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Aether Raids Tier List Article - October 16th 2020

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List of Changes - October 16th

Placements

Corrin: Child of Dusk has been placed in Tier 1

Sigurd: Destined Duo has been placed in Tier 1
Quan: Lightfoot Prince has been placed in Tier 2. Defense icon added.
Ethlyn: Glimmering Lady has been placed in Tier 2
Lachesis: Ballroom Bloom has been placed in Tier 2
Eldigan: Strutting Lion has been placed in Tier 2. Defense icon added.

Robin: Fall Vessel has been placed in Tier 2
Xane: Autumn Trickster has been placed in Tier 3
Dheginsea: Harvest Goldoan has been placed in Tier 2
Tiki: Harmonic Hope has been placed in Tier 1
Ena: Autumn Tactician has been placed in Tier 4

Ilyana: Hungering Mage has been placed in Tier 3
Gatrie: Armored Amour has been placed in Tier 2
Shinon: Scathing Archer  has been placed in Tier 1
Jill: Fiery Dracoknight has been placed in Tier 2
Petrine: Icy Flame-Lancer has been placed in Tier 3

Plumeria: Lewd Dream has been placed in Tier 1

Promotions

Summer Byleth: Fell Star's Duo has been promoted to Tier 1 (from Tier 2). Defense icon added.
Hector: Brave Warrior has been promoted to Tier 1 (from Tier 2)
Merric: Changing Winds has been promoted to Tier 1 (from Tier 2). Defense icon added.
Sothis: Silver Specter has been promoted to Tier 1 (from Tier 2)
Caineghis: Gallia's Lion King has been promoted to Tier 1 (from Tier 2)
Tiki: Torpid Dragon has been promoted to Tier 1 (from Tier 2)
Celica: Warrior Priestess has been promoted to Tier 1 (from Tier 3)
Ephraim: Sacred Twin Lord has been promoted to Tier 1 (from Tier 3)
Sigurd: Holy Knight has been promoted to Tier 1 (from Tier 4). Defense icon added.
Black Knight: Sinister General has been promoted to Tier 2 (from Tier 3)
Zelgius: Jet-Black General has been promoted to Tier 2 (from Tier 3)
Nagi: Dragon Avatar has been promoted to Tier 2 (from Tier 3)
Hardin: Dark Emperor has been promoted to Tier 2 (from Tier 3)
Ashnard: Mad King has been promoted to Tier 3 (from Tier 4)
Olwen: Blue Mage Knight has been promoted to Tier 3 (from Tier 4)
Robin: Fell Reincarnation has been promoted to Tier 3 (from Tier 4)
Fae: Holiday Dear has been promoted to Tier 3 (from Tier 4)
Arvis: Emperor of Flame has been promoted to Tier 3 (from Tier 5)
Saias: Bishop of Flame has been promoted to Tier 3 (from Tier 5)  
Conrad: Masked Knight has been promoted to Tier 5 (from Tier 6)

Demotions

Altina: Dawn's Trueblade has been demoted to Tier 2 (from Tier 1)
Hawkeye: Desert Guardian has been demoted to Tier 4 (from Tier 3)
Berkut: Prideful Prince has been demoted to Tier 5 (from Tier 3)
Altena: Luminous Rider has been demoted to Tier 6 (from Tier 5)

Defense icon added to Caeda: Princess of Talys

Weapon Refinery

September

This batch of refinement includes the units from Choose Your Legends 2 (CYL2), and just like the first Choose Your Legend refines, the power level is significantly higher than the other recent weapon updates.

Brave Veronica <TIER 2>

Brave Veronica followed a very similar trajectory to Brave Lyn; obnoxious and powerful when initially launched, and was given a rather modest refine relative to the rest of the units in the same banner. Her refinement can be broken down into two benefits; a 3-space Drive ATK/SPD buff which works only on allies, and a DEF/RES in-combat debuff on foes within 3 spaces of the unit that works on both self and ally. 

