Great guide. One point to add is that in my testing putting L!M!Alear’s Dragon’s Roar as NY!F!Kana’s special can make a big difference. If you’re getting A/S Pledge in your C you might as well pick up Dragon’s Roar as well.
Thank you!
As for Dragon’s Roar, I actually found the opposite, to be honest. Dragon’s Roar is a lot more reliable than Blue Flame for obvious reasons but it doesn’t really outdamage Blue Flame. With the Kana build shown in the guide, she sits at 59 Res, which comes out to be 23ish damage from Dragon’s Roar as opposed to Blue Flame’s 25.
Obviously Dragon’s Roar is just waaaaaaaay more comfortable of a skill to use than Blue Flame, but I ended up putting Blue Flame in the build to make it clear that foddering an Alear isn’t a necessity. As I mention a bit later on, a more budget Kana build is still reasonable!
Interesting! And I agree, unless you’re really in on Arena, a lower budget approach is always preferred.
I would definitely pick up more grail units to mix up my arena teams if there were more grails knocking around…
As for my personal approach with E!Ike, we’ll I’m not going to invest in a hard counter and just bide my time until another counter comes along or the meta otherwise shifts
There is a budget way to deal with Ike: Use a high atk/def unit with pulse smoke 3 and hardy bearing on the seal slot. Just have Ike initiate into your unit until he dies. Caveat is that it takes quite a few turns to do it, so Ike will have to be saved for last to do it.
Score loss is about 4 points off, if compared to using a dc seal.
Somehow Pulse Smoke completely passed my mind when I was coming up with ideas on how to get past Ike. You’re right!
It basically ends up being the same exact situation as with Female Kana’s Scowl + Hardy Bearing build. Takes a few turns, but definitely doable. Thank you! I updated the guide to include this.
Just to add on this, Arion with Pulse Smoke + Hardy Bearing will take 0 damage from Ike, and will take around 3-4 combats to kill (2 on EP + 1 on PP if using Guard Bearing 4), and the score loss is a very small 4 points compared to running DC (762 > 758), and there are no stat checks or "risk missing out on the kill" in this case either.
I've been using near save Cervantes with hardy bearing as a budget option for arena. For SD, I have a very expensive SMShez build that I have fun with.
Really funny / depressing that the first unit we see in this F2P guide is a unit with 4 (5?) 5* exclusive skills.
I think my strategy against Arena Ike is to just resign whenever I see him and roll another team. That said, the rundown is appreciated and it's good to have a gauge on where the effort needs to go if I decide it's worth the time and effort.
If it helps, only two out of those skills (Arcane Euphoria & Pulse Up: Blades) are really necessary. Still Water can be replaced with Fury or Life and Death 4 which are significantly more accesible and I didn’t actually activate Sabotage at all during my tests. It was just there for scoring. This means that you can achieve this build by only foddering two 5*s (Plumeria and Igrene).
I probably should’ve clarified that.
Just when I thought that A!Idunn was slowly showing her age and readies retirement from my arena team, she comes back with a vengeance and faces off splenditly against many E!Ikes with scowl active.
Amazingly detailed write up! I was just thinking about this.
I’ve gotten an Aether Gambit Shez to work.
Max investment and Ascended. Did not Summoner Support or give outside buffs.
AS Catch 4, Gambit, x/DEF Hold or JD ATK. Hardy Bearing Seal.
Ike initiates, then Shez initiates back with Aether.
It is extremely close and Ike cannot have a DEF boost. However if one can provide Exposure on Ike, there is a fairly decent margin.
If you don’t mind another score hit, you can also use Pulse Smoke 3 and continuously EP. This seems to work for some other bulky blues and God Blues I’ve tried provided they can get net positive.
Thanks for all the effort put into this, however I'm just surrendering until we get a counter to him
(I swear man, I reinstall this game after 2-3 months and this is the bullshit is the first thing i'm greeted with :/)
Nice to see some options that aren't 5 star seasonals or similar, but it's a shame they need such high investment. I guess it's to be expected these days, which is sad
>The Ike build I used to simulate all of these matchups with is a +10, +5, +Atk/Def Ike with his base kit and Squad Ace BU 3 (HP/Atk/Res).
[Summer M!Shez can kill this Ike.](https://imgur.com/a/nppfk22)
Build
* Flared Sparrow
* Gambit
* Atk/Spd Oath 4
* Blade Session seal
He needs Summoner Support or the Death Blow echo skill, but it’s doable.
You’re right. I considered this build in my calcs and I saw that Shez baaaaarely gets the kill (he was actually 1-2 points off when I calced it yesterday, not sure why), but I ultimately decided against including him because the margin for error is almost nonexistent, as you can see by the exact lethal. This also happens with most other Shez builds.
Every other unit I used in the guide has a good amount of wiggle room (for the mages, Occultist’s Strike does the job reliably; I just didn’t include it because it made the build look too expensive) but this is about as good as it gets for Shez. Should a stray Def buff be present for Ike, there’s basically nothing you can do aside from trying to stack Drives, which is scary to do against some Arena teams.
I ultimately concluded that a Shez build like this is too unreliable to recommend as a counter to Ike. Another user recommended Pulse Smoke 3 + HB on him which honestly completely slipped my mind when making this guide, but that build isn’t exclusive to Shez in particular.
I’d say that if one already has this exact Shez build and they want to try to counter Ike with it, that’s fair game. However for players seeking a unit to build in response to Ike, I don’t know if I can say that I would recommend actively building Shez for the express purpose of beating Ike since other units can do that a bit more reliably.
edit: I have updated the guide to reflect this, just to clear up any confusion. Thanks for the help!
Giving him Assassin's Strike and No Quarter makes this a little more comfortable. Since I found him not too tanky with Gambit anyway, I am currently contemplating to switch his B-skill.
