Fire Emblem Heroes General Discussion and Links

[Kaden]

35 minutes ago, silverserpent said:

@Kaden I forgot Ryoma too XD

And I don't know why i put Special Fighter when I meant Special Spiral >_< I think it was training up GD!Ike and using Brave Ephraim that got to me. No, I've got two Lewyns staring at me. I was thinking of possibly building a Tharja with that and her refine for nuking shenanigans.

In that case, vanguard Ike, Ishtar, Lilina, Merric, Navarre, Ophelia, Sonya, and Tailtiu come to mind. Lilina, Merric, Ophelia, Sonya, and Tailtiu are easy since they're ranged nukes. Ophelia is easy to setup considering she can start turn 1 with a charged special because of how her Missiletainn's effect works as it reduces her special charge with each mage on her team and Infantry Pulse and Ostia's Pulse also working if you meet those requirements for her. This is on top of her having a Killer tome where Ishtar and Merric are the only other mages with Killer tomes. Ishtar's in this weird spot where I think Desperation might be a cheaper and easier option for her to use than Special Spiral. Doesn't mean she can't use it. Merric just has a stat, defense, he can use for stronger special triggers. Bonfire is also part of the Blue Flame line, so it makes him more flexible if you want to use his unique refinement which requires him to be 2 space within a mage or staff ally. If he's next to them, then it's like him having an Ignis proc. Lilina can easily charge a special with Heavy Blade. She might not be able to get the special off on her first round of combat, but later on, it's going to be charged Glimmers and AoEs from her. Sonya and Tailtiu deal +10 damage when triggering a special where Tailtiu has Wrath for her tome, so she can further charge her special, -3 special cooldown count with Special Spiral and her tome's Wrath effect.

The idea with Special Spiral vanguard Ike is so that he can basically have Radiant Aether on counter after a round of combat. Triggering it means -2 special cooldown count and him getting hit on enemy phase means Radiant Aether will activate for his first attack through his default Warding Breath. If his opponent survives and he manages to attack again, Radiant Aether will be fully charged since his second attack would drop Radiant Aether's cooldown to 2 and Special Spiral will activate after the round of combat.

Navarre with Special Spiral is just abusing what his unique refined Scarlet Sword's Quickened Pulse 2 allowing him to have a charged 3 cooldown special like Blue Flame and Luna on turn 1 and after a round of combat, having it charged for the rest of the battle. 4 cooldown specials work too if you give him Quickened Pulse as a seal. Units with It's Curtains... and Ouch Pouch can do a similar thing, but those weapons only have Quickened Pulse 2 while Scarlet Sword has a Killer effect as its base effect. They're also limited weapons.

[Othin]

So with the merge update now making the first merge worth 5 stat points, a 3* unit at +1 can now match the stat total of a 5* exclusive unit at +0 with an extra 5 stat points due to being released later. That doesn't make up for better stat distribution or skills, but better nature selection and weapon refinery updates can help with that as well. And at higher merges than +1, an earlier common unit can end up with higher total stats.

It doesn't take away all the concerns about power creep, but it's an interesting way of helping to mitigate them for players who don't heavily merge later units.

[Othin]

(Edit: Galeforce)

Edited February 10, 2019 by Othin

[silverserpent]

https://imgur.com/a/mtWkaRZ[/image]

Thanks to a second GD!Ike, I can now eliminate the overlap by Hríd's Weapon and Tibarn's Chill Atk. And Hríd gets stronger being near his friends still since DC replaces his Atk/Def bond. I've been wanting to give him DC ever since I pulled him. Coupled with Iote's Shield, he's the perfect flying red tank.

Edited February 10, 2019 by silverserpent

[Javi Blizz]

So, the first set of GHB quests expire tomorrow...what do you expect to come guys? Re-run, new set or nothing?

[EricaofRenais]

i think it will either be rerun or a new set.  I really hope for a new set, but if it has to be a rerun then I hope players who did them last year get to do the quests again because I would be sad if I did not get anything from the reruns.

[Tybrosion]

6 minutes ago, Javi Blizz said:

So, the first set of GHB quests expire tomorrow...what do you expect to come guys? Re-run, new set or nothing?

The first set of the GHB Elite quests (if that's what you're talking about) have already expired and were replaced with...nothing.

[Javi Blizz]

8 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

The first set of the GHB Elite quests (if that's what you're talking about) have already expired and were replaced with...nothing.

I see, you’re right, I confused the Walhart quests with those ones. Well, sad news then

[Othin]

IIRC the first GHB Elite quests were announced in the previous anniversary Feh Channel. So the lack of mention of new ones on the more recent Feh Channel makes me think they don't currently have plans for them.

