General Weapon Refinery discussion/speculation/creation thread

[Jingle Jangle]

What about this for Mathilda?

Saunion: At start of combat, if unit's Res ≥ foe's Res+3, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3 during combat.

Refine: Skills with "effective against Cavalry " are effective against unit. If foe has no skills with "effective against Cavalry," inflicts Atk-6 on foe during combat.

My thought process is that Mathilda needs improve her physical matchup so the same effect as Deirdre's Divide Naga should work well on her. The refine is to improve her shoddy defenses even more. To reference In Echoes Saunion has a defense buff.

[GreatKnightEcho]

Here are some dumb refine ideas I got.

Spoiler

Jakob: Jakob's Plate

Base: Dagger effect + Unit reduces damage based upon unit's highest stat (HP calculated as HP-10).

Effect: Renewal 3

Narcian: Flawless Poleaxe

Base: Unit gets effective damage against blues, but takes effective damage against reds (Unaffected by Cancel Affinity).

Refine effect: Unit heals 50% of damage dealt when special triggers.

Rebecca: Makeshift Bow

Base Effect: Swift Sparrow 2

Refine: If unit initiates combat, grants +2 ATK and +6 RES and grants +10 damage when special triggers. 

Camus: Unshakable Gradivus (Can't be given to Hardin)

Base: If unit is >= 70% HP at the start of combat and unit suffers an attack that would drop their HP to 0, unit takes 50% of damage dealt and boosts damage of next special by half of damage taken. (First hit only.) 

Refine: Saber's Refine Effect

 

[XRay]

9 minutes ago, GreatKnightEcho said:

Jakob: Jakob's Plate

Base: Dagger effect + Unit reduces damage based upon unit's highest stat (HP calculated as HP-10).

Effect: Renewal 3

Assuming each stat point reduces 1 damage, that is really nice. Since his Atk can now function as his Def and Res too, you just need to Atk stack Jakob.

+Atk (Atk 32)
Jakob's Plate (Mt 14)
(Any Assist)
Moonbow — Bonfire
Close Counter
Quick Riposte
(Any C)
Fierce Stance (Atk 6)

That gives him 52 Atk. Since he can reduce 52 damage per hit, he now effectively has an impressive 77 Def and 76 Res.

[GreatKnightEcho]

@XRay this doesn't stack with his natural DEF and RES, that stat becomes his new DEF and RES, but this doesn't go in to calculating the DEF/RES-based specials. Should've clarified.

Edited January 28, 2019 by GreatKnightEcho

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

31 minutes ago, Jingle Jangle said:

What about this for Mathilda?

Saunion: At start of combat, if unit's Res ≥ foe's Res+3, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3 during combat.

Refine: Skills with "effective against Cavalry " are effective against unit. If foe has no skills with "effective against Cavalry," inflicts Atk-6 on foe during combat.

My thought process is that Mathilda needs improve her physical matchup so the same effect as Deirdre's Divide Naga should work well on her. The refine is to improve her shoddy defenses even more. To reference In Echoes Saunion has a defense buff.

Since Mathilda is already a Cavalry unit, you do not need to clarify that anything effective against Cavalry is effective against her. As for everything else, it’s good.

[XRay]

1 minute ago, GreatKnightEcho said:

@XRay this doesn't stack with his natural DEF and RES, that stat becomes his new DEF and RES. Should've clarified.

Aw... But that 77/76 mixed bulk though! I guess 52/52 is still pretty decent.

I think the wording the game would use is something like:
"Calculates damage using the higher of unit's HP-10, Atk, Spd, Def, or Res. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Def/Res-7 on target and foes within 2 spaces of target through their next actions. "

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Azure the Scale Tipper said:

So what other ways can I go about doing a refine for Jagen?

I generally just go for function over novelty. Understand how the unit works and either patch up a weakness or enhance a strength.

Now if you want something with some novelty, maybe try "Adds total bonuses on unit to Def and Res" for some utterly silly tanking ability.

 

1 hour ago, Azure the Scale Tipper said:

Btw, I would also like to know what your thoughts are on the other refines.

