Fire Emblem Heroes General Discussion and Links

[Chrom-ulent]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Graduation in Japan was two weeks ago.

Ah, that makes sense. Was thinking of Western graduation being May/June.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

50 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Graduation in Japan was two weeks ago.

 

What does that matter? There's nothing stopping the developers from giving a unit a weapon they could have used from the get-go, and Caeda's Wing Sword is a clear example of them even doing so, excusing the fact that it was made into a sword instead of a lance because Caeda can't use lances in this game.

 

What does it matter that Wing Spear doesn't exist in FE1 and FE3 when it does exist in FE11, FE12, and Warriors? What makes the character's usable weapons in FE11 or FE12 any less valid than FE1 or FE3?

If you go by FE1 and FE3 as the source of truth, there's no good reason Minerva and Michalis should be able to use axes in Heroes, much less have Hauteclere or even have Hauteclere exist at all. And yet, there they are with Hauteclere as their unique weapons in Heroes.

How can FE1 be a source of truth if it doesn't exist

Frozen Mythical Reptile plz

[Xenomata]

52 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

What does that matter? There's nothing stopping the developers from giving a unit a weapon they could have used from the get-go, and Caeda's Wing Sword is a clear example of them even doing so, excusing the fact that it was made into a sword instead of a lance because Caeda can't use lances in this game.

They "gave" it to her in the first place however. Her having an Armorslayer isn't based on her initial moveset or known later acquired weapons, and if they had made her a proper Lance user as she is in SD and NMotE, she would have been a candidate for either a Heavy Spear (which would drop her speed base or growth if the original Heavy Spear trends persisted) or having the Wing Spear from start, if not being allowed to be the first wielder of Zanbato or Ridersbane.

What does it matter that Wing Spear doesn't exist in FE1 and FE3 when it does exist in FE11, FE12, and Warriors? What makes the character's usable weapons in FE11 or FE12 any less valid than FE1 or FE3?

If you go by FE1 and FE3 as the source of truth, there's no good reason Minerva and Michalis should be able to use axes in Heroes, much less have Hauteclere or even have Hauteclere exist at all. And yet, there they are with Hauteclere as their unique weapons in Heroes.

Therein lies the oddity however. Shadow Dragon and MotE units have some variance in where their inspiration comes from most, from Palla and Caeda being sword wielders when Catria and Est are still Lance users to Minerva and Michalis being Axe wielders with Hauteclere, as well as Jagen being usable despite only having a role in either iteration of MotE as usable in Book 1 (which is FE1) and as a training partner for the Avatar in NMotE. There is also the fact that Wrys is sourced from Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light rather than the internationally released Shadow Dragon, or even NMotE.

As for why Wing Spear not being in FE1 and FE3 matters, it's because that means Caeda's weaponry was baded in SD/NMotE rather than FE1 or 3, but is a Sword unit as in FE1 and 3. Had she been fully from FE 1/3, she'd be mostly likely to have a Killing Edge instead of Armor Slayer, as that is most similar to a weapon she had in FE3 Book 2 besides the Iron Lance (she had a Killer Lance).

Ergo, she is an existence between the two generations of Altea.

@JSND Alter Dragon Boner So then... what does that make this Wrys fellow? I only remember a Vulnerary in FE3...

Edited April 12, 2018 by Xenomata

[Ice Dragon]

27 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

but is a Sword unit as in FE1 and 3

In FE3, Caeda can only use swords while dismounted, so either Caeda is not based on her appearance in FE3 or that pegasus she is riding is a figment of my imagination.

As is also clearly obvious, a reasonable number of characters in Heroes use weapon types that they are only capable of using after promotion, and Caeda is very much capable of using a sword as a Falcon Knight in both FE11 and FE12.

Using the game the character is sourced to in Heroes's character description is also completely invalid for determining weapon usability for a variety of reasons. Many characters in Heroes are given the ability to use weapon types that they have never had the ability to use, but that their class has had access to in other games in the series, such as Sheena and Narcian. All seasonal characters are still attributed to their original game despite the fact that their seasonal outfit and often their weapon type and movement class is not available to the character in that game. Several alternate versions of characters have weapons or movement classes that they do not have access to in their original game and none of the classes they do have access to with their movement class has access to the weapon type in another game. And Faye has a weapon and movement class combination that is impossible for her or any of her possible classes in any game.

