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Soul Scouting: Forma Building Guide - November 2022: Radiant Dawn

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Introduction

For this iteration of Hall of Forms, we have a team of fighters hailing from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Contrary to the last Hall of Forms event, ALL of the Tellius-borne units here are past seasonals — and potentially very competitive ones in the modern day to boot with a little glow-up from this event's skill options. Dheginsea's ridiculously huge array of armored dragon options notably takes center stage here, while the others follow pretty closely with great PRF Beast weaponry and infantry/flier exclusive skills of their own. Players have the chance to build up and possibly add the following units to their roster permanently by spending a Forma Soul:

We will briefly display optimal inheritance options for each unit and the advantages/disadvantages of spending your Forma Soul on them. As Forma Souls take a considerable amount of resources to acquire, it is important to get the most out of your Forma units before purchasing.

Note that any Forma unit you purchase will come with their base skills already. Therefore, there is little need to inherit these base skills during Hall of Forms unless you need to save refinery costs (especially PRF weapons needing Divine Dew) or simply don’t care for hyper-optimal inheritance. They also come completely neutral with no Assets and Flaws, which can be a factor depending on if you care to use Trait Fruits or not.

General Considerations

Forma Unit Rules

  • Any Forma unit you purchase will come with their base skills already. Therefore, there is little need to inherit these base skills during Hall of Forms unless you need to save refinery costs (especially PRF weapons needing Divine Dew) or simply don’t care for hyper-optimal inheritance.
  • Formas are acquired completely neutral with no Assets and Flaws. If you desire a certain Asset/Flaw combination, you will have to utilize Trait Fruits. Since you cannot merge Forma units into existing copies, this may pose an issue on resource spending if you already have the same unit with an ideal Asset.

Skill Considerations

  • When rolling skills from the current Forma skill pool, unique PRF skills are often prioritized over inheritables. It's a good idea to take PRF skills first to improve your chances at finding good inheritable alternatives; Hall of Forms will pretty much constantly hound you to take the PRF skills if you don't take them otherwise.
  • Due to their extreme rarity and superior SP value over most other Special skills, Ruptured Sky (typically available only on Byleth and their variations) and Blue Flame (available only on Owain) will vastly be preferred as a final Special choice. This extends to the bow-exclusive Deadeye and the dagger-exclusive Lethality.
    • Don't worry about not getting them too much, though! These skills are often not necessarily optimal; certain units may prefer running Specials from the low rarity pool like Sol, Glimmer, or Galeforce to achieve their goals. 
  • For the same reason as above, high-tier Assist skills like Rally+'s and Harsh Command+ are preferred on a potential purchased Forma to increase the unit's Arena scoring slightly as well as their overall value.
    • These, too, are also not necessarily optimal as positional Assists like Reposition are vastly preferred in most situations, and those can easily be inherited from lower rarity units like Norne or Barst.
    • Inheriting rally skills or Harsh Command+ too early in your Hall of Forms run can also inhibit your unit's ability to support other Forma allies and escape enemy range as well, increasing the likelihood of wasted Torches (the stamina currency for Hall of Forms) and thus wasted opportunities to get better skills.
  • Though optimal C Passive skills exist on a case-to-case basis, Joint Drives and Menace skills are essentially the most universal there is. Go for these (Joint Drive Atk, at minimum) if available and there aren't better C slot options for your unit in particular.

Nailah

The initiator build, utilizing the healing present in Surge Sparrow and Bulwark to keep Nailah at high health in most initiating attempts. Tempest is swappable but is used to extend Nailah's threat range.

The stock Ideal 4 + Oath 4 build you'll see on most Forma infantry units, making Nailah a reliable fighter in both phases.

Bride's Fang's CD-cutting effect also stacks with that of Special Spiral, enabling Nailah to consistently loop a 4 CD Special of your choice after every trigger. A Blazing Special is chosen here accompanied by additional charging from Time's Pulse to get it running quicker on its first fire.

A build more focused on Special nuking than anything else. Finish 4 provides additional true damage on every Glimmer, though the Atk/Spd version is unavailable in Hall of Forms at the moment. Time's Pulse gets Glimmer instantly ready on Turn 1, but is otherwise substitutable for other Pulse-giving effects from allies.

Summary: 

Bridal Nailah is an effective and straightforward offensive unit, with her signature Bride's Fang retaining some really neat Special activation effects between cooldown -1, providing a beefy additional +10 damage to Special triggers, and continuously looping Nailah's Special by 1 (mini Special Spiral, so to speak). She also stands to benefit from this Hall of Forms significantly due to her rather lacking base skills and the variety of infantry goodies that pair well with her playstyle. Whether she's necessary for your barracks is up to your own debate, though, as Bridal Nailah's glass cannon status, plus relative lack of range and staying power, may limit her contributions. 

