A New Legendary Hero Arrives! Celica: Queen of Valentia - Dec. 25th Christmas Day!

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

It is basically a Three Houses banner.

I definitely want Claude and Edelgard. 

Green is perfect since I do not have the other two either, but colourless is great too since Eir and Grima merges are always welcome in my books, and there have been some demotes I have not pulled yet (Mercedes, Norne, Tanya). 

Will hunt for green and colourless. 

Edited December 23, 2019 by Zemuria

[Florete]

Oh, I don't have any of the greens.

[Marquess_Ostia]

Man, really want to say that red is pointless, but that -atk on my Roy hurts so much. 

I probably won't summon much on this banner, though, mostly due to me not caring enough about Celica to try and pull for her. I'm still hoping for Athos or Dheginsea, but they'll probably be Mythics.  

[daisy jane]

21 minutes ago, Landmaster said:

She's excited because her husbando Dimitri is on the Banner~

i honestly am stalking twitter to see if she is saying anything about this. 
as i mentioned the fact that basically the two of them are on the banner just.. brings me great joy. 

[Roflolxp54]

Pulling blue and green.

Blue:
I still don't have an Astral Mythic Hero. Peony copies don't seem too bad. Wouldn't mind 1 or 2 Dimitri for Death Blow 4.

Green:
Wouldn't mind 2 copies of Celica -- one for Swift Sparrow 3. Don't have Thrasir or Edelgard yet.

 

Not fussed about red and don't really have the orbs to throw at colorless.

Celica could be cancerous on AR-D -- her Prf passive is NFU + Desperation 3, meaning attempting to tank her without OHKOing or outspeeding her could very well be a death sentence for the tank unit -- her Prf weapon's damage scales off of her target's Res (which can easily become a problem in Light season when pretty much every AR-O team stacks Res) and with NFU, she could easily tank a hit and start WoM chain shenanigans, which could be combined with a Dance/Sing/Gray Waves/Gentle Dream for a Desperation-secured kill.

[Zeo]

Easy skip. Green is fantastic but I have no strong attachment to any of those characters even if they're borked as units. Plus unlike Altina I feel no strong desire to pull for Celica (or even Thrasir) out of desire for an oppressive unit.

Blue is meh, don't need or want Peony, Dimitri is unecessary and I lack attachement to him. Another Naga would be nice but I risk pulling one of the other two, pass.

Already have Hrid and Ike. Technically there's fodder everywhere with DC and Warding Breath but Warding Breath isn't all that valuable anymore and I don't really need another red infantry sword (does anyone? these days) so Roy's a pass.

Eir's nice, Robin isn't and Claude is a bonus at best.

Fantastically easy banner to skip this month. I'll be going out of this month saving. As always I'm going to do the full circle though. Unless I get something like nothing but blue/colorless. Then I might just pull once and leave. There's something of value in every color, but no color barring green is worth pulling for considering the alternatives in their respective colors.

Zzz...

[Xenomata]

Uh... hm... is it just me, or does Celica seem very... I dunno, normal? Restrained?

Like, she seems strong and effective, don't get me wrong. She like Alm has almost a full Moonbow built into her Prf, and having Desperation and Null Follow-up on the same B slot skill is amazing, but... it's really not anything we haven't seen before, ya know? Peony brought us a new style of dancing and team support, and Altina before her gave us one of the strongest Brave weapon units so far in addition to a solid counter to Brave Ike, but... here it's just the standard Desperation nuke we've all been using since Nino, but made to not be Wary Fightered.

...still strong, just... restrained.

[Alexmender]

More pair up heroes is what I need because AA is that terribad for me. 

Hmm...I still hate Legendary banners (Mythics not so much, seems my luck is better on those even if they're technically the same thing) but Rigain Celica would be sooo nice to have...

Red color is meh. I already have Hrid and Ike while Roy is just powercreep Eirika in practice and that makes me salty. 

Blue is eh, too. Naga is great for those that are looking to do super tank strategies in AR but nothing else, Dimitri is forgive me Dimitri fans fodder and if one wants Peony I think the Thracia banner is the better option.

Colorless is eh. F!Grima is outdated at this point (she's still effective, but in terms of colorless dragons she has nothing on Fallen F!Corn), Claude can be strong but he's very gimmicky, Eir is great as always but she alone isn't enough to carry the color. 

Green is the winner by far. Rigain Celica looks AMAZING (and she seems good as unit, I guess), Edelgard is not my cup of tea but she's pretty effective with GF strats and Thrasir can be quite the pain in AR with her Panic centric kit. 

[Zeo]

@Xenomata Pretty much in full agreement here. She's strong but that's about it. Not super oppressive to me. NullF + Desperation is great but... eh, okay she's destroying WF armors and units like... Death Knight and some other units but it's more of the same. The most unique thing about her is that she'll potentially punch through some RES tanks and her offenses will be amazing of course. As far as units go though she really does feel like more of the same. Not necessarily a must unless you like her. And honestly? Sonya with Special Spiral (Aka Green Ophelia) will likely serve you just as well as a unit.

