New Heroes: Despair and Hope

[bottlegnomes]

Well this is pretty hype. I'm torn between trying to scrounge orbs to spark for Jill or Shinon because I love both and saving because I'm low on orbs, blue has very little I care about so sparking only gray and green is expensive, and neither have much longterm investment potential since both are 5* and I don't particularly enjoy hoarding orbs and waiting for reruns.

Regarding blue, a halfway decent inheritable tome is pretty nice and I sure won't complain if Ilyana or Hattie decide to show up anywhere along the way as I like both, but not enough to commit to pulling blue for sparking. I guess there is the ridiculous off chance that horse Dimitri pity-breaks me, which'd be great, but that's a fool's errand.

Petrine is absolutely awesome. While she's not the GHB I wanted most, she was in the top 5 overall, not just Tellius, and she had far more chance than Bryce. If she's anything like the game, and given gen 5 BST, she should have pretty well-rounded stats, including mixed bulk, which answers my prayers for a non-5*, non-Ferdinand mixed phase/bulk cav.

@Mercakete I double-checked her PoR art and it looks like you are correct. There is something at the top of her thighs, but it looks more like reinforcement or that she's got pants on with additional gear over top. Either way, not the weird half cutout thing she's got here. Not terribly fond of it myself, but at least it's not ridiculously glaring. I didn't notice it until you mentioned it.

[Lau]

I'm not too keen on most Tellius characters, but it's great to finally see Shinon! I adored him in my RD playthrough, so I owe it to him to try and pull for him. I don't like Jill, but her art is really nice, so if I somehow end up pulling her, I'll keep her. Same with Gatrie, though I do like him. Ilyana is...eh. Petrine is gorgeous, but idk if I'll keep her.

Now the only Tellius characters I'd like are:

Pelleas, regular Rhys, Kieran, Tormod, Marcia, Bastian, and the Dawn Brigade.

[Othin]

56 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

If nothing I hope to god this means Severa is coming into the game on the next awakening banner. I swear to god IS at this point they have no excuse.

Could be that, or a seasonal. We'll have to see, but I'm sure they've got some plan for her. 

[SuperNova125]

1 hour ago, Othin said:

Looking at CYL4, the most-voted missing characters are now:

• 9. Plumeria
• 13. Marianne
• 14. Felix
• 19. Ashe
• 40. Linhardt
• 43. Shamir
• 47. TMS Tiki
• 48. Seiros
• 51. Triandra
• 52. Dedue
• 58. Flayn
• 59. Caspar
• 60. Seteth
• 67. Severa
• 73. Leonie
• 83. Maiko
• 94. Touma & Cain

Of the 17 characters on the top 100, there's 2 Heroes characters, 11 Three Houses characters, and 3 TMS characters. With Jill and Shinon in the game, Severa is now the only missing non-Heroes/3H/TMS character on the top 100. (If you count her, which I do.)

From these characters looking forward to Seiros and Felix. I actually saw a chart on Reddit that showed the top 5 most wanted characters from each game. It's pretty interesting to think how many of these have been added. The most wanted PoR and Tellius character now is Sephiran followed by Boyd. Also Ashera is the 5th most wanted RD character not in the game. 

CYL5 will be extremely interesting, especially if we have another 3H banner and Felix and Marrianne are added. 

[XRay]

5 hours ago, Dayni said:

Shinon is broken

He is pretty far from broken. At best, he is a colorless ANF!Dimitri with no access to Spurn skills. ANF!Dimitri is good, but he is nowhere near broken like BH!Ike. BH!Ike has raised the bar so high that I doubt they are going to release another tank that can rival him anytime soon. If ANF!Dimitri does not have any impact on the meta, I doubt Shinon will.

Deadeye is pretty crap with a high cool down and weak effect, as it does not really help the unit against Def/Res tanks who can more easily wall units off. Enemies with Spurn can be dealt with by Spd stacking your units, which most super tanks should be doing anyways and most player phase teams already have at least one fast nuke.

 

[Mercakete]

2 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

I double-checked her PoR art and it looks like you are correct. There is something at the top of her thighs, but it looks more like reinforcement or that she's got pants on with additional gear over top. Either way, not the weird half cutout thing she's got here. Not terribly fond of it myself, but at least it's not ridiculously glaring. I didn't notice it until you mentioned it.

