Fire Emblem Heroes General Discussion and Links

[Johann]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

I'd rather them just bring the 4-star focus banners back. The standard banners should keep including 5-star exclusives, even if my wallet won't let me pull from them.

Well, I'm considering the other banners too. I think generally, yes, banners should focus on 5* exclusives since the odds are too low otherwise. But nobody's pulling on the Luna banner to fodder off Luna, it's just that these three characters all happen to have it in common. Putting Frederick and Catria as 4* Focus units (even if not 5*) would make it more interesting, and certainly more useful if you actually wanted Luna for whatever reason. TT and VG banners in particular would be a lot more practical as well.

Edited July 7, 2018 by Johann

[Ice Dragon]

12 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I mean, give daggers a brave option (maybe cut 1 MT vs. brave bows for the debuffing aspect) and they're instantly on bow level.

"Bow level" is still terrible in the current state of the game.

Jakob is the one exception, but that's because armors are good, not bows.

 

16 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

The main problem with daggers, currently, is that their stat distributions are at odds with their effects.

The problem with daggers is the fact that they can't kill things safely or effectively and they can't debuff things safely.

As long as Dazzling Staff exists, staves will always be better than daggers for support and damage output.

 

20 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

In other words, Armored Jakob really wanted to be a dagger unit to fix the whole class.

You don't fix a class by giving it one viable unit. You fix a class by making its members more viable as a whole.

 

2 minutes ago, Johann said:

Putting Frederick and Catria as 4* Focus units (even if not 5*) would make it more interesting, and certainly more useful if you actually wanted Luna for whatever reason.

What do you think this is, Fate/Grand Order?

I'll give them a year for the courier to swim there and let them know that that's a thing.

[Lewyn]

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

"Bow level" is still terrible in the current state of the game.

Jakob is the one exception, but that's because armors are good, not bows.

 

The problem with daggers is the fact that they can't kill things safely or effectively and they can't debuff things safely.

As long as Dazzling Staff exists, staves will always be better than daggers for support and damage output.

 

You don't fix a class by giving it one viable unit. You fix a class by making its members more viable as a whole.

 

What do you think this is, Fate/Grand Order?

I'll give them a year for the courier to swim there and let them know that that's a thing.

What about WF Hinoka, Bridelia, and Bow Lyn?

For daggers, Spring Kagero can fly, there isn't any healer that can do that yet (though they have horses and daggers don't).  Also +atk vangage close counter Jaffer?  

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, Lewyn said:

What about WF Hinoka, Bridelia, and Bow Lyn?

Hinoka and Lyn require movement-type buffs to function, and even with full movement-type buffs (+6/6/6/6), perform worse than Jakob with no buffs at all.

Cordelia is out of the question if Lyn is already out-performed by Jakob this badly.

 

11 minutes ago, Lewyn said:

For daggers, Spring Kagero can fly, there isn't any healer that can do that yet (though they have horses and daggers don't).

Kagero dies to a stiff breeze, and pretty much every (non-dagger, non-Azama) unit that can counterattack at range hits harder than a stiff breeze.

Staff users can attack and debuff without risk of ever taking damage, have arguably better debuffs at their disposal, and have arguably better support options.

 

17 minutes ago, Lewyn said:

Also +atk vangage close counter Jaffer?

With only 44 Atk (not including Sacred Seal)? That's cute.

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

"Bow level" is still terrible in the current state of the game.

Jakob is the one exception, but that's because armors are good, not bows.

Firesweep Bow is great. Brave Bow is still pretty decent until you see lots of dragons.

They can put in Blade Bows if they want to give bows viable alternative offensive options.

30 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Hinoka and Lyn require movement-type buffs to function, and even with full movement-type buffs (+6/6/6/6), perform worse than Jakob with no buffs at all.

Cordelia is out of the question if Lyn is already out-performed by Jakob this badly.

Hinoka's extra mobility is more valuable than TOD!Jakob's better combat performance in my opinion. With Firesweep Bow, the extra mobility helps a lot. Requiring buffs also is not a big deal since you would be running a Dancer/Singer who can provide 4/4/0/0 (6/6/0/0 is more ideal, but not necessary) anyways if you are running a Player Phase team.

BH!Lyn's 3 extra move is also really good, but with the introduction of trenches, her mobility advantage is not as great as it used to be, so I think she and TOD!Jakob are about the same.

BB!Cordelia as an infantry unit has the worse mobility, so I would rank her last out of the four.

Edited July 7, 2018 by XRay

[Baldrick]

45 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

With only 44 Atk (not including Sacred Seal)? That's cute.

I think the idea would be to give him double Savage Blow and atk buffing teammates. The dagger debuff would help as well. Probably clutch for cheesing certain maps/enemies.

