doombotmecha

Man everyone loves QR on this guy, I've just got Bonfire/Vantage/Hone Cav and I'm waiting on pulling fury. I really don't want to just make another Ephraim. Speaking of which, I've realized that I really need Fortify Defense on this guy, for maximum support-tank potential. not totally sure yet, though; Threaten Def gets me a lot of extra damage vs. armored foes.

Tharja and Ephraim can duo this map. will write more when I come back. also, that battle banner is trash. edit: first of all, gratz chase on getting Azura! second, my team for Xander was Ephraim with Swap/QR 2/Threaten Def, Tharja w/ reposition/darting/desperation/threaten speed 2, Olivia with Hone Speed 2 (shoulda been attack), and literally any unit with fortify res+reposition. Tharja killed the sword with Olivia's help, Niles Repo'd Olivia back to safety, Green Horse suicided onto Tharja, moved Ephraim into the chokepoint, QR murderized Xander and the lance, Tharja helped kill the lance and then the cleric. For me, personally, this was the easiest GHB yet! I'm also having uncharacteristic success in arena: 3 matches on Adv, no deaths so far. Team is Ephraim/Tharja/Olivia/Anna, basic idea is to buff Tharj to high heaven and then go ham, I've prolly told you about it before. I'm really glad that Anna looks to be a regular in the rotation; my investment in her will be well rewarded. My Xan build's gonna be Repo/Fury/Vantage/Hone Cav, so excited! but now I really have no idea what to spend feathers on. get Xander to 5*? 5* a Barst to make Frederick into a killing machine? Get Ursula to five stars? Get Anna to five stars for Noatun and more SP? god, I love this game.

RE: Wings of Mercy: I meant Frederick. Xander's getting Vantage to exploit Distant Counter. Oh yeah, and because this is a 5* exclusive sword, it's probably gonna be 16 mt. RE: Ardent Sacrifice: I'm not a fan. I'd rather use Fury to lower his hp, and frankly as the frontline tank he needs healing more than the mages. I don't think a cav healer is too bad with Hone Cavalry, since you can get picks on low-res targets and keep the tank you're attatched too healthy. Be really funny IMO if you gave both WoM, so they could zoom across the map to 1. tank and 2. heal up the injured unit. I also feel like AS is too little healing to really make a difference. So, yeah, Reposition is my favorite for this. Just run up, snipe somebody with a horse mage, and the Reposition to get the mage to safety. I might also put Repo on Ursula and Leo, just so Xan/Fred can run up, sniper a mage or flier, and then retreat from the dragon/mage behind them, 'specially on leo since I'm giving him CC. oh yeah, and the last bonus arena unit is gonna be Felicia. I actually have her at about level 33, despite what everyone says I love her for her ability to kill mages, +glacies is silly on her, +breath of life is so much fun to play with. Lastly, please please please let Titania be a 4* base after her banner ends, she would be excellent to replace Frederick on my Horse Emblem team, for a great res tank for Nowi/F!Corrin/Rein/Linde.

RE: Reposition: Yeah that's what barst is for. Pretty much my favorite movement assist, nearly as powerful as Dance. Armored Blow looks to be his default, so yeah I could stick with that. I'm already using fury (though I'm wary of combining it with QR), and if I pull death blow fodder I'll need it for Brave Frederick, who's gonna be my other physical horse, or my +atk -spd Reinhardt for defense wins. Still waffling on QR or default Wings of Mercy, however--Since he's gonna carry Reposition too, I'll need him as much to save my over-extended mages as anything else. Plus, Two of my team is gonna have Fury, so they'll be in range to save often. Full team is (hopefully) Xander/Ursula (or Rein)/Freddy/Leo, with Close Counter/QR on Leo to serve as a third tank, as well as a Hector-buster. Sometimes I wish that QR functioned like a brave weapon, so Leo could outspeed and quad Hector on the counter.... edit: new arena season (tomorrow) is gonna be the Ike banner+Zephiel, Barst, Clarine, Anna, and somebody else... also, just had a hair-raising match, was taking an underleveled (abt lvl 20-22) team into arena of 4* Navarre/Michalis/Donnel/Fae, ran into merged Ryoma, Takumi, and Hector, supported by a Sakura who nearly cost me the match. Thank god Takumi didn't have close counter....Ryoma also cleanly OHKO'd Navarre ended up with just Sakura and Hector, kited Hector around to get at Sakura, killed her, then just kited around the map, letting Fae get hit and then retreating to trigger Renewal. My god. Other teams: level 15-ish Takumi/5* Fae/5* Selena/4* Effie (aka Team Threatening, stupid tough on defense), level 29-30 Azura/4*Zephiel/4* Nino/4* A!Tiki (loves archers, hates cavalry), level 30 Minerva/5* Chrom/4* Kagero/4* Lissa (Lissa is literally only there to tank mages, but her healing does work for the others), and lastly my classic Tharja/Ephraim/Olivia/Anna blade mage team.

