LogFAQs > #902539957

barreldragon88 posted...

I feel like one-charge Moonbow is a scam because you often have to go against something that can counter you at the start of battle, so the one cooldown gets wasted

There's a difference between Flashing Blade + Moonbow and, say, Quickened Pulse + Moonbow. The latter only acts as 1-charge for the first encounter. The former treats Moonbow as a 1-charge for every encounter assuming Lon'qu is faster (which he almost always is). When you combine that with Desperation, any initiation where Lon'qu would double is an immediate Attack + Attack (with Moonbow boosted by Wo Dao) which is very potent.

I mean, Ayra and Mia do it better in every way, but those two are better than every other (non-armor) red sword in the game so I don't hold it against him. I've had a lot of success with him even before he started getting big merges and heavy SI simply because Speed is the most important stat in the game and Lon'qu has the second highest Speed in the game. He's also way tankier than people realize because he has a high base HP (which is further bolstered by Wo Dao+ or Slaying Edge+ giving +5 HP when refined).

I didn't actually build him out of favoritism (I liked him in Awakening but not THAT much). Lon'qu is my personal #1 choice for a budget (non-armor) Red sword, by which I mean Red swords that can be found at the *3 or *4 level. In general my top picks for that are:

Lon'qu - best 'brawler' type, strong offense while being able to tank in a pinch
Marth - strong buffer, not as good a fighter but craps on dragons which is extremely useful in the current meta
Eirika - strong buffer, slightly less good at that than Marth but is a much better fighter against non-dragons
Soleil - amazing offense when taking advantage of firesweep, but is kind of bad when she needs to take a hit and doesn't have the natural speed needed to one-round some key opponents
Olivia - bad in fighting but she's a dancer so who gives a shit

And to a lesser extent:
Hinata - extremely tanky for his archetype, can be a very good defensive tank if utilizing steady breath + quick riposte, but dies immediately to any mage not named Merric
Hana - Soleil lite
Athena - Lon'qu but slightly worse
Caeda - was salvaged by Wing Sword, base stat spread is still garbage though

P.S. I didn't include any Cavs because all the budget Red Cavs are bad.
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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.