Arcane Weapon Discussion Thread + Arcane Weapon Wishlist!

[DefyingFates]

For bonus points, let us know how likely you think it'll be for us to get said weapon/ type and maybe theorycraft what sort of effect you'd like to see!

While it's nice that IS confirmed so quickly that weapon types will get revisited with Arcanes that fit different niches, I think it'd be nice to see the other tomes covered. Arcane Beast weapons (one for each movement type or maybe just a weapon that with a completely new effect that can go on all Beast units) would be good so we can finally inherit beast weapons too.

However, the one I'm hoping for most is an Arcane Staff. Especially now that damaging specials and Tier 4 B Skills are a thing, it'd be great to get a Arcane Staff unit with a full premium kit to fodder! I guess the only concern on IS' part is figuring out what sort of effects/ refine to give it, e.g. if they should give it a standard skillset with the refines being a choice between Wrathful or Dazzling (as all new Prf Staffs should have gotten) or giving it a kit like other Prf Staffs with stat refines on top, which would make Arcane Staves wholly unique).

Edited September 6, 2023 by DefyingFates

[Xenomata]

Bows are my favorite weapon type, so kind of hoping for another take on Bows.
Arcane Nastrond isn't bad by any means, but that was still when Arcane weapons were being given guaranteed follow-ups, whereas now we're getting weapons that just ask the unit to be fast and gives strong benefits if so.

Though I do think we should get to weapon types that don't have an Arcane option yet, I don't see the need to make Arcane Beast Damage weapons in all honestly.

[Mercakete]

I think a beast weapon would make for a cool one, especially since I don't think there are any good inheritable beast weapons, and because it's those weapons which trigger transformation. If they're going to do it, I'd say Gullveig would be a good unit to introduce it on since the golden serpents are contagious. What if you could inherit a transformation that turned the unit into a big ol' golden snake? (Separate from Heidr succumbing to the curse. Less hydra, more snake.)

That said, I find it largely unlikely that they'll give us an Arcane Beaststone. They seem to like keeping those uninheritable (even if they could just use the same beast sprite again and again for the transformation and all beast units already have their own transforming animations. Just change the beast sprite they turn into.)

[Humanoid]

It's staves and its not even close, and mostly because of IS' steadfast refusal to give common healers anything at all. I also feel it has extra value because while the other inheritable skills that come with any other units will be fairly generic, the Rearmed healer would likely come with complementary healing skills.

Grey tomes are obviously dead-last priority because there are so few units that really need it.

[Ice Dragon]

For the purposes of skill duplication, we're currently missing a dagger (for Lethality), a beast cavalry or flier (for the Beast skills), and a staff (for all of the staff-exclusive skills).

I think beast is the least likely in the near future due to the fact that there are currently no inheritable beast weapons (other than the sub-5-star weapons which don't count because every unit already has by default the only weapons they could inherit), and every beast unit already has an exclusive weapon that is tailored to them. Most of the ones that are starting to become outdated are already scheduled to get refines, and the ones that have already gotten refines all have refines recent enough to be up to scratch. Also, because every beast unit has their own exclusive weapon, they don't have the issue that other weapon types have where Special Heroes that don't receive exclusive weapons will forever be stuck using inheritable weapons.

As for the argument that an Arcane beast weapon would have issues with the transformation effect, there's nothing preventing them from just having the condition "if unit is [insert movement type here]" and give each movement type its standard transformation effect, even if it would get rather wordy.

Staff is probably 50/50 to get one soon. The introduction of new staff skills would make a Rearmed staff unit very marketable, but staves also have the issue that their inheritable weapons are already really good, even if they are missing a "proper" inheritable combat weapon with the Slaying effect. Staves also have the downside of not having stat refines, as they are historically restricted to just Dazzling Staff and Wrathful Staff as refine options. While they can certainly change that, I don't really see them taking the initiative to do so for just the one weapon.

