Roflolxp54

Looks like I'm stuck with using red mage infantry units for the bonus -- Hubert and then Lorenz -- unless I can snag one of the banner focus units in the first session. Solo seals though.

Pretty much an easy skip, especially since Summer Lyn is coming back soon. Sylvain: Him being 4-5* available is possibly a reference to his being easy to recruit if Byleth were female, especially since Duo Byleth is female on the banner. Boring glass cannon green mage cav though he does nail the modern male beachgoer look. Ingrid: Already looks fast at +0, especially with Spd superboon. However, she is yet another lance flier though her swimsuit looks nice. Byleth+Rhea: cuboon channeling that horny energy, especially in the damaged artwork. Her Prf looks annoying though shooting her out of the sky shouldn't be too hard. Meanwhile, her Duo skill isn't too crazy in the player's hands since it's completely useless if the enemy team is already too fast for any of your units to double (ie. in Arena Assault). Dorothea: Surprisingly good Atk/Spd for a dancer though that does make her support utility a bit limited when compared to Tethys outside of absorbing Chills (maybe). Lorenz: All washed-up upon arrival.

Very blursed comic! On one hand, there's Resplendent Lyn! On the other hand, there's Nifl Gharnef. Nifl Surtr is radiating the vibes of My Hero Academia's All Might and Black Knight just looks funny for having clothes on TOP of his armor. Guess the comic explains why Roy got the Nifl-themed outfit (and I guess Eliwood joined in to support him). And a few Lyn stans are making a few memes out of Lyn in the last panel.

It's been 2 hours and no rewards yet from Resonant Battles.

I dislike Resonant Battles mostly because of its going to alternate with Allegiance Battles (while it's a small reduction in orb income, it's still a reduction nonetheless), that it tries to do whatever it takes to prevent players from using specific strategies (namely Galeforce), and gives very little room to experiment with strategies since there's a limited number of attempts per season. I could only be glad that it's not based on Arena scoring, that you can use AA items, and that Harmonized Heroes are pretty much dead, whalebait content. I liked Limited Hero Battles until Legend Ryoma arrived. Ryoma felt like an unfair challenge, especially since I didn't get specific units (like Brave Hector) or made specific investment decisions (like 5+10ing Nino and Eliwood). Ryoma, IIRC, already felt like a tougher Abyssal map and that's with the ReinLyn+2 dancers combo especially with how crowded the map can be with Ryoma teleporting in units (including the fridge) with Guidance. The time limit didn't really help matters, either. It's probably only going to get worse, especially if IS were to make players use 3H or TMS characters in LHBs.

Although it does not use Arena scoring, I dislike the gamemode overall, mostly because of the hamfisted way it tries to ban Galeforce (b/c of CD count +1 on KO) and soft-ban Desperation, Escape Route, and Wings of Mercy (b/c of heal on KO), especially when we effectively have a turn limit of 3 to kill all the thieves. It may seem easy to rank high now but that's only because everybody has to start from Interval 1. Thankfully, the main draw is Divine Codes which, once again, is not a huge reward given how IS doesn't seem interested in adding new code paths. Also, enemy units are set and don't change between difficulties aside from stats, meaning somebody could try to put together (F2P) guide videos though the limited attempts per season really puts a damper on that. Worse off is after this season, Resonant Battles is to alternate with Allegiance Battles, meaning a decrease in orb income (although Resonant Battle quest in the weekly Coliseum quests gives 1 orb as a reward, Allegiance Battles' 5 orbs will be on every 6th week rather than on every 3rd week). RIP Harmonized Heroes -- easily dead/whale content, perhaps moreso than even Duo Heroes (Harmonized Heroes are pretty specific for Resonant Battles while Duo Heroes at least can not only be used for Arena scoring if merged enough but can also find some use in AR depending on the Duo and team comp).

@TheSilentChloey Worth noting that Summoners exist in different Outrealms (well, versions of Askr) as stated in Book 3 of the main story as well as by friend units visiting your castle. The Everyday Life of Heroes manga Kiran is simply one version of the Summoner character who is capable of being an idiot for comedic purposes (heck, I'm sure we've all made decisions we've regretted and encountered units belonging to players with more money than common sense).

