DLNarshen

Today marks the first day since release where I've been able to save over 100 free orbs. Oddly enough I find it easier to resist the urge to spend them when I've saved this much, as opposed to when I have like 20.

A final score of 155,149 nets me rank 4,141 and my usual 8K feather haul. I have about 170 stamina pots so I considered making a push for top 1K, but I'm always too tired of the mode after a week. Tailtiu/Eirika/P!Azura was my main team throughout, and the fourth slot was taken by healers I rotated in and out based on HM accumulation.

I was annoyed, but not necessarily because I wouldn't get her without summoning on the banner and hoping for some luck. I was annoyed because it broke well-established precedent in such a sleazy, unapologetic way. I've noticed there's been at least a couple of folks in this thread wondering why so many people expected her to be free, and that they shouldn't have gotten their hopes up. My counter to that is that why wouldn't they have expected her to be free? Until Ayra, every single unit that's been introduced to the game without being immediately added to the summoning pool has eventually been given out for free either in a GHB or as a Tempest reward (Bruno and Veronica being the exceptions; it's hard to make any assumptions what's going to happen with them). See: the initial wave of GHBs + Lloyd, Legion and Clarisse with the New Mystery banner, Clive and Tobin with the SoV "army" banners, and the BK with Elincia's banner. It is not at all unreasonable to assume that upon seeing both Ayra and Arden in a similar spot, that they would both be given out as GHB/Tempest rewards. Her being really strong is not an indicator of anything, considering they had just given out the BK, as well as Camus and Xander before that. As an aside, today an Ayra one-rounded my TA3 Hinoka from full health. I didn't reposition her away because I simply assumed a full health blue unit with TA3 would be able to survive combat with a red unit, and my opponent didn't have refreshers or WoM. That really boiled my bacon.

I fail to see the point of re-running BHBs. They already felt like a consolation for not having a new GHB ready, and at this point I'd rather get another GHB rerun. Those still give three orbs, and another copy (potentially two) of a limited character for merges/SI is always welcome. If the concern is for players who missed the BHB the first time around, then surely a brand new one would have been more satisfying for everyone. I just hope this means their development resources are being concentrated on some more substantial content for the middle of the month/December.

I sent a request your way. I have a +5 Narcian with Goad Fliers as my lead.

Not really feeling the motivation to be a feather mercenary this time around, so I'm going with my favorite in Hinoka. Multiplier shenanigans aside, I think she stands a real chance of winning this.

Free pulls on the VG banners: It is so tempting to blow my orb stock on Ryoma, but I think with those I'll just take my ball and go home.

My flier team is finally at a point where I feel the desire to present it:

Season 39 (1.3.0 S24) Results: Score: 4,830 Defense: 582 Rank: Tier 20 --> 19 I was fortunate enough to pull Tailtiu just in time for the Tempest last week, and I decided to put her to use in the arena as well. Blade tome teams are pretty reliable, and this one was no exception, unless I was fighting horse emblem on that bridge map with the four defense tiles in the center. Eirika is hardly an ideal user of Panic Ploy with only 39 Hp, but she had it equipped mostly for points. Arena Assault: Rank: 4,187 Hall of Fame: Previous Season Results:

Miranda's not too bad to train -- she's recruited on the easier route and has Wrath for easy one-shots. If I ever sell my FE1 cart I hope the guy who gets it checks my file and sees my promoted Lv. 20 Tomas with maxed stats lol. On a similar note, the guy who had my FE4 cart before me had spent hundreds of turns on the prologue boss abusing. Everybody including Arden was either promoted or very close to it. I'm always up for a good grind, but that's just ridiculous.

Playing with animations on, going through every chapter without skipping through the text, grinding supports out along the way, that's an easy 30-40 hours right there. What do the character stats/levels look like? Arena abusing every character could probably tack on another 10-20 or so. Besides that...I don't know. Probably had a habit of leaving the game on a charger lol As for the datamine stuff

Pulled a 4* neutral Sophia as my free pull on the Halloween banner. Time to save again.

4* Lukas and Titania. Not the worst units one can get by any stretch of the imagination, but I get so many of them compared to other characters of similar rarity and color. Skill-wise Lukas gives nothing worthwhile at 4*, and so I have one sitting at +7. Titania is at +4, with two more sitting in the barracks in case I want to distribute their Emerald Axes or Armored Blow. At least I've been fortunate with Lukas's natures, with the base being +Atk/-Res. Titania's have all either been debilitating (-Atk or -Spd), or "whatever" like +Res/-Def.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this banner, but three new unit types was certainly a surprise...and not necessarily a welcome one. I get that they make more money this way and thus I shouldn't be surprised, but that doesn't make it any less disappointing that the new toys won't be added to the normal summoning pool after the banner is done. Save us Aversa, Xavier, and Reptor/Blume/Gen2!Arvis! Despite not liking her character that much, Nowi is probably the one I'd most like to pull given my flier bias.

For selfish reasons I hope they hold off on Thracia a bit. Chances are good that Nanna would be on such a banner, and I need to build my orb supply again after Hinoka decimated it. I've had a spare Genny waiting in my barracks since the second Hero Fest banner just for her.

I'm kind of hoping for another Feh channel announcement alongside the trailer for the new heroes. I'm not particularly enthused about a Halloween banner, but I'd love to know what's on the road map for early/mid November. It's been a couple of months since the last one, if I recall.

Bye-bye 4.75% pity rate. Christ I don't know why Hinoka banners hate me so much. With exception to Tana, I have pulled every single blue flier here except her.

