Xenomata

...hold on where did she get that snorkel/goggles? I coulda swore I left those on Byleth...

Numbers 98 and 99 have appeared... feast your eyes on the most beautiful creature in the entire Fire Emblem multiverse (his words not mine) and my Arena/Aether Raids/Hegemon Poisoner. Kaden is a product of... just so many pity breakers, and then a few 4* special summons after that. I guess his support is nifty if you can set it up right? Leonie exists because I needed a double-Poison Strike unit for the Arena, and it just so happens Saul existed and held no special meaning to me. She is very useful to have around, hell she's on both my Light AND Astra AR-O teams. Hegemon hasn't really been that big a bother since... And with that, I only have one more +10 unit to go before I hit triple digits... wonder who it will be...?

Fair, but one can use two Walharts and reach the 8th unit

Hey quick question, can Threaten/Menace effects trigger in Pawns of Loki? If they can, then Walhart would be able to inflict Atk/Def -7 and Flash on the ENTIRE enemy team if positioned correctly. If not... oh well, woulda been completely broken if it were the case. Also on the topic of Walhart, I think his best skill now would be Catch skills. Since the trigger range of refined Wolf Berg is 4 tiles, which is his move/attack range, he is pretty much guaranteed to be attacking a foe with a penalty assuming he isn't Danced into battle. The enemy is also unlikely to be touched when they enter his range (outside of the support of units like Duma or Fallen Takumi), so he would get the full +9 to two stats from attacking an enemy with a Penalty and 100% HP. He could also be Speed stacked. At +10 merge with a Spd asset (no dragonflowers), Walhart has 34 Spd. From Wolf Berg's solo effect, he hits 38 Spd. From the field buff if an enemy is within 4 spaces of him, he hits 44 Spd. If you give him Atk/Spd Catch 4, he hits 53 Spd. If he has a Lull or Near Trace skill that lowers the enemies Spd, he now has an effective 56 Spd. Assuming you give him Atk/Spd Solo 3 SS, he now hits 62 Spd. 62 Spd is not at all bad (though at +10 I'm sure many enemy units will be FAR faster), and hey if you wanna have some fun you could give him Bonus Doubler support from LegEliwood or Astrid and bump his Spd up to 68.

So Ancient Ragnell grants extra Def, has Distant Counter, and inflicts Atk/Def -6 on the foe if Priam has a Bonus, which in ideal conditions (heh) he will have because he comes with Rouse Spd/Def 4... that's something to be certain. Atk/Def Ideal and NFU are also appreciated on such a man. ...but... I dunno, it still feels wrong to have Priam over... well, I guess his only competition would be Gregor... but at least Gregor appeared in more than the literal last Spotpass chapter. Flavia's Lioness Blade, with all conditions met, grants Atk/Spd +6, a similar effect to Deadeye/Lethality by disabling non-special damage reducton, and also special acceleration. Pretty good. Red Feud though... it's interesting. Debuffs red foes only, and prevents Red units from providing support to allies... only question, does this also affect the holder of the passive? If Flavia has this skill, does she also not get the support of any allies, since she herself is a Red unit? Hm... Oh what the hell, BASILIO is the demote??? Did he drink too much mead and lose a star on the way in? ...wait, he's bringing Spirited Axe to the 4* pool? That's a weapon currently locked to Groom Hinata in the Grail shop (as the Huge Fan+)... interesting. Miriel is the additional unit being brought in as a 3*-4* unit. She is a Blue Infantry Mage who comes with what looks like Blarlion, Draw Back, Atk/Spd Ideal 3, and Spd/Res Link. ...fascinating. She was originally a studied user of Fire magic in Awakening, but is instead a user of Blue magic, commonly associated with Lightning. In addition, she is bringing an Ideal skill to the 4* and lower pool (even though it most definitely is not the demote skill), making it slightly more accessible to less wealthy players... The best part about Ash is that she is free. A Colorless Beast unit with that level of bulk, guaranteed follow-ups and follow-up denial, and a Prf C skill that contains both refined Fruit of Idunn's ally teleportation effect AND Joint Drive Atk is awesome to have on a freebie unit.