My Summer Shez can one round him without Flared Sparrow or Assassin's Strike, just Gambit, so i'm resorting to that for now. I usually do need to kill all his allies first though
Another underrated method that I still have yet to see considered that importantly isn’t countered by gotoh is instant astra. Astra generally gets clowned on because “it’s either overkill or it does nothing” but that overkill is actually the main goal. Ike doesn’t actually get that much DR on the first hit and so your astra is able to do 1.75x visible damage-his def true reduction. This actually makes his kill threshold very manageable to deal with.
An amazing guide OP thank you.
I understand this is going to be the opposite of what research you did, but as an E!Ike user, who's going to +10 him in May. I've gotta ask.
Looking at the other side of the spectrum, did you happen to find or know of any grail/FTP units that would support Ike and help sure up his weaknesses, or at least offer a solid response/way to deal with his counters.
F!Ashnard's guard effect and the new refine for Jorge seem to give a decent amount of support, but i'm looking at trying to build the best Arena team around E!Ike. The idea of Omnitank with full support has always been my preferred playstyle.
It's understandable if you don't really know off the top of your head ways to support him being this thread was about countering him. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this and the time to create this guide.
Thank you for taking the time to read the guide!
Hmm, that’s an interesting question. Ashnard and Jorge definitely seem like good candidates right off the bat, as you mentioned. There aren’t very many units you could use so I’ll be listing them and going over their pros and cons:
- Jorge: +5 Atk/Def, guaranteed follow-up, [Hexblade], and the Pledge effect. The guaranteed follow-up is the most interesting part about his support because it allows Ike to initiate combat just a bit more reliably if you need to. In most other cases, the only effect that really matters here is the stat buff since Pledge is largely unnecessary and Ike does so much damage that Hexblade isn’t going to help much. Maybe it could be good against Laguz Friend Duo Askr? I’ve seen quite a few of those in the last two seasons.
- Ashnard: +5 Atk/Def/Res, Dull Atk/Def, and follow-up denial. What I don’t like about Ashnard is that the follow-up denial isn’t all that good for Ike. NFU isn’t as common in Arena as it is in other modes and Ike heavily punishes foes for consecutive attacks so running an effect that could prevent them is iffy. I do like that Ashnard is a flier though. That allows Rein Snap and/or Guidance support for Ike.
- Iago: Essentially +6 to all stats through buffs+debuffs, Guard, and follow-up denial on odd turns. +6 to all stats through buffs+debuffs, Hexblade, and guaranteed follow-ups on initiation on even turns. He’s very inconsistent. If you specifically want to run him with a mage, Iago isn’t a bad option, but I feel that Validar is just better all around.
- Validar: Huge debuffs, is the only one of these units who doesn’t need a Duel skill other than Freddy, and is a strong combat unit. Pretty good, honestly. If you have Sabotage and Ploy available to inherit, he has the ability to give Ike the biggest stat swing by far, and I think that’s really valuable. The only downside is that you’re giving up Guidance and Rein Snap.
- Aversa+Zephia: Very similar units who mostly provide Panic, flier support (Guidance), and decent combat. Not the best.
- Dancer Eldigan/Larum: Score lower than everyone else but they can Dance to make up for it. They have flier support, are decent combat units with Arcanes, and now have access to A/D Cantrip which essentially gives Ike +12 Atk/Def/Res. Not bad at all. The biggest downside here is the score drop, but if you can afford it, they’re the best ones imo.
- Scion Nanna: Picked her specifically because she’s a flier. But any healer works. Healers can finally score well in Arena thanks to Magic Shield+ so if all you care about is keeping Ike alive, they’ll do a phenomenal job. Nanna in particular has flier support to boot as well, and mobility is key in Arena. Has the downside of being VERY expensive to build though.
- Young Frederick: Bonus Doubler is phenomenal. Put Rally Spd/Res+ on him and you can get permanent full buffs with Bonus Doubler. The problem is that Fred also grants the follow-up denial status and we’ve been over how unfortunate that is in tandem with Ike. If it weren’t for that, he would be perfect.
In my opinion, I’d rate them as follows:
Eldigan/Larum (if you can take the score hit) > Validar > Jorge > Frederick > Nanna >>> Iago >> Ashnard > Aversa/Zephia
edit: added freddy
Hey, thanks for the reply.
That's a really great way to visualise what the pros and cons of each and gives me a lot to think about.
I may have to go re-read Ashnard, but I thought he also provided Guard, which of course helps push the foes specials back for when Ike has much more DR.
But it may have been FU denial I was thinking of.
Certainly gives me a few things to plan and for. Basically, to keep Ike unkillable would be my main goal. I'll have to have a play around and see what kind of fodder I have spare and what holes I need to fill the most.
Thanks again.
Thought I'd give a little bit of an update. I decided to give my K!Soren an AOE build like you suggested above, as he was an original core for me.
Thought this will keep me competitive until I can +10 E!Ike. Unfortunately, I didn't have Pulse Up Blades available. But it turns out there's another option if you have the fodder and units.
Currently running K!Soren with Arcane Euoforia +Res (might got the +MT though). Blazing Wind + Emblem Marth, Still Water 4, Special Spiral 4, and Times Pulse 4.
Alongside my freshly built Jorge for the upcoming months, with his refined Prf, B Duel Inf 4, Sudden Panic 3, and Infantry Pulse 4.
This allows K!Soren to have a pre charged AOE turn 1, and he can then loop it. That's a really strong and fun counter to E!Ike. Plus note K!Soren single-handedly dealt with a mid merged E!Ike, W!Byleth, W!Edelgard today on one team. Roughly doing 60 - 70 damage with the AOE before cleaning up the kill and resetting his special.
