April Special Heroes: Unlikely Friends

[Fire Emblem Fan]

As suspected, we're getting Mia and Soren. We're also getting Ike and Mist as a duo unit, and Ilyana as the demote, and Boyd is tagging along as the TT+ unit.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Fire Emblem Fan

[Morgan--Grandmaster]

Soren, are you okay? Someone help him! 🥺

Edited April 5, 2022 by Morgan--Grandmaster

[Sunwoo]

>Mia and Ilyana on PoR child banner

Really, IS? Are the Greil Mercenaries so unmarketable to you that you had to shoehorn in Mia and Ilyana into this banner? You couldn't have made a brotherly trio like you did with the pegasus sisters and split up Ike and Mist (the latter of whom could use a better alt)?

This banner is disappointing to me.

EDIT: WHAT THE FUCK IS DISTANT DART. WHAT THE FUCK WAS DISTANT PRESSURE THEN??? COULD WE JUST GET MORE COPIES OF CERTAIN SKILLS INSTEAD OF A MILLION VARIATIONS ON JUST ONE UNIT EACH

Edited April 5, 2022 by Sunwoo

[Florete]

Tempo skills gonna fuck me up.

[Ether]

A sword Mia alt with modern BST, a good prf weapon, and cute art? I am more than content.

[Othin]

BOYD BOYD BOYD

And a bunch of expected characters, and Ilyana for some reason. And Distant Dart is pretty silly, and Ike's duo skill feels unexciting other than its ridiculously huge range. But most importantly, BOYD

And Tempo skills introduced! I was wondering what they might staple onto a Null Special effect to make it feel worthwhile as its own skill, and the answer is more than I expected. Wonder what the inheritance restrictions will be.

[Tybrosion]

Hey, guess who failed to save orbs for the umpteenth time and is really regretting his FEH choices right now? 

Oh well, I should be able to scrounge up enough orbs to get the spark before this banner ends. Hopefully I'll at least get either Mia (now on her third English VA, RIP Philece Sampler) or Ike & Mist before the spark.

[Nym]

What a snooze fest of a banner. The first child banner was cute for the 20th anniversary, but now it's just boring powercreep children versions of popular characters. They didn't even try to take a risk, they just took the most popular characters and called it a day. They didn't even try a duo of Teenager Oscar with Young Boyd and baby Rolf in his arm like "Duo" Palla.

I didn't even bother reading their weapon description, I just imagine they are better version of their older version with fancy new effects added there and there.

Also another free male axe infantry, yay...

Also Greg Chun, come on man. I like your calm and soothing voice, but that doesn't even sound CLOSELY to a child of that age.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Nym

[Alexmender]

Baby Ilyana out of left field, it seems. I would've thought it'd be Nephenee instead. I'm not too happy seeing Boyd as the TT+ reward, there's been so many grail/demote axe infantries recently and I have no need for more, even if they come with a strong Prf. I hope the fallen banner's GHB will be someone I want to build up. 

Anyways, checking these kids as units:

