General Weapon Refinery discussion/speculation/creation thread

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

For Tempest Trials or any mode, using Player Phase units means there is never going to be an issue regarding how hard enemies can hit if enemies die first on initiation. Enemy Kagero with super Poison Dagger is not that much better than enemy SK!Alm against player's infantry units.

Enemies don't always die on the first hit, even if you have a player-phase unit. You can always build your team around making sure you always have something that can one-hit-kill Kagero (or anyone else who gets the effect in the future), but that restricts team building options, which is not good for the game's health. Why do you think they've gone to such lengths to buff enemy-phase units over the past year and a half?

Also, all meta dagger units already out-damage Alm against infantry when running Poison Dagger+, though the obvious cost is that it kind of sucks against other movement types. Giving Kagero a Poison Dagger with an actual Mt stat serves to increase that gap even further while also shrinking the gap against other movement types, and making more units like Alm is a stupid idea.

An optimized Kagero with a 14-Mt Poison Dagger has an absurd 110 effective damage against infantry before factoring in her Special. Unlike Litrblade users, she loses far less of her Atk when hit with Panic or Dull effects, and unlike armor-effective weapons, infantry do not have a skill that neutralizes effective damage (Svalinn Shield is a meta-viable skill choice in Aether Raids).

[Azuni]

Hoping Kagero gets a crazy anti-infantry prf dagger, that would be an incentive for me to build her (finally got a +atk IV one just last month, after pulling 12-20 of her since launch).
Wouldn't mind something cool like a prf refine which neutralizes Hardy Bearing effects, making her a superb counter to annoying IP teams.

[Hilda]

4 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Enemies don't always die on the first hit, even if you have a player-phase unit. You can always build your team around making sure you always have something that can one-hit-kill Kagero (or anyone else who gets the effect in the future), but that restricts team building options, which is not good for the game's health. Why do you think they've gone to such lengths to buff enemy-phase units over the past year and a half?

Also, all meta dagger units already out-damage Alm against infantry when running Poison Dagger+, though the obvious cost is that it kind of sucks against other movement types. Giving Kagero a Poison Dagger with an actual Mt stat serves to increase that gap even further while also shrinking the gap against other movement types, and making more units like Alm is a stupid idea.

An optimized Kagero with a 14-Mt Poison Dagger has an absurd 110 effective damage against infantry before factoring in her Special. Unlike Litrblade users, she loses far less of her Atk when hit with Panic or Dull effects, and unlike armor-effective weapons, infantry do not have a skill that neutralizes effective damage (Svalinn Shield is a meta-viable skill choice in Aether Raids).

Kagero has the bulk of a wet noodle. I really dont see nowadays the issue with her Inf. effectivness. there are other classes that can enemy bait her and she dies really easy when you initiate on her. You dont hear horse or Armor users complain about Micaiah?
Its the same situation like with Legendary Alm, you dont bait here you just go and murder her on playerphase, ecxept that you can bait her with a non Infantry movement types!

I mean 1 year ago i was against Kageros Inf. effectivness refine, but times have changed and BST has gone up and stuff like Legendary Alm and Surtrs etc. has come out. I really dont see the issue with Kagero haveing personal inf. effectiv dmg, considering all the other crazy stuff that got implemented.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Hilda

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Hilda said:

Kagero has the bulk of a wet noodle.

So does Sothe, yet I've seen a +10 Sothe running Fury 4 that gave zero shits about counterattacks and was pretty much impossible to double.

 

9 minutes ago, Hilda said:

You dont hear horse or Armor users complain about Micaiah?

Cavalry have mobility. Armors have Svalinn Shield.

And Festival Micaiah is the more common Micaiah to see in Aether Raids, and because she's a dancer, she can't be danced and is therefore easy to deal with because she'll just loiter around the back of the map until all of her teammates are dead.

 

5 minutes ago, Hilda said:

Its the same situation like with Legendary Alm, you dont bait here you just go and murder her on playerphase, ecxept that you can bait her with a non Infantry movement types!

