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Lancer 103 - The Art of Basic Breaking (Part I)

11-22-2016, 01:43 AM Originally posted by Forum User: LaconicLeaf Last updated: 10-15-2017, 05:02 PM

(Credit: Match-i for this drawing of my character)

__________________________________________________ Table of Contents __________________________________________________ I. Introduction II. Build Suggestion (Pre-7th Slot) III. Build Suggestion (Post-7th Slot) IV. Monsters, Example Monster Sets, and Comparisons V. Lancer Skills (Pre-5th Ring) VI. Lancer Skills (Post-5th Ring) VII. Basic Abilities VIII. Lancer Procs IX. Gameplay (PvE) - aka "How to Break the Basic Attack's Potential Open" X. Weapon Proc and Skill Build Suggestion (PvE) XI. Weapon Proc and Skill Build Suggestion (PvP) XII. Apollo Set Blessing - yes or no? XIII. Event Quests Walkthrough XIV. "This is how you DON'T play Lancers" XVI. Credits XVII. DPS Scaling Data for Lancer Attacks

Previous Guide Archives

Lancer Guide 2.0 (by Vostera) Lancer 101 (by Cobalt)

__________________________________________________ I. Introduction __________________________________________________

Lancers were once extremely overpowered during the pre-4th Ring days.

Forget about

That's right.

Believe it or not, even as a 190 AP (200 with passives) attack, Knight's Blitz once landed swift 2HKOs against the majority of the opposition, while Archers and Mages often got OHKOed. Nearly everyone built Lancers for pure offense, getting as high of an ATK stat as possible with maxed Weapon and Monster slots. The guild crystal didn't give any multipliers to a member's HP, thus KB had barely any counterplay. You could try using Guard, but Lancers can use Savage Sting to bait it, wait it out, and then slam you with KB. With the sheer firepower Lancers had, and how easy and brainless their playstyle seemed, it’s no wonder they were given the moniker, “Cancer Lancer.” When 4th Ring was announced, it was hyped that Lancers would be overpowered, all thanks to Dragon Crush, which has 190 AP and hits 3 targets. Furthermore, KB got its AP increased from 190 to 210 (220 with passives), and people were panicking that Lancers would be God Tier again (they actually were, but everyone switched to Soldier/Mage/Archer due to FoTM status). But as time passed on, Dragon Crush was actually a bad AoE skill, as its animation speed was slow, and Mage's Meteor Rain, a similar AoE but deals multihits like Meteor Strike, was much faster, on the same speed tier as KB and Basic Attack.

As a result, Glass Lancer builds started falling out of favor with higher level caps and crystal caps, the latter finally increasing the HP of guild members in combat. Thus, KB no longer landed 2HKOs, and while this was going on, the original Lancer guide author, Cobalt, ranted about stuff like Amaterasu coming out before Apollo, and "Why Lancers are the weakest class in the game,” on what was arguably the "Lancer Hate Era" (or the "Dark Age of Lancers," kinda like the "Dark Age of Sonic"). Threads suggesting to buff Lancers, and all kinds of random crap, with Lancers being underpowered and everything, were also being thrown about all over the forums. This was the time when Lancers were surrounded with crappy publicity, being kicked out of Event Quest parties for being "useless," and even kicked out of guilds to make room for Soldiers, Mages, or even Archers. But the dark days of 4th Ring have long passed. There were a few uncharted techniques and merits about Lancers which other players, like , were discovering even in 4th Ring, like the sheer single-blow damage of Knight's Blitz being able to pulverize the raw defenses of Soldiers and Clerics, and Break Thrust's proc-bypassing capabilities doing extremely well against defensive walls in PvP. Plus, Reo also shared the "Attack Stance Basic Attack Strategy," which greatly improved the efficiency of Lancers in PvE; use Stings to Break, then Basic Attack to DPS. This was a fighting style Reo never got a chance to use since he used a Cleric/Soldier cost distribution with a few weapons; this actually started my love for the Basic Attack as a timed and true attack skill. In hindsight, Lancers were probably the best class during the pre-5th Ring meta, but not for reasons you'd expect. They can bore through Soldier Frontlines with Break Thrust and Knight's Blitz, with the former ignoring procs (can decimate Clerics), and the latter having sheer firepower that DEF scaling cannot overcome (Mage and Archer attacks were easily tankable with enough raw defenses). Against Meteor Rain Mage Frontlines, if the Lancers used Guard, and a more tanky build, they can withstand their attacks while also being able to instantly burst down each target one at a time. Their Anti-Class, Archers, were non-existent in the Frontline because Soldiers can instantly cleave them with Dual Sword, and Archers can't do much to them back. Eventually, 5th Ring is another time where Lancers are at a strong point. They gain skills which take advantage of Break and turn it into an AP boost, which drastically improves the damage they can dish out. While the AS+Basic strategy is still viable, the new 5th Ring skills yielded a new playstyle for Lancers that is more accessible. This ring also brought about buffs for Double Sting, turn it from a useless cost dump, Heart-proc reliant skill to a Swiss Army Knife with good all-around utility and DPS, while greatly improving Lancer's PvP game with stronger skills like Severe Sting and Cross Assault. Even Break Thrust got some love, with a lower cooldown and added Break bonus to make it usable with Cross Assault to some extent. The 5th Ring release also expressed a "What Could Have Been" dichotomy: Dragon Crush got not only its cooldown timer halved, but also a buffed animation speed too. If that AoE HAD its Basic Attack/KB/Meteor Rain-tier animation speed, we would've had a completely different meta entirely in 4th Ring. Lancers would've been able to decimate Mage Frontlines with coordinated Dragon Crushes, and it would've still been Lancer meta like it was during 3rd Ring. Unlike Meteor Rain, the high base AP of Dragon Crush would've been able to pulverize Soldiers and Clerics; no amount of DEF can reliably reduce the damage Dragon Crush could do. While I may not be the highest GS Lancer, only about 210k as of the time this guide was published, but now 350k and counting, or the highest ATK Lancer, sitting around 75k - 80k (again, when the guide was published); now lingering around 120-135k, at least I understand the game mechanics quite well, and can carry PvE runs with reliable Break uptime, so for those of you out there... I hope you’ll at least learn something new about Lancers after reading this guide.

