Ice Dragon

I guess Ljosalfheimr Tharja is next: It's nice to have another Ljosalfheimr outfit that isn't entirely light colors and also one where you can still see the main elements of the original outfit design. Tharja's stats are actually usable, which makes sense since she was the premier red tome unit at launch. With maximum Dragonflowers and the Resplendent boost, she has 47-/40/42/31/28. It's not the most impressive stat spread and is pretty handily beaten by Hayato and Desert Tormod, but you can at least work with it. In particular, while her exclusive weapon is pretty outdated by current standards, it still has value in being Raudhrblade without its drawback with Atk/Spd Rein 3 as its refine effect. Since high Atk is fairly common among red tomes, her base Atk stat ends up actually being rather low in comparison, so having the Raudhrblade effect to make up for it is at least nice to have and gives her a reason to keep her exclusive weapon over switching to Arcane Eclipse, which everyone else has access to. So far this year, we now have: Nifl Ilyana Askr Brave Veronica Hel Soren Embla Brave Celica Embla Selena Nifl Brave Hector Jotunheimr Hana Muspell Black Knight Muspell Male Grima Dokkalfheimr Camilla Vanaheimr Ayra Ljosalfheimr Hinoka Nifl Helpful Chrom Nidavellir Seth Ljosalfheimr Tharja I do wish we got a slightly larger gap between this one and the previous Ljosalfheimr outfit, though. Ljosalfheimr is currently right at the middle of the list, going from tied for 6th out of 10 with Dokkalfheimr to being tied for 5th with Askr. Meanwhile, Nidavellir and Vanaheimr are still sitting with less than half the number of units. I hope we get at least one more each of Nidavellir and Vanaheimr before the end of the year.

And the usual translation notes: Heiðrún's epithet, "Healing Nectar", is "蜜の癒し手" (mitsu no iyashi te), "Healing Hand of Nectar". Nectar Horn is "蜜の癒し手の角" (mitsu no iyashi te no tsuno), "Horns of the Healing Hand of Nectar". Stronghold is "堅牢城塞" (kenrō jōsai), "Solid Fortress". Compare with Fort. Def/Res, which is "守備魔防の城塞" (shubi mabō no jōsai), "Def/Res Fortress". Divine Nectar is "神獣の蜜" (shinjū no mitsu), "Nectar of the Divine Beast". This is the same for both the skill and the status effect. Eikþyrnir's epithet, "Quieting Strength", is "体の葬り手" (karada no hōmuri te), "Silencing Hand of Physique". As usual, "葬る" (hōmuru) literally means "to bury a dead body" and is used figuratively to mean "to hush" or "to cover up". Quieting Antler is "体の葬り手の角" (karada no hōmuri te no tsuno), "Antlers of the Silencing Hand of Physique". "角" (tsuno) is used to refer to most types of horn-like structures on the head, including horns and antlers. Fierce Beast is "猛獣" (mōjū), "Fierce Beast". Atk/Def Excel is "攻撃守備の突破" (kōgeki shubi no toppa), "Atk/Def Breakthrough". Divine Strength is "神獣の肉体" (shinjū no nikutai), "Physique of the Divine Beast". While the "体" (karada) in his epithet means "physique" as in the body as a whole, figure, or constitution, the "肉体" (nikutai) here means "physique" more specifically referring to musculature.

Why is the background music the Black Fang theme? Also, it's really annoying that they're both splitting the colors for these banners now on top of not giving us a second spark. I guess I'm pulling for Eikthyrnir since he's an offense Mythic and both of the units sharing a color with him I don't have at +10 yet. On the plus side, it's nice that Eikthyrnir appears to have 2 brand new inheritable skills instead of just 1. And both are really useful skills, too.

A few days late because I had other things taking up my time and this Hall of Forms doesn't have a Grail unit to make me actually care about it. As mentioned above, this month add skills through Legendary Male Corrin, which means we have High Dragon Wall available in the skill pool and 2 units that could potentially use it. Dragonbloom, Atk/Spd Excel, and Flow Guard 4 also appear in the recommendations. Mila: Duma: Echoes Est: Mycen:

If you aren't spending orbs on their release banners to pull for them, then there's no difference. And if you are spending orbs on their release banners to pull for them, then you're wasting orbs on something that you can reasonably expect to get later if you just wait since you're likely to eventually get one from the 3- or 4-star pool. The only justification to actually pull for them is a combination of favoritism and impatience. Also, the probability of pulling a specific character from the 3- and 4-star pool while sniping that color is about 1 in 50. It's a bit more than pulling for a spark, and you're likely not going to be sniping that color on every banner, but it's not that awful unless you're trying to get them to +10 in a timely manner and aren't spending money on orbs. It was worse in the past when demotes were only added to the 4-star pool and weren't dropped to the 3-star pool until much later, but that's no longer the case.

