Unbuyable Weapons - the best and the worst

[BANRYU]

I got so many Frying Pans on my last conquest run that I gave forged 'Progeny Skillets' to all of my Oni Savage bond units (like... 3-4 of them). Dressed them all up in Chef Hats and the like as well lol. It was amazing. They are on the My Castle squad for that run lol.

My wife has a crazy forged Hairpin that's like... +2/3 or something.

[eclipse]

I got so many Frying Pans on my last conquest run that I gave forged 'Progeny Skillets' to all of my Oni Savage bond units (like... 3-4 of them). Dressed them all up in Chef Hats and the like as well lol. It was amazing. They are on the My Castle squad for that run lol.

My wife has a crazy forged Hairpin that's like... +2/3 or something.

You've given me an idea for a terrible Revelations run. . .one day. Saving up resources for the right accessories is quite the pain!

Of the joke weapons, the one that stuck out the most to me was the Bottle. FSR, I kept getting it. Have you guys noticed the same thing, in regards to a particular special weapon?

[Dualazi]

All the E rank weapons get some serious praise from me for being able to proc skills and crits, which is hugely helpful when leveling people in off classes while retaining some degree of usefulness. The fact that the raider variants also give +3 eff. speed is just icing on the cake.

Nohrian blade can be a game-changer if you get it early, +3 defense on an already tanky unit can make them pretty much impervious.

Peri's Lance is crazy good, channels the old sillyness of Awakening javelins.

[Flying Shogi]

Of the joke weapons, the one that stuck out the most to me was the Bottle. FSR, I kept getting it. Have you guys noticed the same thing, in regards to a particular special weapon?

I have noticed that I've gotten quite a few Felicia's Plates. Too bad I'm not keeping that file

[Roflolxp54]

Love Kagero's Dart -- projectile weapon that comes with a huge Avoid boost. And it also comes with the Speed boost that all shurikens come with!

[BANRYU]

Of the joke weapons, the one that stuck out the most to me was the Bottle. FSR, I kept getting it. Have you guys noticed the same thing, in regards to a particular special weapon?

Actually with regards to this I seem to be somewhat cursed on my Ninja Birthright run... I've gotten more lances (especially Subaki's Pikes-- like 5 of them) than any other weapon, which sucks because no one is going to be able to use them OTL.

[Oðni]

Setsuna's yumi is pretty good on ballisticians, debuffing enemies with the cannon command is pretty sweet.

[henrymidfields]

I've been getting a lot of Pebbles from Frederick from all that support-grinding in Before Awakening. I hope to give Felicia a +7 Forged Pebble at the end.

[Tolvir]

I like most of them. They are good secondary weapons to throw on characters for specific situations. For example I would always give Benny the Hexlock Spear to counteract any map where there would be a large amount of mages and magic damage.

Some are really hard to get.I have made a Death Knight themed Corrin in my current playthrough, and am trying for the life of me to get a few Leo's Iceblade so I can forge it and rename it Runeblade.

[shadowofchaos]

The main reservation I have about this is that dodging is an innately unreliable strategy as far as this game is concerned...

If avoid is high enough that hit is in the 10's and single digits, that's reliable as far as I'm concerned.

Despite the RNG anomalies, a lose condition of getting critical'd by a berserker with 3% hit and 10% critical is certainly not something anyone would expect.

Edited October 23, 2016 by shadowofchaos

[VincentASM]

Oops, I was obviously too tired last night.

Not sure about worst weapons, but my favourites are Leo's Iceblade and Felicia's Plate for the magic weapon goodness (also Shining Bow, which you can't get in Birthright without BP). I also like carrying around a Berserker's Axe +4 just in case...

Oh yeah, Subaki's Pike is pretty cool as well.

[BANRYU]

What is it with the magic Ice weapons being proccable lol. Shrug

They are probably some of the best for that reason, though; being able to be both magical and proc in a class that doesn't use tomes/scrolls is pretty cool.