Yeah, one of the reasons I liked Petrine in PoR was because she wasn't super showy in her design, instead being more practical. She didn't need to flash everyone (besides a bit of her top showing via low neckline) to be a valid female baddie. And now, this horse-riding unit has a cut out in the absolute worst place for horseback riding...

Edit: To be clear, by "I liked Petrine" I mean relatively. She's still a terrible person who I don't think I'll ever actually like, but she was at least kind of interesting and I liked her design for aforementioned reasons.

Edited September 17, 2020 by Mercakete

[SuperNova125]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

He is pretty far from broken. At best, he is a colorless ANF!Dimitri with no access to Spurn skills. ANF!Dimitri is good, but he is nowhere near broken like BH!Ike. BH!Ike has raised the bar so high that I doubt they are going to release another tank that can rival him anytime soon. If ANF!Dimitri does not have any impact on the meta, I doubt Shinon will.

Deadeye is pretty crap with a high cool down and weak effect, as it does not really help the unit against Def/Res tanks who can more easily wall units off. Enemies with Spurn can be dealt with by Spd stacking your units, which most super tanks should be doing anyways and most player phase teams already have at least one fast nuke.

 

I don't think these two are similar, Dimitri is an infantry lance with middling Spd, high Atk/Def and low Res. He comes with an unconditional QR and Damage Reduction based on his amazing Def. Shinon is a Colourless bow that will most likely have a well rounded Legendary/Fallen Corrin type of statline and will tank using his good stats and not damage reduction. 

You might be underestimating Deadeye. Shinon makes it 2 cooldown and Time's Pulse helps trigger it more easily. The base effect is alright, being the middle option to Glimmer and Astra, however there are skills like Urvan and Black Eagle rule that no matter what you won't be able to avoid and will allow a really powerful hit on these units. And if it is inheritable (I doubt it) then many slaying bows can use it I think. 

[Acacia Sgt]

I'd say, I got curious about it and... honestly, I don't really see much difference in Petrine's design.

Looking at it, she always wore a leotard+stockings combination. With... hmm, tights/pantyhose/leggings/something underneath. If anything, Heroes made that last garment lighter in color, thus making it more noticeable, but it's still the same outfit composition.

As for practicality, if it really mattered... I'm pretty sure she is well covered for a cavalry unit with those armor plates at the hips and the knee-high greaves. But then, I'm no armor expert.

Edited September 17, 2020 by Acacia Sgt

[Roflolxp54]

Shinon's got Time's Pulse but if I were to spark for something, I'd more likely spark for Jill, especially since Lysithea can be guaranteed on November. Jill, meanwhile, has Spd/Def Rein, which is a skill Caeda, Clair, (and possibly my Summer Lyn) would want. Of course, if I were to get Shinon randomly, I won't turn down what's at least good fodder.

Wouldn't spark for Gatrie but wouldn't turn down one if he were to show up randomly.

I want to pull for Yarne from next month's Galeforce banner though I should be able to have enough orbs for at least a 75% chance to pull for him after dropping 135 orbs sparking for something on the new banner.

[bottlegnomes]

4 hours ago, Mercakete said:

Yeah, one of the reasons I liked Petrine in PoR was because she wasn't super showy in her design, instead being more practical. She didn't need to flash everyone (besides a bit of her top showing via low neckline) to be a valid female baddie. And now, this horse-riding unit has a cut out in the absolute worst place for horseback riding...

Edit: To be clear, by "I liked Petrine" I mean relatively. She's still a terrible person who I don't think I'll ever actually like, but she was at least kind of interesting and I liked her design for aforementioned reasons.

Oh yeah, I know what you mean. She's a totally reprehensible character, but one of the more interesting of the overly ambitious persistent baddies in the series and has a pretty cool design.

 

3 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I'd say, I got curious about it and... honestly, I don't really see much difference in Petrine's design.

Looking at it, she always wore a leotard+stockings combination. With... hmm, tights/pantyhose/leggings/something underneath. If anything, Heroes made that last garment lighter in color, thus making it more noticeable, but it's still the same outfit composition.

