Xenomata

Wow, unlike 80% of the other Resplendent Heroes so far, Minerva actually looks like she belongs in that armor. I don't really use her and I don't really want to want to use her, so looks like I won't be able to reverse time by 1 turn for a while.

@Humanoid @XRay So between the two of you, I have down Michalis and Flame Emperor from Humanoid, Brunnya and Spring Loki from Xray, and Naesala and Astram from both... just to give my opinions on each of them: Michalis... I dunno, he strikes me as sinister, but he does kiiiiinda try to redeem himself... in a way? I can see some defensive goodness in him... Flame Emperor is kinda hard to judge their morality. Could go either way, I can understand all sides of that conflict. Among defensive Green Armors, they have the distinction of being free. Brunnya shutting down penalties is actually quite notable, at least as a grail unit, but... I can't quite pin down her level of "evil". I mean, there's "I'm gonna destroy the world and all humankind because humans suck and I hate them", but Brunnya doesn't strike me as that level of sinister, mostly loyal to her country which happened to be the big opposing force... hm... ...I mean, she's quite ambiguous in terms of "evil" given her ultimate goals are not clear, even if they ultimately oppose the main characters aims, but... she's a goddamn bunny girl with eggs in her chest. You couldn't make me take Surtr or Hel seriously if you put them in a bunny outfit either. Naesala would indeed make a good Galeforcer, and while I've never seen his true potency myself (mostly because I see him most in AR offense where I chuck Brave Ike at everything), I can see him triggering Galeforce reliably. Astram himself looks pretty good on paper. Give him Bonus Doubler and he has racist Fury 4, and he should hopefully not be the easiest to put Panic on... yeah, I can see him being good. Hm... I got some things to think about. I'm not necessarily short on support from Archanea games, but Astram would still be a good unit, if yet another strong Sword unit...

Hm... Lethe you might not wanna trust any food the Byleths give you. They are absolutely willing to store food for upwards of 5 years, and that includes the fish.

You know how I asked once if there's any good reason for me to keep that Neutral Olivia around, and I was told that she was for F2P guides? Well yeah I still don't do guides, and my tactics are somewhat varied usually, but never have I needed to resort to using any of Olivia's many forms. It is, however, much harder to justify defensive playstyles in Abyssal Hero Battles these days, given the raw power that the enemy units tend to pack. Even Edelgard, who was supposed to be a defensive tank, could be taken out by an offensive Red Pegasus Carrot+ user (which if you seen my LegEdelgard clear is exactly what I did), but it'd be a lot harder to justify throwing a Red tank in her path since she had so much raw damage AND permanent Galeforce (maybe if that tank was Selena...) Offensive playstyles, meanwhile, are easier to use in Abyssal just because they let you delete enemy units before they begin to become a problem. And of all the reliefs that can be said about the boss, the one big one is that they usually don't pack forms of Close/Distant Counter, and the ones that do (Lif for instance) usually can be weakened in other ways. I think with Lif I used an Iceberg-charged attack from LegJulia to wipe him out before he could even attack. And of course the usefulness of Firesweep can't be understated, even if I don't utilize it that often myself.

@TheSilentChloey Special refine is good for two things. The first is having a permanent +6 Field Buff to Atk by combining it with Odd Atk Wave. The second is having very strong Even numbered turns with Even Spd Wave and one of the two defensive Waves. Otherwise yeah there's not much reason to invest in it. The latter is more fun but gimmicky, while the latter is... I mean, it's something, but strong Rallies and ally buffing skills are plentiful enough that you shouldn't need to guarantee her +6 to Atk all the time. One fun thing you can do, if you have the units for it, is give Nino Bonus Doubler, pair her with Legendary Eliwood (who grants Bonus Doubler status and Atk/Def +6 to the highest Atk unit deployed PLUS Rally Spd/Res+) and a low Atk Beast/Dragon (Ninian and Reyson are preferred since they can Dance/Sing, as is Rafiel if you managed to grab him), and then watch as she has 2 stacks of Bonus Doubler with All Stat +6. While Bonus Doubler doesn't add on to her Bladetome damage, that's still +12 to all stats in addition to the +6 from Field Buffs. My own +10 Nino, with +10 Dragonflower/Spd refine/Spd +3 SS, has a statspread of 41/53/50/25/32. She becomes VERY strong if Eliwood supports her.

...okay. So... I'd have had to wait a little while to +10 someone regardless.