We're very likely to get an Arcane dagger in the near future as there is really no reason to not get one. Ideally, it would have some way to reliably activate Lethality, but that literally just makes it Fireman's Hook at that point, and that would be ridiculous for an inheritable weapon because Fireman's Hook is probably still the best (non-Brave) dagger in the game (even better than Legendary Yuri's Abyssal Blade).

 

The introduction of Brash Assault 4 decreases the urgency to get an Arcane axe with a guaranteed follow-up, which means I would rather see them implement a dagger or blue tome next.

[DefyingFates]

On 7/2/2023 at 12:25 PM, Mercakete said:

even if they could just use the same beast sprite again and again for the transformation and all beast units already have their own transforming animations. Just change the beast sprite they turn into

You don't even need to do the last part, everyone could just turn into their regular beast forms and be done with it. I guess you could add an effect around them like the fallen heroes or do something like Grima's animations, but even that's not really necessary.

On 7/2/2023 at 1:02 PM, Humanoid said:

the Rearmed healer would likely come with complementary healing skills.

Yeah, as I said in the OP I think a Rearmed healer could come with great fodder along with the staff, but as Ice said there's the weirdness about how staff refines have been handled thus far to think about too. Hmm... 😐

[Othin]

Current beast units already have some ability to change their weapons, either to lower-level versions or to refines, and it doesn't correspond to any visual changes.

[DefyingFates]

^ This too.

[Ice Dragon]

Transformed sprites have always been tied to the unit, not the weapon. This is true of beasts in the same way that it's true of dragons.

The only actual difference between them is that dragons change their breath animation when they change weapons (since the dragon attack animations and the breath animations are all designed to match positions), whereas beasts have the exact same weapon animation regardless of weapon (since they don't have parts that are universally interchangeable with other beast units of their movement type). Most notably, the herons keep their wind animation regardless of their weapon, and seasonal beast units keep their seasonal hit effects regardless of weapon.

There's nothing from a technical perspective that would prevent the implementation of an Arcane beast weapon. The main issue is just making one that's actually worth using over a unit's own exclusive weapon without at the same time also making it best-in-slot for every beast unit (since that the older beast units have extremely powerful refined weapons to make up for their worse stat distributions).

Edited July 5, 2023 by Ice Dragon

[DefyingFates]

According to the newest datamine

Spoiler

we're getting a Beast Arcane weapon. Weird how that came about given some of the skepticism here 😛

The transformation effect is new, so it could be a generic weapon or just a variant for cavalry units since that's what the new Hero is.

 

[Ice Dragon]

Some thoughts (that's an understatement) on the datamined weapon:

Spoiler

The full weapon (Arcane Nihility) effect is:

• Slaying effect
• If HP is 25% or higher at start of combat:
  • +5 to all stats in combat
  • Boosts all stats by the opponent's Bonus on the same stat
  • Reduces all opponent's stats by the opponent's Bonus on the same stat
  • Additional damage equal to 15% of unit's Spd (including AoE Specials)
  • If Spd is higher than opponent's Spd:
    • Null Follow-Up
• Transforms with standard transform condition
• When transformed:
  • Permanent +2 Atk
  • -3 Atk/Def on opponent
  • Reduces opponent's Atk/Def by number of spaces moved by unit that initiated combat, maximum 6
  • If number of spaces moved by unit that initiated combat is 5 or higher:
    • 30% damage reduction on opponent's first attack

There doesn't appear to be definitive information yet that the weapon is restricted to cavalry, but I'll treat it as if it were until we receive more information.

With a Spd refine, the weapon grants +8/8/8/8 (for comparison, +4/8/4/4 if you subtract the standard cavalry transform effect on player phase) plus an additional +1/0/1/1 for each space moved by the unit that initiated combat (up to 3) and additional damage equal to 15% of the unit's Spd. The weapon then has Binding Necklace's effect of stealing the opponent's stat Bonuses and grants Null Follow-Up if the unit is faster than the opponent.

It also grants 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack, but only if the unit initiating combat moves at least 5 spaces, which is only possible with teleportation or Pathfinder shenanigans and is therefore not reliable for general use.

