2023 New Heroes Speculation

[Othin]

We're three months into the year now, and after all the buzz about Rearmed Heroes and the release of Engage, things seem to be settling back into a similar pattern to last year. Another Engage banner sometime this year seems likely, but they seem to be taking their time with it. In the meantime, we can expect Fallen Heroes in May, CYL7 in August, and a continuation of the regular New Heroes rotation.

What are you expecting?

One possible reference point is the 2022 appearances of the games on the regular rotation:

• February: Binding Blade
• March: Thracia
• April: Genealogy
• June: Blazing Blade
• July: Shadows of Valentia
• September: Three Houses
• October: Awakening
• November: Shadow Dragon / Mystery
• December: Fates

If the next few months follow the rotation, we can expect Binding Blade in April, then the two Jugdral games in June/July. In that case, the last four months will probably have some sequence of Engage, Three Houses, Blazing Blade, and... who even knows. Maybe they'll jump ahead to Archanea or Fates, or squeeze Shadows of Valentia or Awakening even further, or do something else entirely.

Over the past two years, the June/July and September-December banners have all involved OCs and a resulting second demote, so we can probably expect the same thing to continue, with several of them likely to double up on Ascended+Rearmed. Meanwhile, the past few months have alternated between Rearmed and Ascended, so if that continues, April will be Ascended.

If we get an FE6 Ascended next month, the two most prominent options are Lilina and Fae. Both have already gotten legendary versions, but Celica shows that doesn't necessarily rule a character out from getting an Ascended. It could decrease the likelihood, though. After them, there's Fir, Sophia, and Igrene. Lilina and Sophia have the further complications of their bride versions less than a year ago, and in Lilina's case, featuring her signature special. Of course, they could also go for someone lower-ranked.

For actual new(-ish) FE6 characters, the ten who scored best on CYL7, in order, are Wolt, Dorothy, Elffin, Noah, Ogier, Zeiss, Lance, Karel, Murdock, and Bors. CYL6 had the same top ten characters, but different ordering past the first two - Elffin, in particular, has jumped up a lot. Murdock and Dorothy in particular seem like strong guesses, but Murdock has defied expectations already - much like Glen has continued to do with this month's FE8 banner. So who knows.

Like the past few New Heroes banners, the next FE6 banner could very well be themed around a specific nation. Dorothy and Elffin could pull towards an Etruria focus, which might be rounded out with Saul as the demote, Douglas as the GHB, and an Ascended pick of either Lilina or Cecilia. Alternatively, a Bern focus might involve Murdock, Zeiss, Elen, Ascended Guinivere, and... hmm. Are we even missing any other Bern characters? Karel is recruited from a village in Bern, if that's worth anything. But Etruria seems like the most prominent option at the moment.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I'm surprised we've only gotten one Engage banner so far, I thought we'd have had a second one by now. But I'm also kinda glad we haven't gotten the next one yet? I'd very much so like April to be a Binding Blade month, and I'm hoping we finally get Elffin and Douglas into the game. But, of course, seeing as the characters I like take super long or have yet to arrive (*cough*BROM*cough*), I'm not getting my hopes up.

I'm hoping for Binding Blade in April, and June/July to be Thracia and Genealogy, and September to be Blazing Blade. After that, I'm thinking October and November will be Engage and Three Houses/Hopes, and December will be Shadows of Valentia because it'll be super easy to squeeze a couple more out of there with the addition of the next Book's free OC.

[Humanoid]

I understand why there was no Ascended Hero on last year's fallen banner since, well, ascending is literally the opposite of falling. But it would be a lot easier to add a Rearmed Fallen Hero, and I certainly hope there is one.

Other than that, I was kind of against Engage banners initially because it meant no room for an Ascended Hero, but now that we have the Sacred Stones banner with the same setup as the Engage one, I don't really care anymore if/when they appear. Still don't know any of the characters of course, but whatever, that was true of half the FE games for me when FEH first launched.

Incidentally, I thought Legendary Lilina was a relatively new unit and was shocked when I checked and saw that she launched in 2020. Where did all the time go?!?

[DefyingFates]

12 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Other than that, I was kind of against Engage banners initially because it meant no room for an Ascended Hero, but now that we have the Sacred Stones banner with the same setup as the Engage one, I don't really care anymore if/when they appear. Still don't know any of the characters of course, but whatever, that was true of half the FE games for me when FEH first launched.

The weird thing is, characterization wise Tana really should be an Ascended unit since this is a more mature version of her. I wonder if Ascended units will be a bit more sparse going forward, or if IS is just going to prioritize getting as many Arcane Weapons out as possible regardless of how much in-universe sense it makes?

[Othin]

1 hour ago, DefyingFates said:

The weird thing is, characterization wise Tana really should be an Ascended unit since this is a more mature version of her. I wonder if Ascended units will be a bit more sparse going forward, or if IS is just going to prioritize getting as many Arcane Weapons out as possible regardless of how much in-universe sense it makes?