Why SHOULD You Be A Lancer? (Pros)

+ Fastest attacks in the game

+ Second highest HP in the game, and the gap between a Lancer's HP and Soldier's HP is shorter than between an Archer's HP and a Cleric's/Mage's HP

+ High damage in each and every hit of their attacks, which makes raw DEF investment less effective, and deals great damage even while proc less

+ Adding to the above point, even Soldiers and Clerics take a sizable chunk of damage from Lancer attacks like Cross Assault. Since the latter has the same Max HP as a Mage, and Lancers can flat-out ignore their procs with Break Thrust, they can be considered the "Unofficial Anti-Cleric Class"

+ Absolutely dangerous after a Unison; since everyone freezes while a Unison clash completes, Lancers have the speed advantage. They can outright choose who to kill, since their attacks come out so quickly, if the enemy Clerics use Aid on the wrong player, they may as well kiss one of their teammates goodbye.

+ Anti-Class to Mages, a (former) common frontliner with their AoEs, and the AP damage mitigation further makes Lancers the best class to use against them; any Mage trying to drop rocks on your head will have to be extremely lucky with procs to even lay as much as a scratch on you; even Star Burst, which can potentially one-shot other classes, has a hard time killing you too

+ 5th Ring and ToJ skills are a massive boost to DPS, and allows Lancers to finally take advantage of Break for higher damage

+Negative Pressure can catch people off guard when least expected, can even win Colo games too; a metagame-defining skill that can turn Unison Battles in your favor, or even deny uni by erasing 2 Cheers' worth of meter

+ Can ignore shields and defense procs with Break Thrust (with a few exceptions)

+ Best class to inflict Break with

+ Flexible combo potential with skills, even if said skills don't explicitly have a combo effect with one another (like using Break Thrust with Cross Assault)

+ Break carries teams in quests with Unison upkeep and Defense Penetration, allows for earlier buff Unis, and carries United Offense and other boss content; can even allow people who died in Colo Round 2 without full Uni to have a chance to Uni in Round 3

+ The offensive class who is least likely to die from random monster reflect skills thanks to how Basic Attack doesn’t deal enough damage for a 50% reflect to bounce off lethal damage through Wards (and their animation speeds let them hit confirm BEFORE reflects apply)

+ Best user of the Basic Attack, which scales extremely well with just about every buff in the game due to its low cost and cooldown (you could even use it to humiliate others just by showing off how powerful the default attack is)

+ Thus, Basic Ability replacements are optional, and are more suited for PvP because the Basic Attack is just THAT good by default (although Deadly Blow admittedly comes VERY close to beating Basic Attack)

+ Extremely effective against Soldier Frontlines, as Cross Assault hits harder than Mage's Blood Oath despite Anti-Class, doesn't risk getting Reflect proc-killed, and has high HP to withstand multiple Rage Slashes; Negative Pressure can be a pain to them too, especially when coupled with Dissonance

+ 4th Ring skills (Break Thrust, Double Sting) are still viable in the current meta for their unique properties, unlike the other classes

+ Strong damage floor (All Rings)

Why Should You NOT Be A Lancer? (Cons)

- Low damage ceiling (Pre-5th Ring) when using non-Basic Attack skills

- Useful monsters by stats are generally limited to Fire, Water, and Haste elements; only two of these elements are useful for GvG unis. Farmable utility monster choices are poor (has to use Amaterasu or other off-element monsters for utilities).

- Even with high damage in single blows, Mages and Archers will still outdamage you (though 5th Ring made Lancers actually out-DPS Mages to some extent, or become rather equal to them)

- Apollo Set actually "nerfs" your Break rate due to the Proc Priority System mechanics, makes you more squishy due to sacrificing Main Slots

- Break Thrust has low base power, reliant on procs to deal real damage in PvP

- Null Damage effects (Unisons, Charisma, Null Physical Damage) and Guard still stuff Break Thrust

- Long cooldown times for certain skills; Smash moves from Soldiers out-DPS the Sting moves (until 5th Ring/ToJ)

- While I used to list "Secret XXLs being relevant today" as a "Pro," I'm gonna move them to the Cons because the new ToJ skills have high Break Bonus to the point where it's not really necessary to carry Savage Sting and Double Sting anymore. (Although Secret XXL does work out great if Double Sting is your only attack in PvP for your guild strategy, because Mastery-tier AP and proc rate is amazing)

- “Four Moveslot Syndrome” - Want Attack Stance? Take off EE or Mass Refresh/Balancing. Want Cross Assault? Take off Attack Stance. Want Negative Pressure? Cheer, Guard, or a second attack must go. (and so on)

- Basic Attack replacement weapons take off a high-DPS skill. As mentioned before, they're more suited for PvP, where burst damage is favored with Cleric heals being common. (Only Deadly Blow comes extremely close as a true upgrade)

- Due to having high raw ATK, a “Confused Attack” can potentially OHKO a Lancer or another player if they try using a buff/support skill while Confused (so please, think twice before deciding to EE out of boredom after you finish a quest while confused, or trying to Yolo Refresh)

- The buffs to Cleric's Aid skills for faster casting times actually make them the fastest skills in the game. They go so fast that they will land before a Lancer attack connects.

- Certain Event Quests (Wind Mobius, Eva Collab 1.0) have "Low HP, Low DEF, High Break Tolerance" mobs, which make Break builds less practical

- Death Pierce is useless, and a waste of a 5th Ring attack skill space.