Also, I don't think shining bow is in this category since you can buy it from the Dusk Armory, but it's pretty good as well even though it can't proc. 1-2 range bow is fantastic. I actually want to make a magic Sniper Corrin based on using it haha.

Edited October 23, 2016 by BANRYU

[SalShich10N]

Good:

Raider set: E rank, more mt than the bronze set, give you speed.

Nohrian Blade: Gives you almost the same bonuses in defense as the Dragonstone, you can double and only suffer a minor avoid penalty

Effie's Spear: On a character with high skill, or if you're feeling daring, you can score necessary one hit kills, specially on the slower characters.

Arthur's Axe: D rank, Stronger than an Iron, raises defense. Forge it once to get a Steel Axe with no penalties.

Beruka's Axe: A Killer Axe, but stronger, although it has a penalty in attack speed you still can double. Great for when you can't double

Felicia's Plate: If you can pull one for Felicia before chapter 12, then she's your best mage until she gets the Flame Shuriken

Sunrise Katana: For that dodgetanking

Bold Naginata: This thing is massively broken. Like the Effie Lance, but it doesn't miss.

Saizo's Star/Kaze's Neede: Not only do they debuff an enemy, they also buff your allies. Perfect to feed a boss to a lesser unit

Kagero's Dart: Ninjas can dodge-tank too, you know?

Votive Candle/Hair Pin: High mt daggers for a D rank

Subaki's pike: On base it's better than an iron. Forge it once it's better than a Steel. If you somehow manage to forge it twice then it's totally nuts

Hoe: Ignoring terrain effects means that it ignores a boss's throne bonuses

Purification Rod: It's 1 use Moon Festal. Great thing to receive for free

Elise's Staff: While 10 HP might seem underwhelming it's 1-5 range can help a lot.

Lilith's Staff: Mini fortify, good thing to use when you have tons of allies with chip damage done to them. Good Exp too.

Underrated:

Camilla's Axe: 80 hit is very damn high for an axe. Specially useful on Charlotte

Parasol/Umbrella/Peri's Lance: You can still proc critical hits and special skills.

Sacrifical Knife/Ganglari/Berserker's Axe: Despite the penalty sometimes you really need that kill

Caltrop: the debuff is massive

Joke Weapons: The hit rate is very high

Fuuga's Club: +3 speed is very good, it's essentially a very strong raider axe with great hit rate

Anna's Bow: Very high hit rate

Cupid Bow: In Hard and Normal, you can grind on Mozu's paralogue by healing the boss with this

Good in paper, bad in practice:

Leo's Iceblade: You want magical weapons because of their 1-2 range, plus Leo can't even use it because it's B rank

Laslow's Blade: that defense penalty matters a lot when you're up front with the enemy. If you use it for its speed, chances are that you will need to take a hit when you double

Bone Axe: D rank, Better than an Iron, gives res. Problem is that 60% hit rate, and axemen want that hit rate.

Hinata's Katana: Way too many penalties

Hana's Katana: Reduces avoid and asks you to be defensive for units that are most likely very weak defensively

Hexlock Spear: Too little mt so you might not even kill, 1 range meaning that you can't use it on a counter attack, 8 res is not enough.

Hinoka's Spear: You can just forge an Iron and keep the defense. It does shine a bit if you forge it.

Ryoma's Club: Too little hit rate on units with already shaky skill.

Adamant Club: Way too low mt, 4 def is often not enough.

Spellbane Yumi: Too little mt, even if it's effective you won't deal much more than using a steel, shaky hitrate, loses in weapon triangle. Just use a Dual Yumi

Sidelong Yumi: Half the mt of an Bronze Bow.

Setsuna's Yumi; The mt of a Brass Yumi, very shaky hitrate

Izana's Scroll: You don't get much more Mt than using a Tiger Spirit

Moonlight/Bread: 20% HP is very, very little

Speed Thunder: Even if the rally effect is essentially the tome range and can be easily avoid it, it's still just the same as the Missletainn, which Ophelia doesn't uses that often.