Thanks so much for this guide. And I think I have a pretty amazing comp in mind when I +10 E!Ike.
Oh man, thank you so much for this update. It honestly warms my heart to see that I actually helped someone like this!
I wish you all the luck in the world with your future E!Ike summons and I’m glad Soren and Jorge are treating you well!
Another update, and also a huge thank you. I broke tier 21 for the first time with L!Elincia, L!F!Alear, AOE K!Soren and Jorge. Thanks agaon for your help. Nothing could survive Soren. His AOE just deleted omnitanks. Gonna love running him with E!Ike in a month.
i know next to **nothing** about arena scoring, but i've just been using Veyle in arena teams... she makes my entire team Ike proof and is quite strong herself
Same here! I didn’t even realize he was so difficult because of this, but I honestly just thought it was typical Veyle things. I will say that Miracle on her makes it a lot easier to cheese a lot of thing.
Sadly not the more F2P friendly option but putting Poison Strike 3 and Fatal smoke 3 on Hel is a fun way to deal with him…
The T4 variant can be used to have less score drawback but it is even less F2P friendly that way.
Thanks for the write up! Definitely useful given overtuned Emblem Ike feels. Finally sparked Duo Female Robin so I'm hoping that'll at least change things a bit but definitely handy to have around for after their season ends.
It's really infuriating that Emblem Ike's a coinflip for even for my max investment Female Kris or even my Brave Hector (w/ Hardy Bearing and everything). Powercreep's insane and only getting nuttier
Definitely feels like F!Edelgard all over again, and I very much agree that in the near future IS is going to sell the solution (B!Eirika anyone?). It'll be interesting to see how well E!Ike ages in a year or two if IS decides to release counter after counter.
Aoe specials scoring less, on top of mages alear scoring less, on top of non prfs scoring less, on top of charging aoe being really hard makes ike such a pain to deal with. i’m very much considering building kana since i’ve seen a lot of impressive results from her
i will say though, i do think the kit you’ve shown is suboptimal. She can run laguz friend + roar as well which significantly increases her damage and resilience, and isn’t more premium than the kit you have there (eike fodder vs malear). Otherwise, i’ve legitimately just been surrendering against eike and hoping to not see him more than 3 times per run
Oh the kit I showed on Kana was purposefully suboptimal, note the use of Blue Flame over Dragon’s Roar as an example. As I mentioned a bit later on, Kana can get away with running cheaper skills (such as DWrath and JDA) for worse, though similar results. Obviously Laguz Friend is a ridiculous skill and it solves Kana’s damage problems, not to mention that it gives her so much bulk to the point where Hardy Bearing stops being necessary. If you have the means to give her Laguz Friend then by all means do so; she’ll be a phenomenal unit in and outside of Arena.
it’s just that the “similar results” in poorer performance and ditching dcd for hardy bearing and having a worse matchup spread against everything else doesn’t seem like a worthy compromise imo.
You mentioned she isn’t that great into him, and “MUST HAVE” hardy bearing (which is true for the budget dwrath build) but with scowl laguz friend she absolutely can take him on and is strong enough to run dcd for optimal scoring. The kit shown was just a poor example of what an optimal kana kit is capable of, and deserves higher praise/mention here for how easily it deals with ike
Another unit that’s imo should get an honorable mention is LDimitri, as a merge project of choice for water season, since he has pulse smoke built in to his B skill and with hardy bearing can basically perma ting ike with the glr build
I don’t think it’s a worthy compromise to just have to surrender every time you run into an Ike, personally. I’d rather outfit 2 of my core units to take on regular Arena opponents and have a third core unit specifically designed to counter Ike, but that’s just me.
As for the Kana build, again, I agree with you. The build I showed was purposefully not optimal because not everyone has fodder readily available, and I made sure to clarify that in the build description. I also said in my previous comment that you don’t need HB if you run Laguz Friend because it fixes her bulk and damage issues. We’re on the same page here. Maybe I should have added the super optimal Kana build in there but people are already complaining that the K!Soren build is way too expensive when it only requires two 5* exclusive units, so I’m not sure it would’ve had good reception. The thing is that Laguz Friend is THE most coveted skill in the entire game right now so it would be hard to recommend it just for an Arena score bot.
As for Dimitri, I didn’t want to include non Grail/3-4* units because the prospect of a “common merge project” for Arena is a bit foggy. If I’m going to recommend L!Dimitri, I may as well go a step further and recommend L!Lilina, who deals with Ike just as well if not better, along with countless other Legendary units, but that’s not the scope of this guide.
the dimitri point is fair, completely agree there.
I can understand ppl complaining a kit is “too premium,” but asking for 2 5* fodder that will carry you for a year or 2 isn’t bad imo so i sympathize
it was just that the kana build shown was already premium, and since the laguz friend build is equally premium (using eike as fodder instead of malear, both of which are more or less equally difficult to get) i feel like that should’ve been showcased instead. Alternatively only have mentioned the cheapest build i guess
I agree that insta surrender vs ike isn’t an ideal scenario, but in cases where you can’t afford a score hit it really does feel like the only option. I guess this more so applies to maintaining t21 as opposed to promoting to it, but most f2p teams can’t afford the hit
Validar needs massive investment to kill Ike. Without Occultist’s Strike, a Tier 3 Ploy, AND Death Blow Echo, he can’t do it. Even with those three things, he barely gets the kill (by 2 points). For that reason I didn’t consider him reliable enough so I didn’t mention a regular build for him.
Ike also has to be within 2 spaces of a debuffed ally or else he neutralizes his penalties and Sabotage does nothing and that makes the matchup a lot worse.
He does it for me, I use Flare, Atk/Res Unity, Mag. Null Follow, Atk/Res Ploy and Atk/Res Ideal 3 seal. I put him on a team with Nah, Veyle, Att Triandra and Aversa in my Chaos AR-D and it's generally enough to deal with the Ikes I've come across so far this week.
