Hawk King

AoE’s do work to break through Wary Fighter, but you have to get them charged and they don’t score as high as the skills you need to run to stay in tier 21. My point is just that it is very difficult to score high enough stay in tier 21 with a +0 bonus unit. Surtr just makes things even harder because it is difficult to kill him with a blue unit. And now now that I have seen Surtr’s stats, I am even more frustrated now. Lol, at people avoiding his super bane in Spd just to have 180 BST. Especially for those whales who have +10ed him on the AA rankings. The only purpose for high BST is to stay in the top reward bracket which is easy for teams of +10 armors. Yet no one is going with his -Spd natures.

With Wary Fighter, the only way to safely deal with Surtr is to kill him in one hit on the player phase. Yeah, you can use a TA red or just a super bulky red in general to bait him, and you can chip and Repo/dance to safety with Firesweep/healers, but these aren’t viable options for those who intend to stay in Tier 21. Not to mention, in the players hands he is going to be extremely powerful. Sure, Threatens aren’t the best, but an Omni Threaten with an Omni buff is pretty ridiculous if it goes off. And Sinmara’s synergy with it makes it that much more dangerous. I can see him flooding AR defense teams, and Arena defense teams as well. I’m currently using the new blue dragon Corrin for my bonus unit, and the idea of feeding a Surtr kill to him is terrifying to me. I need to get my Arena run out of the way before that monster gets released.

I don’t care that it is a 2 unit banner. That’s fine. Ylgr’s weapon type is stupid, but I can live with it. The BIG issue is Surtr and his broke as fuck weapon actually being added. Oh and that wasn’t enough IS? You had to go and give him a broken as fuck C-skill as well? I am so sick of every single banner basically one-upping the previous banner with more and more over-powered characters and power-creeped skills. I realize it is inevitable, but let’s slow it down a bit. Sinmara is just stupid though and shouldn’t be a thing. Surtr is now the ultimate unit for softening up enemies for your bonus unit to get kills, and whales have a big advantage with their ability to +10 him. Ylgr’s weapon effect is neat though. Basically she will double as long as her Spd is 1 higher than her opponent. I would have much preferred her to be a healer though. Lol, watch us get a single focus unit banner with Hrid in a month or two. I need to go drop 200k feathers on armor effective weapons/units...

Yeah, there are a half dozen of them that I would like to +10, but I don’t think it will happen very quickly. Shanna’s lance has a good effect, but I am currently running her with a +spd refinement, and the extra stats are nice. If I give her new weapon a +spd refine then it is just a Slaying Lance with 2 more might. Florina’s weapon refinement is significantly better imo.

Dropping in to talk about some of the new stuff. Aether Raids seem cool, but I can see it having problems like other modes. So far the two replays I have of my defense team have an error after a turn or two and I can’t finish them. Being able to +10 the limited units is nice, but with the increasing costs even the maximum rewards would only get us 70 grails per week which would be 30 or more weeks to get enough copies. Hopefully the rewards get adjusted or they are made available through other quests/arena rewards. Shanna got the shaft on her weapon refinement. This upsets me because she is the only one I have built up at all. Bartre and Flo get sent home and Saber is 5* locked. But holy hell, Golden Dagger and Flo’s lance look busted af. Bartre’s axe is meh to me. I haven’t really looked to see if the extra stats do anything interesting. The new banner. The Alt banner. I can forgive the Corrins because more dragons are always welcome although we have been getting a crap ton of them. Camilla is just flat out disappointing. She now has all three flying tomes covered, and that spot very easily could be at the very least an Elise alt if not a new character altogether. Only positive from the banner is Mikoto and “candlelight” coming to the normal summoning pool.

I am moving today, and I don't know if I will have much access to a PC. So I will most likely not be on the forums very much. If there is big news I will browse around on my phone, but other than that, take care everyone.