[Ice Dragon]

4 minutes ago, XRay said:

Firesweep Bow is great.

Firesweep Bow no longer has the punch it needs to break through bulky units, especially since it can't take advantage of weapon triangle advantage to pad its damage output. Dancing a unit to secure a single kill is strictly inferior to dancing a unit to grab two kills.

And Gravity does pretty much the same thing Firesweep Bow does, but way better because you can afford to substitute out the dancer for taking more turns (since the enemy advances on you half as fast).

 

6 minutes ago, XRay said:

Brave Bow is still pretty decent until you see lots of dragons.

That's kind of a big problem these days.

 

7 minutes ago, XRay said:

Hinoka's extra mobility is more valuable than TOD!Jakob's better combat performance in my opinion.

The gap in their mobility is almost entirely closed by Armor March, which is entirely the reason why Jakob isn't running stat buffs.

Giving up Attack +3 for Armored Boots still puts Jakob far ahead of buffed Hinoka and on par with buffed Lyn.

 

1 minute ago, Baldrick said:

I think the idea would be to give him double Savage Blow and atk buffing teammates. The dagger debuff would help as well. Probably clutch for cheesing certain maps/enemies.

The problem is that he can only safely initiate against tome users (he can't Windsweep because Vantage is taking that slot), which makes him extremely unreliable. He is completely sidelined in any match without an enemy tome user or where the enemy tome user is running around the back spamming Rallies.

It's the same reason that Lysol is a pretty lackluster weapon. If the opponent is running tons of buffs, it's great, but if they aren't, it's completely useless.

[Baldrick]

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

It's the same reason that Lysol is a pretty lackluster weapon. If the opponent is running tons of buffs, it's great, but if they aren't, it's completely useless.

So only use him when he's suited to fighting the opponent? The only mode where you can't anticipate the enemy team is Arena, and daggers are mediocre by default there.

[DehNutCase]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

"Bow level" is still terrible in the current state of the game.

Jakob is the one exception, but that's because armors are good, not bows.

How is Jakob getting the reach for combat without support? In terms of pure simulator numbers, higher BST = better, but Jakob needs either someone glued to him for armor march or else a reposition bot to lug his 1-move ass around.

Edit: If you use armored boots it means you're accepting the fact that Jakob stops being a unit the moment someones hits him.

Double Edit: And if you're worried about turn count while Hinoka or Bow Lyn is running circles around the enemy team. No need. Unlike armors, they can run circles for days. It takes a very strange map for Bow Hinoka or Lyn to not have all the time in the world to finish a team.

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

The problem with daggers is the fact that they can't kill things safely or effectively and they can't debuff things safely.

As long as Dazzling Staff exists, staves will always be better than daggers for support and damage output.

Regarding Dazzling Staff---staff users can't use reposition. It's not noticeable when you're chasing pure arena score, because armor units can't really use reposition well, but not being able to carry the best support skill (other than dance) in the game is kind of bad for a support unit.

Daggers even have a dancer, too.

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

You don't fix a class by giving it one viable unit. You fix a class by making its members more viable as a whole.

That's kind of impossible given that the entire design of daggers functions on the idea that debuffs are worth stat points and unit-turns. They're worth stats because dagger users are all ranged (in addition to dagger's lower than usual MT), and they're worth unit-turns because you have to hit something for them to debuff. That's not quite right, of course, but they're designed based on that assumption.

You need either free BST from somewhere or else a ranged Galeforce.

(So, you know, a -blade dagger would work quite well, because -blade effects are free BST.)

Edited July 7, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Zeo]

@Xenomata Just hold on to him. Maybe at some point you'll take an interest and build him. If not Rogue Dagger+ is certainly an intresting weapon worthy of putting on a dagger unit if you come across one that suits your fancy. As for Matthew. He wants Close Counter and a partner to get the best out of him. It's a good deal of investment and if you aren't interested you can always just slap Fury on him and call it a day as a tanky chip damage unit.

[Baldrick]

2 minutes ago, Zeo said:

It's a good deal of investment and if you aren't interested you can always just slap Fury on him and call it a day as a tanky chip damage unit.

I got a -atk 4* version, gave him Fortress skills and use him as a designated training buddy.

[Zeo]

24 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

I got a -atk 4* version, gave him Fortress skills and use him as a designated training buddy.

I have a +SPD/-HP version. I gave him +8 Merges, Close Counter, Summoner Support and a designated team and turned him into a moving fortress of death and also my signature unit.

 

[Baldrick]

 

1 minute ago, Zeo said:

I have a +SPD/-HP version. I gave him +8 Merges, Close Counter, Summoner Support and a designated team and turned him into a moving fortress of death and also my signature unit.

