Tempest Trials: A Gift of Peace!

[Vaximillian]

9 minutes ago, Frosty said:

A combo of DEF forge, Fury and Close DEF seal makes him nice for facetanking physical units and punish them HARD; especially if Ignis is active on the Enemy Phase.

I want to Def-pimp him eventually. I just need more Subakis and more feathers for those Subakis!

[bottlegnomes]

2 hours ago, mampfoid said:

Sounds interesting, because I'm also not very enthusiastic about Fates being 3 full price titles. 

Masked Marth and Alm (my only falchion users) got maxed out HM pretty fast on the earlier TTs (2&3). Even if since then regular healers got a boost, I wouldn't mind a bad natured Lucina for these TTs. Renewal 3 is nice but not necessary, the second level is already good enough to run them in TTs. 

Give MM Renewal 2, any healing Assist, any spare special, Darting Blow and a spare buff (or breath of life). With boosted stats he'll be a valuable member of your TT team even with this cheap set. 

As @mcsilas said, it gets discounted, so IIRC, it's only about the price of 1.5-2 games for what it's worth.

My plan in the long-run for MM is the same as Lucina: Fury, Renewal 3, any C buff, ardent sacrifice, and Aether if I have one but whatever special. Fury's cheap, as is ardent sacrifice. The big issue is Renewal 3 which is really only because I harvested all my Faes for Celica, Lucina, and a Palla build that I did on a whim. The big reason I want Renewal 3 over 2 is because then that means some healing virtually every turn instead of a lot of healing every 3rd turn. It might not seem huge, but Arvis made me realize how great that constant healing is. It's actually a big enough benefit IMO that I actually hope they don't up falchion's renewal effect since to get the same effect you'd need to sacrifice arena points to running Renewal 2 instead.

The other thing is that it's not so pressing that I'd rather just hold off until I get another spare Fae, rather than killing a Bowie now for a skill that's going to get replaced sooner or later. Plus as mcsilas also said, Fred will be more useful for Robin hopefully.

Plus Lucina apparently loves me and has decided to show up three times, one being +atk/-hp, so outside of TT/HM, she'd probably still be better than any MM build.

I may switch Fred out for her once he hits max HM and if Robin's handleable without him since I'll have a bunch of feathers lying around.

But in the end, the whole Frederick decision basically came down to that while other options were available and viable, I couldn't honestly justify not giving Frederick the investment just because of my dislike for his character. He was, all things considered, the best choice. I just feel dirty for validating his existence -_-

47 minutes ago, mcsilas said:

Anyway I decided to 5 star my Frederick so he can do his best on the TT. He deserves the extra stats, since he served me well early game. I just hope he can 1-shot Male Robin despite the enemy inflated stats in Lunatic 7.

Same. I'm hoping just the triangle advantage will be enough to take him down or at least put him in easy kill range for one of the others. Might be worth giving Fred TA just for this depending on how he fares.

12 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Funny thing is that I'll be bringing Clive along for the ride for this TT.

He's a part of my rotating Arena team. The huge number of Horse Emblem units I have on hand makes me rotate the members from time to time; well on the Offensive that is.

A combo of +DEF Slaying Lance, Fury and Close DEF seal makes him nice for facetanking physical units and punish them HARD; especially if Ignis is active on the Enemy Phase.

I just finished training the 5 star Clive and giving him lance breaker and fury and I've got to say that I'm already enjoying him. Currently training the 4 star Clive to merge and hopefully give the Slaying Lance, some refinements, and maybe a special before merging. I'm hoping I'll have enough feathers between TT and arena in the next couple weeks to get a Subaki ready for QR3 as well. It's definitely a lot more fun than brave lance + DB3.

[mampfoid]

@bottlegnomes I try to get the best out of the units as long they get boosted stats in TTs, but chances are high MM will have another rerun. If you change idea and don't want to sacrifice a boey, also Lissa and Jakob give Renewal 2 at 4*. 

@mcsilas thanks for the hint, but I'll go with Echoes first anyway. Could take some time though, first I need to finish my first (and perhaps also the second) Awakening run. 

[mcsilas]

40 minutes ago, mampfoid said:

@bottlegnomes I try to get the best out of the units as long they get boosted stats in TTs, but chances are high MM will have another rerun. If you change idea and don't want to sacrifice a boey, also Lissa and Jakob give Renewal 2 at 4*. 

@mcsilas thanks for the hint, but I'll go with Echoes first anyway. Could take some time though, first I need to finish my first (and perhaps also the second) Awakening run. 

Good choice though :D

It's quite different from the usual FE as well so it'll be an experience. The maps can get annoying though.

[Humanoid]

Can't say I agree, Fates gets plenty cringeworthy moments but the gameplay is fundamentally sound (though Revelations was a bridge too far). Echoes for me was a fundamentally unfun slog nothing maps using poor mechanics. To be fair, it's what you would probably expect out of a faithful remake of a 25 year old game that was never particularly well received. It's a *very* faithful remake and that's the game's greatest issue. There are a few additional gameplay elements added to the side but unfortunately they aren't much chop either. Ultimately, as Mythbusters demonstrated, you can polish a turd - the game looks and sounds great - but ultimately what you end up is just a polished turd.