If I am pulling red and a circle happens to have three red orbs, the odds of pulling the same 4* character on all on the orbs should be lower than pulling three 5* characters. It happens all the freaking time. I have done large summoning sessions with 200+ pulls. Every time there are certain units that come in large bunches. I have seen video of other people doing mass summon sessions and the same thing happens. Whether or not my 5* rate is extremely high, or it is extremely low, there is still always a hand full of characters for every color that come in bunches. Until I see confirmation from the developers one way or the other, I will remain 99% sure that is the case. And I do realize that the 1% that it is not the case is also a very real possibility. Maybe it is just the competitor in me, but to me the Arena and staying in Tier 21 is the focus and everything else is the fluff. In which case yeah, whales have all of the premium characters and skills at their disposal. Changes were made because people just stuck the bonus units in the corner and cleared every map with their 3 "core" team members. The bonus points for kills backfired because unless they are +10 you pretty much have to feed all 20 kills to the bonus unit. Advantage to the whales. And having all max SP skills also lowers the + of kills you need to feed to the bonus unit. Again, advantage to the whales. As far as the generous rates go, that goes all out the window when you need to pull 11 copies for +10 units. More if they have a good skill for fodder. I get that they are trying to make money and they have a great thing going for achieving that, but having popular characters like Camus, Joshua, and all of the others limited is not fun for their fans. Whales will always +10 new units and others will shell out for their newly released waifus. As far as clearing the PvE content, I don't think anyone has ever pulled on a new banner to help them clear that stuff. More frequent weapon refinements and more forging bonds would be nice. Aside from Legendary heroes, alts should be limited to seasonals only. And to fix the problem of not releasing enough character fast enough they could release new characters as 4* units with underwhelming stats and skills alongside the 5* focus units. This would get more characters into the game in a more timely fashion. At the current rate we are going it will take several years just to get the top half of all possible units in.

It also doesn't help that I just quit my job and walked away from a pretty good career path so I could move back to where I grew up (to be happier I hope). So I won't be spending any money on things I don't need for a while. My Nanna is +atk/-HP. Healers mostly run Miracle so HP isn't the most important stat and my Nanna has CC and Absorb staff. If they handed out 5* copies of TT and GHB characters with every single event they did, it wouldn't affect orb purchases at all. None of those characters would be top Arena scoring units in the Arena even at +10 and as long as IS never put them as bonus units, people would still have to pull for new units. Also a problem with the summoning pool is that it is just getting too big. And not just the 5* pool. With every new banner that gets added, the odds of getting older characters goes down. Look at @Zeo, he has been waiting for his final copy of Mathew for like almost 6 months now. Something Dragalia lost does is that it shows the odds of getting every single thing there is to summon, and some 3* and 4*s have boosted rates among banners as well as the featured 5*s. If a FE6 banner had higher chances to summon 3* and 4* units from FE6, they could see more pulling from people who are just patiently hoarding their orbs and waiting until those extra copies they need just find their way to them. I am 99% certain that characters do have higher odds of being pulled either on certain banners or certain times of the day. Some more transparency would be very nice if this was the case. Ok, enough talking about my frustrations. Anything interesting going on with FEH? I see that Tailtiu is one of the biggest underdogs in VG history right now. And Poor Eirika is going to be a mass murdered for her A-skill until it drops to the 4* pool in a few months. That Legendary banner has a lot of stuff I would love to pull for...

