Remixed Legendary Heroes: New Skills Speculation!

[Diovani Bressan]

@Roflolxp54

For Laws of Sacae, they need to change the condition and add another effect. Maybe boost it +5, change the condition to work in both phases and the condition to just having an ally within 2 spaces. It could also have NFU built on it. If Ryoma can have Iote Shield, which is an A-skill, in his B slot, Lyn can have a B-Skill in the A slot. Or Dodge could be nice.

About the possible Duel effect... I dont see being more than 175 BST.

For extra skill, Lull would be nice.

[Ice Dragon]

As I've mentioned before, Legendary Lyn was clearly intended to be a dual-phase unit, but she has the problems that none of her skills (other than Spd Tactic) are designed for both phases and that her stats are just overall too low.

First off, I do think Swift Mulagir stands a chance at getting a refine. As an exclusive weapon, it's complete garbage considering Springy Bow+ [Res] is almost flat-out better than it. Swift Mulagir has 19 Atk, 5 Spd, and 3 Res, whereas Springy Bow+ [Res] has 2 HP, 17 Atk, 5 Spd, 3 Res, and nullifies penalties on Atk and Spd with a more lenient condition. I would not at all be surprised if Swift Mulagir and Expiration get a refine that coincides with the next remix, and they both deserve one.

Lyn's strongest competitor is Shinon, whose base stat spread puts him at +2/+5/+4/+4/-5 when both units have maximum Dragonflower investment.

Now, I want to give Lyn Null C-Disrupt as her new B skill because there are so few units that can actually argue for using the skill in the first place, and Lyn seems like a good unit to have it. This also means I'd need to offload her B skill into her A skill, so either 6 points of stats for losing a Lull or something like Null Follow-Up or Dodge. Sure, it would make her kind of crap for skill fodder, but it opens up her B slot for a larger variety of options (like Desperation, Lull, Wings of Mercy, etc.).

So, in order to compete with Shinon while having her B skill open enough for Null C-Disrupt, refined Swift Mulagir and Laws of Sacae II combined need to give something comparable to:

• 44-48 points of stats (10 from base stats, 20 from weapon, 14-18 from premium A skill)
• Slaying effect
• Close Counter
• A premium B skill effect

Here are my new thoughts for getting Lyn caught up:

Swift Mulagir

Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1). Grants Res+3. If unit is within 2 spaces of an ally, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5 and neutralizes unit's penalties and foe's bonuses (from skills like Fortify, Rally, etc.) during combat.

Refine: If unit is within 2 spaces of an ally, neutralizes effects that guarantee foe's follow-up attacks and effects that prevent unit's follow-up attacks during combat and reduces damage from foe's first attack and from area-of-effect Specials (excluding Røkkr area-of-effect Specials) by 40%.

Laws of Sacae II

If unit is within 2 spaces of an ally, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+X to unit (X = 2 × number of allies within 2 spaces, + 3; max 9).

If unit initiates combat and the number of allies within 2 spaces ≥ 2, foe cannot counterattack.

Null C-Disrupt 3

Neutralizes effects that prevent unit's counterattacks during combat.

This gives:

• 43 points of stats when 1 ally is within 2 spaces (59 points when 3 allies are within 2 spaces)
• Slaying effect
• Null Follow-Up
• Nullifies own penalties and opponent's bonuses
• 40% damage reduction on opponent's first attack
• 40% damage reduction from AoE Specials
• Sweep when 2 or more allies are within 2 spaces

Basically, I traded Close Counter for the last 4 effects with Unity being the condition for almost all conditional effects.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Honestly, I don't really care what Lyn gets, so long as it's good. I'd like for her to make up for how disappointing her debut was.

[Roflolxp54]

17 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

This gives:

• 43 points of stats when 1 ally is within 2 spaces (59 points when 3 allies are within 2 spaces)
• Slaying effect
• Null Follow-Up
• Nullifies own penalties and opponent's bonuses
• 40% damage reduction on opponent's first attack
• 40% damage reduction from AoE Specials
• Sweep when 2 or more allies are within 2 spaces

Basically, I traded Close Counter for the last 4 effects with Unity being the condition for almost all conditional effects.