[SoulWeaver]

Well, on the one hand, Roy. On the other hand, FRICKING HRID. On the one hand, Celica I guess. On the other hand, FRICKING EDELGARD. On the one hand, Grima merges I sorely need and Eir for fodder. On the other hand, FRICKING CLAUDE. Then Blue kind of just sucks. This looks to be a real coin-toss Banner.

[LordFrigid]

Green and Colorless look great, outside of Robin. A tempting banner, to be sure.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I don't have any of the green units, so, that would be the automatic priority if I decided to pull. Celica looks good enough. I have all three of the gray/colorless units, not much interest there. Ike merges are good, Hrid skill fodder is good, and I still gotta get Roy, so, red might be next priority after green. Blue is fine but I don't really care about merging Fairy Lady, and I've done fine without Naga so far. Dimitri is tempting, though.

Green>Red>Blue>Colorless

So, now that we've completed the Gaiden/Echoes protagonist duo, we're ever closer to getting Seliph and/or Sigurd! And Chrom finally getting his due! I want Elincia the most but I suspect she's gonna be waiting for quite a long while. So, here's hoping for one of those other three in February.

[Nanima]

Celica getting a Legendary alt is great. It was only a matter of time really, but I am glad she is finally here. Unfortunately I won't be able to pull for her, because of the company she keeps and my current orb count being compromised.

Red: The worst. I already have all these boys, and while they have good skills, I am not dying for any of them.

Blue: Actually pretty good. I already have Dimitri, but wouldn't say no to more of the boy. More Peony couldn't hurt either, especially if I got one with an Atk Boon. Naga I've been wanting for a while, so great colour for me.

Green: Celica is beautiful and I want her, but I have zero interest in Edelgard aside from maybe as skill fodder, my Thrasir could use a fix for her Spd bane, but it hasn't been too much of a problem so far (I actually don't use her much).

Colourless: Decent. I got like 4 F!Grimas in the past and don't ever even use her anymore, but Eir is always a great pull and I do eventually want to get Claude.

I'm not pulling on this banner, but my free pull priority is likely: Blue>Green>Colourless>>>>Red

 

[MilodicMellodi]

The only thing preventing Legendary!Celica from literally breaking the game here is the fact that Sorcery Blade 3 can't be inherited to Tome users. That's honestly a fact. Legendary!Alm would have quite a big advantage against her in this case, considering he can use it, except his builds always tend to gravitate towards maximizing the effectiveness of Lunar Flash (and therefore his Spd).

Saintly Seraphim effectively removes the weapon triangle for her in disadvantageous matchups, and vastly improves her chances in both neutral and advantageous matchups, as long as she initiates combat. Let me explain.
Saintly Seraphim's effect boosts her damage output by a value equal to 25% of the foe's Res. What that means is that for every 4 Res the foe has, she gains 1 Atk. Putting it another way, it means that for every 4 Res the foe has, they effectively lose 1 Res. It's exactly the same with the weapon triangle, except its boost is 20% (so for every 5 Atk, 1 is gained or lost depending on the WTA), and this effectively means that the foe loses (or gains) 1 Def or Res for every 5 Atk they have. Her weapon is actually stronger than the weapon triangle by 5%, so when she initiates combat she'll always have at least a tiny advantage against her foe regardless of color. Alm...he only gains advantage when it comes to Flying foes (who can easily use Iote's Shield as an A or Seal).
Now, I'm pretty sure you all know that already, considering the fact that the same exact effect is on Legendary!Alm's Lunar Arc (except for the lack of Flier-effectiveness in her case). Except there's a major difference between the two: Celica is a colored unit. Not only does this mean that she gains further advantage against Blue foes due to her being Green (a total 45% advantage, so for every 20 she gains 9), but it also means that she can actually run Triangle Adept, something that he can't use because he's a Colorless Bow user.
Know what that means? Celica gains a total 65% Atk boost against Blue foes if she decides to run Triangle Adept. That means that for every 20 Atk she has, she'll effectively (I really need to stop using that word so often) have 13 more Atk. If she becomes part of a team that lets her go up to 100 Atk (again, experimentation...I'm fairly sure it's impossible for most if not any mages to get up that high), she'd have an EFFECTIVE Atk of 165 in that matchup, ignoring doubles.
And that's not even getting into the fact that this damage boost, like Lunar Arc, doesn't drop because of Moonbow, Luna, or Aether's Def/Res-slicing effects. Which means that, like Legendary!Alm, that any damage she deals outside of her Special won't be lowered by said Special.

But the biggest advantage that Celica has over Alm? Even now, this late into the game, the majority of powerful units that have come out and keep coming out always tend to have higher Def than Res. Just take a look on Gamepress, you can search from highest BST to lowest and you'll see it. This means that Celica has a huge advantage against Alm in not just her damage output, but also her target selection. Sure, Alm could inherit Sorcery Blade...but he won't, because he's so hooked on Lunar Flash, and Sorcery Blade would force him to initiate adjacently to magic allies. Celica doesn't have that problem, and even against those units that have higher Res she'll always have an advantage.

