Skill Inheritance Discussion.

[Lucıůs]

Aww guys! You provided such comprehensive and helpful answers! 

Spoiler

 

35 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

Now for b skills I'm at a loss, if you can't get renewal. Drag back is only good if he's able to survive a hit back, which he probably won't since he has no defenses. For the B you might just have to put vantage so if he does live a hit he can talk back and smack them up before they have a chance. You can alternatively keep defiant speed so this way his defenses won't be Dusseldorf'd as much. This way vantage will actually be a little more nice. He loses out on the neutralizing effect of Life and Death + Brave ax but at least he can take a hit. If that is what you opt for then moon bow might work better in combination with Vantage.

Derp, I just realised that Renewal is, a B skill.  That suggestion is not too bad at all! As much as possible I'd like to have him survive more turns (not planning to use him in Arena) while also being reliable to take out a couple of blues and maybe greens as well. I'm thinking of letting him have Seal SPD so that when his Defiant SPD triggers after Enemy Phase, the attacker will then be inflicted (-) SPD and allowing him to take advantage of the Slow debuff and possibly attack 4x... 

 

36 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

I'm actually going to suggest some different skills than Arcanite.

Klein: While the lower CD of Iceberg is usually favored on characters over the higher damage of Glacies, Klein is a Brave weapon user. Since all of his attacks happen in sets of 2, he'll trigger Glacies during the same round of combat he would have triggered Iceberg, in which case you'd prefer the additional damage. I'm personally not a fan of his default Quick Riposte because it's a skill reliant on tanking hits during the enemy phase, which runs counter to Klein's player phase nuke playstyle. Instead, I'd recommend a breaker skill, such as Swordbreaker, to help him ORKO units he wouldn't normally be able to (since it would let him hit 4 times instead of 2, regardless of the speed difference). 

Yes! This absolutely makes sense! I have also observed that he triggers Glacies most of the time because of his weapon and his average speed. I also pair him up with Azura and ohoho boy does he murder almost every enemy in the map. I agree that Klein's specially built to dominate during Player Phase and I also don't see much of a use in his Quick Riposte, so I'll have to get him a breaker skill. 

 

45 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

 

Raven: While Life and Death is an okay skill on Raven, I personally think Raven would do better with Death Blow if you can get it. Brave weapon users in general are meant to be played as player phase nukes, so you want to optimize their damage on your turn as much as you can. Death Blow in particular is extra good because the bonus attack will be added to both of the Brave hits, allowing you to get more out of the skill than a non-Brave unit. For his B slot, I like Wings of Mercy to let him teleport around the map, but if you did decide to go with Arcanite's Life and Death suggestion, another option would be Desperation to take advantage of his relatively decent speed and attack opponents 4 times before they can react. 

 

Ah of course, the classic Death Blow + Brave weapon. That's what I did to my Reinhardt and now, he's been slaying lots of Red Lords and Effies in the arena, a truly scary unit. As I have mentioned before in my reply to Arcanite, I plan to let him survive a couple of rounds because I plan to team him up with a healer (eherm Lucius).  *Copying what I wrote down for convenience*: "I'm thinking of letting him have Seal SPD so that when his Defiant SPD triggers after Enemy Phase, the attacker will then be inflicted (-) SPD and allowing him to take advantage of the Slow debuff and possibly attack 4x... " Hmm pardon the side track but what how does Desperation work again? And how is it different from Brash Assault? 

 

54 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

59 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

 

Young tiki: Sword breaker, Fury, Sol, Reposition or just sword breaker and reposition. These sets basically explain themselves lol

Tiki: I'm not actually sure about Tiki, so I'll let someone more knowledgeable, like @Ryu Yuki give it a shot. Either way though, I would personally recommend giving her Lightning Breath+ from her adult form if you can, as the innate Distant Counter is generally more useful than the extra damage from Flametongue. For her special, I personally don't find the Growing or Blazing specials to be particularly useful given how unlikely it is you'll manage to get off a 5-charge special in most Arena matches (especially on a character as slow as Tiki), so I would replace it with a lower CD offensive special, such as Moonbow. Noontime is another option if you'd prefer healing over damage. Her B-slot depends a lot on what else your team already covers. In general, Quick Riposte is a good, safe option, especially for slower but bulkier units like she is. However, if you don't already have a reliable way to deal with Falchions, then Swordbreaker is a good option to allow her to deal with those units. Alternatively, if you have a good blue anti-sword unit but don't have a reliable way to deal with Julia, consider giving her G Tomebreaker and Triangle Adept. If you can deal with both just fine, then I would probably suggest Quick Riposte. If Julia is not an issue, I think Fury is probably the best overall A-slot skill to give Tiki as she benefits quite a bit from all of the stat boosts, given her balanced stats across the board. 

 

More contributors are always welcome! And wow I never knew that Tiki has so many potentials yet is also quite expensive to build. I'm thinking of her role to be more of like a tanky frontliner that can also support her teammates behind her. So yes, I agree with Lightning Breath+ to be comparable to Distant Counter and be an awesome Draco-Hector. Good thing I have a 3* Adult Tiki, though I might not get her to 5* very soon since my feathers are limited for now. 

 I want to see her survive enemy phases along with Raven, so SwordBreaker against Falchion is a really solid suggestion. Quick Riposte looks fine as well so that it'll synergize with specials with shorter cool downs. How does Escutcheon/Pavise sound for her as a special? Could it possibly help her survive the upcoming 62 damage from a Lucina? Again, I think Life and Death and Fury are kind of risky for her since I really don't intend to use her in Arena, too. 

 

1 hour ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

 

Anyways, this was a lot of information, but I hope you find it at least somewhat helpful!

EDIT: Just added slight changes (mostly color) to make it easier to find information for each of the specific characters. 

Double EDIT: You didn't ask, but I personally think a dancer like Olivia has amazing synergy with a team like this. Dancers in general are a lot more player phase oriented, and I consider them a Brave unit's best friend. They can either let them Brave someone in the face twice (which basically guarantees a kill), they could let the Brave unit delete a unit and then retreat out of range of the other enemies, or if you're feeling extra ballsy, you can delete two units in one turn. As a bonus, Olivia comes with Hone Atk, which benefits Brave units considerably. 

It sure is a lot of information and it sure is super helpful! I literally had no idea what to put on the empty slots of those characters and I'm glad you guys helped out! And about the dancers, that is absolutely true. My A-team right now consists of Lucina, Nino, Klein, and Azura and they definitely rule during Player Phase. I always use the 'Hit and Run' technique, where Lucina or Klein would hit an enemy and Nino would drag one of them back, then Azura will sing for extra positioning! It's intense!!! But for this typical team, I honestly want to try something new and try not to rely on Dancers too much given how they definitely improve the fight. 

 

Again, huge thanks for the inputs! I'm glad people here are willing to help out! Much love to you all! 

[Arcanite]

19 minutes ago, Lucıůs said:

Aww guys! You provided such comprehensive and helpful answers! 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Derp, I just realised that Renewal is, a B skill.  That suggestion is not too bad at all! As much as possible I'd like to have him survive more turns (not planning to use him in Arena) while also being reliable to take out a couple of blues and maybe greens as well. I'm thinking of letting him have Seal SPD so that when his Defiant SPD triggers after Enemy Phase, the attacker will then be inflicted (-) SPD and allowing him to take advantage of the Slow debuff and possibly attack 4x... 

 

Yes! This absolutely makes sense! I have also observed that he triggers Glacies most of the time because of his weapon and his average speed. I also pair him up with Azura and ohoho boy does he murder almost every enemy in the map. I agree that Klein's specially built to dominate during Player Phase and I also don't see much of a use in his Quick Riposte, so I'll have to get him a breaker skill. 

 

Ah of course, the classic Death Blow + Brave weapon. That's what I did to my Reinhardt and now, he's been slaying lots of Red Lords and Effies in the arena, a truly scary unit. As I have mentioned before in my reply to Arcanite, I plan to let him survive a couple of rounds because I plan to team him up with a healer (eherm Lucius).  *Copying what I wrote down for convenience*: "I'm thinking of letting him have Seal SPD so that when his Defiant SPD triggers after Enemy Phase, the attacker will then be inflicted (-) SPD and allowing him to take advantage of the Slow debuff and possibly attack 4x... " Hmm pardon the side track but what how does Desperation work again? And how is it different from Brash Assault? 

 

More contributors are always welcome! And wow I never knew that Tiki has so many potentials yet is also quite expensive to build. I'm thinking of her role to be more of like a tanky frontliner that can also support her teammates behind her. So yes, I agree with Lightning Breath+ to be comparable to Distant Counter and be an awesome Draco-Hector. Good thing I have a 3* Adult Tiki, though I might not get her to 5* very soon since my feathers are limited for now. 