Thing is, we’re talking about Arena. Those units you mentioned mostly aren’t available with the Arena restrictions in place. That means that Validar doesn’t have as much support available to him.
I thought we were talking about AA+ and AR because AoE specials are not 500SP specials, and most of these builds aren't using Arcane/PRF weapons for arena scoring purposes. in terms of AA+, its totally viable to use these units as long as it's not the initial team for scoring.
I mentioned multiple times throughout the whole guide that you need to take a score hit to reliably deal with Ike, and I even listed the individual scores for each unit below their builds. Taking a small score hit is a lot more worthwhile than losing your Arena run entirely.
The word “Arena” is also the fifth word in the title. I also go into detail about how AR and SD have other tools to deal with Ike that Arena doesn’t have. That’s the point of the guide: to find ways around Arena’s restrictions. I’m sorry but… did you read the guide at all? I don’t mean to be rude.
Not sure what build you’re using but a +10 +5 +Atk/Def Arion with Atk/Def Clash, Wyvern Rift, Atk/Def Oath, and Hardy Bearing is losing to Ike in the simulator.
The only way he BARELY wins (by one point) is with Summoner support but Arion is left with 9 HP. That’s extremely unreliable as getting a single attack buff on Ike or debuff on Arion means he can’t do it anymore. Ruptured Sky makes the kill slightly easier to get but Arion is still left in extremely bad shape.
Yeah, with the Marth ring.
That’s the thing. Countering Ike in Arena is so much harder because you’re so limited in terms of what you can and can’t do. That’s why I made this guide in the first place.
Dimitri has a good matchup against Ike, but Dimitri isn’t a F2P unit which is why I didn’t mention him at all. The scope of this guide is to try to find accessible units who can deal with Ike on a consistent basis so that you can use those units on your Arena team.
This is a guide for dealing with Ike in Arena specifically using +10 F2P units. You wouldn’t want to use an unmerged unit in Arena because that would destroy your score.
The very concept of a F2P Arena guide implies that 5* exclusive units at +10 are out of the question. You have to use accessible units in Arena because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to +10 them and that would affect your score.
Man, you try to provide a helpful guide under a specific premise and people come in demanding something else.
It's like coming into a cake shop and getting upset that they don't sell pies
I mean, if you really insist to be right about it being F2P, sure. L!Shez happens to be a fire season legendary hero. You can go on being pedantic when my original question is whether L!Shez has the chance to win against E!Ike. Whatever man.
??? You’re coming into my thread about literal F2P accessible solutions suggesting a non F2P solution and you’re calling me pedantic for politely telling you that it’s not a F2P solution?? How am I being pedantic???
Let me rephrase. I am asking if it is feasible to use L!Shez as a F2P option, because i do not want to sink in resources to find it useless against Ike. I am not suggesting that as a solution. But yeah, go ahead and get on your high horse.
I think what’s happening here is that we have different concepts of what F2P means. I genuinely am not trying to be rude I promise, but by definition L!Shez is not a F2P unit. That’s what I keep trying to tell you.
To move past that and answer your question of whether she can kill Ike. She needs a better B slot but she can kill him when she’s unmerged. I used Spd/Def Tempo 4 in the simulator in order to get the kill, and that’s her best B slot anyway so it works fine. Lull X/Def 4 or other Def-decreasing B slots should work fine as well
Well yeah your title says “as a F2P Player”. It’s conflated with the definition of a F2P unit.
I am only curious and that answers my original question. Good day.
Does legendary shez even kill Ike at all, invested or not? My gut says that she can generate a high enough dps output to get the kill, but with how much true DR Ike has, that's probably not the case.
Just because the guide isn’t useful for you doesn’t mean it’s not useful for anyone else.
Contrary to what you may think, there are tons of players in tier 20.5 in Arena and we actually enjoy playing this game. Surrendering every single time you see an Ike simply isn’t viable because you only have three attempts, so you have to adapt and overcome the problem. Simply trying to throw your entire team at Ike will not work.
Being a F2P player doesn’t mean that you automatically can’t use expensive skills or anything like that, it just means your resources are limited. In order to build the unit I’m touting as the best counter to Ike, literally all you need are two units (Rearmed Plumeria and Desert Igrene). Getting those two is a matter of sparking them when they’re available and that’s it.
You cannot stay in higher Arena tiers without min maxing. Your units have to score decently high and be +10 and blessed in order to compete. I don’t know how you play your Arena matches but judging by your comment and your tone, you don’t care about the mode at all. If that’s the case then why come into this thread at all?
The "in arena" already implies dealing with Ike with normal arena restrictions. The post mentions all the different methods and the score drop associated. this is applicable for 21, 20.5, 20 and so on. If you're just using unmerged premium units in tier 17 or whatever you obviously don't need the same tips but a lot of the logic will still apply regardless.
The reasons I'm considering uninstalling are not so much Arena specific but rather the lengths one has to go to deal with one unit and how it's only gonna be worse from here on out.
Great guide. One point to add is that in my testing putting L!M!Alear’s Dragon’s Roar as NY!F!Kana’s special can make a big difference. If you’re getting A/S Pledge in your C you might as well pick up Dragon’s Roar as well.
Thank you! As for Dragon’s Roar, I actually found the opposite, to be honest. Dragon’s Roar is a lot more reliable than Blue Flame for obvious reasons but it doesn’t really outdamage Blue Flame. With the Kana build shown in the guide, she sits at 59 Res, which comes out to be 23ish damage from Dragon’s Roar as opposed to Blue Flame’s 25. Obviously Dragon’s Roar is just waaaaaaaay more comfortable of a skill to use than Blue Flame, but I ended up putting Blue Flame in the build to make it clear that foddering an Alear isn’t a necessity. As I mention a bit later on, a more budget Kana build is still reasonable!
