Anyone else feel these are by far the most boring CYL winning units we've gotten so far

[Jotari]

Okay am I the only one who thinks these are the most boring Brave units we've gotten so far (wait, can I call them Brave units? None of them have the Brave subtitle even though they're Choose Your Legend winners?). Previous brave units took the character and gave them their subweapon or had them trade a weapon with an associated character. Here they just plopped them in their default movement types and gave them their default weapon types and swapped out the names for Archanea weapons. We haven't gotten Legendary Claude or Dimitri yet, but Brave and Legendary Edelgard feel really samey (she even has the movement gimmick her legendary counterpart has) and unless they go bonkers with the legendaries, Claude and Dimitri are likely to follow the same path. And it's not like there weren't other options here. Edelgard carries the Sword of Seiros in her inventory, let her use that. Alternatively, she has a budding talent in magic, give us mage Edelgard instead. Claude even has a second associated weapon in the form of the Sword of Begalta. Even Lysethea you could have given Frozen Lance or the Axe of Ukonvasara. Dimitri I'm less concerned about because of the lack of infantry lance units, but they still could have done something creative. Hell make him a beast unit who alters between sane and boar mode who kicks the crap out of people with his hands. That'd be more interesting than what we got (though given Edelgard as a pattern it seems were getting the master classes as braves and advanced classes as Legendaries, so Boar Dimitri for his legendary does seem likely). 

So who else is in the same boat as me here?

Edited August 21, 2020 by Jotari

[Hilda]

i think they are good/ok. What did you expect? Rainbowfarts and Unicorn Stickers?

[Jotari]

4 minutes ago, Hilda said:

i think they are good/ok. What did you expect? Rainbowfarts and Unicorn Stickers?

Well them using different weapons and movement types to their standard appearances like previous Brave units have done. Thought I was pretty clear with that. Did you read the OP? I literally suggest some possibilities.

[Mercakete]

I think they could've been better, but I'm not bored with them. More just...kind of 😕 I guess? Like, okay, fine, sure. But they're not as interesting as I thought they would be. Here's my take, from another post:

Quote

Regarding the CYL4 units' designs, I'm a bit surprised. Up until now, the units always dressed as people important to them. Barring their weapons, these are practically what I'd expect of their legendary versions. I guess they're using their ultimate classes for this one, and will go with their regular timeskip looks for their legendary versions. It's nice that both costumes get in the game, but...I was kind of hoping for something more in line with what they've done with other characters, you know? Like, maybe have them dress kind of like the timeskip versions of their lieutenants (Dimitri wearing something inspired by Dedue's look, Claude wearing something inspired by Hilda's and Edelgard wearing something inspired by Hubert's. Not sure what to do for Lysithia, but she probably has an NPC that's close to her. Haven't played through enough of Golden Deer yet to find that out.) That could've been really cool, especially if their weapons were inspired by these other people, too. Like, Dimitri could've gotten...well, gauntlets aren't in the game...a bow, maybe? Claude could've gotten an axe, Edelgard could've gotten a red tome and Lysithia could've gotten...a dagger or something? Anyway, this was a good opportunity to mix things up. I'm not really too upset about it, though; I'm mostly satisfied.

Edit:

Also, I want Fallen Dimitri at some point, with the title "Wild Boar." However, him actually being a beast unit seems a bit too literal to me.

Edit again:

Azure Moon endgame spoilers:

Spoiler

I do want Black Beast Edelgard as a Fallen Hero too, though. She'd be a beast unit, maybe armored. Green fits the best, to me, but that would be another green armor Edelgard. So...maybe red instead?

 

Edited August 21, 2020 by Mercakete

[Fabulously Olivier]

Story wise, they are interesting. As units, they missed a lot of opportunities.

 

Edelgard should have been an armored red tome. This would have been a good chance to have a non-seasonal armored tome.

 

Lysithea should have been a staff unit with Thyrsus. Or a blue mage using Seraphim/Abraxas. Any movement type.

 

Claude should have been a flying green bow.

 

Dimitri could have been our first gauntlet (colorless melee) unit.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Fabulously Olivier

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

(she even has the movement gimmick her legendary counterpart has)

Armored Boots + Warp Powder on her exclusive weapon is nothing like Armored Stride, which is an inheritable passive skill.

Also, +1 movement is hardly a gimmick on an armor when 14 of the 56 armored units (exactly 25%) released since Armor March was a thing have had a +1 movement skill in their default kit (11 with Armor March, 1 with Armored Stride, 1 with Solitary Dream, 1 with Flower Hauteclere).

