Feh Channel Out Now

[Tybrosion]

18 minutes ago, Mau said:

Will probably just try for green on most of them to try and get Reyson (which I hope can be gotten on these banners?).

Yes, you can. The Minerva & Maria re-run has every regular summon to date available and not just the ones that were available in its original run.

[Tree]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

I'm not exactly sure what +1 to all stats would do for helping older units compete with anything, especially since most units only use 1-3 of their stats.

The only real winners are infantry, who get +2 to all stats, which means I'm probably first going to focus on my infantry tanks (Fjorm, Legendary Lyn, Helbindi if he ever gets merges, etc.) and cannons (Ayra, Karla, Raven, etc.) first.

It's basically 2.5 levels, so that's something, even if small. Infantry definitely benefit the most with a potential five levels of stats.

[bottlegnomes]

So one thing I'm realizing in retrospect is that Feh specifically called out that all the orbs were gold and I believe mentioned that they'll appear when the units are picked. Seems like it might imply that it won't be one per color necessarily, but the top four regardless of color. That said, I still stand by my prediction that three will be Azura, Tibarn, and Duma. All three are powerful and recent, and Azura and Duma also provide utility. The only one that I could see being possibly iffy from that list is Surtr. He's still stupid powerful and has meme points going for him, but he's not nearly as recent. I could see Nailah (recent, DC, and NCD), any of the Christmas armors, and maybe an outside chance of Hrid or L!Eirika, but Surtr taking it would actively not surprise me, especially over those last two.

[Jingle Jangle]

I feel mixed about the dragonflowers on one had it's a good way for older units to get more stats, but on the other hand anyone had get it. I hope this doesn't mean that 3rd gen bst is coming out

[Othin]

4 minutes ago, Jingle Jangle said:

I feel mixed about the dragonflowers on one had it's a good way for older units to get more stats, but on the other hand anyone had get it. I hope this doesn't mean that 3rd gen bst is coming out

The implication seems to be that they're adding +5 to the BST of future infantry, but not other unit types.

Hopefully at some point they'll also raise the caps for cavalry and for units with lower BST.

[bottlegnomes]

22 minutes ago, Othin said:

The implication seems to be that they're adding +5 to the BST of future infantry, but not other unit types.

Hopefully at some point they'll also raise the caps for cavalry and for units with lower BST.

I'm skeptical that they will. This and a lot of the recent skills seem to be continuing their trend of trying to make infantry stand out without just falling back on giving them straight combat skills like they did with armors. Horses are pretty gimped in PvP, but they're still quite powerful in PvE thanks to 3 move and class buffs seems to be the general consensus. Same with fliers, but less gimped in PvP. Infantry has just had a bunch of utility skills up until now, which they must have seen as not pushing them up enough. I don't think they want infantry to be the dominant type, but they definitely want them to have a role. Problem is right now it kind of breaks down like this:

Fliers: Unrestricted movement
Cavs: Big reach
Armors: Great combat
Infantry: They don't have any glaring flaws

And as we're all familiar with thanks to units like Palla and Arthur, being decent at everything is a lot less special than being amazing at one thing in this game.

I do agree that cavs need some help, but it seems like their approach to that would be to build kits around certain things to cover their weaknesses when in player hands, Hrid's conditional omni-breaker, Eirika's Black Luna equivalent, Ares's every-turn face-punching, etc. That way, their lower stats are still exploitable when you're up against them, but in player hands, they can compete with the other classes.

Fliers I don't think are in a bad spot right now, so the continuation of movement-based skills seems good for them.

Armors are still dominant in PvP, but it does seem like they're finally doing something to curb Bold Fighter while simultaneously helping infantry. I do kind of wonder if in retrospect they would've released either the fighter skills or armor march instead of both, or at least somehow finagled it so they were the same skill slot so armors could pick between oppressive combat or equal movement.

Edited February 2, 2019 by bottlegnomes

[DehNutCase]

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

I'm not exactly sure what +1 to all stats would do for helping older units compete with anything, especially since most units only use 1-3 of their stats.

The only real winners are infantry, who get +2 to all stats, which means I'm probably first going to focus on my infantry tanks (Fjorm, Legendary Lyn, Helbindi if he ever gets merges, etc.) and cannons (Ayra, Karla, Raven, etc.) first.

It doesn't help them compete (for obvious reasons), but if the stat boost is player side only---which they better be---it lets you run less optimal units and still perform the same. 

It's a slight buff to EP units and a slight nerf to PP units* (since units all get slightly bulkier from +1 hp/def/res vs. +1 Atk), while buffing Infantry pretty significantly relative to other unit types. I don't think it's enough for infantry in general to be good---mobility is worth a lot of stats---but the few infantry that are already good enough get even easier to run.
 

*Edit: Derp, assuming it's player side only it's still a buff to PP units. It's just that PP units don't care about stats as much as EP units. So they get buffed less. (Their stat checks are easier to pass.)

