Food for Thought

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Laegjarn: New Experiences

Summary:

Laegjarn is a really popular unit, getting her for free with chill defence built into her weapon, and chill res, along with good stats?! This is a great opportunity to add another unit to your team, who would have thought that Camus 2.0 would actually be coming as a new years unit.

Without Skill Inheritance:

With a pretty nice 35 defence and 35 speed, Laegjarn can be built to either maximise one of these stats and ignore the other, or she can just be gratefully accepted as a solid support unit due to her def/res chill. 

I personally love the fact she can easily become a mixed range tank thanks to us all now being able to get up to 10 spare Berkuts.

With Skill Inheritance:

Laegjarn goes from being a slightly weaker version of Camus to being an actual demon, it’s honestly terrifying to see what the possibilities are for her. 

With dual atk/def bond and chill atk you can easily have an effective 62 defence, that’s without buffs. Running brazen skills you can easily have 52 def and 30 res, that’s some solid bulk for a ‘low res’ unit.

Strengths:

Laegjarn is a free unit, this means that eventually you can +10 her, no orbs needed!

Laegjarn is blue, so she ca take on a lot of the scary strong red enemies like her sister. 

Cavalry units are still some of the best in the game, with excellent mobility and well-rounded stats, cavaliers are some of the strongest opponents you’ll face, and have always been prominent in the meta.

Weaknesses:

You’re gonna be waiting for a good while to +10 her, given that they’re only just adding units like Azura to heroic grails, and you’ll still have to actually earn enough grails to summon another 9 Laegjarns.

She’s not gonna be able to do much to green foes, even though she has solid attack and defence, enemies like Fae and Surtr will literally make mincemeat of her, she just can’t touch them! She’s versatile but she’s not a god.

The builds that make her good are really high investment, if you don’t absolutely adore her then you might as well focus on someone else, I think that the brazen set is a good low-cost option for you, but it’s still a rare skill.

Build Suggestions:

Brazen Budget:

Double brazen is a pretty common sight since Ares got demoted, getting an extra 14 attack and 7 def/res really helps Laegjarn ascend and doesn’t require as many premium skills, don’t forget that quick riposte 2 is a great substitute if you have a strict budget.

Horse Lukas:

So stealing from her father, Laegjarn can gave truly inhuman defence, with guard and an extra 13 defence when considering her skills, as well as an effective +12 attack, Laegjarn becomes an efficient powerhouse, you could swap out her B slot for renewal if you want to make her even harder to kill, but I like to guarantee some double hits.

Thicc Princess:

Okay so I actually wrote this post a few days ago but tumblr deleted it just before I went to post it since I accidentally touched the edge of my screen while leaning for the post button, so, you know I’m not too happy, but please check out my other stuff if you like this!

Cecilia: Festive Instructor

Summary:

Cecilia is an incredible woman, she has some superb potential, but suffers a little bit because of her need for some premium skills to really help her meet her potential.

Without Skill Inheritance:

Cecilia’s build has some really good synergy, with distant defence she can reach 47 defence and 51 resistance, that’s incredible and means that she’s gonna be able to take on literally any ranged foes on the field, but it will need you to keep her surrounded by allies.

With Skill Inheritance:

Now this is where things start to get fun, Cecilia can run some intense builds like close counter with vengeful fighter and close defence, genuinely she can just sit in front of her enemies and pick them off one by one. I saw a beautiful build with starfish+ and bold fighter (acting as desperation with a guaranteed double on every enemy). 

Strengths:

She’s free! Cecilia is a super strong armoured unit and she fills that hole that your armour team has, plus if you build her in the way that fits your needs she’ll be a superb ally.

She’s got insane bulk, with the crazy defensive stats I’ve mentioned above and the ability to use armour skills, which are some of the strongest in the game, it means that she can take on both physical and magical foes!

Weaknesses:

She’s not gonna be able to get merges for a while, you’ll have to wait until she’s a heroic grail unit, and even then it’s gonna take a long time to get enough grails.

You’ll need 200,000 feathers to actually make a +10, that’s a damn lot, that’s ignoring the premium skills from 5 star exclusives that you’ll need to make her as strong as you’ll want her to be.

Build Suggestions:

Gentle Tutor:

Okay so this lets Cecilia do some gentle support work and literally just float in and take on your enemies if an ally gets in a pinch, it really helps her to be a support unit without costing much.

Mid-level Inheritance:

Okay so this has some budget skills that aren’t from 5-star exclusive armour units, meaning you can at least have a chance of being able to slap these skills on and get some use out of your Cecilia, she’s a ranged tank and can take on literally anything apart from dragons.

