The power (or lack thereof) of population in FEH

[MilodicMellodi]

This is more a discussion about the power of Infantry units vs non-Infantry units, despite Infantry not having a class-specific Hone/Fortify/Ward/Goad skill, due to the population of said Infantry vs non-Infantry. This started due to a discussion about desired refinement effects for Default!Kagero's Poison Dagger+, and it led me to wanting to clarify my opinion here about why population doesn't equal power in FEH.

The simple point to make is that, if we ignore Rival Domains (and at this time the upcoming Relay Defense) game mode(s), we only have a maximum of 4 units usable in battle at a given time. Tl;dr, something as simple as a population difference in a game where most of its content features a fixed army population is a discredit and near shame to the potential of the higher population. The only part of the game (again, ignoring Rival Domains/Relay Defense) where the population difference would make units "over-powered" is the Hero Merit mechanic, but not only is that not a battle mechanic but is also a mechanic that is thoroughly abused, condoned, and appreciated by Intelligent Systems. In terms of battle, though, there's nothing over-powered at all due to the fact that no matter what, we have a 4-unit army cap.

One could make the argument that Infantry are more versatile (and therefore more powerful) due to their class-specific "Pulse" and "Rush" skills, lack of exploitable weaknesses, and balanced stats as compared to the other movement types. And depending on specific unit builds they are right in some ways...except they're equally (if not more) wrong as the same can and is said in favor of the other movement types (Armored units with their "Fighter" skills and overall higher BST, Cavalry units with their more powerful weapons and versatility due to higher movement, and Fliers with their insanely safe movement potential and the ability to traverse nearly every inch of every map). In fact, if we're talking about Fliers for a second, their "Captains" — for lack of a better term — Hinoka (both lance and bow), and Camilla (nearly any of her forms) are effective Staples of any Flier-centric team and make them even more powerful. One could say Default!Sanaki as well, but she's a single and rare 5-Star Exclusive unit and loses usefulness away from Fliers.

One could even make the argument that because there are so many more Infantry units compared to the others, that Infantry has more skill availability. That would be true...if Skill Inheritance wasn't a thing. When you can take skills from Infantry and give them to the others, and vice versa, the excuse of availability dulls back to exclusivity. And again, aside from the Pulse/Rush skills there aren't really many options as compared to the others. Even the shared exclusivity between Armored and Infantry units of the Breath skills isn't much of an argument, when said Armored units also have their "Fighter" skills.

And the real kicker of all this? Infantry have been, over time, been getting less and less love from IS. The creation of numerous game-changing non-Infantry units (especially Default!Reinhardt earlier in the game's timeline, and Brave!Lyn after that, becoming what eventually were dubbed as Arena's Cancer), the existence of the Tactic skills to encourage hybridization, the lack of real non-generic weapon options as opposed to the other movement types...the list can go on. It's not just the visible problems, though, but the hidden ones as well. Like how you'll rarely (if ever) see a team in Arena or Arena Assault with more than 2 Infantry units — this may or may not be the case for specific individuals — or how a large population (as would be the proper term) of many Tier lists are non-Infantry, with a few exceptionally powerful Infantry squeezing through. It's honestly a godsend that Odin (poor, poor, sweet Odin) and Default!Celica are getting their own upgrades, because they've long fallen out of the ring (Odin, due to his terrible stats, was never in the ring to start with, but give ya boy a break here).

And yet, it always gets back to population. How there are so many Infantry units that it's impossible to balance it around just how powerful they are. How, despite how many terrible Infantry units there are in comparison to the others, Infantry overwhelms the others. Well, guess what? Those excuses are an illusion. Those excuses are what are keeping our Infantry units stagnated in potential. Those lies are what are keeping Kagero as one of the most useless party members to have in an Arena team today, despite how useful and powerful she was some time ago.

If I were to have an opinion on what could be done to help Infantry "get back in the game" so to say, it would be to introduce their own class-specific Hone/Fortify/Ward/Goad skills. For one, it would finally justify Poison Dagger+ getting its own refine skills. It would also justify adding in non-Infantry Pulse/Rush/etc. skills, though that's more wishful thinking than anything else. Still, it's high time Infantry got their own class-specifics aside from Pulse and Rush, and it's also time that IS started treating Infantry units as a part of the army instead of apart from it.

