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Analysis by MackerelPye
Legion - Masked Maniac

Hero Stats

Max Avg Total Stats at Lvl 40
157
HP 46
ATK 36
SPD 35
DEF 22
RES 18

Stat Variations

Level 1 Stat Variation
5★
4★
3★
HP ATK SPD DEF RES
Low
Middle 20 10 9 5 3
High

Level 40 Stat Variations
5★
4★
3★
HP ATK SPD DEF RES
Low
Middle 46 36 35 22 18
High

IV Sets

Key stats worth increasing through nature if possible.
Complementary stats that matter, but not to the point of picking them over key stats for nature increase.
Relatively worthless stat that can safely be decreased through nature.
HPATKSPDDEFRES

This unit requires use of Trait Fruits to get access to IVs

Skill Sets

Hilda Von Whoses??? (Aggressive / General Content Attacker)

Build by MackerelPye
Recommended
Sneering Axe (+Eff) A Fury (3 or 4)
Alternate: Swift Sparrow (2 or 3)
Positional Assist B Desperation 3
Alternate: Null Follow-Up 3
Luna
Alternate: Glimmer
C Time's Pulse 3
Alternate: Rouse Spd/Def 3
IVs

+SPD or +ATK / -RES

SBrazen Atk/Spd 3
Alternate: Swift Sparrow 2

Show Explanation/Analysis

Weapon: Sneering Axe (+Eff)

Assist: Positional Assist

Special: Luna / Moonbow / Glimmer

Passive A: Fury / Swift Sparrow / Atk/Spd Solo / Atk/Spd Push 4 / Brazen Atk/Spd

Passive B: Desperation / Null Follow-Up

Passive C: Time's Pulse / Rouse Spd/Def

Sacred Seal: Brazen Atk/Spd / Swift Sparrow

  • A standard, low-investment, but extremely potent offensive build is, of course, on the table for a unit as optimally rich in Atk/Spd as Legion. Thus, the inheritance choices here pretty much boil down to Atk/Spd modifiers and skills that help Legion attack with upmost power and confidence.
  • Sneering Axe is a powerful offensive tool thanks to the numerous useful effects under its helm, all exclusive to Legion. With it, our Masked Maniac does not require a Blade skill in his A or Sacred Seal slot as the weapon already provides Special acceleration—not to mention a hefty Atk/Spd modifier of +5 which further enhances Legion's offenses—against relatively healthy enemies. The weapon also keeps track of the target's bonuses and applies them to Legion twice fold, which can clutch quite a few otherwise dire matchups in Legion's favor.
  • With the Special acceleration provided by Sneering Axe, Legion has quite a few choices for a damaging Special, depending on if you're also able to provide Time's Pulse to quicken the frequency of activation reliably.
    • If Time's Pulse is taken into account, Luna is undeniably the best choice as it offers superior damage scaling than other choices. With Sneering Axe's Special acceleration and Time's Pulse lowering Luna's cooldown to 2 at the start of every turn, Luna should be able to activate within every single first round.
    • Glimmer and Moonbow are conventionally good choices in the absence of Time's Pulse, as they should be able to activate within a single round with Sneering Axe's acceleration.
  • Legion's A and Sacred Seal slot are dedicated to whichever Atk/Spd boosting skills you can afford to spare. Brazen Atk/Spd notably synergizes easier with recoil-inducing choices (aka Fury or Atk/Spd Push 4), though Swift Sparrow provides immediate stats and reliability for no setup.
  • As far as B slots are concerned, Desperation is a cheap and tends to be a significantly preferred choice over other skills in general content as it provides increased safety in attacking at low health. The change in attacking priority also aids with the quickened activation of Legion's chosen Special.
    • Null Follow-Up is a higher-grade choice that aids in taking down enemies that can otherwise inhibit Legion's follow-ups, such as Myrrh and Wary Fighter armors.

Uwee-HEH-HEH (Balanced Phase Attacker)

Build by MackerelPye
Recommended
Sneering Axe (+Eff) A Distant Counter
Alternate: Atk/Spd Solo (3 or 4)
Positional Assist B Spurn 3
Alternate: Spd-Based DR B Slot
Noontime
Alternate: Aether
C Atk Smoke 3
Alternate: Pulse Smoke 3
IVs

+SPD / -HP (merge away if possible)

SSpd/Res Solo 3
Alternate: Steady Posture 2

Show Explanation/Analysis

Weapon: Sneering Axe (+Eff)