 

The biggest issue with the weapon is that it has very high variance. Even with the maximum Clash boost, if the opponent has no stat Bonuses, the weapon only grants +7/8/7/7 on player phase plus the Spd-based additional damage if you subtract the standard cavalry transform effect, which is worse than pretty much every refinable beast cavalry weapon, as all of them grant at least +8 to all stats before counting the standard cavalry transform effect and many of them have additional effects like a Special charge rate boost or additional damage to match Arcane Nihility's Spd-based additional damage.

However, if the opponent has any stat Bonuses at all, the weapon is typically going to be better than most other weapons. In particular, +6 Atk/Spd on the opponent grants an effective +6/12/6/6, +6 Atk/Def on the opponent grants an effective +12/0/12/6, and +6 to all stats on the opponent grants an effective +12 to all stats. However, this is entirely dependent on how the opponent's units are built, which makes it unreliable outside of game modes where you can absolutely rely on the opponent to have stat Bonuses, which is basically just the high Arena, some Aether Raids maps, and some challenge maps.

On the other hand, the new weapon is going to be the best weapon for pretty much every fast beast cavalry unit that doesn't yet have a refine. At least until they get refines.

 

The odd thing about this weapon is the fact that it's clearly made to be viable on both phases, but the two units that would be interested in the weapon are both Freyja and have Binding Necklace, which matches Arcane Nihility's stat Bonus stealing effect, making it irrelevant in a comparison.

The combination of Brightmare Horn and Binding Necklace gives Summer Freyja +9/12/9/9 on enemy phase and +13/12/13/13 on player phase, the offensive half of Null Follow-Up, and Dodge 3. In comparison, Arcane Nihility grants +11/8/11/11 on both phases with the maximum Clash effect, both halves of Null Follow-Up, and Spd-based additional damage. While Arcane Nihility opens up the B slot for a different skill (since you can't equip Binding Necklace at the same time for double the stat theft), you're stuck picking between making up for the difference in Spd and losing Dodge (but gaining something like Canto), or running a percentage damage reduction skill like Guard 4 and missing out on 4 points of Spd since beast cavalry don't have a particularly good selection of B skills.

Regular Freyja is an easier sell due to her weapon lacking the +5 to all stats that Summer Freyja has, but Freyja is currently 8th in line to get a remix. That's might be a ways off, but it's also less than a year out.

But there's always a chance the unit will have a cavalry-beast-inheritable Dodge skill as their new skill.

 

Overall, the lack of percentage damage reduction on the weapon (the 5-movement effect doesn't count for obvious reasons) makes it a hard sell for refined weapons that have damage reduction on them. It also can't compete with the weapons that can reliably activate Galeforce if you prefer to run Galeforce as much as possible. Units with support weapons also obviously have a good reason to run their original weapon. But for any unit that doesn't offer something unique, it'll probably be best in slot.

It might be worth waiting to see if we get more Beast skills to make up for these deficiencies before inheriting Arcane Nihility.

Good weapon, but like Arcane Downfall, I think it might be a bit ahead of its time (unless we get a beast Dodge skill at the same time).

 

[DefyingFates]

14 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Spoiler

(unless we get a beast Dodge skill at the same time)

 

Maybe not at release, but I wouldn't be surprised if when the unit is added to the main pool they get a B skill

Spoiler

that combines "free Transformation" with the dodge effect, like Embla and Fomortiss' skills.

Thanks for the write-up! But while we're theory crafting,

Spoiler

how viable does the skill become if we assume anyone can inherit it, not just cavalry? The weapon name doesn't include "Fang" or "Wing" or any other animal body part so I think there's a non-zero chance of that happening. For example unless we get a speedy armor beast I'm assuming those are completely out of the running for this - no pun intended.

 

[Diovani Bressan]

About the datamine:

Spoiler

I will guess that the transformation bonuses that Arcane Nihility grants will be the new Cavalry Transformation effect, like how when Ash released she had a new Infantry Transformation effect.