[Hilda]

6 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Can't say I agree, Fates gets plenty cringeworthy moments but the gameplay is fundamentally sound (though Revelations was a bridge too far). Echoes for me was a fundamentally unfun slog nothing maps using poor mechanics. To be fair, it's what you would probably expect out of a faithful remake of a 25 year old game that was never particularly well received. It's a *very* faithful remake and that's the game's greatest issue. There are a few additional gameplay elements added to the side but unfortunately they aren't much chop either. Ultimately, as Mythbusters demonstrated, you can polish a turd - the game looks and sounds great - but ultimately what you end up is just a polished turd.

this pretty much. I didnt enjoy Echoes at all. I hope they go back to the modern route with the Switch title

[Punished Dayni]

4* Fred on a Cav team will have to do, but I have plenty of better units to help him too. Should level up the +Atk/-Res one though and merge onto him.

Nowi would be good on a backup team, especially with M!Marth if need be.

Course if I manage to get an armour that'll be priority one.

[Frosty]

9 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

I just finished training the 5 star Clive and giving him lance breaker and fury and I've got to say that I'm already enjoying him. Currently training the 4 star Clive to merge and hopefully give the Slaying Lance, some refinements, and maybe a special before merging. I'm hoping I'll have enough feathers between TT and arena in the next couple weeks to get a Subaki ready for QR3 as well. It's definitely a lot more fun than brave lance + DB3.

Glad to know that my build is working great for you. It does indeed bring a new twist in utilizing Clive other than the Death Blow Brave Lance+ builds.

[Azuni]

15 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

I feel like I should care more about AA, but I can get 1200ish feathers from it a week and I'm too lazy to really work on building seven teams that can beat advanced seven times.

If you want to minimize investment, counter-picking instead of building 6 additional strong teams for AA is a solid thing to do. Not only does it expand your viable roster beyond your best built 5* units, but also lets you use units you wouldn't normally touch.
Sending out your 4 highest scoring units (that can win) for match1, then looking at the maps for 2-7, choosing the weakest units possible. For example, you see the enemy has a +10 Mia and a +10 Tana. For most opponents like this, you can simply choose 4*+0 units with a gem weapon+the appropriate breaker, such as Sully and Arthur. Thus, reducing the amount of thinking you must do and saving your stronger units for more difficult enemies/difficult map layouts.

tl;dr: gem+breakers on budget units goes a long way in making AA less difficult/stressful.

[EricaofRenais]

Well since I just managed to snag C!Robin I will be running him along side C!Chrom in the TT for armor march.  I am so glad I got him today and I can go back to saving orbs.

[Usana]

I might be able to forgive for the Masked Marth repeat if we get some good seals. In particular I would like to get the rest of the ploys in seal form. Or maybe some spd smoke. I would like to play with that, but don't have any Sigurds.

I am kinda miffed that it starts so late through my time off though. Really wish it had started Friday or a bit earlier. Oh well, I guess I got to spend the time grinding up some units I haven't got around to using instead. I kinda wish we could sort by 'achieved level 40' along with having the dates. I am pretty sure I increased my lvl 40 pool by 33-50% this weekend. I know I went through a lot of pots. Though the grinding is getting annoying without 2x sp :D. Will probably jump ship and play something else.

[bottlegnomes]

16 hours ago, mampfoid said:

@bottlegnomes I try to get the best out of the units as long they get boosted stats in TTs, but chances are high MM will have another rerun. If you change idea and don't want to sacrifice a boey, also Lissa and Jakob give Renewal 2 at 4*. 

@mcsilas thanks for the hint, but I'll go with Echoes first anyway. Could take some time though, first I need to finish my first (and perhaps also the second) Awakening run. 

Forgot about Lissa actually. I do have a few spare ones of her around.

7 hours ago, Azuni said:

If you want to minimize investment, counter-picking instead of building 6 additional strong teams for AA is a solid thing to do. Not only does it expand your viable roster beyond your best built 5* units, but also lets you use units you wouldn't normally touch.
Sending out your 4 highest scoring units (that can win) for match1, then looking at the maps for 2-7, choosing the weakest units possible. For example, you see the enemy has a +10 Mia and a +10 Tana. For most opponents like this, you can simply choose 4*+0 units with a gem weapon+the appropriate breaker, such as Sully and Arthur. Thus, reducing the amount of thinking you must do and saving your stronger units for more difficult enemies/difficult map layouts.

tl;dr: gem+breakers on budget units goes a long way in making AA less difficult/stressful.

The entire mode just isn't all that fun for me. I'm sure even if I had 7 perfect teams of 5*+10 merges I'd still crag my fee to get through the dailies. I'd also rather just invest the time in 7 good teams rather than cherry-picking counters that probably won't see usage elsewhere. I feel like I should care more, but it just feels like the tedium of L7 TT with less in the way of rewards.

