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Choked a deathless streak twice, due to misclicks and not paying attention, so it took a while for a perfect run. I'm usually patient enough to wait for the daily swords/crests unless it's nearing the end of the round. Did back out of a few teams with Eirika (usually has Nino+other blades)/Horse (Brave mages with buffs are scary)/Dancer leaders late in the streak. 1 death is around 4500 for my team and it was rank 8997 at last update. 0 deaths is 4564 which is rank 3517. It might stay under 5k. I've seen some 4600 fall outside the top 1k, so I don't think Fury 2 to my other characters will help. 10 Defense wins again, like the past 2 weeks, which seems to be a trend. At this range I think a dangerous combination like melee w/ buff skills + very offensive ranged unit, and Draw Back to keep them together, can sometimes kill at least 1 character which causes a number of forfeits. I lead with Linde so not like I'm hiding much. Will probably use 4* Palla next week? Ruby Sword can beat some 5* Greens, and not that much stat total loss compared to Robin(M). +Linde+Eirika(Fury 3)+Anna(Fury 2) probably, unless the matchmaking changes significantly. Should get around 4530 or so, which is probably barely outside 5k but eh.

Late reply, but I find it’s interesting to consider. I think with Eirika, it’s possible to justify Blarblade+ even on –Atk (+Fury) since it pushes 45+3+11+3=62 att. A quick calc using https://rocketmo.github.io/feh-damage-calc/ suggests both –Atk and neutral can pull 109 wins · 1 losses · 8 draws against the neutral cast on player phase (with Desperation active, she onerounds Hector without a proc). There’s also analyses out there for Bunny Lucina, who is basically a weaker Linde, that show they beat pretty much the same things (nearly the whole cast) with Blarblade+. It works without Eirika but is a bit less effective. Ephraim works but is Blue like Linde and doesn’t beat Nino/Julia so there’s worse synergy. Though actually with just Rally + Hone, which anyone can use, Linde gets 105 wins · 1 losses · 12 draws even with –Atk so eh. In practice there’s ofc fighting on enemy phase, or B Tomebreaker to account for, or merges, or enemy Boon/Bane/Fury so it’s more complex. But I find the takeaway is at those levels of Atk, the bane doesn’t matter tootoo much. It’s true Aura also beats most of the cast, but you miss some crucial ohkos on Reds/Colorless and onerounds on Greens, especially a few common (b/c of focus) ones in higher end arena. Personally unlikely atm to spend the 20k feathers on non-ideal Boon/Bane either, feelsbad, not minmax, favoritism, etc. But more objectively, keeping in mind rng in pulls, -blade and buff stacking probably gives the strongest team core for the feather investment, –Atk or not. As a side note, one advantage of Nino is that Nino + Eirika/Ephraim + (Azura/Ninian)/Olivia is a 3 person core that has nearly perfect coverage and extremely easy deathless arena streaks while leaving a slot open for a bonus character. Nino is a natural 3* or was on a banner as the only green. The Renais twins were on two banners. Ninian was the sole blue on a banner and Olivia is free. Also little to no skill inheritance needed. bst a minor issue now (but it’s rng for non-whales anyway to have a 5* bonus every week), but probably not soon with matchmaking changes.

