Xenomata

The Resplendent after Shanna will be Kagero: Honorable Ninja. Frankly, what the actual hell? I honestly don't think you can keep making this straightfaced forever loyal retainer dress in every fetish costume possible without someone wondering if someone has a thing going on... ...it also kinda bothers me she still doesn't have her Prf weapon in her artwork. Either way, character isn't interesting to me, sorry Sothe looks like I'll have to buy your outfit when things look more interesting.

Honestly I stopped caring a while ago, I just join whatever team whose unit I have and is Colorless, if not applicable then green, then blue, and leaving red as the last resort. Who wins? Who loses? I don't care, just let me get my 5 required battles in, let me get the divine codes for battling with certain colored units, and let me go about my day of not caring about this faux popularity contest that only matters if a freebie unit gets to come out of it, I'm not the kind of person to get uppity about feathers.

@Tybrosion actually did post the text in the TT+ thread: As for the gameplay thing, I wouldn't classify her Def as BAD. 27 certainly isn't great, especially for a tank, but it can still be salvaged, unlike such totals as 16 or 18. Close Reversal especially would help in this case, as it grants a free +5 Def boost in addition to counterattacking at close range, and combined with her native Spider Plush+ brings it up to an effective 37 Def (which can be boosted to 40 with a Def refine). Still not great, but still workable enough. Wards and Foils remain kinda hard to recommend on anything other than specialized builds, if I'm honest...

I do not count the +6 Atk/Def field buff as part of her kit, as field buffs can easily be obtained from outside sources (Fae being a real cheap source of +5 all stat, Titania/Seth being good for +6 but slightly limited by the Tactics requirement), so in my mind she really only got a +10 Atk/Def boost. The buffing effect is inconsequential and could have easily been replaced by a penalty nullification effect. Either way, she does still remain plenty powerful. A +10 +Atk Laevatein has 63 base Atk, boosted to 73 off the in-combat boosts alone, and then to 79 when accounting for a +6 Atk field buff. Adding in +24 damage from +6 all stat field buffs, she's still hitting for 103 damage per regular attack when otherwise unsupported by outside skills like Drive Atk. And let's be fair, this is still better than 2 of the past 4 Bladetome refines getting an Even Wave and Link skill for their refines...

What Laevatein got is appreciated. Though the lack of penalty nullification is kinda bleh, she does still get +10 Atk, which in terms of a Bladetome unit helps. Though... I don't get why she also buffs her support partner. Is that supposed to be a cute way of her supporting Laegjarn? Owain got a weird refine, considering 2 parts of his default kit want him to be directly next to his allies, yet he can be as far as 3 spaces away... still, all good, not that hard to replace Blue Flame. The special damage boost has potential, but if one is expecting Owain to solo an entire map with Special Vengeance, he kinda needs some help... shame there won't be a Vantage SS anytime soon. Her refine's text is much smaller (and the statboost is halved) in comparison, but I still think she got a great refine. I never expected her to get more than the base Firesweep effect unless it was loaded with a condition (ala Shamir, Ingrid, kinda Fallen Dimitri among others), but even then she still gets an otherwise unconditional Special Cooldown Charge boost, which lends itself well to AoE Specials and Galeforce. Compared to Roderick literally only getting Darting Blow from his refine, Soleil has it far better. Definitely makes her one of the better 4* units to consider for newer players. Julius gets an Atk/Res infliction on foes (total of -11 as long as they aren't using dragon-effective weapons) and Sabotage Atk/Res, PLUS Dragon Wall. Off of base 38 Res (with Loptous), he should generally be getting the full Dragon Wall reduction, which rises him above most other Red Tomes as one of the bulkiest (and really puts Brynhildr to shame... more than it already has been shamed, at least) The only issue I see is that his Def remains pretty bad among bulky mages (base 16, current max of 24 with a Neutral nature, max merges, and max Dragonflowers), so he might still need to be wary of physical damage... but still, definitely a good refine. If I'm reading Tharja's refine right, she gets a base +5 Atk/Spd if she is within 3 spaces of an ally, with a max Atk bonus of +9 if she is "near" at least 2 allies, and then her refine reduces the Spd and Res of enemies within 3 spaces of her in direct proportion to the number of allies within 3 spaces of her? I assume that means the AoE debuff applies at all times then? If so, that's neat, but... I dunno, it's probably the only refine here today that I'm a little iffy on... for herself it's perfectly fine, but it could be hard to take proper advantage of for her allies. Overall good, though Owain and Tharja are now unproven territory. The other three are just plain better now. Tharja's is the only one I'm iffy on, the others are perfectly fine. Not gamebreaking, but still good. I don't think a refine given to a normal unit has ever been gamebreaking anyway, at least in my memory. And Owain has always been Enemy Phase. Missiletainn and Blue Flame are supposed to work in tandem together, and Blue Flame is only at its best when directly next to someone, so Owain wouldn't be doing much good when by his lonesome. Which still begs to question why his refine is alright with him not being directly next to someone? ...maybe a way to use Owain on PP would be to give him Desperation and a 3 cooldown special (which I guess just means Luna since he doesn't have the Def or Res to run Bonfire/Iceberg), let his HP run down, and then he's launching specials with +30 special damage. Alternatively, since a lot of enemies have follow-up prevention, give him NFU and Astra for big nuke Special activations.