Yeah @Chase The deal with Sheena v. Hector is this: Hector may have better attack and defense, but Sheena has better speed and MUCH better res, so she's much tankier overall. With the given setup, you can do what Hector does, not only to melee units and archers (who tend to have higher defense) but also to mages! She can wall pretty much anything! Also IMO Sheena's unique A skill is pretty useless, because nobody runs anti-armor weapons except the AI. RE: Xander: I am so psyched! He's gonna be the lynchpin of my Horse Emblem team. Probably going to inherit Bonfire/Moonbow, Reposition, Fury, Vantage, and Hone Cavalry onto him, I've had a Lon'qu and Barst saved for him since forever ago. Still gonna need either Hinata or 20k feathers for Bartre, along with 42k to get him to 5*+1. So, between 44k and 66k feathers for full build, nbd lol Also, now is a good time to remind everyone that you can learn skills on copies and then fuse them to get the skill for "free", allowing you to double-dip on level-up sp. Probably gonna do that for Luna/Moonbow at least, might also pass on QR and a different A skill so I can have two Xander builds. Maybe Deathblow?

Sheena can actually be really good with investment. You'll need distant counter (Hector), Quick Riposte (Klein), Bonfire/Ignis (A!Tiki, Henry), and Pivot (Cherche iirc). final product: A better wall than the current POTUS will ever build. I've concluded that I'll sac Hector, but I want his HM first. Also, from now until the mages gauntlet I'm gonna save so I can pull red for Leo. with Takumi's Close Counter he could make a great tank, plus it makes sense--Dark Knights can equip swords too, after all.

I pulled Hector! and...uh....I have a problem now. See, I said that I would SI Hector onto Ephraim for DC. but 1. I don't have the SP for that rn, and 2. This guy is +hp -spd. Like really good ivs. woof. edit: also I've been using Swap and Threaten Def on Ephraim and they're both great, TDef was actually what let me beat Hector way back in the day. Swap is also amazing when paired with a dancer so you can move other characters so they can get danced again. edit 2: I also have more 5* than level 40, and have for a while. I'm kinda of terrible at finishing things. rip...

I ain't had that in pulling him, I'll tell you that much!

Idk 5hift, he's up against the girl with the best body darkest thoughts. idk whether to support her or Leo, like I really like Leo but Tharja's my strongest hero, fully SI'd, and my only 5* upgrade.

which is really neat because you can effectively achieve vastly increased sp gains by levelling copies, having them inherit and learn skills, and then merging them onto the final target--gaining +1 as well as the skills.

@President Felix there's the may quests coming soon

today lol like right now I got a takumi on the first stone

since tenth stratum cheats in terms of stats, I think it's safe to assume that lunatic Ike is tougher and stronger than normal Ike. also ughhhhh. i mean yeah I have rein but I'm gonna need 5* and Death Blow 3 before he's really strong....Klein, where are you?

...I just pulled Takumi (+atk -spd ok), 5* Fae, and a 4* Reinhardt. (+atk -spd yeaaaaaaah!) First day luck, yo. @Fabled Asianwhat you've got there is Green Jagen. keep her away from archers, swords, and axes and you'll be good. I actually really want titania, but I've been trying to save my orbs, and now they're going into Herofest

I wonder if Titania is gonna statcreep Frederick as the new best axe cav. She'll go great with Xander and BBlade Ursula, maybe with Leo as #4?

yeah no I'm leaving the level 35 quests way the heck alone. I have literally nothing to tank the first round of attacks on lunatic frobin, and my frobin and navarre are still in their teens.