Actually replayed some FE6 lately (with “fixed” growths) so was going to post itt but then I realized Irysa for the most part gave pretty much the same ratings I would (often exactly or within 0.5), and with much better explanations. Still will comment on a few things. Roy: 4.5 Forced deployment is always tricky to evaluate, particularly for the lord. There’s no standing in the corner avoiding combat or such (mimicking the bench), as whole strategies revolve around transporting and protecting him. Can’t really handwave certain contributions as being in the right place at the right time, whilst focusing on genuine utility relative to other options. Another school of thought is that Roy’s contributions have no true opportunity cost, and occur in nearly every relevant context, and so he gets some decent credit for what he can do. Whatever investment he can get (Angelic Robe, stray kills in early chapters or while waiting on people to show up for recruitment) will give benefits, to some extent. Regardless, Roy’s stats are really low so he can’t really kill much and has trouble taking many hits. Especially early on, though he’s certainly not the only one with such troubles. It’s been better covered by others, but he’s mostly notable for hitting early Cavs/Knights decently (at decent enough accuracy, relatively speaking) and obliterating Manaketes/Idun lategame. “Only” need around 15 AS for Manaketes and the Binding Blade can avoid a counter. Even can use Durandal a bit due to the massive promo gain in rank. He does fine in the Isles, though probably not onerounding much. I rate him slightly below average though this can easily change. Somewhere in the 4-6 range probably. Not sure how Micaiah pulls ratings of 7s or so. Marcus: 9 fwiw 9.5 is probably the highest score I will give out, but I don’t think Marcus can quite make it. The earlygame is all fixed deployment so one might consider a minor mitigation of his contribution there. Indeed, no one seems to think he’s better than say Miledy. And while Marcus stays highly useful throughout the game, 11-12 AS is borderline against a lot starting in the Isles. Wolt: 1.5 Alance: 8 At first glance, they seem like pretty ideal growth units to snowball. Mount, decent growths, nice affinity, and so on. The main problem is the earlygame is rather harsh, such that they can’t really get a solid return on that investment until promotion midgame. There’s also no defend maps to build support and Rescue/Canto can always be doing something else useful. Sure they do help early on, but pretty much everyone does, and they’re no Marcus/Rutger. Their stats are a bit too balanced to be a very reliable bosskiller later as well, and the stats they lose compared to Percival are significant. 15/5 or so is still expected to be a couple points behind in the important stats, and even if we pretend probability works in gbaemblem, it’s not like averages magically have 100% reliability either. They are among the best characters if given a bit of time to grow (which I give them significant credit for), but the game gives you enough strong units at just the right intervals such that if you take full advantage and rotate the team accordingly, Alance don’t seem so exceptional in comparison. I tend to think Lance is expected to be slightly better, due to doubling earlier for snowball potential/crits/etc, but others itt have pointed out some advantages of Allen’s Str/Def. Might be worth further analysis, as I think Lance was considered better for a long time at a more lenient pace where it’s far easier to meet Spd benchmarks. But maybe this was because things like A Allen/B Roy were commonpace and gave +5 Atk/+25 avoid. Bors: 1.5 Ellen: 6 Deke: 7.5 Earlygame is quite good due to Skl/Spd and Blade damage/Armorslayer. As the game progresses, he’s not quite fast enough against some bosses however, and being an infantry unit, cannot contribute that much to reaching them in FE6’s large-ish maps. Still, his solid combat potential can carry a team not overloaded with prepromos/HM bonus characters. In particular, he’s fairly good at clearing space for reliable bosskills and rescuedrops of Roy, which is important to enable clears of chapters that don’t bank everything on a single attempt (probably involving criticals and such). Especially given big maps, long chapters, and no map save. Lot: 3 I don’t actually think Lot’s any good at all. Helps a bit early on like everyone, but accuracy so bad. Combat never really gets that good, though maybe I’m overlooking something there. Wade: 1.5 Shanna: 8.5 Chad: 4 Thieving utility is another weird thing to judge, but I guess we usually credit them for it. Given keys, however, Chad is mostly limited to a few early chests and steals. Nonexistent durability is bad, particularly later against the long range stuff. Pretty much marginal contributions that occur in nearly all relevant contexts seems similar to Roy. I rate him slightly below because it’s mostly gold (your last Boot or 2). Lugh: 3.5 Chips Res at good accuracy earlygame. I don’t think I can give too much credit even at more lenient paces, as his (lack of) durability prevents him from carrying a team. Can perhaps Aircalibur some Wyverns on a forest, and he’s slightly more speedy/dodgey than the other mages (Dark Mages have Nos) but survival chances still aren’t that impressive. Early promotion is an option for the midgame but Atk/Spd (20 Atk/11 Spd with Elfire at 11/1) is still pretty borderline. Perhaps undervaluing certain onerounds there, not sure. I think this makes you spend actions getting Sophia’s ring though. Clarine: 7 Rutger: 9 Dorothy: 1.5 Saul: 8.5 Sue: 6.5 Would rate her a bit higher but chance of 1 crit in 2 attempts is still just around 55% for most of the game. She does have accuracy, Spd, availability, Bow rank vs. Shin’s Str and durability, so I don’t see them as too far apart. But not sure I can put her above Klein (even though his Spd is very borderline, he has some solid onerounds with the Silver/Brave Bow midgame.) Perhaps a Body Ring option, since that Brave Bow comes so early. The Pegasus Knights don’t have great combat later, though Niime really likes it I suppose. There is no penalty assigned here for Sacae route, or forcing the player to train Tate more (if both Shanna/Shin are more likely to be in play). It’s perhaps notable that those things are probably detriments to reliability. Jerrot: 8 The 13 Spd is really nice for when he joins. This is probably also a good place to note that to me, any mitigation of rng such as in growths in a highly relevant factor, even moreso than usual, as the gameplay in FE6 is so reliant on crits and imperfect hit rates due to terrain/enemy stats. Like it’s often legitimately the best percentage play, to just slam (multiple) killers/SMs into enemies. Treck: 4 Base level too low, and there’s so many other mount options already that even varying team composition doesn’t help him much. Noah: 6.5 Astor: 7.5 The availability of keys matters quite a lot, but Astor usually finds a place in the team due to FoW and 6 move+combat (compare to unpromoted Deke/Fir/etc). Stealing is a bonus, with some highlights like the Delphi Shield. We can cheese desert items nowadays, but it’s an rng quirk. Astor might survive a hit or 2, unlike the others, though multiple units should probably be used and avoid combat as possible. How these items are assessed could drastically affect the thief ratings though. Ogier: 1.5 Can at least hit things but can’t double for a while and nothing great after investment anyways. Barth: 1 Wendy: 0.5 Lilina: 2 I actually used Lilina recently. And the hand axe counterohkos suck. >_> Shin: 8 Fir: 6 We could restart last year’s discussion in the past topic again. >_> I long since lost my reply It mostly regards the opportunity cost of deployment slots and how much variance we allow teams (and if weighted based of their optimality). Less about the chance Rutger is Spd screwed and more about allowing that Rutger, and to an extent Percival/Miledy, are not always in play. Still, Fir isn’t around for the earlygame, and certain bosses especially