The case of non-legendary exclusive weapons

[Shiki]

People complain about the new +5 BST standard that all new additions seem to have but I'm more worried about this.
If you don't know what I mean I will list all the new weapons that fall into that category.

Spoiler

Ayra's Blade: Grants Spd+3. If unit's Spd - foe's Spd ≥ 1, gain Special cooldown charge +1 per attack. (If similar skill also used, only highest value applied.)
Grimoire: If unit has ≥ 50% HP, unit can move to a space adjacent to an ally within 2 spaces.
Resolute Blade: Grants Atk+3. Grants +10 to damage when Special triggers.
Weirding Tome: Grants Spd +3 At start of turn, all foes in cardinal directions, and with Res 1 or more lower than unit, suffer Spd-5 until the end of foes' next actions
Stout Tomahawk: Enables counterattack regardless of distance if this unit is attacked.
Dark Greatsword: Grants Atk/Spd+4 during combat if unit initiates combat.
Bright Naginata: Grants Atk/Def+4 during combat if foe initiates combat.

These are all bound to new characters.
As you can see these are weapons that aren't Legendary or 'named' weapons but are still exclusive to a character. This kind of tendency is worrying since it limits new additions to the game and some of these have no real reason to be exclusive as they only add a stat boost to a regular weapon weffect.

As much as I like Mia, Resolute Blade is just a Atk-forged Wo Dao+ with a +3 Atk effect. There was no good reason to not give her a Wo Dao+, especially after the inclusion of weapon refinement (which was announced the same time).
Bright Naginata falls in the same pitfall. We already have a weapon in Berkut's Lance that behaves similarly (albeit with only one buff instead of 2) so why is this weapon not available for everyone? This weapon would be really interesting for defensive-oriented heroes with Quick Riposte.
Dark Greatsword is just a straight-up better version of the Yato, a legendary weapon. Sure, it may get a refinement later on but this is still a tad ridicilous.

One case I don't mind this are seasonal units like H!Nowi since they should be special. If they are gone the weapons aren't available anymore, so this becomes not really a problem.

But the others? They are all random weapons that just happen to have some broken effects and this is really puzzling after weapon refinement where a lot of options opened up. Having more unique weapons for all heroes is way more interesing than this crap.
This is especially true for Axes because right now Axes have the least amount of variety. They still don't have a Firesweep or Horseslayer while all the other weapons have more variety and they are releasing so few green characters, which makes this issue even worse.

So yeah, I see this a problem that IS really shouldn't make worse. Just release more general weapons in the regular banners since this is also one way to make things interesting without creating differences through exclusivity.

[bethany81707]

Even if something was introduced to fix the BST issue, there's no getting around this.

Yeah, starting to bother me.

[Vaximillian]

I would love to give Shiro’s naginata to Oboro. Come on, Oboro >>> Shiro.

[Cute Chao]

I really hate exclusive weapons. It wasn't so bad when there were a few that made sense, but the more they add, the more annoying it gets. Part of the fun of this game is customising the characters, but you can't do it when they're locking weapons (and specials - looking at Ayra's special which is the only one based on speed in the entire game!) to characters >.<

Sadly, I'm guessing the trend will continue so that they can force people to go for the new characters and the +10s.

[Othin]

I like them. It helps keep characters distinct in the face of skill inheritance, and weapon refinery means regular weapons are now able to keep up well enough.

We do still need a horseslayer axe (and a Firesweep Axe, but I don't think that's as significant) but I don't think it's fair to blame these exclusive weapons for that. Only one of them is even an axe, and since Dorcas was a CYL character, I think he's earned the right to an exclusive weapon.

Edited December 1, 2017 by Othin

[Armagon]

A lot of this could've easily been solved by making them legendary weapons. Ayra's Blade should've been Balmung, Dark Greatsword should've been Dark Seigfreid and.....huh, that's all i can think of. The rest should've been inheritable, yeah.

43 minutes ago, Cute Chao said:

(and specials - looking at Ayra's special which is the only one based on speed in the entire game!)

I actually don't mind this part because Ayra is credited for being the first character ever to use Astra. Which is why she got her own special version of it. All three uninheritable specials are tied to their characters because it relates to them. Black Knight gets Eclipse Black Luna because of his Eclipse Skill, Ayra gets Regnal Astra for the reasons stated above and Fjorm gets Ice Mirror because she's a brand new character.

Having someone inherit Regnal Astra from Ayra would be like Klein inheriting the Fujin Yumi from Takumi.