I was just about to ask if we failed to get Oliver, but there he is in the presents. Heroes has really burnt me out lately. It isn't even the repetitive schedule or lack of new modes. I am even ok with character powercreep as long as no one will ever go above the 180-184 BST bin. The major drag for me is the skill powercreep. I want to stay in tier 21 each week but it is getting harder and harder. And now in order for my units to continue to score high enough, I need to fodder off new 5* units for their skills? God forbid if anyone want to actually +10 those units someday. I have enough powerful units to clear any and all PvE content, and I have enough fodder and feather resources to promote and use the 4* options in each arena season so I will be transitioning to mostly F2P with the exception being the monthly orb + bonus deal. My one last copy of Halloween Jakob for him be be +10 was going to be the last unit I spent for, but after spending most of the free orbs I had been saving up just to get a H!Sakura and two off banner 5*s I really don't think I will continue to try for it. It's not like he will ever be a bonus unit in the Arena again, and the 10th merge does almost nothing for his performance. Part of the reason for my frustration is because I also picked up Dragalia Lost 11 days ago, and that game is loads of fun. It does so many things better than heroes just from a quality of life standpoint. It encourages spending with bonus resource packs each month and daily discounted summons. Resource farming is super easy and worthwhile. Freebie characters and Dragons are common so far. There is player to player interaction that just isn't possible with FEH due to it being a turn based strategy game. The story characters and Dragons are more than strong enough to get you through the main story and a majority of the other content so it is very F2P friendly. The events are completely different from one another so far and give out some fantastic rewards. There are just so many things that it does that I wish FEH could try to mimic. Book 3 had better bring some massive changes along with it. More free 5* characters with every event. A skill shop. A way to upgrade to the tier 4 blows, and dual rally + skills. Right now FEH is just way to whale friendly.

In order to stay in Tier 21 I need to either figure out a way to make +3 Camus work (I'm close), or I can give my +2 Hawkeye a couple more merges and Steady Breath. Ugh, 3 points per bonus kill is just to much.

Dragons like Nowi, Tiki, and Fae. Lukas, Hinata, most Armors, Roy, Chrom. Basically anyone with a high Def or good mixed bulk paired with a Breath skill and QR/Vengeful Fighter. "Slaying" weapons are ideal for those without Prf weapons.

LOL, I ran into a team worth 748 and they had no weapons equipped. It was extremely annoying to kill them since they just used rallys and moved around on defense tiles.

I don't give a crap about Lon'qu. He is an underwhelming sword unit whom I will never dish out 200k feathers to to make +10. Vidofnir and Nidhogg getting refines is exciting though. 2 of my favorite units in this game. I was just thinking about how they were due for a refinement. I expect Vidofnir to get +7 def when attacked from any weapon just like the Safeguard+ sword. Possibly Armor effectiveness as well. As for the unique refinement, I could see it being movement related like the Noatun. I have a +8 Innes so I am extra excited for the Nidhogg refinement. I would love for it to change to "within 2 spaces", or gain a "killing" effect of "cooldown -1". As for the unique refinement, I have no idea. DD3 would be nice. So would a Spectrum Bond, or any Bond at all. If it is really good, I might have to get 2 more copies to get him to +10.

I didn't even think of this, but I burst into laughter upon reading it. Picture a 4 man comedy routine of Volkes decimating enemy teams. Volke is like a magician and the enemies are like children getting mystified by a ball in the cup trick. Always picking the wrong Volke to attack.

Well, an early, low effort, no fishing Arena run has me at Rank 487, and that will probably be more than enough to stay in Tier 21 this week. Just slapping Renewal 3 and Iceberg on Fjorm was enough to allow her to handle just about any enemy. I think she got 19 out of 20 kills.

Sorry, I have been busy and haven't gotten around to replying. Is there anything that you are still unsure about? I don't want to give my opinion on everything if you have made up your mind on most of it already.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Micaiah is on the Legendary banner. Well it is inevitable... What nature should my 2nd +10 Micaiah be? I already have a +Atk/-Hp. Probably +Spd/-Def? I really only like Red as far as pulling mass quantities goes. I don't have Bride Tharja, Karla is, imo, the best sword, and I only need a few more L!Ikes to +10 him for the double +10 during the Earth season. Foe can counterattack? Don't you mean Unit? Cooldown would need to be 4 to match Dragon Fang since it is a super version of that. Similar to how Black Luna has a cooldown that matches Luna instead of Moonbow. Too broken. 50% or 80% reduction would be more balanced. In a chokepoint situation it would be possible to have multiple enemies under this condition but after the first one goes and lives, you could then force the remaining enemies to attack Volke because the 1st enemy is still occupying the tile they need to attack the "other unit" leaving only Volke as a target. Other than what I pointed out, everything looks good. Although, at this point, you should make Matthew an Armor to give him more BST to work with. Otherwise his stats have that "nothing stands out" problem. Volke has monstrous offensive stats. Fitting for him.

