General Weapon Refinery discussion/speculation/creation thread

[colossus86]

Given that Klien's "issues" are that he's just not particuclarly good at anything, I think a utility focused refine would be best for him. There aren't many Prf bows in the game and only one of them has any type of utility so I'd be a good way to make him stand out. Klein himself is a general if I recall so I'd fit nicely with him.

[Xenomata]

Honestly I think Klein is gonna get either a Slaying Bow or an Amiti Bow.

He has the speed for a slaying set, and he has a decent enough Speed stat to be able to take advantage of quadding, if only he had just a little more speed... which an Amiti Bow would allow.

[bottlegnomes]

A kind of pipe dream for Klein would be Brave Bow with built-in Swift Sparrow 3. That'd give him 46/34 on initiation without A skills. I could definitely see them going Slaying Bow though too, since that seems like it'd probably be easier to balance, both in terms of making it worthwhile and in terms of not making it broken. Definitely hope it's good though. Klein was one of my first 5*s way back near his initial release and he held me down for a long time so I have a lot of affection for him. Also quite helps that I have both a +atk and a +spd copy just waiting to get promoted and merged with that original 5*.

Sonia, I'd be astounded if it weren't something related to special. I could definitely see QP2 or an effect like Ophelia's, just trading the killer for the wo effect. Both she and Merric would quite appreciate that, and it might give me some motivation to actually invest in that random 5* Merric I got. Killer tome was pretty close, but that bond effect was just so meh.

Sophia, if they're smart, will have an owl effect or something similar to help her all-around solid attack, def, and res. As people have said, something to disable follow-ups or conditional CC would be pretty nice for her too.

No clue for Dark Aura. Aura's upgrade was already just a magical version of DA + a bond. I really hope it's not just a bond. Please, IS, Linde may have a fantastic offensive statline, but she gets crapped on by so many blue mages because her weapons are mediocre. Delthea too, seems in trouble since her spot as highest attack blue mage got usurped by Ophelia who has a far better weapon.

EDIT: So I was looking over the bows and there's not a lot of real great personal ones. The best one looks like it's Thogn, and even that doesn't seem like it's 100% better than a plain old Brave or FS. So that makes me curious if they'll use this as an opportunity to see what makes bows stand out, like with Flora's dagger, or if they'll just give Klein something decent.

Edited March 1, 2019 by bottlegnomes

[Kaden]

Fill me in the details more since I never played Binding Blade, but Klein is a leader, right? One of his castle quotes is: "Some call me the Archer General, but I feel I can serve a kingdom better as an administrator than a general", and the wiki says he was the leader of an Etrurian mercenary group.

I get that people want him to have a strong, self-sufficient bow, but that could set them up for disappointment if it doesn't meet their expectations. Anyway, Argent Bow made me think of the idea that monsters are weak to silver. Unfortunately, we don't really have monsters in Heroes, but we do have beasts and dragons for that matter. Argent Bow having effective damage against fliers (default) and beasts could be interesting and it could count as a free effect since bows naturally are effective against fliers and although it's the only bow with effective damage against two types, fliers and armors, Hinoka's Warrior Princess comes with two other effects, Spd+3 and Drive Atk 2. Basically, Argent Bow or any bow for that matter could possibly come with effective damage to three types, but I doubt this would happen. In this case, default effective damage against fliers and for the monsters being weak to silver reference, beasts and dragons. With just its base effects, Argent Bow would let Klein deal effective damage to three types of units. That's a little crazy and it doesn't really connect to Klein at all as far as I know and I don't know what the Japanese name for his weapon is called. Silver as something magical would only really lead to Light Brand, Nile's Bow, and Shining Bow's effect of "If foe's Def ≥ foe's Res+5, deals +7 damage" or adaptive damage which would never happen.

So, back to Klein being a leader. Drives, Tactics, (Joint) Hones/Fortifies, Infantry Flash/Rush, anything could really work. Kaden was recently released, but Kitsune Fang's "Grants allies within 2 spaces bonus to Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat = current bonus on each of unit's stats. Calculates each stat bonus independently" would be amazing for Klein or anyone really.

A weird idea, but an effect that neutralizes penalties, so Restore's effect: "Neutralizes ally's penalties (from skills like Panic, Threaten, etc.) and negative status effects (preventing counterattacks, restricting movement, etc.) that last through ally's next action", if allies are adjacent to him could bring the idea of Klein being a leader who can calm his allies and maintain moral. It could even go as far as also reversing stat debuffs as a Harsh Command that works by having allies being adjacent to him.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Kaden

[FoxyGrandpa]

A Slaying  / Brave Bow equivalent weapon for Klein would probably be the best weapons for him  combat-wise, but I feel these options would be too safe and generic, in addition to either making him directly better or worse than his competitions. I think having a base effect that buffs nearby allies Speed by 3 and a refine effect that grants him a conditional +5 Attack and Speed when 2 spaces near a Cavalry Ally would be a lot more interesting, since it references Sanaki's weapon refine, his role as a general in Binding Blade, and his sister. Its multifaceted role as a support weapon and a combat weapon would also make him stand out compared to his competition. 

