Voting Gauntlet: AHR 2021 Finals!

[Diovani Bressan]

The A Hero Rises Voting Gauntlet is coming!

Remember:
The four winners of Round 1 will appear in a summoning event scheduled for the second half of March,
which you can get a free copy by doing 40 summons!
And the winner of this Voting Gauntlet will be gifted to all players... for a limited time!

Also... for this Voting Gauntlet, you will not get a 1.1x voting boost if your leader is the same character as the Hero whose army you joined. If you are on Team Seiros, for example, you will not get a higher score by using Seiros during the event.

So... Which army will you support?

VG Predictors, by @DarkAlf!

PREDICTOR A

PREDICTOR B

Edited February 23, 2021 by Diovani Bressan

[Othin]

They mentioned that the banner will be in the second half of March, which I'm glad about. Gives more time to save up.

[Humanoid]

Bugger, I was hoping it'd be early March because I've delayed my exit long enough as it is. The timing seemed perfect, the end of the anniversary event and the final set of freebies, plus one final New Heroes banner. But I guess things rarely end cleanly - I'm still going to use the 6th of March as a drop dead date and maybe just claim the freebie and final spark as a one-day encore at the end of the month.

[DefyingFates]

45 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Bugger, I was hoping it'd be early March because I've delayed my exit long enough as it is. The timing seemed perfect, the end of the anniversary event and the final set of freebies, plus one final New Heroes banner. But I guess things rarely end cleanly - I'm still going to use the 6th of March as a drop dead date and maybe just claim the freebie and final spark as a one-day encore at the end of the month.

Why are you quitting, if I may ask?

[Humanoid]

44 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Why are you quitting, if I may ask?

It's not due to any one reason. I've been operating with reduced commitments for over half a year now, first as a trial to see if I missed the game much, and then towards the end of the last year I had already decided that I'd wait and see what new things the anniversary might bring us. The anniversary itself was quite a bit better than expected so I've hung around for another month to try out the new stuff like the playable summoner and take advantage of the 4* special summoning changes, that kind of thing. They've been neat, but don't really fix any of my fundamental issues, so with that I'm just proceeding as planned after the short delay.

If I were to enumerate some reasons:

1) Lockdown last year. FEH is something I've always mainly played during dead time at work - I work a fairly boring office job and have quite a bit of dead time to fill. FEH fit the bill well, being sufficiently complex to keep my attention while being something I could put down at the drop of a hat, which wouldn't be possible with a real-time time. But with lockdown and working from home, that reason to play FEH disappeared, and whenever I play the gane at home I always feel that it's out of obligation rather than it being the most entertaining thing I could do at that given moment. I'm now about 50:50 on working in the office versus working from home, but the realisation had long since sunk in. Even when I am in the office these days, I have more fun playing mechanically simpler but perhaps more intellectually stimulating games like FreeCell and Picross. I'm also considering buying Football Manager Mobile but that might be a bridge too far given how much time I'm spending at home nowadays.

2) The game itself running out of steam, in more ways than one. New game modes feel like a case of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing if anything stuck - except the walls seem to be coated with Teflon. Competitve modes slowly fell out of my reach because of a combination of powercreep with my "no summoning for fodder" policy. And no offense to fans of the particular units, but New Heroes banners (3H aside) seem to be mostly scraping the bottom of the barrel these days, at least for non-hardcore fans of the mainline series, and focusing on seasonal banners is punished by the absence of one of the best mechanics the game has introduced in the last couple of years: sparking.

3) Annoyance at the cynical increase in daily instead of weekly content, so I increasingly felt punished for missing days. It probably started with Aether Raids? But then it's continued through the ridiculous timing of Mjolnir's Strikes, the harsh and unnecessary nature of Limited Hero Battles all expiring at the same time, etc. I get the (cynical) business logic behind trying to increase "engagement" by incentivising people to log in more frequently, for for me, it just further contributes to burnout. Blessed Gardens were permanent, Squad Assaults still are, first and second year GHBs are on constant rotation. Why the change in policy from something that worked so well?