• Kid Mia has all the tools to be a top tier sword, and her fodder is also top tier. Her Prf is Slaying+Phantom Spd if she runs anything that compares her Spd with the foe's+Spectrum 5+NFU+Dodge. So the Null Guard skills will be called X-Tempo, huh? Dodge has been pretty unreliable nowadays, so I think Tempo skills will be a good replacements for units that rely heavily on their specials to work, although maybe it'll stay niche if it's locked to Melee infantries. I wonder how she'll differ from A!Mareeta, as they are competing for the same niche. 
• Kid Soren is all about Res stacking, it seems. He needs to have 5 more Res than the foe to get a guaranteed follow up and a Sweep effect against physical units. If he has 10 more Res than the foe he gets Duo Lif's effect of cutting dmg reduction by half, but I feel that's going to be kinda hard to get unless one Res stacks him. His Prf also gives him Slaying and +6 Atk/Res in-combat. He seems like a decently strong unit, but he's absolutely going to crumble against A!Fjorm and Far Save A!Idunn so...
• Kid Ilyana is eh. She gets essentially +6 Atk/Def/Res with her Prf, Dragon Wall and if her Res is 5 points higher compared to the foe's she also denies their follow up. NFU is pretty common nowadays, and ways to pierce dmg reduction are also pretty prevalent. Not to mention Kid Ilyana is an Enemy Phase Infantry mage, which forces one to either Spd stack her or run QR to let her double.
• Duo Ike is really strong, and seems to be a counter to stuff like Harmonic Sonya (funny how IS decided she'd have impunity to run her Duo skill for only 1 month). He certainly fights for his friends as he needs them close by to trigger all of his Prf's effects. That in-combat special CD down is really unique, although it doesn't seem like Ike is going to need some support to have a pre-charged special on his first hit because he can't do that with only this weapon. The dmg reduction can go up to a max of 50% if he runs normal Aether or Galeforce...actually he'd make for a pretty good WoM+GF type of unit because he also has NFU built-in his Prf. The only thing one needs to be aware of is that he'll need to be one of the last units to move in the chain. That Duo Skill is going to be disgusting in SD, as it'll shut down so many strategies as if it was nothing (Lethality Yuri, L!Lilina, S!Sonya, etc.)

[Tybrosion]

12 minutes ago, Nym said:

They didn't even try to take a risk, they just took the most popular characters and called it a day.

Except they didn't even do that part quite right, because Nephenee (who also has nothing to do with Greil Mercenaries pre-PoR) is way more popular than Ilyana (who now has more alts than Nephenee with this one).

12 minutes ago, Nym said:

They didn't even try a duo of Teenager Oscar with Young Boyd and baby Rolf in his arm like "Duo" Palla.

They didn't do that because neither Oscar or Rolf are popular in the slightest, unlike Palla or Catria and Est just leeches off her older sisters.

12 minutes ago, Nym said:

Also Greg Chun, come on man. I like your calm and soothing voice, but that doesn't even sound CLOSELY to a child of that age.

To be fair, we got to briefly hear kid Ike's voice in a certain secret cutscene in Radiant Dawn and he also sounded nothing like a kid there too.

[Humanoid]

The child banner has always been arguably the more boring of the seasonal banners because of how slavishly close they to canon classes, making them closer to New Heroes banners than to the average Special Heroes banner. But two infantry swords on a seasonal banner is just taking the mickey, especially coming hot on the heels of a banner also headlined by two infantry swords. (And then the other two units are also infantry, probably Boyd as well?)

It's kinda weird and to me a little disappointing that the new units that have been added in the month or so I've been around have been a fair bit duller (or at least less creative) than the ones in the preceding 2-3 months. Whether it's a good or bad thing is obviously subjective but I think it's pretty clear that the past few have catered more towards the traditionalist FE fans.

Granted in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter. Unless there was a fun trio cavalry unit or somesuch I was never going to pull on a non-sparkable banner like this. In a way it feels like sort of a blast from the past, unit selection quality similar to New Heroes but without the added incentive of a tickets, a spark, a Celestial Stone, and Floret and therefore mostly appealing to fans of the specific game/characters only. Now I do also feel the same about Fallen heroes in that thematically both banners don't appeal to me, but at least the Fallen one does offer at least some of those incentives and the occasional wacky unit.

 

Anyway, still just chugging along, picking up the low-hanging fruit until Golden Week and the majority of orbs will be reserved for the Hero Fest and/or CYL re-run, unless the upcoming New Heroes banner is unexpectedly great.

 

EDIT: Heh, it occurred to me I never really looked at last year's Child and Fallen banners, so I did just now. I actually had no idea Young Tana was a unit that existed in the game. And was that the introduction of Trace skills? The headliners may have been pretty uninspired but if so that does mean last year's child banner was actually pretty interesting relatively speaking.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Humanoid

[Sunwoo]

Ike and Mist's art isn't even that good. Also, if we weren't sticking to Greil Mercenaries anyway, would've really preferred Elincia with a staff over either Mia or Ilyana.

