General Weapon Refinery discussion/speculation/creation thread

[Zeo]

3 hours ago, Alexmender said:

@Zeo With unrefinable you mean that even as Prfs they'll still get access to the Wrathful/Dazzling effect or that they'll get nothing? If it's the former then it'll be ok, if it's the latter that's going to be too underpowered even with extra Mt, making the nosferatu effect useless. 

As you said Serra's Atk is low-ish so getting the full 14Mt treatment isn't going to make her broken or anything so it's fine if she gets the full power of a Prf staff. If we're being fair, Serra has higher bulk than Veronica, she seems bulkier due to the +8 stat difference her staff gives her, but her actual bulk is pathetic on both sides of the spectrum due to her low BST.

Being able to continously get 10 Hp back after every round of combat is the scary part, if you don't kill her in one round she'll just keep healing back which can lead to either: A) You die slowly by her supreme annoyance or B) The game reaches a stalemale where neither you nor the Serra can kill each other. I don't think IS will allow for something that has the potential of becoming a Funbro set (In competitive Pokemon, Funbro is a scummy tactic using a Block+Heal Pulse+Slack off+Recycle+Leppa berry Slowbro that doesn't allow anyone to die which leads to a game that can't be won nor lost unless someone forfeits). I would reduce the 10 Hp to 6 just like Mystic Boost does, 4 Hp may seem insignificant but it can really add up over time.

What I mean is every Prf staff in recent memory has had either a Wrathful or Dazzling effect in addition to it's unique one, so they would either go that route and personally pick one for each staff (which would suck if they gave native Dazzling to this for example and forced you to run Razzle Dazzle if you want the Wrathful effect) or force you to use Dew to refine the Prf staves which would really suck but it's realistic since it's a personal staff.

As for the healing, 7 is the amount that is already given to allies after an Absorb+ user attacks. I understanding you're using Mystic Boost as a base, but considering this is a Prf Absorb staff, the healing value would increase, not decrease. Even if the unit itself was now benefitting from the healing. I could go so far as 8 or 9, but 10 is a nice even number that sounds realistic in the age of "Darting Blow 3 = 6 SPD > Darting Blow 4 = 9 SPD" powercreep.

I don't think your fears of a neverending battle will apply hear for two reasons.

1. That kind of occurence could only happen in 2 places, Aether Raids or Arena/AA. In Aether raids it would be pretty much the same as trying to kill a Surtr/Cain/Supertank buffed by blessings in the corner before the time runs out. Sure it would be irritating trying to kill a triple Light/Anima/Dark/Astra boosted Serra with Mystic Boost, Absorb+, Fort DEF/RES, Rouse DEF/RES and Swift Stance but realistically you're going to run out of time before that happens so it's not infinite and in a way this can be at the very least mimicked in other units currently. 

2. This is the second reason which applies to the other area: Arena. In this mode you have everything under the sun at your disposal and are attacking in most cases with powerful physical units that are going to rip Serra to shreds. She's pretty much made of paper on the DEF side and unless she's running Guard you're going to rip into her with a special and kill her, especially considering her meh Speed stat. Sure she'll be pretty much invincible to magic with the proper setup but you shouldn't be trying to kill her with magic to begin with.

I think the 10 is fine. I could go as low as 8 though. 14 HP recovery every round of combat is still pretty nutty.

4 hours ago, XRay said:

I like the fancy overpowered stuff, so I am not sure I am the person to go to nerf something.

14 Mt is fine. Loki's Thökk is 14 Mt and has Wrathful Staff effect.

Personally, I think 75% HP recovery still is not enough. I would go for 100% of damage dealt due to how crazy hard units can hit these days. Serra also cannot learn a damage Special anyways limiting her damage output, so giving her super Sol on each attack is pretty reasonable in my opinion.

I don't think the extra 2 MT will make or break her but 100% Vamprism is just too much, even with her bulk. Let's think about this for a second.

