Xenomata

FREEBIE THORR WOO. Shame she's literally the exact same asset/flaw as my current Thorr, since I don't need two Thorrs, but that's still cool! ...Oh wait I still need Byleth...

So um... I've been putting Made in Abyss on the backburner for years now. Always looked interesting, but I just kept it as a just-in-case-I'm-ever-bored emergency. Well I got bored and I decided to watch it. All 13 episodes of what I now know is just season 1. So my thoughts: What the fuck did I just watch.

Vital Astra is probably fully meant to be used alongside Player Phase units who have their special charged at all times via Time's Pulse or Ostian Pulse II. Even if it's possible to maintain full charge after combat just by letting the unit get an attack in after using VA, it's not likely as many of the units who would get use out of VA would just deal too much damage in one hit... It would take some building and good use of skills to get the best out of Vital Astra, investment which I'm not too keen on giving to any of my units since they honestly don't need it, but I guess being able to have the effects of a Dodge passive equipped in the Special slot will appear to some people. Certainly might make some Hero Battle/Arena/AR-D teams more annoying to take down when they can make it possible to stack that much damage reduction... Brave Ike getting yet another layer of damage reduction has not escaped my notice either... but yeah, probably not gonna sweat it. @Tybrosion In fairness, they have to WORK to learn Astra. In Tracia, as far as I know anyway, Mareeta talked to some guy who said he was Shannan and learned Astra through sheer force of will. I don't think there's many other skills that can be stated to have been that easy to learn. What the anankos is an Aether Manual?

So I just wanna be sure, Vital Astra can be inherited by Infantry Sword, Lance, and Axe units who have learned the original Astra skill (easily grabbed from Virion), and this 2-cooldown special adds 30% of the users Spd when triggered in combat. In addition, this skill has a Dodge 2 effect when it is fully charged. Marth's Shining Emblem adds 35% of his Spd on being triggered, gives Marth +6 to all stats and +6 Atk to nearby allies at the start of the units phase if Marth is within 2 spaces of an ally, and then grants all allies on the map +6 all stat if the special is triggered... And then there's Regnal/Imperial Astra, which are flat boosts of 40% of user Spd and that's it. This special is... jeez. Not only is it completely busted for the units who can use it, but it's also the only inheritable 2-cooldown Special that has a consistent damage boost, which arguably makes it even more busted. What the hell was Intsys thinking? Mareeta really had to dig deep to learn to use Astra, and now anyone can use it if they read a book she wrote? (though on that note I did find her C convo in the forging bonds funny, that she got to talk to actual Shannan and didn't put two and two together)

Forma thoughts:

Er wait... uh Pents wife... Louise! Whoops my bad. ...what? How did I get Louise and Igrene confused? Well uh... there's a perfectly reasonable explanation LOOK A +10 +5 HEGEMON

Well i... tried a little bit to get Mareeta. ...I took a colorless orb on a no-reds session and got Igrene instead. ...welp, guess I'll keep the rest of these orbs to get spring Marisa instead.

I don't think that checks out... in the first place, a large number of units do not even come from games where reclassing is possible, so for instance Lyn being able to use Blue Tomes or Daggers shouldn't work out when she can never use either of those weapons. Same with Roy and Bows, Marth and Bows, Innes and Axes, Tana and Red Tomes, I could go on. Even characters with access to reclassing aren't that plausible at times. Frederick cannot use Daggers (and does not have any classes that could feesibly use swords as daggers), Faye can't use a bow, Hilda has a weakness in White Magic, again could go on. It just doesn't always work like that. Yeah I'm sure they take some inspiration from what is possible in the base games, or they could give Alm an Axe, which can't even be wielded by usable units let alone Alm the can't-reclass Lord, and then make any character who is a Dragon or Beast continue to be a Dragon or Beast, but a different color and maybe a different move type, for all that even changes in some cases. It's also just not possible to say they're exploring "alternate potential" when Felix the not-a-bow user is deciding to use a Bow while dressed in an outfit he doesn't even want to be in in the first place. Just let seasonals be units enjoying a festival, I don't think there's that deep a meaning to it anyway.

