I’ve been playing Fire Emblem Heroes on and off since the game first came out completely F2P. Despite the fact that I’ve taken quite a few breaks from the game, I’ve still managed to hit tier 20 in Arena. I can’t hold my tier 20 yet as I fluctuate between it and tier 19 every other week. I guess I’m more accurately tier 19.5 at the moment. I think it’s pretty good given the amount that I’ve played so I’d like to talk about the team that I’m currently using as it might help people struggling to get closer to the top.
I think the easiest team comp to hit the top tiers is running a dragon team. My own core units consist of Adult Tiki, Nowi, Myrrh, and a bonus unit. Why dragons? The way I see it, there are five big reasons to go dragons:
1. Adaptive Damage
I honestly think Intelligent Systems made a mistake with the dragon refinement update some months ago that gave dragons adaptive damage. When a unit can target the lowest defense attribute, they become way too versatile. High DEF unit with low RES? Use a dragon. High RES unit with low DEF? No problem, use a dragon.
2. Easy Merges
If you run Adult Tiki and Nowi, it’s extremely easy to get a lot of merges as they’re 3 and 4 star bases respectively. In addition to the ease of getting merges, their low base rarity also means it’s easier to get ones with optimal IVs.
3. Built-in Distant Counter
Dragons are among the only non-5 star base units that have easy access to a Distant Counter weapon. Adult Tiki and Nowi can learn Lightning Breath+ natively when you awaken them to 5 star. This means that regardless of whether or not you’re hit by a ranged or melee attack, your dragons will be striking back.
4. Weak Counters
Once you start getting into the top tiers, you start seeing less and less mages due to their low BST. This means you’re unlikely to run into Julia or Deirdre who are the only green mages with weapons that are effective against dragons. This leaves only Falchion users who are all red-type units at the moment. If you give your Nowi the right skills such as Swordbreaker or Triangle Adept, she can easily beat any Falchion user.
5. Strong Defenses Make For Excellent Enemy Phase
Most dragons aren’t very fast. They make up for this with incredible bulk having very high defenses. Put Quick Riposte on them and you are guaranteed to counter attack foes if you’re above 70% HP regardless of the speed difference. This more than compensates for their lack of speed and turns them into excellent enemy phase units that you can use to bait out the enemy.
Now let’s take a closer look at the two easiest units to acquire and merge: Adult Tiki and Nowi.
Adult Tiki
Being a 3-star base, you will definitely pick up quite a few Tikis after some months of play. Considering this to be the case, she was the first unit that I decided to focus most of my resources on developing. For IVs I went with +DEF/-SPD. Given how bad Tiki’s speed is, there’s really no way to salvage it. As such, it’s best to take it as a bane and further boost up her already sky-high defense stat.
As for the build, I went Lightning Breath+ with a +Res refine. Since Tiki will be my best weapon against green-type units, I wanted to even out her resistance a bit for all the times she has to fight Fallen Robin. Again, because dragons have adaptive damage, if my res is too low, I could actually take pretty serious damage from a highly merged/buffed Fallen Robin.
For my A-slot skill, I went with Steady Breath. I got a Brave Ike from the “Choose Your Legend” event and foddered him off for the skill. In my opinion, this is a “must” skill for my build to work. Steady Breath compensates for Lightning Breath’s slowing of specials as it helps Tiki generate a lot of charges when she gets attacked. Even with a special like “Aether” that has a long charge count, Tiki can usually fire one off in a single turn of combat.
For the B-slot, I went with Quick Riposte. Again, with her extremely slow speed, QR helps her to launch two counter attacks regardless of the enemy’s speed.
And finally with the C-slot, I’m currently running Threaten ATK though it’s probably not optimal. Ultimately, I’d like to run a ward/goad dragon there but I haven’t summoned a unit that can inherit either of those two skills to her. Still, Threaten ATK works to lower enemy damage making her an even better physical/magic wall.
For the assist skill, I went with the standard “Reposition.” As for her seal, I went with Distant Defense to help her tank bows and any random Diedre/Julia I happen to come across.
Nowi
Nowi along with Adult Tiki are the two cores of my team. As I mentioned before, it’s easy to get merges for these units and that really helps with elevating your arena score to the top tiers. For Nowi’s IVs, after 5 copies of her with terrible IVs, I lucked out on my 6th one with a +SPD/-HP which I think is her best boon/bane combo. Her HP is already very high so a bane to it doesn’t hurt her too badly. With a +SPD boon, her speed becomes a decent 30. Throw in a +SPD refinement and her speed actually reaches 33. With Myrrh’s “Hone Dragon” ability, she manages to hit 39 speed with no merges making it difficult for a lot of units to double her.
With her skills, I built her exactly the same as Adult Tiki for the same reasons. I lucked out on a legendary banner awhile back and managed to get another Brave Ike for that extremely rare Steady Breath skill. The only difference in builds between the two is the C-slot skill. I foddered off a fortify dragons from the free unit Kana not too long ago for the “Fortify Dragons.” As I mentioned before, if I start having trouble with Falchions I can swap the B-slot for Swordbreaker. So far, I haven’t faced any strong Falchion users this build couldn’t handle so I’m leaving it as is.
For the seal, I slapped Close Counter to help further decrease the damage from Falchions.
While I’m using Myrrh as my 3rd unit, she’s not really ideal given the fact that she’s a 5-star base. As an F2P player, getting multiples of a 5-star base is a waste of resources. You’re better off chasing after specific 5-star bases that can provide you with good skills such as Steady Breath. I’m currently using Myrrh mostly for her “Hone Dragons” skill. Eventually, I’m planning on building up a Fae, who’s also a green dragon but a 3-star base, and foddering off Myrrh’s “Hone Dragons” to her.
This team has served me well and aside from helping me get to Tier 20 in arena, it’s also a team that I’ve used to clear just about every other content in the game. I haven’t run into anything this team couldn’t beat. While it will take you a metric ton of feathers, dragons are really worth the effort. Like I said, they’re just too good. Adaptive damage, big bulk, easy merges – it just doesn’t get any better!