Oh Dear God:

First, a brief apology for the visual glitch with Eir’s C-slot, at the time of working on this it’s not working in my unit builder!

Eir: Merciful Death

Summary:

Okay so our first mythic hero looks incredible out of the tin, and getting her for free? Perfect. I’ll be honest if Eir had been a banner only unit I wouldn’t have even tried to summon for her, she just isn’t what I want. She’s nice and strong for a free to play unit, and being able to give great support while also dishing out superb damage.

The ability to take on dragons and literally ignore their buffs means that Eir is a great addition to the meta.

Without Skill Inheritance:

As you’d hope from a mythic hero, Eir has a pretty solid base kit, with new B and C slot skills to really make her worthwhile, her damage output it great, but her physical bulk is lacking.

While iceberg is a decent enough skill, Eir doesn’t have quite as much resistance as I would like, swapping this out for moonbow could be a good idea. As for an assist skill just pick anything that you like, I’ve gone for reciprocal aid so that in an emergency you can steal some health from the allies you’ve been healing passively thanks to her new skill.

With Skill Inheritance:

I’ll be honest, there’s not much left to add. As I’ve mentioned you can change out Eir’s special and slap on an assist, if you’re really getting into this while min-maxing thing then you could always do something crazy like change swift sparrow for life and death to push Eir’s attack and speed just the tiny bit further.

Her innate nullify follow up means that she can ignore vengeful fighter, and dragon foes! This means that as long as you can get in and out quickly, Eir is going to be able to take on many of the high ranking enemies out there.

Strengths:

Inbuilt ‘nullify follow up’ weapon, this lets Eir take on previously dangerous foes like dragons, and gives her a distinct advantage in the meta, especially since she’ll be depending on her resistance.

She’s free! Having a unit like this join your army at no cost makes her even more worth investing in. 

You can still merge her if you want, given that Eir is in the summoning focus on our current hero fest, you have a pretty good chance of getting her if you really want that perfect boon.

Passively healing allies on a strong offensive unit, you can chuck Eir into your tempest trials team if you don’t want to invest in renewal on every unit, or a healer on every team.

Weaknesses:

She’s a flier, you’re gonna have to pay attention to that low HP, defence, and that crippling weakness to archers.

Her defence is trash, if for some reason your Eir is accidentally left in range of any physical unit, she’s probably dying there and then.

There are better ranged units, brave Lyn and Veronica come to mind, and both are also free to play, while Eir does give you blessings it’s hard to compete with such strong cavaliers.

Build Suggestions:

Minimal Inheritance:

Eir’s base set is almost complete as soon as you get her, she can hurt her enemies pretty easily, and can be a great support to her allies! Running atk ploy allows Eir to weaken many of her foes, and given that most units will still be counterattacking, it’s a good idea to reduce the damage you’ll be taking, it’ll be more useful than def ploy would be, helping out with that bulk, you could change this for distant defence if you’re planning to use her as a mixed phase tank, or even double up the distant def for some mixed bulk.

True Support:

Hey guys! I know I promised to make Kliff but I’ve had one heck of a week, I’ll be posting him soon! For now take my Aversa, also, I’ve finally connected my Ko-Fi in case you guys wanna tip me (you really don’t have to though!! (having said that if you do I’ll do anything you request on this blog!))

Aversa: Dark One

Summary:

Aversa can be a really intense unit, and with her niche of red flying tome, she is worth taking note of, and trying to get. With a good offensive spread, it’s hard to resist making aggressive builds, but Aversa is more of a support unit, at least in my mind.

Without Skill Inheritance:

Aversa has a pretty decent base kit. Her skills all work together and make quite a lot of sense, however, since she’s a GHB unit there’s a lot of potential left here that you won’t access without shoving on some premium skills. 

As one of a very small handful of red flying tomes, Aversa has little competition, and with her good HP and decent stats, she can make a good addition to your team, especially for such things as the Rival Domains thanks to her ability to mass debuff your opponents.

With Skill Inheritance:

This is where we start to see Aversa’s potential. Aversa is lacking an assist and a B slot skill, adding these alone can really help you to make her more viable, adding a skill like renewal to keep her health topped up and her tome active on most enemies is a great idea. Other good options include chill skills and wings of mercy.

Since Aversa doesn’t have an amazing attack stat, her special is better off being moonbow or luna, her other stats don’t really give enough kick to be worth having their own specials, so helping her take down bulkier enemies’ stats is the best bet.

