Some more 5⭐ heroes came home this month. And, I see a trend of fallen heroes lately. Just now, I got fallen Celica but I won't post her since I am waiting for Fallen Robin and Fallen Hardin to come home. Let's see if I can complete them.
For now, I am so happy to get the 2nd Duo hero of FEH. Swear I ship these two princes ever since I played Sacred Stones YEARS ago. #EphraLyon EVEN THEIR DIALOGUE IN GAME IN FEH MAKES ME FANGIRL SO HARD--
Duo Skill:
Infantry and armored allies within 2 spaces of unit (including unit) can move 1 extra space. (That turn only. Does not stack.) (Duo Skills can be used once per map by tapping the Duo button. Duo Skills cannot be used by units deployed using Pair Up.)
Standard Effect 1: Duel
If unit is 5★ and level 40 and unit’s stats total less than 185, treats unit’s stats as 185 in modes like Arena. (Higher-scoring opponents will appear. Stat total calculation excludes any values added by merges and skills.)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▼ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Skills
Weapon: Reginleif (400 SP)
Mt: 16. Rng: 1. Effective against armored and cavalry foes. Grants Atk+3. If unit’s Atk > foe’s Atk and/or extra movement granted by another skill is active on unit, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack.
Lance. Cannot be inherited. Cannot be refined.
Assist: None
Special: Draconic Aura (200 SP)
CD: 3. Boosts damage by 30% of unit's Atk.
Can be inherited. Cannot use: Staff.
A: Heavy Blade 4 (300 SP)
If unit's Atk > foe's Atk, grants Special cooldown charge +1 and deals +5 damage to foe per unit's attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)
Can be inherited. Cannot use: Staff.
B: Lull Atk/Def 3 (240 SP)
Inflicts Atk/Def-3 on foe and neutralizes foe's bonuses to Atk/Def (from skills like Fortify, Rally, etc.) during combat.
Can be inherited. Cannot use: Armored, Flying.
C: Odd Atk Wave 3 (240 SP)
At start of odd-numbered turns, grants Atk+6 to unit and adjacent allies for 1 turn. (Bonus granted to unit even if no allies are adjacent.)
Can be inherited.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▼ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Analysis
Between sky-high Atk, guaranteed doubles, dual-type effective damage, and the ability to increase movement, Duo!Ephraim takes the cake as one of the most powerful melee threats in FEH.
A vast majority of D!Ephraim’s potency can be attributed to Reginleif, as it provides multiple effects perfect for D!Ephraim’s role. By providing him with guaranteed follow-up attacks, he can make the most of his high damage without having to rely on high Spd. Meanwhile, effectiveness against armored enemies makes it far easier for Ephraim to ORKO bulky armors he may otherwise struggle with, and while cavalry units generally aren’t too bulky, dealing effective damage makes for less risky fights regardless. Having cooldown reduction is also always a welcome bonus.
By increasing his movement, D!Ephraim’s Duo Skill also helps him initiate from safer distances and can be especially helpful if using Galeforce or dancers, as his extended movement can then be utilized with every action that turn. It also serves as solid support in the rare case that D!Ephraim can’t engage or if being used as an Arena core team unit.
Needless to say, D!Ephraim outclasses a number of pre-existing lance units, notably the default Ephraim: Restoration Lord, whose Siegmund is really only capable providing guaranteed doubles, lacking the additional bonuses of D!Ephraim in addition to having inferior stats overall. D!Ephraim even boasts workable Def, only 1 less than that of Lukas: Sharp Soldier, a unit known for his exceptional defensive potential. If desired, D!Ephraim can thus be built defensively in a similar manner to units like Lukas and perform virtually just as well; with Reginleif’s guaranteed doubles in either phase, D!Ephraim may even function much like a typical armored unit without the movement restriction.