I can get behind a lot of these ideas though there is the sad truth that Lyn, being a Legendary Hero, is an Arena unit by intent. She still has that unique problem of being forced to choose between the Duel skill (G Duel Infantry 4 for her case) and her Prf A-skill, something no other Legendary Hero faces (at least until C Duel Flying 4 gets introduced to the game or Grima doesn't get a Duel effect in Dragonskin). For stuff like AR, the changes you proposed would be great for Lyn, but for Arena, no amount of updates can fully fix Laws of Sacae II unless Lyn gets the 175+ BST Duel effect as one of the effects of Laws of Sacae II (or Swift Mulagir, I guess).

[Ice Dragon]

8 hours ago, Roflolxp54 said:

I can get behind a lot of these ideas though there is the sad truth that Lyn, being a Legendary Hero, is an Arena unit by intent. She still has that unique problem of being forced to choose between the Duel skill (G Duel Infantry 4 for her case) and her Prf A-skill, something no other Legendary Hero faces (at least until C Duel Flying 4 gets introduced to the game or Grima doesn't get a Duel effect in Dragonskin). For stuff like AR, the changes you proposed would be great for Lyn, but for Arena, no amount of updates can fully fix Laws of Sacae II unless Lyn gets the 175+ BST Duel effect as one of the effects of Laws of Sacae II (or Swift Mulagir, I guess).

Then just tack on Duel to the list of effects.

[XRay]

Here is my take on Lyn: Lady of the Wind. I am not a fan of positioning requirements, so my suggestions are going to be very loose.

Swift Mulagir:
Effective against flying foes. Grants Res+3. If the number of allies within 2 spaces (excluding unit) > the number of foes within 2 spaces (excluding target), grants Atk/Spd+5 during combat.
Base:
Effective against flying foes. Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1). Grants Res+3. Grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5 during combat. If unit is within 4 spaces of an ally, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+X to unit during combat (X = number of allies within 2 spaces).
Refine:
Foe cannot counterattack. Neutralizes effects that prevent unit's counterattacks during combat. If foe initiates combat, foe cannot make a follow-up attack, and reduces damage from first attack during combat and from area-of-effect Specials (excluding Røkkr area-of-effect Specials) by 50%.

Laws of Sacae:
If foe initiates combat and the number of allies within 2 spaces ≥ 2, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 during combat.
Laws of Sacae II:
Grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 during combat. Deals damage = number of allies within 4 spaces. Reduces damage dealt to unit = number of allies within 4 spaces. If unit is 5★, level 40, and unit's stats total less than an ally's, treats unit's stats as the same as the ally with the highest stat total in modes like Arena.

As for her new skill, I would go with SD Far Trace, although the skill line might be considered too recent and premium to show up so soon. Null Follow-Up is not bad either as others have suggested.

[Ice Dragon]

22 minutes ago, XRay said:

As for her new skill, I would go with SD Far Trace, although the skill line might be considered too recent and premium to show up so soon. Null Follow-Up is not bad either as others have suggested.

Trace skills are exclusive to cavalry and fliers.

[XRay]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Trace skills are exclusive to cavalry and fliers.

Ah, darn it. I wanted to give her more mobility, so if no Trace, then I guess either Tempest on C.

[Diovani Bressan]

After reading all these ideas for Legendary Lyn refinement and remix, I kinda feel a disappointment is coming for people others than me. lol

[Ice Dragon]

6 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

After reading all these ideas for Legendary Lyn refinement and remix, I kinda feel a disappointment is coming for people others than me. lol

They've shown time and time again that they have no idea how to properly make old units relevant again and that their process is more like throwing shit at the wall and seeing if it sticks.

My post was meant more to highlight how much is actually necessary to make Lyn competitive with current units and my thought process for going about designing a remix with that goal in mind, but I have no expectation for the developers to actually put this much thought into it.

It would be enough to impress me if they simply made Lyn's remixed skill set coherent, which is about the lowest bar you could possibly set and speaks to just how awful her current default skills are.

[Florete]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

They've shown time and time again that they have no idea how to properly make old units relevant again and that their process is more like throwing shit at the wall and seeing if it sticks.

I'm not sure about that. I think they do know, and they just sometimes choose to, and sometimes choose not to. I doubt making legendary Ryoma relevant again (or even for the first time) was an accident.

[Ice Dragon]

40 minutes ago, Florete said:

I'm not sure about that. I think they do know, and they just sometimes choose to, and sometimes choose not to. I doubt making legendary Ryoma relevant again (or even for the first time) was an accident.