EDIT: Oh yeah, did I forget to mention Soul of Zofia? Alm only gets Null Follow-Up. She gets that AND Desperation, in the same package. The only thing he has over her is that Lunar Flash is exclusive to him...but I'm pretty sure she'll want something like Glimmer far more than that.
And she has Swift Sparrow 3. He has Darting Stance 4, so...while it has 2 more Spd than hers, he's also losing 6 Atk in comparison.
And she has Atk/Spd Oath 3. So his Odd Atk Wave 3 has 1 more Atk and he doesn't need to be adjacent to an ally at the start of the turn, but he loses out on 5 Spd and only gets the effect every other turn starting on turn 2.
So in comparison, she has Desperation and +5/+3 Atk/Spd...and he has jack shit over her. I honestly feel like someone could twist this into some kind of feminist statement XD

Edited December 23, 2019 by MilodicMellodi

[Punished Dayni]

YAS QUEEN Celica

Nice to see them keeping to the themeing of Alm/Celica alts. Also nice, she's no longer Red! She's a green tome and a fire pair up legendary. She's got Saintly Seraphim (Ice Dragon, why did you insist Light Magic was Blue only now? Hell this contradicts what I though!) (Spd +3, Adds +25% of Foe's Res onto damage (Dayum), Miracle, Swift Sparrow 3, Soul of Zofia (Null Follow-Up, Desperation 3) and Atk/Spd Oath (That's nuts.) No undead slaying sadly.

As for the rest, we got D!Ike, Hrid and L!Roy in Red, (As known), Naga, Peony and Dimitri in Blue, Thrasir and Edelgard in Green and Grima, Eir and Claude in Colourless. I think the super seasonal banners are permanent now, 3H units is neat for those who waited and as for myself, I'd say Green (Celica and Thrasir? Also Edelgard merges maybe?) > Red (Fodder and L!Roy I suppose) > Blue (Despite not having Dimitri, the only thing I'd want here is a better Naga for merging) > Colourless (Not really with Grima and Eir.)

[XRay]

15 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

The only thing preventing Legendary!Celica from literally breaking the game here is the fact that Sorcery Blade 3 can't be inherited to Tome users. That's honestly a fact. Legendary!Alm would have quite a big advantage against her in this case, considering he can use it, except his builds always tend to gravitate towards maximizing the effectiveness of Lunar Flash (and therefore his Spd).

No one wants Sorcery Blade. Even if Celica: Queen of Valentia has access to it, even she would not want it. Sorcery Blade requires extremely strict positioning requirements and it does little to nothing against enemies with balanced bulk. If nukes are not even considering Form skills, they will definitely not consider Sorcery Blade.

Any non buffing skill that requires adjacency positioning requirements is generally automatically disqualified for being useable on Player Phase units.

18 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

Except there's a major difference between the two: Celica is a colored unit. Not only does this mean that she gains further advantage against Blue foes due to her being Green (a total 45% advantage, so for every 20 she gains 9), but it also means that she can actually run Triangle Adept, something that he can't use because he's a Colorless Bow user.

Being colored is a drawback, not an asset. With how easy it is to stack Atk/Spd, it is not worth it to increase your performance against any one color at the cost of another color.

There is no point in overkilling blue units with Triangle Adept at the cost of doing worse against greens (cause you are not running a stat boosting A skill) and being walled by reds.

28 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

But the biggest advantage that Celica has over Alm? Even now, this late into the game, the majority of powerful units that have come out and keep coming out always tend to have higher Def than Res. Just take a look on Gamepress, you can search from highest BST to lowest and you'll see it. This means that Celica has a huge advantage against Alm in not just her damage output, but also her target selection. Sure, Alm could inherit Sorcery Blade...but he won't, because he's so hooked on Lunar Flash, and Sorcery Blade would force him to initiate adjacently to magic allies. Celica doesn't have that problem, and even against those units that have higher Res she'll always have an advantage.

Correlation does not equal causation. Ophelia is godly and she has higher Res. Celica is an absolute monster once in Desperation range and she has balanced Def/Res.

I also strongly disagree with Gamepress's tier list. Armor units and armor effectiveness are vastly overrated, and mobility is underrated. Except maybe Trick or Defeat Jacob, I would not rate any of them higher than a 2.

If Sonya is in Tier 1 due to her Infantry Pulse build, then Lilina and Igrene should also be up in Tier 1. Sonya with Moonbow is hardly threatening; Sonya with Glacies is far more threatening and that seems to be what she is judged by. If factoring in support allows her to be in Tier 1, then Lilina and Igrene have an even stronger reason to be up there, as their Atk can get just as insane if not more.

[Alexmender]

38 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

The only thing preventing Legendary!Celica from literally breaking the game here is the fact that Sorcery Blade 3 can't be inherited to Tome users. That's honestly a fact. Legendary!Alm would have quite a big advantage against her in this case, considering he can use it, except his builds always tend to gravitate towards maximizing the effectiveness of Lunar Flash (and therefore his Spd).

