Fire Emblem Heroes

If you're not a spender (or lucky puller) who can field a team of the latest bonus units consistently, then promoting the Askr Trio is never a bad investment. (EDIT: Now less effective, since Fjorm is apparently now part of the guaranteed bonus rotation.)

Sharena is the best among them too, so she's the best investment.

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Upcoming Arena Bonus Units:
Micaiah, Sothe, Zelgius, Oliver, Sanaki
Fae, Linde, Chrom, Virion, Fjorm

edited 15th Jan '18 2:12:19 AM by Malco

My DA account... I draw stuff sometimes!

Yesterday, I wrapped up all available content for me. So this morning, I woke up emotionally ready for a TT.

... Which apparently doesn't start yet. Maybe I should stop presuming when new things will come out.

Otherwise, I managed to hit 4840 in Arena and 4806-ish in Arena Assault, so I don't even have arena to farm.

I have now reached the truest Content Drought I can experience.

You can farm Training Tower 10 for badges, I think today is Red and a number of useful badges use those (+Atk, Close Def, Heavy Blade...). Since more and more badges are coming replenishing your stocks might be useful, especially as when TT are active it's unlikely to be high on your priority list.

edited 15th Jan '18 6:46:41 AM by Julep

Today is Mystery Badges, so I don't really plan on power-farming that too much.

No, you're not getting it. It's not about the entire team being screwed by it—not directly, anyway—but getting crap like their red walling your blue or their blue walling your green. That's what would be utterly terrible about the solution.

Hmmm, that's a decent enough clause. I'd say that may be convoluted, but I guess Cancel Affinity exists, so it can't possibly be worse than the tooltip for that.

FE: Genealogy Story Run 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

At the moment, Nowi is walling a disproportionate number of greens.

Like any Naga-less mage who can't double her - Sonya, for example. Or Dorcas.

That's not the same as having a guaranteed walling, regardless of stats, because of a single skill. There are ways to work around that with ploys and Pulse-calibur shenanigans that have very strong general application against the rest of the cast (ever see a Sonya with 90ish effective Atk? I have, and she would have one-shot my Eirika).

Also, how the hell is Dorcas getting walled by Nowi? If he baits her in, he survives even the double of a +Atk +10 Nowi. 53 Atk versus 24 Res at WTD (drops to 43 Atk) is 19x2, which Dorcas easily survives, Dorcas then Quick Ripostes and explodes her with Draconic Aura. Assuming a +Def Lightning Breath forge, Dorcas does 23x2 + 18 (61 Atk vs. 38 Def base case, but this is even enough overkill to kill her through Fortify Dragons). And this is with Dorcas being +0 with his base kit. Note that a -Res Dorcas would also barely survive (1 HP).

edited 15th Jan '18 9:34:48 AM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

FE: Genealogy Story Run 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

It means that you can't engage and have to rely on enemy phase to defeat a unit you have WTA against. Not to mention that letting the enemy engage just invites Wings of Mercy crap on the enemy team.

And you still have to rely on team and buffs and ploys to defeat a single unsupported unit. There are ways to punch through the bulkiest Armors with WTA and a -breaker skill, but Nowi just sits there, immune to 1v1 vs all but green units that have either Naga or 40+SPD (and I saw a Nowi with 37 so even that might not be enough). Firesweep Axe doesn't exist at the moment either, so you have to use Firesweep Lance and go through her ridiculous physical bulk - it works but the investment required is more than significant.

So no, having a specific B-skill designed to screw her over does not sound "unfair" to me. That just means that you'll have to tank whoever has that "stonebreaker skill" with a unit with WTA, just like people have done since day one of Reinhardt's reign. Or to "use a -sweep skill" - that was your suggestion earlier for Nowi, it might absolutely work against whoever has that hypothetical skill. Or rely on the stupid buffs granted by Light Breath+, or the debuffs of Dark Breath+.

Plus you just mentioned that Dorcas can wall Nowi. Well, either Nowi, Fae or Tiki can wall any hypothetical Swordbreaker, depending on its color, and kill it on player phase once its HP are depleted - and they will because of how breaths work now. Because you can't combine a B-skill with Watersweep, and if you use a Firesweep Weapon, well, you won't counter so the -breaker skill is not hard to work around.

When I complained about Nowi you gave a list of ways to work around her. I fail to see how suddenly it would be "unfair" to think of a variety of ways to work around a hypothetical and super specialized skill and its effect on the meta.

edited 15th Jan '18 10:10:06 AM by Julep

Okay, but the dragons you're complaining about have to bait, too, since they rely on Quick Riposte to not get Wings of Mercied. How is that any different?