Since last month I was able to pull both an Athena and a Gordin, and have since been foddered away for the above stated purposes. With the new flier banner, Hinoka has been moved to high priority since I'd like to have her in my arena core and thus would really like some merges. I only have enough Caeda to do a +3, but I'm not worried about her right now. Somehow, I still have not been able to pull Saizo.

100+ orbs of blue color sniping on the Flier banner got me a dupe Reinhardt (+Res/-Def) followed by a big pity rate. This will probably be the only banner that matters to me for some time, so all my orbs will be going towards it.

I...never even noticed the different border colors. Good to know going forward, thanks for telling me!

Season 38 (1.3.0 S23) Results: Score: 4,854 (New Record!) Defense: 580 Rank: Tier 19 --> 20 The “We like Ike” squad. High BST and skill costs along with upgraded seals gives me my first high score in many months. B!Ike was a good a check as any to the omnipresent B!Lyn/Reinhardt combo, charging up his Aether and destroying one of them on the next turn. We had the infamous double wall map to contend with this rotation, which lead to most of deaths incurred this season. I feel like I’ve gotten better at predicting how the enemy will move there, but it still feels like a death is sometimes unavoidable unless I move perfectly every turn. I don’t think it should be retired, but I definitely feel like some of these maps could benefit from starting point repositioning, similar to what they did with the double mountain map also in this rotation. Those of us who’ve been playing since early on might remember that it used to split the teams two to a corner in criss-cross fashion. It was horrible back then, but it probably wouldn’t be so bad now that we have the ability to change starting positions. Arena Assault: Rank: 4,102 Hall of Fame: Previous Season Results:

I want to say I've probably spent around $250 or so? $70 of that was for the first PoR banner and the following Hero Fest. Afterwards I spent little bits here and there, and admittedly I've regretted it almost every time. I have an addictive personality and summoning gives me a rush. I've gotten better at resisting the urge to spend, but it's scary just how easy and fast it is to complete an IAP. I enjoy this game a lot, but I'm constantly reconciling that with the fact that it can only survive thanks to the funding provided by folks who have similar problems but magnified many times over.

October update: Alfonse: Balanced (Promoted) Amelia: +Def/-Atk Anna: Balanced (Promoted) Azama: +Res/-Atk (Promoted) Azura +1: +Atk/-Hp Azura (PA): +Def/-Atk Black Knight: Balanced (Free) Boey: Balanced Caeda: +Atk/-Hp (Promoted) Camus: Balanced (Promoted) Catria: +Res/-Hp Cecilia: Balanced (Promoted) Chrom: +Res/-Hp Clive: Balanced (Free) Corrin-F (Summer): +Def/-Hp Eirika: +Atk/-Hp (Promoted) Eldigan: +Spd/-Hp Elincia: +Def/-Res Eliwood: +Spd/-Def Ephraim: +Res/-Def Fae: +Hp/-Spd Genny: +Atk/-Spd Genny: +Hp/-Def Gray: +Def/-Atk Hector: +Def/-Hp Hinoka: +Def/-Atk Ike: +Res/-Def Ike (CYL): +Atk/-Hp Innes: +Spd/-Res Jaffar: +Spd/-Res Julia: +Spd/-Def Katarina: +Hp/-Atk Leo: +Atk/-Hp Lucina (CYL): +Def/-Spd Lyn (CYL): Balanced (Free) Mae: +Res/-Hp Marth-M +1: Balanced (Free) Narcian +3: Balanced (Promoted) Ninian: +Def/-Atk Nino: +Spd/-Hp (Promoted) Ogma: +Res/-Hp Raven: +Res/-Spd Reinhardt: +Res/-Spd Roy (CYL): +Spd/-Atk Sanaki: +Hp/-Res Seth: +Hp/-Atk Setsuna: +Atk/-Res Shanna: +Hp/-Res (Promoted) Sharena: Balanced (Promoted) Shigure (PA): +Atk/-Hp Tailtiu: +Atk/-Def Takumi: +Hp/-Res Tana: +Hp/-Res Tharja: +Res/-Atk Tiki(Adult): +Def/-Res (Promoted) Tiki(Young): +Res/-Spd Tobin: Balanced (Free) Valter: Balanced (Promoted) Xander: Balanced (Promoted) SI'd or Merged: Athena: +Res/-Atk ; Passed on Wo Dao+ to Caeda Azura: +Def/-Res ; Merged Gordin: +Res/-Atk ; Passed on Brave Bow+ to Setsuna Hana: n/a ; Passed on Life and Death 3 to Setsuna Hana: n/a ; Passed on Life and Death 3 to Shanna Marth-M: Balanced ; Merged Narcian: Balanced ; Merged Narcian: Balanced ; Merged Narcian: Balanced ; Merged Nowi: n/a ; Passed on Lightning Breath+ to Fae Odin: n/a ; Passed on Blarblade+ to Corrin-F (Summer) Roderick: n/a ; Passed on Firesweep L+ to Shanna Number of 5* units on hand comes out to 59. It seems I've gotten to the point where 5* exclusive SI makes up the majority of my feather spending...

Tin foil hat time: Shin, perhaps the most visible of the Japanese FEH whales, influenced the Ayra banner decision. A few days ago he made a tweet hoping that Ayra was on a banner so he could get a bunch of copies for a full merge. This is a guy who casually talks of +10ing a unit like it's nothing to him, and is streaming himself whaling for Ayra as I make this post.

I wasn't super hyped for Ayra, and so I won't be upset if I can't pull her, but boy does this set an awful precedent. There was no reason to hold her back from the main Genealogy banner other than to be a blatant cash grab. I noticed the official tweet about the banner had a lot more comments than usual, and thankfully it looks like there are a lot of Japanese fans who are every bit as frustrated and confused by this decision as we are. Hopefully that means IS will recognize what a scumbag move this was.