- Anti-Class disadvantage to the current “OP Class” in the game -- Archers. Better hope you’re stacked with Magic Reflection or Magic Damage Down procs, so their Deadly Arabesque won’t OHKO...

Miscellaneous Issues

(4th Ring Issues)

- At one point, Lancers had a history of being stigmatized by others, being the bearer of several misconceptions, such as being called the "worst class," "why be a Lancer when you can play a Mage or Archer and do tons more damage," "if you're building tanky, be a Soldier instead," and what have you. (Thankfully, the vitriol has worn off, although Soldiers are arguably currently at the position where 4th Ring Lancers used to be)

- Many people think Lancers are THE "Damage Dealer class" given the class description, and complained about it on the forums due the description given by the game, using it as a crutch to prove their points (which was true... on like the Lv. 80 cap!)

- Even then, there's still some people who insist in Lancers being intended to be built Glass Cannon as an optimal build; this ill-advised build leaves Lancers with sub-30k MDEF, making them die to even proc less Meteor Rains.

Otherwise... Some player-related cons (it's the PLAYER'S problem, not the class):

- Class Passives encourage equipping Armor and Helm type gear to maximize your GS. However, this leaves you with low MDEF, and a small amount of Anti-Magic procs. (Unless they were all Reflection/Damage Down XLs, but that’s a different story)

- Players bringing the wrong abilities, like Thrusts, Dragon Assault, Dragon Crush, Death Pierce, or CURE (4-digit heals FTL), into Event Quests or Mobius

- In addition to the above point, Lancers who don't bring Attack Stance and just spam Sting, Savage Sting, and Knight's Blitz whenever they're off cooldown (the past equivalent of Severe Sting, Cross Assault, and Death Pierce) are guaranteed to keep asking for Haste at the beginning of a quest; these Lancers also tend to Break the wrong target too, and never use the Basic Attack

- Basic Attack is extremely under appreciated, and some players asked for more replacements for it (like replacing it for Cheer or Guard) when it's already OP as is

- Some players still tend to use Cross Assault incorrectly, oblivious to the fact that it has an AP Bonus damage effect while hitting Broken targets

- Lancers who don't take advantage of Break for their 5th Ring skills, or abuse AP Modifiers with the Basic Attack, will end up being out-DPSed by Soldiers

- While Lancers are least vulnerable to Reflect attacks, there’s still some players who Cross Assault or Knight’s Blitz head-first into a 50% Reflect target, and dying like a Mage or Archer that way

- Noobs thinking it's a great idea to use DRAGON ASSAULT, the absolute WORST move in the game *death glare*

- Complaints about Lancers being useless because they can’t SELF-HEAL unlike the others (by far the absolute MOST common complaint about Lancers)

- 5th Ring Sub Quest is SOLO Only! It’s difficult to beat this quest as a Lancer alone without dying. Thus, I highly recommend building a Cleric as a secondary class to make this Sub Quest a lot easier. Trust me, it pays off in cutting the amount of gems you would spend on reviving if you tried brute forcing your way through otherwise. (Though thankfully, stacking Water defense will help tank these mobs; this Sub Quest came before Elemental Defense was a thing)

Part II >>>

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blahblahemblem · 6 years

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heroes barracks tour: cavalry + updates

exactly what it says on the tin

Note: I started writing this post last year and some things have changed since then. I’ve decided to keep the stuff I originally wrote and cross it out rather than replace it outright. Additionally, aside from the write-up on my cavalry units this post contains a small update to my armour and flier intros as it’s been long enough that I’ve acquired a few more units and changed some plans I had for the old ones.

Armour update

Build improvements

Not much in this category. I gave both BK and Arden Swap (although only BK had the SP available to learn it), and Henry learned Draw Back (which ended up being surprisingly useful in combo with Armour March).

New units

I made the first armour post before summoning on Winter’s Envoy. Here’s what I got from it:

+def –atk

Got her from the last orb on the first summoning circle.

Despite her awkward IVs, awful outfit, and my general distaste for Tharja as a character, she quickly became one of my favourite units (see also: summer Corrin). I enjoyed using her in the Arena so much that I bothered to invest into improving my score, which is how I got into tier 20 for the first time. I’ve tried using her again last week and failed because the maps weren’t as favourable (she survives and counterkills brave Lyn on defensive tiles, but last week’s rotation included the stupid fucking boat map where she got wrecked all the time because there’s nowhere to run).

Her default set is just so damn good. It’s very gratifying to have another unit with Close Counter that isn’t poor defenseless Takumi (who doesn’t even run it anymore), and Vengeful Fighter is, of course, mindblowing. Hone Armour is for Henry’s bladetome. She also has Hone Atk 3 that I gave her in a desperate rage trying to put together an arena team last week, which I regret a bit since it’s unlikely to see use again but it’s not a big deal in the long run.

Usage: I had an absolute blast running her in the last Tempest Trials in tandem with Henry and (spoilers). The boost to her defences and the Close Defence 3 seal turned her into an all-purpose tank with very few things that scared her. I might try to incorporate her into future arena teams again, and she’s of course quite the green counter option for AA.

Future improvements: I’ve seen people replace her special with a 4-charge one, since it works perfectly with Vengeful Fighter and also deals more explosive damage. I hesitated on doing that while her Tempest was running as the boost to her stats combined with the support bonuses from (spoilers) meant she wasn’t always getting doubled, but for general usage it would make sense. I’m holding out a bit since I’d rather focus on units who don’t have already functional builds first. Another thing is refining the Candelabra (haven’t decided whether to go for even more Def or round out her Res yet). I don’t see myself replacing her weapon for now except maybe with Raudrowl, but I don’t have even one Katarina yet.

neutral

Second summoning circle yielded me this strapping gentleman.