[Baldrick]

On 4/12/2018 at 3:26 AM, Xenomata said:

It might be the anti-Reinhardt in me, but I kinda feel like Meistershwert's effects were supposed to be on a personal weapon belonging to Finn...

I mean, it's not even like Finn is wielding any old Brave Lance, he was given that specific lance by Quan, and it was later turned into his Personal Weapon in Thracia. And all things considered, the Meistershwert is not specifically associated with Reinhardt like Dire Thunder is, yet they still give the character who you can't even play as yet another personal weapon, and give the unit who has specific lore behind his weapon... the same weapon that such high and mighty units as Abel and Donnel wield.

...yeah I don't even personally know much about the character, but now I'm a bit peeved he doesn't have a personal.

Also why the hell can I go to Reinhardts Fire Emblem Wikia page to find a "Who is Reinhardt" video that is mostly found on the pages of main characters.

The dumbest part of this is, unlike Raven and Lilina, Reinhardt HAS a personal sword, the Holy Sword he gives to his sister. I guess they're saving it for the next Thracia banner, since apparently nobody would pull on a Thracia banner that doesn't have Reinhardt.

Edited April 13, 2018 by Baldrick

[Thane]

25 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

I guess they're saving it for the next Thracia banner, since apparently nobody would pull on a Thracia banner that doesn't have Reinhardt.

I dislike the influx of alts as much as the next guy but keep in mind how obscure Thracia 776 is for a lot of people playing this game. While I personally don't approve, I can at least sort of see why they'd include an alt in this banner, unlike in the Awakening kids banner. 

Granted, a lot of Heroes players have never touched the main series, so it doesn't really matter for them one way or another whether or not the new characters come from an obscure game.

[Xenomata]

47 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

In FE3, Caeda can only use swords while dismounted, so either Caeda is not based on her appearance in FE3 or that pegasus she is riding is a figment of my imagination.

As is also clearly obvious, a reasonable number of characters in Heroes use weapon types that they are only capable of using after promotion, and Caeda is very much capable of using a sword as a Falcon Knight in both FE11 and FE12.

I missed this and somehow thought it was staves.

Using the game the character is sourced to in Heroes's character description is also completely invalid for determining weapon usability for a variety of reasons. Many characters in Heroes are given the ability to use weapon types that they have never had the ability to use, but that their class has had access to in other games in the series, such as Sheena and Narcian.

Sheena and Narcian being the examples, Narcian is in a class which was not only able to wield an axe in other games, but in fact he himself was also able to wield them, thanks to Awakening bullshit. Sheena, on the other hand, was DRAWN wielding an axe.

All seasonal characters are still attributed to their original game despite the fact that their seasonal outfit and often their weapon type and movement class is not available to the character in that game.

I really don't think seasonals should ever count for this type of argument, as they are considered special units made to celebrate a given occasion, unlike their original counterparts.

Several alternate versions of characters have weapons or movement classes that they do not have access to in their original game and none of the classes they do have access to with their movement class has access to the weapon type in another game.

Due to the nature of FEH summoning units from multiple worlds, even separate from the worlds portrayed in the original games, I also have to call this into question. Even bringing up Eirika as an example, Sacred Stones was released before the Outrealm Gates were ever established to exist, and now we have two separate possessed Robins, a Duma Faithful Celica, legendary Ike and Ephraim, Eirika who learned magic from Lyon, hell now we also have not-dead Gunnthra. 

And Faye has a weapon and movement class combination that is impossible for her or any of her possible classes in any game.

Yes I don't understand it either, and the interview that said why she is a bow user explains nothing beyond "cause we wanted another bow unit".

Really, what anomaly is Faye, from the world where SoV wasn't quite so similar to Gaiden? Also if this argu/convo dies, it's because I fell asleep playing Fates.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Xenomata

[Arcanite]

9 hours ago, Tybrosion said:

Yes. She's turned up enough for me in FEH that any goodwill she might've had with me is straight-up gone. And now that the rarity demotion makes it possible to get more of my potential blue +10 targets (Cordelia, Effie and Catria namely) as 3*s, you can bet I'll be aggravated all the more every time Oboro's face shows up instead.