 

Looks like you win this Matt-Off.

[Zeo]

1 minute ago, Baldrick said:

Looks like you win this Matt-Off.

I was born for this moment.

Also shameless plugging. This is what "bottom of the barrel" looks like.

Spoiler

 

Any unit in this game can be good with investment, and that doesn't necessarily mean Summoner Support. So don't be afraid to deck out units you like. You'll never regret it.

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

So only use him when he's suited to fighting the opponent? The only mode where you can't anticipate the enemy team is Arena, and daggers are mediocre by default there.

... I felt it was unnecessary to mention that I was ignoring non-Arena game modes, but I guess I was wrong.

There's no point in rating characters in PvE on fixed maps or Arena Assault where you know beforehand what opponents will appear. Saying that Jaffar deserves special mention for a build that counters a very specific enemy composition because he does that build extremely well is like saying Tobin should deserve special mention for being able to demolish mono-green armor teams with Triangle Adept and Armorslayer.

But for every one specific team composition these units work well against, better characters have a dozen more. There's no point to comparing characters with their best builds against the absolute best of situations. If you show up for a test in class because you know you'll ace it and no-show for all of the other tests, you still fail the class. It would be damned nice if your GPA was just the highest grade you got that semester, but that's not how it works.

The only way to meaningfully compare characters is to subject them to the same situations and see how they fare across those situations.

 

12 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

How is Jakob getting the reach for combat without support? In terms of pure simulator numbers, higher BST = better, but Jakob needs either someone glued to him for armor march or else a reposition bot to lug his 1-move ass around.

And Lyn and Hinoka need someone glued to them for Hone Cavalry or Hone Fliers (or other buffs) because they are entirely dependent on buffs for their combat performance.

And as I mentioned above, Jakob can sacrifice his Sacred Seal slot for Armored Boots and run around on his own and still have the same performance as Lyn with someone glued to her.

 

15 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Regarding Dazzling Staff---staff users can't use reposition. It's not noticeable when you're chasing pure arena score, because armor units can't really use reposition well, but not being able to carry the best support skill (other than dance) in the game is kind of bad for a support unit.

Daggers even have a dancer, too.

Which is irrelevant because the staff user's primary support skill is in their weapon slot. They don't actually need to carry an Assist skill at all except for points because they're the ones that need to be targeted by Assist skills and not the other way around.

The fact that they have functional Assist skills at all on top of having their support skill in a different slot is just icing on the cake.

 

22 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

That's kind of impossible given that the entire design of daggers functions on the idea that debuffs are worth stat points and unit-turns.

That's not impossible because the idea that debuffs are worth stat points and unit-turns is not incompatible with the idea that the debuffs they currently have are not worth enough stat points and unit-turns to be worth using.

In particular,

1. Debuffs are worth zero if you can't safely apply them.
2. Debuffs are worth zero if you can't reliably take advantage of them after they are applied.

These two points are exactly what daggers do wrong and staves do right. Staff debuffs can be safely applied due to the existence of Dazzling Staff. Gravity+ is a debuff that is taken advantage of simply by moving backwards a step. Pain+ is a debuff with an effectively permanent duration, meaning you don't have to perform an action on the same turn to take advantage of it.

[Baldrick]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

There's no point in rating characters in PvE on fixed maps or Arena Assault where you know beforehand what opponents will appear. Saying that Jaffar deserves special mention for a build that counters a very specific enemy composition because he does that build extremely well is like saying Tobin should deserve special mention for being able to demolish mono-green armor teams with Triangle Adept and Armorslayer.

Jaffar can safely initiate unless every unit can counter and kill him. Do you genuinely believe that mono green armour teams are equally common?

 

EDIT: In any kind of competitive arena discussion, score is the most important consideration. I'll leave it up to your imagination as to why discussing daggers automatically means we're not considering competitive arena.

EDIT2: What is even the point of comparing H!Jakob to other bow users, if you are really ignoring non-Arena modes? In Arena, they won't be in the same situation.

Edited July 7, 2018 by Baldrick

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

And Lyn and Hinoka need someone glued to them for Hone Cavalry or Hone Fliers (or other buffs) because they are entirely dependent on buffs for their combat performance.

Actually, they only need it for the matchups where they wouldn't win without Hone.

As an example, I often use Cordelia for combat without putting Cordelia next to Flying Azura at the start of turn. Why? Because, in those particular combats, she doesn't need them. And, when she does need the buffs, she has a far easier time flying to meet up with Azura than Jakob has walking to his reposition bot/armor march partner. (This is why I value horse support extremely highly, incidentally. Armors love being lugged around by a reposition horse, because horses have the mobility to spare to meet up with their buff partner.)

