Book 1 5*s will still be summonable on most focus circles

[Diovani Bressan]

6 minutes ago, mcsilas said:

@Diovani Bressan I think you mean Shiro as the Lance unit and not Siegbert.

Colourless has a pretty fair pool left, with probably Nina being the most unwanted depending on who you have. At least this will make getting the new colourless beasts easier, but seeing things like Gaius and 1st gen healers with little skill value still makes me wary to pull colourless a lot.

5 star blue mage pool looks pretty awesome though. Also funny how there are no more 5 star infantry red tomes...and there are only 2 left, both being non-canon alts.

Yeah. I copied and pasted the red column and forgot to change the first one. I already corrected it.

Colorless looks pretty good. I agree with you about Nina. I am glad that a lot of bad units cannot pity broke us anymore. I got pretty mad when I got OG Lucina in the Brave Heroes Banner and when I got Elise trying to get Halloween Mia.

IntSys should slowly add some of these units in the 4★ Pool. At least the ones with skill that cannot be found in others units, like Faye and her Firesweep Bow.

About skills like Close Counter,  maybe new heroes will have these skills in the future. I can see a Valentia''s unit, like Python, having Close Counter because archers can attack in close range in that game, so makes sense for Python to have it.

[Jingle Jangle]

Also I realized when I am finding bride Tharja merges for the rerun next month. I still have a change being broken by that crappy Luke or other mediocre red units. At this point a possible idea is to increase the number of skill banners running at a time. That way it is still possible to have older 5*s without them being a pity breaker.

43 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

What Gen 2 characters do you want to have or improve IVs?

• Owain
• LegMarth
• Swordhardt
• flyingOlivia
• Laegjarn
• Zelgius
• young Summer Tiki
• Flora
• Ophelia
• LegAzura
• LegTiki
• LegLucina
• Rhajat
• mGrima
• Loki
• Maribelle
• Nina

Still a lot of characters granted.

[Baldrick]

4 minutes ago, Jingle Jangle said:

At this point a possible idea is to increase the number of skill banners running at a time. That way it is still possible to have older 5*s without them being a pity breaker.

That's what I would. Being removed from the non-focus pool would make those units seem more appealing than before.

4 minutes ago, Jingle Jangle said:

• Owain
• LegMarth
• Swordhardt
• flyingOlivia
• Laegjarn
• Zelgius
• young Summer Tiki
• Flora
• Ophelia
• LegAzura
• LegTiki
• LegLucina
• Rhajat
• mGrima
• Loki
• Maribelle
• Nina

Still a lot of characters granted.

With the new pool, your chance of a desired pitybreaker has gone from 23/108 to 12/49. Which is a slight improvement.

[bethany81707]

27 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

That's what I would. Being removed from the non-focus pool would make those units seem more appealing than before.

With the new pool, your chance of a desired pitybreaker has gone from 23/108 to 12/49. Which is a slight improvement.

21.3% to 24.49%.

EDIT: I'm not playing, and because I haven't been playing for so long I just have never actually tried for some Book 2/3 units on this list, it might not be accurate to what I would have by now, but I thought I'd give my own a try.

Spoiler

16.67% to 18.37%.

...I wonder which of these units I'd have summoned in the intervening time. A single unit satisfied from the Book 2 pool actually makes it a (slight) loss, but there's still potential for Book 1 satisfactions, too. Hope you had a good ratio, alternate dimension me.

 

Edited April 5, 2019 by bethany81707

[daisy jane]

having slept on it and having a think, i think this is still.. kinda odd.

They are removed from New and Special Foci banner. (as the argument is, it reduces the chance of getting something "ugh" when going for new heroes)
so the argument is - or should be, if they are that bad to warrant removal from a New/Special Foci banner, then why are they not bad enough to demote,  and do the cycle out of other units. (or as i've had said before -"Split Pools" one banner has this half the roster, one banner has the other half, Legendary has the whole crew minus the not focused 5*). 

A lot of people are answering: because they are still popular. 
the argument to that would be - popular enough to have Foci banners of their own?

and that's where you take a pause and have a think, isn't it. some of these units haven't had a banner since last year (Alm for example had his first banner in over a year, last month, and most people didn't even think it would be Alm). Elincia had two in short succession but it was tied to Tellius, and she hadn't had that much for a long period of time. so on and and so forth. Luke, Mist simply haven't had a foci banner at all, several of these units have been skipped their turn on legendaries and except for colourless (which except for Leanne + Velouria) - everything has been repeated. So.... 