[Yexin]

yeah i agree, i don't even consider this as a Brave Banner, and probably neither IS does, since these alts' epithets don't have the "Brave" adjective and they appear in a story chapter, just like most NHB heroes do recently, and not in a paralogue
and yes, i'm not happy with the movement/weapon/concept choice: but again this doesn't even feel like a Brave Heroes banner

i just hope CYL5 will have different results, and that they add restrictions for how many characters from the same game can get a Brave alt in a single CYL event
"but they shouldn't, if 4 characters from a single game are that popular it means many people want them to win" yes, but at the same time it disappoints just as many people

really, Jorge made me incredibly more hyped than CYL4
i'm all for bots, if it means adding more obscure and forgotten characters

Edited August 21, 2020 by Yexin

[Ice Dragon]

23 minutes ago, Yexin said:

yeah i agree, i don't even consider this as a Brave Banner, and probably neither IS does, since these alts' epithets don't have the "Brave" adjective and they appear in a story chapter, just like most NHB heroes do recently, and not in a paralogue

They've been easing off of the use of the word "Brave" for quite some time now.

CYL 2 only had 2 units with "Brave" in their title.

CYL 3 had no units with "Brave" in their title.

CYL 4 dropped "Brave" from the banner title.

"Brave banner" is a fan-made term. All of the CYL units' internal names use the suffix "POPULARITY", and their internal IDs use the prefix "総選挙" (sōsenkyo), "general election".

EDIT: The "general election" prefix comes from the name of "Choose Your Legends" in Japanese, which is just called "英雄総選挙" (eiyū sōsenkyo), "Hero General Election" if translated literally.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Ice Dragon

[Yexin]

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

They've been easing off of the use of the word "Brave" for quite some time now.

CYL 2 only had 2 units with "Brave" in their title.

CYL 3 had no units with "Brave" in their title.

CYL 4 dropped "Brave" from the banner title.

"Brave banner" is a fan-made term. All of the CYL units' internal names use the suffix "POPULARITY", and their internal IDs use the prefix "総選挙" (sōsenkyo), "general election".

hm, that's interesting, i admit i didn't notice this trend was easing off, and the internal names' suffix actually makes more sense

this doen't change my opinion on CYL4 though

[vikingsfan92]

Power level wise I do think they fit the CYL unit description. Edelgard in particular with her being the most mobile armor by far.  But yeah I kind of was hoping that they would be more imaginative than just there final classes.  I just really hope that Edelgard is not only going to be an armored axe exclusively other than her base form. Doubt she is getting an alt for a while so probably bound to be an axed armor for a long time.  I don't want fallen versions of the three houses lords tbh but it probably is happening. I want unique unfocused on the game alts for the three houses cast as it seems unlike the other games they are most sticking to the base game with three houses main cast.

Sure there was the summer banner but the lords only have cannon versions of themselves.

[DefyingFates]

I agree with @Jotari and @Yexin: power wise, these four (except maybe Lysithea) are on par with what I'd expect of Brave Heroes, but everything else about them feels so lazy. I hope we get something better next year onwards - along with a hard limit on how many reps each game can have.

[SuperNova125]

Gameplaywise they all are amazing units and surpassed my expectations. The outfits are exactly what I expected but also what I wanted. I just expected different weapons. Edelgard a swordie with the Sword of Seiros she also uses in the game (Seiros has other options), Claude with an Axe as another nod to his Almyran heritage, Lysithea a non red tome and Dimitri can be a lance or even a blue dagger not that the difference in stats is that crazy between the two now. 

Edited August 21, 2020 by SuperNova125

[Humanoid]

Alm is easily more boring than these new units, but they occupy slots #2 through #5 pretty comfortably.

[DefyingFates]

10 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Alm is easily more boring than these new units, but they occupy slots #2 through #5 pretty comfortably.

Oh yeah, I keep thinking Legendary Alm is the Brave one. At least he had the Gaiden armor, if nothing else.

[Tybrosion]

Lazy is the wrong word to use here in my opinion. Uninspired is the better choice, but even that (as far as I’m concerned) only applies to the unit types that were selected for these characters.

And honestly, I think most of the alternatives in the original post would’ve been worse. We didn’t need yet another sword unit, Lysithea using a lance or axe would make no sense since those are both areas of weakness for her in Three Houses, and Dimitri literally turning into a beast would’ve just been stupid to put it bluntly.

[Carter]

While I agree this might be the most "boring" CYL so far, it's still my favorite one. I like all of these characters except for Dimitri, and I have no problem with the way they were added. Sure, it might be a little "boring" in comparison to past CYL winners, but it's still interesting to see the three lords in their unique final class outfits (rather than just the timeskip outfits) and with new skills.

The other CYL didn't really interest me as much because I didn't really care for the characters that won. These units being "boring" or "lazy" or "uninspired" isn't necessarily a bad thing. And no matter what people may think these units are, I still like them a lot, and way more than the past rounds.

