Personal vs. Inheritable Weapons

[Interdimensional Observer]

Whenever an new banner rolls around, we're always left wondering who will be using what for their weapons, and the trend it seems to be nowadays is to give almost everyone personal weapons.

It's cool, and obviously a lot of characters had personals in their base games, but is it too much? Did Siegbert and Dorcas need personals? Does Ivaldi have to be locked to L'Arachel?

 

I'm not saying it is a bad idea, and Seasonals are always 100% inheritable weapons. But would you like to see them expand the inheritable pool a little more? They are (finally the Poleax is coming!) and they will, but is the rate fast enough for you? What should be the place of Personals and the place of Inheritables? Should we have more characters with Personals than not? The opposite? Equal numbers?

 

One might say that when the Special Assist ABC Skill slots (SAABC) are typically devoid of Personals, and Weapons in FEH are just Skills of another name, that Personal Weapons make the characters stand out from each other in a game where there isn't a lot of things that presently can make a character unique. But to this I say why not add more Personal SAABC Skills? Why not, when a hypothetical Lucia or Caeldori gets in, IS instead of inventing a Lucia Blade and a Caeldori Naginata, give them Laguzguard and Prodigy respectively? (And of course we can give a Personal W and a Personal SAABC. DEHardin needed Darksphere by the way.) I'm sure they could go back and invent a means of "refinement" for old skills to new Personal ones, like for Odin to give him Aching Blood via dumping some more Feathers and or other resources on his natural Defiant Atk.

 

But what do I know? (I don't mean that sarcastically.) Enlighten me.

[DraceEmpressa]

Dorcas' Tomahawk sounds like a generic weapon and but no bc DC  weapon should stay exclusive.

And it's not like all PRF weapons are good. 

Also, seasonal weapon 100% inheritable ? urdr and grimoire says hi

[bottlegnomes]

I'm fine with them. As long as they keep the general pool interesting, and IMO currently it is, then I don't really have an issue with how quickly they add new weapons.

[Xenomata]

It made sense for Dorcas because he was a meme, so it's justified.

...and I guess he was also a "Brave" hero and the other 2 in the unit pool got personals why not him as well.

But I kinda think the number of personals needs to be toned down at least a little. Save for seasonal units, there have been very few new inheritable weapons in recent months, hell the Fallen Heroes banner had all Personal weapons even from the GHB unit. The last "new" inheritable weapon comes from Olivers Shine+ in fact, and that's just the Silver+ of Blue Magic we didn't have until Radiant Dawn banner. The last new inheritable weapon from a unit in the normal unit pool is Soleils Firesweep Sword+, in December.

It's not like there aren't ideas. We now have two separate weapons with Distant Defense built into them, Wo Dao is still the only weapon in the game with Special Damage +10, pretty much all the Refinery weapons are still locked behind the Refinery when Divine Stones would be better spent upgrading one of those weapons, and there's always the fallback plan of "just give the weapon Atk/Spd 2" that we all know will be replaced immediately anyways.

[Jotari]

If there's no source material for a prf weapon, then don't invent one, that's the way I'd do it (what is the Resolute Blade and why can only Mia use it?). More personal skills to compensate is always nice.

[Nowi's Husband]

I'm happy with PRF cause it makes the characters more unique from each other, if they can get a niche it can make up for having worse stats.  Like Soren can be a debuffer now instead if just being a worse version of Nino.  I'm also biased cause Witch Nowi got her own.  The only inheritable weapon I want now is a Raventome effect dragon breath to deal with the upcoming colorless dragon.

[Ice Dragon]

I think they really ought to go back and fill out the regular weapon pool. Using golden rocks shouldn't be the norm for obtaining many of the weapons in the game. I think it would make the world game a better place if on every non-limited banner, at least one of the characters is added with a weapon currently with low availability and a skill set that makes them an obvious 4-star drop.

