Alkaid

I gave her Blazing Wind, LaD, Special Spiral and Savage Blow. She's a nuking machine. 61 atk (64 with the atk seal glued on) is insane. Also, as for my free pulls for Christmas, I didn't get any of the new units. But I did get a Veronica (+atk -spd) instead of Eirika on the sole colorless. And I have no problem with that IV, since I think I'll feed her to my Halloween Mia for Wrathful Staff. Maybe now I can properly use her on some teams(Haven't found her that useful with my current Dazzle-only setup).

The old one was +hp -res. -spd doesn't really hurt her offense since she one shots anyway, but it does make her more vulnerable if she's got to take a hit. Oh well, 60 attack is kinda too good to pass up.

Put together the absolute last orbs I could manage after getting arena rewards and finishing the newest chain challenge I forgot about. I had 20 total and was still aiming for that Eir for scoring.. did not get her. BUT, I got ANOTHER Ophelia from my second circle with no colorless! This time +atk... -spd. That bane stings, but I guess that's worth switching my current one to despite the bane? I don't want to drop speed, but I guess she's already super frail and her gimmick is one shots anyway..

Used my ticket and remaining 20 orbs on the hero fest for a last chance at Eir for AR scoring. Nothing. RIP to my lift after next week. At least I did well with Ophelia yesterday.

I look forward to seeing Tharja, Cecilia, Lissa and a healer crawl through the maps with near-invincibility on auto battle. Maybe my free roll can give me a lucky Eirika to fit in for a perfect squad. (or tickets, if we get any)

@DarkAlf @Azuris Thanks a lot! I hope I can keep doing okay even without the Eirs, but good luck to you guys hitting those upper tiers too. At least it's not a huge gap in grail gains between the upper tiers, but I'm more annoyed by the principal that if you couldn't pull X copies of X unit you're gated from 21 now, and possibly 20 too. Plus it's not always light week, so they also expect you to get a second set of astra bonus units and blessings to work with on top of the light stuff. That's way more than my orbs could keep up with anyway. I have a lot of fun with this mode regardless, but man were the 3.0 changes to it a bummer. I guess we were naive to think they were just going to let us upgrade the fountain soon so we'd just get to do more matches to reach the final ranks. @DehNutCase It's too bad even team building has been gimped with the need for Eir spam and blessing stacks. At least there's only a couple GHB/TT units I care about merges, so missing a few grails a week would feel worse if I was working on more. I don't really care about the bragging rights half of it now, since lift/tier is not a representation that you played well anymore.(especially when you consider that with maxed out lift bonuses someone can lose a couple units and still score as much or more than a player doing perfect matches without any) They kind of one-upped arena's scoring issues. (I can at least hit 21 every other week there without needing 180 BST and blessings)

She's pretty cool! Kind of a blue Arvis, I suppose. I'll use her as a ploy supporter since she's got almost 40 res with +res and Fury 2 on her. (why won't the game give me more Hinataaaaaa) That'd be really nice. Hopefully she gets a 3 unit banner some time, since I pulled for her (and Maribelle) on the original banner and got up to a disgusting 5.75% rate before getting anything. (only got Olivia) Man I hate 4 unit banners rates. I'm not sure yet, but definitely little Azura and another mage to get that juicy turn 1 special going.

Thanks! Sounds like you're doing even better making it to tier 18 already! And yes, fliers are my main thing and best units. It's very nice how key AR units like Aversa and now Eir fit right into my usual team compositions too. Yeah, I may be out of the running for higher tiers in this mode. Missing her on the current banner means more Eirs is probably not going to happen period for me. I doubt I'll be pulling for her on the next legendary, and 1/3 on a legendary isn't good odds anyway. It stinks that's what scoring in the mode has come to and it's the main thing that will be holding me back.(even more than my bad defenses were) Maybe pulling a few more Eir copies for the sake of this mode eems trivial to some, but it's still just luck if you aren't whaling. Sorry you had to spend 400 orbs on her yourself, too. (my 200 stash got me the Ophelia and Lewyn I was looking for, but nothing from colorless stones)

@mampfoid @daisy jane @DarkAlf Thanks! Since I DID get Ophelia in the end, I'm pretty cool with my Sumia and Lute. They're both rare units and on that "I'd like to have them but I wouldn't spend orbs for them over other things." So as pity breakers they're pretty ideal ones since it's about the only way I'd get them. And now I can keep a Lewyn to use too, since I would have sacrificed my only copy for Opehlia had I not gotten the second. I put LaD and SS on Ophelia and she was worth every orb. Absolute destruction everywhere. And good luck to you guys saving for Azura! She's definitely worth the wait. Even if she seems a bit more standard next to Ninian and Olivia able to buff all stats, you'd be surprised how often the +2 def/res drive from her Hagoita can help out too.

Strange experience for me this week. While again I didn't even get a single kill on defense.. I only lost 160 points total since only 4 people fought me, 3 of which were on the first day. After the second day of the week, I got no defense results anymore. Maybe I should try the "hide the Surtr" meta you guys are talking about to prepare for next week, though like @XRay said, I find those maps pretty trivial when I encounter them myself. So I'm surprised to hear they're actually working that well. My Surtr's not light blessed and is -def, though, so I guess I probably can't do it well anyway. At 7,710 I'm safe for tier 18 and hopefully I can make it to 19 next week. I was unable to get an extra Eir even with all my orbs spent on the hero fest banner, so I can't get more than 110 lift per match. Even if I make it to 19, that may remain my cap unless I do really well/get no defenses. Needing "only" 2-3 Eirs to boost lift doesn't mean much if I still can't pull them.