Maybe Freyja will be in the remixes next month (it's between her and Triandra for the 2nd slot, since I am pretty sure Seliph is for sure one of the remixes), and she gets that effect by refining her weapon.

Freyr having that as well, if he is the Mythic Hero later this month.

 

[Ice Dragon]

@DefyingFates

Spoiler

I'm honestly betting on the unit having "Beast Dodge" as their new skill when they're released. Given how percentage damage reduction is pretty much a necessity for fast tanks due to their low defenses, I would be more surprised if the only source of damage reduction the unit had were the extremely unreliable 5-movement effect.

If not, then it'll be on an exclusive skill, and other beasts will just have to keep waiting.

 

The weapon's name in Japanese appears to be "魔器・虚無の角" (maki: kyomu no tsuno), "Arcane Weapon: Horns of Nihility". The "horns" had to be dropped in English due to length since the Japanese language has higher information density relative to physical display size.

So even among cavalry, Arcane Nihility doesn't match the attacking body part on any character other than Freyja, Freyr, and Nerthuz. So yeah, I would not be surprised if the weapon is restricted to cavalry, but I would also not be surprised if the weapon has no movement-type restriction because in either case, you'd have beasts capable of attacking with nonexistent horns.

 

@Diovani Bressan

Spoiler

I'm not convinced that they'll be changing the cavalry transformation effect. Given that we also have Fallen Muarim, who has a completely unique transformation condition, it's entirely possible that Arcane Nihility's transformation effect is also not a global change.

Additionally, the follow-up prevention on the cavalry transformation effect actually matters for units that aren't super fast, so I don't think they would want to get rid of it globally for cavalry going forward.

My guess is that both versions of Freyja will probably get Arcane Nihility's transformation effect whereas most other cavalry will continue to receive the standard effect.

 

[Diovani Bressan]

On 7/6/2023 at 12:10 PM, Diovani Bressan said:

About the datamine:

  Hide contents

I will guess that the transformation bonuses that Arcane Nihility grants will be the new Cavalry Transformation effect, like how when Ash released she had a new Infantry Transformation effect.

Maybe Freyja will be in the remixes next month (it's between her and Triandra for the 2nd slot, since I am pretty sure Seliph is for sure one of the remixes), and she gets that effect by refining her weapon.

Freyr having that as well, if he is the Mythic Hero later this month.

 

 

On 7/6/2023 at 12:58 PM, Ice Dragon said:

@DefyingFates

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm honestly betting on the unit having "Beast Dodge" as their new skill when they're released. Given how percentage damage reduction is pretty much a necessity for fast tanks due to their low defenses, I would be more surprised if the only source of damage reduction the unit had were the extremely unreliable 5-movement effect.

If not, then it'll be on an exclusive skill, and other beasts will just have to keep waiting.

 

The weapon's name in Japanese appears to be "魔器・虚無の角" (maki: kyomu no tsuno), "Arcane Weapon: Horns of Nihility". The "horns" had to be dropped in English due to length since the Japanese language has higher information density relative to physical display size.

So even among cavalry, Arcane Nihility doesn't match the attacking body part on any character other than Freyja, Freyr, and Nerthuz. So yeah, I would not be surprised if the weapon is restricted to cavalry, but I would also not be surprised if the weapon has no movement-type restriction because in either case, you'd have beasts capable of attacking with nonexistent horns.

 

@Diovani Bressan

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm not convinced that they'll be changing the cavalry transformation effect. Given that we also have Fallen Muarim, who has a completely unique transformation condition, it's entirely possible that Arcane Nihility's transformation effect is also not a global change.

Additionally, the follow-up prevention on the cavalry transformation effect actually matters for units that aren't super fast, so I don't think they would want to get rid of it globally for cavalry going forward.

My guess is that both versions of Freyja will probably get Arcane Nihility's transformation effect whereas most other cavalry will continue to receive the standard effect.