Sorcery Blade is a lot better as a seal than as an A-slot skill. Can be interesting, especially if the player has Delthea or Linde (because of Dark Aura's effect) to work with the Sorcery Blade seal user. Brazen Spd/Res is nothing special. But hey, another filler seal if there's a unit who really needs it! Summer Rhys has an interesting staff though I find it kind of conflicting with Physic (the AoE debuff would be great to use if he's standing next to the tanking unit; however his default heal assist is Physic, which requires him to stand 1 tile away from the tanking unit, who would likely be hurt after the encounter -- kind of sucks if the tank wants to sit on a defense tile/chokepoint).

Not a lot of info. Summer 2020 Part 1 banner: Kind of a waste of time because of the banner trailer being released separately (not to mention that said banner trailer got released prematurely several hours ago). Harmonized Heroes: A cool idea that builds on the concept of Fire Emblem Heroes being a series crossover spinoff game. Alas, it's largely whalebait for those Coliseum players if Duo Heroes were of any indication. Call of the Sea: The free orbs are certainly welcome. And oh dear, another random 5* free summon event. Welp, I'm gonna hope at least 1 blue shows up -- wouldn't turn down Lyn, Cordelia, or Laegjarn. Resonant Battles: Oh god, not ANOTHER Coliseum mode! That pretty much implies Coliseum scoring, making mobility skills be limited to B/C/S-skills and Prf weapons/assists. Sure, Pivot may seem like a cool skill for Resonant Battles but it's not-optimal for scoring well unless it's absolutely worth dropping 300-400 SP for a 150-SP for a better chance at killing a far-off thief. Heavily merged Galeforcers and refreshers with Prf assists (Legend Azura, Peony, Mirabilis) are going to be really useful here. The Divine Code reward is nice but there isn't really much of a good selection there. Auto-Dispatch (AR): It's nice. There is some talk about it being used for the leftover Aether (since playing and winning every match while getting every possible Aether pot leaves you like 30 Aether leftover) but it only works depending on how much time is left on the season and how much doing an auto-dispatch costs (Feh is either a newb or is smurfing in the presentation video).

I dunno the answer either. I would suspect that IS owns Fire Emblem for the most part, especially since Nintendo doesn't really have much of a direct hand in actually developing them most of the time (take this with a grain of salt, though). If IS were to ever split from Nintendo, we could be seeing another Rare situation with Banjo and Kazooie (Banjo and Kazooie was developed by Rare and published by Nintendo; Microsoft ended up acquiring the rights to Banjo and Kazooie along when it acquired Rare). On the other hand, though probably not the most fair of comparisons, journalists working for a newspaper/magazine company typically don't own the stories they write -- the stories they write belong to the company, not the journalist. It comes down to contracts, policies, etc. We can sort of see this with Shouzou Kaga's attempt at making Emblem Saga for the Playstation after leaving IS with Kaga receiving legal pressure from Nintendo which led to the game being known as Tear Ring Saga.

Flustered Plumeria is so fun as an exploitable to me. Relatable Plumeria Plumeria after she learns about the state of affairs in Kiran's world in 2019-2020 (warning: foul language): @Some Jerk Here it is!

Here's a quick edit that pretty much sums up the comic (warning: foul language):

Finally got the last merge on Bride Cordelia! Cost me 84 orbs (and snagged an off-focus +HP/-Res Nina)!

So they basically implied that Triandra has the better matchup against the Summoner in a 1v1 situation when compared to Plumeria vs. Summoner. Nice. Also love the implications that Kiran's world is just as messed up as ours is (like it isn't just an idealized version of our world).