VEGETABLES. ...well that's disappointing. The trigger area of Thokk was basically untouched. I was kinda right about Stall Ploy being added to her effects, didn't call the additional debuffs, but that was never really an issue, the issue with Loki's Thokk was the demand that her HP be higher than the enemy when Loki is not known for having great HP to begin with. The issue is... kinda resolved I guess? Not greatly though... The refine effect is slightly disappointing in the trigger range, but is otherwise a good effect, especially considering units with low Spd tend to also be packing Special Acceleration effects (though the effect of disabling Guard is becoming a little more common...) Basically brings Loki to being a major debuffing force. Also some extra Atk/Spd, just as expected. Wolf Queen Fang's original base effect was an Atk/Spd boost equal to 2 x number of allies within 2 spaces of Nailah. That means it technically lost one point of Atk/Spd in favor of more leniant trigger conditions AND a bonus effect if both trigger conditions are in effect. That's nifty. The refine is... disappointing. Healing with every hit works on defensive units because they have the bulk to withstand hits and basically negate all incoming damage (in some cases having a net gain of HP as a result) Nailah, on the other hand, is not quite as bulky... Libra will, in total, inflict Atk/Spd/Def -8 on the foe, gets +7 true damage, and also... sigh, just give us Breath of Life 4 already... AND ALSO recovers 7 HP to himself and allies within 2 spaces after combat. That's neat. Does it save him as a frankly bad unit? He is certainly a lot better now, yes. Summer Tiki getting all stat +8 and additional special damage based on foes Res is nifty. The special damage in question has a minimum of 40% of foes Res (based off Moonbow) and a maximum of 70% (based off Aether), with Astra being 60% (Astra being likely to trigger on Tiki's theoretical follow-up attack, especially assuming she packs Dragon's Ire) I... honestly don't have an opinion here. I feel like she needed Iotes Shield a lot more than extra damage, but the extra damage isn't bad. WALHART. Ah yes, the one I was most looking forward to, basically becomes a maximum Menace skill in giant red armor. ANY FOES WITHIN 4 SPACES (aka Walhart's effective area of attack) grants Walhart all stat +6, and with the refine inflicts Atk/Def -7 AND FLASH DEBUFF on the foe. That is flatout better than the existing Atk/Def Menace. Wolf Berg's original effect has been changed to a Blow/Solo trigger, and in addition he will inflict Atk/Def -5 on the foe if they happen to be healthy? The only disappointing part about this refine is that he doesn't have a guaranteed follow-up attack, but frankly who cares when he has such a good debuff accessible to him? EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!

Oooh, that'll be an interesting birthday present... ...what? I like it when things happen to land on my birthday. Anyway, the seasonal units should have been announced by now, or at least been teased, and we've seen nothing yet, assuming they were to be added with the patch on Dec 5th. I have to assume at least one part of the Feh Channel will be discussing them. Now that we're going into Book VI, I wonder if they're gonna add yet another type of special hero to the growing mix? For sure we'll be seeing talk of what to expect with Book VI. Will we get a male OC this time, or yet another girl? Side question, will we get full details of the new hero banner this channel? I wonder if we'll learn about more remixes and refines for Legendary and even Mythic heroes? For sure the earliest Mythics are in dire need of the boost. Eir's Lyfjaberg only gets Atk/Spd +4 and follow-up denial, and she is still taking recoil damage afterwards... Duma would much rather be inflicting an Atk/Res -6 debuff on the enemy than getting Atk/Res +6. Could go on...

Hm... it's only now occuring to me that Ophelia should have gotten a refine with the rest of her Nohrian Dusk allies, yet we're now coming up to the Adrift and Ylgr/Surtr refines and nothing... Oh well. Guess she's in the same club as Reinhart/Olwen and Hector now. Fairs fair, the Missiletainn tome has been quite meta since it was first released and remains a top pick for AoE special triggers, still wondering where the hell Armads is.

