How should Heroes tackle Rafiel, the heron who can’t fly?

[Alastor15243]

So, as many of us know, one of the herons was left out of the initial debut of beast units: Rafiel, Reyson and Leanne’s long-lost brother who survived the Serenes Massacre but lost the ability to fly.

Now one problem that this poses is that he won’t be a flying type beast, which will break the rules of categorization they’ve established for each beast type so far, with birds being flying, wolves and tigers being infantry, cats, foxes and bunnies being cavalry, and lions being armor. Being unable to fly, obviously they can’t make Rafiel a flier. So that raises the question: what should he be?

Personally? I think they should stay true to the spirit of his role in Radiant Dawn, where he was the slowest but most powerful singer of the herons.

I think they should make Rafiel the game’s first armored singer.

Since herons attack with gusts of wind, the armored transformation bonus of having distant counter wouldn’t feel too weird, especially compared to infantry. But the idea is that to compensate for his terrible movement, he’d have a personal sing like Legendary Azura’s Grey Waves, something that would make it worth using a singer with such poor mobility. But I can’t for the life of me think of anything that would be balanced at the moment.

Anyone have any other ideas of how he could be implemented?

[Humanoid]

Just give his dance a range of 2. Since Physic already exists, we know that it's no issue to implement an assist with more than 1 range. No idea how this would play out balance-wise though.

[Mercakete]

Rafiel should be an infantry unit. I'd say armored due to the low mov, but he's NOT tanky. (He's legit fragile and unwell. This is also why Rhys (FE9) should have an HP superbane (imo) when he's introduced.) The ranged sing idea is interesting. In FE10, he had the best refresher ability (iirc, he could refresh everyone adjacent to him at once, and could restore the most ally HP of all the Herons), but was hampered by having trouble moving around the map. So, Reyson wound up being my favorite Heron to use. (Not as good at refreshing as his brother, but better than Leanne and better movement than Rafiel.)

So, I'd say to make Rafiel an infantry unit and up his weapon's healing effect or something. Also, a custom refreshing assist skill that adds some oomph to his galdr. He should also be blue for color balance. Red doesn't suit him very well, but a lot of light spells are blue, so I figured that one would work better, even if it means he shares a color with his wife.

[Vicious Sal]

I think infantry would be what i decides to go with. 

I like the armor suggestion though, and I would implement it with something like this:

 

- Make him frail as can be, he is the meekest and least sturdy of the heron, so just give him mostly Hp, Spd and Res, with almost no Atk and Def.

- Make his refresh special by making it possible to refresh two people, kinda like Leanne in Radiant Dawn. Even though it seems weird to give the horizontal/vertical refresh to him instead of Leanne, it still showcases how he could refresh multiple people. And since Leanne is already in the game, it can’t go to her anyway.

[whase]

I could see multi refresh as a bit too strong, and ranged refresh would be cool but I don't see that happening. My bet is on infantry, terrible stats besides res, and when he refreshes all adjacent allies get a stat boost. Maybe a slightly stronger heron nearby ally heal, but that would be it.

Looking forward to Janaff and Ulki more though.

[Alastor15243]

1 hour ago, Vicious Sal said:

 

- Make his refresh special by making it possible to refresh two people, kinda like Leanne in Radiant Dawn. Even though it seems weird to give the horizontal/vertical refresh to him instead of Leanne, it still showcases how he could refresh multiple people. And since Leanne is already in the game, it can’t go to her anyway.

Alternatively it could be the “future vision” of refresher skills and it give him a second move once per turn too. Less Leanne-like, easier to program in. Should probably only work when he’s transformed though, since there’s little point to transform him otherwise if his stats will suck.

[Shoblongoo]

2 hours ago, whase said:

I could see multi refresh as a bit too strong

Same, but the power creep has gotten pretty bonkers lately. 

Its at a point where its like sure--give people a reason to use a dancer not named [Legendary Azura]

It would be true to what made Refiel so silly in RD.

And it would be very much in line with the whole make a broken new hero that invalidates X other heroes players already have in their barracks. Lock it to 5 star availability on exclusive banners. Make people willing to pay-out-the-ass for the best units in the game whale super hard for him angle they've been going all-in on since Surtr. 

Edited April 24, 2019 by Shoblongoo

[Ice Dragon]

I see no problem with infantry other than the fact that he'd have the strongest Heron weapon in the game since it would come with Bushido when transformed.

[Yexin]

infantry beast dancer with a personal sing assist maybe

[redlight]

Heron chibi with infantry tag