A +ATK Serra at +0 with her 14 MT Countess staff would have 47 ATK without an A Skill or Seal. At +10 she would have 51. With ATK/SPD Push and a simple ATK+3 she would have 59. With those things Dragon Flowers she would have 61 ATK before visible or in-combat buffs. That's simply not fair with 100% Vamprism. Even with the speedier physical attackers, without a skill proc if they don't kill her immediately she'll literally just attack on the next phase (or counter if she has CC) and recover all of her health. You can opt for a +SPD Serra and that will decrease her HP sucking powers, but now she's avoiding a lot more doubles from speedier units at a very comfortable 38-40 speed which she can increase with an A/C/S slot skill of her choice.

I want her to be powerful but 100% vamprism is just nutty. 75% seems like a nice area. Exceedingly powerful but not quite broken. Even for a unit like Serra... I honestly don't think any healer would be alright with 100% vamprism. Not even Lissa. 

I haven't even mentioned stuff like running a CC Serra with this staff with Even/Odd Spd Wave and Miracle with Infantry Flash support. Charging Miracle on the first round of combat against an opponent that can counter. She would be literally immortal.

1 hour ago, Landmaster said:

Ah another reminder that IS refuses to give Elise Staves prfs.

Anyway, seems fine to me. I'd say she can go up to 14 MT but I can see why you'd go for 12 since Absorb itself is known for it's lower MT. It would make her nigh unkillable with Mystic Boost and with BOL or even double BOL, would also make her Allies just as annoying~ Lu Bu would have a field day with something like this~

I wonder if Prf Staves would get inbuilt Wrazzle or Dazzle seeing as the only two Legendary Staves we currently have themselves have one or the other. I could certainly see it. 

You'd probably have to use Dew to pick one of the effects. Otherwise staves would just get free prfs whereas all of the other gen 1-2 units have to spend Dew. Now that I think about it the newer prf staff users only have Wrathful or Dazzling built in because they won't get refines and need to be able to have the option to run Razzle Dazzle.

 

[Ice Dragon]

11 hours ago, Zeo said:

I don't think the extra 2 MT will make or break her but 100% Vamprism is just too much, even with her bulk. Let's think about this for a second.

A +ATK Serra at +0 with her 14 MT Countess staff would have 47 ATK without an A Skill or Seal. At +10 she would have 51. With ATK/SPD Push and a simple ATK+3 she would have 59. With those things Dragon Flowers she would have 61 ATK before visible or in-combat buffs. That's simply not fair with 100% Vamprism. Even with the speedier physical attackers, without a skill proc if they don't kill her immediately she'll literally just attack on the next phase (or counter if she has CC) and recover all of her health. You can opt for a +SPD Serra and that will decrease her HP sucking powers, but now she's avoiding a lot more doubles from speedier units at a very comfortable 38-40 speed which she can increase with an A/C/S slot skill of her choice.

I don't think it's as broken as you think it is.

31 base Spd is slow by today's standards where the norm for "fast" is 35-41 base Spd and guaranteed follow-ups are increasingly common. Boosts to her Spd from her skills are almost guaranteed to be matched by the opponent's own boosts, so she's still going to get doubled, even if she runs a Spd Asset. If she runs Close Counter, she loses out on a full Spd tier, which pretty much guarantees she'll get doubled by any competently built player-phase unit.

Without Close Counter, she's flat out dead if she's attacked by any competently built player-phase melee unit since any physical melee unit fast enough to double her with at least 47 Atk will kill her.

With Close Counter, she only has 56 Atk. Assuming the attacker is glassy on the magic side and has only 26 Res, she heals 30 HP for each of her own attacks. However, she only has 66 physical bulk for a single attack and 62 physical bulk for two hits after accounting for 30 HP of healing. Most fully merged player-phase units are already around 60-70 Atk with skills before Special activation and without buffs, so they'll still be able to break through her healing even at 100% return.

[XRay]

11 hours ago, Zeo said:

I don't think the extra 2 MT will make or break her but 100% Vamprism is just too much, even with her bulk. Let's think about this for a second.