Slaying weapons other than the relatively lackluster Slaying Bow+ are still locked to 5-star-exclusive characters. "Slaying Dagger+" is currently only available as a seasonal weapon in Kagami Mochi+.

Armorsmasher+, Slaying Spear+, Slaying Hammer+, Keen Raudhrwolf+, and Keen Blarwolf+ are not yet available in the standard summoning pool without refining. Keen Blarwolf+ isn't even available outside of refining Blarwolf+, which is a limited weapon. Keen Gronnwolf+ is only available from a 5-star-exclusive character.

Zanbato+ is still only available from a 5-star-exclusive character. Poleax+ is not yet available, but is expected to be available from a limited character.

Wo Dao+ is the only inheritable weapon in the game that has +10 Special skill damage as its base effect. There are no weapons with the same effect on other weapon types.

Guard Bow+ is only available through refining. Firesweep Axe+ still doesn't exist.

Firesweep Bow+ is still only available from a 5-star-exclusive character, though I really don't mind this one that much considering how absurdly powerful the weapon is.

Berkut's Lance is an amazing weapon, but is only available from a limited character, which can deter players from letting other characters inherit it. It would be nice if there were weekly missions to clear the daily Grand Hero Battles for a 1-star or 2-star copy of the character.

 

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

what is the Resolute Blade and why can only Mia use it?

Lost in translation is what it is. The weapon's name in Japanese is "気鋭ワユの剣", "Energetic Mia's Sword".

[Jotari]

18 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Lost in translation is what it is. The weapon's name in Japanese is "気鋭ワユの剣", "Energetic Mia's Sword".

Ah, well I think there's a perfect example of something that should have been an exlcusive skill over a weapon. Energetic Mia, essentially Wrath but without any HP check.

Edited March 9, 2018 by Jotari

[bottlegnomes]

50 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

It would be nice if there were weekly missions to clear the daily Grand Hero Battles for a 1-star or 2-star copy of the character.

This so much. Also actually have every hero cycle instead of just the 7.

Another idea I'd had, though not sure how well it'd work out, is to have a limited characters banner where the entire pool is replaced with all the limited characters (TT, GHB, seasonal) at their default rarities.

Back on topic, more availability and expanding the general pool would be nice, but as said I don't have an issue with personal weapons. Part of me wants the weapons to have their own unique areas, so say swords only get inheritable wo daos, but axes get like an inheritable CD weapon, and lances get an inheritable something, to differentiate them some. But that seems like it would be very difficult to balance effectively.

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Ah, well I think there's a perfect example of something that should have been an exlcusive skill over a weapon. Energetic Mia, essentially Wrath but without any HP check.

The problem with this is that it uses up a skill slot, which has a lot more variety in that slot and competition for that slot than a weapon slot does. In order for a unique skill to be as relevant as a unique weapon, it needs to be better than any other skill in that slot; however, doing so significantly decreases the variety of builds you would see that that character.

For example, Ayra's Blade is a Silver Sword+ [Spd] with the additional effects of HP -5 and Flashing Blade 3. Flashing Blade 3 is a passive A skill, which would make it incompatible with her default (and often optimal) Swift Sparrow 2. In order to resolve this, an equivalent unique skill for Ayra would need to have the following effects:

• HP -5
• Flashing Blade 3
• Swift Sparrow 2

However, using this skill means Ayra is forced to run both Flashing Blade 3 and Swift Sparrow 2 together and cannot mix and match Flashing Blade 3 with any other passive A skill like she is able to do with Ayra's Blade, thus significantly reducing build diversity and customization options.

Resolute Blade's unique effect isn't the Wo Dao+ effect. It's actually HP -5 and Atk +3, which means "Energetic Mia" would actually have to be the combined effects of HP -5, Atk +3, and some passive skill, likely Flashing Blade 3. And that's a really hard sell when it's competing against skills like Swift Sparrow 2, Life and Death 3, and Distant Counter.

What unique weapons do is open up options for characters by allowing the character to off-load a specific skill to the weapon slot, giving them a bigger range of options than if you tie up one of their passive skill slots with a unique skill.

