only have my 0% growths file where promoted Ike has 8 skill (my old files went corrupt a couple years ago).

edit: just had Aether activate on the second hit of a brave attack. Might keep trying with Adept to see if the same could happen there.

edit2: and Astra can also activate on the second hit.

edit3: after many attempts with Adept!Haar, Adept would never proc on the second hit.

So the conclusion is:

Astra and Aether are checked before each separate hit (4 times if doubling), while Adept is checked before the attack as such (2 times if doubling).

I suppose this makes Astra a worthy alternative to Adept on Zihark.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Espinosa

[shadykid]

Edited in a new poll but the previous votes are still there somehow so fuck that.

sounds like somebody didn't completely delete the old ones!

[Espinosa]

Fixed it now!

I'll also note, for the purpose of the Shade/Provoke discussion, that triangle attacks are banned for the time being. Shinon @ Provoke cannot be that bad if a group of units isn't dealing triple damage behind his back (I believe previously we agreed Shinon is generally a liability when Rolf wants the Brave Bow and isn't doubled, but Shinon could always replace Rolf while Ike spams Brave Sword Aether without fear of retaliation). Ilyana hitting res without retaliation for nearly the whole game is very different, and I think is good enough but not anything more - probably needs testing.

[shadykid]

Ilyana is pretty bad offensively too though

[Espinosa]

Ilyana is pretty bad offensively too though

42+ atk hitting Res and borderline one-rounding armours is pretty bad? That said, the latter is your reason why Shade shouldn't be around. It's like Magneton for steel-types or something.

And whoops, Ilyana is weighed down to 18 AS by Rexbolt, not doubling any of the three generals anymore. Thoron is only 37+ atk and 18 crit, which deals 44/54 damage to KW Brom per one round of combat, one Flare activation being insufficient to one-round. Brom can also deal 33/39 damage back if he's equipped with a Wishblade, and 1-2 range counters limit Ilyana's attacking and chip to sieging (38+ atk with Meteor, kinda shaky hit).

[shadykid]

I wonder if in this hypothetical map I thought of you could just siegebomb everything across the river/clouds

hmmm