You hurt me

[Vaximillian]

10 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

You hurt me

Go and play her game already. For crying out loud.

[Baldrick]

8 minutes ago, Thane said:

I dislike the influx of alts as much as the next guy but keep in mind how obscure Thracia 776 is for a lot of people playing this game. While I personally don't approve, I can at least sort of see why they'd include an alt in this banner, unlike in the Awakening kids banner. 

That makes sense. Even though he was a pretty good unit, Reinhardt never became popular among Heroes players because hardly any of them were familiar with him.

 

8 minutes ago, Thane said:

Granted, a lot of Heroes players have never touched the main series, so it doesn't really matter for them one way or another whether or not the new characters come from an obscure game.

That too.

[Cute Chao]

14 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

That makes sense. Even though he was a pretty good unit, Reinhardt never became popular among Heroes players because hardly any of them were familiar with him.

I'm confused... Reinhardt did become popular with Heroes players, because he is a good unit (and because of memes). That's why he scored so highly in the last CYL. Unless you meant something else?

[Ice Dragon]

40 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Narcian is in a class which was not only able to wield an axe in other games, but in fact he himself was also able to wield them, thanks to Awakening bullshit.

Which supports my argument that the game listed in the in-game description means nothing when determining weapon type.

 

41 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Sheena, on the other hand, was DRAWN wielding an axe.

Which doesn't matter because she still wasn't able to use them.

Nils is drawn with a knife on his belt, and most thief-type characters prior to Tellius were drawn with knives despite using swords in-game.

 

45 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

I really don't think seasonals should ever count for this type of argument, as they are considered special units made to celebrate a given occasion, unlike their original counterparts.

Their in-game description still lists a game whether or not their seasonal design originates from it or not (which some actually do).

 

48 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Due to the nature of FEH summoning units from multiple worlds, even separate from the worlds portrayed in the original games, I also have to call this into question. Even bringing up Eirika as an example, Sacred Stones was released before the Outrealm Gates were ever established to exist, and now we have two separate possessed Robins, a Duma Faithful Celica, legendary Ike and Ephraim, Eirika who learned magic from Lyon, hell now we also have not-dead Gunnthra. 

48 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Yes I don't understand it either, and the interview that said why she is a bow user explains nothing beyond "cause we wanted another bow unit".

All the more reason why the listed source game listed in the character description doesn't matter when determining "what game the character is based on".

 

As it stands, my arguments still stand that

• A large number of weapons in Heroes are made exclusive despite not being exclusive in their source games or at least one of their source games. (DLC and outrealm shenanigans don't count as source games.)
  • Most characters that have them have them for lore reasons, but there is no lore reason that would justify them being exclusive on top of that.
• Delthea and Sonya have Dark Aura and Dark Excalibur exclusive to them, respectively, in Heroes despite Aura and Excalibur being commonly available weapons in Echoes.
  • Mae is capable of using Aura in Echoes and has the correct weapon type and color in Heroes to use Dark Aura, but cannot due to its exclusivity.
  • Boey is capable of using Excalibur in Echoes and has the correct weapon type and color in Heroes to use Dark Excalibur, but cannot due to its exclusivity.
• Mae and Boey not being able to initially use Aura and Excalibur, respectively, in Echoes is not a good enough reason to logically justify them not being able to use Dark Aura and Dark Excalibur in Heroes because other units in Heroes are also given weapons that they cannot use initially. Because of this, it is fair to say that any "non-standard-series" weapon, even if the weapon is not unique, is fair game to be implemented as an exclusive weapon in Heroes because the developers said so.
  • Raven has Basilikos which requires both a promotion and leveling up his axe weapon level from E to S after promotion.
  • Lilina has Forblaze which requires a promotion (only for the uncap of her weapon level) and completion of the paralogue chapter to obtain Forblaze.
  • Neither Raven nor Lilina have a lore-specific reason to have exclusive use of Basilikos or Forblaze in Heroes.
• Not all exclusive weapons in Heroes are "end game"-tier weapons.
  • Micaiah has Thany, which is available to her early in the game in FE10.
• Not even all "after-the-fact" exclusive weapons in Heroes are "end game"-tier weapons.
  • Caeda was given Wing Sword after her implementation, which is directly based on the Wing Spear that is in her starting inventory in both FE11 and FE12. Wing Sword is a sword instead of a lance because Caeda does not have access to lances in Heroes.

