Tree

Fury is good for the extra bulk (especially speed) if you choose +atk later. It also allows safer Desperation access. Death Blow is generally good on any offensive unit. If your ultimate goal is DC, then whatever you choose now is somewhat less important. I'd look at your current quantities of Fury and Death Blow, then figure out how many copies of those skills you plan on giving to various current (and future) units, and go from there. I personally chose Fury/Desperation for my Caeda.

I actually think Rival Domain size maps (without the teleportation) would be more fun even with infantry and armors. The turn limit is the main reason lower movement isn't very viable on Rival Domains currently. Larger maps could really shine if they didn't always have a turn limit and featured additional objectives. Some simple scrolling could work and would allow everything to be regular sized rather than shrunk. I think two Rival Domain maps side by side would be a nice size. Even two regular maps side by side would be really nice and would only require horizontal scrolling.

Brave Hector is fantastic for any armor related quest. Mine is +res and can survive almost anything, sometimes even green tomes.

@Anacybele In all honesty, I miss when descriptions were simple and easy to memorize. I think they are trying to increase complexity through skills rather than map size (probably because this makes it easier to sell new units), but I'd much prefer a game with larger maps and simpler skills.

It was probably Brave Hector (according to my fully scientific experiment). I too saved up my last 20 orbs (including all the painful monthly quest ones) and was presented with a final circle containing one red and four blue stones. One of the blue ones was Hector. Overall, I put in around 270+ orbs focusing exclusively on blue, and the blue 5*s were two Hectors. (He's now +9 which is nice.)

Amelia and Myrrh are both green which is the easiest five star color to get based on the color distribution. (Brave Lyn and Brave Hector have been really useful, so I've been slowly getting merges for them. They are not green, so it's taken many, many orbs, but I now have enough merges for +10 Brave Lyn and +9 Brave Hector. With long-term planning, you can still get 5* +10 units without spending money, but you have to be very patient and wait for many reruns. I did buy the $4 Black Knight starter pack, but I don't think that helped much. 😀) Yeah, I don't know either. I think we're all just curious at this point considering the oddities on that team. With the forum upgrade, I noticed some of the smileys have changed. I'm not quite sure what the use for this one is, but it is strange looking: 🤪

I do that with my Eirs since one has Reposition and the other has Smite. 😛 @Johann's suggestion (I think it was Johann) to differentiate with accessories helped. I put the bright red headband on the one with Smite.

That's true, but the DC might have been an old investment before Tier 4 skills were introduced. I imagine that they would have better targets than Fjorm for the new Tier 4 skills. Being a guaranteed bonus probably is enough to keep her in use, but that might not be enough to replace an already high scoring skill (unless they have unlimited resources.) [edit] There are a lot of free-to-play players with +10 Fjorms considering how often she is a bonus unit and how many Legendary banners she has been on.

Clarine is a low-scoring unit already, so using her at all doesn't make sense for score (unless you're using pain/savage blow to get easy KOs with the bonus unit).

Looks like the DC on Fjorm is for Arena scoring. (Either that or they think it gets around Sacae's Blessing.)

@Humanoid @EricaofRenais Yeah, at one point I put some effort into Arena Assault, but this year decided that a few stones and coins wasn't worth it.

The beast fliers three movement is impressive, but they are physical melee fighters (and can't start turns next to cavalry units). Cavalry brings magic and ranged, and a cavalry refresher could also provide horse buffs. It might not be worse than Azura, but it's hard to say. Would a casual collector really use a copy of Distant Counter and four 5 stars worth of feathers purely for a competitive mode though? Also, most players would merge or skill inherit a duplicate 5 star rather than build separately just for Arena or AR. I'm a "somewhat" average player, and have reached Tier 20 arena a couple of times when I've had a particularly good bonus unit available. Yet, I've never once spent any resources for Arena or Arena Assault. My "Arena Team" is Bow Lyn, Reinhardt, Dorcas, and a bonus unit. (They don't even have skills that score well in Arena.) My first Arena Assault team is just Tibarn by himself. ? I'm probably somewhat unusual compared to most players because I actually spend orbs for mythic units (I don't necessarily even want) just for AR purposes. The average player probably just uses their best units for those modes and doesn't build for them. This never affected summoning until AR. It's sad that casual players will have significant disadvantages in summoning grail units. Orbs are purchasable and the free orbs were never limited by competition in this way. Oh, that's rough. ? If you are that close, you'll probably get in next time though. Good job! ? Get the next offensive fortress as soon as you can. Those offensive upgrades made a big difference for me.

