Xenomata

That too. To be fair, I needed to be reminded that a guaranteed follow-up and follow-up nullification cancel each other out, but other than that yeah I could have told you half of what that article says, and I'm not even that reputable an authority on this game. Hegemon is certainly hard to deal with if you don't have counters, but otherwise it's like when non-prepared players were all scared of Reinhardt and Brave Lyn in year 1.

The fact that Gamepress decided this article was even necessary to make spells how much nobody likes Hegemon. Personally, though I've not had to deal with 4 Hegemons, I've had to slot in Kinshi Hinoka to my Arena team because she's literally the only unit I own (sans Faye and post coma barracks anyway) that has a Firesweep Bow to enable double Poison Strike. I'm now also looking at a FS Bow Cav since I actually have a Saul to feed to one (Leonie is looking pretty good right now...) But man... honestly, all Fallen units have always been a pain in the ass to deal with for their release times... if there were a way to label them internally to prevent them from being put on Arena Defense or AR-D teams, maybe it'd be a little less painful to actually play in Arena these days.

Are you sure you battled me? At the time it should have still been my Anima team, plus I don't have Byleth on my new Dark team.

I'm sorry, are we just gonna ignore the fact that Kiran's first instinct is to turn into a furry???

I... have low hopes for this new Summer banner. Day 1 I bought the Forma soul pack and managed to nab, get this, +HP -Atk Summer Mercedes. Keep in mind, I had the lowest opinion of her on this banner (I like her character, but she is outclassed in maaaaaaaany ways compared to just fielding LegLilina), so of course I summoned her. Also 4* +Atk -Def Caspar, which... eh, it is what it is. Meanwhile, come the Summer Passing revival, on the first session I get Summer Mia +Atk -Def, one of the only Harmonic Heroes I've been missing since their introduction. I... hm... I mean the Duo skill is neat, but maybe I should seriously consider saving when we're now only a couple of months from the CYL banner... especially when THIS has been what my luck produced...

So... I have Bridal Saul. I don't use him, he's already lv 40 so I got his max level conversation, I'm not an HM grinder, and I have no attachment to him. Plus he has C Duel Cavalry 4. I have no good reason to keep him. Any particular ideas as to who could use CDC4 in the Arena/first battle of Arena Assault? A healer would be good, but another idea would be a Firesweep Bow user with double Poison Strike (and maybe Fatal Smoke much later down the line, if it ever gets added to a non-limited hero). I've been able to confirm that such is great via use of my Kinshi Hinoka. I'm open to ideas. I'm gonna need any advantages I can get if I'm gonna be able to tolerate doing the Arena every week, let alone remaining in tier 19.5... (I have some problems even staying there when I changed my team to be ready to deal with Hegemon)

Well @XRay and anyone else, I changed my Dark team... probably for the best, but probably not the best for others. Any input would be appreciated. With two Notts and Brammimond, my non-mythic units are getting HP +15, Atk +3, and Def +10 compared to their normal values. The real traps are in front of Lif and Nott. Both are Lv5 I didn't bother removing positional assists. Just didn't seem necessary. The team:

Hm... really the only units who can make "proper" use of a Push 3 seal are units with either Mystic Boost, units who are able to consistently get healing support from Eir's Prf skill, or units with post-battle recovery such as Brave Celica's refine (or, god forbid, Hegemon) Def/Res Solo is nice though. Leonie I have to wonder if she'll be victim to the curse of most Grail units being meh despite the "overpowered" nature of her summonable companions.

Bride Louise is a Colorless Bow Cav though, while Louise is just infantry of the same weapon. When you factor in skills, those are very different playstyles, and even without skills the difference is purely in movement type. Leonie, meanwhile, is a unit whose "canon" class is a Paladin (according to her appearances as an enemy unit) and who is given a unique Bow in her own paralogue (The Inexhaustible). Her skill proficiency in TH point to her being a mounted unit, perfectly matching her to easily become a Bow Knight as well. It would actually be weird if she is added as anything other than a bow at minimum. @Mercakete I'm not upset Marianne isn't the lead unit, I'm upset Hilda is. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of Hilda as a character.

Hm... looks like the "common" effect of this banner will be granting a bonus to the unit and a penalty to the foe of one stat, with additional bonuses/penalties if the foe has a bonus in said stat. ~Ashe received an "advanced" variant of the effect by targeting 3 stats at the same time, and he also brings B Duel Cavalry 4 to the pool. I find it silly the devs seem to still think that Joint Hones are still valuable in any way, but whatever, Ashe looks good overall. ~IMO Mercedes got kinda shafted, all for the sake of giving her A/R Far Trace. Given she can't double the Sword Infantry, that means she won't be very fast, ergo she faces competition for high Atk/Res Red Tome Cav with Lilina. I mean, she looks stunning in her artwork, but it'll be kinda hard to justify summoning for Mercy if you already have Lilina... ~Caspar... is the demote. Brings Bonus Doubler to the 4* seasonal table, not much else to say. ~Ugh, why's Hilda the leader...? Either way, that staff looks frightening to try and deal with. Atk +6 and boosted Special Charge on foes attack to nearby allies makes her on-par with Brave Lucina, except there's no limits to who she can assist. Nudge... eh, I guess it exists for Shove on staff units and not much else. As for her Duo skill, that's frankly mean. Her trigger range will be so massive, and it completely shuts down Restore+ staves and Dancers free of charge. They certainly know how to make an Aether Raids valued unit. ...now just give us Deep Wounds in a Duo skill and we'll be better equipped to fight Hegemon. ~Leonie is the TT freebie, and she's a Colorless Bow Cav. That... is slightly disappointing. If she does get into the game normally, that means she'll be a colored Bow most likely, meaning she won't be as good in some matchups. That'll be especially disappointing if she comes with The Inexhaustible... Well that's certainly a summer banner. Sure I'll try to summon for someone, but I'm not that invested in any of the units present.

