Just started playing a few over the last week and I’m having some trouble with team building and figuring out synergy between units. I’ve included a list of my current 5* units. Any advice on team building, support pairs and blessings, as well as which units to prioritize would be appreciated. Also, I’ve been reading stuff about how it’s a bad idea to merge 4* or lower units, but does the same apply for skill inheritance? Finally, are there any specific 4* or lower units that are worth upgrading to 5*?
Fjorm, Eir, Peony, Reginn, Ash, and Seiðr (once you get her) are all worth leveling because many f2p guides for challenging content use these heroes, and most of them are very strong in their own right. Of the 5*s you mentioned, Alear, Seliph, Dimitri, lance Eirika, and Edelgard (Adrestian Emperor) are some of the most busted units in the game right now. Corrin, tome Byleth, Celine, and Laegjarn are also very strong.
PvE is easy enough that you should have no trouble if you just bring strong units. Arena and AR teambuilding centers more around maximizing your scoring.
This is because units lose all their merges upon being promoted to 5*. Merging 4* units was a thing in the past when feathers were a lot harder to come by, and a 4* +10 unit would perform better than a 5* unmerged unit at a fraction of the cost. We get a lot more feathers these days, so it’s not worth it to do 4* merge projects anymore.
Units do keep their skills upon promotion, so there’s nothing wrong with inheriting TO a 4* unit. Units can’t give away skills if they aren’t high enough rarity to learn them, so don’t inherit FROM a 4* unit, unless it already has the skill you want at max level.
Most 4* heroes won’t perform better than their 5* competition, so it’s not worth bothering with them unless you have holes in your roster or you like them as characters. There are a few exceptions: Fae is a good buffer, Reyson has great movement for a refresher, and Shez has a lot of strong effects in her weapon. Once you have enough grails to buy them, Summer Elincia, axe Haar, Hilda, Jeralt, Lumera (won’t be available for a couple months), and Panne are all good.
I won’t write too much as someone has done that already, but you are more than free to kinda just explore with what works. I suppose just try and keep an even team that isn’t all one colour and you should be fine.
If you’re aiming for F2P options I’d focus on at least a couple 4* units even if you’re not going to use them later on. It’s nice and dandy to pick and choose what 5*s you want to use but that involves summoning them in the first place and the competition for powerhouse units changes at a quick rate.
Also because I noticed it wasn’t mentioned, Chloe is a fairly good unit, IMO. She has something that only a few units have and that’s True Damage Reduction so long as she’s on a team with two units that are Ally Supported, which is something you typically will want to do. Do just that and Chloe will be a bit of a powerhouse with all her effects.
Edit: Forgot to mention because I deleted it earlier, for the competitive gamemodes you’re more than free to explore with what works and what doesn’t(Which is what I mentioned above) because until you start getting a better idea of the game as well as more units you’re not really going to be able to compete in the highest tiers of said gamemodes. Just explore, have some fun with the game. Do the PvE content for orbs and ask around if a certain banner is worth pulling on.
Details well covered above but I’d add that to start with just focus on using the good 5 star units who come with excellent skills and weapons and will carry you a long way. Once you’ve got a good stock of feathers and skills, and copies of the unit or the grails to buy them, you can then start to invest in the accessible characters you like and get them to +10 and high investment skills. Always invest in people you like, its the only way to enjoy the game in my opinion.
That’s a really short question with a really long answer.
The long and the short of it is that you’re always going to be changing your team up to fit what you need. Sometimes a map is really constricting and you’ll need the mobility of fliers; sometimes there will be a ton of enemies and you’ll need the hit-amd-run potential of a cavalier. There’s no one team setup that can handle everything.
That said: as a general rule, I typically try to run one unit of every color on my team unless I know I can get away with doubling up, or maybe I have to. If a map has a ton of red units and few greens, I can pretty safely swap out a red unit for a second Blue.
Support pairs aren’t a make-or-break thing. Typically, I only use them for units that are always deployed together for a little extra oomph; but overall the amoubt of adapting that you will need to do at higher difficulties doesn’t really make them worth it.