...are we looking at the same refines.

How? I've always been under the impression that both Byleths are complete and utter blank existences who still somehow manage to be The most interesting man/woman in the world by virtue of being a person with a mysterious past. ...with literally the only difference being in gender I mean. At least the Robins and Corrins have subtle personality differences mostly evident in support conversations....

From the Tempest Trials announcement, the Spider Plush+ indeed has the same effect (If foe initiates combat or if foe's HP is greater than/equal to 75% at start of combat, Grants Atk +5 to unit, inflicts Atk -5 and Special Cooldown charge -1 on foe per attack during combat), and it is superduper adorable and I want 23.

Hey, remember when Dragon units were allowed to have seasonal alts where they WEREN'T dragon units? Me neither. Overall... big skip. Even when considering I have beans in a different basket already, nobody here feels absolutely necessary. Good for sure, probably gonna be real annoying to fight, but not important to summon...

Just in case anyone wanted to look at this image in the thread. "I'm here to deliver the latest info...stealthily, of course! According to my sources, new Special Heroes participating in the harvest festival will soon appear! I'm so curious to see who they are! There's also a Log-In Bonus to celebrate their arrival." -Feh, Fire Emblem Heroes official twitter post ...yeah, so are we Feh, so are we...

I don't think this lucky pull will ever beat... well, a lot of my luckiest pulls, but I certainly wasn't expecting to +10 merge Rhajat off a random banner in one freebie summon! ...still not a fan of Toshiyuki, but whatever hate the artist not the unit. Not sure what I'll be doing with Rhajat yet, which should be obvious given the absolutely cookie-cutter passives I gave her, but I was thinking something like a Windsweep/Watersweep build to let her safely inflict her refined weapons debuff? I dunno, something to think about later. ...it also did not occur to me until recently that I completely forgot to show that I +10ed Lethe. I did it on her revival banner. Again with the cookie cutter build, but in this case I think it's somewhat justified considering how one-note she is... EDIT: While updating my sig, I also noticed I never showed off Tana or Alfonse??? Clearly I don't know what to do with Tana, Alfonse I clearly knew what to do with him.

Experience skills... uh... interesting theme for a banner, especially considering one of the units is from Year 1 of the game, and another is a 4* pool unit, but... yeah, great theme... ...just in case anyone was wondering, Rhajat is NOT Lex. She was, however, the freebie 4* Special summon from the single green orb presented, as well as one of my units who's been hovering at +9 merge. Keyword, WAS. So... yeah, interesting banner.

We have another all-red weapon refinery coming up. Owain and his Missiletainn Laevatein and her... Laevatein Soleil will be receiving the Soleil's Shine Julius with his Loptous Bride Tharja and her Múspell Fireposy

Aw dip, Owain Laevatein AND Soleil? This has to be the best weapon refinery update yet!