Strengths:

Aversa is really niche, only summer Tana and Halloween Nowi share her niche, given that they’re both exclusive she’s a much more viable option.

She can be handy on a lot of maps, being able to debuff enemies in rival domains and grand conquests is really handy, and makes Aversa worth investing in.

She’s free! Being a GHB unit means you can get 3 Aversa for absolutely nothing, and all you have to do is find a way to beat her map.

Weaknesses:

Flier weakness, given that archers make up a good chunk of the game, Aversa is going to struggle. B!Lyn, L!Lucina, L!Lyn, H!Jakob and many more archers can easily wreak havoc on your Aversa.

Low defensive stats and not great HP, given that her weapon requires her to have more health than her foes to debuff them, you’re going to struggle to use Aversa for anything other than support if you plan to use her tome.

She’s a GHB unit, you can only get 3 Aversa at this point in the game, and you’ll then need 62,000 feathers just to have her at +2. 

Red is overpopulated, given how many other good red units there are, you might as well just use one of them. Aversa isn’t great at the one thing that sets her apart from other red units.

Build Suggestions:

Minimal Inheritance:

Changing around a few skills and putting on renewal and HP+5 can really help Aversa to embrace her role as a support unit. You could consider running reciprocal aid to let her heal your allies or regain her debuff on her foes. This build increases Aversa’s longevity, and allows her to become much more useful.

Life and Death:

If you’re looking to deal some damage but also keep Aversa’s tome, this is the way to go. By keeping above 50 health you can debuff most non-dragon and non-armour units, and can ensure that your team has an easier fight on their hands. Having 41 speed and 54 attack ignoring flier buffs and enemy debuffs means that your Aversa is well suited for taking down enemies in one fight, and then fleeing to recover health if needs be.

Bladed Beauty:

Hey guys! I’ll be taking requests for builds if any if any of you wanna make any suggestions! I’m going to be really busy in the next ~7 weeks with university stuff but I’ll squeeze in what I can! 

ALSO while I know you can slap fighter skills onto an armour unit and make them really tough (especially my final build I mean, oof) I honestly didn’t want to just make all of them fighter skills because it takes away from the style of these builds, but by all means change that B slot and shove in vengeful fighter.

Henry - Happy Vampire:

Summary:

Henry is overall a really good unit, but there’s no avoiding the fact that he needs new skills in almost every slot! Genuinely apart from his weapon and armour march he needs new skills that actually work with his style. He’s got good enough speed to not worry about getting doubled, and can quite easily take out big threats. Be careful around red enemies though! Also just remember that with fighter skills you can unleash a new kind of hell, I just didn’t really feel like it for this review!

Without Skill Inheritance:

I’ll be honest, Henry’s base kit is just a little sucky, I mean, Live for Honour? come on, who’s ever gonna use that? anyway aside from his lack of A and B slot skills Henry is pretty good, he’s well rounded with good resistance, and that means you can make him into any type of unit you like!

Minimal skill inheritance will really help him though I remember when I first got Henry and all I had spare was death blow and desperation, but it worked!

With Skill Inheritance:

Having skills in his A and B slot, and being able to replace reprisal really helps Henry out. Having good resistance and low health means that even with a bane you’re probably gonna do more damage with iceberg even with a bane. 

Like I said you can make Henry good with some really simple skills like death blow and desperation, but if you have a spare Takumi there are some other builds I quite like.

Strengths:

Henry is a green armour mage, being a rare unit type means he’s automatically good, plus the meta is full of armour units and blue enemies, so Henry fits right in and can help take out a lot of common foes like Effie and Gwendolyn.

Henry has a great balanced stat-line, as I’ve said you can make whatever you like out of him, with his decent speed he avoids being doubled by most foes, and with good def/res his low health doesn’t matter too much.

Weaknesses:

Henry is an exclusive unit, you’ll only see him twice a year if that, so he’s hard to pull and can’t be a bonus unit. 

Red units are the most common in the game, with Lilina and L!Ike hanging around, Henry can easily get messed up by the hard hitting red enemies in the meta.

There are other, not exclusive, green units, Amelia and Hector, and even Julia all have characteristics that make them good, and they’re easier to get since they can, unfortunately, pitybreak you when you’re trying to get exclusive units *glares at Julia*

Build Suggestions:

Low-ish Inheritance:

Henry has some good mixed stats, but he needs at least some skills to have a full build. Res ploy is purely optional, and you could always swap his weapon for a blade tome but I prefer having the refine and panic, since it helps to bulk out Henry and deal with emblem teams! Shove your spare Shanna, Niles, and Hawkeye into your tomb and out comes a much stronger player-phase monster.