Blessings are only really important for Arena and Aether Raids. When a unit with a Blessing is teamed up with a Legendary or Myrhic unit of the same attribute in that attribute’s season, they’ll gain a stat buff and maybe another minor effect, of the Hero grants it. Fire, Water, Earth, amd Wind attributes are used in Arena; and Light, Dark, Anima, and Astra are used in Aether Raids. I don’t remember the limits in Arena; but in Aether Raids, you can gain bonuses for up to a maximum of 3 Mythic units on offense, or 2 on defense. Beyond that doesn’t boost your units or scoring.
As for the units, I’ll address that at the end because it’ll be long.
Merging 4* units is less ideal because those merges don’t carry over if you promote them to a 5* unit, so you’ll have to merge them up all over again and waster more resources.
Skills do not have this problem. Abilities that a unit has will carry over between rarity promotions, amd even merges. If you merge a Marth with a premium skill into a new copy, the new copy will retain the skill.
Units
Of the units you listed, here’s my breakdown.
An older unit by now; but with the right investment she can still be a potent Galeforce sweeper.
I’m not super familiar with Ike, but it’s been a while since he’s been really relevent. That said, he’s one of the “Legendary” Heroes that I mentioned above, and he has the Earth attribute, so he may be worth building just to have a team ready for Earth season in the Arena.
Byleth is a solid unit that is quite flexible. I use mine (the female on, though) as a Galeforce sweeper; but I’ve seen tanky builds for them, too.
Alear is brand-new and has a lot of potential. If you give her the Special skill “Vital Astra” and the C-Skill “Time’s Pulse 4,” she’ll have ridiculous amounts of Damage Mitigations, making her very hard to kill without any form of DR piercing.
Of the reds, I’d prioritize this one.
As a Mythic unit. She’d be worth building up even if only to have a Mythic unit to bless you units in ARether Raids.
Brave Seliph is a strong unit, no debate. He’s worth investing in.
He was pretty strong back in Year 1; but he’d require heavy investment to make him worth using these days, and since you have Brave Seliph? Unless you really like Xander, just save yourself the time and resources and invest in Seliph instead.
Another Red Cav who’s kind of outclassed without heavy investment. That said, I’m not the Eirika expert here. That’d be @Thehalohedgehog. If she can be made relevant; they’re the one to walk you through that, not me.
Another unit who’s kind of outdated; but like Ike, she’s a Legendary unit, so she may be worth investing in if you don’t have a better Water-type Legendary unit. While the AHR Cup banner is active, you could try and get a Legendary M!Byleth (“Byleth - the Fodlan Star”), who I would say is a better Water Legendary because he has DR piercing and that - in the current state of the game - is utterly invaluable.
Brave Dimitri can be dangerous, but I’m not an expert in how to really bring out his best.
Brave Eikira is a very powerful tankbuster unit. Worth building, for sure.
New blue flier unit. Generally, I’d say that she’s best used as fodder when compared to some other Blue fliers; but I can’t bring myself to do it thanks to getting to know her in Engage.
OG!Ninian was outdated and underwhelming even at her release. She is - at her best - pure support. She has basically no offensive or counteroffensive capability. Best thing she has going for her is her health pool.
I’ve heard this version described as “Legendary Corrin, but better.” She’s fodder in my eyes for that precious A/S Finish; but others swear by her.
A very threatening unit early in the game, less so now unless someone really invests into him.
Another free Mythic. Worth investing into her for that reason alone, especially if you have no other Light-type Mythics.
Only if you like her. Period.
Legendary Unit, with a Fire Blessing. This means that you almost have one Legendary for every season. Worth investing into her. She’s strong as well.
Yes. Sweet merciful crap, yes. Invest in this one. Brave Edelgard is cracked as fuck, especially with her weapon refine. I have mine up to +10 and she is more than capable of straight-up fighting God and winning.
I haven’t heard anybody talk about Asbel in a good while. I’d say he’s pretty outdated by this point; but he still has a weapon refine at some point in the future that may bring him back into relevance.
That’s the new one, right? Haven’t heard anything about him, good or bad.
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Haven’t heard anything about her, either.
Free Light Mythic, can be paired with Peony to boost non-Mythic units SPD and DEF.
Etie is a solid unit, free is a bonus.