1. You speak of player phase as if traps and buildings and enemy teammates aren't a thing.
2. I'm not sure you're aware of how hard Kagero can actually hit. Sothe only has +1 Atk and +1 Spd over Kagero, and he's legitimately hard to tank on an Infantry Pulse team, even when he's not running an effective damage weapon (partly because then he's running Barb Shuriken to murder your sorry tank).

Daggers aren't the puny weak things they were 2 years ago, and even if premium skills are hard for the average player to get, you're eventually going to run into opponents that don't have that kind of availability issue and will gladly use premium skills to give you a hard time.

[Kaden]

Amiti gave Elincia +3 to her defense and resistance in its home games. That wouldn't be that useful. Although, it would be hilarious as a concept if it happened for its unique refinement since it would be like having both a defense and resistance refined Amiti for 2 less HP and 1 less defense and resistance. Neutral Elincia would sit with a stat line of 38 HP, 45 Atk, 34 Spd, 27 Def, and 30 Res making her like a +HP, -Spd Sigrun who'd have 39 HP, 45 Atk, 35 Spd, 27 Def, and 31 Res.

And now I'm reminded of Lukas and thinking that it would have been neat if Daybreak Lance's unique refinement was Fortress Def/Res 3. Anyway, otherwise, I don't know enough about Elincia to guess what could happen that people haven't already mentioned like the Heron Wing's 2 space or Ovoid Staff's 1 space 7 HP heal at the start of a turn as a reference to Elincia's being a falcon knight and people's guesses as one of the first flying healers we'd get before Wah! Mia arrived.

Saizo's Star seems straightforward as a personal Smoke Dagger with the unique refinement being Pain+ to reference his Pyrotechnics personal skill would make sense. Or Peshkatz with a Pain+ effect which would be closer to what Saizo's Star did in Fates. A weird idea I had with Saizo is a conditional Close Counter that works when his opponent is debuffed. Something like: "If a penalty inflicted by a skill like Panic or Threaten and/or a negative status effect (preventing counterattacks or restricting movement) is active on foe, unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range." With Saizo being a ninja, I figured it'd be something like he first ambushes his enemies and if needed, will finish them off at close range where even though he's on the defense now, his opponent was caught off guard, disoriented, poisoned, or whatever. It would also allow him to leverage his high defense more, but against dragons or anyone that targets his resistance, it's going to be rough for him regardless.

The conditional Close Counter could have another effect to help out more like Golden Dagger's conditional Distant Counter granting Saber Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3. Examples being:

• "If a penalty inflicted by a skill like Panic or Threaten and/or a negative status effect (preventing counterattacks or restricting movement) is active on foe, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3 during combat and unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range." Golden Dagger's stat buffs.
• "If a penalty inflicted by a skill like Panic or Threaten and/or a negative status effect (preventing counterattacks or restricting movement) is active on foe, inflicts Atk/Spd-4 on foe during combat and unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range." It could be Atk/Def-4 if you want Saizo to deal more damage.
• "If a penalty inflicted by a skill like Panic or Threaten and/or a negative status effect (preventing counterattacks or restricting movement) is active on foe, before combat either this unit or foe initiates, unit, foe, and foes within 2 spaces take 10 damage and unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range." Pyrotechnics to abuse Vantage on enemy phase for Saizo if he's running it and soften his enemies on player phase. I'm not sure if the wording would be correct for this, though.
• "If a penalty inflicted by a skill like Panic or Threaten and/or a negative status effect (preventing counterattacks or restricting movement) is active on foe, unit can counterattack before foe's first attack and and unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range." Maybe Vantage would be too much.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Kaden

[Hilda]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

So does Sothe, yet I've seen a +10 Sothe running Fury 4 that gave zero shits about counterattacks and was pretty much impossible to double.

 

Cavalry have mobility. Armors have Svalinn Shield.

And Festival Micaiah is the more common Micaiah to see in Aether Raids, and because she's a dancer, she can't be danced and is therefore easy to deal with because she'll just loiter around the back of the map until all of her teammates are dead.