 I want to see her survive enemy phases along with Raven, so SwordBreaker against Falchion is a really solid suggestion. Quick Riposte looks fine as well so that it'll synergize with specials with shorter cool downs. How does Escutcheon/Pavise sound for her as a special? Could it possibly help her survive the upcoming 62 damage from a Lucina? Again, I think Life and Death and Fury are kind of risky for her since I really don't intend to use her in Arena, too. 

 

It sure is a lot of information and it sure is super helpful! I literally had no idea what to put on the empty slots of those characters and I'm glad you guys helped out! And about the dancers, that is absolutely true. My A-team right now consists of Lucina, Nino, Klein, and Azura and they definitely rule during Player Phase. I always use the 'Hit and Run' technique, where Lucina or Klein would hit an enemy and Nino would drag one of them back, then Azura will sing for extra positioning! It's intense!!! But for this typical team, I honestly want to try something new and try not to rely on Dancers too much given how they definitely improve the fight. 

 

Again, huge thanks for the inputs! I'm glad people here are willing to help out! Much love to you all! 

Brash assault works like this: (regardless of speed) unit automatically makes a follow up attack when attacking a foe that can counter at less than or equal to 50%. This means if seliph attacked a Lucina at less than or equal to 50%, he would double her even though he's slower because of Brash assault.

Desperation is like this: (speed is a factor) all follow up attacks occur immediately after units attack when HP is less than or equal to 75%. So if Karel is at 20 health and he hits a hector, he would do both hits at once because he doubles hector, instead of the usual attack sequence Hit > Counter > hit. It would be Hit > Hit > counter or Hit > Hit > Die.

If you're not using Young Tiki for arena then what are you using her for? Even so, you don't have to put fury, you can still keep her armored blow and just give her SwordBreaker and maybe wait for some better stuff. I prefer Sword breaker over Riposte but the decision is yours of course (Keep in mind Quick Riposte 3 is only a 5 star skill while, if you have abel, you can inherit sword breaker 3 from him at 4 stars).

If you want to try something new you can let us have a look at your units so we can see what's tasty and will pair well.

I appreciate the love :)

Edited March 29, 2017 by Arcanite

[MaskedAmpharos]

15 minutes ago, Lucıůs said:

Aww guys! You provided such comprehensive and helpful answers! 

  Reveal hidden contents

Ah of course, the classic Death Blow + Brave weapon. That's what I did to my Reinhardt and now, he's been slaying lots of Red Lords and Effies in the arena, a truly scary unit. As I have mentioned before in my reply to Arcanite, I plan to let him survive a couple of rounds because I plan to team him up with a healer (eherm Lucius).  *Copying what I wrote down for convenience*: "I'm thinking of letting him have Seal SPD so that when his Defiant SPD triggers after Enemy Phase, the attacker will then be inflicted (-) SPD and allowing him to take advantage of the Slow debuff and possibly attack 4x... " Hmm pardon the side track but what how does Desperation work again? And how is it different from Brash Assault? 

Ah okay, well then if you wanted him to last multiple rounds, Seal Spd is certainly an option. As for Desperation vs Brash Assault, I'll do my best to explain the difference:

Normally, if you have the speed to double an enemy, the combat would go attack -> enemy counterattacks -> you attack. If you have Desperation (and are within its HP activation range, of course), then the battle order instead goes attack -> attack again -> enemy counterattacks. In other words, if you would normally double attack, it lets you do both of your attacks first before the enemy counterattacks. If you have a Brave weapon and are capable of doubling the enemy, this means you get in FOUR hits before they get a chance to hit back (and if you're getting in 4 attacks, they really shouldn't be alive to hit back).

Brash Assault, on the other hand, does not change the attack order but instead gives you an extra counterattack as long as the enemy can counter you back (so if you put this on a melee unit, Brash Assault would only trigger against other melees...or Close Counter). BUT you can only have a max of two counterattacks with or without Brash Assault (in other words, Brash Assault is useless if you would normally double the opponent anyways). So for example... Normally, if neither you or the opponent doubles each other, it would go you attack -> enemy counterattacks. With Brash Assault, it would go attack -> enemy counterattacks -> you attack, as if you had a breaker skill. The difference between this and a breaker skill is if the enemy CAN double you. Usually it would go you -> enemy -> enemy if they could double attack you. With Brash Assault, the order is you -> enemy -> you -> enemy. The advantage it has over breakers is that it works on ALL weapon types (provided they can counter you), not just one type. The disadvantage is that it does not prevent an enemy from doubling you if they normally have the speed to. 

In summary: Desperation is better on faster units while Brash Assault is better on slower units. 

More contributors are always welcome! And wow I never knew that Tiki has so many potentials yet is also quite expensive to build. I'm thinking of her role to be more of like a tanky frontliner that can also support her teammates behind her. So yes, I agree with Lightning Breath+ to be comparable to Distant Counter and be an awesome Draco-Hector. Good thing I have a 3* Adult Tiki, though I might not get her to 5* very soon since my feathers are limited for now. 

 I want to see her survive enemy phases along with Raven, so SwordBreaker against Falchion is a really solid suggestion. Quick Riposte looks fine as well so that it'll synergize with specials with shorter cool downs. How does Escutcheon/Pavise sound for her as a special? Could it possibly help her survive the upcoming 62 damage from a Lucina? Again, I think Life and Death and Fury are kind of risky for her since I really don't intend to use her in Arena, too. 

If you wanted more defense, I think Escutcheon/Pavise both work quite well. I wouldn't go with Life and Death either way because that's more for glass cannon characters while Tiki is meant to be a lot tankier, but if you don't want Fury, then I think her default Armored Blow is actually a good skill for when she initiates against enemy melee units, as she often will. 

It sure is a lot of information and it sure is super helpful! I literally had no idea what to put on the empty slots of those characters and I'm glad you guys helped out! And about the dancers, that is absolutely true. My A-team right now consists of Lucina, Nino, Klein, and Azura and they definitely rule during Player Phase. I always use the 'Hit and Run' technique, where Lucina or Klein would hit an enemy and Nino would drag one of them back, then Azura will sing for extra positioning! It's intense!!! But for this typical team, I honestly want to try something new and try not to rely on Dancers too much given how they definitely improve the fight. 

 

Again, huge thanks for the inputs! I'm glad people here are willing to help out! Much love to you all! 

Of course! We're always willing to lend a helping hand to a fellow Fire Emblem fan :D (also you respond super positively to feedback and it's quite nice. The dog was a wonderful addition <3)

 

Edited March 29, 2017 by MaskedAmpharos

[Lucıůs]

On 3/28/2017 at 10:04 PM, Arcanite said:

Brash assault works like this: (regardless of speed) unit automatically makes a follow up attack when attacking a foe that can counter at less than or equal to 50%. This means if seliph attacked a Lucina at less than or equal to 50%, he would double her even though he's slower because of Brash assault.

Desperation is like this: (speed is a factor) all follow up attacks occur immediately after units attack when HP is less than or equal to 75%. So if Karel is at 20 health and he hits a hector, he would do both hits at once because he doubles hector, instead of the usual attack sequence Hit > Counter > hit. It would be Hit > Hit > counter or Hit > Hit > Die.

 

On 3/28/2017 at 10:05 PM, MaskedAmpharos said:

Ah okay, well then if you wanted him to last multiple rounds, Seal Spd is certainly an option. As for Desperation vs Brash Assault, I'll do my best to explain the difference:

Normally, if you have the speed to double an enemy, the combat would go attack -> enemy counterattacks -> you attack. If you have Desperation (and are within its HP activation range, of course), then the battle order instead goes attack -> attack again -> enemy counterattacks. In other words, if you would normally double attack, it lets you do both of your attacks first before the enemy counterattacks. If you have a Brave weapon and are capable of doubling the enemy, this means you get in FOUR hits before they get a chance to hit back (and if you're getting in 4 attacks, they really shouldn't be alive to hit back).

Brash Assault, on the other hand, does not change the attack order but instead gives you an extra counterattack as long as the enemy can counter you back (so if you put this on a melee unit, Brash Assault would only trigger against other melees...or Close Counter). BUT you can only have a max of two counterattacks with or without Brash Assault (in other words, Brash Assault is useless if you would normally double the opponent anyways). So for example... Normally, if neither you or the opponent doubles each other, it would go you attack -> enemy counterattacks. With Brash Assault, it would go attack -> enemy counterattacks -> you attack, as if you had a breaker skill. The difference between this and a breaker skill is if the enemy CAN double you. Usually it would go you -> enemy -> enemy if they could double attack you. With Brash Assault, the order is you -> enemy -> you -> enemy. The advantage it has over breakers is that it works on ALL weapon types (provided they can counter you), not just one type. The disadvantage is that it does not prevent an enemy from doubling you if they normally have the speed to. 

In summary: Desperation is better on faster units while Brash Assault is better on slower units. 