I think we've had enough rerun GHBs for the next daily GHB rotation, so they could do that at some point and introduce the next set of GHB Elite quests that way. There's less need for more reruns of the earlier ones now, anyway, with Heroic Grails being a thing.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Even in a post Heroic Grails world I don't think any people would turn their nose at more merges, especially with the other addition of Combat Manuals allowing these units to no longer crowd our barracks which is an issue I definitely remember having when these quests appeared a year ago. That said if we do have a re run of GHB Elite 1 coming our way, I feel like it would have been irresponsible to wait when every day you delay you risk more people finishing +10 merge projects of these units. Though the only unit I think people have been eyeing of those seven is just Xander. Personally, if I were working on a Xander merge project and had just one to go I absolutely would have been waiting to see if those quests got reran before spending more grails. But even in that scenario I'm not convinced I'd be too peeved. I won't be upset at the loss of 250 Grails if Masked Marth shows up as a TT reward in the future. At least, I won't be HALF as upset as the average player seeing that unit appear in the first place for another TT.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Glennstavos

[Othin]

41 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

Even in a post Heroic Grails world I don't think any people would turn their nose at more merges, especially with the other addition of Combat Manuals allowing these units to no longer crowd our barracks which is an issue I definitely remember having when these quests appeared a year ago. That said if we do have a re run of GHB Elite 1 coming our way, I feel like it would have been irresponsible to wait when every day you delay you risk more people finishing +10 merge projects of these units. Though the only unit I think people have been eyeing of those seven is just Xander. Personally, if I were working on a Xander merge project and had just one to go I absolutely would have been waiting to see if those quests got reran before spending more grails. But even in that scenario I'm not convinced I'd be too peeved. I won't be upset at the loss of 250 Grails if Masked Marth shows up as a TT reward in the future. At least, I won't be HALF as upset as the average player seeing that unit appear in the first place for another TT.

People wouldn't complain, but there'd be a lot less excitement and perceived need for them. Meanwhile, not doing them lets them squeeze us more for orbs and grails. I'd love to get more Elite quests for the GHBs we already have, but I'm not convinced IS will feel the need for it.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

20 hours ago, Kaden said:

In that case, vanguard Ike, Ishtar, Lilina, Merric, Navarre, Ophelia, Sonya, and Tailtiu come to mind. Lilina, Merric, Ophelia, Sonya, and Tailtiu are easy since they're ranged nukes. Ophelia is easy to setup considering she can start turn 1 with a charged special because of how her Missiletainn's effect works as it reduces her special charge with each mage on her team and Infantry Pulse and Ostia's Pulse also working if you meet those requirements for her. This is on top of her having a Killer tome where Ishtar and Merric are the only other mages with Killer tomes. Ishtar's in this weird spot where I think Desperation might be a cheaper and easier option for her to use than Special Spiral. Doesn't mean she can't use it. Merric just has a stat, defense, he can use for stronger special triggers. Bonfire is also part of the Blue Flame line, so it makes him more flexible if you want to use his unique refinement which requires him to be 2 space within a mage or staff ally. If he's next to them, then it's like him having an Ignis proc. Lilina can easily charge a special with Heavy Blade. She might not be able to get the special off on her first round of combat, but later on, it's going to be charged Glimmers and AoEs from her. Sonya and Tailtiu deal +10 damage when triggering a special where Tailtiu has Wrath for her tome, so she can further charge her special, -3 special cooldown count with Special Spiral and her tome's Wrath effect.

The idea with Special Spiral vanguard Ike is so that he can basically have Radiant Aether on counter after a round of combat. Triggering it means -2 special cooldown count and him getting hit on enemy phase means Radiant Aether will activate for his first attack through his default Warding Breath. If his opponent survives and he manages to attack again, Radiant Aether will be fully charged since his second attack would drop Radiant Aether's cooldown to 2 and Special Spiral will activate after the round of combat.

Navarre with Special Spiral is just abusing what his unique refined Scarlet Sword's Quickened Pulse 2 allowing him to have a charged 3 cooldown special like Blue Flame and Luna on turn 1 and after a round of combat, having it charged for the rest of the battle. 4 cooldown specials work too if you give him Quickened Pulse as a seal. Units with It's Curtains... and Ouch Pouch can do a similar thing, but those weapons only have Quickened Pulse 2 while Scarlet Sword has a Killer effect as its base effect. They're also limited weapons.

I always say it but Radiant ike Spiral build is kinda funny because people won't ever run its optimal version

 

Which is Slayer Edge, Distant Counter, Special Spiral. Its arguably significantly better than Ragnel version 

[Kaden]

10 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

I always say it but Radiant ike Spiral build is kinda funny because people won't ever run its optimal version

Which is Slayer Edge, Distant Counter, Special Spiral. Its arguably significantly better than Ragnel version 

That reminds me, the Black Knight/Zelgius with Slaying Edge+, Distant Counter, Special Spiral, and a Quickened Pulse seal.