 

1. You speak of player phase as if traps and buildings and enemy teammates aren't a thing.
2. I'm not sure you're aware of how hard Kagero can actually hit. Sothe only has +1 Atk and +1 Spd over Kagero, and he's legitimately hard to tank on an Infantry Pulse team, even when he's not running an effective damage weapon (partly because then he's running Barb Shuriken to murder your sorry tank).

Daggers aren't the puny weak things they were 2 years ago, and even if premium skills are hard for the average player to get, you're eventually going to run into opponents that don't have that kind of availability issue and will gladly use premium skills to give you a hard time.

I am well aware how hard Sothe can hit on an Infantry pulse Team, but anyone can hit hard in that Team. And yet Sothe still dies fast.
Smoke Pulse is a thing
Witchy Wand is a thing
Galeforce is also a thing

You make it sound like there is no counter to that, which i disagree hardly. A competent Galeforce unit with Smoke Pulse will annihilate a Infantry Pulse Team and render it less effectiv.
And even now you are kinda contradicting yourself, didnt you say that Daggers only needed a way to safely attack and Sturdy Impact, Null Follow up fixed that? So what are they now bulky and not easy to kill or killable?

[Ice Dragon]

Just now, Hilda said:

Smoke Pulse is a thing
Witchy Wand is a thing

I like how you list two skills that are only available on seasonal 5-star-exclusive characters. These skills may as well not exist for the majority of players for how often they have the chance of using them.

Suggesting those as solutions to the problem is like suggesting everyone buy a helicopter to solve rush-hour traffic.

 

2 minutes ago, Hilda said:

You make it sound like there is no counter to that, which i disagree hardly.

No. Nothing has no counter.

The problem is how much you have to go out of your way to make a team to do so.

This is a similar issue as Surtr's presence in Tempest Trials. Him existing meant that many otherwise viable teams would roll over and die the moment he appeared because his stat spread and fixed skill set were exceptionally optimized.

I personally had zero problems with Surtr because the team compositions I like using happen to have no problem dealing with him. However, that was not the case in general, and his existence invalidated many team compositions from the game mode.

Needing one or two very specific team archetypes to deal with a certain threat is not healthy to a game, and considering that enemy teams can consist of up to 6 units, it's very possible to put multiple threats on a defense team that require completely different approaches to dealing with that can invalidate the team archetypes that deal with the first threat.

It's not a matter of whether or not a counter exists but whether or not enough counters exist.

 

2 minutes ago, Hilda said:

And even now you are kinda contradicting yourself, didnt you say that Daggers only needed a way to safely attack and Sturdy Impact, Null Follow up fixed that? So what are they now bulky and not easy to kill or killable?

Read what I wrote more closely. Here's everything I said in as simple of sentences as I can write:

• The problem with daggers is that they are bad at not dying.
• There are skills that help daggers not die.
• Those skills are hard to get for most players.
• The opponents you fight at the top of Aether Raids are not "most players" and have the means to get those skills on their dagger units.
• Therefore, daggers still kind of suck when in player hands, but they don't suck when they appear as enemy units.

Does that make sense?

[Hilda]

56 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I like how you list two skills that are only available on seasonal 5-star-exclusive characters. These skills may as well not exist for the majority of players for how often they have the chance of using them.

Suggesting those as solutions to the problem is like suggesting everyone buy a helicopter to solve rush-hour traffic.

 

No. Nothing has no counter.

The problem is how much you have to go out of your way to make a team to do so.

This is a similar issue as Surtr's presence in Tempest Trials. Him existing meant that many otherwise viable teams would roll over and die the moment he appeared because his stat spread and fixed skill set were exceptionally optimized.

I personally had zero problems with Surtr because the team compositions I like using happen to have no problem dealing with him. However, that was not the case in general, and his existence invalidated many team compositions from the game mode.

Needing one or two very specific team archetypes to deal with a certain threat is not healthy to a game, and considering that enemy teams can consist of up to 6 units, it's very possible to put multiple threats on a defense team that require completely different approaches to dealing with that can invalidate the team archetypes that deal with the first threat.