Saintly Seraphim effectively removes the weapon triangle for her in disadvantageous matchups, and vastly improves her chances in both neutral and advantageous matchups, as long as she initiates combat. Let me explain.
Saintly Seraphim's effect boosts her damage output by a value equal to 25% of the foe's Res. What that means is that for every 4 Res the foe has, she gains 1 Atk. Putting it another way, it means that for every 4 Res the foe has, they effectively lose 1 Res. It's exactly the same with the weapon triangle, except its boost is 20% (so for every 5 Atk, 1 is gained or lost depending on the WTA), and this effectively means that the foe loses (or gains) 1 Def or Res for every 5 Atk they have. Her weapon is actually stronger than the weapon triangle by 5%, so when she initiates combat she'll always have at least a tiny advantage against her foe regardless of color. Alm...he only gains advantage when it comes to Flying foes (who can easily use Iote's Shield as an A or Seal).
Now, I'm pretty sure you all know that already, considering the fact that the same exact effect is on Legendary!Alm's Lunar Arc (except for the lack of Flier-effectiveness in her case). Except there's a major difference between the two: Celica is a colored unit. Not only does this mean that she gains further advantage against Blue foes due to her being Green (a total 45% advantage, so for every 20 she gains 9), but it also means that she can actually run Triangle Adept, something that he can't use because he's a Colorless Bow user.
Know what that means? Celica gains a total 65% Atk boost against Blue foes if she decides to run Triangle Adept. That means that for every 20 Atk she has, she'll effectively (I really need to stop using that word so often) have 13 more Atk. If she becomes part of a team that lets her go up to 100 Atk (again, experimentation...I'm fairly sure it's impossible for most if not any mages to get up that high), she'd have an EFFECTIVE Atk of 165 in that matchup, ignoring doubles.
And that's not even getting into the fact that this damage boost, like Lunar Arc, doesn't drop because of Moonbow, Luna, or Aether's Def/Res-slicing effects. Which means that, like Legendary!Alm, that any damage she deals outside of her Special won't be lowered by said Special.

But the biggest advantage that Celica has over Alm? Even now, this late into the game, the majority of powerful units that have come out and keep coming out always tend to have higher Def than Res. Just take a look on Gamepress, you can search from highest BST to lowest and you'll see it. This means that Celica has a huge advantage against Alm in not just her damage output, but also her target selection. Sure, Alm could inherit Sorcery Blade...but he won't, because he's so hooked on Lunar Flash, and Sorcery Blade would force him to initiate adjacently to magic allies. Celica doesn't have that problem, and even against those units that have higher Res she'll always have an advantage.

While I agree that Rigain Celica will do a number and a half to many units I feel you're heavily underselling the advantage that Alm has being colorless, and also how Luna arc is more disgusting than Saintly Seraphim.

Both weapons work the same for the respective defensive stat they target, and, like you said, many units have higher Def than Res on average. This works in Alm's favor because higher def=higher dmg, which is the reason he's considered as one of the most cancerous units in the game. Celica will have issues increasing her true dmg thanks to the generally lower Res stat, and while it is a good thing that she won't have trouble killing stuff it raises the question of how much better she'll be when compared to Lewyn/Sonya/Nino/etc because those guys can kill stuff just as well.

Lunar Flash is superior to any Moonbow/Luna/etc that Celica will use because it scales of Spd and Alm's spd is pretty high (base 40 after including the +3 from his weapon) which easily lets him deal up to 10+ dmg while Moonbow usually does at 8~9 dmg at best (hence why Glimmer seems to be more popular nowadays) and Luna has a longer CD to make up for the extra dmg it does.

As for color vs colorless, running Celica with TA is a waste of her potential because it forces her to kill blues when every competent green can do that already and it kills her machups against red units. The weapon triangle alone puts her in a worse spot than Alm because she suffers a flat 20% dmg reduction against reds, while Alm only has to worry about uncommon stuff like raven tomes and Nagi. Your TA comment actually highlights why Celica is in a worse spot than Alm, a red with TA reduces Celica's dmg by 40% which is more than enough to neuter her weapon's effect and they gain 40% dmg on her which will allow them to one shot her (if her stat spread is the similar to Alm's).

I also feel you're overselling Sorcery Blade a lot. That skill requires you to be glued to a mage to deal adaptive dmg, and ,outside of low Atk mage dancers, it is better to use the mage to attack if you need to get rid of a high def-low res unit. Even with mage dancers it is a terrible idea to waste your A slot on a (not very useful) niche when you'd be better with your physical unit running DC/X-Impact/etc and having a strong mage as a teammate to target the Res stat.

[MilodicMellodi]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

No one wants Sorcery Blade. Even if Celica: Queen of Valentia has access to it, even she would not want it. Sorcery Blade requires extremely strict positioning requirements and it does little to nothing against enemies with balanced bulk. If nukes are not even considering Form skills, they will definitely not consider Sorcery Blade.

Any non buffing skill that requires adjacency positioning requirements is generally automatically disqualified for being useable on Player Phase units.

