Jump to content

Special Heroes - Holiday Handoff


Jave
 Share

Recommended Posts

This is one of the most disappointing banners in a long time for me, personally. I don't like Cordelia, I don't like Severa/Selena, Dorothea is getting ANOTHER alt before her base version is even in the game, lame Feh OC as the freebie, and...of course...no sign of Christmas Brom. I big, disappointing snooze for me. At least I can keep saving my orbs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dorothea is the new queen of alt hell, lol

Sure, Charlotte was stuck there for maybe half a decade, but Dorothea has decided to own it by having pretty much only alts and no base version. It's funny.

The Black Knight is also pretty lolzy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is pretty silly. Another BK before Zelgius's red armor, another seasonal Dorothea before regular Dorothea, and another seasonal Bruno before regular Bruno. Annette as the demote is convenient for me, though. With her, the only core student I won't have any versions of will be Ashe. Also now Crafty Fighter joins the 4* seasonal lineup.

Cordelia... certainly exists, I guess. I'll pick her up with the spark, but she doesn't feel very novel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cordy is tempting as I adore her but right now I'm focusing on getting as many Seiðr copies as I can because I don't have any Mythic unit merged beyond +2. 

Dorothea getting 3 alts and her base version is nowhere to be seen is lulz. 

Don't have much to say about the other 2. 

Anyways, rating these guys as units:

  • W!BK is a speedy armor again, this time wielding an axe instead of a sword. His Prf has Slaying, Spectrum+5 and a ton of conditional effects depending on whether he can trigger his special and how healthy his foe is. The effects are 40% dmg reduction on first hit, a debuff on the foe's Atk/Spd and NFU. Being green is a bit of a demerit when the meta nukes are red. Special Figher 4 gives a more lenient HP threshold some protection against Deep Wounds and has Noontime built-in, which would be great for my H!Myrrh on non-Hardy builds. 
  • W!Dorothea is a cav dancer and just like H!Azura she gives +6 to all stats of the unit she refreshes and gets +6 Atk/Spd while attacking if she's healthy. The difference is that Azura grants +1 mov to infantry/fliers while Dorothea grants a guaranteed follow-up regardless of unit type (Azura still wins thanks to her Duo button). 
  • W!Annette is probably going to be a slow bow archer in contrast to W!Ignatz being fast. Gotta wait for an Arcane bow to see how well she'll fare as ranged armors aren't in a great spot unless they have a prf to let them carve a niche. 
  • Harmonic is Cordelia and Severa Selena. Stats are 40/44/43/33/23. Being a Lance flier is rough with how saturated that class is but Cordy makes it work with her prf granting Slaying, Atk/Spd+6 and Special acceleration during Player Phase, Orders status to unit and allies within 2 spaces and a sidegrade of B!Catria's Triangle Attack called Dual Strike which needs the unit that is attacking to be adjacent to a unit with the status to get a Brave effect. I'd say Dual Strike is slightly stronger than Triangle Attack because you don't need the attacker to have the status but the adjacency requirement can be tougher to meet depending on the map. 

I'd say the banner is an easy skip on pure gameplay terms, although getting a copy of W!Cordelia might be worthwhile just in case Dual Strike does end up being better than Triangle Attack. You can also Run W!Cordy alongside B!Catria on AR-D Anima to neuter Elimine users (although it'll do nothing for those that run double Elimine but that's rare). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I nearly cried at seeing that the paired units being Cordelia and her daughter. The two may not always get along, but they came together as a Harmonized unit to celebrate Christmas after so much parentless doom and gloom on Severa's end. And isn't that what the Holiday season is all about? 🥲

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gonna be honest, I kinda like the idea of Dorothea being the character with multiple alts and no regular version. Her wearing multiple unconventional, more fashionable clothes definitely fits her character.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Christmastime is usually the time of Armors and... apparently Three Houses Bow Armors... so it seems somewhat silly to see them drop any illusion of otherwise and just make one of the armor units an actual dude in armor. BK also brings Special Fighter 4 with him, which adds on a [Deep Wounds] dampener and Noontime effect to the existing skill, on top of slightly more lenient trigger requirements. Not a humongous upgrade, but it is still a Tier 4 Special Fighter. I'm just glad it doesn't also have a Tempo effect...

Three Houses have officially overstayed their welcome. I can't be bothered to care about even more of the pests getting in...

