New Heroes: Kitsune and Wolfskin

[Fabulously Olivier]

I actually really like what they've done with Panne. She's beautiful and has great fodder. She seems useful.

 

I probably won't be using her because I have too many ongoing merge projects (Reinhardt needs one more merge, Lon'qu needs 4 more, Michalis needs 3 more, Naesala and Reyson need 10 more each), but I'm glad to see another strong cavalry unit.

[bottlegnomes]

23 minutes ago, XRay said:

I would run Brazen Atk/Def over Heavy Blade since Brazen Atk/Def is a guaranteed +14 damage whereas Moonbow only does 14 damage or more if the opponent's Def is 47 or higher. Moonbow-Heavy Blade also does not work against units with skills with Guard effect.

Unless you are going for Vantage, I am not sure going Distant Counter is a good idea since his Res is so low.

Vantage was in the set I listed. HB is for the +10 special damage. With it, the enemy only needs 13 defense to match the 14 of a brazen and it has the advantage of no HP threshold. Being a space away is a lot safer to guarantee than being under 80% HP.

 

7 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

You're looking at Kaden's weapon's description.

Selkie's just says "grants bonus to Atk/Spd/Def/Res = 50% of difference between stats. (Maximum bonus of +8 to each stat.)" which is still wrong since it should be "grants bonus to Atk/Spd/Def/Res = 50% of difference in Res. (Maximum bonus of +8.)", but doesn't explicitly say that each stat is calculated separately.

Ahhhhh.

[Stroud]

34 minutes ago, XRay said:

Unless you are going for Vantage, I am not sure going Distant Counter is a good idea since his Res is so low.

Without questioning. And I think its a waste for me to give him DC and changing Special Spiral to Vantage anyway.

I wish they would change Fireboost and just make it a reversed brazen (It is weaker anyway). Fireboost depending on Enemies HP just feels horrible if almost all PvE content tells us to not even think about using Fireboost. Even AoE setups don't make much use of Fireboost, because it being a combat buff weakens the AoE compared to other choices like LaD and Fury. Only Situation it would help may be against units with TA to guarantee 1 damage in combat.

But so far I like Sol on him, just need to push his attack a bit more. 

Edited February 20, 2019 by Stroud

[Gregster101]

 

These were my pulls from the banner. Velouria is neutral, while Selkie is +Def, -Atk. Velouria is definitely going on my beast team since I could use a colorless beast, though Selkie is pretty shit

[XRay]

10 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

Vantage was in the set I listed. HB is for the +10 special damage. With it, the enemy only needs 13 defense to match the 14 of a brazen and it has the advantage of no HP threshold. Being a space away is a lot safer to guarantee than being under 80% HP.

But if you are going with Vantage, Brazens will always be active once in Vantage range, and first round performance usually is not what Vantage units care about. I guess you can try to go for the +10 damage with Heavy Blade, but Heavy Blade has a reliability issue as it would not always activate. Keaton's Atk is high for a Brave unit, but it is only on par at best with regular units since plenty of units are approaching 60 Atk or above.

While I am not sure how frequent enemies out there in PvP run skills like Special Fighter or Guard, there are enough enemies in the Hard List that runs those skills that make Moonbow-Heavy Blade to perform worse than Brazen Atk/Def against the Hard List set up.

Challenger List:

Spoiler

CHALLENGER LIST  
Keaton (5*+10 +atk)  
Weapon: Wolfskin Fang  
Special: Moonbow  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Vantage 3  
C: Beast Valor 3  
S: Heavy Blade 3  
 
Keaton (5*+10 +atk)  
Weapon: Wolfskin Fang  
Special: Moonbow  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Vantage 3  
C: Beast Valor 3  
S: Brazen Atk Def 3 

 

[Hawkwing]

5 hours ago, redlight said:

  Hide contents

Ugh. The script for Panne's voice lines is so shit. Basically "I am a rabbit. I do rabbit things and eat rabbit food". I understand some games withing the 3DS era tried to have character gimmicks, but there had to be something more than this shit. Like 50+ supports and nothing of value?