[bottlegnomes]

5 minutes ago, FoxyGrandpa said:

A Slaying  / Brave Bow equivalent weapon for Klein would probably be the best weapons for him  combat-wise, but I feel these options would be too safe and generic, in addition to either making him directly better or worse than his competitions. I think having a base effect that buffs nearby allies Speed by 3 and a refine effect that grants him a conditional +5 Attack and Speed when 2 spaces near a Cavalry Ally would be a lot more interesting, since it references Sanaki's weapon refine, his role as a general in Binding Blade, and his sister. Its multifaceted role as a support weapon and a combat weapon would also make him stand out compared to his competition. 

Please no. That would be beyond disappointing.

@Kaden So from what I remember of my FE6, Klein is Pent and Louise's son, and is indeed a general in the Etrurian army. The part about mercenaries is a bit misleading from what I recall, or at least how I take it. He does lead a mercenary group, featuring Shana's sister, but that's more in the vein of them having been hired on by the Etrurian army and serving under him rather than how Ike leads the GMs. My FE6 is pretty hazy though, so not too familiar with his personality or where the whole administrative thing comes from, other than maybe his dad big a big old nerd. <3 you, Pent.

I could see them taking two routes with Klein. Both have to do with his stats being very average for archers. First would be to give him a support effect, similar to what a lot of other characters whose stats are a bit too spread out have gotten. Second would be to use him as a bit of a test, sort of like Niles, to see what it takes to make a really standout bow. As is, the other personal bows are pretty unimpressive. Thogn and Warrior Princess seem to be the only ones that really stand out, at least to me. Thogn has a very powerful stat boost on an already strong offensive unit, and Warrior Princess's armor slaying is nice, but Hinoka is a bit too frail to really make use of it in PvP. The rest range from way too niche to decent, but, well, there's a reason most archers run Firesweep or Brave Bows.

[Jingle Jangle]

For a while I was wondering why did the sidegrade refines mostly stop after Eldigan and Ephraim? The only idea I could come up with is that IS wants the legendary version to be more special.

[Kaden]

@Ice Dragon, would a weapon that stacked an -owl effect, "During combat, boosts unit's Atk/Spd/Def/Res by number of adjacent allies × 2", and either a Spectrum Bond effect, "If unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 during combat" (Awakening Falchion) or a weaker, one less stat point boost like that of the Greil's Devoted weapons; this effect or a variation of it that's found on Muspell Fireposy, Nifl Frostflowers, and Wolf Queen Fang: "During combat, boosts unit's Atk/Spd by number of allies within 2 spaces × 2. (Maximum bonus of +6 to each stat.)", unique refined Sieglinde's effect of "Grants bonus to Atk/Spd/Def/Res = highest bonus on allies within 2 spaces during combat. Calculates each stat bonus independently", or Bonus Doubler 3 be too powerful?

That was probably hard to read, but I was wondering about a weapon having an -owl effect and another in combat boost effect at the same time and how it would work out. It would be fine on anyone, but the first characters that came to my mind were Boey and Mae since they have -owl tomes as their default weapons. Additionally, Sophia who uses owl tomes very well and pretty much any ranged armor or armor in general since armors can stick together fairly easy because of their movement.

With Sophia getting a new weapon soon and as an example, something like:

Eternal Tome: "14 Mt. During combat, boosts unit's Atk/Spd/Def/Res by number of adjacent allies × 2."

Unique refinement: "During combat, boosts unit's Def/Res by number of allies within 2 spaces × 2. (Maximum bonus of +6 to each stat.)"

Edited March 3, 2019 by Kaden

[Ice Dragon]

33 minutes ago, Kaden said:

That was probably hard to read, but I was wondering about a weapon having an -owl effect and another in combat boost effect at the same time and how it would work out.

Celica can already run three stacks of Brazen skills on top of Ragnarok's base Push-like effect.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Update is live. Delthea gets atk/spd +5 when within 2 spaces of a melee unit. Could someone provide the other refines?

[Ice Dragon]

@Etheus

@Tybrosion posted them in the general thread:

• Klein: Brave Bow with Speed +3 (i.e. Amiti) base, Chill Def 3 refine.
• Sophia: Raudhrraven base, Bracing Stance 2 refine.
• Delthea: Atk/Spd +5 when within 2 spaces of a melee ally.
• Sonya: Quickened Pulse 2.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Klein's is interesting. I wonder if that will actually make him viable. Perhaps with Death Blow/Swift Sparrow, Chill Spd 3, C skill of choice, Atk +3 or Atk/Spd 2 seal.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

So Sophia is just Lyon but with an extra refinement? Guess I can't say no to more green counters but Naglfar refinement when?