I'd like to hear your guys' opinions. Obviously there are many who will disagree, but you can't have a debate/discussion without critics. Hope you enjoyed the read :)

Edited September 4, 2018 by MilodicMellodi

[Ice Dragon]

Population doesn't drive the power of infantry. It drives the power of weapons that are effective against infantry. Poison Dagger, if it ever gains a refine, will be overpowered if it keeps its infantry-effective damage and gains the same Mt as other effective weapons. You simply can't give a weapon that effectively gives you a Dragon Fang on every attack against 50% of the game the same Mt as similar weapons.

 

On the actual topic of infantry, though, they have always been the weakest movement type. They don't have the massive stat boost that armors have and don't have the mobility of cavalry and fliers. Additionally, they have inferior buffing options, only recently remedied by the introduction of Infantry Rush and Infantry Flash, which still doesn't actually help due to their relative rarity.

To add insult to injury, the skills that really define infantry by being nearly exclusive to infantry, Steady Breath, Warding Breath, Wrath, and Flashing Blade, are all also available to armors and pretty much all one-upped by the armor-exclusive Bold Fighter, Vengeful Fighter, and Special Fighter.

I don't think Hone, Fortify, Goad, and Ward skills for infantry is the correct solution. It would only serve to emphasize just how broken Hone and Fortify were and how long it took for the development and design teams to put those in check.

 

40 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

For one, it would finally justify Poison Dagger+ getting its own refine skills.

Poison Dagger+, if it gains a refine, necessarily needs lower Mt than other effective weapons. You absolutely cannot justify giving a unit a free Dragon Fang on every attack against half of the characters in the game without a penalty of some sort.

 

42 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

It would also justify adding in non-Infantry Pulse/Rush/etc. skills, though that's more wishful thinking than anything else.

That's looking a lot like wishful thinking.

One thing that's probably not a coincidence is how the movement-type-specific buffs in Grand Conquest line up with movement-type-specific skills.

Armors get +1 movement range, which is the same effect as Armor March. Infantry get +1 Special charge rate, which is a similar effect as Infantry Rush and Infantry Flash. Fliers get the ability to move adjacent to allies, which is a similar effect as Flier Formation, Acrobatics, and Grimoire.

The only buff I can't see happening anytime soon is the Grand Conquest cavalry buff, which gives an automatic follow-up attack when initiating combat.

[MilodicMellodi]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Poison Dagger+, if it gains a refine, necessarily needs lower Mt than other effective weapons. You absolutely cannot justify giving a unit a free Dragon Fang on every attack against half of the characters in the game without a penalty of some sort.

So Wolf tomes, because they target a smaller number of units, are perfectly fine to have their Keen upgrades and refinements despite less than half of the available Cavalry units having more than 20 Res and almost no DC Weapon users, but anti-Infantry is too powerful because of...again, population.

Except the population of Infantry units in the Arena is nothing compared to the other types. That's the major reason Poison Dagger, and especially Kagero despite her stats, fell out of favor. Bows have the same kind of effectiveness against Fliers, even with higher average Might than Daggers, and despite this glaring weakness to a good chunk of the available weapons in the game they swarm the Arena like flies. So why shouldn't Poison Dagger get its own when it's just one weapon against a majority, compared to the multitude of bows against a fraction of that?

I do agree that it'll have a low-ish Might. 12, just like the Keen Wolf weapons, should be fine. 11, or even 10 if we're pushing it, would be fine. Anything lower would be a disservice to Kagero, not to mention nearly every other Dagger unit who just so happen to have less Atk than her.

Edited September 4, 2018 by MilodicMellodi

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

So Wolf tomes, because they target a smaller number of units, are perfectly fine to have their Keen upgrades and refinements despite less than half of the available Cavalry units having more than 20 Res and almost no DC Weapon users, but anti-Infantry is too powerful because of...again, population.