Quick Crow:

Okay so this is based off of my old version of Henry, I’ve forgotten who I’d foddered off for swift sparrow, but I remember them having really bad IVs so... anyway, Henry gets some intense mixed bulk with up to an effective 60 attack and 49 speed when you consider the res ploy, he can easily take out most mages, and almost all physical units with the exception of really hard hitters and triangle adept red units like Selena.

Close Counter Cadaver:

Another one for the queue! I’ll be doing a few of these in bulk and releasing 1-2 a day, if you guys want to see anyone in particular or want me to release builds more often send me a message!

Kagero - Beverage Ninja:

Summary:

Kagero is a really intense woman, and whether or not you invest a lot in her she’ll do incredibly well, especially given that she’s an armoured ninja. When it comes down to it, holiday units are all about your preference, I personally don’t think I’ll be summoning for her (I want Myrrh instead), but if you do get her, she’s got a lot of potential. 

Without Skill Inheritance:

Kagero is, in my mind, rather similar to last year’s halloween Jakob; she has pitiful speed and good atk/def/res, having overall mixed bulk means that Kagero can take on any unit in combat as long as she’s the one attacking. Her guard style weapon ability means that she can take on foes like Reinhardt and Ishtar who have hard hitting attacks with moonbow being able to take out most other bulky units. While nothing actually needs to be done to make her build any better, mirror strike isn’t really going to be that useful for Kagero, as distant counter foes will give her more trouble, so any extra defence is preferable.

With Skill Inheritance:

The ability to steal skills from other units makes all the difference between Kagero being good, and Kagero being great. Getting a new A slot to increase overall damage output or bulk will help Kagero to tank hits and allow her to debuff her foes. Brazen skills work well, but aren’t the only option. Having death blow 4 and going for an all out attack style will work with deadly efficiency.

Strengths:

Kagero is a green Dagger unit, with only Elincia as competition, Kagero is the best in her weapon type by far. Her ability to take hits and strike back with considerable force, combined with her build in guard allows her to take on so much more than Elincia is able to.

Blue units are the most common in the arena, meaning that Kagero will have a lot of opposition that she can easily take on, including dragons and mages due to her mixed bulk. 

Armour all the way! Kagero can get armour buffs, as well as this she can make the most of the intense ‘fighter’ skills, accelerating her special trigger while guaranteeing the ability to double attack, even with really poor speed.

Weaknesses:

Kagero is really slow, now I know that I said speed doesn’t really matter when you have bulk, but given how strong red units are and the fact they’ll be able to double hit your Kagero, if you’re careless she’ll be quite quickly demolished, especially since she can’t exactly run away from battle.

There are plenty of good green units, with such beasts as male Grima, Hector, and Brave Ephraim, Kagero has some strong competition, she’s great in her niche but I don’t need to explain what makes Hector or Grima just as good as her, if not better.

She’s a holiday unit, so hard to pull and can only be pulled from this banner, at least if you want her any time soon.

Build Suggestions:

Beefy Brewer:

Having excellent mixed bulk means Kagero is designed to take hits from all kinds of foes. Boosting her bulk by an extra 7 to both defence and resistance, bringing both to the mid 40s is insane, and means that Kagero is only going to take glancing blows from almost every enemy in the game. Having both bold fighter and quick riposte means that Kagero gets to double in both the player and enemy phases, allowing the highest damage output. 

Player Phase Monster:

Death Blow 4 and the new brazen atk/res sacred seal means that Kagero can bring her physical attack at an impressive 74 before considering buffs, with her bold fighter that means you’re going to double attack and trigger her special. This build is costly, and Kagero’s enemy phase presence is weaker but she’s still got enough bulk to take hits from a lot of enemies.

Close Counter Monster:

Okay guys so I’m putting these Halloween builds into a queue because otherwise they’d be out just a little early and nobody wants spoilers!

Myrrh - Spooky Monster:

Summary:

Myrrh is fantastic, she’s weak to falchion units, but with incredible offensive and defensive capability it doesn’t really matter. As long as you’re careful around her specific weaknesses, you can use her for any and all situations. And with one of the highest BSTs in the game, accompanied by the ability to inherit a distant counter weapon and run two brazen skills for the epitome of bulk, Myrrh is a force to be reckoned with.