It's not a matter of whether or not a counter exists but whether or not enough counters exist.

 

Read what I wrote more closely. Here's everything I said in as simple of sentences as I can write:

• The problem with daggers is that they are bad at not dying.
• There are skills that help daggers not die.
• Those skills are hard to get for most players.
• The opponents you fight at the top of Aether Raids are not "most players" and have the means to get those skills on their dagger units.
• Therefore, daggers still kind of suck when in player hands, but they don't suck when they appear as enemy units.

Does that make sense?

Well Smoke Pulse and Witchy Wand are hard to get too... soo again contradiction? You cant have it both ways, ignoreing my argument and throwing in basicly the same argument.

And there exist enough counters to Kagero with an effectiv Inf. weapon. Raventomes and basicly almost everything that isnt an Infantery unit. Hell even Infantery units can counter her you just need to initiate on her. Banning a refine just because of one gamemode (AR) is nuts, especially when there are ways around that refine.

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, Hilda said:

Well Smoke Pulse and Witchy Wand are hard to get too... soo again contradiction?

That's literally exactly what I just said in the same post you just quoted:

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

I like how you list two skills that are only available on seasonal 5-star-exclusive characters. These skills may as well not exist for the majority of players for how often they have the chance of using them.

 

8 minutes ago, Hilda said:

basicly almost everything that isnt an Infantery unit.

Did you miss my comparison to Sothe earlier? The same Sothe that can delete armors without using effective damage?

 

5 minutes ago, Hilda said:

Banning a refine just because of one gamemode (AR) is nuts, especially when there are ways around that refine.

You can say that all you want, but Poison Dagger, Kitty Paddle, Brave weapons, and Litrraven still don't have the option to be refined.

[colossus86]

Eff. Infantry damage needs to stay far away from this game. IS wants to force infantry into relevance by locking off important skills from other classes (Null-C) so the last thing we need is a colorless unit who can effortlessly delete them, which would functionally give us no options for those skills. It goes against the core design conceit of the game in that infantry are supposed to be relatively low upside, but can't get bodied off the face of the earth by certain weapons like other move types can. Poison dagger was a mistake that IS thankfully backed off from.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Yeah, I most certainly do not want Kagero to get a high mt infantry eff weapon. Infantry aren't in a good place. They just have a few great units.

Edited June 5, 2019 by Etheus

[XRay]

4 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Needing one or two very specific team archetypes to deal with a certain threat is not healthy to a game, and considering that enemy teams can consist of up to 6 units, it's very possible to put multiple threats on a defense team that require completely different approaches to dealing with that can invalidate the team archetypes that deal with the first threat.

It's not a matter of whether or not a counter exists but whether or not enough counters exist.

There are only like 3 basic different unit types: Player Phase, Enemy Phase, and support (Dancers/Singers, healers, debuffers, etc.). Some units can overlap multiple roles, such as Counter Vantage units doing dual phase and Hríd doing all three.

Of the Player Phase variety, raw damage nukes like Blade mages and Brave archers are the most common, effective, and affordable units to shut down squishy units.

Counter-Vantage units are more expensive, but they have no trouble shutting down squishy units either.

Against something like Ophelia and SK!Alm, it is suicide for most units to tank them. Requiring every unit to be Enemy Phaseable is just as centralizing and boring. Having a few units that cannot be countered on Enemy Phase is fine in my opinion. Infantry effectiveness is not even that good compared to Ophelia nor SK!Alm.

If they want to fix infantry, then they should have given them infantry buffs and Shield to match the rest of the movement classes.

[Ice Dragon]

44 minutes ago, XRay said:

Of the Player Phase variety, raw damage nukes like Blade mages and Brave archers are the most common, effective, and affordable units to shut down squishy units.

This only works if you can get out or follow through, both of which are difficult if the opponent has a dancer tucked away in the back and outnumber your units and you aren't running Galeforce.

 

46 minutes ago, XRay said:

Infantry effectiveness is not even that good compared to Ophelia nor SK!Alm.

