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Analysis by lordhelpme
Peony - Sweet Dream

5

Obtainable as a 5 only

Hero Stats

Max Avg Total Stats at Lvl 40
145
HP 38
ATK 31
SPD 36
DEF 16
RES 24

Stat Variations

Level 1 Stat Variation
5★
HP ATK SPD DEF RES
Low 15 4 7 2 4
Middle 16 5 8 3 5
High 18 6 9 4 6

Level 40 Stat Variations
5★
HP ATK SPD DEF RES
Low 34 28 33 12 21
Middle 38 31 36 16 24
High 41 34 39 19 28

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

While she may certainly benefit from receiving IVs for further stat specialization, Peony can work perfectly fine with a Neutral IV set given her primary role as a support unit. This is worth taking into consideration as the free copy obtained through story progression will always be neutral. 

Assets

  • +SPD: Increasing Peony’s inherently strong base Speed stat further with an Asset is highly recommended to reduce the frequency of enemy follow-up attacks and supplement her overall survivability; however, do keep in mind that this will have not effect foes whose skills allow them to double regardless of Speed.
  • +ATK: An Attack Asset isn’t quite as useful or applicable as a Speed Asset, but it nonetheless remains a solid alternative to enhance Peony’s raw damage output and grant her a reasonable offensive presence. 

Neutral 

  • HP / DEF / RES: Although she can safely take a Flaw in any of her defensive stats without much consequence due to her unimpressive overall bulk, keeping them intact is preferable to maximize her survivability in anticipation of scenarios where combat is unavoidable; coupled with complementary skills and support, she can quickly accumulate high enough levels of survivability avoid being easily ORKO’d.

Skill Sets

Dream a Little Dream of Me (Full Support)

Build by
Recommended
Flower of Joy A Fury (3 or 4)
Alternate: B Duel Flying 3
Gentle Dream B Aerobatics 3
Moonbow
Alternate: Luna
C Atk Tactic 3
Alternate: Fortify Res 4
IVsSChill Atk 3

Show Explanation/Analysis

Preferred IV: Any

Through the combined power of her unique Assist skill and access to excellent mobility-based skills as a flier, Peony finds herself boasting undeniably powerful potential as a support unit. Since she should rarely be engaging in combat with this build, her chosen IV set doesn’t matter all that much — anything can work here. That being said, a +SPD IV remains a great option if available to lessen Peony’s chances of being doubled. 

Weapon: Flower of Joy

  • Flower of Joy works wonderfully here to further expand Peony’s reach and effectiveness, granting any ally in her cardinal directions a solid +3/+3 Atk/Spd in-combat boost. This allows her to provide support across even the furthest of distances and have an impact at virtually all times; this can prove especially useful when using units like cavaliers whose extended range would otherwise prevent Peony from being able to keep up. 

Assist: Gentle Dream 

  • The centerpiece of this build, Gentle Dream functions as a vastly improved version of Sing and Dance. In addition to granting an ally another action, it also applies two potent boosts on her target AND any ally within her or her target’s cardinal directions: a +3 field buff to all stats and a temporary movement status (similar to the one granted by Ground Orders) that enables affected units to teleport to any space next adjacent to allies within 2 spaces.

  • With just a single use, Peony can potentially bolster her entire team’s mobility with careful management and allow them to approach enemy compositions from far more favorable positions than otherwise possible. Furthermore, since the unique mechanisms of Gentle Dream are not restricted to specific archetypes, Peony boasts widespread applicability and can lend her powerful refreshing capabilities to any team. 

Special: Moonbow / Luna 

  • None of Peony’s stats (or her damage output) are high enough to merit the use of Specials that scale off them, making those that scale with her opponent’s stats instead her best option. Moonbow is notable for its extremely short cooldown, though Luna is a good choice as well due to the higher damage it offers. 

Passive A: Fury / Triangle Adept / B Duel Flying

  • Fury (3 or 4) is a standard choice for most refreshers, and Peony is no exception. The overall stat boost it provides prove quite beneficial in a pinch, increasing her overall survivability noticeably, and its post-combat chip damage won’t affect her too much since she won’t be seeing combat that often anyway. 

  • While somewhat inflexible in nature (as it completely takes away any chance she had of surviving against a green foe), Triangle Adept remains a worthwhile consideration to specialize Peony as a dedicated check against red opponents who may have otherwise proved to be a formidable threat to her allies.

  • If aiming to use her in Colosseum modes like Arena, her native B Duel Flying can be kept to maximize her scoring potential. However, it offers her very little outside of such modes (since it would then only act as a glorified HP +5) so for generalist purposes, it should be removed for any available alternative. 

