Fire Emblem Heroes General Discussion and Links

[Vaximillian]

6 minutes ago, Othin said:

Eliwood gained a mount on promotion and has one in this game, while Seliph, Eirika, and Ephraim all gain mounts on promotion and don't have them in this game. So clearly, it can go one way or the other.

I mean, you can't really argue for Lachesis lacking a horse and Eliwood having one with their promotions in their original games.
This stuff is inconsistent here,

1 minute ago, Anacybele said:

I don't get why they don't bother adding light tomes, especially when Micaiah exists.

Now that I look at Lon'qu again, I'm thinking he just needs a better special. Glimmer sucks on him with his lowish attack. But I don't have anymore skill fodder after dumping so much on my 5 star guys...

Yeah, them not having added any light tomes is absolutely baffling. Julia should've used light tomes, not wind. And so on.

To be quite frank, Glimmer and Astra suck on everybody because of how their damage is calculated. They either overkill when the unit's Atk is already high enough or tink when it's not high enough. There was a suggestion on the forums to repurpose Glimmer and Astra, to have them be Spd-powered analogues of Bonfire/Ignis and Iceberg/Glacies.

Edited May 7, 2017 by Vaximillian

[Othin]

1 minute ago, Anacybele said:

I don't get why they don't bother adding light tomes, especially when Micaiah exists.

I told you there were inconsistencies. Though I do think Eliwood's mounted version is a bit more well known than those other three.

Now that I look at Lon'qu again, I'm thinking he just needs a better special. Glimmer sucks on him with his lowish attack. But I don't have anymore skill fodder after dumping so much on my 5 star guys...

Yeah, I'm not sure why not either. Maybe sometime in the future?

And yeah, Eliwood does seem to be more well known for being mounted. One factor might be that his original playable appearance was in FE6, where he showed up as a Paladin in the Trial Maps, so technically, he really did start out as a mounted unit in his original game.

1 minute ago, Vaximillian said:

I mean, you can't really argue for Lachesis lacking a horse and Eliwood having one with their promotions in their original games.

My argument is that if a character starts as an infantry unit and then gains a mount upon promotion, it's fine for them to be depicted either as an infantry unit or a mounted unit. What exactly are you taking issue with?

[Ice Dragon]

23 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Lachesis was made an infantry healer despite apparently being more known as a mounted sword wielder.

Lachesis was an infantry sword and staff user before promotion.

 

23 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Lucius was made a healer despite being more known as a light magic wielder.

A large number of characters use weapon types that they can only use after promotion or that their class can only use in other games.

 

Point is there's no pattern to speak of in either direction. The only thing we're currently certain of is that any character with an endgame personal weapon (i.e. Rapier doesn't count) will most likely have that weapon for their first iteration.

 

13 minutes ago, Othin said:

There are like three characters that have weapon types distinctly different than the ones they're most known for, and over a hundred that have the weapon type they're most known for.

• Draug has access to swords only in FE1.
• Caeda has access to swords only when dismounted or after promotion depending on the game.
• Raven has access to axes only after promotion.
• Narcian never had access to axes. Justified only by dragon knights having axes in other games.
• Sheena never had access to axes. Justified only by armor knights having axes in other games.
• Julia has access to wind magic only after promotion.
• Faye never had access to bows. Period.
• Lucius has access to staves only after promotion.
• Eliwood has access to a horse only after promotion.
• Hector is armored only after promotion.
• Zephiel was never armored.
• Ninian could not use a dragonstone in gameplay.

Everything else, even Lachesis, is technically strict vanilla.

I'll overlook Matthew and Jaffar having daggers instead of swords.

Edited May 7, 2017 by Ice Dragon

[Vaximillian]

1 minute ago, Othin said:

My argument is that if a character starts as an infantry unit and then gains a mount upon promotion, it's fine for them to be depicted either as an infantry unit or a mounted unit. What exactly are you taking issue with?

Consistency, or rather lack thereof. FE7 is cited as Eliwood's origin game, not FE6.