The buff portion is relatively easy to activate in Aether Raids offense, as Veronica can be part of a hit-and-run set-up while being evacuated to safety by an ally using Reposition. The in-combat debuff is slightly harder to use, as it is likely to only work on melee foes if Veronica is two spaces away from her ally.  If all the effects are considered in the refinement, Veronica is superior to Jorge in providing the highest potential ATK (6 ATK if the in-combat debuff is counted). This could be very useful when stacked with Enemy-Phase double-hitting units such as Altina and Laslow. Coupled with the ability to block counter-attacks, Veronica is a solid pick to pick-off foes and providing the frontline with some level of support.

However, if Veronica is within three spaces instead of two, the buff is likely to be marginal, as there is a lack of skills that can be utilised within three spaces. This means that at the end of the day, pure stat buffers such as Corrin (M) and Kaden are likely to provide more stats. 

Brave Ephraim <TIER 1>

One of the effects that we highly value in a unit for Aether Raids Offense is Null Follow-Up. One of the reasons that we value it highly is because of skills that block follow-up, such as those from Sturdy Impact, Blazing Durandal, and so on. Failing to secure a follow-up attack risks not defeating an opponent, which could potentially lead to issues of another enemy teleporting in using Wings of Mercy, or having to waste the player phase to take out the foe with low health.

Traditionally, what some players might do would be to use a skill that guarantees follow-up in the enemy phase (such as Quick Riposte), and revert to speed check to potentially allow for doubles. Brave Ephraim needs none of that; half of Null Follow-Up that prevents negation of follow-ups, and the ability to guarantee follow-up without resorting to a speed check.

Furthermore, we can draw lessons from other weapons with a Null Follow-Up effect. One interaction of Null Follow-Up would be with Windsweep, which disables the self-inflicting effect of blocking the unit’s follow-up in exchange for stopping counters from physical foes. Wary Fighter is another of such skills that blocks the user’s follow-up attacks, which in exchange block the foe’s as well. Removing that effect means that Ephraim essentially gains the ability to stop follow-up attacks as well. In the worst-case scenario of a guaranteed follow-up attack from his foes, blocking the follow-up from speed checks might not be too difficult with the abundance of speed support such as Temari+, Flower of Joy, or the trusty old Drive SPD.

The rest of the refinement is fairly straightforward; on-hit healing and +5 to all stats allows Ephraim to tank more. The on-hit healing does mean that using an offensive special (such as Ruptured Sky or Moon) is viable. The only issue that remains is Brave Ephraim’s class as an armor hero, so he still has the same mobility problems and weakness to armor-effective weapons. 

Brave Celica <TIER 1>

The jack of all trades and a master of none is what would aptly describe Brave Celica’s refinement as a whole.

In general, most melee infantry are highly rated for two factors; the ability to Galeforce and the ability to leverage SPD-based damage reduction skills such as Spurn. What is interesting about Brave Celica is that although she might not be the best at either job, her competency at doing both cannot be understated.

As a Galeforce unit, the two main points of reference are Navarre and Byleth (both male and female variants). Navarre is the only Galeforce user in the game that can pre-charge the skill just from skills alone without external help (although in reality, it is better to leave him on 1 charge). Byleth M and F are currently the only units in the game that can bypass Guard effects. While Celica’s post-combat charge effect means that she can bypass Pulse Smoke to charge Galeforce, that is more of an exception rather than the norm. 

When it comes to charging Galeforce, Brave Celica is undeniably weaker than both Navarre and Byleth. However, compared to both units, she has the highest total stats due to Royal Sword’s +5 bonus to all stats, and the extra healing can open up some tanking opportunities similar to how some Armored Galeforce strategies are used.

If we are evaluating Royal Sword for its tanking capability, while the extra healing can be helpful and the on-hit acceleration can allow for higher cooldown specials such as Aether, it pales in comparison to debuff negation (Kris, Shannan), debuff reversal (Fallen Ike), and Null Follow-Up (Mareeta). 

Our consensus is that Brave Celica is closer to the sword units in Tier 1 despite the lower ceiling in both strategies. Regardless of the tiering, however, Celica is valued for her versatility moving forward.