I don't know who to pick. They are all decent.

How are you managing blessings? It seems that it's better to eventually put AR blessings on everyone for a larger pool of potential bonus units. I wonder if they will increase the usefulness of the original four blessings now that the Gardens are complete. That could make switching everyone to AR blessings premature.

Hmm, no Axebreaker. Can she take out Surtr in one turn if he has wary fighter? My Alfonse doesn't have an Armorsmasher, but he does have the Triangle Adept refine and Axebreaker to both make sure he can take out Surtr in one turn and to also survive baiting Surtr. I wonder if he really needs Axebreaker though...

AR Tier 21 can certainly be obtained with just two Eirs. (I did it.) However, players that focus more on collecting favorites would probably struggle to get in Tier 21 with only two Eirs. Four mythics make access straightforward, but that's a somewhat expensive investment. For that matter, even the second Eir can be elusive. I've skipped summoning for new characters I wanted, and also delayed merges just to grab as many mythics as possible. I've spent around a thousand orbs chasing units I didn't particularly want just to have a reasonable chance to merge grail units. (I did try to get as many Bow Lyn merges as I could during Golden Week, but I'll have to pay for it in AR since that's fewer orbs for mythics.) A couple hundred orbs for a first try at Duma (none) A couple hundred orbs for a second try at Duma (got two, but one was the free 25% anniversary summon) A couple hundred orbs for Yune (none), but I finally got my second Eir A couple hundred orbs for Naga (none) I don't even enjoy playing AR. I just want mythics so that I can play AR less. With four mythics it's possible to maintain tier with as few as two battles a season. (A simple surrender is adequate to collect the daily rewards afterwards.) Eight mythics and you're all set to avoid the mode. AR is the only significant source of grails. There is no way to avoid this competitive mode if you want a grail exclusive character even if you are willing to spend money for that character. Many players might also like to have thrones for their AR resort (especially for that castle room). I'm limited to just blue and green chairs, and would have a red one if my second Eir had arrived earlier. (Probably will never get a red one at this point.) Many players won't be able to have any decorative thrones for their resort. Casual players won't care much about Arena Crowns, and the other arena rewards are easily obtainable in large quantities elsewhere. There is no reason to invest in arena if you don't actually enjoy it. (I don't invest in arena at all. In fact, I fell to Tier 17 because I got tired of it. In Arena Assault, I start with one unit in the first battle and autobattle the easy difficulty for participation rewards. I've already got 1000+ refining stones and 2300+ dew. I don't really need any more.) [edit] I would definitely sacrifice ranking for greatly reduced effort in AR.

Before AR, getting the characters you wanted involved saving or buying orbs. Nearly all free orbs are highly obtainable though easy events or simply given out as gifts. If you really want more orbs, you can also buy them directly. To reasonably merge grail exclusive characters, you will want to reach Tier 21. This is fairly easy to obtain if you are fielding a full four mythics, but virtually impossible without mythic units. This means players have to spend saved or purchased orbs in an attempt to gain rare mythic units they might not even want. This is followed by many episodes of AR where every single mistake can cost grails. The various arenas avoid this problem by not gating a summoning currency. I guess I just want a casual, single player experience. I don't have an issue with rewards requiring effort to obtain. However, I think character selection should not be limited by competition with other players. I don't understand why AR is being pushed on casual players? A first green throne would be a better analog to a first Arena Crown since it is technically the first throne. AR Thrones and Arena Crowns are both based on ranking and have limited capacity as a result. AR Tiers have no connection to ranking which grants them unlimited capacity. AR is definitely pay to win at the very top tiers. (Doesn't matter to me.) As for Tier 21, you can get there without paying money, but you will have to "purchase" mythic units. I haven't heard of anyone reaching it without mythic units. Getting there with the one free Eir might not even be possible any more now that players have had a chance to continually upgrade their AR defense structures.