Except the population of Infantry units in the Arena is nothing compared to the other types. That's the major reason Poison Dagger, and especially Kagero despite her stats, fell out of favor. Bows have the same kind of effectiveness against Fliers, even with higher average Might than Daggers, and despite this glaring weakness to a good chunk of the available weapons in the game they swarm the Arena like flies. So why shouldn't Poison Dagger get its own when it's just one weapon against a majority, compared to the multitude of bows against a fraction of that?

I do agree that it'll have a low-ish Might. 12, just like the Keen Wolf weapons, should be fine. 11, or even 10 if we're pushing it, would be fine. Anything lower would be a disservice to Kagero, not to mention nearly every other Dagger unit who just so happen to have less Atk than her.

Fliers have Iote's Shield as both an A skill and a Sacred Seal (with the existence of the Sacred Seal fully justified by the fact that it's an entire weapon type that is effective and that they are colorless). Cavalry and armors have Grani's Shield and Svalinn Shield, respectively, as A skills. Infantry have no similar option.

Furthermore, all of the cavalry-effective and armor-effective weapons that aren't daggers are colored, rendering them negated by Triangle Adept builds and partially negated by weapon triangle advantage. The cavalry-effective and armor-effective daggers prevent the user from using Desperation, which renders them vulnerable to counterattack.

Finally, the prevalence of bows (and armor-effective weapons at the top of the Arena) means that the player should already have those in mind when building their team and should know how to play around them, either by having skills to mitigate the effect or the sheer bulk to take the hit. The fact that Poison Dagger is the only weapon in the game with effective damage against infantry (and is exclusive to the weakest class in the game) means it's not likely to be considered when building a team, compounding the issue of having no actual means of negating the effect.

 

9 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

Except the population of Infantry units in the Arena is nothing compared to the other types.

A single Poison Dagger held by the opponent can immediately cripple a player that is running an infantry team more reliably than other effective-damage weapons. This is much less of an issue now than it was earlier on, before units had access to options that gave improved general bulk, but could easily be tipped the other way by granting a refine to Poison Dagger that pushes its stats outside of what units can actually handle.

It doesn't matter that infantry may or may not be common opponents. The fact that the weapon exists means there is an inherent instant lose condition when the player is running an infantry team and the opponent has the weapon.

I'm sure you can still cause quite a few new players headaches by running Poison Dagger on a low-scoring Arena defense team to snipe players that are running infantry (because not everyone is going to be running cavalry). Hell, two Poison Daggers and two Litrwolfs is probably enough to be a complete and utter jerk to new players, preferably on cavalry units.

[Garlyle]

I don't think we need to worry about infantry units in general, they have a lot of things in their bag. Armors have better stats, but they need to get out of the sluggish movement, cavalry are fast, but they have lower average bst and can't touch a lot of tiles. Fliers are very good in mobility, but they need to stay clear of those archers. So what is the weakness of the infantry units? Most of the infantry archers are stuck to the mid-tier, but L!Lucina is a great help with her mobility now. Also for budget players infantry units have most of the effective against weapons in the whole roster, and the only ones that can be effective against dragons so far, making them a good choice for Arena Assaults. There are a number of options for OHKO sword and magic users, green and colorless looks mediocre at best though. Also I keep using L!Ike and Fjorm a lot, because of their endurance. So as I said, we don't need to worry about infantry units just yet.

[XRay]

I think Poison Dagger should get a regular Refinement boost to 12 to match other Weapons.

Just because infantry comprise of 50+% of the game does not mean you see 50+% of them in Arena, depending on your score range.

Infantry is the weakest movement type in terms of mobility and receiving support. However, that lack of mobility is not crippling and is a lot more flexible and reliable than armors' Armor March and cavalry's slowness in trenches. Support wise, a regular 4/4/0/0 (or any two stat buff combo) is sufficient for gen II infantry units to match or exceed flier and cavalry Blade mages' performance running 6/6/0/0. While lack of mobility and better buffs are weaknesses, I do not think these weaknesses are so great to justify infantry needing extra protection from Poison Dagger.