OOHHH I GET IT NOW! Thanks for explaining it to me (the sequences provided were very very appreciated). I honestly never bothered using these skills because I had no clear idea how they work so I just leave em be. But I think I may find myself using them a lot in the future (Hopefully when Navarre comes out). 

On 3/28/2017 at 10:04 PM, Arcanite said:

 

If you're not using Young Tiki for arena then what are you using her for? Even so, you don't have to put fury, you can still keep her armored blow and just give her SwordBreaker and maybe wait for some better stuff. I prefer Sword breaker over Riposte but the decision is yours of course (Keep in mind Quick Riposte 3 is only a 5 star skill while, if you have abel, you can inherit sword breaker 3 from him at 4 stars).

If you want to try something new you can let us have a look at your units so we can see what's tasty and will pair well.

I appreciate the love :)

Hmm probably for a Mono-Dragons team since I already have Ninian, Nowi, and the splendid Free Corrin ♥. Also, I don't have a red unit that deals Magic damage so that creates a variety for the team. 

Edited March 30, 2017 by Lucıůs

[Arcanite]

3 minutes ago, Lucıůs said:

 

OOHHH I GET IT NOW! Thanks for explaining it to me (the sequences provided were very very appreciated). I honestly never bothered using these skills because I had no clear idea how they work so I just leave em be. But I think I may find myself using them a lot in the future (Hopefully when Navarre comes out). 

Hmm probably for a Mono-Dragons team since I already have Ninian, Nowi, and the splendid Free Corrin ♥. Also, I don't have a red unit that deals Magic damage so that creates a variety for the team. Of course! Here are my treasured babies units! 

Okay first of all, holy goodness! Your roster is like skill inheritance haven!

Second, if you want mono dragons you might not have an easy time. Considering you'd have to use Tiki Now and F corrin as a buff base for Ninian. If you had a second Ninian and could pass on fortify dragons to Nowi then I'd say you'd be talking. But since you don't have an extra Ninian I like

Tiki Ninian Nowi Hector. Ninian can dance on Hector so he can move his enormous butt. Tiki and now both get the fortify from Spinian. This kind of team leaves no room for Physical damage dealers but it has ultimate fatness with the fortify dragons.

If you want something a little more logical try

Tiki Reihardt Lucius Hector. It is more of an arena team with Lucius as a bonus unit. Offers some nice recovery efficiency with healing although it may be better to put raven over Hector for more movement.

[BANRYU]

44 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

Brash assault works like this: (regardless of speed) unit automatically makes a follow up attack when attacking a foe that can counter at less than or equal to 50%. This means if seliph attacked a Lucina at less than or equal to 50%, he would double her even though he's slower because of Brash assault.

Desperation is like this: (speed is a factor) all follow up attacks occur immediately after units attack when HP is less than or equal to 75%. So if Karel is at 20 health and he hits a hector, he would do both hits at once because he doubles hector, instead of the usual attack sequence Hit > Counter > hit. It would be Hit > Hit > counter or Hit > Hit > Die.

Okay thank you for clarifying this; I've been wondering it myself (forgot what I wanted to ask by the time I had a second to go to to the 'just wanna know one thing' thread though lol). By the description, it sounds like it's 100% outclassed by Desperation, but it sounds as though that is not the case at all; that actually sounds really useful, like a player-phase, reverse-health version of Quick Riposte for slower units, definitely really useful. Great to know. 

[Lucıůs]

16 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

Okay first of all, holy goodness! Your roster is like skill inheritance haven!

 

Tell me about it... I also have an absurd number of 3* Gordin, Clarine, and Wrys dupes (6 each!) 

19 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

Second, if you want mono dragons you might not have an easy time. Considering you'd have to use Tiki Now and F corrin as a buff base for Ninian. If you had a second Ninian and could pass on fortify dragons to Nowi then I'd say you'd be talking. But since you don't have an extra Ninian I like

Tiki Ninian Nowi Hector. Ninian can dance on Hector so he can move his enormous butt. Tiki and now both get the fortify from Spinian. This kind of team leaves no room for Physical damage dealers but it has ultimate fatness with the fortify dragons.

If you want something a little more logical try

Tiki Reihardt Lucius Hector. It is more of an arena team with Lucius as a bonus unit. Offers some nice recovery efficiency with healing although it may be better to put raven over Hector for more movement.

This is true, I don't think building mono teams at this early time of the game is viable yet. Heck, even full armored or fliers aren't viable! (Thanks a lot training tower quests ) So as of now, I'm just creating teams for funsies and also capable to adapt when put in other teams.

Tiki, Ninian, Nowi, Hector sounds hella good. That's super bulky and highly dependent on buffs. If I give some of them Renewal, Ardent Sacrifice, or Reciprocal Aid then they would probably be a great wall that cannot be easily taken down. (gotta be wary of Falchion though..)

It's sad to say, but healers don't really provide much support in the arena where it's really fast-paced and there's no time for tanking rounds, so Lucius may be an easy prey in arena (Low Def makes him an easy target for Red Lords). If they could somehow improve the role of Staff users (Why the halved damage?!) in this game, then maybe tagging them along in Arena would be considerable. As of now my Arena team, both offense and defense, consists of Ninian(bonus unit), Eldigan (fury and BST hog), Reinhardt (basically the serial killer), and Hector (for pesky blues, baiting reds, and transferring HP to Eldie with Reciprocal aid, also has a nice combo when he trades HP with Ninian in order to use Escape Route + Dance).

 

[Ice Dragon]

39 minutes ago, Lucıůs said:

This is true, I don't think building mono teams at this early time of the game is viable yet. Heck, even full armored or fliers aren't viable! (Thanks a lot training tower quests ) So as of now, I'm just creating teams for funsies and also capable to adapt when put in other teams.

Full armored is entirely viable, just incredibly expensive since you're going to need Distant Counter on everyone.

The armors can actually hold their own pretty well even against mages as long as you can lure them into attacking with weapon triangle disadvantage or even neutrality in some cases. At least until Thani becomes a thing.

 

Full dragon is also entirely viable, but needs careful play to avoid taking Falchion- and Naga-users with anyone that doesn't have weapon triangle advantage against them (and Triangle Adept 3). That said, a balanced full dragon team absolutely cannot handle a team of 4 Julias, but that's not going to be very common.

[Ryu Yuki]

5 hours ago, Lucıůs said:

Thanks a bunch! What's a good B skill for Raven? Was thinking of drag back so it would provide extra positioning and evasion since he's more likely to be a glass cannon. *Sigh* Wish I could pull a 4☆ Fae for the Renewal 3. Eldigan also needs that skill but so far, I've no luck in pulling her. 

 

Any recommendations for Young Tiki? I think she offers a good utility as tank and attacker while also pocket-healing her teammates. Looks like a pretty solid unit (of course, not until a Falchion user appears on the map). 

Well, I know several people have responded already, and you've gotten lots of input by this point, but since I got a notification and had already written too much, I'm just going ahead with this post. I run Y!Tiki/Nowi/Ninian on my main offensive team, and out of pride I pretty much run nothing but them in all of my Arena / Grand Hero battles. So I'll try to respond to your question about Young Tiki. Most of what I'll say below is mostly based off of personal experience, rather than any hard calculations (Since so many other people do that here, I don't really feel the need to go out of my way to do the same) although I do include a few vague match-ups with potential Julia and Lucina because they're important enough. Hopefully they might provide even a bit more insight, since you've gotten so much of it already from other people.

 

Young Tiki is indeed a very solid unit, and I certainly recommend using her if you can. I myself use her in my main team and I can definitely say that she's very good at tanking a multitude of units while still dishing out heavy damage in return. In addition, her high base stat totals will land you better Arena scores in general, although it will also make you more likely to be paired up against merged units. She's strong enough that she can deal respectable damage against Blue(s) and even tank them relatively often, although obviously you don't want to push it too much. Here a few recommendations for what I think might be worth considering, although which ones are best for you really depends on your specific situation, some of which I factored in the explanations.

Weapon:

Like many others would tell you, Lightning Breath+ is pretty much a given here. Trading -4 Atk in exchange for being able to counter at any range is very useful, and will land you far more defense wins in general. That being said however, one thing to keep in mind is that you'll be doing a whole lot of grinding just to give her this one weapon. To demonstrate, you need 300 SP for Lightning Breath and then another 450 SP for Lightning Breath+, for a total of 750 SP altogether. Unless you're a whale and can afford to merge several of her together, you will be needing to put lots of time into her to not only give her this weapon but her other skills as well. I have been hard-grinding her almost daily ever since Skill Inheritance was finally implemented, and I can tell you that it requires dedication. The end result will be worth it though, as you get the equivalent of a tanky Takumi. 