That said, i would like to see more new Specials that can be inherited.

 

On a similar note, Sacae and Beroc's Blessing being uninhertiable also makes sense. Same goes for Crusader's Ward. Recovery and Follow-up Ring have no business being uninheritable though.

Edited December 1, 2017 by Armagon

[XRay]

I do not mind it. Legendary in Heroes is an arbitrary term in my opinion since they could have just renamed the weapons with a "cooler" sounding name or after one of the Legendary weapons from the main series.

[GinRei]

1 hour ago, Othin said:

I like them. It helps keep characters distinct in the face of skill inheritance, and weapon refinery means regular weapons are now able to keep up well enough.

This is my take on it, but they really should branch out and do things that AREN'T just weapons.  Like Ayra's special or Arvis' B-skill.  Not a big fan of how both of those have a weapon in addition to those though, but let units be unique in some aspect beyond stat sticks (since they've shown a willingness to just power-creep stats over time).

Prime example is Selena.  Her only "unique" aspect is that you can roll her as a 3 or 4 star, and maybe spend a lot of feathers to get a high merge count.  Otherwise she's basically inferior in every respect to Joshua, who is being given out for free (and that's not even counting Ayra who also surpasses her).

[Othin]

1 minute ago, GinRei said:

This is my take on it, but they really should branch out and do things that AREN'T just weapons.  Like Ayra's special or Arvis' B-skill.  Not a big fan of how both of those have a weapon in addition to those though, but let units be unique in some aspect beyond stat sticks (since they've shown a willingness to just power-creep stats over time).

Prime example is Selena.  Her only "unique" aspect is that you can roll her as a 3 or 4 star, and maybe spend a lot of feathers to get a high merge count.  Otherwise she's basically inferior in every respect to Joshua, who is being given out for free (and that's not even counting Ayra who also surpasses her).

Yeah, I'm also a big fan of the exclusive specials and passives. Most of the characters with them can set themselves apart well enough some other way, but Arden certainly gets good use out of his. And even the others add cool new dimensions to the game: Arvis, for example, would still be somewhat unique with just Valflame, but he still wouldn't stand out that much, while Recover Ring really lets him shine.

[Midnox]

While I love characters with unique and exclusive weapons to set them apart, it also hurts the rest of the roster as they tend to fall behind, and takes away the incentive to use them. Sure, they can keep up with TLC, but it's that's goes for the exclusives as well, with the only saving grace is them being more common. Then again, that's not saying much, as it'll take a while for everyone to be 5 stars 

[Ice Dragon]

It somewhat bugs me that some characters are getting unique non-legendary weapons because while it makes them unique, it goes against the purpose of Skill Inheritance being the equalizer that helps older characters keep up with newer characters. It's nice to have units that are unique, but making them too unique is a problem. At the very least, they could have made inheritable versions of Lute's and Dorcas's weapons and made Weirding Tome and Stout Tomahawk upgrades ("5th tier weapons", so to speak) of those.

Uninheritable skills I have no problem with because there is a lot more variety available with passive skills that does actively compete with unique skills, and even if a passive skill is just strictly better than alteratives (like Follow-up Ring), it's not so much better that units without access to the skill are left in the dust struggling to keep up.

 

Also, for reference, (and to preempt anyone complaining "why can't x just be made inheritable as is") most of the new unique skills are actually named for the characters they were given to in Japanese, which ended up lost in translation because CJK script has a higher information-to-physical-space ratio than alphabet-based scripts:

• Resolute Blade is 気鋭ワユの剣, "Energetic Mia's Sword".
• Weirding Tome is 奇異ルーテの書, "Odd Lute's Tome".
• Ayra's Blade is 瞬閃アイラの剣, "Flash Ayra's Sword".
• Regnal Astra is 剣姫の流星, "Sword Princess's Astra".
• Bright Naginata is 白き血の薙刀, "White Blood's Naginata" ("white blood" referring to "the [royal] blood of Hoshido").
• Dark Greatsword is 黒き血の大剣, "Black Blood's Blade" ("black blood" referring to "the [royal] blood of Nohr", "blade" instead of "sword" as the same differentiator between "Iron Sword" and "Iron Blade" in the main series games).

[XRay]

16 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

It somewhat bugs me that some characters are getting unique non-legendary weapons because while it makes them unique, it goes against the purpose of Skill Inheritance being the equalizer that helps older characters keep up with newer characters. It's nice to have units that are unique, but making them too unique is a problem. At the very least, they could have made inheritable versions of Lute's and Dorcas's weapons and made Weirding Tome and Stout Tomahawk upgrades ("5th tier weapons", so to speak) of those.

