The reformed summoning pool

[NekoKnight]

The long awaited summoning pool reform has come. This is undeniable progress (and I may finally get a Cordelia with a favorable nature for once) but is it really a solution to the problems we all had? It's a good thing that we aren't going to get pity breakers such as Merric or Peri any more, but none of the demoted characters were 5* restricted, which leaves a lot of problems left unresolved.

-Many characters remain incredibly rare for lack of banners (Y!Tiki, Linde, Saber etc)

-Many skills remain "premium content" because they are still bound to 5* locks.

-Very few units on banners are demoting, sometimes 1 or none. The 5* exclusive pool continues to grow unchecked.

(Also, unrelated to rarity, we're getting a LOT of alts for existing units, so you're out of luck if characters you like aren't already in the game.)

I welcome what they've done to improve the summoning experience, but I think it's just a bandaid for an ongoing problem. How do you feel about the state of the summoning pool?

[Humanoid]

There's a problem in that they've left themselves no where else to go in terms of future demotions. It would have been sensible to do it as a step-by-step thing where 5* exclusive goes to 4-5* and 4-5* goes to 3-4*, but the 4-5* pool is now absolutely tiny so it's not a trick they can repeat anytime soon. Maybe in another 14 months?

EDIT: And Fury fodder is going to be a nightmare to get now, ugh.

Edited April 10, 2018 by Humanoid

[eclipse]

It's a good first step IMO.  The second step is to reduce the older 5* exclusive units down to 4-5.

[Vince777]

I feel like such a Debbie Downer considering so many people wanted this but.... I was disappointed that no 5* exclusives were demoted.

All of the units that were demoted I already own so it gives me no real access to new units to play with.  :(

(also, Soleil is the only 4* I don't have and she was amongst the few not to drop)

 

 

Edited April 10, 2018 by Vince777

[Shiki]

To be fair most Gacha games have an inflated 5* (or SSR) pool so that isn't too surprising really. The fact that they actually dropped all the previous 4*-5* is pretty amazing by itself because it adds more variety to your low-rarity pulls (be it for the better or the worse).

Only Red is truly oversaturated by questionable choices (Saber or Luke to name examples) the other colors really have 1-2 candidates at most (Blue Hinoka maybe, Green Sonya or Julia, Colorless Mist).

[Raven]

I honestly think that some exclusive 5* units will eventually drop down to the 4-5* pool. However, I think it will take another year before anything like that happens.

Either way. This is pretty much what so many people have wanted for going on half a year, now. No more being pitybroken by such undesirable units such as Fae and Hawkeye for me. The green 5* exclusive pool is pure sex.

It's just a shame that shit like Mist and Faye remain up in the 5* exclusive zone and are still able to pitybreak me outside of legendary banner summons. Colourless hell is still a thing, it seems.

[THE underdog]

It's a start I guess. 5* exclusives demoted to the  4-5* pool should be the next logical step.

[NekoKnight]

1 hour ago, Zeratul said:

To be fair most Gacha games have an inflated 5* (or SSR) pool so that isn't too surprising really. The fact that they actually dropped all the previous 4*-5* is pretty amazing by itself because it adds more variety to your low-rarity pulls (be it for the better or the worse).

Only Red is truly oversaturated by questionable choices (Saber or Luke to name examples) the other colors really have 1-2 candidates at most (Blue Hinoka maybe, Green Sonya or Julia, Colorless Mist).

I know, FEH is pretty reasonable for F2P as far as Gaccha games go, but they could go further without really sabotaging their business model.

This change increased the availability of a number of units, but as they were all in the 4* pool anyway, you were likely to get at least one copy eventually, anyway. More merges and chances for better natures but no new blood. There are a lot of skills and characters that you're still highly unlikely to get off-banner.

[Kazuya]

They need to make Marth the only 5* so I can finish my Marth.

[Shiki]

4 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

I know, FEH is pretty reasonable for F2P as far as Gaccha games go, but they could go further without really sabotaging their business model.

Besides Red you really can't complain. The potential 5* pity breakers are now actually amazing. If anything it would be quite unreasonable to demand some major downgrades from that pool. This is still far better than other Gachas like FGO where certain spooks are going to make you really salty.

Spoiler

Red:
- Saber (completely unimpressive both stats and skill wise)
- Gray (makes the Zanbato more accessible; I don't see Valor skills as a reason to be locked at 5*)
- Karel (pretty mediocre and doesn't even have anything outstanding on him)
- Luke (pretty standard Sword Cavalier really; Panic Ploy was given out for free with Valter)
- Sanaki (does nothing really; Lilina can be merged easier and has now a better personal tome)
- Leo (with Eirika being here with much better stats and base skills, I think Leo can move down)

Blue:
- Hinoka (there are better Fliers like Cordelia and Tana, plus Hone Fliers really should be made more accessible with the rising tendecy of class-specific challenges)

Green:
- Sonya (considering her stat line is rather mediocre and Dark Excalibur not being that relevant, she is the most likely green to drop)

Colorless:
- Faye (pretty bad; only Firesweep Bow is worth mentioning which is obviously meta-defining on Brave Lyn)
- Mist (pretty bad as well)

These are the only ones I would reasonably see if they decide to shrink the 5* exclusive pool. That's not a lot and until it starts to inflate again to the level before this update (which takes at least a year) you're making this issue far bigger than it seems.