Like, I know they're popular, but Mia and Ilyana just feel particularly randomly tacked on compared to previous line up of child characters. The Archanea and Magvel child characters all made sense, being both popular and story-relevant. Mia and Ilyana? Popularity only, and arguably there were better choices than them anyway.

[Sentinel07]

34 minutes ago, Nym said:

What a snooze fest of a banner. The first child banner was cute for the 20th anniversary, but now it's just boring powercreep children versions of popular characters. They didn't even try to take a risk, they just took the most popular characters and called it a day. They didn't even try a duo of Teenager Oscar with Young Boyd and baby Rolf in his arm like "Duo" Palla.

I didn't even bother reading their weapon description, I just imagine they are better version of their older version with fancy new effects added there and there.

Also another free male axe infantry, yay...

Also Greg Chun, come on man. I like your calm and soothing voice, but that doesn't even sound CLOSELY to a child of that age.

Honestly, their selection for special banners as a whole of late have become less and less inspired.

I mean, that Awakening Valentine banner? Literally just Awakening's top popular characters and call it a day. No effort at all.

[Nym]

36 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

Except they didn't even do that part quite right, because Nephenee (who also has nothing to do with Greil Mercenaries pre-PoR) is way more popular than Ilyana (who now has more alts than Nephenee with this one).

That's beside the point tbh. Yes perhaps Nephenee is more popular, but Ilyana is far from a gamble. Young Titania would be one.

36 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

They didn't do that because neither Oscar or Rolf are popular in the slightest, unlike Palla or Catria and Est just leeches off her older sisters.

Fair point, but I still found it boring to have poor Boyd as the free axe infantry again.

36 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

To be fair, we got to briefly hear kid Ike's voice in a certain secret cutscene in Radiant Dawn and he also sounded nothing like a kid there too.

That doesn't justify it... at all. At the time, this game had way lower budget than Heroes so they probably had to do with what they got. As the best selling gacha game of Nintendo, hiring someone else to do a kid's voice isn't too difficult if Greg Chun can't do it.

Although in my opinion, he SHOULD do it. Like honestly, I like the guy, but his range as a voice actor is kinda pathetic.

14 minutes ago, Sentinel07 said:

Honestly, their selection for special banners as a whole of late have become less and less inspired.

I mean, that Awakening Valentine banner? Literally just Awakening's top popular characters and call it a day. No effort at all.

Bunnies have gotten old, that's for sure.

I can't deny it either. Even if the fans had been starved for a while, they didn't take a lot of risk with that one either when it comes to the choice of characters. Except for normal male Robin, his fans have been crying for his return.

But hey, at least they had better weapon and class diversity than those kids.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Nym

[Humanoid]

10 minutes ago, Sentinel07 said:

Honestly, their selection for special banners as a whole of late have become less and less inspired.

I mean, that Awakening Valentine banner? Literally just Awakening's top popular characters and call it a day. No effort at all.

Sure, but at least a red bow and an armoured mage are not entirely predictable choices. I suppose there's a small blessing here in Soren being grey, even if he is on foot.

[Acacia Sgt]

To be fair, the Valentine banners keep themselves to specific character groups (mainly the Lord(s) and their family and a close friend or two), so Awakening's character choices wasn't too out of place outside perhaps having shafted Emmeryn due to including both Robins.

[Xenomata]

Is... everyone just going to be salty at this banner?
...I'll just be over here observing the units from a... unit standpoint.

