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

[Mercakete]

11 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

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.

As for me, I stand by my opinion. Reducing the damage percentage slightly doesn't change that infantry units are fundamentally supposed to be solid but kind of bland choices outside of special cases (like with all movement types.) Just because you have a few who are supposed to be especially strong doesn't mean you should penalize all of them. Otherwise, let's drop some bombs on fliers, too, since flying mages (i.e., Pegasus Nino) are a pain. Why not armors, while we're at it, since even generic ones can be impossible for some units to damage (like they're supposed to be)?

No more infantry-effective weapons. If I could, I would remove Poison Dagger from the game entirely, but that's not my call and I'll respect IS' choice to have it in the game.

[Humanoid]

I have trouble enough remembering who has effective weapons, so trying to remember two different levels of effectiveness would be even harder. In that context I'd prefer the effective damage multiplier be one consistent value.

That said, I do think more inheritable options against narrower sets of targets would be desirable. I mean, if Caeda is allowed to have effectiveness against four weapon types, then surely an accessible skill that does just one-quarter of that would be more than reasonable. And maybe even a skill that guarantees first strike against them.

[vikingsfan92]

47 minutes ago, Mercakete said:

by being weak to things like hammers.

I honestly think this is a little underestimated how big of a flaw this is. There are a LOT of armor/Flier/cavalary effective perf weapons a little less on the cav side but still there are ton of preferred weapons that destroy each type of movement.  And the numbers are only going to go up as more units are released as there are bound to be more effective weapons released.  So dodging the ever growing numbers of these weapons is a pretty big.  Something has to change in regards to effectiveness as more and more preferred effective weapons get added. Whether that is adding a couple answers to infantry or changing how effectiveness works. But one plus I see to effective against infantry weapons being added is that it will add reason to do the change that fixes effectiveness

[XRay]

15 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.

Dragon effectiveness nullification still exists. It might not always be the most ideal option, but it is there. Just as Ashnard is far from being the ideal super tank, Garon is good enough for the job with his bulk to handle certain enemies.

Players do not have to use a team filled with dragons either.

15 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

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.

Null C-Disrupt is a dead skill on a tank when facing raw damage nukes or Galeforcers, and the simplest counter to Null C-Disrupt is a Blade mage, as there are no skills that disable enemy buffs on A, C, or Sacred Seal. A tank cannot be built to counter all types of nukes. Even Spurn BH!Ike, the closest one to doing that, will still fall without enough Spd stacking, and Spd stacking BH!Ike on defense is far more difficult to do than on offense.

Player phase teams are not the answer to every problem in battle, such as not being great at responding to extremely high mobility teams and not working well in tight spaces, but it has the tools to counter any problem or scenario that pops up in combat on player phase.

15 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

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.

There are many types of threats a defense team can use, but not all types of threats are relevant to different types of offense team.

Most player phase offense teams simply do not care about in combat threats, since they have a variety of nukes to deal with a variety of problems, or they can just simply bypass them with Firesweep. Most player phase teams are, however, susceptible to threats that jeopardize their mobility. Galeforce dominant teams are more susceptible to in combat threats since there is a lack the variety in nuke selection, but players are not going to pick a Galeforce team to go against a team with a bunch of stuff that is designed to grind their momentum to a halt or trip them up with Counter-Vantage.

Something like Poison Dagger may affect some super tank teams, but it is not going to affect player phase teams, Galeforce teams, and Counter-Vantage teams. And there is no defense team that can handle all four common strategies at once. And unlike Infantry Pulse, Poison Dagger and effective damage is rather mild. Infantry Pulse shuts down entire categories of super tanks, from Spurn Spd tanks to Null Follow-Up Spd tanks to super bulky Def/Res tanks. Poison Dagger is only relevant if the tank is infantry, which is no more threatening than Triangle Adept Raven mages being lethal against colorless supertanks. With how popular infantry super tanks are, I think Poison Dagger is more than justified to dampen that popularity.

5 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?"

The whole game revolves around killing things in 1 round of combat. There are some instances where it is not possible or undesirable to one round something (e.g.: high bulk Abyssal units; walling strategies; chip damage for Arena; etc.), but in most cases, you want to kill things in one round of combat. Having Poison Dagger killing things faster does not detract from that purpose.

9 hours ago, Hilda said:

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.

It is also pretty bad balance to heavily favor infantry super tanks at the expense of armor, cavalry, and fliers.

