Gen 5 FEH: Could this be the year IS finally brings in anti-Infantry weaponry?

[MilodicMellodi]

Remember Poison Dagger+? Only Pepperidge Farm remembers. Jokes aside, that weapon is and has always been a joke. And yet it's the only thing in the game that has anti-Infantry effectiveness, other than Kitty Paddle+ (which has effectiveness against Magic foes, but suffers almost as badly in its Might loss as Poison Dagger+).

With FEH reaching into Gen 5, IS comes out with newer units with higher and higher BST totals. They also come out with shiny new movement-exclusive skills...for Infantry units.

As someone who played FEH since it came out, I remember how terrible Infantry units as a whole were. Back then, Armored and Flying units dominated the game, with Cavalry only being held back by their lack of positional versatility in maps densely packed with obstacles (like forests and water). Infantry, however, were...well, they were trash. With below-average BST, they were destroyed by Armored units. With the inability to move quickly through forested areas, they were thrashed by Fliers. With their lower movement and lack of useful skills, they were picked off by Cavalry before they could properly set themselves up. Infantry's complete lack of exclusive skills (especially Hone/Goad/Fortify/Ward skills) was one of their greatest weaknesses, and it was one of their weaknesses that made them unpopular to use as a whole...I myself was one of the people most adamant on Infantry getting their own skills and the like. It was only when Infantry started to get access to useful skills like Steady Breath that they finally started to make a comeback. And as they continued to get more and more quality skills, they eventually began to fight back with a vengeance. Now, in this day and age, Infantry are the ones fighting Armored for the leaderboards, with Fliers sometimes making their own impact...and Cavalry's left in the dust.

The subject of upgrading Poison Dagger+ (its Might at the very least) has always been something of a touchy subject to the community. With an overwhelming majority of the units both back then and even now being Infantry (as of now, 282 units are Infantry and 276 are non-Infantry), many have complained that Poison Dagger+ getting a buff would be giving dagger units the ability to have effectiveness against over half the roster. Before, that used to be a good reason to keep Poison Dagger+ in check; now, it's the best reason for Poison Dagger+ to get a buff, and to introduce similar weapons to the game...especially now that Infantry has their exclusive Parry skills (what I call the damage reduction skills, being Close Call, Repel, and Spurn).

That's all I really have to say right now, mainly because putting all that down took a lot out of me, but I'm firmly in the belief that this is the right thing for IS to do. I'd love to hear what opinions you all have about this, though, so feel free to discuss it below. Thank you for taking the time to read what I had to say.

[Karimlan]

Before I put my two cents in, I won't go as far as to call the damage mitigation skills Parry, for two reasons:

• You don't avoid the attack, in the strictest sense,
• You now have a damage mitigation skill based off of Defense (B!Dimitri's Blue Lion Rule--the first of its kind).

With that out of the way, I think that it may be the ripe time to take a second look at anti-infantry weapons--IS can divvy it up between melee and magic (they have Kitty Paddle already, so the same weapon for melee types is not that far from reality) if they are so inclined.

Edited August 22, 2020 by Karimlan

[Othin]

Making them widely available could be risky, but I think it would be good to start introducing some decently powerful anti-infantry prfs.

For the record, if we're counting weapons like Kitty Paddle that are effective against specific weapon types infantry might have, there's also the Feather Sword and all the dragon-slaying and beast-slaying weapons. The Poison Dagger is still the only form of effective damage currently available against infantry units with daggers, staffs, or non-colorless bows, though.

[Ice Dragon]

41 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

And yet it's the only thing in the game that has anti-Infantry effectiveness, other than Kitty Paddle+ (which has effectiveness against Magic foes, but suffers almost as badly in its Might loss as Poison Dagger+).

If Kitty Paddle counts, then so does every Falchion, Naga, and whatnot.

 

41 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

Infantry's complete lack of exclusive skills (especially Hone/Goad/Fortify/Ward skills) was one of their greatest weaknesses, and it was one of their weaknesses that made them unpopular to use as a whole...

Actually, that was literally their only major weakness. If Hone Infantry and Fortify Infantry existed, infantry would easily have been nearly as dominant as cavalry after the release of Skill Inheritance.

Fliers had the significant disadvantage of having no ranged units until the release of Spring Camilla, and even at the first anniversary, there were only a total of 3 ranged fliers in the game, none of which were in the standard summoning pool. Additionally, not only did they take effective damage from an entire weapon type, but that weapon type included one of the most dominant units in the game in Brave Lyn.

Armors were powerful in combat, but had the distinct disadvantage of being expensive to build. Additionally, they could still be dismantled with effective damage (and around the time armors became popular in the Arena due to scoring changes, a large number of high-tier defense teams started to run full teams of armor-effective weapons) and similarly to fliers only had limited access to ranged options, again only 3 at the first anniversary.

 

41 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

now that Infantry has their exclusive Parry skills (what I call the damage reduction skills, being Close Call, Repel, and Spurn).