15 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Can't say I agree, Fates gets plenty cringeworthy moments but the gameplay is fundamentally sound (though Revelations was a bridge too far). Echoes for me was a fundamentally unfun slog nothing maps using poor mechanics. To be fair, it's what you would probably expect out of a faithful remake of a 25 year old game that was never particularly well received. It's a *very* faithful remake and that's the game's greatest issue. There are a few additional gameplay elements added to the side but unfortunately they aren't much chop either. Ultimately, as Mythbusters demonstrated, you can polish a turd - the game looks and sounds great - but ultimately what you end up is just a polished turd.

I was speaking solely from a cast perspective. I do kind of agree on Echoes gameplay,  but it doesn't bother me to that extent. A few maps are either just bullshit or astoundingly tedious, but in all I found it enjoyable enough. I also care more about the cast and story than I get the sense a lot of people on here do, and while Fates had some fun maps, I couldn't get it ousted enough to actually want to play them since I didn't care about a majority of the cast. Echoes, I haven't even quite finished yet (chap 6 at least) and am already consider replaying because the characters were endearing enough that they get me through the occasional bullshit or boring levels.

8 hours ago, Frosty said:

Glad to know that my build is working great for you. It does indeed bring a new twist in utilizing Clive other than the Death Blow Brave Lance+ builds.

Yeah, I get why brave builds are so prevalent, but they've just become so mundane that it's always nice to see an alt build of a character. Heck, that's pretty much why I blew so many resources giving Palla a different build.

Edited December 25, 2017 by bottlegnomes

[riperkz]

I have to agree with the overall disappointment about bonus unit. The final map had me hoping for Emmeryn, but I guess I should have known better. I have to say though, I'm just glad that we're getting the TT at all. I enjoy the act of throwing a team through multiple maps, and it's something to do in the game, so the entertainment factor beats out the disappointment in my case.

[Frosty]

1 hour ago, bottlegnomes said:

Yeah, I get why brave builds are so prevalent, but they've just become so mundane that it's always nice to see an alt build of a character. Heck, that's pretty much why I blew so many resources giving Palla a different build.

This is also why my Cherche (+SPD/-DEF) runs a Slaying Axe+ build allowing her to mirror Minerva; and Frederick might become an Axe Eldigan / Horse Minerva. I'm starting to feel a little tired seeing the ever-prevalent DB+Brave Weapon build.

[Ae†her]

When you just assumed the TT was going to be on Christmas, but instead you get your daily Sunday Reward...Should really check the dates from now on just to not disappoint myself.

[sirmola]

I actualy don't mind the reward, because i started playing after TT mini, and I have not gotten any falchion users yet. I have a lot of sword users, but only one healer, so I am planning to run a medic build. I also got lucky on the banner and got a christmas chrom, so that should hopefully reduce the grind. That being said, I found the delayed date annoying. I am going to move in a few days, and the TT coresponds pretty closely to my adjustment period to my new situation. Getting Joshua took quite a bit of work (although I only had a 1.2 bonus unit until I was almost done, whereas I now have a 1.4 unit from the start). Hopefully, I will have the time.

Edited December 25, 2017 by sirmola

[Othin]

11 hours ago, Logos said:

When you just assumed the TT was going to be on Christmas, but instead you get your daily Sunday Reward...Should really check the dates from now on just to not disappoint myself.

Yeah, I'd assumed the same.

[Tybrosion]

Seals this time are Threaten Spd, Iote's Shield and Heavy Blade.

[Vaximillian]

Iote’s is a seal. CALLED IT!

[Ae†her]

Get ready to redo your Hero Analyses everyone.

[Humanoid]

Just glad to see a seal that doesn't require sacred coin investment to shine.

[EricaofRenais]

Well at least the seals are good, so I now have rewards worth grinding for.  I am still bummed that this is a full TT with a rerun unit, but the seals make up for it a bit since I have yet to pull a unit with heavy blade that one will be very useful, Lote's shield will also be useful.

[ZeManaphy]

Question: I have an under leveled C!Robin. should I play lower level maps for the bonus or play higher level maps for higher points?

[Frosty]

15 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

Seals this time are Threaten Spd, Iote's Shield and Heavy Blade.

Ooooh, my Cherche would love that Heavy Blade seal!

TT has started; running my Horse Emblem team of Priscilla, Frederick, Camus and Clive.

Edited December 26, 2017 by Frosty

[ILikeKirbys]

@Vaximillian Good call. That's actually a surprisingly logical choice, when you say it like that. Makes me wish I thought of it.

I'm just surprised that Heavy Blade of all things is a Sacred Seal now. I can think of at least one unit I have who might want that over anything else in the Seal slot (although, quick question: Is Heavy Blade still active when you get attacked, or do you have to initiate combat to get the faster Special charge?).

Threaten SPD looks okay too. Strikes me as something that's gonna be great mainly for Sharena or Zephiel tho, since they can now do triple-Threatening with that, another Threaten in their C Slot, and their 5-Star weapons' built-in Threatens.