 

Lyn and Hinoka would like someone on the team with buffs, but they don't need to be glued to each other. That's the main difference between Hone and March. If you don't have hone this turn, you can get it later, if you don't have march this turn, you'll have a hell of a time trying to nab it with 1 move. It also helps that Hinoka has Flying Azura access, who can provide 6/6/5/6 buffs quite reasonably. (Hone, Earth Dance, Res Tactic, we're ignoring Hagoita's Def/Res Drive.)

There's no one even remotely close to that in terms of supporting armors. The best you get is another armor with C-slot armor march and S-slot Def or Res Tactic, and maybe Hagoita as a weapon.

Edit: Although I guess you can have Jakob carry armor march, and the armor 'support' carry Hone Armor and Def/Res link, and, I don't know, shove. It'll be pretty hilarious trying to run that set, considering how much mobility support the rest of your team needs to carry for it to work.

 

You can also support Hinoka with someone like Spring Camilla, or Lyn with Reinhardt. Even if neither Spring Camilla or Reinhardt carries a buff skill. Because they can just straight up kill the person their partner can't deal with, and then their partner can reposition them back.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

And as I mentioned above, Jakob can sacrifice his Sacred Seal slot for Armored Boots and run around on his own and still have the same performance as Lyn with someone glued to her.

I prefer my armored unit to remain a unit even after taking a single hit, seeing how even Hinoka can occasionally survive counters.

Bringing a healer to fix the whole 100% hp for boots issue still leaves you with the fact that you need a support unit. (It's a bit better, seeing how you only need the healer when Jakob is damaged, but it also lowers your team's mobility a bit, for carrying a healing assist rather than dance or reposition.)

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Which is irrelevant because the staff user's primary support skill is in their weapon slot. They don't actually need to carry an Assist skill at all except for points because they're the ones that need to be targeted by Assist skills and not the other way around.

The fact that they have functional Assist skills at all on top of having their support skill in a different slot is just icing on the cake.

I mark people's support capabilities based on how much support they give subtracted by how much support they take.

 

Armors are a black hole in this respect, giving almost 0 support while requiring tremendous amounts.

 

Horses are the exact opposite, they provide excellent support even in Combined-Arms teams, while taking minimal support to function themselves.

Yes, they won't reach the same level of combat performance without buff support, but they can choose between buff support or offensive complement support. I.e. you can support Reinhardt with Cordelia because things that don't fold to Reinhardt tend to fold to Cordelia. Two excellent offensive units support each other because, assuming you didn't pick two that beat the exact same things, the units one unit can't deal with, the other can.

Armors are harder to use with offensive complement support because they have a harder time picking fights. Where Reinhardt Tome can support Reinhardt Sword by picking off the unit in the front of the enemy lineup to open up the back line, Bow Jakob has a hell of a time supporting Hardin or Amelia, because even after he clears the front of the lineup, it's not certain Hardin has the mobility to actually reach the back line.

 

Fliers are identical to horses in this respect, and what they lose in sheer mobility, they gain in consistency and dancer access.

Fliers are never unfavored by a given map, for the simple reason they care the least about terrain. Add that to the fact that Flying Azura and Ninan exists, and you have one hell of a unit type.

 

Healers are a class that do not give mobility support, but require mobility support. Their combat support abilities are quite high, but then, so is Bow Lyn's (shooting a high res, low def guy dead counts as combat support for your mages), and she gives reposition support on top of that. Mind, they do provide healing support, which is certainly unique and impactful, but not to the point where they're better supports than people providing mobility support, like dancers or reposition users.

Just different.

(And dance is impactful to the point where it's better than healing or mobility support, because it gives your sweeper extra skill slots without costing unit-turns. Dance actually generates half a unit-turn, because it costs your action but not your movement. 6/6/5/6 from Flying Azura is almost insane, and 6/6/5/4 is still quite amazing, even ignoring a weapon slot's buffing abilities.)

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

That's not impossible because the idea that debuffs are worth stat points and unit-turns is not incompatible with the idea that the debuffs they currently have are not worth enough stat points and unit-turns to be worth using.

In particular,

1. Debuffs are worth zero if you can't safely apply them.
2. Debuffs are worth zero if you can't reliably take advantage of them after they are applied.

These two points are exactly what daggers do wrong and staves do right. Staff debuffs can be safely applied due to the existence of Dazzling Staff. Gravity+ is a debuff that is taken advantage of simply by moving backwards a step. Pain+ is a debuff with an effectively permanent duration, meaning you don't have to perform an action on the same turn to take advantage of it.

The problem is fixing these problems 'fairly.' As I've mentioned, -blade daggers would probably fix the class instantly in terms of viability, but it just creates another problem.

Death is the best debuff, and a damn lot of units make their living applying it.