It's worth noting though, that her default Flametongue+ is a fine weapon too. Having +4 Atk can help secure a lot of kills, and when you're using her offensively, you won't find yourself desperately wishing for that extra range too often. The lack of Green Mages besides Julia and Nino kind of softens the blow on not being able to counter at any range, so it's not completely unfeasible to simply stick to her default weapon if you don't have time. In addition, Flametongue+ can secure ORKOs against merged Julia(s), which Lightning Breath+ will start failing to do after a while. 

A-Passive:

Her A-Passive really depends on what your team composition is like. If you happen to be using a full-manakete team, or you don't have other units that can reliably take out Julia, then you'd most likely want to consider Triangle Adept. It'll really soften the blow on Y!Tiki, and will reduce her damage taken by approximately 15 whenever she's struck. It will also give Y!Tiki enough power to 2HKO most Julia(s) in return, which is something you'd want to take into consideration when thinking about the B-Passive. Although if you're using a manakete in your team, there's also a fair chance you'll run into merged Julia(s) that are tanky enough to take 2 hits from a Triangle Adept Y!Tiki, so there's that to consider as well. In general this is the skill to take if you absolutely don't have anyone else to answer to Julia. 

However, I generally don't recommend Triangle Adept if you aren't going full-manakete. Honestly speaking, you rather avoid having Y!Tiki face off against Julia or Falchion-wielders if you can help it at all. You aren't even guaranteed to ORKO (with Lightning Breath+) Julia if you revolve your whole build around that sole purpose, so I generally don't see it as worth all the time and effort. In addition, Y!Tiki is strong enough that she can consistently take hits from Blue units and even return significant damage to them. If you run Triangle Adept, you'll kind of ruin her ability to do all that, in exchange for being better equipped to deal with a single threat that might not even show up all that often. She will almost never have trouble with green units besides Julia and maaaaaybe a fat Nino, so the payout isn't that much. As such, there are a variety of other options which you can consider:

Fury 3, as suggested by @MaskedAmpharos is one fine solution. If your Y!Tiki isn't doesn't have a +Spd boon, it will save you from being doubled by a notable number of units. However, it's a double-edged blade, because Y!Tiki is capable of taking a lot of non-Blue hits, and having it equipped might kill her faster in the long run. I would generally recommend it if your Y!Tiki isn't +Spd, as not being doubled will usually save you more damage than Fury is dealing to you, but if she is, she's fast enough not to be doubled by a lot of units and you might want to start considering other options instead. If you have a healer though, the viability of this skill will shoot way up, and I'd definitely recommend it regardless of what kind of Y!Tiki you happened to roll. Having someone to consistently heal her would make Fury 3 probably one of the best possible skills on her.

Not many people like them, but I personally find the Defiant series of skills to be quite useful on the manaketes. +7 boost to a particular stat is huge, and most manaketes such as Y!Tiki are tanky enough that they'll fall into Defiant range before they are ever killed. Since you'll mostly likely be using Y!Tiki as a tank, and she will very often be tanking several hits a turn due to that fact, slapping a Defiant Def/Res onto her can save her from being killed in several situations. Especially Defiant Def, which can very likely turn the damage Y!Tiki receives from most Axe-users and certain Sword-users to a pretty-looking 0. I wouldn't strongly recommend these though; they are just something worth keeping in mind. Unless you happen to be running Vantage, at which point I really do enjoy Defiant Atk on Y!Tiki because of how funny it can become. (I'll elaborate on that later)

Honestly speaking, Y!Tiki's default Armored Blow isn't that bad either. It grants you +6 Def when initiating an attack, which is honestly all kinds of amazing. It can make you take a whopping 0 damage from Hector when initiating on him, and likewise for many other axe-users in the game. It will also allow her to initiate on blue units and come out with more than half her heath intact relatively often, which is nice when you need to do some chip damage so someone else can go in for the kill. It's good enough that I would have it as one of the later skills to replace. At the very least, having tried both Fury 3 and Armored Blow out, it does feel like Armored Blow keeps my Y!Tiki alive longer than Fury 3 in the long run. Although obviously, this is less true when you're up against nothing but mages.

B-Passive:

I know people have recommended Swordbreaker, but I'm not very fond of it honestly. Mostly because Chrom and Lucina have a very good chance of simply one-shotting Y!Tiki, and it's very possible that Swordbreaker won't get a chance to come into play at all. Lucina especially becomes disgustingly common in the higher up tiers, and you'll reach a point where you see nothing but 40+10 Lucina(s) that are likely to skewer Y!Tiki. I would keep Y!Tiki away from Falchion(s) if at all possible, even more so than Julia's Naga, just because of how dangerous they are to her. If you must use a dragon to deal with them, use Nowi seriously. Nowi has a good chance of one-shotting Falchion-users and is generally a much more pretty-looking match-up. Although the best scenario is simply using some Lance-user with decent Def. 

Green Tomebreaker is definitely worth considering if you're already running Triangle Adept. in fact, it's worth considering even if you aren't. It'll either deal heavy damage to Julia or outright ORKO her, depending on your build and what Julia you're facing. In any case though, it'll make finishing her off a whole lot easier for someone else on your team, and it's a very safe tactic unless your opponent decided to sacrifice their Takumi to Julia for some reason.

I feel like one of the best B-Passives though, is definitely Renewal. Y!Tiki is definitely tanky enough to last several hits, so Renewal can go a long way in healing her up throughout the match. In fact, if you have movement assists on your team, it becomes even more useful as Y!Tiki can simply start kiting the opponent to heal up to full health unopposed, and can later enter back into the fight with a capped health bar. It's also a great complement to Fury 3, as it gives you a chance to rest off some of the damage that Fury 3 has been dealing to you over time. And finally, it's great if you're not running a healer as you have at least one consistent method of self-healing. 

As some have suggested, Quick Riposte is also a fine choice. It'll help you get some heavy early damage in, around the time where you can still pick out specific enemies for Y!Tiki to face off against. She's tanky enough that you have a small but existing chance to proc it twice, and if you do have a healer, this skill becomes downright amazing. You can just keep healing Y!Tiki back to full health, which is not hard to do with something like Rehabilitate, and Y!Tiki can keep proccing the skill over and over while maintaining a bulk that's unlikely to have her ORKO'd by anyone not wielding a Falchion or Naga. It's a must-have if you're running a healer, although if you aren't, it's still something worth considering.

The Seal skills are something worth considering as well. They don't shine too much in a 1v1 environment, but their real worth will come out when a tank is equipping them in a team-based battle. Since Y!Tiki is likely to be one of your main tanks, and will be sponging a number of hits, that also means she will have the opportunity to hand out a great number of debuffs if you're willing to slap a Seal skill on her. For example, giving her Seal Spd means that if 2-3 opponents are attacking her, when your turn comes, pretty much absolutely everyone on your team can double all of those units. -7 to a particular stat is such a huge handicap that your team as a whole will love Y!Tiki to death for debuffing the enemy team so hard. It's not particularly useful if you're relying on Y!Tiki to handle everything, but it can be very good depending on how offensive and mobile your team is.

Finally, I am a big personal fan of Vantage on units that can counter at any range. It annoys me to no end when I have to face it, and I know my +10 defense wins on the first day of the season was probably annoyed by it too (I run Y!Tiki/Nowi/Ryoma/Takumi all on Defiant Atk+Vantage). A very popular tactic for a lot of people is the 'bait on enemy phase and kill on player phase' strategy, but Vantage kind of screws with that hard. In addition, on units that can counter at any range, it pretty much ensures that your opponent has absolutely no choice but to take at least one hard hit to the face before finally finishing your unit. As such it's an excellent skill for defense teams, and it can be very useful if you know what you're doing on offensive runs too. If some enemy unit is 1 hit away from death, having Vantage basically means you can proceed to ignore them completely and not waste a turn because they can neither do anything to survive nor deal any further damage to you. You can simply have your Y!Tiki move on to some other unit that needs killing or at least some damage chipping in. >75% Hp is honestly a very generous activation requirement that you're going to hit before ever dying with her. It can be rather situational though, so some of the above skills might work out more consistently for you. If you do run Vantage, you might want to consider running Defiant Atk 3 as well, simply so that your Y!Tiki has +7 Atk when in this range, ensuring that she hits back extra hard and it will also make her hurt significantly more.

C-Passive:

If you're running a Manakete Team and you're super-lucky, give her Fortify Dragons. Otherwise, literally any Hone or Spur would work pretty well here. I don't think there's any universal answer for which stat to buff is the best, and it really depends on what your team needs. I have Spur Atk 3 simply because it ensures that my Nowi can cleanly OHKO opposing Lucina(s) and Marth(s), but your team might have use for Spd or something. Alternatively, if your team doesn't need any help whatsoever, Threaten Atk/Spd or Threaten Res can work on her as well, as it will help her to either tank melee units or kill them. Both of which is lovely. I generally would stay away from Breath of Life unless you're using a Dancer or something, because the positioning it requires is just so situational that it's often not worth the skill slot.