Hone/Fortify/Goad/Ward Infantry is fine to be implemented in my opinion, and I do not think they are broken. Infantry like Ayra and Karla with 4/4/0/0 already outperform non-infantry Blade mages with 6/6/0/0 and can kill most of the cast, so they pretty much reached the ceiling already and the extra 2/2/0/0 is not going to give them that much better performance. I think 6/6/0/0 would make weaker performing infantry units more viable and while it would not make the best infantry that much better.

Infantry teams does have one small advantage over other movement teams in that their sheer size gives them a wide variety of stat distribution for each Weapon type. For example, if you need a Rauđrraven flier on your flier team, TOD!Nowi and SA!Tana is not going to perform as well and as reliable as someone like Sophia for an infantry team.

[Ice Dragon]

47 minutes ago, XRay said:

Just because infantry comprise of 50+% of the game does not mean you see 50+% of them in Arena, depending on your score range.

Again, the problem is not that it's too strong for the player. It's that it's too strong for the AI.

Refined Poison Dagger with 12 Mt would probably be perfectly fine as long as the AI were completely banned from ever being able to equip it. Probably.

 

+0 Sothe [+Atk] (Poison Dagger+ [refined 12 Mt], Death Blow 3) +6/0/0/0 has a whopping 94 effective Atk against infantry (compared to 84 currently).

+10 Sothe [+Atk] (Poison Dagger+ [Atk (13 Mt)], Death Blow 4, Attack +3) +6/0/0/0 has 109 effective Atk against infantry (compared to 97 currently).

 

That's basically a free Death Blow 6 on top of what you can currently do. It might be a bit too strong.

[XRay]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

It's that it's too strong for the AI.

I think the AI needs as much help as it can get. Arena is pretty easy. The only tactic and team composition the AI is even remotely competent at using is rushing with ranged ponies, and giving ASS!Linde Poison Dagger with 12 Mt is not going to make that much of difference.

Ranged armor, fliers, and infantry are not even close to being a threat like ranged ponies are.

19 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

That's basically a free Death Blow 6 on top of what you can currently do. It might be a bit too strong.

That could be said for every other effective Weapon though. The damage is only an issue if it hits AND it hits the right target, and the AI has trouble with both. The AI is terrible at hitting Player Phase teams, and for Enemy Phase teams, the AI is even worse at hitting the right target since they will just attack anyone in sight without realizing it is a bait.

[DehNutCase]

49 minutes ago, XRay said:

for Enemy Phase teams, the AI is even worse at hitting the right target since they will just attack anyone in sight without realizing it is a bait.

AI does has some survival instincts if you run the right assists. If they get ORKO'd they'd prioritize rallies (and I'm pretty sure I saw them prioritize dance over combat sometimes, although I'm not too sure why). Too bad the wiki's incomplete and a little bit wrong* on AI for this : /.

*The AI definitely doesn't check if multiple units can work together to get a kill, but you'd only notice this if you put multiple units in range at once, they always go for the more damage target first, which means it's pretty easy to have 2 AI units attack 2 different units rather than 2 AI units kill 1.

 

The main problem is that those assists make the team even easier to dismantle, since the 'classic' just sit there and repo all day tactic is pretty much the only way AI can leverage a mobility advantage, and if you're running rallies you don't have repo, and it's even easier than normal to force a team apart using AI manipulation if they're running rallies.

 

(This is pretty much why I always build my defense teams under the assumption the enemy player is bad. A good player with a good team will simply never give out a defense win unless they intentionally clicked the surrender button, meaning you'd be better off with a meme team if you want wins from good players.)

[MilodicMellodi]

 

9 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Fliers have Iote's Shield as both an A skill and a Sacred Seal (with the existence of the Sacred Seal fully justified by the fact that it's an entire weapon type that is effective and that they are colorless). Cavalry and armors have Grani's Shield and Svalinn Shield, respectively, as A skills. Infantry have no similar option.

Furthermore, all of the cavalry-effective and armor-effective weapons that aren't daggers are colored, rendering them negated by Triangle Adept builds and partially negated by weapon triangle advantage. The cavalry-effective and armor-effective daggers prevent the user from using Desperation, which renders them vulnerable to counterattack.

