Fire Emblem Heroes Topic: You knew this was coming!

[Pyro]

Beat the Infernal Lyon fight. That was a lot of enemy units. I guess they give a reinforcement for every enemy killed so there is a constant 6 enemies on the field until the reinforcements run dry?

I ran NY Azura (Wings of Mercy/Hone Fliers), NY Camilla (Wings of Mercy/Ward Fliers), Myrrh (Fury/Desperation/Brash Assault/Goad Fliers), and Cordelia (Fury/Escape Route/Fortify Fliers/Galeforce). Went up the right side of the map and relied on Reposition along with teleporting singing and Galeforce to control position and turns. Myrrh started off tanking hits till low HP then she switched to killing things dead (She KO'd both Armor Knights) while tanking blue enemies who tinked.

Good fun.

[VySaika]

So I am a feather hoarder and finally decided to spend some of the, oh, 100K+ feathers I've been sitting on to make a Cavalry Emblem team. Still in the process of actually leveling them up and getting all the skills, but here's the eventual plan...though suggestions are welcome for any alternate abilities I could use!

Xander
Weapon: Siegfried(of course. Why would you ever give up a Distant Counter weapon?)
Support: Reposition
Special: Bonfire
A: ???
B: ???
C: Hone Cavalry

Pretty standard Xander, I guess. Unsure what to do for his A or B skills, I'm...pretty sick of Fury and am already using that on someone else anyway, so not that.

Camus
Weapon: Gradivus(see above)
Support: Reposition
Special: Moonbow
A: Fury
B: ???
C: Goad Cavalry

Hey look it's Blue Xander(only faster and actually takes physical damage sometimes). Tossing Fury on him because I had 1 4* Hinata left to give it with and he seems a solid user of it since he can't benefit from the Goad Cavalry as he's the one it's on!

Cecilia
Weapon: Gronnblade+ (RIP my first ever feathered up unit, the Nino that carried me through much of the earlygame)
Support: ???
Special: Moonbow
A: ...Attack+3? It's innate at least.
B: Axebreaker(can't count on Xander of the lollerskates speed to ORKO axes, after all)
C: Ward Cavalry

So full cavalry buffs Gronnblade+ is...silly. Just. Silly. Splatting Red Mages in one shot kind of silly. Overall MVP of the team rn, but Attack is the only thing she does well. Still, that's some damn nice attack.

Oscar
Weapon: First Bite+ (...look. I had that Bridal Charlotte and refused to use her out of principle. And Oscar is a cook. Also Oscar beating people to death with a cake spoon is fucking hilarious. Not sure which Refine I should do on it, though. +Spd most likely?)
Support: ??? (I could stick with his Rally Spd/Df maybe?)
Special: Moonbow(herp derp moonbow for everyone)
A: ???
B: Lancebreaker(it's innate, after all)
C: Fortify Cavalry or Ward Cavalry (so I have both of these on him, thanks to getting the latter on a second Oscar and then merging. I don't think Fortify buffs stack with First Bite buffs, so when I went with that I thought prepping to double up on Ward was a good idea)

I had a few other options I could have used, but Oscar is awesome so I used him. Sorry Titania, you got passed up for squinty.

It's a solid enough base I think, and I do have Ward Cavalry Olwen also around if I need to swap her in over Camus or Oscar for 2 mage cavs. A lot of skills I'm kinda "what do" on, though I'd love to put stuff like Distant Defense on either Xander or Camus but lack anyone to sac for that. The main idea here is for Cecilia to swing in and obliterate something, then for Xander or Camus to swing her back and get ready to tank on enemy phase. First Bite Oscar can ideally get some help with buffing defenses in and also hide behind the black armor ascot duo for enemy phase stuff, but he can also take a hit at least if he can't get swung back due to terrain.

[SnowFire]

I would say that Draw Back works pretty well on Cecilia, especially Blade Cecilia who you usually don't want tanking yourself.