 

If you strengthen debuffs to the point where they're stronger than just straight up killing one unit, then you have a horribly overpowered mess of a unit type. (Like, a -10 all stats debuff in an AoE is very much a living dream. Just send Vantage CC Gunnthra in to sweep the whole team for free, hell, you probably don't even need someone like her, anyone with Vantage CC or DC can probably do it.)

But if it's weaker than straight up killing a unit... why bother?

 

Gravity is probably at that point of being stronger than straight up killing a unit. Players don't have issues with it---at least, not enough to matter, given that you can counter-play it reasonably---but it breaks AI teams. That is, I consider Gravity the same kind of 'fix' as giving -blade to daggers, basically switching one problem for another, although I will agree that it's better to have overpowered offense team units than defense team units, so it's not too big of an issue.

Panic and Pain are nice, but if we removed AoE gravity from staves, healer support would be something only teams that actually need healing should afford. You can probably still run healers in arena teams, since there's a pretty large excess of team strength available versus team strength needed to clear an arena match, but they wouldn't be optimal.

 

Edit: A big problem in how much debuffs are worth is that their value in terms of unit-turns are measured relative to the strongest sweeper's unit turn. That is, if, say, there's a freaky 50 Atk/50 Spd sword horse with 2CD Galeforce, your debuffer needs to be at least reasonably close to that overpowered mess to be worth running.

Edited July 7, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Hilda]

The problem with dagger (and to an extend bow) useris: Dragon refine should have never happened or be restricted against Tome users only. Bold fighter being s broken skill makeing close counter moot. And the biggest hurdle: wind and waterseep, imho watersweep shoukd hace been sgainst ranged and wind against close combat without the restriction of not being able to follow up.

With that being said i think what daggers lack are 2-3 exclusiv Class skills or a remake of auto built in close counter. That way they can Take advantage of their debuffs and kill the enemy on enemyphase once they got weakened in playerphase without giving up bulk on the A-Slot

Edited July 7, 2018 by Hilda

[Ice Dragon]

24 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

Jaffar can safely initiate unless every unit can counter and kill him.

Which most units can and where his debuffs simply aren't enough to push wins.

+2 Jaffar [+Atk] (Deathly Dagger [unique], Moonbow, Close Counter, Vantage 3, Attack +3) +4/4/4/4 has 55-141-1 against Arcticsilverfox's Hard List set to +5 merge and +3/3/3/3 buffs when the order of combat is set to Jaffar attacks followed by enemy attacks if still alive.

That's actually kind of sad when considering +2 Robin (M) [+Atk, -Res] (Blarowl+ [Def] (2), Bonfire, Close Counter, Quick Riposte 3) +4/0/4/0 has 69-85-43 with only the enemy initiating.

 

24 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

Do you genuinely believe that mono green armour teams are equally common?

They were the only thing at the top of the Arena last autumn, actually. I was seriously considering building Tobin for that particular job until Winter's Envoy finally added non-green armors to the enemy pool.

Tobin didn't deserve a mention back then, and Jaffar doesn't deserve a mention now.

 

27 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

In any kind of competitive arena discussion, score is the most important consideration.

Score stops mattering once you get high enough. I'm currently running a team of four launch characters with skills optimized for performance instead of score and can still afford to take two deaths and stay in Tier 20.

You can bounce between Tiers 19 and 20 with a moderately merged team built for performance instead of score, and that appears to be sufficient for most free-to-play competitive players I see in the Arena thread.

 

3 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

And, when she does need the buffs, she has a far easier time flying to meet up with Azura than Jakob has walking to his reposition bot/armor march partner.

In theory, yes. In practice, no. Armors function best in their death blob, so there would be no reason to separate them in the first place.

And if there's only one armor on your team, you probably have THREE Reposition bots (or two and a dancer if you still rely on those). It's not hard to just chuck your armor around the map.

 

4 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

There's no one even remotely close to that in terms of supporting armors. The best you get is another armor with C-slot armor march and S-slot Def or Res Tactic, and maybe Hagoita as a weapon.

Considering Jakob needs zero stat buff support to surpass Lyn and Hinoka with +6/6/6/6, it doesn't matter that he can't get that many stats from team support because he simply doesn't need it.

 

6 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I prefer my armored unit to remain a unit even after taking a single hit, seeing how even Hinoka can occasionally survive counters.

An armor doesn't need to leave the front lines once they get there. If Armored Boots is no longer active, your armor is already where it needs to be.

 

9 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Armors are a black hole in this respect, giving almost 0 support while requiring tremendous amounts.

I assume you still don't use fully built armors often enough to make accurate comments about them.

Armors don't need "tremendous amounts" of support. In fact, because their base stats are already so high and they have access to the most powerful skills in the game, they only need mobility support to function on a mixed team, and even that can now simply be built into them with Armored Boots.