Mostly indifferent.

[colossus86]

Since it seems IS would rather try to "fix" lackluster 5 stars rather than demote them I'll start with a couple of those.

LUKE: Hero's Saber

Base Effect: ATK/DEF Solo 3

Refine: Quickened Pulse 2

Luke is a tough one. He has no real standout stats as solid physical bulk and a good ATK stat aren't hard to come by in his class. But with this weapon the idea is he'd run off ahead of his team and open with a big special, then lean on his physical bulk to survive the incoming beating.

SONYA:

Base Effect: Unchanged

Refine: SPD/RES Solo 3

Ugh, if there was one weapon I'd be all for stripping out its base effect it would be Dark Excalibur. Sonya is not particularly fast, ranged, and an infantry unit. In isolation, none of those are a deal breaker, but combined it makes her PRF very difficult to actually get good use out of since she can't activate specials very frequently. This won't fix all her issues but SPD/RES solo will make her better at dueling other mages and can provide speed duel phase to help get specials out.

On the topic of 5 stars i still stand by Infantry rush for Delthea since I'd give her a cool niche and nothing they could reasonably give her would likely outperform a bladetome in pure killing potential anyways.

Edited January 29, 2019 by colossus86

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, colossus86 said:

Ugh, if there was one weapon I'd be all for stripping out its base effect it would be Dark Excalibur. Sonya is not particularly fast, ranged, and an infantry unit. In isolation, none of those are a deal breaker, but combined it makes her PRF very difficult to actually get good use out of since she can't activate specials very frequently.

That makes it sound like one of the best candidates for Quickened Pulse 2 as a refine effect.

[ILikeKirbys]

@Azure the Scale Tipper

Quote

-Lyon: [Refined] Naglfar:

14 might

Default: Distant Def 3

Refine: Sturdy Stance 2

I agree with removing the Raven effect, and giving him 14-MT Raudhrserpent instead is a good way to take advantage of his decent mixed defenses. Sturdy Stance to get his DEF to match his RES is a nice touch, and I approve of buffing his ATK (and I especially approve of giving him a Stance as his Refine, since it would still work if you gave him Close Counter). I would consider refining Naglfar if it got something like this.

-Corrin/M!Kana: Torrential Breath:

16 might

Default: Bracing Stance 2 + Adaptive damage effect

Refine: If unit is within 2 spaces of support ally, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res +4 to that ally during combat.

*Female Kana, even if she is a Green Dragon, also has this weapon.

I like this weapon for F!Corrin, but I feel like the Kanas would get their own Prf instead of borrowing from their mom (I feel this mostly because with Torrential Breath both Corrins' weapons would have a Refine based on their Personal Skill in Fates, while the Kanas had a completely different Personal Skill [which restored 15% of their HP when they started their turn with a Dragonstone equipped] that could be brought in for them [for example, as a Refine that gave them 10-HP recovery at the start of every turn, like Arvis's Recover Ring but on the weapon instead of the B Slot]).

-Jagen: Guardian’s Lance:

16 might

Default: Steady Stance 3.5 (Def version of Berkut’s Lance)

Refine: Atk Ploy 3

I feel like this could work out decently for Jagen from a purely-tanking perspective, though I also feel like ATK Ploy 3 should be a dual-Ploy since that's what Valflame and Reese's Tome have (it doesn't need to be, this is just my personal opinion). I still wouldn't use Jagen since I have better cavaliers (Elise, Reinhardt, Lyn, Roy, Sigurd, Eirika, LA Lilina, Groom Marth, Ares, Olwen, Reinhardt, Veronica), but it looks like a pretty alright weapon to me.

-Abel: Green Panther’s Lance:

16 might

Default: Spd/Def Solo 3

Refine: Grants +3 Atk/Res to all cavalry and flying allies within 2 spaces.

I like this weapon, though I need to ask, why SPD/DEF Solo? The Refine effect is neat, though. I like this weapon.