Without Skill Inheritance:

Myrrh has a really incredible style, she’s effectively a red Effie with even more bulk and a dragon stone. With 179 BST Myrrh is literally only one point under legendary Tiki, and with a truly beautiful stat spread nobody can say that Myrrh isn’t desirable or threatening. Her A slot could do with being replaced as literally anything beats def/res 2

With another defence based weapon ability Myrrh is able to use her considerable bulk to determine whether or not she is able to make a follow up on her enemy, meaning she effectively has bold fighter without the special trigger boost.

With Skill Inheritance:

This takes Myrrh’s build to another level! Being a dragon Myrrh gets the special damage modifier meaning that she will target a ranged foe’s weakest defensive stat rather than purely resistance, helping her out against high resistance foes like Innes, Katarina, and Micaiah. As well as this the ability to massively increase Myrrh’s bulk with both the brazen Atk/Def and the upcoming brazen Atk/Res means that she’ll be able to reach base 50 defence and base 39 res, as well as a supreme base 68 attack! Yes, you did read that correctly.

Strengths:

Myrrh is one of the strongest armoured units in the game, meaning that not only does she fit right in to the arena, but also that she’ll stay a prominent figure for a long time.

Myrrh is one of only 5 red dragons, and is the only red armoured dragon, meaning that she is a great addition to any team, and can replace any Tiki.

Truly incredible base stats, with massive overall bulk Myrrh’s only weakness is her speed, but thanks to her weapon and her B slot she can consistently double her enemies.

Weaknesses:

Red is overpopulated already, meaning Myrrh is hard to pull and could easily be replaced by another high BST red unit, such as Tiki.

Dragon weakness and low speed mean Myrrh is in big trouble around falchion users. While she can take them on in the player phase due to her ability to double, she won’t stand a chance in the enemy phase and will quickly be defeated, even with 43 defence.

Myrrh is an event exclusive unit. I personally don’t think this is too much of an issue but if you’re hoping to +10 her then it will be. As a red unit she’s going to be hard to pull, on top of that she’s only going to be around in select events, such as legendary banners (which, in case you didn’t know, suck).

Build Suggestions:

Low Inheritance:

Most of Myrrh’s base set is ideal, so there’s no point in changing it. Her weapon and B slot cover her ability to double her enemies, and that leaves you with her special, A slot, and sacred seal to worry about.

Running brazen skills works so well for Myrrh because she has the health to utilise them. You can pop her into a battle where she’ll not quite one shot your foe, lose adequate health, and then have +14 attack and 7 Def/Res, which both increases her bulk and guarantees more counterattacks due to the defence boost.

Distant Counter Myrrh:

This is a bit more of a fantasy build, incorporating Myrrh’s best aspects and the influences of the arena scoring system. Aether keeps her health up while distant counter allows her to fight low-defence high-resistance foes. Having an effective 45 resistance and 59 defence means that Myrrh is perfect for distant counter, and really won’t take damage while being able to guarantee double hitting with her near insurmountable defence stat.

You could swap out Armour March for Panic Ploy but your C slot matters significantly less than A and B.

Lightning Breath:

That’s an incredible Ophelia, I think that’s probably the best IV spread you can get!

Okay so because her statline makes her rather fragile when it comes to taking hits, with 17 def and 23 res in your case, you’re going to want to optimise her ability to deal damage without taking it.

A quick special attack is a good idea, I’m a fan of in battle ones rather than her AoE styled attack, so I’d personally change that to something like moonbow or luna, for a quick way to take a chunk out of your higher resistance enemies.

For your A slot given that we’re looking at a fast and hard hitting unit, life and death is a great option! You’ll be sacrificing her already low def/res and pushing her up to 41 speed and 56 attack, which makes her a much more offensive unit! You could run fury, but I don’t personally think that the backfire is worth it since she won’t gain any crucial bulk like for ploy skills.

For your B slot I’d say that chill resistance is a great option, bringing Ophelia’s attack to an effective 63 and helping to take on high resistance units that a ploy couldn’t touch, but if you’re feeling like changing things up then the standard desperation idea works well for her.

C skills are always harder to chose, I’d honestly say whatever floats your boat, I tend to like having drive skills, but even having threaten speed works, it’s all about who you’re using her with and those ally stats - is there any point in having drive speed? If you’re using slow armoured units then almost certainly not.

Okay so this is one of my favourite new units, and she’s pretty easy to build too! I hope you guys have been having good luck if you chose to pull on the Múspell banner!