Passive B: Aerobatics / Flier Formation / Wings of Mercy / Chill Skills / Sabotage Skills 

  • Aerobatics, Flier Formation, and Wings of Mercy are all phenomenal skills that serve to heighten Peony’s mobility and let her provide support from a myriad of different positions; the ability to teleport to an adjacent space is especially important for Peony as Gentle Dream requires careful positioning to truly maximize its effectiveness. 

    • The main differentiator between each of these skills is the type of ally they allow her to teleport next to, so personal preference and her specific team composition will play an important role in deciding which to use. 
  • Alternatively, one can equip Peony with a Chill skill of their choosing to let her provide mapwide debuffing support on top of everything else she brings to the table. Sabotage skills could be considered as well to fulfill a similar purpose (and are arguably more potent as they have the potential to debilitate multiple foes at once), but they require higher levels of investment to pull off successfully. 

Passive C: Atk Tactics / Drive Skills / Fortify Res 4 / Goad Fliers / Flexible

  • Peony’s C slot is fairly flexible and can be filled by most available options. While skills that provide field buffs may appear redundant given the buffs she already grants with Gentle Dream, those with much higher values (like Tactic skills and her native Fortify Res 4) still make for a good choice for their greater potency. Drive skills are good alternatives as well. 

  • In a flier setting, class-exclusive buffs such as Goad Fliers make for an obvious choice of C slot skill to encourage a more cohesive team composition.

    • Note: Unlike other flying refreshers, Peony will usually not need to run skills like Guidance, Flier Guidance, and Ground Orders as she can innately replicate their effects with Gentle Dream. Save such resources for other units who need them more. 

Sacred Seal: Chill Atk / Aerobatics / Flier Formation / Drive Skills / Tactic Skills

  • Similarly, her choice of a seal is also quite flexible. Aside from Drive and Tactic skills for greater buffing potential (or Chill skills to debilitate the opposing team), equipping Peony with the Aerobatics or Flier Formation seals is a fantastic course of action if using Wings of Mercy as her chosen B slot skill; this allows her to constantly maintain proximity to her allies at virtually all times of the battle.

Gun Gale Online (Offensive Support)

Build by
Blárblade+
Alternate: Flower of Joy
A Swift Sparrow 3
Alternate: Fury (3 or 4)
Gentle Dream B Desperation 3
Alternate: Aerobatics 3
Glimmer
Alternate: Moonbow
C Odd Atk Wave 3
Alternate: Fortify Res 4
IVsSSturdy Blow 2

Show Explanation/Analysis

Preferred IV: +ATK or +SPD / -HP or -DEF or -RES

In contrast to the first build, this set takes a far more offensively oriented approach to Peony’s intended playstyle and focuses more on her ability to act as a capable frontliner, aiming to capitalize on her surprisingly solid offensive statline and access to flier strengths. Accordingly, as she will be actively engaging in combat, her choice of IVs will be much more important here. A +SPD IV is ideal to secure follow-up attacks much more reliably, but +ATK is a good second choice to increase her raw damage output. However, despite the slight shift in focus, Peony’s top priority remains supporting her allies; this means that maintaining a balance between offensive and supportive play will be crucial to maintain maximum efficiency. 

Weapon: Blárblade+ / Flower of Joy

  • Since the majority of Peony’s utility comes from Gentle Dream, Flower of Joy can safely be swapped out in favor of a Blárblade tome without much detriment to her overall performance. Through Blárblade’s unique effect, the young fairy can obtain a much higher damage ceiling than normally possible. 

    • However, she will consequently be much more reliant on receiving field buffs to function. For this reason, depending on personal preference, it may be best to simply stick with Flower of Joy instead. 

Assist: Gentle Dream

Special: Glimmer / Draconic Aura / Moonbow

  • Glimmer makes for a fantastic choice of Special here, as it scales quite nicely with Blárblade additional damage and sports a relatively low cooldown. If utilizing the Heavy Blade seal, Draconic Aura will be preferred due to its more consistent (and typically higher) damage boost. 

  • Although generally not nearly as powerful as either of the two aforementioned options, Moonbow may be considered to more easily pierce through bulky foes or those equipped with skills that negate enemy bonuses, such as Distant Def 4. If Peony is equipped with Flower of Joy, Moonbow will always be her ideal choice as her damage output will not be high enough to justify using it. 

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

  • Most standard offensive A slot skills will work just fine here, with Swift Sparrow (2 or 3) being her strongest option by far due to its simple activation requirement and synergy with this build’s intended playstyle. While Atk/Spd Solo may offer similar firepower, the fact that she will typically maintain proximity to her makes it somewhat unwieldy to utilize. 

  • In exchange for losing out on some of Swift Sparrow and Atk/Spd Solo’s offensive might, Fury can be taken to simultaneously supplement her overall bulk alongside her Attack and Speed stats. The post-combat chip damage it applies also pairs quite nicely with Desperation, allowing Peony to reach its HP threshold much more safely. 

