link arena Fire Emblem Link Arena Discussion Topic

[Espinosa]

welp

vs

vs

vs

Looks good I think.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Espinosa

[shadykid]

what?

[Espinosa]

5 of these now fit on a single line, and I flipped all the pictures horizontally so that they'd face each other on every turn. It was driving me mad before tbqh.

Now it will look something like

shadykid's team:

vs

Espinosa's team

Tibarn still looks like he could be staring in either direction though.

Also, added the most popular weapons to the OP, once again to make botting much faster during the match. Everything is now in the first post (besides the supports), which drastically minimises the number of clicking and counting every turn.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Espinosa

[shadykid]

did you just throw me a random team?

the hell

[Espinosa]

No, I can just read your mind.

[shadykid]

Silver Axe+?

what is this, Awakening

(also isn't Double Bow 4-range in this game)

edit: oh wow I can't read >_>

Edited November 5, 2013 by shadykid

[dondon151]

volke should have a - for his activation rate because it's contingent on him getting a critical hit (either that or he should have 50%).

[Espinosa]

I thought a formula showing the likelihood of Lethality would be clearer than just '50%' (which could be interpreted as 'oh I can instakill every other attack now?'). ? is the crit of his equipped weapon minus the enemy's cev.

Also, I've recently drawn my attention to the difference between Random Mode and Fixed Mode averages. I used the former for my list, while the latter might seem more logical to apply (you're guaranteed to get those stats if you BEXP your units with no bands or weapons equipped, or in Laguz Royals' case that's their average).

Here's the full list:

Ike
lck 20, def 24, res 18

Titania
HP 49

Oscar
str 25, spd 26

Boyd
-

Rhys
str 4, lck 26

Shinon
str 22, spd 26

Gatrie
HP 59

Soren
-

Mia
str 22

Ilyana
-

Marcia
res 20

Mist
HP 39, str 17, res 25

Rolf
HP 45, spd 28, lck 20

Lethe
HP 57, spd 28, def 22

Mordecai
HP 69, skl 23, lck 18

Volke
lck 18

Kieran
HP 50

Brom
HP 55, spd 18

Nepenthe
def 23

Zihark
mag 8

Sothe
loses a bunch of stats because fixed but who cares

Jill
str 26

Astrid
HP 43, str 24, lck 19

Makalov
HP 51

Stefan
HP 47, lck 9

Tormod
mag 26, spd 26

Muarim
spd 25

Devdan
HP 49, lck 23

Reyson
-

Ulki
HP 60, spd 24

Janaff
skl 29, lck 22

Tanith
HP 39, str 21, lck 22

Calill
HP 40, mag 26, skl 25

Tauroneo
res 17

Ranulf
HP 61, skl 28, res 12

Haar
skl 25, lck 14

Lucia
lck 21

Bastian
lck 18

Geoffrey
-

Largo
spd 27

Elincia
str 16, lck 27

Ena
skl 27, lck 19

Nasir
HP 60, skl 30, lck 19, def 31

Tibarn
str 39, lck 26

Naesala
HP 62, skl 33

Some of the most important changes would be:

Ike
lck 20, def 24, res 18

He is now even harder to kill...

Oscar
str 25, spd 26

Not doubled by Giffca anymore, better damage output with braves.

Shinon
str 22, spd 26

More comparable to Rolf but still doubled by SMs.

Mia
str 22

Will tink less.

Mist
HP 39, str 17, res 25

Not weighed down by the Runesword as much; still kinda bad though.

Rolf
HP 45, spd 28, lck 20

Harder to 2HKO and can now double one of his brothers.

Nepenthe
def 23

More likely to withstand a round of combat against an SM and probably better statistics for Wrath critting.

Astrid
HP 43, str 24, lck 19

More usable but still not really.

Tanith
HP 39, str 21, lck 22

Eh.

Largo
spd 27

Okay, this just might be the biggest change. Largo stops being doubled by Beorc units and would appear in teams more often.

Tibarn
str 39, lck 26

Giffca being the hardest hitter and Naesala the speedy doubler, Tibarn's niche is his tankiness with Cancel activations. Now he hits a little harder.

One little problem with these changes is that they're still not... "fixed" enough. Namely, for the current stats we use I would round up all stats beginning with .5 and I kinda did the same with Fixed Mode bonuses for each character except obviously in Fixed Mode 29.8 is still 29 and not 30 in any way, so actually if we're really pedantic we should be having more stat reductions and barely any bonuses.