His miracle refine is... interesting... Also the team I fought was maxed and had been well designed with full premium skills like Null C-Disrupt, etc.

With the recent Fjorm preventing assists in cardinal directions, I think they plan to monetize "fixes" to the multi-dancer problem. If enough players get annoyed, maybe we'll actually see more unarmed defenses in Tier 21. The problem is the exclusive grail rewards. If grail units were available for orbs, then I'd wait for a corresponding banner and leave AR alone. Yes, you can get 40 grails a month from Forging Bonds, but it would probably take a decade to max one character at that rate of acquisition. That applies to AR ranking thrones, but not AR Tiers. There is no displayed counter for how long you've maintained a particular AR tier. I underestimated a six Seliph team once... It wasn't pretty. ?

At least fortress levels stop at 5. I'm at 5/4 now, and the defense one will probably be maxed before too long. I imagine many higher up players already have 5/5. There isn't anything to spend Aether Dew on at that point.

They changed AR recently and now give massive bonuses to the attackers below Tier 11. After Tier 11, fortress level begins to matter. I think it's just setting people up for an unpleasant surprise once they pass Tier 11. I guess they want new players to reach Tier 11 as soon as possible since you can't fall below that Tier. I agree that it should. I also think that both teams should be limited to one dancer. Why are 20 unit brigades limited to a single refresher unit, but small AR teams not? In all honesty, I'd go ahead and draft that feedback today explaining your reasoning, rather than wait until tomorrow. You'll be angry tomorrow, and it's best to not write feedback while upset as you won't be able to get your points across as effectively. Also, you'll have an extra day to review/refine your arguments and also remove any angry statements before actually sending it. Your wanting six offensive units is probably a fairly popular opinion.

I think you're going to be very disappointed. I didn't believe it either at first, and searched through all the menus thoroughly before finally asking here on the forums. I was so looking forward to having six attackers. That's one of the reasons Tiers 19-20 are so hard. In Tier 21, you come across a few rare players that don't care about defense, but that's less common in 19-20. Another thing to watch out for is fortress upgrade requirements. The offensive fortress requires the defensive fortress to be within two levels as a prerequisite. So a level 5 offensive fortress requires a minimum level 3 defensive fortress. As far as I know, this isn't stated anywhere in the game until you actually meet all the other requirements for upgrade. For someone that doesn't use a defense team, this slowed my progress down quite a bit. Most players upgrade them more symmetrically so they were likely unaware of this limitation. It probably applies to defensive fortresses too. Even one Yune will still help save a lot of lift if the five others are in season legendaries or have dark blessings.

That's great! Just a note, you can't actually add a sixth offensive member in any tier. It's five attackers vs. six defenders from here on. I was quite disappointed when I first found that out since I don't use a defense team. If you have any defensive mythics, be sure to fill out those six spots with in season legendaries or blessed units.

So +spd might be better for AR? Generally, fast units don't have the defense to survive a Brave Bow anyway. Am I overlooking some? Whether I choose +spd or +atk for the merged one, I'll have one leftover +spd copy. I was thinking it might be nice to have two AR Bow Lyns (light/astra). Which +spd one would you build separately: -def or -hp? (One merge, and it wouldn't really matter though.) Or would you not bother with a second one and just use for Swift Sparrow?

Oh, that's right. Getting ahead of myself. Yeah, that would be nice. It's too expensive for most to take advantage of, but it would save those that spend hundreds or more for a single character.