...wait, would Ascended Heroes give Intsys a reason to push out an Ascended Arvis, aka the armored Red Mage everyone keeps asking for? What an interesting thought...

Thought this was another Sacred Stones banner because I got Mareeta confused with Marisa. Not that I got the type of unit wrong... August is interesting, but half of his effects just can't be used in most game modes. In Arena one unit being lost drops your score, Aether Raids Offense the only unit who is allowed to die is the bonus unit (and from what I understand they still aren't allowed to die if you wanna reach Vault of Heaven?), ally support is not active on CPU controlled teams so he doesn't do anything there, and of course who can forget Hero Battles, which are immediately lost if one unit is killed. To be fair, just the Atk/Def/Res and Guarenteed follow-up on initiation is still good, but I don't know why they have to add those effects that only work after an ally has been killed when in most cases you don't want to let your allies be killed... Even knowing he's the skill fodder dump of this banner, Galzus looks disappointing. Surge Sparrow is nice to have not be locked to Brave Eirika anymore, but NFU should really just be demoted at this point, and Rein Sword would probably be judged as not being anything special if it weren't for the fact that there really aren't any inheritable Swords that boost the users Atk and Spd (it's mostly boosting Atk and Def). Dunno who this girl is, but her skill fodder is frankly disappointing. Hope she makes up for it with stats. Ascended Mareeta... the name of her game is keeping her Special ready at all times, else she loses a layer of Dodge 2. She could probably be converted to an EP setup with Distant Pressure, but seeing that Vital Astra's Dodge effect is still considered a non-Special effect is somewhat lame. ...yeah I'm not really feeling her. They had an opportunity to breathe life into a Thracian unit, and they use it on a unit who plays exactly the same as her normal alt but with some extra Special Readiness play. Salem I remember reading was the first Dark Mage to be playable in the entire series. So... he'll be yet another Red Tome infantry to throw into the Grail shop. ...hope they at least give him a Prf. One that doesn't just have enemy debuffing effects. Welp @Tybrosion thanks for ruining my hopes before I can completely give my thoughts. What the hell, were Yen'fay and Riev freak accidents? ...I do not know a lot about Thracia 776, but I would have thought they'd be more interesting than this. August has some decent Ally Support effects, even if you don't want to be seeing half of them in most game modes. ...crap man. Last months banner was pretty cool, but this is just one big letdown...

Actually those are all past Resplendents who will not be run again (as far as we know). The current Resplendent Hero is Seliph, and will be followed by Ophelia, with the third being currently unknown. If you want any past Resplendents, you will need to give up $4.99usd for one past Resp units outfit and 5* copy.

