Alkaid

Eh, Michalis still has his higher nuke power with his specials so give him an edge for it. Their performance is very close in raw stats, but Haar, like Gerome, doesn't bring anything unique to the table. As I said, he's not bad, just nothing exciting and takes more feathers to make use of than even Gerome. Beruka is the best and cutest of all the defensive axes anyway

Haar is basically just Gerome again, which is pretty sad. Outside of favoritism it seems like there's no reason to bother with him. Gerome already came at 5* and has a less common weapon he can just keep for anti-cav AA use. If you want a defensive GHB axe flier, Michalis is better and has a prf and Cherche is vastly superior for an actual Brave Axe build with her prf. Poor Haar needs to be both promoted and get a weapon replacement. That said, he's not bad, just nothing special or interesting. Even the fodder's not that great. And yeah, it's kind of looking like no demotes again after seeing the stats. Mordecai didn't seem like a clear demote to begin with thanks to his Beast Exp skill, but now with those stats he seems even less so. Maybe Ranulf for being a "worse Kaden"? Still not seeming too likely.

I don't mind them character-wise, but I think their implementation and way they play just feels messy in FEH. I still wish they were more like dragons 2.0 instead of unique Yu-Gi-Oh weapons for each one and the team building and usability restrictions they have. I also find their transformations kind of clashing with the rest of the game's aesthetic. I prefer the way dragons stay human on the map and just transform for battle, but that's just me.

I'm still really not a fan of beast units, so this looks like another pass for me. Got Velouria just because she was a favorite in Fates, but I don't care for how they play in FEH. Kind of wish beasts were never even a thing, honestly. Or implemented essentially the same as dragons. Looks like Mr. Armor Lion will be a pain to deal with on whale AR stall teams if you're not running a melee armor killer. (I use Bow Hinoka so I'm a bit annoyed) AR offense tanks that have innate DC will probably like DD4 as well. Honestly, more beasts and another power creep skill is a bit of a groan from me. I'm glad most people who didn't have their favorite in the first round of Laguz got them in this wave, though.

My wallet would catch fire if they did this. At the very least they need to give us a chef hat accessory to put on her one day.

The changes are good if you don't want/need the old units or their fodder much, so now your pity breakers are generally of a higher quality being mostly recent units with mostly better skills. Almost everything in the current pity breaker pool is a great unit or great fodder. However, if you're missing many older units that you wanted you just lost your chances to fill some of those holes while summoning for other things. I see people keep scoffing at this notion or saying "well just summon for them on a focus if you want them that much." Realistically, it can be hard to spare orbs for older units' banners when you're trying to spend on new seasonals and new heroes as well. While obviously nobody should be using pity breakers as the primary way to try and get something, if you're going to get pity broken anyway those older units you're missing may be stuff you wanted too. Personally, I've gotten a fair number of units I was missing through pity breakers, almost none of which I would have been able to afford spending orbs on while keeping up with the flow of actual new units. And I was happy to get them too. Hector, Takumi, Micaiah, Azura, Mia, Leo, etc. I could go on. Unit-wise, I've never really had a problem with the 5* pity pool, besides the obvious non-5* exclusive ones. And if we want to talk about pity breakers in general, yeah they're not as desirable as the focus unit you're chasing, but that hasn't changed. Just the variety of what you might get. I'm relatively neutral on this change. Glad the pity pool has almost nothing bad in it anymore, but bummed this means my chances of getting units I missed like Ryoma, OG Lyn, Julia, etc. are pretty much completely gone. Almost certain I won't have orbs to spare for old unit banners when I want so many new seasonals and other things first. Hoping they'd show up on that slip pity chance was about all there was. Also doesn't help when units you want may be extremely rare to get actually banners. I know it's a meme, but imagine if you WANTED somebody like Luke. Well, pity breaks was it if you missed him. Anybody wanting Linde in her extremely long banner drought had no other chance either.

Very nice, 800 flags dumped for Grima. Let's see if Idunn can tank the multiplier since it's not an actual 7.5x difference anymore, so she might have a chance. That gain in same status last hour was pretty big.

