Shanna, Sprightly Flier

[Frosty]

Introduction

Shanna is best described as an excellent Player Phase flier because her stats in combination with her default kit allows her to be a pretty okay combat unit. Stat-wise; she is best described as a "RES-oriented" version of Catria. She plays similarly to Cordelia but has less punch and slightly more bulk. With a Killer weapon right off the bat and a good special that runs off her solid resistance, Shanna is a good flier to have especially if you don't like to invest too much but still end up having a good unit in your hands. She's more than just Desperation fodder.

Pros:

+ Excellent base speed stat at neutral. She has 35 speed at Neutral IV

+ Pretty good base kit. Threaten SPD allows her to screw up enemy's speed stat within 2 spaces, Desperation allows her to land guaranteed doubles once she is at a certain percentage of her HP left, Iceberg runs off from her decent RES stat and lastly, she gets a Killer Lance right away. As of the Weapon Refinery update; the Killer Lance+ can now be upgraded into a Slaying Lance+. This means that you'll only need to place an assist and an A-slot for Shanna.

+ Flier unit

+ Pretty okay RES stat

Cons:

- While she's bulkier than Cordelia; she's still rather squishy on the physical side. Bows are a threat to her; Excalibur can still land some damage on her

- Her damage output is rather low without Skill Inheritance

Stats

3* Rarity

LV01:  HP: 15/16/17 l ATK: 6/7/8 l SPD: 7/8/9 l DEF: 4/5/6 l RES: 5/6/7 l BST: 42

LV40:  HP: 32/35/38 l ATK: 23/26/29 l SPD: 28/31/34 l DEF: 19/22/25 l RES: 23/26/29 l BST: 139

4*Rarity

LV01:  HP: 15/16/17 l ATK: 7/8/9 l SPD: 8/9/10 l DEF: 4/5/6 l RES: 5/6/7 l BST: 44

LV40:  HP: 33/36/39 l ATK: 25/28/31 l SPD: 30/33/36 l DEF: 20/23/26 l RES: 23/26/29 l BST: 146

5*Rarity

LV01:  HP: 16/17/18 l ATK: 7/8/9 l SPD: 8/9/10 l DEF: 5/6/7 l RES: 6/7/8 l BST: 47

LV40:  HP: 35/39/42 l ATK: 26/30/33 l SPD: 32/35/38 l DEF: 22/25/29 l RES: 25/29/32 l BST: 157-159

*stats marked in red is a superbane (-4), stat marked in green is a superboon (+4)

 = Recommended Builds =

Budget Shanna

Recommended IV's: +ATK/-DEF, +ATK/-HP, +SPD/-DEF, +SPD/-HP

Weapon: Slaying Lance+ (SPD Forge), Assist: Reposition/Draw Back, Special: Iceberg

A: Fury 3

B: Desperation 3

C: Threaten SPD 3 / Flexible

Seal: +3 SPD

Thanks to the weapon refinery updates, the Killer Lance that she starts out with can be upgraded into a Slaying Lance+; it is recommended that she gets a +SPD forge for the lance since she'll need as much speed so she can double enemies especially once she is in Desperation range. Recommended assist is Reposition/Draw Back if she is to get an ally out of an enemy's range. Iceberg becomes 2 CD with a Slaying Weapon so let's keep that.

Fury boosts her stats by +3 which is good for attack and speed stacking; also the recoil works well to get her within Desperation range. C-passive is very flexible so you can either slap on Threaten SPD 3 so secure more doubles or... Goad Fliers or Flier buffs if you are to run her on a flier team.

Firesweep Girl

Recommended IV's: +SPD/-DEF, +SPD/-HP

Weapon: Firesweep Lance+, Assist: Reposition/Draw Back, Special: Iceberg / Luna

A: Fury 3 / Swift Sparrow 2 / Life and Death 3

B: Hit and Run / Drag Back

C: Threaten SPD 3 / Flexible

Seal: +3 SPD

Shanna is primarily a player-phase flyer so let's focus on that aspect! With a +SPD IV and a Firesweep Lance+; Shanna can poke an enemy to death without the fear of retaliation. A-slot can be Fury for budget builds, Swift Sparrow 2 and Life and Death 3 are the more expensive options. For B-slot, you can opt for Hit and Run so she can move a space backwards after attacking or Drag Back so she can drag an enemy along with her by one space and put them in range of your mages. Reposition or Draw Back for Assist. For recommended proc, give her Luna since we'll be needing that to poke through bulky targets. Iceberg is for budget builds and works better with Fury 3 as it means 16 guaranteed damage running off from Shanna's 32 RES.

