Zeo

Huh... that means the VG Banner would consist of:

@Ginko I recommend keeping that virtually perfect Celica even if you pull L!Alm. Two fantastic nukes are better than one. Still though hope you enjoy her while you have her! @mcsilas Sorry you didn't luck out with Xander at the end but Ruse fodder is pretty unique so I'm sure you'll find a use for it when you make your decision. Mixed bag it may be but those are pretty nice pulls. Edelgard and Thrasir are great (shame about the bane but at least it's not -SPD...). You did still get CC fodder in the form of Tharja though so that's great! Leo is a nice bonus as well. You got a few gifts for Christmas turns out eh? @mampfoid @eclipse @Landmaster @SatsumaFSoysoy @Alexmender @DLNarshen Yeah so... after a long day (Christmas Eve is also a family friend's birthday, so even busier day than it would have been) I sit down and 9 tickets drop into my lap and I've got 19 orbs. So I'm sitting there and contemplating about how I could save the tickets, stretch out time a bit and utilize them to maximum efficiency going into January. Then I just stopped and went "meh". I'm in save mode so I'm not trying to spend a bunch of orbs and between units I can live without, ones I don't care about and a lukewarm legendary banner outside of one color I didn't see the point in waiting around so I jumped in, whatever I get is what I get. So I went into the old Christmas banner first to pull red. First is one red stone, nothing there. Then next I get 3 red stones. Sure Tharja would be nice.... but... I don't care about her. I don't particularly "need" her so spending the orbs is just... bleh. So I take my *3 and move on. No red stones in the last so nothing there. Next banner I already have W!Eirika now so I'm going for Ephraim or Fae. First pool is 1 green and 4 colorless. Nothing, 2nd pool is 1 blue and 4 colorless, nothing again. last pool is wouldn't you guess it... 1 red, 4 colorless (fitting rite?) so I'm pretty much done at this point so I grab the grey stone at the top and say let's be done with it- So I moved on to the legendary. I told myself going in that I'd mostly just pull green or red since I'm 2/3 on every color but green but red has the best fodder. So what follows is a bunch of blue/colorless stones. After wasting a few orbs along with the tickets I went in with my last ticket and for the first time (out of 4) there were greens in the pool. 2 in fact. I only had 10 orbs left so I was going to grab the greens and the red. The free green? Between my pulls here for 17 orbs and my recent acquisition of both S!Xander and W!Eirika, I'd say I was pretty good this year and got some pretty nice gifts, even if I had to work for some. It also shows and proves that colorless has and still continues to favor me, giving me valuable units and fodder, even when I'm not asking. Fully satisfied and can move on with no regrets. Hope it ends the same for the rest of you. Happy Holidays.

Literally this.

Nah, Ticket I will be for the New Years banner methinks. Too generous to give free summon tickets to a legendary, that's unheard of.

@mcsilas @mampfoid @Alexmender @DLNarshen @Landmaster @daisy jane Huh... yeah... so. I'm sorry I've been tagging you guys so frequently as of late but... yeah... free pull. After dumping over 200 orbs for her last year for nothing, this year she just drops into my lap. An early Christmas gift to be sure. She's +SPD/-HP... which... isn't great but it's almost neutral so it's fine. Got the only armor healer and she's the's the clear star of this banner. Took a chance that her brother and/or Fae may show up. Cost me 12 orbs for nothing but oh well. I was counting the discounted pulls. We may be getting tickets but I won't be spending any more orbs on these banners. Red on the original and blue or green for this one as we get them. I'm already happy.

@Tybrosion Sacrificing the 2nd most useful dancer in the entire game to give an arena points skill to someone... ...I'm just going to assume you have L!Azura.

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like this one's a skip. Just going to grab the coins and stones and I guess that's it. A little disappointing, but between 2 almost back to back Tempests, a new year celebration and then the anniversary a month after, I guess they don't want to be too generous with orbs.

Somebody give us a heads up if any of the Tap Battle stages give orbs. Between coins replacing the orb on the first stage and the usual orb rewards being replaced with accessories that I already have, I see quite literally no reason to play it at all unless there are orbs or Sunglasses hidden away in one of them.

@Xenomata Pretty much in full agreement here. She's strong but that's about it. Not super oppressive to me. NullF + Desperation is great but... eh, okay she's destroying WF armors and units like... Death Knight and some other units but it's more of the same. The most unique thing about her is that she'll potentially punch through some RES tanks and her offenses will be amazing of course. As far as units go though she really does feel like more of the same. Not necessarily a must unless you like her. And honestly? Sonya with Special Spiral (Aka Green Ophelia) will likely serve you just as well as a unit.