With two armors on the team, you're only losing out on one skill slot worth of support that's needed for Armor March.

The amount of support necessary is even smaller once you have a larger number of armors on your team. The primary reason you would want mobility support in the first place is to make sure the armors can keep up with the rest of your army, but when your army is exclusively armor, there's no one else they need to keep up with.

 

 

19 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

The problem is fixing these problems 'fairly.' As I've mentioned, -blade daggers would probably fix the class instantly in terms of viability, but it just creates another problem.

Death is the best debuff, and a damn lot of units make their living applying it.

 

If you strengthen debuffs to the point where they're stronger than just straight up killing one unit, then you have a horribly overpowered mess of a unit type. (Like, a -10 all stats debuff in an AoE is very much a living dream. Just send Vantage CC Gunnthra in to sweep the whole team for free, hell, you probably don't even need someone like her, anyone with Vantage CC or DC can probably do it.)

But if it's weaker than straight up killing a unit... why bother?

You talk of solving the problem fairly and then simply assume that it's not possible. Or at least that's the impression you're giving me because you then go on and on about how to fail at it rather than how to succeed at it.

Debuffs don't need to be stronger than killing a unit to be viable, and you don't even need to change the strength of the debuff. I literally just enumerated the things that daggers fail to deliver on in making their debuffs successful. They need to be able to apply their debuffs more reliably, and they need those debuffs to be more easily taken advantage of.

There are a number of things that can be done to make daggers more successful simply by addressing these two issues. Here are a few examples of possible skill effects that specifically don't overlap with what staves have:

• When initiating combat, apply a percentage damage reduction to the opponent's first attack.
• Debuffs last through the opponents' next 2 or 3 actions.
• If there are 2 or more opponents within 2 squares of the target, unit can move again after combat a maximum of once per turn. (I.e. Galeforce if the debuff hits enough enemies.)
• If there are no opponents adjacent to the target, target cannot counterattack.
  • I would love to see this effect paired with the one immediately above it in one skill.

[Troykv]

This conversation reminded me why 4-Star banners died; and why non-5 Star Units only appears in Bond Banners and VG Banners...

Because people are sick of them.

(Specially the guy that got the Matthew 5 Star and was upset for the fact it was a 5 Star Matthew)

Edited July 7, 2018 by Troykv

[Baldrick]

 

 

Quote

Score stops mattering once you get high enough. I'm currently running a team of four launch characters with skills optimized for performance instead of score and can still afford to take two deaths and stay in Tier 20.

If you didn't score that high, you wouldn't have that kind of margin.

Edited July 7, 2018 by Baldrick

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I hope they add a dagger exclusive B skill that voids counterattacks at no penalty. Or at least an HP threshold if you want it to be a three tiered skill. If dagger units could get their debuffs in with no fear of QR murderers then they wouldn't have to choose between the sweep skills and hope to god they have enough speed to use them. They could also add a new dagger weapon with this effect, but then we'd lose the versatility of existing dagger options. The Buff/Debuff combo of Rogue, the Smoke Everything of Smoke Daggers, or damage potential of poison or barb shurikens. If there were a "dazzling dagger", then everybody would go for the same build with few variations despite wildly different stats.

[Humanoid]

Just merge bows and daggers. All the weapons keep their existing properties, but if you want to equip a Guard Bow on Matthew or a Poison Dagger on Virion, go for it.

[mampfoid]

Since the schedule is at its end with Tuesdays banner, what's up next? TTs I guess? Seasonal TTs would be nice. 

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

In theory, yes. In practice, no. Armors function best in their death blob, so there would be no reason to separate them in the first place.

And if there's only one armor on your team, you probably have THREE Reposition bots (or two and a dancer if you still rely on those). It's not hard to just chuck your armor around the map.

 

Considering Jakob needs zero stat buff support to surpass Lyn and Hinoka with +6/6/6/6, it doesn't matter that he can't get that many stats from team support because he simply doesn't need it.

That's the three reposition bots being good, that Jakob is able to get around.

That's what it means to be able to support. Jakob can't be that reposition bot is why I rate him poorly as a unit.

 

Jakob surpasses Lyn and Hinoka in combat without support, Jakob never even gets close to a fraction of Lyn and Hinoka's support ability.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

An armor doesn't need to leave the front lines once they get there. If Armored Boots is no longer active, your armor is already where it needs to be.

An armor can't leave the front lines once they get there, you mean. Even something as simple as moving diagonally and attacking, so that someone else can take the space you just vacated, is impossible for an armor without support.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

I assume you still don't use fully built armors often enough to make accurate comments about them.