My review: Pair Up Mechanic - Interesting addition but they way they're going about it by being exclusive to select legendary heroes and the the new mode makes it feel like a waste. Also don't like how it's clearly in part to push the value of certain legendary units. Feels more like a business ploy than a full game mechanic. Allegiance Mode - Pseudo-arena with 5 units, pair up and some friend units. Not that interested thanks to it using arena calculation. Also just feathers and flowers with no orb rewards in sight. (nothing to replace the lost monthly orbs at all this update) AR Resort - I actually really like this mode. Seems like a cute little side thing to mess with.. until you get to the 3 orb weekly tax to double AR stone gains. Just another aggressive way to leech orbs off people, and on top of the orb deduction we already had from lowered monthly orb counts. If you don't participate in this little system you risk being outpaced on fort upgrades in the long run, which will make AR even more of a mess. Everything else in the update is whatever, but basically paying for more weekly AR stones just feels scummy and obvious. Demotes - I'm not upset about no 5* exclusive demotes, since that's exactly what I was expecting anyway. The removal of half the 5* pool seems like an odd way to go about the pool bloat issues but I guess we'll see how this works out. Slightly more chance to get the units you want on new unit and seasonal banners so whatever I guess. No chance of getting pity broken by the old units I've never gotten is actually a slight disappointment for me, but I'm not that moved either way on this one. Just I guess I'll never get the old units I'm missing unless I pull for them if they manage to get focus banners down the road. Really, it feels more like an effort to bump the urgency to pull on side banners with older units for people than to help lower the bloating of the pool. Now you may feel more tempted to pull on that banner with X old unit since that's basically your only way to get them at all now. Pretty underwhelming update. Still looking forward to the refines most. I hope they're good. AR Resort still looks cool, but I'm really disgusted with the orb drain they added for the stones. That sucks. Guess needing to spend orbs on mythics in the first place to score well just wasn't enough.

Not Astra, so I don't need this mythic. Don't really want her in particular either, though she is a flier and the green pool looks great for fodder, so I may try some greens anyway. Blue is amazing so I'll be going for that. I was waiting to pull for a second Eir as well, but the colorless pool is pretty awful so I may just skip that idea. Kind of underwhelming since it's just a dark mythic and not anyone of big interest, but overall the banner's still pretty solid outside of colorless being polluted by another Lyn rerun.

I'd rather not see FEH polluted with collab characters and just stick to FE, so I'm hoping this won't be a two way thing. I'm only interested in seeing what characters they decide are collab-worthy. Will it be actual FEH characters like the Askrs and Veronica, or would they throw in something like Ike or Lucina in for it. I wonder how this ploy will fare in getting FEH players to try Dragalia. I'm not touching it again no matter what they add, though.

Same here. Though if she comes now I I'll have so few orbs to get her I thought about that, but maybe it won't count towards fitting Awakening into the schedule. No full Awakening banner since August just feels like it's been a long while for such a popular game.

I'm feeling Awakening. It's been a while since the last banner and maybe they'll finally get around to some more Awakening kids like Severa and Nah.

I'm with you on wanting and preferring the normal versions of character getting added into the game over coming as random seasonal alts, but I wouldn't say it's "disrespectful" to their characters. This is a light-hearted gatcha spin off game, and not unlike the increased fanservice in general, alts and gimmicks are a big part of how these games work. Pretty much anyone is fair game to be put into a silly outfit or swimsuit with a gacha, so I just accept this type of game for what it is. And doing so with otherwise unreleased characters is just another strategy for IS to mix things up. I'm still waiting for regular Charlotte, but I don't mind she got that random bride alt the first year. (I do mind that I never managed to get her, though)

I'm stunned at the free Loki, but that saves me from pulling on the banner. Kind of had a gut feeling we might get her after NY did the other OCs, but I wasn't fully expecting it. Not as good as her original Shigeki art, but she still looks pretty good. Also a free bow flier sounds great. I hope her weapon is a prf and does something cool. Definitely feels like they're attempting to bait people into playing AR more to get grails with the string of popular/fancervicy girls getting TT'd lately. The banner units all have really nice art and look fun. Only Marisa seems underwhelming unit-wise. Palla's a certified Surtr killer and that AR skill sounds like a pain for my AR defense. Bruno's rather boring, but still good art. Veronica looks really nice but I'm annoyed they're putting a duel skill on a seasonal. Not that I'm surprised, but this is exactly what I was afraid they'd do. Azura keeping the B Duel stuck to her in a legendary banner was bad enough. Overall, it's not really a group of characters I'm that into, but just off the art and how fun the units look, it still seems like a nice banner.. I'll probably have to skip to keep saving, but I wish I could get at least Palla and Veronica. Even 2 Veronicas to fodder one for the duel skill. Again, I'm glad Loki's free or she would have had to dump my orbs for her anyway.

