Horse emblem C skills

Yeah, on my horse emblem team, only Camus is the defensive tank out of the four, the rest are offense oriented. So yeah, a fortify and/or ward isn't that great for those guys.

An argument can be made for either side, but for me personally, I prefer Hone/Fortify vs Hone/Goad. With Fortify, I can guarantee my Xander is going to tank hits from both Nino or Cecilia, and kill them back. My Reinhardt usually survives encounters with other Reinhardts or mages if I can't reposition him out of the way.

On the other hand, Hone/Goad allows for your units to be a bit more spread out and still be efficient. With Hone/Fortify I try to keep them in a formation of the hones next to each other and the Fortifies next to each other, that way everyone gets buffed. With Hone/Goad, the need to stay that close isn't as important. Your offense will be sky high, but your enemy turn (if any things left standing) will be very painful. Defensive armor formations with Distant counter (of which there are quite a few in the higher tiers) with Wary Fighter will take minimal damage, and usually 1 hit you in return. Lyn alleviates some of that... But not enough for a whole team.

Just my 2 cents anyways.

If you're running full offense then sure, go all Hone/Goad.

If you have a defensive bait unit like Xander, then you'll want a Fortify buff to help him out. You'll especially want a Fortify if you use a blade tome horse like Cecilia or Olwen, since that's another +12 Atk.

I personally like to use 2 Hone, 1 Goad, and 1 Fortify. That allows you to have a strong bait unit and also spread Hone to your entire team with the right positioning, and also stack on Goad if that unit is closeby.

You can go full Hone attack without any issue, but for example Xander/camus also can can also benefit from fortify, both with DC, if I am not wrong Eldigan can work as Tank
you could assign
B-Roy ---Hone
B-Lyn ---Default C / Fortify
Reinhardt---Hone /Fortify
Camus/Xander/Elfigan---Hone or Default Goad in Camus

for example, if you can attack and reposition/drawback Lyn/reinhardt and Xander, xander can block some melee units them counter and with lyn/Reinhardt at the back kill the enemy.
something like that.

Roy: hone cav, Lyn atk smoke, Rein Fortify cav.

Or you can promote Xander and give him hone cav.

This is assuming your main damage dealer is Lyn and Rein, and sometimes Roy for Galeforce shenanigans.

Also... um, put swap on Xander (you'll get it and QR2 off Subaki) ...