Assists:

Like the above, any Rally that your team needs you can be thrown in here. Otherwise, get a movement assist. Draw Back, Reposition, Smite and Swap are all excellent choices if you know what you're doing with them and if you think your team needs them. Personally speaking, I'd say Reposition and Swap are preferable if you run at least one assassin unit that's super good at killing but is extremely unlikely to survive being attacked. It'll allow them to run ahead of Y!Tiki, kill some schmuck, then get shoved behind her so she can protect that unit. Smite is really good for pushing units toward a certain direction, if you happen to need someone far away killed (Or you're surrounded by cavalry and need to save someone). Draw Back is usually good for ranged units, and it might be hard for Y!Tiki to use since she's usually on the front lines, so unless you have some strategy in mind for it, I wouldn't recommend it as much as the others. 

Specials:

It really doesn't matter what you throw in here, but I do like Bonfire since the manaketes have high Def. You can throw in any similar skill here though, they won't make too much of a difference.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Ryu Yuki

[BANRYU]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Full dragon is also entirely viable, but needs careful play to avoid taking Falchion- and Naga-users with anyone that doesn't have weapon triangle advantage against them (and Triangle Adept 3). That said, a balanced full dragon team absolutely cannot handle a team of 4 Julias, but that's not going to be very common.

couldn't a Tiki with Triangle Adept and G Tomebreaker possibly handle Julia? Dunno about a full team of them, but who seriously runs that?

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

couldn't a Tiki with Triangle Adept and G Tomebreaker possibly handle Julia? Dunno about a full team of them, but who seriously runs that?

Mystery Tiki with Quick Riposte will work since Julia cannot double attack her. However, my mention of Julia is specifically for a full team of 4 Julias. You can handle 1 fine, you can't handle 4, even with G Tomebreaker for the lower activation threshold.

I singled out Julia because it isn't the case with Falchion-users. A balanced dragon team will typically have 2 blue dragons (Nowi or Corrin plus Ninian), and they would be able to handle 4 Falchions just fine, but a balanced dragon team doesn't run 2 red dragons, and Tiki alone can't soak up 4 Nagas or sufficiently wall against ranged attacks. Additionally, because of Triangle Adept, you'd only be able to use Tiki and Fae on the offense.

[MaskedAmpharos]

6 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

couldn't a Tiki with Triangle Adept and G Tomebreaker possibly handle Julia? Dunno about a full team of them, but who seriously runs that?

After seeing a team of 4 Sakuras take down the Michalis Lunatic map, nothing surprises me anymore. 

[Ryu Yuki]

1 minute ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

After seeing a team of 4 Sakuras take down the Michalis Lunatic map, nothing surprises me anymore. 

I saw that too. That was too funny, even if one of them was 40+10.

[mcsilas]

11 hours ago, Ryuke said:

Today I look at Stahl 5* Stat. I cry a little.

This is really awfully bad. I dont even know how to build him anymore.

 

I am a Stahl fan from awakening but looking at his hero stats is just sad. When you put him next to Cordelia... he loses in like everything except HP (Lol), DEF.
If only there's a HP skill to remove them.

 

The best build I came up with is
+Atk/-HP (-HP is literally the only thing you have to rely on)

Wo Dao+, MoonBow, Fury, SwordBreaker...
this is bad.

Also I'll give this a go, I'll let other number crunchers correct me if I'm wrong (can't seem to find all the max stats on the wiki for 5 stars). Let's make Stahl at least have some kind of role.

If you want to enhance his innate ability to Swap and destroy Green melee units how about a Shield role for your ranged units? He already has Ruby Sword+ and Swap. If you want to be more defensive maybe Escutcheon/Sacred Cowl but since yours it would be for +Attack Moonbow (Wo Dao+ if you can) works.

-If you want an instant teleporting shield for ranged units, use Wings of Mercy and use Swap if you need to. Hone Atk/Speed will buff your ally on their next turn.  

-If you really want to upgrade his stats a bit, Fury is the way to go. Fury + Swordbreaker is also a great offensive combo so you threaten both Axes and Swords. Vantage also works. Otherwise, if you want to be more defensive, maybe Renewal to offset the Fury damage? 

-As stated before, a Hone skill works if you intend to use Swap a lot. Threaten Speed/Attack also works as other options.

-Alternatively, if you really want to go super offensive with the +Atk, maybe Wo Dao+, Death Blow, Swordbreaker/Desperation and Threaten Speed/Defense?

----

Anyone have any ideas for a +HP/-Speed Lucius?

Maybe Pain, Rehabilitate, Heavenly Light and maybe HP+5, Live to Serve/Renewal, Savage Blow/Breath of Life? Or would having a combination of Speed+3 and/or Threaten Speed be useful to offset the Speed bane?

Also found out the best Nino in my main account is -Attack and +Speed. Minus Attack sucks but Speed is great, is it still salvageable with the right skills? Maybe Life and Death and Desperation? Would Draconic Aura be a good choice despite the Attack bane? 

 

edit: Also @Ryuke I thought of another Saizo build to go with his nice defense for a dagger user. 

Maybe an anti-Archer unit with Bowbreaker?

So, Smoke Dagger/Poison Dagger, Swap, Sacred Cowl/Bonfire with Death Blow, Bowbreaker, Threaten Attack?

Edited March 29, 2017 by mcsilas

[pianime94]

If my memory serves me well, M Corrin is a Jack of All Trade unit, right? As in, I can build him in anyway I want according to my preference, tanky, offensive, etc.

Tagging tactician @MrSmokestack for clarification and suggestions.

[MrSmokestack]

33 minutes ago, pianime94 said:

If my memory serves me well, M Corrin is a Jack of All Trade unit, right? As in, I can build him in anyway I want according to my preference, tanky, offensive, etc.

Tagging tactician @MrSmokestack for clarification and suggestions.

Why, thank you.

Yes, Corrin (M) is the most balanced red sword unit out of all the others in the pool at the moment. While he does lose out in fields like damage potential to Lucina, team support to Eirika, and offtanking to Marth / Seliph, with skill inheritance his niche becomes being able to compress all of these roles into one. Now, as much as I like Corrin (M), he is not someone I would recommend to someone who is running a team that might need a more specialized unit.

Let's take a quick look at Corrin's default stats: 42 / 32 / 32 / 28 / 24. His Prf, Yato, gives him an effective 48 attack and 36 speed, which is eerily similar to Takumi's offenses and bulk, but without the range.

Corrin's preferred stat spread doesn't deviate too much from the norm, with +Attack giving him 51 attack and +Spd giving him 35 + 4, the same amount of speed as Lucina but with 2 less points in attack. Corrin is surprisingly bulky if you get a strange nature like +HP or +Def as it leaves him 3HKO'd by neutral Takumi, assuming they have the same level of merge.

Corrin's default kit is pretty bad, featuring a niche movement inhibitor in Obstruct and a pointless stat up in Defense+, but his stats are the perfect mold for skill inheritance. Dragon Fang is somewhat mediocre as well, but Corrin's high attack gives him potential to OHKO many units with 29 or less defense, ignoring weapon advantage; 51x1.5 is 76 attack, which is overkill on neutral Takumi and leaves even Robin (M) with 2 HP. This is where his offtanking ability comes into play, as with speed manipulation he can double a majority of the cast and take repeated hits in order to build up his special. Here are some suggested sets, all of which account for playing off his greatest strength, role compression.

Standard Corrin (M) +Attack -Res

Yato

Fury 3

Swordbreaker 3

Threaten Defense 3

Rally Attack / Rally Speed

Dragon Fang / Moonbow

This is the set I would run with if money was no object. Although Fury will eventually lose its niche for raising arena scores in the April update, it is a great skill for Corrin regardless, who has balanced stats across the board and has the bulk to stomach Fury recoil. Swordbreaker lets Corrin beat sword users who are faster but more frail than him, such as Lucina, as well as slower, niche, but more bulky sword lords who also run Swordbreaker. Lastly, Threaten Defense is a filler skill that provides utility in finishing off weakened enemies or setting up your ranged nuker for kills. It can be easily replaced with an offensive Hone, Spur, or Threaten Speed. Offensive rallies also support the ranged nuker or other dps on your team if Corrin is facing a bad matchup or needs to conserve his HP, but it is interchangeable for any movement skill if one of your units already carries a rally or if you want Corrin to reach the frontlines faster to offtank. Lastly, his special skill depends on how long Corrin will spend engaging the enemy team; if he is facing mostly sword users, then Moonbow can ensure he can ORKO all of them save incredibly bulky ones like Hinata and Draug, and even then they survive with single digit HP. Dragon Fang can be used as a burst damage option in longer engagements and lets him OHKO even at a weapon disadvantage, but may not be as advisable due to Fury.