Damn, Relay Defense maps sucked. I left the 8th map unfinished and I really didn't give a shit. I'm glad it was only 500 feathers. Way too many enemies, like WTF IS. Being vastly out-numbered in the main series games works because your units are god damn super heroes compared to the enemies. When all 12 of the enemies have +40HP and +10 to all of their other stats compared to your own units, all 5 of them, well that is just fucking dumb. It was a great idea, but as others have said, it was implemented terribly. Either put a cap on the number of enemies at like 10, or let our units either stay for more than 2 damn turns, or let them stay indefinitely with 1 reinforcement that comes every turn. It is really hard to choke a point when there are mages of every color nearby and an Atk boosted Hana with over 70 Atk and 50 Spd. It doesn't help that I waited until the final day to do them. If I had time I would have eventually worked out a clear for map 8. I mean, the large number of enemies isn't so much of a problem as the mega inflated stats. It is almost impossible to one round KO any of the enemies. If they were all just +10 versions of the enemy units it would have been manageable. It is unfortunate that instead of building the enemies with unique skill sets and fair 5* +10 stats, they just throw out enemies with basic vanilla skills and jack up the shit out of their stats to the point where enemy healers have 80 HP. Seriously, Priscilla fucked my world up with Panic+ when I had a ranged Cavalry attack her with Emblem buffs just to watch 3 of my units end up with -6 to their stats. As if the difference wasn't great enough already.

The problem with basically every single Awakening and Fates character is that they all have a personality trait that is so strong and character defining that it makes them completely one-dimensional. Cherche is deeply devoted to her sweet Minerva, Lon'qu is afraid of women, Olivia is shy, Felicia is clumsy. None of these are explicitly negative, just annoying at best. Tharja, Ophelia, Nina, and Soleil's one defining characteristic all just so happen to be something controversial, that makes how they are viewed range from annoying to terrible. It is one of the worst parts of the 3DS era. Previous games fleshed out characters much better through their supports. They had defining characteristics but they were also much deeper when you got to the later support convos. 3DS supports just focus on that one trait.

Yeah, 4 cooldown specials are fantastic with Special Spiral. Whether you take the defensive route with Breath skills or the offensive route with Heavy/Flashing Blade + Desperation/Brave weapons. Radiant Aether is kinda not fair though. I gave lewyn Astra for the TT and it has been working very well with his above 50% HP desperation. Oh shit, DC, Berkut's Lance/Barrier Blade build with 3 cooldown specials is now much better with Special Spiral. Lukas and the like can now have an "every hit is a bonfire/Iceberg at any range" build. My score is now 215,415 which is rank #471. With the way the scores were at the reset, 185k was rank ~1000, the cut for top 1000 will most likely be around 240k - 250k.

Dang, I wish we knew how to cause it before hand. I would have totally pick some units who didn't matter to have their skills deleted to get 30 orbs. Plus, you could be getting 5* heroes back that you might not want to fodder back off to the units who lost the skills. IE: Brave Axe onto Cherche, Slaying Axe onto Raven, Wo Doa onto Karel/Fir. Or other previously 5* exclusive skills that have since become available on 4* units.

Ah ok. I never really noticed before.

Aww, what the hell. It isn't Water season again? Don't the seasons last 2 weeks but are staggered apart by 1 week from each other? I'm going to need to change Tailtiu's blessing for this week.

All good. The current cutoff is ~170k. My score is 169,899 and I am Rank #998. I finally have a day off of work so I plan to get way ahead of the curve today.

Wow, with a +1 Talitiu and not the highest scoring skills, I was able to comfortably stay in Tier 21. After a few failed runs, I got the most insane luck yesterday. Every match was the highest scoring possible for me and none of them were too difficult. Quite a few enemies were even lacking DC. I'm pretty sure this week will be a little more difficult.