 

Panne has a small running gag of liking carrots, but it's hardly a focal point of her character. Heck, about the only time it had a focus in supports was with Robin, and even then it was alongside the joke about Robins bad cooking skills. I'd actually call Panne one of the less "gimmicky" characters in the game, but that's just me.

I'm disappointed yet not surprised that her lines are lackluster. A lot of Awakenings characters were reliant (perhaps overly so) on supports rounding them out belong their initial "gimmick". In a game like heroes, which has hundreds of characters to keep track of and where not all of them can be fleshed out, I can understand why IS sometimes clinged to the most noticeable thing about a character in an attempt to compensate for not being able to go in-depth with the writing. I'll have to read Panne's quotes myself before I can make a proper judgement, though.

Out of question, did Panne's mention any details of the taguel at all? Even if the implementation was crap, they still do have a decent amount of interesting worldbuilding that had some genuine thought put into it. I'm curious as to whether or not the writers of Heroes actually remembered the details they created about the taguel nearly 5 years ago.

[Kaden]

42 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

Out of question, did Panne's mention any details of the taguel at all? Even if the implementation was crap, they still do have a decent amount of interesting worldbuilding that had some genuine thought put into it. I'm curious as to whether or not the writers of Heroes actually remembered the details they created about the taguel nearly 5 years ago.

She has a few castle dialogue talking about taguel, but none of it stands out: https://feheroes.gamepedia.com/Panne:_Proud_Taguel/Quotes. It's her poke quotes that don't talk about taguel other than basic stuff like taguel transform into rabbits and they have good hearing. That said, her poke quotes makes me think that Panne is post-Awakening Panne who's grown to be more friendlier with people in general and not as much of a grumpy rabbit or guarded person as she was before and during Awakening. Her summoning and some of her other quotes do hint at her still being cautious around humans.

As for carrots, I want a future dagger or lance Panne.

Something else that I don't know if it was mentioned is that just like in Awakening, Panne doesn't have Galeforce in Heroes. In Awakening, it was because she couldn't reclass into a pegasus knight while in Heroes, they simply chose not to give her Galeforce for her default skills. The reason why I mention this is that people have been thinking that Panne could run a Galeforce build very well because of how her weapon works. The Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3 boost is like a Spectrum Bond that works only with beasts and dragons or a Spectrum Solo. While Atk/Spd Solo and all the other Solo skills are locked to 5* units and only Atk/Res Solo is in the regular summoning pool, she can get a significant boost to her stats, especially attack for Heavy Blade to work, when not adjacent to any ally which would be fairly easy since she has cavalry movement. Cavalry movement beasts also inflict Atk/Def-4 when transformed and they initiate combat giving her more leeway with Heavy Blade. The problem of course is Panne's 29 base attack. By default, she can reach 48 attack with all the effects active which isn't that great. With the Atk/Def-4 debuff when initiating, her attack would be treated as if it were 52 attack which is comparable to =Atk Eliwood and =Atk brave Roy with just Blazing Durandal; Eliwood would have 50 attack and Roy would have 51 attack. She'd be very dependent on attack boosts of any kind to run a Heavy Blade, Galeforce build, but she could work it.

Edit: For those who actually want to try out a Galeforce Panne, you I suggest waiting until the March update which increases the amount of skills you can inherit from 3 to 4. From a 5* Cordelia as Galeforce is a 5*-only skill currently, you'd be able to get Galeforce and T-Adept 3 or Pass 3 as Panne already has Astra. It's up to you if you want those skills, but keep in mind that Panne is a cavalry unit and Pass can be used very well by them and other units who can have 3 movement like the bird laguz. From the other default Galeforce units, Death Blow 4 only if you inherit Death Blow 1 from someone like a 3* Hawkeye or Atk Tactic 3 from brave Celica, Defiant Spd 3 or Spur Spd 3 from Lyn, and Steady Blow 2 or Desperation 3 from brave Roy

Edited February 20, 2019 by Kaden

[TheWildestCat]

Can't wait to get ONE of these, but the orb curse hit me again where the color I want never is in the summon session EVER. 