Unlike with Tharja I don’t have a very long ode to his abilities, he’s a good unit but his kit just isn’t Close Counter + QR on steroids. That said, he’s an excellent all-around blue counter with good mixed bulk, so I’m glad to have him. (Plus his voicelines are hilarious. “Party?”)

I don’t really know what else to do with him while I’m this low on quality A skills, so I just left his default kit untouched and added Fortify Armour (mostly for Henry, but Tharja obviously made good use of it too) and Ignis (Bonfire would be better with its lower cooldown, but I didn’t have available fodder and didn’t want to spend feathers on this).

Usage: See above about countering blues. He also provides Fortify buffs to those who need it in AA. Otherwise he’s stuck in the same rut as other armours: they’re great and all, but the movement makes it awkward to use them, and the colour overlap makes gluing him to Henry for Armour March a bit inconvenient.

Future improvements: IDK. Giving him a Slaying Axe could be something, but I like to leave seasonal units with their default weapons if I can help it, I think it adds to the charm. That leaves refining Sack o’ Gifts, although same as with the Candelabra I don’t know whether to go with +def or +res, and replacing Ignis with Bonfire.

Change of plans

Gwendolyn is dead. Thank god I’m free. I used her to give Tharja Hone Armour as I didn’t have an unmerged 4* copy and didn’t want to waste feathers. Rip in pepperoni, I won’t miss you. (I’ve summoned another fucking one since then but I’m not even going to bother merging her again, I just hate her art so much.)

Flier update

Build improvements

I got enough SP on Shanna for Firesweep L+ and on Tana for Swap and Hit & Run, and inherited Desperation 3 on Caeda. Otherwise nothing new.

New units

Happy New Year to me!!

+res –hp

Finally an Azura with IVs that don’t suck. In general I’m beyond happy that I have her; I love Azura, I love dancers in Heroes, her art is great, she has Hone Fliers, she’s a goddamn flying singer when I adore flying units, what is there not to love?

Very simple kit, I don’t want to waste Fury on dancers hence Spd+3 as a budget solution for improving her most important stat (TA is an option, of course, but I think with access to flier buffs Airzura needs it less than other dancers). Kind of wish I waited a bit for The Most Important Unit I’ve Ever Summoned (who will be shown in the next update) before launching to refine the Hagoita... but I really needed the Divine Dew and besides, it’s not like it doesn’t help.

Usage: She’s a dancer...

Future improvements: She has WoM3 inherited, hopefully she will get a lot of kills in today’s TT with the buffed stats (as it’s torture to grind SP for dancers otherwise).

+hp –spd

Bummer IVs, but as I wasn’t expecting to have her at all (she came in the same circle as the Most Important Unit; as the pity rate was at 4,50% I just decided to summon the rest after getting him and there she was) it’s fine. Camilla also has boosted BST to make up for bad IVs lol. In general it’s great that I have her as she fills exactly the niche I was looking to fill, a tanky sword flier.

Keeping her default kit and adding Hit & Run. With flier buffs I think her bane doesn’t hinder her so much that I need to give her something else.

Usage: I just got her four days ago... She’s about to see a lot of action in the new TT though, and afterwards I will probably arrange a secondary flier team with both Camillas and Airzura on it, fourth member being debated (Shanna? or I might replace Cordy with Cherche on the first team and put Cordy here?)

Future improvements: I’m going to refine the Kadomatsu (for +spd) instead of replacing her weapon, I think. Slaying Edge is an option, but as I said before I try to keep seasonal weapons whenever possible. I’ve also seen this video on the effectiveness of a build utilising the Deflect Melee seal and Vantage; it worked excellently there because the test subject with Michalis with WoDaoclere-charged Ignis so it might not be as good elsewhere, but there’s always the option of giving Cammy Wo Dao? We’ll see.

Change of plans

1. Since I got NY!Camilla, I don’t need to build a Palla anymore. I will hold onto the 4* neutral version, maybe even merge her into a +spd 4* if I get one, and use her for HM grinding just because I really like Palla, but I’m not investing into her.

2. I made up my mind about spring Camilla. I summoned a Nino and now that I have Hone Airzura it makes even further sense to just go for my favourite build of all time, blade nuke.

Back to cavalry, finally

My main cavalry team isn’t particularly well-put together or impressive, and in general as it turns out I don’t have a whole lot of horses available, but I did go through a period where my horse team carried me through a bunch of difficult content and they’re still my closing act in Arena Assault as I can usually expect them to be able to handle anything.

5* builds

(I don’t have ANY sword cavaliers. This isn’t true anymore, but I still wish I had Xander as well. I didn’t get him because back then I didn’t expect that I’d change my mains and I didn’t want to try dealing with a GHB when I didn’t even have a single level 40 unit on this account yet. I have everything ready for Xander’s rerun that will probably not ever happen now, I have fucking Distant Defence fodder ready, WHERE IS HE INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS IT’S BEEN EIGHT MONTHS)

neutral

No, he’s not my freebie from CYL, I got him off Gunnthra’s legendary banner. Very happy about it because that’s a (relatively) fast offensive sword cavalier, something I didn’t have before. Also he’s adorable and I love his art and wah he says “Roy’s our boy” when you go into battle

I think his default build is fine, maybe he’s a bit on the slower side for Desperation but with emblem buffs, who cares?

Usage: Clearly I haven’t even got around to completing his default skillset... I’ve been busy with fliers and armours :( I’ll put more effort in later

Improvements: Needs an assist. He has Fortify Cavalry inherited but not learned, and also needs to learn his default skills.

+atk –res

Also from Gunnthra’s banner, a defensive sword cavalier to complement the offensive one. Sigurd is really awesome all around so I have no complaints. It’s so convenient that the newer units they release tend to have good builds from the start so I don’t have to scramble around trying to find anything worthwhile to put on them among the piles of trash in my barracks

Usage: Unlike Roy he got to get his default set filled out at least...

