Alexmender

Tiki^2 was inevitable and Y!Tiki was already used for Dragonween, although it's still surprising to see the double Tiki on the bridal banner. Tiki is the most interesting for me but I'm not sure if I'd go out of my way to pull her here. I'll probably wait for a Double Special banner to try my luck because Summer is coming and then CYL. Anyways, let's check the prfs: Anna gets Slaying, Spectrum+5 (up to +10 if you give her 5 DF), Spd based true dmg and the Flow effect. Green bow cav isn't in high demand but she should be fine. Say'ri has Slaying, Spectrum+5, reduces foe's Spd/Def based on their Atk (doesn't do anything for low Atk enemies and gives -10 max for high Atk foes) and special acceleration. Her kit screams Galeforcer. Flavia brings Atk/Def Clash 3 to have an easier time foddering R!Lif. Tiki^2 get B!Tiki's exclusive skill, which is just a (as long as you don't get too hurt) better Dragon Wall 3. Armored Floe is the Iceberg to Armored Beacon's Bonfire. The prf has Slaying, effective vs Dragons, Spectrum+5, guaranteed follow-up, Dragon Wall, and B!Tiki's De-charge+Charge. Harmo button is buff neutralization for foes and Debuff negation for allies from Mystery/Awakening. Being a colorless armor Brave Tiki makes Bride Tiki a very enticing character but one can live without her easily.

@Diovani Bressan Misleading descriptions are misleading. Now that it's confirmed F!Maria works for the AI then it's guaranteed all hell will break loose on AR-D if you're not running Colorless Feud. Brave weapons should work too as they can hit after the foe's at 1 HP to ensure the kill...although that's not very reliable against Hardy Fighter+ Deflect X. With how IS works it's practically guaranteed we'll get some tier 4 skill with Omni Feud built-in sooner or later, so until then F!Maria is free to terrorize stuff alongside Fomortiis.

It shouldn't work because the prf has the "effect only triggers on player's team once per map" clause which to me reads as "AI controlled team won't be able to use this effect", so it should automatically exclude any AR-D shenanigans (although I've seen some people on Reddit say that the JP description doesn't have the player only clause so who knows). That being said, seeing F!Maria with Fomortiis on SD is going to be horrible.

F!Maria is going to bring hell for SD players, luckily she doesn't do anything noteworthy for AR-D or arena so those modes will remain unaffected. Embla shuts her down so she won't be great for Light/Dark season but she'll be a great asset for Astra in case some teleporting thing catches you off guard or a nuke being too much for your Save armor. Anyway, checking skills: F!Byleth's prf gets Spectrum+5, Slaying, Dull all, Bullwark and Spd Preempt. Strong stuff but she'll need the NFU seal or from an external source to be competitive with other infantry swords. Fodder is godtier so it's nice to get her if one tries to go for R!Chrom. F!Maria's stats are 37/44/45/16/35 with likely superassets on one or both of her offensive stats. Prf gives Maria Dazzling, Slaying, Spectrum+5 and Null Guard. For allies it gives Drive Spectrum and L!Fae's Life Unending. The Life Unending is only once per map and only works for the player so no funky shenanigans for AR-D teams, and due to it having a Drive conditon it won't be great against Embla as I mentioned before. This is mostly to make SD even more of a shitshow but that means little as not many play that mode. Anankos gets Slaying, Spectrum+5, in-combat Panic, Spd based true dmg (excluding AoE) and a flat 7 dmg reduction. He's another speedy armor so we'll have to see how he compares to R!F!Grima. R!Chrom gets Fate Unchanged as his exclusive skill, which does the same Repositon+extra action every other Chrom minus the super old ones has, the difference is that this Chrom inflicts Exposure on nearby foes and Save armors that are close to those foes. Arcane Devourer is the sword for speedy infantry units. It has the typical Slaying and Spectrum+5 of every Arcane weapon but this one gives Spd based NFU, special acceleration and 40% DR on first hit. Pretty nifty for Galeforcers and Vital Astra/Godlike Reflexes users.