At this point, it seems like pretty much any version of a character can qualify as a Rearmed unit, including ones that would meet the criteria for being Ascended or a regular New Hero.

At this point, four of the ten original weapon types are still missing Arcane weapons: Blue tome, green tome, dagger, and staff. There's also the possibility of including colorless tome and beast, but those are probably lower priorities, and inheritable beast weapons would have their own complications. (They'd need to either have inheritance restricted by movement type, have their effect vary based on movement type, or break from the movement-specific effects entirely.)

It looks like the new pattern is that January-April will alternate between Ascended and Rearmed, while September-November can have both due to the presence of OCs, and June/July may start to have both as well. I could see May and August starting to count some of the Fallen and CYL units as Rearmed and Ascended, respectively, but it remains to be seen. If I were designing the pattern, I'd make it so that Rearmed Heroes show up in Jan/Mar/May/Dec, Ascended Heroes show up in Feb/Apr and two in August as the two CYL finalists, and both show up in Jun/Jul/Sep/Oct/Nov, for a total of 9 of each per year - but IS often doesn't listen to me.

There's also the possibility of a new unit type later this year complicating things further, but that sounds too crowded to go for yet. Seems to me like it'll more likely join the Legendary/Mythic rotation - and probably involve Emblem Rings, one way or another.

[Humanoid]

I'm not holding my breath but am certainly hoping that the theory about Ascended plus Rearmed banners is true. Psychologically the recent switch to them alternating has already killed much of my summoning enthusiasm for them and for the game in general, similar to how I felt there was nothing to play for when I stopped playing in 2020/21. If not for there being two sparkable AHR banners in the first quarter of this year, there'd be nothing to look forward to at all without FEH Pass.

The fact that we're not getting a full set of Arcane weapons every year is especially disappointing in the context of continuing skill restrictions. If I want to give an Arcane Bow to a non-flier I have to throw away Guidance 4. If I want to give Arcane Lance to a foot unit, I have to throw away Canto. That hurts a hell of a lot more if these weapons only come around every two years, instead of once a year.

[Othin]

1 minute ago, Humanoid said:

I'm not holding my breath but am certainly hoping that the theory about Ascended plus Rearmed banners is true. Psychologically the recent switch to them alternating has already killed much of my summoning enthusiasm for them and for the game in general, similar to how I felt there was nothing to play for when I stopped playing in 2020/21. If not for there being two sparkable AHR banners in the first quarter of this year, there'd be nothing to look forward to at all without FEH Pass.

The fact that we're not getting a full set of Arcane weapons every year is especially disappointing in the context of continuing skill restrictions. If I want to give an Arcane Bow to a non-flier I have to throw away Guidance 4. If I want to give Arcane Lance to a foot unit, I have to throw away Canto. That hurts a hell of a lot more if these weapons only come around every two years, instead of once a year.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind if they stopped making Ascended Heroes entirely and started putting Rearmed Heroes on every non-CYL New Heroes banner. We'd just need another source of Florets - as long as we can get a decent supply of them somehow, Ascended Heroes don't really do anything special.

[Humanoid]

46 minutes ago, Othin said:

To be honest, I wouldn't mind if they stopped making Ascended Heroes entirely and started putting Rearmed Heroes on every non-CYL New Heroes banner. We'd just need another source of Florets - as long as we can get a decent supply of them somehow, Ascended Heroes don't really do anything special.

I can definitely go with that. There are plenty of places in the game where the reward scheme has been completely neglected and is utterly obsolete, so doing a pass over all of that would be healthy for the game in general.

Ascended Heroes do have value beyond that of course, in that they're about one generation of BST ahead (fewer absolute points but more optimised) and tend to have more complete kits. But really the best fix for that would be making the 5-star exclusives on a given banner more equal in quality, instead of there being one who comes with a kit one skill short and which often feels like a glorified 4-star.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I personally like Ascended Heroes and would be upset if they stopped making them, at least right now.

But, anyway, to expand my earlier thoughts a bit. I'm expecting the New Heroes banners for April, June, and July to be influenced mainly by last year's CYL results, not this year's. I don't expect influence from this CYL until August-onward, when this year's CYL winners actually hit. Specifically, I'm thinking Binding Blade, Thracia 776, and Genealogy of the Holy War (as well as the banners that have already happened) will have influence from last year's CYL while all the other games will have this year's influence.

For Thracia and Genealogy, I'm expecting a focus on Edain for Genealogy and a focus for either Linoan or Tina for Thracia, since Edain was the highest-scoring female character from Genealogy's Gen 1 not yet in the game, and Tina and Linoan were Thracia's highest-scoring. If the good treatment of Staff units so far this year is anything to go by, Edain could turn out pretty darn well, and she would probably bring Midir with her. For Thracia, if they focus on Linoan, she's definitely pulling Deen along, and if they focus on Tina, I'm expecting Perne to come with. I would actually not expect Safy, I think she'd come later and potentially drag both Lifis and Shiva with her.