@Flying Shogi Hi. I run Brave Marth, and I think he is underloved. Let me tell you about how powerful Brave Marth can be. Shining Emblem is a powerful 2-charge Special (lowered to 1 thanks to Genesis Falchion's Slaying effect), and IMO it pairs amazingly with the Vantage effect and Special Spiral, letting Marth's already high Atk get supercharged with a Special trigger. (which at the current moment can't really be countered all that well) He is fast enough that Dodge effects generally don't work on him, and he has effective damage against Dragons so he can break through Dragon Wall pretty well. All he needs to function at his absolute best is a nearby ally (within 2 spaces), and he needs 3 of his teammates to have a sum total of 60 bonus stats. Yes technically he can achieve that via one use of his Special... except Fae exists. Her prf weapon, Eternal Breath, grants all stats +5 to all nearby allies, which (5*4)*3=60, letting Marth be ready with Vantage from the getgo. Give her Infantry Pulse and she can also immediately charge Shining Emblem, letting Marth begin sweeping almost immediately. She's just the perfect partner for Marth, even if she's not actually directly supporting Marth. It also frees Marth's C slot for a skill other than Time's Pulse/SS slot for a skill other than Quickened Pulse. Yes Panic exists, but it is easily avoided if you keep unit spacing in mind (or use Ashera, who can grant Null Panic to nearby allies) His greatest weakness is Hardy Bearing, as that removes his Vantage effect. By itself it wouldn't be that worrisome since he does have a good level of bulk, but Hardy Bearing is commonly found on AoE Special units, who can generally take Marth out because of such. I even started using Even Pulse Tie on Fae just to try and shut off such effects before they can become a problem. So tl;dr, Marth can be a one-hit Vantage superunit with the right support. I personally have him near Muspell at all times, since Domain of Flame pairs so well with Marth only needing one hit to slay the enemy. And yes mine is +10 merge, +5 dragonflowers, and S summoner support, but I think it's still very possible to pull off the superunit thing. Whether I swayed you to picking Marth or not does not matter to me. I just feel like he shouldn't be generalized as "another Sword Infantry" when his best playstyle does not at all match what a Sword Infantry usually does. I'm also not sure about "a statball with Vantage" as Ice Dragon puts it, since he only gets +5 all stats from his weapon and +6 all stats from Shining Emblem. Legendary Marth is more of a statball if you ask me. Then again I have already hinted that I am exceedingly biased toward him, so... maybe I'm just looking at him through sparkly goggles. The kind that make him look like a pretty anime boy with cherry blossom petals falling around him as the wind blows gently. ...you know while I'm here, I feel I should mention Gatekeeper's very undermentioned support effect: he grants +5 Atk/Spd to allies in a very large area centered on him (the same area that allies need to be in to trigger his weapon effects), and while it's not exceedingly amazing it is still a nice boost for how easy it is to grant.

It might just be more notable to me now since the time that I used to spend playing Feh is now being spent either working or resting because work was a slog. It is, however, pretty hard to miss all 3 Resplendent heroes as long as you just open the game real quick. It's the quests that one is more likely to miss... which honestly the only ones worth doing IMO are the orbs and Divine Dew ones.