The questionable or bad: Duo skills are pretty much dead content to anybody who isn't a fan of a specific Duo unit and/or isn't a whale (since they're seasonal units but made with the incentive to be overly competitive for Coliseum-style modes). While there may be some very annoying ones (Duo Ephraim, Duo Micaiah, and Duo Alm are ones I personally loathe fighting against when they're +10 in Arena (Assault).), they're not going to be used a lot by the average F2P (aside from perhaps Duo Ephraim when he becomes available for sparking next month). While powercreep is inevitable, the rate at which powercreep takes place is pretty concerning in Book 4 -- it feels like there's so much powercreep going on in book 4 thus far alone than in Books 1, 2, and 3 combined. The feeling is compounded by IS trying their damn hardest to make the Speed stat (more than) relevant with units starting at 45+ Spd at +0 and base kit and skills that take advantage of having high Speed like Close Call and Repel. On top of that, infantry units have gotten very strong overall to the point that having an infantrykiller weapon that's better than the Poison Dagger+ wouldn't feel out of place today than in 2017. Though we can't forget that older units are struggling to keep up and nowadays, armored units are probably the weakest movement type overall (there may be a few standouts like Edelgard and Sothis but mobility issues can still rear its head and stats typically don't do enough in the face of a rampant number of units with armorkiller or armor-piercing weapons especially when combined with statcreep of said units). If Story mode doesn't give you an idea of how annoying some of these units are, then Hall of Forms likely will. IS hasn't really done much with the Divine Codes mechanic despite how much IS hyped it up when it was first revealed. No new paths have been introduced since the introduction of the Compile Manual menu (about 3 months ago) and the rate of gathering Divine Codes still feels like a trickle (not unlike Heroic Grails) despite improvements to acquisition rate. The compilation of manuals only avoided being dead content because of events handing out Ephemera for limited-release manuals (enough to get, at most, both 5* manuals and a 4* manual every month). There may be a lot of different gamemodes but a lot of them end up feeling the same (Grand Conquests is just competitive Rival Domains, Mjolnir's Strike is just Relay Defense with Coliseum scoring that heavily favors Mythic Heroes). Few specific gamemodes stand out on their own like Hall of Forms, which gives you potentially a lot of room to experiment with unit builds though it also gives you a good look at how overpowered some of the newer units are, especially when combined with higher stats. Tap Battles, while unengaging, can be a treat for those who enjoyed specific music tracks. Staff units are largely stagnant as a unit type because the Weapon Refinery update in late 2017 made them too good -- Wrathful Staff and Dazzling Staff are a powerful skill combination, especially when combined with post-battle damage and/or movement debuffs or a myriad of other effects. Sure, there may be counters to them, but they're generally expensive (Null C-Disrupt) to get or replace (Mystic Boost). Good: Although the speed at which story chapters get introduced has not improved, the story writing at least has, especially for the characters' characters. Book 4, at the very least, seems to be doing a lot to make the characters interesting beyond character design. It's also interesting to note that they're having a celebration for reaching the Midpoint of Book 4 at the release of Chapter 8, which could imply that Book 4 may be longest book in FEH's story mode (Books 1, 2, and 3 are 13 chapters long each; Book 4 could be 15 or 16 chapters long). At the very least, we could hope that IS doesn't rush and end up putting together a cop-out ending to Book 4. There is a greater variety of games being represented in FEH, even including characters from fellow FE spinoff, Tokyo Mirage Sessions#FE. However, this does come pretty much hand-in-hand with powercreep, especially with the aforementioned rampant powercreep that's been going on in Book 4 (which feels much more blatant with the Judgral units...). With Fire Emblem Cipher ending this year, perhaps the original characters from the Cipher TCG (ie. Emma, Shade, Yuzu, Randal), Warriors (ie. Rowan, Lianna), and the Hasha no Tsurugi manga (ie. Al, Tiena) may find themselves a new home in Askr.

Cleared out Abyssal Mila yesterday using StarBlaze's Cordelia solo clear strategy (though I had to improvise due to differing AI movements): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm8nDc3KgpM

According to the poll, I would be considered "competitive" (I generally maintain tier 20 as tier 20.5 is no longer feasible most of the time for me without making major changes to my priorities due to scorecreep). As such, I tend to focus primarily on the enemy phase and would only player phase if it is necessary and safe to do so in Arena (ie. a buffed bonus Anna can double and KO Legend Alm with MCorrin support). Much of my Arena core (since I don't really invest into monthly-exclusives) are pretty much hold-overs from 2018 so my playstyle reflects this.

So they basically pulled Gwendolyn's Prf skill refine effect, edited, it, and pasted it onto Bride Oboro's (and Groom Hinata's) generic weapon. And we now have a name for the so-called "reverse Bladetome effect" in Dominance. Groom Rafiel is kind of sleep but that's mainly because I don't really rely too much on getting easy special charges and just prefer stat buffs on my dancers most of the time. The fact that he's infantry makes him less interesting as a dancer (since infantry dancers are already common) but there's the lore to explain that. Bride Micaiah is gorgeous and is a unit I would love to have in my roster though I'm already juggling tough choices.