[bottlegnomes]

2 minutes ago, Etheus said:

Klein's is interesting. I wonder if that will actually make him viable. Perhaps with Death Blow/Swift Sparrow, Chill Spd 3, C skill of choice, Atk +3 or Atk/Spd 2 seal.

At absolute worst, it's a potential effective +8 to attack and some decent support, so that's a definite buff. Whether he'll be great, I kinda doubt it, but he'll stand out a bit more. Keeps him from getting doubled a bit too if he's for some reason gets attacked. Seems like +atk is still his optimal asset. Legit might be about to kill a Panne for Chill Speed. From messing around with the combat simulator, with that setup, he's still happies with DB3/4. Just need 2,000 more feathers and I'll be set on Klein.

[Ice Dragon]

Continuing from where I left off in the general thread...

I see that the developers still have no fucking idea how to use Litrowl, considering they've now given three of the best Litrowl users exclusive weapons with Litrraven on them instead while having given Soren an exclusive weapon with the Litrowl effect and three cavalry units half-Litrowl weapons.

The only two saving graces on Eternal Tome or whatever it's called in English are the fact that Bracing Stance 2 almost makes up for the difference and that it doesn't require adjacent allies anymore.

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Etheus said:

Klein's is interesting. I wonder if that will actually make him viable. Perhaps with Death Blow/Swift Sparrow, Chill Spd 3, C skill of choice, Atk +3 or Atk/Spd 2 seal.

Compared to BB!Cordelia and Nina using a Brave Bow build, with Chill Def active, Klein is best, followed by BB!Cordelia and then Nina. Without Chill Def active, BB!Cordelia is best, then Nina, and Klein last.

+Atk is better. +Spd significantly reduces Klein's and Nina's performance, but BB!Cordelia's performance did not drop much.

Challenger List: I tested everyone with merge +10 and 6/6/6/6 buffs.

Spoiler

CHALLENGER LIST  
Klein (5*+10 +atk)  
Weapon: Argent Bow  
Special: Luna  
A: Life and Death 3  
B: Desperation 3  
S: Atk Spd 2  
Upgrade Path: 5  
 
Cordelia (Bride) (5*+10 +atk)  
Weapon: Brave Bow+  
Special: Luna  
A: Life and Death 3  
B: Desperation 3  
S: Atk Spd 2  
 
Nina (5*+10 +atk)  
Weapon: Brave Bow+  
Special: Luna  
A: Life and Death 3  
B: Desperation 3  
S: Atk Spd 2  
 
Klein (5*+10 +spd)  
Weapon: Argent Bow  
Special: Luna  
A: Life and Death 3  
B: Desperation 3  
S: Atk Spd 2  
Upgrade Path: 5  
 
Cordelia (Bride) (5*+10 +spd)  
Weapon: Brave Bow+  
Special: Luna  
A: Life and Death 3  
B: Desperation 3  
S: Atk Spd 2  
 
Nina (5*+10 +spd)  
Weapon: Brave Bow+  
Special: Luna  
A: Life and Death 3  
B: Desperation 3  
S: Atk Spd 2 

 

Edited March 7, 2019 by XRay

[Jingle Jangle]

• Sonya (and Merric) want to be a green Ophelia but I feel they need a lot of investment to improve their statlines.
• Delthea (and Lindle ) and a bond refine, but at least it's easy to meet the requirements.
• Eternal tome is a more independent than the owl tome. Need to check match-up before choosing a build for my Sophia.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I definitely approve of Klein's upgrade. It should be a decent boost for him, and it gives me more incentive to use him on an infantry or Binding Blade-themed team.

[colossus86]

Sonya's refine is quite good. She lags a bit behind Ophelia and Lilina in raw Atk, but the Wo Dao effect will make up for it. It's also less restrictive team comp wise than Oph.

While it's neat that Dark Aura is a reflection of regular Aura from a flavor perspective, I never liked that weapon so w/e.

Klein can run double Chills and some cool quad stuff so that's nice. A lot of the old archers just blend together so it's cool another one of them gets their own niche build.

Sophia's is fine. Though if you don't want to commit to, or are just unable to give her Null C Disrupt I would just stick with Owl Builds

[Xenomata]

...I accidentally half-correctly predicted Klein's weapon? Huh... okay then.

Noticed he dropped a point in Might from the weapon for +3 Speed, but very small price to pay.