That's no excuse to make more of them. Just because 2 other people pushed their cars off of a cliff doesn't mean you should push your car even halfway off of the cliff.

 

47 minutes ago, XRay said:

If they want to fix infantry, then they should have given them infantry buffs and Shield to match the rest of the movement classes.

The key to fixing problems is generally not to make more problems.

[XRay]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

This only works if you can get out or follow through, both of which are difficult if the opponent has a dancer tucked away in the back and outnumber your units and you aren't running Galeforce.

Everyone should at least have a Galeforcer, just like how everyone should at least have a super tank. I can understand players lacking Counter-Vantage units since Distant Counter and Close Counter are not always available, but a Galeforcer like Cordelia and Raven can be built without 5* exclusive units.

11 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

That's no excuse to make more of them. Just because 2 other people pushed their cars off of a cliff doesn't mean you should push your car even halfway off of the cliff.

As some people say, I think some players just need to git gud. Ophelia and SK!Alm can already be countered with Galeforcers and even Counter-Vantage nukes if they are not running Hardy Bearing; infantry effectiveness can be countered the same way and more since that effectiveness deals 0 additional damage against everyone else who are not infantry units.

And if the player is really lazy or just do not want to spend an hour per map like me, there is always the less optimal but easy tactic of sending a unit to its death to get the AI moving and make a stupid mistake. Missing out on 20 Lift is better than pulling your hair out and/or losing the battle.

29 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

The key to fixing problems is generally not to make more problems.

Goad/Ward/Hone/Fortify Infantry are well below the power ceiling at this point, with stuff like Hone Atk 4 giving huge buffs (in conjunction with VS!Azura), Atk Tactic having 2 range, and regular old Hone Fliers being on a much better movement class.

Infantry Shield is not that meta defining. It is a great anti-meta skill to use on the side, but I do not think it is something you absolutely need since you could just switch to a unit of another movement type to do the same thing.

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Everyone should at least have a Galeforcer, just like how everyone should at least have a super tank.

In other words, these units are centralizing by forcing you to have a team of a specific archetype on hand. Which is exactly why it's not healthy for these units to exist.

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

As some people say, I think some players just need to git gud.

"Git gud" is not how you fix an unbalanced game. It's how you cope with an unbalanced game.

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Infantry Shield is not that meta defining. It is a great anti-meta skill to use on the side, but I do not think it is something you absolutely need since you could just switch to a unit of another movement type to do the same thing.

Why does it need to define the meta? Why is being an anti-meta skill not sufficient?

My point still stands that you don't solve problems by creating more problems. Making infantry less relevant doesn't make infantry more relevant.

[MilodicMellodi]

I'm just going to be that guy and say that Infantry Shield will never be in the game, because creating a skill to counter literally one low-Might weapon that has effective damage against a shrinking percentage of overall units is a complete waste of time. And we've gotten to a point in the game now that Infantry has gotten enough good skills that puts them at a same if not superior level than the other movement types — the Null skills immediately coming to mind — that Infantry getting movement-exclusive Hone/Fortify/Spur/Ward skills would be pretty dumb.

In other news, one speculation I've seen on Kagero's Dart's refine is a Sweep effect against Infantry. I don't really think this is going to happen, but it's something to think about.

[XRay]

5 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

In other words, these units are centralizing by forcing you to have a team of a specific archetype on hand. Which is exactly why it's not healthy for these units to exist.

Galeforce are Player Phase units. Super tanks are Enemy Phase units. Players would also most likely need to run various support units such as Dancers/Singers, buffers, debuffers, and healers to help those units out. This game mode already encourages players to build a variety of units to tackle a variety of situation, as you simply cannot run a team made of purely Galeforcers either since you need Dancers/Singers and you probably want to use a Firesweeper or a regular raw damage nuke to supplement Galeforcers.

5 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

"Git gud" is not how you fix an unbalanced game. It's how you cope with an unbalanced game.

Asking for Enemy Phase to be viable in every situation is no different from me asking for Firesweep to be viable in every situation or a meme player asking for a sword emblem team to be viable in every situation.