Assist: Positional Assist

Special: Noontime / Aether / Sol

Passive A: Distant Counter / Atk/Spd Solo

Passive B: Spurn / Close Call / Repel

Passive C: Atk Smoke / Pulse Smoke

Sacred Seal: Spd/Res Solo / Steady Posture / Swift Stance

  • Legion can run the tried-and-true Close Call/Spurn/Repel build that other fast units before him have utilized with massive success. For those unfamiliar with the latter line of skills, it is a Speed-based source of up to 40% damage reduction (4% for every point of Speed Legion has over his opponent); without it, Legion has to rely on his otherwise decent but unimpressive bulk. With any one of those skills, Legion can definitely run a tanking build with confidence.
  • As Speed-based damage reduction scales off of Legion's Speed difference over his opponent, it is important to support and invest in Legion's Speed and natural bulk wherever possible.
    • Sneering Axe, for instance, already provides for this through its Atk/Spd +5 against relatively healthy enemies as well as providing an in-combat Speed advantage if said enemies also have a visible Speed bonus.
      • Sneering Axe also provides nifty Special acceleration, which can help Legion activate longer-going Specials like Sol or Aether instead of relying on Noontime (with Geirskögul) for consistent sustain.
      • Finally, the Panic Smoke effect from the weapon aids very well in weakening surrounding enemies, giving Legion a nice niche over similarly built units.
    • A Sacred Seal that reinforces Legion's Speed and bulk is rather obvious on a tank build. From this, choices basically boil down to Speed-based Solo or Stance skills.
    • If Legion isn't using Distant Counter in the interest of specializing himself for melee combat instead (not recommended for Aether Raids offense play), Atk/Spd Solo is a good alternative that further boosts Speed and helps Legion maintain a great offensive presence in both player and enemy phase.   
    • Allies can help via skills such as Drive Spd and Geirskögul. In Aether Raids Light season, Legion also typically enjoys the many benefits of the Light Mythic heroes, including Peony's Spd Blessing, Flower of Joy, and Mila's Nurturing Breath and ability to run Sabotage support.
  • The C slot skill should be tailored to stack on top of the Panic Smoke effect that Sneering Axe provides, which gives Legion a few Smoke-based options. Legion will more often appreciate the cheapness and direct damage mitigation of Atk Smoke, though Pulse Smoke is also a fantastic (albeit harder-to-obtain) choice to badly cripple Infantry Pulse-based AR-Def setups.

Time for an Ambush-ses! (Aether Raids Defense)

Build by MackerelPye
Sneering Axe (+Eff) A Sturdy Impact
Rally Assist
Alternate: Positional Assist
B Wings of Mercy 3
Alternate: Sudden Panic 3
Luna
Alternate: Dragon Fang
C Infantry Pulse 3
Alternate: Def Smoke 3
IVs

+ATK or +SPD / -RES

SSwift Sparrow 2
Alternate: Death Blow 3

Show Explanation/Analysis

Weapon: Sneering Axe (+Eff)

Assist: Positional Assist / Rally / No Assist

Special: Luna / Dragon Fang

Passive A: Sturdy Impact / Fury / Steady Impact / Mirror Impact

Passive B: Wings of Mercy / Sudden Panic

Passive C: Infantry Pulse / Time's Pulse / Def Smoke

Sacred Seal: Swift Sparrow / Death Blow

  • Though being an infantry melee unit doesn't really shine brightly on Legion's Aether Raids Defense performance—as the mode tends to value the larger attacking range of cavalry and ranged units—he does have a few attractive points worthy of consideration.
    • Being an infantry unit allows Legion to provide and/or benefit from Infantry Pulse support, allowing Legion and his team to threaten Offense teams with powerful precharged Specials (especially Luna or Dragon Fang on Legion's part).
    • Additionally, his movement typing grants access to several key skills, including the Impact skill line and Sudden Panic.
      • Impact skills help him to maximize his survivability by limiting non-Null Follow-Up opponents to one attack only. It also improves his ability to inflict multiple Smoke skills (including the Panic Smoke built into Sneering Axe) afterwards.
      • Sudden Panic is rather obvious in that it takes advantage of Legion's high HP (especially after Mythic Hero blessing boosts) and punishes adjacent foes with the Panic condition.
    • Legion's exclusive weapon Sneering Axe is a surprisingly good punisher. After combat (whether Legion survives or not), it inflicts Panic on his opponent and surrounding enemies, which typically comes out terribly in the opposing player's position as many teams are often reliant on bonuses to withstand multiple rounds of attacks. These same bonuses come into Legion's favor even before the in-built Panic effect hits; Sneering Axe essentially takes any existing bonus on the opponent and applies them twicefold on Legion himself, making him a menace to face against for most superbuffed units he may come across. Finally, the extra Atk/Spd and Special acceleration comes in handy against healthy Offense carry units, especially if you do not have enough Pulse support to fully charge Legion's chosen Special.
  • Though Panic Smoke is a good specialty B slot skill for reasons mentioned above, Legion will typically prefer the cheaper and much more punishing Wings of Mercy. It serves to improve Legion's only acceptable attacking range and punish offending players who leave his defending allies at lowered HP rather than fully defeated.
  • For lack of Impact skills, Fury is an acceptable substitute which pads out Legion's stats and inflicts recoil on himself afterwards, which can aid in activating Wings of Mercy on other allies.