Basically, they are stuck in the "hey people want them, but not that much, so we can make a profit, but not that much, and we're still going to create meta defining content which some of these units can't keep up."

And that is where quite frankly IS screwed up. they want to have their cake and eat it to, and both suck because as I've been telling people - a pity break still sucks if it's a unit you have no use for. (Like I get more pissed off when I get pity broken by Zelgius than I ever would have with say Alm, for example. I don't use armours, I don't want to use him and that would make me rage, where as adding an Alm (merge) would always be welcome. and with this decision, Alm's removed and Zelgius remains so ... yay? I get get pity broken by MORE Zelgius and LESS Chance of Alm? (Or Celica? or Ayra?)

or i can summon on a banner for a skill and then still get hosed?(maybe) or a re-run banner of special foci? geee. thank you. 

So i guess for me i'm going to be in the "let's wait and see" mode. maybe these Foci will have more banners.and for some of them i'd summon because I'd like a +10 Elincia thank you very much game) but if they are gone and i'm going to have to summon on older banners, i guess.... i just. become someone who summons less and less until i have a banner that suits my needs, which is basically what i've become anyway - which will become a side effect of this i think

But as Baldrick pointed out  "smaller pool" helps, maybe better for me to channel finally getting pity broken by Flying Olivia (best ivs) please.  - but again it doesn't change the fact that all they did was create other units to piss you off if you did get pity broken. 

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

Kinshi Hinoka
Nina
Maribelle
Brave Veronica
Loki
Mikoto
Leanne
Velouria

No Daggers, nor menfolk.

[Landmaster]

As I mentioned before, as someone who pretty much only Summons on Seasonal Banners and regular Skills Focus Banners, this doesn't bother me. On a Seasonal Banner, I'm hoping for the new units, not something like Linde or Julia. A lot of people have straight up asked in the past for Seasonals to be like Legendary Heroes with a 0% chance of Summoning a non-focus 5* because of these Book I units being such bad pitybreakers.

I would have vastly preferred demotes without a doubt, but the fact that they still appear on more Banners than they don't (and on Banners that I'd prefer to see them on) is suitable for me. I still want Elise, so knowing I can still get pitybroken potentially by her on the Bride rerun when I try for Lyn is not an issue for me.

[silverserpent]

One thing's for sure on my end, this just convinced me to not bother putting much more money into the game. I'll stick to the monthly orb packs and that's it. Maybe when they realize their cashflow got slowed down, they'll realize the mistake.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

People hardly ever have enough orbs to pull on all the banners going on at once. This change is terrible. Sent very negative feedback about it.

[XRay]

2 hours ago, Stroud said:

What I agree more with is the bloating 3-4* pool. Wish they would also have taken out some units there. It does not get easier to get a certain unit there. 

Some people already did the math in the other thread and the bloat in the 3*-4* pool is not a big deal. You still are more likely to get unit from the 4* pool than to get one from the 5* pool due to how large the percentage of getting 4* units are.

10 hours ago, Seafarer said:

It's even better than that.

Prior to this change, there are/were 109 units available at 3-4*, and 112 units available at 5*. Ignoring 3* (because I'm too lazy to separate out the 3-4* and 4-5* pools):

58/100 * 1/109 = 0.53 % chance for a specific unit.

3/100 * 1/112 = 0.027 % chance for a specific unit.

If they'd dropped the 5* units to the 3-4* pool, there would be 155 units available at 4* and 53 at 5*.

58/100 * 1/155 = 0.37 % chance for a specific unit.

3/100 * 1/53 = 0.057 % chance for a specific unit.

The guy is drastically overstating the difference that increasing the size of the 3-4* pool makes. If it actually was harder to get a specific unit from the 3-4* pool, I'd agree that something should be done about it. But, seriously. *gestures upwards*

10 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

Just looked up the availability of RED heroes to see get more precise rates...

3-4* REDs = 32

5* REDs N/S = 18

5* REDs that were cut from N/S: 20

Probability of summoning specific RED hero from 3-4* pool = 94/100 * 1/32 = 0.029 or 2.9%

Probability of summoning specific RED hero from 5* pool on non new/special banner = 3/100 * 1/38 = 0.00078947368 (0.00157894736 if character is focus) or 0.08% (0.16% focus)

Probability of summoning specific RED hero from 5* pool on New/Special = 3/100 * 1/18 = 0.00166666666 (0.00333333333) or 0.16% (0.33% focus).