Brave Hector <TIER 1>

Before the refinement, Brave Hector’s Maltet was an adequate weapon. Post-refine Maltet is a different beast. 

In one sentence, Maltet provides cooldown reduction, neutralizes effective weapons, follow-up prevention, debuff negation, guaranteed follow-up, and inflicts ATK/DEF-6 on the foe. To illustrate how ridiculous that is, here is a list of some of the units with some of the same mechanics as Maltet (not exhaustive).

  • New Year Alfonse (cooldown reduction and follow-up prevention).
  • Valentine’s Rudolf (cooldown reduction and follow-up prevention).
  • Kris (F) (cooldown reduction and debuff negation).
  • Kris (M) (cooldown reduction and debuff negation).
  • Shannan (debuff negation)
  • Brunnya (debuff negation)
  • Spring Idunn (follow-up prevention and negate effectiveness)
  • Legendary Edelgard (follow-up prevention)

The only minor nitpick would be that Hector still moves like an armored unit, and he does not have access to Null C Disrupt to counter staves. Otherwise, his strength as a top tier hero is clear.

October

Effie <TIER 4>

Unfortunately, Effie’s lance is not much better than the inheritable options in Aether Raids. The most damning clause of the weapon is the refine effect only working in the first combat. This liability could be forgiven if the effect were worth the payoff. However, what is essentially the same effect as a Flowing Lance and Deck Swabber is simply not enough. Hence, there is no change in Effie’s tier.

Rhajat <TIER 3>

Rhajat’s Obsessive Curse is essentially Flora Guide, with a post-combat AOE damage effect. As it provides a similar effect to Venin’s Edge, many parallels can be drawn between Kempf and Rhajat especially in the context of Aether Raids Defense. The effect is potentially a nuisance to face against in a defense team, and being green does mean that she is a good answer against Blue units, such as Brave Dimitri and Brave Hector.

However, outside of her afflictions, Rhajat’s firepower is not as noteworthy as that of purebred nukers such as Sonya and Young Merric. Furthermore, as Rhajat’s bulk is not exactly stellar, placing her on the frontline might be a little bit dangerous. Bulking up Rhajat might also run into the problem of unit blocking your other ranged nukes, whereas Kempf can focus on bulking up and joining the frontline without blocking ranged nukes.

There will be team compositions that could value Rhajat over Kempf. However, the consensus within the team is that she is more difficult to include into a team over Kempf and offers comparatively less value. Hence, she is slated for Tier 3 compared to Kempf’s Tier 2.

Arvis, Saias <TIER 3>

These two had the same effect, be it the base effect of debuffing and gaining damage from foe penalties. Precedence of Broadleaf Fan+, Spy Dagger, and Blue Crow Tome suggests that a weapon can pretty much do no wrong with doing more damage from unit penalties (well, outside of Triangle Adept on the base effect).

The unit debuff is also not difficult to trigger, as it has a range similar to Yune’s Chaos Named with the main difference being that the weapon works horizontally. It is notable that Arvis and Saias work extremely well with Plumeria on Astra season, as Plumeria comes with Sabotage SPD as her base kit, and her weapon provides potentially even more debuffs for a further boost of damage if required. 

However, Arvis and Saias still suffer from mediocre offensive stat distribution compared to more modern counterparts. While Saias has three more stat points compared to Arvis, one can say that all of it went into HP, which isn’t the most helpful for their weapon’s playstyle. Regardless, the weapons do provide both Arvis and Saias a much-needed boost in Aether Raids Offense.

Seliph <TIER 2>, Sigurd <TIER 1> (Defense)

Divine Tyrfing’s base effect is almost three years old, but one could argue that it has aged rather gracefully. Damage reduction is always valuable, the limitation to magical attacks rather than all ranged attacks is a small disadvantage considering the popularity of magic damage in Aether Raids Defense. The refine tries to address the concern by providing the wielder a huge stat swing in ATK and DEF. Coupled with both Seliph and Sigurd having a higher physical bulk, Divine Tyrfing’s stat boosts provide extra bulk physically, and magically they are hedged fairly well by the damage reduction.