Positioning is a matter entirely separate to a unit's capability in battle (not any less important on the battlefield, but not of any use in the battles themselves). Yes, I do agree it's a pretty bad skill (in most team set-ups), and yes it won't do anything against units with mixed defenses. But when discounting positioning and just looking at the effect as it is, being able to deal adaptive damage to enemies when you already have a better damage output than can be achieved by others with the same Atk as you would have definitely made her into a game-breaking Nuke against the majority of units in the game. Yes, she'd be counterable. But her "bounty", so to say, of units she could one-shot based simply on their base stats would be more legendary than her title.
Although when talking about positioning, Dancers do exist, and Wings of Mercy/Escape Route do exist. Yes, the positioning would be more trouble than it's worth, but it's not so difficult to position units that Sorcery Blade is literally useless...yes, I do agree more than you know that positioning is important, but I'm just saying that when battle takes place, the positioning's already taken care of and therefore doesn't matter at that specific moment.

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Being colored is a drawback, not an asset. With how easy it is to stack Atk/Spd, it is not worth it to increase your performance against any one color at the cost of another color.

There is no point in overkilling blue units with Triangle Adept at the cost of doing worse against greens (cause you are not running a stat boosting A skill) and being walled by reds.

1) Considering she's already gaining a stat boost due to Saintly Seraphim (said boost being just as powerful as Death Blow 4 against a foe with a measly 28 Res), I wouldn't really go so far as to say she'd be lacking offensive power. While she can only benefit by having more, I wouldn't really say she'd be truly losing offensive power (except, of course, with the obvious WTA bullcrap...but considering every colored unit has to deal with that there's not much of a point to make there).
2) My observations with Triangle Adept were, like I said, conducted in an experimental mindset. I mean, I said that at least twice, right? Anyhow, even if I didn't I'd assume the whole "she also loses Atk against Reds" bit was implied. Anyone who knows what Triangle Adept does knows the implications of using it. Though, while we're on the topic of that, she does effectively lose less Atk% than others would (others would lose 40%, she loses a mere 15%). If she were to decide to use Triangle Adept 1 (not saying she should, only that she could), she would come off with a 5% Atk loss at the worst. And honestly, with her damage output PLUS the effect of Soul of Zofia, she'd be overkilling Blues regardless of TA's Tier. All that's left is Greens (and, on the topic of neutrality, Colorless), and she's in an equal seat with Alm in that one – aside from the effective damage to Fliers.

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Correlation does not equal causation. Ophelia is godly and she has higher Res. Celica is an absolute monster once in Desperation range and she has balanced Def/Res.

I also strongly disagree with Gamepress's tier list. Armor units and armor effectiveness are vastly overrated, and mobility is underrated. Except maybe Trick or Defeat Jacob, I would not rate any of them higher than a 2.

If Sonya is in Tier 1 due to her Infantry Pulse build, then Lilina and Igrene should also be up in Tier 1. Sonya with Moonbow is hardly threatening; Sonya with Glacies is far more threatening and that seems to be what she is judged by. If factoring in support allows her to be in Tier 1, then Lilina and Igrene have an even stronger reason to be up there, as their Atk can get just as insane if not more.

If we were talking about Celica initiating on Ophelia, or vice-versa, I'm fairly certain both would lose in equal measure. Actually, that's a lie...Celica would completely thrash Ophelia because of the WTA. This is assuming that Legendary!Celica's Res is as bad as Ophelia's...although, I'm assuming you're getting your info from the GP discord so you might already know her stats from their datamining. I don't use that...terribad place anymore.
Of course, the previous paragraph was said largely in a smart alecky nature. I know you're talking about their independent usefulness in battle, and not against each other. And it's true, Ophelia is godly...for her role. Her ability to quickly charge her Special from the start, as well as having access to Special Spiral, puts her at a large advantage against practically every other mage in the game. But Legendary!Celica has an advantage against her...and that's her ability to deal with a type disadvantage. Ophelia would get completely creamed against higher-Res Greens, and perhaps even some lower-Res Greens as well that can counterattack before she can properly kill them; meanwhile, Legendary!Celica doesn't lose any Atk% advantage against Reds (as long as she initiates, but we're also talking about Ophelia here so that's moot point) and actually has, like I said, a net 5% advantage against said Reds. She doesn't do Ophelia's role better than she does, but neither can Ophelia dream of doing what Legendary!Celica can do.

In terms of Gamepress' Tier list...yeah, they're super full of themselves. They put fucking NY!Azura on as a Tier 2 offensive unit. I'd disagree with you on every Armored unit being overrated (Winter!Jaffar comes to mind, and will even more so once he starts being obtainable as a Grail unit), but most Armored units are definitely. And as someone who uses the Orders skills almost religiously, I also agree about mobility (and yes, I agree about positioning, Sorcery Blade was a point to make not an idea to have).
Honestly, I think Cavalry should have an overall better place in the Tier list than they do now because their positioning versatility is so vital (especially with Ranged Cavalry such as Reinhardt, who's considered only Tier 2 right now). I think the only reason they don't is specifically because of the Orders skills...but that's assuming I know what's on their mind in their hivemind brain, if they even had one.