Armors have it the worst in my opinion, and it only gets worse over time when stats of all units increases by the same nominal rate, which causes the stat gap as a proportion/percentage to fall. Having that movement penalty and being weak to effectiveness simply is not justifiable when armors are only leading by a tiny gap of less than 5% in total stats, and that is only factoring in BST and Weapon MT (ANF!Dimitri/ANF!Edelgard; (176+16)/(185+16) = 0.9552). Factoring in merges (20), Flowers (5), stat manipulation support (48; 2 M!Corrins), Summoner Support (13), Mythics (20; 2 Mythics), and skills (12; Sacred Seal Solo), that gap is less than 3%. Even a gen I infantry unit can eventually reach 176 "BST" (Barte has 156 BST) with Resplendent Stats (10) and extra Flowers (10).

2 hours ago, Mercakete said:

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.

But that is not the case. As supertanks, infantry have little to no drawbacks AND huge bonuses. They are the only movement type that can respond to changes in the meta by adjusting their B skills and rearranging their loadout to swap effects to different slots. Cavalry's only relevant B skills are Lulls, armors got Special Fighter, and fliers got nothing (they got Guard I guess, but so does everyone else). Infantry can rearrange buff nullification and Guard to other slots while maintaining access to Spurns and Null Follow-Up, and not worrying about any effective Weapons. Their one drawback is BST when compared to armor units, but that drawback is so minor that it is irrelevant.

Edited August 25, 2020 by XRay

[vikingsfan92]

37 minutes ago, XRay said:

Armors have it the worst in my opinion, and it only gets worse over time when stats of all units increases by the same nominal rate, which causes the stat gap as a proportion/percentage to fall. Having that movement penalty and being weak to effectiveness simply is not justifiable when armors are only leading by a tiny gap of less than 5% in total stats, and that is only factoring in BST and Weapon MT (ANF!Dimitri/ANF!Edelgard; (176+16)/(185+16) = 0.9552). Factoring in merges (20), Flowers (5), stat manipulation support (48; 2 M!Corrins), Summoner Support (13), Mythics (20; 2 Mythics), and skills (12; Sacred Seal Solo), that gap is less than 3%. Even a gen I infantry unit can eventually reach 176 "BST" (Barte has 156 BST) with Resplendent Stats (10) and extra Flowers (10).

So much this. Green armors probably the worst of any movement type since red is so common and there are so many good swords and even with out armor effectiveness they still have very good stats, specials and color advantage to help them out. While also having to deal with the armored movement problem (even the Edelgards don't really help out this problem completely since they don't help armored teammates  move without trade offs if you are running an armor ball).

 

37 minutes ago, XRay said:

But that is not the case. As supertanks, infantry have little to no drawbacks AND huge bonuses. They are the only movement type that can respond to changes in the meta by adjusting their B skills and rearranging their loadout to swap effects to different slots. Cavalry's only relevant B skills are Lulls, armors got Special Fighter, and fliers got nothing (they got Guard I guess, but so does everyone else).

TBF fliers did just get guard bearing and dive bomb but they are limted to seasonal and mythic units but still overall flying b skills are kind of lacking and are not universal for all fliers. I still think infantry are superior to fliers as far as movement  exclusive stuff though.

Edited August 25, 2020 by vikingsfan92

[XRay]

30 minutes ago, vikingsfan92 said:

TBF fliers did just get guard bearing and dive bomb but they are limted to seasonal and mythic units but still overall flying b skills are kind of lacking and are not universal for all fliers. I still think infantry are superior to fliers as far as movement  exclusive stuff though.

Guard Bearing unfortunately does not help super tanks very much since Guard Bearing only works during the first round of combat once per enemy phase turn, and super tanks have to go through multiple rounds of combat per turn.

Dive-Bomb is a player phase skill, not enemy phase skill.

Edited August 25, 2020 by XRay

[vikingsfan92]

43 minutes ago, XRay said:

Guard Bearing unfortunately does not help super tanks very much since Guard Bearing only works during the first round of combat once per enemy phase turn, and super tanks have to go through multiple rounds of combat per turn.

Dive-Bomb is a player phase skill, not enemy phase skill.

I am just saying on more general term they actually are getting b skills for fliers now which is at least something. Infantry are better still but at least its something.

[Ice Dragon]

7 hours ago, XRay said:

Dragon effectiveness nullification still exists. It might not always be the most ideal option, but it is there. Just as Ashnard is far from being the ideal super tank, Garon is good enough for the job with his bulk to handle certain enemies.

Mere existence is not sufficient.

The entire point of having a unit that nullifies effective damage on your team is so that when an opponent with effective damage appears, you can use the unit that nullifies effective damage to take hits from the opponent in place of the other units on your team. If that unit can't handle the job, then then effect is wasted.

The fact that Panic Ploy was good when it was first released didn't mean Luke was any good with it. It just meant Panic Ploy was good (and would be better on someone else). Thankfully, Panic Ploy was inheritable and could be put on someone else, which cannot be said of Breath of Blight.

 

7 hours ago, XRay said:

Players do not have to use a team filled with dragons either.