A +ATK Serra at +0 with her 14 MT Countess staff would have 47 ATK without an A Skill or Seal. At +10 she would have 51. With ATK/SPD Push and a simple ATK+3 she would have 59. With those things Dragon Flowers she would have 61 ATK before visible or in-combat buffs. That's simply not fair with 100% Vamprism. Even with the speedier physical attackers, without a skill proc if they don't kill her immediately she'll literally just attack on the next phase (or counter if she has CC) and recover all of her health. You can opt for a +SPD Serra and that will decrease her HP sucking powers, but now she's avoiding a lot more doubles from speedier units at a very comfortable 38-40 speed which she can increase with an A/C/S slot skill of her choice.

 I want her to be powerful but 100% vamprism is just nutty. 75% seems like a nice area. Exceedingly powerful but not quite broken. Even for a unit like Serra... I honestly don't think any healer would be alright with 100% vamprism. Not even Lissa. 

 I haven't even mentioned stuff like running a CC Serra with this staff with Even/Odd Spd Wave and Miracle with Infantry Flash support. Charging Miracle on the first round of combat against an opponent that can counter. She would be literally immortal.

100% Vampirism is pretty reasonable in my opinion because Serra's bulk is really low. Giving Serra 100% Vampirism fixes her bulk issue and it allows her to viably and effectively wall ranged nukes if she runs Distant Def 7 with Guard. Even with 100% Vampirism, Faye is still a better wall than Serra in my opinion due to her higher bulk and Faye can actually tank and kill things with Quick Riposte on Bow of Devotion.

I do not see Serra with Close Counter being viable in PvP modes, as melee units hit really hard. Even if you give Serra infinite% Vampirism, her low bulk means that a melee unit triggering Moonbow will almost always one shot Serra, and that is assuming they did not already kill her in one hit before.

[redlight]

So I just looked at Mae's stat spread and it's pretty comparable to Kagero's. I hope she gets the same weapon as she did in the form of a tome

[XRay]

1 hour ago, redlight said:

So I just looked at Mae's stat spread and it's pretty comparable to Kagero's. I hope she gets the same weapon as she did in the form of a tome

That is a pretty weak base effect and sticking with Blárblade is better in most cases. Guaranteed Atk+24 is lot more useful than conditional Atk/Spd+4 in my opinion. If they want a tome that is actually viable and comparable to Blárblade, it can have have Refined Ragnarok's base effect of guaranteed Atk/Spd+5 and 5 recoil damage.

Kagero's Dart's special Refinement effect is okay.

[Hilda]

33 minutes ago, XRay said:

That is a pretty weak base effect and sticking with Blárblade is better in most cases. Guaranteed Atk+24 is lot more useful than conditional Atk/Spd+4 in my opinion. If they want a tome that is actually viable and comparable to Blárblade, it can have have Refined Ragnarok's base effect of guaranteed Atk/Spd+5 and 5 recoil damage.

Kagero's Dart's special Refinement effect is okay.

Imho if you want high dmg just inherit a Litrblade. the whole point of a different refine is to differentiate the mages. Want insane glass cannon nukes -----> go with Nino or Tharja. Want a different play style go with one of the other special refine ranged units. I would like a Kagero refine or so. It adds variety to the units, whats the point of having 392093032 units that do exactly the same thing?

[XRay]

2 minutes ago, Hilda said:

Imho if you want high dmg just inherit a Litrblade. the whole point of a different refine is to differentiate the mages. Want insane glass cannon nukes -----> go with Nino or Tharja. Want a different play style go with one of the other special refine ranged units. I would like a Kagero refine or so. It adds variety to the units, whats the point of having 392093032 units that do exactly the same thing?

Conditional Atk/Spd+4 is worse than a guaranteed Atk/Spd+5 with 5 recoil damage. Conditional Atk/Spd+4 is not a competitive option to make a mage stand out from its peers.

Guaranteed Atk/Spd+5 with 5 recoil damage is a competitive option. While in combat Atk/Spd+5 still lacks the raw power of Blade tome's massive Atk+24, in combat Atk/Spd+5 is more guaranteed since it cannot be Dulled, and the recoil damage helps the unit reach Desperation range.