Dorie/Henning (but even Wagnar/Reygans can be hard to double). She needs some time to level/promote for the midgame bosses. At some time she finally realizes her potential against the lategame promoted enemies/bosses, with some high Skl/Spd/Luck/crit. The lategame can be fast because of Warp but if your chance of success is 10% on a 3 turn or death that’s expected to be 30 turns on average. If Fir can pull 50% through crits on a similar strat that’s a massive increase in efficiency. In practice, one can sometimes adopt strats that transition for more reliability (not always, as may need to defend Roy too and some enemy phases are just ridiculous) and these can favor units with durability to survive multiple rounds. Fir has worse concrete defenses but better avoid so her overall survival chances aren’t always too much worse. Also one side niche that’s possible if desiring fastreliable clears is having 11/1ish Rutger for the earlygame but also training Fir a bit more past 10 so she has a few more stat points for later. She does fine in the Isles, and there’s a few turns there waiting for a recruit to show up, or the bosskill to happen, or clearing out enemies for Roy, or some lenient side objective, where one can train her more. I think a later promo Fir can pull noticeably better chances than 11/-- Rutger (yeah he gets the midgame bosskill exp for a lead), and pretty much everyone else, on certain later enemies/phases. (as a side note: with the fixed patch she will want to promote at either 13 or 17. And ultimately 13 is probably the more reasonable, but then again Irysa/Lord Raven got Lilina to 16/19 by 14x. Clearly there was rigging, but otoh reliable clears are slower and give more exp. And I would consider Fir easier to train despite melee.). Obviously a faster run of incomplete recruitment/tactical sacrifices is harsher for her. Maybe I need to step back to crunch the numbers more objectively, but based on my last playthrough I still think you want an SM lategame if reliability is a strong concern. Even Percival/Miledy don’t have the best chances against some bosses, not to mention whoever else may be on the (nonspecific) team. Again, her performance probably has some strong dependence on the pace of the midgame chapters, as the investment costs can then be mitigated, to an extent. I have some baseline in mind, based on highly reliable clears, but my last run (Elphin/Sacae route, if it matters) did aim for a number of optional objectives including recruit all and all items (except like stealable vulneraries, etc), plus used Sue/Noah/Fir/Lilina in addition to the typical team (including Shanna/Rutger/Miledy/Percival/Shin. Promoted Noah early instead of Alance.). otoh, I actually thought Fir had some of the best performance lastgame, and I’m clearly not about to rate her that high. Actually I did almost convince myself to rate her even higher but I’m not sure she’s better than Echidna (but then again, what is Echidna doing in most teams?). I also know that I did some hand waving for Fir’s training, given comments about Lugh/Sue/reliability in general, but it’s a matter of payoff. Do others really find it so trivial to lolwarp the game without save state fishing or a script for the crit rns? ;\ (even hit rates are a major concern sometimes) All that said, 6 doesn’t seem to be a massive outlier anyway. Gonzales: 3 I’ll give some credit for carrying a weaker team against Wyverns. With some concrete durability. Geese: 1.5 Lalum: 9 Elphin: 9 Klein: 6.5 Tate: 7 Her accuracy is actually pretty bad when trying to train her, given disadvantage vs Axes and the Spd of Mercs. Shanna can at least pick on soldiers, and competition-wise the team then isn’t as good as 3 Paladins + promoted Rutger/Shanna + Killer nomad. Echidna: 6 Bartre: 5.5 Raigh: 2 Cath: 2.5 Miledy: 9.5 Cecilia: 7 Sophia: 0.5 Crediting her for a Guiding Ring is similar to contributions attributed to thieves. She is force deployed, but it does cost some effort protecting/ferrying her. And the 2nd Guiding Ring is also largely unneeded, I think. One could credit her for promoting Saul/Ellen in cases where the 1st ring is not obtained, but Astore is forced deployed then and there’s buyable/stealable keys then. Fae: 4 Self-sufficient staff/siege bait is useful in any team. Accurate attacks might help, even. Perceval: 9 Igrene: 6.5 I do think the extra Spd helps significantly. Garret: 3.5 Hugh: 2 This score is based on waiving all recruitment costs. Douglas: 1.5 Zeiss: 6.5 He benefits immensely if Miledy gets a few unpromoted levels for some Spd, which can perhaps free up a Speedwing. By the time he joins, it’s harder to justify himself spending extra levels unpromoted. (12 perhaps in the fixed patch, 15 is certainly questionable) Niime: 8.5 Dayan: 2.5 Juno: 2 Yodel: 7 There’s a somewhat big gap with Niime but when availability is like this, every chapter and tile of staff range matters imo. Tho S Staves has its uses. Karel: 1 Merlinus: tbd It’s possible to rate Merlinus on utility like the refreshers/thieves/staffers. The same rating as Niime seems a bit high, however. This could be worth an actual analysis though I want to point out that his selling contributions are shared since others obtain the items, and it’s not like it’s impossible to sell without him. The majority of gems/promo items/expensive stuff can probably be sold given the many deployment slots in later maps (where we have warp so not everything is very important), so the marginal benefit is the last few boots. Item teleports via convoy and infinite self-resurrection are also very good though. ___________________________ I try to have roughly 5 be the average (presently 5.04 but I easily can't math), not have skewed ratings, etc. Don’t particularly care what the average of everyone in the topic is, that won’t affect the numbers I give. About outlier scores, I think it’s fair to give people a chance to defend them. But if they don’t care to, they also shouldn’t care if they don’t count in the aggregate. @Heptade Marcus is very good early then falls off to some extent, but is this any worse than not existing or being bad for the first part of the game and being good later? Especially considering how good he is relative to the cast early (extremely), compared to how good others are relative to the cast late (less so, since more characters are good then, and most not as much as Miledy/Percival/Niime). That’s the simplest, stripped down, version, but we can delve into the details if you wish. Moreover, there are strong arguments for things like FE10!Jill around Haar’s level, or FE9!Marcia over Titania. Robin over Frederick is probably consensus. Arran does not touch the top tier in FE12, and neither does Sirius typically and he even has a number of uses later. Some characters ostensibly weak to start like FE9!Soren or Kaze, would probably be ranked fairly high nowadays. So it’s not accurate that everything is judged on bases nowadays. If one wishes, there are a number of approaches to argue against Jeigans, though here are 2 main ones I see. - The first regards the utility of characters when the cast is small, and potentially with fixed deployment. Basically since there’s fewer choices, performance is less impressive there than utility later when given so many more choices in a larger cast. This tends to be effective because very few like ranking FE10’s Edward/Nephenee very high. - The second regards the efficiency paradigm, wherein characters are assessed by the contributions to fast and reliable clears. Some dislike this rating method, or disagree on the meaning of “efficiency” in FE context. This line of argument is sometimes effective, since there’s so much fatigue on philosophy that few like debating it, but there’s a reason the current way of thinking became the dominant preference for tier lists. I find exp-stealing and such classics as relatively weak points. Mekkah made the canonical arguments so I’ll let him give a summary to start. https://youtu.be/9twWNEbOkZk?t=194 I think discussions on this site about the viability of characters tend to be more sophisticated than you’re portraying.