Improvements:

I should probably give him Hone Cavalry.

+res –def

My one and only red cavalier, yay!

So Leo’s been sort of shafted by Heroes in terms of default builds (aside from the fact that motherfucker comes with QR3, one of the absolute best skills in the game). Brynhildr is now overshadowed by the goddamn Gravity+ staff, Elise has better offensive stats despite being a healer, etc etc BUT.

I’ve said it before and I will never get tired of saying it: I love monotype bladetome nukes. Who made me love them so much? Cecilia Leo. He was the first unit for whom I bit the bullet and promoted another unit to 5* just to sacrifice them, and what a dazzling fucking introduction to the world of weapon SI that was

Darting Blow seems silly at first glance, dude has 22 whopping spd, but with it, Hone, Goad, and a support he gets up to 40 and can double quite a lot in PvE, and various armours in Arena Assault. Leo in particular is thriving now with all the OP green armours melting when he breathes in their general direction. QR is for when he needs to soak some magic hits, something he did quite well even before Raudrblade.

Usage: Maxed 3k HM, of course! For the rest, see above. Definitely in my top 10 favourite units. I’m very very happy I chose to summon on Male Mages over Female Mages during the third gauntlet (because lol I got all of those female mages as pitybreakers later anyway...)

Improvements: He has everything he needs for now. I could maybe give him Glimmer over Iceberg just for the reduced cooldown, but eh.

At least I made the account switch in time to get him. If I missed both of the DC cavs I’d have died of an ulcer by September

Camus is good. He’s capable of doing both enemy and player phase fairly well (unlike Xander who would be a purely enemy phase unit). Sort of like a blue horse Ryoma. I think he desperately needs merges though.

Usage: Maxed 3k HM. He doesn’t really do a whole lot of work these days even when I get out the team for Arena Assault, but that’s because I’m usually dealing with, like, armours and Ayras and I don’t want a special to trigger so I ORKO them with the ranged cav trio instead. Camus faithfully provides Goad Cavalry and an S support to Leo, and Swaps units around, and he CAN do combat if necessary, so that’s all I can ask for.

Improvements:

Going to +1 him. EVENTUALLY IS will feel maybe a tiny bit of shame and they’ll fucking give him a rerun, that would be two more copies since he didn’t have an Infernal difficulty the first time.

I haven’t been paying attention to him a whole lot before fairly recently, but I was always sitting on some plans for him just because he’s a TT unit and I sort of want to have some kind of functional build going for all of them as I only have copies of them on my main (unlike GHB units who are a lot easier to get).

Now he lucked out. I did three circles on Winter’s Envoy. The first two got me Tharja and Chrom, and the third one somehow contained THREE off-banner 5*s: Catria, Hawkeye, and Cain. They were all used as SI as they all had shitty IVs. Clive got Catria’s lance. Now he can enjoy 2 charge Bonfires.

Usage: I used him a bit in the TT he came from, haven’t done a whole lot since then. I’m hoping to put together a bunch of second-string horse teams (horse mages are a bit more available than flier mages, I’ll get a fucking Reinhardt EVENTUALLY) and he’ll make it on one of those. Plus there’s always walling reds and blues in AA.

Improvements: After I refine the weapon of the Most Important Unit, I’ll evolve his Killer Lance to Slaying Lance. Then he’ll be put on the waiting list for refinements. I’m also not that sure what to do with his B slot. Lancebreaker 1 came from the same Arthur as Swap. IDK if I should just give him LB3, or wait until I have more Subakis (but there’s a very long queue for that). I’m also debating if I should give him Fortress Def.

+atk –res

Another pitybreaker from Ylissean Summer. I don’t mind much since that same summoning circle gave me a very special unit (you will see them in the next post) that I wouldn’t have opened if I hadn’t seen that Peri’d reset my rate.

Peri gets a lot of flak, but she’s not at all a bad unit, she just has a lot of competition in her niche, as Roderick and now Oscar both have similar offensive statlines to hers. Peri is lucky in that I find her amusing and don’t give a shit about either Roderick or Oscar.

Usage: For now I occasionally get her out when I need to deal with an annoying DC Vantage red in AA. Winter Tharja’s also a pain in the ass that she can help deal with handily.

Improvements: Clearly I’m going for a Firesweep build, but I haven’t inherited the + version to her yet. She needs to learn LaD2 (I didn’t bother taking a new screenshot, but she has LaD1 learned now, everything else is the same) and inherit an assist. I’m also on the lookout for a +spd copy to merge her into because I think +spd would be a lot better.

(It’s only now that I’m adding new units to this post that I realised I didn’t have any axe cavaliers originally...)

+def –atk

Bit of an odd one. When the Christmas TT banner dropped, I had a lot of orbs since I was saving for the next legendary and spent considerably less on Winter’s Envoy than I expected. I decided I can afford to pull all reds (for Lucina) and greens on that banner. There were, in fact, only two greens and no reds, and the green was this Frederick. I’ve been considering building one for a while, so it was welcome, even though his IVs are questionable.

He picked up the Hawkeye from Winter’s Envoy. DB3 is just nice to have, and it’s going to sit around for when (if) I give Fred a Brave Axe.

Usage: See Clive.

Improvements: I’m looking for a +atk or +def copy that isn’t –def or –atk respectively, so I can merge. He needs an assist, probably a different B skill, refinement on the axe, and to learn Bonfire.

neutral

My freebie from CYL. I don’t regret picking her, but I am kind of reluctant to use her a lot outside of Horse Emblem because frankly Arena has made me resent her. I’m so fucking tired of seeing this face. When will she fall off her horse. I have no love left for her and I’m gleefully killing the copies of her I have on alts for Swift Sparrow left and right and it gives me a rush every time. It’s kind of sad since I was initially very excited to get her but that’s what countless deathless runs ruined do to a person. I just had to unglue a Brave Bow Lyn from a QP Moonbow Reinhardt earlier today*. Ugh.