Passive B: Desperation / Aerobatics / Flier Formation / Wings of Mercy

  • Desperation is an excellent choice of B slot skill to grant her the ability to perform consecutive follow-up attacks and ensure Peony’s ability to engage in extended rounds of combat, boasting particularly great synergy with Fury. To retain more of her supportive capabilities instead, Aerobatics, Flier Formation, or Wings of Mercy should be taken to strengthen her mobility in the Player Phase. 

Passive C: Odd Atk Wave / Even Spd Wave / Tactic Skills / Drive Skills / Fortify Res 4 / Flexible

  • Odd Atk Wave, Even Spd Wave, and other offensive stat-boosting Wave skills are noteworthy as they help Peony be much more self-sufficient, with the buffs they provide being invaluable when equipped with Blárblade. Otherwise, feel free to use any preferred C slot skills, such as her native Fortify Res 4 or available Tactic and Drive skills. 

Sacred Seal: Sturdy Blow / Darting Blow / Brazen Atk/Spd / Heavy Blade 

  • The Sturdy Blow, Darting Blow, and Brazen Atk/Spd seals can be taken to build upon her offensive stats and heighten her proficiency at performing as a competent offensive nuke, though the Brazen Atk/Spd Seal does have the demerit of requiring some setup before becoming functionally useful. 

  • Alternatively, if Peony is equipped with Blárblade, the Heavy Blade seal is an exceptional option to elevate her damage output via faster Special activations.

Introduction

A light fairy hailing from the mysterious world of Ljosalfheim, Peony: Sweet Dream joins the Order of Heroes as a blue mage flier -- but moreover, the second Light Mythical Hero to be introduced thus far! Her status as such immediately grants her immense value for those who aim to maximize their scoring potential in Aether Raids Offense, with the accompanying stat boosts she provides (HP +5 and Speed +5) being quite nice as well. However, besides this attribute, Peony’s most significant selling point lies in her unique Assist skill: Gentle Dream. 

Gentle Dream draws inspiration from the most powerful aspects of being a flying refresher -- the ability to grant an ally another action on top of providing valuable mobility-based for increased offensive power -- and combines it into a single skill. Not only does this skill retain the typical refreshing quality of Dance and Sing, but it also applies two potent boosts on her target AND any ally within her or her target’s cardinal directions: a +3 field buff to all stats and a temporary movement status that enables affected units to teleport to any space next adjacent to allies within 2 spaces. The result is a massive improvement to her affected allies’ maneuverability in the Player Phase and is arguably more effective than a simple +1 movement in certain cases, as it allows her allies to easily traverse terrain (such as trenches and water) that they would have been unable to otherwise. This is not to mention the fact that unlike Legendary Azura’s Gray Waves, this buff is not restricted to units of specific move types. 

Combined with the long-distance buffs she can provide via Flower of Joy and the ability to equip skills like Aerobatics as a flier, Peony packs an incredible amount of utility into a single unit. However, she is not a unit without flaws, with most of her weaknesses stemming from her relatively unimpressive performance in combat. While her offensive statline of 31/36 is quite reasonable for a refresher, she can still struggle in establishing a notable offensive presence and is quite susceptible to incoming enemy attacks; archers are especially troublesome due to her inherent weakness against them. One can try to mediate this by investing more into supplementing her combat prowess (such as by equipping her with a Blade tome), but this comes with its issues of sacrificing some of her supportive potential in return.  

Ultimately, though, this is collectively only a minor detriment compared to the sheer amount of utility that she brings to the table. Being able to grant an ally another action is already powerful, but through the unique mechanisms of Gentle Dream combined with her advantages as a flier and Mythical Hero, Peony finds herself in an exceedingly advantageous position as one of the strongest and most valuable support heroes around. 

Strengths

Flower of Joy

While not necessarily as vital to her kit as Gentle Dream, Flower of Joy remains a great exclusive weapon that allows Peony to provide solid buffing support to allies across even the farthest of distances. 

Gentle Dream

Peony’s exclusive Assist skill, Gentle Dream, is undeniably powerful and acts as a vastly improved version of Sing and Dance. In addition to refreshing a target ally, it provides a solid +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res buff and unique Ground Orders-esque movement status to her target AND any allies within her or her target’s cardinal directions. Since these effects can be applied to any ally (potentially all of them with careful positioning, Gentle Dream makes Peony a wonderful asset to virtually any team composition willing to have her. 

Mythical Hero

As a Mythical Hero, Peony can grant special stat boosts (+5 HP and +4 Speed) to any ally equipped with a Light Blessing in Aether Raids and can increase one’s Lift substantially during her season. Furthermore, since she also doubles as a refresher, she more than proves deserving of a slot on a team; her supportive capabilities lend themselves especially well to certain Player Phase strategies in Aether Raids Offense, such as Galeforce-centered setups. 