No, but players should have the option to use a team filled with dragons without having to be worried about being completely shut down by common threats. While every team archetype will have its disadvantages, there shouldn't be a case where a team archetype has absolutely no options to deal with a specific threat.

 

7 hours ago, XRay said:

Null C-Disrupt is a dead skill on a tank when facing raw damage nukes or Galeforcers, and the simplest counter to Null C-Disrupt is a Blade mage,

That's all nice and all, but we're Firesweeping here and you can't always just change your team members on the fly.

Everything has a counter and it's great that you can name them, but that doesn't mean you will always have that counter with you on your team.

Additionally, Null C-Disrupt is not a tanking skill when used by an AI-controlled unit. It's a skill intended to fuck over people that overly rely on Firesweepers. AI-controlled units do not need to survive. They only need to kill a unit that was not prepared to face it.

 

7 hours ago, XRay said:

The whole game revolves around killing things in 1 round of combat. There are some instances where it is not possible or undesirable to one round something (e.g.: high bulk Abyssal units; walling strategies; chip damage for Arena; etc.), but in most cases, you want to kill things in one round of combat. Having Poison Dagger killing things faster does not detract from that purpose.

While the goal of the game revolves around killing your opponent's units as quickly as possible, that doesn't automatically justify every means of achieving that goal. You could just as easily implement a weapon with the effect "Deals +999 damage" to do so, and while it fulfills the end goal spectacularly well, no one in their right mind is going to say that's the correct way to address the situation.

When solving a problem, it is in the best interest to not cause more problems that need to be solved later.

No one is saying that a stronger Poison Dagger wouldn't solve the original problem. All of the arguments against a stronger Poison Dagger revolve around it causing more problems.

 

7 hours ago, XRay said:

Armors have it the worst in my opinion, and it only gets worse over time when stats of all units increases by the same nominal rate, which causes the stat gap as a proportion/percentage to fall. Having that movement penalty and being weak to effectiveness simply is not justifiable when armors are only leading by a tiny gap of less than 5% in total stats, and that is only factoring in BST and Weapon MT (ANF!Dimitri/ANF!Edelgard; (176+16)/(185+16) = 0.9552).

The percentage difference between stat totals is meaningless. The damage you deal and the damage you mitigate is calculated using the absolute difference between your stats, not the percentage difference in your stats. (Contrast with games like Pokémon or Monster Hunter where damage is calculated by dividing defense from attack instead of subtracting. In that case, a percentage difference is meaningful and an absolute difference is not.)

If stats continue to increase by the same absolute amount across all units, the only thing that actually gets stronger are stat-based Special skills (damage-based Special skills remain constant).

 

7 hours ago, XRay said:

But that is not the case. As supertanks, infantry have little to no drawbacks AND huge bonuses.

The drawbacks of infantry supertanks are that they have less access to Drive-type boosts and that, while they have a large variety of options for their B slot, they can't run all of them at once, and each option has its own notable shortcomings.

Of particular note, even in Aether Raids and Arena Assault, where you have the ability to counter-pick your opponent to varying extents, you still cannot change your equipped skills after seeing your opponent's team and map.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Ice Dragon

[XRay]

12 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

That's all nice and all, but we're Firesweeping here and you can't always just change your team members on the fly.

Everything has a counter and it's great that you can name them, but that doesn't mean you will always have that counter with you on your team.

Additionally, Null C-Disrupt is not a tanking skill when used by an AI-controlled unit. It's a skill intended to fuck over people that overly rely on Firesweepers. AI-controlled units do not need to survive. They only need to kill a unit that was not prepared to face it.

A player phase team is not going to stuff itself with only Firesweepers. A regular player phase team will have a variety of nukes at its disposal, generally at least 1 type of raw damage nuke and ideally 1 Firesweeper.

A player phase team may stuff itself with raw damage nukes, but it is not going to stuff itself with only Blazing nukes, only blade mages, or only Brave nukes.

A player phase team may also stuff itself with Galeforcers, but that is to counter specific defense teams, and there are some variety among Galeforcers too.

12 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

No one is saying that a stronger Poison Dagger wouldn't solve the original problem. All of the arguments against a stronger Poison Dagger revolve around it causing more problems.

I do not think introducing Poison Dagger would cause more issues. If anything, Poison Dagger Refinement provides enough of a threat to infantry that it would make players consider using non-infantry super tanks more.

12 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

The percentage difference between stat totals is meaningless. The damage you deal and the damage you mitigate is calculated using the absolute difference between your stats, not the percentage difference in your stats. (Contrast with games like Pokémon or Monster Hunter where damage is calculated by dividing defense from attack instead of subtracting. In that case, a percentage difference is meaningful and an absolute difference is not.)