• Mia is... basically taking the aspects of a fast Sword Infantry and cramming them into her weapon, just... all at the same time. This is a girl for whom would get some benefit out of Vital Astra, coming with Phantom Spd and Slaying on her weapon IN ADDITION to an extra layer of Dodge.
  As for Tempo skills... eh, that's neat. Probably won't make that huge an impact for the time being, wait until more get revealed and maybe I'll care a little more.
• Holy fuck I knew Soren wasn't treated kindly, but I forgot THAT aspect of his childhood...
  Anyway, this kid relies on Res comparisons and can get Atk/Res +6, a guaranteed follow-up, the Windsweep effect minus the Spd comparison, and ignoring half of any non-special damage reduction. That's neat. Shame his Spd will definitely be low though, he could have picked up Watersweep from his older self and effectively be a pseudo-Firesweep unit (though he might still be able to pull that off on the slowest of Armor units...?)
• ...wait wasn't Ilyana some random mage? How the heck does she fit into this story...?
  For a demote she comes pretty bulky. Atk/Res -6 debuff and Dragon Wall on her weapon are not to be taken lightly. Being a demote unit with a Lull skill is also pretty neat, hell you can summon her and Soren and have something useful to give to the unfortunate mute without too much headache.
• Ugh they're really not holding back on the color sharing lately...
  Ike/Mist I wonder if they could possibly become a Vantage superunit if they only had some way to charge Radiant Aether to 2 before each combat...? Though they could also run Vital Astra or Ruptured Skies with Vantage and Time's Pulse for easier special charges albeit theoretically weaker results (and now that I think about it RA just works against Vantage anyway so it'd have to be with Vital Astra/Ruptured Skies).
  Distant Dart's existence is for EP speed tanks by the way. Distant Pressure's Spd boost is still active on PP, so you would be trading some of a units PP performance for a less risky (and more to the point, permanent) EP effect.
  Also the name is stupid, but less stupid than... whatever the hell Close Salvo was going for.
• Don't care who Boyd is, I'm saving my grails for the child unit who predates child banners.

[Use the Falchion]

Ike and Mist's art is both cool and cute, so I'll use my free pull on Red. Other than that, this is a skip for me. I'm not really interested in the Young Heroes banners, and I have minimal interest in Tellius to begin with, so I'll just use the TT+  orbs to continue to build up my orb stash. 

[ZeManaphy]

9 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

everyone just going to be salty at this banner?
...I'll just be over here observing the units from a... unit standpoint.

Ditto. Funny, you think people here would be happy that 3H, Fates, and Awakening are getting a break from representation but instead I find people complaining. Fandom and satisfaction can never cross it seems. 

[Tybrosion]

39 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Is... everyone just going to be salty at this banner?

I'm not salty at all. The only thing I have against this banner is a minor "they picked Ilyana over Nephenee" gripe. It's minor because I like Ilyana (just not as much as Nephenee) and have a +10 one to show for it.

Unless I can get everyone before the spark, I'll definitely be sparking on this banner.

27 minutes ago, ZeManaphy said:

Ditto. Funny, you think people here would be happy that 3H, Fates, and Awakening are getting a break from representation but instead I find people complaining. Fandom and satisfaction can never cross it seems. 

In addition to what I said above, I'm also very happy that IS put off the next busted Edelgard alt for a bit longer.

I say "a bit longer" because we're doomed to get one (and Three Houses spam in general) circa June 2022 because of Three Hopes. 

[Ice Dragon]

This banner (not including Boyd) is literally what my top kills leaderboard looks like in both Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, minus Nephenee.

Also, way to make the skill naming conventions even worse with Distant Dart. I was kind of expecting this to happen after noticing that the Counter Push skills came after the Counter Stance skills in the skill list order.

I'm also not sure there is even a point to run Distant Dart on Duo Ike over Distant Pressure. His exclusive Special heals himself, so the recoil on Distant Pressure is not a bad tradeoff for gaining 5 Spd on player phase.

I'm assuming Tempo skills are going to be restricted to infantry units since Special cooldown manipulation is generally restricted to infantry, and Tempo is the current infantry beast weapon type common effect. Lull is probably the better skill in the Arena, where nullifying bonuses is probably more impactful than nullifying changes to Special charge rate.

[Sasori]

I'm mostly happy with this years baby banner. Boyd is finally in the game even if its as a kid and  Ike/Soren/Mia are a bit on the safe side, but they are all good picks so i'm not complaining. I wasn't expecting Soren to be all growls.