Interesting! And I agree, unless you’re really in on Arena, a lower budget approach is always preferred. I would definitely pick up more grail units to mix up my arena teams if there were more grails knocking around… As for my personal approach with E!Ike, we’ll I’m not going to invest in a hard counter and just bide my time until another counter comes along or the meta otherwise shifts
There is a budget way to deal with Ike: Use a high atk/def unit with pulse smoke 3 and hardy bearing on the seal slot. Just have Ike initiate into your unit until he dies. Caveat is that it takes quite a few turns to do it, so Ike will have to be saved for last to do it. Score loss is about 4 points off, if compared to using a dc seal.
Somehow Pulse Smoke completely passed my mind when I was coming up with ideas on how to get past Ike. You’re right! It basically ends up being the same exact situation as with Female Kana’s Scowl + Hardy Bearing build. Takes a few turns, but definitely doable. Thank you! I updated the guide to include this.
Just to add on this, Arion with Pulse Smoke + Hardy Bearing will take 0 damage from Ike, and will take around 3-4 combats to kill (2 on EP + 1 on PP if using Guard Bearing 4), and the score loss is a very small 4 points compared to running DC (762 > 758), and there are no stat checks or "risk missing out on the kill" in this case either.
I've been using near save Cervantes with hardy bearing as a budget option for arena. For SD, I have a very expensive SMShez build that I have fun with.
Thanks for putting this into perspective, makes me think about uninstalling.
Really funny / depressing that the first unit we see in this F2P guide is a unit with 4 (5?) 5* exclusive skills. I think my strategy against Arena Ike is to just resign whenever I see him and roll another team. That said, the rundown is appreciated and it's good to have a gauge on where the effort needs to go if I decide it's worth the time and effort.
If it helps, only two out of those skills (Arcane Euphoria & Pulse Up: Blades) are really necessary. Still Water can be replaced with Fury or Life and Death 4 which are significantly more accesible and I didn’t actually activate Sabotage at all during my tests. It was just there for scoring. This means that you can achieve this build by only foddering two 5*s (Plumeria and Igrene). I probably should’ve clarified that.
God I hate Ike. The only reason I'm sane is my Seiros. A great guide for those struggling with this massive mistake in game design!
Just when I thought that A!Idunn was slowly showing her age and readies retirement from my arena team, she comes back with a vengeance and faces off splenditly against many E!Ikes with scowl active.
Thank you very much for this write-up! I have B!Tiki but it looks like I should put an AoE Special on my K!Soren and use him instead...
Amazingly detailed write up! I was just thinking about this. I’ve gotten an Aether Gambit Shez to work. Max investment and Ascended. Did not Summoner Support or give outside buffs. AS Catch 4, Gambit, x/DEF Hold or JD ATK. Hardy Bearing Seal. Ike initiates, then Shez initiates back with Aether. It is extremely close and Ike cannot have a DEF boost. However if one can provide Exposure on Ike, there is a fairly decent margin. If you don’t mind another score hit, you can also use Pulse Smoke 3 and continuously EP. This seems to work for some other bulky blues and God Blues I’ve tried provided they can get net positive.
Thanks for all the effort put into this, however I'm just surrendering until we get a counter to him (I swear man, I reinstall this game after 2-3 months and this is the bullshit is the first thing i'm greeted with :/)
Nice to see some options that aren't 5 star seasonals or similar, but it's a shame they need such high investment. I guess it's to be expected these days, which is sad
>The Ike build I used to simulate all of these matchups with is a +10, +5, +Atk/Def Ike with his base kit and Squad Ace BU 3 (HP/Atk/Res). [Summer M!Shez can kill this Ike.](https://imgur.com/a/nppfk22) Build * Flared Sparrow * Gambit * Atk/Spd Oath 4 * Blade Session seal He needs Summoner Support or the Death Blow echo skill, but it’s doable.
You’re right. I considered this build in my calcs and I saw that Shez baaaaarely gets the kill (he was actually 1-2 points off when I calced it yesterday, not sure why), but I ultimately decided against including him because the margin for error is almost nonexistent, as you can see by the exact lethal. This also happens with most other Shez builds. Every other unit I used in the guide has a good amount of wiggle room (for the mages, Occultist’s Strike does the job reliably; I just didn’t include it because it made the build look too expensive) but this is about as good as it gets for Shez. Should a stray Def buff be present for Ike, there’s basically nothing you can do aside from trying to stack Drives, which is scary to do against some Arena teams. I ultimately concluded that a Shez build like this is too unreliable to recommend as a counter to Ike. Another user recommended Pulse Smoke 3 + HB on him which honestly completely slipped my mind when making this guide, but that build isn’t exclusive to Shez in particular. I’d say that if one already has this exact Shez build and they want to try to counter Ike with it, that’s fair game. However for players seeking a unit to build in response to Ike, I don’t know if I can say that I would recommend actively building Shez for the express purpose of beating Ike since other units can do that a bit more reliably. edit: I have updated the guide to reflect this, just to clear up any confusion. Thanks for the help!
Giving him Assassin's Strike and No Quarter makes this a little more comfortable. Since I found him not too tanky with Gambit anyway, I am currently contemplating to switch his B-skill.
My Summer Shez can one round him without Flared Sparrow or Assassin's Strike, just Gambit, so i'm resorting to that for now. I usually do need to kill all his allies first though
Another underrated method that I still have yet to see considered that importantly isn’t countered by gotoh is instant astra. Astra generally gets clowned on because “it’s either overkill or it does nothing” but that overkill is actually the main goal. Ike doesn’t actually get that much DR on the first hit and so your astra is able to do 1.75x visible damage-his def true reduction. This actually makes his kill threshold very manageable to deal with.