If stats continue to increase by the same absolute amount across all units, the only thing that actually gets stronger are stat-based Special skills (damage-based Special skills remain constant).

The percentage difference still matters because bulk outpaces damage output. A gen I nuke dealing 70 damage to a gen I tank is a bigger deal compared to a gen X nuke dealing 70 damage to a gen X tank. That 70 damage is probably lethal to a gen I tank, while a gen X tank may barely scrape by due to higher HP.

Even if the game gives us the option to change a unit's movement type to armor along with the BST increase and movement penalty, I do not think most players would do it. In contrast, I think plenty of players would change their armor super tank to an infantry unit to take advantage of better skill access and support.

12 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

The drawbacks of infantry supertanks are that they have less access to Drive-type boosts

Infantry super tanks having no access to Goads and Wards is not that big of an issue since they have higher BST to compensate, and an infantry super tank with 2 Drive M!Corrins as support can fine tune stats to a higher degree than 2 Goad/Ward Mathildas/Clives.

2 M!Corrins with omni Drives gives 12/12/12/12 for a total of 48. If the player is willing to give up modularity for max stats, 2 M!Corrins with two Close Guards and two Distant Wards will have 9/9/17/17 for a total of 52.

2 Mathildas/Clives with omni Goads/Wards gives 15/15/15/15 for a total of 60, which is 12 higher than 48.

Gen IV melee infantry has 173 BST. Gen IV melee cavalry has 162 BST. That is a difference of 11, which is about the same as the stat gap between 2 Mathildas/Clives and 2 M!Corrins.

Fliers' and armors' access to Goad and Wards is not relevant since they lack a support unit that rivals M!Corrin in their groups.

12 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

and that, while they have a large variety of options for their B slot, they can't run all of them at once, and each option has its own notable shortcomings.

Of particular note, even in Aether Raids and Arena Assault, where you have the ability to counter-pick your opponent to varying extents, you still cannot change your equipped skills after seeing your opponent's team and map.

Infantry can respond to a changing meta pretty well, while cavalry's and armors' ability to do so is extremely limited, and fliers just is not a good class for super tanking compared to others. That means that a player with an infantry super tank does not have to spend another 220,000 Feathers or 1,000 Orbs to build another super tank when the meta changes to favor certain tanking effects over other effects. This does not affect the day-to-day play over a short period of time, but it does affect play over a long period of time.

For example, I think the current meta favors debuff nullification and Null Follow-Up over buff nullification and Spurn (although I think Spurn is generally better for BH!Ike), and if a player has to choose between putting Guard on C or on A, I think the meta favors Pulse Smoke over Stance, since a combination of high Spd and Null Follow-Up makes in combat Guard less necessary. If the meta shifts, an infantry super tank just needs to spend resources to acquire new skills to better respond to the meta and reshuffle effects around. In contrast, cavalry, armor, and flier super tanks cannot even use Null Follow-Up nor Spurn right now to respond to the meta, although they can choose where to put Guard.

Edited August 26, 2020 by XRay

[Ice Dragon]

8 minutes ago, XRay said:

A player phase team is not going to stuff itself with only Firesweepers. A regular player phase team will have a variety of nukes at its disposal, generally at least 1 type of raw damage nuke and ideally 1 Firesweeper.

And then you need your dancers and your Mythic score sticks. Where are you finding all of these team slots?

 

10 minutes ago, XRay said:

I do not think introducing Poison Dagger would cause more issues.

You have yet to make any justification for your assertion. Just saying it is so does not make it so.

People have pointed out issues, and you've not yet addressed why you do not think they are issues. I can only assume you've just been ignoring them and pretending those issues don't exist.

 

22 minutes ago, XRay said:

The percentage difference still matters because bulk outpaces damage output. A gen I nuke dealing 70 damage to a gen I tank is a bigger deal compared to a gen X nuke dealing 70 damage to a gen X tank. That 70 damage is probably lethal to a gen I tank, while a gen X tank may barely scrape by due to higher HP.

First off, what does this have anything to do with percentages?

Second, you argue that later generation units might live taking the same amount of damage due to higher HP, but the current trends say otherwise. Out of the five stats in the game, HP is the most stagnant stat, and by a huge margin. In fact, it is the only stat that has seen zero stat creep in the past 3 years, and year 1 units still hold a disproportionately large number of the top spots in HP within each movement type. You can almost say that the HP creep has been negative as the developers have clearly been using HP as a dump stat to bump up units' other stats.

 

Finally, increases in bulk have not outpaced increases in damage output.

Atk has seen an increase of about 5 points across all unit roles and all movement types in terms of base stats.