[Hilda]

1 minute ago, XRay said:

Conditional Atk/Spd+4 is worse than a guaranteed Atk/Spd+5 with 5 recoil damage. Conditional Atk/Spd+4 is not a competitive option to make a mage stand out from its peers.

Guaranteed Atk/Spd+5 with 5 recoil damage is a competitive option. While in combat Atk/Spd+5 still lacks the raw power of Blade tome's massive Atk+24, in combat Atk/Spd+5 is more guaranteed since it cannot be Dulled, and the recoil damage helps the unit reach Desperation range.

I dont think anyone means the 1. effect (at least not me), but Kageros special refine that reduces damage taken.

[XRay]

1 minute ago, Hilda said:

I dont think anyone means the 1. effect (at least not me), but Kageros special refine that reduces damage taken.

Oh, my bad. I misunderstood.

Yeah, Kagero's Dart's special Refinement is okay, as it is pretty nice to safely engage practically any enemy. I personally prefer a stat boost such as Brazen Atk/Spd, but the damage reduction is not bad.

I am just not a fan of Kagero's Dart's base effect because it just feels like a huge slap in the face of what it could have been. It could have just been a regular Swift Sparrow effect without the stupid Atk comparison.

[Kaden]

8 hours ago, redlight said:

So I just looked at Mae's stat spread and it's pretty comparable to Kagero's. I hope she gets the same weapon as she did in the form of a tome

Or we should totes give her Dire Thunder. She's infantry, so it's not going to be that bad. 😛

[XRay]

10 hours ago, Kaden said:

Or we should totes give her Dire Thunder. She's infantry, so it's not going to be that bad. 😛

And it has Death Blow as a Refinement.

[Kaden]

24 minutes ago, XRay said:

And it has Death Blow as a Refinement.

Oh, that's too weak. It should target the foe's lower defensive stat.

Seriously though, Mae with big, hurty lightning would be interesting.

Mae having the equivalent to Celica Ragnarok would be interesting as well. Offensively she's kind of like a +Atk, -Spd Celica. An issue would be puppet Delthea whose Death tome is similar, but not completely and the fact that the developers were willing to give a blue Ragnarok to Mae, a 3* to 4* summonable unit. Then again, Reinhardt was demoted, so yeah.

A personal -owl tome with a 2 spaces -owl effect like that of Muspell Fireposy, Nifl Frostflowers, and Wolf Queen Fang seems reasonable for Boey and Mae. Boey's could focus on Atk/Def, Def/Res, or Atk/Res buffing while Mae's could be the same as the three above weapons and buff her Atk/Spd or Atk/Res and Spd/Res could work for her. Boey at least is a bulky mage who'd like an -owl tome, but with the developers' track record of giving personal -owl tomes to player phase units, I wouldn't be surprised if Mae kept her default -owl effect while Boey ends up with his version of Blizzard or something stupid like a personal Guard tome with Sturdy Stance as its unique refinement. Thanks for having F!Robin use Gronnowl during a Tap Battle, but not actually giving her and M!Robin -owl tomes or freaking Bond effects on their tomes when they debuted in the game that introduced Pair Up and had skills involving Pair Up or being nearby allies. So far, I think Raigh is the closest to a bulky mage getting a personal -owl tome in terms of raw defensive stats since Soren can be deceptively bulky in defense if everything aligns for him while Raigh's base defense is slightly higher than Soren's.

Edited August 1, 2019 by Kaden

[XRay]

57 minutes ago, Kaden said:

Oh, that's too weak. It should target the foe's lower defensive stat.

Seriously though, Mae with big, hurty lightning would be interesting.

Mae having the equivalent to Celica Ragnarok would be interesting as well. Offensively she's kind of like a +Atk, -Spd Celica. An issue would be puppet Delthea whose Death tome is similar, but not completely and the fact that the developers were willing to give a blue Ragnarok to Mae, a 3* to 4* summonable unit. Then again, Reinhardt was demoted, so yeah.