Never thought I'd see the day Mark is added to Feh, even though it's as a child. Strictly speaking I don't need to pull for him(?) because the unit is Mark but with Y!Lyn being the only voice and probably looking as if she's talking to herself I might just try to keep the Lyn collection complete. Anyways, let's see the skillsets: Y!Hector's prf has Slaying, -6 Atk/Def on foe during combat, Guard, 30% DR and a conditional Atk penalty on foe that goes from 10 to 4 depending on their special CD. Ostia's Heart is DC, 7 healing and -8 Atk/Def on foe. Armored Beacon seems to be a skill like Vital Astra and Godlike Reflexes so it's probable it'll be armor exclusive (hopefully not only for Sword/Lance/Axe armors). It's a slightly weaker Bonfire that grants 40% DR on first hit if a special will trigger during combat (doesn't need to be pre-charged), and it might ignore Sure Hit effects. Y!Eliwood's prf has Slaying, Spectrum+X which goes from 5 to 17 depending on how many positive status effects he has, first hit 40% DR and NFU. Exclusive skill is basically L!Eliwood's unique skill with another name but it buffs all stats (can't remember if L!Eliwood did the same or only Atk/Spd). Y!Rebecca is the demote but as a kid unit still has a prf. Her weapon deals effective damage against beasts, has Slaying, Time's Pulse built-in, Spectrum+5, 60% DR against beasts and ranged mounted units (30% for the rest) on first hit and the true damage with a Finish condition. Mark & Lyn are a debuff machine with all those effects. I'm a bit confused on the difference between Sabotage and Foe Penalty Doubler as it seems to be the same thing except for Sabotage including nearby foes for the in-combat penalties calculations (meaning Sabotage gets through units that nullify debuffs on themselves). Outside of all the stat debuffing Mark also inflicts Stall, gets Slaying, a guaranteed Follow-up and Null Guard.

I have every Tana so far and all of her kit would work wonderfully on my +10 Summer Elincia...yeah, I'm pulling on this banner. Anyways, let's see if I can read these guys skills correctly this time after my oopsie with Triandra's dance skill: Gilliam's prf has Slaying, gives +6 atk to him and -6 atk on foe, reduces foe's Atk/Def based on his Def, 40% dmg reduction on first hit and gives Iote's Shield as a status. Vengeful Fighter 4 has a better HP threshold, inflicts -4 atk and has omnibreaker. Syrene's prf has Slaying, Spectrum+5, reduces foe's Atk/Spd/Def based on her Spd, 40% dmg reduction on first hit and Flow. Vanessa exists. The Arcane bow has Slaying, Spectrum+5, guaranteed follow-up, 30% dmg reduction on first hit and gives 4+ Atk depending on the foe's special CD, at most it should give +10 on foes that are running a 1CD special. R!Tana herself gets an exclusive B-skill that gives Canto 1, teleportation and the debuff based Clash effect. Guidance 4 is pretty nutty as it now allows a bigger teleportation range, gives Drive Atk/Spd and Drive Flow.

This banner is really boring for me, the best I can say is that S!Karla gives me some hopes for B!Eirika's refine but that's about it. LOL at Triandra looking more like a Summer unit rather than Spring. Anyways, let's see what these guys bring to the table: S!Bernadetta's prf has Slaying, Spectrum+5, the Winter Bernie effect of chipping away 1 Hp if she's at full and a Clash-like effect where she debuffs her foe's Spd/Def and gets the Flow effect, dmg reduction and Null Guard if she moves 2 spaces (1 for the dmg reduction). Escape Route 4 is pretty nifty with it now bringing Canto 1, an Atk/Spd debuff for stat checks and having limited warping as long as the unit isn't at full HP. Totally not a Summer unit's Prf is self explanatory so I won't go over that. The new Dancer skill she brings is pretty nice as it gives Canto 1 and Desperation for the danced unit. Ashe is another source of Atk/Spd Catch 3 so that's nice. The inheritable is bleh and Michalis is 99% going to have an Atk/Def version of the weapon as a lance (which is a lot worse than Arcane Qiang). Spring Karla is the most interesting unit here. Prf has Slaying, Atk/Spd+6, Cd reduction every other turn and up to 60% Spd based true damage and if her special triggers during combat she gets the L!Nanna effect of cancelling any kind of Dmg reduction, including specials like Pavise or Godlike Reflexes. Harmonic button is the same as Spring Sonya's. Realistically the True Damage is going to be along the lines of 30 to 40% to let Karla spam specials as often as possible but she can be a really scary AoE nuker on SD even if she doesn't pierce Dmg reduction with an AoE special.

I get the feeling IS intended for the AR-like mode to be the endgame of Engage. Grind the Tempest Trials/Relay Trials to max out your characters and get SP books to give them optimal builds, then create a challenging map and fight on challenging maps made by other players. For me that's irrelevant because I can do that in FEH and it's a lot easier to get your units going there. In Heroes it takes like 10 minutes or less to give a unit enough SP to completely deck them out, and despite all the complaints the powercreep help keep things kinda fresh as you won't find a perfect setup that will last until the servers go down which gives you a reason to keep playing (excluding gacha stuff and character collection, of course). Engage has the issue that you're probably going to want to play in Normal/Casual if you want to put the early game units in your AR map and rather than advance the story you're going to spend most of your time grinding skirmishes to max out every unit so the game. Then you have to farm TT to max out the Engage weapons to make them as threatening as possible, and that'll take a while because you need strong units to farm in TT level 50 with all the maxed out fliers and stuff. And to top it off, you need NSO to even make all that effort worthwhile (this depends on who you ask but I'm not going to pay for a subscription when I can get a better experience for free on my phone). That in and of itself makes the game an afterthought and doesn't sound very fun. So yeah, Engage does have an endgame but it's not one that's particularly, well, engaging.