[Hilda]

6 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

in-combat bonus to all stats is equal to Selkie's Res minus the opponent's Res, divided by 2.

sounds nice, but i think Selkie is very underwhelming. Yes she will shred prolly any low Res melee and mage into pieces but... She will have a tough time bumping her RES high enough for Armorers. I dont see a problem against Dragons because her high Res gives her an advantage allready. Due to her low Atk stat she might even struggle against Very high Def low RES units like Lukas. Lucky for her, her transformed form gives her enough bulk for one attack because the enemy cant double unless they run Null-Follow up, which is still a very rare skill, but whats the point for attacking when you cant kill the Enemy right away, use another Teammate. And her Enemy phase is non existent ecxept against Mages and Dragons, because she can get doubled in Enemy phase. In that regard i think Selkie is very underwhelming.

Now her Father is another story. In the right Teamsetup he is a fantastic support unit.

[bottlegnomes]

4 hours ago, XRay said:

But if you are going with Vantage, Brazens will always be active once in Vantage range, and first round performance usually is not what Vantage units care about. I guess you can try to go for the +10 damage with Heavy Blade, but Heavy Blade has a reliability issue as it would not always activate. Keaton's Atk is high for a Brave unit, but it is only on par at best with regular units since plenty of units are approaching 60 Atk or above.

While I am not sure how frequent enemies out there in PvP run skills like Special Fighter or Guard, there are enough enemies in the Hard List that runs those skills that make Moonbow-Heavy Blade to perform worse than Brazen Atk/Def against the Hard List set up.

Challenger List:

  Reveal hidden contents

CHALLENGER LIST  
Keaton (5*+10 +atk)  
Weapon: Wolfskin Fang  
Special: Moonbow  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Vantage 3  
C: Beast Valor 3  
S: Heavy Blade 3  
 
Keaton (5*+10 +atk)  
Weapon: Wolfskin Fang  
Special: Moonbow  
A: Distant Counter  
B: Vantage 3  
C: Beast Valor 3  
S: Brazen Atk Def 3 

 

By 3 kills. It's 190/52/6 versus 187/57/4. (Tier list buffs on the enemies and Keaton gets +6 attack/def buffs.)

If you look at other health/phase combos it goes:

• Over threshold EP both:       159/77/12
• Over threshold PP Brazen:   170/56/22
• Over threshold PP HB:          195/39/14
• Under threshold PP Brazen: 195/46/7
• Under threshold PP HB:        195/47/6

And no, the point of vantage for him is not about get me under this threshold and then let me do stuff. It's about even if I'm under this threshold I'll still ruin your day. He shouldn't be sacking first round combat by that much just because his vantage combat is ever so slightly better.

 

42 minutes ago, Hilda said:

sounds nice, but i think Selkie is very underwhelming. Yes she will shred prolly any low Res melee and mage into pieces but... She will have a tough time bumping her RES high enough for Armorers. I dont see a problem against Dragons because her high Res gives her an advantage allready. Due to her low Atk stat she might even struggle against Very high Def low RES units like Lukas. Lucky for her, her transformed form gives her enough bulk for one attack because the enemy cant double unless they run Null-Follow up, which is still a very rare skill, but whats the point for attacking when you cant kill the Enemy right away, use another Teammate. And her Enemy phase is non existent ecxept against Mages and Dragons, because she can get doubled in Enemy phase. In that regard i think Selkie is very underwhelming.

Now her Father is another story. In the right Teamsetup he is a fantastic support unit.

It's not too terrible. Neutral, she'll have essentially 49 attack pre-buffs, which isn't astounding, but it's not terrible. Karla has 51 for reference. Granted Karla's position is a fair bit easier to get max buffs, spd <= 30 versus res <= 22 factoring in no other skills.

Now Attack/Speed bond on a cav with low-ass defense, great speed, and a weapon that neutralizes follow-ups on PP? That shit I don't get at all. She would've been the perfect candidate for attack/res solo.

[Landmaster]

Got 2 -Atk Keatons, merged him, and he's ready to go!~

[XRay]

8 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

By 3 kills. It's 190/52/6 versus 187/57/4. (Tier list buffs on the enemies and Keaton gets +6 attack/def buffs.)

I do Full Emblem buffs on both sides since Full Emblem should be the most common buff type with so many VS!Azuras around.

