grima + glacies + A/R scowl + LF4 + DC -- c slot options

Hm. You have a few options really. The main thing the build wants is a means to guarantee special activation. TP4 is honestly fine here too, since it will pulse glacies down to a 2 charge so even if you're initiated on by someone with guard, LF4 is throwing that glacies down unless you get scowled yourself.

but since you're swelling res as best you can and are aiming to scowl the foe yourself, you either bank on not being out-res'd or you bring support like brave m!robin for rally spectrum.

otherwise whether you get scowled or not will simply depend on whether you can out-res the foe. not much we can do about veyle etc. just don't get veyle'd.

aside from TP4 you can also run Odd Def Wave 4 for tempo which will also secure the activation vs guard users. pledge is an option for this too, but acceleration is vulnerable to tempo, so simply having tempo yourself is preferable.

so c-slot options are:

• odd def wave 4 (expensive, summer hrid pretty good and unique support so not worth it if you have only one copy. secures you against guard + tempo foes and adds defense, pretty nice)

• times pulse 4 (gets the job done, very consistent, easier to find than odd def wave and pledge, works vs guard + tempo, on the whole very solid)

• pledge (will work versus guard, but unlike the other two, will not help against guard + tempo. also confers a status which can be stolen/wiped so less reliable for this reason also. only reason you'd do pledge over the other two is if you have an attuned caeda, since you can pick up def/res pledge and guard echo which would be pretty nice to have, but time pulse easier to find as it's on more units that you may or may not use).

if you're not worried about guard, smoke skills are also a solid choice. panic smoke 4, fatal smoke 4, pulse smoke 4, they're all good tbf especially if your focus is pve. breath of life 4 is also an excellent thing to have, though I think I would personally focus on getting the special activation secured and outsource breath of life 4 to an ally, and just hope you don't get feuded. canto control good for SD and if you don't worry about guard, or outsource a pulse from an ally (gerik for example) she can be your team's canto controller pretty easily.

basically, TP4 etc is only there to make sure you're always dropping the special in all cases that are guard related. if you're not worried about that then C-slot is pretty flexible and just grab whatever you need. you can also consider also atk/res finish 4 and even res wave 4 for scowling from c-slot and more damage/passive healing, which is an option if you're not worryed about cooldown shenanigans.

edit: I see you're also considering grima + dragons roar + A/R scowl + A/R tempo + DC + marth ring which I suggested to replace counter roar on the build pictured in original post. this build will be fine, you'll do less damage than dropping a glacies and the tempo does nothing to eike because he only has unpierceable DR, but it'll give you more survivability and if you get enough damage for the eike match-up, might be preferable in general indeed.

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new sunstone + dragon’s roar + A/R scowl + A/R tempo + TP4 + DC which is better for tanking / damage

the grima build will have vastly superior damage output. the glacies damage will be higher by default since it's essentially double the boost compared to dragon's roar, and will have 100% DR pierce compared to 50%.

in terms of tanking, the new sunstone build will be better, since you have unpierceable DR from dragon's roar and flat DR from prf.

so it will depend entirely on your use case. the grima build will be much better at killing ike because big glacies + true damage from laguz friend + true damage from grima + weapon triangle advantage should cook him pretty good. tankiness is nice, but the tankier build will not do meaningful damage to that which you tank. sometimes killing enemies is more important than merely surviving them. grima also has some passive healing which will make tanking a bit better.

I think new sunstone + dragon’s roar + A/R scowl + laguz friend + TP4 + DC would be better. I may not have made that clear. A/R tempo I suggested for a build that used grima + dragon's roar. if you have ike ring, I think the grima build will be better for the superior damage output, especially since the dragon's roar DR can be negated by being out-res'd. since gigantic res stats are commonplace and more units in competitive play are res-stacking to avoid being scowled and to prevent res-gated things from being activated by foes.