You'll notice that unique skills that are commonly kept on a unit for functional reasons (and not for scoring reasons) are there because they are not only powerful skills in their own right, but synergize well with the unit's typing and stats and have little competition against alternative skills. Sacae's Blessing allows Lyn to ignore counterattacks from all physical melee units, which is far more reliable than its primary competition, Desperation, when running Brave Bow+ or Mulagir as her weapon. Chilling Seal synergizes extremely well with Gunnthra's Blizzard weapon and is more powerful than its primary competitors, Chill Spd and Chill Def.

 

1 hour ago, bottlegnomes said:

Also actually have every hero cycle instead of just the 7.

It would be better to have multiple concurrent cycles of 7 instead of one long cycle.

Edited March 9, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Jotari]

28 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

The problem with this is that it uses up a skill slot, which has a lot more variety in that slot and competition for that slot than a weapon slot does. In order for a unique skill to be as relevant as a unique weapon, it needs to be better than any other skill in that slot; however, doing so significantly decreases the variety of builds you would see that that character.

For example, Ayra's Blade is a Silver Sword+ [Spd] with the additional effects of HP -5 and Flashing Blade 3. Flashing Blade 3 is a passive A skill, which would make it incompatible with her default (and often optimal) Swift Sparrow 2. In order to resolve this, an equivalent unique skill for Ayra would need to have the following effects:

• HP -5
• Flashing Blade 3
• Swift Sparrow 2

However, using this skill means Ayra is forced to run both Flashing Blade 3 and Swift Sparrow 2 together and cannot mix and match Flashing Blade 3 with any other passive A skill like she is able to do with Ayra's Blade, thus significantly reducing build diversity and customization options.

Resolute Blade's unique effect isn't the Wo Dao+ effect. It's actually HP -5 and Atk +3, which means "Energetic Mia" would actually have to be the combined effects of HP -5, Atk +3, and some passive skill, likely Flashing Blade 3. And that's a really hard sell when it's competing against skills like Swift Sparrow 2, Life and Death 3, and Distant Counter.

What unique weapons do is open up options for characters by allowing the character to off-load a specific skill to the weapon slot, giving them a bigger range of options than if you tie up one of their passive skill slots with a unique skill.

You'll notice that unique skills that are commonly kept on a unit for functional reasons (and not for scoring reasons) are there because they are not only powerful skills in their own right, but synergize well with the unit's typing and stats and have little competition against alternative skills. Sacae's Blessing allows Lyn to ignore counterattacks from all physical melee units, which is far more reliable than its primary competition, Desperation, when running Brave Bow+ or Mulagir as her weapon. Chilling Seal synergizes extremely well with Gunnthra's Blizzard weapon and is more powerful than its primary competitors, Chill Spd and Chill Def.

 

It would be better to have multiple concurrent cycles of 7 instead of one long cycle.

Oh yeah, unique skills will of course need to be really good to justify their existence. Because personal wepaons are generally really good. I mean any unit can use Inheritable Weapons, but they just don't because Personal Weapons are better (though I actuallly do run a Brave Bow on my Lyn). But regarding just that Mia example, I think it would work pretty well as a basic skill rather than on a unique weapon. Because then you could equip her with a Killer Edge or a Brave Sword or something to make her Special Activate quicker and repeatedly make use of the increased damage.

Edited March 9, 2018 by Jotari

[Ice Dragon]

7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

But regarding just that Mia example, I think it would work pretty well as a basic skill rather than on a unique weapon.

The problem is that it's so similar to Wrath 3 that it compares against its competition, like Desperation and Swordbreaker, equally as well as Wrath does.

In fact, by being so similar to Wrath, it would be better to simply give her Wrath. Giving her a unique skill that is pretty much the same as Wrath is no different that giving her an uninheritable Wrath, which worsens the current state of the game where new skills are siloed off to only one or two sources.