Adding on to the above: What Humanoid said about Feh Pass is partially true. It is possible to actually get three Resplendent Heroes in a single subscription period, though it seems there's some timing needed to do it. Otherwise Feh Pass offers a number of small novelties that most players probably don't notice, but also the ability to have your units autobattle through maps automatically until all stamina has been depleted, which is arguably just as notable. In addition, the Resplendent Heroes are gifted out to subscribers as a neutral 5* freebie, and if you remain subbed to Feh Pass for long enough you get additional perks... which I would be glad to tell you what they are if I could be arsed to actually check what they were! Yeah I don't exactly sub to Feh Pass for long... What Humanoid said about Sparking is also partially true. Specifically, New Hero banners have Sparking available to all players, meaning you can get one of the new heroes for free every month if you summon all 40 times needed. Among the banners that feature the Sparking feature to Feh Pass subbers are Seasonal banners, Legendary and Mythic Hero banners, Double Special Hero banners which bring back 2 seasonal heroes per color to be the sole 5* focuses, among some others. Notable as well is that the last few Brave Hero banners since the addition of Sparking have allowed for players to spark 4 times, once for each Brave Hero... but of course that happens once every 40 summons, so you'd be looking at 160 total summons just to spark all 4 Brave Heroes. Keep in mind that any summon performed in a banner will count towards the total number of heroes summoned, including heroes summoned via Free Summon tickets, so if aiming for a Spark it is good to remember to use as many of those as possible before hitting the 40-summon mark. Also noteworthy is the Celestial Stone shop, which is directly linked to sparkings. For each spark you perform, you get one Celestial Stone to be used in the shop. It's not much, but it does offer some nifty resources. Forma Souls are offered at the price of $29.99usd for a bundle released around every Hall of Forms event (the Forma Soul bundle includes 60 orbs and one Forma Soul to use), and one is offered for purchase in the above mentioned Celestial Stone shop. I don't necessarily think Canto and Save skills are all that notable to be honest. Yes they have become mainstays in pretty much every single unit able to access them, but they do not actually alter the gameplay of FEH that much. The game can really only add skills to change up how the player gets from point A to point B, but point A and point B have remained the same: start with 4 blokes and kill all the buttheads, respectively. As for some things that might be worth going over: The powercreep is very real. Even all the weapon refines and Legendary/Mythic remixes can only do so much to older units when new units come loaded down with effects and skills meant to work perfectly in sync with the unit themself,, or even in the case of 4* demotes just having plainly better stats than the rest (Cath, one of the newest additions to the 4* pool, can rock 47 Spd with an asset in it). New refines tend to push old units from being meh to absolutely amazing (Libra wasn't much of anything to speak of, but now he boasts a good mix of damage and bulk, and oh my god have you seen Walhart?), leaving anyone who got an early refine... they aren't even in the dust, they ARE the dust. Speaking more of powercreep, passives have been getting loaded down with Tier 4 upgrades. I don't quite remember when the first Tier 4s were released, but by now there's little reason to be using most of the Tier 3 alternatives if you can access the Tier 4 variant, even if the upgrade is small for the cost of getting the skill. Even Distant Counter/Close Counter have upgraded variants now. Remember how I said the powercreep is real? Well, if you intend to start playing seriously, you may want to keep an eye out for a unit called Edelgard: Hegemon Husk, who I personally refer to as Hegemon for differentiating sake. Seriously, there are strong units and units who are hard to kill... Hegemon is both. You will learn to hate Hegemon, and then you will probably ask around for how to deal with her, and then you will learn that she's weak to Firesweep+Poison Strike or Boey, and then you will build a few of those units, and then you will just be mildly annoyed by Hegemon. Generally Fallen units are pretty strong... but Hegemon was a direct repeat of what Reinhardt did to the meta back in his day. Sorry to say it, but really the only versions of Camilla that matter now are her Brave and Adrift alts, maybe also her Hot Spring alt if you care about grail units. Brave Camilla has access to a wide-reaching Def/Res debuff in addition to solid attacking stats, and Adrift Camilla is raw power if handled right. Both, of course, require their weapons to be refined. Powercreep is real... but so are the freaking text boxes. Hell, the recent Spring Delthea's skills text boxes take up so much room that she needed two pages to show all of her skills in the reveal trailer. Not saying anything about the existence of this thread, but further inquiries about mechanics you don't understand may best be left to the Questions and Answers thread. There is seriously a problem with some people just completely ignoring the existence of the pinned threads to make entirely new threads asking simple questions like how to inherit skills or showing off their Priscilla... that was a weird one. ...seriously though fuck Hegemon. Boey was never on my +10 radar, and yet I still felt I needed to have him built as best as possible just to be able to deal with her, and now it's so easy for me to kill Hegemon that all the resources used on Boey feel wasted...

The 3rd batch of Divine Code manuals has been added to the game as of the March update, featuring a number of Tier 4 skills being available by the second unit on top of generally valuable skills. As such, all Divine Codes obtained after the update have been updatd to DC3s. You may want to take a look at the Normal 3 units available before going and using DC3s on Normal 2 and Normal 1 units.

It doesn't technically boost Spd and can't be refined, but Ninja Yumi does technically count as a "speedy" bow, albeit at the cost of defenses, by scaling additional damage with Spd comparisons. The only unit who has it, Ninja Shinon, also carries the coveted Bow-exclusive Deadeye special, and if you can inherit up to ASsolo3 beforehand you can even grab ASsolo4 along with Ninja Yumi and Deadeye.