[Ice Dragon]

I guess I'll just grumble about it here.

I got bored and decided to check how many Dragonflowers are needed to boost a single infantry unit by 10 points. It's 860.

I also got bored and decided to check how many Infantry Dragonflowers are actually available in the game right now. That number is 746.

This is decidedly dumb.

 

And since I haven't yet said it a million times, the way this game treats every godforsaken resource as a time-gated competitive-mode-locked limited-availability resource is utterly fucking retarded.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[DehNutCase]

Getting an infantry to +5 is really cheap, though, so there's that going for them.

 

I also found it pretty interesting that you get hp/atk/spd in that order. Since the resource is gated this makes it so that player phase units get more out of flowers at the moment than enemy phase units.

 

Also, as long as they don't expect you to have flowers for PvE modes (that is, they don't add a bunch of stats in GHBs and shit under the assumption all your units are flowered up), flowers is probably the one kind of resource I wouldn't mind being locked behind something like AR.

Grails being locked behind AR is just annoying, though, since it forces collectors into a PvP mode for some god forsaken reason. That said, I can't call it retarded since it does exactly what it's meant to do---force people to play AR regularly. The whole mode was built on people playing it regularly.

 

The fact that it's way too hard for a mode you're meant to play regularly is a whole different kettle of fish.

[Tybrosion]

17 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I got bored and decided to check how many Dragonflowers are needed to boost a single infantry unit by 10 points. It's 860.

I also got bored and decided to check how many Infantry Dragonflowers are actually available in the game right now. That number is 746.

This is decidedly dumb.

Yeah, that number would probably be higher if Nailah wasn't literally the only infantry unit added since Book III started. Of course, they could've also made it so the earlier infantry units provide more than just table scraps worth of flowers but that would've been too reasonable apparently.

[NegativeExponents-]

11 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I also found it pretty interesting that you get hp/atk/spd in that order. Since the resource is gated this makes it so that player phase units get more out of flowers at the moment than enemy phase units.

That’s not true though. Not for everyone at least. It’s from best stat to worst stat. So for example Niles isn’t getting his second atk point until +9

11 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Also, as long as they don't expect you to have flowers for PvE modes (that is, they don't add a bunch of stats in GHBs and shit under the assumption all your units are flowered up), flowers is probably the one kind of resource I wouldn't mind being locked behind something like AR.

If it’s not for PvE then I don’t know what it is for because it’s certainly not PvP. At least not long term PvP considering the stats boost are a simple plus 1/2 across the board so it’ll mean nothing when people start getting multiple +5/+10 units.

It would have been more PvP if the stat boosts were actually tailored for specific characters.

Edited February 11, 2019 by NegativeExponents-

[Xenomata]

Last years Love Abounds is back, as is Nowi and Tiki's BHB banner... that's Valentine Lyn, Valentine Lilina, and Male Grima to get today...

Ah... so close to the end, and yet where doth ye be, Zelgius of the Dark Armor... free me from this curse of completionism...

Edited February 11, 2019 by Xenomata

[DehNutCase]

15 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

That’s not true though. Not for everyone at least. It’s from best stat to worst stat. So for example Niles isn’t getting his second atk point until +9

Oh, derp. Didn't notice it uses something similar to the regular merge level order for getting stats.

 

(But then, the only unit I cared enough to even check stat order was Cordelia, and she's a neat Hp/Atk/Spd.)

15 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

If it’s not for PvE then I don’t know what it is for because it’s certainly not PvP. At least not long term PvP considering the stats boost are a simple plus 1/2 across the board so it’ll mean nothing when people start getting multiple +5/+10 units.

I'm already fighting +10s pretty consistently, and the flower boosts are player-sided, I believe. This means flowers are basically a long term 2.5 or 5 extra merges that's only for me.

 

Like, give me 10 extra merges for free and I'm pretty sure I can just auto-pilot AR the same way I auto-pilot arena. (Basically without thinking, although I fuck up occasionally.)

Edit: The flowers aren't that much, obviously, but it's quite possible that AR will remain hard enough that they keep adding more player side only stats.

Edited February 11, 2019 by DehNutCase

[NegativeExponents-]

22 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I'm already fighting +10s pretty consistently, and the flower boosts are player-sided, I believe. This means flowers are basically a long term 2.5 or 5 extra merges that's only for me.

 

Like, give me 10 extra merges for free and I'm pretty sure I can just auto-pilot AR the same way I auto-pilot arena. (Basically without thinking, although I fuck up occasionally.)