Edited December 23, 2019 by MilodicMellodi

[mcsilas]

Huh. I was just thinking if they would give Celica Seraphim if she was a Legendary Hero just the other day. Even toyed with the idea if she'd be green to at least have a different colour (Brave Micaiah was green even if it was still light magic).

One one hand, phew no Wolt yet. Don't have many orbs.

On the other hand, don't have anyone in green, so maybe at least 1 green unit would be nice. But then green orbs would have to appear first.

Don't have any of the 3H lords but would rather have them come to me in regular banners.

[XRay]

1 minute ago, MilodicMellodi said:

Positioning is a matter entirely separate to a unit's capability in battle. Yes, I do agree it's a pretty bad skill (in most team set-ups), and yes it won't do anything against units with mixed defenses. But when discounting positioning and just looking at the effect as it is, being able to deal adaptive damage to enemies when you already have a better damage output than can be achieved by others with the same Atk as you would have definitely made her into a game-breaking Nuke against the majority of units in the game. Yes, she'd be counterable. But her "bounty", so to say, of units she could one-shot based simply on their base stats would be more legendary than her title.
Although when talking about positioning, Dancers do exist, and Wings of Mercy/Escape Route do exist. Yes, the positioning would be more trouble than it's worth, but it's not so difficult to position units that Sorcery Blade is literally useless...yes, I do agree more than you know that positioning is important, but I'm just saying that when battle takes place, the positioning's already taken care of and therefore doesn't matter at that specific moment.

Position matters a lot, especially for Player Phase. If it is for a low difficulty mode like Arena or Arena Assault, then sure, you can run Player Phase units with Sorcery Blade and Bonds. For stuff like Abyssal and Aether Raids, I am willing to bet not even 1% of players are going to run a adjacency non combat skill on their Player Phase unit in Aether Raids.

Or put it another way, would you seriously run Sorcery Blade in Aether Raids on your Player Phase nuke?

9 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

1) Considering she's already gaining a stat boost due to Saintly Seraphim (said boost being just as powerful as Death Blow 4 against a foe with a measly 28 Res), I wouldn't really go so far as to say she'd be lacking offensive power. While she can only benefit by having more, I wouldn't really say she'd be losing offensive power.

Running Triangle Adept than sticking with Swift Sparrow is losing offensive power against greens. You are dealing 6 less damage per hit and you are less likely to double.

10 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

If we were talking about Celica initiating on Ophelia, or vice-versa, I'm fairly certain both would lose in equal measure. Actually, that's a lie...Celica would completely thrash Ophelia because of the WTA. This is assuming that Legendary!Celica's Res is as bad as Ophelia's...although, I'm assuming you're getting your info from the GP discord so you might already know her stats from their datamining. I don't use that...terribad place anymore.

I was talking about regular Celica. Without more information, Celica: Queen of Valentia seems just okay. Celica got Ragnarok, which essentially got something like Brazen Atk/Spd 5 built in. QOV!Celica needs to have something like 45/45 offensive stat spread to rival Celica.

17 minutes ago, MilodicMellodi said:

But Legendary!Celica has an advantage against her...and that's her ability to deal with a type disadvantage.

Any mage can deal with type disadvantage via Blade tomes. You can stack Atk through the roof with those.

Blade effect can consistently provide an extra 24 damage.

For Saintly Seraphim to rival Blade tomes, the foe needs to reach 96 Res. The bulkiest units generally go up to about 60 Res at most, which is like an extra 15 damage, far lower than Blade tomes' 24 damage. Even if you take color disadvantage into account, Blade tomes still do more with damage at 19 (19.2=24*0.8).

[Diovani Bressan]

That's my opinion:

 

I am happy that Celica got her Legendary Alt, and not Celica Emblem is possible.... but... I am not that impressed by her. Her Prf weapon in like Alm's Bow, but uses Res instead, and her prf skill is is Null Follor-Up + Desperation

 

Legendary Celica is like Legendary Alm, but worst? because she doesn't have a prf special (she has a prf passive skill, but Lunar Flash is such a good special), she is colored so even with a good weapon she will have to deal with TA (I know that raven tomes are a problem to Alm, but they are less common than red units to Celica), and she is not effective against fliers or eff against any type of hero.

 

Well, she looks to be a good unit, but nothing that amazing.

 

But she is good fodder, since we can fodder her to Swift Sparrow and Atk/Spd Oath at the same time

 

I will say that Glimmer + Flashing Blade looks to be a good combo for her, since she will be a fast unit.

 

The banner, however... It's a good selection. I already expected Claude this month, but Dimitri and Edelgard surprised me. Well, not a single seasonal unit. Are they banned from Legendary/Mythic Banners, and now they only rerun in Seasonal Special Banners?

Edited December 23, 2019 by Diovani Bressan

[Humanoid]

Would have preferred her to have an axe, but I guess another infantry green mage isn't technically an overlap since Thrasir is Mythic. Better than doubling up on Julia, and it's more interesting for someone else to take the red mage slot in future.