The main draw of the weapon comes from its follow-up effect in the refinement. It is worth noting that this weapon’s follow-up effect works on both the Player and Enemy Phase. While the follow-up applies to both Seliph and Sigurd, Sigurd is likely to be a better user. Sigurd’s additional movement makes him much more versatile, and having a significantly better speed means that he can bypass follow-up prevention from sources like Sturdy Impact and Blazing Durandal.

While the above is indeed true, Seliph does have the upper hand in terms of skill access. Infantry simply have more options to work with, with access to skills like Null Follow-Up, Special Spiral, and Null C Disrupt. Both Seliph and Sigurd each have their own merits, and both are worthy of Tier 2 in Aether Raids Offense.

For Sigurd however, Divine Tyrfing can also work as a phenomenal weapon in Aether Raids Defense. Sigurd’s increased movement gives him more options of engagement when moving and initiating combat, while being more difficult to take out while defending due to his improved bulk. As such, Sigurd is promoted to Tier 1 on the merit of his performance in Aether Raids Defense.

New Skill Considerations

Weapons with Null Follow-Up

With the advent of the Choose Your Legends 4 units and the very powerful refines of CYL2 units, one common theme is that many of the units have some sort of follow-up mechanics, be it ensuring or blocking follow-ups. This means that just simply running Impact skills may no longer suffice in blocking those follow-up mechanics, and Null Follow-Up effects (such as the skill itself and Daring Fighter) are gaining value on Aether Raids Defense. Weapons with such effects can also work with Windsweep, as there is an obvious opportunity cost of running Null C Disrupt over the powerful B skills. 

  • Young Merric to Tier 1 (Defense)
  • Summer Byleth (F) to Tier 1 (Defense)

Flowing Lance / Deck Swabber

As mentioned in the previous article, Flowing Lance and Deck Swabber raised the floor of units in general. Hence, rather than looking at who stood to gain from the weapon (which in all honesty is most units), we looked at units with similar effects as the said weapons and adjusted accordingly. 

  • Hawkeye to Tier 4.
  • Altena to Tier 6.
  • Berkut to Tier 5.

Courtly Lance / Courtly Candle / Courtly Mask

Before the release of these weapons, barring from personal weapons, slower units tend to lack any significant build options that can stand toe to toe with generic fast units. The Courtly weapons provide a slow unit a new lease of life by at least giving them a potential win-condition; being able to take down foes in a single hit to ensure that the 50% damage reduction is kept. However, the reliability is in question due to the HP threshold, which could be a problem if a unit is not durable enough to face the onslaught. 

As bows and daggers already have very strong options in the form of Spendthrift Bow and Broadleaf Fan respectively, we looked at lances that are considered slow by today’s standards and have a strong bulk with emphasis on RES over DEF due to the magic prominent meta. There is one new unit that we will cover later specifically that uses this weapon extremely well.

  • Conrad to Tier 5.

Slick Fighter / Crafty Fighter

The main star of the show between the two new fighter skills is Slick Fighter. Essentially, Slick Fighter offers every single armor debuff negation. That is an extremely powerful mechanic due to how common debuffs are in Aether Raids Defense. With that said, running Slick Fighter comes at an opportunity cost of other Passive B skills, such as Special Fighter, Crafty Fighter, and Odd Follow-Up. This means that should the foe be able to follow-up, be it through speed checks or guaranteed, the opponent might still get a special activation. 

Therefore, many of the units receiving promotions are melee units that can somehow access Distant Counter from their weapons. This is important as it opens up the use of a Tier 4 Stance skill for the Guard effect to prevent special activations. We included Dragons for consideration, as Thrasir would be less likely to activate Killing Intent due to the debuff negation. Winter Sothis and Nagi are the exceptions to the rule as they probably would want to keep their weapons, however, they still get a bump due to them having more options to work with.

  • Caineghis to Tier 1.
  • Fallen Tiki to Tier 1.
  • Winter Sothis to Tier 1.
  • Hardin to Tier 2.
  • Black Knight to Tier 2.
  • Zelgius to Tier 2.
  • Nagi to Tier 2.
  • Winter Fae to Tier 3.
  • Fallen Robin (M) to Tier 3.