Almost finished my second playthrough on Maddening (I'm on chapter 25 so it's just that one and the ending) and boy do some units feel completely different than they did on Hard: Best: Kagetsu: I had the guy benched for a while due to how tight Solm is in deployment slots and despite that he still kept up with the enemies and snowballed into a killer unit. This time I changed him into a Wyvern Knight to make better use of his bases and gave him Alacrity and the Eirika ring to deal with Wyrms. Panette: Vantage/Wrath crit machine with the Ike ring does a number on everything. She has a ton of Hp/Str and decent Dex and that's all she needs to shred stuff. Axes have shoddy hit but the Lyn engraving fixes that and also gives a good amount of Crit, the Mt loss is solved with forges. I also gave her a Killer Bow+3 with the Eirika engraving for sniping fliers, although I get the feeling that engraving could've gone to another unit. Seadall: Dancer with Canter is OP. Byleth user lets him dance again in the same turn so he's even more OP. Used the Alfonse Bond ring for Atk Spur. Hortensia: Best staffbot in the game. Needs Divine Pulse+ to hit with status staves but that skill is pretty cheap so it's not a big deal to get it for her and still have enough SP for Canter. She gets exclusive rights to the Micaiah ring as it increases her range, gives her Thani for some Armor/Great Knight nuking and is basically the perfect fit for her. Good: Alear: The early game roughness feels even worse on Maddening with the enemies being slightly faster so you can't double anything early game. Changing to Wyvern Knight during the midgame for better growths and then back to Divine Dragon during the endgame for making better use of Engage+ helped fix things and now Alear performs pretty well. Used a mix of rings ranging from Marth, Sigurd, Lyn and finally settled on Roy for the extra Str. Fogado: I changed him to Warrior as soon as I got him because I saw some people clamoring he was amazing in that class. Turns out he can't hit anything to save his life without a bow with +Hit Engrave, he's frail and his luck isn't high enough to avoid stray crits. He came into his own after I got the Roy and Marth rings to fix his damage issues but he's still way too frail. Uses the Marth ring to bolster his Str/Spd and make him more of a dodge tank on player phase. Ivy: Divine Pulse+ fixes her hit issues (for the most part) and she's still able to double Great Knights, which is all I need to consider Ivy a good unit. I gave her the Lucina ring because she gives Dex/Lck to increase her hit rate and because Dual Strike on a flier is pretty nuts. Anna: This time I focused properly on making Anna work, although it took a while for her to start performing well. She's my defacto Byleth user and with Thyrsus and a forged Excalibur she can shred a lot of Wyvern Knights (and some Griffin Knights if she crits) safely. Her money niche didn't take off until like chapter 15 or so but it's a nifty thing to have as forge costs add up quickly. Yunaka: She's nowhere near as useful in the dodgetank role due to how Maddening AI works but she still puts lots of work in the early/mid-game. I changed her into a Wolf Knight and gave her a Crit engraved Silver dagger+3 with the Lyn ring and Yunaka became my Swordmaster/Griffin Knight killer because she has like 42 Speed (before Speedtaker) and her Avo is still good enough to dodge a good amount of things. Disappointing: Pandreo: This is less on Pandreo being bad and more on me thinking that due to his high bases I could bench him for a couple of chapters and he'd still be fine like Kagetsu. Turns out that's not the case and Pandreo struggled a bit to get back on track as one of the better mages, he recovered enough that he can easily double stuff now but his damage leaves a lot to be desired compared to Spoiler and Anna. He has the Leif ring because I didn't have anything better for him even if he only offers HP. Goldmary: She's not as strong as she was on Hard but she's still an ok tank. She went from Great Knight to Paladin to make use of Brionac but most of her use is as an Override bot with the Sigurd ring to chip at a conga line of foes. It was funny during the Leif paralogue because she KO'd the mage knights and due to me giving her Speedtaker she got the +10 Spd in one turn, lol. Sadly the map was already over by the time she got rid of the mages so that Speed did nothing. Bad: Celine: I thought I could keep her around like I did in hard mode and make her a good Armor killer. Fixed mode showed me the shortcomings of her balanced stat spread (having everything but Def/Luck around 25 is horrid when enemies have like 16+ Res at minimum and she can only double Generals which is pathetic). I relegated to a Corrin/Heal bot with Thoron so at least she can contribute via healing, debuffs and map control with the Fire Vein. Diamant: I was making my life harder trying to make him work on Maddening, as soon as he hit the bench shortly after I got Panette the game became a lot easier. I'm sure he can put work with the Ike ring but the opportunity cost of not giving the ring to Panette is too high, and the returns seem a lot worse when you compare an unreliable self-sustaining tank (22 Dex cap, lol) with a Crit machine that deletes anything that looks her funny. Special mentions (benched units that didn't make the cut due to limited slots but had potential): Alcryst: I benched him immediatly due to a lack of Master Seals but I think Alcryst has a good niche in Maddening due to his superb Dex. He's probably one of the better Griffin killing machines as those tend to be pretty dodgy and forced me to give Divine Pulse+ to a lot of my units just so I could get rid of them. Chloe: Fixed growths means that her Str can't get screwed so she has an easier time keeping up and then becoming either a Wyvern Knight or a Levin Sword Griffin. I've heard that she makes for a good Martial Monk with the Eirika ring but that'll have to wait until my next playthrough. Merrin: Excellent bases and only needs a forged Silver dagger to start putting work. I benched her only because I prefer Yunaka more and they perform similarly (accounting for the Energy drops I gave Yunaka, lol). I'll give her a shot next time when I'm not using Yunaka. Next run I'm going to try and challenge myself by only using the units up until Brodia (Solm is going to be hell with those limited deployment slots and enemies getting a power spike after chapter 17). I'd guess the DLC would make a Maddening run like that a lot smoother but I'll wait until the Xenologue drops before deciding if I want to buy it as I've read those DLC emblems trivialize the game and can easily make you overlevelled as you need to clear paralogues in order to obtain them.