[Anacybele]

4 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

To be quite frank, Glimmer and Astra suck on everybody because of how their damage is calculated. They either overkill when the unit's Atk is already high enough or tink when it's not high enough. There was a suggestion on the forums to repurpose Glimmer and Astra, to have them be Spd-powered analogues of Bonfire/Ignis and Iceberg/Glacies.

I think Astra is bad is because it takes too long to proc. 150% more damage is otherwise pretty good. But Glimmer and Astra using speed instead of attack would be nice, yeah.

[Othin]

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

 

• Draug has access to swords only in FE1.
• Caeda has access to swords only when dismounted or after promotion depending on the game.
• Raven has access to axes only after promotion.
• Narcian never had access to axes. Justified only by dragon knights having axes in other games.
• Sheena never had access to axes. Justified only by armor knights having axes in other games.
• Julia has access to wind magic only after promotion.
• Faye never had access to bows. Period.
• Lucius has access to staves only after promotion.
• Eliwood has access to a horse only after promotion.
• Hector is armored only after promotion.
• Zephiel was never armored.
• Ninian could not use a dragonstone in gameplay.

Everything else, even Lachesis, is technically strict vanilla.

I'll overlook Matthew and Jaffar having daggers instead of swords.

Fair.

Just now, Vaximillian said:

Consistency, or rather lack thereof. FE7 is cited as Eliwood's origin game, not FE6.

Then you should be arguing with the game developers, not me. "Characters who start as infantry units and become mounted upon promotion in their original games can either be infantry or mounted in Heroes" is a completely accurate description of how Heroes works, whether you like it or not.

[Vaximillian]

1 minute ago, Othin said:

Then you should be arguing with the game developers, not me. "Characters who start as infantry units and become mounted upon promotion in their original games can either be infantry or mounted in Heroes" is a completely accurate description of how Heroes works, whether you like it or not.

I'm arguing with you trying to define some consistent pattern with inter-game character translation where there is none.

[MaskedAmpharos]

29 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

And speaking of sword units, Lon'qu turned out to be useless, even with a good bane/boon combo. He doesn't stay alive at all. Or having a -Def bane isn't ideal at all for him despite the +Atk. Hana will have even lower defenses due to Life and Death, so I won't bother with her at all anymore either. So much for getting some actual speedsters...

Quite frankly, if either Lon'qu or Hana are getting hit at all, you aren't playing them properly. 

They're best played as quad Brave Desperation units who OHKO all of their opponents before their opponents can retaliate. Admittedly that does require a fair amount of inheritance on both of them, and I understand that you're unwilling to commit to them that far (and even if you were, I don't know if you have the skill fodder for that or not). I'll concede that neither of them are very good with vanilla skillsets. 

As for Glimmer/Astra, they're arguably the worst specials in the entire game because of how their damage is calculated. Either they do far less damage than if that character used another special or they do so much overkill damage that the enemy still could have been OHKOd with a different special of similar cd length. In other words, there's really no reason to ever use Glimmer/Astra over another skill. 

I believe @Ice Dragon did more in-depth calculations/analyses on them a while back, so I welcome him to correct me if I messed up somewhere. 

[Othin]

Just now, Vaximillian said:

I'm arguing with you trying to define some consistent pattern with inter-game character translation where there is none.

I didn't say there was a consistent pattern. I said that because Lachesis started out as an infantry unit, it was a reasonable option for her to be implemented as infantry. I never said making her a mounted unit would not have also been a reasonable option.

[Anacybele]

2 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

Quite frankly, if either Lon'qu or Hana are getting hit at all, you aren't playing them properly. 

They're best played as quad Brave Desperation units who OHKO all of their opponents before their opponents can retaliate. Admittedly that does require a fair amount of inheritance on both of them, and I understand that you're unwilling to commit to them that far (and even if you were, I don't know if you have the skill fodder for that or not). I'll concede that neither of them are very good with vanilla skillsets.

Um, except they're melee units. Who have the advantage over axes. And since they have to attack those directly, they will be hit. There's no avoiding this.