Speed Manipulation Corrin (M) +Spd -Res

Yato

Life and Death 3 / Fury 3

Swordbreaker 3

Threaten Speed 3

Rally Attack / Rally Speed

Luna / Dragon Fang

This Corrin is much more offensive than the previous set, but has slightly less utility due to the nature of Life and Death 3. Corrin makes a decent user of this skill because it bolsters his offenses without compromising his bulk. Corrin's engagements are also differently timed, being more player-phase oriented rather than enemy-phase, so Luna becomes more optimal than Moonbow. I left Dragon Fang as his special to ease inheritance requirements, and didn't touch his assists, either.

Now, if you want intense speed manipulation, ignore Darting Blow completely and run LaD 3 / Desperation / Threaten Speed, along with Ardent Sacrifice, a +Spd -HP roll, a +Spd buff, and Luna / Dragon Fang. I would advise against it, however, since Hana is the best user of Desperation in the game and outclasses such a set.

To conclude, much like the Avatar of Fire Emblem Fates, is a balanced character with an-above average stat spread that can take him in virtually any direction. In Heroes, his greatest strength lies in being able to take multiple roles at once. Depending on how skill inheritance unfolds, he could either be easily dismissed due to a lack of specialization, or be valued for the versatility he can bring to a team.

Wow I wrote a lot, maybe I should make my own analysis thread or something.

[BANRYU]

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

Why, thank you.

Yes, Corrin (M) is the most balanced red sword unit out of all the others in the pool at the moment. While he does lose out in fields like damage potential to Lucina, team support to Eirika, and offtanking to Marth / Seliph, with skill inheritance his niche becomes being able to compress all of these roles into one. Now, as much as I like Corrin (M), he is not someone I would recommend to someone who is running a team that might need a more specialized unit.

Let's take a quick look at Corrin's default stats: 42 / 32 / 32 / 28 / 24. His Prf, Yato, gives him an effective 48 attack and 36 speed, which is eerily similar to Takumi's offenses and bulk, but without the range.

Corrin's preferred stat spread doesn't deviate too much from the norm, with +Attack giving him 51 attack and +Spd giving him 35 + 4, the same amount of speed as Lucina but with 2 less points in attack. Corrin is surprisingly bulky if you get a strange nature like +HP or +Def as it leaves him 3HKO'd by neutral Takumi, assuming they have the same level of merge.

Corrin's default kit is pretty bad, featuring a niche movement inhibitor in Obstruct and a pointless stat up in Defense+, but his stats are the perfect mold for skill inheritance. Dragon Fang is somewhat mediocre as well, but Corrin's high attack gives him potential to OHKO many units with 29 or less defense, ignoring weapon advantage; 51x1.5 is 76 attack, which is overkill on neutral Takumi and leaves even Robin (M) with 2 HP. This is where his offtanking ability comes into play, as with speed manipulation he can double a majority of the cast and take repeated hits in order to build up his special. Here are some suggested sets, all of which account for playing off his greatest strength, role compression.

Standard Corrin (M) +Attack -Res

Yato

Fury 3

Swordbreaker 3

Threaten Defense 3

Rally Attack / Rally Speed

Dragon Fang / Moonbow

This is the set I would run with if money was no object. Although Fury will eventually lose its niche for raising arena scores in the April update, it is a great skill for Corrin regardless, who has balanced stats across the board and has the bulk to stomach Fury recoil. Swordbreaker lets Corrin beat sword users who are faster but more frail than him, such as Lucina, as well as slower, niche, but more bulky sword lords who also run Swordbreaker. Lastly, Threaten Defense is a filler skill that provides utility in finishing off weakened enemies or setting up your ranged nuker for kills. It can be easily replaced with an offensive Hone, Spur, or Threaten Speed. Offensive rallies also support the ranged nuker or other dps on your team if Corrin is facing a bad matchup or needs to conserve his HP, but it is interchangeable for any movement skill if one of your units already carries a rally or if you want Corrin to reach the frontlines faster to offtank. Lastly, his special skill depends on how long Corrin will spend engaging the enemy team; if he is facing mostly sword users, then Moonbow can ensure he can ORKO all of them save incredibly bulky ones like Hinata and Draug, and even then they survive with single digit HP. Dragon Fang can be used as a burst damage option in longer engagements and lets him OHKO even at a weapon disadvantage, but may not be as advisable due to Fury.

Speed Manipulation Corrin (M) +Spd -Res

Yato

Life and Death 3 / Fury 3

Swordbreaker 3

Threaten Speed 3

Rally Attack / Rally Speed

Luna / Dragon Fang

This Corrin is much more offensive than the previous set, but has slightly less utility due to the nature of Life and Death 3. Corrin makes a decent user of this skill because it bolsters his offenses without compromising his bulk. Corrin's engagements are also differently timed, being more player-phase oriented rather than enemy-phase, so Luna becomes more optimal than Moonbow. I left Dragon Fang as his special to ease inheritance requirements, and didn't touch his assists, either.

Now, if you want intense speed manipulation, ignore Darting Blow completely and run LaD 3 / Desperation / Threaten Speed, along with Ardent Sacrifice, a +Spd -HP roll, a +Spd buff, and Luna / Dragon Fang. I would advise against it, however, since Hana is the best user of Desperation in the game and outclasses such a set.

To conclude, much like the Avatar of Fire Emblem Fates, is a balanced character with an-above average stat spread that can take him in virtually any direction. In Heroes, his greatest strength lies in being able to take multiple roles at once. Depending on how skill inheritance unfolds, he could either be easily dismissed due to a lack of specialization, or be valued for the versatility he can bring to a team.

Wow I wrote a lot, maybe I should make my own analysis thread or something.

Yeah dude these are great, thanks for your work!

Actually, my suggestion to you-- and to everyone else in this thread, really-- would be to go put these builds up on the FE Heroes wiki, which now has a 'Builds' tab for each character.

I've contribbed the Sophia and Camilla builds that I was discussing with folks earlier in the thread (...well... no one except eclipse acknowledged the sophia ones but whatever lol) as well as standard Nino and a!Tiki stuff. I highly recommend people go put their builds up on the wiki, since SFF has no formal system for easily viewing and retrieving these great analyses that everyone's doing. 

TBH I actually highly considered making a thread to announce/urge this, but wasn't sure if there'd be enough discussion to warrant it ;; @eclipse, thoughts on that? would that be a pointless thread or could I do that as a means of getting ppl's attention / spreading the word to other people who keep writing these analyses?

Edited March 29, 2017 by BANRYU

[Lucıůs]

9 hours ago, Ryu Yuki said:

Well, I know several people have responded already, and you've gotten lots of input by this point, but since I got a notification and had already written too much, I'm just going ahead with this post. I run Y!Tiki/Nowi/Ninian on my main offensive team, and out of pride I pretty much run nothing but them in all of my Arena / Grand Hero battles. So I'll try to respond to your question about Young Tiki. Most of what I'll say below is mostly based off of personal experience, rather than any hard calculations (Since so many other people do that here, I don't really feel the need to go out of my way to do the same) although I do include a few vague match-ups with potential Julia and Lucina because they're important enough. Hopefully they might provide even a bit more insight, since you've gotten so much of it already from other people.

 

Young Tiki is indeed a very solid unit, and I certainly recommend using her if you can. I myself use her in my main team and I can definitely say that she's very good at tanking a multitude of units while still dishing out heavy damage in return. In addition, her high base stat totals will land you better Arena scores in general, although it will also make you more likely to be paired up against merged units. She's strong enough that she can deal respectable damage against Blue(s) and even tank them relatively often, although obviously you don't want to push it too much. Here a few recommendations for what I think might be worth considering, although which ones are best for you really depends on your specific situation, some of which I factored in the explanations.

Weapon:

Like many others would tell you, Lightning Breath+ is pretty much a given here. Trading -4 Atk in exchange for being able to counter at any range is very useful, and will land you far more defense wins in general. That being said however, one thing to keep in mind is that you'll be doing a whole lot of grinding just to give her this one weapon. To demonstrate, you need 300 SP for Lightning Breath and then another 450 SP for Lightning Breath+, for a total of 750 SP altogether. Unless you're a whale and can afford to merge several of her together, you will be needing to put lots of time into her to not only give her this weapon but her other skills as well. I have been hard-grinding her almost daily ever since Skill Inheritance was finally implemented, and I can tell you that it requires dedication. The end result will be worth it though, as you get the equivalent of a tanky Takumi. 

It's worth noting though, that her default Flametongue+ is a fine weapon too. Having +4 Atk can help secure a lot of kills, and when you're using her offensively, you won't find yourself desperately wishing for that extra range too often. The lack of Green Mages besides Julia and Nino kind of softens the blow on not being able to counter at any range, so it's not completely unfeasible to simply stick to her default weapon if you don't have time. In addition, Flametongue+ can secure ORKOs against merged Julia(s), which Lightning Breath+ will start failing to do after a while. 