Recommended Skills: 

Weapons: Bride's Fang

Assist: Any Rally+ or Harsh Command+

Special: Blue Flame / Blazing Specials

A-Passive: Atk/Spd Ideal, Surge Sparrow, Atk/Spd Clash, Atk/Res Finish 4, Life and Death 4, Atk/Spd Unity, Distant Pressure, Distant Dart

B-Passive: Spd/Def Bulwark, Special Spiral, Null Follow-Up, Lull Spd/Def

C-Passive: Atk/Spd Oath 4, Atk/Spd Menace, Time's Pulse, Even or Odd Tempest, Joint Drive Atk or Spd

Nailah's beast and inheritance limitations fortunately and unfortunately make herself simple to write up. Bride's Fang is practically eternally bestowed on her, and her inability to run otherwise coveted Specials like Godlike Reflexes, Vital Astra, and Ruptured Sky severely limits her to pretty generic-scope Specials — so, Blue Flame or other generic Specials like Blazing AOE or Glimmer — for real combat. Galeforce is anti-synergistic with her weapon's preference to in-combat Specials, so hands off that.

Generally speaking we'll want to improve Nailah's overall offensive in two distinct flavors: full-on intiator, or dependable dual-phase brawler. 

  • Her A-slot, then, determines her playstyle pretty easily here: Clash, Surge Sparrow, Life and Death (with Special Spiral and an AOE Special), or simply her base Swift Sparrow 3 reward aggressive play, while Atk/Spd Ideal, Unity, and Atk/Res Finish (a copium choice with its Atk/Spd variant not being in the HoF skill pool at this time of writing) prefer to have Nailah go either phase with an almost-prepared Special ready to fire. 
  • For B options, Bulwark, Null Follow-Up, and Lull Spd/Def all largely make Nailah a significantly better duelist with unique perks of their own. Special Spiral is a specialty choice that stacks with the Spiral effect present in Bride's Fang; it should only really be used for 4 base CD Specials like the Blazing series, though. As past refinery updates for infantry beasts have added the Tempo effect in their weapons, we assume the same will apply to Nailah in the future and thus we will not pursue Spd/Def Tempo.
  • Finally, in the C slot, Glare is generally so-so (with Nailah's current weaponry and lack of Canto, anyway) and can easily be replaced. Atk/Spd Oath or Menace helps Nailah self-start her own buffs, Time's Pulse helps precharge whichever Special you've given her (which makes 2 CD Specials instantly ready), and a Tempest skill gives her improved mobility while synergizing with Clash's movement requirements. Joint Drives work simply but effectively for improving combat across the team.

Rafiel

A generic but high-quality support build, which serves to provide extremely spread-out defensive penalties while handing out the ever-coveted 【Null Follow-Up】effect to fellow infantry allies.

Rafiel's HP might seem low, but with dedicated HP slots, he's able to apply Infantry Pulse, Pulse Tie, and Sudden Panic pretty well, especially on new units which typically don't invest at all into their HP. For higher Forma value, though, just manually inherit HP+5 after purchasing a copy with a higher-grade A-slot skill.

Rafiel would simply just rather have Chill Def/Res 3 if possible, but stacking in his Res and increasing the potency of Sabotage, as well as his resilience versus units like Elimine, isn't a bad second choice at all.

Inf. Spd Tactic is also just a great skill in general for granting 【Null Follow-Up】as usual, but note that since Rafiel is infantry himself, he only bestow it on one other infantry unit on his team.

Rafiel can fulfill the role of a singer with Galeforce to significantly extend team actions in one turn. Due to his low combat stats, though, you'll have to be picky/realistic about the targets he's fighting against. Run Thorr support over Flashing Blade if possible.

Summary: 

Rafiel has retained a pretty great niche since his introduction; in addition to usual refresher duties thanks to Sing, his signature Groom's Wings acts as an additional precharge effect (CD -1) for a support ally of his choice. Notably, it stacks with Infantry Pulse yet also operates differently from it as the effect fires for absolutely any ally of any movement type — fliers, armors, and cavalry allies otherwise typically have extremely limited ways of precharging their Specials.

Because Rafiel slated for mainly Sing duties, he's relatively a low-maintenance Forma pick regardless of skills obtained. He does not require a lot to simply refresh his allies, so all there is to him is simply grabbing all the premium support passives you can to further strengthen his supportive constitution. While you can make an utter heron out of him with offensively-inclined skills, those typically, REALLY don't really shine without a painstaking amount of other investments (merges, Dragonflowers, IV changing, etc). 

