Virion, Elite Archer(WIP)

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

 

 

Virion had a bad rep as a unit thanks to his lackluster skillset for an Archer given to you at the start of the game, with Defiant Resistance being a lackluster skill that is even more mismatched to Virion’s statsline, Seal SPD being a rather lackluster skill, an impractical high cooldown special, and seemingly mediocre stats. Despite this, Virion is actually quite a decent unit in his own right. Virion's capability as a unit comes from his top-rate offensive spread for Archer standard of 31 attack and speed(being comparable to the TKJ), and an astounding Physical Bulk of 46 HP and 26 Defense for a low cost of 13 Res. A composite physical bulk of 72 allows Virion to survive a wide variety of attacks from bulky Distant Counter units allowing him to brute force his way by taking the hits. Thanks to this spread, Virion is capable of running almost every Archer set and pulls it off well. High HP allows him to run Panic Ploy effectively giving him an extra support function as well. Combined with his amazing alvailability, being alvailable from 3* pool, daily Hero Battle, and some quests Virion have an easier time to be optimized with proper boons, banes, and merge level.

 

Virion's greatest downfall as a unit is his bad match up against units who specifically focuses on ranged defense, allowing them to survive Virion's assault. Specifically speaking, Dragons are some of Virion's worst match up, being able to take hits from most of his set, while also doing massive damage to Virion's low level of Resistance. Finally despite his versatile stats spread, Virion's offensive spread falls off when compared to the higher ends of Archer such as the TKJ, Bride Cordelia, Brave Lyn, Leon, and Innes.

 Regardless of that proper investment on Virion allows him to pull off his role really well. He's rated highly in every tier list for a reason.

Level 40 stats:

HP: 43/46/49
Atk: 28/31/34
Spd: 28/31/34
Def: 23/26/30
Res: 10/13/17

Total: 147~148

(Bold indicates stats with 4 statistical swing on a given boon and/or bane)

Default skills:

Weapon: Silver Bow+
Assist: [none]
Special: Astra
Passive A: Defiant Res 3
Passive B: Seal SPD 3
Passive C: [none]

 

Brave Bow:
General use, Arena Assault

 

Nature: [+Atk, -Res]

Brave Bow+
Reposition
Luna
Life and Death 3/Fury 3/Deathblow 3
Swordbreaker 3/Axebreaker 3/Lancebreaker 3
[flexible passive C] / Panic Ploy 3

Attack +3 / Panic Ploy Seal / Deflect Missile

Brave Bow is the quessential Archer set – nuking things are good, nuking things at 2 range is great. This set aims to initiate combat, deleting certain threats to win your match up. A slot usage is standard, where an offensive skills is used to milk out as much damage as possible. For Virion B slot, the main consideration are Breaker Skills. Virion's biggest advantage as an Archer is his amazing bulk allowing him to take hits off a stray distant counter and break through for a Quad. Panic Ploy have a special place as Virion's C slot, a high HP stats of 46 allows Virion to make an effective use of the skill allowing an effective buff control support, outside that his general C slot is flexible.

Luna is the prefered Special for Archers, since 26 Defense and around 46 Attack is not enough to outscale Luna on the match up where these specials are required with Bonfire and Draconic Aura.

ATK+3 is Virion’s preffered Sacred Seal to improve his offensive parameter as much as possible, while Panic Ploy can be used if you want to make use of the skill without a spare source of Panic Ploy to inherit. 

 

 

 

(Budget) Brave Lyn counter

Dedicated Arena Assault, Refinement Stones Dumping

 

Nature: [+Atk, -Res]

Silver Bow+/Slayer Bow+/Guard Bow+
Reposition/Reciprocal Aid
Luna
Fury 3
Bowbreaker 3
[flexible passive C]

Deflect Missile

To put the idea of this build into paper, heres a shitty MS paint i made specifically for this build

This build is intended to be used on arena assault, created when you need to supply your divine dew/use your feathers, and deployed when you ecounter non Firesweep variants of Brave Lyn as a cheap counter. Basic Silver Bow is good enough to get the job done, but Killer Weapons with Def or ATK refine are ideal. A more expensive version of this set would use Guard Bow+. For this set in particular, Bowbreaker is the only choice for B slot, being the main reason this set can be pulled off. C slot, as ussual, is flexible.

The playstyle in which this set aims to be used with is that of an enemy phase combat. Try to bait Brave Lyn into Virion’s attack range, delete her on enemy phase, hopefully with Special charged. You can then unload this special to delete another enemy on the map. Since Virion did not require any Special for the kill, higher cooldown specials are prefered to control this end goal. The Special boosted nuke might be underwhelming at 3-CD level, with Luna being the top choice, while a Slayer Based set can make use of Dragon Fang, giving Virion 25 extra damage to work with.