30 minutes ago, Karimlan said:

Before I put my two cents in, I won't go as far as to call the damage mitigation skills Parry, for two reasons:

They are called "Evasion" in Japanese. Literally just "Evasion: Hit and Run", "Evasion: Knock Back", and "Evasion: Wrath", respectively.

Edited August 22, 2020 by Ice Dragon

[MilodicMellodi]

1 hour ago, Karimlan said:

Before I put my two cents in, I won't go as far as to call the damage mitigation skills Parry, for two reasons:

• You don't avoid the attack, in the strictest sense,
• You now have a damage mitigation skill based off of Defense (B!Dimitri's Blue Lion rule--the first of its kind).

With that out of the way, I think that it may be the ripe time to take a second look at anti-infantry weapons--IS can divvy it up between melee and magic (they have Kitty Paddle already, so the same weapon for melee types is not that far from reality) if they are so inclined.

 

40 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

They are called "Evasion" in Japanese. Literally "Evasion: Hit and Run", "Evasion: Knock Back", and "Evasion: Wrath", respectively.

I've always been of the mind that to parry means to block (or, like you said, avoid). That still constitutes a form of damage taken, though (with avoiding, you use up more energy and your stance becomes uncentered as a consequence; with blocking, you take recoil to account for the force behind the opponent's blow). In FEH's case, I see it as "the opponent using their higher Spd (or in Dimitri's case, his Def) to avoid taking full damage from the opponent's attack". That being said, I won't force anyone to use it, it's just my personal label for that specific effect.

To Karimlan: that's a fairly nice idea on paper, about separating them between melee and ranged. Makes them more like Aegis and Pavise in a way.
The only problem I have with it is that, in practice, people would opt for the ranged version since many ranged Infantry units have low Def and are therefore more open to getting one-shotted, especially Nuke Mages and Glass Cannons as a whole. While the melee version might be used on occasion (especially if the weapon itself is melee, and the unit could use Lull/Dull skills), it wouldn't be used nearly as much since many melee Infantry units have better defenses than their ranged folk.

1 hour ago, Othin said:

Making them widely available could be risky, but I think it would be good to start introducing some decently powerful anti-infantry prfs.

I think this is a better way to balance it out. Though I also think that, over time, IS could introduce anti-Infantry effects into inheritable weapons...in the form of Seasonal alts, perhaps? Still, I like your idea very much.

40 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Actually, that was literally their only major weakness. If Hone Infantry and Fortify Infantry existed, infantry would easily have been nearly as dominant as cavalry after the release of Skill Inheritance.

Fliers had the significant disadvantage of having no ranged units until the release of Spring Camilla, and even at the first anniversary, there were only a total of 3 ranged fliers in the game, none of which were in the standard summoning pool. Additionally, not only did they take effective damage from an entire weapon type, but that weapon type included one of the most dominant units in the game in Brave Lyn.

Armors were powerful in combat, but had the distinct disadvantage of being expensive to build. Additionally, they could still be dismantled with effective damage (and around the time armors became popular in the Arena due to scoring changes, a large number of high-tier defense teams started to run full teams of armor-effective weapons) and similarly to fliers only had limited access to ranged options, again only 3 at the first anniversary.

Fair enough about Fliers and Armored units having no ranged options early on. Although, considering how strong they were (and the fact that Distant Counter was available from the beginning...not to mention that Sweep effects were very limited for a while) I'd say that they didn't really care unless they came across a particularly powerful mage (or bow user, in the case of Fliers).

In terms of weakness, Infantry were weak in the way that they were unable to stand out in any way. Always being the middle ground between the other three movement types; not having their glaring weaknesses, but not having any real strength themselves. They were useful as support, but it was incredibly rare to ever see a pure Infantry team in Arena back then. Of course, this was also during the time where most of the community shied away from Enemy Phase builds; I'm happy to say that I exploited the hell out of this in Arena, and strongly advocated for the Slaying Lance/Aether/Steady Breath combo when most people laughed about it. That build got me incredibly high in Arena, and I'll always remember it fondly...but I'm getting off point now.

Brave!Lyn was pretty much the turning point in FEH. Before her, Reinhardt was the king of Arena and destroyed most of the opposition. And before skill inheritance existed, Takumi was an insanely popular unit and even he got destroyed by the Rein because of his low Res. When Brave!Lyn came out, it wasn't necessarily the comeback of Horse Emblem...but rather the emergence of a new meta, centered around Brave!Lyn. If you had the time and patience, I daresay you could probably try and find topic threads of people complaining that putting her in FEH was a mistake.

In terms of build cost, Sheena was one of the most powerful units in the game — not only was she easy and inexpensive to build (at least before the Fighter skills were introduced), but she was also strong in her own right and used Distant Counter very effectively. She's but an example of Armored powerhouses that were available back then, but she was very much a leading example. I'm pretty sure that even now she's still fairly meta-relevant in her own right.