Gullveig won, lol. I voted for her because I thought it'd be funny if she won and it is funny. I'm certainly picking her for my free summon, getting merges will depend on how good she is as 1st place winner tend to be not that great until their refine drops. The reward stuff is ok, I'm glad for the floret as I needed one for Lumera. The Valentine's banner is a skip for me, Effie has the art I like the most for the banner and she's free. The summoning change is welcome, that'll make it less painful to get a unit to+10, although seasonal banners requiring Feh Pass is ugh.

The supports this time are like Awakening, you get some that explore some facets of the characters while others just focus on their initial gimmick. I've seen so many people say Celine is just "I like tea" but from some supports (Fogato and Alcryst come to mind) I see there's more to her than just tea. On the other hand her support with Louis is mostly about tea from C to A-rank with only a sprinkle of Celine not liking people getting in harms way to get her stuff she likes. I prefer Engage's supports to 3H because the latter can take like 5+ minutes (at times it felt like some supports took an hour) per convo and that gets tiring with how many supports you need to sit through in one go as they unlock very quickly and some expire after some time and then you're SoL.

For context I finished Hard/Classic with no deaths and some Castle grinding: Best: Alear: Was very weak at the beginning but by mid game he became a very resilient unit with high Avo and could 1 round everything but the speedsters. By late game he could double Swordmasters, Wolf Knights and Thiefs so no complaints. Ivy: Mage nuke with flier mobility and comes with excellent bases. The only issue she had is her Dex capping too early (23 Dex is bad) and having some speed issues without the Lyn Emblem. Fogado: This guy is amazing with the Sigurd ring and the magic bow, the best flier sniper I had. Kagetsu: Strong bases and growths, could outspeed everything in the game with only his stats. He's a bit squishy but the Ike ring fixed that. Hortensia: Her personal skill already makes her great, add Micaiah and Canter to her skillset to make Hortensia a godly staffbot. In terms of combat she's meh, but doing chip damage with Elthunder is all I needed from her. Seadall: As Feh taught me, a dancer with Canter is disgusting and that is still true in Engage. Pandreo: This guy with the Byleth ring and Canter is amazing. Long ranged magic that can double, high Bld so he won't be slowed down by the heavier tomes, staff access for some healing on the side. He's amazing from his join chapter and never falls off. I reclassed him to Sage to give him access to the A rank tomes and that helped a lot for late game nuking. Good: Yunaka: A goddess in the early game but she got a little stat screwed in terms of Spd and Str. She still dodged everything and could easily kill squishies but I had to give her all my Energy Drops so she wouldn't fall off. Diamant: Seems so imposing when you first get him, then Kagetsu appears and outclasses him in almost every stat. Made him into a Warrior because I had like no axe users and he performed well but it wasn't anything super amazing. Alcrist: Longbow+Luna is a strong combo, it's also fun when you combine him with Lyn to get Luna on the Engage attack. His growths weren't anything to write home about and he was kinda underleveled due to deployment restrictions, but Alcrist still performed well during late game so he's good in my book. Goldmary: Changing her into a Paladin with the Leif ring fixes any build issues she might have, then I gave her Speedtaker to make her able to double after finishing a couple of units with a Spear. Her high Def made her a great tank and lasted until the end. Celine: She's bordeline great with a forged Levin Sword but I had troubles getting her into the fray so she ended up more as a sort of General sniper. She loved to proc Ignis every fight which goes very well with her balance of Str and Mag. Disappointing: Louis: The guy's amazing during the early game. His only weakness are mages which are easy to get rid off with a Javelin and pairing him with Sigurd leads to some crazy strats during the Firene segment. Then mid game happens and he falls off a cliff because enemies become able to chip at him and Chain attacks quickly wear him down. Anna: I wasted a Master seal and a Second seal to make her a Mage Knight because her growths seemed amazing, but her low bases make it really hard for her to compete with the likes of Ivy and Pandreo. Chloe: I tried really hard to make Chloe work but she refused to level Str a single time. I was debating on making her a Wyvern Knight to fix her Str growth but in the end I decided to just bench her. Bad: Alfred: Mine had some excellent level ups, he got Hp, Str, Dex and Spd basically every level but even then he was unable to double stuff and wasn't tanky enough to put on the front lines. Doesn't help that Amber outright matched him in most stats (not that I used Amber either, lol). So he got benched despite being so important to the plot. Timerra: She had Jack of all Trades, Master of None syndrome. She had ok stats to tank, not get double and dish out decent chip damage but she couldn't double anything but armors (which she couldn't damage at all), and her damage was on the lower side of the spectrum. She got the bench when I reclassed Goldmary into a Paladin to cover all my Lance needs.

