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Theorycrafting with Ryu: Sheena

She was requested next after Selena so I decided to see what I could do with her impressive tank stats.
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Sheena
+Atk/-Spd
Killer Axe+
Swap/Reposition
Bonfire
Distant Counter
Quick Riposte 3
Panic Ploy 3/Attack Ploy 3/Threaten Defense 3
Attack Ploy/Quickened Pulse
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With this build she replaces Hector as the ranged countering axe with 1 defense less and an extra 14 resistance, unfortunately this demands that you pull one to feed into her.

Mages: Fully buffed Reinhardt? dead. Cecilia with only Fortify? dead. Any Nino without buffs added in? Dead. Are you 1 charge away from bonfire vs that same Nino? Dead no matter what. Linde? She better be +atk, fury and rocking all 4 Eirika buffs or she dead too.

Archers: Quadelia is the biggest archer threat and without desperation active, Sheena will Bonfire the fuck out of her with the first counter attack.

Lances: Lol~
The single most dangerous lance is also Cordelia but in the air with her quad lance combo instead of quad arrows. With 36 bombtastic defense and triangle advantage Cordelia will kill herself on this buff babe's big axe. Even if she had desperation active and Luna, Flier Cordelia may come close but even then she will fail to secure the kill against Sheena.

Axes: Cherche? This ends in a draw, even if a single Goad is buffing Cherche but not a Hone. Baiting this match will end in Cherche's death during your turn, never initiate on her.
Fredderick? He's only a threat with Hone Cavalry, if Fortify, he fails to kill her on either initiation and attacking him first leaves her in QR 3 range if you have that luxury, but not 2 for budget builds.
Hector? This one is weird, if he has Vantage as well as an offensive special instead of using Sol for self sufficiency, he will be able to beat her in a 1v1 battle regardless of her own special charge.
Raven: He's built to quad and L&D gets him killed on Sheena's first counter if he isn't in desperation range.

Reds: Even with her amazing defensive stats, her low speed means even unbuffed red turtles will likely end up doubling her and her damage sure as hell wont be worth the risk as any of the higher offense reds doubling her is rather damning and the one flaw to this build. Try having Effie or Gwen guard your fine ass ;p

Overall, she works as your go to green tank goddess. She laughs at any damage that isn't red or buffed out the ass and if you have Panic Ploy on her, those threats are no longer an issue. Admittedly, the build is very close to my Hawkeye build but even more effective on the bait thanks to her even higher defensive stats, though she is slightly weaker (3 attack less) and I used Bonfire with her Killer Axe instead of Moonbow like he does since he needed a more constant damage boost as opposed to a higher burst for Sheena.
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~Previous Theorycrafts~

Hawkeye: https://fireemblem.gamepress.gg/q-a/theorycrafting-ryu-hawkeye

Caeda: https://fireemblem.gamepress.gg/q-a/theorycrafting-ryu-caeda

Selena: https://fireemblem.gamepress.gg/q-a/theorycrafting-ryu-selena

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Feel free to request next heroes for the next theorycrafting build!

Asked by Ryunosuke1 year 4 months ago

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Answers

Impressive, I need to permanently like all your content, +1

As for units Sword Corrin ^u^

Very interesting build. I can tell she's like a Hector who can take a magic hit, a very solid green damage soaker. Part of me hopes I never see this beast in Arena.

Could you do Stahl next? I feel that the Viridian Knight needs some love. Thanks!

Don't get me wrong, it's a solid build but I don't find it as helpful as Caeda and Selena. The reason is that the reliance on DC makes it infeasible for most of us. Most players looking to build an armor emblem team will prioritize putting DC on a Blue or Red unit. Basically, the problem is that having a second green armor with DC is a luxury for all but whales, the extremely lucky, and people who really like Sheena/really dislike Hector*. I think Hector also does this build better despite his lower bulk due to having QR2 and an open B slot.

*No one actually dislikes Hector.

There is one thing here that nobody realize.
This build is very unoptimal, the killer/DC/QR is universally good on any slow tanky unit ON THE ENNEMY PHASE.

Basically, their strenght is very straight-forward : Hard to kill within 1 round, so they get doubled and double too, but most of the meta isn't tanky enough to get doubled. Moreover, the Special damage output will take care of most Brave-W threats and off-tank units.