And since she's bugged me for a while, here's a personal staff for Mist:

Mist - Helpful Sister
Mist's Staff | MT 14 | When unit's RES - foe's RES > 3, grants ATK/SPD/DEF/RES +3 during combat.
Skill-Refine: When Special is charged at start of combat, grants DEF/RES +7 during combat.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Instead of removing Raven effects, I would prefer to see such effects brought up with free effects on refine. Tacking on skills to disable Dazzling Staff and Wrathful Staff would help Raven units do their intended jobs again.

 

There is also the problem of Colored Bows and Cancel Affinity. Cancel Affinity just has to be accepted as an existing evil, while Colored Bows can/should be addressed by allowing Bowbreaker to work against them (and the fact that it doesn't already do so baffles me).

[Corrobin]

2 minutes ago, Etheus said:

Instead of removing Raven effects, I would prefer to see such effects brought up with free effects on refine. Tacking on skills to disable Dazzling Staff and Wrathful Staff would help Raven units do their intended jobs again.

 

There is also the problem of Colored Bows and Cancel Affinity. Cancel Affinity just has to be accepted as an existing evil, while Colored Bows can/should be addressed by allowing Bowbreaker to work against them (and the fact that it doesn't already do so baffles me).

The thing is, there's a rule with Breakers-you can't use it to counter the weapon triangle (Sword units can't equip Lancebreaker or Blue Tomebreaker, etc), and giving Bowbreaker (or Daggerbreaker, for that matter) the ability to affect all colors would break that rule.

[Fabulously Olivier]

1 minute ago, Corrobin said:

The thing is, there's a rule with Breakers-you can't use it to counter the weapon triangle (Sword units can't equip Lancebreaker or Blue Tomebreaker, etc), and giving Bowbreaker (or Daggerbreaker, for that matter) the ability to affect all colors would break that rule.

This is true. But in this one case, it actually wouldn't matter much at all. The only units likely to run Bowbreaker are Raven tome wielders, which tend to run TA, and thus wouldn't be able to stand up to the opposite color bow anyway. Even without TA, these units typically lack the combat performance necessary to kill with WTD.

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, Etheus said:

The only units likely to run Bowbreaker are Raven tome wielders,

That doesn't change the fact that other units can and will use the skill if given access to it. I've already seen non-tome Aether Raids opponents running Bowbreaker and Daggerbreaker.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Perhaps the solution is simply to add a few new skills that upgrade from Bowbreaker 3 and Daggerbreaker 3.

 

Namely Bowbreaker + Red/Blue, Bowbreaker + Red/Green, Bowbreaker + Blue/Green, Daggerbreaker + Red/Blue, Daggerbreaker + Red/Green, and Daggerbreaker + Blue/Green. These would all cover Colorless plus their respective colors.

[Stroud]

I slowly start to hope for Sheena and Wendy to get a refine. Maybe Effie or overall first gen generals. Slowly it gets more and more difficult to compete with them. And I think a nice new option would help.

On ‎29‎.‎01‎.‎2019 at 1:44 AM, colossus86 said:

Ugh, if there was one weapon I'd be all for stripping out its base effect it would be Dark Excalibur. Sonya is not particularly fast, ranged, and an infantry unit. In isolation, none of those are a deal breaker, but combined it makes her PRF very difficult to actually get good use out of since she can't activate specials very frequently. This won't fix all her issues but SPD/RES solo will make her better at dueling other mages and can provide speed duel phase to help get specials out.

I don't dislike her +10 Damage on Dark Excalibur. I play her a lot with AOE and Special spiral as B along with Heavyblade seal or Infantry Rush support. Yes she is a slow starter, but I did some Abyssal runs with her, 3 dancers and Dark Excalibur and she just worked fine once her engine starts. And I think it speaks for Dark Excalibur, some battles really have a close call regarding atk. 

I think Cooldown-1 would help her so she is not in need of Heavyblade and she can run AOE more easily with Hardy Bearing. And I guess it would also help her with other specials.

Special Spiral would also work, My problem would be that she still needs Heavyblade to make consecutive use of AOE, but it is less investment and she could run Chill Res/Spd/Atk or any other B skill.

