DarkAlf

I myself don't really have that many good fliers around for GC; all my fliers are unmerged to focus on building an arena core (which doesn't have any fliers, sadly). My lead is currently Cordelia with LnD, Firesweep Lance+ and Heavy Blade. Fliers are such fun to use in GC with Guidance and Flier Formation both active. Maybe next time fliers are a bonus I'll have an Airzura to share with folks. @Maaka Shoutout to your Florina as your lead! She's really useful!

I combined Dark Elf and Alf(onse) to get my name. I was also ribbing the introduction of Dark Blessings in FEH. I'm also from Melmac.

@Usana That's horrible reaching 5% - I am so sorry. That's a good idea - it's easy to get jealous of other people's pulls when others have great luck and you don't. @Jingle Bells At least you have an okay 5* rate. I'm sorry you didn't get more merges for W!Tharja. Hopefully she'll be back this time next year. That's a nice Sylvia, though - I'm yet to summon her. @daisy jane You and me both regarding a cav dancer. That might break the game just a bit! My free pull from the Heroes with Fortress Skills banner was a 3* Sakura (fourth free 3* in a row) with no blue orbs. Well that's an easy pass on this banner.

Same here with badges - I myself have nearly 8000-9000 of each of them. I don't use crystals or shards because of the Training Tower and training maps. An item shop would be nice right about now OR some other way to use the items collecting dust. Summoning with other items would be great. To answer the OP's question: I think a weekly rotation of games would be nice with ONLY heroes from said games available for summoning in the banner. You may have to combine games - for example, a banner with only Binding Blade/Sacred Stones characters (their pools are still rather small) with OG Ephraim, Tana and Brave Roy as focus units and the other characters from those games as non-focus units (e.g. OG Roy, L'Arachel), or a banner with Fates characters only with Ryoma, Elise and Hinoka as focus units and the other Fates characters as non-focus units. The 5* rate is 4% for focus units only - no 5* rate for non-focus heroes, with 60% 4* rate and 36% 3* rate. Or keep the rates the same with pitybreakers, but the pitybreakers are nonfocus characters in the 5* pool from those games only. I hope IS has a plan for cleaning the pool up significantly soon....

I've been running a double Eir setup with 2 light-blessed heroes so far for 140 points/match. Unfortunately I have been hit every day for a defense loss. I'm waiting to see how I perform these next couple of days to see if I need to bless Laevatein for 20 more points/match to make a final push to T19. I am loath to bless a bonus unit since they'll rotate after this week, but with more Light blessings ostensibly coming for the next few weeks until the next Mythic hero debuts, it might potentially be worth it. We'll see....

I would love to use Arena Medals for summoning heroes only in the 3* and 4* pools. I only have over 43,000 of them rotting in my storage. I would like the 4* focus banners back, but with only one hero for each color to make it easier for sniping - maybe something like 3% for 5* focus, 3% for 5* nonfocus, 15% for 4* focus, 43% for 4* nonfocus, and 36% for 3*. Rotate the heroes on a weekly or 5-day basis.

For my final push, I'm using 4* Soren, 5* OG F!Corrin, 5* Caeda and W!Cecilia until W!Cecilia caps HM (now about nearly 4400); Soren and F!Corrin are also near the HM cap. Score: 232,185 Rank: 139 It looks like people are taking it a bit slow this TT due to the holidays and other games/obligations. If I were to quit now, that might be enough for Top 1K, but by the time W!Cecilia maxes out, I'll probably be around 250,000 when all is said and done, which should easily be enough.

@mampfoid Not quite - my score of 5,214 was rank 3,465. What was yours - about 5,217 to 5,220?

I don't know if I'll be that high up. I do want to conserve some stamina potions for the next TT, so I'm actually moving a little slower than normal, though it's still well on pace for Top 1000. The last five TTs I was crazy enough from grinding HM that I did finish in the top 100 (scores from 288,000-293,000); I think I'm going to finish around 265,000-275,000 this time. (Thank goodness this is the only game I'm focusing on; I can't imagine balancing this with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate or another mobile/platform game right now.)

I find that it's best to look at the map first before you select the team. Take at least a minute or two to examine the map and its enemies, then pick the team you think will best clear the map. Rushing usually does no good. It is more fun to play with your own units, though, so keep trying! It can be constraining being forced to use certain heroes that you don't want to. IIRC, I remember being at the upper scores of a tier and facing teams one tier higher than me, e.g. battling a T15 team with a high score in T14. I could be wrong, though. I also believe that they'll have to face T19 players, otherwise they'll cannibalize one another and nobody will reach T21 that week. Hopefully there will be a little more variety with some T18 players making it to T19, and hopefully not as many defense matches with the additional teams. How often did you face 6-hero defense teams?

I get tired on the last day usually. Raigh has long maxed HM (on day 2). My two teams are now: Team 1: Ishtar 4* Leon (replaces Raigh) for dragging back units and HM grinding OG Ike L!Hector Team 2: OG Myrrh 5* OG F!Corrin Summer Y!Tiki (replaces Garon, who capped HM on day 3) W!Cecilia Myrrh and Summer Y!Tiki will likely max out tomorrow when I use Team 2 tomorrow (today is Team 1). When that happens, I'll likely downsize to one team to get W!Cecilia's HM capped. Score: 157,059 Rank: 295

@DLNarshen Congrats on T19 (if you held on)! @Venmi Sorry you didn't make it to T18. I know the feeling all too well; I barely missed promoting a tier a couple of weeks ago. Good luck this coming week! I just missed Top 3000: My score of 7,820 was rank 3,115. Ouch.... One less defense battle or one less lost unit - maybe two tops - would've likely done it. Update: 3 people made it to T20. Proof:

I wish! That would've been perfect. Maybe I'll get 234,567 - that won't likely be enough for Top 1K. 345,678 - no thanks, that's too much!