And so the conclusion is that Meisterschwert being implemented as an exclusive weapon despite being a common and non-unique weapon in its source game is not unprecedented in Heroes. In the same way that there is no reason Meisterschwert has any imperative to be implemented as an uninheritable weapon, there is also no reason Meisterschwert has any imperative to be implemented as an inheritable weapon. Due to the fact that the weapon's implementation in Heroes was notably stronger than the baseline for inheritable weapons, it made sense for balance to keep it uninheritable.

I would not be surprised if other units from FE5 (if they are ever introduced to Heroes) that had Meisterschwert in their recruitement inventories are given the weapon in Heroes. A weapon being made exclusive in Heroes does not in any way prevent it from being given to other characters later on.

[Kaden]

I've been wondering how powerful Valaskjalf would be if its unique refinement was Wrath 3. Vantage 3 and Wrath 3 would be pretty neat, but of course, there is no such thing as a 1 cooldown special without a Killer weapon and Bruno's not exactly bulky from I remember estimating his stats.

Three other things. One, would that +Spd, -Res Chrom running Wind Boost, Wrath prefer unique refined Falchion or Sealed Falchion assuming it becomes available for him in the future? I feel like it might just depend on the situation.

Two, if a refined Ivaldi had 30% reduction against the first hit of physical damage, how much of an impact what that be for L'Arachel compared to Jeorge and Leo having 30% less damage against the first hit of magic damage?

And three, someone getting a reverse Brave weapon. Probably won't be as good as Meisterschwert's Brave on both phases, but if say, someone shows up with a 16 Mt physical weapon or 14 Mt ranged weapon, how strong could that be? I'd laugh if that's what they give Bartre, but it's possible they'd give CYL2 Hector a "Meisteraxt" or a "Meisterlanze" to reference his Binding Blade self having Brave Axe.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Kaden

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 hours ago, Kaden said:

And three, someone getting a reverse Brave weapon. Probably won't be as good as Meisterschwert's Brave on both phases, but if say, someone shows up with a 16 Mt physical weapon or 14 Mt ranged weapon, how strong could that be? I'd laugh if that's what they give Bartre, but it's possible they'd give CYL2 Hector a "Meisteraxt" or a "Meisterlanze" to reference his Binding Blade self having Brave Axe.

Birthright does have the Venge Katana/Naginata/Club, which had doubled Mt on the enemy phase. Not very useful, and they required an A rank to use. Not as as good as EP Brave effect, but they could bring them in.

 

I hope the next New Heroes Banner doesn't have people I want. I asked for another ban from this site until sometime in May. I've.... slipped terribly. I need to write ~25 pages in the next 18 days. It didn't have to be this way, I just never asked for IRL help against flight into this dark playground I call SF at all in the past few months. I can do it, but I hate myself for this. And I have only myself to blame. No pity needed, nor deserved.

As I type this, looking at this site, I've trembled with the dependency shake of an addict for the past days. I've have slept uneasy, thinking you did NOTHING today, NOTHING! You will burn for this! But I love SF, and when the crisis is past, will return.

I commend all with greater discipline, and offer myself as a warning to those who descend the same terrible way.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Interdimensional Observer

[Baldrick]

8 hours ago, Cute Chao said:

I'm confused... Reinhardt did become popular with Heroes players, because he is a good unit (and because of memes). That's why he scored so highly in the last CYL. Unless you meant something else?

I was being ironic. He's the perfect example of how an obscure character can become popular.

[Cute Chao]

5 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

I was being ironic. He's the perfect example of how an obscure character can become popular.

Oh right, my apologies ^.^

But yeah, it is annoying that now they basically won't give anyone a chance, even using a popular unit. I mean, if they're bringing alts in... why not also bring in some more risky units. Alt!Chrom could have helped them bring in... Say'ri and Yen'fay? (I don't know who in Awakening counts as unpopular). Alt!Eirika could have been used for the likes of Knoll and Artur... But they were both brought in with fairly popular units, which makes even less sense. 