I just finished my Hard/Classic playthrough and what I can tell is that the Training Skirmishes (those that spawn in each kingdom Castle) are the way to go if you wish to grind. Your units won't die even if defeated (good if the map's almost done and the enemy gets a lucky crit or takes down your dancer due to an oversight). These maps also give some extra exp to the units that survive the map, I think it scales with level as I got 20 exp on a level 2 Solm and 30 on a level 3 Brodia. They also give you some money after winning (scales with development level too, I get 3k from Brodia and 2k from Solm) so there's no reason not to do them when they spawn. If you wish to train units that fell off give them the Micaiah ring and use Great Sacrifice for an easy level up. The Byleth ring gives less Exp but makes the unit contribute more with the dance. In extreme cases you can abuse the "Retry and keep Exp" to train units but I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you're grinding a team for your online map. When you get enough SP, grind Sigurd's bond level in the arena and give your healers and dancer Canter. The positioning flexibility it offers is godlike. Also get Byleth's Mentorship skill for slightly faster levelling (I've heard the Tiki Emblem gives even more exp and higher growth rates ala Star Jacinth but I haven't bought the DLC so I can't tell). I guess that's all the advice I can offer, after all I went and benched a lot of units as some of the later recruits are extremely powerful and utterly outclass even a stat blessed unit (RIP Alfred, always getting Str, Skl, Spd and Def but still lagging behind a Lance Paladin Goldmary).

I'm not going to touch the S-support stuff because it's pretty inconsequential and only amounts to 3 to 4 lines in the ending cards, and I frankly don't care about the marriage stuff if it doesn't have any gameplay benefits (I can always play fake marriage stuff in FEH with any character). I played the game with the NA translation and Japanese voices and from what I could understand (Engage's story is very standard shounen anime so I could sort of pick up on what the characters say despite knowing jack all of Japanese) the translation differs from what's being said quite a few times. I may be wrong but I got the feel the localization team tried to change the anime feel for a cartoon-ish one to make it easier to get for the English audience. Whether the changes are a good thing or not will depend on the person, personally I wasn't the biggest fan because it seemed the translation tried to keep the game more upbeat while some stuff was going down, for example (late game spoilers so don't look if you're not there): I'll try the British translation next to see if it is more faithful, and then the Latin American one. That being said, even if the NA translation seems to have taken quite a few liberties (from what I experienced, I know jack all of Japanese so I'm probably wrong here) I didn't see anything egregious or that radically changes the overall plot or feeling of a character so it's mostly a matter of preferences. It's nowhere near the stuff with 4Kids and the Onigiri=Jelly Donuts stuff they pulled in Pokemon.