Edited August 22, 2020 by MilodicMellodi

[Ice Dragon]

20 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

I've always been of the mind that to parry means to block (or, like you said, avoid). That still constitutes a form of damage taken, though (with avoiding, you use up more energy and your stance becomes uncentered as a consequence; with blocking, you take recoil to account for the force behind the opponent's blow). In FEH's case, I see it as "the opponent using their higher Spd (or in Dimitri's case, his Def) to avoid taking full damage from the opponent's attack". That being said, I won't force anyone to use it, it's just my personal label for that specific effect.

I mean, "Evasion" is literally literally, like actually literally, the name of the skill series in Japanese. It's presumably the evade mechanic of the main games turned into a percentage damage reduction instead of a chance to avoid damage entirely to avoid the introduction of randomness since gameplay in Heroes is 100% deterministic.

• Close Call is 回避・一撃離脱 (kaihi/ichigeki ridatsu), "evasion/hit and withdraw", where 一撃離脱 (ichigeki ridatsu) is the Japanese name of Hit and Run, so "Evasion/Hit and Run".
• Repel is 回避・叩き込み (kaihi/tataki-komi), "evasion/knock back", where 叩き込み (tataki-komi) is the Japanese name of Knock Back, so "Evasion/Knock Back".
• Spurn is 回避・怒り (kaihi/ikari), "evasion/anger", where 怒り (ikari) is the Japanese name of Wrath, so "Evasion/Wrath".

[Baldrick]

Percentage damage reduction is the equivalent to the evasion mechanic in a deterministic combat system. If you receive 5 attacks doing 5 damage and 80% hit rate, on average you will take 5 damage 4 times. If you receive 5 attacks doing 5 damage with 20% damage reduction, you will take 4 damage 5 times.

I don't really like the idea of effective damage against infantry. I would make a different anti-infantry effect, e.g. something similar to Gae Bolg that only works against infantry.

[Fabulously Olivier]

How about NOT adding in more weaponry with effective damage against 3/4 of the roster. It's a really, really dumb idea.

 

Also, Young Caeda is cancerous enough, thank you.

[XRay]

16 hours ago, MilodicMellodi said:

As someone who played FEH since it came out, I remember how terrible Infantry units as a whole were. Back then, Armored and Flying units dominated the game, with Cavalry only being held back by their lack of positional versatility in maps densely packed with obstacles (like forests and water). Infantry, however, were...well, they were trash. With below-average BST, they were destroyed by Armored units. With the inability to move quickly through forested areas, they were thrashed by Fliers. With their lower movement and lack of useful skills, they were picked off by Cavalry before they could properly set themselves up. Infantry's complete lack of exclusive skills (especially Hone/Goad/Fortify/Ward skills) was one of their greatest weaknesses, and it was one of their weaknesses that made them unpopular to use as a whole...I myself was one of the people most adamant on Infantry getting their own skills and the like. It was only when Infantry started to get access to useful skills like Steady Breath that they finally started to make a comeback. And as they continued to get more and more quality skills, they eventually began to fight back with a vengeance. Now, in this day and age, Infantry are the ones fighting Armored for the leaderboards, with Fliers sometimes making their own impact...and Cavalry's left in the dust.

In 2017 for player phase nukes, infantry were definitely not weak, and they not that far behind cavalry. Cavalry was the best movement class due to lack of obstacles, but infantry's 2 movement space is not horrible either and they can go into forests unlike cavalry. Cavalry nukes cannot always use their entire 3 movement range anyways since infantry Dancers/Singers would not be able to keep up. Fliers lacked ranged options and armor units have huge mobility issues since Armored Boots has not come out yet. Lack of buffs is not an issue either, since you do not need 6/6/0/0 buffs when 4/4/0/0 buffs was more than enough for Blade mages AND Brave archers to demolish 90% or more of the cast back then. Nowadays, Brave archers struggle a lot more, and enemy phase units have more options to counter Blade mages.

In 2018, infantry definitely takes the cake for player phase with the introduction of trenches that nerfed cavalry's mobility, and the release of Tactics along with 2 flying Dancers/Singers. Unless a map has severe mobility limitations that calls for using fliers, being able to buff from 2 spaces away with infantry is pretty good and user friendly.

2019 further cements infantry's position with the introduction of VS!Azura.

But yeah, now with infantry dominating both player phase and enemy phase, and dominating heavily too, I am even more in favor of having Poison Dagger be updated and Refined.

1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

How about NOT adding in more weaponry with effective damage against 3/4 of the roster. It's a really, really dumb idea.

It is not that different from a whole Weapon class making an entire movement class questionable for tanking. Fliers are already forced to use Iote's Shield when being a super tank, and they do not have great access to tanking skills on top of that.

I like the idea of Poison Dagger putting a check onto the popularity of infantry super tanks, and giving players more ways to deal with Infantry Pulse teams.