C-slot is still flexible; either Threaten SPD 3 or maybe Flier buffs.

Another option is if you're running Fury is to use SPD Ploy for C-slot, which means she'll debuff anyone with a speed penalty as long they're not a magic wall so she can secure more double attacks. You can consider adding in DEF Ploy for more shenanigans.

Tiny Flying Terror

Recommended IV's: +ATK/-DEF, +ATK/-HP

Weapon: Slaying Lance+ (SPD Forge), Assist: Reposition/Draw Back, Special: Aether / Iceberg / Glacies / Dragon Fang / Galeforce

A: Fury 3 / Life and Death 3 / Brazen ATK/SPD 3

B: Desperation 3

C: Threaten SPD 3 / Flexible

Seal: Heavy Blade 3

This is my personal build for Shanna; while similar to the budget build, this allows her to be a decent user of the Heavy Blade seal; but this also requires a lot of ATK and SPD stacking meaning this build will work best in a Flier Emblem team. The reason for ATK stacking is to allow Shanna hit as hard as possible while activating Heavy Blade's effect, SPD stacking so she can double more opponents. Aether is great for tearing through bulky targets and keeping Shanna at a decent HP range; and also handy for Tempest Trials. Since Heavy Blade is involved; you can use Glacies and Dragon Fang as well or an instant Iceberg... or even Galeforce. Don't use Glacies or Iceberg if you're going the Life and Death route for her A-passive.

Fury 3 or Life and Death 3 is needed for A-slot so she can hit harder and be faster; a more expensive choice is Brazen ATK/SPD 3 which means once she is in Desperation range; she'll also land some pretty hard-hitting strikes on the enemy. Desperation is self-explanatory, C-slot is flexible; although I'd prefer Goad Fliers.

NOTE: My team is a 3x Goad Fliers + Airzura (Hone Fliers)

EDIT LOG:

- Changed the lance for Firesweep Girl build due to a typo accidentally placing in "Slaying Lance+" instead of Firesweep Lance.

- Added Brazen ATK/SPD 3 as a choice for the "Tiny Flying Terror" build.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Frosty

[Ice Dragon]

A few quick comments:

• I'm really not a fan of horizontal layouts for stats and skills. It's difficult to read on narrow screens, not great on desktop screens either.
• You have Slaying Lance+ listed as the weapon for the Firesweep build.
• While not the best user of it, she can also viably run a Berkut's Lance build to counter tome users.

[Frosty]

6 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

A few quick comments:

• I'm really not a fan of horizontal layouts for stats and skills. It's difficult to read on narrow screens, not great on desktop screens either.
• You have Slaying Lance+ listed as the weapon for the Firesweep build.
• While not the best user of it, she can also viably run a Berkut's Lance build to counter tome users.

Adjusted the second one because I actually made this character thread roughly before midnight.

I'll add Berkut's Lance+ build later.

[SoulWeaver]

Interesting. I didn't realize Shanna was that usable, I'll have to look into her more. I would like to suggest a build with Brash Assault as her Seal seeing as how Desperation and Brash Assault combine fairly well, probably with Fury to get her to the right HP%?

[BANRYU]

I feel like the 'Tiny Terror' and 'Budget sets could be combined together and not much would be lost; just list Fury as the budget option for that build, and mention that the other A-skills are preferable if you want to optimize her. 

I also think you should probably separate out the Specials and Assists into their own lines. A formatting trick I learned recently is that you can hit shift+Return to make the spacing regular, which is probably good for the builds. 

IE: 

header stuff for the build

Weapon: (and now I shiftReturn)
Assist: 
Special: 
A-Skill: 
B-Skill: 
C-Skill: 
Seal: 

and then the description would go here

 

I think that might read a bit easier for everyone. 
(Incidentally this is why I wanted to have an established template for analyses but what can you do? Smogon we ain't I suppose lol)