* when I originally started writing this post

Usage: She’s on my main cav team and is quite helpful, and has around 2600 HM. Those are the nice things I can say about her.

Improvements: I am not giving her anything else ever as an act of protest

4* merge projects

+spd –hp, +3

I originally intended to make him a +10 thinking I’d never get a brave Roy. Well, I have a brave boy now, but I still want to build his dad, if only because they’re a bit different. I also quite like Eliwood; he’s not the most interesting lord character in the world, but I have a soft spot for him. His Heroes art is atrocious but what can you do.

Short term goals are continuing to merge him (right now I have two more 3* copies waiting), giving him an assist, Fury 3, and probably Swordbreaker.

Long term goal is eventually, once he hits +7 or so, merging in a 5* copy to acquire the Durandal, then evolving it to Blazing Durandal.

The only blue mage cavalier I have :(

Short term goals are merging in the last 3* copy I have, giving her Blarblade & Moonbow from an Odin, Darting Blow 3, some kind of B skill (undecided on that one), an assist, and probably a horse buff.

Long term goal is merging in a 5* copy (that one is a very long way off) to acquire Keen Blarwolf+ (and Death Blow 3) for some anti-horse options in AA.

+spd –forgot, +1

I really like Titania’s art and clearly I’m lacking in the green cav department. I just don’t know what to do with her build really. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it (aka when she’s got a bunch more merges)

+spd –res, +4

The fourth member of my “main” cavalry team. An excellent testament to the power of bladetomes when combined with emblem buffs, as on my old main I in fact used a 3* -atk copy in this role to great effect.

I have a 3* copy hanging around, but I’m conflicted on whether to use her for the extra merge or to give somebody else Escape Route 3.

I’m also on the lookout for a +spd –hp copy instead, as –res bothers me a bit.

I don’t think I’ll change anything else in her build, besides maybe giving her G Tomebreaker at some point. Gronnblade works perfectly fine without upgrading it to its + version, and my obsessiveness about these things doesn’t quite trigger when it’s a 4* unit in question.

+spd -def, +2

+atk –hp, +2

Healers who require standard healer improvements, not much to say here. They might both see some kind of 5* sacrifices at some point so I can get my hands on those sweet sweet Wrathful refinements on their staves (and better healing staves too), but that’s miles and miles out there.

Not pictured

Berkut. Same as all other GHB units that I don’t want to build.