Buffs are easy to get and kind of the point of using a team to get enough advantage for a deathless, though. Like, consider how many kills Rein and Brave Lyn lose out on if they don't have Hone Cav. This isn't a new issue for any unit. Also, if this is referring specifically to that Sonya I mentioned, it's not just specifically for Nowi. That setup lets her basically pretend she's Reinhardt in the amount of match-ups she wins.

That's not a B skill designed to screw over Nowi, that's one designed to screw over all dragons, such that a green with Stonebreaker could just laugh Tiki off, even when initiating into her Quick Riposte. Again this is more like giving Rein G Tomebreaker or Ravenbreaker to Brave Lyn.

Dorcas doesn't just wall Nowi. He murders her. +0 versus +10, he just flat-out kills her on the counter.

Yeah, and I also told you some of those things were a bit janky/expensive and agreed that dragons were a bit over-buffed. IS might need to do something to tip things back a little, but I certainly hope they don't overreact this hard and make the situation worse with a terrible bandaid solution.

EDIT: Also, for the record, Malco's suggested clause would likely be enough to keep the skill from going too far if it were to be implemented at all.

edited 15th Jan '18 11:00:55 AM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

FE: Genealogy Story Run 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

Or instead of being a classic breaker-skill, it could just guarantee a double against a dragon, whether it is on initiation or in counter, without cancelling doubles on the dragon's side. Kind of like an opposite Wary Fighter.

Loosely tangential questions:

Do you guys think colorless dragonstone can be a thing?

I was reflecting on the concept of Gustav and First Princess being the new legendaries for earth and fire, and it occurred to me that they could very well be candidates for new stones characters.

Surtr specifically has the flame dragon's blood (presumably, so does his daughter), and Gustav is royalty.

It would be quite the change of pace to have Gustav be a stone user, if he is added to the game as a unit. First Princess being a fire dragon would be quite appropriate for her origin.

Colorless stones feel like something that shouldn't be used for Dragons/Manaketes, I'd rather have them saved for one of the Laguz tribes. Maybe the bird tribes?

Having dragon blood doesn't necessarily equate to being a Manakete because of blood pacts. Besides, how could Gustav be a dragon without it passing down to his kids?

edited 15th Jan '18 12:22:52 PM by Karxrida

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

I agree with the feeling, but I'm contemplating the alternative for Gustav to be an Earth legendary (presuming he doesn't die off-screen), and bows/staves/daggers do not seem to be very kingly.

I'm not very familiar with the rules of manaketes or dragon stone, but doesn't it come down to designer's decision? As in, the presence of dragon blood (or royal blood) opens the option to make a character a dragon stone user, without automatically making them a dragon?

The idea that dragons are OP because you have to bait them instead of being able to freely attack them strikes me as hilariously stupid. It's exactly like the people complaining about Hector in the early days of the game, except without the excuse that a lot of people honestly didn't understand QR back then.

Now, if you want to complain that QR is overpowered, there might be something to that, but frankly without it we'd never see slower characters in use with Brave Weapons, ever. "Slow" being defined as anything less than 40 speed.

I think I mentioned repeatedly enough that the problem at the moment is not "Dragons", it's Nowi. I met 4/7 again during my daily AA run, more than I did Lyns or Reinhardts. That's pretty much becoming the new standard over the last week, she is barely less common than Lyn. And I still only have exactly one unit (Deirdre) able to reliably one-shoot her on Player Phase.

By contrast, I have a number of red units who can turn any Green Armor into goo whenever I decide, making the above comparison baseless. And they are not always 5* exclusive units either (Tharja, Tiki, Roy, and I assume everyone already got a Selena at some point, among others). Alfonse with Axebreaker is able to slaughter green armors.

edited 15th Jan '18 1:41:22 PM by Julep

You were also complaining about Ninian.

Personally, I feel like Nowi's appearance really hasn't gone up that much, but I always saw 2-3 in my runs prior to the breath upgrade. They were completely free kills, but they were there.

FE: Genealogy Story Run 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

You still haven't answered why you think it's so important that you kill her on Player Phase.

A quick hop over to a FEH battle calculator indicates that you can kill a +10 Nowi with a generic 4* Raven. If you really wanted to bother making people just to counter her.

Edit: Okay, that's a lot misleading, nevermind.

edited 15th Jan '18 2:15:29 PM by Clarste

Had an Arena fight where the Sothe and the Micaiah spent half the time Sacrificing at each other. Guys. Guys. I know you're devoted to each others' well-being, but chill.

Also saw my first Gunnthra, so there's that niggling question mark in my catalog cleared.