I thought Null C-Disrupt was a stupid nerf to Firesweepers at first, but it actually is not that big of a deal since I still have access to other tools like tackling them with Enemy Phase units or just nuke them with plain old Blade mages.

5 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Why does it need to define the meta? Why is being an anti-meta skill not sufficient?

It does not have to be meta. I am not against its inclusion. I think that if including it makes it easier for players to help deal with infantry effectiveness, then I am fine with them implementing it. I just do not see how Infantry Shield is going to cause problems because it is no big deal as a skill. Even Iote's Shield is not commonly used unless it is on a super tank.

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, XRay said:

Galeforce are Player Phase units.

Galeforce are not the only player-phase units. If I want to run a player-phase team, I should not be required to run a Galeforce team, and I should not be required to own a Galeforce unit at all if I don't want to. "Player-phase team" is an incredibly diverse set of play styles and team compositions (unlike enemy-phase teams), and being forced to use only a small subset of them means that there is a problem.

 

2 hours ago, XRay said:

Asking for Enemy Phase to be viable in every situation is no different from me asking for Firesweep to be viable in every situation or a meme player asking for a sword emblem team to be viable in every situation.

When exactly did I ask for enemy phase to be viable in every situation? What I've taken issue with is your stance that "unit A is okay because there exists a specific counter for it".

And then when I suggested that, "hey, maybe if something's broken, we don't make more broken things", your response was, "git gud", which does nothing to resolve the problem.

 

2 hours ago, XRay said:

I just do not see how Infantry Shield is going to cause problems because it is no big deal as a skill. Even Iote's Shield is not commonly used unless it is on a super tank.

It's not Infantry Shield that's causing problems. It's the non-existence of Infantry Shield that's the problem. If stronger infantry-effective weapons are to be introduced, the lack of Infantry Shield puts infantry at even further disadvantage that they don't need right now.

[MrSmokestack]

12 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

"Git gud" is not how you fix an unbalanced game. It's how you cope with an unbalanced game.

I doubt any regular player has the ability to rebalance a game, let alone the devs. Most games are unbalanced. It's an unfortunate fact of life, but the truth is that we'll probably keep getting units like Ophelia and Legendary Alm because they entice people to roll. The best a player can do is work around them.

Fortunately, you don't have to beat every single defense in AR with just one offense team. People should have multiple teams for a variety of situations.

I don't see the issue with premium skills locked behind 5* units. If you're seeing those skillsets in AR, chances are you're playing the mode at a high level. And in high level AR you've most likely invested resources to get to that point. If you need a way to counter those teams, just save your orbs for the necessary fodder.

I guess most people prefer using their favorite units; they don't want to pull for a unit they don't like but are compelled to for gameplay reasons. But as they say, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

On 6/3/2019 at 4:20 PM, GrandeRampel said:

I am firmly against 3 units new heroes banners. We only get ONE new heroes banner each month, it better have at least 4 characters.

I greatly prefer 3 unit banners because they are better for sniping a specific hero. I've heard too many horror stories of people spending hundreds of orbs sniping for say, red, on a 4 person banner and getting screwed over. I guess 4 person banners are fine if you like all of the units on the banner and only want one of them. However, most people want one or two specific units on New Heroes banners. In that case, rolling would be a hell of your own making.

As a tangent, I don't like how fast new units get released either. Games like FGO experience powercreep at a much slower rate because new servants only get added every few months, and even then it's usually one or two at a time. Plus, if the slower rate of release meant units had more time to be polished, I'd much prefer that. It's better than getting generic Lance Flier #456 or High Atk Low Res Infantry Sword #3865

[Azuni]

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

I greatly prefer 3 unit banners because they are better for sniping a specific hero. I've heard too many horror stories of people spending hundreds of orbs sniping for say, red, on a 4 person banner and getting screwed over.

This might be confirmation bias, but I feel the same for sure. Every memorable 4 unit banner that I've tried to pull on (CYL1, CYL2, Velouria, Caineghis, Fallen2) has ended as a catastrophe, either filled with offbanner units, incredibly high orb-to-5* costs, or both. Heck even now I'm getting bodied by my own greed, trying to pull a single Bride Fjorm who is probably one of the most broken support character ever released, to no avail.