And this month's edition of "Xenomata presents a unit who until now has never seen the light of day in an Abyssal Hero Battle" presents... Nino! ...wait, read that wrong. It's actually NinA. Yeah, I made a vow to give Nina a Spd-based brave bow if one were ever released, and lo and behold one was released. This was her official "test drive" if you will, and I think she did quite splendidly. This would also be the debut of LegTiki post-refine, and to be fair I don't think I ever actually used her in an Abyssal clear... then again, unlike Nina I do regularly use her... I honestly only brought LegLilina because I thought she would be the one to be getting the kills on Eitri and Thorr. Guess that was only on Infernal difficulty, especially after I did an oopsie and had her attack that Armor who didn't let her charge her special. Not that she didn't still help a lot, but she probably wasn't... necessary to bring. And Peony... eh, I felt like doing something different. It's always either LegAzura or DuoPeony with me, and Peony at least is free to everyone.

New weapon being added, and four weapons will become available for refine as well! Libra will be receiving the... Inviolable Axe... even though... that is clearly a Bolt Axe... Summer Tiki's Summer's Breath Nailah's Wolf Queen Fang, also notable for being the first Beast weapon to receive a refine. Walhart's Wolf Berg (yay!) Loki's Thökk _____________________________________________________________________________ Speculation: Libra's base weapon is the Wo Gun, aka Wo Dao for axes. Libra was... not particularly known for anything in Awakening, he came with a Killer Axe and healing and that was about it. Didn't specialize in anything either. He was just... there. It would have been one thing if he got a Bolt Axe, but apparently no screw that. I dunno, maybe he'll get the good ol Slaying/WoDao effect as the base effect and a spectrum boost + adaptive damage for the refine? Summer Tiki's base breath had Def +3, Dragon effective damage, and a Breath effect by default. That used to be amazing when she was first released, now it seems pretty tame. Her stat spread is pretty evenly spread, with somewhat lacking Res. I imagine she'll be getting a spectrum boost for her refine, but as to any other effects... Iotes Shield would be most appreciated on a unit like herself. Maybe Special trigger-based healing? Nailah got a slightly worse version of what is now known as Atk/Spd Form (missing one point of Atk/Spd). I imagine she'll get something similar to what Bride Sanaki and Bride Tharja received, meaning a base of +6 Atk/Spd and additional Atk based on the number of nearby allies, with a slightly expanded trigger area. As to the special refine... not quite sure. An additional layer of Atk/Spd and Null Follow-Up would be predictable. Perhaps a Dodge effect, since her defenses are otherwise not quite good enough for her to function as an amazing EP unit. Wolf Berg started like Dracofalchion did with a dumb comparison of allies to enemies near Walhart and his target. Change that to a proper Solo effect and maybe also give him Distant Counter (as the original Wolf Berg was a 1-2 range weapon) to make a good refined Wolf Berg. Also worth considering is the disabling of Cavalry-effective damage, as his Prf skill in Awakening disabled effective damage toward Beast/Armored units. The refine I actually have a small idea for: he originally also carried the sword Sol (which enabled the unit using it to trigger the Sol skill), so maybe he could get Special HP recovery for the major addition, plus an Atk/Def debuff for the enemy. It would certainly give him a mean edge to his defensive abilities. Thokk originally had the effect of inflicting Gravity on 2-range enemies who have at least 3 les HP than Loki herself (plus Dazzling Staff). Unfortunately these days 42 HP may not be enough to lock down most foes, and we've mostly done away with single-column/row effects on weapons these days. We also now have the Stall status, which turned the Movement +1 buff into a Gravity debuff if both are on the same unit. So... Loki's refine will most definitely see the trigger range of the base effect expanded, either to 3 columns/rows or as a Sabotage skill, and perhaps for the refine she can inflict the Stall debuff on melee enemies (since building that into her original effect might be too mean?), and bonus also get an in-combat boost to Atk/Spd in some form (as most of the refine staves have some form of that on their new staves). If they want to be really mean, remove the 2-range enemy limit as well. Probably the worst thing you can do with an offensive melee unit is put Gravity on them.