[Rafiel's Aria]

As fun as it is to see new legendary weapons, I feel like adding more of the same inheritable weapons that we already have wouldn't hurt. In fact, even if they're not popular weapons to use, making them more readily available gives more casual players access to a greater variety of builds. 

We're missing our red -owl tome in the 4 star pool, and even though I know they're not fabulous....I actually really like -owl tomes... And the red and blue Keen -wolf tomes are only available through refining. I suppose even the green -wolf tome is only available through sacrificing a limited GHB character + refining or sacrificing a rare 5 star character... We also haven't gotten a Firesweep Axe yet. And I suppose there's also the possibility of a Firesweep Dagger since we do have a Firesweep Bow. So we still have some weapon trees we could play with/fill out. I also wouldn't be heartbroken if we got more units with the same tome. We have multiple brave weapon and gem weapon users, so I don't see the harm in adding more -raven or -blade tomes. Tailtiu got one, so perhaps they'll give us more of those in the future as well. 

I guess it's not terribly exciting to get a new unit with an old weapon... But I know I don't mind it....especially if it means there's a greater possibility of said unit dropping into the 4 star pool. 

[Hilda]

I like personal weapons and some personal skills (albeit Black Moon and Regnal Astra are OP) they give characters a very unique niche, feal otherweise the game would be kinda bland.

Besides they are adding inheritable weapons with seasonal units and now we just started to get the LitrSerpent line of Tomes.

[bottlegnomes]

@Ice Dragon How they do it's not really important to me. More it's getting everyone in somehow so some units like Camus don't continue to be left high and dry.

[Korath88]

From a game balance standpoint, personal weapons should theoretically help to differentiate units from each other by giving them something only they can do, but when multiple unique weapons share the same effect, like DC, it goes right back to the stats comparison, such as with Ike and Ryoma or refined Julia vs Deirdre. That being said, unique weapons aren't the only way to set a unit apart, as there have also been unique B slot and special skills, though ironically, all on characters with unique weapons. Having a different movement+weapon type combo also sets units apart.

However, not every unit needs a legendary weapon, and I'd definitely like to see more inheritable weapons added to the pool. There will always be people willing to whale for their favourites even if they don't bring anything new to the table.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Korath88

[Nowi's Husband]

Another inheritable weapon I'd like added is a 4* demoted Flametongue user, I already have Lightning/Dark/Light on Nowi but I'm not sacking Young Tiki for Flame.  Maybe Bantu with Goad Dragons and Flametongue, with garbage stats like Jagen and Gunter for being so old.  

[Vince777]

Siegbert and Dorcas most definitely didn't need personal weapons. Nor Ayra.

However, I do think Ivaldi should be locked to L'arachel, or at least to FE8 units.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Vince777

[Humanoid]

Let any character have any weapon, I say. If I want to give a Falchion to Serra, then let me give a Falchion to Serra!

On a more serious note, the recent influx of oddly-justified personal weapons is sort of winding the game back to before SI was implemented. I don't think I'm a huge fan of it, especially the piecemeal way they've been adding them, because it just serves to widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Maybe if the gap between to the best legendaries to the inheritable weapons wasn't so large, the change would be more palatable. Remember when Legion was comparable to Raven? One change and it's suddenly out the window. Yet it could all be turned around if Legion could simply inherit Basilikos and the quite reasonable status quo would be restored.

I know there's an argument that some personal skills are made with the holder's personal shortcomings in mind (Arden comes to mind), and that they wouldn't be balanced around another unit having them. I would put it, however, that this occurs in a clear minority of cases and that simple favouritism is the overwhelming decider. Is Amiti's +3/+3 advantage over a Brave Sword there to reflect her poor offensive statline? Hah.

[Ice Dragon]

21 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Is Amiti's +3/+3 advantage over a Brave Sword there to reflect her poor offensive statline? Hah.

Amiti was expected to get an Atk boost over Brave Sword+ due to being a unique weapon. +3 Spd is a standard weapon effect in the current state of the game where unique weapons are expected to have either two skills over Silver or one skill plus an Atk boost over a non-Silver inheritable weapon, in this case, Brave Sword+.

