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Theory build: Dual Brazen Innes

Damn that bow is hard to work with.
I'm just dead set to find a way to work with both effects, and I might have found a way.

With the new brazen skill, some great stuff is possible, and Innes is a good unit for it.
This is not an easy use build, but it does have potential with a niche skill (escape route)

The idea is that Innes sets himself up by baiting a ranged unit. With the right team setup he can due to a combo of Owl tome, Drives and buffs most things that can't attack him twice.
And if they can't do that, they can't kill him. In spite of his low hp/def.
(non-raven) Mages are of course the best option

He needs to hit 28 hp at 35 for the brazen boost, and 17 hp for escape route. The first one is by far a priority, but the second one would be nice as well. Getting both extreme mobility and great stats.

The Spd ploy isn't a must, but I would advice to be careful with his speed. Some hyperspeed mages can murder him if they double (Ishtar, Lewyn)

As for variations:
Fury could work as well, boosting his stats at the start of the fight, at the cost of stats after the first encounter.
Special Spiral gives up the Escape+Owl combo for specials. If you run it with moonbow, it should allow you to always have it ready. This allows you to take on melee units eaiser.

Note: I did use my own IV for Innes here (+res -def)
I would say -hp is ideal for the skills, while atk,spd and res are all viable boons.

Asked by Sir of Coffee2 months 3 weeks ago

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I feel the pain here. I had my +Atk/-HP Innes all ready to make use of a nice refine so i could use him more and then we get this...

I kinda feel if we have to go so far just to try and get any value out of a refine than IS failed on the refine, definitely the case here. Owl effects are movement restrictive anyway so the fact that they didn't change it is a big negative. His ability to safely attack dragons and mage is nice but when you consider his mediocre Atk and Spd it really doesn't help him at all.

Guess i'll just stick with my Guard Bow build on him so that at least he can do ONE thing well.

To be fair, the refine is accually very strong.
The one issue is that it doesn't work together, but seperately, both effects work well.

But I do like difficult builds more that having a unit that just works and doesn't need any thought in their build.

Oh im not taking a shot at the individual effects they are strong. Who wouldn't want to be able to attack without danger of retaliation. The problem is as you stated there is zero synergy between them. Just a small change of say improving the area for the Owl effect to 2 squares instead of 1 would have made a world of difference on this refine.

Very true.
Ah well, having bad synergy is luckily not as bad as just a horrible refine.
Right, Takumi?

I thought his name was "CC fodder", are you sure were talking about the same unit?

Yeah this bow is very challenging, and I'm not sure how rewarding because he's not actually that fast.

+res I think is necessary for ploys. That's the first thing I looked for when I saw spd ploy, and you have it. (I have +atk, and I'm not entirely satisfied with the idea of using fury.)

I like what you're doing here; my main concern is that 63 atk isn't going to be enough because dragons have so much HP and often bulk up on def. I'm using 40 def 50HP 35 spd as a semi-conservative benchmark which means he needs 65 atk if the special doesn't activate.

Yeah, if you got +res, ploys are an option.

But the main thing is that Innes can reach great highs, with the right support. Drives and buffs, mostly.
I would advice to run him with units like normal Marth or Brave Lucina

And going with a unit that has wings of mercy could help finish off any unit he can't kill.

All in all, I know there's a lot of 'do this, do that' to make it work but remember that it's mostly needed for the tank dragons. He can handle a lot of mages this way and any Iceberg he shoots off is going to destroy things.

On neutral with brazen atk/spd, he'll have 41 spd. 43 with one owl effect. And the speediest mages do rely on skills like swift sparrow or L&D, which leaves either their spd or def open when Innes attacks.

But.. I obviously have not tried this build out in the game

If I understand correctly, we're talking AA here yes? He's a risky candidate for abyssal maps which is where you don't want to be trying to double-team an opponent because they're already double-teaming you.

His matchups with mages were always a bit awkward and the effect refine didn't really change it. He has an easy win against slow mages like Deirdre; he'll be working hard not to get doubled by fast mages. The old way of combatting fast mages is to have just enough spd to block their double and then QR back, which still works because the owl effect is really good for that. The option he gained is to use vantage, because now as long as he lets them hit first and he doesn't get doubled he's also fine. Some WoM dancer can show up (as long as it's not a melee unit, which is somewhat of a big if because it's often Olivia or PA Azura), and he'll still finish the the mage. And then he can go on taking potshots at other mages and finishing them on enemy phase.

The other thing is that a lot of fast squishy mages will use fury to try to survive until they can get their desperation going. So you might find yourself trading hits one for one.