As of Gen 4, infantry have seen the largest boost in stat totals at about 15 points. As mentioned above, all roles have seen an increase in Atk of about 5 points, and that includes tanks. Traditional tanks have not seen a significant increase in Spd, and I've already established that HP has not increased at all, meaning the remaining 10 points are in bulk. However, unlike Atk, bulk is split into 2 separate stats.

This means that on average over the past 3 years, infantry traditional tanks have gained an average of 5 Atk, 5 Def, and 5 Res (and other movement types have gained less). This is entirely on par with the increase in Atk on offensive units.

However, this does not address the fact that offensive units have received more boosts to their strength from other sources. An average increase of 5 Def and 5 Res, for example, also means that Moonbow has increased in power by about 1.5 damage. The ability to reliably land a Special on the first hit is a massive boost to offensive units with few options that can mitigate it. Being able to land an AoE Special alone is worth on average a massive 31 points of Atk (using the assumption of the attacker's Atk being equal to the target's Def/Res, then adding Life and Death 3 and a Prf weapon).

The assertion that damage output is being outpaced by bulk is delusional.

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Fliers' and armors' access to Goad and Wards is not relevant since they lack a support unit that rivals M!Corrin in their groups.

There is literally nothing stopping you from using Corrin with a flier or armor tank.

Current-generation fliers are only 5 points in stats behind infantry, though they lack access to fancier B skills. Coincidentally, the vast majority of Light and Astra Mythic Heroes are fliers, meaning they can potentially function as a third support unit, particularly Peony and Altina, who do not have their own exclusive C skills. On top of that, fliers now have access to Rein skills, which are effectively 12 more points of stats (as long as Atk is one of the stats being lowered) or 8 points if your tank is running a Joint Drive.

Additionally, while you were quick to dismiss Guard Bearing as an option earlier, the first hit of the first round of combat in enemy phase is still very much relevant. Due to the game's AI, if you are in range of multiple units at once, the unit with the best performance is going to be the one that attacks first, meaning there is a good probability that Guard Bearing will block damage coming from the most impactful round of combat.

Current-generation armors are 8 points in stats ahead of infantry. If the opponent has effective damage, you swap out one Corrin for Duo Idunn, which costs you 15 points for a non-dragon or 10 points for a dragon, but Idunn also grants up to 12 additional points in visible buffs.

The argument that armors lack mobility compared to infantry tanks no longer applies due to the fact that Armored Stride is now a thing and standing adjacent to the tank is still a no-no when tanking (unless you can predict exactly what the AI is going to do).

If we ever get an armored offense Mythic, then an armored tank will additionally be able to receive Goad/Ward buffs from the Mythic point stick in the same way that fliers already can.

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

This does not affect the day-to-day play over a short period of time,

Thanks for literally admitting that this section of your rebuttal does not at all address the argument that you quoted, which was not only about the day-to-day play, but specifically within a single run of Aether Raids or Arena Assault.

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

If the meta shifts, an infantry super tank just needs to spend resources to acquire new skills to better respond to the meta and reshuffle effects around. In contrast, cavalry, armor, and flier super tanks cannot even use Null Follow-Up nor Spurn right now to respond to the meta, although they can choose where to put Guard.

You're making the bold assumption that a shift in the meta would not include more skills for each movement type to use (or be caused by those skills).

They've clearly taken a recent interest in fliers, having implemented three notable defensive skills this year (Pegasus Flight, Guard Bearing, Atk/Spd Rein).

[XRay]

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

And then you need your dancers and your Mythic score sticks. Where are you finding all of these team slots?

For Light, a player phase team can consist of double Peonys, Firesweeper, raw damage nuke, and Galeforcer.

For Astra, a regular player phase team is harder to set up, but a player can run 1 or 2 Altinas, and she can function as a slow Brave nuke, Galeforcer, Counter-Vantage, or some combination of them. Running 2 Altinas is not ideal in my opinion for a normal player phase team, but it will have to suffice for now until they release a better Astra Mythic. Double Altinas might work for a Galeforce team though, especially when paired with double Velourias and a beast Dancer/Singer.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

You have yet to make any justification for your assertion. Just saying it is so does not make it so.

People have pointed out issues, and you've not yet addressed why you do not think they are issues. I can only assume you've just been ignoring them and pretending those issues don't exist.

Not having effectiveness nullification for infantry is not a big deal.

Cavalry Effective Weapons are rather irrelevant in the current meta since cavalry super tanks are not very common. Effective Weapons are meaningless against cavalry nukes anyways since nukes in general will die no matter who initiates on them, unless it is a support unit or something that does not have great combat performance.

Armor Effective Weapons offer a bigger challenge to armors because it is pretty easy to hunt down armor units with their low mobility. And bunching up together to improve their mobility also presents its own set of challenges, since units like CE!Chrom and Galeforcers with Effective Weapons are roaming around.