Finally, the prevalence of bows (and armor-effective weapons at the top of the Arena) means that the player should already have those in mind when building their team and should know how to play around them, either by having skills to mitigate the effect or the sheer bulk to take the hit. The fact that Poison Dagger is the only weapon in the game with effective damage against infantry (and is exclusive to the weakest class in the game) means it's not likely to be considered when building a team, compounding the issue of having no actual means of negating the effect.

Then perhaps at the same time (or some time before) they introduce Poison Dagger's refinement, they could make an Infantry-based Shield skill. Yes, I fully agree that Fliers are fully justified at having Iote's available as both a Passive and Seal, but there have been plenty of high-Tier Arena teams that have honestly scrapped Iote's Shield for different options. Sometimes, a great offense is the best defense.

Honestly though, about the armor-effective and armor-effective weapons, the only real things that can reliable stand up to them are Triangle Adept users. Oboro can completely demolish nearly any Hector if she has the right moveset, Selena can tank Hardin pretty well and dish out a nasty Bonfire or Ignis on retaliation, Many Poleaxe+ users — despite the weapon's rarity as of this point due to only being available on a Tempest gift unit — is more than capable of being used to take out Xander despite his amazing physical bulk. (Hell, I know that one by experience, my fully decked-out Xander once went up against a Desperation Gerome and got completely crushed.) True, there aren't as many reliable tanks in the Infantry lineup as Armored and Cavalry units have, but honestly there are a great deal of Infantry units that can tank Kagero's attacks. Perhaps at +10 she'd be a problem, but I've often (as often as Kagero appears, mind you) put my Lance!Lucina in Kagero's path and taken negligible damage despite having no Infantry-based Shield. Having access to such a skill would undoubtedly make my Lance!Lucina take no (or close to no) damage at all, aside from Special triggers.

9 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

A single Poison Dagger held by the opponent can immediately cripple a player that is running an infantry team more reliably than other effective-damage weapons. This is much less of an issue now than it was earlier on, before units had access to options that gave improved general bulk, but could easily be tipped the other way by granting a refine to Poison Dagger that pushes its stats outside of what units can actually handle.

It doesn't matter that infantry may or may not be common opponents. The fact that the weapon exists means there is an inherent instant lose condition when the player is running an infantry team and the opponent has the weapon.

I'm sure you can still cause quite a few new players headaches by running Poison Dagger on a low-scoring Arena defense team to snipe players that are running infantry (because not everyone is going to be running cavalry). Hell, two Poison Daggers and two Litrwolfs is probably enough to be a complete and utter jerk to new players, preferably on cavalry units.

I'll greatly agree on the last one, as going up against type-effective weapons would indeed be a daunting challenge to low-Tiered players. Though, the same could be said for the Wolf tomes, Excalibur, and the Slayer/Smasher melee weapons being used against low-Tiered non-Infantry teams. Just sayin'.

Poison Dagger on the enemy team isn't an inherent lose condition for Infantry teams. And if they are, well that fully justifies Hone/Fortify/Ward/Goad then doesn't it? If non-Infantry is doing well despite the weapons effective against them because they happen to have reliable stat enhancement, Infantry receiving the same would help greatly against Poison Dagger and future anti-Infantry weapons and therefore justify Poison Dagger getting at least something akin to an upgrade. Actually, receiving a bonus-negation refinement would be less reliable than the other class-slaying weapons, because of Infantry's lack of reliable stat enhancement (aside from Brazen and Bond skills, which would be unaffected by bonus negation as their effects offer Combat Buffs).

8 hours ago, Garlyle said:

I don't think we need to worry about infantry units in general, they have a lot of things in their bag. Armors have better stats, but they need to get out of the sluggish movement, cavalry are fast, but they have lower average bst and can't touch a lot of tiles. Fliers are very good in mobility, but they need to stay clear of those archers. So what is the weakness of the infantry units? Most of the infantry archers are stuck to the mid-tier, but L!Lucina is a great help with her mobility now. Also for budget players infantry units have most of the effective against weapons in the whole roster, and the only ones that can be effective against dragons so far, making them a good choice for Arena Assaults. There are a number of options for OHKO sword and magic users, green and colorless looks mediocre at best though. Also I keep using L!Ike and Fjorm a lot, because of their endurance. So as I said, we don't need to worry about infantry units just yet.