However, I will agree that Brave Swords would indeed be better on them than Killing Edges or Armorslayers. And it isn't that I'm unwilling to give them some inheritance, it's that I don't HAVE said inheritance to give them, like I said.

Edited May 7, 2017 by Anacybele

[MaskedAmpharos]

4 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Um, except they're melee units. Who have the advantage over axes. And since they have to attack those directly, they will be hit. There's no avoiding this.

However, I will agree that Brave Swords would indeed be better on them than Killing Edges or Armorslayers.

It's definitely avoidable. 

On enemy phase, you simply keep them out of range of anyone that would hit them. 

On player phase, usually if you double them:

• The normal pattern is attack -> enemy counterattack -> attack
• With a Brave weapon, if you can double them the pattern is attack -> attack -> enemy counterattack -> attack -> attack
• With a Brave Desperation build, the pattern is attack -> attack -> attack -> attack -> enemy counterattack

Since you're attacking four times before the enemy gets to counterattack, chances are that you'll kill them before they get a chance to hit you back. The fact that Hana and Lon'qu are two of the only sword users capable of running this quad build is what makes them so good with skill inheritance.

Edited May 7, 2017 by MaskedAmpharos

[LuxSpes]

6 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I think Astra is bad is because it takes too long to proc. 150% more damage is otherwise pretty good. But Glimmer and Astra using speed instead of attack would be nice, yeah.

Even with a lower cooldown, Astra would still be bad. 150% may sound good, but if you're dealing low damage, it won't help you and if you're doing high damage it's complete overkill. If my Sanaki had Astra and activated it against a Hector for example, she'd deal 88 damage instead of 59. With 59 damage, she already kills him, so 88 is overkill. If she activates it against Azura though, she'd deal 9 damage instead of 6, which is pitiful for a special skill. Compare this to Glacies, which is what I currently run on her and it's a flat 28 damage increase, which allows her to deal way more damage against blues who'd usually wall her. 

So yeah, Special skills that add a percentage of the damage you deal are just meh. The only reason I'd spend the SP to have a unit learn Astra is so that I can give them Galeforce.

[shadowofchaos]

6 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Um, except they're melee units. Who have the advantage over axes. And since they have to attack those directly, they will be hit. There's no avoiding this.

They're finishers and mage one rounders on vanilla builds.

On brave/desperation builds, they quad attack.

You really need to think before you say units are "useless". Because every time you've done so in this forum, someone has come out to pretty much say "you don't know how to use them properly".

Edited May 7, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Anacybele]

5 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

It's definitely avoidable.

I disagree. Since I still don't have any inheritance to give them, I can't even do what you're saying.

Edited May 7, 2017 by Anacybele

[MaskedAmpharos]

5 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I disagree. Since I still don't have any inheritance to give them, I can't even do what you're saying.

Sorry, I should have myself more clear. 

I'm simply arguing that they're definitely not at all useless in general. They may not be as useful for you because you don't have the fodder necessary to give them the skills and weapons that make them shine, but they aren't useless overall (maybe that's not what you meant, but it's what you sounded like you were saying). 

As for keeping them out of danger: once a player gets good enough with positioning, it is not at all uncommon to be able to consistently go entire games in Advanced arena without their dancers and other squishy characters taking even a single hit. It's not something particularly difficult or rare at all and in fact is something you're expected to be able to do at higher level arena.

Because if you can't do that much, then you won't survive in higher tier Arena even if all of your units are S-tier 5* +10 units with perfect natures and skills. After a point, the game becomes much less about the units you're using and more about the skill of the player using them. While I will concede that there will be defense teams that your team isn't equipped to handle, 9 times out of 10 if you lose a match, it's something you could have avoided if you were a better player, not because you don't have the right units. Two different people could play with the exact same team (everything from the skills to the natures of the units are all the exact same) and even fight the exact same opponents and one person could get a score of 4.7k while the second person may not even get above 4k simply because the first person is better at the game. 