This banner is better than I expected it to be, thanks to the non-appearance of the uninteresting seasonals that were expected. I like seasonals in general, just not the ones that were due to appear. Not good enough for me to invest heavily in it though. Might try to grab one 5* unit and leave it at that, though I'm not sure whether that'd be from sniping green, or just going all but red.

Red - I've converted to using Leif+1 instead of my Roy+0 for ABs so he's no longer particularly relevant for my purposes and so the single merge I was looking for is no longer important. I have zero interest in the other two, even to fix my -Atk Hrid, because Ares is a thing.

Blue - Naga's skillset is completely uninteresting to me, even if I don't have a Mythic of her type (but screw ARs anyway, I'll never pull specifically for AR purposes). A single Peony to get to +1 would be good, not that I've even gotten my free copy yet. Dimitri ruins this though, he'd just be a waste of space for me.

Green - Not as excited about it as some people here, but I'd take a single copy of any of these heroes. Less so Edelgard than the others since I may be building a +10 Raven very soon, but then again I also have a +10 Nino.

Grey - Ehh, it's fine. Would take one Claude just for the relative rarity of his unit type, plus useful merges for the other two.

[MilodicMellodi]

4 minutes ago, XRay said:

would you seriously run Sorcery Blade in Aether Raids on your Player Phase nuke?

Point taken.

5 minutes ago, XRay said:

Blade effect can consistently provide an extra 24 damage.

For Saintly Seraphim to rival Blade tomes, the foe needs to reach 96 Res. The bulkiest units generally go up to about 60 Res at most, which is like an extra 15 damage, far lower than Blade tomes' 24 damage. Even if you take color disadvantage into account, Blade tomes still do more with damage at 19 (19.2=24*0.8).

Blade Tomes can also be made to be completely useless against units with Dull Ranged, or half useless against those with a Lull skill. Legendary!Celica doesn't face that problem, since Saintly Seraphim's damage boost is a combat bonus. A combat bonus that can, in fact, be further stacked with a Field Bonus. Let's see about comparing them using...let's say, Odd Atk Wave 3. Both units gain +6 Atk as a Field Bonus.
For the Blade Tome (I'll start referring to it as Gronnblade, so as to match SS in the weapon triangle), having a Might of 13, it gains +6 Atk and an additional +6 damage on top of that, for a total of 25 Might.
For Saintly Seraphim, having a Might of 14, it gains +6 Atk, having a total 20 Might. To match with the Blade Tome, they'd need an opponent with 12 Res (which is easy).

Let's add more buffs, this time with +6 Atk/Spd. Gronnblade gains an additional 6 damage for a new effective Might of 31. SS, still with 20, now has to go against a foe with 44 Res to match. Considering merges existing, that's not hard to find in Arena or Aether Raids. In fact, it's very common in high Tiers.

Now let's add another buff. We're getting to the point where both teams are giving up versatility specifically to buff them. Gronnblade now has a new effective Might of 37, with SS still having 20. Seraphim has to go against a foe with 68 Res to match it damage output. Not easy to find, but it's possible to buff units up that much.

Now let's buff all four. This is to the point where both teams are putting everything into their mage's combat potential. Gronnblade now has a new Might of 43, with SS sitting at 20 Might. Seraphim has to go against a foe with 92 Res to match its power.

Now, let's add Dull Ranged to the mix. Gronnblade now sits at...13 Might. No damage buffs whatsoever. A complete and total sitting duck. Saintly Seraphim, however, has...14 Might. To achieve the overwhelming power of the Gronnblade Tome, she now has to go against a dastardly overlord with a monstrously huge...-4 Res.

Let's go a bit easier now, say...Lull Atk/Spd. Gronnblade is sitting pretty at...well, 25 Might. Saintly Seraphim has 14 Might, making her need to go against a foe with 28 Res. Yyyyyeah.

So sure, you could completely wreck your team in terms of build versatility by giving that Blade tome overwhelming buffs. But Saintly Seraphim has a distinct advantage over it, and that's it's ability to not become worthless garbage when introduced to Bonus Nullification. I think we all learned something today, and that is...that I really need to get a hobby. Seriously, I was so bored that I sat through doing this for a half hour and didn't even care lol

[Ice Dragon]

Stats, assuming someone else hasn't yet calculated them yet.

Her first round of combat is against the Cleric in Story 4-1-3 Lunatic.

We see 40 HP.

The Cleric has 36 Res, and Celica deals 31 damage, which comes out to 38 Atk + 14 Mt + 9 Saintly Seraphim + 6 Swift Sparrow. If Atk/Spd Oath is up, then that's 33 Atk instead. Based on the following round of combat, Atk/Spd Oath is not up (probably to show off Soul of Zofia).

The Cleric has 29 Spd and Celica can perform a follow-up, so Celica has a minimum of 24 Spd + 3 Saintly Seraphim + 7 Swift Sparrow. But that doesn't tell us anything because, let's face it, this is Celica; she's obviously going to be blisteringly fast.

The Cleric has 41 Atk and deals 6 damage (no Wrathful Staff), so Celica has either 28 or 29 Res.

 

The second round of combat is against the Blue Bow in Story 4-1-4-Lunatic.