Laevatein: Searing Steel

Summary:

Laevatein is one of my new favourite heroes, I was lucky enough to get her with 13 orbs and got +atk -HP, using her is a dream and I adore her ability to take on top tier enemies with very little to worry about. Her potential is godlike, and I really don’t know how IS will make a red unit better than her.

Without Skill Inheritance:

Just...wow, Laevatein is a straight up monster out of the box! She’s like a small, demonically possessed, sword wielding Nino thanks to her signature weapon sharing her name. The ability for a sword unit to have the blade tome style of damage boost is genuinely insane, and makes Laevatein one of the scariest units I have ever seen, reaching damage levels I’ve never seen before. 

Genuinely there’s very little need for inheritance, but a special attack and something other than fury would be good, since Laevatein doesn’t have a lot of HP, so fury takes a good chunk out of her.

With Skill Inheritance:

This girl gives me flashbacks to when Ayra came out (which feels like forever ago), Laevatein is physically quite bulky with an impressive 37 base defence, and with almost 60 attack with neutral IVs you can understand how much potential she has! The only problem I see with inheritance is that to improve Laevatein you’ll be getting rid of some very powerful, and rare, units like Hector.

Strengths:

Laevatein is able to one shot a MASSIVE range of enemies. This ability to defeat her foes before they’ve had a chance to react means that even with her slightly lacking HP and resistance, you don’t have to treat her like she’s fragile.

Laevatein doesn’t depend on tactic skills like from Titania, meaning your team can be diverse, she buffs 3/4 of her stats on her own with normal gameplay, so you don’t really need to worry about how you’re going to get her powered up.

She’s actually got good mixed bulk if you build her the right way. This means that you could hypothetically run a solid distant counter version of her and be able to take a few hits, as long as it’s not a blue tome. 

Weaknesses:

Red units are the most prevalent in the game, this means that not only is Laevatein going to be hard to pull in the banner, but that you’ll never see her again after it, and that you could have just stuck to a slightly less insane red unit who could easily beat her, even original Ike could take her out thanks to swordbreaker, as long as you make sure she’s not too buffed.

Blue units crop up a LOT in the arena, meaning that Laevatein is going to need a lot of support to make kills, she’ll need buffs to almost every stat to take on the stronger blue units, and at that point you’d be better using actual Nino.

Low health means that if you’re not careful all those buffs will get reversed by panic ploy and your Laevatein will die incredibly quickly.

Build Suggestions:

Low Investment:

Laevatein doesn’t actually need to have a brazen skill, but it bulks her up a lot and brings her neutral attack to 63, which is always good. Not having the after-battle damage from fury means that Laevatein will be able to strike down an enemy in the player phase, and then fend off any enemies in the enemy phase. 

“Cheap” Distant Counter:

Of course, this isn’t actually cheap and to be honest it’s only really for your hardcore fans who have a spare Hector lying around. With a rather impressive 40 def and 28 res, Laevatein can quite easily take on archers, and even green tomes. She’s also still able to buff up 3 of her stats meaning she still doesn’t depend on others for her damage output.

All or Nothing:

Okay so a recent suggestion here with Saias! If any of you guys have units you want to see on here send me a message and I’ll go through them when I can!

Saias: Bishop of Flame

Summary:

Saias isn’t incredible out of the box, but with investment of some of the modern skills we have and some love, you can make a strong blue mage. In my opinion you’re better off with some of the newer blue tome units, but at least Saias is free to play.

Without Skill Inheritance:

Saias is an interesting character, I for one like his art, but find him a little bit underwhelming with only his base kit. Out of the box you’re left with a rather physically fragile but highly useful debuffing unit thanks to Saias’ inbuilt ploys in his legendary Wargod’s Tome. 

This ability to weaken enemies before combat, especially given that three stats can be debuffed rather easily means that Saias works really well as a support unit, but can often struggle to survive any physical combat, and certainly won’t survive any initiated combat against a dragon.

With Skill Inheritance:

Saias becomes significantly more competent once he has some abilities of his own. He won’t ever really be top tier, but can prove himself against low res enemies, and high attack mages. The ploys he has are really worth keeping, but escape route is honestly never going to be useful. With a stat boosting A slot and a reasonable B slot skill like quick riposte, guard, or renewal, Saias’ overall capacity in combat can actually be pretty good. While he doesn’t have particularly incredible speed, his ability to ploy a large amount of his enemies means that he’ll avoid a lot of crucial double attacks, while being able to hit back fairly hard due to his built in res ploy.

Strengths:

Saias is a free blue mage, we don’t exactly have many good free to play blue units, now of course we have Fjorm and Camus, but sometimes it’s nice to change thing up a little bit.