[FoxyGrandpa]

Klein's weapon is pretty damn good. It does both of the things I wanted (being a good support weapon and good offensive weapon), and boosts his offensives to around the same level as a 32/36 archer with a brave bow, which is good since it still gives his primarily Brave Bow competition (Jamke, Cordelia, Leon) a sizeable niche due to their higher attack, while letting him stand out from them thanks to the utility his weapon provides. Probably the biggest winner out of the bunch.

Delthea's refine is worse than a Blade Tome in my opinion for raw offense, but its much better than her original weapon. One of the biggest issues I've had when using her is that her weapon didn't give her any offensive boosts, meaning she would just fall short of doubling some units. This weapon will help her immensely with that since it boost her damage and speed, although her non-existent physical bulk will still be a problem.

Don't care about Sonya, but it doesn't seem too bad, espcially with Special Spiral moonbow. Merric's Excalibur Refine is still better however.

Sophia's refine is decent since it gives her psuedo owl tome effect without needing to be next to other units in additions to a raven tome effect. I know people hate raven tomes these days, but it can still be useful for some of the game's harder content. All I'll say though is RIP Lyon since if her wasn't before, now he's completely outclassed.

[redlight]

Klein is the winner of this batch. I can't speak for the loser, but I feel like they missed the point with Sophia, she somehow manages to make up the differences, but I don't this'll change her tier that people put her in. As Ice said, devs don't know how to use owltomes

[NegativeExponents-]

Hmmm, Sonya’s effect is ok I guess but I wish it at least had a killer effect to go with it to make use of stronger specials or some other effect. The worst refinement of the bunch imo as it requires a big investment in the form of Special Spiral only to still be mediocre.

I like Sophia’s refinement. Not the best but she won’t have to rely on strict position to get those extra stats at least and having a colorless check could be useful.

Klein really shines with his. Indirect buff to him and support for his teammates on top of an Amiti Bow is spectacular.

I like Delthea’s refine. Doesn’t have the raw power of a blade tome but it still offers a nice improvement to her offense on top of her decent support.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

I see that the developers still have no fucking idea how to use Litrowl, considering they've now given three of the best Litrowl users exclusive weapons with Litrraven on them instead while having given Soren an exclusive weapon with the Litrowl effect and three cavalry units half-Litrowl weapons.

No kidding. Outside of Canas and Boey, every Owl tome user is an offensive mage despite Owl tomes being crap for Player Phase. Even the recent seasonal Valentines horses had the pseudo-Owl tome despite all three of them being obvious Player Phase units. Don’t know why they’re so dead set on selling them as an offensive weapon instead of a defensive one.

[DehNutCase]

The thing about Owl is that, unless you have the Henry spread, -blade usually gives you more bulk by just OHKOing things with Vantage. -blade being -blade also gives you more AI manipulation options (since you can just nuke a unit or two that would cause problems when EP rolls around on PP).

Mind, this is only because it's so much easier to stack Atk compared to any other stat---you get +24 basically for free these days if you're running -blade, and every unit-turn you spend having a Pain staffer hit someone is another 24 Atk. I almost never run Leo even though I have -blade CC on him because OG Reinhardt is only slightly worse than Leo at being a red horse tome (that is, at killing green things and surviving the first hit from a green thing). Conversely, Leo is only slightly worse than Reinhardt at being CC Reinhardt, but Leo is 5* exclusive so I can't have him +10'd. (On the other hand, Leo having less than 40 hp means I have perfectly consistent Vantage & Brazen setup with just a level 1 bolt trap or tower, but that honestly doesn't matter too much.)

 

If Owls used drive range instead I'd use them a lot more, since it frees up unit-slots that I would've had to put dancers in. CC -blade doesn't function well if you don't have enough mobility to snipe literally every unit that causes problems on EP, which causes team slot issues when you're also trying to stuff a bunch of mythics into the team. But even then owls aren't really 'meta' since combat buffs don't help against AoE specials, and I expect them to get more and more popular as we get more -2 cd on turn 1 effects into the game.

[Ice Dragon]

23 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

The thing about Owl is that, unless you have the Henry spread, -blade usually gives you more bulk by just OHKOing things with Vantage. -blade being -blade also gives you more AI manipulation options (since you can just nuke a unit or two that would cause problems when EP rolls around on PP).

The thing about Litrblade is that if you're not setting up your team to use Litrblade, it doesn't work, if you get Panicked at the start of enemy phase, it doesn't work, and if you run into an opponent with Hardy Bearing or Cloud Maiougi, you're toast if you can't reach them first.

 

And the fact that setting up Vantage isn't reliable in the Arena. Because, you know, Aether Raids isn't the only game mode in this game.

 

26 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

But even then owls aren't really 'meta' since combat buffs don't help against AoE specials,

But Prayer Wheel being broken means you can still run Prayer Wheel's buffs regardless of your weapon. A unit with Litrowl has +2 HP and +3 Def or Res without the in-combat buffs compared to a unit with Litrblade when running the same buffs.