Othin

So far, they've been always having a new "main" focus appear with new characters and a Paralogue featuring them whenever the previous one expires. So I think we can assume that the next big one will be when the current one ends, with current characters also appearing in a secondary "Battling Michalis" focus at some point and possibly others like with the prince/princesses ones during the Voting Gauntlet.

I think when the quests were released, I had Hector already at 40 and one Gwendy at about 30 from the lance mastery quests, while the other Gwendy was at 1 and Draug was at 20 but 3* until I got enough feathers from the latest Arena season to upgrade him to 4* and then start training him. All of them were up to at least the mid-30s by the time I started attempting Tenth Stratum with the armor team yesterday. Your team sounds like it would have a much harder time due to the lack of Hector, due to him being both green and overall extremely powerful. But if you can find enough battles against a lot of axes and no blues, you can probably manage it, especially if you can give them any useful skill inheritances. I think it's worth a try. My current team state:

That's the thing: it makes a character better at fighting a particular subset of enemies but also makes their bad matchups even worse, so it's best for characters that aren't as combat-focused so they need the help in their good matchups and making their bad matchups worse isn't an issue because they wouldn't be fighting those anyway. So I do think it's apt to describe it as more for support units than main ones.

Managed to get my first 7-win streak for the week, although with a few deaths because the arena is brutal this week. 4,381 points, currently clocking in at rank 8,173. My team rating is the highest it's ever been, particularly due to having Priscilla as a 5* bonus unit: I think if I can get a deathless run, it'll be at least 4,550 points, but that's going to be difficult.

Cavalry quest is nearing completion. Armor quest has surpassed flier quest both in team levels and now in completions: sometimes Hector can just steamroll everything, but it's even more fun having Draug and the Gwendy duo stomp everything with their huge buffs. Draug finally learned Ward Armor upon hitting 38, which makes things easier, and the team was able to smash through the 7-5 armor mission easily. Caeda is now my only real straggler between the teams.

Ranks only update each hour, so if you check soon after you improve your score, it'll list the rank corresponding to your old score. Perhaps Elieson forgot to wait for an updated rank?

I mean, yeah, that would be correct too. Lucina, Chrom, and Marth all have the Falchion as a personal-locked weapon, so it's all of their signature weapons. Only Leif and Nanna have the Light Sword and Earth Sword as personal-locked weapons; Ethlyn and Lachesis do not.

Managed to clear the Tenth Stratum with the armor team, but didn't get to count it towards the quest because one of the Gwendys died. Both Gwendys are at 39 now, while Draug hit 37 in the battle.

Up to 9/15 cavalry with a now fully-trained team and 3/15 fliers with Caeda still in training at 34, mostly from teams blue enough for Narcian to prey on. Armor team isn't ready yet but the Gwendy duo and Draug are getting close so I've been having them train with Hector babysitting.

Sitting on orbs is a contributing factor, since I think most of us with a bunch of 5* pulls have used pretty much all the free orbs available so far. Although it does sound like you probably have had poor luck with the number of orbs you've likely spent.

I don't think there's any real general turn-by-turn strategy that works; it depends on the map and what I'm facing. One way or another, I try to maneuver to match up my own characters against the enemies they can beat easily without letting them get caught by enemies they can't handle.

I actually enjoy manually leveling characters to 20, so it's especially pointless. Although I did just use a few shards to finish getting my 3* Barst to 20 because I got a 4* Barst while I was training him so the 3* one doesn't feel important anymore and characters sitting between 1 and 20 feel like they're just telling me to finish up their basic training.

They do need characters to have an associated weapon type, which would be a problem for Elfin and the herons and would mean Nils could only get in a a second "dancer dragon". Homer as a magic-using bard would be really cool, though. If they can give Ninian dragon abilities even though she never had the option to turn into a dragon ingame, they should be able to give Homer bard abilities. Lewyn could technically also fit the bill, but I'd rather him be focused on magic and wrecking things with Forseti like in FE4.

Just got wrecked by a cavalry team. Olwen, Cecilia, and two Eldigans, all with Fury, Reposition, and some cavalry boost skill. Not sure what to do about that.

20k feathers is a lot. I've been willing to do some 2k feather investments to 4* a couple of characters so Marth and Sharena can inherit the special skills they want, but I'd personally never 5* a character just for a weapon.

Looks like Priscilla has a considerably higher rating than Ursula and she seems much more useful anyway, so she's the one taking over the bonus slot on my team. It's a lot of fun being able to use a healer in the arena without giving up ratings, although it's unfortunate that that means she's the only member of my current team without a movement skill. Sully and Catria were a lot of fun as previous bonus characters, but I can't complain here either, especially now that I actually have one of the new focus characters for the first time since the beginning. Unfortunately, while Priscilla is about to learn the Slow spell she inherited from my extra Wrys along with his other neat skills, I'll have to leave it unequipped in the arena because despite its utility, it'll lower her rating. Yeah, you have to be ready for a change every two weeks. First three weeks were the initial focuses, since then it seems to be two weeks of each focus.

I'm always happy to get new quests, but these can all be completed by doing the things I was already doing (except maybe colorless) and I haven't even been using the mountain of shards I already have, so it's hard to get particularly excited.

You'll eventually be able to get the same two copies of Michalis as the people who did it early. Some people speculated that you'd be able to get an extra two by doing it early, but based on how regular Hero Battles work (they become unavailable and then re-available, and stay completed upon reappearance if you've previously completed them), they're almost definitely wrong.

Finished up infantry and hit 7 wins in Cavalry. The battles are tough, but by waiting for reasonable-looking enemy lineups, I've managed to win a pretty decent amount of the time. Almost finished actually leveling, too: Stahl has joined Sully and Ursula at 40, while Priscilla is up to 39. Also managed to snag a win in fliers, but Caeda is still way behind so I haven't been trying it much yet anyway. Still a ways away from actually trying armors, but at least Draug is 4* now and tearing through the lower levels. I've been playing around with his skills a bit: I didn't want Lunge, so I had him inherit Axebreaker from an extra Laslow, and let him grab the Silver Sword as well because it seems like it could be better than Brave on him. I haven't had him actually learn any of those yet, but he's close to getting Silver.

I don't see any reason to assume it's in the game. No need for it to have every single legendary weapon. Durandal, Armads, and eventually probably Forblaze on Athos are probably the only ones from that set. (Does the Binding Blade count? It kind of both does and doesn't.) Lucius having Aureola would have been pretty odd when he doesn't have any explicit special connection to it, anyway.

I plan on upgrading my 3* Draug to 4* once I get enough feathers, and getting from 2* to 3* isn't too big of a challenge. I don't know how much value you get out of it, but personally, I'm always happy to have 4* versions of more characters.

You should be able to manage, but it might be helpful to use Draug so you'll have some red. Unless you just avoid times when the Tenth Stratum has more greens than your own greens can handle.

Karel can appear on either branch: depending on how you progress in his map, either he or Harken appears. It's Wallace/Geitz that depend on the map, with the earlier split.

Pulled 8 and upgraded Sharena for a total of 9, all while playing free. Pulls were Marth, Tiki, m!Robin, Merric, Ogma, Lilina, Hector, and Priscilla.

Anyone with some sort of new legendary weapon. Villains, especially: Lyon with Naglfar, Ashnard with Gurgurant, Arvis with Valflame, etc. More dragons, too, especially Myrrh. Myrrh could be particularly neat if she's counted as a flying unit like in FE8. Similarly, as future possible dancers go, I'm hoping Lara makes it in as a dagger user because of also being a thief.