Reciprocal Aid is an option as a way to use the combat where you counter Brave Lyn to set up Desperation

It is important to note that Virion is technically capable of pulling of the Brave Lyn Counter set as a sub-category of the Brave Bow set with the main consideration being the usage of the right A slot. With Bowbreaker, A Life and Death 46/21 Physical Bulk allows Virion to survive pretty much all Brave Lyn and up to 44 Base Attack on the double so thats something to keep in mind when trying to counter Brave Bow variations of Brave Lyn.

Deflect Missile is the best Sacred Seal for this set, to compress Virion's Brave Lyn slaying role as much as possible. On the "Brave Bow build that can counter Brave Lyn" set, ATK seal is reccomended to maintain as much offensive pressence as possible, in which case a proper support or Panic Sealing might be needed

 

 

 

 

 

(Meme Build) The Archest Reinhardt Counter – (you don’t even need Defiant Resistance)

 

Nature: [+Res, -Def]

Silver Bow+
Reposition/Reciprocal Aid
Luna
Fury 3
BlueTomeBreaker 3
Panic Ploy 3

Deflect Missile

 

This is Virion's most unique build, highlighting his massive HP pool. In order to understand the immaculate thought process that goes into the creation of this Godlike build, its important to understand the numbers behind the build. Virion’s 46 HP and 13 Res forces a unit to have 59 Magical offense to one shot him, a marks that is fairly tough to achieve considering that +ATK Julia only reach 58 Attack with Deathblow. For Brave-esque weapon, it took 36 ATK to ORKO Virion. That is where Deflect Magic comes into play

At +0, a +ATK Deathblow Reinhardt reach 50 Attack, which deals 37 Damage on Neutral Virion on initiation. After the 80% damage cut, Reinhardt deals a mere 7 damage to Virion, failing to kill his gargantuan 46 HP. 

Virion is arguably the best QP Moonbow Reinhardt counter in the entire game. With his amazing res of 13, Virion only took 3 extra damage from Reinhardt's Moonbow. To put this into perspective, an average 20 Res unit took 6 extra damage from Moonbow, double of that of Virion. With deflect magic factored in,Moonbow only deals 1 damage making him nearly immune to Reinhardt's Moonbow Damage

 

For the min maxing purpose, we're increasing Virion's weakest stats which is Res, and reducing his def because Virion need no defense. Why do Virion need no defense you ask? Virion need no defense because Virion counters Reinhardt. Doing this allows Virion to tank even +10 Reinhardt, at cost of reducing Virion's ability to counter Moonbow

Panic Ploy is used to put the opponent’s AI into a state of panic as they saw their mighty Reinhardt countered by the Archest Virion the world have ever seen, for they don’t have high enough IQ to understand this build. I pity them.

Edited December 18, 2017 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[Elieson]

I'd swear, you snagged my Wiki Virion build, (Ultra flattering <3, and Virion needs more love these days) but I'll explain why the build you generally suggested is excellent (and why I run it myself):

 

Quote

 

Taking advantage of his huge HP Pool, Virion can do something that most other archers can only dream of doing; reliably run Panic Ploy. With Valter available, you can strip Panic Ploy from a spare Valter and give it to our Legendary archer, allowing him to invert buffs on every single mage in the game (except for a small handful of 4, running the HP+3 Seal or the extremely uncommon HP+5 A skill). Being as many mages, from speedy to bulky, run #Blade tomes, Virion can position to effectively neuter their improved damage via defense boosts and secure kills on most of them. Not only that, but the same scenario for Panic Ploy applies to every Cavalry-type unit in the game, and all but 2 Flier-type units (Cherche and Beruka just barely skate by with exactly 46 HP like our Legend here). If you're tired of fighting Cavalry teams and want to lead the offense on them, Virion's a great place to start.

Death Blow 3 is important to this build, as it would be for pretty much any Brave build. With 48 effective attack and a Luna proc on Player Phase, he can obliterate just about anybody other than some Armors (Sheena/Hector/Effie/Amelias all survive with 8 or less HP...Hone Atk is welcomed here, but countered by potential opponent Ward Armors). Fury!Sharena, Fury!Ephraim and some #Raven users with Triangle adept are all outside of armors that Virion can blow away. Anything else will simply die. If there's no Luna proc, Virion can still offer quite a bit of damage, but struggles to kill a few bulky mages that hurt him/kill him back (Spring!Camilla, Merric and Nowi in particular), and a couple of outliers just barely survive (Iote's Shield Michalis and Subaki...units that are almost never run anyway). He's surprisingly powerful because the common meta features many units with sub-25 Defense, which is just what Virion lives to kill.

Swordbreaker ensures the KO via quad on bulkier sword users like Draug while still letting him stomp bulky swords that he can't double into the ground, like Ike and Fury!Xander. An alternative would be fine in running Cancel Affinity, but Sword users are far more likely to exist over Gem/TA users. If threats are running a traditional Cavalry team, well you've got a nice counter to them to soften up their approach.