If I didn't mentioned something chances are it's not worth your time

Edited October 23, 2016 by SalShich10N

[BANRYU]

Underrated:

Camilla's Axe: 80 hit is very damn high for an axe. Specially useful on Charlotte Beruka/Charlotte and the like appreciate the Res boost too

Parasol/Umbrella/Peri's Lance: You can still proc critical hits and special skills.

Sacrifical Knife/Ganglari/Berserker's Axe: Despite the penalty sometimes you really need that kill

Caltrop: the debuff is massive

Joke Weapons: The hit rate is very high

Fuuga's Club: +3 speed is very good, it's essentially a very strong raider axe with great hit rate This thing is amazing, I used it on Percy since his speed was usually kind of middling and the extra speed let him land so many ORKOs that he would have missed out on with Silver

Anna's Bow: Very high hit rate Too true, though TBH I just prefer it for profiteering huehuehue

Cupid Bow: In Hard and Normal, you can grind on Mozu's paralogue by healing the boss with this

Good in paper, bad in practice:

Leo's Iceblade: You want magical weapons because of their 1-2 range, plus Leo can't even use it because it's B rank

Laslow's Blade: that defense penalty matters a lot when you're up front with the enemy. If you use it for its speed, chances are that you will need to take a hit when you double

Bone Axe: D rank, Better than an Iron, gives res. Problem is that 60% hit rate, and axemen want that hit rate. Agreed... I tried to use this thing but anyone who had it always wound up using Iron or something that could actually hit instead

Hinata's Katana: Way too many penalties It's garbage, yeah. Oboro's Spear is slightly more usable, but mostly similar

Hana's Katana: Reduces avoid and asks you to be defensive for units that are most likely very weak defensively

Hexlock Spear: Too little mt so you might not even kill, 1 range meaning that you can't use it on a counter attack, 8 res is not enough.

Hinoka's Spear: You can just forge an Iron and keep the defense. It does shine a bit if you forge it.

Ryoma's Club: Too little hit rate on units with already shaky skill. On typical axe users maybe, but Beruka can get a lotta mileage outta this thing. I always ended up using it on my Generals/Heroes and other units that get an Axe secondary on promotion; those classes usually have enough Skill to make it work, and the extra damage output helps a lot. It's has always served me well

Adamant Club: Way too low mt, 4 def is often not enough. I find it to be perfect for Charlotte, actually. Her Strength is crazy enough to kill fools even with her low might, and the defense lets her actually stand a chance of surviving enemy phase sometimes, esp with Sol. Always use it with her, it makes her surpisingly good

Spellbane Yumi: Too little mt, even if it's effective you won't deal much more than using a steel, shaky hitrate, loses in weapon triangle. Just use a Dual Yumi Garbage tier agreed

Sidelong Yumi: Half the mt of an Bronze Bow. I've found it useful on Apothecary Azama, but very situationally, it's true

Setsuna's Yumi; The mt of a Brass Yumi, very shaky hitrate TBH I'd rather just use a shuriken for debuffs. As someone mentioned, it has some use on Ballisticians tho

Izana's Scroll: You don't get much more Mt than using a Tiger Spirit I never use this thing lol

Moonlight/Bread: 20% HP is very, very little

Speed Thunder: Even if the rally effect is essentially the tome range and can be easily avoid it, it's still just the same as the Missletainn, which Ophelia doesn't uses that often.

If I didn't mentioned something chances are it's not worth your time

Great input, sorry if I'm contradicting you a bit here. I 100% agree with the 'good' list that I didn't quote, though.

Edited October 23, 2016 by BANRYU

[kcirrot]

Good:

Felicia's Plate: If you can pull one for Felicia before chapter 12, then she's your best mage until she gets the Flame Shuriken

I'm guessing that most know this, but you can get most of the joke weapons, including and especially Felicia's plate from Battle/Visit rewards as soon as you hit MyCastle so long as your score is high enough.