PSA: You don't need to beat the GHB for the orb quests; the story missions where they appear count as well, and beating them in arena would probably count too (although nobody uses Navarre/Frobin in arena)

Ohmygosh YES. haha yeah I'll just use my res wall with decent defense that can take attacks from all three colors.....oh wait.....THAT DOESN'T FUCKING EXIST ok maybe there's freaking, like, Hector or Nowi or Vantage Ryoma or something silly like that, but after that Azura my luck is GONE. Plus, I nearly did it with a Horse Emble team, buuuut my blade mage was Ursula and I left her too close to frobin.....rip. at least I have another 2* one now! This really is the worst GHB if you don't have an SS-tier DC unit.

Ok, I can see that. Any Hectors I get, if I end up not making an armor emblem team, will probably be fed to Ephraim to make him a better tank. He already has QR 2 and Swap, he's my strongest melee rn. jesus chase that's a lot of slang. I only ever used my camilla as res bait for mages, so I could wipe them out on the next turn. Mine was -spd though, worse luck.

@Commander understood, will shut up abt that now. Michalis was the first GHB that I was high-level enough to do lunatic on, got it on Navarre and Zephiel too. It's really all about your collection--quantity trumps position on the tier list, because even wierdos like subaki can be made useful in a GHB. I think that we're gonna get more units with B tomebreaker, but not Iote's Shield, just because that's not a generic name, and only one unit has Svallin Shield. However, we're slated to get a F!Robin and Navarre rerun on monday (something I heard on the subreddit), so someday we'll get a michalis rerun too, hopefully. Idk why they aren't rerunning Narcian...I missed him entirely due to how low-level I was. Also I've been trying to make my cav team work with Cecilia instead of Jagen for bonus points, but ughhh....archers still mess me up, partly because Cecilia just doesn't have the raw defense to fight them. I wish I had TA fodder but all I have is Cordelia....There's no way I'm sacrificing her for TA 2 for Cecilia. hmph. According to my research, Cecilia loses straight up if she initiates on all but 4 ninjas/archers, at 4 stars. Also I pulled with my last 5 for this banner and got another goddamn est. end me. She doesn't even have any useful skills, barring, like, shove! Her weapon is a heavy spear! her skills are defiant res and seal speed! what the hell! I have like 3 of her at 3* level 1, and a +2 3* est that I'm using for the flier quests. Also, my training team rn is Azura/Zephiel/Cecilia/A!Tiki. Once I get to around level 15 I'll ditch Cecilia for the Nino I have around that level, but I'm keeping A!Tiki 'cause I really want to make her work. why are the only adult dragons all sub-par? @Hukuna the Undying First off it does give zeph that attack when he's defending...but yeah I'd just rather have the defense then too. I'm thinking of inheriting another A skill so I can level him, but I don't have death blow or Fury 3. I'm thinking maybe +defense and Swap from one of my Stahls, so he can move around better. What do you think? What build are you using for Oboro? I know you said DC, what are you using with it? I'd figure Lancebreaker/QR but I forget her speed tier. She was actually my main blue before I pulled Ephraim, I still have a 4*+2 of her hanging out in my box. also I think its funny that you hate armors and happen to love a unit with a heavy lance but thats prolly just me