 

Back on the topic of refines, I hope Oscar doesn't get something specific like bonds, but I would be ok with a gem prf since I already use him as a solid gem-breaker unit for AA. Seth/Titania/Sully's prfs drastically increased their kill power for me, which was most appreciated.

[MrSmokestack]

1 hour ago, Azuni said:

This might be confirmation bias, but I feel the same for sure. Every memorable 4 unit banner that I've tried to pull on (CYL1, CYL2, Velouria, Caineghis, Fallen2) has ended as a catastrophe, either filled with offbanner units, incredibly high orb-to-5* costs, or both. Heck even now I'm getting bodied by my own greed, trying to pull a single Bride Fjorm who is probably one of the most broken support character ever released, to no avail.

The math backs it up. You can check the odds for yourself using this calculator:

https://www.fullyconcentrated.net/fehstatsim/

[Fabulously Olivier]

Strongly opposed to 3 unit new heroes banners. Further slowing the rate of hero additions is too steep a cost to pay for higher pull rates on one banner.

[Fabulously Olivier]

3 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

I doubt any regular player has the ability to rebalance a game, let alone the devs. Most games are unbalanced. It's an unfortunate fact of life, but the truth is that we'll probably keep getting units like Ophelia and Legendary Alm because they entice people to roll. The best a player can do is work around them.

Fortunately, you don't have to beat every single defense in AR with just one offense team. People should have multiple teams for a variety of situations.

I don't see the issue with premium skills locked behind 5* units. If you're seeing those skillsets in AR, chances are you're playing the mode at a high level. And in high level AR you've most likely invested resources to get to that point. If you need a way to counter those teams, just save your orbs for the necessary fodder.

I guess most people prefer using their favorite units; they don't want to pull for a unit they don't like but are compelled to for gameplay reasons. But as they say, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

I greatly prefer 3 unit banners because they are better for sniping a specific hero. I've heard too many horror stories of people spending hundreds of orbs sniping for say, red, on a 4 person banner and getting screwed over. I guess 4 person banners are fine if you like all of the units on the banner and only want one of them. However, most people want one or two specific units on New Heroes banners. In that case, rolling would be a hell of your own making.

As a tangent, I don't like how fast new units get released either. Games like FGO experience powercreep at a much slower rate because new servants only get added every few months, and even then it's usually one or two at a time. Plus, if the slower rate of release meant units had more time to be polished, I'd much prefer that. It's better than getting generic Lance Flier #456 or High Atk Low Res Infantry Sword #3865

Comparisons to FGOs rate of character additions fundamentally do not work for one simple reason. The roster size of essential canon characters that FGO works with is a mere fraction of that of Fire Emblem. 

[MrSmokestack]

7 minutes ago, Etheus said:

Comparisons to FGOs rate of character additions fundamentally do not work for one simple reason. The roster size of essential canon characters that FGO works with is a mere fraction of that of Fire Emblem. 

The very premise of the Fate franchise makes it so that the number of potential new characters is virtually limitless though.There are numerous original characters in FGO alone. And on top of that, there are still other characters in stories like El-Melloi Case Files, Strange/Fake, and Prototype that can be used.

I think the comparison works. The key difference is one is PvE oriented while the other is PvP though.

Edited June 5, 2019 by MrSmokestack

[Fabulously Olivier]

16 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

The very premise of the Fate franchise makes it so that the number of potential new characters is virtually limitless though.There are numerous original characters in FGO alone. And on top of that, there are still other characters in stories like El-Melloi Case Files, Strange/Fake, and Prototype that can be used.

I think the comparison works. The key difference is one is PvE oriented while the other is PvP though.

I knew you'd reply as such. The anticipation for new OCs is fundamentally different from actual characters though. You don't have fans of an original character that doesn't yet exist. They're just happy to get what they get. You do have fans of every single one of FEs hundreds of canon characters. So, again, it doesn't work.