So... grail units. I wanna +10 one, and am open to ideas. I have more than enough grails to buy all the copies of a unit that I'll need (or at least however many 2,328 can buy me) EXCEPT there are units that I absolutely refuse to acknowledge: "Evil" units I will not acknowledge, even if some of the better grail units are "evil". I'll let you decide who's evil, or just suggest anyone and I'll remind you "nah, Kronya is downright evil." Those that I've +10ed already are obviously off the table. That'd be Legion, Clive, and Walhart. I refuse to go anywhere near Aversa. You could probably pay me to +10 Oliver, otherwise keep me the fuck away from him >:\

Hm... I wonder when the majority of summons world-wide happen? I imagine there'd be a surge of them during a banner release, but after that? Obviously it's not really possible for one of us to keep track of that without an absolutely massive amount of support... but it is something interesting to think about...

Oh yeah that to. Feh is still a character, not just a medium for delivering news. Makes me think of Notte from Dragalia Lost and all the spunk she has to spare... Don't worry they're on the beach, Mia can barely move farther than a crippled turtle.

Not just ANY forging bonds either. Literally the one Phina was a part of. She already knows where this is gonna go.

Wasn't able to give my full opinions last night (damn town-wide power outage...), so here I am to spew an opinion that maybe one person cares about at most. ...something about Feh's new voice actress still rubs me the wrong way... maybe it's how she doesn't sound quite so "sleepy" anymore? Orbs and Divine Codes oh my. Hrm... the thing about summer units is that I really don't care that much for them... even the one summer unit I have +10ed, Summer Linde, I kinda have to force myself to use her. Otherwise I just don't like or use any of them. I'm more a Halloween and Christmas guy. That being said, I'm not one to turn down a free unit! Think I'll prioritize Blue, then Green, then Red. I'm not that keen on Colorless especially since that means a chance to get fodder of a unit I really don't need (Linde) Resonant Battles looks interesting. Having a large unit pool will be beneficial, which thankfully I do. There is one thing I don't know how to feel about though... Why in Hel's domain did Feh think ANYTHING would happen by throwing Sharena at a bulky Green dragon? You aren't exchanging tips with Manga Kiran, are you? Unless I can Auto-Dispatch and do a normal Aether Raid Offense battle at the same time, gonna have to skip. A feature intended for people who don't like AR-O if you ask me.

Probably woulda been better to say "important" seeing as how Idunn is the final boss of Binding Blade, and Palla is only one of the Whitewing sisters who are somehow more prominent than Marth in terms of appearance number.

...so basically they came up with a way to keep making as many Duo heroes they can? Hell, Mia is the lead unit, so now it doesn't even matter if you're a lord or not.

Ending off the Midpoint banner with Fallen Mareeta-wait... she's a few banners off... Hm... I can say for certain that I've summoned 6 Fallen Mareetas since her release, used one of them to give someone Flashing Blade 4 (Mia), gave 1 merge to eliminate the flaw in the used Mareeta, and kept the rest as books... she's been +Spd for a long time, and while I can't say I've used her much, I know she has potential... but I'm getting a little scared she might be +10ed simply because I don't have anyone to give FB4 to... But can I please get normal Mareeta at some point? Not even to use her, I just wanna know she's not gonna always be doomed to her curse at this point.

Nowi is at least 1,000 years old and has the appearance of... let's say a 15 year old. Tiki is at least 3,000 years old and has the appearance of... mid-20s at worst? Bantu has the appearance of an old man during the events of Archanea, and yet he still lived long enough to have met Nowi at some point in her 1,000 years alive, maybe even still being alive. And he was alive during the beginning of the Archanean calender. ...Manaketes, man...

Don't forget that in a previous quiz, one of the questions asked us who among three mages rose their arm up the fastest, among a few other surprisingly involved questions. This one so far... I mean, you kinda just KNOW if you've been paying any attention to the game.

Hm... I'd have thought there'd be some discussion about the quiz going on. Ah well, the answers aren't THAT hard to figure out...

Oh yeah, yesterdays Link Skills banner gave me a free Neutral Gerik. I got +Spd -Res already, so I really don't even need to merge, but... Firesweep Axe+, Darting Blow 4, Sudden Panic... that's too much good skill fodder for 1 unit to have. What to do...