http://andyiverson.me/apps/fehmasssimulator/ plugged in: Nino Nuetra---actually, since you mentioned +spd, +spd -def. Gronnblade+ ....oh! That's where we differed! I was assuming Hone atk, while you were referencing the +3 from Eirika's weapon. this lead to me using 2 extra points of attack than you were using for Merric. let's try that again. oooh, ok. Nino NEEDS a full Hone/Rally Attack buff, or another buff from another source, or +atk to OHKO effie. with +14 buffs she just barely fails to KO, leaving effie at 1 health. She'll also need another buff to deal with an Effie that is +res or hp without a bane in either stat. Ok, now back to merric. gronnblade+, default everything else...OH JESUS CHRIST oh wait that's without buffs. Friendly reminder, Merric is trash without buffs. +spd -def because he can't spare offenses and with -res other green mages murderize him on the counter +3 atk +4 spd +4 res 'cause I like boosting res so +14 Sidenote that under these conditions, Merric fails to KO 42 units and that, as I've stated previously, the best use for a blade mage in my opinion is to KO one or two things every round Merric fails to KO effie with 10 hp left, which is not a difference that can be made up with natures or more buffs. While Merric survives Effie's attack, due to the fact that there are other enemies, Merric cannot stay in effie's range safely. He must retreat, with a dancer's assistance, or else stay and KO effie with his danced attack. So, we have: -KOs with literally 1 more point of attack from anything, up to and including +3 attack -KOs with 4 +4 buffs and Death Blow 2/Life and Death 3 Who's the better attacker? However, the real difference between them isn't in winning with-ta matchups. I could just use TA Gronnraven for that, and be much tankier. The real test is against TA. Nino, same +14 +spd -def as before, KOs exactly half of all red units. Merric KOs 1/8. Really now. A whole buffet of really trashy red swords and even Henry that Nino can deal with but Merric can't. You see, it all comes back to Coverage. In pokemon, Coverage is Life. You give your dragon a steel move, so it can break past fairies. In Fe:H, you don't have coverage moves, but what you do have is a blade mage that can do her job, and one that can.......sometimes. If he has the right IVs. If he initiates. Without SI. Do you want your streak to be broken by a Sanaki? or do you want your streak broken by 0-SI Henry? Do you want to KO a -res effie or not? question: what in tarnation are you using those defenses for? is he gonna be your tank too? imo I'd rather use a dedicated tank for that, like Nowi or Zephiel. edit: there are things I haven't covered yet, will come back. You said earlier that with buffs, offenses don't matter. My point is exactly the opposite. With Desperation and a Dancer, defenses don't matter. You simply will not get hit as long as you reduce all you survey to rubble before it can hit you. This is the essence of the "OHKO meta". You have also said that "defenses do matter because enemies can initiate on you" (mildly paraphrased, correct me if I'm dilluting the message) Well, all my blade mage teams include dancers, specifically to move them out of danger with the combination of moving behind the dancer and then using Draw Back or Reposition. (Useful note: Reposition is better if you aren't using your dancer to fight ie Underleved Olivia, DB is better if you are ie Nino/Azura). These dancers can also carry a buff for the blade mage, and the danced attack can let you either break down a wall (literally or figuratively), or take out two enemies in a turn, which can be devastating if you can take out the units that threaten the rest of your team. Secondly, let's go back to the Duel Sim, and look at defending matchups. +spd -def, again if you want a different bane I can get it. Still 33 inconclusives for merric, only 8 losses tho. .....but if you let the enemy attack again, you lose almost all of them. Are those matchups just not relevant? Are we assuming that you get the positioning to not get hit by them? So, why can't we assume that you'd give the positioning to Nino, and just have her never get hit? Sure Nino gets trashed if you let a melee get to her, but that's far less likely because Nino actually kills stuff, while merric just sits around trading blows until the other guy falls over. Overall, I feel like Units in FEH should be specialized. I want my tank to tank, and I want my killer to kill. My Ephraim can take on any physical hit that comes my way, so there's no need for Tharja to just stand in front of an enemy lancer. The other point that I'd like to make is that every blademage team needs a dancer. You have what is essentially an artillery piece, what else could you want but the chance to fire it again, or to move it out of harm's way? Merric can take a hit, sure, but he still needs a tank to protect him from red swords, and another dps type to finish off res walls, and a dancer, and something to protect him from red mages. So.....what does merric do? Meanwhile Tharja and Nino Kill Everything. My tharja often KOs 3/4 of the enemy team, with the rest of the team just positioning around her to bait enemies away from her. The only thing I don't totally rip open is peg knights and TA blues, which Anna and Ephraim dunk on. I have 1 units whos job is damage, so I can spread other jobs around the rest of the team. Without sufficient offensive potential, you have to keep kiting back to avoid losing a unit, and eventually you just run out of room. Secondly, Merric has Hard Counters, units that, without an applicable skill, can just run him over. Glass cannon mages have fewer, owing to the fact that they only need to take one (1) attack, and can then attack with impunity. For instance, during this last GHB, Desperation was crucial to killing the blue mage, because I needed to bait it out and kill it without letting it attack back due to its Seal Attack skill. Also, I couldn't stay in range of the knights, because they all had brave weapons and would make mincemeat of me. Thirdly, if tharja tried to fight the blue mage, even with buffs, she'd die. So, I baited the AI a bit, and then used her on the red mage, killing him and dropping her into desperation range. Now, while I still couldn't KO the mage on my own, and I needed Nile's special to help damage the mage, Tharja's desperation let her KO the blue mage without taking damage in return. With merric? he can try and attack, sure, and the enemy will respond, but then one of the knights would have hit swap and now if you want to smack the mage again (with -7 attack, mind you), you have to walk in front of a brave weapon. Also note that those mages had Warding Blow, which would've meant that the mage would take next to no damage when they countered on the next turn. TL;DR when I want things dead, I want them dead now, and not in 3 or 4 turns. When I want things to tank, I want them to tank, and not take one hit and then have to retreat/flee before any red sword. Positioning with a dancer, along with Desperation to eliminate counterattacks, means that blade-mages take very little in the way of hits. 60x2 is not overkill when there are vanilla units that it cannot kill. it's not even enough.

