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Analysis by MackerelPye
Altina - Dawn's Trueblade

5

Obtainable as a 5 only

Hero Stats

Max Avg Total Stats at Lvl 40
166
HP 42
ATK 38
SPD 20
DEF 30
RES 36

Stat Variations

Level 1 Stat Variation
5★
HP ATK SPD DEF RES
Low 17 7 2 10 9
Middle 18 8 3 11 10
High 19 9 4 12 11

Level 40 Stat Variations
5★
HP ATK SPD DEF RES
Low 39 35 17 27 33
Middle 42 38 20 30 36
High 45 42 23 34 39

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

Skill Sets

Radiant Flames, Come Fourth. (Vantage / General Gameplay)

Build by MackerelPye
Recommended
Ragnell·Alondite (+Eff) A Ashera's Chosen+
Ardent Sacrifice
Alternate: Reposition
B Vantage 3
Twin Blades C Atk/Def Hold
Alternate: Atk/Res Oath 4
IVs

+ATK (then +RES) / -HP or -SPD

SAtk/Res Solo 3
Alternate: Atk/Def Catch 3

Show Explanation/Analysis

Weapon: Ragnell•Alondite (+Eff)

Assist: Ardent Sacrifice / Positional Assist 

Special: Twin Blades

Passive A: Ashera's Chosen+

Passive B: Vantage

Passive C: Atk/Def Hold / Atk/Res Oath 4 / Joint Drive Atk / Def/Res Smoke 3 / Def Smoke 3

Sacred Seal: Atk/Res Solo / Atk/Def Catch / Fierce Stance / Atk/Res Form / Brazen Atk/Res

  • Outside of the trivial acts of filling in the Sacred Seal, some Assist skill of choice, and the 200 Divine Dew required to refine Ragnell•Alondite to a more powerful state, Altina's intended skillset and playstyle are already all packaged for you, then remixed, for your immediate convenience. 
  • Altina situates herself as a complete and functional Vantage unit, capable of laying down complete win-conditional sweeps thanks to:
    • The sheer power of Ragnell•Alondite's dual strikes.
    • The added Atk and overall damage from Ashera's Chosen and Atk/Def Hold as well as Altina's Sacred Seal of choice. A +ATK Asset will obviously also factor in if you're able to summon a copy with that, or provide the Trait Fruits / Ascendent Florets necessary.
    • Twin Blades being an exceptional Special of choice due to its great added damage in a short amount of charges — which is further trivialized by Ragnell•Alondite's accelerated charging and consecutive attacking behavior, allowing it to fire off before the enemy can even touch Altina in most situations
  • The only considerations from here then are, again, simply completing Altina's kit with an Assist and Sacred Seal of choice, and perhaps contemplating a couple of sidegrades for the C slot. 
    • Altina's Assist is easily one-and-done with helpful positional assist options such as Reposition or Draw Back to help your allies out of unfavorable positions.  
      • Ardent Sacrifice, however, potentially helps a lot here as Vantage requires that its user be at least at 75% HP or lower, and sometimes, natural damage-taking is simply not optimal or possible in some situations. Ardent Sacrifice can even expedite the HP setup process with allies with specialized self-harm skills at the start of the turn, such as Winter Bernadetta and Brave Lysithea. 
    • A Vantage unit's Sacred Seal should obviously help maximize the amount of damage dealt to confirm kills and keep the sweep going. As such, we consider high Atk-boosting passives to seal the deal. Choices like Atk/Res Solo, Atk/Res Form, or Brazen Atk/Res are preferred to boost the potency of the Res-based damage reduction and added damage present on Ashera's Chosen+. 
    • There are almost no equally good alternatives to Atk/Def Hold, a premium and already provided C-slot choice that increases Altina's bulk and damage. However, a few alternative choices are worth chewing on:
      • Atk/Res Oath is almost a direct improvement from Hold; it provides a better net benefit of both visible and in-combat bonuses to Altina's Atk and Res, the latter of which also helps power up the Res-based effects of Twin Blades and Ashera's Chosen. Extra movement options never hurt, either.
      • Joint Drive Atk does provide directly similar damage (+4 Atk) while also enabling Altina to share that added Atk to nearby allies in situations where she can't participate in combat. 
      • Additionally, Def Smoke — or its (honestly very extra) successor skill, Def/Res Smoke — applies widespread Def penalties to surrounding enemies, allowing Altina to hit even harder with a bit of setup.  

