XRay

You kind of need to know how you want to use a character before you can determine how to build them. Different builds have different purposes. As a Dancer/Singer, Nils: Snowflake Melody is pretty easy to build. Just slap Wings of Mercy on B or X, and you are mostly done. If you want him to buff teammates, I would have him run Even Atk Wave N, and Firestorm Dance as well if you have Mercy-Wing Echo. If you want him to inflict debuffs, he can run Crystaline Water, Def/Res Ploy (or any Ploy), and Still; Sabotage is also an option if you have Mercy-Wing Echo. Ice Dragonstone [Res] (Any Special) [Celica] Play (Any A) — Crystaline Water Wings of Mercy — (Firestorm Dance, with Mercy-Wing Echo) — (Any Sabotage, with Mercy-Wing Echo) Even Atk Wave N — (Any Ploy) (Any S) — Still Water Mercy-Wing Echo — Soaring Echo If you want to use him as a combat unit (and I assume dual phase), I think active players can give you better recommendations relevant to the current meta, but here is a rough idea. Ice Dragonstone [Res] Luna [Celica] — Iceberg [Celica] — Glacies [Marth] Reposition Atk/Res Scowl — (Any A that boosts Atk/Res) Laguz Friend (Any C that boosts Atk/Res) (Any S that boosts Atk/Res) — Dist. Counter (D) Guard Echo Ice Dragonstone [Spd] Moonbow [Celica/Marth] Reposition (Any A that boosts Atk/Spd) Mag. Null Follow-Up (Any C that boosts Atk/Spd) (Any S that boosts Atk/Spd) — Dist. Counter (D) Guard Echo

I am pretty sure Thea is not treated better than Takumi. Takumi got six versions; Thea got three. On debut, Takumi: Wild Card got Close Counter and dominated the Arena meta; Thea: Stormy Flier is rather forgetable. When Takumi: Prince at Play was released, he was the second flying archer ever released and got a better stat distribution than Hinoka: Blue Sky Warrior; Thea: Wings of Winter is a new modern unit with a shiny new Air Orders, but she does not really stand out and is not particularly game changing. Thea's most relevant meta presence is when she is with Catria: Azure Wing Pair as part of a flier ball defense team in Aether Raids, which was pretty good, but I do not think they are as oppressive as Takumi: Wild Card and Hector: Brave Warrior was in Arena. Thea is treated a bit better than Leo, but being treated better than Leo is not a very high bar to clear. Leo: Sorcerous Prince's meta relevance did not last very long, but he was the only red mage cavalry for a while and was pretty decent in a Bladetome cavalry team. Currently, discounting Arcane Weapons, Leo: Shrouded Heart is the most usable version, but not particularly good. Leo got five versions though, so that is something Thea still cannot beat. And being a lady does not mean better treatment. In terms of more alts? Sure. In terms of mechanics? No. There are plenty of really strong dudes that defined the meta for years. Ike: Brave Mercenary was THE super tank in which all others were measured. The best Save tanks for a while were Gustav: Majestic Love and Hector: Brave Warrior. And with his recent Refine, Seteth: Seiros Adherent rivals his sister and Elimine as really strong support units for tanks. Leif: Unifier of Thracia was the first ranged Galeforcer. Speaking of Galeforce, while Felix: Sword Savant is not the first double Galeforcer, he is a better double Galeforcer than all the Edelgards.

Just a random thought, but it would be nice if they can just expand the bonus unit pool to like 12 instead of the current 10, and feature two Legendary Heroes, one old and one new. That way, players who invested in old Legendary Heroes are not shafted, and whales who can keep up with new releases do not have suffer playing with outdated units.

According to FEH's Facebook page, there will be changes to the Arena rotation. Old Legendary Heroes will not be part of the rotation, so only the 10 newest ones will be bonus units. https://www.facebook.com/FEHeroes.EN/posts/1014465467345235?ref=embed_post People on Reddit do not seem to happy about it. If I were still playing the game, I would not be happy about it either. Although I cannot voice my concern since I do not have the app and it does not feel appropriate for me to do so since I am not a player anymore, I can help raise awareness for people who still play to SEND FEEDBACK. Some players invested a lot into their units, and one of those reasons could be because they use them for specific game modes. I would be unhappy if the game made my investment devalued. Additionally, as mentioned by many on Reddit, it makes spending money of Formas, rerun Legendary/Mythic/Emblem Foci, and even new Foci less appealing. What are you thoughts? Maybe you have a different opinion and maybe even like the change? And remember to SEND FEEDBACK if you do not like the changes!