(disclaimer: all stats here are presented as neutral because I hate IVs) The idea with Blade mages isn't to fix up a poor mage's weaknesses--it's to blow stuff up! With a dancer, you can eliminate two enemies in one turn, or take out one and retreat to do it again later. Plus, with Desperation, defenses don't matter. You take one (1) hit and then you rip through everything because nothing can live a blade-tharja double. Sure, high-res (whatever the advantaged color is) can technically live, and in some cases hit back, but that's what you have a team for. Why would you even want a tanky blade-mage? It'll only make merric's attack go from "awful" to "mediocre". "mediocre" does not win games. 60x2 wins games. (Also red is soooo much better for this than green 'cause most blue units have awful res and those that don't are mostly bad overall) Let's look at Tharja, for example (because she's my favorite blade mage and one of the best three infantry for it IMO): She has 32 base atk+13 with her 5* weapon (45) with the same buffs you gave Merric (+14), so total 59. Also I threw in Darting Blow for a few more doubles+it's in her basic kit. Special is Vengeance but it doesn't trigger here. Plug it into the mass duel simulator, who does she not orko? So tl;dr Tharja smashes almost every unit in the game, and out of those that survive, every single one dies if tharja is danced (or to a strong breeze, in many cases). Plus, with a dancer and reposition, you can safely move your death artillery around the map, letting you assassinate single enemies and leave. With Desperation and a dancer, you never get hit unless you want to be (or on your first counter) so why would you care about defenses. Merric, with darting blow/desper, fails to ko Thirty units. And, if you look down the list, it's all due to how slow he is. Blade mages need speed in order to get their blade procs doubled. Also, his defenses aren't actually that good, because he's so slow. Nino, same stuff, fails to KO fourteen units. She even OHKOs Effie and the Tikis! That's not the same KO list at all! Relevant units that Nino can't kill (by your standards of relevance): Hector, Ryoma, Lilinia, Sanaki, Zephiel. Note who isn't on this list: Marth, Lucina, Alm, Lyn, Draug (who is actually a VERY relevant threat), Effie, the Tikis... A whole load of really scary threats that ms. does-her-best just trashes, where merric either fails to Ko or loses outright! The ONLY reason to use bladetome on merric is because you like merric, nothing else. even then, you're still just a cut-rate Nino/Cecilia/S!Camilla. Sorry for the rant but why would you put GB+ on someone with such terrible offenses whyyyyyyyy Also IMO tharja is the best blade mage for her ability to take one (1) hit from Kagero or Takumi, and also because she has TA on the relevant high-res mages (basically Julia and Nino) while still ko-ing the best blue mage (linde). also unlike linde she has the defense to revenge-KO a ton of non-brave attackers with her buffs up. ------------------------------------------------------ RE: poison strike, IMO it's best used on an archer with Savage Blow and Firesweep Bow+. This lets you just chip down enemies with non-lethal damage over several turns with no counter-attacks.

I beat Zephiel Lunatic! Team was: 5* Ephraim with Swap and QR 2 Newly 5* Tharja (this is the same one from my old arena team) with Reposition, Desperation, and Threaten speed 2 4* lvl 34 Olivia with Hone Speed 2 4* Niles with Reposition and Fortify Res 2, My official Really Janky Unit for this GHB. Desperation was Critical to the fight, since I got low picking off the red mage and then had to rely on Niles's special+a Desperation double to finish the blue mage. The mages are the real threat here, since you can kite the knights almost forever. Niles with his incredible Res and Iceberg was, likewise, a huge help. this is also kind fo ironic because, before I had a mage, Niles with Iceberg (with a tank between the two ofc) was my main way of dealing with armors.