On the topic of Caspar... I wonder if this is their way of "putting" the Brawlers of Three Houses in the game, simply by putting them in as Seasonal units who are expected to have weapons different from what they would start with? Raph was the other one, and he is currently a Colorless Bow garbed in Plegian robes. And now here we have Caspar who will be wearing even less than War Masters typically wear. Dedue too I guess, but he seemed more likely to be an Axe armor from the start. I just kinda wonder, since there's little to no way in hell that they'll add a whole new weapon type for like three units, four if counting a theoretical Brawling Legendary Byleth.

Hm... that's slightly disappointing, seeing as how Blackfire Breath is one of the better Breaths... Oh well.

Huh, Special Fighter banner came at the exact right time I needed it! And I even got Brave Ephraim for free! My Black Knight is now just about ready for anything. If only the solution to his A slot were as easy to figure out... @XRay I swear I've been trying to figure out how best to go about double Notts for so long. My current Dark team is by far NOWHERE NEAR capable of taking advantage of double Notts.

When a unit triggers a Save skill, but the Save unit is not adjacent to any allies, are they counted as being near someone or being alone during the Save skill? For instance, if Winter Fae has Blackfire Breath and a Save skill (yeah this is related to Hall of Forms, no reason to hide it) and she is alone BEFORE Save triggers, will she still get the full effects of Blackfire Breath or is she near an ally since she's literally on top of an ally?

Getting two merges for Caineghis should NOT have taken so long... somehow also got a merge for Velouria and my first Leila +Spd -Def. +Atk -Def Forsyth was kinda nice to merge into, but Blue was NOT a focus color, so I was pretty peeved my pity rate went down like that... But... well, on the plus side, my Caineghis is now +10 merge. Did he NEED to be +10, well... no I guess. But I wanted to do it, so... yeah. 4* Special summons featured Mist and Kinshi Hinoka. Also managed a copy of Fallen Ike (+Atk -Def) with the leftover orbs. Alltogether... yeah it was a pretty good night of summoning. Just wish it didn't cost so many orbs...

Hm... I've not really been paying attention to E3 this year, I've heard it's been mostly meh with like one or two games to care about per day. Doesn't really feel like Nintendo had much of a bar to leap, and for the most part they... well, they lept, and people clapped, and that's about the end of that analogy. Kazuya for Smash looks weird, and I largely blame the super close-up camera angles they used. I'm also not sure how I feel about another fighting-game character who has a combo game. It isn't ridiculous like swordmen galore, but when it's a game like Smash whose original premise was to be able to smash Donkey Kong over the head with a baseball bat as Captain Falcon in Saffron City, and now so much of the games content feels catered specifically to people who want to play competitively, I kinda feel like Smash is really starting to lose much of the charm that even attracted me to it... I know nothing about Life is Strange, but why does third girl look so... generic protagonist that everyone loves unconditionally? Mario Party online might be fun. Well... about as fun as Mario Party can be before inciting rage. I'm not a fan of Metroid (haven't played any of the games), so I never did understand any of the hype for Prime 4. Dread looks good tho. That Dragon Ball game actually looks pretty good. I might consider picking it up someday. SMT5 looks amazing. Does make me remember that Persona 5 isn't on Switch but Strikers is, but that aside I think this was the first game that I actually was like "SOLD!" to. Surely that Danganronpa beach time fun time game will be available for PC, right? I already own Danganronpas 1, 2, and v3 on steam. Pretty much everything else was just kinda... eh for me. I've little to say or even mock about them. Sure the Zelda stuff at the end was neat, but I've still not played Age of Calamity and BotW2 would need to share a LOT more before I can get properly excited. I don't want to give Nintendo a pass for not talking about other game series, Splatoon Pokemon Fire Emblem etc etc, but they do put out Directs every once in a while, so maybe they feel they can be a little more conservative about the info they put out? Either way I'm not particularly excited for anything but SMT5...

He is in no way "finished", he needs a better A slot and Special Fighter, and I wanted to wait til I had them before +10ing him proper... but screw it. @Ice Dragon thanks for the recommendation. Man, so many of my +10 units have been changed so much since I last posted them... I kinda would want to show them all off again, but I think Raven would kill me if I did that again, should he ever catch up.