So this could be re-done again; curious what everyone thinks here.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Espinosa

[dondon151]

rounding up is justifiable if you want to be lazy and not allow bands, since technically bands could contribute to stats rounding up (even if they're not optimal, but it's simpler to disallow customization).

[Espinosa]

Okay, instead of "rounded up Fixed Mode", I had a look at the changes that would occur between the current stat table and "proper Fixed Mode" (where 20.95 is still 20 and not 21) and I found that there are barely any noticeable changes at all. The only one that would affect anything is Kieran going down to 24 AS, which makes him slow enough for Ike, the Falcos and Tibarn to double. I don't think there's any point in switching to those stats.

If we want to have each match moving at a steady pace, the customisation should be kept to a minimum or at least be quickly recognised. Stat boosters are fixed changes to the current fixed statistics, limited by their number and caps, so factoring them in during the calculations and remembering them for the a single game isn't that hard, but inspecting what bands the player chose to change his team's stats takes forever and is hard to take into account during a game (honestly it'd be really painful).

So the main question probably is whether we're okay with Largo getting his speed buff and Ike getting a slight bulk boost. I personally like the changes, and Largo not fearing SMs too much (Brave Sword with Astra and crit is still scary and his defence still sucks, but 60 HP raises his chances of surviving a round, probably not two with braves and forged silvers around) which means he can appear on teams more often.

Largo outclasses Boyd by a lot (whom I was surprised to see on both teams at once during the last game), with better supports, innate crit and good speed, and is one of the best characters to use against Generals.

Speaking of Generals, Gatrie @ Knight Ward, equipped with the Vague Katti and A Shinon/B Ilyana gets a whopping 40 defence which is nearly impossible to penetrate without silver forges and Ilyana (whose attacks will still do 7 damage less), making braves useless unless they proc some form of Luna. A bit more down-to-earth, but Makalov with KW and the Vague Katti gets 30 def, isn't doubled by Beorc and has Sol, which can be proc'd alongside a crit to keep him alive for a very long time.

I think silver forges should make a return together with the braves, Provoke / Shade still in, and one Laguz royal per team allowed, because while it makes units like Boyd, Marcia and Mist a lot harder to use (if possible at all), I expect it to create a generally richer metagame regardless.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Espinosa

[dondon151]

agree with braves and silver forges

disagree with provoke, neutral on shade (if you allow shade, then gatrie + ilyana is a monster combination)

laguz royals i kind of disagree with if stat boosters are allowed; giffca and tibarn with 2 speedwings destroy everything that's not a general or has a laguzguard

[Espinosa]

Provoke is a lot less topical than Shade though, isn't it? Even with an A Gatrie support, Shinon's bulk won't keep him for longer than two turns most of the time (perhaps one will be enough to remove him under some conditions), which is as quick as the frailest of the viable units die anyway. What's possibly happening in those two turns that take to kill Shinon, too? Just the same attacking as usual. I imagine if Provoke could be given to somebody like Ike, Makalov or the generals though, then it would be a huge problem, but it's a doublable frail Sniper without a 1-range counter. IMHO the player deploying Shinon hurts himself more than he benefits from it.

The issues with Ilyana scouting for 1-2 range counters and not doubling much besides Generals have been noted before; if Ilyana does start appearing too often, one could even consider Nasir (has Nihil and is actually usable unlike Calill) - hard to double, good bulk on both sides, Boon recovers the condition of all victims to Stuns and Deadeyes.

We haven't tried the stat boosters meta just yet, but I think a "no stat boosters on Laguz royals" rule wouldn't be any difficult to uphold, and makes perfect sense too (because of the huge discrepancy in caps). I think besides this bit there are still many more "breakable" aspects of that still unknown meta, though.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Espinosa

[dondon151]

the issue with provoke doing something is that it forces opponents to attack shinon and severely reduces their options. you can't ORKO shinon reliably without an SM. that means that all teams have to run an SM (though that's kind of a tacit assumption anyway i guess), and the ones with maxed str need lots of +atk supports if shinon has a gatrie support to boost his def.

i mean, most of the time, you'd probably attack the enemy sniper anyway because he can't counter, but sometimes you want your sniper to attack someone else for the same reason. having shinon is kind of an easy way to gimp teams with rolf. the other problem is that if shinon can't be ORKO'd, then you can do stuff like run shinon + tauroneo or shinon + neph and drop tauroneo or neph into their skill activation ranges for insane results if the enemy has someone who does between 50-100% of their max HP in damage.

ilyana is only a concern because of the boost that she gives to gatrie. normally you'd get around this by just killing ilyana first so gatrie loses the def support, but now you can't do that, and +3 def on top of 32-35 def is pretty insane. at least units can scratch gatrie now with forged silvers.