And Many Many Many More, Yes Yes Yes!! (Galeforce)

Build by MackerelPye
Sneering Axe (+Eff) A Swift Sparrow (2 or 3)
Alternate: Atk/Spd Solo (3 or 4)
Positional Assist B Desperation 3
Galeforce C Time's Pulse 3
Alternate: Infantry Pulse 3
IVs

+SPD or +ATK / -RES

SSwift Sparrow 2
Alternate: Darting Blow 3

Show Explanation/Analysis

Weapon: Sneering Axe (+Eff)

Assist: Positional Assist

Special: Galeforce

Passive A: Swift Sparrow / Fury / Atk/Spd Solo / Atk/Spd Push 4

Passive B: Desperation

Passive C: Time's Pulse / Infantry Pulse

Sacred Seal: Swift Sparrow / Brazen Atk/Spd / Darting Blow

  • This build isn't much different from the other aggressive build posted before it, but if the title hasn't tipped you off yet, the main differentiating point is Galeforce. Though this Special doesn't deal additional damage, Legion is quite powerful by his lonesome even without a damage-dealing Special. When Galeforce is activated, Legion can use his additional action to attack other foes, the same opponent yet again, or take the opportunity to escape dangerous situations.
    • Due to Galeforce's lengthy Special cooldown of 5, however, Legion must have Special acceleration of some kind (which is already provided by Sneering Axe!), as well as attack twice while getting counterattacked in a single turn. The counterattacking requirement can be waivered by reducing Special cooldown to 4 with Time's Pulse or Infantry Pulse support provided by a higher HP ally; thus, Galeforce can activate by attacking directly twice (with or without Desperation) without needing a counterattack.
  • Thanks to Sneering Axe's in-built Special acceleration, Legion does not require a Blade skill to charge up Galeforce like other units. Thus, his A and Sacred Seal slots are freed and can be taken by dedicated Atk/Spd boosters to further increase his offenses. NOTE that the Special acceleration only works against enemies with 75%+ HP, meaning you should minimize the amount of previous damage opposing units have taken to secure Legion's chances of activating Galeforce.

Strengths

Sneering Axe

If you had to categorize every weapon by which year they came from, you'd generally be forgiven for thinking Sneering Axe came from a fourth-generation unit.

In short, Sneering Axe's sheer number of great effects pretty much turns Legion from a generic Axe infantry pick to a truly competitive choice. It's very easy to pay loving attention to its base effect; it can potentially turn the foe's bonuses against them by crippling them with double the number of debuffs. It is a frightening thing to face under correct conditions, though make no mistake: it's reliant on the opponent, and it's imperative to also pay much attention the weapon's refined effects which are covered below.

Well-Aged Offensive Statline

For a free first-generation unit, Legion has aged remarkably decently due to his fantastic offenses. Legion's offensive potential enjoys little shortages as both his 36 Attack and 35 Speed are both reasonably high and malleable enough to create a number of competent offensive builds without being too special-reliant.

Additionally, with the introduction of Sneering Axe, Legion gains +5 Atk/Spd against reasonably healthy enemies (above 75% HP)—which punts his offenses at a more splendid 41 Atk / 40 Spd for basically one of the easiest conditions in the game.

Blade Skill Built-In

As units like Eliwood have attested before Legion, Special acceleration built into a weapon is no joke. Specifically, one of Sneering Axe's primary effects includes accelerating Legion's Special on his attacks. Legion therefore enjoys frequently activating Specials without needing to sacrifice his A slot or Sacred Seal for Heavy Blade or Flashing Blade. It has a condition, though, which is fighting against enemies with 75% HP or above—which is frankly no condition at all most of the time.