@Alkaid @Othin @DehNutCase Congrats on making T19 you three! I couldn't make it this week - I had a defense loss every single day. There was practically no way I could reach T19 unless I played essentially perfectly on offense, which was a mighty tall order for me that I couldn't pull off. At least next week should be easier to get to T19 with Light season around the corner. @Stroud @mampfoid Welcome to T18! Hopefully we can all make T19! At the time of this post, it looks like only 1 person in the world will be in T20 next week.

Here's a very...er, interesting score and rank (taken a little over five hours ago - this is NOT photoshopped or doctored in any way): Now I'm 132,034 with rank 352 at the halfway point. Thank goodness I do this manually; I can't imagine the pain of battling Surtr on autobattle.

@daisy jane Well done with your flying team! I love how you ended that video with FlyNino's quote (with 500 more feathers from HM to boot)! OG Nino with double Savage Blow, Alfonse, 4* Linus and PA!Azura took care of the non-armored quests. My armored team was Gwendolyn, BK, Male Grima and LA!Eliwood. Maybe one of these days I'll do a theme clear if I can ever find the time....

Thanks for the encouragement! Sorry about those defensive losses, though. Unfortunately my first offensive loss (due to time-out) in nearly 3 weeks occurred today with the Escape Ladder already used. Now it is mathematically impossible for me to reach T19 this week. Top 3000 is still in play, though, so there's definitely something to shoot for, but even if I don't get it, it's really not a big deal. At least next week should be easier to reach T19, even with a bunch of defensive losses. That's provided I don't screw up on offense.

Me three. I've been hit every day this week. Significantly retooling my defense has helped mitigate the damage a bit (only -40 today instead of -80), but it might be a bit too late. I don't think I'm making T19 unless I don't get attacked again and I play perfectly on offense, both tall orders. I will only care about defense until T21 is attained, whenever that'll be, then I'll throw a themed defense team in. Like you, I'm going to just relax now and slowly move up. This has simply been way too intense and stressful for my taste. At least next week should be a lot easier to move up a tier with light season around the corner.

It means that your Fortress (O) has a bonus level added to it because you're using a bonus structure. For example, using Infantry School (at any level) for offense with a Level 2 Offensive Fortress adds one level to the fortress, so you effectively have a Lv. 3 Offensive Fortress (displayed Lv. 2 + 1, with the +1 in blue) as long you have the infantry school for that week. Increasing the level of the bonus structure does NOT increase the bonus of the Fortress, e.g. a Level 2 Infantry School still only adds 1 level to the fortress. The bonus structure itself doesn't increase in level. EDIT: Kaze'd.

@Zeo Nice Myrrh and fodder, especially Shanna! If you look at my orb distribution sheet here (it's also in my sig), you'll notice that after today there's 87 orbs available, plus 68 (!!) today alone from TT, the new paralogue and CC among others. And you still have the Book II CC, Squad Assault, etc. to get orbs from from earlier this month. So you definitely have plenty of time to decide, and that doesn't even include 80+ orbs from the first two days of January alone. So you've got over 200+ orbs available these next two weeks alone. I'm glad you're waiting it out. Good luck pulling for W!Eirika if you decide to do so!

@mcsilas @Anacybele @Jingle Bells @EricaofRenais Congrats on all your great pulls, everyone! Same here regarding the blessing system, especially since you can only have one blessing total instead of two on each hero (one from each of the 2 pairs of 4), otherwise there's one team I'd use in a heartbeat that's unfortunately already fire-blessed. I'm lucky to have gotten those 2 extra Eirs, so next week when it's light season I can take advantage of 160 points/battle with 2 Eirs and 3 light-blessed heroes (PA!Azura, Aversa and Laevatein [bonus unit]) - hopefully I'll get to Tier 19 by the end of this season so that I can use those extra points to try to attain Tier 20 next season. The free pulls on the winter banners for me were nothing too special - +Atk/-Def 3* OG Chrom on rerun (Aether fodder!!), +Spd/-Atk 3* Effie (Wary Fighter fodder!!) on new banner. I think the game is telling me not to spend any orbs on these banners, and I certainly won't.

Three Princesses quests spoilers:

Congrats! It's great to see you join me in T21! It's amazing how just a few extra points can make that big of a difference. The inflation is absolutely nuts! Thank goodness my Fjorm is merged - hopefully more will come in a couple of weeks. Now we can both relax in Arena next week! I was a bit afraid I'd play a part in possibly pushing you out, but thank goodness that didn't happen. That's certainly true. A lot of folks redeem the rewards without looking at the exact rank, and those that do care about rank are probably busy or don't want to share. (I've kept a spreadsheet that tracks my weekly score and rank in Arena and AA since the end of January.) I like revealing my ranks just to give folks an idea of what it takes to attain Tier X in Arena or Top Y in AA.

@Maaka That's a killer having to replace blessings like that. Hopefully it won't happen again, but planning really does work most of the time (that's why I made my orb distribution sheet in my signature so that I can decide what to spend orbs on); I imagine that this is a one-time mistake. Arena: T20: 3,746 is rank 1,397/3,498/17,493 to go back to T21 for crown #9 - no defense wins for the first time in a while AA: 5,217 (personal high) is rank 3,328 Next week I can relax in arena. I wonder if the top 3K cutoff was around 5,223-5,226?