Definitely put this above Etie. Ascended Laegjarn is a strong bow unit.
She was pretty strong on release; but she fell out a while ago. She’s another unit who would take some investment to make relative.
Third free Mythic unit with good support capabilities in Sparkling Boost. Between her, Peony, and Ash; you have a full stack of Mythic units for an AR-offense team for Light season, giving any non-Mythic units on the team (with a Light blessing) +2 SPD, +5 DEF, and +5 RES.
DISCLAIMER: The first and foremost opinion you’re going to get about “which units to invest in” - and an opinion I wholly agree with - is: BUILD YOUR FAVORITES.
If you build a unit you like, you’ll always be happy. Can’t go wrong with favoritism.
That said, in my opinion, the top two “to-focus” units are Alear and Brave Edelgard (the “Adrestian Emperor” one)
Grail units are your friends. Easy to merge with time, good scoring. Grails I’d recommend: Jeralt, Y!Innes.
Focus on the new banners if you want to be competitive. Older units tend to struggle in todays meta and need an absurd amount of Dragon flowers to perform worse than a +0 new unit.
Well to be honest, mage Eirika is probably my least used version of the character. Her prf is pretty meh by today’s standards, so if one really wanted to invest in her I’d probably suggest going for arcane eclipse. Otherwise probably just the usual types of skills for offensive ranged cavs like her. Solos, Swift Sparrow or atk/spd catch for her A, a trace or lull in her B and Rouse or menace in her C.
Sometimes it feels like the only reason I’m even still playing is because of how much I put into the game already which doesn’t help. But it’s still Fire Emblem and I love the series, and really the most fun I get in the game comes from Abyssal maps.
Reyson’s good, but he’s basically all support; so I’ll also put forth Masquerade Eldigan as a Dancer.
He’s a Grail unit, so you don’t have to drop orbs on him; and he has a lot of utility.
Mine’s not a F2P build, but he still fills a dual role as my most-used Dancer and one of my strongest Blue fighters, meaning that I don’t have to give up a damage-dealer for a dancer.
So, I’ve been working on making up some preliminary teams to give me a base to work with. Any advice on whether the teams synergize well and whether I should switch and units around or skills I should target to inherit would be greatly appreciated. All of the below units still have their base kits with no skill inheritance.
Earth
Ike - Vanguard Legend
Kaden - Kitsune Braggart/Effie - Dedicated Heart
Lucina - Brave Princess/Corrin - Fateful Princess/Dimitri - King of Faerghus/Delthea - Tatarrah’s Puppet
Etie - Fitness Fighter
Fire
Eitri - Youthful Sage
Elincia - Lost Princess
Chloe - Fairy-Tale Flier/Seteth - Seiros Adherent
Edelgard - Flame Emperor/Reyson - White Prince
Water
Byleth - The Fodlan Star
Corrin - Starry Seer
Marth - Prince of Light/Alear - Dragon Child/Byleth - Tested Professor/Mia - Budding Blade
You know after whatever years in FEH I’ve never worried about Earth/Water/Fire/Wind blessings and I just bounce between tiers 19 to 21 every week…
If these characters are not +10 with max scoring skills you can just use whatever you are most confortable with every week (as long as you have the bonus unit)
Just focus on 3 units who score well and perform well in Arena and max them out. The fourth unit would be that said bonus unit.
This said, the best F2P units who score decently will be the grail units, but if you can’t afford so many grails at once then the next options will be: Atlas, Phila, Scathach, Kiragi, Basilio and Kamui.
If you can get your hands on some Duel 4 fodder then other units can be considered.
Finally if this is not only about arena, just play with whoever characters you like the most!
I remember when I started, team building was a challenge. But don’t worry, with some practice and advice, you’ll get the hang of it. Looking at your current 5* units, I would suggest building a team around your strongest units, which seem to be Ike and Byleth. Try pairing them up with units that complement their strengths and cover their weaknesses. For example, Celica can be a good support unit with her healing abilities, while Xander can be a strong defensive tank. As for 4* units worth upgrading to 5*, it depends on your playstyle and needs. Check out this link for some ideas: https://brightvisionevents.co.uk/team-building/. It contains some cool team building exercises.
