DefyingFates

In all seriousness, if this scares IS into making Three Houses' expies for the rest of time I hope they at least retain Engage's amazing gameplay and visuals (by which I mean graphical fidelity and color palette, relax Alear haters :P) Which is a shame because after so many years of vaguely European settings, I'd love to see IS set an entire game somewhere else instead of just making one part of it foreign to the rest. As for the failed Engage sweep, color me surprised that the votes were spread out too far to help anyone in particular! I wonder how this will affect next year's CYLs. With the possible exception of M!Byleth and Sylvain, I don't think there are any blatant 3H favorites left (unless Dorothea still can't get a main pool variant by then) while Engage fans might double down on Yunaka and/ or Ivy. To be fair I had my doubts about any of the guys having enough star power to win but I was sure those two had the female division on lock. That part in particular had me more surprised than anything else. Still rooting for Lyon to win one day though, he's creeping up each year!

For @ARMADS!!! and anyone else still on the AHR fence, OblivionKnight put out a video last week about the year's heavy hitters for those interested. I'm not meta-savvy enough to offer an insightful opinion but I think these are solid choices for the most part. Except Edelgard, obviously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok5U_itn4Tg

That's the one, thanks! Preferably none, but I'm sure we'll see the Winter and either the Fallen or Summer versions because people just see Edelgard and click without any more thought.

It is really early, but to play devil's advocate: this seems to be how they're celebrating Engage's anniversary after pretending it didn't exist for most of 2023 and we get a new Hero type a year already. Actually, I'm curious if we'll get another type during the next TT+ or not. More stats for the Engagee. Each of an Emblem's 10 merges acts like a bonus Dragonflower on the ally. I'm going to split my votes between N!Sanaki (nuke + sisters) and Kvasir (fodder). AHR starting early means E!Marth isn't eligible. I wonder if that was intentional? The general playerbase will likely vote for some combination of those two, Wind Claude, Gullveig, L!Elincia and another Legendary I can't remember at the moment, if you want more ideas.

Now we have a grand total of one new SI slot (I'm still bitter about that) I'd like to ask what og!Eirika's best build is. I have both Arcane Swords ready to go, but since they're both on cavs I don't know how much I can pass from them to her. Eirika's not fast enough for Devourer, is she? P.S. I know I asked this earlier, but am I correct in saying B!Eirika's best build at the moment is: No Quarter + [Flared Sparrow/ Surge Sparrow] + Moonlight Bangle + Incite Atk/Spd (+ Atk/Spd Catch as a S skill)? I'm considering giving her Atk/Spd Prime along with No Quarter, but DC (M) makes me pause even if I don't think she values the DC effect. Thank you all as always! If I have 11 copies of Lapis I'll ask for her best build too, though I imagine it starts with Vital Astra + Arcane Devourer + Atk/Spd Finish. Thanks again!

At least Hopes has likable OCs? tl;dr is that he has to grow up sooner, so stops being so cruel to Dimitri and the others and does stuff other than train and being a haughty teen. The same happens to Sylvain for that matter. He's actually likable instead of being a complete and utter creep with rare moments of insight. But both those things are a huge shame when CYL is almost certainly going to use their Houses counterparts unless they need excuses for more Rearmed/ Ascended alts. screams into arm

I go back and forth on Felix (it helps that his Hopes version is more well-rounded) but Bernie: I know she's popular but apart from putting flowers on Jeralt's grave the only "appreciation" I hear for her are people fetishizing her mental illness. I just hope we get some creative builds for them, but unlike Byleth and Marianne these two are only known for swordplay and archery respectively, so I won't get my hopes up. At best Felix will be a Mortal Savant but I doubt it. I said this in the Feh Channel thread too, but I'm so mad we got even more 3H winners. At least the potential Engage sweep had a bunch of interesting characters and build ideas. I'll just take my Alfonse and dip unless the others have useful skills to fodder.

Same here. I'm happy for Felix and Bernie fans, but MORE 3H winners? They have 9 now! And after so much 3H bloat? At this point I'm sick of the game as a whole just by principle. I'm glad Alfonse got some focus though. Unless those two have some insane fodder I'll just get him, maybe Robin and call it a day. Emblem Heroes look really fun! I'm sad it took so long for them to do anything with the mechanic in FEH but better late than never. Marth is eligible for AHR, isn't he? I'll hold off on pulling until we get some Emblems I'm more fond of. I wouldn't be surprised if we get Bond Rings or other Emblems altogether later on, though I'm curious how group Emblems like the House Leaders will work. As for the thing I was waiting for: the SI increase - but only to 5? We have far too many premium skills in the pool for that to be worth it, what the heck? We should have at least gotten 6 (my pipe dream was 8), but it's better than nothing I suppose. I wanted a HoF fix too, but I'm skeptical of how well the described change will work.

Yeah, I still remember people saying they would vote for him BECAUSE of this too. It worked out!

Yeah, that's the safest bet and unlike the 3H character literally just getting their promoted outfits (save Lysithea getting a slight recolor) those have only been seen in art so far. It'd be nice if they got some extra features at the very least though, like references to their aides/ families.