Edited May 7, 2017 by MaskedAmpharos

[Rezzy]

27 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

• Zephiel was never armored.

I didn't realize that until now.  I don't think I ever tried to use armor-effective weapons against him.

[Ice Dragon]

10 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Um, except they're melee units. Who have the advantage over axes. And since they have to attack those directly, they will be hit. There's no avoiding this.

Escutcheon is a thing. As is Desperation.

 

As for Glimmer and Astra, the problem with them is that Draconic Aura and Dragon Fang are simply better for three reasons:

1. Almost any time that Glimmer and Astra are doing more damage than Draconic Aura and Dragon Fang, the enemy is dead regardless, so the extra damage didn't matter.
2. Any time that Glimmer and Astra are doing less damage than Draconic Aura and Dragon Fang, they are doing less damage than Draconic Aura and Dragon Fang.
3. Dragon Fang has a shorter cooldown than Astra.

 

5 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I disagree. Since I still don't have any inheritance to give them, I can't even do what you're saying.

Whether or not you have the resources to do so, Hana and Lon'qu can avoid getting hit by the enemy. Your Hana and your Lon'qu are not the only Hanas and Lon'qus in existence.

[Anacybele]

1 minute ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

Sorry, I should have myself more clear. 

I'm simply arguing that they're definitely not at all useless in general. They may not be as useful for you because you don't have the fodder necessary to give them the skills and weapons that make them shine, but they aren't useless overall (maybe that's not what you meant, but it's what you sounded like you were saying). 

As for keeping them out of danger: once a player gets good enough with positioning, it is not at all uncommon to be able to consistently go entire games in Advanced arena without their dancers and other squishy characters taking even a single hit. It's not something particularly difficult or rare at all and in fact is something you're expected to be able to do at higher level arena. Because if you can't do that much, then you won't survive in higher tier Arena even if all of your units are S-tier 5* +10 units with perfect natures and skills. 

Fine, fair enough. That's why I took another look at Lon'qu and decided he just needed a bit of inheritance. It just stinks that I don't have it.

Well, I won't ever be THAT good at this game, and I can't do that much. I guess maybe I really shouldn't be playing this game. Or at least shouldn't be in the arena. But then I have no good way of getting feathers. I can only hope IS adds another decent means for people who simply can't do well in the arena, like me.

[MaskedAmpharos]

2 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Fine, fair enough. That's why I took another look at Lon'qu and decided he just needed a bit of inheritance. It just stinks that I don't have it.

Well, I won't ever be THAT good at this game, and I can't do that much. I guess maybe I really shouldn't be playing this game. Or at least shouldn't be in the arena. But then I have no good way of getting feathers. I can only hope IS adds another decent means for people who simply can't do well in the arena, like me.

There's a major Arena update coming in two days, and I believe they're going to be adding in completely new defense maps, which have the potential to completely shake up the Arena meta. 

It's perfectly possible that you'll do a lot better with those (especially since you seem to prefer tankier characters like Frederick, Ike, and Ephraim compared to squishy glass cannons like Nino or Lon'qu, which are what the current Arena meta favors). 

Ike in particular seems like he'll be a lot better on Defense maps than in the current Arena meta, and he's already damn good in the current Arena meta. 

Edited May 7, 2017 by MaskedAmpharos

[Rezzy]

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

The reason I gave the probability for "at least" as bad as your situation is because once you have a lot of "trials" (in this case, 5-star pulls), the probability of any single result becomes really small.

For an exaggerated example, the probability of getting 5,000 heads when flipping 10,000 coins is only 0.798% (1 in 125) because there are so many similar results nearby (5,001 heads, 5,002 heads, etc.), but the probability of getting at least 5,000 heads (or at most 5,000 heads) is pretty much 50%.

Copied from Pull Topic as not to derail it.

Are Neutral natures as common as the others, since each Bane has four possible Boons to go along with it?  Is it like Pokemon, where Neutral is basically considered having a Boon and Bane of the same nature and therefore has as equal a chance as appearing as the others, or is it only as likely as getting a specific nature?