Dragon’s Ire 

The combination of the effects of this skill grants the user the ability to follow-up regardless of speed threshold; the only exception being wielders with Null Follow-Up. For faster dragons, it might be more optimal to use Null Follow-Up over Dragon’s Ire for the defensive advantage against guaranteed follow-ups, such as those from Bramimond’s Void Tome. For slower dragons, allowing the foe to follow-up through speed checks will be a problem even if the said dragon has a guaranteed follow-up. 

As such, the heroes that stand to gain from Dragon’s Ire are slower dragons with the ability to prevent follow-up attacks: Myrrh and Spring Idunn are two examples that come to mind. However, the team generally believes that the availability of this skill does not change their capabilities significantly enough for a promotion.

Legendary / Mythics

Legendary Corrin <TIER 1>

Legendary Corrin is similar to Fjorm, with a strong emphasis on her special skill: Negating Fang. The difference-maker is two-fold; unlike Fjorm’s Ice Mirror, Negating Fang can work in both melee and ranged situations, and the boost in damage is dependent on her stat rather than damage mitigated, which can be counterintuitive for a tank.

The main point of contention is Legendary Corrin’s dragon class. Dragons are marred by two issues; dragon effectiveness and lack of access to one of the most powerful supports in the game; Brave Lucina’s Geirskogul. The on-hit acceleration and cooldown reduction of Corrin’s weapon, Primordial Breath does provide some solace in that regard with cooldown reduction, but the on-hit acceleration is something that only Negating Fang could leverage. Another point of contention is also the dragon's lack of access to damage reduction skills such as Close Call or Spurn, but Legendary Corrin does have other decent options such as Null Follow-Up or Mystic Boost if the player intends to use Negating Fang.

Without Negating Fang, Legendary Corrin shares a lot of similarities with her Fallen counterpart, which suggests that without it she would be closer to Tier 2. However, the uniqueness of Negating Fang meant that Legendary Corrin is greeted into Tier 1 with cautious optimism. 

Mythic Plumeria <TIER 1>

Astra Mythic Dancer, moving on. Plumeria’s introduction has prompted an overdue demotion to Altina, who previously remained in Tier 1 largely on the merit of her status as the strongest Astra hero.

  • Altina to Tier 2.

To Stay Dreaming

Generics

Generics are defined as units that do not have access to a unique weapon. As such, they will be tiered based on similar units from the current tier list placements. 

Masquerade Quan, Masquerade Eldigan <TIER 2>

Both of these dancers have very high base DEF, with Quan having a higher DEF ceiling due to access to Candlewax Bow and Eldigan having a higher HP ceiling due to being a melee unit and melee refines having more HP to work with. Due to the prevalence of Mila and Bridal Fjorm to a smaller extent, both Quan and Eldigan are excellent options to stop the attacking opponent from using isolation. Compared to Soiree Berkut, these heroes trade the access to Infantry Pulse for the access to Ground Orders, which is not necessarily a bad trade. Hence, they are placed in Tier 2 due to defensive considerations.

Masquerade Ethlyn, Masquerade Lachesis <TIER 2>

The female dancers have a high RES stat, which automatically means that Temari is a good option especially for a dancer on support. While a flier support skill access is significantly weaker than Infantry (Ward Fliers vs Infantry Pulse / Even Pulse Tie), they do have superior mobility options. This sidegrade from the dagger dancer units such as Tethys means that they are graded in the same manner as those units.

Uniques

Masquerade Sigurd <TIER 1>

A 3 movement dancer is especially huge; as proven by the prevalence of both Reyson and Leanne. Sigurd’s weapon is conditionally powerful by reducing the damage done by magic foes by 50%, and a lesson from Hoshidan Summer Micaiah shows that having a weapon that works well against a targeted group of foes can also be very handy when it comes to team selection. 