Probability of summoning specific RED hero from the omitted list IF they were demoted 3-4* = 94/100 * 1/52 = 0.01807692307 or 1.8%

Just throwing the numbers for an idea of how the odds are impacted with these changes. The case is even stronger against those gen 1 pity-breakers when you consider the powercreep that has been happening and basically doubling the odds of getting more recent REDs such as Tibarn.

 

1 hour ago, Baldrick said:

That's what I would. Being removed from the non-focus pool would make those units seem more appealing than before.

We do not know if they would increase the amount of Foci featuring old units. Based on how little Foci they run in the past, my guess is no for the foreseeable future. They simply could have made all Foci annual like Special Heroes Foci are and that would quieted a lot of complaints if they announced that.

And reducing the supply of units will not cause the demand of those units to increase. With lower supply and higher cost, quantity demanded of those units will drop.

To increase demand, you need to make those units better, so they are actually more desirable. To increase quantity demanded, you need increase supply to cause a price drop or drop prices directly.

[Ice Dragon]

7 hours ago, Othin said:

It's weird, but I don't think it's bad. The fact that we still have the option to access the old summoning pool on secondary banners means there's little downside, just more control available over what we summon, and the new one is generally better anyway.

How often do players actually pull from secondary banners compared to new unit banners?

Based on the data that we do know, new unit banners are the lion's share of the game's income, meaning that these units are effectively gone from the summoning pool, given how absurdly low their summon rate is as a pitybreaker in the diluted secondary summoning pool.

To me, who sees Hector as by far the most valuable unit in the summoning pool, doubling the (abysmally low) pitybreaker summon rate of newer characters does not at all make up for the complete loss of Hector from the normal summoning pool.

Furthermore, many of my merge projects rely on the fact that pitybreakers do happen, so that I will get enough copies of the character eventually, but now that's no longer possible. It was already strained significantly by the fact that the standard 5-star pool doesn't appear on Legendary/Mythic Hero banners, which currently receive half of my orb budget (i.e. the number of pitybreakers I get per month now is half of what it was before Book 2), and now it's just gotten even worse.

Based on my orb budgeting,

• Before Book 2, about 50% of all of my 5-star pulls were pitybreakers.
• After Book 2, 50% of my orb budgeting went to Legendary/Mythic Hero banners, so about 25% of all of my 5-star pulls were pitybreakers.
• Now, 50% of my orb budgeting goes to Legendary/Mythic Hero banners, and on a "good" month, about 25% of my orbs go to secondary banners, so only about 12.5% of all of my 5-star pulls will be pitybreakers from the full pool.
  • By "'good' month", I mean "a month where the primary banners suck enough and the secondary banners are good enough that it's actually worth pulling from the secondary banners at all".

 

3 hours ago, Baldrick said:

With the new pool, your chance of a desired pitybreaker has gone from 23/108 to 12/49. Which is a slight improvement.

A "slight improvement" is meaningless if the improvement is smaller than the variation due to random chance.

I don't have numbers for the exact number of pulls that need to be made for the improvement to be noticeable against the background of random chance, but based on a back-of-the-envelope calculation, it's in the tens or hundreds of thousands, which is in no way feasible by the average player.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[Lewyn]

6 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

Here's the list of 5★ Heroes that can be summoned in New Heroes and Special Heroes Banners:

Siegbert Zelgius Fallen Celica Leif Exalted Chrom Sword Reinhardt Lene Karla Flying Olivia Brave Celica Laevatein Laegjarn Owain Flora Mage Eirika Adrift Camilla Tibarn Keaton

Shiro Fallen Hardin Sumia Brave Hector Quan Ylgr Micaiah Female Morgan Ishtar Ophelia Kliff Adrift Male Corrin Nailah Selkie

Brave Ephraim Helbindi Surtr Rhajat Green Olwen Flying Nino Lewyn Myrrh Male Grima Female Kana Adrift Female Corrin Reyson (*) Kaden

Kinshi Hinoka Nina Maribelle Brave Veronica Loki Mikoto Leanne Velouria

(*) Reyson also appears in the 4★ pool.