Edited April 10, 2018 by Zeratul

[Ice Dragon]

3 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

There are a lot of skills and characters that you're still highly unlikely to get off-banner.

Which is exactly the point. That's exactly how the 5-star pool works.

The probability of getting any one specific 5-star-exclusive character is so abysmally small that there is never a point in pulling for the character off-banner. The entire point of the 5-star pool is to make focus banners be the primary means of obtaining the character.

The more characters remain 5-star exclusive, the less diluted the rest of the summoning pool is. Currently, you have a higher chance of obtaining a specific focus character on a 4-character banner than you have of obtaining a specific 4-star character (ignoring 3-star versions of the character).

 

The biggest change resulting from this update is the fact that a lot of skills are now more available (Triangle Adept, Death Blow, etc.) at the cost of a lot of the skills previously easily obtainable from the 3-star pool (Fury, Desperation, etc.) now being much harder to obtain.

[XRay]

5 hours ago, Raven said:

Faye remain up in the 5* exclusive zone

To be fair, Firesweep Bow is pretty powerful, so I can imagine them wanting to limit its availability.

[Sire]

Using this visual guide as a reference, I can say I am mostly content with the 5* summoning pool. Yes, it will no doubt grow with time, but if FEH is willing to do mass demotions every so often, the 3* and 4* pools will also grow with it. I'm sure at some point there may be more specific banners such as "Heroes from Elibe" that only allows Elibean characters to be summoned, which may make it easier to get a desired character. (Actually, I may send that in as a feedback post. They have been addressing most of my complaints in the feedback I send out...)

While I can see the argument for demoting some 5* exclusive heroes like Lucina, Hector, and Elise since they have been 5* exclusives from the start, I believe they remain at 5* status because of their popularity and story importance. There has to be something in the 5* pool to strive for. While there does exist characters with story importance with lower rarity (Eliwood, Chrom, Robin, Erika), they may not be as popular as other characters (or are just demoted so some "famous characters" are easier to obtain).

However, some other units I believe are locked to 5* solely due to their skills and being relatively new, such as Luke, Dorcas, Nephenee, and Genny. While it does suck and I personally wish they were more available, maybe IS is not ready to open the floodgates by making these skills widespread. Alternatively, they may be kept back to fish for the more "gameplay-oriented" whale who focuses more on efficiency instead of favorites.

[Reiska]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Which is exactly the point. That's exactly how the 5-star pool works.

The probability of getting any one specific 5-star-exclusive character is so abysmally small that there is never a point in pulling for the character off-banner. The entire point of the 5-star pool is to make focus banners be the primary means of obtaining the character.

Which of course becomes a problem when the character never appears on-banner, like Young Tiki or Linde.

Anyway, I kind of suspect that a pattern is going to develop.  It was not lost on me that every unit just dropped from 4-5* into 3-4* was a Book I release, and the five characters that dropped into 4-5* since Book II started stayed there.

I wouldn't be shocked if around the start of Book III, we saw Book I's 5* exclusive units drop into the 4-5* pool at the same time Book II's 4-5* units drop into 3-4*.  One predicts that by that point, old units like Linde and Young Tiki would no longer be able to reliably drive sales due to power creep.

[Stroud]

Athena 3*? 
Yay, I'm damn happy about that. 

[Othin]

12 minutes ago, Sire said:

Using this visual guide as a reference, I can say I am mostly content with the 5* summoning pool.

Looks like my current odds of an off-focus 5* being a 5* exclusive I don't have yet are:

Red: 17/27

Blue: 8/17

Green: 3/11

Colorless: 5/9

Neat. Looks like going for green so often has been catching up with me, but the others are pretty solid.

[r_n]

It's a shame none of the 5* exclusives didnt get demoted to 4-5*, but I'm content with thinning out the 5* pool in general. And also seeing more than the usual suspects in the 3 star pool. So nice and clean! Basically every 5* green pity breaker is great aside from like Julia, and even then a multimerge julia is fine.

 

I'm actually surprised they demote all but 5 of the 4-5* pool. I figured if a demotion purge ever happened it'd be like half tops

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, Reiska said:

Which of course becomes a problem when the character never appears on-banner, like Young Tiki or Linde.

Both of whom have appeared on banners other than their release banner before, Tiki as recently as October.

Linde is currently the 5-star exclusive character that has been without a banner the longest, last appearing in May, though on two separate banners that month.

Luke is currently the 5-star exclusive character that has been without a banner other than their release banner the longest, being released in June and having had no second banner.

Honestly, it's only really a problem if you're a collector and you're impatient. Most of what Linde can do can be done just as well by Delthea or Tailtiu. Luke's Panic Ploy is available from Valter and Zelgius, and his stat spread is outdone by Sigurd and Chrom.