A personal -owl tome with a 2 spaces -owl effect like that of Muspell Fireposy, Nifl Frostflowers, and Wolf Queen Fang seems reasonable for Boey and Mae. Boey's could focus on Atk/Def, Def/Res, or Atk/Res buffing while Mae's could be the same as the three above weapons and buff her Atk/Spd or Atk/Res and Spd/Res could work for her. Boey at least is a bulky mage who'd like an -owl tome, but with the developers' track record of giving personal -owl tomes to player phase units, I wouldn't be surprised if Mae kept her default -owl effect while Boey ends up with his version of Blizzard or something stupid like a personal Guard tome with Sturdy Stance as its unique refinement. Thanks for having F!Robin use Gronnowl during a Tap Battle, but not actually giving her and M!Robin -owl tomes or freaking Bond effects on their tomes when they debuted in the game that introduced Pair Up and had skills involving Pair Up or being nearby allies. So far, I think Raigh is the closest to a bulky mage getting a personal -owl tome in terms of raw defensive stats since Soren can be deceptively bulky in defense if everything aligns for him while Raigh's base defense is slightly higher than Soren's.

I can live with Mae getting 2-space Owl effect if it boosts Atk/Spd, but adjacent Owl effect would be horrible.

They completely fucked up Katarina's vanilla kit with the stupid Owl effect, either making her Weapon useless as a Player Phase unit or making her Swift Sparrow useless as an Enemy Phase unit. Making Swift Sparrow useless is pretty bad fucking deal.

[Anacybele]

You know what, if Boey doesn't get outright Close Counter in his new weapon, he then should get what Saber got in his Golden Dagger: When his special is charged at the start of combat, he can counterattack regardless of distance. And get +3 to all stats during combat as well.

Edited August 1, 2019 by Anacybele

[Fabulously Olivier]

21 hours ago, Anacybele said:

You know what, if Boey doesn't get outright Close Counter in his new weapon, he then should get what Saber got in his Golden Dagger: When his special is charged at the start of combat, he can counterattack regardless of distance. And get +3 to all stats during combat as well.

I have an alternative. Boey is in a pretty bad spot so:

 

Base Effect - 

Gain +2 to all stats per adjacent ally and if an ally is adjacent, unit can counter regardless of range.

 

Refine -

Accelerate special trigger (cooldown count -1). 

Edited August 2, 2019 by Etheus

[XRay]

2 hours ago, Etheus said:

Gain +2 to all stats per adjacent ally (max +6 to each stat) and if an ally is adjacent

That is just being petty against Boey in my opinion. It is highly unlikely that Boey will be completely surrounded on 4 sides anyways, so you might as well just let him have an extra all stat+2 if he is surrounded by allies completely.

[Ice Dragon]

11 hours ago, Etheus said:

Gain +2 to all stats per adjacent ally (max +6 to each stat) and if an ally is adjacent, unit can counter regardless of range.

I agree with @XRay. Restrictions on extra stats are only given to effects with 2 range to prevent the effect from being overpowered in game modes like Rival Domains where you can potentially get 11 allies within 2 range of a unit. Extra stats on effects with 1 range don't have a limit because you can only have a maximum of 4 adjacent units (and only 3 if combat occurs at melee range).

[Fabulously Olivier]

17 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I agree with @XRay. Restrictions on extra stats are only given to effects with 2 range to prevent the effect from being overpowered in game modes like Rival Domains where you can potentially get 11 allies within 2 range of a unit. Extra stats on effects with 1 range don't have a limit because you can only have a maximum of 4 adjacent units (and only 3 if combat occurs at melee range).

My bad. I thought it was a baseline limitation of owl tomes. I was mistaken.

 

But aside from that, how well would the tome serve him without said limitation?

[Zeo]

@XRay @Ice Dragon @Landmaster @Alexmender @mcsilas @mampfoid @Kaden @Nanima

You both (XRay and Ice Dragon) had valid points about Serra's prf which is why I didn't really have the time to come up with a good response. But after seeing CYL Camilla I think it's safe to assume she's raised the bar for healers effectively having 3 effects in her staff in the form of Swift Sparrow 1.5, Gravity+ and Dazzling Staff. With that in mind I'm going to play the fair is fair game and play with the idea of Serra's prf staff having an effect in addition to Absorb++ with Dazzling/Wrathful as a refine choice, so here's my idea to make her the most irritating unit to deal with (within reason).