A-Passive:

Her A-Passive really depends on what your team composition is like. If you happen to be using a full-manakete team, or you don't have other units that can reliably take out Julia, then you'd most likely want to consider Triangle Adept. It'll really soften the blow on Y!Tiki, and will reduce her damage taken by approximately 15 whenever she's struck. It will also give Y!Tiki enough power to 2HKO most Julia(s) in return, which is something you'd want to take into consideration when thinking about the B-Passive. Although if you're using a manakete in your team, there's also a fair chance you'll run into merged Julia(s) that are tanky enough to take 2 hits from a Triangle Adept Y!Tiki, so there's that to consider as well. In general this is the skill to take if you absolutely don't have anyone else to answer to Julia. 

However, I generally don't recommend Triangle Adept if you aren't going full-manakete. Honestly speaking, you rather avoid having Y!Tiki face off against Julia or Falchion-wielders if you can help it at all. You aren't even guaranteed to ORKO (with Lightning Breath+) Julia if you revolve your whole build around that sole purpose, so I generally don't see it as worth all the time and effort. In addition, Y!Tiki is strong enough that she can consistently take hits from Blue units and even return significant damage to them. If you run Triangle Adept, you'll kind of ruin her ability to do all that, in exchange for being better equipped to deal with a single threat that might not even show up all that often. She will almost never have trouble with green units besides Julia and maaaaaybe a fat Nino, so the payout isn't that much. As such, there are a variety of other options which you can consider:

Fury 3, as suggested by @MaskedAmpharos is one fine solution. If your Y!Tiki isn't doesn't have a +Spd boon, it will save you from being doubled by a notable number of units. However, it's a double-edged blade, because Y!Tiki is capable of taking a lot of non-Blue hits, and having it equipped might kill her faster in the long run. I would generally recommend it if your Y!Tiki isn't +Spd, as not being doubled will usually save you more damage than Fury is dealing to you, but if she is, she's fast enough not to be doubled by a lot of units and you might want to start considering other options instead. If you have a healer though, the viability of this skill will shoot way up, and I'd definitely recommend it regardless of what kind of Y!Tiki you happened to roll. Having someone to consistently heal her would make Fury 3 probably one of the best possible skills on her.

Not many people like them, but I personally find the Defiant series of skills to be quite useful on the manaketes. +7 boost to a particular stat is huge, and most manaketes such as Y!Tiki are tanky enough that they'll fall into Defiant range before they are ever killed. Since you'll mostly likely be using Y!Tiki as a tank, and she will very often be tanking several hits a turn due to that fact, slapping a Defiant Def/Res onto her can save her from being killed in several situations. Especially Defiant Def, which can very likely turn the damage Y!Tiki receives from most Axe-users and certain Sword-users to a pretty-looking 0. I wouldn't strongly recommend these though; they are just something worth keeping in mind. Unless you happen to be running Vantage, at which point I really do enjoy Defiant Atk on Y!Tiki because of how funny it can become. (I'll elaborate on that later)

Honestly speaking, Y!Tiki's default Armored Blow isn't that bad either. It grants you +6 Def when initiating an attack, which is honestly all kinds of amazing. It can make you take a whopping 0 damage from Hector when initiating on him, and likewise for many other axe-users in the game. It will also allow her to initiate on blue units and come out with more than half her heath intact relatively often, which is nice when you need to do some chip damage so someone else can go in for the kill. It's good enough that I would have it as one of the later skills to replace. At the very least, having tried both Fury 3 and Armored Blow out, it does feel like Armored Blow keeps my Y!Tiki alive longer than Fury 3 in the long run. Although obviously, this is less true when you're up against nothing but mages.

B-Passive:

I know people have recommended Swordbreaker, but I'm not very fond of it honestly. Mostly because Chrom and Lucina have a very good chance of simply one-shotting Y!Tiki, and it's very possible that Swordbreaker won't get a chance to come into play at all. Lucina especially becomes disgustingly common in the higher up tiers, and you'll reach a point where you see nothing but 40+10 Lucina(s) that are likely to skewer Y!Tiki. I would keep Y!Tiki away from Falchion(s) if at all possible, even more so than Julia's Naga, just because of how dangerous they are to her. If you must use a dragon to deal with them, use Nowi seriously. Nowi has a good chance of one-shotting Falchion-users and is generally a much more pretty-looking match-up. Although the best scenario is simply using some Lance-user with decent Def. 

Green Tomebreaker is definitely worth considering if you're already running Triangle Adept. in fact, it's worth considering even if you aren't. It'll either deal heavy damage to Julia or outright ORKO her, depending on your build and what Julia you're facing. In any case though, it'll make finishing her off a whole lot easier for someone else on your team, and it's a very safe tactic unless your opponent decided to sacrifice their Takumi to Julia for some reason.

I feel like one of the best B-Passives though, is definitely Renewal. Y!Tiki is definitely tanky enough to last several hits, so Renewal can go a long way in healing her up throughout the match. In fact, if you have movement assists on your team, it becomes even more useful as Y!Tiki can simply start kiting the opponent to heal up to full health unopposed, and can later enter back into the fight with a capped health bar. It's also a great complement to Fury 3, as it gives you a chance to rest off some of the damage that Fury 3 has been dealing to you over time. And finally, it's great if you're not running a healer as you have at least one consistent method of self-healing. 

As some have suggested, Quick Riposte is also a fine choice. It'll help you get some heavy early damage in, around the time where you can still pick out specific enemies for Y!Tiki to face off against. She's tanky enough that you have a small but existing chance to proc it twice, and if you do have a healer, this skill becomes downright amazing. You can just keep healing Y!Tiki back to full health, which is not hard to do with something like Rehabilitate, and Y!Tiki can keep proccing the skill over and over while maintaining a bulk that's unlikely to have her ORKO'd by anyone not wielding a Falchion or Naga. It's a must-have if you're running a healer, although if you aren't, it's still something worth considering.

The Seal skills are something worth considering as well. They don't shine too much in a 1v1 environment, but their real worth will come out when a tank is equipping them in a team-based battle. Since Y!Tiki is likely to be one of your main tanks, and will be sponging a number of hits, that also means she will have the opportunity to hand out a great number of debuffs if you're willing to slap a Seal skill on her. For example, giving her Seal Spd means that if 2-3 opponents are attacking her, when your turn comes, pretty much absolutely everyone on your team can double all of those units. -7 to a particular stat is such a huge handicap that your team as a whole will love Y!Tiki to death for debuffing the enemy team so hard. It's not particularly useful if you're relying on Y!Tiki to handle everything, but it can be very good depending on how offensive and mobile your team is.

Finally, I am a big personal fan of Vantage on units that can counter at any range. It annoys me to no end when I have to face it, and I know my +10 defense wins on the first day of the season was probably annoyed by it too (I run Y!Tiki/Nowi/Ryoma/Takumi all on Defiant Atk+Vantage). A very popular tactic for a lot of people is the 'bait on enemy phase and kill on player phase' strategy, but Vantage kind of screws with that hard. In addition, on units that can counter at any range, it pretty much ensures that your opponent has absolutely no choice but to take at least one hard hit to the face before finally finishing your unit. As such it's an excellent skill for defense teams, and it can be very useful if you know what you're doing on offensive runs too. If some enemy unit is 1 hit away from death, having Vantage basically means you can proceed to ignore them completely and not waste a turn because they can neither do anything to survive nor deal any further damage to you. You can simply have your Y!Tiki move on to some other unit that needs killing or at least some damage chipping in. >75% Hp is honestly a very generous activation requirement that you're going to hit before ever dying with her. It can be rather situational though, so some of the above skills might work out more consistently for you. If you do run Vantage, you might want to consider running Defiant Atk 3 as well, simply so that your Y!Tiki has +7 Atk when in this range, ensuring that she hits back extra hard and it will also make her hurt significantly more.

C-Passive:

If you're running a Manakete Team and you're super-lucky, give her Fortify Dragons. Otherwise, literally any Hone or Spur would work pretty well here. I don't think there's any universal answer for which stat to buff is the best, and it really depends on what your team needs. I have Spur Atk 3 simply because it ensures that my Nowi can cleanly OHKO opposing Lucina(s) and Marth(s), but your team might have use for Spd or something. Alternatively, if your team doesn't need any help whatsoever, Threaten Atk/Spd or Threaten Res can work on her as well, as it will help her to either tank melee units or kill them. Both of which is lovely. I generally would stay away from Breath of Life unless you're using a Dancer or something, because the positioning it requires is just so situational that it's often not worth the skill slot.