D!Ephraim prefers a boon/asset in Atk (superboon). His preferred banes/flaws are Spd (superbane), HP (superbane), and Res.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▼ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Similar Units
Ephraim: Restoration Lord (45/35/25/32/20)
Ephraim: Dynastic Duo (-4/+4/+5/+5/+5)
Donnel: Village Hero (43/35/29/32/23)
Ephraim: Dynastic Duo (-2/+4/+1/+5/+2)
Oboro: Fierce Fighter (40/32/26/35/24)
Ephraim: Dynastic Duo (+1/+7/+4/+2/+1)
Shiro: Raw Talent (41/35/30/35/22)
Ephraim: Dynastic Duo (+0/+4/+0/+2/+3)
Lukas: Sharp Soldier (45/35/22/38/17)
Ephraim: Dynastic Duo (-4/+4/+8/-1/+8)
Charlotte: Money Maiden (46/36/32/24/19)
Ephraim: Dynastic Duo (-5/+3/-2/+13/+6)
Ephraim: Legendary Lord (43/36/27/34/18)
Ephraim: Dynastic Duo (-2/+3/+3/+3/+7)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▼ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Builds
Budget/Low Investment:
Ephraim’s base kit functions perfectly with Ephraim’s niche and does not require any changes. Heavy Blade 4 both allows for more frequent Special activations and true damage per hit. Though Glimmer is normally more applicable than Draconic Aura, pairing a 2-cooldown Special with a -1 CD weapon makes Special acceleration from Heavy Blade redundant. Luna or Sol are other Special options to be considered, the former for getting through high defenses and the latter for sustaining Ephraim as he already deals high damage anyway without Specials. Lull Atk/Def and Odd Atk Wave further decrease the odds of his opponents being able to tank his hits. Using Chill Def makes it easier for Ephraim and his allies to fight high-Def enemies, though any Sacred Seal capable of increasing his damage output will serve him greatly, ideally focusing on the player phase.
Ephraim can also use Desperation to initiate without the danger of taking counterattacks. Death Blow and Sturdy Blow increase his Atk in the player phase by +10. Brazen skills can also be used to synergize with Desperation.
Player Phase:
As aforementioned, Galeforce is especially powerful on Ephraim, enabling him to take out multiple units per turn. As long as Ephraim lands two hits, Reginleif and Heavy Blade make it possible for him to fully charge and activate Galeforce in one combat. Since this build relies heavily on hitting twice, Null Follow-Up helps maintain consistency against enemies with skills that would otherwise deny Ephraim’s follow-ups. Although it may be strange, this also means that Ephraim should be careful not to do too much damage, as OHKO’s won’t activate Galeforce, so stacking up Ephraim’s damage output should be avoided with this buil, though he still needs high Atk to reliably pass both Reginleif and Heavy Blade’s Atk checks.
Ephraim’s incredible Atk can also be used for incredibly high damage with AoE Specials. Life and Death 4 maximizes Ephraim’s visible Atk for the Special’s damage to scale upon, while Special Spiral provides 2 cooldown charge after each use of the Special. As Reginleif reduces the cooldown to 3 and Ephraim will attack at least once after activating the AoE Special, this build thus makes the Special fully charged for every initiation after the first use. Hardy Bearing prevents enemies from retaliating with Vantage effects between the AoE damage and Ephraim’s actual hit.
Using Fury to inflict recoil damage can be effective in activating skills that rely on lower HP like Desperation and Brazens, both of which can make Ephraim that much more threatening. Wrath is another option for this playstyle and can even be paired with Noontime/Sol for sustain.
Enemy Phase:
By combining Distant Counter and Vantage, Ephraim can become significantly more difficult to deal with due to his high damage per hit, essentially forcing opponents to either OHKO/ORKO him or be able to tank a hit from him once he’s damaged, the latter being exceptionally difficult. A Brazen Sacred Seal makes him even harder to tank once within Vantage’s HP threshold.
Ephraim can also be used as a physical tank, stacking his Def with Steady Stance skills. Since Reginleif can take the place of Quick Riposte usually used with a build like this, Ephraim’s B Slot is left open and can be filled with a wide range of options, though his default Lull Atk/Def works fine and notably helps pass Reginleif’s Atk check. With Reginleif’s cooldown reduction, Ephraim can proc Ignis every fight assuming his opponent doubles and he can double back.
Arena Core:
The Duel effect provided with being a Duo Hero in addition to his movement buff from his Duo Skill makes Ephraim a prime option for the Arena. The skills shown in this build are chosen mostly for their SP costs and are flexible.