Palla needs love. An amazing unit wrt to general design/art, and it's hard to overstate her contributions gameplaywise in the main series games. Also her Ruby Sword here partially carried the flier tower quest and slayed Michalis. Cherche, and then the likely winner, probably after.

Linde is a bit less dominant now since she’s not functionally 3 Spd above everyone else’s Spd tier. 36 base is still really fast, ofc, but more people have Spd boosters now. Nino who had a focus is similar but makes better use of buffs, Green seems more meta nowadays, and she even beats most Reds anyways. And doesn’t necessarily require 20k feathers for her tome. Linde is still fine with Aura (I still use it), but Blarblade+ is pretty much just better for her role. I think Fury 3 is the best skill because the Def/Res might actually let her take some hits, and it gives +3 Att and also helps activate Desperation. Fury 2 also works, but you lose 1 Spd compared to her natural Spd+3 (which I use). Life and Death or one of the player phase Blows are definitely strong, as befits a glass cannon. Sometimes she does want to take a hit, trading with other Linde, destroying Robin(M) and red mages, avoiding certain physical ohkos, etc. Desperation is ideal since you blow through Ryoma/Takumi/Kagero/Lightning Breath Dragons/etc and do a lot more to Hector and such to finish them off. Fortify Res is good for the buff. Hone Atk/Spd might be ultimately better for the team but are low priority for SP imo. The Res lets units tank Julia/Nino/Reinhardt/etc better, which is sometimes necessary to bait them in. -Atk is fine with buff support, though Moonbow or Iceberg will help. The latter is especially useful for some ohkos and hitting greens harder. I think the best assist for mages is Draw Back, but Ardent Sacrifice can activate Desperation and Reposition and the other mobility ones are still good.