Robin: Exalt's Right Hand sounds like an innuendo. Anyways, creating obstacles is neat. I think she is the most unique of the bunch for now with Divine Vein: Ice. If they keep Divine Vein: Ice limited in availability, she will have pretty good longevity; if not, she does not really offer much else in my opinion that is really game changing. Felix: Sword Savant got double Slaying and can double Galeforce. I think he is most useful day-to-day unit as a double Galeforcer doing Auto-Battle stuff, and the Distant Counter Weapon certainly helps speed things up. He is not super unique in this regard though, since Edelgards and other double Galeforcers exist, and plenty of units exist already that can do Auto-Battle. Bernadetta: Sheltered Loner does "no u" Penalties. As a nuke, she is alright I guess, but her main value lies in being a good counter unit against debuff teams. Alfonse: Heir to Openness has access to a new status effect that boosts stats. The sheer quantity of stats is nice, but takes a while to set up. In terms of gameplay, I think the girls would be the best options to pick up, as they offer new tools to expand a player's toolbox to tackle a variety of challenges. Alfonse: Heir to Openness is nice as a support unit to further stack stats, but he does not really bring anything new to the table in terms of interesting gameplay and mechanics, so he would be the third pick after the girls. Felix: Sword Savant brings nothing new to the table at all gameplay wise, so unless you really like double Galeforce, I think he is pretty skippable; he feels more like a QOL unit to me to handle the mundane stuff.

Oh, interesting! Seteth is like Oprah giving everyone a Spear of Assal. Seteth by itself is pretty meh, but as a support unit, giving everyone his Weapon is cool. Seems fun for Save tanks. He feels like a combination of Múspell and Nifl, but better. Good to mix in with Flayn and Elimine.

Would it be broken if they simply added Deep Star status effect on top of Fallen Star status effect? Deep Star seems a bit weak compared to Fallen Star since it is Enemy Phase only, and while 96% damage reduction from having both is quite a lot, it only lasts for the first round of combat only on the first set of hits, and it is peirceable, so it is not like it will make him unkillable. And having the extra status effects will help him trigger extra true damage.

My players cannot shut down an encounter in one or two rounds though, and I often utilize enemy reinforcements, so the party have to be careful with resource management and going nova accordingly. A lot of GMs say they balance their encounters, but they do not actually balance their encounters during combat when it needs balancing intervention the most. I guess since I come from Fire Emblem and played a lot of Left 4 Dead, using reinforcements feels natural to me, and balancing an encounter as it happens is far easier than trying to balance an encounter before it happens. And what makes L4D particularly satisfying across all difficulty levels is that the AI Director does not just generate a map and randomize zombie placement before play, the AID also actively reacts to the players as they play, and the AID intervenes during play with special zombie spawns and item spawns to further balance the game to make the game feel like the right difficulty. The old Surprise rule will always be there though. Unless you are playing AL where you have to follow all errata and updates, if you are at your own table, all the old rules are still available to you along with the new rules, and nothing is cut unless you decide to cut them.

The old Assassin will still work with the new Surprise rule, since Surprised enemies will likely have not taken a turn yet with disadvantage on initiative rolls, it just might not work as well since Surprised enemies with disadvantage can still potentially roll a higher initiative and take a turn before the Assassin. And the new Assassin will work even better with the old Surprise rule, since Surprised enemies skip their first turn entirely. Personally, I like the idea of running both Surprise rules in tandem, as it makes Surprise more enticing to plan for and set up. While there are a lot of spells that are being reworked, there is nothing wrong with having both old and new versions of the spell being available at the same time and treat them as different spells. My players have not made any gish characters yet, but if they did, I would let them pick either the pre-errata Green Flame Blade/Booming Blade or the post-errata one (I imagine most would pick the old one as it is just better). Old content definitely work with new content, or at least with the stuff in the YouTube videos so far, and I am not sure why people see old and new content as an either/or thing when we can have both at the same time. ¿Por qué no los dos? As a GM, I paid for all the books, so you can bet my ass I and my players will use as many options as we can, or at least all the fun options (we ignored the boring logistics rules like life style expenses, food and water, etc.). Hell, Wizards even said in the DMG that GMs are referrees and we can change rules as we see fit, so I am definitely utilizing rule zero to the fullest extent and milk every ounce of fun out of all the rules, options, and books I paid for.

Yeah, I agree I do not see any compatibility issues in the YouTube videos so far. They have not really done anything to the core mechanics, so I do not see any compatibility issues with mixing and matching old and new stuff. All the new stuff just gives players more options. It is basically just 12 new Optional Class Features, or 12 new classes. The most notable change is Surprise, with the old rule have Surprised enemies skip their first turn, while the new rule gives advantage/disadvantage on initiative checks. Since the old and new Surprise rules do not mechanically interfere with each other, you can even use both Surprised rules at the same time too if you cannot decide one which to choose, which is pretty neat.