As for practicality, if it really mattered... I'm pretty sure she is well covered for a cavalry unit with those armor plates at the hips and the knee-high greaves. But then, I'm no armor expert.

So to me, there are a couple differences. Depending on how I look at the top of her thighs, in the PoR art, it looks like those might be leather straps (also not a great idea) or are pants underneath full chaps, but either way, it looks like solid, fairly thick material. In contrast, the FEH art looks more like mesh or some very thin material as well as being a much larger area. It seems like you took that as it being lighter in color while I took it as being thinner material, possibly to be more suggestive of exposed skin. Not sure how Mercakete took it. Either way, it's a significantly larger amount of space proportionally, and it's certainly not the most egregious of FEH's redesigns by any means.

As far as practicality, it's not about armor protection so much as rubbing against the saddle. There's a lot of motion and a lot of friction when you're riding a horse, even at a trot (horse version of jog). There's even more when you're actually riding with energy, canter (running) or full on gallop (sprinting). A very large part of learning to ride is actually just learning to manage that momentum and friction so you don't get bounced around and don't completely tear up your legs. But even with that, you can only do so much, so usually you want to wear thick pants—I, being a guy, usually wore jeans, but riding pants, while tight, are actually fairly thick, with some additional protection in the form of those chaps I linked earlier. (There's also half chaps for what little importance it is.) Chaps are to provide some additional padding between your legs and the saddle as well as to keep whatever you're wearing tight to your legs.

Now I say usually, because it also depends on the type of saddle you're wearing and type of riding you're doing. If you use a western saddle (what cowboys did), then you can get away with a lot less. Western saddles have a ton of material already in place to help protect your legs. I actually knew a girl who would occasionally wear shorts when riding a western saddle. Basically they substitute for the thick pants and chaps. Now she was both a cross country runner and trail guild who'd been riding for like 15 years, so I wouldn't suggest you do that (or me anymore), but Petrine should have legs that are at least similarly fit if not far more. That said, cowboys had all of this because they wanted the protection and didn't have to worry about fighting people. What's more likely for Petrine to have is an English saddle, which is much smaller, to avoid extra clutter in battle if I recall correctly, and provides much less protection. This, don't ever ride in any significant way, so anything more than walking, without some protection. I forgot my chaps once, still had jeans, and ended up with some seriously torn skin on my calves that took like a week to heal and left scars for a while. Now granted, I hadn't been riding in a while before then, but that was from a one hour lesson that involved cantering and jumping. Not even anything close to the most strenuous riding I've ever done, and I'd imagine no where even in the realm of what you do in battle.

TL;DR for the practicality part: With friction from the saddle and stirrups, thin material at best tears after a relatively short time. At worst, you end up with bloody and bruised legs that you then have to wait to heal.

 

Anyway, I'm not overly fond of the art, but that's much more to do with just the overall style and tone. Petrine was always the most aggressive of Daein's Four Riders in PoR, but she still came across as fairly pragmatic, like being smart enough to bring a shitload of troops to surround Greil and company with just in case, even though she was quite confident that she could best them herself. Which to be fair, she did manage to become one of the Four Riders, so she's not a slouch in combat by any means. This all came across in her official art and portrait for me. She looks cruel, arrogant, and like she'd thoroughly enjoy killing someone, but there's also a bit of an aloofness to her. She enjoys her job, but she knows she still has a duty to uphold and that part of being good at her job is being measured and that means not being overly aggressive or taking precautions when she does. It's part of why I like her more than say Narcien. They're both the recurring villains who underestimate the protagonists, but Narcien was a bumbling fool who was basically good at politicking and digging up dirt on people to get ahead while thinking he was God's gift to the world. Petrine was a legitimately good soldier and general and was aware of and proud of her abilities, but she ended up on the losing side of her engagements and had to suffer the consequences because of it. I also liked her loyalty to Ashnard. It again showed that she was a soldier first and foremost, just one who enjoyed her job a little more than maybe is ideal for decent people, not some psychopath that no actually pragmatic person would allow to lead forces (I was going to say sane Ashnard isn't exactly sane). By contrast, the FEH art looks more along the lines of "Yay, murder!" like Peri in addition to me just not liking the style as much. But the Tellius games also have my second favorite overall art style in the series.