I run TA3/Raven Ceci, but Blade Cecilia might want Distant Defense for the A Slot just to ensure she can survive a Rein burst?  Maybe throw in Bowbreaker rather than Axebreaker (let Xander handle the Axes) if you want to survive some BLyn builds (probably not Brave Bow+, unfortunately).  Unfortunately DD is a pretty rare A slot.  You could use DD Seal instead, of course, although Xander kind of wants that too.

In the same way, I might consider Swap rather than Repo on one of Xander / Camus to get Cecilia out of trouble if she has to poke her neck out to get a kill...  Horses can have very constricted movement due to forests & other obstructions, and Swap "always works" unlike Repo which can get blocked sometimes.

If you don't care about Black Knight, you can sac him for a Steady Stance on Xander if you don't want to use Fury.  BK is awesome though, so care.

Normally I would say to stick Lancebreaker on Camus, but you already have Oscar doing that, so maybe that's overkill?  Bowbreaker maybe?!  Except for the part where it doesn't help vs. Lyn anyway (unlike Cecilia).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Very solid team. Suggestions for your empty skills:


Xander: He's mostly an enemy phase unit in my experience, so many of the usual suspect A skills are less good on him than normal. Fury's obviously good, but if you don't want to go with that... it depends what you're willing to sacrifice. Any of Close/Distant Defence, Steady Stance/Breath, Warding Stance/Breath, Fierce Stance, Bond skills all strike me as good choices. I recommend Quick Riposte as his B skill so you can kill people dead. Getting doubled is actually okay with him, if it's something he can survive, because that gives you a turn 1 Bonfire! If you're willing to give him the Quick Riposte seal, Vantage is a good choice too.

Camus: Quick Riposte is a good choice here too, though you could also run a breaker if you wanted. Normally I'd suggest Lancebreaker but it seems like Oscar has you covered there.

Cecilia: With Cecilia your main goal with your A skill should be to make sure you kill foes who nullify cavalry/mage buffs like Brave Ike, Brave Lyn, forged Wolf-tome users, etc. Offence-oriented skills like Death Blow, Darting Blow, Swift Sparrow, Life and Death all help in this regard. Bowbreaker might not be a bad idea just to have a better Bow Lyn counter, since she ignores Distant Counter. With Moonbow she can ORKO most Bow Lyns even without Goad Cavalry support.

Oscar: I definitely find Reposition/Draw Back/Swap significantly more useful than Rallies (especially Reposition), but if you're short on Selenas and Barsts and SP you can consider using his innate. Definitely give him Fortify Cavalry, you want Cecilia having access to the full wrath of +24 bladetome carnage.

In general I'd recommend Goad Cavalry over Ward Cavalry (FEH stats aren't equal in their value; +4 spd alone offers almost as much durability as +4 def/res to be honest). Extra Fortify/Hones are also an option. The only exception is if you have something very specific in mind you need someone to survive. Offence just outvalues defence a lot at the moment, especially since a number of mechanics such as Vantage-limits and Wings of Mercy punish you for almost killing instead of outright killing.

[VySaika]

Re: Ward Cavalry - I didn't know if multiple Goads stacked with eachother, so I went with one of each buff(and figured the Ward would help the tanks, well, tank.) I could probably get Goad onto Cecilia as well though. Run Hone/Fortify/Goad/Goad.

Re: Xander Skills - yeah, Distant Defense would be ideal...but I don't have it. RN that skill is exclusive to 5* units that I did not draw. The problem I'm running into is that all the good skills for him are on chars I only have 1 or 0 of, and if I have one I'm also using them. Fjorm and H.Nowi's Bonds, BK's S.Stance and Br.Ike's S.Breath, all great choices for him but also all on chars I'm still using in other teams(or will be using once I put together a decent Flier team, not gonna sac my only flying mage before then). I will probably give him the Distant Defense Seal when I'm using horse team, though. B Skill I was also thinking either QR or Vantage, and QR is prolly the better choice with the DD seal sure. Though I only have 1 source of QR I can sac(one Subaki, so that's only QR2 without another 20K feathers to 5* him first), while I have lots of sources of Vantage 3. Hmm.