 

Well... Not only that's the new Cavalry transformation effect as I said before, but also every Cavalry Beast unit that got their refinement before this point will also have the transformation effect changed to the new one.

So it is a global change.

[Ice Dragon]

44 minutes ago, Diovani Bressan said:

Well... Not only that's the new Cavalry transformation effect as I said before, but also every Cavalry Beast unit that got their refinement before this point will also have the transformation effect changed to the new one.

So it is a global change.

I'm surprised they did this since I believe this would be the first time they've retroactively changed an existing skill's effect, not including bug fixes or changes to account for the addition of new weapon types.

Up until now, changes of this sort have always been done by adding a new skill instead of changing an existing one.

And they've actively gone out of their way to avoid changing existing skills like when they gave Fjorm a second remix skill instead of changing her refine when they realized her refine nullified most of her remix skill.

[Othin]

48 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I'm surprised they did this since I believe this would be the first time they've retroactively changed an existing skill's effect, not including bug fixes or changes to account for the addition of new weapon types.

Up until now, changes of this sort have always been done by adding a new skill instead of changing an existing one.

And they've actively gone out of their way to avoid changing existing skills like when they gave Fjorm a second remix skill instead of changing her refine when they realized her refine nullified most of her remix skill.

Yeah, this is really odd. It's mostly an upgrade, but not completely.

[Diovani Bressan]

I would consider the next new cavalry weapons and refinements to have that new effect (next beast cavalry refinement being Freyja), while keeping previous ones as they are. The change to previous refinement caught me off guard.

I wished they added it as extra refinement option, so we could choose between both options.

[Othin]

8 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

I would consider the next new cavalry weapons and refinements to have that new effect (next beast cavalry refinement being Freyja), while keeping previous ones as they are. The change to previous refinement caught me off guard.

I wished they added it as extra refinement option, so we could choose between both options.

If they added it as an extra option, it would annoy people who spent Divine Dew on the originals. However, one thing that could work would be to make it so that spending Divine Dew for one version of the refinement for these weapons unlocks versions with both the old and new effect. I could see them changing to that if people complain.

[Humanoid]

I didn't even know what the old effect did, but on seeing it, would it even be overpowered to just give them both effects? I don't feel the slightest bit incentivised to run a beast team at all these days and probably never will unless they add ranged units compatible with beast transformation.

[Humanoid]

9 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

I wished they added it as extra refinement option, so we could choose between both options.

Turns out this is the case after all. No free lunch and all that, have to cough up the dew if you want the new effect.

[Diovani Bressan]

5 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Turns out this is the case after all. No free lunch and all that, have to cough up the dew if you want the new effect.

Honestly, I prefer this way. Be able to choose between the effects. It's like every Cavalry Beats got a new refinement.

Now I wonder of that only applies to these old ones or if Freyja gets her refinement she will have both options or only the new one.

[Othin]

7 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Turns out this is the case after all. No free lunch and all that, have to cough up the dew if you want the new effect.

Huh. Weird that they announced it that way, but I guess this is the most in-keeping with precedents.

Also sets precedent for new refines for other units.

[Ice Dragon]

This is not exclusive to Arcane Nihility, but I noticed that the new cavalry transformation effect is different from when I made my previous analysis. I don't know if the datamined information was inaccurate (or if there was a typo in the datamine) or if it was accurate, but the effect was changed after the Tempest Trials ended and before Eitr's release, but the 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack is now triggered by the attacking unit moving 2 spaces instead of the 5 in the analysis.

This is obviously a huge difference, and I think it's enough to justify getting the new refine for all existing refinable cavalry beast weapons (as long as you have the resources and actively use the unit). The only situation where the old refine is better is if you fail to kill the opponent and the follow-up prevention is not nullified and prevents the opponent's follow-up from killing you in return.