 

And, mind, while most units don't use all their stats all the time, most of the units I use tend to use usually use every one of their stats at some time or another. Most player phase units are like that, I think, since killing people with a non-desperation, non-guaranteed, double relies on Atk, Spd, and bulk. And even my cheesier units like CC Rein does care about his bulk for exactly one hit before only caring about Atk. (Sometimes he cares about it for 2 hits if he needed to tank a festival Micaiah on top of the first hit.)

Edit: Rein also gets some natural doubles against people running 'I love dying to Reinhardt' -Spd sets.

2 hours ago, Tree said:

It's basically 2.5 levels, so that's something, even if small. Infantry definitely benefit the most with a potential five levels of stats.

If everyone gets 2.5 levels all that happens is that everyone gets slightly bulkier. Which doesn't change units relative to each other.

Edit: If player units all get 2.5 levels all that happens is that player units get a bit better in general, which still doesn't change player units relative to each other. At least, not to any noticeable extent.

 

The infantry thing is nice, but it doesn't change infantry relative to each other. I'm not going to run Selena just because she gets +10 stats, since Nailah can also get +10 stats, for example.

1 hour ago, Othin said:

Hopefully at some point they'll also raise the caps for cavalry and for units with lower BST.

To be honest, that feels pretty unlikely. PvP feels the worst when the most oppressive units have high mobility---like, imagine our current AR meta except everyone lost 1 move on the defense team's side. There are some people that would still manage to lose, because they're garbage, but I don't think the average player would have problems with it.

Edited February 2, 2019 by DehNutCase

[Lewyn]

I'm glad they let infantry get double the stat bonus so +10 instead of +5, even with more infantry skills they are still lagging behind the other move types overall.  These flowers are likely not going to be easy to get a ton of, so people will have to pick carefully.  Lewyn is getting max infantry flowers, L! Tiki is getting max armor flowers, for flier and horse I will think hard about which one.  

[Zeo]

Lyn would usually be the one to get my infantry flowers, but at this point in my game, Matthew is my #1. Not sure about the other class types yet so I'll just stock up on the stones and procrastinate like I do with just about everything else in this game.

[Tree]

6 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

If everyone gets 2.5 levels all that happens is that everyone gets slightly bulkier. Which doesn't change units relative to each other.

Edit: If player units all get 2.5 levels all that happens is that player units get a bit better in general, which still doesn't change player units relative to each other. At least, not to any noticeable extent.

Edit: Correction - Gen 3 units will likely be able to use the flowers too. (Gen 3 infantry are limited to 5 flowers rather than the 10 allowed for previous infantry.)

Gen 3 units (which are probably coming soon) won't be able to use the flowers (at least not at first), so it's more of a boost to gen 1 and 2 units to make them more competitive against gen 3 units. Not that it's really enough make up the difference, but perhaps it will help a little.

Edited February 3, 2019 by Tree

[Stroud]

Athena is a no brainer for me to give flowers first. She also needs all stats she can get. Same applies to Selena. No stat increase is a waste.

Deirdre or Sonya are on the green list. I guess I save flowers up until Sonya gets a refine, I may save orbs for that and try to +10 her.
I still need a good blue Infantry though, again I will wait for refines. I would like to give Nailah a push, but I don't know if I should use flowers on a unit I cannot merge for now. 

Colorless gives me a headache, still have no merge project there. xD. I'm gathering Leon though and wait for him to get a refine to see if it helps much. 

[Othin]

1 hour ago, Tree said:

Gen 3 units (which are probably coming soon) won't be able to use the flowers (at least not at first), so it's more of a boost to gen 1 and 2 units to make them more competitive against gen 3 units. Not that it's really enough make up the difference, but perhaps it will help a little.

Wait, who says Gen 3 units won't be able to use the flowers?

What they said is that future infantry will only be able to get the usual 5 points out of them rather than the higher 10.

[Mercakete]

I think Feh has a crush on Xander.

[Tree]

54 minutes ago, Othin said:

Wait, who says Gen 3 units won't be able to use the flowers?

What they said is that future infantry will only be able to get the usual 5 points out of them rather than the higher 10.

I checked again, and you appear to be right. Thanks for looking that up. That does lower the value for non-infantry.

[bottlegnomes]

I'm not expecting gen 3 units aside from infantry. They seem fairly happy with the other classes' stat configurations. I'd imagine they'll officially break the 40 neutral stat cap and really min-max before they do full gen 3. As is, only 3 seasonals have stats over 40 at neutral IIRC.

Gen 2, for as much flak as it got, really seems more like it was a way to mitigate Lynhardt's bullshit and to help infantry out a bit, hence infantry now having a slightly higher BST than fliers.

Edited February 3, 2019 by bottlegnomes

[Fabulously Olivier]

Well, looks like we are getting weapon refinery updates. And a lot of them. 8 is just crazy.