 

But, at least all of them have at least been possible to summon in the mean time, even if their rates have been abysmal. In Fate/Grand Order, Jeanne Alter went 14 months without being in the summoning pool at all (excluding the New Year grab bags because you are only allowed one pull from them).

[BaronKrause]

I love this change, simultaneously removing most of the garbage pity breakers and making it easier to get duplicates of units like Camilla/Cordelia.

 

Also 3* Fortify Fliers fodder.

Edited April 10, 2018 by BaronKrause

[Hilda]

I am not sure why some of the old units remain 5 star exclusives.

Best examples:
Karel (wry?!?)
Azura
Celica
Julia
Linde
Eldigan
Ephraim
Gray
Hinoka
Ike (Regular)
Jaffar
Lucina
Luke
Lyn
Minerva
Olwen
Saber
Takumi
 

Imho i believe those should be demoted to 4 Star rarity and the Legendary heroes should be pushed into the regular 5 Star pool. But thats just my opinion imho.

The new demotion doesnt do shit for the problem we have with the bloated 5 Star pool

[Lushen]

3 minutes ago, Hilda said:

I am not sure why some of the old units remain 5 star exclusives.

snip

Imho i believe those should be demoted to 4 Star rarity and the Legendary heroes should be pushed into the regular 5 Star pool. But thats just my opinion imho.

The new demotion doesnt do shit for the problem we have with the bloated 5 Star pool

They didnt demote any units that are only available as 5*s yet.  They might do that in a future update but for this one they only wanted to modify the ones who were available in either 4* or 5* variant.

Would love to see a 4* innes though at some point.

Edited April 10, 2018 by Lushen

[Reiska]

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Honestly, it's only really a problem if you're a collector and you're impatient. Most of what Linde can do can be done just as well by Delthea or Tailtiu. Luke's Panic Ploy is available from Valter and Zelgius, and his stat spread is outdone by Sigurd and Chrom.

Or if you want to be able to use one of those characters in high arena tiers (although, in fairness, using any 5* exclusive character in high arena tiers is a fool's errand unless you're putting significant amounts of money into the game). 

Young Tiki's actually the only character I can think of who is 5* exclusive and has a niche not easily replicable by some other character of lower rarity, though.

Honestly the change I want to see more than a thinning of the 5* exclusive pool is periodic resets for GHB rewards.  They don't have to be that frequent, every 3 months wuold be sufficient I think, but there should be more copies of GHB units given out in general, whether for merge access or so that they can more comfortably be used for skill inheritance.  It's frankly absurd that someone who starts the game now can only ever get four copies of B Tomebreaker on their account, and never any more, for instance.

[Othin]

10 minutes ago, Reiska said:

Honestly the change I want to see more than a thinning of the 5* exclusive pool is periodic resets for GHB rewards.  They don't have to be that frequent, every 3 months wuold be sufficient I think, but there should be more copies of GHB units given out in general, whether for merge access or so that they can more comfortably be used for skill inheritance.  It's frankly absurd that someone who starts the game now can only ever get four copies of B Tomebreaker on their account, and never any more, for instance.

They can release more copies of the GHB units without doing that. All they need to do is release more quests for the GHBs already in the daily rotation, that include more copies of the characters in question. And I'm sure they'll eventually do exactly that. The daily rotation only started two months ago, after all.

That said, I'm surprised they still haven't made any GHB/TT banners, to offer limited-time chances to summon extra copies of those units. Seems like free money.

[BANRYU]

I'm of a mind with what Eclipse said, basically. Here's hoping some folks get demoted down to the 3/4 pool when banners end instead of merely 4/5 from here on out. 

Some skills remaining 'premium content' does make sense to me, stuff like Swift Sparrow remaining 5* locked DOES make sense to me since it's so powerful, although I do wish that folks like Faye would get a drop since like we have the other Firesweep weapons available at 4*....

[XRay]

1 minute ago, BANRYU said:

I'm of a mind with what Eclipse said, basically. Here's hoping some folks get demoted down to the 3/4 pool when banners end instead of merely 4/5 from here on out. 

Some skills remaining 'premium content' does make sense to me, stuff like Swift Sparrow remaining 5* locked DOES make sense to me since it's so powerful, although I do wish that folks like Faye would get a drop since like we have the other Firesweep weapons available at 4*....

If any Firesweep Weapon is getting 5* locked, it is going to be Firesweep Bow. Firesweep Bow is vastly superior to Firesweep S/L/A because it can attack from a distance AND it is usually colorless (at least for now).

Attacking from range is vastly superior to attacking in melee as the nuke gets to utilize the terrain better, as well as running a lower risk of over extension as the nuke is farther away from enemies and closer to their own allies. If ranged units and melee units had the same scoring potential, there would be little reason to use melee units.

Colorless is the best offensive color because the nuke is not cockblocked by the triangle, except for the rare Raven mage. Dealing consistent damage across all units is much better than dealing variable damage, which makes a nuke unreliable.