The Summer Edelgard Internship (Galeforce)

Build by MackerelPye
Recommended
Ragnell·Alondite (+Eff) A Ashera's Chosen+
Alternate: Fury 4
Reposition B Wings of Mercy 3
Alternate: A/D Near Trace 3
Galeforce C Atk/Def Hold
Alternate: Even Tempest 3
IVs

+ATK / -HP or -SPD

SQuickened Pulse
Alternate: Fury 3

Show Explanation/Analysis

Weapon: Ragnell•Alondite (+Eff)

Assist: Positional Assist 

Special: Galeforce 

Passive A: Ashera's Chosen+ / Fury 4

Passive B: Wings of Mercy / A/D Near Trace

Passive C: Atk/Def Hold / Assault Troop / Even Tempest / Odd Tempest

Sacred Seal: Quickened Pulse / Death Blow / Atk/Def Catch / Fury 3 / Odd Tempest

  • Altina has definite uses on a Galeforce-centric team, especially as a unit that can consolidate the benefits of being a Mythic hero and as a Galeforce attacker herself. 
  • With Ragnell•Alondite's new cooldown acceleration effects, Altina no longer has to rely on positioning herself near Thórr or the usual shakiness of Heavy Blade triggers to charge Galeforce by herself. In a single successful strike and assuming no Guard effects are in place, Ragnell•Alondite will usually fulfill 4 out of the 5 cooldown charges necessary to trigger Galeforce. 
    • This last charge can easily be fulfilled through a variety of methods — the simplest and most self-sufficient method is Quickened Pulse as Altina's Sacred Seal. There are several specialized cooldown cutting methods besides that — examples include Ostia's Pulse, Wolfpup Fang, Destiny's Bow, etc. 
  • The rest of the passive slots and entire build generally comes in two flavors, depending on what role Altina is playing on your team:
    • Standard Attacker: 
      • Generally, Altina is playing it conventionally with little specialty changes to her kit. Ashera's Chosen and Atk/Def Hold provide optimal combat upkeep, while Wings of Mercy allows Altina to teleport to a damaged Wings of Mercy beacon ally and open up her movement options overall without too much effort. 
    • Initiator / Wings of Mercy Beacon:
      • Altina can run Fury 3 and 4 in the Sacred Seal and A-slot respectively to inflict damage on herself and allow other teammates with Wings of Mercy to teleport adjacently to her and continue the Galeforce chain. In two combats (pre- and post-Galeforce), Altina should take around 28 HP's worth of recoil, which kickstarts this strategy if your Altina doesn't manage to reach over 56 HP. 
      • This strategy appreciates ways to expand Altina's initiation options. This can be done by running a Tempest skill or Assault Troop in tandem with ally-provided options such as To Change Fate! or A Fate Changed! Additionally, A/D Near Trace serves to improve Altina's damage while giving her post-movement options.

To Thy Allies, Thy Flames (Support / Saveball Leader)

Build by MackerelPye
Allied Sword+
Alternate: Geishun+
A Fort. Def/Res 3
Alternate: Ashera's Chosen+
Positional Assist
Alternate: Rally Assist
B Sabotage Skills
Alternate: Chill Def/Res 3
Twin Blades C Atk/Def Hold
Alternate: Spur Atk/Res 2
IVs
  • +RES for Sabotage or Geishun Builds
  • Otherwise any
SDrive Atk 2
Alternate: Guidance 3

Show Explanation/Analysis

Weapon: Allied Sword+ (+Res) / Rein Sword (+Res) / Geishun+ (+Res)

Assist: Positional or Rally Assist 

Special: Twin Blades

Passive A: Fortress Res / Fort. Def/Res 3 / Still Water 4 / Ashera's Chosen+

Passive B: Sabotage Atk / Chill Def/Res 3 / Chill Atk/Res 3 / Atk/Def Link / Other Sabotages, Links, or Premium Chill 3s

Passive C: Atk/Def Hold / Spur Atk/Res / Joint Drive Atk / Inf. Spd Tactic / Other "Within Two Spaces" Support skills

Sacred Seal: Drive Atk / Guidance / Ground Orders / Distant Guard / Spur Atk/Def 2 / Other "Within Two Spaces" Support skills