Well, my votes were all Camilla and I got 3 more of those, so I guess that counts. (well 2, since NY was before CYL) Otherwise, I got Ophelia, Nina and Noire this year, who were big wants. Charlotte, Nyx, Benny and Velouria are the main ones not in yet for me.

Damage report for today. After seeing the Christmas trailer I decided I'm not interested in it and went all in on Ophelia. I had to spend my full stash of 200 orbs before I got her, but I finally did. I could have waited for the final 2 tickets too, but I was too eager to summon after confirming Christmas was a skip. In total I got: Lute (+res -atk), Sumia (+spd -hp), a second Lewyn (+res -spd), and Ophelia +res -hp. Not that lucky for 200 orbs on a hero fest, but I did get 2 rare units I didn't have and Ophelia's not -atk or -spd. A bad second Lewyn means I get to keep my first one and sacrifice this instead. A few hours later after training my units, it was reset time and I got my ticket for today. With 1 ticket and 12 orbs, 3 blues showed up so I tried them all since maybe I can luck out on a +atk Ophelia still. While not +atk, I did get another Ophelia, +hp -res. A little better than the first. So now she's +1 and nuking everything in sight. I'd probably be greedy and still try for +atk if I could, but no orbs left. I guess I'll be saving for the New Year's banner next, unless the legendary banner has a surprise.

Oh, do they? I had no idea. Just shows how I usually see them from the datamines rather than the actual notifications.

Only 2 seals, huh. Not that I mind. Fierce Stance as a seal is pretty nice, and Drive Res is certainly useful. What's wrong with Cecilia? Grinding a bit to get her and then swapping her in is still fine for F2P. She'll probably carry runs easily after obtaining her. I look forward to using Tharja as a bonus unit again, since she's always super solid for TT grinding.

That would be nice, but probably not since Fae has it. I wonder if her weapon will have a cool effect too.

I hope Cecilia is good, as another armored dagger is pretty cool to see. I think she's who I'd want most anyway out of these, so it's sweet that she's free. Hopefully she has good art.

Well, nobody here that I'm interested in, plus it's armors again which I'm not into. If there was a flier I might be tempted despite not being a fan of the characters. Eirika being an armored healer is neat, but I don't think I need her. I guess I'm free to dump my orbs for Ophelia after all.

Might it be a Serenes thing more than a Heroes one? I can't say, since I don't really visit the other parts of the forum to tell how those are doing. But it does seem like Gfaqs and other places still get new Heroes people pretty regularly. I've noticed disappearing faces around here too, though still a few newer people as well.

Thanks! I'm doing the same, but I've been spending my tickets as they come + pulling whatever blue/green I get.(mostly been getting reds and colorless only) Still hoping I can justify diving into blue even once we see what the winter banner has.

I just watched that the other day. It'd be neat if that were the case.

Got a Lewyn with my ticket + a couple orbs today. Very nice! Middling +hp -res so I won't feel too bad about sacrificing him either.(after I HM farm him, of course) Now I just need to actually get Ophelia. Please come home..

This. Please let me skip so I can dump my orbs for Ophelia and Special Spiral instead. At least if the left one is a loli like Fae that's one down, and it's unlikely I'll want whatever males they pick either. The males I like most already had stuff pretty recently, so they probably won't be on this. Watch that other female be a surprise Hinoka or Peri to make me pull still.

I can't even make a guess for these. Interesting.

Best: Combat Manuals: Great change for skill fodder hoarders like myself. 5* Demotions: Glad they cleared out most of the 3-4* available ones. We may still have some like Ares, Tailtiu and Silas, but there's not nearly as many you need to dodge now. No more 5* Merrics, Abels and junk is great. Weapon Refinements: Lots of really nice ones this year. Tempest Trials+ changes: Glad they streamlined the rewards a bit, though if you fight for rankings it's about the same as before. Bride Tharja happened (black wedding dress and all, 10/10) Summer Camilla and Cordelia happened (my most wanted summer alts, IS has me tapped) Noire, Ophelia, Nina and Aversa got in Hinoka finally got an alt and it's a cool one Adrift Camilla to complete her magic color coverage Book 2 OCs actually became obtainable (even if Surtr is broken, but I was really wanting Loki and the sisters) Aether Raids (initially) Forging bonds: They're pretty light, but supports were definitely something I'd been wanting to see in the game. Generally lots of flier love all year long (3 flying dragons, 2 archers, 2 daggers, 3 dancers, a healer, more mages, impressive refinements for Caeda, Camilla, Cherche, etc. It's been a big year for boosting flier team power and variety) Summoning tickets are a pretty nice idea Worst: Relay Defense: At best it felt pretty pointless as a mode. At worst it was stat-bloated garbage. Power Creep: I accept it's inevitability in a gacha, but Tier 4 skills, more crazy skills and blessing creep felt a bit heavy so soon. Plus some units like Surtr getting the trainee bonus just because. My gut told me we wouldn't get a skill refinery to alleviate things and it was correct, so it's all been pure whale bait for the most part. Arena bonus kill system: Rather than improve the mode, they managed to make it worse with the lame cheerleader meta. Aether Raids (post 3.0): Mythic blessings and merges affecting lift really stinks. It was cool that the mode was a bit more of an even playing field and performance-based than arena, but they ruined it. Now it won't be possible to compete with people who can afford to take better advantage of the mythic lift bonuses. I'm neutral on most stuff I didn't mention. Increased alt spam hasn't bothered me, and while Tactics Drills aren't really my cup of tea I don't think they're a negative thing. Aside from the negative changes to arena and AR, I've been pretty happy with the game this year. It's commendable how close she managed to get to Ike despite how hard IS pushed him.

If only those 5 orbs would get me a second Eir and not another Virion.