Uninheritable skills I have no problem with because there is a lot more variety available with passive skills that does actively compete with unique skills, and even if a passive skill is just strictly better than alteratives (like Follow-up Ring), it's not so much better that units without access to the skill are left in the dust struggling to keep up.

 

Also, for reference, (and to preempt anyone complaining "why can't x just be made inheritable as is") most of the new unique skills are actually named for the characters they were given to in Japanese, which ended up lost in translation because CJK script has a higher information-to-physical-space ratio than alphabet-based scripts:

• Resolute Blade is 気鋭ワユの剣, "Energetic Mia's Sword".
• Weirding Tome is 奇異ルーテの書, "Odd Lute's Tome".
• Ayra's Blade is 瞬閃アイラの剣, "Flash Ayra's Sword".
• Regnal Astra is 剣姫の流星, "Sword Princess's Astra".
• Bright Naginata is 白き血の薙刀, "White Blood's Naginata" ("white blood" referring to "the [royal] blood of Hoshido").
• Dark Greatsword is 黒き血の大剣, "Black Blood's Blade" ("black blood" referring to "the [royal] blood of Nohr", "blade" instead of "sword" as the same differentiator between "Iron Sword" and "Iron Blade" in the main series games).

Does that mean Berkut's Lance, Clarisse's Bow, and Legion's Axe do not actually have their wielder's name in the Japanese version of the game?

[Ice Dragon]

Just now, XRay said:

Does that mean Berkut's Lance, Clarisse's Bow, and Legion's Axe do not actually have their wielder's name in the Japanese version of the game?

They do have the name, but no fancy title to go with it to make them awesome and special.

[r_n]

It's bugging me too, but only partially because they're becomming so common as a way to entice pulls. The big reason that bugs me is that, like, we have a lot of weapons they could have jsut used and it'd be fun to have more of them in the pool. There's one (1) unit for each slaying weapon and while Refining is making that less an issue, it's still dumb. There are SO MANY tomes that are locked to one unit that aren't unique. Assassain's Bow has never gone to another person. And, honestly, it feels like an excuse to make more of the banners 5* exclusives. Which is a shame, because I kind of dug the 4* units you can pull and promote to get their fancy weapon.
I am also a little usprirsed that almost all the seasonal units have had inheritable weapons.

Skills have a similar issue (hello Hector, the one singular source of one of the more useful skills in the game), but over time more skills become available (fortress defense comes to mind)  either through more additions or but there's so much variety that unique skills don't bug me and I actually like b/c it gives an extra bit of personality to them without necessarily being absurd.
Same with specials though even less so. From launch we've basically been pretty good on specials beyond speed-based ones. So characters getting unique, flavorful specials is cool and novel while not feeling like other units are missing out.

[sirmola]

8 hours ago, Armagon said:

On a similar note, Sacae and Beroc's Blessing being uninhertiable also makes sense. Same goes for Crusader's Ward. Recovery and Follow-up Ring have no business being uninheritable though.

I think it makes perfect sense for recover ring to be uninheritable, Because It is a reference from an item from fe4 that the game equiped on Alvis and trabant during scenes where they were not supposed to die (it had the obviously unbalanced effect of "restores all hp every turn"). It is impossable tor anyone else to obtain one without hacking. Follow up ring is a reference to an item that arden obtains in a cutscene, which is supposed to make him more usable. It can be transfered to other people, however, so most players use the pawn shop to give it to someone else, even though doing so is really expensive given fe4's mechanics. However, there is a good argument that the intent of that item is for arden to keep it, so i think that follow up ring being uninheritable makes sense from a lore perspective.

Edited December 2, 2017 by sirmola

[bottlegnomes]

12 hours ago, Othin said:

Yeah, I'm also a big fan of the exclusive specials and passives. Most of the characters with them can set themselves apart well enough some other way, but Arden certainly gets good use out of his. And even the others add cool new dimensions to the game: Arvis, for example, would still be somewhat unique with just Valflame, but he still wouldn't stand out that much, while Recover Ring really lets him shine.