[Ice Dragon]

On 2/2/2019 at 9:01 PM, bottlegnomes said:

I'm not expecting gen 3 units aside from infantry. They seem fairly happy with the other classes' stat configurations. I'd imagine they'll officially break the 40 neutral stat cap and really min-max before they do full gen 3. As is, only 3 seasonals have stats over 40 at neutral IIRC.

Halloween Dorcas and Winter Ephraim already have 41 neutral Atk, Arden has had 41 neutral Def for a long time now, and Winter Fae has 41 neutral Res.

[bottlegnomes]

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Halloween Dorcas and Winter Ephraim already have 41 neutral Atk, Arden has had 41 neutral Def for a long time now, and Winter Fae has 41 neutral Res.

On 2/2/2019 at 10:01 PM, bottlegnomes said:

I'm not expecting gen 3 units aside from infantry. They seem fairly happy with the other classes' stat configurations. I'd imagine they'll officially break the 40 neutral stat cap and really min-max before they do full gen 3. As is, only 3 seasonals have stats over 40 at neutral IIRC.

I did forget Arden though.

Edited February 4, 2019 by bottlegnomes

[XRay]

On 2/2/2019 at 7:01 PM, bottlegnomes said:

Gen 2, for as much flak as it got, really seems more like it was a way to mitigate Lynhardt's bullshit and to help infantry out a bit, hence infantry now having a slightly higher BST than fliers.

The BST penalty that ranged cavalry got feels excessive in my opinion since AI ranged cavalry are effectively neutered with trenches. If anything VS!Azura and fliers pose a much bigger threat now.

[bottlegnomes]

1 minute ago, XRay said:

The BST penalty that ranged cavalry got feels excessive in my opinion since AI ranged cavalry are effectively neutered with trenches. If anything VS!Azura and fliers pose a much bigger threat now.

Yeah, it does seem a bit much. The only thing that I can think of is that they overreacted. They didn't seem to be very good at gauging things early on. Heck, they're better now, but they still sometimes seem over- or underestimate how good something will be.

[Ice Dragon]

23 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

I did forget Arden though.

I was trying to decide if I wanted to bold Arden's name or not in my response, but I ended up deciding not to. But yeah, that was the point of that response.

[bottlegnomes]

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

I was trying to decide if I wanted to bold Arden's name or not in my response, but I ended up deciding not to. But yeah, that was the point of that response.

Ah. By "official," I meant making a normal pool units, granted that's not exactly the most intuitive usage. Seems like one of their trends is to introduce things on seasonals to see how they play out since they're not as common outside whale territory. Arden seems like kind of a variation on that, except having been hard limited instead of soft limited.

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe that's why they gave the fighter skills the cooldown charge increase. Arden was pretty solid, but, from my admittedly hazy memory, he wasn't exactly revolutionary as far as armors went, and his skill was dual phase. Though his res being so exploitable probably played somewhat of a role.

[DehNutCase]

9 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe that's why they gave the fighter skills the cooldown charge increase. Arden was pretty solid, but, from my admittedly hazy memory, he wasn't exactly revolutionary as far as armors went, and his skill was dual phase. Though his res being so exploitable probably played somewhat of a role.

Arden is a melee armor. There are people out there who think 1 move 1 range units make good player phase units. Those are not the people who can break the game over their knee.

To even think melee armors can make good player phase units needs the person to value raw combat over mobility and positioning, and that's just not how player phase units function. (Combat is so unimportant that I'm pretty sure I can run a full level 1 team and win against level 40 +10s, as long as I have a big enough mobility advantage.)

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, DehNutCase said:

(Combat is so unimportant that I'm pretty sure I can run a full level 1 team and win against level 40 +10s, as long as I have a big enough mobility advantage.)

Please, I want to see you try.

[DehNutCase]

12 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Please, I want to see you try.

Would you be fine with just hearing my thought process behind the lineup, first, though? The real thing takes a bunch of SI (and you know how miserly I am). It also folds against Null C-Disrupt, of course. Like, straight up folds. I can handle a lot of stat disadvantage, but that's too much even for me. (Edit: If the map layout is really favorable it's theoretically possible to just Savage Blow the C-Disrupt down, as long as not everyone on the team has it.)

 

First I need to kill people. At level 1. This means -blade. Mobility means I need either horse or flier. Fliers would be easier since this is very much a 'cheese' run, so I'd much rather be able to just 'safe-spot' plink for like 20 turns rather than hit and run for 50 turns. And in the interest of not taking 5 hours I'd very much want a Pain Staffer with double Savage Blow.

Definitely want a repo + dancer, the so the team will end up something like 2 dancer, 1 -blade (with repo), 1 healer with Pain Savage Blow.

Edit: Possibly I'd need 2 staffers, 1 pain, 1 gravity, which would make running the team even more retardedly difficult.

Edited February 4, 2019 by DehNutCase