I just use my offense team for defense since I’m lazy and want to free up a team slot >_> (can’t be bothered always shifting around units for the Cav/Flier quests plus trainee teams with Clarine/Eirika/Olivia) The team is literally 2 melee + 2 glass cannon blue mages w/ Draw Back. Linde is Linde and Robin(M) with Life and Death 2 is Linde-lite. Eirika gives some buffs and can Drag Back into the waiting mages, Anna might teleport and catch someone off guard. I think the actual best defense teams have the teleport skills, because they are very hard to keep in mind. And if people use units that are hard to oneround (being naturally fast/bulky or have Wary Fighter) then other units swoop in on Wings on Mercy and crush your team. Or refreshers+ranged units. The Cav mages can cover the whole screen practically and can run Dire Thunder or –blade tomes for absurd damage.

Arena seems harder nowadays but finally got a chance to focus on a serious run. Fury 3!Eirika, Linde, Robin(M), Fury 2!Anna, all 5* lvl 40, deathless 7 adv streak results in 4565 for rank 2052. I have 1 more duplicate Bartre to perhaps give Fury 2 to Linde but don’t think that’s going to rank sub 1k anyways. There are tons of whale teams in this range, the scariest are merged, fully skill’d, usually Fury, mages. Ninian is also common and can be tricky at times (I back out of a dancer led team if late in the streak). Hector/Effie are usually a relief to see. Anna is pretty good, though Linde and Robin (with Eirika’s buff) still do most of the work. She’s mainly a more consistent answer to Blues, and she can also handle Julia. She usually can take a hit from most units so sometimes it’s good to lure some enemies away, splitting them, then teleporting to safety using her prf. Being green allows some predictable AI manip against reds as well. Vengeance seems like an ideal skill for her (still using Astra for Vantage burst damage) but I’m hesitant to use up the spare Narcian, because there’s only 2 copies of him with no way to get more atm. I’m also looking to have her inherit Reposition for some team mobility when she gets the sp. Swap and Smite are other options but I think Reposition will be the most flexible overall. Tons of defense wins again this week. I now suspect it’s because of Draw Back. Having Draw Back on mages kinda forces the AI to stick together in a melee/ranged combo and I think it’s hard for some teams to do baiting tactics if they have to take Aura+Sieglinde and Blarraven+Noatun combinations. At least I know I sometimes run into trouble if I run into Draw Back teams, given the frailty of my characters.

Linde was in the first round of summons, really really lucky. Robin(M) arrived maybe halfway through the initial set of story orbs, was going for whatever color showed up at the time. The other half was used on red for Lucina to no avail. Pulled Eirika early in Family Bonds. Spent the rest on green trying to get Julia, but it was not to be. Saved orbs since then, around 190 with a few of the training quests to go. Recently talked myself into upgrading Anna to 5* because she’s a bonus for a few weeks, need a solid Green anyways (no guarantee will pull one with good synergy and stats), still will have 20k feathers after next arena round in case someone good pops up, and we additionally have tons more from the quiz/Michalis bonus. With this humble offering of feathers, please bless my pulls, o great RNG goddess.

- In various unoptimized efficiency runs I've regretted not having the other flier whenever I only train one. But I usually do full-recruitment nowadays so both are useful (and will probably do that once formally returning to my previous run if ever) - It's around C18 when all the enemies promote and density+bulk is really high so really strong 1-2 range is nice. Well I suppose this is also kinda true earlier, but there's Titania then. tbh I tend to use Calill as the filler, but I also like to use the forge glitch so eh. Of the options mentioned, Boyd/Soren have 2 early defend maps, though any investment in them slightly hurts Oscar. Tormod, and to an extent Nephenee are probably only options if forgoing the second flier, so they can get that bexp. But maybe someone with better exp optimization can train them (they also benefit from forge glitch). There is also like a million units in 17-3 and the mages are relatively harmless with Pure Water/Barrier so that's another option. - Also, nice C15 clear. I think if both fliers are promoted you can fly a Laguz to the appropriate location but otherwise it's a fairly chill chapter as the enemies aren't too strong (barely more stats than hard iirc). I think this kind of clear is preferable to pacifist in Maniac given how little bexp there is now.