 

5 hours ago, sirmola said:

I think it makes perfect sense for recover ring to be uninheritable, Because It is a reference from an item from fe4 that the game equiped on Alvis and trabant during scenes where they were not supposed to die (it had the obviously unbalanced effect of "restores all hp every turn"). It is impossable tor anyone else to obtain one without hacking. Follow up ring is a reference to an item that arden obtains in a cutscene, which is supposed to make him more usable. It can be transfered to other people, however, so most players use the pawn shop to give it to someone else, even though doing so is really expensive given fe4's mechanics. However, there is a good argument that the intent of that item is for arden to keep it, so i think that follow up ring being uninheritable makes sense from a lore perspective.

Definitely agree with both of these. I'm a fan of uninheritable skills and weapons I'm apathetic on. Arvis is, as said, a really good example of how unique skills can be done really well IMO. It's essentially Renewal 4, which sounds mediocre on paper, but in practice, he's actually ended up being one of the better GHB units I've used. He's not astounding, but it lets him run fury with very little in the way of repercussions, so he basically gets a free +3 to everything, and he can be a pretty much perfect combat medic.

Arden's makes sense both from a lore perspective, as sirmola said, and a gameplay perspective. That skill is fucking terrifying. While I don't know that I agree, Arden's already S/S+ on at least a few tier lists, and he's a 1 move melee unit with a mediocre weapon type that dies to essentially any non-garbage mage. Could you imagine Quadhardt?

As for weapons, what bugs me more is that they're rather bland to be frank. While I don't agree with Ayra having Balmung, I would've liked a little more creative of a name. {(Unit Name) (Weapon Type)} just seems like the most boring naming convention in the world. Stout Tomahawk I'm cool with, and glad axes finally have a DC version. Cursed Lance is good too. Some others I'm a little less fond of, like Dark Greatsword and Weirding Tome, but that's just personal preference and the names not jiving with me. As long as they manage to keep older weapons and units from getting completely left behind, which it seems they have every intention of doing, I don't care about newer characters getting fancier stuff.

Edited December 2, 2017 by bottlegnomes

[NekoKnight]

On 12/2/2017 at 6:50 AM, r_n said:

It's bugging me too, but only partially because they're becomming so common as a way to entice pulls. The big reason that bugs me is that, like, we have a lot of weapons they could have jsut used and it'd be fun to have more of them in the pool. There's one (1) unit for each slaying weapon and while Refining is making that less an issue, it's still dumb. There are SO MANY tomes that are locked to one unit that aren't unique. Assassain's Bow has never gone to another person. And, honestly, it feels like an excuse to make more of the banners 5* exclusives. Which is a shame, because I kind of dug the 4* units you can pull and promote to get their fancy weapon.

This is a pretty serious issue, I feel. It's even worse if the sole user of an inheritable weapon is a 5* lock, such as Gray/Faye/Katarina.

[MrSmokestack]

I don’t mind this shift. Differentiating between “legendary” and “non-legendary” weapons is abstract. Imagine if the Bright Naginata or the Dark Greatsword were weapons that existed in Fates; far less people would be complaining about those two being added which isn’t fair at all.

I can think of two reasons why we have exclusive weapons:

-From a gameplay perspective, it helps them stand out more. Even if their base stats aren’t up to par compared to other, more similar options, they won’t be invalidated the instant someone else gets released with better bases. Exclusive weapons and skills help close the gap so that there is more to consider than just a unit’s stats. Exclusive weapons also have a higher SP cost, giving them enhanced viability in arena for scoring.

-From a business perspective, it entices pulls. Investing little in the way of resources other than orbs and $$$ is attractive for whales who don’t want to constantly grind for bonus units. @Talandar, you mentioned that exclusive weapons  like Resolute Blade being a +Atk Wo Dao+ seems odd in a post-refinement meta, but I would argue the opposite. If both weapons are the same, then Resolute Blade is superior because it’s both worth more in arena due to the SP cost (400 vs 350), but no arena medals or refining stones were lost to obtain it.

On 12/1/2017 at 10:53 AM, Armagon said:

Recovery Ring and the best B skill in the entire game have no business being uninheritable though.

This gave me a good laugh.

For the sake of balance, a skill that guarantees a follow-up attack no matter what, and that also has no inheritance restriction, should not exist. Period.

On 12/1/2017 at 11:06 AM, XRay said:

I do not mind it. Legendary in Heroes is an arbitrary term in my opinion since they could have just renamed the weapons with a "cooler" sounding name or after one of the Legendary weapons from the main series.

My thoughts exactly.

Edited December 3, 2017 by MrSmokestack

[Armagon]

3 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

This gave me a good laugh.