Easy skip. Green is fantastic but I have no strong attachment to any of those characters even if they're borked as units. Plus unlike Altina I feel no strong desire to pull for Celica (or even Thrasir) out of desire for an oppressive unit. Blue is meh, don't need or want Peony, Dimitri is unecessary and I lack attachement to him. Another Naga would be nice but I risk pulling one of the other two, pass. Already have Hrid and Ike. Technically there's fodder everywhere with DC and Warding Breath but Warding Breath isn't all that valuable anymore and I don't really need another red infantry sword (does anyone? these days) so Roy's a pass. Eir's nice, Robin isn't and Claude is a bonus at best. Fantastically easy banner to skip this month. I'll be going out of this month saving. As always I'm going to do the full circle though. Unless I get something like nothing but blue/colorless. Then I might just pull once and leave. There's something of value in every color, but no color barring green is worth pulling for considering the alternatives in their respective colors. Zzz...

I'm not one to talk. When I was a kid I had a Dreamcast with around a dozen games, then I got an original Xbox with eventually 50+ games as well as a Gameboy Advance with a good 10-20 games also. I would think about the thousands of games he has access to in today's generation in jealousy, but in hindsight, I had it made seeing as I had a good chunk of what I just said when I was his age lol, especially comparing it to what you just said you had. I also had a computer at some point too but that was a bit later.

Yeah he plays every so often, but he's also 8 with a computer, an Xbox One S and a myriad of other games he can play so it's only an occasional thing. He's got some nice toys though, even if he lacks some essentials. Yeah if I can do RD farming then Xander's HM is a no brainer. It'll mostly depend on me finishing up uploading clears as I said I wasn't going to set up RD farming until after that. If that ends up being pushed back for one reason or another (procrastination) I may just fodder him without the feathers. By the time his banner comes next year I'll have more than enough orbs to get him again if I want to. @mcsilas Doesn't mean you won't free summon something great! I've wanted CC on Serra pretty much from the beginning. There are potentially units that can do the CC+Absorb build better like Lachesis/Brady/Mercedes etc but Serra is my favorite so it's a no brainer. With her my trinity of CC users is complete (Matthew/Morgan/Serra). There are other users who I'd like to have CC (Odin/Faye/Merric/LA!Lyn etc) but no one else has the priority of Serra. She IS my +10 healer and she was always going to be. Plus theres always the potential of staff prfs down the line and she's the most likely to get an enhanced prf Absorb staff as she was the first unit in the game to actually carry the staff. I'll probably do that. DEF is her weakest stat so the boost could be a help every now and again. Plus she's speedy but you never know if you could use QR so yeah that's a great idea. Fantastic Alm pull as well. Mine is -SPD but that doesn't really matter with the refine. I didn't give mine the refine on account of not having Mystic Boost fodder for the infinite-active effect build and pulling a +SPD B!Alm that I'd use in pretty much any situation I'd use OG Alm.

@mcsilas @mampfoid @Alexmender @Landmaster @daisy jane @DLNarshen ...My... freaking... nephew. His phone's been missing for a few days so when it was found I logged in for him and did his free summon on the new banner.... I was just going to open one green or blue... there was one blue so I opened it... ...What... even. I don't even have Ophelia. And oh the kicker? She's freaking +ATK/-HP. She's perfect. If this boy pulls a Lewyn it's done. He's already got Igrene and now he's got tactical nuke. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little jealous. But I'm not just here for his exploits. I've been chipping away hopelessly at the double seasonal banner for countless groups of one-none gray stone pools. After scooping up the first HoF orbs and the very last 3 Tempest Orbs I go back in, one grey: Maria. I'm down from 13 to 8. I grab the weekend orb for 9. Go back in, 3 grey stones.... Left in a really... really bad spot not. Two on the right, one on the left. I take the mid right one: Sothe. So I go to the one on the left but before I click it... I pause for a second and pray. Then I'm directed to the bottom right one instead, so I go with that one and... Well, I'm down to 0 orbs once again but this is the end of a journey for me. With this I'm officially going into the new year as a saver. Everything from this point forward is a skip. Free/discounted pull and that's it until either Lyn, Edward or Ilyana show up unless something like Altina pops up again. Unlikely though. Let's see how many orbs I can stack up before the year is over. Feeling pretty light now. Now all I have to do is upload my last few clears and I can finally drop the rest of this game's weight and enjoy it for what it is like everyone else.