#heroes rambles

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viking369 · 5 years

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Music and Politics Rant

This is a long one. If you're looking for the TL;DR version, sorry oh denizens of Short Attention Span Theatre, there isn't one. This is cross-posted from my other blog. My oldest (Thing 1) and I recently had a debate over the relative musical merits of Kate Bush: I think she has merit, Thing 1 thinks she does not. It was one of those debates and ultimate disagreements that reasonable, educated people have that, far from being destructive, add the sort of spice to life to keep it from being an unrelieved death march. I'm not a fanboy for anyone, including Kate Bush. I long ago started thinking of her as the Charles Ives of pop music: a pile of interesting ideas that often deliver something significant but at least as often get in each other's way. Like Ives, people tend to either love her or hate her and have legitimate reasons for both positions, but tend to simply entrench for "reasons." And this sort of "debating" got me thinking (a dangerous prospect). The whole discussion with Thing 1 started when I watched a 2014 BBC documentary on Kate Bush. I thought it was pretty well done. It showed a number of intelligent, talented people who find merit in Bush's work. It interviewed Lindsay Kemp, who still had four years left in the tank at that point, and showed his influence on art rock at the time (basically everybody from Bowie on) (It also showed a couple of other things, perhaps without meaning to. It showed through Kemp's gestures the extent of mime vocabulary's influence on what might be characterized as "gay mannerisms", Kemp being a dancer and choreographer with heavy mime influence, having studied with Marcel Marceau. It also shows the difference between European artists and intellectuals and US pseudos. In the interviews, several people casually remark on having seen Kemp's "Flowers", based on Jean Genet's "Notre Dame des Fleurs". You would be hard-pressed to find any in the US to this day, outside of core LGBTQ+ culture, who have heard of Kemp, "Flowers", or even Jean Genet other than by reference.). And then toward the end it shows why rock critics as a group are ignorant, vicious little parasites. More on that below the fold, wherever the Hell that might be. Once upon a time I was in newspapers, and one of the things I did was write music reviews. It was a paycheck, and as I’ve noted elsewhere, I’ve always been closely involved with music. I wrote by two rules: 1) Be consistent, and 2) make it about the music on its own terms. On the first point, it doesn’t matter if the readers agree with you; they just need to know what to expect from you. If they know you don’t like a particular artist or a particular type of music, they can read you through the appropriate filter. The second point breaks in two. First, it’s about the music, not the people. I did not savage Van Halen because they were pricks who brutalized the little people who had to service their every whim. I went after Eddie Van Halen (who let’s face it was the real core of the band) who went shredding up and down the fretboard at random with no regard for chordal or modal structures (In fairness to Mr. Van Halen, he no longer plays like that and is a far superior musician than when every blockhead with a K-Mart electric six-string thought Eddie was God and gave us a generation of speed monkeys with zero musicianship.) (The speed monkey syndrome unfortunately spread to other instruments. It was the overwhelming norm among the Celtic fiddlers who followed Bonnie Rideout to Ann Arbor and insisted on playing faster than their talents, compensating by dropping notes out at random, and then blaming all the rest of us for all the ensemble issues. To all of you, I give an eternal, “Fuck you and the banshee of an instrument you tuck under your hiply stubbled chins and rape with your bows.”). Second, you have to put it in the music’s own frame of reference. It makes no sense to pan a Metropolitan Opera performance of Cosi fan Tutte because it isn’t a Black Sabbath concert. I realized early on that almost no rock music critics could grasp either of my rules (From this point on, you may assume that “Robert Christgau is a wanker” is flashing subliminally in the background.). From the beginning of such things, Rolling Stone has been the center of rock criticism (I just damned near wrote “crock recidivism”. I’m not a nice person.). It has also been the center of what is wrong with rock criticism for just as long. These guys were groupies. They were wannabes who couldn’t cut it, so they hung out with the guys who could, basking in the limelight. The reviews weren’t reviews, they were hagiographies. “The music must be great because I party with these guys.” “They must be significant because I party with these guys.” Everything was on a chummy, first-name-only basis (“Mick and Keith were really rockin’ it Thursday night.”) that became the norm for roughly forever (Cam Crowe slipped a screamingly funny joke about The Rocket’s review style in his movie Singles.). As tastes changed and their substance-abuse buddies died, faded away, or became arena bands (and now nostalgia bands playing the Peppermill in Wendover), Rolling Stone found itself unsuccessfully playing catch-up, jumping on every bandwagon that rolled down the street in a desperate attempt to get in front of The Next Big Thing and failing miserably. If it weren’t for Matt Taibbi, that rag would have no reason to exist. In the 70s other rags stepped into the breach, but they took the Stone’s style sheet and were all clones of one another. They couldn’t comprehend my rules, either. I remember one of these rags (probably Circus, but who honestly gives a shit at this point, they were fungible) going after every Harry Chapin recording because it “wasn’t rock.” Well no shit, Sherlock. Chapin wasn’t a rocker, he was a folkie, self-proclaimed, and condemning him for not being what he wasn’t was…well…not even wrong. Congratulations, rock critics, you just earned Stephen Frys’s second-greatest insult, right after “I almost care.” There was one exception to the Clone Wars: Creem. But that didn’t make it good, just different. Admittedly, Creem was covering a lot of things no one else was, including the early days of punk and all that was happening over at CBGB. But my gods the pretension. Memo to Lester Bangs: Just because you covered something doesn’t mean you invented it. Just because you came up with the label “punk rock” doesn’t mean you created punk rock. Punk rock was created by garage bands (US) and pub bands (UK) (I always envied the UK guys because no matter how, frankly, BAD you were, there was someone willing to book you. Here in the US? Not so much. Although you could always get homecoming and prom gigs if you were just another shitty cover band.) (Punk was spawned by my half-generation, the Late Boomers. The reason was simple: We were fucking sick and tired of the hypocrisy of the Early Boomers, our big brothers and sisters. They were the 60s Children, the Flower People, and they were still peddling that bullshit even though the wheels had fallen off the wagon and there was a global recession. They accused us of being self-centered for not “working for change” like them while they busily leveraged the huge advantage of having sucked up everything before we ever got on the scene. They took their 60s, corporatized, commoditized, packaged, and slapped a smiley face on them, and expected us to swallow it all without question. The problem was that we just didn’t believe hard enough in the dream. Meanwhile we were saying, “The fuck? Our dreams hit the wall at 110 per in Fall ’73! The wreckage is everywhere, but you dicks and everybody else is just stepping over it like it isn’t there!” We wanted to wave our private parts at them, so we did. Which is a long way of telling you Millennials that, if you lump the Early and Late Boomers together, your ignorance is showing. Yeah, there are plenty of Late Boomers who sold out [You hear me, Barry Obama? You sold us all out, but history will always remember you fondly because you landed between the Texas Turd Tornado and Hitler 2.0.], but we were the first ones to face the New Normal you folks are now dealing with. You need old wise men and women for your villages? Trust me, we’re available in hordes.) As yet another aside, there were garage bands, and there were garage bands. None of us were very good, but most of us wanted to improve to something resembling competency. The early punkers simply didn’t care (Hell, a lot of them, such as the New York Dolls, were so bad they made The Kingsmen sound like conservatory virtuosos. And the Noo Yuck critics, apparently on permanent bad acid trips from frequent visits to Andy Whore-wall’s Fucktory, kept rubbing out one after another for them all. “Daringly campy!” “A raw, animal sound!” Shit-shoveling by rapidly deteriorating white guys desperate to continue being