Went to get Peony, forgot that sniping was a thing. The results by the time I got +Spd -Def Peony... ~Dhenginsea +Res -Atk. Though he's certainly got a lot more... everything... than her, I think I'll stick with Spooky Myrrh as my Red Armor Dragon, especially now that seasonal refines are a thing. ~Sephiran Neutral. Still don't know what to do with Odd Recovery... ~5* Hilda. Great... ~Absolutely NO 4* special summons or even 4* seasonal units. Well... least I got Peony with a great Asset/Flaw.

Something fun to do while this game slowly progresses towards a dumpster fire that slowly overtakes the land itself, lets insert ourselves as premium heroes in the game! Seeing as how certain recent units clearly have no limits to how stacked they can be, go nuts. No limits, no reason to question if you'll actually be good in your chosen role, just become the god that this world clearly needs. Remember you have access to the following: A Prf weapon, which has one stat-boosting effect (+3 to ether Atk/Spd/Def/Res or -1 Special Cooldown being the most common effects) and somewhere in the ballpark of 2-4 effects, usually with two trigger conditions, the most common and primary being "If unit initiates combat" or "if foe initiates combat", as well as secondary conditions like If unit is within 2 spaces of an ally, if unit's HP or foes HP are above or below certain thresholds, and if Bonuses or Penalties are active on unit. Keep in mind this is in addition to effects common to the weapon type, such as the [Dagger 7] effect or "Effective against Fliers" on all bows. Some weapons in recent times slot different effects to trigger under differing conditions. A Prf skill, further complimenting the units primary role in life. There isn't really a "rule" here, though if it helps the most common slot that Prf skills have been assigned to is the B passive slot. If you choose to be a Duo or Harmonic Hero, you get a Duo or Harmonic skill to use as well. I don't know how the Harmonic effect would work since none of us are technically from any game... would we just grant our benefits to other self-inserts? ANYWAY, if you go this route, go ahead and specify how you further ruin the game! Also specify your partner in crime. For your 5* lv40 stat totals, just list the numbers and any superassets/flaws, don't worry about BST or growths. I'll consider coming up with a title and description optional. After all, when hell itself comes out to play, sometimes the best solution is to load up a shotgun and head out to solve the problem yourself! (I actually remember making a similar topic years ago, back when the most fearsome units in the game were Reinhardt and Brave Lyn with a Firesweep/Brave Bow... ah good times...) [note to self: come up with a self-insert later]

And now to finish off the Nott and More banner's spark. In one summon, I got a +HP -Res copy of Nils. A good dancer with a good Asset, not much to say there. In addition, I got a few 4* special summons. I can't quite remember one of them, but the other two were Zelgius (bringing my personal copy to 5+ merge) and Eldigan (bringing him to +9 merge). A few sessions before the 40th summon, I got a +Spd -Res copy of Palla. A merge, or maybe I'll give it to one of my +10 red fliers who would make a great support in the Arena to keep my score up? I dunno yet. For my spark, I picked Nott. I didn't have her, and I feel like I need the Arena Mythic bonus more than the extra bulky Lance Cav. ...one session later, the next orb gave me a +HP -Res copy of Nott. Also one last 5* Luthier cause why not. I consider myself largely done with this banner. Maybe I'll dip a little more to try and get Zeke, or more Pallas, but more than likely I'm calling it here on this banner. I was very lucky this time around, even if I didn't get every focus unit. Better to stop while I'm ahead this time.

Building his Spd up helps to seriously make him hard to damage with a Dodge skill. Aside from support from units like Brave Lucina, Joint Drive Spd and a Spd-boosting SS's are how you break through base 42 + 5 Spd, assuming you give him Distant Counter. Otherwise while faster units certainly exist, Shannan is still a viable defensive unit. Keep in mind that you do not NEED to be using Spurn. Any Dodge skill will work just fine. The extra 5 damage is honestly not noticeable on ANY unit running Spurn, and not even the primary reason to be using it in the first place.

Odd. I checked like 6 minutes after midnight PST, both mobile and desktop, and both were updated just fine for me (otherwise I wouldn't have posted the images), and I'm English. Curious...

Weird, it has for me, all the artwork and everything. Welp, just add her to the other Resplendents I've already +10ed. Least Distant Def is... kinda useful? She has Blazing Light?

This is just a reminder that of the original 8 Focus units who also had Summoning movies, those being Marth/Roy/Lyn/Lucina/Tiki/Robin/Camilla/Takumi, Camilla is the only one who has not received a Resplendent upgrade. Now I'm not actually in-support of her receiving one, she's garbage as a unit and hell all your guesses sound a lot better, but it does feel kinda weird that Camilla of all units is being left out of the treatment...

I... hm... I completely forgot that the Fallen units aren't actually a seasonal banner, and in fact Hegemon is in the normal summoning pool now. Quite the reminder I got... ...wait whaddya mean she's neutral??? (also 5* Luthier. Which is okay I guess, since whatever pity rate I did have was just broken by the husk...)