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Odd thoughts about QR

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here so please bear with me and help me see better.

QR is an aggressive skill. That's counterintuitive because it's an enemy phase skill, and at least me, I tend to think to associate enemy phase with defending. But QR doesn't do anything for your survivability except take opponents out before WoM dancers can show up or before you have to spend your turn on player phase taking them out instead of doing whatever you do (ex: take out some other opponent because you have 37 spd). It's not like guard, which will delay enemy specials, or like renewal, which gives you extra health every other turn, or even breakers, or chill spd/chill atk, or dull ranged/close, or extra-rare stuff like def/res link.

I want to argue that QR is actually powercrept for infantry and maybe even armour tanks using neither aether nor dragonstone. The old purpose of QR was to be able to pump out some high-charge special by retaliating after three actions (take two hits, give one) instead of just one. You can get a 3-charge special out, or if you're a fast tank using a breath skill, a 4-charge special.

There's a better way to do it now, which is not reliant (at least not directly) on HP thresholds. It's called special spiral. Now you don't need to take two hits, even from bold fighters. Parry, and riposte. 3-charge specials (or 4-charge with slaying weapon) will activate instantly, every time, and when we're talking about slaying+ignis, you can potentially save yourself a lot of incoming damage with OHKOs. Bartre's terrible res might not even matter if he only gets hit once. +atk -res, def refine on weapon, and DC? 53atk + 32 damage from the ignis = 85, which even most dragons including a lot of unmerged M.Grimas can't survive if they're initiating. Mages are definitely fried. And if somehow your opponent survives, it's not like you would get doubled in any situation where you weren't already getting doubled with QR in your B-slot. But it works best on tanks with Hawkeye-type statlines because he can take multiple hits to either defensive stat and he hides his bad spd this way. You don't even need that much attack to make it work because points in def or res will grant almost as much damage on a 4CD special and they even ignore weapon triangle.

It's not especially good with aether, though. Unless your name is Legendary Ike, you would need both a slaying weapon and a breath skill (special fighter is not an option because special spiral is already in your B-slot), so you would have to give up DC, which takes some of the power out of this setup because it likes to deny enemy doubles using OHKO and you obviously can't OHKO if you can't even hit back. Even if your name is Legendary Ike, aether offers no burst damage, so it actually has a lot less OHKO power than ignis or glacies, which means you're probably taking extra hits. You're healing, but it doesn't help if they just hit you again. You would have been better just taking them right out.

In any case, aether tanks usually aren't trying to rip people's heads off so much as they are trying to stand their ground and be immovable even if their opponents don't fall, which...strangely enough, seems counter to the nature of QR. Remember, I called it an aggressive skill, and if you really wanted to rip people's heads off, ignis/glacies is more accurate.

It's also less good on manaketes because they don't have slaying weapons and the popular lightning breath actually slows specials, so the instant special is a lot less powerful for them. Lightning breath + breath skill and other weapon + DC will both produce 3CD specials, which tends to max out at 65-70 potential damage on most manaketes, which, admittedly, is often going to get the job done because they're hitting the lower defensive stat of most units (see the benchmarks I offer for physical and magical bulk in my response here https://fireemblem.gamepress.gg/q-a/viability-quick-riposte-without-using-healing-special). But that's an ambitious estimate...most manaketes could probably pull it off with water breath+DC because 30-34 is a common atk stat for a manakete, water breath is 14mt, they tend to have 30-40 def, and water breath grants 4 more so bonfire should be good for 17-22 burst damage. 32+14+20=66.

It doesn't work at all on cavalry or fliers, which tend to be more player phase focused anyways.

The main drawbacks are:
1. Lewyns don't grow on trees
2. You need a way to get it going, and tanks might have a lot of HP which would make them hard to infantry pulse. You can probably get around this problem to some extent by using HP banes (which may be hard to favour over spd banes given the strategy) and putting some high-HP player phasers like Lon'qu/Alm/Karel and/or an aether tank such as Nowi/Fae/Roy.

Summary (possible tldr): it's a straight upgrade if you're not a manakete and if you're not using aether and if you can get it rolling. Still expensive though.

Asked by Seeker2 months 2 weeks ago

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Answers

I really liked the write up and how in depth you went with the whole analysis of the skill. This new skill gives lower tier characters the punch they need to compete with all of these newer stronger units so it's nice to see someone notice the potential it gives. As someone who has used Special Spiral on a player phase (Lilina) and enemy phase (Gordin) build, hopefully I can give you some of my own insight into the skill from experience. Since we are strictly talking about enemy phase build I'm going to talk about Gordin's use of the skill first.