[Kiran_]

It's my personal favorite of the CYL's so far. It's just a popularity contest, and 3 Houses was the newest shiny toy, so it's not really boring to me by any means.

I am also a personal fan of canon when it comes to CYL units (aka: heroes wielding their most preferred weapon). I love Lucina for example, but I didn't love the fact she was wielding a Lance, I'd rather it have been a sword. I'm okay with alts (especially seasonal ones), giving characters uncharacteristic weapons and move types, but I've never *loved* CYL being them wielding different weapons. I didn't mind it, but seeing these classic characters with their classic weapons really gave me so much heart because they FEEL like their characters.

So to me none of it felt 'lazy' or 'uninspired'. It felt truly top tier. These are their "final forms" so to speak. Their most powerful, at the top of their game outfits. So I guess I wanted to see them represented and CYL seemed like the perfect place for it. I think we can say we all have different preferences on how CYL is treated, but it feels a bit much to say because you don't like something it's 'lazy'.

3 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

I hope we get something better next year onwards - along with a hard limit on how many reps each game can have.

I hate this idea of an imposed limits on rep from the game. That completely takes away the point of CYL. It's a popularity contest. It's about who the fans think is most popular at that given moment. It's not truly fair if fans think one character is more popular, but they impose a limit that suddenly means that the one people voted for, doesn't get in. It could literally be all Fates (my least favorite game) and that still wouldn't make me say "Let's put a hard limit on rep", because if people voted for an all Fates sweep, that is entirely their prerogative and means those 4 characters are the most popular.

[Etrurian emperor]

As far as appearances go? Definitely. They don't quite go as far as to just use their normal post time skip designs but its eerily similar to those designs. I'm pretty sure Edelgard is just her final promotion, Dimitri is just his regular post timeskip design with a lighter shade of blue and Claude's not looking all that different from his war outfit either. 

Things could have been far more interesting. Claude is said to dress like an Almyran king but I'm sure not seeing any turban on him! 

[Tybrosion]

1 hour ago, Kiran_ said:

I hate this idea of an imposed limits on rep from the game. That completely takes away the point of CYL. It's a popularity contest. It's about who the fans think is most popular at that given moment. It's not truly fair if fans think one character is more popular, but they impose a limit that suddenly means that the one people voted for, doesn't get in. It could literally be all Fates (my least favorite game) and that still wouldn't make me say "Let's put a hard limit on rep", because if people voted for an all Fates sweep, that is entirely their prerogative and means those 4 characters are the most popular.

I'm pretty certain part of the reason they suggested that is because it would've made Eirika who got smoked even by 4th place F!Byleth the 2nd place female in this CYL.

And yeah, screw that idea. Punishing a popular game / characters in a popularity contest is a very backwards idea and besides, we already have the Voting Gauntlet doing that.

[Yexin]

1 hour ago, Kiran_ said:

So to me none of it felt 'lazy' or 'uninspired'. It felt truly top tier. These are their "final forms" so to speak. Their most powerful, at the top of their game outfits.

point is, that's what Legendary Heroes are for

CYL has never been about characters "being at their final forms", except for Alm, Celica and Micaiah

that's partly why more people aren't happy with this year's CYL, they look like Legendary Heroes

[LoneStar]

Its all said and done, but this makes me wonder what they would have done if the pre-time skip version of these characters would have won. I'm thinking at least for Claude they would have made him an Axe Wyvern since he would be training (even though he already had skill as a Wyvern Rider) to eventually become a Wyvern Master at that point. And since the rest of them are still in school they could have experimented with other things.

The fact that all of the 3H Lords got into this year's CYL, and it was their timeskip versions at that, I guess they wanted a certain theme for them to share. That's usually what CYL does. The first year they were based on their fathers. Last year they were rulers and this year they went with their final classes.

[UNLEASH IT]

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

As far as appearances go? Definitely. They don't quite go as far as to just use their normal post time skip designs but its eerily similar to those designs. I'm pretty sure Edelgard is just her final promotion, Dimitri is just his regular post timeskip design with a lighter shade of blue and Claude's not looking all that different from his war outfit either. 

Things could have been far more interesting. Claude is said to dress like an Almyran king but I'm sure not seeing any turban on him! 

All of them are in their Master classes.

[XRay]

They seem pretty okay. As long as they are not sword infantry, I do not really care that they share the same Weapon type or movement type with other versions. I do not care about appearances and artwork.

ANF!Edelgard being one of the most mobile armor units is kind of a big deal, since it makes her very user friendly. Armor March and Armor Stride both have positioning requirements, and the former also a small team composition requirement. ANF!Edelgard has a pretty easy requirement to fulfill, and the warping basically gives her limited cavalry movement in the direction of her nearby allies.

