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Bartre - Completely undersold

Both in the Q&A and the analasys page Bartre's new refine gets treated as a useless piece of junk.

Why?

I just can't.
On it's most basic, it's a 19mt hammer. So that's already amazing if you try to one shot armor units.

But with a speed boon, Bartre reacher 32 speed. With still an A slot and seal to build on that.

A classic combo of steady breath, aether and quick riptose brings his def to 40, heals him often and still has him having workable speed.
Give him a speed or def boosting seal and voila, a good physical bait.

And with his hp, he can survive blue/green dragons that can't double him.

I really feel people are underselling him because his refine isn't the most special thing around.

This is what I'd do with him.(if I had the dew)
I'd advice running someone with him to spur/buff his speed.

Asked by Sir of Coffee1 month 3 weeks ago

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Answers

Oh snap, I didn't even knew that the new refines were out now.
I can see myself building him with double Fury, Dragon Fang, Desperation and Heavy Blade (because it sounds dumb and fun).

#BatresRefineIsReallyFun

It's kinda funny that I'm going on a crusade like this, since I don't even like Bartre or plan to build him soon (My dew goes to Saber and Florina)

Maybe because I'm a long time user of Eldigan with fury mystletainn.

Wow now that you mention it I nearly forgot that Eldigans Mystletainn got a Fury Refine.
Some refines just fly by, damn.

Just take a good look at Sabers refine.
If you happened to get pity broken by him, it's not as bad anymore.

For me the main thing is that it has to compete for dew with stuff like Basilikos, Camilla's Axe, Nameless Blade, Folkvangr, Binding Blade, Wing Sword/Rhomphaia, and Ragnarok. And there are other strong contenders, some of which I have already completed - Sieglinde, Deathly Dagger, Felicia's Plate, list goes on. Dew is a hard resource to get, and I'm saying that with over 600 of it and 800 stones behind. Meanwhile, I can refine his old slaying hammer for 50 stones and give him death blow and axebreaker and he smashes 'em (NB spd refine because with axebreaker he forces through wary fighter). Even most flier and some infantry lances can't tank the sheer atk because I use an atk boon, and of course axebreaker works against non-armours so they're getting doubled for around 60 atk depending on support. If you don't love the guy for more than his combat potential, it's just so much more cost-efficient.

It's not a bad refine, especially with the superboon available to him. 32 spd is maybe a good value for him. That's where any slow armour gets doubled so that he doesn't need to deal with slow bold fighters. W.Robin he can probably OHKO? Amelia would cause him issues, as would Zelgius but I don't think we ever expected him to win against Zelgius necessarily.

But I'm not a fan of 32 spd 40 def on enemy phase without guard. Like, maybe he can get away with it because fast axes are rare, and against swords he can claim to have been lost the whole time, and against lances he'll just tank the special because 40 def should be enough with triangle advantage. If you go to, like, 48+ def then I think I buy it.

For others it might have to do with fury. The skill has apparently fallen out of fashion, which was news to me about a month ago, but nowadays people tend to prefer other A-skills which are more specific to the unit's role, or so it seems. Like, it's still respected on some characters, most notably glass cannons and ploy artists, but the taste and the preference is for other boosts to combat performance.

Well, yeah I give you that most of the simple refines seem not really worth the dew.

I would make an exeption for merge project units though, if you're spending so many feathers, 200 dew is not much extra for an already big investment.

Though I think there are some unit that make just amazing use out of a simple refine like Karel being able to use skills like wrath or breath with it.

I think 32 speed is usefull for a few types of enemies.
Unit Amalia, LA!Eliwood and W!Robin that are often build to use their speed for survival would double Bartre without the boon or fury.
A lot of dragons also have mid 30 speed, and rely on QR for doubles. And thx to his insane 52 hp, Bartre can accually survive hits that aren't red.
Dunno if Bartre would survive Zelgius though. Certainly not if he runs bold fighter.

That skill in general is the big flaw for Bartre. He might want to run either guard or the new null followup. But that does ruin his chances for doubles himself.

As for fury.
I feel like part of the backlash agaist the skill is that everyone used it in the early game, but now there are other options. So people dropping the skill are like 'it's useless now, we've got better'
Especially for longer battles.

But it has it's uses. Most new skills focus either on a phase (DB4, stances) or positioning (Bond, Solo). Fury has none of those restrictions. It boosts all stats reasonably well, instead of 2. Which means that units who need flexible use out of at least 3 stats, or really need visible stats (Arvis, king of fury) can use it.
Lastly, there are the builds that want to bring down the hp. Celica, (brash)desperation, brazen, wrath.

But, when using it you need to not just slap it on a build and be done.
You need to either have
1# a way to heal it (Aether, staff users, Arvis being a boss)
2# a plan for it with other skills (HP threshold, ploys)

Of course, this is differend for Bartre (and Eldigan) They don't use it for A slot, it's in their weapon. And Bartre has few options for a better axe (ignoring dew here)
I would concider brave axe for pure offence, but Cherche does it better. And she doesn't need the refine for it.
And the halloween axe for anti cd

I personally only recommend it on teams that carry a healer. On those teams, the downside can be turned into an upside, as it means you always have someone to heal and trigger Balms (Wich is why the only team that runs it is my second Horse Emblem starring Veronica).

Alternatively, on units that rely on Vantage like Ryoma and Anna or Desperation mages that don't like the risk of using a Brazen.

And they said I was crazy for using a +Spd Bartre. Hah! Although I'm still looking for a res bane, and more copies for merges, since he's been avoiding me for a while. Ironically given how he's the epitmy of showing up when you don't want him.

Dont agree with the speed boosting really, it'll get bypassed by bold/vengeful fighter, qr and prf-weapons vs armors, and is still really low vs other strikers. The res is probably gonna be too low vs pretty much all dragons, so i dont see investing in that instead would pay off either. Unless mb with brazen atk/res seal, but that might be too situational with his hp, and also his hp will be quite low when it's actually activated.

As in most cases, I think it's better to further his strengths than trying too patch up severe weaknesses. -res or mb spd, + atk/def

most of this was already covered when i got to posting ^^

Well, people seem to often forget a small thing when it comes to speed.
A lot of units with middeling speed rely on QR to double.
So if you bait them out, they don't have that QR proc

I'll make a small list of characters I think often build for speed that 25 speed Bartre doesn't avoid, but 32 does:
W!Robin (If focussed on tankiness) - Amelia - Ophielia (one shot builds) - Sigurd - Libra - Jamke - Leon - LA!Eliwood - Draug - Barst - Valter - Sonya - Nowi - Mae - All Ikes - Tiki
Just to name a couple

And remember, his res might be only 13
He has 49 hp, 52 with refine.
So assuming a res bane, that's still 65 magical soak.