[Emerson]

Sunrise Katana sees the most use from myself, even if I do find it lackluster until late mid-game. Hana just really likes that +20 Avoid, especially if you give her Lancebreaker (Or just give her a Dual Naginata).

I find that Effie's Lance is extremely good on pretty much any Spear Fighter. Their good Speed negates the -5 Eff speed, with exceptions, plus their usually good Skill can negate the poor accuracy as well.

Nohrian Blade is pretty much my go-to Sword early on. Nice design, good Defense boost, and minor penalties. Adamant Club is there too, but it's Might is even less with only 1 more Defense to show. Maybe if it gave 5 or 6 Defense it'd be good, but as it stands it's pretty meh.

Arthur's Axe also sees a lot of usage from me. The +2 Defense with no real penalties is especially good when forged.

Same for Camilla's Axe, although the raw might and hit from this thing is what makes it worth i. The +2 Res is just kinda tacked on.

Seriously, these things are monsters once forged to +2. Even just +1 can make them amazing.

Besides that, I don't use many. I guess Subaki's Pike gets used every so often, although I tend to drop it fairly early.

[NekoKnight]

Hexlock Spear: Too little mt so you might not even kill, 1 range meaning that you can't use it on a counter attack, 8 res is not enough.

Moonlight/Bread: 20% HP is very, very little

Good list but I'm going to disagree on these two points. Hexlock Spear is one of the best non-buyable weapons in the game. It might not make your spear using units immune to magic, but it's still 8 less damage they'll take from magical attacks. This can be critical for surviving certain encounters. As for the low might, it's usually easy enough for them to kill mages anyway.

For Moonlight, 20% health recovery is still health. Not a bad way to heal off scratch damage and the accuracy/damage is similar to Thunder. However small, it's a safe healing option at 1-2 range.

[SalShich10N]

I'm guessing that most know this, but you can get most of the joke weapons, including and especially Felicia's plate from Battle/Visit rewards as soon as you hit MyCastle so long as your score is high enough.

Yes, but I am not sure if it's easy to get that many points now that the boom from the early game has died out. Besides there are some people who are just starting with the game. In my first 3 playthroughs back with the japanese version translated I think I only racked like 400 in Battle and 600 in visitors, somewhere around those numbers, and I grinded supports in online battles.

You can powergrind both, though, but that takes a while as well. Though 875 is enough for Visits and 775 is enough for Battle points in my opinion.

Good list but I'm going to disagree on these two points. Hexlock Spear is one of the best non-buyable weapons in the game. It might not make your spear using units immune to magic, but it's still 8 less damage they'll take from magical attacks. This can be critical for surviving certain encounters. As for the low might, it's usually easy enough for them to kill mages anyway.

For Moonlight, 20% health recovery is still health. Not a bad way to heal off scratch damage and the accuracy/damage is similar to Thunder. However small, it's a safe healing option at 1-2 range.

Thing is that for mages I'd rather either space Effie, Benny or Silas away enough so that they only fight one mage with a javelin and reach the kill to reduce the enemy number on my turn, or just not expose low res units to mages in the first place.

As for Moonlight and Hard Bread, 20% is, at around 30 HP, is only 6 HP. That is at best chip damage and mages intake a lot of damage. Moreover your mages have a lot of competence over tome space, specially in Conquest after Ophelia's Paralogue. You have Calamity Gate and Horse Spirits as absolute most, Lightning and Mjölnir are both essential tomes too. I'd rather carry a Sheep Spirit or a Concoction and wait for some free time. I'd be inclined to agree with you if it healed 20% HP after battles during the enemy phase as well, but the heal rate is too low when it's only on your phase.

Edited October 23, 2016 by SalShich10N

[Dark Holy Elf]

I don't find most of these weapons too useful in general, though they're free so I'm not going to turn up my nose to one when it appears.