Not that I thought she'd be bad, but Bow Hinoka seemed to be written off as not that amazing when she came out due to her attack and defense not being the best for dealing with DC armors at the time. As time's gone on, I've just seen her get better and better, especially with AR. Armors and fliers are both common in AR and she's a great pick to help handle both types of teams, while also giving an extra +3 attack buff to her allies. She's like a complete package of support and countering some common threats, not unlike how Summer Micaiah's double effectiveness + dancing has made her so helpful in the mode. Plus, Sturdy Impact came out and complements her perfectly, shoring up her defense while also denying Vengeful Fighter/QR on the armors she wants to be able to deal with. (If I can get a Tibarn he's totally being foddered for her) She also makes a good AR defense unit on flier teams for the same reasons. The other is Bath Camilla. Even though I like Camilla, I didn't think this one would be anything but a worse Eir that you can merge easier, nor would her weapon be that worthwhile. But turns out instant Icebergs with her native dagger + QP have been very fun and powerful to play around with. I could even one shot some Dumas during her AR bonus season that way. Not to mention she can make a potent colorless tank that's better than Eir for AR due to blessing buffs if you want to use her that way. Didn't think she'd be anything notable but she's got some surprisingly strong uses.

My speculation is somebody gets the Karla treatment, taking a lower-popularity character and turn them into bait. Alternatively I would have considered a Roy or Lilina alt in the normal pool, but 2 Roys 2 weeks apart seems highly unlikely. Sue and Miledy would be nice additions and seem like good candidates to give the Karla-type makeover to as well. Imagine Sue one-upping BLyn's stats and taking Firesweep cav cancer to the next lev- actually okay, let's not do that, thank you.. I definitely feel like some kind of Karla type thing or another powercreep skill will be on the banner(Swift Impact, anyone?), since most of the remaining BB characters don't sound like too big of a draw otherwise.

Great banner, bad timing. Trying my best to save up orbs for CYL and the bath banner already robbed me of a lot, so I really don't want to use more. Velouria's my favorite beast in the series but I don't think I can go for her right now. Selkie looks great too with that art and Yu-Gi-Oh weapon. I'm hoping Velouria manages to be the demote so I can just pick her up as a 4* later. Kaden could go instead, but it could go either way. Panne for free is nice. I didn't get Nailah and I didn't promote Naesala so she won't be redundant for me as another blue for now.

I'm not really feeling it. From the graphics, to the art style, to the school setting. Just not very appealing to me so far. Maybe later we'll see more on the gameplay and it'll still be fun enough to be worthwhile in that department. It looks like a low-budget imitator of FE by some other company so far. This looks straight up like one of those battle school harem animes. That doesn't mean it's inherently bad, but just not what I was looking for.

Possibly, though it still means instead of skirting the bare minimum to maintain tier 21 you're pressed to actually play seriously again. I was glad to have gotten over the climb and get a rest for a while, with just the issue of maintaining top 3k in rank later on. The cap change is nice, though it also means you have to play more in total since you'll be able to do basically twice as many matches as you can now in 21. Dragon flowers sound like straight up permanent +1 to all stats when maxed out (or +2 to old infantry units).

It was 100 last year. I'm pretty disappointed about that bit too, but I guess they figure the 3 free 5* units across the other parts makes up for it.

100% called it on adding more AR tiers. I think I'll still play pretty loosely even with this addition. AR is such a slog through all the cancer maps I'm glad to mostly vegetate at tier 21 now. More grails and flowers is nice, but I'll just do what I can. Also NO demotions of any kind. I kept saying expectations were getting to sure about that happening. At least the free seasonals and stuff is pretty nice, and I do like the flower thing to buff units a bit more.

I'm sorry about your luck. While I got a good Sakura at first, trying to hunt greens for Hinoka got me a 4.75% rate broken by a 5* Libra which was painful. Then using the remainder of my orbs got Hinoka finally.. but +hp -spd. Effectively 200 orbs for Libra and the worst IV Hinoka, after Sakura. My friend is also at 5% on this banner hunting for Sakura and I've seen some youtubers struggling too. 4 person banners suck so bad. Hopefully Valentine units aren't interesting for either of us so we can both keep trying on this one.

I was thinking that too, since the numbers seem too bloated to be fully legit. All the top placings are way higher than last time, when I expected they'd go down a bit more this year if anything. I'm glad all the kicking and screaming wasn't coordinated well enough to bump Camilla into third. That big margin Micaiah has over her when she was below her at first shows just how many people jumped ship thanks to the midterms, though. Staying first would have been nice, but she still gets her CYL alt so I'm happy.

Same. Considering the source is the CYL site itself, though, I'm gonna mostly expect this is true.

If this is true..