In my opinion, Infantry Effective Weapons will lean more towards the former rather than the latter once infantry stops dominating super tanks, and infantry also naturally got decent enough mobility to avoid most dangers.

From how I see it, the only reason people complain about Poison Dagger is because a lot of players have heavily invested into infantry super tanks because of the lack of weaknesses they have and they are upset that their resources might go to waste, or that it will make Arena more annoying than it already is.

While players may see that infantry having no counter measures to deal with Poison Dagger right now as imbalanced, I see infantry units dominating the super tank role due to their lack of weakness as a greater imbalance that is in need of a dire correction more. I am not opposed to the game releasing Infantry Shield Sacred Shield if that will soothe people's concerns, but I am absolutely opposed to the concept that infantry should have high stats and high skill variety without any sort of drawback. 

For players who want to run a theme team around a game mechanic (all reds, all Blade mages, all armors, all dragons, etc.), they have to accept the fact that these theme teams will always have their weaknesses greatly magnified in PvP modes. The game has always discouraged running monocolored teams for example, and the game has encouraged greater nuke diversity over time as the game gradually increased the bulk of enemy phase units and given them a variety of skills to better counter certain types of nukes. If it is acceptable for the game to encourage players to use different types of nukes on a player phase team, I think it is just as justifiable for the game to encourage players to use a different movement types on their tanks as a defense against Effective Weapons.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

There is literally nothing stopping you from using Corrin with a flier or armor tank.

Current-generation fliers are only 5 points in stats behind infantry, though they lack access to fancier B skills. Coincidentally, the vast majority of Light and Astra Mythic Heroes are fliers, meaning they can potentially function as a third support unit, particularly Peony and Altina, who do not have their own exclusive C skills. On top of that, fliers now have access to Rein skills, which are effectively 12 more points of stats (as long as Atk is one of the stats being lowered) or 8 points if your tank is running a Joint Drive.

Using M!Corrin as a buffer for fliers is fine, but it does not address the fact that infantry still got more stats, and that is already on top of the fact that infantry have more tanking skill variety AND better tanking skill quality.

Using Mythic Heroes as additional Drive support units is not always feasible depending on map lay out. A lot of times, you only have enough space for 2 Drive buffers, so it makes more sense to use Mythic Heroes as Chill/Sabotage debuffers instead.

The problem with running Rein is that it does not address fliers' problem of not having enough slots for stats/effects. Fliers already have trouble stacking enough Spd due to Iote's Shield taking up the Sacred Seal slot, but using the C slot for stacking Spd means that fliers are giving up a tanking effect like buff nullification or Special interruption.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Additionally, while you were quick to dismiss Guard Bearing as an option earlier, the first hit of the first round of combat in enemy phase is still very much relevant. Due to the game's AI, if you are in range of multiple units at once, the unit with the best performance is going to be the one that attacks first, meaning there is a good probability that Guard Bearing will block damage coming from the most impactful round of combat.

Guard Bearing is probably fine for Arena and maybe low tier Aether Raids, but I do not think it is going to cut it for higher tier Aether Raids. A competent defense team is going to have multiple nukes with high damage output and overlapping enemy range.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Current-generation armors are 8 points in stats ahead of infantry. If the opponent has effective damage, you swap out one Corrin for Duo Idunn, which costs you 15 points for a non-dragon or 10 points for a dragon, but Idunn also grants up to 12 additional points in visible buffs.

Unless the tank has a Distant Counter Weapon and Def/Res Unity, super tanks utilizing bonus buffs without Unity for protection is too risky, since Panic is common.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

The argument that armors lack mobility compared to infantry tanks no longer applies due to the fact that Armored Stride is now a thing and standing adjacent to the tank is still a no-no when tanking (unless you can predict exactly what the AI is going to do).

Armor Stride has a problem of having a slow start since most units will be adjacent to each other at the start of Aether Raids. Combining it with Armor March is an option, but it might still require an extra turn for setup to move units into the proper position since you cannot just place the unit with Armor March anywhere in the starting tiles.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

You're making the bold assumption that a shift in the meta would not include more skills for each movement type to use (or be caused by those skills).

They've clearly taken a recent interest in fliers, having implemented three notable defensive skills this year (Pegasus Flight, Guard Bearing, Atk/Spd Rein).

Pegasus Flight and Guard Bearing are nowhere near the quality of Lulls, Nulls, Spurns, and Special Fighter. Pegasus Flight is a conditional Atk/Def/Res+7 taking up a slot that could be for an unconditional (or at least something less conditional) effect, and those stats could simply be offloaded to a support unit. Lull Atk/Spd has an unconditional Spd/Def/Res+3 with an additional conditional bonus of up to Spd/Def/Res+7 if the enemy uses buffs, and the stat distribution is more relevant since it boosts Spd rather than Atk. Guard Bearing is extremely lackluster when compared to Spurn.