Count me one of the people surprised Alcryst or Alfred weren't in the top two. While everyone expected Ivy and Yunaka, I'm surprised F!Alear's with them. I like her and wanted her to win but I assumed that was a CYL9 dream at best. I'm glad Lyon is still in the top 20 and Veyle made it in too. I'm fond of the dragon twins from the DLC, but I imagine them being DLC (and said DLC being rushed out the door) isn't doing them any favors. Oh well. I'm curious to see where this ends up. An Engage Sweep would be pretty weird, but IS seems to have learned their lesson from how utterly boring CYL 4 was so I'm hoping we get some fun kits. Of course it helps that all four of these characters have vastly different temperaments compared to all four winners being stoic to various degrees (even Claude and Lysithea were depicted as such for the most part). Oh, also: if we do get an Engage sweep I also hope the web event is something fun and not just a glorified advert for Engage - or if it is (and Engage needs it unlike 3H) they make it fun and not the cringey snoozefest that was the House leaders giving powerpoint presentations on why their nation was the best...

Seidr and Kvasir are distinct enough from Gullveig to still be legible while the others are just the same person in a mask. IS' rules have always made that distinction (hence Y! and A!Tiki being separate options).

I was referring to Gatekeeper being added a year after the other 3H cast and sweeping in the process, but in all seriousness I don't think a mascot character will make it onto CYL. It's not like Feh's been added to the Heroes' part of the poll, after all.

Sommie's coming next year. In hindsight I shouldn't have been surprised CYL was so early given the livestream is also coming early, but oh well. As always I'm going all in for Lyon but I also want to make another account to vote for some combination of Veyle, Nel and Alear from Engage, though I know they're fighting an uphill battle with Ivy and Yunaka (and Lyon has no chance whatsoever against the male Engage Lords unless he's high in the midterms and gets boosted by them - assuming we don't get another alphabetical order thing again). Best of luck, everyone! Fewer people to clog up the system in future years as 3H did, at least.

PLEASE give us better Skill Inheritance... It'll be nice to maybe get Eitr at last but that's the only thing I'm looking forward to this month.

Huh, that... was actually a good chapter. It's nice to put aside really wacky stuff for a Book (at least for now) to focus on plain mind games, though we'll have to see if the story can maintain this momentum.

I didn't realize that site was a thing, thank you so much! It looks like Ryoma really will be the HoF Legendary. Thanks again!

What are the odds of L!Corrin being on the Fates HoF or is it more likely to be Ryoma? (Actually he was earlier, wasn't he? I don't know when they're scheduled for reruns but he seems more likely now I think about it...) Thanks in advance!

Yeah, it bugs me that we can't just choose to stay in place after moving to save the Canto for later. I really like using your trick for N!Corrin for example, making the most of her 3-mov when retreating is incredibly useful.

I'm amazed the GHB has a Prf weapon and one with both a brave effect and cooldown charge to boot! The new demote dancer is great too and as was said it's nice to have more Rockslide fodder. Getting not only two healers but with premium kits is lovely as well and I even appreciate S/R Far Trace 4 not being as busted as other Tier 4 skills. Yeah, it's unfortunate Reinhardt memed his way into being the face of FE5 but overall this looks like a solid banner in terms of both unit types/ skills and characters chosen... as someone who admittedly doesn't know much of Thracia and has all but given up on gender balance being a thing anymore.

What other skills does he have? Sublime Heaven already has DR negation so Mag NFU would be redundant on him. I think I already asked this before, but would Golden Yule Bow be good on S!Elincia + Deadeye? Spd/Def Hold's in-combat debuff doesn't count as a "Penalty", does it? Thanks as always!

I'll keep Elincia away from the X skills then, thanks! When would an Infantry unit be "forced" to run TP or IP4 though? And thank you again! Hopefully whoever comes with those Remote skills comes with Flared Mirror too to save me some foddering time.

How do the new Kanas' stones compare to Arcane Grima, has it been powercrept? Also, while I got the optimal build for S!Micaiah for Elincia I got the following: Whitewind Bow+ [Spd] Rally Atk/Spd+ Deadeye Flared Sparrow S/D Far Trace 3 Spd/Def Hold That's still a good build, right? I think the answer is yes but I just want to make sure. Thanks in advance! Edit: I forgot the main point of my Forma questions! Is Elincia a good recipient of Atk Oath Echo and would she be good in an Arena team score wise (I have B Duel Flying 4 if needed). P.S. I believe a Remote Res/ Atk Echo is better for Micaiah when she uses Sabotage A/R 3 over Precience, right? Thanks again everyone!

I have Spd/Def Hold but just got Soaring Guidance as an option. Should I make the switch? Thanks in advance!

I'd go from Red > Blue/ Green > Colorless personally. Red has a lot of great units. Blue isn't as good but they're still strong and Green has both strong units and good fodder (No Quarter). While it'd be nice to get the Bridal Tikis, I don't care much for the other units there, so watch me get a circle of 5 colorless stones when the time comes 😕