This is probably the best argument for Infantry, being their available budget options as opposed to full-on Whale builds that the other movement types excel in. Having the majority of anti-Dragon weapons in the game (Exalted Chrom is Cavalry) does help as well...except for the fact that only 33% of the available dragons in the game are non-Infantry. Legendary!Ike, Fjorm, and Legendary!Lucina are pretty nic(h)e options, especially due to the very reliable health sustain Legendary!Ike has during the Enemy Phase, but not only are all 3 of them Legendary units but they're also Specializers — that is, for the ability to do one area extremely well they end up falling short in other areas. This is even the case with Legendary!Ike, as even though he can take care of many threats, he's not only fully reliant on Radiant Aether but also falls very short against most non-Green mages.

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

+0 Sothe [+Atk] (Poison Dagger+ [refined 12 Mt], Death Blow 3) +6/0/0/0 has a whopping 94 effective Atk against infantry (compared to 84 currently).

+10 Sothe [+Atk] (Poison Dagger+ [Atk (13 Mt)], Death Blow 4, Attack +3) +6/0/0/0 has 109 effective Atk against infantry (compared to 97 currently).

That's basically a free Death Blow 6 on top of what you can currently do. It might be a bit too strong.

Sothe is the highest-Atk Dagger unit in the game, of course it might be a bit strong. Except...that means he'd have to give up Peshkatz and its debuff/buff effect. Realistically, I doubt many players would give up Peshkatz's reliability over a bit more damage against Infantry, especially since you don't see many Infantry units in Arena nowadays.

I mean, your point against daggers not having the refined PD+ would be better if you put up a lower-Atk unit. That way, if that one is too powerful for PD+ refine, then those with even higher Atk would support your case further.

Edited September 4, 2018 by MilodicMellodi

[XRay]

15 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

Perhaps at +10 she'd be a problem

It is the opposite; she is still lethal to most infantry units, but her potency has decreased and it makes it easier for the bulkiest infantry to tank her. Bulk increases twice as fast as Atk, since bulk comprises of HP and Def and both the skills go up at the same rate as Atk. At +10, effective damage is still an issue and is often lethal, but its potency is a bit less effective and it makes one shot builds a bit less reliable.

For example, at a theoretical 5*+25,000 with +10,000 to all stats, units will have a 20,000 defensive bulk and effective damage Weapons can only deal 15,000 damage. At 5*+25,000 Kagero cannot rely on one hit builds anymore and must rely on doubling to kill her targets.

 

[Lewyn]

I think rather than a general poison dagger upgrade, regular Kagero (infantry) should get a PRF Poison dagger.  Something like 14MT, effective against infantry.  Refine, negate all buffs on infantry such as rally/fortify/hone/etc., HP+3.  

[Roflolxp54]

I honestly don't think infantry units need too much help in this game:

- The majority (80%) of the refresh units in the game are infantry. (Only Olivia, Azura, and Ninian are available as refresh fliers, with Olivia being the only refresh flier in the regular summoning pool.) OG Olivia, the only refresh unit available at 3-4* rarity (as well as available from a Hero battle map), is an infantry unit.

- Dragons are extremely popular, especially since they have access to Lightning Breath+, an inheritable DC weapon that can deal adaptive damage post-refinement. Adult Tiki, Fae, Nowi, and female Corrin are all infantry dragons that are not 5*-locked. Adult Tiki and Nowi have access to Lightning Breath+ without needing to inherit it. Adult Tiki had been given away as a free unit (female Corrin did, too, though she, as a free unit, was exclusive to Android players).

- Nino is very minmaxed for a non-5*-locked infantry mage and gets natural Bladetome access. Tharja and Tailtiu are similar in this regard. Nino and Tailtiu had been given away as free units.

- OG Eirika can be extremely powerful if she's put into a buff-centric team. Similarly, Marth and male Corrin can provide a lot of Panic-proof buffs to the team and ally support respectively.