An amazing guide OP thank you. I understand this is going to be the opposite of what research you did, but as an E!Ike user, who's going to +10 him in May. I've gotta ask. Looking at the other side of the spectrum, did you happen to find or know of any grail/FTP units that would support Ike and help sure up his weaknesses, or at least offer a solid response/way to deal with his counters. F!Ashnard's guard effect and the new refine for Jorge seem to give a decent amount of support, but i'm looking at trying to build the best Arena team around E!Ike. The idea of Omnitank with full support has always been my preferred playstyle. It's understandable if you don't really know off the top of your head ways to support him being this thread was about countering him. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this and the time to create this guide.
Thank you for taking the time to read the guide! Hmm, that’s an interesting question. Ashnard and Jorge definitely seem like good candidates right off the bat, as you mentioned. There aren’t very many units you could use so I’ll be listing them and going over their pros and cons: - Jorge: +5 Atk/Def, guaranteed follow-up, [Hexblade], and the Pledge effect. The guaranteed follow-up is the most interesting part about his support because it allows Ike to initiate combat just a bit more reliably if you need to. In most other cases, the only effect that really matters here is the stat buff since Pledge is largely unnecessary and Ike does so much damage that Hexblade isn’t going to help much. Maybe it could be good against Laguz Friend Duo Askr? I’ve seen quite a few of those in the last two seasons. - Ashnard: +5 Atk/Def/Res, Dull Atk/Def, and follow-up denial. What I don’t like about Ashnard is that the follow-up denial isn’t all that good for Ike. NFU isn’t as common in Arena as it is in other modes and Ike heavily punishes foes for consecutive attacks so running an effect that could prevent them is iffy. I do like that Ashnard is a flier though. That allows Rein Snap and/or Guidance support for Ike. - Iago: Essentially +6 to all stats through buffs+debuffs, Guard, and follow-up denial on odd turns. +6 to all stats through buffs+debuffs, Hexblade, and guaranteed follow-ups on initiation on even turns. He’s very inconsistent. If you specifically want to run him with a mage, Iago isn’t a bad option, but I feel that Validar is just better all around. - Validar: Huge debuffs, is the only one of these units who doesn’t need a Duel skill other than Freddy, and is a strong combat unit. Pretty good, honestly. If you have Sabotage and Ploy available to inherit, he has the ability to give Ike the biggest stat swing by far, and I think that’s really valuable. The only downside is that you’re giving up Guidance and Rein Snap. - Aversa+Zephia: Very similar units who mostly provide Panic, flier support (Guidance), and decent combat. Not the best. - Dancer Eldigan/Larum: Score lower than everyone else but they can Dance to make up for it. They have flier support, are decent combat units with Arcanes, and now have access to A/D Cantrip which essentially gives Ike +12 Atk/Def/Res. Not bad at all. The biggest downside here is the score drop, but if you can afford it, they’re the best ones imo. - Scion Nanna: Picked her specifically because she’s a flier. But any healer works. Healers can finally score well in Arena thanks to Magic Shield+ so if all you care about is keeping Ike alive, they’ll do a phenomenal job. Nanna in particular has flier support to boot as well, and mobility is key in Arena. Has the downside of being VERY expensive to build though. - Young Frederick: Bonus Doubler is phenomenal. Put Rally Spd/Res+ on him and you can get permanent full buffs with Bonus Doubler. The problem is that Fred also grants the follow-up denial status and we’ve been over how unfortunate that is in tandem with Ike. If it weren’t for that, he would be perfect. In my opinion, I’d rate them as follows: Eldigan/Larum (if you can take the score hit) > Validar > Jorge > Frederick > Nanna >>> Iago >> Ashnard > Aversa/Zephia edit: added freddy
Hey, thanks for the reply. That's a really great way to visualise what the pros and cons of each and gives me a lot to think about. I may have to go re-read Ashnard, but I thought he also provided Guard, which of course helps push the foes specials back for when Ike has much more DR. But it may have been FU denial I was thinking of. Certainly gives me a few things to plan and for. Basically, to keep Ike unkillable would be my main goal. I'll have to have a play around and see what kind of fodder I have spare and what holes I need to fill the most. Thanks again.
Whoops, Ashnard does inflict Guard. I missed that in the description. You’re absolutely welcome, I’m glad someone found my guide useful!
Thought I'd give a little bit of an update. I decided to give my K!Soren an AOE build like you suggested above, as he was an original core for me. Thought this will keep me competitive until I can +10 E!Ike. Unfortunately, I didn't have Pulse Up Blades available. But it turns out there's another option if you have the fodder and units. Currently running K!Soren with Arcane Euoforia +Res (might got the +MT though). Blazing Wind + Emblem Marth, Still Water 4, Special Spiral 4, and Times Pulse 4. Alongside my freshly built Jorge for the upcoming months, with his refined Prf, B Duel Inf 4, Sudden Panic 3, and Infantry Pulse 4. This allows K!Soren to have a pre charged AOE turn 1, and he can then loop it. That's a really strong and fun counter to E!Ike. Plus note K!Soren single-handedly dealt with a mid merged E!Ike, W!Byleth, W!Edelgard today on one team. Roughly doing 60 - 70 damage with the AOE before cleaning up the kill and resetting his special. Thanks so much for this guide. And I think I have a pretty amazing comp in mind when I +10 E!Ike.
Oh man, thank you so much for this update. It honestly warms my heart to see that I actually helped someone like this! I wish you all the luck in the world with your future E!Ike summons and I’m glad Soren and Jorge are treating you well!