*shrug* If there's a red walling my blue dragon I just send over someone else to take care of it. If none of my other guys can handle it, I fiddle with my comp and loadouts afterwards so I'm better prepared. Maybe the dragon needs to start running Swordbreaker or R Tomebreaker to cancel out that sort of thing, or I need to swap in a nice killy blue to make sure the dragon doesn't have to kill every red. So no, I guess I don't really get how it's different from any other unit having a counter.

*affronted Innes and Takumi noises* Bows are extremely regal.

Unless it's that fucking CC Henry, in which case he's boned along with the rest of my team. (This is no small part of the reason that I don't consider walling one character out of four through WTD as big a deal as Kuroi does. Shit happens to me already.)

The difference is that Stonebreaker as was proposed is a guaranteed wall. Changing the load-out to field Sword/Lance/Axe/Tome-breaker wouldn't change the outcome any more than Quick Riposte. Opposing breakers just cause everything to come down to a normal Spd check and dragons' Spd is generally ass, so they just flat-out lose any kind of skill clash like that. This is fine for neutral or WTD match-ups because the dragon deserves to get hosed in that case, but with WTA, it's pretty illogical for them to get breakered on that.

And yeah, sometimes with vanilla kits or whatever, a unit barely loses or gets walled at WTA because they're hitting high Def/Res or the enemy is hitting their bad Def/Res. Adult Tiki is a good example of this where her Res is bad, so she'd get super wrecked by green tomes in a straight fight, but TA3 and forging for +Res shored that up. That's counterplay. Stonebreaker would lock dragons out of their B skill entirely with maybe the exception of a super sonic F!Corrin (spoilers: she still won't be faster than Ayra, though). Again, it'd be like letting axes run Swordbreaker.

Comp swap isn't viable at my scoring range unless you're a mega whale who can throw around high merges like candy.

FE: Genealogy Story Run 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

Wait, I'm confused. If you expect dragons to get doubled all the time anyway, why's a breaker skill even matter?

Fair enough on the restrictions of higher-level Arena play than I've ever seen. I only brought the skill up since I thought it would be a handy niche thing for stuff like Infernal Oliver's manakete.

Because the important part of the breaker skill isn't the dragon getting doubled, but the dragon's ability to double getting negated, which includes Quick Riposte. Dragons are EP units that generally need QR to secure kills, so a red sword with Stonebreaker planting its face into Nowi's fist cancels the QR, survives, then something with Wings of Mercy can hop over.

For example: Ayra fighting Nowi with Quick Riposte would result in Ayra attacking, Nowi countering, Ayra doubling, then Nowi Quick Riposting. Stonebreaker would turn that into Ayra attacking, Nowi countering, Ayra doubling, then Nowi failing to double because she's too slow and Quick Riposte is cancelled by Stonebreaker. In case 1, Ayra gets flattened, but in case 2, certain Ayras will survive thanks to the breaker.

edited 15th Jan '18 3:45:38 PM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

FE: Genealogy Story Run 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

Because I tend to favor PP teams, and because there are situations where you have to eliminate an enemy on your turn to avoid it being danced, or to avoid it covering a mage behind. It's not that every green should destroy Nowi, it's that the option to kill her on your turn should exist and be somewhat available, especially considering the large availability of Nowi.

To kill the standard Def Lightning Breath++/Steady Breath +10 Nowi that is pretty much everywhere now, you need a +ATK Raven with Death Blow 3, a Brave Axe+, an Atk+3 seal, and with the +6 Atk buff from Siegbert's C-skill, otherwise Nowi survives. That's not exactly easy to pull, and that's far too much investment required to kill a unit with Nowi'savailability.

I am enlightened. Thank you.

(If you mentioned it before when my eyes were glazed over by the in-depth mechanics debate, then thank you doubly.)

edited 15th Jan '18 4:08:33 PM by rikalous

I don't see why Dorcas, an Enemy Phase unit with his vanilla kit, should be able to optimally defeat a unit on Player Phase, let alone an Enemy Phase Unit anyway. So it's kind of a bad example.

Assuming Raven +0, +Attack IV, 5* and has Death Blow 3, he only needs Hone Attack 3 and Spur Attack 3 (or his own Threaten Defense 3) to one-round a +10 Nowi with Steady Breath +Def IV Lighting Breath+Def refined. That's pretty impressive for a low-tier unit. (I stacked Raven a bit, since the enemy is stacked anyway. And besides, if fighting +10's in AA, I assume that player has pulled enough to have a decent chance at +attack Raven and has decent feather total anyway.)

edited 15th Jan '18 5:34:49 PM by Malco

My DA account... I draw stuff sometimes!