He’s got 3 ploys off the bat, and high resistance meaning those ploys can be used most turns and really help out your team in a pinch.

There are a lot of enemies that are weak against him, due to the low res and red dominated nature of fire emblem Saias is able to take on a lot of enemies due to his innate advantage over them, as long as they can’t hit back.

Weaknesses:

Saias is really brittle, now of course there’s the argument that Saias doesn’t have to stay brittle and that if you’re careful he’s got more than enough bulk to take on mages, but with a measly 18 def and below average HP he really can’t take non-magic hits.

He’s a GHB unit so can’t be merged much, this only affects his ability to be used in the arena, but given that Saias can’t be merged, he’s worth less points and if you’re in a high tier it can render him unusable if you want to stay up there. 

There are better blue mages, Linde, Ishtar, Micaiah, even Delthea, these girls have better attack and speed stats, and generally are much better at fighting in the meta, especially Micaiah given her ability to abuse both armour and horse emblems. Simply put, as much as Saias is nice he doesn’t have much going for him, and is easily forgotten.

Build Suggestions:

Low Investment:

Saias can easily be bulked up and helped to hurt his enemies by changing his skills a little bit. Swapping glacies for iceberg really helps to give some consistency to Saias’ damage output and helps him to take out bulkier foes that he can’t risk being counterattacked by. Fury/renewal works wonders by allowing that triple ploy to be triggered more often while also ensuring Saias keeps his HP high enough to soak up some hits.

Ploy Boy:

44 resistance without buffs is no joke. By having this high resistance your ploys can hit almost every enemy on the field, which means that your resistance might as well be 48, and your enemies are going to really struggle to deal damage to you. Saias is suddenly able to weaken anyone who stands in his way, and with his newfound bulk can be used to bait out enemy magic users and swiftly strike them down.

Anti-Rein:

With Reinhardt being a well established threat, and Ishtar showing us the same brutal ability to strike down her enemies before they stand a chance of doing any damage to her, having 47 effective resistance as well as being able to avoid that pesky moonbow means that Saias can at least get some chip damage on these high tier blue foes, allowing you to bait and destroy them before you lose an ally.

Close Counter:

Hey guys as a quick note I’ll be putting my suggested builds at the top in these photos and discussing them in order at the bottom of this post!

Garon: King of Nohr

Summary:

Garon is a pretty solid red infantry dragon, with the only other red dragons being our 3 Tikis, it’s a pretty good niche that he falls in to. 

Overall Garon is good, but can be outdone by other red units, his mixed bulk is nice, but aside from his nullification of the “effective against dragons” bonus, he’s nothing too special when it comes to dragons. Tiki outclasses him in most ways, but that doesn’t mean Garon isn’t a good unit, if he was in the summoning pool there’s a good chance he’d outclass her.

Without Skill Inheritance:

At a glance, Garon has an incredible base kit given that he’s a free unit. Panic Ploy and Distant Defence are both highly coveted skills, and while Garon doesn’t fully optimise them without a few tweaks, they’re still nice to see being made available to us.

With his blatant lack of speed, and enemy phase related skills, Garon is designed to soak up a few hits from green enemies, activate his weapon’s ability to recover some health, and to dispense a lot of damage in one short burst. While his base kit is pretty good, he’s honestly not as appealing as a low inheritance version of any of the Tikis, at least they’re effective against dragons.

With Skill Inheritance:

Getting his hands on some new skills is crucial for a dragon like Garon. Slapping on some premium skills can turn this twisted old man into quite the fighter! Seriously though, the fact any dragon can suddenly become so powerful is sickening, and means that they’re the only units who can effectively not need to eat a Hector to become top tier.

Having access to breath weapons means that Garon can be really versatile, from being a mass debuffer with a dark breath and distant counter build, to being a bog standard, beefy dragon by taking on the lightning/steady breath combo. 

Strengths:

Garon is in a really niche category, with only one other non 5 star red dragon unit readily available in the game, it’s nice for us to have access to one.

His base set is great. Seriously, his weapon gets rid of the worry of falchion users, and both his A and C slot abilities are pretty neat, with summoner support he can make use of panic ploy, and with minimal skill inheritance you can have a powerful build.

He’s free. Yeah, I know you have to beat his GHB but he’s a dragon with a legendary weapon and good skills that we can just get, making him more available than 2 of our 3 other red dragons.

Weaknesses:

He’s red. Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with having red units, but with so many other good red units and blue units making up a good majority of the arena enemies, Garon doesn’t really stand out.