That being said, it's not like anyone other than him exploded in popularity. Olwen gained more popularity, but Luke, Roderick and (I think) Athena all remained pretty low in popularity. Can't remember where Clarisse, Legion or Katrina came. 

[Lewyn]

Reinhardt was a meta defining unit.  That makes everyone take notice.  Luke, Roderick, and Athena are all decent but rather forgettable with substitute units that are considerably better.  They could make more obscure characters either unique firsts gameplay wise, or powerful.  Either would explode their popularity.  Like first colorless dragon, that was a golden opportunity to include someone like Nasir or something.  Making obscure characters more popular can only benefit them, cause it brings more attention to their source games.  If they remake Thracia, cause of Reinhardt's popularity in Heroes it will bring a lot of people to that game who wouldn't otherwise be interested.  

[Cute Chao]

16 minutes ago, Lewyn said:

Reinhardt was a meta defining unit.  That makes everyone take notice.  Luke, Roderick, and Athena are all decent but rather forgettable with substitute units that are considerably better.  They could make more obscure characters either unique firsts gameplay wise, or powerful.  Either would explode their popularity.  Like first colorless dragon, that was a golden opportunity to include someone like Nasir or something.  Making obscure characters more popular can only benefit them, cause it brings more attention to their source games.  If they remake Thracia, cause of Reinhardt's popularity in Heroes it will bring a lot of people to that game who wouldn't otherwise be interested.  

Not everyone can be meta defining and with all the less popular characters, they would still need some that are simply okay, but I do agree on the other point. There's no reason not to give some rarer movement types to less popular units to make people pull for them and it can help for potential game sales later down the line. 

Sadly, they've pretty much decided on alts now, it seems, and the majority don't seem to mind getting a load of alts (looking at general opinion on other sites) so it's unlikely to change any time soon, if ever. 

[Charmeleonbrah]

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I hope the next New Heroes Banner doesn't have people I want. I asked for another ban from this site until sometime in May. I've.... slipped terribly. I need to write ~25 pages in the next 18 days. It didn't have to be this way, I just never asked for IRL help against flight into this dark playground I call SF at all in the past few months. I can do it, but I hate myself for this. And I have only myself to blame. No pity needed, nor deserved.

As I type this, looking at this site, I've trembled with the dependency shake of an addict for the past days. I've have slept uneasy, thinking you did NOTHING today, NOTHING! You will burn for this! But I love SF, and when the crisis is past, will return.

I commend all with greater discipline, and offer myself as a warning to those who descend the same terrible way.

25 pages in 18 days isn't bad.  Just binge-drink coffee, maybe nicotinemax, and eventually you'll enter into a highly focused state, where you work on the paper for 4-6 hours straight and finish half of it in one night.  11 P.M. brings out the best in all of us.

I hope my response to your post doesn't unnecessarily deplete your dopaminergic system and further squander your time.

8 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

.Raven has Basilikos which requires both a promotion and leveling up his axe weapon level from E to S after promotion.

I'm not sure what this argument is about, but a couple of things bother me (so to speak) about Raven.  First, in his Heroes artwork, he's drawn with a sword.  And uses an axe.  Also, in FE7 Basilikos was locked to S tier, which Raven couldn't use, because he can only get to A rank on axes.

[Baldrick]

@Cute Chao, @Lewyn

True, obscure characters need something unique and overpowered to become popular, which none of the New Mystery units had. Even if IS want to save unique movement-weapon combos for seasonals, even a good personal weapon could be enough. I'm sure people would pull for a power-crept Blade/Brave weapon no matter who had it, yet they gave them to alts who should be able to thrive on character recognition alone.

[Lewyn]

22 minutes ago, Cute Chao said:

Not everyone can be meta defining and with all the less popular characters, they would still need some that are simply okay, but I do agree on the other point. There's no reason not to give some rarer movement types to less popular units to make people pull for them and it can help for potential game sales later down the line. 

Sadly, they've pretty much decided on alts now, it seems, and the majority don't seem to mind getting a load of alts (looking at general opinion on other sites) so it's unlikely to change any time soon, if ever. 