So I had asked earlier about the two Grail Ninja girls, and now that I'm less confident in making a decision between the two than ever, I took a second look at available grail units that I could focus on instead. The list I made is below, from oldest to newest, and mostly keeping Arena Assault, Abyssal hero battles, and Resonant/Limited battles in mind, as my core AR teams are doing just fine for where I want to be. All unit comparisons are toward the units in my army, and not toward any units currently retired in my barracks. Xander: Solid physical defense, goodish Atk, follow-up denial on weapon, DC weapon opens up A slot. Mostly an AA unit as AHBs will be too powerful for him to last, especially with low Res. Harsh competion from other Red Fates units in Siegbert, Keaton, Soleil, Nyx, and Flora. Camus: Good Atk/Spd/Def, DC weapon opens up A slot, healing on attacks provides sustain. Again, mostly AA for same reasons above. Not much competion as far as blue SD/NMotE units are concerned, his main competitors being Roderick, LegTiki, and Harmonized Halloween Tiki (and Duo Young Palla, though she feels more specialized) Arden: High def, dual-phase Brave weapon with Atk/Def boosts and Guard, Prf B passive enables follow-ups on both phases (probably can be replaced with Vengeful or Slick Fighter for Save build), only issue is his Res. Competes with Sigurd, LegSigurd, and LegSeliph, but none of them operate the way Arden does at all. Panne: throwing her in since she's a personal favorite unit among Awakening units, and her Solo game isn't that bad (cav effectiveness is a nice bonus) Main competition would be Cordelia and maybe Sumia, with Nowi being far more defensive and LegLucina being ranged. Ashnard: High amount of Atk/Def penalties (especially after A/D Near Trace and Atk/Def Rein are applied, both of which my Forma Ashnard has), good defensive stats, innate Iotes Shield. Main competition would be Winter Altena and Black Knight. Young Innes: High Atk/Spd after weapon effect, strong Special Triggers. His only competition is regular Innes, and tbh I don't have as many strong Sacred Stones units as I do in other titles (limited to Duo Young Eirika, Brave Eirika, Spring Marisa, Spooky Myrrh, and occasionally Amelia) Ninja Hana and Ninja Shamir are still on the table as well. Young Innes seems like the "strongest" among the above units, though if there's something I'm missing about any of the above please let me know.

Because my Tsubasa is unmerged, and unmerged means the random ally and random opponents will be about equal in power, which usually means weak as hell. In comparison, my Larum is 0 merge and my Tethys is +1, with my Ninian being +4 merge. Also worth noting is that even if the randos are weak as hell, the ally from my friends list is sure to be powerful, since most of my friends list is made up of built up units. So swole friend units plus weak randos means the worst thing I'll have to deal with is Hegemon.

First session, blue orb garbage, blue orb garbage, green orb garbage, Kaden, and... Thorr! Yay and she's +Atk -Spd! ...wait why does Kaden ring alarm bells- oh dip he's +10 now. ...well that's not how I expected this session to go. My summoning luck has been horrid lately, so this is a nice upturn.

...yeah I'm doing Tsubasa. I don't particularly care for her, I'd much rather pick Ninian, maybe Tethys or Larum since they're colorless, but... to be frank, I do not trust the quality of random people reps.

Hm... wonder if I should forma soul Witchy Nowi... On the one hand, mine is already +10, so it'd feel kinda wasted, but on the other hand I could give her much rarer skills than I can currently afford to give her (currently A/S Catch 4, A/S Far Trace, and A/S Rein) Hmmm... Rein would make her a good Save beacon... man I dunno, usually it's easy to decide on these things...