I wonder how they will handle the Wish-Simulacrum wombo-combo. You can already spam Wish with Epic Heroism rest along with Spell Recall and High Magic, but Wish-Simulacrum takes into a whole other level by offloading the risk to the Simulacrum, and you can spam Wish without needing Epic Heroism rest.

I am just wondering if there is a lot of overlap between fans of Fire Emblem and fans of D&D. If you thought Fire Emblem is niche, D&D is way more niche. I have not met a lot of people who play Fire Emblem, but I met even less people who play the table top role playing game D&D. I have met only two people who played D&D that I have not personally introduced D&D to; the first person I met talked about D&D at work, and then I read about D&D and got into it; the second person is another coworker at a different company, and we have similar hobbies and interest. I think it will also be interesting to talk about D&D in a non-D&D forum/social media/community. I think it might be interesting to have a more outside perspective. And for those who are into D&D, how do you feel about the new core rulebooks? I feel happy about them, but I do not feel the same excitement that others feel. I mean, I do feel a little excited, but that amount of excitement is about the same as I have for supplement books that regularly come out. There are a lot of new additions and changes, but it still feels very samey. Maybe it is because I am a game master so I read a lot more D&D books and am more familiar with the variety of variant rules, so all the new stuff in the Player's Handbook (PHB) feels pretty peanuts in comparison. Maybe I will feel more excited when they talk more about the new Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG) after the PHB releases.

Huh. Both Krises got the exact same Weapon, just in a different Weapon class. Feels like they should have both gotten the Refine at the same time to speed things up. If I recall correctly, both Robins got their Refines at the same time.

Has Celica: Of Echoes made Aether Raids more difficult? Super tanking seems really risky since she can warp to your back line. Save tanking is not always viable either since Embla can shut it down.

Yep! Emblem Engages work just like Sacred Seals, so you can lock them into a team, and then switch Engages right afterwards, but the locked team will still have it. Very useful for Arena Assault, and I think Aether Raids too.

Having high stats is definitely nice, especially for Galeforce Dancers/Singers, but they do not need combat performance. Old Dancers/Singers might not have the stats, but they still got the slots to run modern skills. Personally, I value skill slots a little more than stats since providing support is their main job. I want all Dancers/Singers to be in the game. I want all games to have at least three Dancers/Singers. Makes it easier to tackle PvE content, and gives people more options in PvP content too. My dream unit would be a Dancer/Singer with Galeforce on all their skill slots.

Awakening already got four Dancers. I mean, more is always nice, but she is pretty normal, compared to the Dancers from Heroes. I do not think any game is lacking Dancers/Singers right now except TMS who got none. Shadow Dragon, Sacred Stones, and Engage only got one Dancer/Sing each, so they need a Dancer/Singer more than Awakening does. Echoes, Binding Blade, and Path of Radiance got only two Dancers/Singers, so they should get another one too.

Olivia: Wavecrest Dancer seems pretty tame. She does not have an exclusive Weapon, and as a colorless tome unit, she does not have a lot of options for Inheritance either. She is kind of gimped in that regard. Gullveig: Glittering Sunlight is a nice triple Galeforce queen.

I was browsing Reddit yesterday and I thought I came across leaked screenshots of a new Fire Emblem game. My excitement quickly died a little when I looked closer and realized it is anime movie about the Lord of the Rings. I am still excited since Lord of the Rings is cool and the art looks really nice, but yeah, I would have been more excited if it was a movie about Fire Emblem. Haha. But seriously, the art style is so remininscent of Fire Emblem it is uncanny. https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/1ddhw8w/three_images_from_the_war_of_the_rohirrim/

It is a bit of a stretch, but it would be nice if they can do some re-Refines too. Oboro's Spear is not going to make a dent in armor units these days with armor effectiveness alone, and that Close Def is not going to save her either; unconditional all stat+6 and flat damage reduction will help with survivability in general, and armor effectiveness with Scowl should help her deal damage against them. Stahl's Panther Sword and Sully's Bull Spear could definitely be upgraded, like having Cancel Affinity, inflict Triangle Adept on foe before combat, and Meister effect if there is any ally within two spaces.

Sharena: Pillars of Peace and Lapis: Mighty Bride are great for Galeforce teams and compliment Galeforcing Edelgards very well. I think Sharena: Pillars of Peace is the undisputed Galeforce queen now, since she got two non-Special Galeforces on C and Duo, more than the one non-Special Galeforce that Edelgards' typically have. Edelgards' Galeforces are a little easier to trigger though, since they do not have any conditions.