As for Binding Blade, that's one game where I can definitely see them not going strictly by CYL results and instead going with a specific theme. In this case, I can definitely see Ascended Cecilia, with Elffin and Douglas, and I suppose Dorothy so there isn't just one lady. Or, Ascended Guinivere, with Zeiss and Elen. Regardless of the banner, the GHB is definitely gonna be either Murdock or Jahn.

Going past that and into when I think we're gonna start seeing THIS year's CYL influence, the only games I can really kinda pin down are Blazing Blade, Three Houses, and Marth's games. For Marth's games, it's easy: They made a special category in this year's CYL where they made specific and special note of characters who have a large number of increased votes since the previous year, and Marth's very own Yuliya was the lady winner of that new category, so we'll definitely get something with her for the next banner with those games and she's definitely dragging along Jubelo, and potentially Lorenz as a demote, free quest reward, or GHB.

For Three Houses, I think they'll finally stop putzing around and give us Felix and Dorothea, but not Ashe. And for Blazing Blade, well, I can see a couple possibilities with that. One possibility I see is a Pherae theme with Wil, Isadora, Harken, and Ascended Rebecca, with a Nergal GHB. Or, a very loose "kind of connected to Nergal/Black Fang but also kind of not" theme with Rearmed Dagger Jaffar, Harken (company killed by Nergal/Black Fang), Isadora (Harken's fiance), and a lady Ascended OC who would probably be Peony, as well as Renault (used to work with Nergal, probably) as a free quest reward, and of course Nergal as the GHB. It's a VERY loose theme but IS has shown multiple times that they've actually used even looser ones in Heroes. And lastly, I can see Rearmed OC Peony, Ascended Lyn, Wil, Wallace, Dart free quest reward, and Lundgren GHB. As for the elephant in the room, that being Athos, he's almost definitely going to be a Mythic character, so I highly highly HIGHLY doubt he'll factor into Blazing's next banner.

[RodolfoRowlett]

On 3/20/2023 at 9:51 AM, Fire Emblem Fan said:

I personally like Ascended Heroes and would be upset if they stopped making them, at least right now.

But, anyway, to expand my earlier thoughts a bit. I'm expecting the New Heroes banners for April, June, and July to be influenced mainly by last year's CYL results, not this year's. I don't expect influence from this CYL until August-onward, when this year's CYL winners actually hit. Specifically, I'm thinking Binding Blade, Thracia 776, and Genealogy of the Holy War (as well as the banners that have already happened) will have influence from last year's CYL while all the other games will have this year's influence.

For Thracia and Genealogy, I'm expecting a focus on Edain for Genealogy and a focus for either Linoan or Tina for Thracia, since Edain was the highest-scoring female character from Genealogy's Gen 1 not yet in the game, and Tina and Linoan were Thracia's highest-scoring. If the good treatment of Staff units so far this year is anything to go by, Edain could turn out pretty darn well, and she would probably bring Midir with her. For Thracia, if they focus on Linoan, she's definitely pulling Deen along, and if they focus on Tina, I'm expecting Perne to come with. I would actually not expect Safy, I think she'd come later and potentially drag both Lifis and Shiva with her.

As for Binding Blade, that's one game where I can definitely see them not going strictly by CYL results and instead going with a specific theme. In this case, I can definitely see Ascended Cecilia, with Elffin and Douglas, and I suppose Dorothy so there isn't just one lady. Or, Ascended Guinivere, with Zeiss and Elen. Regardless of the banner, the GHB is definitely gonna be either Murdock or Jahn.

Going past that and into when I think we're gonna start seeing THIS year's CYL influence, the only games I can really kinda pin down are Blazing Blade, Three Houses, and Marth's games. For Marth's games, it's easy: They made a special category in this year's CYL where they made specific and special note of characters who have a large number of increased votes since the previous year, and Marth's very own Yuliya was the lady winner of that new category, so we'll definitely get something with her for the next banner with those games and she's definitely dragging along Jubelo, and potentially Lorenz as a demote, free quest reward, or GHB.

For Three Houses, I think they'll finally stop putzing around and give us Felix and Dorothea, but not Ashe. And for Blazing Blade, well, I can see a couple possibilities with that. One possibility I see is a Pherae theme with Wil, Isadora, Harken, and Ascended Rebecca, with a Nergal GHB. Or, a very loose "kind of connected to Nergal/Black Fang but also kind of not" theme with Rearmed Dagger Jaffar, Harken (company killed by Nergal/Black Fang), Isadora (Harken's fiance), and a lady Ascended OC who would probably be Peony, as well as Renault (used to work with Nergal, probably) as a free quest reward, and of course Nergal as the GHB. It's a VERY loose theme but IS has shown multiple times that they've actually used even looser ones in Heroes. And lastly, I can see Rearmed OC Peony, Ascended Lyn, Wil, Wallace, Dart free quest reward, and Lundgren GHB. As for the elephant in the room, that being Athos, he's almost definitely going to be a Mythic character, so I highly highly HIGHLY doubt he'll factor into Blazing's next banner.

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Edited March 24 by RodolfoRowlett