Xray handled your Eliwood inquisition, so here's some other 4 star recommendations: Ares remains a good unit by virtue of having Special Spiral on his weapon, a skill normally not available to his move type, and having a good statline for abusing Brazen Atk/Def, Vantage, Distant Counter, and Bonfire. Beruka has a good defensive axe to work with, weakening the foe ANd inflicting Guard. Only true issue with her is that she isn't on the strong side, so a lot of her damage may inevitably come from Specials. If you have some copies of him lying around, Barst has a good rounded statline with a good Prf to back it up. Gordin and Klein are both Brave Bow Prf archers, but they handle that power differently. Gordin handles it with an AoE debuff that backs up his raw power, while Klein handles things with Speed. The last time I asked, Klein and his Spd have the advantage, but if you ask me you can never go wrong with more than one AoE archer. Laslow sports a mix of good support and offense (which coincidentally revolves around said support), which is even able to match Altina if built correctly. Reinhardt is Reinhardt. Even if the game keeps changing, that fact remains. Roderick has one of the few Firesweep Prfs in the game, and his decent offensive statline lets him wield it effectively. Sothe has one of the better offensive statlines among Colorless Daggers, letting him take advantage of more than just his default Peshkatz. Tharja's AoE debuff on her Bladetome prf helps to cement a powerhouse yet surprisingly durable playstyle, moreso than some other Bladetome mages anyway. The above are based purely on observation. The following I can personally recommend based off previous usage. Sophia's mixed bulk, raw power, and Raventome + Bracing Stance Prf make for a pretty hard to kill EP mage. I run her with Close Counter, but I've seen builds that supplement her ranged killing abilities more. Lukas still has a really high Defense stat, and giving Steady Breath lets him abuse the power of Bonfire in every attack. Oboro, or at least +Res Oboro, has good mixed melee bulk. Jagen has one of the highest base Res stats in the game, at least among the 4* pool. If you work with it, you may be surprised how tanky he is in the face of Mages and Dragons. Cherche and Cordelia are both powerful units with strong Brave Prfs, albeit slightly different ways of going about how they handle them. Cherche takes on the powerhouse approach, while Cordelia is able to outspeed much of the cast. Either way, both remain good Brave Fliers to consider. Odin has the potential to wield both Atk/Spd Link and Def/Res Link on the same assist, so if that appeals and you happen to have spare Def/Res Link fodder somewhere, go for it. He can be surprisingly good if allowed to wield that power himself. Nino is still one of the strongest and fastest Green Mages, and having a refine which can let her supply her own field buffs just adds to that power. I personally, however, gave her a Spd refine and she gets a lot of her power from Bonus Doubler.

I assume it's just a visual glitch. We would have heard MUCH earlier if they were gonna shut down Allegiance Battles, a main game mode, for any period of time, yet the Notifications menu has nothing to say. also yay laggy forums, may the Gale be-force you.

Why would Brave Ike want either of those skills? His base Spd is 28, you'd need to give him a large number of resources before his Spd enables him to delete damage from some foes, which the bare minimum needed only gets higher as you go higher in merges, and he's never going to be able to delete any damage from offensive nukes. I don't know what you're assuming, but I assume Aether Raids is involved, and I'm only Tier 20 yet 80% of the time the enemy has well over 40 Spd minimum. Ike and his teammates would need to invest EVERYTHING into his Speed before he even begins to delete a little damage from Repel/Close Call, and all that goes down the drain if he gets a Spd penalty or Panicked. If you just mean low Spd units... I guess that's fine, but Ike can tank way more than just low-Spd hunks of metal.

She does have LnD3 (from back in her days as a +Spd -Atk Brave Lancer), Fury is just an all around good skill especially for Desperation (though the defense loss from LnD does help as well) Threaten... eh. I don't like it on an offensive unit with bad defensive ability and no reason to be anywhere near the enemy come EP, but I decided to just run with it for now, see if I really need to replace it.

I'm actually really liking Mirabilis, both as a character (well... the parts of her where she wants to sleep a lot) and as a unit. That Atk debuff range is absolutely insane, and it helps that she further weakens the enemy simply by existing in the same map.

@XRay Hey remember when we talked about this, before I then proceeded to NOT do this and instead +10 Selena and Laevatein? Well I fixed that now. She buds with Velouria. Probably her daughter in some world or another. Heh... the last time I pinged you in this thread, I had accidentally +10ed Kinshi Hinoka when I only meant to +10 Lucius. Ah, good times...

I think @eclipse means that you were supposed to put the datamine info into a spoiler tag but instead you put it into a quote. Datamine info generally gets put into Spoiler tags, for people who don't want to look at that info before we're supposed to know about it. If anything, putting it in a Quote box brings further attention to info some people don't wanna know. Of course it doesn't matter now, but for the future keep in mind the difference between a Quote box and a Spoiler box.