Traditional Japanese wedding theme this time around. It's something different. I cannot tell who the characters are from the silhouettes. And one of them appears to have some sort of... boomerang (new dagger weapon?).

So bosses with infinite specials will be a thing on Hero Battle maps with no reinforcements. Nice as long as you can drop the woke boss quickly or at least kite it.

The May LHB clear units: Fallen Takumi: Legend Celica, Dancer Rinea, Legend Alm, Celica Ephraim+Eirika: Fjorm, Gunnthra, New Year's Eir, CYL Veronica Saias: Bath Camilla, Bow Hinoka, Summer Corrin, New Year's Azura Hawkeye+Ninian: Idunn, Winter Cecilia, Clarine, Sue Legendary Lyn: Ares, Reinhardt, Nanna, Silvia The team I ran for Legendary Lyn can clear the Abyssal map before all reinforcements spawn (they can clear the map before the blue mage and the red mage cavalier spawn).

Staff. Having a Pair-Up Legendary unit that wield staves would be a GODSEND for Allegiance Battles during that specific season since healing becomes much less of an issue. And if she were to be using a Prf staff, she's most likely going to be able to Razzle Dazzle by default so she's not going to be a liability in scoring colorless kills. The only real downsides if any are just that unless they create new/Prf healer-only assists and specials, she may not score as well as a non-staff Pair-Up Legendary unit.

I'd say Melancholy if only because it actually does something unique -- resetting specials on top of applying the Guard effect can be a big part in trivializing some maps. For the case of Toasty Skewer, outside of Astra AR (Light AR is iffy since Bramimond exists), it's not too crazy. Could be nice if the healer is stacking Distant Guard and Close Guard skills but denying an enemy special can be a form of tanking of its own given how overpowered damage boosting specials can be. @XRay Null C-Disrupt is currently not an option for me unless I choose to fodder off my 5+10 Donnel, not to mention that it's almost useless outside of scoring in Coliseum modes and I have 0 intention of using Marth in Aether Raids. Rapier+Special Spiral should be able to do something in Arena given the large amount of armored units there. Mentioning Tharja is not really a fair comparison given that they target different defensive stats, not to mention that unless I pull Summer Helbindi, Tharja pretty much has no business being in a Coliseum team outside of being a cohort unit or being used on team #(2-7) in Assault, especially since I'm currently in tier 20 (tier 20.5 Arena is no longer feasible for me due to scorecreep and my general lack of merged Legendary units). And I wouldn't consider Halloween Hector at all since I don't have any Duo Heroes to begin with and Hector, in my opinion, wouldn't be too useful outside of being a counterpick unit in AA, especially since I did not invest in Kronya for AR.

Man, I feel like I'm facing a tough dilemma right now. Should I... A. Pull for Young Marth and hope to +10 him? I already dropped 111 orbs on the banner and got 0 of him and 2 off-focus pitybreakers so far and will have about 400 orbs (from on-hand and mail orbs) by the last day of the banner. Anniversary unit, iconic character to the franchise, and I do want a new Arena/PvE unit. If I do succeed, I would have additional reason to even consider going down the Jugdral Divine Codes path (for the Lewyn (for Marth) and Dancer Ishtar manuals (for Brave Lyn)). It's also unknown if he would be available as a 4-star Focus if the banner were to be run next year so I'm going with the assumption that he'll be 5*-Focus only on the banner rerun unless I missed something. B. Continue saving for Summer Lyn merges and possibly final Bride Cordelia merge? Lyn is at +3 merge and Bride Cordelia is at +8 merge (I do intend to pick up the limited manual of Bride Cordelia). Obvious waifu bias is obvious.

I can imagine that Infernal Ephraim+Eirika LHB is easy for those who have Duo Alfonse. My party: New Year's Eir: Res Temari+, Draw Back, Iceberg, Res +3, Desperation 3, Spd Tactic 3, Spd/Res 2 +Def/-Spd Gunnthra: Blizzard, Draw Back, Glimmer, Fury 3, Chilling Seal, Res Ploy 3, Res +1 Fjorm: Leiptr, Reposition, Ice Mirror, Atk/Def Bond 3, Shield Pulse 3, Drive Atk 2, Atk/Res Bond 3 CYL Veronica: Hlidskjalf, Recover+, Windfire Balm+, Atk +3, Wrathful Staff 3, Savage Blow 3, Spur Atk 3