Berserk Armads was a master class in how to completely fail at understanding how a weapon functions. Even if you give them some slack for wanting to make the weapon work for Valentine Hector's default Wary Fighter instead of the more popular Wrath, both of the refine effects make it harder to activate the weapon's base effect. WIth the understandable exception of weapons that completely change their base effect on refine rather than staying the same or getting a strict upgrade, no other weapon loses functionality when refined.

In terms of remixes, Ryoma's is great and Gunnthra's is good, but Ike's and Fjorm's were mediocre at best.

Radiant Aether II getting Quickened Pulse 2 is ultimately inconsequential because Ike already has Warding Breath, which allows him to activate Radiant Aether on his follow-up, and Quickened Pulse 2 only changes it to be his first counterattack instead of his second. On top of that, the addition of the Slaying effect on Ragnell's refine made Quickened Pulse 2 even less relevant.

Ice Mirror II fixed the problem with Ice Mirror's damage output being inconsistent, but it didn't fix Fjorm's biggest problem, which was the fact that she needs some form of Special acceleration in order to activate Ice Mirror on an opponent's follow-up or on a second ranged opponent without a melee opponent in between. It would be great if Leiptr got a Breath effect added to it with a refine, but we haven't gotten a refine for it yet. There's certainly a chance Leiptr will get a refine in July to coincide with her appearance on the next remix banner, but I won't be betting any money on that chance.

There is certainly intent behind the refine and remix effects, but they have shown zero consistency in both being able to identify a unit's shortcomings and being able to address those shortcomings in an effective manner.

Making Ryoma good was certainly intended, but actually succeeding in doing so was an accident achieved by throwing the kitchen sink at the problem.

[Florete]

11 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

In terms of remixes, Ryoma's is great and Gunnthra's is good, but Ike's and Fjorm's were mediocre at best.

And the latter pair just happen to be the two that are available for free.

12 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

There is certainly intent behind the refine and remix effects, but they have shown zero consistency in both being able to identify a unit's shortcomings and being able to address those shortcomings in an effective manner.

How does this go against what I said? If you choose not to do something, it doesn't mean you don't know how to do it.

They obviously know what effects are valuable and what aren't when stuff like distant counters and guaranteed follow-ups constantly appear on weapons and exclusive skills while stuff like Pass is relegated to filling slots on demote units. Fallen Edelgard and Dimitri don't even appear in PvE, which shows a clear understanding of how nutty their kits are. There's no way in hell they believed the refines for Maltet and Effie's Lance were anywhere close to as effective as each other despite releasing at similar times; it's no coincidence the good one is on a 5* CYL winner and the bad one is on a 3-4* character with okayish popularity.

If they don't address a unit's shortcomings, it could just mean they didn't care to.

[Ice Dragon]

29 minutes ago, Florete said:

And the latter pair just happen to be the two that are available for free.

"Was" available for free in regards to Ike, if I am not mistaken.

 

29 minutes ago, Florete said:

How does this go against what I said? If you choose not to do something, it doesn't mean you don't know how to do it.

They're not choosing not to do something, though.

It's clear that remixes are intended to fix issues with older units so that they are better able to compete with more recent ones. However, their current track record shows that they don't really know how to do this.

 

29 minutes ago, Florete said:

Fallen Edelgard and Dimitri don't even appear in PvE, which shows a clear understanding of how nutty their kits are.

Being able to identify that something is obviously busted because they have an entire apartment complex's worth of kitchen sinks thrown into their sets only tells me that they know that that many kitchen sinks is enough to make something busted. It says nothing about their ability to identify how strong something is at much lower amounts of strong.

Anyone can tell you that nuking a potato in a microwave for 10 hours is going to result in a burned potato and probably worse, but that doesn't mean they can tell you if a potato nuked for 5 minutes will burn.

 

29 minutes ago, Florete said:

There's no way in hell they believed the refines for Maltet and Effie's Lance were anywhere close to as effective as each other despite releasing at similar times; it's no coincidence the good one is on a 5* CYL winner and the bad one is on a 3-4* character with okayish popularity.

Sure, but the argument goes the other way, too. Just take a look at the most recent refinery update before the Distant Counter update.

Cuan, a 5-star-exclusive unit, got a completely underwhelming refine, and Valentine Hector, a seasonal 5-star-exclusive unit, got a refine that is completely counter-productive to the weapon's base effect. Meanwhile, Marisa, a Grail unit, and male Morgan, a 3- to 4-star-summonable unit, got good refines, and Sumia, a 5-star-exclusive unit, got an amazing refine.