- Almost all dragonslayer units are infantry, especially with the introduction of the inheritable seasonal Cloud Maiougi dagger weapon. The only dragonslayer units that aren't infantry units are Knight Chrom, Summer Linde (if given Cloud Maiougi), and Spring Kagero (if given Cloud Maiougi). The most accessible dragonslayer units are infantry (Chrom, Roy, Marth).

- We get 2 non-quest DC infantry units for free: Legend Ike and Fjorm, who are both Legendary Heroes. If they get sent home for one reason or another (ie. skill fodder), that's the fault of the player.

- Felicia, an infantry dagger unit, is the only unit that can deal adaptive damage against melee units thanks to her personal Plate weapon.

- For BST, Donnel, Soleil, Libra, Fae, and Nowi are in the 160 BST bin and are 3-4* available. Donnel is also available from his Hero Battle map and had been given away as a free unit.

- The majority of the archers in the game are infantry. All non-infantry archers are 5*-locked or seasonal (Brave Lyn, Valentines Roy, Kinshi Hinoka, Summer Takumi, Halloween Jakob).

[Hilda]

4 minutes ago, Roflolxp54 said:

I honestly don't think infantry units need too much help in this game:

- The majority (80%) of the refresh units in the game are infantry. (Only Olivia, Azura, and Ninian are available as refresh fliers, with Olivia being the only refresh flier in the regular summoning pool.) OG Olivia, the only refresh unit available at 3-4* rarity (as well as available from a Hero battle map), is an infantry unit.

- Dragons are extremely popular, especially since they have access to Lightning Breath+, an inheritable DC weapon that can deal adaptive damage post-refinement. Adult Tiki, Fae, Nowi, and female Corrin are all infantry dragons that are not 5*-locked. Adult Tiki and Nowi have access to Lightning Breath+ without needing to inherit it. Adult Tiki had been given away as a free unit (female Corrin did, too, though she, as a free unit, was exclusive to Android players).

- Nino is very minmaxed for a non-5*-locked infantry mage and gets natural Bladetome access. Tharja and Tailtiu are similar in this regard. Nino and Tailtiu had been given away as free units.

- OG Eirika can be extremely powerful if she's put into a buff-centric team. Similarly, Marth and male Corrin can provide a lot of Panic-proof buffs to the team and ally support respectively.

- Almost all dragonslayer units are infantry, especially with the introduction of the inheritable seasonal Cloud Maiougi dagger weapon. The only dragonslayer units that aren't infantry units are Knight Chrom, Summer Linde (if given Cloud Maiougi), and Spring Kagero (if given Cloud Maiougi). The most accessible dragonslayer units are infantry (Chrom, Roy, Marth).

- We get 2 non-quest DC infantry units for free: Legend Ike and Fjorm, who are both Legendary Heroes. If they get sent home for one reason or another (ie. skill fodder), that's the fault of the player.

- Felicia, an infantry dagger unit, is the only unit that can deal adaptive damage against melee units thanks to her personal Plate weapon.

- For BST, Donnel, Soleil, Libra, Fae, and Nowi are in the 160 BST bin and are 3-4* available. Donnel is also available from his Hero Battle map and had been given away as a free unit.

- The majority of the archers in the game are infantry. All non-infantry archers are 5*-locked or seasonal (Brave Lyn, Valentines Roy, Kinshi Hinoka, Summer Takumi, Halloween Jakob).

what do all the points above have to do with the fact that all non Dragonstone and non Regnal Astra infantry units are BS to average to ok compared to everything else? (Yes Felicia sucks even with adaptiv damage at least in tier 21 and tier 20.5). Dont get me wrogn they are viable for PVE but for Arena? unless you have a specific Team built with specific infantry units an only infantry unit Team will suck most of the time(outside of Dragonstone users) or underperform compared to a mixed teams or emblem team. This is the reason why i run mixed Teams.

[Roflolxp54]

4 minutes ago, Hilda said:

Dont get me wrogn they are viable for PVE but for Arena? unless you have a specific Team built with specific infantry units an only infantry unit Team will suck most of the time(outside of Dragonstone users) or underperform compared to a mixed teams or emblem team. This is the reason why i run mixed Teams.

