The case for Hayato & Rend Heaven

[Volke29]

Hayato isn't a cool character. He whines. He looks goofy when he attacks. And he requires a lot of babysitting early on.

But come mid game, this guy turns into a beast. His speed and luck growths are incredible. Paired with another magic user like Orochi and you can leave him on the front lines and he will kill everyone.

But before we get to all that, one thing is for sure: Rend Heaven is OP.

Once you promote Hayato to the Basara class and he gets Rend Heaven, which adds half of the enemies magic or strength on top of Hayato's attack, is when the deadlines starts. Since he speed is so ridiculous, and because Rend Heaven activates at a rate of Skill x 1.5%, he is regular one shotting enemies.

Once he obtains Quixotic, he gets another 15% activation rate (but so does the enemy).

Here is my lvl 5 Barsara paired with Orochi, where the two have A status. This is Chapter 15.

HP: 35/35

Str: 13

Mag: 22

Skill: 17

Spd: 22

Lck: 26

Def: 20

Res: 14

For comparison, here is Orochi's stats paired with Hayato as a lvl 3 Onomyji

HP: 26/26

Str: 0

Mag: 22

Skill: 22

Spd: 11

Lck: 17

Def: 11

Res: 21

Again, these are mid game stats - like Chapter 15. Anyone else seeing this?

[Shadow Mir]

Erm, Rend Heaven tends to do jack to physical enemies when you're using a magic weapon... That does NOT sound OP to me.

Also, who's to say that someone else's Hayato or Orochi will end up like yours did?

Edited March 3, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[nflchamp]

Level 5 Basara in chapter 15.

Man, I know I don't grind any, but that's stupid early to me. I have a level 6 promoted Hayato in chapter 23.

Finally, as stated already, Rend Heaven is great only against anyone with an actual MAG stat. It is funny to see it activate against 0 MAG stoneborn though.

[ChaosGallade]

To add, here are Rend Heaven's full mechanics: it adds half the enemy's Strength if the user is using a physical weapon, or half the enemy's Magic if the user is using a magic weapon, to the total damage inflicted.

[Meh]

How does Rend Heaven work? Is it dependent on the weapon of the user or the target?

EDIT: ^Thanks for that

Edited March 3, 2016 by Meh

[Lady Sansa]

His skill stat is TERRIBLE and Rend Heaven is useless unless you're attacking a magic user.

He's a good unit on Revelations, but he's not a good Basara.

[Volke29]

OK .... ok no need to be angry about a unit that is only second to Takumi for my team right now.

Rend activates either strength (physical weapon) or magic (using tome).

If you have 20 Skill, the activation rate is 28.5%! If you get Quixotic, it increases to 43.5% per attack. And this guy doubles almost everyone.

I'm playing on Hard/Classic and I just left him all by himself around some stupid strong enemies in Chapter 16, he lost like 12 health and killed them all.

[ChaosGallade]

OK .... ok no need to be angry about a unit that is only second to Takumi for my team right now.

Rend activates either strength (physical weapon) or magic (using tome).

If you have 20 Skill, the activation rate is 28.5%! If you get Quixotic, it increases to 43.5% per attack. And this guy doubles almost everyone.

I'm playing on Hard/Classic and I just left him all by himself around some stupid strong enemies in Chapter 16, he lost like 12 health and killed them all.

Correction: If a Rend Heaven user has 20 Skill, Rend Heaven's activation rate is 30% (20 x 1.5) (45% with Quixotic active).

Rend Heaven's high activation rate also ensures that even those with middling Skill can use it easily.

Edited March 3, 2016 by ChaosGallade

[Shadow Mir]

OK .... ok no need to be angry about a unit that is only second to Takumi for my team right now.

Rend activates either strength (physical weapon) or magic (using tome).

If you have 20 Skill, the activation rate is 28.5%! If you get Quixotic, it increases to 43.5% per attack. And this guy doubles almost everyone.

I'm playing on Hard/Classic and I just left him all by himself around some stupid strong enemies in Chapter 16, he lost like 12 health and killed them all.

The problem is, Rend Heaven adds damage using the ENEMY'S stats, meaning if you're using a tome, it won't do jack against physical enemies since most physical enemies have virtually nonexistent magic stats. Also, Quixotic is not a good skill.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[ChaosGallade]

The problem is, Rend Heaven adds damage using the ENEMY'S stats, meaning if you're using a tome, it won't do jack against physical enemies since most physical enemies have virtually nonexistent magic stats. Also, Quixotic is not a good skill.