Invalidating 3/4 of the roster does not matter when infantry are not 3/4 of the enemies players actually see on the battlefield. Ranged infantry definitely dominates in Aether Raids, but I do not think they make up that high of a proportion. Even if infantry are 3/4 of the enemies players see on the battlefield, then that is even more of a reason for Poison Dagger to exist to knock them down a peg.

1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Also, Young Caeda is cancerous enough, thank you.

TSOIA!Caeda is no more cancerous than a regular Counter-Vantage unit. It is up to the players need to bring the right tools for the job.

She is easily countered with good old fashioned Blade mages, and everyone has access to those. Firesweep archers also do a great job for players with a little more Orbs to spend.

Edited August 23, 2020 by XRay

[Roflolxp54]

I honestly think that infantrykiller weapons wouldn't be too out of place in the current game especially since melee infantry units can practically be made into armored units (which are primarily melee anyways) without their major weaknesses (armorkiller weapons and low mobility).

As for Young Caeda, she's not that cancerous -- there are counters to her with big ones already accessible to F2Pers in Jorge (F2P blue bow) and Sully (3-4* available TA3 enemy phase Brave lance unit with default Swordbreaker); failing that, there's still the usual suspects since she's a flier, not infantry (Firesweep weapons, Razzle Dazzle) and that there's the fact that her Feather Sword doesn't cover all weapons and movement types. She's also limited by her availability since she's seasonal.

Weapons like (Earthly) Gae Bolg are fine as a compromise as they have effects that aren't 50% more Atk based on movement type since those weapons have effects against 3 out of the 4 different movement types.

[Ice Dragon]

5 hours ago, XRay said:

It is not that different from a whole Weapon class making an entire movement class questionable for tanking. Fliers are already forced to use Iote's Shield when being a super tank, and they do not have great access to tanking skills on top of that.

We now have a decent enough selection of flying units with Iote's Shield built in on their weapon or exclusive skill (Altina, Ashnard, Young Minerva, Hel, Legendary Grima) that I don't think that's quite as much of an issue anymore.

 

5 hours ago, XRay said:

and giving players more ways to deal with Infantry Pulse teams.

The problem with Infantry Pulse teams is not that you can't deal enough damage with them, it's that you're dead before you get a chance to attack. Effective damage is not the answer.

 

5 hours ago, XRay said:

Invalidating 3/4 of the roster does not matter when infantry are not 3/4 of the enemies players actually see on the battlefield. Ranged infantry definitely dominates in Aether Raids, but I do not think they make up that high of a proportion. Even if infantry are 3/4 of the enemies players see on the battlefield, then that is even more of a reason for Poison Dagger to exist to knock them down a peg.

No one that is complaining about effective damage against infantry is complaining about it being too powerful in player hands. They're complaining about it being too powerful in the enemy's hands, which limits the options the player has in game modes where counter-picking is not an option.

 

5 hours ago, XRay said:

TSOIA!Caeda is no more cancerous than a regular Counter-Vantage unit. It is up to the players need to bring the right tools for the job.

She is easily countered with good old fashioned Blade mages, and everyone has access to those. Firesweep archers also do a great job for players with a little more Orbs to spend.

50 minutes ago, Roflolxp54 said:

As for Young Caeda, she's not that cancerous -- there are counters to her with big ones already accessible to F2Pers in Jorge (F2P blue bow) and Sully (3-4* available TA3 enemy phase Brave lance unit with default Swordbreaker); failing that, there's still the usual suspects since she's a flier, not infantry (Firesweep weapons, Razzle Dazzle) and that there's the fact that her Feather Sword doesn't cover all weapons and movement types. She's also limited by her availability since she's seasonal.

The mere existence of counters is not enough to make something not overpowered. After all, Reinhardt could be trivially dealt with using Fae.

There are (at least) three signs that a threat is overpowered in a way that is unhealthy for the metagame:

1. Its checks/counters are not accessible.
2. Its checks/counters are too specific and are not normally expected to be necessary.
3. It reverses its check/counter relationship with other unit types.

The first is pretty obvious. If a threat can only be checked or countered by something that is difficult to get, a large portion of players simply won't have the ability to deal with the threat no matter what they do.

The second and third are not problems with players being unable to deal with the threat, but the fact that team-building has to always keep the existence of that threat in mind to an unhealthy degree that limits players' options.

Things that are "normally expected to be necessary" are checks or counters to properties that are necessarily common. In Heroes, that includes things like having color coverage or the ability to deal with excessively bulky opponents.

If its checks and counters are too specific, it means that players are forced to include that something on their team. Even if that something is easily accessible, players are still limited to teams of 4, which further restricts a player's options when team-building. Additionally, if there are too many threats in the game that require overly specific checks or counters, it simply might not be possible to fit all of them on a single team.

Reversing a check/counter relationship means that the threat checks or counters options that would normally check or counter things similar to it. To illustrate, Young Caeda checks or counters most lances and counters most bows, both of which are typically checks or counters to sword fliers. What this means is that it becomes risky to use lances or bows as your primary means of dealing with sword fliers because there exists a sword flier that reverses the relationship. From a team-building perspective, this means that you either need to expend another team slot to cover Young Caeda or you need to replace the unit in that slot with one that can handle the unit's original role while also being able to deal with Young Caeda, even if the original unit would otherwise have been flawless at its role.