Edited September 17, 2020 by bottlegnomes

[CustardPudding]

The only one I really care about is Jill honestly. Was hoping for Boyd or the Dawn Brigade, but oh well. Pretty skippable, I'll spend a few orbs on Jill and maybe Ilyana. 

[SSbardock84]

Shinon is finally here, but since its a Tellius banner its hard for me to be excited since Edward isn't on it. What I hate is that now that we finally got a Tellius banner, it'll probably be a long time until one shows up again. Also, looks like Gatrie went tanning.

[XRay]

6 hours ago, SuperNova125 said:

I don't think these two are similar, Dimitri is an infantry lance with middling Spd, high Atk/Def and low Res. He comes with an unconditional QR and Damage Reduction based on his amazing Def. Shinon is a Colourless bow that will most likely have a well rounded Legendary/Fallen Corrin type of statline and will tank using his good stats and not damage reduction. 

ANF!Dimitri has pretty high Spd. 36 Spd is no slow poke, and that Spd could easily be bumped further. And as a super tank, cranking up Spd is pretty easy. His primary weakness in stats is his Res. Stat distribution matters less for super tanks since all super tanks want to hit at least 50 Spd/Def/Res so most super tanks do not play all the differently from each other in practice.

Double Bow and Moon Gradivus are both Weapons that can counter at any range. Double Bow's Slaying effect is not all that different from Moon Gradivus' Special charge increase in practice. Double Bow's stat increase makes Shinon on par with ANF!Dimitri stats wise.

The primary difference is that ANF!Dimitri got an exclusive Spurn skill, but Spurn does not make much of a playstyle difference for super tanks when you cannot stack it with something like Urvan.

Edited September 17, 2020 by XRay

[Kaden]

Out of curiosity, for those who can read Japanese, what is Deadeye's description? The English one is a bit weird in that if it's like Astra, Glimmer, and Night Sky, then it could have used "Boosts damage dealt by 200%" which is the same as "Doubles damage dealt."

[Othin]

43 minutes ago, Kaden said:

Out of curiosity, for those who can read Japanese, what is Deadeye's description? The English one is a bit weird in that if it's like Astra, Glimmer, and Night Sky, then it could have used "Boosts damage dealt by 200%" which is the same as "Doubles damage dealt."

It'd be 100%, not 200%.

"Doubles" is a simpler and clearer alternative that wouldn't have worked for the other skills in the family, I think that's reason enough.

[SockPuppet]

Very interesting to see the “popular” characters left. I do hope that the next step FEH takes is to bring in more alt-locked characters in. They make for easy slots.

[Ottservia]

12 hours ago, Othin said:

Could be that, or a seasonal. We'll have to see, but I'm sure they've got some plan for her. 

I hope you’re right

[daisy jane]

8 hours ago, Roflolxp54 said:

Shinon's got Time's Pulse but if I were to spark for something, I'd more likely spark for Jill, especially since Lysithea can be guaranteed on November. Jill, meanwhile, has Spd/Def Rein, which is a skill Caeda, Clair, (and possibly my Summer Lyn) would want. Of course, if I were to get Shinon randomly, I won't turn down what's at least good fodder.

Wouldn't spark for Gatrie but wouldn't turn down one if he were to show up randomly.

I want to pull for Yarne from next month's Galeforce banner though I should be able to have enough orbs for at least a 75% chance to pull for him after dropping 135 orbs sparking for something on the new banner.

would they want spd/def rein over atk/spd or something? 
i won't be able to go for copies of Jill anyway but it's just something to consider when she's on a Heroes w/banner (or legendary)

[XRay]

11 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

would they want spd/def rein over atk/spd or something? 

Caeda and Clair can go with either way. I lean towards Spd/Def Rein since their damage output is a bit too low against everyone else who is not an armor nor cavalry.