Neat. Eitri probably took over the body of a Legendary Fire hero the last time she transplanted her will into a body or something. As to Eitri as a unit, her default kit certainly has some bulk to it. Divine Recreation and Grim Bokkr together inflict -10/-4/-4/-10 on the enemy, reduce the damage of their first attack by 30%, and then Eitri gets the reduced damage as her own damage. That being just her prf skills, she certainly has a good level of bulk on her. Thorr not only brings Worldbreaker to the table, but Flow Guard as well? Interesting. Can Flow Guard trump Flow Refresh on bulky units, I dunno but it will be interesting to see it in practice. Worldbreaker not needing anyone be near Thorr to trigger it for herself is appreciated. Thorr herself has proven to be deadly to Armor units already, so giving her what amounts to a guaranteed Special Trigger every combat should basically mean the world is screwed with her on the field. All she needs otherwise is Distant Stance (or a theoretical Distant Reversal) and she'll be golden. Pretty much every focus unit here is good. About the shakiest is Dagr, if and only in my own opinion because Ullr feels better as an offensive Light mythic who permits an additional unit slot, but every other unit is good.

I do know what Emperor is talking about, but that just adds to the confusion even more, since Nowi is using firebreath instead of fireballs. Then again, she frequently mentions using firebreath in more than one support conversation, so maybe a manakete outside of heroes can control what they do with their fire? I dunno, but it does add to the argument that Nowi is an arsonist...

I don't know how Manakete fire works, but for what it's worth there's like four different ways it has been depicted as working: The exploding fireball shown when she attacks, as you say, which appeared in Awakening In an official manga or somesuch, she is mentioned to have some sort of icier breath In Smash Bros, while not Nowi, the Tiki assist trophy is depicted using classic fire breath (and presumably the two dragon girls would be similar since they share a similar form) And then you have Heroes, where whatever the hell happens depends on the breath you are using (when Nowi is using her Purifying Breath, it's something more of a Waterball that pierces her target)

@KMT4everWrong thread, this is the one where Kiran is a comic book character.

Kiran just go get one of the Singers, Players, Gray Wavers, Whimsical Dreamers, Sweet Dreamers, Gentle Dreamers, or Frightful Dreamers. Geez, such a complainer...

The next Resplendant Hero is Nowi: Eternal Youth in Muspell attire. ... ... ...guess I'm resubbing.

She's certainly one of the better candidates for a Floret... for a resource that currently is hard capped in how many we can possibly have. On the subject of the dancer stuff... huh. Guess I've just been... lucky?

Point was, I use the exact same Duo Lyn between AR-O and AA, and she excels at both. She's all raw power in both, I even use the same team comp when using her (only difference is I'm not allowed to use three Plumerias at the same time in AA), and the fact she's able to break through the boosted defenses of AR enemies translates greatly to AA where the enemy can't really stack the same way. Plus once you get high enough in score, you don't see dancers quite as often since they're lower scoring without Duel skills, so less chances to be surprised by dancer ambushes. And hey, if she gets below 50% HP, that just makes her a WoM beacon. My Lyn with +8 dragonflowers is hitting 72/59 offenses per hit before allies support her, so at worst she's only being partially affected by Dodge skills. Needing to be faster is irrelevant as a Brave unit so long as you get the first two hits in and they kill (which a Moonbow trigger helps)

@Ice Dragon I'll just quickly say my bit, cause I'm not a person who answers these kinda of questions, but I've been running +Atk -HP in Aether Raids for a long time now, and she's not needed the extra 3 points of Spd that she would have otherwise. She's been able to one-shot most any unit she attacks, and considering these units are usually being boosted by AR stat boosts she's been plenty able to one-shot the units in AA. She runs Moonbow, Swift Sparrow 3, Atk/Def Far Trace, Spd/Def Rein, and Death Blow, so she's not even the most optimally built like I assume you will be doing. When she's able to one-round units, it doesn't feel like she needs the speed boost even if she has an Atk asset and is Ascended. What speed she does have is appreciated for breaking through Dodge skills.

Welp... my luck has SUCKED. I just wanted Duo Corrin. That's it. Just her. I got pity broken in the process 7 TIMES. And they were fairly spaced out pity breaks too. Even when I did get her, she was +HP -Atk... I trait fruited her immediately. ...at least I have G Duel Infantry 4 fodder now???