Whether or not something is overpowered is far more complex than just whether or not it can be countered or even whether or not it can be countered easily. Again, Reinhardt was utterly shut down by Fae (and Julia and Sheena), but that doesn't mean he wasn't overpowered under AI control.

[Hilda]

As long as Slow Infantry units have no way to mitgate damage the clear answer is no. If anything Infantry effectivness should only if at all come with an Exclusiv personal weapon

[XRay]

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

We now have a decent enough selection of flying units with Iote's Shield built in on their weapon or exclusive skill (Altina, Ashnard, Young Minerva, Hel, Legendary Grima) that I don't think that's quite as much of an issue anymore.

It is not an issue if a player wants to use one of those units as super tanks, but most of them are 5* exclusive and got issues that makes them not ideal for that role.

Altina is a Mythic Hero so she lacks stats. Hel is in the same situation, and being a Dark Mythic makes her even less attractive as an option. FV!F!Robin is a Legendary Hero and got stat issues as well outside of her season. TSOIA!Minerva still needs to equip Iote's Shield on the Sacred Seal since she needs Distant Counter as a supertank.

That only leaves Ashnard as a realistic consistent super tank option.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

The problem with Infantry Pulse teams is not that you can't deal enough damage with them, it's that you're dead before you get a chance to attack. Effective damage is not the answer.

Effective damage is not the full answer, but it can certainly help. If Poison Dagger gets the same treatment as other regular Effective Weapons, denying infantry buffs certainly helps with tanking.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

No one that is complaining about effective damage against infantry is complaining about it being too powerful in player hands. They're complaining about it being too powerful in the enemy's hands, which limits the options the player has in game modes where counter-picking is not an option.

The only significant mode where counter-picking is not an option is in Arena, and that is not a particularly difficult mode for the vast majority of players. With over a year and a half of being pummeled by Aether Raids, Arena is a cakewalk for most players in comparison now. Even with the inclusion of Poison Dagger, I highly doubt that is going to affect Arena's difficulty that much.

Players can counter pick in Aether Raids to a limited degree by using a different team, and we have 5 team slots available for that purpose.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

• Its checks/counters are not accessible.
• Its checks/counters are too specific and are not normally expected to be necessary.

Blade mages are available since the launch of the game, and Firesweepers were released soon after. For player phase teams, those two are staple nuke types.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

1. It reverses its check/counter relationship with other unit types.

This is only an issue for Arena when the player cannot counterpick AND the player wants to stay in Tier 20 or go higher. If the player does not mind bouncing between Tier 19 and Tier 20, a whole lot of performance and coverage options become available. Lancers and archers still got access to Firesweep in lower score ranges.

Edited August 24, 2020 by XRay

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

That only leaves Ashnard as a realistic consistent super tank option.

Isn't it convenient that the easiest one to get is the one best suited for the task?

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Effective damage is not the full answer, but it can certainly help. If Poison Dagger gets the same treatment as other regular Effective Weapons, denying infantry buffs certainly helps with tanking.

No, effective damage is the wrong answer. Chugging bleach will certainly help kill off your cancer, but it will also kill the rest of you in the process.

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Even with the inclusion of Poison Dagger, I highly doubt that is going to affect Arena's difficulty that much.

Randgridr and Reginleif are extremely difficult to deal with with armors (even green ones) unless you're running Svalinn Shield, and both are common at the top of the Arena. I don't expect a refined Poison Dagger to be significantly different against infantry, considering they are usually unaffected by the weapon triangle and don't have a skill or status effect that nullifies the effective bonus.

For additional context on the importance of effective damage nullification, dragons had become extremely difficult to use defensively prior to the release of Duo Idunn due to the glut of effective damage skills against them (and are now back to being "pretty good" again if you have Duo Idunn for support). You were basically completely SOL if the opponent had Legendary Roy, Legendary Julia, Thrasir, or Naga, even if you could get on a fortification tile.

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Blade mages are available since the launch of the game, and Firesweepers were released soon after. For player phase teams, those two are staple nuke types.

Accessibility is pointless if the counters are still specific. There is no need to satisfy all three signs when even satisfying one of them is enough to be overpowered.

On the specific point of accessibility and taking an example from another game, it's physically impossible for the counter to a threat to have low accessibility in a Pokémon battle simulator due to the fact that all players always have access to all (legal) Pokémon and all (legal) movesets, yet it's trivially obvious that it's possible for elements of the game to be overpowered to the point of centralizing the game (as the Smogon banlists can testify, whether or not you like them as an organization).

Being a staple of player-phase teams means jack squat for any other team archetype, which is why the counter can still be considered specific. You would have done better by simply arguing for non-armored blue tomes and dragons being a check, which is significantly less specific and easier to incorporate in other team archetypes.