@mcsilas @mampfoid @Alexmender @Landmaster @daisy jane Yep, game continues to be itself. Got this as my free summon. Admittedly, far more useful than the +DEF/-SPD one I pulled a long way back. So I can build this one and safely fodder that dual rally to Matt or something. A few more arena points never hurt anyone. The other blue was just a Clair. You never know though, could have been a dupe or an Ophelia.

I'm actually going to say no do this based on the principle that now you have a whole new set (and a rather large one) of characters that all need new prfs. Am I against Spring Chrom getting a better weapon? Of course not. But do I want him to get one before the likes of Xander, Camus or Laslow or any staff unit? Absolutely not. This is a topic of discussion I'd be open to revisit after every normal pool Gen 1 unit (and some Gen 2s) gets their prf and at no point until then. In fact, it would probably irritate me if Special Heroes started getting prfs before older units that I'm sure certain people consider their favorites or have invested heavily in.

Realize that you're covering only one spectrum of the playerbase. new players, mid point ones and veterans. Veterans already have most of everything and have likely tried everything. Mid point players while they may or may not have given these units a chance it's more than likely they've pulled at least one (if not) multiple copies of these units (except in the case of Bridal Caeda in which case, even the newly released Bruunya is a better unit overall). That leaves one third of the playerbase which is the only that would likely be excited or even interested at the prospect of using these units. I have nothing against the characters, but as far as units go there were far more interesting choices.

Really not a fan of the Hall of Forms selection. Groom Marth is meh, Bride Caeda is one of the most underwhelming mages in existence at this point. Draug is massively outdated without a prf and Merric is just meh. I like the theme they went for. It's just... this mode is a good chance for people to try out units they'd otherwise never try and well... everyone has tried these units or simply doesn't need to.

Felt lazy this week and only got to T23. Feels low considering I've been averaging T24-25 in light season but meh. Astra season is where the fun begins. I need to stop procrastinating and find an Astra tank. Thrasir's presence seriously detracts from Fallen Corrin's attractiveness as a supertank.

Naturally the most busted armor of the bunch is the boss for the TT. It's just as well. I'll probably run F!Nino, Jaffar, Marth and a healer for this TT. Might swap out OG Jaffar for Christmas Jaffar a little down the line.

My nephew pulled a Siegbert and a +ATK/-HP W!Sothis in his discounted circle. She's a freaking monster.

One full circle for a bunch of trash. Not even good fodder. Can't say I expected a *5 but with all the good stuff that's been getting added to the pools I hoped for something. Well... a neutral Mordecai is pretty nice and *3 Abel is... who am I kidding I have a million Abels. No one even uses Swordbreaker anymore. Trash. Oh well, moving on.

Katarina or Minerva would be nice I guess. *4 Cecillia. Welp.

Haven't played them all. Binding Blade: Lugh/Lillina Blazing Blade: Hector/Lyn Sacred Stones: Ross/Lute Path of Radiance: Ike/Mia Radiant Dawn: Edward/Mia

