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Is my Kliff viable?

So, I just pulled Kliff. Sadly, his IVs are +HP -Atk. Sure, he's more bulky with the +HP, but the -Atk worries me. 27 is pretty low, and with the Fortress Def/Res skill, it will get down to a mere 25. Sagittae's special effect might help with this, but I'm still worried, and as a huge fan of Shadows of Valentia, I really want to use him.

Asked by Jorge812 months 1 week ago
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You literally want -Atk. The actual worst part of this is the fact he is +HP as it's somewhat useless. But yeah he's gonna be good. With his weapon he'll have a stat spread of 40HP/30Atk/42Spd/39Def/39Res.
He's gonna apply heavy specials and me very quick too.

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No you don't. He doesn't benefit from having such a low attack. At base 30, he is already lower than every meta unit you can find in Arena/AA and all units you can find in the hardest PvE modes.

You don't want +Atk but you don't want -Atk either, that's for sure.

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You don't want an attack bane. He can work fine with just a neutral attack stat. You only want 5 less attack than the enemy, and attack is a pretty 'important' stat for a lot of units to deal damage, what with people running units with over 50 base attack anyway.

An attack bane can help proc his tome, but to say that you should strive for an attack bane is a bit of a stretch in my opinion.

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The problem I have is that 5 less attack is a huge number you need to make up for. The only reason I say Atk bane is best is because he uses all of his stats and HP is a superbane. The only other bane I'd encourage is HP even still.

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You didn't say you didn't need the bane. You basically said it wasn't good. I can read. And answer what bane you want if not Attack.

I'm trying to encourage someone to use a unit because they were worried about ivs holding him back. Whatever this is isn't helpful, so I won't be responding anymore

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I replied you didn't need it because you made it look like an attack bane is essential. But yeah, you're right, as I said an attack bane isn't good at all. And I already answered, which only proves that you do not read: an HP bane would be best.

You don't have to lie to someone about how good their IVs are to "make them use their unit". If they're clever enough, they'll know that whatever the IVs, they'll be able to use it.

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You're only considering meta units. If you can't have an advantage over nonmeta ones you're still going to be thrashed. And I'm sure we aren't talking about arena in this context. I haven't run the calcs, not sure if you have but I doubt it since sims aren't updated yet. Most of his damage will come from his special and buffs/debuffs. Then you also have to consider what you'd actually want as a bane. If you don't want a superbane or Attack bane you are left with a res bane or none at all. And limiting yourself to saying neutral is the only good Kliff is absurd. I stand by he most likely will want an Atk bane. Best boon will be Speed, runner ups are Def/Res as they are still very good.

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The community will probably be divided for a ling time as to how he works best. I think -atk is doable, especially with spiral glacies, but since a lot of units don't have great res and many have 50 atk, I actually prefer neutral atk (boon is ok too but I prefer spd or res). They play somewhat differently. -atk is special focused; +atk tries to ride the edge of how much atk he can have and not lose his weapon's effect. Neutral can go either way.

For a bane, I definitely prefer HP. After HP I would probably take def. I do believe in his atk, and I want res ploy. It won't hit the likes of Micaiah; that type I would have to outspeed and hit with a big special, maybe multiple times. It's ok. He can take a few hits.

More details https://fireemblem.gamepress.gg/q-a/i-pulled-lokikliffowain-what-do-i-do

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At first I though he'd want a neutral attack, but seeing the alternative I don't think that's the case anymore. For attacking armored units he'd really prefer to not have a bane in Def as it's a superbane. Res, might be doable but the mages he's up against have a high enough res to flat out ignore him meaning taking as little damage as possible is key until you can apply a special (he's gonna outspeed them no question). The one's that don't will probably double him unless you speed ploy them. Res also gets in the way of ploying other mages making this difficult. He only has 36 neutral, 33 makes ploying a lot more dicing since you won't hit people like Lilina anymore. Speed shouldn't be a bane for obvious reasons. And... HP is all that's left. Honestly he might be best neutral, but I think -HP/Atk is also good to have.

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Who's ignoring him besides greens, Micaiah? He's fast and comes with chill spd which means he's fighting fast mages, and 34 res is enough to ploy those ones quite consistently. Ishtar gets hit, Delthea gets hit, Linde gets hit, Olwen gets hit. I don't like -res but I'd probably take it over -atk or -spd because I don't want to be all in on glacies when he can't use wo dao or wrath.

Plus, look at this: if they don't have 34 res and Kliff goes neutral atk + res ploy, 52 - 33 = 19 which means he's winning without a special if he doubles. Fast mages don't normally have 39HP. Now, let's say he's against Micaiah. The res ploy isn't going to work, so he's hitting for about 9 damage at a time. (As long as he doesn't get impatient and attack into her DD if she's using that build.) When the iceberg actually activates, he might actually get through her with that 19 burst damage, which means he can one-round if someone can infantry flash him. If you take -atk, I don't think he hits hard enough to seal the deal with an iceberg, and he might want iceberg rather than glacies to deal with opponents who aren't Micaiah.