• Serra: Outspoken Cleric: 
• Countess Staff: Mt: 14, Effect: If Foe initiates combat and unit's HP > 50%, foe cannot make a followup attack. Restores HP = 80% of damage dealt. After combat, restores 8 HP to unit and allies within 2 spaces of unit.
• Refine: Wrathful/Dazzling

This pesudo Wary Fighter 3 effect wouldn't give Serra strong offensive capabilities due to the mediocrity of her ATK/SPD stat and inability to improve it if she's running Close Counter. It also does literally nothing for her bulk since brave units can double her and strong enough units can one-shot her with enough ATK or of course a skill proc. It would however make her incredibly irritating to kill without those prerequisites. 

For example, let's take a +10 +SPD Serra with CC and Mystic Boost against a +10 +SPD Karla with DC.

Karla attacks Serra for 35 damage but can't make a followup due to Serra's staff's effect. Serra counters for 22 damage, absorbing 17 and bringing her health back up to 34 and leaving Karla's at 25. Then she recovers 14 HP after the encounter and is back up to 37, not even needing Mystic Boost. Fully recovered and with her staff's effect back in play. Karla basically didn't attack her. Serra doesn't have the punch to kill Karla and if she initiates the second round of combat without Razzle Dazzle then Karla will have exactly 3 HP and oneshot her with her special, but she's already tanked and weakened her and now she's lined up for a kill from her teammates. 

She also could run QR for an omnibreaker healing build, recovering basically to full against any enemy with low enough RES that can't oneshot her. This build would enable her to kill Karla on her own if she's not running Vantage. Now of course Karla could just run something like Swift Sparrow 2-3 and oneshot Serra. Same goes for her Seal skills.

A +10 Serra has 62/74 bulk. Any physical unit with 62 ATK or more can oneshot her. She can circumvent this with Close DEF/Distant DEF or Chill ATK seals to increase her bulk or simply become much more tanky with Fortress DEF/RES to guarantee she survives a single round of combat and heals, but the point is she's not immortal unless she's dealing with magic. I'm pretty sure no magic user in this game is reaching 74 ATK without a blade tome, and even those aren't one-shotting her without a special. Due to the potency of this staff however, I've nerfed the healing down to 8 from 10.

So... have I broken her yet, or is this still realistic?

Edited August 5, 2019 by Zeo

[Diovani Bressan]

5 hours ago, Zeo said:

• Serra: Outspoken Cleric: 
• Countess Staff: Mt: 14, Effect: If Foe initiates combat and unit's HP > 50%, foe cannot make a followup attack. Restores HP = 80% of damage dealt. After combat, restores 8 HP to unit and allies within 2 spaces of unit. Calculates damage the same as other weapons.
• Refine: Wrathful/Dazzling

I think the unique staffs should receive the same treatment as the unique tomes: A special effect, +1 Atk, +2 Spc, +3 Def or +3 Res. And the special refinement being the missing effect. This this case, the special effect would be Dazzling Staff.

It was funny to see that her unique staff has Wrathful on it, and one of the refinements is Wrathful. In this case, lets build a triple Wrathful Serra, just to confuse the others players.

[Zeo]

1 hour ago, Diovani Bressan said:

I think the unique staffs should receive the same treatment as the unique tomes: A special effect, +1 Atk, +2 Spc, +3 Def or +3 Res. And the special refinement being the missing effect. This this case, the special effect would be Dazzling Staff.

It was funny to see that her unique staff has Wrathful on it, and one of the refinements is Wrathful. In this case, lets build a triple Wrathful Serra, just to confuse the others players.

I made this post early in the morning. I didn't mean to include that in the base effect lol, pardon me. Fixing.

Giving old healers free Razzle Dazzle while keeping their B slot available would be so utterly broken you may as well delete the other classes and give these guys offensive specials.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Zeo

[XRay]

10 hours ago, Zeo said:

So... have I broken her yet, or is this still realistic?