With the recent release of Gambit, Magic Gambit, and Laguz Friend, while you still ideally want to trigger Specials as often as possible, these new skills allow your units to be less reliant on Special triggers for performance. Gambit and Magic Gambit work best with high cooldown Specials, and ideally, you do not want the unit to have Slaying effect on their Weapon since it reduces the effect of those two skills. Even better, or at least alternatively, you want the unit to have Blade tome's and Lightning Breath's effect that slows Special trigger, so instead of Aether, you can run Ignis or Glacies that can deal more damage when they do trigger (and also assuming the unit has enough Def/Res for that). However, the main issue with that is that those are the only two categories of Weapons that slows Special triggers, and both are quite outdated now. Blade tomes are nice, but raw power alone is not enough these days, and units with exclusive Blade tomes lost the effect that slows Special trigger, and their Def/Res are not particularly high either to take full advantage of Ignis and Glacies. I think Nowi is the only Hero with an exclusive Weapon that slows Special trigger, but there is no Dragon Gambit yet for her yet, and even if there is, her exclusive Weapon is pretty dated by now, and she will probably be better off running an Arcane Weapon with Dragon Wrath to simulate Gambit.

Holy Ash (she is a divine cow). Nergal: Traiter to Nabata is like Tina on steroids. Tina steals all the Bonuses of just one foe at the start of turn and gives them to her allies. Nergal: Traitor to Nabata needs to attack, but he takes all the Bonuses of the foe AND foes around the target and gives them to his allies wherever they are on the map (as long as they were near each other at the start of turn). And with Dancers/Singers, he can can hit the entire opponent's team and take everything. I think this is the first time that a normal focus gave two free summons? I can see the obvious free summon as usual, but is there a reason for two in this case? I do not see a second Hero type. No Legendary, Mythic, Duo, Harmonized, Ascended, Attuned, nor Emblem. Nergal: Traitor to Nagata is a really strong meta unit, but I am not sure if Intelligent Systems gives an extra free summon for meta units.

Ah shoot. I will edit.

PvE builds generally follow the same principles as PvP, and the differences in most cases are relatively minor. If your main focus is PvE and you do not really care about PvP, Spd is not as competitive in PvE as PvP (at least from what I remember when I quit; there are a few Spd demons in PvE, but those foes are few and far between), so most units with high Spd can afford to run +Atk instead for more damage. In Thórr: Sun Kissed Gods' case, this is not really relevant since she is a slow nuke, so she wants +Atk regardless. In PvE, most maps can be cleared with two types of brain-dead teams. The more brain-dead team involves running a Save tank team with two Save tanks and two supports, and you just spam end turn until foes finish suiciding into your units. The less brain-dead team involves running a Player Phase team with a nuke and three Dancers/Singers, and you defeat up to four foes every turn (or five or six foes with Galeforcers) until you beat the map. Some maps may shut down one of those teams really hard (usually due to the boss being an extremely powerful nuke or tank), but I do not recall any map being able to shut down both team types. If you want to play certain repetitive PvE modes with Auto Battle on, that is when you would build your units significantly different. In repetitive modes where you would use Auto Battle, enemies are on the weaker side and you have to treat the AI running your units to be a dumbass, so you want all your units to be selfsufficient dual phase units. In this case, I would run something like the following: +Atk/Res Divine Whimsy (Any Rally) Noontime — Sol — Aether Marth: Of Beginnings Close Foil — (Any A with Close Counter) Mystic Boost — Guard — Seal Atk (Any Crux) Iote's Shield Guard I recommend running Rallies over positioning Assists, since there is a tiny chance that the AI might get itself stuck in a positioning Assist loop. I personally lean towards Noontime for the Special, but any healing Special is honestly fine. If you Engage her with Marth: Of Beginnings, then run Sol or Aether instead. The A slot can be any type of Close Counter, and I lean towards Close Foil; if you are worried about getting stuck due to not being able to counterattack against dragons, then Close Reversal is the next best option. I would avoid Close Salvo though due to it inflicting recoil damage. Also, do not stack Guard, so if you are able to afford Guard Echo on the X slot, do not run Guard or Seal Atk on the B slot. I highly recommend running Iote's Shield. Keep in mind you do not need to give her Emblem and Attuned Heroes, they are just nice to have. If you like to gamble and not run Iote's Shield, or if you know for sure a series of maps does not have an archer, you can run the following instead: +Atk/Res Divine Whimsy (Any Rally) Aether Close Foil — (Any A with Close Counter) Brash Assault World Breaker Quick Riposte Brash Assault on B and Quick Riposte on S would give her dual phase guaranteed follow-ups. Slaying, Aether, and Worldbreaker on top of dual phase guaranteed follow-ups ensure she gets healed in almost every round of combat. While you can Engage her with an Emblem Hero, in my opinion, the current two options are not that great with this setup, so I would Engage them with someone else on the team instead.