Atk/Spd Rein is nice, but as mentioned earlier, it eats up a slot that could have been used for a tanking effect. In my opinion, a super tank's priority should be stacking as many tanking effects as possible onto their skill slots, and offload stats to support units. Outside of BH!Lucina, it is not practical offload effects onto support units.

Edited August 26, 2020 by XRay

[Ice Dragon]

5 hours ago, XRay said:

From how I see it, the only reason people complain about Poison Dagger is because a lot of players have heavily invested into infantry super tanks because of the lack of weaknesses they have and they are upset that their resources might go to waste, or that it will make Arena more annoying than it already is.

No, it's not. It's because a lot of players have not heavily invested in infantry super tanks and the "regular" tanks that they have invested in are going to get absolutely destroyed.

 

5 hours ago, XRay said:

Using Mythic Heroes as additional Drive support units is not always feasible depending on map lay out. A lot of times, you only have enough space for 2 Drive buffers, so it makes more sense to use Mythic Heroes as Chill/Sabotage debuffers instead.

That's great and all until you're up against Fallen Ike or a unit with a Unity skill, not to mention penalties are already unreliable due to dancers. The ability to use an additional Goad/Ward is still more under your own control than your opponent's.

 

6 hours ago, XRay said:

The problem with running Rein is that it does not address fliers' problem of not having enough slots for stats/effects. Fliers already have trouble stacking enough Spd due to Iote's Shield taking up the Sacred Seal slot, but using the C slot for stacking Spd means that fliers are giving up a tanking effect like buff nullification or Special interruption.

Again, Ashnard doesn't need to waste a slot on Iote's Shield, and Atk/Spd Rein is a guaranteed +4 Def and +4 Res.

And as we've already discussed a long, long time ago, even units as slow as Ashnard are capable of reaching viable Spd stats when given the proper support, so don't bother arguing that Ashnard is ill-suited to the role due to his stat spread.

 

6 hours ago, XRay said:

Unless the tank has a Distant Counter Weapon and Def/Res Unity, super tanks utilizing bonus buffs without Unity for protection is too risky, since Panic is common.

You may be afraid of Panic, but I am not. There are ways to play around it, and I don't think it's anywhere near as common as you say it is.

However, in the event that you are afraid of Panic, Atk/Def Unity is likely already sufficient as most of the best armor tanks in the game already have a massive Res stat, and Res is easier to stack due to Eir's support utility (in contrast to Naga, who has less support utility).

 

6 hours ago, XRay said:

Armor Stride has a problem of having a slow start since most units will be adjacent to each other at the start of Aether Raids. Combining it with Armor March is an option, but it might still require an extra turn for setup to move units into the proper position since you cannot just place the unit with Armor March anywhere in the starting tiles.

Reposition exists. So does Shove, Smite, Dance, Guidance, and Ground Orders.

 

6 hours ago, XRay said:

Pegasus Flight is a conditional Atk/Def/Res+7 taking up a slot that could be for an unconditional (or at least something less conditional) effect, and those stats could simply be offloaded to a support unit. Lull Atk/Spd has an unconditional Spd/Def/Res+3 with an additional conditional bonus of up to Spd/Def/Res+7 if the enemy uses buffs, and the stat distribution is more relevant since it boosts Spd rather than Atk.

Why are you using the argument that you should offload stats onto a support unit instead of using Pegasus Flight, but then you're content to not offload stats onto a support unit if you can use Lull Atk/Spd?

Fliers obviously cannot run Lull skills, and so Pegasus Flight is one of the best alternatives.

 

6 hours ago, XRay said:

Guard Bearing is extremely lackluster when compared to Spurn.

Guard Bearing is guaranteed to have a defensive effect whereas Spurn is not. While Guard Bearing might not be as strong as Spurn, I don't think it's as useless as you claim it to be.

 

6 hours ago, XRay said:

Atk/Spd Rein is nice, but as mentioned earlier, it eats up a slot that could have been used for a tanking effect. In my opinion, a super tank's priority should be stacking as many tanking effects as possible onto their skill slots, and offload stats to support units. Outside of BH!Lucina, it is not practical offload effects onto support units.

Atk/Spd Rein effectively gives +4 Def and +4 Res. I assume you are mistaken about its effect.

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

No, it's not. It's because a lot of players have not heavily invested in infantry super tanks and the "regular" tanks that they have invested in are going to get absolutely destroyed.

Destroying regular infantry tanks is not an issue since an enemy phase teams can diversify away from running only infantry tanks to tanks with different movement types. Poison Dagger is no worse than Triangle Adept Raven mages in this regard.