  • On Aether Raids Offense teams where your Mythic units tend to play a secondary supporting fiddle to your carry units, Altina can easily do so with a specialized and completely different skillset divorced of her usual combative roles. Basically, the "bonus unit build".
  • The most notable and damning change is the switch from Ragnell•Alondite to the more mellow and supportive Allied Sword, which does the simple but awesome job of providing extra Atk/Def +4 to nearby allies within two spaces. 
    • Alternatively but at more premium price tags, Rein Sword affects incoming enemies' Def and Spd instead, while Geishun provides a singular Atk penalty on a highest Atk enemy.
  • The nearness effect of Allied Sword resonates across other parts of this build — depending on your carry units in question, you can stack a number of supportive C-slots and Sacred Seals, including Drives, Spurs, Distant Guard, Tactics, and so forth. Several honorable mentions in particular include:
    • Atk/Def Hold comes already by default on Altina, and its range relative to enemy distance works particularly well on compositions involving armored units with Save skills by dulling the stats of incoming enemies. 
    • Inf. Spd Tactic provides 【Null Follow-Up】, a valued combat effect that infantry units sometimes cannot fit on their skillset. As a nice note, this skill kicks in more often than not as Altina is a flier and thus doesn't cut into the infantry unit maximum.
    • Altina's flier status also enables her to use Guidance or Ground Orders, which serves to significantly improve the movement options of her allies — especially armored units. 
  • Altina's A and B-slots may also build upon supportive purposes.
    • Forgoing Ashera's Chosen+ for specialized visible stat buff A-slots has a few notable benefits. Running any of the Res-boosting skills listed above serves to increase the potency of Sabotage skills, though Fort. Def/Res is definitely the optimal choice to improve Altina's ability to absorb Dark Shrine debuffs. 
      • As a disclaimer, Still Water is honestly too rare and specialized at the moment to recommend — plus, its Atk-boosting effects are far outclassed by Ashera's chosen if you wanted to maintain emergency combat skills. 
    • As said, Sabotage skills are a good way to support your AR carry units as Defending units are typically huddled together and are thus easily debuffed. They should be accompanied with specialized visible Res investments wherever possible, such as the aforementioned Fortress skills, running Res refinery in Allied Sword, and having a +RES asset on Altina herself. 
    • However, if you're able to invest a bit highly, premium double Chills require no such stat investments, as they automatically target a unit highest in certain stats and have a higher debuff spread of two spaces. 
    • Finally, on a budget, you can simply run Link skills to boost the appropriate stats of your carry units. 
  • We finish off the build with either a positional or premium Rally skill in the Assist slot. For quick recommendations, given how important it is to avoid bad matchups and enemy territory every turn, Reposition never hurts to run as always. Smite, on the other hand, helps allies reach certain destinations such as Aether fountains more quickly. 

Strengths

Ragnell•Alondite

Ragnell•Alondite was one of the original exemplars of the dual-phase Brave Weapon trade — and it was a very special case since it also features a distant countering effect built-in — along with Keaton's Wolfskin Fang and Reinhardt's Meisterscwhert back in the day. And now that these two have received pretty neat refinery updates of their own, it was only a matter of time before the Blades of the Goddess striked back with remixed vengeance. 

In addition to all the usual shiny benefits expected from hitting twice — that is, hitting harder and charging cooldown much quicklier — refined Ragnell•Alondite now grants:

  • Atk and Res +5, which feeds into the Res-based effects present on Altina's other skills while, needless to say, further fulfilling a Brave weapon unit's constant need for extra damage.
  • Foe bonus neutralization in Atk/Def, allowing Altina's damage to be in consistent top-form while making enemy engagements simply safer.
  • Definitely most importantly of all, a Breath effect (aka Special cooldown acceleration) is active on every engagement, freeing Altina from the burdens of having to use Heavy Blade / Breath effects or support. Thus, this allows her usual Specials — that is, Twin Blades and especially Galeforce — to fire off much more consistently. 

Ashera's Chosen+

The first version of Ashera's Chosen originally seemed pretty good on its own back then between flier weakness neutralization and a swell Atk/Def boost. Anyone having extensively playtested Altina, however, quickly found out how demanding its working conditions were with respect to using certain teammates and being positioned right. In short, fellow human units and Mythics are common, not everybody can afford to fit in Dragon/Beast units, and being away from allies isn't always a guaranteed possibility or optimal decision on some maps. 

Come post-remix, the skill is much more forgiving and rewarding in its execution. It's explicitly worth noting that in addition to its previous conditionals, Ashera's Chosen+ now simply works against any relatively healthy enemy above 75% HP regardless of the types of teammates used or positioning. After fulfilling any of these conditionals, Altina:

  • Benefits from a higher, more extensive stat boost to Atk/Def/Res +9 
  • …And gets even more combat benefits depending on how much Res she has over her enemy. Specifically, additional damage (for a maximum of +7) and damage reduction (40% maximum) are both thankful boons on a Brave weapon user to improve overall survivability and settle more kills in one strike.

Overall, Ashera's Chosen+ simply makes Altina a more stable, reliable unit all-around.

Twin Blades

Damage reduction has become rather standard since Altina joined the fray; in particular, units with access to Dodge effects would especially be normally worrisome considering Altina's low Spd. Thanks to the quick charge rate, great additional damage, and reduction-erasing properties of Altina's unique Special, Twin Blades, however, her Vantage build should typically rarely yield against any form of damage reduction (with exception to established Special-based skill combinations like Pavise + Hardy Fighter). 

Serviceable Stats

It cannot be said with full confidence that Altina's statline aged exceptionally well; however, her refinery and remix do help significantly in filling in the gaps made by time and powercreep. At the end of the day, Altina's reasonably high Atk and decent defenses are still pretty respectable and relevant to her roles. 