Massive HP and Deceptive Bulkiness

Legion's larger-than-usual base 46 HP (49 if weapon refined) and previously mentioned high Speed gives our masked berserker surprising one round survivability. An unmerged Legion with a refined Sneering Axe will bring about 71/67 total Def/Res bulk, while fair investment in his Speed will make natural follow-up attacks fairly difficult against him in practice. Additionally, Legion can utilize his Axe effects—specifically the opponent-based bonus doubler and guaranteed Panic Smoke—and damage reduction skills like Spurn to further practicalize his ability to tank hits.

Splendid Infantry Skill Access

As an infantry unit, Legion faces little shortage in passive skills and ally support options. Time's Pulse, Infantry Pulse, Null Follow-Up, and Geirskögul are a few of many others Legion can utilize to improve his performance and versatility.  

Freely Available

Compared to direct competitors such as Hilda and Edelgard (5 star exclusive) and Linus (no existing rotation at this time of writing), Legion and all the great perks that come with using him are pretty much freely—and possibly eternally—available for players at any time due to being part of the Daily GHB Revival Rotation for the foreseen future. Additionally, since Legion reran many times in the past, the cost of fully merging him is relatively cheaper than your average Heroic Grail unit.

Weaknesses

Low Defense and Resistance

Despite being padded by Legion's massive HP, his base Defense and Resistance values of 22 and 18 basically limit him to only a reasonable amount of punishment. Relatively strong attacks make Legion fold pretty fast if he is left open and weakened. Though the issue can be padded by utilizing damage reduction skills, this can only carry him so far as Legion's natural defenses are lacking compared to other units utilizing similar builds/techniques such as Echidna.

Competition

There is a counterargument to be made against Legion's great availability with respect to his great competitive performance: if you do summon the likes of Echidna, Edelgard, and others, you may find that these units tend to have very competitive perks in their unique weapons and similar—sometimes slightly superior—stats and prebuilt movesets. Those who tend to spend or summon a lot may also run into copies of these units quicker than a player can gather grails for the rest of Legion's merges.

Weapon Skills

Weapons SP Rng. Mt.
Iron Axe
Learns by default at 1 ★
Unlocks at 1 ★
Inheritable by Axe users only.
50 1 6
Steel Axe
Learns by default at 3 ★
Unlocks at 2 ★
Inheritable by Axe users only.
100 1 8
Legion's Axe

After combat, bonuses on targeted foe become penalties through its next action.

Learns by default at 4 ★
Unlocks at 3 ★
Inheritable by Axe users only.
200 1 10
Legion's Axe+

After combat, bonuses on targeted foe become penalties through its next action.

Learns by default at 5 ★
Unlocks at 5 ★
Inheritable by Axe users only.
300 1 14
Sneering Axe

Inflicts penalty on foe's Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat = current bonus on each of foe's stats × 2. (Example: if foe has +7 bonus to Atk, inflicts Atk-14, for a net penalty of Atk-7.) Calculates each stat penalty independently. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts【Panic】 on target and foes within 2 spaces of target.  【Panic】 Converts bonuses on target into penalties through its next action.
 

Unlocks at 5 ★
Non-Inheritable skill.
400 1 16
Weapon Evolution
Weapon Upgrades
Weapon Upgrades

Special Skills

Special Skills SP Turns
Retribution

Boosts damage dealt to foe by 30% of damage dealt to unit.

Learns by default at 4 ★
Unlocks at 3 ★
Non-inheritable by Staff-wielding units.
100 3
Reprisal

Boosts damage dealt to foe by 30% of damage dealt to unit.

Unlocks at 4 ★
Non-inheritable by Staff-wielding units.
200 2

Passive Skills

Passive Skills SP Slot
Fury 1

Grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+1. Unit takes 2 damage after combat.

Non-inheritable by Staff-wielding units.
50
A
Fury 2

Grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+2. Unit takes 4 damage after combat.

Non-inheritable by Staff-wielding units.
Unlocks at 4 ★
100
A
Fury 3

Grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3. Unit takes 6 damage after combat.

Non-inheritable by Staff-wielding units.
Unlocks at 5 ★
200
A
Obstruct 1

Prevents foes from moving through adjacent spaces while this unit's HP ≥ 90%. (No effect on foes with a Pass skill.)

Inheritable by all units.
50
B
Obstruct 2

Prevents foes from moving through adjacent spaces while this unit's HP ≥ 70%. (No effect on foes with a Pass skill.)

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 3 ★
100
B
Obstruct 3

Prevents foes from moving through adjacent spaces while this unit's HP ≥ 50%. (No effect on foes with a Pass skill.)

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 4 ★
200
B

Other Info

Origin
Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem

Banners Featured In

None

Official Hero Artwork