To add to this: I think that Eirika/Linde are not necessary if one has Palla/Cherche. Palla can tank the red swords, so you can bring Wrys/Lissa/skill inherited Rehabilitate, and then all you need is a mage/archer that doubles Michalis and can survive the left Blue lance. It's possible Cherche can be replaced with a generic archer as well, as all she fights is a Blue flier.

Well okay, already got Lunatic in like 5 min. Turns out training both Palla and Cherche helped greatly (both 4*). Brought Linde and Eirika too. - Buff Palla and Cherche. - Bait Michalis with Palla, Blue flier with Cherche. Eirika buffs Palla and Linde to the left. - Blue flier is ohko’d. Michalis is chipped. Other enemies move down. - Linde shoots Michalis from over the wall. Palla finishes him with Moonblow activation. Cherche runs into bottom left corner. - Linde tanks the Blue lance infantry barely (lol +Def the savior? edit: neutral barely survives it seems?) - Palla and Cherche run away, Eirika in range of Red flier. Linde kills Blue lance. - Tank everything with Eirika (Fury 3) and kill with Linde. Not sure how general the strat can be at this time...

I estimate my current team will land just outside top 10k (at the end of the session) so debating if I should give Linde/Robin(M) Fury 2 from Bartre to try and make it. I wish I gave Fury 3 from my duplicate Hinata to Linde, it would help her activate Desperation, the Atk/Def would help (have noticed some borderline cases), and I think Eirika only needs Fury 2 for the kills I need her for (mostly just ohko on neutral Nino). Don’t want to use up any final copies of characters if possible. In other news, ran into +6 Olwen/Reinhardt and Gronnblade+!Cecilia with all of Hone/Fortify/Goad Cav. That was fun. >_> Also, realized I have Azama, who has better stat total than Ursula, isn’t a Blue Tome, and heals, so I’m training him for next week. Hopefully with crystals can make lvl 40. At least Fury helps for training, can grind in starting stratum and such. wrt Defense wins: They really just seem random. I usually get 2-3 250+ wins per week except this week there’s 9 and several have anti-mage units. Multiple even have Hector leads, and I don’t understand how they would lose to a team that relies on 2 blue mages.

As of right now I don't think my team can get sub10k (at the end of the round) with a perfect clear while dragging Robin(F) along, even with Fury!Eirika. Could give Fury 2 to my other units from Bartre but eh the SP grind is too annoying and the arena scoring will change in a few weeks. On defense, been getting lots of wins with just the offense team (with deadweight Robin(F)), even against teams with leader Niles/Peri that probably shouldn't lose to a mage centric composition. The power of Desperation!Iceberg!Linde and LifeAndDeath!Robin(M) with Eirika buffs I guess. Next week with Ursula is going to be pray-no-Blue-tomebreaker though. >_>

-Def Nino with LaD 2 is down to 33 hp/12 Def so most Takumi and various Distant Counter users will ohko. But you can probably ohko some of (the not reds) them first. I think Life and Death is probably better for you because once people start running more inherited Death Blow/Hone Atk/Braves and such, fragile mages are orko'd regardless, even with Fury. edit: One advantage of Fury is you can damage yourself into Desperation (or vantage/etc) range, which can be very useful. May depend on if you rely on doubling or ohkos more.

Fury is better if you ever need Nino to take a hit, like against Takumi or some distant counter unit. That's why I didn't give LaD to Linde (her +Def can barely survive some weaker Poison Daggers too, especially with Robin's Spur Def). If you have +Atk or otherwise can buff enough for ohkos on the relevant targets, Life and Death is better. For example if/when Linde gets Blarblade I might switch.