Whenever Virion gets the chance to attack a second time during battle, he can activate Luna. This enemy defense reducing Special allows him to push through more bulky units before they get the chance to counter, letting him cross thresholds against units like Spring!Camilla and Leo. He'll struggle to kill some Armors (Amelia, Hector, Effie), but will come remarkably close, and can utilize any form of damage buff to secure a KO on them, while ignoring any out of combat buffs on the enemy thanks to Panic Ploy.
Reciprocal Aid works pretty well for him, because with his large HP pool, he can restore quite a few units to full HP, with the added benefit of restoring every unit back into a Quick Riposte 3 or Breaker 3 threshold. Alternatives in repositioning can't hurt, but if you're not running any other kind of heal support and feature some other Wait 'n Bait units on your team to counter common threats (Green mages to counter Reinhardt, etc), Virion's the best bowman for the job.

What makes Virion a special case is that his defensive parameters are polarized enough in that even with his shaky speed and embarassing Res, his stats allow him to sponge a melee hit up to 73 Atk, which is a giant number, capable of surviving an 2x Goaded +Atk Death Blow 3 Silver Lance Effie (72 Atk) and 3x Goaded +Atk Hector (67 Atk), a trait shared only by Gordin in the archer pool. With his buffed 26 speed, he can, when necessary, block a route and sponge a hit of melee combat from anyone touting less than 49 attack on a double strike (not unreasonable). His hilariously low Res means that he struggles to deal with just about all mages, but with Panic Ploy in effect, it gives Virion's pathetic 56 Magical bulk some more weight, by dropping mage attacks (and speeds) to more managable values and allowing him to survive a single hit from a handful of mages. To put this into perspective, #Blade Hone Cavalry buffed Fury!Ursula and +Spd Fury!Cecilia and +Atk Fury!Leo all fail to kill Virion if Panicked. With 10 Res, that's incredibly impressive.

If you're concerned about Investment, the game hands you a free Virion which performs almost as well, and with the now-free Valter and previously free Ursula, all of his other skills can come from 3-star units, along with easy access to 3* variants of himself for Nature hunting.

 

 

To amend this a bit, he also panics every Blue and Colorless infantry unit (other than himself), and all of that is done with him running a Neutral HP. Also, Life & Death gives him 26 speed and lets him maintain more than 20 def, giving him an average 66 singlehit melee bulk, which is pretty damn impressive, letting him do things like charge headfirst into many enemy bows/daggers/Distant Counter units without too much fear (as long as they aren't running Vengeful Fighter or Quick Riposte or Armads, which is only about half of the builds out there). 

To add more to this, a +Atk/-Def Virion can be built with Deflect Magic and Death Blow rather than L&D, and this build can survive & counterkill a paniced +10 DeathBlow Hone'd Rein. I wish I was joking.

Edited December 18, 2017 by Elieson

[XRay]

I would add in a Guard Bow build as a BH!Lyn counter for Arena Assault, as most players probably would not give Virion a Brave Bow set if they got three or more better archers like Klein, Jeorge, and BH!Lyn.

+Atk/Def, -Spd/Res
Guard Bow [Defense], Moonbow
Defense +3/Fury 3, Bowbreaker

Assuming Virion is 5*+0 and has neutral nature, he should be able to kill every variant of Mulagir/Brave Bow BH!Lyn+10 besides ones that stack their Defense with +Def and Defense +3 Sacred Seal together. Fury 3 should not be necessary unless Virion got a -Atk/Def.

If Virion is 4*+10 and has neutral nature, he should be able to take out every Mulagir/Brave Bow BH!Lyn+10 variant and he does not need an A slot.

Edited December 18, 2017 by XRay

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

@Elieson Lmao you read my mind

 

Basically i actually had all of your mentions as "set". If not for the error in the editing i would had 3 set, although only really 2 are "practical"

 

@XRay Its actually one of the set i had on the write up before "the editing purge" happened. I'd try to do it by tommorow(the write up is done its.... putting it here and give it proper set that is an issue)

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

write up is done for the time being

[XRay]

1 hour ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Its actually one of the set i had on the write up before "the editing purge" happened. I'd try to do it by tommorow(the write up is done its.... putting it here and give it proper set that is an issue)

Ah. Okay. Hopefully it does not purge whatever you write tomorrow.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Ah. Okay. Hopefully it does not purge whatever you write tomorrow.

its done now. the problem was really i'm bad at spoiler tagging(the way i did it before would create 1 mega spoiler with all the other spoiler in it), which is solved by simply entering the set write up one by one. Not efficient but it gets the job done

[BANRYU]

All hail the panic-inducing archest archer!

IDK if it's viable enough to even be worth listing, but I'd planned on using my own Virion for a Clarisse's Bow debuffer build for a while now; I think it was gonna be like Wind Boost / Darting Blow / whatever, Seal Atk/Spd 2 (though now that Clarisse Bow debuffs target, this can be safely replaced with whatever), and Savage Blow stacking or some such.