So they powercrept Wedding Catria/Thea's support effect by making it pretty much guaranteed to trigger? Cool cool...
There really isn't any getting around it, Christmas Cordelia/Selena are just better Lance versions of Wedding Catria/Thea.

And we also got Bruno being a Green Tome probably-armor. Because that's what we need, more armor units.

Yeah... I'm not enthused by this years offerings. I'll pull just enough to get Cordelia and call it there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Big fan of festive Black Knight. Definitely pulling for him! Also, modern BST Black Knight is going to be terrifying. OG Zelgius and Black Knight are still relevant, even with their BSTs, exclusively because of Black Luna, so this is... Yeah, I'm scared.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love this harmonic. It's perfect. Also, In"Severa"ble spear is a great touch, don't think I don't see you, IS. Dorothea looks great to use and Annette got one of her far superior TS looks in the game. Great banner.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This completely randomised lineup and they couldn't spare a single crumb for Jugdral this year, Merry Christmas indeed.  

At least Special Fighter 4 is here, I need that eventually.

Also, honestly, I have no idea why they handle 3H in such a random way.  Where's Hanneman to go with last year's Manuela?  Why not Mercedes to go with Annette instead of Dorothea?  Or someone else to go with Dorothea?  Why is it always just a random grab bag?  That's what makes these groupings even more unsatisfying.  It doesn't feel like characters getting together to celebrate, it just feels like there wasn't any thought put into it.  God knows why BK and Bruno of all characters decided to show up without anyone related to them.

Edited by Sayyyaka
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm a bit confused... Is Cordelia actually unaware that Selena is...? ... Eh, whatever. Two plausible explanations are that this Cordelia doesn't know Severa yet, or that she's just playing along. Whatever the case, I don't feel like bothering with thinking about it more than that.

Anyway, as for the lineup... Anette's design is cute. I'm not really interested beyond that, though, so I'll keep saving orbs for the New Years banners.

Speaking of which, there was speculation that Bruno might be a duo with Veronica on the New Years banner. Considering he's here instead as a TT+ unit, I now seriously doubt this is the case. Anyway, still, I'm happy we get another Bruno and am glad he's free! Looking forward to the New Years banner! 😄

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So tired of 3Hells units every where. It's just, please. I really want a new FE game to show up for the one and single purpose of getting different faces on banners now.

While TMS has been deleted from the files.

Whatever.

I'll be going for Cordelia. I really like their outfits and it's funny and wholesome to see her and her daughter together. Also, it's a ready made galeforcer harmonic, so it'll save me resources lol.

Really hope i can catch a BK santa along the way too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a easy skip to me. My orbs are safe.

One thing I liked about this banner is that they finally gave Sing to Dorothea, instead of Dance like the others alts. But it was pretty lazy of them to reuse Harmonized Azura's tome animation.

52 minutes ago, Mercakete said:

Speaking of which, there was speculation that Bruno might be a duo with Veronica on the New Years banner. Considering he's here instead as a TT+ unit, I now seriously doubt this is the case. Anyway, still, I'm happy we get another Bruno and am glad he's free! Looking forward to the New Years banner! 😄

So or the Duo will be Askr & Ash, like how I have been joking/predicting about for quite a while... Or we will have Veronica & Letizia as the duo.

Edited by Diovani Bressan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This banner is not for me, but it's fine. Art is good but BK aside isn't going to live long in the memory, nothing particularly stands out in terms of the outfit designs.

- It being BK and not someone completely different like Zelgius or Edelgard makes it a bit more comical so I'm fine with that. And he's a functionally complete Save tank out of the box, so even for people who aren't fans of the move type will find easy usage here.

- Dorothea is a nice alternative to horse Azura, granting an auto follow-up is nice, but then as a solo dancer you miss out on any fancy tricks beyond that.

- No real comment to make about Annette as an armoured demote, this type of unit is too much of a hassle for me to invest in.

- Cordelia is no doubt powerful, shame she's Harmonic instead of Duo when it's a decision that could have gone either way with no other change to the unit. I do generally like Cordelia but can't stand Cordelia Jr so in that respect it's kind of awkward. I think this addition does tip the scales towards blue being the colour I'd pick for the annual free seasonal unit ahead of red. Green takes a back seat for once.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm really loving the icicles on Black Knight now that we can actually see more than just the silhouette of them. His kit also looks pretty cool and helps out against a lot of the units that Far Save normally struggles with. But he probably still dies to Duo Chrom.