Its Ilyana that I find to be the weak link on this banner. Normally i'd say that its nice to see a 'normal' character in a banner such as this, instead of them always going to plot important characters. But Ilyana is already in the game twice and its Ilyana so we already know she is going to say nothing that her previous forms did't already say in every voice line.

[XRay]

Mia: Budding Blade basically got Slaying, Null Follow-Up, and Dodge. I think getting the latter two as a status effects rather than as permanent effects might bite her in the ass later if we get something that cancels out non-stat status effects. Tempo is cool for breaking walls, although it is heavily reliant on the unit to have good exclusive Weapons to make it really work.

Soren: Hushed Voice probably wants Ruptured Sky or at least Moonbow more, since Guard is going to shut his Special charging down during combat. He can also run a Blazing nuke build, although Life and Death will significantly lower the chances of triggering his other effects unless he is facing off against a nuke or something.

Ilyana: Awakened Appetite is basically Julius, but is blue and better with follow-up denial.

Ike: Close-Knit Siblings is basically Eirika: Twin Refulgence on steroids (and basically Mia: Budding Blade 2.0 depending on the application). She got Slaying and basically permanent Aether on Weapon, and Dodge on Duo. He got pre combat Special Spiral, Dodge, and Null Follow-Up on Weapon, and Guard and Pulse Smoke on Duo. And Distant Pressure is basically kind of irrelevant with Distant Dart being a thing now, unless they are willing to combine Vantage and dual phase Desperation on to the same skill.

Pretty fun stuff over all in my opinion.

Edited April 5, 2022 by XRay

[Ice Dragon]

And the usual translation notes:

 

The name of the banner, "Unlikely Friends", is "不思議な友達" (fushigi na tomodachi), "Strange Friends".

Mia's epithet, "Budding Blade", is "剣心の萌芽" (kenshin no hōga), "Sword-Heart's Sprout".

Sharp War Sword is "戦神の鋭剣" (senjin no eiken), "The God of War's Sharp Sword". So unsurprisingly, Thorr is behind this banner's units again.

Spd/Def Tempo is "速さ守備の拍節" (hayasa-shubi no hakusetsu), "Spd/Def Tempo". "拍節" (hakusetsu) can also be translated as "beat" or "pulse".

Soren's epithet, "Hushed Voice", is "沈黙の唇" (chinmoku no kuchibiru), "Silent Lips".

Adroit War Tome is "戦神の戦術書" (senjin no senjutsusho), "The God of War's Book of Tactics".

Ilyana's epithet, "Awakened Appetite", is "目覚めし食欲" (mezameshi shokuyoku), "Awakening Appetite".

Windy War Tome is "戦神の風書" (senjin no fūsho), "The God of War's Wind Tome".

Ike's epithet, "Close-Knit Siblings", is "睦まし兄妹" (mutsumashi keimai), "Close-Knit Siblings". The word for "siblings" here is "兄妹" (keimai), "older brother and younger sister".

Sturdy War Sword is "戦神の剛なる鉄剣" (senjin no gō-naru tekken), "The God of War's Sturdy Iron Sword".

Distant Dart is "遠反・飛燕の構え" (enhan: hien no kamae), "Distant Counter: Darting Stance". As usual, "遠反" (enhan), "distant counter", is an abbreviation of "遠距離反撃" (enkyori hangeki), "Long-Range Counterattack", which is the name of the Distant Counter skill. "飛燕の構え" (hien no kamae), "Flying-Swallow Stance", is the name of the Darting Stance skill.

Boyd's epithet, "Future Great", is "未来の剛腕" (mirai no gōwan), "Future Strong Arm". "剛腕" (gōwan) literally means "strong arm", but can also mean "someone you can rely on to do a difficult job".

Large War Axe is "戦神の大斧" (senjin no taifu), "The God of War's Great Axe". Or "large axe" if you want.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Ice Dragon

[Sunwoo]

Wow, WTF did they do to Boyd. His art and skills are both pretty bad.

Least impressive child banner ever.