I can only hope Lumera will have a Prf because this banner is a skip for me (Harmonic Linde seems to bring more value than anything on this banner). Anyways, let's check these guys out: Alfred is the Arcane user and has a unique A skill. The Arcane lance gives Slaying, spectrum+5, guaranteed follow up and follow up denial if the user is healthy. It also grants special acceleration if the user or the foe moves to attack. Alfred's unique skill gives a lot of Atk, Def and some Spd in exchange of 5 Res, and if Alfred's healthy it gives him Guard. This guy screams low/mid Spd high Atk/Def horrid Res Lance cav, which isn't very unique. Celine's weapon seems to have an incorrect description but the general idea is that she's a different flavor of a healer without needing to be in said class. She and allies within 3 spaces get 7 healing at start of turn and after every fight. If her allies are healthy Celine gets up to 45% DR and 15 true dmg. It reminds me of Aureola but it trades the effective against magic for stronger support, DR and true dmg. Chloe's prf has that janky effect of Nina's prf and Saul's staff where she needs to fight alongside units with ally support. At least she doesn't need to be close to them to get the effect so it's not that big of a deal (she's useless for the AI, though). If she meets her Prf condition she gets Spectrum+5, Guard, true dmg and reduces foe's Atk based on her Res. It's good but not very enticing after W!Cordy. And lastly there's F!Alear. She gives the Assault Troop effect to herself and her support partner. If she fights with units from different Fire Emblem games she debuffs her foe's Spd/Def by up to +12 and she gets Dodge. Her kit is meant to make her a superb dodge tank but she's going to get blown up by any DMG reduction piercing special, which are pretty common nowadays. 43 Atk and 46 Spd base are pretty neat. On another note, the 5 orbs for getting Engage is lol, that game seems to get the better end of the deal with 3 gacha rings and the Askr trio weapons.

I'd say this is a skip but I need Seiðr merges (got only 2 copies of her during the banner, the freebie and the spark for a +3 right now) and wouldn't mind getting L!Ninian or B!Tiki merges. As for Legendary F!Shez: Prf is an improved version of M!Shez with the dual phase Brave effect and +5 Spd but this time without the Def/Res penalty. It changes the dmg reduction for penalty neutralization and the condition for the accelerated specials changes from an HP requirement to outspeeding the opponent. A-skill is an easy +8 to all stats and player phase effectiveness against every weapon type as long as Shez outspeeds them (+20 Spd for non-Beast/Dragon infantry foes and +5 Spd for everything else including the Beasts/Dragons). It looks crazy at first glance but in practice I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal.

Cordy is tempting as I adore her but right now I'm focusing on getting as many Seiðr copies as I can because I don't have any Mythic unit merged beyond +2. Dorothea getting 3 alts and her base version is nowhere to be seen is lulz. Don't have much to say about the other 2. Anyways, rating these guys as units: W!BK is a speedy armor again, this time wielding an axe instead of a sword. His Prf has Slaying, Spectrum+5 and a ton of conditional effects depending on whether he can trigger his special and how healthy his foe is. The effects are 40% dmg reduction on first hit, a debuff on the foe's Atk/Spd and NFU. Being green is a bit of a demerit when the meta nukes are red. Special Figher 4 gives a more lenient HP threshold some protection against Deep Wounds and has Noontime built-in, which would be great for my H!Myrrh on non-Hardy builds. W!Dorothea is a cav dancer and just like H!Azura she gives +6 to all stats of the unit she refreshes and gets +6 Atk/Spd while attacking if she's healthy. The difference is that Azura grants +1 mov to infantry/fliers while Dorothea grants a guaranteed follow-up regardless of unit type (Azura still wins thanks to her Duo button). W!Annette is probably going to be a slow bow archer in contrast to W!Ignatz being fast. Gotta wait for an Arcane bow to see how well she'll fare as ranged armors aren't in a great spot unless they have a prf to let them carve a niche. Harmonic is Cordelia and Severa Selena. Stats are 40/44/43/33/23. Being a Lance flier is rough with how saturated that class is but Cordy makes it work with her prf granting Slaying, Atk/Spd+6 and Special acceleration during Player Phase, Orders status to unit and allies within 2 spaces and a sidegrade of B!Catria's Triangle Attack called Dual Strike which needs the unit that is attacking to be adjacent to a unit with the status to get a Brave effect. I'd say Dual Strike is slightly stronger than Triangle Attack because you don't need the attacker to have the status but the adjacency requirement can be tougher to meet depending on the map. I'd say the banner is an easy skip on pure gameplay terms, although getting a copy of W!Cordelia might be worthwhile just in case Dual Strike does end up being better than Triangle Attack. You can also Run W!Cordy alongside B!Catria on AR-D Anima to neuter Elimine users (although it'll do nothing for those that run double Elimine but that's rare).

Looking at Seithr again (can't for the life of me find that delta symbol, so yeah) she's meh for AR when Elimine exists but on SD she's going to be dangerous if played properly. They already showed that her C skill will work on story maps so it's not only for AR like Duma's old Upheaval. Shutting a unit down during turn 2 is going to be big, although a little tough to pull off with the Cardinal direction requirement. But seriously, her Res is more than good enough to shut down B!Seliph from like 6 spaces away. She should also be pretty helpful for Arena, although being a Mage cav means she'll probably need the Duel 4 skill.