Yeah they definitely shouldn't make every obscure character meta defining, however it seems the alts end up purposely being made super great.  Like Reinhardt is the star of this banner.  Exalted Chrom was the star of that banner.  Grima Robin was the star of his banner.  Horse Eirika wasn't the star necessarily but rides in as the best red cav in the game.  Zelgius is the best sword armor in the game.  So people get this double reinforcement with actual new heroes getting the short end of the stick power wise, while making popular characters super powerful alt versions.  

I'm completely with you on the second part, which is why I'm not making as big a deal as I normally would.  It is sad.  The silver lining is it means for people who want new heroes they are far less frequent, thus much easier to collect.  

I'm fully convinced that higher ups that don't work on the game are now calling the shots after that last financial report came out.  Wow Heroes brings hundreds of millions a year, well let's bank on that as much as we can, and be very conservative in our banners.  I mean when this game released, and they didn't know it would be a huge success, they just released new heroes, no alts besides seasonals, even many obscure faces.  You would think that was the time to be conservative. 

[ShadowAlchemist]

How does a character become a meme that becomes popular enough to make it into the game, anyway? (and how can I somehow make Miriel and Laurent popular?) Although I don’t get why there are still characters who aren’t here yet, but aren’t as obscure or unpopular as some of the characters already in the game. (Pent when?)

[NegativeExponents-]

1 hour ago, Charmeleonbrah said:

25 pages in 18 days isn't bad.  Just binge-drink coffee, maybe nicotinemax, and eventually you'll enter into a highly focused state, where you work on the paper for 4-6 hours straight and finish half of it in one night.  11 P.M. brings out the best in all of us.

I hope my response to your post doesn't unnecessarily deplete your dopaminergic system and further squander your time.

I'm not sure what this argument is about, but a couple of things bother me (so to speak) about Raven.  First, in his Heroes artwork, he's drawn with a sword.  And uses an axe.  Also, in FE7 Basilikos was locked to S tier, which Raven couldn't use, because he can only get to A rank on axes.

That’s not true at all. Raven can indeed reach S tier on axes. The problem however is that any given playable character, except Athos, can only S rank one weapon and because Raven starts out with swords and doesn’t gain axes until promotion, I imagine most S rank swords instead of grinding wexp on axes.

[Zeo]

@Ice Dragon @Poimagic @Rafiel's Aria @NegativeExponents- @mampfoid @Astellius @LordFrigid @Hawk King @Hilda @Vaximillian @The Lord Of Gems

So once again I started thinking about a crossover with F/GO and how the Askr Trio would likely be the servants in that game and that would mean that the main FSN characters would likely crossover to FEH and that had me thinking about Shirou and Archer. I generally always think of Shirou as the dagger unit and Archer being an actual archer with Caladbolg II, but then I thought about how in FEH you can only wield one dagger and the both of them wield 2. So what if we gave Shirou one dagger and gave Archer the other one. The thought immediately hit me that I'd probably be pitybroken by Archer while pulling for Shirou which... is both irritating and exciting at the same time. But yeah, ol' Zeo's imagination got the better of him again and here we are. 

I threw seals on them just for synergy with their base kits and for a good idea of what I want them to do.

Shirou - Hero of Justice

Spoiler

 

HP: 42 | ATK: 30 | SPD: 27 | DEF: 30 | RES: 22

• Weapon: Kanshou - +2 DEF/RES., If foe initiates attack, unit gain's +1 cooldown. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Def/Res-7 on target and foes within 2 spaces through their next actions.
• Special - Avalon (Cooldown: 3):  If unit’s HP > 1 and foe would reduce unit’s HP to 0, unit survives with 1 HP.
• A Skill - Close Counter
• B Skill - Magecraft - At start of combat, if unit's HP ≥ 80%, inflicts Special cooldown charge -1 on foe per attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.), At start of every second turn, restores 10 HP.
• C Skill - ATK Smoke 3

When you think of Shirou, you think of two things, either you think of a cockroach, or you think of a heavy burst damage dealer. He could wield Calburn and be a sword unit, he could wield Berserker's weapon for Nine Lives gigantic damage, but his most iconic and recognizable role is that of a resilient wannabe fighter that won't stay down no matter how many times you knock him down. That's what's supposed to reflect here. You have a unit that while doesn't hit all that hard, is quite literally nearly impossible to ORKO.