Res/SPD Solo would be nice though, but I think that she does not need speed for her PRF. At best she should make OHKO thanks to Dark Excalibur with specials. Her Attack stat is also not so bad that you cannot build on that.

I know that not anyone has Special Spiral at disposal. But it just gives Dark Excalibur more potential.

23 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

That makes it sound like one of the best candidates for Quickened Pulse 2 as a refine effect.

Her engine could start with this on turn 1, I also find that nice on Dark Excalibur.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Stroud

[Troykv]

Are you ready for the 3.2 Refines?

[colossus86]

Overall I'm very pleased with not just the number of refines, but also selections.

Hinata's always been outshined by Chrom in my mind as they can serve the same roll as physical walls but Chrom's access to Falcion made him the more versatile unit. Hopefully his weapon is something fun and creative. As practical as slaying weapons and effective damage are, they don't really change a unit's matchups much.

Oboro's always been a bit of an oddball. She has a sort of min-maxed spread, but with super boons in her bad stats which opens up alot of build options. That being said its not like shes overly good at anything so it'll be interesting to see what direction they push her in. I selfishly hope its something good for arena since I have 11 Oboros sitting in my barracks.

Eliwood used to be your only practical option for a merge-able, budget friendly sword Cav, but Ares getting demoted was a huge shot to his value. Then Xander becoming more merge-able  via Grails dealt another blow, so the man could certainly use a pick me up.

Seth has been terrible forever and that's a shame.

Niles does have a niche as the highest RES Archer in the game, even 2 full years after launch. Him getting a refine over his other, arguably worse gen 1 archer brothers might come down to popularity, but that's how it goes sometimes

Nino and Tharja both function fine as blademages, but infantry blademages are very restrictive in terms of team comp and the kind of skills they need to be surrounded by so having another option is certainly welcome. I'm hopeful Tharja gets some utility to make her an interesting option for Arena

Amelia is the first unit with better than launch era BST to receive a refine, and all things considered I understand the choice. While she has more BST than Sheena, the latter at least still has a defined roll stemming from being the only summonable unit of her class with good availability and her still impressive mixed bulk. Amelia compares very poorly with other 5 star locked options in her class and her only standout trait, speed, would mean alot more in a different movement type. As I mentioned in a previous post, IS seems intent on using the weapon refinery to boost up poor 5 stars instead of demoting them and Amelia is our latest example of those efforts.

 

[Diovani Bressan]

It's weird that Oboro's Spear isn't a Naginata, but that's ok.

[Stroud]

55 minutes ago, Diovani Bressan said:

It's weird that Oboro's Spear isn't a Naginata, but that's ok.

Just looked at the japanese name of her Weapon its its called : 漆薙刀 where 薙刀 stands for Naginata.

漆 could stand for 7 as a prefix. Just makes it more confusing, tried to research about Naginata to see if there are variations, but I just cannot find anything about a double edged Naginata. I guess they made that weapon design for Oboro, because of her Artwork. 

Overall the weapon could be just a Yari (blade in form of a spear) anyway. I think the english translation is more accurate this time, unless I am missing something? 

Edited February 3, 2019 by Stroud

[Jingle Jangle]

Tharja is getting a refine. You have my attention game.

[Xenomata]

Nino and Tharja worry me... Odin got a personal Blarblade, but then he has the worst Atk stat of all non-Staff units and kinda needs it. Tailtiu got a tome with Wrath built into it, but then Wrath was her whole thing in Genealogy. Nino and Tharja are the best units to have been given Bladetomes, and they're not particularly known for anything special in their original games besides being neat units... they're either gonna become the strongest bladetome units in the game, or they're gonna be given entirely new effects (or at least, they're gonna have powerful skills put into their weapons)...

2 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

It's weird that Oboro's Spear isn't a Naginata, but that's ok.

What's more confusing is that it's not like Oboro's Spear is like other new weapons that is based on the units artwork (see Cherche, Barst, Florina, or Shanna, among others), it is an established weapon in both FE: Fates and Warriors that is very much a Naginata.