Don't care too much about the new story seeing Feh's track record for the past 6 books. The music is dope so that's enough to consider it a win. A little miffed the new Mythic is Astra rather than Light. She'd have been pretty nice to make Embla's reign of terror less scary. She's not going to be doing much during Astra when it's extremely easy to sweep foes in one turn. Celebration rewards are meh, although I appreciate the 700 Divine Codes. The Fates children banner is a skip for me. Special Spiral 4 seems to be the go to for infantry mages as they lack a way to pierce %based dmg reduction, but other than that it's nothing crazy. Special mention to Caeldori's weapon having a convoluted way of saying she'll debuff her opponent's Atk/Def between 10 and 35% depending on her not outstatting her foe by more than 5 points. Ugh, Hans. After the GHB rerun is done that guy is going to become fodder or feathers. So now you can take other players units as a forma (as long as they are from book IV and lower). It doesn't affect me until the new item gets added to the Celestial shop so eh. The arena 5* ticket is pretty cool. Those are weekly, right? I see the banner lasts for ~3 months if you want to hoard some tickets and get a dozen 5* units in one sitting. Reminder that the 4 star special pool is pretty bloated and there's a ton of Gen 1 five stars with no stats/fodder so it's going to be a gamble to get merges for your old favorites this way.

Á Camilla alt was a matter of when, not if. I like how Ninja Cherche looks but she's the same class as OG!Cherche, and doesn't seem all that better than OG!Haar. The theme this time is Wyvern Ninjas, with all of them getting dual phase Brave weapons that lower their Spd by 8 and increases their Def/Res by 5. N!Camilla is a red mage flier, her prf has Slaying and a stronger version of Res Preempt on top of the brave weaon stuff. She brings Seal Res 4 which debuff the enemy during combat by 4 minimum and up to 11 if the skill conditons are met (and inflicts Guard as a bonus). She seems to be the strongest unit on the banner but I'd hesitate to call her OP or anything like that. N!Cherche's prf has the banner's brave gimmick, and Spring Maria's prf effect of getting 20% def based true dmg/true dmg reduction. She's ok but faces competition from OG!Haar and being an axe flier without adaptive damage makes her really weak against Duo Chrom if one runs a DC+Vantage build on her. Heath has Pulse Smoke which is always welcome. His weapon will come in handy for some Far Save archers like P!Rapahel. This time we get Duo Laegjarn with Fjorm as cheerleader. Her prf has the banner effect, Slaying and some sort of buff copying as an in-combat bonus. The bonus copying stuff is easy to trigger as it can be taken from an ally rather than being forced to rely on the opponent being buffed. Duo Skill is the same as the previous ninja duos. Stats are: 40/44/19/37/38. Like, Duo Laegjarn is strong for sure but doesn't seem to be as oppresive as the previous two Ninja Duos. She fares pretty badly when compared against Corrin, specially when the latter has 3 mov and that H!Azura synergy to get 4 actions in one turn (my main AR strategy is running Corrin, Azura and 2 WoM dancers to clean up a whole team in one turn).

I don't care about 3 Hopes, so this character does nothing for me. That's good because I still need to get some extra F!Grima copies for that juicy Hardy Fighter fodder and also merges. Anyways, let's check Arval as a unit: Prf has Slaying, inflicts Guard on a cross range ala B!Camilla if foes have less Res than Arval, Spectrum+5, Res based true dmg and follow-up denial. Exclusive A-skill grants visible Atk/Res+9, WTA against colored units, disables any kind of Triangle Adept and gives a guaranteed follow-up. I've seen some people freaking out about Arval having WTA over most of the cast but if we're being honest the Weapon Triangle hasn't been a big deal for at least 2 years. The Omnibreaker effect from Arval's prf+A-skill can be a bit annoying but with NFU being so prolific it's just going to be a minor inconvenience. In terms of the general banner: Colorless>Green>>>>>>>>>>Blue>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Red. Sure, Red is all Mythics but Plumeria was on a Hero Fest and Líf is pretty horrible as a unit nowadays. Mirabilis is the only unit of value in the color and that's just because melee dancers are great on AR-D as they are harder to bait. In terms of fodder it's the inverse, Líf has DC+Time's Pulse which is a nice combo to get, Plumeria has Atk/Res Push 4 and Atk/Res Rein which is nifty for slower mage fliers, Mira has nothing.