While 4-star and free units typically get worse updates than 5-star-exclusive units, it is in no way consistent. The sheer amount of variance reeks of incompetence. I find it hard to believe that they intentionally made Cuan's and Hector's refines as bad as they are. And you can tell they at least tried to make Hector's good.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Ice Dragon

[Sunwoo]

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

"Was" available for free in regards to Ike, if I am not mistaken.

I think Ike is available forever, but only once. "The People's Hero" is a permanent Xenologue ... although it does use a picture of Brave Ike so I could just be remembering wrong, still I'm pretty sure L!Ike didn't have a time limit.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Sunwoo

[Othin]

8 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

"Was" available for free in regards to Ike, if I am not mistaken.

Ike is still free. Unlike the more recent AHRs, he was released through a Xenologue.

[Ice Dragon]

Just now, Sunwoo said:

I think Ike is available forever, but only once. "The People's Hero" is a permanent Xenologue ... although it does use a picture of Brave Ike so I could just be remembering wrong, still I'm pretty sure L!Ike didn't have a time limit.

Just now, Othin said:

Ike is still free. Unlike the more recent AHRs, he was released through a Xenologue.

Right. Forgot was a Xenologue reward instead of what we've been getting recently.

[Florete]

 

4 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

It's clear that remixes are intended to fix issues with older units so that they are better able to compete with more recent ones. However, their current track record shows that they don't really know how to do this.

"Better able to compete with more recent ones" doesn't mean everyone gets the same quality of remix/refine. Ike's and Fjorm's remixes undeniably help them. Not as much as some others, no, but they are improvements.

7 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

While 4-star and free units typically get worse updates than 5-star-exclusive units, it is in no way consistent.

This statement I can agree with. The reason for it, though, I don't. Some F2P refines will be good because these kinds of games don't survive when free players get literally nothing to play with. As for why some 5* units get underwhelming refines, I can't necessarily answer that, but "incompetence" isn't the only possible answer.

[Othin]

2 minutes ago, Florete said:

As for why some 5* units get underwhelming refines, I can't necessarily answer that, but "incompetence" isn't the only possible answer.

If the rate they want to make 5* refines is higher than the rate they want to make good 5* refines, that requires making some bad 5* refines.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Othin

[Ice Dragon]

13 minutes ago, Florete said:

As for why some 5* units get underwhelming refines, I can't necessarily answer that, but "incompetence" isn't the only possible answer.

Incompetence is the most plausible answer, though, considering refines for weapons locked to 5-star-exclusive characters are typically decent at worst.

It makes little sense for them to intentionally make refines that are as much of a dud as Berserk Armads and Mulagir were relative to other units and refines released at a similar time, especially considering the characters these weapons are attached to.

[Florete]

38 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Incompetence is the most plausible answer, though, considering refines for weapons locked to 5-star-exclusive characters are typically decent at worst.

It makes little sense for them to intentionally make refines that are as much of a dud as Berserk Armads and Mulagir were relative to other units and refines released at a similar time, especially considering the characters these weapons are attached to.

I'm not going to pretend every weapon refine is the level of viability they intend it to be, but to say they have no idea what they're doing ignores all the refines that are clearly as good or bad as they meant for them to be. We're not IS, we don't know their process or intentions. Mulagir? Brave Lyn was the most common free choice for CYL1, so perhaps they wanted to give the unit more people already had a comparatively weaker refine. Berserk Armads? I don't know. Maybe that one really wasn't what they wanted. Maybe it was but such intentions are simply unknown to us. I like Othin's theory as a possible answer.

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Florete said:

Mulagir? Brave Lyn was the most common free choice for CYL1, so perhaps they wanted to give the unit more people already had a comparatively weaker refine.

Mulagir's refine was not just a "comparatively weaker" refine. That's a grossly optimistic way to frame it. It was godawful.

Mulagir was a bad weapon to begin with, having only Speed+3 and Dull Magic as effects. Dull Magic was upgraded to Dull Ranged, which was still pathetically underwhelming as the weapon's only base effect, and the refine effect uses an out-of-combat Spd check on a unit that comes with an in-combat Spd boost on their A skill and a base Spd stat that was only mediocre compared to units released around the same time.