The main exceptions are the raider/etc. weapons (+3 speed is good) and the Sunrise Katana. There are others which I will acknowledge have on-paper use but I've never really gotten much out of them, in part because one of the major things cited as a niche for them over bronze (ability to activity skills) isn't something I care about much typically.

[BANRYU]

Good list but I'm going to disagree on these two points. Hexlock Spear is one of the best non-buyable weapons in the game. It might not make your spear using units immune to magic, but it's still 8 less damage they'll take from magical attacks. This can be critical for surviving certain encounters. As for the low might, it's usually easy enough for them to kill mages anyway.

For Moonlight, 20% health recovery is still health. Not a bad way to heal off scratch damage and the accuracy/damage is similar to Thunder. However small, it's a safe healing option at 1-2 range.

TBH I have to agree with NK on Moonlight. I wanted to like it and tried really hard to use it and make good use of it, but unless it's forged to at least +2 it's never been worthwhile for me. The only use I tend to get out of it is when I'm out of more useful tomes and need to give one to like say... Camilla or someone. And even then, once they hit C-rank they would rather use pretty much anything else. It just hasn't performed that well for me.

Edited October 24, 2016 by BANRYU

[NekoKnight]

TBH I have to agree with NK on Moonlight. I wanted to like it and tried really hard to use it and make good use of it, but unless it's forged to at least +2 it's never been worthwhile for me. The only use I tend to get out of it is when I'm out of more useful tomes and need to give one to like say... Camilla or someone. And even then, once they hit C-rank they would rather use pretty much anything else. It just hasn't performed that well for me.

Wait, I thought I was 'NK'? lol

I didn't say it was an amazing tome, just that it had uses. What is a good set of tomes for a pure caster in Conquest? Lighting, Mjolnir, forged!Thunder, Horse Spirit and Calamity Gate? You could easily switch out one of those for Moonlight, depending on what fits your play style. But why would you use anything accept for Mjolnir?

[Shadow Mir]

If avoid is high enough that hit is in the 10's and single digits, that's reliable as far as I'm concerned.

Despite the RNG anomalies, a lose condition of getting critical'd by a berserker with 3% hit and 10% critical is certainly not something anyone would expect.

Still, this IS Fates we're talking about, and thus that's not something I'd laugh off as a certain miss. Edited October 24, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[shadowofchaos]

Still, this IS Fates we're talking about, and thus that's not something I'd laugh off as a certain miss.

It was good enough for a playthrough.

I'd wager that as good enough for most people.

It's not as if Endless Nightmare was playing every battle. They could take a hit if the RNG wasn't feeling generous. It's not guaranteed, of course, and other strategies are more optimal, never facing critical chances. But when hit for Berserkers are 0% and you only need to face one Maid/General in your range with 30% hit that you can take... that's reliable enough for me.

[BANRYU]

Wait, I thought I was 'NK'? lol

I didn't say it was an amazing tome, just that it had uses. What is a good set of tomes for a pure caster in Conquest? Lighting, Mjolnir, forged!Thunder, Horse Spirit and Calamity Gate? You could easily switch out one of those for Moonlight, depending on what fits your play style. But why would you use anything accept for Mjolnir?

I-- wha-- Oh.. yeah... I meant SalSich, my bad ahaha...

Nahh man I get the full range of tomes thing, I def usually do that due to the sheer amount of magic you get VS magic users; the problem is that other spells like Horse Spirit or even just Disrobing Gale tend to be more useful in 90% of situations, even for just a D-rank tome user... but that's my experience anyway ~3~ I just remember that whenever I had it on someone, I almost always wound up using other spells to attack instead of that, even at times when they could have used the heals.

Edited October 24, 2016 by BANRYU

[Guardian]

Don't forget about the Speed Thunder tome. Having decent might unforged, and somewhat accurate, at the cost of giving your opponents a Rally Speed, like Xander's Lance but can critical and gives a different rally.

Good or Bad?