To elaborate on why Quixotic isn't good, it increases the skill trigger and hit rate of the enemy as well. So it's risky to use it against someone who has Luna/Sol/Lethality/Astra, etc.

Edited March 3, 2016 by ChaosGallade

[ZodiacSoldier]

Honestly not the biggest fan of "Rend Heaven", "Ignis" is a much better skill for characters that have decent STR and MAG stats, although finding it is a pain.

[Volke29]

The problem is, Rend Heaven adds damage using the ENEMY'S stats, meaning if you're using a tome, it won't do jack against physical enemies since most physical enemies have virtually nonexistent magic stats. Also, Quixotic is not a good skill.

If the enemy has 8 Magic he also likely has 8 RES.

And vice versa for Str and Def.

I'm just saying, on my squad right now, this guy is owning everyone. Great defense, great speed, great magic (when paired) and amazing luck. He can use spears and tomes.

And yea, the enemy does get the bonus as well with Quixotic, but you can still get around them if they don't have a ranged attack, for example. And not all enemies have deadly skill combos.

All I'm saying is he's been written off as a scrub, but if you build him up to about lvl 18 and promote, he will turn into a Tier 1 unit by mid game.

He's also miles better than Orochi as her speed is awful.

[Shadow Mir]

If the enemy has 8 Magic he also likely has 8 RES.

And vice versa for Str and Def.

I'm just saying, on my squad right now, this guy is owning everyone. Great defense, great speed, great magic (when paired) and amazing luck. He can use spears and tomes.

And yea, the enemy does get the bonus as well with Quixotic, but you can still get around them if they don't have a ranged attack, for example. And not all enemies have deadly skill combos.

All I'm saying is he's been written off as a scrub, but if you build him up to about lvl 18 and promote, he will turn into a Tier 1 unit by mid game.

He's also miles better than Orochi as her speed is awful.

If I'm using a mage and Rend Heaven is actually doing something, odds are it's against - le gaspe - another mage. And given that mages tend to be a minority in the enemy army...

Edited March 3, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

Hayato is truly not worth it in Birthright, but he gets good bases in Revelations. His growths are still shaky for me though.

Rend Heaven is kinda situational, tbh, and is only truly good on archers. You're not going to be using physical weapons on enemies like Generals, nor are you going to be hitting a Sage with Magic (ideally). The only enemies that Rend Heavens truly...rends...are hybrid ones like the Basaras themselves.

Edited March 3, 2016 by SatsumaFSoysoy

[Thor Odinson]

RH is fine on physical. I have 1 mage and there's often 3 generals in a line. What am I gonna do with the other 2 generals that my one mage can't hit? Just leave them there? Sometimes you just gotta punch a general. And sometimes that works.

The overwhelming majority of enemies are physical--and not all of them are super squishy either. Berserkers may not have a lot of def, but they do have a lot of HP. And considering that your native mages are horribly underwhelming this time around, physical's gonna do most of the work. I mean hell, I looked at Hayato, I looked at Orochi, and I decided to just slap a DF seal on Saizo and make him my mage instead. Not a bad decision, by the way.

RH on mages though is bad since magic enemies are a lot rarer and only really in small bunches.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Thor Odinson

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

Which is why I said "ideally". But say, if I had to punch a General, I would just use some kind of Armorkiller, which would make Rend Heaven obsolete anyway in that situation.

RH is nice to have, but not something I really count on.

[Thor Odinson]

I personally like Berserker Rinkah@Great Club myself. 21dmg x guaranteed crit = 84 damage.

But Generals are still not all the bulky enemies there is. RH is definitely not necessary, that much I agree, but it's still a significant damage boost for a physical unit when it fires and can turn an ORKO into an OHKO, which would save me from eating a counter and give a bit more flexibility. Someone like Shiro can easily get RH and Astra at the same time since Ryoma only takes 1 lv up to get Astra and if you get Shiro after chapter...20? 21? he can hit 20/6 immediately, grab it, then just go Spear Master for better stats and the seals, so having both makes the chances of either firing off pretty high.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Thor Odinson