With 6/6/6/6 on both sides, Heavy Blade performs significantly worse:

1 HP Heavy Blade 140:108:0
1 HP Brazen Atk/Def 174:74:0

8 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

And no, the point of vantage for him is not about get me under this threshold and then let me do stuff. It's about even if I'm under this threshold I'll still ruin your day. He shouldn't be sacking first round combat by that much just because his vantage combat is ever so slightly better.

But if you are prioritizing first round combat, then there is no point in giving him Distant Counter-Vantage. He does not have the bulk to handle magic attacks so Distant Counter is not going to save him against mages, and Vantage contributes nothing to first round performance.

In Tier 20 and below in Aether Raids, getting into Vantage range is generally super easy due to how poorly placed a lot of Bolt Traps are and how often they are upgraded.

[bottlegnomes]

2 hours ago, XRay said:

I do Full Emblem buffs on both sides since Full Emblem should be the most common buff type with so many VS!Azuras around.

With 6/6/6/6 on both sides, Heavy Blade performs significantly worse:

1 HP Heavy Blade 140:108:0
1 HP Brazen Atk/Def 174:74:0

You're not checking the transform box. With it, same setup:

HB: 174/74/0

Brazen: 184/64/0

Which is a little more significant, but still not as much as the first phase difference.

 

2 hours ago, XRay said:

But if you are prioritizing first round combat, then there is no point in giving him Distant Counter-Vantage. He does not have the bulk to handle magic attacks so Distant Counter is not going to save him against mages, and Vantage contributes nothing to first round performance.

You're missing the point of the set entirely. It's not about prioritizing one phase. It's about maximizing overall performance. He gets somewhat better vantage performance with brazen for a larger drop in first engagement performance. Mages need to OHKO him (takes 64 attack) or they die on the counter on first phase, and after that, vantage keeps him safe.

If you want to prioritize one phase or type of enemy over the other, then of course there are better sets, but this is basically why people run DC on Hector when he performs better with double brazens once he's in wrath range.

Edited February 21, 2019 by bottlegnomes

[Hawkwing]

22 hours ago, Kaden said:

She has a few castle dialogue talking about taguel, but none of it stands out: https://feheroes.gamepedia.com/Panne:_Proud_Taguel/Quotes. It's her poke quotes that don't talk about taguel other than basic stuff like taguel transform into rabbits and they have good hearing. That said, her poke quotes makes me think that Panne is post-Awakening Panne who's grown to be more friendlier with people in general and not as much of a grumpy rabbit or guarded person as she was before and during Awakening. Her summoning and some of her other quotes do hint at her still being cautious around humans.

Thanks for sharing the link. Panne's dialogue is simple, but I'm not surprised about that, given that Heroes doesn't have the luxury of being able to insert supports. I did notice that they seemed to play up the joke about her being ignorant of human customs. I also agree that it appears to be post-Awakening Panne. That might explain why her Heroes artwork doesn't look as jaded or grumpy as she does in Awakening.

I have a hard time telling whether or not it's the same voice actor when listening to to her quotes, though. Granted, I haven't played Awakening in a few months, but something just sounds off to me.

22 hours ago, Kaden said:

As for carrots, I want a future dagger or lance Panne.

I did not know I wanted this. Maybe in a few months time, we'll see if beast alts will be a thing? I ask for Kaden or Selkie to have a trampoline attack. Don't care if it's an old meme, it's so ridiculous I want to seem them make it work.

[Alastor15243]

So, this has been nagging at me... any idea why the stoneshifters seem to constantly be t-posing?

[Jingle Jangle]

I know the possibility is slim, but please let Velouria demote. I need to collect more copies for her.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Jingle Jangle

[Diovani Bressan]

I still believe Kaden will be the demoted one, which will make me happy. I really enjoyed his style, and he works pretty well with Panne, unit that I plan to invest only if Kaden gets demoted.

[Usana]

Guh. . . well thats that. Looks like the only one I got out of this was Kaden. Which is fine and all. I like him as a character. But he was not one of the ones I really wanted to play with gameplay wise. Plus he is -ATK/+DEF so that ain't great either.