Def, similar reasoning. I don't like a bane, but I would take it sooner than atk or spd. He doesn't want to resort to desperation. Maybe it can be made to work using fortress def. I'm haven't tried.

So HP is my preference.

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Alright I do understand what you're saying. Maybe Lilina was a bad example and I should've used Hardin. Armors often have res that tows that line so 31 vs 34 for ploying can really mess you up. I really don't like this bane on him. Luckily my best iv (to me) has a boon in res which brings him up to Micaiah's level of ploying people. While not ploying her herself, she isn't the hardest unit to play around. You just check her phase build and you're usually fine. Def I think is still relevant, especially considering Def bane.
I just don't like taking hits to pure defenses if my character plans to take them on. HP isn't amazing for him, but then you move into a range where you can die from specials easier.

Luckily I have 4 Kliffs so I'll be able to play around with a lot of differents ivs to figure out what is best for him. i can do that in the mean time while I wait for the simulators to update to include him. I'm mostly curious on what his Atk should be as I wonder how it faces up against Brave users, other tanks, bladetomes, ranged in general. I'll keep you updated on my experience

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Should be fine. Attack-bane Kliff with Fortress Def/Res has 39 attack, 44 attack with Saggitae active. Put him on a team with Drive Atk units, and he should be good.

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by Daily 2 months 1 week ago

Attack Bane is the best Bane, as it allows you to apply Attack Tactic and still fall short of most enemies, which then leaves all your other stats safe. The only time this would not hold true is against Abyssal where he would likely still proc Effect while buffed and with a Boon. Applying a Res debuff (Smoke or Ploy) will also increase damage while not having a negative effect on proccing his tome.

I literally don't know why this is as hard as it is for people to figure out.

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Because people throw in "the best bane is..." instead of saying what they prefer which in turn causes others to jump in to try and alleviate and go on damage control. It's okay to prefer attack banes, but telling people that an attack bane is Kliff's best bane can cause a bit of a rift.

Attack Tactic is not always going to be in use. Tactic skills only work on mixed Emblem teams, so until we can actually figure out what the team is going to be, we can't assume that Kliff will be receiving Attack Tactic all day every day.

Sure, Kliff can make use of an attack bane (practically most units can), but it's safe to assume why you'll get many people to disagree when you say that an attack bane is the absolute best.

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But on the reverse as we're saying it's his best bane, you have the reverse claiming it's definitely not (damage control?). The same can be said.

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"Best" bane implies "this is the very best thing, and anything that's not it is gonna be outclassed" and that causes people to try and rectify the situation, saying that it's not the "best" but it can work, that's what I meant by damage-control. Claiming something to be the best over something so controversial as an attack bane, especially on a unit that has pretty 'low-ish' attack to begin with, is gonna bring in a lot of people to try and smash those claims and put them in the "preference" category rather than the "this is the absolute best" category.

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Yet it works in with his weapon perfectly. If you apply his tome you get no penalty for the attack bane. People say that you definitely want a bane for something all the time over a preference. People who say you definitely want +Def over +Atk for Roy don't get a lot of backlash or the reverse. Because we know that they both work well, and there is no definitive best in every situation. I think it's just because he is unconventional people aren't treating him as a unique case. A discussion is one thing, you shouldn't go in trying to "smash" someone's claim. As someone invested in him I hope they realize I didn't just look at the stats and come up with a vague outcome in a matter of a few minutes.

TL;DR He's complex, but most people know when you say "I think his best is" or any variation means preference.

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by GVader 2 months 1 week ago

You don't need the atk when Bonfire/Iceberg is already hitting for a 20+ damage and Ignis/Glacies hitting for about 32+, also with -atk and his a skill his tome's effect will activate from anyone with 44 atk, which one of those units is a +atk Reinhardt with no merges for both, and a lot of units hit 44 atk mind you so the lower his atk the better of a tank he becomes

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Yeah this is one of the things I was thinking about as well. Brave users tend to have a lower attack but not too low to where you can't counter it. -Atk puts him in the threshold to apply it on quite of few of them. If it doesn't they have too low Atk to kill him anyway.

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Brave users aren't very common aside from Brave Bow Jakob, and maybe Niles since he's also armored.

Bow users in general aren't very common.
Brave Sword is usually on the back burner for things like prf's, Slaying Edge, Armorsmasher, etc, and the same can be said for Brave Lance and Axe, and even then they can be countered fairly easily.

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Elincia, Cherche, Gordin, Klein, Takumi, B!Lyn, Reinhardt, LA!Roy, Olwen, Cordelia, Zelgius, Chrom, Leon, Jamke, Reinhardt again, Virion, Armors that want to quad. Then most mages, you also have to consider their attack. But if you don't take res bane you should be fine regardless. The idea is to get the bonus because you either won't kill them outright, or you need that bonus to kll them in the first place on player phase.

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