Flier

Peony’s status as a flier allows her to equip useful mobility-based skills such as Aerobatics and Flier Formation to further bolster her team’s effectiveness, in addition to granting her access to class-exclusive buffs. However, do note that skills like Guidance and Ground Orders are rather redundant on her due to the movement status Gentle Dream grants. 

Good Speed

Peony’s relatively good base Speed of 36 allows her to avoid enemy follow-up attacks with great facility, especially when capitalized on with the proper IV set and support. This also lets her run offensively oriented builds to a general degree of success if so desired, though this comes at the cost of weakening some of her supportive capabilities.

Weaknesses

Poor Bulk

Peony’s underwhelming bulk makes it difficult for her to take on any form of sustained offensive pressure, making it necessary to keep her out of harm’s way in the Enemy Phase and that she limit her interactions with enemies for general purposes. 

Effective Damage

Due to her flier status, Peony faces a serious weakness to opposing archers; coupled with her poor bulk, such foes must be handled quickly to safeguard her longevity.

Weapon Skills

Weapons SP Rng. Mt.
Light
Learns by default at 1 ★
Unlocks at 1 ★
Blue Tome Users Only
50 2 4
Ellight
Learns by default at 3 ★
Unlocks at 2 ★
Blue Tome Users Only
100 2 6
Shine
Learns by default at 4 ★
Unlocks at 3 ★
Blue Tome Users Only
200 2 9
Flower of Joy

Grants Res+3. Grants Atk/Spd+3 to any ally in a cardinal direction from unit during that ally's combat.

Learns by default at 5 ★
Unlocks at 5 ★
Non-Inheritable skill.
400 2 14
Weapon Evolution
Weapon Upgrades
Weapon Upgrades

Support Skills

Support Skills Rng. SP
Dance

Grants another action to target ally. (Cannot target an ally with Sing or Dance.)

Learns by default at 4 ★
1 150
Gentle Dream

Grants another action to target ally. Grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3 and the following status to target ally and allies in cardinal directions of unit and target (excluding unit): "Unit can move to a space adjacent to any ally within 2 spaces." (That turn only. Cannot target an ally with Sing or Dance. This skill treated as Sing or Dance.)

Learns by default at 5 ★
1 400
Gentle Dream+

Grants another action to target ally. Grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 and the following statuses to target ally and allies in cardinal directions of unit and target (excluding unit): "unit can move to a space adjacent to any ally within 2 spaces" and "neutralizes penalties." (That turn only. Cannot target an ally with Sing or Dance. This skill treated as Sing or Dance.)

1 400

Passive Skills

Passive Skills SP Slot
B Duel Flying 1

Grants HP+3. If unit is 5★ and level 40 and unit's stats total less than 160, treats unit's stats as 160 in modes like Arena. (Higher-scoring opponents will appear. Stat total calculation excludes any values added by merges and skills.)

Flying Only
Unlocks at 3 ★
70
A
B Duel Flying 2

Grants HP+4. If unit is 5★ and level 40 and unit's stats total less than 165, treats unit's stats as 165 in modes like Arena. (Higher-scoring opponents will appear. Stat total calculation excludes any values added by merges and skills.)

Flying Only
Unlocks at 4 ★
150
A
B Duel Flying 3

Grants HP+5. If unit is 5★ and level 40 and unit's stats total less than 170, treats unit's stats as 170 in modes like Arena. (Higher-scoring opponents will appear. Stats total calculation excludes any values added by merges and skills.)

Flying Only
Unlocks at 5 ★
300
A
Aerobatics 1

If unit's HP = 100%, unit can move to a space adjacent to any infantry, armored, or cavalry ally within 2 spaces.

Unlocks at 1 ★
60
B
Aerobatics 2

If unit's HP ≥ 50%, unit can move to a space adjacent to any infantry, armored, or cavalry ally within 2 spaces.

Unlocks at 2 ★
120
B
Aerobatics 3

Unit can move to a space adjacent to any infantry, armored, or cavalry ally within 2 spaces.

Only inheritable by flier units.
Unlocks at 4 ★
240
B
Fortify Res 1

Grants adajacent allies Res+2 through their next actions at the start of each turn.

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 2 ★
50
C
Fortify Res 2

Grants adajacent allies Res+3 through their next actions at the start of each turn.

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 3 ★
100
C
Fortify Res 3

Grants adjacent allies Res+4 through their next actions at the start of each turn.

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 4 ★
200
C
Fortify Res 4

At start of turn, grants Res+7 to adjacent allies for 1 turn.

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 5 ★
300
C

Other Info

Origin
Fire Emblem Heroes

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