Mulagir was only made better by the more recent release of the Life and Death Sacred Seal, but that was a year and a half too late.

 

1 hour ago, Florete said:

Berserk Armads? I don't know. Maybe that one really wasn't what they wanted. Maybe it was but such intentions are simply unknown to us.

I'm not sure how you can construct a reasonable argument that "maybe they didn't want that effect" or "maybe we don't know what they intended". The intention of Berserk Armads's refine is plainly obvious when you look at the weapon's effects and how they interact with Valentine Hector's default skills.

The weapon's refine effect is intended to be used to tank a single hit and then retaliate with a 2-cooldown Special, like his default Glimmer, healing up the damage he previously took. Dropping the opponent's Atk lowers the damage Hector takes when tanking the hit, and dropping the opponent's Def increases the damage of Hector's sole counterattack. This much should be obvious.

The glaring problem is that the weapon's base effect, Wrath, requires Hector to drop below 75% HP after the first hit in order to apply the additional 10 damage and requires Hector to remain below 75% HP after combat in order to charge his Special for the following player phase. Reducing the damage from the opponent makes it harder for him to drop below 75% HP to apply the additional 10 damage, and adding a substantial amount of healing to his Special activations makes it harder for him to charge his Special at the beginning of the next turn.

The intent of the refine effect is obvious, and their abject failure to pay attention to the weapon's base effect is equally obvious. There are no God-like "mysterious ways" going on here, just plain incompetence.

 

2 hours ago, Othin said:

If the rate they want to make 5* refines is higher than the rate they want to make good 5* refines, that requires making some bad 5* refines.

1 hour ago, Florete said:

I like Othin's theory as a possible answer.

Sure, there are a bunch of 5-star refines that are not up to scratch relative to other releases made at the same time, but even those are at least comparable to or better than 4-star refines released around the same time.

Cuan's refine, for example, has effects that are legitimately good, but are held back by extremely specific conditions, one of which is outside of the player's control. As far as I can tell, the primary complaint about his refine is the fact that it's underwhelming for a 5-star-exclusive character, but would be at least acceptable if he were in the special 4-star summoning pool.

It makes enough sense for refines like these to intentionally exist; however, refine quality is not a binary measure of "good" and "bad". There are refines that are so bad (my belief is that only Mulagir and Berserk Armads fall in this category) that there is no way for a quota on "good" refines to explain why they are so much worse than other contemporary "bad" refines. Even if they were planned to be "bad" refines, there is no reason to have intentionally made them as bad as they were, unless you're also suggesting that they have some additional quota on "godawful" refines to make that's something like 1 "godawful" refine every year or two.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Ice Dragon

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

There are refines that are so bad (my belief is that only Mulagir and Berserk Armads fall in this category) that there is no way for a quota on "good" refines to explain why they are so much worse than other contemporary "bad" refines.

I think Berserk Armads' Refine is decent, although it is far from amazing. If you think of the Wrath portion as the cherry on top rather than the cake, and the Refine as the cake rather than the cherry, it is not so bad. I just think of it as if were a completely new Weapon.

Mulagir was pretty bad, but most exclusive bows released before Persecution Bow are all pretty bad. It was not until after Persecution Bow was released that exclusive bows started to be able to compete more effectively with Brave Bow on a more consistent basis. We still get duds like Spy-Song Bow nowadays, but that is relatively rare.

[Diovani Bressan]

34 minutes ago, XRay said:

Mulagir was pretty bad, but most exclusive bows released before Persecution Bow are all pretty bad. It was not until after Persecution Bow was released that exclusive bows started to be able to compete more effectively with Brave Bow on a more consistent basis. We still get duds like Spy-Song Bow nowadays, but that is relatively rare.

I consider Cunning Bow a pretty good weapon. Of course Persecution is better, but Cunning is not that much behind.

[XRay]

3 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

I consider Cunning Bow a pretty good weapon. Of course Persecution is better, but Cunning is not that much behind.

It is pretty bad compared to Brave Bow at max investment. There simply is not enough effects on Cunning Bow to make up for not being able to quad attack. Persecution Bow got Desperation on top of stat boosts, which frees up the B slot for Lull Spd/Def to provide just enough additional stat boosts to surpass Brave Bow.

For dual phase purposes, I guess Cunning Bow and Mulagir are okay, but I would not say they are good either.