ANF!Claude being a colorless flying archer is pretty amazing in itself, even if I greatly dislike his Weapon; I can always rely on Brave and Firesweep for pure player phase. For enemy phase and dual phase, I think the bow is okay. If they made Dive-Bomb available to ranged units, I still would not like his bow much, but at least his bow would be much more palatable.

ANF!Lysithea is probably the most "boring" in my opinion, but I like simple but effective units. For a player phase player like me, she is the best unit straight out the box, and her A skill can be easily replaced with Fury or Life and Death if the player is on a budget. Her only issue is that there are a LOT of strong nukes she is competing against, so veteran player phase players who already have a lot of nukes do not really need another one. If they replaced cavalry effectiveness with Slaying or Special Spiral, that would be a difference story though, as more Blazing nukes is always welcome since inheritable Slaying tomes do not exist.

ANF!Dimitri is my least favorite, but that is due to play style difference; I think he is still a nice unit overall, just not for me. Also, having more lance infantry is good in my opinion.

Edited August 21, 2020 by XRay

[Othin]

It's different from what I've come to expect from CYL, but honestly, they're growing on me. I went through with my plan to get Claude since he was me only missing character of the four and I played Verdant Wind, and while I wasn't expecting an alt to feel like much of a substitute for regular Claude, I've found that he does. We're seeing a different side of him from the original, but it's still a side of him that actually matches up with the Claude I remember using, which is a neat balance.

Which... in fairness, used to be what legendary versions are for, but it seems like there's some shuffling around now. I do like how it seems like the legendary versions are getting their crest weapons while the brave versions are getting alternate ones, that certainly fits nicely. Also, with the house leaders each getting two story promotions, it makes sense for them to implement one as a legendary version and the other as a brave version. Although the fact that Claude and Dimitri got their brave versions before their inevitable legendary versions means it'll be odd if those legendary versions feature them in the same unit types for their earlier classes, but stronger. Also, while Edelgard had a cool outfit for her legendary version, I forget if the other two have outfits for their earlier classes that could match up as well. Claude certainly had a less visually interesting wyvern, but I don't know much about Dimitri's route.

Lysithea is sort of different from the other three, but sort of not. She does share her original unit type, but Edelgard also matches her legendary unit type, and the other two will presumably do the same, barring some sort of shenanigans (such as giving Legendary Claude a red bow and giving Legendary Dimitri a different movement type). I assume their plan is to eventually start handing out war phase versions to 3H units that have already shown up in academy phase, so she and the three leaders sort of just have a head start on that. In that respect, this is kind of just a normal war phase New Heroes banner, and I'm okay with that. To keep her versions distinct, I would have preferred to have her academy phase get Dark Spikes and her war phase stay a Gremory but as a blue mage with Abraxas, but that ship already sailed with her getting Hades in her first version, and it wouldn't have fit with color balancing this banner anyway.

Speaking of brave units that do things the units already could do, I think it's worth looking at Alm and Celica as well. Celica was the original brave unit to break the trend of using another character's outfit, instead using her retro one. I think it worked out pretty well, giving her a different but well-established look and giving her a non-fallen sword infantry version. With Celica having her retro outfit, Alm was basically forced into doing the same, and I do think it made sense for him to stay a sword infantry since bows aren't as big a part of him as swords are for Celica. However, what's really weird about Brave Alm is that he goes so far as to match his original weapon. I would have preferred some sort of other weapon: the Royal Sword, Astra Blade, or Mercurius would all have been good candidates, although they'd all conflict with someone else. If he took the Royal Sword from Celica, she could have gotten the Ladyblade or Blessed Sword instead, or just gotten the Beloved Zofia in place of her fallen version which frankly had no need to exist.

Alm and Celica are also worth noting for their legendary versions, which go a completely different direction from their brave ones rather than being on the same scale. They also switch to secondary weapons for those: bows for Alm and light magic for Celica, although I do think it's weird having Legendary Celica being another case of depicting light magic as green. They could have switched their legendary versions with their brave ones, I suppose, to match with other brave units tending to take different weapon types, but I think the retro looks fit brave better than legendary. Plus, the legendary pool already has enough red units, and the brave pool always seems to have issues with its red slot.

[SockPuppet]

Yes I agree. I don’t mind the 4 and I don’t mind an all same game top 4 (I feel it captures the momentous success of TH perfectly!) but I wanted different weapons. They can look the same, as I find the master class look to be fitting, but I think hidden abilities would have been a nice nod to an interesting new mechanic / feature introduced in TH. They can all say something like “‘my teacher taught me to harness my potential in _____, and now I’m sharing it with you!” Etc.