@LordFrigid @mampfoid I really wasn't sure how you were going to be able to one turn a map like this, but I should have figured fliers were going to be the key, even with the initial team split up. Dealing with Duma was a question mark but each of you dealt with him effortlessly. I expected a dragon slayer on both sides but I'd forgotten that armor effectiveness works just as well. Good use of Gerome/Clair on both ends to EP tank the cav as well. I know I don't really see either of you in these topics anymore and these clears are almost a year old now but better late than never. @Alkaid I've seen my fair share of nuke+3 dancer clears, but never with Hinoka. Tackling an abyssal map with a +1 physical ranged unit is impressive. Funny saying that now with Igrene having become a thing. @Nanima A hard fought battle despite your saying otherwise. Tibarn had to bring a damage special for this one. I was anxious watching when the birds were dealing with the cav archers but that mov and 2 dancers is nothing to shake a stick at. They picked off the enemies until they got to Duma who was a tough nut to crack but that +7 true damage from Naesala's weapon came in handy. Not killing the armor behind him was smart, had DEF/RES Solo kicked in you would have had serious problems. Good clear. @Landmaster Old clears but let's check em out. Julia was the MVP here. She took a crapton of punishment right off the bat but that CC vs Dragons was invaluable and Renewal actually turned out to be a pretty effective skill which you don't see in clears like these. Not only that but she acted as a form of support with BoL as well. Nowi did what was expected of her and Elise chipped in but Julia was the team's pillar. I knew going in she was going to be the one to take care of Duma but it was a little disappointing that she didn't end up either nuking him with Dragon Fang or getting the kill at all, still she did great. Interesting choice bringing Jeorge along as support instead of a healer/dancer but it worked out and provided color balance all the same. Abyssal stats really are something. Even with effective damage plus WTA L!Tiki still couldn't oneshot the red fafnir. Still OP dragons are OP. With the dual support of Azura and W!Eirika the two dragons became a fortress of death. The intensity was upped a bit when Duma's personal force came in from the right but a bit of retreating and proper positioning and he was dealt with promptly. Quite the defensive clear, this one. Even with powerful units like these you had to be smart or their defenses would eventually crumble. A nice achievement still. Ah, a newer clear. I've gotten used to those big numbers on Elise Emblem but that 93 damage Glimmer from S!Elise was satisfying. Nowi got a little action too this time around. The blue tome flier was the biggest issue watching the clear. The Elises pretty much chewed through everyone else including Duma with even OG Elise having some surprising damage numbers. @Hilda Nifl emblem is actually pretty OP. All it's missing is a healer. The Smite in the Askr clear might just be one of the coolest things I've ever seen in anybody's clears ever. Anna Smiting Alfonse and the whole team repositioning to the other side of the map on the following turns was just amazing.I swear you do things with the Askr trio I don't think anyone else would have the patience for without merges/better weapons/promotions for them. They really are overdue, but when they eventually do get their buffs (it's inevitable) part of me will miss you clearing this kind of content with the ultimate underdogs of FEH. Even with the powerful inheritable skills we're given today. @Ginko Fearless Kaze opening the map like that. After Brazen got him up to 51 RES he was practically invincible against the mages and Splashy Bucket extended that to dragons. I see most clears have units take care of the left side with one or two units but Kaze basically handling Duma's entire army on the right side with Azura was awesome. @mcsilas Masterful clear. Saber's prominent role here was almost as if he was standing in for Alm at Celica's side. His DC and Aegis proved invaluable and he tanked with the best of them, including tanking shots that should have killed him outright. Seeing how much Delthea's weapon helped him down the the last kill was a treat, but Delthea herself is no slouch. Kinda reminds me that she was my primary blue nuke at one point in the game. Celica actually took a bit of a backseat here surprisingly. She nuked just fine but Saber and Clair stole the show. Clair herself took some really clutch hits and while she didn't always hit back particularly hard, when Glacies procced those numbers would soar. Her kill on Duma was probably the highlight. Delthea not taking on the red mage at the end was weird when they were closing in on you but I figured he would have doubled/killed her so I guess the kill with Saber was necessary. In a way she still got the kill through her weapon's buffs on him. Anyways, year old clear, but a good one. Really felt like taking on the final boss of an FE game. Duma proved pretty effective on his own map in the second clear. The theme perfectly reflected his leading the team in a very hectic battle where even the healer had to take some punishment. Genny was the MVP here. Keeping everyone alive in what was a very tense battle of endurance and attrition. Heavenly Light proved invaluable as just about everyone constantly needed healing and Genny was consistently keeping the team off the brink of death while teetering ever so close to it herself with every encounter she was forced into. Leon held the line while Duma slowly scooted his way to the other side of the map after dealing with the left side and they were able to settle things with Genny getting a very satisfying kill on the opposing Duma. The rest as always was clean up. Definitely reminiscent of your Grima clears as they are historically the most tense and dire of your clears. @Alexmender No need to follow arbitrary rules if all it does is stress you out. A map like this is almost impossible to solo on principle of layout alone. Eirika and co. definitely sweated a bit more for this map but something tells me your Eirika today could figure out Abyssal. If not now than whenever you pull L!Eliwood. All the same infernal or no Eirika tanking Duma's Bold Fighter and special activation was nothing to scoff at. I really enjoyed Landmasters clear with Julia so I was excited to see her