He’s a GHB unit. This is more of a problem for using him competitively, but because he’s from a GHB you have a really limited number of merges, which means he’s going to score worse than a +10 merged Tiki, which means he’s quite quickly made obsolete.

A lot of skill inheritance is needed to make him good. As much as I personally like the possibilities that can come out of Garon’s base set, he works a lot better if you just make him into your typical dragon, and doing that is going to cost you both a lot of valuable 5 star units, and a hell of a lot of feathers. 

Build Suggestions:

Budget Build:

Slapping quick riposte (it doesn’t even need to be 3, 2 works just fine!) and close defence sacred seal immediately makes Garon able to tank hits from enemies near and far, and allows him to reach most of his potential as an enemy phase tank. Having a beefy 41 def and 40 res means that almost any hit can be soaked up, even against pesky falchion users, allowing at least one counterattack.

Distant Dragon:

We all know that Garon wasn’t exactly the most loving father, but this time we’re taking distant to the next level. By giving him summoner support and lightning breath you can have a strong enemy phase ranged unit, who’s not going to be stopped by Sacae’s blessing, and has more than enough defence to take on any ranged or close enemy, reaching 49 defence and 40 res in the enemy phase, and still an impressive 43 defence if the enemy is close ranged. A word of warning though as when Garon loses his weapon he becomes weak to dragon effective weapons once more

Dark Father:

Summary: Elincia is a pioneer, as the first green dagger unit she has a niche that few units can fit. However her effectiveness is uncertain, mainly due to her mediocre attack, low health and poor defences, but what else do you expect in a dancer? Her dragon effectiveness is nice for finishing them off, but has no real point as she’s too fragile to benefit from it

Without Skill Inheritance: The base kit Elincia comes with is pretty solid. With A, B, and C slots all having a 240 SP skill Elincia doesn’t necessarily need to inherit much apart from a special. She works in her own little way, and thanks to atk/spd push she does actually have some capability.

With Skill Inheritance: Getting some more optimised skills for the play style you have will turn Elincia into a much more vicious opponent. With a more offensive play style she can do well, especially given her weapon advantage over blue units - the most prominent in the meta. With the right skill set she can take on top tier enemies, including dragons, notorious for their bulk.

Strengths:

Effective against Dragons: this boosts Elincia’s offensive capabilities, especially since she won’t have to worry about vantage, and given the prevalence of dragons in the meta it’s pretty useful. 

Dancer: being able to support allies as her primary function, Elincia can be handy in a close fight, allowing you to get the edge over an enemy with that extra movement of your stronger allies. 

Unique Typing: Elincia outclasses other dagger units thanks to her neat weapon, colour, and ability to dance. With blue prominence having an extra green unit can definitely help.

Weaknesses:

Fragile: Elincia doesn’t have physical or special bulk, and on top of that has low health, she really can’t take hits. 

Mediocre: Elincia is outclassed by many other dancing units, notable examples are both green Azuras and YT Olivia. Her spot on a team could easily be replaced by a stronger green ally.  

Needs High Investment: to make a strong offensive unit you’ll need to get good IVs, inherit some more offensive skills, and have weakened enemies for Elincia to come away unscathed, given that it’s her job to weaken opponents this isn’t exactly ideal.

Build Suggestions:

Low Investment: - 

Running Elincia’s base set isn’t too bad, her first attack is boosted by her A slot so she can dish out some damage, and her focus on supporting allies means she can get away without copious amounts of skill inheritance. Moonbow and Luna help her to hit bulkier enemies, since she doesn’t have the stats to run other offensive special skills. Smoke skills have great synergy with dagger units. 

Weapon: Cloud Maiougi+

Assist: Dance Special: Moonbow / Luna

A: Atk/Spd Push 3 

B: Rockslide Dance 2 

C: Drive Res 2 

SS: Quick Riposte 3 / Attack Smoke 3 / Speed Smoke 3 

High Investment: 

This needs a +Atk or +Spd Elincia, but massively improved her offensive potential. With a dagger that boosts her damage output and with a speed boon and summoner support reaching 47 base speed, Elincia can really take on her enemies. Her bulk really suffers, but if you go for fury her synergy with desperation and her low health can help her to beat opponents before they know what hit them. 

Weapon: Barb Shuriken+ / Lethal Carrot+ (+Spd) 

Assist: Dance 

Special: Moonbow / Luna 

A: Life and Death 3 / Fury 3 

B: Desperation 3 

C: Drive Res 3