link arena Fire Emblem Link Arena Discussion Topic

[Icon of Sin]

encouraging players to run oscar x tanith might be even more detrimental to the metagame. because tanith claims the sole full guard, that means that the default laguz king is giffca.

There's two Full Guards with Shirarham's.

[Elieson]

Elie, what is so broken about oscar ike is that you literally have to ignore them until endgame because its too risky to engage them early on. Their offensive presence, as well as the 45 avo and sol aether chance is just THAT good. Think about this: Boyd was using a forge, one of the most accurate things possible, with WTA and he still struggled to hit Oscar, with a forge. When I ran Ike Oscar in that one game, I also felt like they were OP and were doing the work for me. Y'all convinced me it wasnt broken back then though.

So 45 avo with Ragnell + Aether is bannable, but 45 avo without either is still bannable?

[Quintessence]

Elie, what is so broken about oscar ike is that you literally have to ignore them until endgame because its too risky to engage them early on. Their offensive presence, as well as the 45 avo and sol aether chance is just THAT good. Think about this: Boyd was using a forge, one of the most accurate things possible, with WTA and he still struggled to hit Oscar, with a forge. When I ran Ike Oscar in that one game, I also felt like they were OP and were doing the work for me. Y'all convinced me it wasnt broken back then though.

You can say pretty much the same for Lyn x Hector, though it isn't the best pair and support bonuses aren't that awesome apart from crt and crt evade. Another difference being that lyn can be attacked when equipping Rienfleche but on the next turn it'll surely be a deadly hit in favor of Lyn x Hector. Yeah, doesn't have Ragnell nor +45 avo nor skills, but in the same way they're left last because hitting them is risking your units more than weakening them. It's pretty much the same treatment. Edited January 24, 2014 by Quintessence

[dondon151]

every game has the pair of units that you're reluctant to attack. it's super lame, but it's just the way things are.

does anyone other than refa want to do the FE5 limited game?

[Icon of Sin]

Sure, let's double up the fun with Reffykins.

I'll probably make my team over dinner.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Woodshooter

[dondon151]

okay, you and refa can PM me your teams when ready.

did we ever clear up the mechanics on prayer?

[AnonymousSpeed]

Is anyone up to challenge my FE6 Maxes team? I'd like to test it out.

[Icon of Sin]

It activates once per battle.

For example, Sara at 3 HP is against Othin with a Brave Axe. She dodges the first hit due to Prayer, so it won't activate again for this fight. If she survives I'm guessing she can still use it.

[Elieson]

Pkl, if the 45 avo is too much, why didnt you attack my Keiran (a nothreat) and try to remove 15 of Oscar's bonus AVO, instead of attacking Oscar with Boyd? Keiran gave Oscar +15 avo with a B support, which seems threatening enough. Keiran only had +15 to Oscar's +45, so Boyd would've had HIT in the 80s.

That's the reason why I picked off Brom and Mist so early, in a way. I wanted brom out of the way, yea, but I wanted Boyd's supports dead so that he wouldnt have a bonus +12 HIT on me with what I expected to be a Silver Forge. Hell, that's the primary reason as to why I put Stefan on my team, to give Soren extra HIT for seiging.

[PKL]

Pkl, if the 45 avo is too much, why didnt you attack my Keiran (a nothreat) and try to remove 15 of Oscar's bonus AVO, instead of attacking Oscar with Boyd? Keiran gave Oscar +15 avo with a B support, which seems threatening enough. Keiran only had +15 to Oscar's +45, so Boyd would've had HIT in the 80s.

That's the reason why I picked off Brom and Mist so early, in a way. I wanted brom out of the way, yea, but I wanted Boyd's supports dead so that he wouldnt have a bonus +12 HIT on me with what I expected to be a Silver Forge. Hell, that's the primary reason as to why I put Stefan on my team, to give Soren extra HIT for seiging.

Because the 45 avo would've still been there in the lategame and I would be short of one Boyd, meaning I'd lose anyway. The reason why I attacked Oscar with Boyd was because with the forge, I had a shot at weakening you enough that Rolf could pick you off easier. After I saw that Boyd failed, I went with the Rolf strat anyway.

Removing Kieran might have been easier, but:

Oscar Ike wouldve still been a problem, the lategame wouldve been even worse than it went.

Kieran's equipment was unknown at the time.

A kieran in lategame was a lot less threatening than both Ike and Oscar there.

[Espinosa]

If anyone wants to raise the Nihil/Parity in relation to Shade/Provoke issue, please use the search function to dig up the much earlier discussions on the subject. I put a lot of effort into those posts and don't like having to start over here.

In dondon's very specific case, I understand that you think you're always right dude but this may not be necessarily always shared and the very rigid framework you demand of others for refuting your arguments or whatever may not quite do when considering the broad picture. You should also probably stop being so scandalous about it; it's really getting on my nerves if you can't tell. If you really want the arena to die in a week like you posted in another thread, that's another opinion I can accept without agreeing with it, but at least let things develop and progress in some direction so that others can have plenty of fun.

I'll match you in this.

Espi, you hosting?

Yeah, you and SB can send me your teams.

WRT: Prayer mechanics - I think it was once per battle (whole battle) not once per fight? Don't remember this, and we always killed the Prayer users (Just Finn and Delmud?) with Mareeta.

[Icon of Sin]

I wasn't exactly sure what you meant by battle, whether it was a single fight or the whole thing.

Besides, some Prayer users such as Eyrios can find a way to recover health only for it to go back down.

[Espinosa]

I wasn't exactly sure what you meant by battle, whether it was a single fight or the whole thing.

Besides, some Prayer users such as Eyrios can find a way to recover health only for it to go back down.