again here. I actually was more excited about Julia's refine than Deirdre's and tried a few times to get her (2 out of 3 times going for her I got her mother, so there's that) so It's always fun to see it in action. Julia would have taken down a dragon of every color if she'd been the one to deal with Duma actually. I was looking forward to her slaying him here so that was disappointing but I have to admit Micaiah's kill on him with 100+ damage was extremely satisfying. Astra makes a lot of skills look cool but Thani is definitely near the top. Everyone performed at max potential here with Eirika providing crazy buffs and healing and even Azura herself taking and getting a kill herself. I'm not the biggest fan of Micaiah but I must admit she was Julia's #2. Great clear. @Jave A dual cav bow clear. How unorthodox. I was unsure about how either of them were going to punch through Duma's defenses, then I remember HS!Micaiah was a thing. Such an OP unit. @NegativeExponents- Shame your Valentian clear didn't work out but with all the time that's passed since this clear I'm sure you have what you need to do one at this point if you want whenever Duma returns. Might makes right in this clear though as the men mow down everything that gets in their way while Niles (also a man) snipes effortlessly with consistent Special Spiral procs. For a unit without his Prf you really made him shine here. Even with Hector and Dorcas the team knew not to try to take Duma head on so retreating was a smart maneuver which allowed for Niles to snipe and two-shot Duma, taking advantage of his lack of DC while just having enough RES to survive the two mages. Overall a pretty smooth clear. The theme didn't reflect the manliness of the clear, but good show regardless. @Dayni @SatsumaFSoysoy @DLNarshen @Anacybele @eclipse @Kaden @XRay @Ice Dragon @Diovani Bressan @daisy jane @Baldrick @Xenomata @Rafiel's Aria @Nanima @Usana @Humanoid So many clears.... yeah I can't do this anymore. This is just another box I have to check. These clears you're about to see are actually from the time before this last time Duma got re-run. So around 3-4 months ago. I just either didn't have the time or didn't feel like watching all these clears/uploading and posting my own. But here we finally are. This is one of the two last big uploads I have to do. Then there's some smaller ones and I'm finally done. It was such a long time ago now I don't remember the exact process for all of these clears but let's go started and I'll go over what I do remember. Starting with Morgan, his clear was definitely tricky but not quite as impossible as usual. He needed the Sol/Vantage/Brazen combo for a few key kills. Amelia needed tactics buffs to not only activate her weapon but survive some crucial encounters. It was a battle of attrition but you'll find just about all the clears of this map are. This one has everything you've come to expect in a Morgan clear. Clutch kills, 1 HP remaining encounters, warps and positional shifts. Right down to the showdown with Duma. I originally got a really nice exact damage kill with Amelia, but I couldn't figure out how to replicate it once I recorded after the test run, so that got lost in translation, but still overall satisfied with the clear and I hope you are too. Opening the clears with Morgan has become a bit of a trend near the end here, hasn't it? Moving on to Serra, I was really excited for this clear because Serra's Absorb+ build shines as bright as a star. With CC she would have decimated this map, but as it stands we'll settle for "tanking like a boss". She handled multiple opponents constantly with Azura's help while Fae kept the enemies at bay coming from the right. Serra needed the Brazen seal from Morgan for some extra kick and Fae needed the Close DEF seal to properly support her cleric friend. Serra wasn't able to deal with Duma due to the unfortunate lack of CC so she left the final battle to Fae, who didn't disappoint in the least. Now for our special clear we have an Echoes one. It's cheating a bit as I took two Alms, I had a different team with Celica and OG Alm initially but I just couldn't make it work. The timing to do this map actually wound up perfect because I'd just pulled a +SPD Brave Alm which was exactly what I needed. So I took him, L!Alm, Lukas and Genny and went at it. Despite that (+SPD) L!Alm couldn't double the blue flier (seriously?) until I propped up his speed a bit and Lukas was getting killed partway through the map due to the constant punishment he was taking which was honestly shocking for my +10 Lukas. That is until I realized he had Drive DEF in the C slot instead of his base Threaten ATK. I've gotten too used to using him as an Arena cheerleader. After switching to that and giving him a brazen things were smooth on his end. Then we hit new snags with the Alms getting killed in different situations which led to very specific positioning from L!Alm and a bit of idling here and there. As for B!Alm, even with Genny's help I knew it was going to take a miracle to get him to survive the 2nd half of the clear, so that's exactly what I made happen. Lastly we have the Matthew clear. We had to do Abyssal for this one but I was able to do it with the OG team. Matt stood tall and his friend gathered behind him in support in a very long and hard battle of attrition. But at some point or another they had to kick in. Ayra consistently had to deal with WTD, Genny was kept busy and even Inigo saw a bit of action as everyone did their best to survive while Matt chipped away at the enemies until the team was more or less boxed in a corner. What follows is reminiscent of Morgan clears. Just goes to show that with the right team and synergy you can clear nearly any map as long as you put your mind to it. The team stayed together throughout the clear, rarely ever breaking ranks and in the end everyone stood behind Matt and he cleared the path forward. But never on his own, always with his team by his side as you've come to expect. I feel so light, finally finishing this post and set of clears. A bit of rest but we're not done yet. There's one last big wallop of a post I have to do. Look forward to that some time this month. Could be in a few days, could be in a week or two. Who knows. Wouldn't it be funny if I wrapped this up around the same time I did last time I retired from clears around January 4-7th? Anyways, Cheers~

Something tells me you made that a lot more serious than it was...