Armors don't need "tremendous amounts" of support. In fact, because their base stats are already so high and they have access to the most powerful skills in the game, they only need mobility support to function on a mixed team, and even that can now simply be built into them with Armored Boots.

With two armors on the team, you're only losing out on one skill slot worth of support that's needed for Armor March.

The amount of support necessary is even smaller once you have a larger number of armors on your team. The primary reason you would want mobility support in the first place is to make sure the armors can keep up with the rest of your army, but when your army is exclusively armor, there's no one else they need to keep up with.

We're probably assessing units on different standards, is the problem. In terms of sheer arena point generation, I'll agree armors are the best units there are. They're so good, in fact, that a weaponless +10 armor would be better than a perfectly built Reinhardt at +0, even if Reinhardt had access to a Horse Dancer. It wouldn't even be close, the armor would crush it. In fact, a team of three of those potates and one actual unit that does all the fighting would be a better team than just about everything Flier, Horse, Infantry, or Combined Arms without Armors could field. And very definitely better than anything those teams could field at +0 merges.

 

The problem is that a team like that is god awful by the standards I usually use for a team or a unit. The main reason armors win is because they drag their enemies 'up' to their level. Mobility is the first thing to go as you go higher and higher in score---first Horse emblem loses Camus and Xander and Ursula, who can't be merged up very highly, and then horse and ranged units and dancers slowly disappear because they don't score very well.

The reason you don't need mobility in armor emblem is because the enemies don't have it either, so you don't give a damn. Ordinarily a mobility disadvantage means the enemy team gets to pick their fights, meaning it'll be the enemy Reinhardt smacking your Alfonse to death with no counter play, but a fully merged armor team will basically never run into an Reinhardt. It's dragons and armors having a melee range slugfest (if we ignore the odd W!Tharja and the like), and I'll agree you don't need mobility for that.

Gravity shines like crazy up there because there's no risk of a dancer clearing the gravity off Bow Lyn and Bow Lyn instantly sniping your healer, even if you aren't good enough at AI prediction to know who she's going to dance. Hell, like you've said, you can tank deaths because you have so much score to spare that playing a match perfectly doesn't even matter.

 

That's not how I want to rate units. I don't want to rate units on how they'd fight against a small subset of the possible teams that can be made, I want to rate units how they'd perform versus an essentially random, but hopefully well constructed team of units, even if the enemy team is under the penalty of AI control.

 

I want to rate units, in other words, in a way that actually matters for people who want to use units like Camus (who can't nab very many points), like Green Tome F!Robin, like Reinhardt. I want to rate units in a way that doesn't make Aether the best special just because it's the thing that's worth 500 points.

Reinhardt would demolish the teams that make up the highest scoring teams in arena, because he already destroys the less merged variants in the lower tiers, but he'll never score high enough to actually fight those losers. Slightly less than 4 magical bulk (you get +4 all stats, including hp, so 4 extra bulk, but also lose 1.2 or so things like Moonbows or Bonfires or whatever being a bit stronger) is not going to change why Reinhardt destroys low mobility teams.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

You talk of solving the problem fairly and then simply assume that it's not possible. Or at least that's the impression you're giving me because you then go on and on about how to fail at it rather than how to succeed at it.

Debuffs don't need to be stronger than killing a unit to be viable, and you don't even need to change the strength of the debuff. I literally just enumerated the things that daggers fail to deliver on in making their debuffs successful. They need to be able to apply their debuffs more reliably, and they need those debuffs to be more easily taken advantage of.

There are a number of things that can be done to make daggers more successful simply by addressing these two issues. Here are a few examples of possible skill effects that specifically don't overlap with what staves have:

• When initiating combat, apply a percentage damage reduction to the opponent's first attack.
• Debuffs last through the opponents' next 2 or 3 actions.
• If there are 2 or more opponents within 2 squares of the target, unit can move again after combat a maximum of once per turn. (I.e. Galeforce if the debuff hits enough enemies.)
• If there are no opponents adjacent to the target, target cannot counterattack.
  • I would love to see this effect paired with the one immediately above it in one skill.

When broken things are already in the game, for something to be successful, it needs to be broken. A unit is competing against every other unit that can take its spot.

Incidentally, while I don't consider daggers strong, I also don't consider them weak to the point of non-inclusion. Reposition + 2 move mobility is already 2 or 3 out of 10 for me, and daggers have way better options than that. Even ignoring Olivia, I'd say a lot of them break the 6/10 range. For reference, I consider a 20 point arena team 'good enough' to do a 5 win run with---it'll be like pulling hair, because I'll need to play with nearly no mistakes, but it'll be doable.