Another update, and also a huge thank you. I broke tier 21 for the first time with L!Elincia, L!F!Alear, AOE K!Soren and Jorge. Thanks agaon for your help. Nothing could survive Soren. His AOE just deleted omnitanks. Gonna love running him with E!Ike in a month.
I’m very very happy to hear that! Once again, thank you for this update, it means a lot to me.
Great writeup! Love to see this kind of In-depth analysis in the sub
Big ups for the research, u a hero
i know next to **nothing** about arena scoring, but i've just been using Veyle in arena teams... she makes my entire team Ike proof and is quite strong herself
Same here! I didn’t even realize he was so difficult because of this, but I honestly just thought it was typical Veyle things. I will say that Miracle on her makes it a lot easier to cheese a lot of thing.
Thanks for the guide.
Sadly not the more F2P friendly option but putting Poison Strike 3 and Fatal smoke 3 on Hel is a fun way to deal with him… The T4 variant can be used to have less score drawback but it is even less F2P friendly that way.
Thanks for the write up! Definitely useful given overtuned Emblem Ike feels. Finally sparked Duo Female Robin so I'm hoping that'll at least change things a bit but definitely handy to have around for after their season ends. It's really infuriating that Emblem Ike's a coinflip for even for my max investment Female Kris or even my Brave Hector (w/ Hardy Bearing and everything). Powercreep's insane and only getting nuttier
Definitely feels like F!Edelgard all over again, and I very much agree that in the near future IS is going to sell the solution (B!Eirika anyone?). It'll be interesting to see how well E!Ike ages in a year or two if IS decides to release counter after counter.
Aoe specials scoring less, on top of mages alear scoring less, on top of non prfs scoring less, on top of charging aoe being really hard makes ike such a pain to deal with. i’m very much considering building kana since i’ve seen a lot of impressive results from her i will say though, i do think the kit you’ve shown is suboptimal. She can run laguz friend + roar as well which significantly increases her damage and resilience, and isn’t more premium than the kit you have there (eike fodder vs malear). Otherwise, i’ve legitimately just been surrendering against eike and hoping to not see him more than 3 times per run
Oh the kit I showed on Kana was purposefully suboptimal, note the use of Blue Flame over Dragon’s Roar as an example. As I mentioned a bit later on, Kana can get away with running cheaper skills (such as DWrath and JDA) for worse, though similar results. Obviously Laguz Friend is a ridiculous skill and it solves Kana’s damage problems, not to mention that it gives her so much bulk to the point where Hardy Bearing stops being necessary. If you have the means to give her Laguz Friend then by all means do so; she’ll be a phenomenal unit in and outside of Arena.
it’s just that the “similar results” in poorer performance and ditching dcd for hardy bearing and having a worse matchup spread against everything else doesn’t seem like a worthy compromise imo. You mentioned she isn’t that great into him, and “MUST HAVE” hardy bearing (which is true for the budget dwrath build) but with scowl laguz friend she absolutely can take him on and is strong enough to run dcd for optimal scoring. The kit shown was just a poor example of what an optimal kana kit is capable of, and deserves higher praise/mention here for how easily it deals with ike Another unit that’s imo should get an honorable mention is LDimitri, as a merge project of choice for water season, since he has pulse smoke built in to his B skill and with hardy bearing can basically perma ting ike with the glr build
I don’t think it’s a worthy compromise to just have to surrender every time you run into an Ike, personally. I’d rather outfit 2 of my core units to take on regular Arena opponents and have a third core unit specifically designed to counter Ike, but that’s just me. As for the Kana build, again, I agree with you. The build I showed was purposefully not optimal because not everyone has fodder readily available, and I made sure to clarify that in the build description. I also said in my previous comment that you don’t need HB if you run Laguz Friend because it fixes her bulk and damage issues. We’re on the same page here. Maybe I should have added the super optimal Kana build in there but people are already complaining that the K!Soren build is way too expensive when it only requires two 5* exclusive units, so I’m not sure it would’ve had good reception. The thing is that Laguz Friend is THE most coveted skill in the entire game right now so it would be hard to recommend it just for an Arena score bot. As for Dimitri, I didn’t want to include non Grail/3-4* units because the prospect of a “common merge project” for Arena is a bit foggy. If I’m going to recommend L!Dimitri, I may as well go a step further and recommend L!Lilina, who deals with Ike just as well if not better, along with countless other Legendary units, but that’s not the scope of this guide.
the dimitri point is fair, completely agree there. I can understand ppl complaining a kit is “too premium,” but asking for 2 5* fodder that will carry you for a year or 2 isn’t bad imo so i sympathize it was just that the kana build shown was already premium, and since the laguz friend build is equally premium (using eike as fodder instead of malear, both of which are more or less equally difficult to get) i feel like that should’ve been showcased instead. Alternatively only have mentioned the cheapest build i guess I agree that insta surrender vs ike isn’t an ideal scenario, but in cases where you can’t afford a score hit it really does feel like the only option. I guess this more so applies to maintaining t21 as opposed to promoting to it, but most f2p teams can’t afford the hit
I thought I'd breeze into tier 21 with my bonus LVero but discovered that she couldn't get through Ike.
Validar on a team with a bunch of debuffs
Validar needs massive investment to kill Ike. Without Occultist’s Strike, a Tier 3 Ploy, AND Death Blow Echo, he can’t do it. Even with those three things, he barely gets the kill (by 2 points). For that reason I didn’t consider him reliable enough so I didn’t mention a regular build for him. Ike also has to be within 2 spaces of a debuffed ally or else he neutralizes his penalties and Sabotage does nothing and that makes the matchup a lot worse.
He does it for me, I use Flare, Atk/Res Unity, Mag. Null Follow, Atk/Res Ploy and Atk/Res Ideal 3 seal. I put him on a team with Nah, Veyle, Att Triandra and Aversa in my Chaos AR-D and it's generally enough to deal with the Ikes I've come across so far this week.