Re: Cecilia - I hadn't considered L&D actually. Mostly she's swinging at stuff that can't counter anyway, or explodes on the first hit so I'm not that concerned about the loss of Def/Res. I can swing L&D2 easily enough, would have to feather up another Hana to 5 to give 3(does anyone give L&D3 at 4*, actually?). Though I DO have a 5* Hawkeye around I don't give half a shit about, would L&D2 or Deathblow 3 be the better pick? Another question there, with L&D, will Br.Lyn OHKO making the Bowbreaker kinda pointless?

Re: Camus - Bowbreaker is a thought for him, sure. Br.Lyn does just ignore the distant counter, but if she plinks at Xander then Camus can just roll up and garuntee the ORKO on her on player phase. That's kinda how I've been dealing with Br.Lyn in any team, position a tank to take the hit and then swing someone up that straight up OHKOs her physically frail ass. Would also let him deal with other archers in non-arena settings just fine(GHBs, TT, etc).  I do only have the 1 source of QR I can give out, though when actively using the team I could toss the QR seal on Camus and the actual skill on Xander easily enough.

Hmm. OR since I can swing Vantage3+QR Seal and QR2+DD Seal. One on Xander, the other on Camus. Seals are transferable so I just swap the good shit to my Armor team when using that, or my Horse team when using them, etc. 

Re: Oscar - I did already put Reposition on both the ascot boys, but I could put Swap on Oscar easily enough. Still fits the idea of protecting Cecilia in a setting where Reposition doesn't work.

Thanks for tips. still need to figure out what to A skill on Xander but eh, I'll come up with something eventually.

[Pyro]

Multiple goad and ward skills stack, but fortify and hone skills do not.

Blade tomes only count the fortify and ward tome buffs for the damage increase (i.e. blue number stats).

[DjinnAndTonic]

Sothe has L&D3 at 4*, if you've been pulling lots of colorless lately for some reason.

By the by, what are the chances of Camus's GHB coming back soon? I missed him the first time and he seems like a ridiculously useful unit... (And I love Distance Counter and Close Counter units...)

[Shale]

The #1 complaint of the online fanbase has been Camus and Xander not returning after their GHB runs. No acknowledgement yet from IS.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Xander is in fact returning this month. No word on Camus yet, but I have to imagine he'll show up sooner or later.

Camus is fine but he's far from essential; in particular, Reinhardt(/Olwen) makes such a strong case for a blue cavalry unit, so I've got a bit more respect for Xander simply because he's a different colour. (To be clear, Camus is solid and I'm not advising Gate remove him, just telling Djinn not to feel bad about not having him. I never use him myself.)

Re: Cecilia - I hadn't considered L&D actually. Mostly she's swinging at stuff that can't counter anyway, or explodes on the first hit so I'm not that concerned about the loss of Def/Res. I can swing L&D2 easily enough, would have to feather up another Hana to 5 to give 3(does anyone give L&D3 at 4*, actually?). Though I DO have a 5* Hawkeye around I don't give half a shit about, would L&D2 or Deathblow 3 be the better pick? Another question there, with L&D, will Br.Lyn OHKO making the Bowbreaker kinda pointless?

Bow Lyn nullifies buffs (Hone/Fortify) on enemy mages via Mulagir, which means Cecilia is limited to her base damage output against her. You won't have enough power to OHKO regardless of your choice of A skill (it takes 63 atk to OHKO neutral Bow Lyn), so Bowbreaker is needed to double. Of course, if Lyn is running the Brave Bow instead, she doesn't have this effect, so yeah you can collect your player-phase OHKO pretty easily. Either way in this specific case it doesn't much matter what your A skill is.

EDIT: I will say that if you're planning on using this as your primary arena team (or at least 3 of them as a core thereof), that you should always go with a v3 version of a skill over v2 when you can afford it, since it affects your scoring (not much, but every bit counts). If you're planning on using the team for general use elsewhere, though, this distinction doesn't matter.