That's why I insist that daggers have to be broken to be successful. Because, yeah, basically all the units in the game are strong enough to be included in an arena team, but the actual amazing ones are kind of busted, and a 'successful' unit is competing against them, rather than the 5/10 score which is where they'd be strong enough not to drag down a team.

 

There are some god damn busted units in the 9/10 and 10/10 range.

Even Reinhardt doesn't make 10/10, for me, because he doesn't have access to horse dancer support.* (A horse dancer would be almost an instant 10/10, however. Class Buff access and dance and better than infantry mobility is kind of absurd even if you have the combat of a level 1 trainee.)

*He's still the strongest and most flexible unit in the game, in my opinion, but his mere existence is probably a strong reminder that you shouldn't give horse emblem a dancer option.

 

I realize I'm being very rude now, though, since you're trying to figure out how to fix daggers and I'm saying there's already enough broken units, more or less.

 

Regarding your suggestions. The problem with things like giving daggers better ways to apply debuffs or better debuffs is that, if you don't give them an truly absurd level of those things, I don't see them changing much from their current 'meh, it's not Reinhardt' status.

Like, giving every dagger a watersweep and windsweep refine options, that preferably don't remove doubling, is a great way to bump up their usability, but it won't be nearly enough to bump them to the 9/10 range. (Aside from Olivia, who's already there.) It might bump the one-sided people up to 7/10 or 8/10, though. Like Felicia might take windsweep (if dragons didn't exist), and Saizo could take watersweep. 

 

An attack debuff, for example, is more or less an hp buff on your units. Melee offensive units get a lot of hp on demand from refine options, since they give +5 hp for a generic refine. A 30% debuff to damage is quite, quite good, but chipping a unit to 2HKO or OHKO range accomplishes something almost strictly better, since dead people don't counter. (Firesweep bows, Pains, and the like.)

It's that whole economics thing of substitute goods kicking in, more hp isn't exactly an attack debuff, but it's close enough that it lowers the demand of attack debuffs, same for people who provide excellent, reliable chip damage.

 

Long duration debuffs are interesting, and probably very useful, but... if your team is mobile enough to get a single free hit off, why couldn't it get 2 hits off, or 3, and just wipe the enemy team from attrition? (The Reinhardt + Bow Lyn combo is very good at this. They cover each other's weaknesses in terms of combat and, in the worst case that nothing can be ORKOd, Bow Lyn can chip a few rounds while everyone is running circles in the arena map. Anyone mobile enough to catch up wouldn't be bulky enough to survive both Rein and Lyn. Basically the Atk+Spd choice where you force an OHKO or a double, except on the tactical scale, so you're forcing either ORKOs or low mobility.)

 

And regarding the once per thing on the anti-Galeforce buff... if a Galeforce unit got 2 unit-turns, aren't you pretty fucked already? A straight up 'no second turns' debuff neuters dancers, sure, but you're trading a definite inclusion of a dagger unit against the possible inclusion of a dancer, so honestly it's not even busted, merely... consistent.

It's not great, but it does put a hard cap on how strong the enemy team can be, since you remove dance from the equation. (Assuming the enemy doesn't have some wonky dancer + staff user team that also carries restore.)

 

The less reliable something is, the stronger something has to be, so for dagger debuffs to be viable they have to be stronger than staff debuffs. A no-counter with strict requirements (or even loose requirements like windsweep or watersweep, considering how fast daggers are), is a lot worse than a straight up no-counter with a small demerit. Demerits don't cost you reliability, so things with demerits are often quite bloody strong. That or they're just never used.

With windsweep and watersweep as the baseline of reliability---50% reliable---you'll want debuffs twice as good as gravity for dagger debuffs to be worth it over healer debuffs.

I already consider gravity a busted debuff, something twice as good would be good to the point where you can include a watersweep dagger, a windsweep dagger, and just straight up sweep teams with that pair.

However, if it's not twice as good... then you can't bring two daggers, you probably can't even bring one, because they're sufficiently niche that you would be better off taking the less powerful, but more reliable debuff of staves. (Or you could just run a strong damage unit in that slot, of course.)

 

Thinking about it, one problem about daggers is that they don't complement well.

They don't have pairs like Atk + Spd where, if you have enough bulk to survive, you're getting doubled and such. They can't complement via -Atk/-Spd and -Def/-Res debuffs because if you can get 2 free hits to stack both sides of buffs, you can damn well get 2 free hits in with an actual damage unit and just wipe the enemy team. A physical unit and a magical unit forces a very hard check on the enemy unit's bulk. A dagger + some other unit forces basically... nothing, it feels like. Either the dagger's busted alone or else it's not too great in a pair up.

Well, a dagger isn't completely useless in a pair up, but more it doesn't do anything another class couldn't do better. Like, sure, you can do a dagger + mage offensive duo, but why not have a bow unit in that slot?