Legendary Effect: Fire
Ally Boost: HP+3. If unit is 5★ and level 40 and unit's stats total less than 175, treats unit's stats as 175 in modes like Arena. (Higher-scoring opponents will appear. Stat total calculation excludes any values added by merges and skills.)
Skills
Weapon: Dragonbind (400 SP)
Mt: 16. Rng: 1. Effective against dragon foes. Unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range.
Sword. Cannot be inherited. Cannot be refined.
Assist: None
Special: Dragon Fang (200 SP)
CD: 4. Boosts damage by 50% of unit's Atk.
Can be inherited. Cannot use: Staff.
A: Bonus Doubler 3 (240 SP)
Grants bonus to Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat = current bonus on each of unit's stats. Calculates each stat bonus independently.
Can be inherited. Infantry only.
B: Renewal 3 (240 SP)
At the start of every second turn, restores 10 HP.
Can be inherited.
C: Human Virtue (300 SP)
At start of turn, if unit is adjacent to any allies that are not beast or dragon allies, grants Atk/Spd+6 to unit and those allies for 1 turn.
Cannot be inherited.
Analysis
Returning as an infantry sword unit, Roy makes his legendary entrance this time with a plethora of excellent and powerful skills at his disposal including two uninheritable skills and a new, potent inheritable A Skill, Bonus Doubler.
Although L!Roy’s balanced raw stats may be individually fairly unimpressive, his unique skills more than make up for this shortcoming. For starters, L!Roy’s weapon, Dragonbind, features a Distant Counter effect in addition to effective damage against dragons; having these two effects simultaneously grants L!Roy considerable value as his weapon carries with it an additional effect along with Distant Counter which is something most units with built in Distant Counter on their weapons lack.
In addition, L!Roy’s other uninheritable skill, Human Virtue, allows him to buff himself and any adjacent allies by +6 Atk and Spd as long as none of those allies are beast or breath units, a huge amount of stats on a restriction that is quite easy to fulfill compared to other C Skills such as Wave or Joint Hone/Fortify skills.
Human Virtue also strongly complements L!Roy’s A Skill, Bonus Doubler, which grants in-combat buffs equal and corresponding to the visible buffs he currently has, similar to L!Marth’s Exalted Falchion. This essentially allows L!Roy to boost his both his Atk and Spd by 12 completely unsupported, which in and of itself is incredibly powerful. Combine this with Def and Res buffs. out-of-combat buffs, and Dragonbind’s premium effects and L!Roy’s initially-mediocre stats can easily become an highly offensive and defensive wall, turning him into a well-rounded jack-of-all-trades. However, keep an eye out for panic effects, as they can easily shut down and nullify Bonus Doubler.
L!Roy’s new legendary boost increases his scoring or rating in competitive modes, which although is certainly better than nothing, does little to increase the potential of himself or his allies.
Because of L!Roy’s inherent Bonus Doubler, his IVs can have relatively little impact on his performance and his ideal IVs will heavily rely on his build or other contexts.
Similar Units
Marth: Hero-King (40/34/36/32/21)
Roy: Blazing Lion (-1/+0/+2/+0/+5)
Note: Roy and Marth both have access to uninheritable skills and possess different Legendary effects. Therefore, the two are not directly comparable.
Ryoma: Peerless Samurai (41/34/35/27/21)
Roy: Blazing Lion (-2/+0/+3/+5/+5)
Note: Roy and Ryoma both have access to uninheritable skills and Roy also possesses a Legendary effect. Therefore, the two are not directly comparable.
Athena: Borderland Sword (36/31/38/27/24)
Roy: Blazing Lion (+3/+3/+0/+5/+2)
Note: Roy has has access to uninheritable skills and also possesses a Legendary effect. Therefore, the two are not directly comparable.
Owain: Chosen One (41/32/37/31/22)
Roy: Blazing Lion (-2/+2/+1/+1/+4)
Note: Roy and Owain both have access to uninheritable skills and Roy possesses a Legendary effect. Therefore, the two are not directly comparable.
Build Suggestions
Budget/Low Investment:
Roy already comes with a nearly complete and fully functional base kit. The first build simply adds Even Def Wave to allow Roy to independently buff three of his stats by +6, allowing him to be very self-sufficient in making use of Bonus Doubler and makes him easily applicable to any team (as long as he isn’t among too many beast or breath units).
The second build uses Vantage and Brazen Atk/Def to make Roy even more deadly in the enemy phase. With Human Virtue and Brazen Atk/Def, Roy will have 69 Atk while within Vantage’s HP threshold, allowing him to retaliate immediately with powerful hits both in melee combat and at range thanks to Dragonbind.
Roy’s other Sacred Seal options include Heavy/Flashing Blade, Close/Distant Def, Bond skills, Stance skills, Smoke skills, Deflect Magic/Missile, and buff skills.
Enemy Phase:
These builds capitalize on Roy’s strength in the enemy phase due to Dragonbind’s Distant Counter effect.
The first build uses Def/Res Link to allow Roy to buff his own Def and Res. In conjunction with Human Virtue and Bonus Doubler this means that with Atk/Def Bond Roy can boost all of his stats by +12 in combat for a formidable statline of 67/50/49/38 leaving few units able to contest him. Since Roy will want to be near his allies anyway, Blue Flame and Atk/Def Bond’s adjacency requirement can easily be met.
The second build uses Null C-Disrupt to ensure that no one can initiate against Roy in complete safety unless they can OHKO him as it disables skills like Dazzling Staff and Windsweep/Watersweep. Using Steady Breath allows Roy to activate Ignis or Dragon Fang in every round of combat thanks to its cooldown charge acceleration. Bonus Doubler can be used instead if desired.
Dragonslayer:
This build focuses on increasing Roy’s ability to duel dragons with Dragonbind.
Since many dragons units (especially armored ones) use skills such as Quick Riposte, Bold Fighter, and Wary Fighter, Null Follow-Up allows Roy to nullify such skills and make it much safer for him to duel them with his effective damage. Brazen Atk/Res increases his damage output and magic bulk while within its HP threshold which suits an anti-dragon build perfectly.
Desperation Player Phase:
These builds relinquish Dragonbind in favor of offensive player phase builds to capitalize on Human Virtue’s offensive buffs and Bonus Doubler while quickly charging specials with Heavy/Flashing Blade.
The first build uses a short-cooldown special like Glimmer to activate it in every round of combat without giving the opponent the chance to retaliate. With Desperation active, Glimmer will be fully charged by Heavy/Flashing Bladeafter his first attack, activating Glimmer with his instant follow-up attack. With an effective 63 Atk and Wo Dao’s +10 damage modifier, Roy will be highly lethal on initiation.
The second build uses the same combo of skills but with a 4 Turn CD Galeforce instead of Glimmer, activating Galeforce in just one round of combat with Heavy Blade. This allows Roy to attack an extra foe each turn or retreat to safety in exchange of the first build’s killing power with Glimmer.