For the sake of balance, a skill that guarantees a follow-up attack no matter what, and that also has no inheritance restriction, should not exist. Period.

I mean, personally, i think the Skill shouldn't exist at all, especially if it's locked to someone who comes with a Brave Sword.

[MrSmokestack]

3 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I mean, personally, i think the Skill shouldn't exist at all, especially if it's locked to someone who comes with a Brave Sword.

While the lore justification is a bit abstract, as far as gameplay is concerned, it’s balanced on Arden. With only one Mov and terrible Res, he needs substantial team support to get any use out of it. Being able to one-round the entire cast with Ignis (in theory anyway) means nothing if you can’t initiate without getting out-Mov’d or taking significant damage. In practice Arden is still worse on the offense compared to just using a ranged unit.

[XRay]

8 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

For the sake of balance, a skill that guarantees a follow-up attack no matter what, and that also has no inheritance restriction, should not exist. Period.

 

4 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I mean, personally, i think the Skill shouldn't exist at all, especially if it's locked to someone who comes with a Brave Sword.

I think the skill is fine for inheritance, you can just restrict who can inherit it to balance it. Melee infantry and armor units need every advantage they can get their hands on to compete with ranged units. Ranged units are simply superior due to their reach, so the least the developers can do for melee infantry and armor is to give them superior performance so they can kill any ranged unit careless enough to wander into range.

 

[Shiki]

3 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

If both weapons are the same, then Resolute Blade is superior because it’s both worth more in arena due to the SP cost (400 vs 350), but no arena medals or refining stones were lost to obtain it.

Which is kinda stupid, no? In fact the whole business of SP cost affecting Arena is still incredibly stupid as a concept since it clearly favors certain characters just for higher scores. It limits diversity which will become worse with more new characters as they raised the BST bar.

On 1.12.2017 at 4:27 PM, Othin said:

We do still need a horseslayer axe (and a Firesweep Axe, but I don't think that's as significant) but I don't think it's fair to blame these exclusive weapons for that. Only one of them is even an axe, and since Dorcas was a CYL character, I think he's earned the right to an exclusive weapon.

Considering that new Greens are mostly Tomes, making weapons exclusive affects Axes the most.
It's saying a lot that Gunter is the only wielder of the Silver Axe and before Dorcas only Titania, Amelia and Brave Ike have been added to the regular pool. That's 3 in total. Considering how many banners we had since release that is a pathetic number.
Dorcas could have gotten either the Halberd and Firesweep Axe. On that Mia just a Wo Dao+,
Also this is CYL-lite; they were added because they were missing from the roster, not because they were particularly high on the poll (condolences for Micaiah btw.). It's actually funny that they got better treatment compared to Lucina and Roy.

3 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

From a business perspective, it entices pulls.

So do new weapons. If Shiro's Naginata was inheritable I'm pretty sure people would pull for him regardless. In fact it would encourage people that do not care about Shiro to pull for him because he can be worth SI-wise for their other favorite heroes.

[MrSmokestack]

7 hours ago, Talandar said:

Which is kinda stupid, no? In fact the whole business of SP cost affecting Arena is still incredibly stupid as a concept since it clearly favors certain characters just for higher scores. It limits diversity which will become worse with more new characters as they raised the BST bar.

The divide in free players vs paying players from scoring potential is kind of necessary because being able to compete with whales is silly.

That said, I think arena scoring does warrant its own discussion since I personally don’t agree with it either.

Quote

So do new weapons. If Shiro's Naginata was inheritable I'm pretty sure people would pull for him regardless. In fact it would encourage people that do not care about Shiro to pull for him because he can be worth SI-wise for their other favorite heroes.

It would have to be a really good inheritable weapon though, since the -Blade / Brave / Firesweep trifecta doesn’t take kindly to new competition.

Limiting exclusive weapons also limits diversity, if that’s your main concern. Without taking those skills into account, Soleil becomes better than Mia, who in turn is better than Ayra. That was fast, wasn’t it?

Expanding inheritance options might get lesser-used characters some use for a while, but it ultimately favors units with better bases that outclass the ones that came before them, as well as being outclassed themselves once that better unit comes along. In fact, it would make BST inflation even more prevalent, since releasing a unit with the same or worse bases would result in fewer pulls overall just to grab whatever skill that unit has. Minerva and Saber though

There are a lot of units in the current pool that exist only to pass skills, and nothing else. If Faye or Saber were able to do something with Firesweep or Shield Pulse respectively, there would be more incentive to pull for them. Brave Ike is a more interesting case though; he is a solid user of Steady Breath already, but you also have the option of inheriting it onto somebody else. Brave Ike is just Brave Ike, rather than being “Steady Breath fodder” like how Faye is just “Firesweep fodder” or Shanna is just “Desperation fodder” or Gordin is “Brave Bow fodder” or Odin is “Blárblade fodder”.