Edited September 18, 2020 by XRay

[daisy jane]

2 minutes ago, XRay said:

Caeda and Clair can go with either way. I lean towards Spd/Def Rein since their damage output is a bit too low against everyone else who is not an armor nor cavalry.

hmm

thanks. ssomething to consider. i wan to give them both pegasus flight. so that + a rein skill would be lovely. 

[Kaden]

2 hours ago, Othin said:

It'd be 100%, not 200%.

"Doubles" is a simpler and clearer alternative that wouldn't have worked for the other skills in the family, I think that's reason enough.

Maybe it's because I'm sleep deprived, but I was thinking of it like say, someone does 10 damage, 200% of 10 is 20 which is double. But that's not how Astra, Glimmer, Night Sky, or probably Deadeye works as they are, using 10 damage again, 10 damage + (10 damage * X%).

Glimmer/Night Sky would be "Boost damage dealt by x1.5", Deadeye would be "Boosts damage dealt by x2", and Astra would be "Boosts damage dealt by x2.5." I think my understanding of percentages might be very poor.

[DraceEmpressa]

15 hours ago, Othin said:

Looking at CYL4, the most-voted missing characters are now:

• 9. Plumeria
• 13. Marianne
• 14. Felix
• 19. Ashe
• 40. Linhardt
• 43. Shamir
• 47. TMS Tiki
• 48. Seiros
• 51. Triandra
• 52. Dedue
• 58. Flayn
• 59. Caspar
• 60. Seteth
• 67. Severa
• 73. Leonie
• 83. Maiko
• 94. Touma & Cain

Of the 17 characters on the top 100, there's 2 Heroes characters, 11 Three Houses characters, and 3 TMS characters. With Jill and Shinon in the game, Severa is now the only missing non-Heroes/3H/TMS character on the top 100. (If you count her, which I do.)

So... basically other than TMS and Awakening banner,  we are expected.... chain of multiple three houses banners? What about the top 200? also, if Severa, Inigo, and Owain are different than Selena, Laslow, and Odin and couts as diff char instead of alts, , does it mean  the same applies to Valentian Pegasus Sisters?

14 hours ago, Othin said:

Not quite. It doesn't grant the Heavy Blade effect that Vengeful Fighter does, it has a Guard effect instead.

Oh, I see, my bad for mistaking it then. but with tier 4 Stance skills already having built in Guard that feels redundant..... 

[bottlegnomes]

26 minutes ago, Kaden said:

Maybe it's because I'm sleep deprived, but I was thinking of it like say, someone does 10 damage, 200% of 10 is 20 which is double. But that's not how Astra, Glimmer, Night Sky, or probably Deadeye works as they are, using 10 damage again, 10 damage + (10 damage * X%).

Glimmer/Night Sky would be "Boost damage dealt by x1.5", Deadeye would be "Boosts damage dealt by x2", and Astra would be "Boosts damage dealt by x2.5." I think my understanding of percentages might be very poor.

You more or less have the math right. 1.5 = 150%, so 150% of 10 is 15, i.e. a 50% increase, since 100% is the number itself. Percent quite literally meant "per 100," so 50 per cent would be 50/100, hence 50% = 0.5. I think the wording might be what's throwing you off more. Boost implies it's added and when adding percentages to non-percentages the assumption is that it's a percentage of the base being added, so that (10 * X) you had. Another way to think of it might be (1 + Y) * X where Y is the boost, so 10 damage + 50% => (1 + 0.5) * 10.

If we were to do total damage percentages instead of boost, I'd probably phrase it along the lines of "Deal 150% of normal combat damage." That phrasing is kind of awkward though, and probably more likely to be misunderstood since people would see 150% and think it means 10 => 25, so I can see why they went with it.

No clue if any of that helps at all, but hopefully it made a little sense.

[Kaden]

Stats from the datamine. From here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemHeroes/comments/iuz4d7/despair_and_hope_lvl_1_and_40_stats/.

Also, Petrine's Flame Lance and skills: https://www.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemHeroes/comments/iuz105/petrine_icy_flamelancer_skills/.