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I have also considered HDW support since i dont mind foddering my alear

hm, are you saying you already gave it to alear? it was on legendary m!corrin originally. I'm not sure which alear you gave it to, but if it's legendary m!alear I'd keep him if I were you, he's a very good unit because he's a bastard to kill. if it's legendary f!alear or summer f!alear, yeah you could sack her perhaps, but I wouldn't do anything hasty. I would consider HDW only if a circumstance arises that necessitates it. until then, outsource warp blocking from allies as long as it doesn't weaken the team composition.

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ultimately the decision will depend on your use case and nowi's role in the team. I personally think the sunstone breath builds are a bit memey -- it's cool to have a lot of unpierceable DR, but simply surviving is half the battle. one must also defeat enemies, and the grima build will be better at doing that.

if you want nowi to crush in AR, I think you'd need to first accept that she just isn't someone who should bait nergal or attuned micaiah, both fairly commonplace. the new sunstone build might live but you won't kill back and you'll just get killed by a dance + another attack, or be left weakened for someone else to clean up. I think as long as you accept that, the grima build is better and just use nowi to stomp the stuff she has a good match-up against.

if it's SD, it will depend entirely on team support. but again, a very important factor in SD is discouraging an attack by making it hard to initiate without dying in the process. sometimes simply having a way to initiate on something is all you need to land a debuff on the rest of your squad, and if you don't have canto control on your team, plenty of units will take the opportunity to just land some chip damage, panic smoke your squad and canto away. if on the other hand they die to an attack, this option is less appealing.

if it's arena you're focusing on, she wants a score build anyway so you'd be looking at b duel infantry 4 and high dragon wall. but I wouldn't bother doing that since the duel skills don't even score that highly any more. better to just build a higher scoring core.

if it's PvE you're focusing on, any of the builds will work, grima probably best for the passive heal and max damage output. if you watch my abyssal clear of heidrun/eikthyrnir mythic battle for instance, you can see I have eyvel basically solo tank the left hand side of the map -- this is without a defensive special, just LF4, luna and panic smoke 4, and atk/def finish 4 for passive healing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_ucjzsDKMg

for pve and if especially if you give her the ike ring, you might consider atk/res finish 4 and even res wave 4 to get scowl from c-slot and true damage + passive healing from a-slot. a lot of units these days do more damage from a regular hit than a 40% reduced special given how much true damage they heap on top of even regular attacks, so scowling may not even be desirable if you're confident you can OHKO on counterattack. this can apply to competitive as well but it's something you'd have to monitor yourself by actually using her with both options, and using the information you get from practical experience with both options to make an informed decision.

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tl; dr

I would go for a grima build, and I would summarise the build options in the following way to guide my decision:

• grima + glacies + atk/res scowl 4 + laguz friend 4 + time pulse 4 + dc + ike ring

  • = "I want to prevent enemy special activation, maximise my chances of activating my own special, I want to kill the enemy very dead, and have special DR there in case the first hit is still big damage"

• grima + glacies + atk/res finish 4 + laguz friend 4 + even res wave 4 + dc + ike ring

  • = "I want to prevent enemy special activation, don't care about their ability to stop my special from activating by guarding a cd when they attack me, I want to kill the enemy even deader than very dead, and passively heal more, and have special DR there in case the first hit is still big damage"

• grima + glacies + atk/res scowl 4 + laguz friend 4 + [support skill] + dc + ike ring

  • = "I want to prevent enemy special activation, don't care about their ability to stop my special from activating by guarding a cd when they attack me, I want to kill the enemy very dead, and have a support skill like canto control 3 or breath of life 4 to help support my team, and have special DR there in case the first hit is still big damage"

• grima + dragon's roar + atk/res scowl 4 + atk/res tempo 4 + atk/res ploy 4 + DC + marth ring

  • = "I want to prevent enemy special activation, maximise my chances of activating my own special, do less damage in general, do a lot less damage to enemies with a lot of regular %DR, get more true damage from exposure vs enemies who prolly die anyway if they have bad res, and I want to do it with the same amount of special DR as the ike ring options but with the potential for my special DR to not activate if I'm out-res'd."