But hey, that's the theory, what about the practice ?
In the reality of facts, no one needs to engage on such a slow turtle. You just wait and bait her on the unit of your liking (Sheena has 1movement, you can out-manœuvre her all day).

She will attack, get doubled/quad just after, and die. Even if she doesn't, she will never OHKO anyone without her special. From this point, ANYONE can bait her :
-take a low atk hit
-throw a counter / a double / a quad
===player phase==
-finish her with anyone since she hasn't Vantage.

In a general matter, armored units have a ton of weaknesses and betting all your coins on one asset makes it even worse.

This Sheena is the worse unit to play with in player phase :

- 0 OHKO potential (she cannot bait&initiate on any ranged unit due to her 1-cell mobility),

-a poor manoeuvrability that may slow the team down (i.e. you need your sheena to bait&counter a reinhart that is threatening your team but at the same time you need him dead turn-1 to take care of the Celica just behind... good luck).

In brief, while she may work decently in the hands of a player to not play her where she is useless... in the hands of the IA she will suck badly.

Hector on the otherhand can overcome most of this sh*t thanks to his high Atk (doesn't rely on Special-CD to OHKO), and his access to QR + Vantage that will limit the number of possibilities of the opponent (even in the hands of the IA).

Sheena can't be Hector. Once again you made your theorycraft a "take a B-tier unit and make it look like the S-tier units of its category" . In my opinion Sheena is a C-tier unit, she can only work in the hands of a player, I don't value such weaklings.

I've seen this build at some youtube videos. It works as a Reinhardt counter, since Hector dies against them with certain stats/buffs. Other mages can be safely baited by other armor units with Wary fighter or the armor emblem buffs, so Sheena's usefulness is limited to the Reinhardt scenario; besides that, she's utterly inferior to Hector, and since this build implies the sacrifice of one Hector, well... this build require way more resources than Sheena is worth... many other units can make better use of distant counter. In any case, by all means she wouldn't be useless, just whimsical. (so in short I agree with you, fellow)

If I really needed an armor counter to Reinhardt I'd rather just slap Emerald Axe+ on Hector. I did the calculations a few weeks ago (https://fireemblem.gamepress.gg/q-a/hector-without-armads) and even my -RES Hector easily counters +10 QP Moonbow Reinhart in that scenario. It's also much cheaper than inheriting DC onto Sheena.

This is true. As you note Hector is the only armor that mitigates the movement type's vulnerabilities thanks to his unique combination of DC, QR2, and an open B slot. I think Zephiel is currently the only other armor of real merit - possessing a legendary weapon gives him wonderful arena scoring - but I'd probably rank him at B. I use Effie regularly but she's vastly overrated as her limited mobility prevents her from really taking advantage of her high attack without major supports (supports that other armors really cannot provide). The others are all, as you point out, weaker than their stats suggest due to how easily they can be kited. DC sounds great but the reason it shines on Hector is because he has QR2 and an open B slot.

However, armor teams are valuable in the arena due to their high scoring and quests requiring armor teams come up semi-frequently. Now that the game is encouraging multiple teams it's worth investing in an armor team. For me, part of the fun of theory crafting is making less viable units viable in surprising ways. The problem with this specific theory crafting, in my opinion, is that slapping QR/DC on Sheena to try to turn her into a slightly more defensive/resistant Hector isn't surprising or even really more viable than just using Hector.

Well, I am glad that at least one person get my point.

I like theorycrafting for the same reasons :
1) rising the underrated units where they belong
2) creating builds that leverage the specific identity of the unit

In two words : Creativity and competitivy.

I like reading theorycraftings, I think Ryu is doing a good job at it, but sometimes he really misses the point. When Caeda tries to be Palla or Sheena tries to steal Hector's speciality.

Although it's simple : Armads >>> Killer Axe+ , then they have about the same BST and I wouldn't say Sheena's stat-line is better for doing what Hector does, so Hector is just superior.

But if you can find a way to leverage the specific identity of the unit, then you can change the odds !

https://fireemblem.gamepress.gg/q-a/theorycrafting-bravart-caeda-s-tier

For instance, this build of Caeda, which most likely inspired Ryu's Selena build but Caeda is better at this thanks to her better Spd to combine with Desperation and her better Res (compared to Selena's Def) to hit with Special and trigger Ploy skills.