 

Archer - Counter Guardian

Spoiler

 

HP: 37 | ATK: 35 | SPD: 36 | DEF: 20 | RES: 23

• Weapon: Bakuya - Accelerates Special trigger -1 (cooldown count-1). After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Def/Res-7 on target and foes within 2 spaces through their next actions.
• Special: Unlimited Blade Works (Cooldown: 4) - Boosts Atk by 75% (Astra animation with red effect.)
• A Skill: Life and Death 3
• B Skill: Mind's Eye - At start of turn, if unit's HP ≥ 75% and unit's attack triggers Special, grants Special cooldown count-2.
• C Skill:  SPD Smoke 3

Archer can be built in a variety of ways. As a debuffer, as an archer with Caladbolg II, with a sword if you're into that. Or he can be a burst damage dealer which is what we're going for here. The name of the game is utterly blowing up his opponents with UBW as often as humanly possible. The initial idea was literally doubling Astra's damage percentage. But a 300% increase of say... 2, isn't going to do much. We want a skill that you'd never want to swap out, and so here we are.

The QP seal is there because with the combination of it and his base kit, he'll have his special charged at the beginning of every turn. This also means he can go into battle 1 point away from a charged Aether if you're into that.

 

So here we have 2 units on complete opposite sides of the spectrum, which kind of mirrors their ideologies as characters which I think it pretty cool. Shirou wielding the black dagger and Archer wielding the white one. That being said... I'd pull for Shirou. I really want to do Rin, Saber, Lancer and Caster later on. But I'm not going to do that half baked. Also @XRay I'm going to tag you since I know you favor ranged nukes and Archer is very much that.

Edited April 13, 2018 by Zeo

[Silverly]

2 hours ago, Cute Chao said:

That being said, it's not like anyone other than him exploded in popularity. Olwen gained more popularity, but Luke, Roderick and (I think) Athena all remained pretty low in popularity. Can't remember where Clarisse, Legion or Katrina came. 

Actually, Olwen got marginally more popular, more in the sense that she was more recognizable after Heroes. She made it to 261, which is a placing I’d call average at best. Now Katarina actually stayed in almost the exact same place compared to last CYL (around the 130ish range), though fellow New Mystery characters weren’t so lucky (all mentioned characters were sub 300). Maybe if Legion and Athena were memed for their funny speech patterns to the degree Reinhardt for dunking on people they’d rise up somewhat, which they didn’t, but I digress.

At this point Heroes has all the “must haves”, in the sense that now Heroes has all the main characters and most of the plot important/fan-favorites in with the Thracia banner. Seeing as the alt phenomenon didn’t start until this year when Eirika showed up, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this trend continue. Most of the remaining characters to be added are A) antagonists who will be gradually added via GHBs and B) moderately popular to obscure characters. The latter will certainly falter at getting people to pull since only people who are attracted to the characters or perhaps series will be interested in  pulling UNLESS they’re units with powercreep. That’s probably why not only did Thracia (which is arguably the the least popular game in the series) get two alts, but also now Reinhardt and Olwen are some of the best units in their position.

Now since people tend to complain about blatant powercreep such as Ayra/Sigurd/Christmas units/etc, what IS has been doing is instead make it much more subtle and understated. Heck, I boldly say that prior to the new Reinhardt we haven’t had a powercreep unit since Zelgius. However, no powercreep units usually deters whales, so the safe choice is to include a character with an already established popularity such as Eirika, Chrom, Celica etc. That way, in a corporate point of view, the banner won’t be a potential bust because there’s a guaranteed group of people who’ll truly dive into summoning. 

Personally I don’t mind alts too much. Hell, I actually like the alt versions of Eirika and Celica. I’m indifferent to the rest though. Even if they’re not characters I care about, as long as the character  is doing something different from their original unit ie having a different class and playstyle. Plus, someone out there is bound to happy with the addition, so it isn’t too fair to be selfish and bitch about it.

@ShadowAlchemist To answer your question, if the character not popular from the start, be a popular Youtuber and advertise the character. For example, thanks to Mangs, Louise made it into the top 100. Or you can hope the character becomes a meme somehow