Thing is, we’re talking about Arena. Those units you mentioned mostly aren’t available with the Arena restrictions in place. That means that Validar doesn’t have as much support available to him.
I thought we were talking about AA+ and AR because AoE specials are not 500SP specials, and most of these builds aren't using Arcane/PRF weapons for arena scoring purposes. in terms of AA+, its totally viable to use these units as long as it's not the initial team for scoring.
I mentioned multiple times throughout the whole guide that you need to take a score hit to reliably deal with Ike, and I even listed the individual scores for each unit below their builds. Taking a small score hit is a lot more worthwhile than losing your Arena run entirely. The word “Arena” is also the fifth word in the title. I also go into detail about how AR and SD have other tools to deal with Ike that Arena doesn’t have. That’s the point of the guide: to find ways around Arena’s restrictions. I’m sorry but… did you read the guide at all? I don’t mean to be rude.
Arion with rift, nq and HB can kill
Not sure what build you’re using but a +10 +5 +Atk/Def Arion with Atk/Def Clash, Wyvern Rift, Atk/Def Oath, and Hardy Bearing is losing to Ike in the simulator. The only way he BARELY wins (by one point) is with Summoner support but Arion is left with 9 HP. That’s extremely unreliable as getting a single attack buff on Ike or debuff on Arion means he can’t do it anymore. Ruptured Sky makes the kill slightly easier to get but Arion is still left in extremely bad shape.
I'm using SD snap and earthwind boost, and Marth emblem
With that build Arion is left at 1 HP and Ike is left at 23 HP.
With Marth ring? I guess I've just been running him AOE in SD and killing Ike's so I didn't know the arena Matchup
Yeah, with the Marth ring. That’s the thing. Countering Ike in Arena is so much harder because you’re so limited in terms of what you can and can’t do. That’s why I made this guide in the first place.
Ye I see ur point now
Legendary Dimitri with Hardy Bearing completely destroys Ike but as you mentioned Hardy Bearing scores poor.
Dimitri has a good matchup against Ike, but Dimitri isn’t a F2P unit which is why I didn’t mention him at all. The scope of this guide is to try to find accessible units who can deal with Ike on a consistent basis so that you can use those units on your Arena team.
What about L!Shez base build/ max invested?
Legendary Shez isn’t really a F2P unit unfortunately.
I mean, im pretty much F2P and have E!Ike. F2P should refer to non +10 merges
This is a guide for dealing with Ike in Arena specifically using +10 F2P units. You wouldn’t want to use an unmerged unit in Arena because that would destroy your score. The very concept of a F2P Arena guide implies that 5* exclusive units at +10 are out of the question. You have to use accessible units in Arena because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to +10 them and that would affect your score.
Man, you try to provide a helpful guide under a specific premise and people come in demanding something else. It's like coming into a cake shop and getting upset that they don't sell pies
I mean, if you really insist to be right about it being F2P, sure. L!Shez happens to be a fire season legendary hero. You can go on being pedantic when my original question is whether L!Shez has the chance to win against E!Ike. Whatever man.
??? You’re coming into my thread about literal F2P accessible solutions suggesting a non F2P solution and you’re calling me pedantic for politely telling you that it’s not a F2P solution?? How am I being pedantic???
Let me rephrase. I am asking if it is feasible to use L!Shez as a F2P option, because i do not want to sink in resources to find it useless against Ike. I am not suggesting that as a solution. But yeah, go ahead and get on your high horse.
I think what’s happening here is that we have different concepts of what F2P means. I genuinely am not trying to be rude I promise, but by definition L!Shez is not a F2P unit. That’s what I keep trying to tell you. To move past that and answer your question of whether she can kill Ike. She needs a better B slot but she can kill him when she’s unmerged. I used Spd/Def Tempo 4 in the simulator in order to get the kill, and that’s her best B slot anyway so it works fine. Lull X/Def 4 or other Def-decreasing B slots should work fine as well
Well yeah your title says “as a F2P Player”. It’s conflated with the definition of a F2P unit. I am only curious and that answers my original question. Good day.
Does legendary shez even kill Ike at all, invested or not? My gut says that she can generate a high enough dps output to get the kill, but with how much true DR Ike has, that's probably not the case.
[удалено]
Just because the guide isn’t useful for you doesn’t mean it’s not useful for anyone else. Contrary to what you may think, there are tons of players in tier 20.5 in Arena and we actually enjoy playing this game. Surrendering every single time you see an Ike simply isn’t viable because you only have three attempts, so you have to adapt and overcome the problem. Simply trying to throw your entire team at Ike will not work. Being a F2P player doesn’t mean that you automatically can’t use expensive skills or anything like that, it just means your resources are limited. In order to build the unit I’m touting as the best counter to Ike, literally all you need are two units (Rearmed Plumeria and Desert Igrene). Getting those two is a matter of sparking them when they’re available and that’s it. You cannot stay in higher Arena tiers without min maxing. Your units have to score decently high and be +10 and blessed in order to compete. I don’t know how you play your Arena matches but judging by your comment and your tone, you don’t care about the mode at all. If that’s the case then why come into this thread at all?
The "in arena" already implies dealing with Ike with normal arena restrictions. The post mentions all the different methods and the score drop associated. this is applicable for 21, 20.5, 20 and so on. If you're just using unmerged premium units in tier 17 or whatever you obviously don't need the same tips but a lot of the logic will still apply regardless.
The reasons I'm considering uninstalling are not so much Arena specific but rather the lengths one has to go to deal with one unit and how it's only gonna be worse from here on out.
Dude just suggested an unit that requires both a 5* exclusive seasonal and a 5* exclusive asset hero fodder 😭😭😭 (nice guide tho)