So far… Linde +Def/-Atk: Desperation 2 in B slot from 4* Shanna. Lets her avoid a counterattack after getting hurt. Messed up inheritance and failed to pass level 3 version which sucks but not a massive deal given Linde’s usually under half when she gets hit. Hone Atk 2 in C slot from 3* Nino. Mostly filler, buffs others a bit. Draw Back in Green slot from 3* Nino. Important skill to somewhat make up for no refresher. Allow attacking with Mage and pulling to safety. Allows Eirika to rush in and Drag Back someone, then pull her to safety. Etc. My Ninos had terrible Boon/Bane. Iceberg in Purple slot from 4* Shanna. 3 charge, can enable some onerounds/ohkos. No Life and Death because otherwise too many ohkos against her. Longterm perhaps Blarblade+ and Moonblow from Odin (20k feathers)? Maybe Darting Blow but I have no characters to sac for it. Eirika +Def/-Res: Fury 3 from 4* Hinata. Maybe Triangle Adept would be better since she mainly fights Greens. But this prevents doubling from +Spd 34 Spd tier (37) with +3 Spd (40) from skills, or everything up to 42 Spd, and still lets her take a hit or 2 from blues. Spd+3 is probably better but the Fury Atk can help sometimes and I have noone to pass Spd+ except Linde. Noontime from 4* Laslow. 3 charge. Some healing. Robin(M) +Spd/-Res: Life and Death 2 from 4* Hana. 36 base Spd is pretty solid, nice 47 atk/40 Spd with Eirika, and actually has the bulk to not fall apart immediately. Not going to spend 20k feathers on LoD3 for now. Quick Riposte 1 from 3* Subaki. Please die Bows/Daggers. Draw Back from 3* Nino. See Linde. Less SP than the others to grab skills. Clarine: Rehabilitate from 4* Wrys. Thanks for babysitting people in the tower. Heavenly Light from 4* Wrys. Eh, can be nice sometimes Team of Linde, Eirika, Robin(M), arena bonus filler, is pretty free against Blues with distant counter or Blue Tomebreaker on someone not-Robin(F), so yeah, still really need a good green/colorless that I like. But it’s also hard to replace Robin(M) now with the incoming Brave Bow/Poison Dagger spam. Linde with Blarraven as the sole Blue still can’t take Brave Bow+Death Blow unfortunately. Perhaps she will retire eventually. Want to pull for Kagero/Klein/Julia rn but the chances just aren’t that good. Please Julia gauntlet. >_> SP grind looks to be terrible so I hope they change something.

The main concerns mid/late are: - Flier durability holding Ike. Marcia may have trouble with the swarms of enemies. Jill may have trouble against Sleep/Siege. Perhaps use both, or whoever does better in a particular situation, especially if you plan to recruit everyone. - Clearing out enemies, particularly at 1-2 range, for safe drops/routs. iirc Paladins/Jill with lots of investment borderline orko generics with Steel Forges, not even close with 1-2 range. You probably want Boyd or Nephenee (Wrath) or Soren (attack Res, probably want Vantage+Adept for durability) or Tormod (attacks Res, better Def) trained up. Can give Wrath to one of the mounts, but this obviously makes Ashnard trickier. I think there’s a few heals that go off if Ike doesn’t oneround, though technically there’s no bexp requirement then so this may work for you. Kieran can Knight Ward for Spd growth, though if the Speedwing helps him/Mordy/whoever for a particular benchmark earlier, you can give it to him. I would give them to Jill if recruiting her.

Sure, go ahead. It's for anyone interested in the chances if they want a particular character. I'm pretty confident in the numbers, though there could be slight typos/miscounts. edit: Like I already found a typo in the formula for P(Blue). >_>. The numbers seem correct though.

Ninian’s art looks great and she seems to be a solid unit but sorry, I need a green for the team. >_> Would pull only colorless for Jaffar but the staffbots are eh. Perhaps Minerva next banner, flies, speedy, and stat total pretty solid. Regardless… For no blue in a whole 5 pull round... P(Blue) = ~24% P(NOT Blue) = ~76% P(No Blues in 5 trials) = P(NOT Blue)^5 = ~25.35% Which actually seems pretty high, now that I’ve actually calculated it. <_< For reference P(1 Blue in 5 trials) = 40% (no discount) P(2 Blue in 5 trials) = 25.3% (1 orb discount) P(3 Blue in 5 trials) = 7.98% (2 orb discount total) P(4 Blue in 5 trials) = 1.26% (3 orb discount total) P(5 Blue in 5 trials) = 0.08% (5 orb discount total) At this time (maybe later), I’m not going to calculate expected number of blue pulls given number of orbs, when using the only blue strategy. The easy way is to simulate but maybe there’s some simple analytical solution (?). Just to reiterate, the calculation presented in an earlier post (and bottom of this post) is the probability of Ninian on the current banner, given n number of blue summons. Just estimate how many blue you get, it’s somewhere around orbs/6. For the promised analysis…(we obv know Ninian is Blue now) This assumes the gacha works by rolling rarity and characters first, then hides them behind the appropriate colors you see on the summons screen. This is the most sensible explanation given the appearance rates paragraph in the Details page, and the fact that there's clearly not a 3% chance of a 5* Focus Green on this banner, given there are no possible 5* Focus Greens. | notation means ‘given’, so P(Ninian | Blue) is probability of summoning Ninian, under the condition of a blue summon. P(Ninian | Blue) = P(Blue | Ninian)*P(Ninian)/P(Blue) by Bayes’ Theorem P(Blue | Ninian) = 1 Self-explanatory P(Ninian) = P(Focus 5*)P(Ninian is 1 of 6 Focus characters) = 3/100 * 1/6 P(Blue) = P(Focus 5*)P(Blue 5*|Focus5*) + P(5*)P(Blue 5*|5*) + P(4*)P(Blue 4*|4*) + P(3*)P(Blue 3*|3*) = (3/100 * 1/6 + 3/100 * 12/48 + 36/100 * 19/80 + 58/100 * 12/49)= ~24% *numbers could be slightly miscounted. I think I added correctly the 6 sibling bonds characters to the general 5* pool (of which 2 are blue), and Reinhart/Klein/Lachesis to the 4* pool (of which 1 is blue) P(Ninian | Blue) = P(Blue | Ninian)*P(Ninian)/P(Blue) = (1) * (3/100 * 1/6) / (3/100 * 1/6 + 3/100 * 12/48 + 36/100 * 19/80 + 58/100 * 12/49) = ~2.08% So every time you pick a blue, with the assumptions noted earlier, you have around a 2.08% chance of getting Ninian. This probability slightly increases if your 5* chance does, just replace the 3/100 with whatever/100 in the formula. Use this number, which is P(Ninian|Blue), in the following formula, for (a lower bound of) the probability of obtaining Ninian in n number of blue summons. 1 – (1 – P(Ninian|Blue)^n It's trivial to do similar calculations for any character of interest.