We see 40 HP.

The Blue Bow has 17 Res, and Celica deals 65 damage, which comes out to 43 Atk + 2 Pair Up (Alm has 51 Atk) + 14 Mt + 4 Saintly Seraphim + 6 Swift Sparrow. If Atk/Spd Oath is up, then that's 38 Atk instead. Based on the previous round of combat, Atk/Spd Oath is up.

The Blue Bow has 30 Spd, which tells us nothing new because Celica is getting 3 Spd from Alm's Pair Up boost.

The Blue Bow has 47 Atk and deals 19 damage, so Celica has 18 Def + 1 Pair Up (Alm has 26 Def).

 

So we get something like

HP: 40
Atk: 38
Spd: at least 24
Def: 18
Res: 28-29

If she has 162 total points in stats, she has either 37 or 38 Spd.

 

3 hours ago, Dayni said:

Ice Dragon, why did you insist Light Magic was Blue only now

Because it is.

There's a reason Naga, Divine Naga, Chaos Manifest, Light of Dawn, and now Saintly Seraphim have Rexcalibur as their prerequisite instead of Shine. The game designers have ditched consistency for the sake of gameplay.

Not necessarily a bad thing (considering there are fewer characters in the game that would be green in Heroes otherwise), but it's annoying to see the lore of the pre-DS games completely thrown out the window ever since Awakening.

 

1 hour ago, Diovani Bressan said:

I am happy that Celica got her Legendary Alt, and not Celica Emblem is possible.... but... I am not that impressed by her. Her Prf weapon in like Alm's Bow, but uses Res instead, and her prf skill is is Null Follor-Up + Desperation

 

Legendary Celica is like Legendary Alm, but worst, because she doesn't have a prf special, she is colored so even with a good weapon she will have to deal with TA (I know that raven tomes are a problem to Alm, but they are less common than red units to Celica), and she is not effective against fliers or eff against any type of hero.

Being a magic unit is effectively equivalent to about 3 extra points in Atk compared to a physical unit due to units typically having less Res than Def. Lunar Flash is only about 5-8 more damage than Moonbow or unboosted Ruptured Sky (and loses spectacularly to boosted Ruptured Sky), so it mostly evens out.

I personally think having both Null Follow-Up and Desperation in the same build is a big deal because Alm has to give up one for the other. If he runs Null Follow-Up, he eventually runs out of HP from counterattacks, but if he runs Desperation, he can't one-round kill units with Wary Fighter (or that godforsaken Allegiance Battle Setsuna who can counterkill him).

As far as the weapon triangle is concerned, I think green is the best offensive color for magic right now due to the fact that red magic tanks are practically non-existent (partly because Ophelia has rendered them useless and partly because we haven't had many options until recently) and Barrier Axe still doesn't exist, leaving lances and green dragons being the largest threat to tome nukes and the colors best covered by green. Colorless is better offensively for bows (that have as much Atk as Alm does) since Def is much better distributed across colors than Res, but I think there's value in being green for offensive magic.

Granted, I still think Thrasir is slightly better (as long as you can keep Killing Intent up), but Thrasir is a Mythic Hero and cannot receive Mythic stat boosts.

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Any mage can deal with type disadvantage via Blade tomes. You can stack Atk through the roof with those.

Blade effect can consistently provide an extra 24 damage.

Litrblade gets shit upon by Lull skills and Panic, both of which are increasing in popularity. I don't see Dull Ranged or Distant Def 4 all that often, but they also shit on it.

Saintly Seraphim is more consistent at the cost of peaking lower.

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

The bulkiest units generally go up to about 60 Res at most

My Winter Fae has 88 Res during Light-Dark season.

Edited December 23, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[Diovani Bressan]

Just now, Ice Dragon said:

Being a magic unit is effectively equivalent to about 3 extra points in Atk compared to a physical unit due to units typically having less Res than Def. Lunar Flash is only about 5-8 more damage than Moonbow or unboosted Ruptured Sky (and loses spectacularly to boosted Ruptured Sky), so it mostly evens out.

I personally think having both Null Follow-Up and Desperation in the same build is a big deal because Alm has to give up one for the other. If he runs Null Follow-Up, he eventually runs out of HP from counterattacks, but if he runs Desperation, he can't one-round kill units with Wary Fighter (or that godforsaken Allegiance Battle Setsuna who can counterkill him).

As far as the weapon triangle is concerned, I think green is the best offensive color for magic right now due to the fact that red magic tanks are practically non-existent (partly because Ophelia has rendered them useless and partly because we haven't had many options until recently) and Barrier Axe still doesn't exist, leaving lances and green dragons being the largest threat to tome nukes and the colors best covered by green. Colorless is better offensively for bows (that have as much Atk as Alm does) since Def is much better distributed across colors than Res, but I think there's value in being green for offensive magic.

Granted, I still think Thrasir is slightly better (as long as you can keep Killing Intent up), but Thrasir is a Mythic Hero and cannot receive Mythic stat boosts.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me. It didn't change my opinion about her, though

Edited December 23, 2019 by Diovani Bressan