Humanoid

Last year the banner started on the same day the free hero was distributed, so odds are the banner this year will also arrive on the 19th.

Time for generative AI to take over then? 😛

The ladies must be turned off by that bizarre neutral art, he's losing out to his other alts who look fine. 😛

Massive relief from the Legendary banner, as I got to 39 pulls on the penultimate session still only having a lone Peony at pull #31 to show for it. But a triple-grey circle showed up, and pull #41 was +Res -Def Gullveig. I can now safely spark Alear. Of course, finishing that circle means that I have literally one orb left now, so the Spring banner will have to wait another day. I'll only do the one round on it unless the next Resplendent hero turns out to be Harmonic Chloe. 😛

So I get my third-least wanted unit instead of my second-least wanted. In the circumstances I'll take it.

Last year's started on the 22nd, if that's any indication.

Relieved there's nothing here for me because I'd have to do some serious orb farming if I wanted to pull both here and on AHR. - Framme looks like your standard god axe. Am I using that term right? - Sylvain is a worse, blue version of Winter Dimitri, both in terms of skills and in terms of that art. It is even possible to have FEH depict a non-awful wink? - Demote is demote - Harmonic has charge and canto which is nice. I've never particularly liked this artist though, and this pair in particular doesn't suit the style at all I think.

If there's another 3H character present, I'd like it to be Petra. If there's another Heroes unit present, I'd like it to be ...I don't really care. If there's to be an Engage character, I'd like it to be, eh, Louis? Zelkov? Another Citrinne at a push?

Thanks for that. It increasingly sounds like trying to accommodate for infantry is a fool's errand and that I'm probably better off using my Rearmed infantry or regular inheritance to build any such units. With that in mind, and having a look at my 3-4* options, I'll probably aim towards getting options that work for both Zephia, Arion and, uh, future good common green and grey fliers. It looks pretty straightforward then. What I'm able to do with what I have on hand is Desperation 4 from Tea Lysithea and Flared Sparrow from CYL Gullveig. It is extraordinarily frustrating though that if I were to sack both, I would be wasting the Atk/Spd Oath 4 from both of them. On reflection, it would be much better to spend a single Mythic Gullveig instead, reserving the others for Attuned Triandra instead as her base kit is extremely non-bridgable (even if I only have two copies). And Zephia can just settle for a random Far Trace 3 from a manual somewhere. (The other hitch in this plan is that I don't even have *a* Mythic Gullveig, let alone enough to necessitate an entire rack. I am five pulls away from sparking my first one, however, should I choose to spark her over M Alear.)

Now that I have four copies of Attuned Peony (and will probably end up with even more after the VG and AHR banner), I'd be keen to hear similar advice to the above for her. I note the following preferences: - As always, I have a heavy preference for highly mobile, player phase units - The skills should ideally be useful for both melee and ranged units - The skills should be bridgable such that Peony would be able to pass along the Special, A, B, C and X skills at the same time I believe that's going to make the skill selection pretty narrow, because it cuts everything down to things that are useful for fliers and player-phase infantry. My knowledge of skills is very outdated, but at a guess: Special - Can only be Ruptured Sky A - Uhh, I don't really see anything other than Life and Death as a side-grade, have I missed anything obvious? I suppose I could settle for a flier exclusive skill and just pass Peony's native Unity to infantry instead. B - Looks like it'll be the generics like Brash Assault, Desperation, Escape Route and Wings of Mercy. Or like, Seal Spd. C - Literally looks like only Smokes and Menaces?

While it's not the ideal result for me, I still have to admit getting a fifth Peony (should she win) is still probably a better result for me than a second Alear (or Claude). Would have preferred any of Dimitri, Edelgard, Gullveig, Camilla or Sanaki though, but that ship has sailed.

She did, tanked the final multiplier. ...and my 11% pity rate on the Legendary banner just got smashed by Peony. >.<

Would be interesting to see if people would prefer no gamification whatsoever, and have #1 Edelgard be the free unit, and the top four of her, Camilla, Alear and Gullveig being the banner. I'm a big supporter of pure fairness over spectacle so it'd certainly be my position, just as I prefer sports which operate as pure home-and-away double round-robin leagues (like most domestic football leagues in Europe) as opposed to having the season end with finals/playoffs. Unfortunately pretty much every sport here in Australia is obsessed with having the big commercial bonanza that is a "grand final" and I hate it. I understand American sports are the same, if not moreso.

The worst part about the result is that I decided to try for Gullveig on the Mythic banner instead (since I now want 2 out of the 3 grey units), and promptly spent all my orbs for zero 5-stars. (29 pulls) I can spark eventually so it won't be a total loss, but it means that unless one of them turns up within the next 11 pulls, I'll have to pick between Gullveig and Alear.

For the freebie, I'm team anyone but Claude. Nothing personal, but I have him already and I dislike the art of this version. What would it cost them to show a bit of decency and just have two AHR banners though, geez.