Heck, even Hinoka's Spear is still a Naginata, despite the dumdums at Nintendo Translate. God, this makes me worry for when Subaki gets Subaki's Pike...

@Stroud There were a few... odd Naginata's in Fates, such as the Bold Naginata and the Pine Branch. So while the official definition of a Naginata may not have anything like a double edged existence, Fire Emblem will make you wield a teddy bear as a weapon of mass destruction and then call it an axe. Better known as "It will play by its own rules".

Edited February 3, 2019 by Xenomata

[NegativeExponents-]

1 hour ago, Stroud said:

漆 could stand for 7 as a prefix. Just makes it more confusing,

Seven is almost always seen as 七

漆 is better translated as varnish or lacquer which makes more sense considering this is Oboro we’re talking about. So if I had to translate it 漆薙刀 would be Varnished Naginata not Seven Naginata.

You’re right in the English being more accurate this time since 槍/Yari means spear/lance/javelin which is what she’s wielding.

@Ice Dragon you’re more knowledgeable in Japanese right? so please tell me if anything I said was wrong.

———————————

Ahhhhhh!!!! Eliwood and Niles finally get a refine! Good thing I never went through on giving Eliwood safeguard.

I’m overjoyed. For one, I thought for sure Eliwood would never get a refine and that IS would just see the Blazing Durandal of Brave Roy’s to be good enough but I never liked it on him so great to see that he’s actually getting his own unique refine that is hopefully better suited for him.

And of course Niles is getting one too! I’m actually a bit wary of this one. I hope he doesn’t get something underwhelming like Florina’s (although in her case it was more that Tannenboom! is such a fantastic weapon) Come on IS. All you need to do is keep the slaying effect so that way even if the unique refine is garbo I can still give him an upgraded Slaying Bow.

Ideally, Niles keeps the CD reduction, gets a way to boost his speed and res higher, and gets adaptive damage like Felicia did. The adaptive damage part might be asking for too much but he needs something to overcome his low attack and that seems like the most effective and simple way to go about it. If not adaptive damage then maybe something like a Wo Dao effect or negating adaptive damage from dragons. Oooh, maybe even an in-built Chill of some kind (spd pls) for some support. Just something that fills his given role as a mage killer but also helps with other general matchups.

Edited February 3, 2019 by NegativeExponents-

[Wanda]

Oboro should have received the Waterwheel, but I guess it could still be added on a seasonal Oboro/Shiro.

Very interested to see Tharja's refine. If it's a 14mt blade tome prf with a special effect I'll be very happy since she's already excellent with a standard blade tome. However, given the name, I'm expecting something similar to either FEH's version of Aversa's Night or loli Azura's Book of Shadows. Either of those would be interesting, especially the former because then I could drop Aversa in favour of Tharja in my AR defence team. She could theoretically inflict debuffs/status, provide infantry pulse for one of my other units, and reduce Ophelia's cooldown by virtue of being a mage.

Very interested to see Seth's refine too, he badly needed an upgrade since he, like Titania, is a shadow of his OG self. Hopefully he won't get lumbered with a clumsy gem tactic weapon.

[Thane]

I wonder if Hinata will get the Eldigan/Bartre treatment where they just slap Fury on his weapon.

To my knowledge regular Tharja is inferior to her bridal version, so I can see why a refine was necessary. "Tharja's Hex" sounds like it could have a Chill effect - we have Aversa for that, but Katarina got a similar (the same?) effect as Valflame, so who knows. 

I've been interested in building an Oboro so I hope her weapon will be good. Since I've pretty much only seen her used together with DC and Berkut's Lance, I wonder if the weapon will have a similar function, like how they didn't continue with the anti-armor effect for Cherche but gave her a more powerful Brave Axe instead.

To my recollection, Niles' Attack is pitiful, so I wonder how they'll address that.

Amelia probably is the most interesting to me since I run her on my standard Armor team. I'll take one Special Fighter, pls.