Yes we are missing Hector and Takumi who offer valuable fodder, and Sigurd and Ayra, Tana, Elincia are units that are good still and will be missed.  However look at all the garbage that has been sifted out.  We now have a treasure trove of good units.  So when you get that dreaded off focus pity breaker it isn't Mist or Luke or something that makes you want to jump off a cliff, but something worthwhile.  So it feels your orbs weren't flushed down the toilet.  Also how many off focus Hectors have you pulled?  I pulled one Hector on a free pull on his VG banner, and one off focus and I've been playing since the beginning.  Hoping for these few gems in this old unit pool as off focus is crazy.  The chances are ridiculously low to pull a Hector off focus, as is any of those old units in the super bloated pool.  The overall quality improving dramatically insures a much more satisfactory outcome the majority of the time.

I mean look at that green paradise full of powerful dragons, beasts, and tome users along with two of the most powerful armors in the game.  Oh won't someone save me from that colorless harem heaven containing the best flying archer, four awesome staff users, and 2 incredible beasts?  Even blue and red offer mostly excellence.  

We can pull with peace of mind, and have better chance of pulling off focus crazy units/fodder like Tibarn, Nailah, Brave Ephraim, and Veronica.  I mean seriously it could have been handled better but how is this not an improvement?

[Seafarer]

3 hours ago, Lewyn said:

Yes we are missing Hector and Takumi who offer valuable fodder, and Sigurd and Ayra, Tana, Elincia are units that are good still and will be missed.  However look at all the garbage that has been sifted out.  We now have a treasure trove of good units.  So when you get that dreaded off focus pity breaker it isn't Mist or Luke or something that makes you want to jump off a cliff, but something worthwhile.  So it feels your orbs weren't flushed down the toilet.  Also how many off focus Hectors have you pulled?  I pulled one Hector on a free pull on his VG banner, and one off focus and I've been playing since the beginning.  Hoping for these few gems in this old unit pool as off focus is crazy.  The chances are ridiculously low to pull a Hector off focus, as is any of those old units in the super bloated pool.  The overall quality improving dramatically insures a much more satisfactory outcome the majority of the time.

I mean look at that green paradise full of powerful dragons, beasts, and tome users along with two of the most powerful armors in the game.  Oh won't someone save me from that colorless harem heaven containing the best flying archer, four awesome staff users, and 2 incredible beasts?  Even blue and red offer mostly excellence.  

We can pull with peace of mind, and have better chance of pulling off focus crazy units/fodder like Tibarn, Nailah, Brave Ephraim, and Veronica.  I mean seriously it could have been handled better but how is this not an improvement?

I dunno, if I get a third off-focus Sumia, I might want to jump off a cliff. :-/

That aside, Ice Dragon's raised a few whale-perspective objections, and others have offered a collector's perspective (which I agree with - now that Elise isn't a potential random pitybreak, my chances of getting her have gone from pitiful to nonexistent). On the other hand, I'm going to be pulling on a lots of Special Hero Revival banners, so I figure it's not going to be as bad for me as I first feared.

The big reason people are complaining, though, is that this solves only one of the problems frequently raised about summoning. It doesn't do a thing about the fact that most of us have the entire 3-4* pool and have done for a year or more. It doesn't do a thing about the fact that some of us maybe want to summon Lucina or Mist for our collections - well, it does, but it's the wrong thing. And it doesn't do a thing about the fact that Quick Riposte 3 - a launch skill - is still 5* locked, when dropping Leo would have made it far cheaper.

tl;dr: people complaining are largely not comparing the change to how it is now; they're comparing it to what a lot of people thought would be a very reasonable thing to happen.

[Mercakete]

Hmm the bloat issue's an interesting one. Maybe they could add regular banners for old 3-4* units with no 5* focus, and if people want to go for units they don't have there, then they can do that, and then you can remove those units from the banners with a 5* focus. Also, it could be 1 orb for a full wheel on these regular banners with guaranteed no 5* units. Kinda like a grab bag.

[Sunwoo]

14 minutes ago, Mercakete said:

Hmm the bloat issue's an interesting one. Maybe they could add regular banners for old 3-4* units with no 5* focus, and if people want to go for units they don't have there, then they can do that, and then you can remove those units from the banners with a 5* focus. Also, it could be 1 orb for a full wheel on these regular banners with guaranteed no 5* units. Kinda like a grab bag.