perceived as bleeding edge.). Fortunately, this only lasted a few years before a lot of the punkers decided it maybe would not be so inauthentic if they actually learned how to play their instruments. I don’t care what John Lydon continues to blow out his ass, Black Flag was never boring. But I really can’t leave the topic of pretension without a mention of The Village Voice, the self-proclaimed font of all things cool and hip for over six decades and running. In reality The Village has been overrun with gentrifying yuppie scum straight off the set of Thirtynothing since before Rudy Giuliani parked his malignancy in the Mayor’s Office, and The Voice has followed suit. And Robert Christgau was at the center of it all. It has never ceased to amaze me how someone so admittedly ignorant could be such an expert on everything. He admits he is “not at all well-schooled” (understatement) in 50s and 60s jazz, yet he has reviewed jazz artists such as Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins without any of that context and has declared Frank Sinatra the greatest singer of the 20th Century (A meaningless statement. How can you compare Sinatra and, say, Pavarotti? You can’t, and anyone with a lick of humility and two brain cells to rub together doesn’t even try.) while apparently ignorant of Nelson Riddle’s role in creating Sinatra’s best albums. He was an early promoter of punk, right through all the “authentic vs. poseur” wars, blissfully unaware that this was not a rebellion unique to punk but rather was a recurring fight in music, most recently before that in the “this is jazz/this is not jazz” that started with the rise of bebop after the Second World War, that caused a butt-ton of damage to the genre, and that Miles Davis was a pivotal player in until he finally got over it and put on that shiny red leather suit and released Bitches Brew, which Christgau unironically nominated to Jazz & Pop as jazz album of the year in 1970. He considers the New York Dolls one of the five greatest artists of all time. Please. The Dolls were influential, true, and for two reasons: 1) Their show was cheap and entertaining and so readily copiable and copied, and 2) their musicianship was so crude a half-trained baboon could cover it. Not exactly reasons to put them in GOAT contention. Finally, Christgau doesn’t like and is nearly completely ignorant of classical music. This tells me so many things, but two bubble immediately to the surface: 1) He has neither the music history nor the music theory to hold 90% (at least) of the opinions he’s been paid for over the last half-century, and 2) he’s a shallow little shit who needs to sit in a corner and STFU. And believe it or not, all that was just a warm-up to get around to John Harris. Toward the end of the Kate Bush documentary is a roundtable discussion of her latest album (Aerial) by several UK rock critics, including Harris. Harris makes the remark that the music sounds like something you’d hear in a department store and that it’s obvious Bush hadn’t been in a studio for 12 years. I’ll start with the statements themselves and then turn to their wider ramifications. Department store music? I’d like to know where Harris hangs out that this is the ambient Muzak. Let’s chalk this one up to hyperbole and move on to the “12 years” remark. He doesn’t really elaborate on this (not entirely his fault, given the roundtable format) so we can only speculate on his actual point. Do her pipes sound rusty? Not really. Does the technology sound dated? No (And trust me, I keep up. It’s not like I sit around listening to Sergeant Pepper’s going, “Oh wow, they played those tapes backwards!”), and even if it did, that would be one to lay on the producer and the engineer. Is the music dated? An ambiguous word, “dated”, but I’m afraid we’ve finally reached what Harris was driving at. By “dated” do we mean it doesn’t sound like other music being produced now? First, when has Kate Bush ever sounded like anyone else, and second when did sounding like everyone else become a standard of musical quality? It hasn’t and it shouldn’t, but I’m afraid this is the point Harris is trying to make. Perhaps, though, he meant this sounds like her old material. Saying that an artist is repeating themself is a helpful criticism, especially if you explain why you think so. Frankly that’s a point I can agree with; I find a certain sameness in her work since Hounds of Love. But that isn’t even remotely what Harris says. He says she sounds old-fashioned, which is never a useful comment, merely a pejorative one, and worse, a pejorative aimed not just at the artist but at the listener. You are listening to old-fashioned music. You are old-fashioned. You are outdated. Catch up! Under the best of circumstances, this is unmitigated bullshit. Coming from Harris, it is unmitigated bullshit that is part of a career full of it. Harris’s cred as a “serious person” essentially rests on his 2003 book The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock (repackaged in 2004 as Britpop: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock) and the follow-up BBC Four 2005 documentary The Britpop Story. His thesis is that 90s Britpop was the last great shining moment for UK pop. No, really. At this point, let facts be placed before a candid world. The UK has been a popular music powerhouse for quite awhile, and by “powerhouse” I mean a global influence. Let’s start arbitrarily with Gilbert & Sullivan, pass the baton to Ivor Novello, and then to Noel Coward. The Second World War made hash of it all, and the post-war generation found that the US had stolen the baton, but rather than going gentle into that not-so-good night, both the rockers and the mods invaded the US and stole much of the thunder back. This continued into the 70s, whether you’re talking about arena bands, metal, prog rock, or punk, and on into the 80s, again whether you’re talking about power pop, synthpop, or New Wave. Big influences that can still be heard around the world. Compare Britpop. The whole point of Britpop was to be a calculated foil for Grunge and as safe and marketable as possible, the perfect theme music for the Tony Blair years. It has so little edge it couldn’t leave a mark on a piece of talc. Its influence has been negligible except as a template for profitable pap. In 1997 the whole sham came unraveled as Oasis released the bloated disappointment Be Here Now and Blur abandoned the field to join the US “lo-fi” movement. Their lasting influence is Coldplay, and let’s be honest, if Coldplay is your gold standard, I’m afraid you actually have a pyrite mine. But Harris thinks Britpop was the shining end of UK rock. There are a number of holes in this assertion; two are glaring. First, there are still plenty of new bands in the UK churning out good stuff (That Harris seems blissfully ignorant of these bands makes me wonder just who is out-dated and needs to catch up.). Look them up yourselves; I’m not falling into the trap of naming a few here. Suffice it to say they’re diverse, and you’re likely to hit on several you consider acceptable regardless of your musical tastes. They’ve even been having an influence in the EU, but we’ll see what Brexit brings (Influence in the US? Not so much since we have reached a level of insularity here that rules out anything beyond our borders having merit, in spite of having access to it all on The Interwebz.). And these bands have a Hell of a lot more to offer than the Britpop slag did. Which brings us to glaring hole two. As noted previously, Britpop didn’t really have an impact. None outside of the UK, and damned little in the UK on any time scale longer than the life of a mayfly. Britpop was a nothingburger with a side of flies and a So? Duh! Harris, though, raises this localized, ephemeral phenomenon and turns it into the last scion of the UK pop tradition. This should just be considered a bad case of the sillies, except that Harris’s new schtick is political commentary, especially for The Grauniad. In keeping with The Graun’s policies, his position is “Support Remain but maintain that ‘both sides have merit’.” Which raises his Britpop position from silly to ironic, because Harris’s thinking on Britpop (“It was important in the UK, ergo it was IMPORTANT!”) is just the sort of insular, UK=World mentality that made Brexit possible. Brexit happened, for the most part, because of a bunch of people who believed that, whatever the puzzle was, the UK was the only piece that mattered. Harris’s elevation of Britpop on so high a pedestal rests on the same belief, even though he’s a Remainer. So it’s unintentionally ironic. It’s symptomatic of a malignant mindset. And it’s still silly. And so I give you Christgau and Harris, Exhibits 1 and 2 in my case for the beyond-uselessness of rock critics. And the former is still being allowed to write revisionist histories of the music of the last half-century while the latter is still being allowed to…well…write. What a world.

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