 

This banner is a good reminder of why I am feeling burned out a bit lately though. I did get 5 5*s off this banner. Kaden, Karel, Katarina, Veronica, Veronica. Of course the ones I wanted to play with were dual phase brave and Velouria's weapon. Instead I get dupes of folks I already have. Not even new assets for the most part(all my Veronicas are +ATK for example). Basically as of late I have never been getting the units I want to play with, just uninteresting dupes that lack interesting fodder. So I get bored and lose interest.

 

Well that is enough griping at least I got Kaden for collection purposes. He is probably the coolest of them. So I won the personality lottery if not the gameplay one! Plus Panne is free and that is great.

Edited March 7, 2019 by Usana

[Thane]

11 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

I still believe Kaden will be the demoted one, which will make me happy. I really enjoyed his style, and he works pretty well with Panne, unit that I plan to invest only if Kaden gets demoted.

It'll be interesting to see for sure. I kind of hope it's Velouria since she'd make for a more fun merge project (for me personally) and we just got a green beast demote, but I believe you're right.

[Diovani Bressan]

1 minute ago, Thane said:

It'll be interesting to see for sure. I kind of hope it's Velouria since she'd make for a more fun merge project (for me personally) and we just got a green beast demote, but I believe you're right.

Yesterday, I would say that Velouria wouldn't be demoted because she would be a high BST infantry unit on the 4-star pool (168 BST), but then, with the Version 3.3 update, we got Rutger, the next GHB unit, which has 168 BST.

Velouria has a quite powerful weapon (Special Cooldown-2 to unit and support partner is pretty good, especially if her support partner is a unit who has Special Spiral or Galeforce), useful A-Skill and C-Skill. Kaden has a weapon which is a supportive weapon and don't give him any other bonus unless he is transformed, and meh B-Skill, which I believe is the weakest of the Link Skills, and Goad Beast, which is as useful as Velouria's Ward Beast. Of course we can be surprised tomorrow, like what happened with Ares and Lene last year, which I thought the dancer would be the demoted one but instead we got the demotion of a great Cavalry Sword unit, with a Weapon with Cooldown reduction and Special Spiral, and Brazen Atk/Def 3 at 4-stars.

About Kaden... For my Kaden, I gave him Fortify Cavalry and Atk/Spd Link, and for Panne I gave her Fortify Cavalry. Kaden and Panne buuf each other's Def and Res with Fortify, and Kaden uses Swap to buff both Atk and Spd, which results in +8 to Kaden and +14 to Panne, because they have ally support.

[Ice Dragon]

I still hope Kaden demotes so I can turn him into a +10 Drive bot for Winter Fae. I'm this close to giving him Distant Guard from my spare Laegjarn.

[Denomon]

It took me about 300 orbs to get Selkie. As a fairly casual FEH player, that is more than I've ever spent on a banner.

Her IV is +HP, -DEF. I'm not sure how good that IV is considered to be, but I'm glad to have her at all! She's definitely going to be my new blue unit.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Denomon3144

[Nowi's Husband]

Sure am glad I pulled for Kaden and Selkie now that no one demoted. 

[Florete]

So no one demotes. That's a really bad sign for the future. This is the first time we've gotten no demotes from a basic new heroes banner*, and at a time when we've been practically screaming at IS to reduce the bloated 5* pool. Thea still looks like an obvious demote from the current banner to me, but now we can't even be sure if we'll get demotes on these banners in the future.

*Does not include alt banners (Fallen, Adrift), OC banners, or Brave banners (Farfetched/Redux included).

[Nanima]

I am honestly pretty mad about this. I understand that beasts are the new shiny thing, but they already set a precedent for demoting one. If they really wanted to declare beasts off limits, they shouldn't have demoted Reyson and given us reason to expect beast demotions in general (obviously I am glad they did, it's just the principle that's stupid). With how terrible the drop rate has been, the pool has never been in worse shape. This combined with the previous demotion just makes Intsys look cartoonishly greedy. I am seriously considering sending them feedback in my garbled Japanese, and hope something gets through. Seriously, this is one of the most egregiously bad moves they've done in a while.