I believe Hawkeye was the one who came up with the idea; I understood it as "whole battle" and liked it as such. The other way of going about it doesn't sound too bad either, and would make Finn, Delmud and Mareeta even better than they already are. Whatever we choose, we should spell it out and be consistent about it.

[PKL]

Randa and Lucina haven't PM'd me their teams :(

[Icon of Sin]

I'm a bit more in favor towards once per fight rather than whole match though I can see it makes a good skill difficult to pierce. IIRC even FE4 did it in a similar vein.

[dondon151]

If anyone wants to raise the Nihil/Parity in relation to Shade/Provoke issue, please use the search function to dig up the much earlier discussions on the subject. I put a lot of effort into those posts and don't like having to start over here.

i don't remember this issue ever being resolved, unless that is a euphemism for you going along with whatever you felt like. i presented what i thought was an airtight case against shade and provoke being affected by nihil and parity (the targeting vs. execution distinction is a good argument that also exists in pokemon, and the skill activation during battle sound effect + animation is a nail in the coffin) and it was either ignored or countered with some hand-wavy explanation about doing whatever the hell we wanted to with shade and provoke.

You should also probably stop being so scandalous about it; it's really getting on my nerves if you can't tell. If you really want the arena to die in a week like you posted in another thread, that's another opinion I can accept without agreeing with it, but at least let things develop and progress in some direction so that others can have plenty of fun.

okay first of all

i never said that i "wanted the arena to die in a week." if you are to accuse me of being scandalous, you should avoid exhibiting the same flaw yourself.

second of all

there is a great deal of cognitive bias here regarding whether people are "having fun." you can run any metagame variant and conclude that it was better than a previously existing variant when there is minimal evidence to either support or refute that conclusion. link arena is not conducive to the existence of deep or balanced metagames, and it seems pretty evident that people are enjoying themselves plenty with or without convoluted bans or invented mechanics.

Edited January 24, 2014 by dondon151

[Refa]

I'm a bit more in favor towards once per fight rather than whole match though I can see it makes a good skill difficult to pierce. IIRC even FE4 did it in a similar vein.

FE4 did once per turn, but close enough in terms of link arena.

[Icon of Sin]

Exactly. You had to remain within the 10 HP range though, and perhaps the Life skill could put someone from 1 to about 8 or so and still activate Prayer again but with weaker effects.

If no healing was involved then it would wear off right away.

[Hawkeye]

When I laid out the initial FE5 rules prayer could activate once in the entire match. I don't know how that has faired since I think there have only been like 2 fe5 matches so far and I haven't read through either of them.

As for Nihil/Parity and Shade/Provoke:
Obviously dondon is correct in that if we wish to stay as true to game mechanics as possible, N/P would not affect either of S/P. However, as far as I know no enemy has S/P aside from Shinon, who obviously is not forced to be attacked by your units.
Since there is no terrain, the current setup provides the only reason to use Parity, so I think it is a reasonable adjustment. As for Nihil, I think this is more flexible, since it obviously has use outside of S/P cancellation. I think it would be reasonable for Nihil to lose that effect, but I don't think it's necessary.
All in all, these four skills (especially Parity, Shade, and Provoke) really need to be adapted from their in-game mechanics or else they will have no effect in the link arena. While that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I do think their inclusion provides some added strategy and is a benefit overall.

Actually, now that I think about it, it might be a good idea to remove that effect from Nihil, so that a unit has to decide if they want to counter S/P or if they want protection from other skills. I definitely think Parity should remain as it is though.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Hawkeye

[PKL]

Parity has the awesomeness of cancelling support bonuses like DOUBLE EARTH, so it doesnt really need to cancel anything else.

[Hawkeye]

Parity also cancels battle skills for both units as well... clearly I should have refreshed my memory on it before making any arguments for its use

[Elieson]

Parity also cancels battle skills for both units as well... clearly I should have refreshed my memory on it before making any arguments for its use

Makes.fighting.ike a.lot.less scary.

But.you know, ban ragnell and supports and all

[Espinosa]

Nihil costs 15 SP so what you can combo that skill with is quite limited. Parity is only 5 SP, but you're out of options of out-of-battle skills. Just Renewal combos with that one?

WRT the idea of banning Ragnell - if this is done, we'll just see Ike wielding the Vague Katti like he did in the earliest games we had (which started with the idea of the Ragnell ban), which will hurt all sword users, from Generals to SMs, who need it to bolster their bulk and become threatening targets for pointblank attacks. It seems Ike is not going away, ever (perhaps if both Ragnell and Aether are gone, Ike will lose much of his appeal but I'm still not certain). It doesn't seem like such a bad thing that Ike exists and is really good to me per se; I just want to see more teams that aren't variations of just about the same one team. If Ike's 60% likely to be one of the five units, it's nowhere as boring as Ike and Oscar being 90% likely to both appear on the same team, and the other three spots tend to synergise with these two as well (Kieran/Marcia or Soren or the brother bonds or any combination of the three). There are many more cool characters to deploy in the arena, with different averages and caps and synergy with the custom skills (cough Tauroneo cough Nepenthe cough) so I don't see why opening the door for them to enter the battlefield is a bad thing.

And we haven't even seen Largo outside of draft context yet!

[PKL]

Makes.fighting.ike a.lot.less scary.

But.you know, ban ragnell and supports and all

Problem is Parity is exclusive to another meta barring LOLlucia. Honestly, the only meta where Ike Oscar is ridiculous is in max stats because Paladin caps are great and 40 Lck. Oscar isn't nearly as good in averages.

Edited January 24, 2014 by PKL

[Elieson]

Thinking of building a new FE9 MaxStats event cup, this time, a SOYO theme. Thoughts?