Pretty realistic.

Personally, I would throw her an extra bone and give her 100% Vampirism due to her really low bulk, but 80% should be fine.

3 hours ago, Zeo said:

Giving old healers free Razzle Dazzle while keeping their B slot available would be so utterly broken you may as well delete the other classes and give these guys offensive specials.

They still lack access to movement Assists and damage Specials as you have mentioned, so giving healers 3 B slots is not too bad in my opinion. Wrathful Staff, Dazzling Staff, and a Lull on the B slot will help close the damage gap between them and Firesweep archers.

Wrathful Staff-Dazzling Staff-Vantage also helps them compete with regular Counter-Vantage units, as being able to safely apply a round Pain helps tremendously and makes them easier to use. The problem with Counter-Vantage staff units right now is that they are hard to use, as they have a hard time applying enough splash damage safely to setup Counter-Vantage.

[Landmaster]

13 hours ago, Zeo said:

@XRay @Ice Dragon @Landmaster @Alexmender @mcsilas @mampfoid @Kaden @Nanima

You both (XRay and Ice Dragon) had valid points about Serra's prf which is why I didn't really have the time to come up with a good response. But after seeing CYL Camilla I think it's safe to assume she's raised the bar for healers effectively having 3 effects in her staff in the form of Swift Sparrow 1.5, Gravity+ and Dazzling Staff. With that in mind I'm going to play the fair is fair game and play with the idea of Serra's prf staff having an effect in addition to Absorb++ with Dazzling/Wrathful as a refine choice, so here's my idea to make her the most irritating unit to deal with (within reason).

• Serra: Outspoken Cleric: 
• Countess Staff: Mt: 14, Effect: If Foe initiates combat and unit's HP > 50%, foe cannot make a followup attack. Restores HP = 80% of damage dealt. After combat, restores 8 HP to unit and allies within 2 spaces of unit.
• Refine: Wrathful/Dazzling

This pesudo Wary Fighter 3 effect wouldn't give Serra strong offensive capabilities due to the mediocrity of her ATK/SPD stat and inability to improve it if she's running Close Counter. It also does literally nothing for her bulk since brave units can double her and strong enough units can one-shot her with enough ATK or of course a skill proc. It would however make her incredibly irritating to kill without those prerequisites. 

For example, let's take a +10 +SPD Serra with CC and Mystic Boost against a +10 +SPD Karla with DC.

Karla attacks Serra for 35 damage but can't make a followup due to Serra's staff's effect. Serra counters for 22 damage, absorbing 17 and bringing her health back up to 34 and leaving Karla's at 25. Then she recovers 14 HP after the encounter and is back up to 37, not even needing Mystic Boost. Fully recovered and with her staff's effect back in play. Karla basically didn't attack her. Serra doesn't have the punch to kill Karla and if she initiates the second round of combat without Razzle Dazzle then Karla will have exactly 3 HP and oneshot her with her special, but she's already tanked and weakened her and now she's lined up for a kill from her teammates. 

She also could run QR for an omnibreaker healing build, recovering basically to full against any enemy with low enough RES that can't oneshot her. This build would enable her to kill Karla on her own if she's not running Vantage. Now of course Karla could just run something like Swift Sparrow 2-3 and oneshot Serra. Same goes for her Seal skills.

A +10 Serra has 62/74 bulk. Any physical unit with 62 ATK or more can oneshot her. She can circumvent this with Close DEF/Distant DEF or Chill ATK seals to increase her bulk or simply become much more tanky with Fortress DEF/RES to guarantee she survives a single round of combat and heals, but the point is she's not immortal unless she's dealing with magic. I'm pretty sure no magic user in this game is reaching 74 ATK without a blade tome, and even those aren't one-shotting her without a special. Due to the potency of this staff however, I've nerfed the healing down to 8 from 10.

So... have I broken her yet, or is this still realistic?

Doesn't seem broken to me~ Super annoying, but like you said, she gets blown back by a Brave Weapon~

[Diovani Bressan]

Here are the new weapons and special refinements:

[Humanoid]

Looks like the greens win the day?