EDIT: here's another broken combo with shinon in the stat boosters metagame: shinon + reyson. throw in the gatrie support and shinon can just about sponge attacks forever since nothing doubles him (use a laguzguard to protect against naesala) and reyson heals 21-26 HP per turn passively depending on how you want his transformation bonuses to work. if you throw all of the defensive stat boosters on shinon, he has effectively 60 HP, 26 def, 21 res, and 22 luk. 40 atk brave axe/lance users do 28 HP damage per round. you could also even reserve a unit slot for janaff to add another 2 def. shinon can freely attack 1-range enemies with the brave bow or forged silver while gatrie can work on the enemies with 1-2 range with a 41 atk brave lance and reyson healing off any damage he takes.

basically you can just beat up guys with other units while shinon takes all the damage, and shinon is impossible to break past without crits or skill procs. units with innate crit bonuses only have 7 displayed crit maximum against shinon, so really, one would have to rely on aether, luna, and colossus procs to do anything (SMs don't do enough damage for astra to matter). throw in naesala to kill all the guys without laguzguards.

EDIT 2: actually, this combo could be pretty broken in the no boosters metagame, too. if team shinon goes first, gatrie ORKOs every SM with the brave lance. so you'd need 2 SMs to have a good chance at a turn 1 KO on shinon, and that's not even guaranteed unless the SM has at least +1 atk from supports.

Edited November 5, 2013 by dondon151

[Espinosa]

i mean, most of the time, you'd probably attack the enemy sniper anyway because he can't counter, but sometimes you want your sniper to attack someone else for the same reason. having shinon is kind of an easy way to gimp teams with rolf.

I think the difference is that somebody attacked by Rolf using anything that isn't a Longbow or a Double Bow (latter potentially detrimental for future enemy phases) is capable of retaliating with a 1-2 range forge, a magic sword or Tomahawk/Wishblade, so, unless it's an SM, Rolf might want to wait a little bit to make his move to see what weapons his targets are equipped with, though if he waits too long, he might get nothing done at all, and Deadeye + Brave Bow are tempting to start spamming early on. Meanwhile, attacking a Sniper pretty much means a counter is not to be expected.

the other problem is that if shinon can't be ORKO'd, then you can do stuff like run shinon + tauroneo or shinon + neph and drop tauroneo or neph into their skill activation ranges for insane results if the enemy has someone who does between 50-100% of their max HP in damage.

To be frank, this would actually be good, spicing things up a lot (also because even with forged silvers, I see a big danger of endless stall with the defensive options available). Also, imagine the implications: Neph/Taur spend a turn getting into their skill range while somebody kills Shinon in their team, then launch an attack on somebody in the other party (a guaranteed ORKO for a lot of stuff in Tauroneo's case because 48 atk with the Brave Lance is scary, 2HKOing WTN (say Runesword) Ike with a +1 str support for example) but then be vulnerable to being taken down themselves the very next turn. You also never know if the target of your attack will counter with the weapon that does put you into skill range, and if the RNG works in your favour, so it doesn't sound like destroying the field with triangle attack behind Shinon's back.

EDIT: here's another broken combo with shinon in the stat boosters metagame: shinon + reyson. throw in the gatrie support and shinon can just about sponge attacks forever since nothing doubles him (use a laguzguard to protect against naesala) and reyson heals 21-26 HP per turn passively depending on how you want his transformation bonuses to work. if you throw all of the defensive stat boosters on shinon, he has effectively 60 HP, 26 def, 21 res, and 22 luk. 40 atk brave axe/lance users do 28 HP damage per round. you could also even reserve a unit slot for janaff to add another 2 def. shinon can freely attack 1-range enemies with the brave bow or forged silver while gatrie can work on the enemies with 1-2 range with a 41 atk brave lance and reyson healing off any damage he takes.

I don't remember voicing this, but the stat booster metagame should probably be the same metagame where people share Wrath, Nihil and Resolve scrolls around, with some restrictions most likely. More options open up.