Additionally, as more threats with specific counters appear, the more likely it is for an opponent to use them together, making it harder to counter multiple of these threats at the same time.

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

This is only an issue for Arena when the player cannot counterpick AND the player wants to stay in Tier 20 or go higher. If the player does not mind bouncing between Tier 19 and Tier 20, a whole lot of performance and coverage options become available. Lancers and archers still got access to Firesweep in lower score ranges.

This is still an issue in Aether Raids because even if you have a limited ability to counter-pick the threat, you have to have already prepared one of your 5 teams to be able to deal with it due to the fact that the threat still invalidates units that normally would have worked for the role.

As an example, it's significantly less viable to use any lance armor instead of Legendary Tiki despite many of them having comparable stats and skills simply because they have significantly more trouble against Young Caeda as even though they will probably kill her, they can't really do so without taking significant damage in the process and potentially compromising subsequent rounds of combat.

Again, the more threats that appear that undermine the viability of large numbers of units that previously were viable for a specific role, the harder it gets to be able to prepare enough team slots or teams to deal with all of them.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Ice Dragon

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Randgridr and Reginleif are extremely difficult to deal with with armors (even green ones) unless you're running Svalinn Shield, and both are common at the top of the Arena. I don't expect a refined Poison Dagger to be significantly different against infantry, considering they are usually unaffected by the weapon triangle and don't have a skill or status effect that nullifies the effective bonus.

For additional context on the importance of effective damage nullification, dragons had become extremely difficult to use defensively prior to the release of Duo Idunn due to the glut of effective damage skills against them (and are now back to being "pretty good" again if you have Duo Idunn for support). You were basically completely SOL if the opponent had Legendary Roy, Legendary Julia, Thrasir, or Naga, even if you could get on a fortification tile.

But unlike armor, infantry have much higher mobility and can better use a Dancer/Singer if necessary to snipe a Poison Dagger unit.

For dragons, Garon has been free for quite a while and Sothis is available for whales if the player needs something that nullifies dragon effectiveness in Arena.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Being a staple of player-phase teams means jack squat for any other team archetype, which is why the counter can still be considered specific. You would have done better by simply arguing for non-armored blue tomes and dragons being a check, which is significantly less specific and easier to incorporate in other team archetypes.

I am more familiar with player phase teams, which is why I mentioned Blade mages and Firesweepers specifically.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

This is still an issue in Aether Raids because even if you have a limited ability to counter-pick the threat, you have to have already prepared one of your 5 teams to be able to deal with it due to the fact that the threat still invalidates units that normally would have worked for the role.

As an example, it's significantly less viable to use any lance armor instead of Legendary Tiki despite many of them having comparable stats and skills simply because they have significantly more trouble against Young Caeda as even though they will probably kill her, they can't really do so without taking significant damage in the process and potentially compromising subsequent rounds of combat.

Again, the more threats that appear that undermine the viability of large numbers of units that previously were viable for a specific role, the harder it gets to be able to prepare enough team slots or teams to deal with all of them.

For Aether Raids, the player has access to five whole team slots, and dedicating one team slot for a player phase team is not something out of the ordinary or super demanding, and dedicating one unit slot on that team as a Firesweeper not only shuts down TSOIA!Caeda, it also shuts down all other problematic enemies that can give players trouble. Choosing not to run a Firesweeper is like choosing not to run a super tank team. While a Firesweep archer is not exactly cheap, it is certainly much cheaper than building a super tank since it does not require months of Feather hoarding for merges, and Firesweep L and Firesweep S are also available for players on a budget.

[Ice Dragon]

8 hours ago, XRay said:

But unlike armor, infantry have much higher mobility and can better use a Dancer/Singer if necessary to snipe a Poison Dagger unit.

If you're using any dancer other than Legendary Azura, armors have more mobility than infantry because they are not stopped by trees.

The lack of armored dancers is also irrelevant since there is no requirement that your entire team consist of armors.

 

8 hours ago, XRay said:

For dragons, Garon has been free for quite a while and Sothis is available for whales if the player needs something that nullifies dragon effectiveness in Arena.

Garon and Sothis are completely destroyed by Legendary Julia, and Julia is by far the most threatening dragon-effective unit in the high Arena as well as one of the most common.

Even Legendary Tiki, Fallen Tiki, Legendary Marth, and Legendary Roy have good match-ups against Garon and Sothis even without their effective damage, and Legendary Marth's Binding Shield still works against them.

 

9 hours ago, XRay said:

and dedicating one unit slot on that team as a Firesweeper not only shuts down TSOIA!Caeda, it also shuts down all other problematic enemies that can give players trouble.

Um, no. No it doesn't. Firesweep definitely cannot answer every single possible problematic threat.

As much as you may want this game to be a player-phase paradise where it's always your turn, this game is not. It's not even a guarantee that you can get in and out of range safely, you don't have an infinite number of turns to slowly chip down a bulky unit, and you're going to be SOL when you encounter a unit with Null C-Disrupt if your other units cannot handle it.