[Humanoid]

14 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Amiti was expected to get an Atk boost over Brave Sword+ due to being a unique weapon. +3 Spd is a standard weapon effect in the current state of the game where unique weapons are expected to have either two skills over Silver or one skill plus an Atk boost over a non-Silver inheritable weapon, in this case, Brave Sword+.

Yeah, leave Amiti as it is, but it's sort of an argument to allow refinement of Brave weapons. And gem weapons. And Raven weapons. Silver weapons could probably do with another buff too on top of their refinements. I would like to see more situations in which someone who has a Prf might nonetheless consider using an inheritable weapon, which does happen but is fairly rare.

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

I would like to see more situations in which someone who has a Prf might nonetheless consider using an inheritable weapon, which does happen but is fairly rare.

Depends on your Arena score range, I suppose. Where I am, Zelgius, Ayra, and Mia more often use Slaying Edge+ or Wo Dao+ (or occasionally Armorsmasher+) than their unique weapons. Zelgius I see often with Wo Dao+ for the absolutely punishing damage it deals with Black Luna, and Ayra is often seen with Slaying Edge+ and Quickened Pulse for an instant Regnal Astra.

Because this is also the score range of armors, Hector and Hardin often have their respective armor-effective weapons, and there's also a Hardin running Firesweep Lance+. There are also several Fjorms with Slaying Spear+, and I think I've also seen Berkut's Lance+.

There's of course also the fact that nearly every bow in the game is inferior to at least one of Brave Bow+ or Firesweep Bow+ for Arena defense.

[Humanoid]

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Depends on your Arena score range, I suppose. Where I am, Zelgius, Ayra, and Mia more often use Slaying Edge+ or Wo Dao+ (or occasionally Armorsmasher+) than their unique weapons. Zelgius I see often with Wo Dao+ for the absolutely punishing damage it deals with Black Luna, and Ayra is often seen with Slaying Edge+ and Quickened Pulse for an instant Regnal Astra.

Because this is also the score range of armors, Hector and Hardin often have their respective armor-effective weapons, and there's also a Hardin running Firesweep Lance+. There are also several Fjorms with Slaying Spear+, and I think I've also seen Berkut's Lance+.

There's of course also the fact that nearly every bow in the game is inferior to at least one of Brave Bow+ or Firesweep Bow+ for Arena defense.

True, I'm only at around the low 700s per match at best so while I see plenty of merges, I don't see the min-maxed builds.

Refined Wo Dao is about where I think all inheritable weapons should be in terms of desirability - there's no reason an inheritable weapon with investment shouldn't be superior to a base form Prf weapon. Admittedly I was kinda surprised initially to learn that it was refinable, but it was the right thing to do. Hopefully the other weapons are brought up to its level in time, or if nothing else, at least buff Silver.

[Cornguy]

I think they're going a little overboard on personal weapons. Mia and Ayra were odd picks, so was Dorcas, Lute, Seigbert, probably a few others.

I'll sound like a bit of a whiner here, but it seems like a cheap excuse to lock a unit to 5 stars. Mia and/or Dorcas seemed like good candidates to drop to 4 stars, but they both got personals, so nope. Also, if they were going to get personals, why not Vague Katti and/or Basilikos? Instead they just kind of lazily made up weapons. But I am kind of mistaken here, Sothe dropped to 4 stars, and he has a personal. 

I don't know, I think my bigger complaint is against personal weapons that have no actual history. There are so many legendary and semi-legendary weapons, it seems like a waste to just make something up.

[Vaximillian]

2 hours ago, Humanoid said:

…buff Silver.

Second FE game in a row that hates silvers! Is this start of a trend? Hopefully, it won’t be one.

+1 Mt is nothing compared to the killer effect, and +2 Mt is nothing compared to the wo dao effect. Silvers are completely pathetic.