Ability to Shift to a Supportive Role 

Back in the day, Altina's value as an Offense Mythic was somewhat bogged down by her lack of fantastic utility options. Back then and now, one common strategy is to simply rely on non-Mythic carry units empowered by Mythic stat boosts while further backed by supportive allies. Combat Mythics like Altina and Naga were especially scrutinized since they typically specialized in combat only and had very limited ways of supporting said carry units. 

The skill pool, however, has since evolved blossomingly to a point where Altina can play a pretty good secondary fiddle to units paired with her, especially if you require her as a Bonus unit. In addition to her default Atk/Def Hold and the easily accessible Allied Sword, her potentially high supportive disposal includes Sabotages, dual Chills, and more. 

Astra Mythic Hero

As an Astra Mythic hero, simply deploying Altina on your Astra Mythic team yields a few passive bonuses. In addition to boosting Astra-blessed allies with a handy flat +5 HP / +3 Atk per copy of her on the team (as a nice supportive bonus for an otherwise combat-focused unit), she also significantly increases your Lift gains per Offense match.  

Weaknesses

Mythic Hero Setbacks / Lack of Stats in AR-O

One of the main complaints of using Altina as a Vantage unit in Aether Raids still sadly applies despite her general combat improvements: she can inflate the stats of her teammates with ally Mythic boosts, but as a Mythic herself cannot benefit from them herself at the same time. In other words, if you're using her as an active fighter in AR-O, expect a little less raw stability compared to the inflated stats of typical non-Mythic, Astra-attuned units like male Shez or Ninja Camilla. Outside of Aether Raids though, it's all fair game.

Exploitable Speed

Altina's fantastic stat distribution comes at the cost of a largely ignorable Speed, which is further made irrelevant by her weapon's Speed penalty. Naturally, she is vulnerable to follow-up attacks. Though Ragnell•Alondite does a neat job at curbing this in practice—as proper setup will allow her to defeat most foes in single counterattacks or initiations—she nevertheless may run into miscalculations against faster enemies that do survive the single strike.

Hardy Bearing and Cancellation Attacks

Well-prepared opposing teams with a form of Hardy Bearing (such as Legendary Lilina's Studied Forblaze) and cancellation attacks (such as Summer Nifl's Chilled Breath or weapons with similar Dazzling effects) can apply massive pressure against the Vantage build quite easily.

Weapon Skills

Weapons SP Rng. Mt.
Iron Sword
Learns by default at 1 ★
Unlocks at 1 ★
Only Inheritable by Sword Units.
50 1 6
Steel Sword
Learns by default at 3 ★
Unlocks at 2 ★
Only Inheritable by Sword Units.
100 1 8
Silver Sword
Learns by default at 4 ★
Unlocks at 3 ★
Only Inheritable by Sword Units.
200 1 11
Ragnell·Alondite

Unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range.

Inflicts Spd-5. Unit attacks twice (even if foe initiates combat).

Learns by default at 5 ★
Unlocks at 5 ★
Non-Inheritable skill.
400 1 10
Weapon Evolution
Weapon Upgrades
Weapon Upgrades

Special Skills

Special Skills SP Turns
Chilling Wind

Boosts damage dealt by 50% of unit's Res.

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

Boosts damage dealt by 50% of unit's Res.

Unlocks at 4 ★
Non-inheritable by Staff-wielding units.
200 3
Twin Blades

Boosts damage by 40% of unit's Res.

Disables non-Special skills that "reduce damage by X%."

Unlocks at 5 ★
Non-Inheritable skill.
500 2

Passive Skills

Passive Skills SP Slot
Ashera's Chosen

Neutralizes "effective against flying" bonuses.

If unit is adjacent to only beast or dragon allies or if unit is not adjacent to any ally, grants Atk/Def+6 during combat.

Non-Inheritable skill.
Unlocks at 5 ★
300
A
Vantage 1

Unit counterattacks first when attacked at HP ≤ 25%

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 1 ★
50
B
Vantage 2

Unit counterattacks first when attacked at HP ≤ 50%

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 2 ★
100
B
Vantage 3

Unit counterattacks first when attacked at HP ≤ 75%

Inheritable by all units.
Unlocks at 4 ★
200
B
Atk/Def Oath 1

At start of turn, if unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Atk/Def+3 to unit for 1 turn.

Infantry & Flying Units Only
Unlocks at 3 ★
60
C
Atk/Def Oath 2

At start of turn, if unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Atk/Def+4 to unit for 1 turn.

Infantry & Flying Units Only
Unlocks at 4 ★
120
C
Atk/Def Oath 3

At start of turn, if unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Atk/Def+5 to unit for 1 turn.

Infantry & Flying Units Only
Unlocks at 5 ★
240
C

Other Info

Origin
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

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