Assists:

Like the above, any Rally that your team needs you can be thrown in here. Otherwise, get a movement assist. Draw Back, Reposition, Smite and Swap are all excellent choices if you know what you're doing with them and if you think your team needs them. Personally speaking, I'd say Reposition and Swap are preferable if you run at least one assassin unit that's super good at killing but is extremely unlikely to survive being attacked. It'll allow them to run ahead of Y!Tiki, kill some schmuck, then get shoved behind her so she can protect that unit. Smite is really good for pushing units toward a certain direction, if you happen to need someone far away killed (Or you're surrounded by cavalry and need to save someone). Draw Back is usually good for ranged units, and it might be hard for Y!Tiki to use since she's usually on the front lines, so unless you have some strategy in mind for it, I wouldn't recommend it as much as the others. 

Specials:

It really doesn't matter what you throw in here, but I do like Bonfire since the manaketes have high Def. You can throw in any similar skill here though, they won't make too much of a difference.

Lots of juicy information right here! I feel so enlightened upon using Y!Tiki now that you've provided an in-depth elaboration of her potentials! Also, it's true that it takes a lot of dedication and SP to give her the right build... I am hoping that IS will soon implement more ways to gather SP because farming for SP when a character, notably 5☆s, hits maximum level gets tedious. 

Personally, I like Defiant skills in general and I agree that the buffs from the said skills are huge. Vantage has always been helpful in many ways and, as you said, make a really excellent combo with Defiant as well! 

With that said, here is my theoretical build for her:

Lightning Breath+

Swap (so that she can save a frail teammate from being assaulted)

Bonfire (Never thought about this before until you discussed about it and yes, it scales well with her def and also have a shorter cooldown so it will be most likly to trigger when equipped with lightning breath+)

Defiant ATK 

Vantage

Hone SPD/ATK

 

I guess that build is all right. Again, huge huge huge thanks for sharing useful information and tactics with Y!Tiki. I appreciate the effort! I can also see the passion that you have towards the character and that is simply lovely. Now I'm excited to use her in almost any content of the game. 

 

[TheNiddo]

1 hour ago, BANRYU said:

I've contribbed the Sophia and Camilla builds that I was discussing with folks earlier in the thread (...well... no one except eclipse acknowledged the sophia ones but whatever lol) as well as standard Nino and a!Tiki stuff. I highly recommend people go put their builds up on the wiki, since SFF has no formal system for easily viewing and retrieving these great analyses that everyone's doing. 

TBH I actually highly considered making a thread to announce/urge this, but wasn't sure if there'd be enough discussion to warrant it ;; @eclipse, thoughts on that? would that be a pointless thread or could I do that as a means of getting ppl's attention / spreading the word to other people who keep writing these analyses?

-blinks-

Huh cool. Guess I get to say I helped contribute to something now. I'm certainly willing to continue to help try to chip in from this end of things. Would be great if more non S/S+ characters could get some attention. Those armour guides that have been made would be good on there as well I feel.

[Troykv]

I would like to have multiple Subaki, one to give QR to Sophia, and another for the GHB

[Ryuke]

8 hours ago, mcsilas said:

Also I'll give this a go, I'll let other number crunchers correct me if I'm wrong (can't seem to find all the max stats on the wiki for 5 stars). Let's make Stahl at least have some kind of role.

If you want to enhance his innate ability to Swap and destroy Green melee units how about a Shield role for your ranged units? He already has Ruby Sword+ and Swap. If you want to be more defensive maybe Escutcheon/Sacred Cowl but since yours it would be for +Attack Moonbow (Wo Dao+ if you can) works.

-If you want an instant teleporting shield for ranged units, use Wings of Mercy and use Swap if you need to. Hone Atk/Speed will buff your ally on their next turn.  

-If you really want to upgrade his stats a bit, Fury is the way to go. Fury + Swordbreaker is also a great offensive combo so you threaten both Axes and Swords. Vantage also works. Otherwise, if you want to be more defensive, maybe Renewal to offset the Fury damage? 

-As stated before, a Hone skill works if you intend to use Swap a lot. Threaten Speed/Attack also works as other options.

-Alternatively, if you really want to go super offensive with the +Atk, maybe Wo Dao+, Death Blow, Swordbreaker/Desperation and Threaten Speed/Defense?

----

Anyone have any ideas for a +HP/-Speed Lucius?

Maybe Pain, Rehabilitate, Heavenly Light and maybe HP+5, Live to Serve/Renewal, Savage Blow/Breath of Life? Or would having a combination of Speed+3 and/or Threaten Speed be useful to offset the Speed bane?

Also found out the best Nino in my main account is -Attack and +Speed. Minus Attack sucks but Speed is great, is it still salvageable with the right skills? Maybe Life and Death and Desperation? Would Draconic Aura be a good choice despite the Attack bane? 

 

edit: Also @Ryuke I thought of another Saizo build to go with his nice defense for a dagger user. 

Maybe an anti-Archer unit with Bowbreaker?

So, Smoke Dagger/Poison Dagger, Swap, Sacred Cowl/Bonfire with Death Blow, Bowbreaker, Threaten Attack?

 

I think Stahl Fury / (Renewal/SB) is probably the best way to go. Also abuse Swap if needed. He might be good if you pair him with a Cav with Hones Cavalry and vice versa (Frederick/Gunter). Ugh... I had planned my Frederick to go solo (non-cav team). The only small problem is... if he goes super offensive.. there are better options.

 

However. life and death on him wont be too bad. because everyone is stacking attack and speed. However L&D3 is an expensive skill.
Cheapest as of now.

Ruby Sword / Fury / Renewal / Escutcheon(Sacred Cowl)

Even Fury 3 is expensive when I dont have Hinata... and Renewal 2 is only in Jakob (he doesnt have 3).

 

-----

(Nino is really good. Goddamn.. I need to plan out a Tharja to kill him... after SI ... which is hard. because Tharja needs more attack to kill Nino. My A slow is already used on DArting Blow. She's doubling.. but high res Nino will be able to tank.)

 

Yeah. I like that anti-archer Saizo. Dont know how it will do with Mages. If Saizo were to take a mage spot in the arena. He should be able to kill them. (Maybe Poison Daggar can help alot)

 

 

// I will get back at you at Lucius. Most people dont use healer much. its a different strategy.

 

[TheNiddo]

Actually, for the wiki builds stuff somebody pointed it out on GameFAQs and its a pretty good point: almost every build suggested is a very whale heavy build. Would it be possible to like, work on/figure out more F2P friendly builds? Could even just call it the F2P build, have some general rules for the build (can't sacrifice 5* units or GHB units, can't have more than X changes on them). In some ways those are more useful than figuring out a character's full potential if you had unlimited orbs/feathers/SP.

[BANRYU]

46 minutes ago, TheNiddo said:

Actually, for the wiki builds stuff somebody pointed it out on GameFAQs and its a pretty good point: almost every build suggested is a very whale heavy build. Would it be possible to like, work on/figure out more F2P friendly builds? Could even just call it the F2P build, have some general rules for the build (can't sacrifice 5* units or GHB units, can't have more than X changes on them). In some ways those are more useful than figuring out a character's full potential if you had unlimited orbs/feathers/SP.

I think that is a very good idea, that didn't occur to me actually (though I'm F2P myself ironically lol). 

 

Speaking of that somewhat, actually... In writing about Nino's counters, I realized Leo with Triangle Adept makes for a really, really good Nino counter. Hell even default Leo can approach and attack Nino from outside her movement/attack range, OHKOing LaD3 Nino if Leo is Atk+, and having TA3 makes him (or any red unit with decent Res, really, but Leo is the only mounted red mage) unable to be killed by any Nino no matter how buffed to hell she is. TA3 from Roy is all default Leo needs to be a crazy-good Nino counter, and throwing Axebreaker on top of that lets him be a delete button for any axe users on top of green mages who can't lay a scratch on him. So that's pretty cool. Not really sure what his ideal proc would be (he doesn't need moonbow to kill any greens), nor his Assist or C-slot, but that's a pretty good basis for an anti-meta unit I think lol. 

Edited March 29, 2017 by BANRYU

[TheNiddo]

Anti-Meta, and both TA3 and AB3 can be gotten from 4*s (though would we really want to drop QR3 for AB3?) Currently in C he has Savage Blow, which I think is fine for the F2P option, lets him indirectly chip in against units he can't hurt due to TA3.

Assist and Specials... Assist is probably the typical "pick your favourite movement option for him", though I'd think Swap/Pivot would be better than Reposition in his case as he's also semi on magic tanking duty due to TA3, thus he needs the ability to switch in with units who end up in range after their attack. For his special... Escutcheon maybe? His speed, def, and HP are all "meh", so getting protection against melee up ASAP might help him the most.

[Zero1k]

I currently have Roy with a lot of SP. I already got him Moonbow, but now I'm wondering about other skills.

- Is Shove ok for him or should I give him Smite or Drag back?
- What's a good C skill for him?