Every time they put a Heroes unit on a New Heroes banner, we get an instant demote instead of a regular demote. Ascended, Rearmed, and Attuned units don't result in losing a demote, either. The only times we lose a demote these days are on banner themes that never got demotes to begin with, specifically Fallen and CYL banners.

While it would be interesting in terms of flavor, exclusive skills have an extremely bad habit of not aging well, especially because, unlike weapons, they don't have the opportunity to receive upgraded versions outside of the LME Heroes that get remixes. The units closest to Caellach's release with exclusive passive skills are Legendary Dimitri, Freyja, and Seiros. And even as good as Freyja's original Binding Necklace still is, it still has trouble competing with its competition due to it granting nothing but a giant pile of stats. Either way, Caellach is going to be getting an exclusive weapon next month regardless, so it's not like it matters anymore that he didn't get one at release. At least he's not as unfortunate as Valter, who had trouble competing at release, had trouble competing even after receiving his refine, and is now long outdated.

Added Glen's weapon to the translation notes.

This week's free Arena ticket gets me Leaf: Finally getting around to the Remix banners. I decided I might as well pull after all. 51 pulls on Nott's banner: 0 Reinhardt (+1 spark) 0 Nott 1 Sety Literally nothing until I got pity-broken by Sety on pull 47 on a circle with no blue orbs. 41 pulls on Ashera's banner: 2 Triandra (+1 spark) 1 Freyja 1 Ashera I suppose this almost makes up for how terrible the other banner was. Triandra is now +5. Also managed to get a copy of Kaden to bring him to +10. Looking at the Remix rerun schedule, it's wild that Azura isn't returning until September of next year. That's a whole 14 months out, and unlike normal units, there's no way to randomly get her as a pity breaker on some other banner. They really need to implement a 4-star SR system for Remix banners or something. The fact that they're unable to schedule a unit any earlier than that is honestly kind of ridiculous.

I mean, "demote" and "unit that isn't helping sell the banner" weren't a perfect overlap to begin with, so even if it's not always the case with demotes, it's still always the case with units that don't help sell the banner, i.e. units that are, in fact, unpopular and don't have the gameplay performance to make up for it. It's worth noting at Grail units also fall under this category. Some of them are actually popular, but none of them are actually driving revenue and are therefore guaranteed financial losses that need to be made up for by the banner carries. Added Kyle's weapon to the translation notes. Now just to wait for Glen to be officially announced.

The first Amelia had an axe. At the time, we only had 6 total armors in the game, 2 of each physical melee weapon type (Draug and Zephiel with swords, Gwendolyn and Effie with lances, and Sheena and Hector with axes), so they likely made her an armored axe to offset both armors being the least common movement type and green being the least common color. As for not being a lance infantry, they already had 8 lance infantry in the game at the time of her release (compared to only 2 axe armors) and one of them was Ephraim from the same game. Amelia was also the highest-scoring unit in the Arena at the time of her release due to being a trainee melee armor, and that also likely contributed to the choice of class for her. I probably would have been more surprised if they passed up on this opportunity.

Every unit on a banner costs money to produce the art and voice work, and every unit on a banner that isn't helping sell the banner needs to have their slack made up for by the other units. Every unit on a banner that isn't helping sell the banner is there as a net loss. It's not too much work for them. It's work that costs them money, and yet drives no revenue. "護" (go), "protection".