Edit: The flowers aren't that much, obviously, but it's quite possible that AR will remain hard enough that they keep adding more player side only stats.

I don’t think the flowers are player sided though. Unlike the support system they are actually shown in other units status screen.

Spoiler

That’s from my friend list and as you can see the flowers are visible. I’m not 100% sure though since I tried taking a screenshot from Arena or AR but I had no luck finding them but that could be because they’re fairly new and most people rather stockpile right now (I only had this Tharja and maybe one other in my friend list with flowers) Maybe flowers are an exception but I highly doubt it.

[DehNutCase]

6 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

I don’t think the flowers are player sided though. Unlike the support system they are actually shown in other units status screen.

  Reveal hidden contents

That’s from my friend list and as you can see the flowers are visible. I’m not 100% sure though since I tried taking a screenshot from Arena or AR but I had no luck finding them but that could be because they’re fairly new and most people rather stockpile right now (I only had this Tharja and maybe one other in my friend list with flowers) Maybe flowers are an exception but I highly doubt it.

Derp, I double checked by putting Nailah on my defense team and testing defense, and you're right, the enemy units get flower stats.

 

I have no idea why they bothered then. (It's not like PvE had anywhere near the difficulty level needed to need more stats for.)

[NegativeExponents-]

1 minute ago, DehNutCase said:

Derp, I double checked by putting Nailah on my defense team and testing defense, and you're right, the enemy units get flower stats.

 

I have no idea why they bothered then. (It's not like PvE had anywhere near the difficulty level needed to need more stats for.)

Oh, I didn’t realize you could check that way. Neat!

As for why they bothered, my best guess is that Heroes is planning to introduce harder PvE content down the line that’s actually worth something. At least I hope they do because otherwise they really will be useless.

[DehNutCase]

1 minute ago, NegativeExponents- said:

As for why they bothered, my best guess is that Heroes is planning to introduce harder PvE content down the line that’s actually worth something.

I hope they don't do that, honestly.

 

Flowers would've worked as a balancing tool (to give infantry 5 extra BST), if they hadn't been so limited. Practically speaking it doesn't balance anything since the expected outcome is that the enemy consistently gets flower stats (because if you aren't try-harding why did you even bother with a defense team?), whereas you don't (because flowers cost a fuck-ton and not everyone plays to min-max their best units).

If they balance PvE around flowered units what'll happen is that sub-optimal units get even more annoying to run, since they'll be balancing around good units with flower boosts rather than 2nd stringers.

[Mau]

So... Tap Battle quests have changed, and I sure hope they get better rewards in the later stages but for now it doesn't look great.

• The general Tap Battle quests are now available immediately! Though the 'play 20 times' quest is no more, when it finally would have been useful lol
• Instead we now get 5 orbs for stage 56-60 and another 5 for Extra Stage 2. Which sounds great except that they apparently replace the stage orbs (though stage 1-5 still gives one so maybe there's more of them in the later stages).
• The accessories are also not gotten via the stages anymore, they're now in the Tap Battle quests again.
• So you'll think 'alright we must get some awesome rewards instead of those stage orbs and accessories now!', yeah think again: today we get 1 orb, 1 dueling crest (LMAO), and a bunch of shards and badges.

So far this seems far worse. You can only get 1 orb today instead of 3 usually. And when the Tap Battle quests are finally available on day 1, they've changed them so you still have to wait multiple days to get those orbs. The one good thing is that I now don't have to immediately go through all the stages, there's no reason for me to go beyond stage 1-5 for today.

There better be some grails or dew later or else what is the point of this change :/

 

[NegativeExponents-]

2 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I hope they don't do that, honestly.

 

Flowers would've worked as a balancing tool (to give infantry 5 extra BST), if they hadn't been so limited. Practically speaking it doesn't balance anything since the expected outcome is that the enemy consistently gets flower stats (because if you aren't try-harding why did you even bother with a defense team?), whereas you don't (because flowers cost a fuck-ton and not everyone plays to min-max their best units).

If they balance PvE around flowered units what'll happen is that sub-optimal units get even more annoying to run, since they'll be balancing around good units with flower boosts rather than 2nd stringers.

Fair point but I don’t entirely agree. Like you said before, the PvE isn’t exactly hard so I wouldn’t mind if Heroes stepped it up while still giving you something more than just a simple cosmetic like Abyssal does.

This shouldn’t be hard to do since the current PvE doesn’t seem balanced with merges in mind or even the second gen stat boost in mind. Suboptimal units also tend to be easily mergeable compared to optimal units who are 5* and can’t merge as easily so as long they keep up with merges they shouldn’t have a problem dealing with harder stuff even without the flower boost.