What is different from Reyson and Leanne is the Cavalry movement. With Fliers being the predominant movement class of Mythics, shoehorning a flier dancer meant that the dancer can’t receive buffs from Tactic skills, which could be relevant when it comes to soaking stats from the main unit. As none of the Mythics are Cavalry at the time of writing, until there are more Mythics to choose from, Sigurd opens up the use of Tactics skills to allow potential soaks with ATK and RES. 

Lastly, while his Duo Skill is not the most flashy, Reposition is still Reposition, and Sigurd has the option to do a double reposition if the positioning is right. The tanking nature of Gilt Goblet does somewhat help with that. 

Despair and Hope

Generics

Generics are defined as units that do not have access to a unique weapon. As such, they will be tiered based on similar units from the current tier list placements. 

Ilyana <TIER 3>

  • Resplendent Linde <TIER 3>

Gatrie <TIER 2>

Gatrie essentially pilfered Brave Edelgard’s stat-line and made it his own, which is no bad thing now that Courtly Candle exists. Remember the above where we said there is a unit that uses Courtly Candle extremely well? Gatrie is the unit with pretty much the best spread to use it well; very strong DEF and RES stat which makes Courtly much more consistent, and a decent ATK stat such that taking out opponents with a single hit is a possibility.

Uniques

Jill <TIER 2>

Through and through, Jill is destined to be a Galeforce unit in Aether Raids; Talregan Axe provides cooldown reduction, an offensive boost, and a Desperation effect on initiation similar to Dive Bomb except without the HP requirements. However, as mentioned in our previous article, Dive Bomb is much better leveraged by a unit with 3 movements, such as the flying beast units, and the same train of thought could apply to Jill as well; the lack of an easy escape option does make Talregan Axe a slightly tougher sell as a pure Galeforce option.

The main draw is Jill having essentially a free Passive B available to use. Usually, for a Galeforce unit, this meant using Wings of Mercy, but as Jill is a flier, Guard Bearing is an option. Jill’s Desperation effect means that she is in most cases at full health after executing the Galeforce strategy, which can be extremely useful to take a hit.

However, Guard Bearing should only be treated as a failsafe rather than a reliable source of tanking, as Jill only has 16 RES. Pegasus Flight is also not an option. Jill is forced to kill as many mages as possible in the Galeforce because she only has 16 RES.  If the point is clear enough, having that low of resistance can be a problem in a landscape where the most prevalent damage dealers are mages.

Shinon <TIER 1>

Outside of the cooldown reduction and all stats +5 that we are accustomed to by now, Shinon is our first unit in the game that has an actual Close Counter in the weapon, Double Bow (Boey has Close Foil, Julia has what is essentially Close Ward). However, one could question the usefulness of Close Counter at the time of writing, as a melee foe is likely to be less threatening than a ranged one. This lack of melee prominence in Aether Raids does mean that dropping Close Counter is a decent option for ranged units. The only time where Close Counter is used extensively is if the unit needs to kill to protect itself, which is common for Vantage sweepers. 

Essentially, Close Counter is now more of a luxury rather than a necessity compared to Distant Counter on melee units. The discussion should be focused on whether the additional Close Counter is comparable to the likes of Brunnya’s Debuff Negation, Fallen Lyon’s Damage Reduction, NY Alfonse’s follow-up prevention, or Brave Hector’s … everything. Right now, while we do think that Close Counter is potentially weaker, it is sufficiently strong enough to be considered for Tier 1 alongside Shinon’s other advantages.

Petrine <TIER 3>

Petrine is essentially a sidegrade Brave Eliwood, sans dropping the dragon effectiveness of Ninis’ Ice Lance in exchange for hitting for RES instead of DEF in Flame Lance. The usefulness of the weapon is questionable at best. Due to the scarcity of beast units in the offensive landscape outside of a couple of Caineghis in the wild. Hitting for RES is also not exactly the best idea as most opponents are well-prepared to deal with magic damage. 

However, being a lance cavalier does mean that she has access to “It’s Curtains…”, with which Petrine is arguably stronger than Eliwood with in this regard due to her higher stat totals and a potentially higher ceiling in terms of the offensive stats. It is with this in mind that Petrine is considered for Tier 3; a lance cavalry with a strong stat distribution with good potential in activating Galeforce in a single round of combat.