Given that odds of winning a round are roughly proportional to army size, it's interesting to note the first-hour numbers to give an idea on who's likely to take home the chocolates. So simply reading off the numbers in the spreadsheets above Edelgard 5.3 vs Peony 2.8 Gullveig 3.9 vs Dimitri 3.2 Camilla 4.0 vs Claude 1.6 Alear 3.6 vs Sanaki 1.8 So approximately 5:4 for Gullveig, 2:1 for both Edelgard and Alear and 5:2 for Camilla.

Not going to kid myself by thinking I'll actually get anyone due to a combination of decision paralysis and the fact I probably won't be around for much of the coming year. But in theory, it's probably SNES makes most sense to me, despite the somewhat one-dimensional nature of grabbing three lots of Atk/Spd Ideal. It is interesting that Arthur is the only first-tier unit that comes with fourth-tier skills though. The stinger here I suppose is that unlike previous years, the presence of Rearmed heroes means it's almost obligatory to grab full lines instead of just sampling a bit from each one. A full time player probably can grab four full lines with sufficiently dedicated play? __________ (Some important context to my valuations below is that of the Rearmed heroes here, I only have one Ingrid and two Sonyas) Set 1: Feels like a nothing start, then Ivy and Dimitri as the big selling points. Ingrid is Arcane Luin but needs to be given some worthwhile skills to pass on, which means getting another Ingrid first. Fortunately I do have one, it'd be very awkward otherwise. Set 2: Doesn't do much for me at all besides Soren. Bleh. Set 3: As discussed. Sigurd is a bit awkward to do anything meaningful with but otherwise pretty clear utility for each unit. Set 4: As per my first impression, that Rein Snap at 800 is nice. Selena requires bridge fodder that doesn't exist yet so it's hard to value until it does. Then armour, which I don't care about. Set 5: Interesting as Rebecca exists as if purely to set up the inheritance chain for Fir. Then armour, as above. But Tana is easier to use than Lucina I guess? Set 6: Quintuple inheritance is so cruel in terms of using Catria to begin with, Triandra is filler. Next two are good, then Sonya which while questionable as a standalone source, has good potential for me as I have two existing copies. So bearing in mind this is purely theoretical, my four sets would be 1, 3, 6, and one of 4 or 5 depending on how bridge availability develops.

Always been six paths.

Eh? It's still six lots of five heroes, which is the same as ever. Haven't looked too closely at what's available but I do see a cheap Rein Snap.

Oh. How ordinary. No Emblem means no pull. At least it isn't yet another dragon where the game acts as if we have multiple Distant Counter Dragon seals. The special is apparently inheritable though, so the main upside of the banner is that we finally have something decent to pick for Dragons in upcoming Hall of Forms. Which also means there's now no way in hell that I'll redeem any of the units in the current HoF.

Hmm, there's basically no issue with any of these matchups for me. 1) Edelgard would be new and her serial-killing tendencies suit me great. But Peony is fine too despite having three copies already, since she can duplicate skills and can also advance the green dream. There's the comedy factor too of Eddie continuing her losing streak. Neutral. 2) Don't have either unit here. Gullveig would be great for dodging Mythic banner RNG, Dimitri for the green dream. Neutral. 3) Both green so that aspect is a non-factor. I recently picked up Claude from one of the 12-unit seasonal banners, so Camilla is preferred. 4) I have Alear but not Sanaki, but at least Alear is green. Neutral-to-Sanakish. Typing that up helped me decide that Camilla is the clear choice for my purposes.

A free Celine from the skills banner is an Ideal outcome. Her nature, +HP -Atk, is less Ideal.

Sniping grey on the final seasonal round-up since they're all Duo/Harmonic units. The final ticket, and eleventh pull overall, was a +Def -HP Harmonic Tiki. Happy with that even if I'd have preferred a more mobile unit, especially as it spares me the dilemma of whether to pull without tickets until I got any of the units. Would have been risky as hell with only 60 orbs left. EDIT: Only when I went to Google Harmonic Tiki did I realise that that name is ambiguous.

So I had some expiring Google rewards credit to burn and I literally don't have anything else to use it on other than FEH Pass, so I guess I'm getting a Reposition. Big upgrade in art to be fair, not that it was a particularly hard thing to do. (Guess I'll now have the choice of sparking the Legendary or the upcoming seasonal instead of AHR, or perhaps I could do two of them with some farming)

Sniping blue and grey almost went spectacularly pear-shaped as it was looking like my only 5-star exclusive pull on the way to the spark would be a +Def -Spd Niime, more than 30 pulls in. At least she's new I guess. (There was a Nailah too but whatever) Fortunately I was saved by the last circle, which resulted in a +Atk -Def Hortensia at pull #41. That meant I could safely spark Neutral Ivy and be done with this banner, which is just as well because I have 12 orbs left. If I had failed, there was zero chance I'd ever go for the second (ticketless) spark so I'd have sparked Horty and bailed. Almost forgot to do the MHB, it's on it's final day, and from thus does the long road to orb recovery start. Geez, feels like only a few weeks ago I had 300. Just going to get enough to safely spark AHR and then retire from the game again.