Recommended Skills: 

Weapons: Groom's Wings

Assist: Sing

Special: Galeforce, Blue Flame

A-Passive: Atk/Spd Ideal 4, Atk/Spd Clash 4, Surge Sparrow, Still Water 4, Atk/Res Finish 4, Mirror Stance 3, Flashing Blade 4

B-Passive: Chill Def/Res 3, Sudden Panic, Even Pulse Tie, Sabotage Def

C-Passive: Inf. Null Follow, Inf. Spd Tactic, Infantry Pulse, Time's Pulse

Rafiel pretty much writes the first half of his desired kit in permanent marker. Groom's Wings is literally a given on him, and there's absolutely no reason to go for any Assist other than Sing as that's an extremely helpful supportive skill in both Hall of Forms and outside. The Special should also be one of the very last things you should worry about, given that Rafiel will likely never see real combat, and as usual of beast units, his Special choices are very limited. Galeforce IS pretty nifty in the off-chance you 1) make a real combat build on him (more on that below), and 2) actually have the opportunity to pull it off on a Galeforce chain team. 

The three passives are where things get colorful. Improving Rafiel's hyper offense with combative A-slots like Atk/Spd Ideal, Surge Sparrow, and Flashing Blade 4 does sound like a hoot and a half, but he'll definitely need all the help he can get if you're potentially including him as a double-duty refresher on a Galeforce team in Aether Raids Offense. Alternatively, you can focus instead on Atk/Res to help shrug off a reasonable amount of magic with Rafiel's high Res; high recommendations here include Atk/Res Finish 4 (which stacks with Rafiel's +10 damage on Special triggers and gives him a surprisingly large retaliation option) and Still Water (which improves Sabotage potency). 

Additionally, a lot of modern competitive builds for Rafiel involve him increasing his HP as much as possible to improve the potency of HP-based support skills like Infantry Pulse (again, it stacks with the Pulse effect from Groom Wing), Sudden Panic, and Pulse Tie. Until this Hall of Forms is over, though, don't go for dedicated HP +X passives here; they are VERY easy to come by from low-rarity units, and it's just a waste of A-slot value at the end of the day. Another fantastic B-slot option is Chill Def/Res 3, which spreads damage-increasing debuffs like wildfire.

Besides Infantry Pulse's mentioned perks in the C slot, Inf. Null Follow and Inf. Spd Tactics act as easy yet rare sources of Null Follow-Up for Rafiel's allies, and Time's Pulse makes it more feasible to fire off Specials on the more combatively-involved builds.

Tibarn

A simple Atk/Def stacking build, solidifying Tibarn's overall melee combat and survivability versus physical counterattacks.

Though his weapon grants him an automatic follow-up, that also pairs well with natural follow-ups against units that cancel out the effect, allowing Tibarn to get in his double hits regardless.

Summary: 

Flier beast units are known for their monstrous mobility and initiation options, and Pirate Tibarn was exemplary for this not too long ago due to his default access to Dive-Bomb and the various offensive perks of Sky-Pirate Claw. His default kit for the most part is an already-complete synergistic sweeping machine, so it's fairly difficult to mess up a copy of him considering he gets Dive-Bomb, Heavy Blade 4, and Galeforce with a simple purchase.

Quite a lot of great alternative passive options have cropped up since Tibarn's introduction, however, and Hall of Forms gives an opportunity to spread his wings to other horizons in spite of a pretty tight existing ship.

Recommended Skills: 

Weapons: Sky-Pirate Claw

Assist: Any Rally+ or Harsh Command+

Special: Galeforce / Blue Flame

A-Passive: Atk/Def Clash, Atk/Spd Clash, Atk/Def Catch 4, Atk/Spd Catch 4, Surge Sparrow, Sturdy Surge, Atk/Def Solo, Atk/Spd Solo

B-Passive: A/D Near Trace, S/D Near Trace

C-Passive: Atk/Def Rein, Spd/Def Hold, Atk Smoke 4, Def/Res Smoke

The first thing Tibarn will want to swap out is his base Atk Smoke 3, which definitely isn't considered a luxury C passive by a long shot. It is perfectly upgradable to its fourth-tier variant, however, which provides a form of additional bulk through its added follow-up denial. You may also be interested in Atk/Def Rein or Spd/Def Hold for more immediate stat swing options, as Smoke skills require Tibarn to participate in combat before kicking in. Given Tibarn's tendency to be used with other high-mobility units like Reyson and Naesala, Def/Res Smoke can be a disgusting gamechanger due to its added Pathfinder effect after activation. 