Dragon’s Harvest

In this update, dragons are granted a much-needed boost, as the developers finally gave them new inheritable weapons to work with. The weapons are rehashes based on the previously available seasonal weapons (Blackfire Breath to Pirates 2020 in July, Pale Breath to Spring 2020), and both are solid additions to the line-up of weapons available. The impacts of all the new skills available in this banner will be examined in the next update.

Generics

Generics are defined as units that do not have access to a unique weapon. As such, they will be tiered based on similar units from the current tier list placements. 

Halloween Dheginsea <TIER 2>

  • Halloween Myrrh <TIER 3>

Halloween Ena <TIER 4>

  • Bantu <TIER 4>
  • Garon <TIER 4>

Uniques

Halloween Xane <TIER 3>

Halloween Xane’s weapon, Jokers Wild is a unique weapon. He will take the highest of his allies’ stats within two spaces as his own. That comes with his fair share of potential and issues. 

One advantage that a ranged unit has is the ability to select a foe from the backline to take down. Having a weapon or any skill that requires an ally within two spaces is likely to limit the unit’s capacity in doing so. As Xane’s weapon is imperative to how his kit works, the capacity of Xane being able to dive into the opponent’s team without risking the ally behind is rather low. Furthermore, the intuition of running support for Xane would be to maximize the said support’s visible stats. That could be problematic as Chill skills and shrines are likely to hit the support unit supplying Xane with a stat boost. This would further limit Xane’s stats in general. Lastly, requiring the support to be within two spaces means susceptibility to Panic. 

Halloween Xane is a unit that requires careful team planning. If planned well, Xane’s potential is undeniable. However, while his potential is high, his inconsistencies can be problematic. 

Halloween Fallen Robin (F) <TIER 2>

Fallen Robin is a traditional enemy-phase dragon, with an additional perk of healing 30% of her HP upon special activation. This is reminiscent of Brave Claude’s Wind Parthia, albeit on a smaller scale. Her personal Passive A, Dragonscale is a substantial upgrade over her Legendary counterpart as it provides Fallen Robin with more stats to work with, and an on-damage special acceleration similar to the effects of Huge Fan and Pledged Blade.

However, just like Brave Claude, her choices for a Passive B skill are sparse at best. Most of the stronger Passive B skills for fliers are locked to swords, lances and axes, and Dive Bomb is likely to be suboptimal due to Robin’s extremely low speed. As mentioned in the skill discussion of Dragon’s Ire, it can be rather problematic if Robin does not one-shot her opponent, as the opponent might be able to activate a special. There is also consideration of the weakness to dragon-effective weapons, which means the usual vulnerabilities to Thrasir.

Fallen Robin in a wolf costume is substantially stronger than her rather outdated Legendary form, however the only defensive mechanism Robin has is the 30% HP healing, which might be inadequate due to the potential of foe’s follow-up attacks. The ideal scenario would be for Robin to be capable of taking the foe down in a single hit, but the lack of inheritance option as a dragon flier could limit Robin’s ability to do so.

Halloween Tiki <TIER 1>

Halloween Tiki is particularly unique, as her player phase is nothing to scoff at despite being a dragon unit. Outside of the typical boosts in ATK and SPD, Frostfire Breath’s main effect works similarly to a Blade Tome as it grants damage based on bonuses to her DEF and RES. Similar to Blade Tomes, Panic and buff negation such as those from Lulls could pose some issues for Tiki. It is worth noting however that Tiki will not lose any damage from Lull ATK SPD, unlike a Blade Tome unit.

Tiki’s main draw is her Duo skill, as it is similar to fielding a dancer or singer in the team. The main difference from a dancer is that Tiki is fully capable as a combat unit due to her base stat total not being penalized as a dancer/singer. The sheer utility of a combat-capable dancer/singer is sufficient for Tiki to be considered in Tier 1.

Other Changes

Updated hero icons to reflect new resplendent heroes.

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