For reference, the old effect is:

• With a Blow condition:
  • -4 Atk/Def on the opponent in combat
  • Follow-up prevention

And the new effect is:

• -3 Atk/Def on the opponent in combat
• Reduces opponent's Atk/Def in combat by the number of spaces the unit initiating combat moved, maximum 3
• If the number of spaces the unit initiating combat moved is 2 or higher:
  • 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack

 

And now to reanalyze Arcane Nihility:

Because all cavalry beasts that already have a refine now have access to the exact same transformation effect as Arcane Nihility, I can ignore the entire effect in comparisons for those units. For these comparisons, Arcane Nihility grants:

• Permanent +2 HP and +3 Spd
• Slaying effect
• +5 to all stats
• Defier effect for all stats
• Additional damage equal to 15% of Spd (including AoE Specials)
• If Spd is higher than opponent's Spd:
  • Null Follow-Up

If the Defier effect is not active, every cavalry beast weapon that already has a refine surpasses Arcane Nihility in stats (including the additional damage). All of them except for Ranulf's also grant strictly more Spd than a refined Arcane Nihility, with Ranulf's granting the same Spd. All of them also grant either the offensive half of Null Follow-Up or a guaranteed follow-up except for Kaden's, which is a support weapon.

The only effects that Arcane Nihility actually have over existing refinable cavalry beast weapons are its Slaying effect (which only New Year Selkie's weapon has, though Lethe has +1 Special charge rate, and Yarne has two stacks of Pulse after combat) and the Defier effect. The Defier effect is effectively +12 to all stats if the opponent has +6 stat bonuses on all stats, but that's really only reliable in certain game modes. If you aren't primarily using the unit in one of those game modes, it's probably not worth swapping to Arcane Nihility.

Also, if you're running Galeforce on Lethe or Yarne, you don't want to switch to Arcane Nihility even if you can reliably activate the Defier effect because Arcane Nihility cannot reliably activate Galeforce.

 

Compared to cavalry beasts that don't have a refinable weapon, the transformation effect grants an additional +2 Atk/Def/Res with the maximum Clash effect and 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack if the unit initiating combat moved at least 2 spaces.

Assuming you aren't willing to wait for refines, Arcane Nihility is going to be better on both versions of Freyja. Arcane Nihility + Beast Sense 4 is strictly better than their original weapons + Binding Necklace, though regular Freyja needs Distant A/S Solo to keep Distant Counter without losing stats.

It's only worth it to give Arcane Nihility to Summer Freyr if you can give him a guaranteed follow-up in a passive skill slot.

Nerthuz, New Year Lyre, New Year Panne, and New Year Yarne all have weapons that can reliably activate Galeforce, and as long as you're running Galeforce on them, there's no reason to switch to Arcane Nihility because Arcane Nihility cannot reliably activate Galeforce.

Even if you aren't running Galeforce, Nerthuz probably still wants to keep her original weapon because, while she can't quite match Arcane Nihility's Defier effect granting a maximum +12 to all stats, she does get a nearly unconditional +8 to all stats just for running Aether as her Special and has a powerful exclusive skill that she can't equip with Arcane Nihility.

New Year Panne also has a decent argument to run her original weapon with a Special other than Galeforce if you cannot reliably activate Arcane Nihility's Defier effect, but Arcane Nihility is better if you can. Her weapon notably has a stronger percentage damage reduction effect than Arcane Nihility's transformation effect and some other perks that Arcane Nihility doesn't have, so it's really only the Defier effect that makes Arcane Nihility worth using on her.

New Year Kaden is weird because, with his original weapon, he has a gigantic Spd stat and literally nothing else. I want to say he wants to run Arcane Nihility even if he can't reliably activate the Defier effect simply because of everything else he gains from the weapon, but he's still losing a full Spd tier. If you can reliably activate the Defier effect, though, he still wants Arcane Nihility.

 

The only problem with all of this is that there's currently no way to get Arcane Nihility, Beast Sense 4, and Alarm Atk/Spd with a single copy of Eitr because there is no other source of Beast Sense 3.

[DefyingFates]

@Ice Dragon What's your take on the newest datamine?

Spoiler

We're getting an Arcane Blue Tome next. I wish we'd gotten a Green Tome first, but oh well.