The other passives tend to focus on improving Tibarn's combat and mobility options. He doesn't come with any form of Canto, for example, which is where the Near Trace skills come in for the B-slot (and also given the lack of other options for beast fliers). While Heavy Blade 4 is already pretty good on him, opting for a stat A-slot grants better overall combat especially if they come with useful secondary effects. Between the two slots, you should build on two stat focuses: Atk/Spd (which gives a better chance of forced doubles in case Tibarn faces follow-up denial effects) or Atk/Def (a conventional enough spread that boosts power and bulk). 

Like the other beasts, Tibarn's Special access is extremely limited, and due to the Solo requirements of Sky-Pirate Claw, there's pretty much no real use for Blue Flame aside from trophy collection purposes. 

Dheginsea

Dheginsea has high Res for a Near Save unit, so he can leverage that for greater overall bulk via Dragon Wall. 

A more OHKO-focused build than others with dedicated damage-increasing investments across most skills. Reaches its full potential with a Breath seal and Arcane Grima.

Due to his access to the DC-D Seal and having fantastic overall defenses, Far Save is perfectly in Dheginsea's league as well. Hardy Fighter only significantly increases his resilience to ranged attacks further, and reaches its full potential with Arcane Grima.

Summary: 

Dheginsea's journey from introduction until now in Heroes has been a wild ride. But, we'll save the history lesson for another day and just say Dheginsea is really eating as great as his literal king status affords him. Armored units already have so many highly competitive options between access to Saves and various Fighters, not to mention the flexibility that his min-maxed statline and dragon skill access grants him.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Arcane Grima is totally unavailable in this Hall of Forms. Unfortunately, serious prospective Dheginsea users will have to make do with other inheritables and perhaps keep one copy of Rearmed Robin at the ready sometime after purchase. The delay is worth it, though, as it's considered Dheginsea's best weapon miles above anything else and pretty much turns him from a decent threat to an utter menace. 

Recommended Skills: 

Weapons: Lantern Breath+ / Pale Breath+

Assist: Any Rally+ or Harsh Command+

Special: Blue Flame, Aegis, Pavise, Sacred Cowl, Escutcheon

A-Passive: Mirror Stance 3, Atk/Res Ideal, Atk/Res Unity, Distant Stance, Atk/Def Ideal, Atk/Def Unity, Def/Res Unity, Distant Def 4, Close Def 4

B-Passive: Hardy Fighter, Crafty Fighter, Wily Fighter, Dragon's Wrath, Dragon's Ire, Dragon Wall

C-Passive: Any Near or Far Save

Quite practically, all you have to do is just grab a Save skill and Dheginsea already comes out of this winning. Having one is something we pretty much assume is a given in the C-slot above ABSOLUTELY everything else for most armored units due to its potent, almost-broken baiting properties. Dedicate Dheginsea to either ranged or melee counterattacking, and build from there.

The other priority skill slot is the weapon of choice; Dheginsea's base Blackfire Breath is considered a pretty swell weapon by itself, but it's anti-synergistic with the forced nearness of Far or Near Save. There are plenty of alternative inheritable breaths, then, that Dheginsea can obtain in and out of Hall of Forms: Lantern Breath+ and Pale Breath+ were pretty much his standards before Arcane Grima came along, and Surprise Breath+ and Serenity Breath+ are also NOT available in this event but are low-rarity options available for free and from a demoted seasonal unit, respectively. All of them mostly pale in comparison to Arcane Grima as soon as you're able to inherit that, though.

Dheginsea has Sturdy Stance 3 and Slick Fighter available by default and upon purchase, giving you a pretty good head start in building him. Also consider that Dheginsea is able to use the Dist. Counter (D) Sacred Seal to retaliate against ranged enemies, lowering the priority of Distant Counter-based choices like Distant Stance. For your consideration in the A and B-slot, however:

  • For dedicated Far saving and significantly better magical tolerance, you'll want to go for Res-based A-slot skills like Mirror Stance 3 or Distant Def 4. For Near Save builds, you'll probably stick with Sturdy Stance 3 anyway, but having the perks of Close Def 4, Atk/Def Ideal, and Atk/Def Unity at the ready may be handy.
  • Hardy Fighter is probably the most unique and useful B-slot by far, given its significant damage reductive properties and how standard the effect is on most other Save units. Dheginsea also already has a really good follow-up Fighter in Slick, making other alternatives in that department (Crafty, Wily, Dragon's Ire) pretty much redundant. Dragon Wall and Dragon's Wrath 4 are other unique choices here as they also provides a form of damage reduction; the latter also boosts Dheginsea's damage output against most targets by a pretty nifty amount. 
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