4) Just the natural progress of time. It's been over four full years now since I started, albeit with some breaks of a few months. Four years is way more than I could have expected of a F2P mobile game, so I'm satisfied that I've gotten full value of it. I mean, I've spent about $100 on the game over that time, almost all of it in the first year. And while I might regret that spending that turned out to be mostly pointless, I can't say I haven't gotten $100 of value from the game. For what it's worth, I also quit WoW for good a couple of years ago, a game I'd be playing on-and-off since 2005. To an extent I find my experiences with FEH and WoW comparable in that by the end I was still playing mostly because of inertia than anything else.

 

There are also more tangential factors like recent mainline games being relative disappointments for me and therefore failing to rekindle my interest in the series (Echoes was terrible for me, and while I was okay with 3H, I burnt out 3/4 through my first route and after finishing it I never contemplated playing another campaign).

Edited February 23, 2021 by Humanoid

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Seiros is probably going to win, but hopefully Lyn can advance enough to get a spot on the banner in March. Go Lyn!

[Xenomata]

Hm... I don't actually know who I want to support...
I certainly know who NOT to support. Coincidentally, they're all duo heroes.
Seiros, Duo Lyn, Legendary Dimitri, and Freya were all in the top 4, so maybe not any of them since I could just summon them later...

So... either Corrin or Edelgard... hm...

[Othin]

8 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Hm... I don't actually know who I want to support...
I certainly know who NOT to support. Coincidentally, they're all duo heroes.
Seiros, Duo Lyn, Legendary Dimitri, and Freya were all in the top 4, so maybe not any of them since I could just summon them later...

So... either Corrin or Edelgard... hm...

The banner's lineup isn't determined yet, it'll be whoever makes it into the top 4 of the gauntlet.

[Xenomata]

Just now, Othin said:

The banner's lineup isn't determined yet, it'll be whoever makes it into the top 4 of the gauntlet.

oh my bad i thought it was top 4 of the initial voting.

Welp, then the only thing I know is no duo heroes. I can't pick between 5 units... I guess Dimitri since I kinda wanna get some Odd Tempest fodder for some of my units?

[Florete]

Well, too bad we can't have Seiros + the three colorless for a most glorious banner. Not even sure who I want to see win, I have all of them except Seiros and Dimitri and don't care all that much about getting either of them.

[EricaofRenais]

Well I will be going with L!Dimitri for the first round because I don't want the fodder B!Edelgard has to offer.  I am really hoping for Seiros or Lyn to win this thing.  

[Karimlan]

I'll probably go for Seiros, and spark for Legendary  Brave Edelgard, given that I don't have the former, and the latter I am working for max merge on at some point (she's now at +5).

Edited February 23, 2021 by Karimlan

[Paris]

I'm not sure who I'm going to support. The lineup is meh, especially with Dmitri v.s Edelgard. Unless Team Micaiah gets lucky, she'll likely lose to Seiros. It's a shame because we could have gotten three colorless heroes as the focus units. I already have Seiros, Duo Micaiah, and Edelgard, who IMO don't have the best fodder. At the very least, there's only one brave hero and not two. Otherwise, I'd have to consider which brave hero to knock out. Next year, they should categorize the heroes alphabetically and not by taps. 

[Roflolxp54]

Supporting Duo Lyn without question. 1 or even 2 guaranteed merges sound really good to me!

I expect Dimitri to make top 4 assuming no VG shenanigans.

I don't mind either Seiros or Micaiah making top 4 though I'd personally prefer Micaiah making top 4.

Between Freyja and Corrin, I'd rather see Freyja in top 4.

[Sunwoo]

I'm pretty sure there will be some people who think this is a popularity contest and end up jumping on Edelgard's team. Solely because they like her without quite realizing she will end up on a banner if she passes round 1.

Not sure who I want to go with, tbh. I might just eliminate characters I don't want to join and roll an appropriate sided dice afterwards.

[EricaofRenais]

42 minutes ago, Karimlan said:

I'll probably go for Seiros, and spark for Legendary Edelgard, given that I don't have the former, and the latter I am working for max merge on at some point (she's now at +5).

It is brave Edelgard in the VG not legendary.  The first round winners will be on the banner in the second half of March.  

[Karimlan]

6 minutes ago, EricaofRenais said:

It is brave Edelgard in the VG not legendary.  The first round winners will be on the banner in the second half of March.  