[VySaika]

Well I wasn't thinking Cecilia would OHKO Brave Lyn. I was wondering if the Life&Death def penalty on Cecilia would make Brave Lyn OHKO Cecilia, making Bowbreaker's stopping of the double kinda pointless. But yeah, I can do Deathblow 3 instead easily enough. Also I probably won't do this as my arena team, no. I tend to just hover between 17/18 eternally because I don't care enough about arena to put the energy into competing at the higher levels, tbh.

Also, I just build this horse team and THEN I draw Mage Cav Eirika while fishing for green orbs on the FE8 banner and being given nothing but Red and Colorless to choose from. :V

[DjinnAndTonic]

Well, now you have Horse Emblem OPTIONS!

[Luther Lansfeld]

I managed to draw two consecutive Tanas after trying to draw her for months every time she was on a banner. You know how each character from Heroes has their own FE Heroes personality trait that they play up? Well, Tana's is "my brother doesn't respect me". That's... kind of depressing, actually.

[VySaika]

So the new music game mode, Tap Battles. is there any reason to do them on Hard if you've cleared them on normal? It doesn't seem to give any extra rewards.

[Meiousei]

Hard and Normal give each. So you want to do it on Hard to get the rewards.

[metroid composite]

Hard and Normal give each. So you want to do it on Hard to get the rewards.

Don't think I've ever seen any rewards for clearing a level on hard that I've already cleared on normal.

That said, just Cleared Hard+Expert mode Floor 100, and am pretty happy about it, cause geez, that was way harder than all the other floors.  (Narcian himself was fine, cleared in two tries once I got to him.  But the level was just nasty).

[DjinnAndTonic]

Haven't seen any rewards from Hard mode either.

I also want to chime in that I love the Rhythm game itself on Hard/Expert. Just need some better songs to really get some challenge out of it. Haven't tried Floor 100 yet, though.

--
Got an ATK+ Dapper Hector to rule the meta for a while.

...still can't clear RobinF's Infernal GHB though.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The new GHB quests are a good time. I've cleared them all so far with my cavalry and flier teams, and usually infantry (which benefits from having lots of options, though doesn't have the great support skills or mobility). My armour team has more problems. They keep buffing armour (the new seal from the current Tempest will help) but I still find them very clunky.

I broke down and burned a Nino to gave Spring Camilla Gronnblade+, so now I have a choice between erasing all blue/colourless and having >80 attack before supports and goads. I wish I had Close Counter to make the latter build really shine, though.

[Hunter Sopko]

Managed to clear the All-Armor one for Ursula on Infernal. Only have 4 armored units to work from though, so it was all about finding proper positioning to wall/avoid magic nukes.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Sad that Tharja didn't win the Legendary Hero contest. Considering that the game tried to rig the contest for Ike, though, it was pretty close. Now I have a new character who isn't even good skill fodder. Sad.

[Grefter]

Stuck with some Ike trash from bad FE without bishies.   At least Tharja would understand the need to be blood sacrifice for the Xander Army.

[Hunter Sopko]

Sad that Tharja didn't win the Legendary Hero contest. Considering that the game tried to rig the contest for Ike, though, it was pretty close. Now I have a new character who isn't even good skill fodder. Sad.

Same. I pulled Legendary Ike on the first banner, so I voted Ayra round 1, and then Axe-zura. Then on the free pull for this legendary banner "Welp, no Blues. I guess I'll go Red. .... Legendary Ike. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF"

gfdi

Both the new ones are neutral. I forget what the old one is.

[SnowFire]

The only thing I'd really want off the current lego banner is more PA Olivias to merge, and lol at the odds on that, especially since the other colorless pulls I don't care about.  Pretty meh.