Gordin hits 40 defense with a +def slaying bow at +10. With the proper support he should usually have an additional +9 to his defenses. Luckily Gordin is more minmaxed than some of the other lower tiers and his attack stat makes up the difference to get him to oneshot even with a CC in the A slot.

This build works well and most won't survive it making it actually a very decent substitute to the generic defensive set of Guard and QR he normally runs. As a result, I've noticed a few pros and cons after the time I've used both builds.

First, if you don't commit to the special spiral set, you will feel like the character is useless. You need to properly buff the character at times when you need it and have the correct build moreso than the QR + Guard set. This makes it more difficult to run but not necessarily less effective. If I only have my Gordin remain at 40 def because I didn't buff him properly he's going to fail to revenge kill the opponent and I have a dead Gordin (varies based on opponent). If you run QR + Guard you will get off decent damage and don't have to worry about dying normally. The highs won't be as high, but you can run it easier with less commitment.

Second, you have to carefully choose your first fight. Often times without the guard set you will have to worry about characters who are going to be able to apply their special onto you. Without Guard, many sword lords in top tier are able to kill you with some type of Luna/Regnal/etc. This isn't too much of a problem, but without the special delay on the enemies you need to be REALLY tanky. The biggest problem here is you can't run SS or Guard in your seal slot. QR usually always takes up the seal slot on builds because you want Guard in your B slot or something else to increase your bulk. With Special Spiral taking up that spot, you lose Guard entirely.

A big pro to this special spiral build is that it opens up your seal. from my experience the best seal to run is CC just to abuse your special, but once Atk/Def brazen comes out it's going to be a tempting one to use as it adds onto the oneshot by +12ish points as opposed to anything else you can run.

it takes extra work but I think it can be worth it. I think that this strategy works best if you have a support unit, a sustain unit. I've had fun with this build on him and don't regret it.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I'm surprised that ignis on 40 def isn't doing it when his atk isn't even bad, like, you're hitting people for at least 44+32 = 76, unbuffed? That should do most infantry in yes? Against armours yeah he's going to need extra support. But you cannot infantry pulse him? Even if you can only get one infantry pulse, if you manage to find a target without DC (which is a pretty big if in arena) you can even gain the extra charge by taking a potshot at someone.

Generally speaking I think the build is easier on melee units because they simply have more stat points and they will hit 1-range where their def tends to count more than their res, also if you give up DC you can use wo dao or the equivalent.

Also, I just realized why QR tends to be more solid, and it must be because I'm a bit tired that I didn't see it before. With QR you get an extra hit in before the special activates. The damage from that hit can be pretty significant.

The problem isn't charging the special to kill. Usually it's just not enough to kill with the special included. A lot of arena involves high health tanks or fast sword lords which can be a problem if he isn't properly buffed to survive or kill. Surprisingly the stats alone unbuffed just aren't enough to do it safely. Unless the enemies are completely separated this can put you in a very bad spot. He works the majority of the time, it's just a bit risky based on who you hit first.

With ranged vs melee that is true on stats. However, I consider this set to be not only enemy phase but player phase too. It kind of works like a revenge killer would in game most games, and then he turns into bow Lilina. I've oddly enough found myself in a lot of situations where I end up kite killing a few units with Ignis bombs after he takes or tanks someone out. That's what I like about this build the most as it's flexible if you play smart.

I have another experiment I want to try out whenever the Atk/Def Brazen seal comes out. Gordin run exactly the same as he is with this build, but with a the new seal and a brave bow. If he can survive one interaction it might be nasty. I'm not entirely confident in it but I'll tell you how it goes when it comes out.

I think the biggest strength of QR most of the time is that it's ready right out of the gate.
Other B skills that focus on offence (Special Spiral, wrath, desperation, debatably vantage) all need setup by activating a special or bringing down the HP.

Compairing it with guard, guard often has the weakness of you getting overwhelmed if you don't kill the baited units in the player phase. But QR risks activating the specials of some more durable enemies. Especially if you happen to run in some cheese with DC+Vantage.

I do think QR really benefits from being a seal. It allows for some combo's with skills like guard and special spiral, or neat tricks like the Omnibreaker Hector.

So I think there are uses for the skill beside sustain builds, but QR isn't as strong of an option as it once was.

I do think the QR seal is a bit of a different case. It combos with guard; it combos with bold fighter; both result in units that function quite differently to having QR as a B-skill.