So is it a 1/5 or 1/21?

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

41 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Lachesis was an infantry sword and staff user before promotion.

 

A large number of characters use weapon types that they can only use after promotion or that their class can only use in other games.

 

Point is there's no pattern to speak of in either direction. The only thing we're currently certain of is that any character with an endgame personal weapon (i.e. Rapier doesn't count) will most likely have that weapon for their first iteration.

 

• Draug has access to swords only in FE1.
• Caeda has access to swords only when dismounted or after promotion depending on the game.
• Raven has access to axes only after promotion.
• Narcian never had access to axes. Justified only by dragon knights having axes in other games.
• Sheena never had access to axes. Justified only by armor knights having axes in other games.
• Julia has access to wind magic only after promotion.
• Faye never had access to bows. Period.
• Lucius has access to staves only after promotion.
• Eliwood has access to a horse only after promotion.
• Hector is armored only after promotion.
• Zephiel was never armored.
• Ninian could not use a dragonstone in gameplay.

Everything else, even Lachesis, is technically strict vanilla.

I'll overlook Matthew and Jaffar having daggers instead of swords.

 

I'm pretty sure Caeda can use Swords from base in Original. The standard strategy was to use Iron Sword to give Marth 90 XP

 

 

Honestly looking at the Terrain effect thingy make me shudder, since the FEH Live shows a pretty drastic damage drop. This could be really game changing

[Rezzy]

2 minutes ago, JSND said:

 

I'm pretty sure Caeda can use Swords from base in Original. The standard strategy was to use Iron Sword to give Marth 90 XP

 

 

Honestly looking at the Terrain effect thingy make me shudder, since the FEH Live shows a pretty drastic damage drop. This could be really game changing

I guess it depends on how smart the AI is when using it.

[Anacybele]

13 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

There's a major Arena update coming in two days, and I believe they're going to be adding in completely new defense maps, which have the potential to completely shake up the Arena meta. 

It's perfectly possible that you'll do a lot better with those (especially since you seem to prefer tankier characters like Frederick, Ike, and Ephraim compared to squishy glass cannons like Nino or Lon'qu, which are what the current Arena meta favors). 

Ike in particular seems like he'll be a lot better on Defense maps than in the current Arena meta, and he's already damn good in the current Arena meta. 

Many of my favorite characters just happen to be tanky, but I do tend to prefer using those kinds of units anyway, yeah.

Maybe you're right, and I hope that someday, somehow, I can start doing better in the arena. But what we don't know is if I'll be able to always pick a defense map. It could be random and have the game pick it for you.

[Ice Dragon]

6 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

Copied from Pull Topic as not to derail it.

Are Neutral natures as common as the others, since each Bane has four possible Boons to go along with it?  Is it like Pokemon, where Neutral is basically considered having a Boon and Bane of the same nature and therefore has as equal a chance as appearing as the others, or is it only as likely as getting a specific nature?

So is it a 1/5 or 1/21?

Neutral is 1/21 here.

 

4 minutes ago, JSND said:

I'm pretty sure Caeda can use Swords from base in Original. The standard strategy was to use Iron Sword to give Marth 90 XP

Indeed she can. I had to look that one up because I played all of 5 minutes of FE1 before nope not dealing with this only 2 buttons thing. (Also that was a decade ago.)

Either way, that's no different from Draug, who's already on the list as only able to use swords in FE1 (because I consider FE3 Book 1 to be the real FE1).

Edited May 7, 2017 by Ice Dragon

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Just now, Ice Dragon said:

Neutral is 1/21 here.

 

Indeed she can. I had to look that one up because I played all of 5 minutes of FE1 before nope not dealing with this only 2 buttons thing.

Either way, that's no different from Draug, who's already on the list as only able to use swords in FE1 (because I consider FE3 Book 1 to be the real FE1).

2 Buttons, Dive and Kick

 

Also fair enough, FE3 is the defining game of the series after all