I mean, that was what I was hoping they'd do in the first place. Obviously you don't want to remove them entirely because new players will always be joining and even players who have been around since launch don't have all the copies they want to +10 or even the right nature. The majority of them are also super outclassed, don't have good fodder, and even if certain units are the only ones to give certain skills at 4-star rarity that still doesn't justify them being there for so long and making the summoning pool stale. A separate banner with only the old 3-4 stars with no 5-star units for a lower summon cost would've been perfect.

But nope. They failed to address this really key component of the summoning pool issue.

[daisy jane]

4 hours ago, Lewyn said:

Yes we are missing Hector and Takumi who offer valuable fodder, and Sigurd and Ayra, Tana, Elincia are units that are good still and will be missed.  However look at all the garbage that has been sifted out.  We now have a treasure trove of good units.  So when you get that dreaded off focus pity breaker it isn't Mist or Luke or something that makes you want to jump off a cliff, but something worthwhile.  So it feels your orbs weren't flushed down the toilet.  Also how many off focus Hectors have you pulled?  I pulled one Hector on a free pull on his VG banner, and one off focus and I've been playing since the beginning.  Hoping for these few gems in this old unit pool as off focus is crazy.  The chances are ridiculously low to pull a Hector off focus, as is any of those old units in the super bloated pool.  The overall quality improving dramatically insures a much more satisfactory outcome the majority of the time.

I mean look at that green paradise full of powerful dragons, beasts, and tome users along with two of the most powerful armors in the game.  Oh won't someone save me from that colorless harem heaven containing the best flying archer, four awesome staff users, and 2 incredible beasts?  Even blue and red offer mostly excellence.  

We can pull with peace of mind, and have better chance of pulling off focus crazy units/fodder like Tibarn, Nailah, Brave Ephraim, and Veronica.  I mean seriously it could have been handled better but how is this not an improvement?

okay. so if I hate beasts, and get pity broken by Velouria, why am I going to be any happier, vs. getting pity broken by say a Jaffar? 
If I don't use horses, why I am happier that I have Olwen, vs. say Julia/Deidre (who can kill DRAGONS).

if you don't like them/can't use them regardless if they are 'powerful armours" or "staff" it doesn't change the help it's a suck pity break.

[Baldrick]

Regarding DC, on the old banners you have a 1% chance of being pity broken by Hector, 1% of Nailah. The new banners have 2% chance of Nailah. Null C Disrupt is a pretty good secondary fodder, much better than Goad Armour.

If Legendary banners are the best source of DC then complaints about original Hector are meaningless.

Quote

To increase demand, you need to make those units better, so they are actually more desirable. To increase quantity demanded, you need increase supply to cause a price drop or drop prices directly.

Putting a unit on focus is essentially dropping their price by 99%*. That’s how other instances of inducing scarcity like Seasonals work, I’m surprised they didn’t announcing anything about the frequency of focus banners.

 

*Must spend orbs on their banner. limited time only.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Baldrick

[Nowi's Husband]

New pity breaker pool looks amazing, hardly anything that either has no fodder or I don't want anyway.  Red's probably the only one I would worry about, don't want Swordhardt or Lene.

[Lewyn]

1 hour ago, Seafarer said:

I dunno, if I get a third off-focus Sumia, I might want to jump off a cliff. :-/

That aside, Ice Dragon's raised a few whale-perspective objections, and others have offered a collector's perspective (which I agree with - now that Elise isn't a potential random pitybreak, my chances of getting her have gone from pitiful to nonexistent). On the other hand, I'm going to be pulling on a lots of Special Hero Revival banners, so I figure it's not going to be as bad for me as I first feared.

The big reason people are complaining, though, is that this solves only one of the problems frequently raised about summoning. It doesn't do a thing about the fact that most of us have the entire 3-4* pool and have done for a year or more. It doesn't do a thing about the fact that some of us maybe want to summon Lucina or Mist for our collections - well, it does, but it's the wrong thing. And it doesn't do a thing about the fact that Quick Riposte 3 - a launch skill - is still 5* locked, when dropping Leo would have made it far cheaper.

tl;dr: people complaining are largely not comparing the change to how it is now; they're comparing it to what a lot of people thought would be a very reasonable thing to happen.