For once I welcome two 3H banners to definitely overwhelm the other two options. Jesus, Mirabilis & More have been around for how long? All 3 non-mythic units are outright bad these days, at least Dawning Reality has two good units and one unit who better enables an annoying armorball AR-D team. There is no way in hell that Mirabilis could possibly be more popular than the ice queen, is there...?

The next Resplendent hero after Seliph will be... Ophelia??? Oh dear, the original insta-ready AoE nuke and one of my first 5* +10 units... what memories.

I'm really not sure that's a great idea. If you already plan to replace it later on, then why bother inheriting it? I have to assume you already plan to fodder Sedgar (ADcatch3) and Zeke (ADcatch4 and DRmenace) to him with those skills, but if you just be patient to get ADmenace then you can give Henry ADcatch4 and LullAD at the same time instead of foddering off a third unit just to get LullAD. There really isn't that much content at the moment that would otherwise demand Henry need ADmenace right now, so there's no reason to give him an inferior skill just for the sake of filling the slot. ...though from the sounds of it you already did it, so... might have been too late in that regard... Keep in mind that the only condition for Solos is that no other units be adjacent to the user while they are in combat. In most cases, the Cav unit can not only afford to run Solo skills the best out of all units due to their travel distance, but their 3 move also means they can adjust their position much easier to get off the Solo effect regardless of how clumped together they are to their allies. Even if you still find him being next to someone in combat, you would probably still consider replacing his SS since an Atk+3 seal is... garbage on units you intend to use frequently. Sturdy Blow is a decent option as Ice Dragon said, but some other options, if Henry is truly near someone at all times, would be ADbond or ADform, both of which rely on allies being nearby, or even ADpush if you can get Henry back up to full HP by his next attack.

...I just wanted Delthea. Not so much to ask for, right...? In 40 pulls, i instead got Spring Sonya and... Gatrie. Not even one Henry... Welp, at least Gatrie was the pity rate resetter, cause I am NOT going back to this banner. I'll take my Sonya and sparked Delthea and head on home thanks...

You don't even really need to halfass it, just throw AR-D blessings halfhazardly at all of your units and let the game auto-create a team every week, and assuming you have a bonus unit for the week it should hopefully make a team that loses very little lift, compared to making a fully built team and hoping you get enough kills/make the attacker quit to not lose any. That's not even halfassing, that's getting someone else to halfass it for you while you peel grapes or something.

So now with the story of THIS one we now have "promises" of Nowi and Michalis in Spring attire. Though I guess Michalis is more guaranteed due to his... relations... to certain people.