In Arena Assault, infantry units may often see usage as counterpick units. And infantry units underperforming in Arena is more of the fault of how Arena is designed than infantry units being underpowered (in normal Arena, it's all about BST, merges, SP totals, and feeding the bonus unit kills for scoring, not necessarily the merits of a unit; in fact, having OP/ORKO units can be a detriment to scoring if you intend to play the bonus unit game).

[Ice Dragon]

3 hours ago, XRay said:

That could be said for every other effective Weapon though. The damage is only an issue if it hits AND it hits the right target, and the AI has trouble with both. The AI is terrible at hitting Player Phase teams, and for Enemy Phase teams, the AI is even worse at hitting the right target since they will just attack anyone in sight without realizing it is a bait.

Other effective weapons have easier and more effective counter play, such as the ability to use weapon triangle advantage to mitigate damage or more easily eliminate the unit before it can counterattack and skills that negate the effective damage.

Armors can get around effective damage with their sheer bulk or Svalinn Shield (I've had no trouble powering through Tier 21 armors with armor-effective weapons using my own armors). Cavalry have a wide variety of stat distributions and weapons options and the movement range to choose how to engage opponents on advantageous terms, including the use of Firesweep and Brave weapons or high bulk. Fliers have Iote's Shield and the best Firesweepers in the game.

 

Furthermore, every target is the right target if the player is using an all infantry team. I'm of the opinion that single-movement-type teams should always be viable, and a stronger version of Poison Dagger+ violates that.

[XRay]

19 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Other effective weapons have easier and more effective counter play, such as the ability to use weapon triangle advantage to mitigate damage or more easily eliminate the unit before it can counterattack and skills that negate the effective damage.

Armors can get around effective damage with their sheer bulk or Svalinn Shield (I've had no trouble powering through Tier 21 armors with armor-effective weapons using my own armors). Cavalry have a wide variety of stat distributions and weapons options and the movement range to choose how to engage opponents on advantageous terms, including the use of Firesweep and Brave weapons or high bulk. Fliers have Iote's Shield and the best Firesweepers in the game.

Furthermore, every target is the right target if the player is using an all infantry team. I'm of the opinion that single-movement-type teams should always be viable, and a stronger version of Poison Dagger+ violates that.

Except against ASS!Linde, infantry teams do have effective counter play available, at least for Player Phase ones. Firesweep and Brave archers are not exclusive to ponies and Player Phase infantry teams can run them too. Pure infantry teams also have an advantage over pure pony teams for being able to field Dancers/Singers.

I guess Enemy Phase infantry teams would have some trouble without a Shield equivalent, but all that requires is only an implementation of a single skill in the Sacred Seal slot.

[DehNutCase]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Furthermore, every target is the right target if the player is using an all infantry team. I'm of the opinion that single-movement-type teams should always be viable, and a stronger version of Poison Dagger+ violates that.

All infantry teams are plenty viable, they're annoying to run, relative to fliers, but they're still better than pure armor teams from a power level perspective. I'd actually say they're comparable to pure horse teams in terms of power level, because dancer access means horses don't have nearly as big as a mobility advantage if it's a 'pure' team. Type buffs doesn't matter too much when you can have Bow!Lucina spread a bunch of +6/+6 around, even without tactics.

Edit: Future Visions also basically gives +1 move to a non-Lucina unit per turn, too. It's a ton of mobility for her but she can also give a bit to other people.

 

Infantry has staves, dancers, and reposition, which means even in the worst case the only units that threaten you are dancers, recover staves, and Bow!Lucina, because they can clear debuffs.

Edited September 4, 2018 by DehNutCase

[MilodicMellodi]

Hmm, maybe I chose a bad time to start this topic.

Two words: Special Spiral. We know it's at least going to be inheritable to Infantry Tomes, since the one who comes with it is one. No matter what, we'll be seeing a form of powercreep with Special Spiral...I really just hope it's inheritable to only Infantry, because they really deserve it.