Completely ambivalent to Dorothea, Annette, and Bruno, though it's nice that we're getting a tome armor from Tempest Trials.

Cordelia looks pretty cool. Dual Strike looks pretty fun. It'll probably replace Harmonized Catria's Triangle Attack in certain Rally ball team compositions in Aether Raids, but is less reliable when using units with higher movement range.

 

It looks like I'll probably be pulling for a +10 Cordelia with my backup colors being green and then colorless, in that order. Sparks will go to Cordelia, Black Knight, and Dorothea. Hopefully, I'll get one 4-star copy of Annette before I finish. Priorities may change when stats come out, namely if Annette turns out to be insanely min-maxed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And translation notes:

 

The banner name, "Holiday Handoff", is "おねだり大作戦" (onedari daisakusen), "Great Begging Campaign". Given the context, I assume this is referring to asking for presents.

Black Knight's epithet, "The Night's Blade", is "聖夜の守人" (seiya no shunin), "Defender of the Holy Night". The word "聖夜" (seiya), literally "holy night", usually translates as "Christmas Eve". However, as this is a fictional world that likely doesn't celebrate Christmas as "Christmas", I'll use the non-brand-name version.

Solemn Axe is "荘厳なる祝福の聖斧" (sōgon-naru shukufuku no seifu), "Holy Axe of Solemn Blessings".

Special Fighter is "奥義隊形" (ōgi taikei), "Special Skill Formation". The word "奥義" (ōgi), "secret technique", is the terminology for Special skills. The word "隊形" (taikei), "battle formation", is the terminology for the Fighter skill series, hence why the icons depict a set of dots in a formation.

Dorothea's epithet, "Yuletide Dancer", is "聖夜に舞う華" (seiya ni mau hana), "Brilliant Flower Dancing in the Holy Night". The word "華" (hana) is a standard alternate spelling of "花" (hana), "flower", and normally means "brilliance" or "splendor".

Sevenfold Gifts is "皆への七つの贈り物" (minna e no nanatsu no okurimono), "Seven Presents For Everyone". That's seven presents in total, not seven presents for each person.

Annette's epithet, "Festive Helper", is "努力家の冬祭り" (doryokuka no fuyumatsuri), "The Hard Worker's Winter Festival".

Peppy Bow is "聖夜の弓" (seiya no yumi), "Bow of the Holy Night".

Cordelia's epithet, "Unyielding Snow", is "負けず嫌いの聖夜" (makezugirai no seiya), "Holy Night of Those That Hate to Lose".

Inseverable Spear is "母娘の静やかな祝福" (oyako no shizuyaka na shukufuku), "Mother and Daughter's Quiet Blessing". The word "静やか" (shizuyaka), "calm" or "silent", appears to be archaic.

Dual Strike is "デュアルアタック" (dyuaru atakku), "Dual Attack".

Def/Res Hold is "守備魔防の大牽制" (shubi mabō no daikensei), "Def/Res Great Restraint". The word "牽制" (kensei), "restraint", is the terminology for the Rein skill series.

Bruno's epithet, "Masked Reveler", is "仮面が彩る聖夜" (kamen ga irodoru seiya), "Mask-Decorated Holy Night".

Peppy Cane is "聖夜のステッキ" (seiya no sutekki), "Cane of the Holy Night".

 

Bruno's art is already up on the character introductions page. Like all of his other versions, he once again features his signature ripped shirt in his damaged art.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll likely at least summon enough to free pull Black Night, will hold off on any more until New Year's banner.

It's amusing they put Severa's name in her mother's weapon, even if this is Fates version of character.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Black Knight: The Night's Blade got Slaying, damage reduction, and Null Follow-Up. Special Fighter 4 basically adds healing on top.

Dorothea: Yuletide Dancer gives all stats +6 and guaranteed follow up to ally.

Cordelia: Unyielding Snow got Slaying, special charge, limited warping, and Dual Strike (basically better Triangle Attack). Harmonized skill grants Treachery.

Seems fun overall, but nothing too game changing.

9 hours ago, Alexmender said:

You can also Run W!Cordy alongside B!Catria on AR-D Anima to neuter Elimine users (although it'll do nothing for those that run double Elimine but that's rare).

I ran three or four Elimines and I know that is not too common, but I figure two Elimines should be relatively common by now since you want to stack as much damage reduction as possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...