Is Sumia the pegasus whisperer that bad?  She is a solid lance flier.  Reprisal lance+, Close defense and a good link skill her fodder isn't bad either.  Yes you are right the 3-4 star pool is super bloated and the good stuff like Fury 3, Desperation 3, Reposition, gets harder and harder to find/get.  They need to clean up the low rarity pool too.  Also yes some are saying it could have been much better, but many are acting like IS made things infinitely worse when for most people this change is going to benefit them immensely.

26 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

okay. so if I hate beasts, and get pity broken by Velouria, why am I going to be any happier, vs. getting pity broken by say a Jaffar? 
If I don't use horses, why I am happier that I have Olwen, vs. say Julia/Deidre (who can kill DRAGONS).

if you don't like them/can't use them regardless if they are 'powerful armours" or "staff" it doesn't change the help it's a suck pity break.

You can't please everyone, however personal tastes aside Velouria does come with close defense, Jaffar comes with...nothing.  Green Olwen comes with Swift sparrow, and G Tome experience, Julia comes with...nothing.  Yes besides the new pool overall being much stronger consisting of good to top tier units, most of them (maybe all haven't looked it all up) have good to fantastic fodder.  So you can hate the unit, unit type or whatever but then it gives you nice fodder you can put on a unit you do like.  That's a big difference, than with the old way you can get a crap unit or a unit you dislike and it also offers you no fodder so that pity break offered you zilch.  It isn't perfect as I said, but most people are going to be much much MUCH happier when they get off focus pity broken than before cause at least it will have some value.  

3 minutes ago, Nowi's Husband said:

New pity breaker pool looks amazing, hardly anything that either has no fodder or I don't want anyway.  Red's probably the only one I would worry about, don't want Swordhardt or Lene.

This person gets it.  Lene has sword valor even.  

[Dr. Tarrasque]

 

37 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

okay. so if I hate beasts, and get pity broken by Velouria, why am I going to be any happier, vs. getting pity broken by say a Jaffar? 

You can keep her as fodder for Close Def 3 which is currently 5* exclusive (or Seal) while Jaffar's best offer is Life and Death 3 which is available in the 4* pool with Sothe.

37 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

If I don't use horses, why I am happier that I have Olwen, vs. say Julia/Deidre (who can kill DRAGONS).

If it's a matter of preference here, the there's nothing to say. If it's a matter of practical usage, Olwen offers better fodder with Swift Sparrow 2 than what Julia and Deirdre offer and Olwen's Thunderhead is still quite good against Dragons and she's also useful against other units and has better speed.

37 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

if you don't like them/can't use them regardless if they are 'powerful armours" or "staff" it doesn't change the help it's a suck pity break.

Skill inheritance invalidates this. A gen 1 with skills that have been power-crept is worse fodder than later unit with more coveted skills. Corrin offers nothing worthwhile if you don't care about him. OG lyn has Defiant ATK and Spur Speed which are power-crept and available from 3-4* pool the list goes on. If you want a specific hero, then yes, it is a shame that they're not available in the new summon banners but as the probability examples shown earlier, you are better off shooting for those in focus banners anyway.

The only real loss in terms of coveted skills are Hector for his Distant Counter but it is now available on a unit that is still in the altered summoning pool (Nailah) as well as Legendary/Mythic Hero summonings. Close Counter on the other hand, needs a new unit for fodder.

Yes being pity broken sucks but the fact is that it isn't as simple as "any pity break I don't want is lousy", that all depends on the player and the metagame. The omissions weren't the best move for the consumers but the benefits of it outweigh the negative. I'm missing out on Alm if I were to summon on new banner and I still think this is an improvement over nothing.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Dr. Tarrasque

[Ice Dragon]

10 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

Regarding DC, on the old banners you have a 1% chance of being pity broken by Hector, 1% of Nailah. The new banners have 2% chance of Nailah. Null C Disrupt is a pretty good secondary fodder.

Regarding Distant Counter, there's Hrid and Legendary Hector who are far more reliable than any pitybreaker and appear as a Focus unit once every few months.

In the meantime, it still means (1) Goad Armor is no longer in the regular summoning pool and (2) I'm definitely never going to be able to merge my Hector.

Unless they significantly increase the rate that the removed characters appear on secondary banners (because with the exception of CYL 1 characters, they pretty much cannot appear on primary banners anymore), they've pretty much just killed off these characters for players that want copies of them.