If that’s not a lack of diversity, I don’t know what is.

Edited December 3, 2017 by MrSmokestack

[Shiki]

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

It would have to be a really good inheritable weapon though, since the -Blade / Brave / Firesweep trifecta doesn’t take kindly to new competition

They are still niches that can be filled, especially on the defensive side.
One example is Berkut's Lance. Sure it looks like garbage on paper but there are Effies/Gwendolyns with DC out there to counter stuff like Reinhardt with that weapon. 
Obviously it's a niche but that's what makes things interesting.

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

Without taking those skills into account, Soleil becomes better than Mia, who in turn is better than Ayra. That was fast, wasn’t it?

Uh, where do you get that from?
Soleli has more Atk but sacrifices Spd. I don't see how they are supposed to comparable since the former could be a terrifying Brave Sword user while the former is the fastest unit in the game.

In case of Ayra you have a point but she has Regnal Astra to differentiate herself from Mia (who I would argue is less optimized in regards of defense). I actually don't mind limited skills so there is still a source of making units different in a way. 

Also you're forgetting this is a waifu/husbando simulator. There are plenty of people who will build weak heroes becaue they are their favorites, not because they are strong. That's why I was saying that inheritable weapons might entice people to pull for heroes they don't care about.

[MrSmokestack]

9 hours ago, Talandar said:

They are still niches that can be filled, especially on the defensive side.
One example is Berkut's Lance. Sure it looks like garbage on paper but there are Effies/Gwendolyns with DC out there to counter stuff like Reinhardt with that weapon. 
Obviously it's a niche but that's what makes things interesting.

This is a bit more subjective, but I find the cooldown reduction or bonus damage from weapons like Wo Dao and Killer/Slaying to have more value than a small stat boost like from Bright Naginata; Dark Greatsword is Swift Sparrow 2 so no complaints there. That’s what I meant by having competing options.

Stuff like DC Effie can get away with Berkut’s Lance because their stats are already really high to begin with, especially in a Ward Emblem team. Ridersbane and Brave Lance tend to be more relevant options in her case though.

Quote

Uh, where do you get that from?
Soleli has more Atk but sacrifices Spd. I don't see how they are supposed to comparable since the former could be a terrifying Brave Sword user while the former is the fastest unit in the game.

Soleil is 38/35, Mia is 32/40, and Ayra is 33/37.

Atk is generally a far more useful stat than Spd, and Soleil has the same Atk as Cherche, and more than Chrom. Any lead in Atk needs to be matched by a significant Spd lead, as in more than 5 Spd. And even then there is such a thing as having too much Spd because you can’t make more than one follow-up attack in combat. If you double, it doesn’t matter if you have 40 Spd or 999,999 Spd. And if you don’t double, you might as well have 0 Spd.

By this comparison, Ayra is left in an awkward middle ground and Mia is to Lon’qu as Soleil is to Lucina, statswise. It also illustrates exactly why we need exclusive skills to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

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In case of Ayra you have a point but she has Regnal Astra to differentiate herself from Mia (who I would argue is less optimized in regards of defense). I actually don't mind limited skills so there is still a source of making units different in a way. 

There’s no need to differentiate between weapons and passives, as they are both types of skills; take issue with one and you should take issue with the other. Prf specials have a much higher SP cost similar to Prf weapons which again gives their bearers the edge in scoring.

Thus, the comparison rests directly on their base stats. Sure they have skills to not make one straight up better than the others but I said to disregard them for the sake of example.

Quote

Also you're forgetting this is a waifu/husbando simulator. There are plenty of people who will build weak heroes becaue they are their favorites, not because they are strong. That's why I was saying that inheritable weapons might entice people to pull for heroes they don't care about.

Then I don’t understand what problem you have with “diversity” then. People that play for favorites likely don’t care about the meta and would have built up who they liked regardless of the circumstances. There’s only so far the discussion can be taken before we remember this is ultimately still a casual game for people who enjoy the series and make their waifus/husbandos as OP as possible

Edited December 3, 2017 by MrSmokestack
Correction