Reyson sounds interesting, and only really usable if Provoke is in play. Kinda devastating in the team combos that you've described.

For Zihark to be ORKO'd by Brave Lance!Gatrie, the former needs to not be equipped with a Runesword (kind of ineffective with just 7 mag, 8 in the prospect Fixed meta) or the Vague Katti and not have a Brom/Ilyana support; otherwise he survives if no Lunas are proc'd (gotta check if those can activate on either hit). Failing to ORKO Zihark is not a great deal better than failing to ORKO Shinon on the other side. Gatrie's only +atk option is Marcia.

Point taken that Shinon's existence could turn the metagame into something very specific, much like we theoryFE'd it would be the case with triangle attacking. It's a valid risk that would need to be tested.

[PKL]

I think the difference is that somebody attacked by Rolf using anything that isn't a Longbow or a Double Bow (latter potentially detrimental for future enemy phases) is capable of retaliating with a 1-2 range forge, a magic sword or Tomahawk/Wishblade, so, unless it's an SM, Rolf might want to wait a little bit to make his move to see what weapons his targets are equipped with, though if he waits too long, he might get nothing done at all, and Deadeye + Brave Bow are tempting to start spamming early on. Meanwhile, attacking a Sniper pretty much means a counter is not to be expected.

To be frank, this would actually be good, spicing things up a lot (also because even with forged silvers, I see a big danger of endless stall with the defensive options available). Also, imagine the implications: Neph/Taur spend a turn getting into their skill range while somebody kills Shinon in their team, then launch an attack on somebody in the other party (a guaranteed ORKO for a lot of stuff in Tauroneo's case because 48 atk with the Brave Lance is scary, 2HKOing WTN (say Runesword) Ike with a +1 str support for example) but then be vulnerable to being taken down themselves the very next turn. You also never know if the target of your attack will counter with the weapon that does put you into skill range, and if the RNG works in your favour, so it doesn't sound like destroying the field with triangle attack behind Shinon's back.

I don't remember voicing this, but the stat booster metagame should probably be the same metagame where people share Wrath, Nihil and Resolve scrolls around, with some restrictions most likely. More options open up.

Reyson sounds interesting, and only really usable if Provoke is in play. Kinda devastating in the team combos that you've described.

For Zihark to be ORKO'd by Brave Lance!Gatrie, the former needs to not be equipped with a Runesword (kind of ineffective with just 7 mag, 8 in the prospect Fixed meta) or the Vague Katti and not have a Brom/Ilyana support; otherwise he survives if no Lunas are proc'd (gotta check if those can activate on either hit). Failing to ORKO Zihark is not a great deal better than failing to ORKO Shinon on the other side. Gatrie's only +atk option is Marcia.

Point taken that Shinon's existence could turn the metagame into something very specific, much like we theoryFE'd it would be the case with triangle attacking. It's a valid risk that would need to be tested.

Bolded: This is why I didn't have Rolf attack too early on. I wanted to sort of scout ZM's team. Everyone in his team looked like they would have 1-2 range equipped right away in the beginning like mine does, but that turned out to be false with the exception of Mist.

[Espinosa]

Did some more testing and am confirming that all of Sol, Luna and Colossus can activate on either hit of a brave attack. as expected. If Generals are going to be as dominating as they are now, a lategame General vs General battle can't take too long considering how high the chances of activating a Luna during either hit are. What I'd like to know is in a situation where Gatrie has 30 natural defence + 2 from KW + 3 from Vague Katti + 5 from his support, "which" defence will Luna crack? 30 or 40 or somewhere in between? I can't really test this ingame, but my gut feeling tells me it's 30. It does look like Luna proccing on an odd number defence inflicts more damage rather than less (11 def becomes 5 def for example), and also that Colossus off 23 str is the same as one off 20 atk (not rounding up at all).

I'd really appreciate if somebody could test the Runesword, namely:

- whether you can crit with it (and maybe proc skills)

- does it take into account the melee weapon triangle

If the Sonic Sword is of any indication, a magical weapon can crit (haven't been able to activate Astra with it though and something tells me I never will even if I try for hours; though maybe it's possible at point-blank range) and takes the magic triangles into account instead.

Oh, and for those who have got tired of all the recent pages of talking: since I've assembled a better interface in the first post, we just might see Ice Sage vs Dio on Wednesday or so, hopefully completing the game before the weekends (because I'll be gone for a while until then and I don't see much enthusiasm about running the games with the resources available so far). The rules reflect the current discussions and conclusions made, as well as the things that need testing, so there's potential for a very different game from the first two matches (which were also really different from each other).

