Silver and steel weapons

[Aestury]

I noticed that a lot of people are simply using forged iron weapons rather than regular silver or steel weapons. From what I saw, steel weapons decrease your chance from doubling and silver weapons straight up lower your str and skill. So what exactly are the strategic uses of using weapons like this? What keeps everyone from just using forged iron weapons and personal weapons?

Also I wanted to know if there is a way to avoid the stat drops. I haven't found any way to negate the brave and silver weapon stat drops other than a skill from the dread fighter class that only halves the amount of time the stat drops last I think.

[Shadow Mir]

Silver weapons are generally best used as finishers. Steels are generally for "I can't double you anyway so might as well" situations. That said, the Silver weapons' stat drop penalty applies only if the user is the lead unit.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[FluffyWarlock]

Silver weapons are generally best used as finishers. Steels are generally for "I can't double you anyway so might as well" situations. That said, the Silver weapons' stat drop penalty applies only if the user is the lead unit.

And the lead unit is the one who starts the battle, right?

[Shephen]

Forged Steel is where most of my damage comes from. Needing +8 Speed may sound like a lot at first, but when you have things like Speed Tonics, Guard Stance boosts and potentially Rally Speed it is fairly easy to hit those doubling marks on the general enemies unless it is a speed specialist like a Elite Ninja or Sword Master. And for Hidden Weapon users they really need to be using Steel or Silver to be doing respectable damage to non-mages since HW are just really weak.

[Shadow Mir]

And the lead unit is the one who starts the battle, right?

Ayup. I should also note, silver weapons drop your crit evade.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[Tooru]

The stats drop of Brave is different from stats drop of silver.

Switch to other weapons, then the stat drop of Brave disappears.

It is always easy to attack with brave in player phase but end with other weapons for enemy phase.

[Aestury]

Forged Steel is where most of my damage comes from. Needing +8 Speed may sound like a lot at first, but when you have things like Speed Tonics, Guard Stance boosts and potentially Rally Speed it is fairly easy to hit those doubling marks on the general enemies unless it is a speed specialist like a Elite Ninja or Sword Master. And for Hidden Weapon users they really need to be using Steel or Silver to be doing respectable damage to non-mages since HW are just really weak.

So are tonics very viable now? I don't remember using them much or anyone else for that matter in awakening. I can see the guard stance boost getting over a the bad side of steel weapons though.

[astrophys]

Using tonics was a fairly standard part of your toolkit in Lunatic back in Awakening….

[Jedi]

Using tonics was a fairly standard part of your toolkit in Lunatic back in Awakening….

Yeah as well as the ones in its predecessor FE12 L, along with the very nice Rainbow Potion.

[Tooru]

And the lead unit is the one who starts the battle, right?

Yes.

So one unit can switch to Silver (this doesn't cost his turn) when other units attack with him in Attack Stance, and then attack with Iron or Steel in his own turn.

It is just an interesting tip, but not necessary.

If you gets a Silver from Lottery Shop, you can try this. Otherwise it is not worth buying a Silver.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Tooru

[astrophys]

Yeah, Silvers in principle should be good tag-team dual striking weapons, as their penalties don't trigger for the dual-striking support unit, only for lead units. So you get a pretty strong dual-strike out of it (and good accuracy too).

[Great Merchant]

I generally prefer forged Steel Weapon to forged Iron weapons for multiple reasons.

I really don't like to distribute weapons to every single characters for every battles, so I assign weapons with equal level of strength for permanent use. Therefore, forging is definitely necessary. My usual standard is Mt that is equal or above Silver weapons. If you want to match Silver weapons, you need +4 for Iron weapons and +2 for Steel weapons. It's definitely cheaper to make +2 Steel Weapons because you only need 4 weapons to create +2 instead of 16 weapons to create +4. And, +2 Steel weapons require less minerals than +4 Iron weapons.

Secondly, Steel weapons look much cooler than Iron weapons.