Hooooly shit Mikoto has the best refine and she literally only got like 1 effect. @Tybrosion Hahahahahahahahaha! Guess who +10ed Mikoto in the last few months! ...what oh right they all have refines. Okay, analyzing... Quick Mulagir looks like LegLyn-lite. A total of Atk/Spd +10, Spd-calculating Sweep effect, and Sue's first hit adds on 15% of her Spd. Also Savage Blow 3/Poison Strike 2 for added damage. This is compared to Lyn's Atk/Spd +10, disabling the skills of foes outside of the target, 15% of her Spd being added to all of her attacks, and then the effects of Laws of Sacae II adding all stat +6 and melee-ranged Sweep. ...I think I prefer Sue in this case. Azure Lance adds a total of 10 Atk/Spd and +7 damage to Shigure himself, plus effects that replicate his Prf skill from Fates, making him into a pseudo-buff/healer. The good thing is that it doesn't limit him to just Rallies like his original Prf skill did, so he can also be considered a small version of the positioning staff assists if wanted. Alternatively he can just give all stat +6 to an ally through Rally Def/Res+, which was recently available via Valentine Mist's manual. Overall alright, maybe would have appreciated some extra defenses but not that big a loss. Hikami ups the Debuff Menace to all stat -6, and essentially adds +8 Atk/Spd/Def/Res to Gunnthra via combat debuffs when all effects are triggered. (and really, Blow and Hp 25%+? That's basically always triggered) Gunnthra also gets Domination built into her weapon, which in most cases adds up to +24 Atk. What is there to complain about? Aside maybe from Debuff Menace not being upgraded to a full Menace, but that's what Shigure is for! Doting Staff only upgrades over Flash+ with Swift Sparrow 2 and inflicting Canto Control on anyone who tries to trigger it near her (within 4 spaces), and... that's it. Amazing honestly. No further comment. ...okay so the effect is limited in usefulness to PvP, since not many CPU enemies use Canto, but it's still a very good debuff that, if used right, will lock the enemy in place. In AR, that's basically a death sentence. Only real complaint with this refine is... Mikoto herself only got Atk/Spd +4. Prayer Wheel's base effect was not changed at all. Not even updated text to explain what terms mean. The refine, meanwhile, builds Spd Tactics into her weapon for free (minus the move type demands), Atk/Spd +5, and Triangle Adept 3 for free basically. Between the refine and Prayer Wheel II now also granting Null Panic, it seems safe to say that LegAzura didn't really get remixed, she just got better at doing what she already did. The Spd Tactics effect means she can pack a different C slot for buffing purposes, but in some cases she may still want to run a Dance passive in case she has to Dance someone who wasn't affected by her initial boost effect. And as-is, there really aren't a whole lot of support effects available to fliers... Orders I guess? That new Spd/Res Hold? So... yeah that's my verdict here. Lets her do her job better, but it doesn't really fix her biggest problem of not providing any benefit to someone who doesn't already have a stat buff. The battle effects are situational at best, as dancers usually don't want to be in combat anyway, though being able to target Red enemies better is nice when the situation does call for it. ...what? That's only 5? I don't know what you're talking about. What's a Garon? A miserable pile of secrets?

It's too early to actually judge that for certain, we only know what his weapon does and that he can't double against a Lance Flier. Wait for his statspread to be released and it'll be easier to answer then.

@Fire Emblem Fan I added the video to the original post (plus the jap version for the Ice Dra- I mean japanese speakers) Well some thoughts. Delthea is officially the first unit whose skill descriptions are now too long for the video to handle! Kind of a roundabout way to give her a Menace whose statboosts and debuffs are considered a full help for the unit, but whatever it works. Delthea also comes with a complete NFUsweep combo on her weapon alone when accounting for full buffs and debuffs, which is frankly insane. That means she can slot in a useful B passive instead of having to use a WindWatersweep - ohey she comes with one already! ...still waiting on Rouse Spd/Res 4... Lol Maria is stronger than her own spring sister. Pastel Poleaxe is pretty loaded. No flier weakness is icing on the cake when she gets that many defensive effects. Flow Flight looks pretty nifty, but maybe hard to utilize on some flier units who don't exactly have the best spread on their Spd and Def stats... I'd say give it to Young Minerva, but if you have Spring Maria then you already trumped Mininerva... Carrot-Tip Bow actually looks pretty neat. Sure the best you can hope to inflict is Atk/Def -6 in most cases, but that's still a solid +12 damage on the first attack. -7 and ergo +14 damage could be achieved with Gunnthra's Chilling Seal II, LegLucina's Future Vision II, or Walhart's refine. Henry himself will hopefully not be the worst user of this bow. He has historically never had the most stellar Atk stat... How many times must we put Tharja in the most embarassing costumes... Ironically the duo unit has the simplest skill loadout. I have to assume that "unit's max Special cooldown count value" would mean like how Luna's cooldown is 3, so she'd be adding on 6 Atk when accounting for the slaying effect? I honestly wish we would get past Chill skills by now... there is no reason that couldn't be SRfar trace besides Delthea already having it. As for Spd/Res Hold... eh, I think it's a pointless Tier 4 upgrade. Ohey Luthier is a Lance Cav. Wow, there is NO RED on this banner at all!