The new flat damage reduction version of Savvy Fighter looks pretty cool. And Amelia is even an Ascended Hero, so she'll be in the standard summoning pool. Neat. We're also getting Null C-Disrupt Echo and what appears to be a human melee infantry version of Dragon's Roar. Also nice. Unfortunately, this banner is stuck in the shadow of the summer banners, so I can't justify pulling past the spark, but I hope I get an extra Eirika since she has some really nice skills she can even duplicate herself. Anyways, the usual translation notes: The name of the banner, "Attuned Eirika & Ascended Amelia", is "響心エイリーク＆開花アメリア" (kyōshin eiriku & kaika ameria), "Resonating Hearts Eirika & Blooming Amelia". As usual, "響心" (kyōshin), "resonating hearts", is the term for Attuned Heroes, and "開花" (kaika), "blooming", is the term for Ascended Heroes. Amelia's epithet, "Blossoming Talent", is "花開く才能" (hana-hiraku sainō), "Blooming Talent". "花開く" (hana-hiraku), "to bloom" is the term for Ascended Heroes, "開花" (kaika), "blooming", as a verb. Lance of Grado is "グラドの将の重槍" (gurado no shō no jūsō), "Heavy Lance of Grado's General". Obsidian Tactics is "黒曜石の教え" (kokuyōseki no oshie), "The Obsidian's Instruction". "黒曜石" (kokuyōseki), "obsidian", is Duessel's epithet. Clever Fighter is "慧敏隊形" (keibin taikei), "Clever Formation". Compare with Savvy Fighter, "慧眼隊形" (keigan taikei), "Perceptive Formation". As usual, "隊形" (taikei), "formation", is the term for the Fighter skill series, which is why the skill icons are formations of dots. Forde's epithet, "Unfettered Knight", is "奔放の騎士" (honpō no kishi), "Uninhibited Knight". Wild Wind Sword is "奔放なる風の剣" (honpō-naru kaze no ken), "Sword of the Uninhibited Wind". Spd/Def Unity is "速さ守備の連帯" (hayasa shubi no rentai), "Spd/Def Solidarity". Niðavellir's epithet, "Founding King", is "建国王" (kenkoku-ō), "Nation-Founding King". Niðavellir Ballista is "ニザヴェリルの弩弓" (nizaveriru no dokyū), "Niðavellir Crossbow". "弩" (do) refers to any weapon that functions like a crossbow, including ballistae. Seal Def/Res is "守備魔防封じ" (shubi mabō fūji), "Def/Res Sealing". Eirika's epithet, "Resolute Princess", is "優しき決意の王女" (yasashiki ketsui no ōjo), "Princess of Gentle Determination". Sisterly Axe is "優しさと強さの絆斧" (yasashisa to tsuyosa no banfu), "Bonding Axe of Kindness and Strength". Gust is "陣風" (jinpū), "Gust". Moonlit Bangle Q is "華月の腕輪・先" (kagetsu no udewa: sen), "Bracelet of the Brilliant Moon: Before". As usual, "華月の腕輪" (kagetsu no udewa), "bracelet of the brilliant moon", refers to the Lunar Brace, "月の腕輪" (tsuki no udewa), "bracelet of the moon". "先" (sen), "before" or "ahead", appears to refer to the skill having the Vantage effect, which is worded as "先制攻撃" (sensei kōgeki), "[unit makes a] preemptive attack", in skill descriptions, as well as the start-of-combat Pulse effect. Null C-Disrupt E is "響・見切り反撃不可" (kyō: mikiri hangeki fuka), "Echo: Nullification [of] Counterattack Prevention". As usual, "見切り" (mikiri), "nullification", here literally translates as "to cut through by seeing", meaning "to see through [someone's tricks, etc.]", hence the eye in the skill icon, and is the name of the Nihil skill from the main series games. The original Null C-Disrupt skill is called "見切り・反撃不可" (mikiri: hangeki fuka), "Nullification: Counterattack Prevention". Kyle's epithet, "Zealous Knight", is "情熱の騎士" (jōnetsu no kishi), "Passionate Knight". Pursual Lance is "追撃の槍" (tsuigeki no yari), "Follow-Up Attack Lance". "追撃" (tsuigeki), "follow-up attack", more commonly means "pursuit" or "chase". Glen's epithet, "Sunstone", is "日長石" (nicchōseki), "Sunstone". Sunstone's Blade is "日長石の剣" (nicchōseki no ken), "Sword of the Sunstone". So Forde gets a sword, but Glen is stuck with just a blade.

Last week's free Arena ticket got me Male Kris. This week's gets me Laegjarn: My usual full-session pulls on the summer rerun banners got me Bride Nailah, Summer Innes, and Duo Thorr. Also got Alear as my free pull on the Tempest Trials banner and Summer Ingrid as my free pull on the refine banner after I already pulled for her on her refine banner to get her to +10. 40 pulls on the Hall of Forms banner: 1 Larchel (+1 spark) 2 pity breakers: Ascended Celica Fallen Maria The copy of Larchel I pulled has a Spd Asset, so it'll be my new merge base for her, replacing the old one with a Res Asset. She's now +3. Celica is now +8. Maria would be +2 if I merged all of my copies of her, but I'm holding onto them for now for skills since she doesn't need merges to function. Still trying to decide what I want to do with the remix banners. Neither of them have a color where I want both units, but Rearmed Reinhardt is really tempting, and I really want more copies of Triandra.

He's wearing a Nidavellir bodysuit under the armor, and his waist cape is also ribbed in the same way.