Player phase teams are already discouraged from running only physical damage, only magical damage, only red damage, only blade mages, etc. so I do not see anything wrong with encouraging players to increase their tank variety in enemy phase teams. Player phase teams are also heavily encouraged to use mix teams too because Tactics are so positioning lenient.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

That's great and all until you're up against Fallen Ike or a unit with a Unity skill, not to mention penalties are already unreliable due to dancers. The ability to use an additional Goad/Ward is still more under your own control than your opponent's.

That is fair. I do not recall seeing DB!Ike in Aether Raids, if at all since his debut, so I think utilizing debuffs on offense is fine in the meantime until he becomes more prominent.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

You may be afraid of Panic, but I am not. There are ways to play around it, and I don't think it's anywhere near as common as you say it is.

However, in the event that you are afraid of Panic, Atk/Def Unity is likely already sufficient as most of the best armor tanks in the game already have a massive Res stat, and Res is easier to stack due to Eir's support utility (in contrast to Naga, who has less support utility).

For Astra Season, I feel like I see Panic on at least half the maps either as a Structure (D) or on a staff unit, and I have to pay attention to Panic since I utilize Atk Tactic with Kronya or else she cannot secure a kill sometimes.

I have not paid much attention on Light Season since I use BH!Ike on that season and he does not care about Panic, but I do not think the frequency of Panic would change.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Reposition exists. So does Shove, Smite, Dance, Guidance, and Ground Orders.

Using Assists has some Structure (O) placement and minor teammate positioning requirements, and it requires an ally to use up an action.

If a player does not have an open slot in the right spot on the back row, and is facing against a defense team with a wall or enemy range right in front of the offense team, it is hard to Assist the super tank forward.

I keep my back row as empty as possible, but I have to place the bonus Structure (O) somewhere in the back, usually on second spot from the right, but if that row is the ideal row for BH!Ike aggro the defense team, I can generally get both BH!Ike and BH!Lucina into that row, but it is harder to cram a Peony in there sometimes.

Guidance, and Ground Orders might help with that, but I have not noticed Orders making much of a difference when I use Peony, although BH!Ike does not exactly need that effect to work well.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Why are you using the argument that you should offload stats onto a support unit instead of using Pegasus Flight, but then you're content to not offload stats onto a support unit if you can use Lull Atk/Spd?

Fliers obviously cannot run Lull skills, and so Pegasus Flight is one of the best alternatives.

Pegasus Flight's effect is entirely conditional, and the skill has to jump through 2 separate stat checks, and buffing Atk is less valuable than buffing Spd.

Half of Lull Atk/Spd's effect is unconditional, so it is always active, and it buffs Spd rather than Atk, which is a far more relevant stat in my opinion.

Pegasus Flight being the best alternative does not make it a good skill. If Solos and Pushes did not exist, it is like saying Atk/Spd Bond is the best alternative for staff nukes even though Atk/Spd Bond probably would not be active even half the time.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Guard Bearing is guaranteed to have a defensive effect whereas Spurn is not. While Guard Bearing might not be as strong as Spurn, I don't think it's as useless as you claim it to be.

It is good if you can consistently have the super tank face only one round of combat at a time, but I do not think that is possible for Aether Raids. Even in low tier Aether Raids, overlapping enemy range is pretty common; and while each individual nuke in lower tiers might not be as threatening as a nuke found in higher tiers, there are still three to four raw damage nukes on the defense team and it is still possible for them to overwhelm a super tank with raw damage output.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Atk/Spd Rein effectively gives +4 Def and +4 Res. I assume you are mistaken about its effect.

Atk/Spd Rein gives Spd/Def/Res+4, which is the same as Spd/Res Solo or a bit better than Swift Stance.

However, running Rein to address the loss of Spd from Sacred Seals means that the flier is not running tanking effect skill on the C slot, like Panic Smoke or Pulse Smoke.

Edited August 26, 2020 by XRay

[SirErrant]

Honestly, I thought at first that reintroducing infantry-effective weapons was a good idea, but after reading this thread, I'm beginning to favor a more elegant solution than that, whether something akin to what Othin said (reducing infantry attacks by 50%) or something even more creative. A skill that neutralizes evade skills, maybe, or making a version of NFU/NCD available to non-infantry units could be possible solutions. I get that effective weapons have been a solution in the past for all the other movement types, but infantry are  supposed to be middle-of-the-road units and not have any weaknesses directly related to their movement type. Not really the case anymore as far as being "middle-of-the-road picks" due to the shiny new skills they're getting... but I think the best fix to that would be making new flier and cavalry-exclusive skills to even it out a little. I don't think that infantry-effective weapons would necessarily make all infantry units terrible or difficult to use, but it would definitely lead to a lot of ensuing balance issues that themselves would need further checks.

Basically, I agree with what other people said that soft checks are a better idea.