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Baldrick said:

Putting a unit on focus is essentially dropping their price by 99%*. That’s how other instances of inducing scarcity like Seasonals work, I’m surprised they didn’t announcing anything about the frequency of focus banners.

 

*Must spend orbs on their banner. limited time only.

Until they actually announce they will create more Foci to feature those removed 5* exclusives, I do not believe they will make these Heroes more available through additional Foci because there is no evidence of them doing so.

Special Heroes have a different demand curve. Part of their desirability comes from the fact that they cannot pity break you at all if you are not on their Foci and you have a limited time window to obtain them annually. Lucina and Lyn can still pity break you throughout the year.

[Rezzy]

I keep seeing people say the 3-4* would get too bloated if they added the old 5*s instead of outright removing them, but I don't really agree with that argument.  There are some duds with no SI to offer in the old pool, but there are already plenty like that in the current 3-4* pool, and I think there are enough 5* exclusives with at least something to offer, which really should have been available at 3-4* by now, like QR3, Hone Fliers, etc.  The other thing is that I don't think every 3-4* needs to be great fodder.  At the very least, they are 150-300 feathers, and not every single pull has to be a gem.  Some people just like the unit themselves and don't want to be robbed of at least the chance of getting them.  Est has crap for inheritance, but I'm glad she's 3-4* so I was able to +10 her.  I had been looking forward to this anticipated demotion to get some new +10 projects, like Leo, but instead it made it even harder to +10 units like him.

9 minutes ago, XRay said:

Until they actually announce they will create more Foci to feature those removed 5* exclusives, I do not believe they will make these Heroes more available through additional Foci because there is no evidence of them doing so.

Special Heroes have a different demand curve. Part of their desirability comes from the fact that they cannot pity break you at all if you are not on their Foci and you have a limited time window to obtain them annually. Lucina and Lyn can still pity break you throughout the year.

Maybe they could add the Gen 1 units as obtainable by Grails.  It's not exactly cheap, but at least we'd be able to get them somehow.

[Lord-Zero]

@Ice Dragon Nice essay. 

Good thing I don’t care about any of that “merge project” nonsense. It’s quite simple: if you want something that requires grails for merges or some particular skill fodder, save them up even if it takes months.  Playing for e-sports in this mobage is really quite silly but that’s just me. 

“Sub-optimal” or not, grails are still an option and LA!Eliwood can provide you with Goad Armor if you want it that badly. Just a few months ago, that option wasn’t available. 

[Othin]

Hopefully they'll start featuring the removed characters on 4-5* focus banners, that seems like it'd strike the perfect balance. Although there's been no word on 4-5* banners coming back at all, and they could have started making more (and even having ones with former 5* exclusives) before announcing this in the first place.

Alternatively, maybe they'll make them available as 4* grail units if they think they can squeeze grails even more. (As @Rezzy pointed out while I was typing all this up.)

Even without that, I think this will result in most players being overall happier with the pitybreakers they get, including many people who are complaining about this right now. High-spending players may be an exception, as @Ice Dragon described, but for free or low-spending players, I think this tends to be pretty good even if it looks really unsettling.

Looking things over, including the Binding Blade units, and any units still available at 4-5* going forward (Reyson and probably Thea):

• Full red 5* pool is 39, reduced is 19
• Full blue pool is 26, reduced is 15
• Full green pool is 23, reduced is 15
• Full colorless pool is 16, reduced is 8

Personally, my current odds of getting new units out of the pitybreaker pool are:

• Red: 19/39 full (48.7%), 10/19 reduced (52.6%)
• Blue: 13/26 full (50%), 10/15 reduced (66.7%)
  • Or, more relevantly, if I assume getting Thea at 4* is inevitable, it turns into 12/26 (46.2%) and 9/15 (60%)
• Green: 11/23 full (47.8%), 9/15 reduced (60%)
• Colorless: 8/16 full (50%), 6/8 reduced (75%)

So I'd call that a pretty substantial advantage to the reduced pool for my collection, personally, at least outside of red. Plus, even aside from the odds, the Book 1 pool has a higher fraction of both new and duplicate units I'd consider duds. Like, I'd take any new Book 2-3 red over Gray or Karel and any duplicate Book 2-3 red over a second Luke or Tiki.

Admittedly, those odds may get less favorable for the full pool over time. I'm not sure how big of a shift to expect, though, if any.