 

9 hours ago, XRay said:

For Aether Raids, the player has access to five whole team slots, and dedicating one team slot for a player phase team is not something out of the ordinary or super demanding, and dedicating one unit slot on that team as a Firesweeper not only shuts down TSOIA!Caeda, it also shuts down all other problematic enemies that can give players trouble.

You're not going to be using just one unit slot on one team to counter a threat. There is more than one threat in this game, and you need to be able to handle at least a large enough chunk of the possible combinations of those threats to not expend all of your ladders. Unless you have some magic perfect team that counters everything in the game simultaneously, you're going to need to splash that counter onto multiple teams to handle different combinations of threats, and the more threats there are in the game that require different types of counters, the harder it will be to cover enough of them with five teams.

Units in this game don't live in a vacuum.

[MilodicMellodi]

4 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Garon and Sothis are completely destroyed by Legendary Julia, and Julia is by far the most threatening dragon-effective unit in the high Arena as well as one of the most common.

Even Legendary Tiki, Fallen Tiki, Legendary Marth, and Legendary Roy have good match-ups against Garon and Sothis even without their effective damage, and Legendary Marth's Binding Shield still works against them.

A majority of the Legendary units (10/23, a little under 45%) are Infantry, and all of them are very powerful in their own ways. And out of the five Legendary units you mentioned...guess what? 3 of them are Infantry and can inherit Infantry-exclusive or semi-exclusive skills.
And while we're talking about Blessing-based units, and since you mentioned Sothis, let's get into Mythics. 5/13 (almost 40%) of them are Infantry, and all of them are very powerful units as well. Bramimond, Thrasir, and Mila are especially powerful outside of AR, and more so in it. In fact, Bramimond destroys Legendary!Julia either way so...yeah.
As a recap, 15/36 of Blessing-based units are Infantry...and they're great right from the start. But when you add in Infantry-exclusive or semi-exclusive skills, they get more powerful than the other non-Infantry Legends/Mythics.
Honestly, this is one of the biggest reasons why Poison Dagger+ needs to be a useful check at the very least. So many powerful units, and they have nothing to take them out except for specific units with specific, powerful prf skills. And most units capable of using said skills are either seasonal or incredibly rare, making them hard to get for most people — especially F2Pers.

[Hilda]

53 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

A majority of the Legendary units (10/23, a little under 45%) are Infantry, and all of them are very powerful in their own ways. And out of the five Legendary units you mentioned...guess what? 3 of them are Infantry and can inherit Infantry-exclusive or semi-exclusive skills.
And while we're talking about Blessing-based units, and since you mentioned Sothis, let's get into Mythics. 5/13 (almost 40%) of them are Infantry, and all of them are very powerful units as well. Bramimond, Thrasir, and Mila are especially powerful outside of AR, and more so in it. In fact, Bramimond destroys Legendary!Julia either way so...yeah.
As a recap, 15/36 of Blessing-based units are Infantry...and they're great right from the start. But when you add in Infantry-exclusive or semi-exclusive skills, they get more powerful than the other non-Infantry Legends/Mythics.
Honestly, this is one of the biggest reasons why Poison Dagger+ needs to be a useful check at the very least. So many powerful units, and they have nothing to take them out except for specific units with specific, powerful prf skills. And most units capable of using said skills are either seasonal or incredibly rare, making them hard to get for most people — especially F2Pers.

None of the mentioned Infantry Mythics/Legendaries doesnt have a weakness.

Brammimond looses when being player phased (hell even when being enemy phased against a null follow up tank, or one that can prevent follow ups)
Sothis can be nuked to oblivion
Thrasir actually looses to a simple seal called Deflect Magic, or Ike in the big case. Or to simply ignoring debuff abilitys.
Mila can be enemy phased by anyone because she is just freaking slow
and Lif just looses

I am not sure whats so threating about them.
If anything Regular Lysethea is more threating. Lets face it the only reason people think Infantry are overpowered is because, Brave Ikes refine or Legendary Alm and because of Close Call/Repell etc.
Let me remind you that Close Call etc can only be used compentently by handfull of Infantry users. Yeah lets screw units like Hawkeye/Boey/Robin etc over with Infantry effectiv weapons.
And yes I do believe Close Call/Repell/Spurn are bullshit skills that should have never existed in the first place.

Its really bad balance when you punish 90% of Infantry units just because 10% of the Infantry units have a supreme stat spread and personal weapons/skills.

[vikingsfan92]

Honestly I am kind of for it but mixed overall. Adding infantry would then to force them to do something about effectiveness as a whole since it would apply to the entire game.  Do I think effectiveness should exist in the first place yes I do? Do I think it should be as strong as it is right now? No I don't but I also realize that it is a tough problem to solve and I also don't think it should be a super severe nerf just a slight one.