I think getting more people involved is also good because we can get more feedback on balance, rule changes and suchlike things.

Oh, and moving to Faux-Fixed Mode has another noticeable change - Brom getting to 18 speed removed any possibility of Ilyana doubling him, which gives him one advantage over Gatrie (which he desperately needs because Gatrie seems like a prominent person in Shade/Provoke teams, but even with those skills out of the way Gatrie still ties Boyd and Largo for the highest brave weapon damage in the game).

So that's something to think about: whether we should switch from Random to Faux-Fixed averages, Largo benefiting by far the most from it.

Oh yeah, something I mentioned to Dio - Reinforce should be a usable command that trades the user's turn to create 3 fliers (they have fixed stats and equips ingame, ranging from 32 to 20 atk) which add in chip damage every other turn anyone in the party (not just Tanith) attacks, assuming they haven't died to counters. You can summon them twice if you like, though you might not want to. Since the 3 fliers have fixed stats, their statistics should be easy to calculate beforehand in the event Tanith @ Reinforce is used. Probably not that useful though, but 32 atk is already pretty neat against some classes.

[Icon of Sin]

Magic Swords can crit and activate skills, but only from 1 Range for skills. Kinda like Ragnell in a way, since you can crit at 2 Range, but I haven't seen Aether activate in 7 runs.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Woodshooter

[shadykid]

Magic Swords can crit and activate skills, but only from 1 Range for skills. Kinda like Ragnell in a way, since you can crit at 2 Range, but I haven't seen Aether activate in 7 runs.

IkeAethersadoor.gif

[dondon151]

I think the difference is that somebody attacked by Rolf using anything that isn't a Longbow or a Double Bow (latter potentially detrimental for future enemy phases) is capable of retaliating with a 1-2 range forge, a magic sword or Tomahawk/Wishblade, so, unless it's an SM, Rolf might want to wait a little bit to make his move to see what weapons his targets are equipped with, though if he waits too long, he might get nothing done at all, and Deadeye + Brave Bow are tempting to start spamming early on.

why would rolf have to wait? he can just see what the enemy has equipped. if it's not 1-2 range, then he can just brave bow away.

[Espinosa]

why would rolf have to wait? he can just see what the enemy has equipped. if it's not 1-2 range, then he can just brave bow away.

That's what it would be if this were GBA arena. I guess there's nothing stopping us from making the equipped weapons public when a battle begins, but I think it's more fun to try guessing what weapon is equipped based on the metagame? I dunno.

Oh, and I've got Adept to activate on a Sonic Sword attack, so that's something to keep in mind for those insane enough to use a Runesword Zihark (probably not too bad with stat boosters and a lot more relevant when we decide to play with free skill scrolls).

I guess we'll just make magic sword attacks on 1/1-2 range targets 1-range by default (apparently a Sonic Sword Luna halves the resistance stat, which makes sense).

[Espinosa]

Dio vs Ice Sage begins!

- Braves/Forges allowed

- One royal per team allowed

- Provoke/Shade allowed

- No boosters

Dio's team:

vs.

Ice Sage's team:

The RNG has decided that Dio gets to act first. Choose your character, his/her weapon and target.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Espinosa

[Icon of Sin]

Ike attacks Shinon with the Brave Sword please.

[Espinosa]

[spoiler=see teams here]

Dio's team:

vs.

Ice Sage's team:

vs

Turn 1.

Dio's Giffca transforms!

Dio's Ike (Brave Sword) attacks Ice Sage's Shinon (Brave Bow)!

13x2 damage 75% hit 0% crit 27% Aether

(78)

(9 71 44)

Shinon receives 13/46 damage!

(93)

(88 2 23)

Shinon receives 13/46 damage!

Both sides survive the fight.

Stats:

Dio

Ike 52/52

Oscar 49/49

Makalov 50/50

Astrid 42/42

Giffca 68/68

Ice Sage

Ike 52/52

Oscar 49/49

Tibarn 66/66 (16)

Shinon 20/46

Gatrie 58/58

Ice Sage acts next.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Espinosa

[Ice Sage]

this game will be fun~

hmm

Shinon attacks Ike with the Brave Bow please.

[ZemZem]

Good luck, Dio and Ice!