Spoiler

 

Ilyana's 39 HP, 38 Atk, 32 Spd, 17 Def, and 40 Res gives her 166 BST. I figured she'd be slower considering she's hungry all the time, so her stamina would be draining rapidly which would probably limit how much effort she can exert. Stat-wise, she's a gen 4 version of Mae and Lute. Compared to Mae: +6 HP, +2 Atk, +1 Spd, +1 Def, and +10 Res, and compared to Lute: +6 HP, +2 Atk, +1 Def, and +6 Res. Anyway, the distinction Ilyana has is that she has the second-highest base neutral attack, only 1 point below legendary Julia, and the highest base neutral resistance, leading legendary Julia by 4 points, of all blue infantry mages. Her speed's not that great and her defense is low, but that's pretty damn good for a demote.

Jill's 40 HP, 39 Atk, 40 Spd, 36 Def, and 17 Res gives her 172 BST. Stat-wise, Jill is Hel who traded 1 speed for 1 attack and dumped the gen 4 BST increase all into defense; Jill has +1 Atk, -1 Spd, +6 Def, and -1 Res compared to Hel. That 1 point difference in attack means she has the highest base neutral attack of all axe fliers now as previously, 38 base attack was the highest.

Shinon's 40 HP, 38 Atk, 42 Spd, 27 Def, and 24 Res gives him 171 BST. It's becoming a bit frightening how similar his stat spread is to Eleonora's whose own stat spread is also similar to legendary Alm's. It's not even a noticeable variation like one of them has higher defense, higher resistance, dumped their defenses for HP. Nope, it's simply higher attack or speed and pretty much the same defenses. Compared to legendary Alm: +1 Atk, +5 Spd, +1 Def, and +2 Res and compared to Eleonora: -2 HP, +1 Atk, +4 Spd, and +2 Def. Anyway, Shinon's the first colorless unit to have 42 Spd and the second ranged unit after summer F!Byleth & Rhea.

Gatrie's 47 HP, 42 Atk, 17 Spd, 44 Def, and 35 Res gives him 185 BST. Basically lance CYL Edelgard or Valentine's Rudolf if Rudolf dumped his speed for resistance. Compared to CYL Edelgard: +1 HP, -3 Atk, +1 Spd, and +1 Def and compared to Valentine's Rudolf: +1 HP, -1 Atk, -4 Spd, +3 Def, and +6 Res.

Petrine's 42 HP, 35 Atk, 37 Spd, 30 Def, and 24 Res gives her 168 BST. Flame Lance has effective damage against beasts, grants Spd+3, and the effect: "At the start of combat, if unit's HP >= 50%, calculates damage using foe's Res, and inflicts Spd/Res-5." She kind of avoids Hel's issue where she can end up targeting a non-magic or non-staff unit's high resistance by inflicting Spd/Res-5 on them and be able to target defense if her HP is below 50%. She's weird in that Lull Atk/Res or Lull Spd/Res might be pretty decent if she's using Flame Lance. Her default skills are Atk/Spd Push 3 at 5* and Threaten Atk/Def 2 at 4*. Yes, she has a dual Threaten as a 4*.

Stat-wise, she ties with Perceval and Sirius as the second-fastest lance cavalry; summer Cordelia still reigns with her 38 base neutral speed. Offensively, she's Sirius as she has 35/37 offenses to his 34/37, but defensively, she's Ferdinand who incidentally has the same 30/24 defenses as her. Considering her beast effective weapon, her offenses are CYL Eliwood's flipped and her higher base resistance would have been helpful if she had effective damage against dragons as well like him. Compared to CYL Eliwood: +2 HP, -2 Atk, +2 Spd, -2 Def, and +6 Res, compared to Ferdinand: +1 HP, +3 Atk, and +2 Spd, compared to Perceval: +4 HP, +3 Atk, +2 Def, and -4 Res, and compared to Sirius: +2 HP, +1 Atk, -5 Def, and +8 Res. As a grail unit, Petrine's competition are Finn and New Year's Laegjarn. Compared to Finn: +2 HP, +1 Atk, +4 Spd, -2 Def, and +6 Res, and compared to New Year's Laegjarn: +4 HP, +3 Atk, +2 Spd, -5 Def, and -7 Res.

 

Edited September 18, 2020 by Kaden

[Mercakete]

@bottlegnomes

This is basically exactly my stance on all counts, yeah.