That said, the game clearly loves setting me up with Tanas, as I got another one off-banner recently on the Corrin-M / Azura banner.  Not complaining about that!
--

The Takumi GHB totally kicks my ass.  I might just admit defeat and use a YT vid strat.  I will say in the realm of "themed" playthroughs that suggest what IS could do with GHBs with just a tiny bit more work, I liked this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPU4eSfzef8
Pretty cool, especially if you played Conquest.  Don't turn off the music in enemy phase, voice act some lines (just steal the audio from your own game!), have character-specific combat conversations, etc.  Seems reasonably easy to add, except for maybe the voice acted part if FEH is in regions where Fates wasn't released...  but then use the JP tracks or something.

[VySaika]

Managed a full 7 streak without losing a single character in tier 19 arena, for the first time. Dunno if it'll be enough to let me go up to 20 considering Grima is on the banner and lots of folks will be running hueg BST teams, but eh. Still pretty happy with it.

Nowi/Ayra/B.Ike/Azura team. Nowi...is a lot better than I thought she was initially. And I have a couple more sitting at 4 star so I'm tempted to build them up and start piling pluses on her. Nowi/Ayra is also a fantastic support I'm finding. Ayra kills practically everything that actually threatens Nowi, Grima and V.Hector with Wary Fighter are the only real problems but Ayra+B.Ike have been enough to clear those out so far.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Just in case you didn't know (your post makes it ambiguous): your arena tier has no effect on the teams you face in the arena (and thus how difficult it is to have a deathless run).


Beat Infernal Takumi at last. I tried a lot of messing around with Bow Lyn to kill the clerics quickly but eventally said fuck it and retreated to using Flier Emblem. For the first time that I can recall I actually ran non-Triangle Adept Gronnraven (to get around Cancel Affinity) and it got the job done against the colurless enemies in this map.

Team was my standard Flier Emblem team of both seasonal Camillas, Hinoka, and Flying Azura. Just realized it's an all-Fates team, fitting for this I guess. I don't expect much of this to be replicable. NY Camilla has Iote's Shield, S Camilla has Darting Blow/Gronnraven+ and Distant Def, Hinoka has Death Blow, Lancebreaker, and Close Def, Hone Fliers/Goad Fliers everywhere. Eventually I'll get Fortify Fliers onto my main team.

Turn 1: NY Camilla and Hinoka destroy the right barrier, leaving NY Camilla in range of the bow knight. S Camilla swaps with Hinoka, is refreshed, and kills the gravity cleric. Bow Knight attacks NY Camilla, one Takumi attacks S Camilla, staff user heals Takumi.

Turn 2: S Camilla finishes Takumi, NY Camilla kills the bow knight, Azura kills the blue mage who just appeared. Hinoka positions for buffs. The staff user attacks S Camilla (for very little), the sword wyvern attacks NY Camilla (for very little, sadly Guard keeps her from dying to the counter).

Turn 3: NY Camilla kills the wyvern, S Camilla kills the staff user, Hinoka kills the sword user creeping in from the back. Skadi beam fires, hitting S Camilla and Hinoka. Lance cav attacks Hinoka but barely fails to kill, knife-user tinks S Camilla.

Turn 4: S Camilla kills the lance cav and the thief (with Azura's help), and from here on the reinforcements are done (just a Takumi and two cavs who appear this turn) who are easily kited and destroyed.

[DjinnAndTonic]

So the latest trailer shows Chrom's Sealed Falchion being effective against dragons of all colors: Red, Blue, Green, and Colorless.

Huh. Colorless Dragons are a thing now?

Since this is an Awakening banner, is it possible we're getting a fourth Awakening unit who would be a Colorless Dragon as a GHB/TT unit? Perhaps Nah? Another Nowi or Tiki? Female Grima? Straight up Naga herself?

I wonder if a colorless dragon like Naga would be able to use Cleric assist skills?

Also, this implies the first melee-range colorless option. Interesting!

There's only so many more weapon types they could even introduce at this point, though. There's still melee-range physical Colorless damage. And then long-range RBG physical damage.