Linde, Eirika, Robin(M), Robin(F) is still a bit outside the top 10k with no deaths 7 adv streak. Need to at least replace Robin(M), give Eirika Fury from Hinata to hopefully be more competitive. Almost have enough to upgrade 2 characters to 5*, so there’s probably some team out there that’s both effective and that I enjoy the aesthetics of. Maybe Anna with Fury from Bartre. Waiting on skill inheritance for now.

As I said, that only affects how many pulls you get from a certain number of orbs. If you have 90 orbs, sometimes you'll get no green and waste orbs, but sometimes you'll get discounts that don't cost 5, which balances out. In retrospect I probably should just have used n = 18/30 pulls for 90/150 orbs since you do lose 5 orbs for each wasted round, but eh. Regardless, the calculation presented is assuming you're only pulling Green, so the orbs->summon conversion doesn't really come into it. If you happen to only get 15 green pulls from 90 orbs, that's bad luck, but just use n = 15. For simplicity, the calculation uses 3% for the 5* Focus chance the whole time, which is the worst-case scenario. The actual probability is slightly higher due to 5* chances increasing, but it's by a marginal amount. That's also partially what the '+' is for.

You have to pull at least 1 before backing out, but you also get a discount on orbs if pulling 2 or 3 times in that same round, and your probability increases slightly from not pulling 5*s after a while. So it’s somewhat balanced out. For simplicity, it’s an estimate, which is why I said ‘around’ and used '+' signs. 90 orbs approximately translates to 90/5=18 pulls, plus/minus a few so I said 20 (figure slightly more discounts than no green rounds). 150 orbs approximately translates to 30 +/- a few so I just said 35. The general calculation of n number of green pulls is: Probability of at least 1 Ninian given a number of green pulls = 1 – probability of no Ninians given a number of green pulls = 1 – (probability of NOT Ninian given green)^(number of green pulls) = 1 – (1 – P(Ninian|Green)^n . I’ll write out how I think P(Ninian|Green) works later but I quickly calced with Bayes’ Theorem around 2.66% (depends slightly on the rarity of sibling bond characters after the banner ends)

If Ninian is a green manakete dancer, I’m spending all my saved orbs on her. sorry nino If the gacha works as theorized, where the game rolls rarity first, then displays the colors of the rolls, and Ninian is the only green in this banner (seems likely), I think there’s around a 40+% chance of getting her with 20 green pulls (around my 70+20 saved orbs) and 60+% for 35 green pulls (around 130+20 orbs that I see some have saved up).

Cumulative for me was all the way down around rank 18k with a score around 125k. Used most flags (except the daily 5 in the finals) on a base of 110 with the matching bonus. It seems to get a good overall rank you actually need to play as much as possible, even many rounds without flags. Got 500 (r1 victory) + 800 (r1 rank) + 1500 (r2 rank) + 500 (r3 victory) + 1000 (r3 rank) + 1800 (overall rank) = 6100 feathers in total. With some more frequent play for the max cumulative bonus, it would have been 7300. Not sure what the best strat is if one doesn’t have the matching bonus for the finals. It may have been worth it, depending on how competitive the ranks were, to save all flags for Ephraim in the finals even without the matching bonus. A much higher finals rank (how high can you get without the 10%?) to offset the lower cumulative. But probably not that big a difference in the end either way.

Did you contribute any points at all? Maybe it doesn't give you those feathers if you score a 0. Otherwise, not sure, as I didn't rank >100k first round. Or Othin is probably correct. When I say 1000 feathers, I was talking about 500 from rank that round + 500 from victory. The cumulative ranking seems to be separate.