So Dracoween is still the theme this year. A bit boring, but whatever. F!Corrin has very nice art, that's for sure. As a unit her Prf grants Slaying, Shield Pulse with 3 more dmg mitigation, Spectrum +5 on enemy phase or against a healthy foe, CD acceleration per hit, Guard and the usual adaptive damage. The weapon has a lot of text, but it's not that crazy in practice. Atk/Spd Finish 4 is going to be nasty on stuff like A!Mareeta and other special abusers. I'd change Dragon's Wrath 4 for NFU or a Bullwark skill depending on what one has available. NFU is to make her self sufficient while Bullwark is amazing if she has some way to get the NFU status (F!Lilith, Infantry NFU or B!Chrom's Inf.Spd Tactic). M!Corrin comes to because it seems the Corns must come as a pair nowadays. His Prf has Slaying, Atk +6 on him and Atk -6 on foe if they initiate combat or are healthy, Guard, healing per hit and 1st hit dmg reduction on top of the usual dragon stuff. It's odd, but I find M!Corrin has the stronger weapon out of the two, probably because he's not forced to run defensive specials to still be a competent tank while F!Corrin will live or die by Negating Fang proccing. F!Corrin should come out on top with the Bullwark build, but at base I feel M!Corrin is slightly better. Dragon's Ire 4 is ok, although I'm not a big fan of the half-NFU being only during enemy phase. Naga as the demote feels somewhat wrong, but it is what it is. Her inheritable breath has -5 Atk/Res on foe and denies follow-ups. It's not bad, but I can't think of any dragon that would die to have this. Duo is Duma and Mila. Kinda unexpected, but not too surprising. This Duo is pretty strong with a stat spread of 47/46/19/40/43, the sky-high Atk makes me think it's likely it's going to be a superflaw rather than a superasset but we'll know that later. As for the prf, it has Slaying, +6 Atk on unit and -6 Atk on foe, defensive half of NFU, follow-up negation, and the in-combat special CD tick up for the foe that B!Tiki has. Woeful Upheaval deals 7 dmg to all foes during turn 1, up to 30% dmg reduction and is also Far Save. That's pretty nuts. And to top it off the Duo Skill is an improved version of Duo Alm's, as it gives 30 healing on a very wide range, penalty neutralization and Dull All. Duo Duma is really powerful, but he'll still fall short of the top Far Save units B!Hector, A!Idunn and S!Edelgard because he has no way to get a follow-up attack on his Prf which makes it tough to run Hardy Fighter sets, his dmg reduction is kinda low without Dragon Wall and is suceptible to both Armor and Dragon effective weapons. The in-combat special shutdown is going to be nasty when dealing with Deadeye/Lethality users, though.

I'm almost out of Saber pieces, never thought I'd see the day. I think I should be fine even then as I don't plan on getting a new Saber until Barghest (because I'll pull for Oberon and she appears on that banner). I've been hoarding SQ and will keep doing so until the Koyan banner (although I hope to get her with only tickets). Exceptions to this include any surprise Eresh banner. As for my 2023 rolling plans: Everything up to the LB6 banners is probably a skip. I sorta want Caren for her design but she can wait until 2024. I'll probably throw some tickets on the Miss Crane banner for that Eresh CE. The first and second Morgan banners are a skip because she'll come back a third time and the whole Koyan-Oberon-Summer 6 gauntlet is too tight. I have mixed feelings about Melusine because I like her design and from what I've heard she's ridiculous in terms of firepower, but she's a farming Buster lancer and I plan to get NP6 Eresh (eventually) so they're going to overlap too much...we'll see how I feel about her after beating LB6 when she gets her second banner. Koyan is a must have, and same goes for Oberon. I can only hope it won't cost me too much to get them both at NP1 so I can safely throw all that's left at Summer Kama. After the whole LB6-Anni-Summer craziness I think the only other banners I'd pull for that year would be the Halloweeen one Foreigner Molay is hot, ok. Don't @ me and the Gudaguda banner for the Quick Caster. I might hold off on the latter depending on whether I like the character or not. Sadly I can't find a lot about her because it seems she released during a time people went nuts about having almost no male servants that year and Gudaguda having a ton of good looking male NPCs, or something around those lines.

Got Ashe and Duo Lif from the new banner. I wanted baby Tana and merges for baby Eirika, but I'll take it. Ashe is +Res -Hp (probably going to become fodder) and Líf is +Def -Atk because of course, although it doesn't matter that much when Duo Lif's prime has already passed.

The in-game notification says that you can't run Arcane weapons alongside prf skills, so RIP anyone that wanted to give Arcane Lif's weapon to BK/Zelgius, L!Seliph or L!Ike. It seems these types of units are another way to let old units catch up a little to newer ones. Líf's sword is pretty nutty as it has Slaying, -6 Atk/Def on foe and Omnibreaker if the unit is healthy so it's going to my OG!Eirika as soon as I get him. Rearmed Heroes will also be a great boon for my +10 prfless TT+ units like Ninja Hana, Ilyana and ohers. Although I have to wonder how often these new units will be released. A!Hilda is a surprise, it seems someone on the dev team really likes her. She's one of my favorites from 3H so I'm obviously getting her, too. I didn't buy 3 Hopes so I know nothing about the Shezes or Monica, and Holst is just a background character for me. The Hall of Forms reruns are going to be very nice, I'm expecting the one with B!Alm being one of the earliest ones to come back.