1 hour ago, Hilda said:

If anything Regular Lysethea is more threating. Lets face it the only reason people think Infantry are overpowered is because, Brave Ikes refine or Legendary Alm and because of Close Call/Repell etc.

My problem isn't any of that which I do think is an issue but rather there are tons of different "slay movement type x"  types and its hard for other comps to be incentivized when there are a gazillon anti-armor or anti-calvary or anti-flier units. I get that answers shouldn't be limited but its kind of hard to not run into an effective weapon it seems like.  At least with an infantry effective weapon it would make that a thing all types would have to take into account rather than it ignoring it one group.

Edited August 24, 2020 by vikingsfan92

[Othin]

So, there's been some talk about defensive benefits from allowing weapons like Poison Dagger access to the "negate bonuses on enemy infantry" effect. What about "anti-infantry" weapons or passive skills that don't use effective damage at all, but instead lean further into the defensive side of it? Say, a Blood Tome-like prf with the effect of "if foe is infantry, reduces damage from area-of-effect Specials by 80% (excluding Røkkr area-of-effect Specials) and reduces damage from foe's attacks by 50%".

[Ice Dragon]

4 hours ago, MilodicMellodi said:

Honestly, this is one of the biggest reasons why Poison Dagger+ needs to be a useful check at the very least. So many powerful units, and they have nothing to take them out except for specific units with specific, powerful prf skills. And most units capable of using said skills are either seasonal or incredibly rare, making them hard to get for most people — especially F2Pers.

Reusing this response because, while the context is different, the reasoning is still the same:

21 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

No, effective damage is the wrong answer. Chugging bleach will certainly help kill off your cancer, but it will also kill the rest of you in the process.

Effective damage is a lazy solution that ignores trying to determine why these units are so strong. Instead of providing an answer to the reason that they are strong, it provides an answer to "how can we kill them faster?"

[Humanoid]

How about giving Weaponbreaker skills effective damage against they thing they break? Or at least protection from effective damage from enemies of that type.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Humanoid

[MilodicMellodi]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Effective damage is a lazy solution that ignores trying to determine why these units are so strong. Instead of providing an answer to the reason that they are strong, it provides an answer to "how can we kill them faster?"

Fire Emblem's entire battle system is based on killing everything faster. There are different skills for different strategies, but 90% of gameplay in all FE games is "kill everything as quickly as possible".

And effective damage isn't a "lazy solution", it's an easy solution. As in easy for the player. As in not some kind of convoluted, dumb strategy that isn't worth pulling off in the end.

Effective damage is a check against strong opponents, making the person wanting to use said strong unit judge whether it's a smart thing to do. Armor effectiveness was made because of those units' high BSTs. Flying effectiveness (from bows and Excalibur) was made because of those units' positional supremacy (because let's face it, a ranged unit with effective damage is a great check against a unit type that ignores terrain). And Cavalry effectiveness was made because that unit type can swarm the opposing team faster than they can properly set up for.

Like I said in the original post, Infantry didn't have anything to stand out with, they just had the lack of the other unit types' weaknesses at the cost of lower BST. But that clearly isn't the case anymore. Heck, thanks to dragonflowers a great number of units who were here from the start can achieve pretty awesome stats, and that's ignoring Weapon Refinery. And with clearly powerful and exclusive skills now, Infantry can and does stand out now.

You say that effective damage is a lazy solution that ignores trying to determine why a unit is strong. I say that not having effective damage lets units be stronger than they have any right to be, and the "why" of these units being so strong is because they don't have a proper check in place. In fact, this also works the other way around; if Infantry had a proper check in place, that would be a proper reason for IS to make them more powerful as a whole even more.

Edited August 25, 2020 by MilodicMellodi

[Mercakete]

My take is this: infantry's an all-arounder movement type, which includes not having a movement type effective weapon (except for Poison Dagger) against it. Its major advantage is how "normal" it is...which is also its disadvantage.

Fliers can go almost anywhere on a map (a major bonus) and is balanced by being weak to bows and certain tomes. Cavalry can move 3 spaces and is balanced by not being able to pass through things like forests, and being slowed by trenches (also, as an extra balancing measure, there are weapons that are effective against them.) Armors are super tanky and strong, and have certain great skills that are exclusive to them (fighter skills, special spiral), and are balanced by having minimal movement (without using up skill slots), and by being weak to things like hammers.

Let's compare them to boons and banes. Infantry units are like having a neutral nature, while the other movement types have strengths and weaknesses. Infantry units are supposed to be a solid (but not spectacular) choice with no huge drawbacks or bonuses.

This is why I personally don't think adding any more infantry-effective weapons is a good idea. It would turn them from a solid but a bit bland choice to field to a bad one.

[MilodicMellodi]

Alright, what if we met in the middle here...

What would you say about there being Infantry-effective weaponry, but having the effectiveness against them be a 125% rather than 150%? This would also leave room for other effects on the weapons that have this effect, since the effectiveness modifier isn't as powerful as it is against other movement types.