Here to bring an end to the mechanized nation's enforcer, it is the men's winner of CYL5, he who has won the hearts of many, brought upset to so many others, and yet still stands here as the pinnacle, nay the progenitor, of power and protection in all things. And at his side... well, relatively close but not TOO close, was the Gatekeeper! He called Otr suspicious. First time showing of what Brave Marth is truly capable of, and hooooooooooo by Naga's fang. Flayn didn't turn out as helpful as I was thinking she would be, that is to say she only really reduced ally damage a few times... but her taking potshots at foes helped. I took Gatekeeper in initially to give Marth a mostly unconditional Atk/Spd boost, but his defensive abilities and own potshots really proved helpful. As for Peony, I just felt her supportive ability in this battle was more useful overall than what my usual Abyssal dancer (Legendary Azura) would have offered, duo skill notwithstanding. I put all my chips on Marth, and he brought back a freaking chip-production factory. Dare I say it, he was the real winner of CYL5. I might have to actively try not to use him in Abyssal battles... ...I wonder if any of the videos I've shared in Abyssal battle threads has ever entertained/helped anyone? It's certainly fun for me, watching the units I've put so much behind paying off in a meaningful way.

Which makes the decision to make Nifl and Muspell, literally the dragon gods of their worlds, normal summonable units...

It seems far likelier that she get a simple Atk/Def penalty infliction and penalty nullification if she's initiating combat or not adjacent to any allies. ...actually thinking about Laevatein made me take stock. When was the last time we got a proper Bladetome effect? We've had variants such as Halloween Tiki's Frostfire Breath and Ashera's Order's Sentence, but the simple "Grants bonus to unit’s Atk = total bonuses on unit during combat" effects feels... missing for a while.

My one single hope for next months refines are that they get their heads out of their butts and give refines to either Soleil or Reinhardt/Olwen. My one single expectation is that one of Laevatein or Helbindi are refined, and I hope it's a good one because I have both of them +10ed.

It is entirely possible to reach 40k score just doing 2 battles on Beginner difficulty with the daily 3x score multiplier, no grinding required unless you blatantly miss an entire day. In terms of having a good brigade to use, I don't personally think you need to "invest into" PoL if all you want are the score rewards, just build a good brigade who can get through the game cleanly (while also having a decent HP pool of course) I honestly do not spend that much time in a game of PoL, as in one game takes less than 10 minutes even if I'm not skipping animations. And no, score does not carry over to the next round. But as I said, it is entirely possible to get 40k score in just 2 battles on beginner, which does not spawn any player-created teams, has units only using their default kits, creates teams with little to no synergy with each other, and very rarely spawns "overpowered" units like Hegemon or the two Fallen Morgans.

So, does Shanna benefit from the Resplendent stat bonus? Uh... a little? Her offensive stats now outnumber... *checks notes* ... Thea, and are now on-par with... Cynthia. Most every other Lance Flier is either stronger or faster than 32/37 offenses. As for bulk... meh? Ironically, the stat bonus pushes her above 40 HP, which might make it a little bit harder for her to enter Desperation range. ...it's ironic because Shanna IS Desperation. Does the art do her justice? No, honestly. I mean come on, she's from ILIA. Literally an icy country. Does this make Shanna overall better? Doubt it, having a Slaying/Wo Dao weapon stopped being that big a deal years ago, and there's so many better Lance Fliers even in just the 4* pool. ...so overall... I mean, I WAS gonna subscribe for Sothe, but now I'm doubting if I wanna go through with that...

Very quiet here... wonder if anyone noticed that the next Resplendent Hero will be Shanna?

Went for 40 summons on the remix banner, cause... I dunno, Hector has some good Armor fodder, and Ephraim seems like a good unit. I managed 1 copy each of the two golden boys, and also a copy of Fallen Lyon. That would theoretically make my copy of him +6 if I was merging him up and also wasn't confused about where all these Fallen Lyons came from. As for the freebie summon... Hector cause hey, Crafty Fighter.

@XRay@Ice Dragon@Othin After considering the info I was given... I feel like overall Near Trace has more use than Far Trace since NT is guaranteed to trigger Canto as opposed to FT. The units who could benefit from FT would probably get that little bit more from Lull than the alternative, since the entire point of Cav units is that they can move 3 spaces. As for giving any ol unit a Trace skill... yeah it's probably alright to just wait for the "right" Trace skill. Another question, I was looking through Grail units for inspiration, and while doing so I noted that Solon and Veld had purely disruptive effects on their tomes, with no trigger conditions requiring any of their stats. This in mind, and considering that my one requirement for deciding who to +10 be that I continually use them (which in this case seems hard to justify as the turn requirements limits how long they remain useful), is there any incentive to actually +10 merge either of these guys?