I erred lol. Meant Brave Edelgard.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Karimlan

[kradeelav]

4 hours ago, Humanoid said:

(snip)

Was also curious, and I can respect those very legitimate reasons. Appreciate the viewpoint since I just joined last year and didn't realize that FE:H had gotten so stringent with the 'log in every day' vs more forgiveness there.  It also makes me wonder how many people picked up FEH (and/or dropped it) due to the lockdown ... : o

re: VG Gauntlet - b!Edelgard all the way~

[GrandeRampel]

The only two units I don't have are Seiros and Micaiah, so while it hurts to choose, at least I'm guaranteed to have someone to spark for.

I guess I will end up supporting Micaiah because duo heroes are still the rarest units.

[indigoasis]

I already have all of those units except Freyja, Dimitri, and Corrin, so I wouldn't mind a merge or skill fodder. I'd love for either Micaiah or Seiros to win (especially Seiros so I can fix the Def flaw that mine has), but wouldn't mind Lyn or Byleth. Edelgard is a great unit, but I don't need her.

No matter what happens, these are all really solid units, so hopefully we can all get something great out of it!

I also wanna mention that the only dudes in the Voting Gauntlet are Dimitri and Sothe (yes, Sothe is there, so he's now technically more popular than all other males).

[Ice Dragon]

Hard to pick. I suppose I'll start on Team Lyn. Corrin is my second pick. I'll figure something out if both of them end up dropping out.

[zoologicwoo]

My hope is that Seiros, Freyja, Dimitri and (tentatively) Lyn survive Round 1. Lyn I prefer over Byleth only because since I have them both with +Atk assets, Lyn's fodder is better, but on the other hand Lyn has the biggest risk of winning the gauntlet over Seiros, so I would be fine with Byleth winning R1 instead. 

[XRay]

Since I already have everyone, I am tempted to just support whoever can give me the most Feathers. If I am not taking Feathers into account, I am not too sure who I should support. I am leaning towards ITM!Lyn since she seems to be the most impactful unit as she comes with a one use Galeforce. The next best would be SK!Dimitri and COD!F!Corrin since they are basically different colored BH!Ikes.

Freyja and Seiros are similar to SK!Dimitri, but they are lesser Spurn tanks in my opinion. Freyja is competing with Peony and Eir, so I do not think it is necessary to have a third Light Mythic for free. Seiros is defense Mythic, so she is a lot less valuable to normal player in my opinion. BB!Micaiah and OM!F!Byleth are good units, but both feel a bit niche in my opinion, especially BB!Micaiah as her Duo Skill is only once per map; they just do not feel up to par compared to ITM!Lyn and Duo Dancers/Singers. ANF!Edelgard is the least appealing to me; while she is a really good unit, she pales in comparison to other units on here though. I am not sure I want any of these units.

[Roflolxp54]

13 minutes ago, XRay said:

Freyja is competing with Peony and Eir, so I do not think it is necessary to have a third Light Mythic for free. Seiros is defense Mythic, so she is a lot less valuable to normal player in my opinion. 

I don't consider Freyja as competition with Peony and Eir especially since it's only a matter of time before a slot-6 Light Mythic gets added to the game. We also have to consider how the current AR bonus seasons work -- each week has an in-season Mythic for AR-O and AR-D be bonus units. Having 3-4 Mythics deployed at once can be very beneficial for the carry unit. Yeah, Freyja is easily the worst Light Mythic unit but it doesn't change the fact that Peony or Eir isn't always a bonus Mythic every Light season.

Edited February 24, 2021 by Roflolxp54

[XRay]

2 minutes ago, Roflolxp54 said:

I don't consider Freyja as competition with Peony and Eir especially since it's only a matter of time before a slot-6 Light Mythic gets added to the game. We also have to consider how the current AR bonus seasons work -- each week has an in-season Mythic for AR-O and AR-D be bonus units. Having 3-4 Mythics deployed at once can be very beneficial for the carry unit. Yeah, Freyja is easily the worst Light Mythic unit but it doesn't change the fact that Peony or Eir isn't always a bonus Mythic every Light season.

That is true, but not every player is a hard core Aether Raids player either, so I do not think she is that beneficial to those players. I think most players are content with bouncing in and out of Vault of Heaven, and I think you can still do that pretty easily without Freyja if you use the free BH!Ike.