Ice Dragon

I don't think "loyalty" or "involvement" have anything to do with it. Three Houses was a very successful game with very popular characters. And it makes sense that that's the case. It's the farthest the series has leaned into the dating sim genre, and one of the most important design requirements of a dating sim is that the datable characters need to be likeable in some way. It is absolutely not a surprise to me that Heroes, where a character's popularity is at least as important as how good they are in gameplay, continues to show Three Houses, which has characters that were specifically designed to be likeable and popular (and succeeded in doing so), this much favoritism.

Last week's free Arena ticket got me another Male Byleth, which is another copy of Ruptured Sky: I ended up doing my pulls on the Double Special Heroes banner despite having only 9 space left in my barracks because the banner was about to expire. I should really fix that before I do the pulls on Ratatoskr's banner. 80 pulls on the Double Special Heroes banner, sniping red (then white, then green): 3 Ayra (+1 spark) 3 Eliwood 1 Ymir (+1 spark) 1 Ivy 10.0% focus rate is really good, about 3 pulls above average. Ayra is now +5. Eliwood is now +4. Amusingly, every copy of Eliwood I got on this banner had a Spd Asset. Ymir is now +3. Ivy is now +1. Pulling the full session from the Harmonized Lysithea banner got me another copy of Winter Mirabilis, which gets her to +1. This one has an Atk Asset and will replace the existing neutral one as the merge base. Nothing from any of the other currently running sparkless banners.

My only real wishlist is more Nidavellir outfits, the introduction of Vanaheimr outfits, and more Heroes characters. Also a female Nidavellir unit and a male Alfheimr unit. Also beast characters. The most recent unit we currently has is Surtr, and the beast banners are right after his. The first two Fodlan banners also managed to sneak in right before CYL 3 and are in the range that I predict will still be eligible for Resplendent outfits. It would also be cool to see the Heroes Legendary and Mythic Heroes get outfits since those are the "base versions" of those characters. In terms of notable characters that are still missing, we have at least Catria, Myrrh, Tharja, and Camilla. But here's the usual reference material. Here's every unit that's guaranteed eligible (standard summoning pool through Surtr's banner and Grail units through Gharnef), ordered by origin mark, then banner, then alphabetically: Here's everyone else from the same time frame that isn't seasonal, which is just the Askr trio and Legendary and Mythic Heroes: And these are the remaining banners through (but not including) CYL 3: And the same charts as last time. Here's the current completion rate of Resplendent Heroes by origin mark: Heroes: 1/7 (14%) → 2/7 (29%) Akaneia: 11/31 (35%) Echoes: 7/20 (35%) → 8/20 (40%) Genealogy: 8/19 (42%) → 9/19 (47%) Thracia: 3/8 (38%) Binding: 8/15 (53%) → 8/20 (40%) Blazing: 14/25 (56%) → 16/25 (64%) Sacred Stones: 7/15 (47%) → 8/15 (53%) Radiance: 6/10 (60%) → 7/10 (70%) Dawn: 3/5 (60%) → 4/15 (27%) Awakening: 12/33 (36%) → 15/34 (44%) Fates: 15/50 (30%) → 19/54 (35%) Fodlan: 0/0 (100%) Engage: 0/0 (100%) And the distribution of Resplendent Heroes by outfit: Askr: 11 → 12 Embla: 13 → 15 Nifl: 11 → 14 Muspell: 15 → 17 Hel: 12 → 13 Ljosalfheimr: 10 → 12 Dokkalfheimr: 10 → 11 Nidavellir: 5 → 7 Jotunheimr: 7 → 9 Vanaheimr: 0 → 1 And the distribution of Resplendent Heroes by origin mark and outfit: And the list of the most recent unit for each outfit theme ordered from least to most recent: Askr: Brave Veronica (2024-01-25) Hel: Soren (2024-02-10) Embla: Selena (2024-03-10) Muspell: Male Grima (2024-05-10) Dokkalfheimr: Camilla (2024-05-25) Vanaheimr: Ayra (2024-06-10) Nifl: Helpful Chrom (2024-07-10) Ljosalfheimr: Tharja (2024-08-10) Nidavellir: Haar (2024-08-25) Jotunheimr: Rebecca (2024-09-10)

I can count the number of times Harmonized Edelgard would have died to a Special (as opposed to the normal damage the opponent would have done without the Special) on the number of fucks I currently give for Aether Raids. If the opponent has both Guard and Tempo, Winter Edelgard is still charging 6 points of Special cooldown by the end of the second round of combat from her pre-combat Pulse alone. Even if the opponent has Guard, Tempo, and Scowl, Winter Edelgard is still charging 4 points of Special cooldown by the end of the second round of combat from her pre-combat Pulse alone. Literally the only unit that can stop Winter Edelgard from charging Galeforce in two rounds of combat is Duo Male Byleth, and most people are likely to be running him as a Far Save tank instead of as a Close Save tank due to it being his base kit. And Bold Fighter does the exact same thing as Special Fighter in this case anyways.

You can lean the regular Alears towards player phase due to the fact that they have Charge on their weapon, though they're in the odd situation where they have neither Null Follow-Up nor Tempo on their weapon, which is somewhat of an issue for wall breakers. Regular Edelgard also seems to be a decent pick if you aren't going to run Galeforce as her Special since she has Galeforce on her weapon. There's no reason to run Special Fighter in her Sacred Seal slot over Bold Fighter. It's completely pointless to run any kind of Special acceleration on Winter Edelgard. She already charges 3 points of Special cooldown before combat, which means, if you're running Galeforce on her, she'll have it fully charged by the end of her second round of combat regardless of any Special acceleration. Like Harmonized Edelgard, Winter Edelgard has no reason to run Special Fighter over Bold Fighter, and even then, Bold Fighter is only there for the guaranteed follow-up.

No Quarter and Ruptured Sky have different cooldowns and therefore don't actually step on each other's toes. The only units that previously ran Ruptured Sky and now want to switch to No Quarter are ones that already would have preferred to run a 3-cooldown Special, but were forced to run Ruptured Sky either for scoring or to deal with excessively bulky dragons and beasts. It's worth noting that the only thing that makes No Quarter functionally worth using over other 3-cooldown Specials is the fact that it nullifies percentage damage reduction. Without that effect, No Quarter is literally just a Draconic Aura that does an extra 7 or 8 damage to armors, and Draconic Aura is still outclassed by the other 3-cooldown Specials. Unless you need the SP cost for Arena scoring, I would deprioritize giving No Quarter to units that already have percentage damage reduction nullification (Diamant, etc.) since you'll get more mileage out of Luna, Bonfire, or Iceberg on them. Similarly, because No Quarter's gimmick is the fact that it nullifies percentage damage reduction, I'd recommend prioritizing giving the skill to player-phase wall breakers over units built for any other role.

The next Hall of Forms has been datamined: There's a Grail unit again! Following the usual pattern, this Hall of Forms should add all skills through Veyle's banner, including: Bonus Doubler 4 Dazzle Far Trace Flow Refresh 4 Rockslide Dance 3 Atk/Res Tempo 4 A/S Rein Snap Atk/Res Ploy 3 Joint Close Guard Cross Spur Spd Of these, Dazzle Far Trace, Atk/Res Tempo 4, and Atk/Res Ploy 3 are the only ones that are particularly notable. Bonus Doubler 4 is generally going to be inferior to skills like Prime and Distant Solo, Rockslide Dance is generally inferior to Firestorm Dance, and A/S Rein Snap is usually inferior to S/D Rein Snap. As far as what to grab on the Forma units: Green: Colorless: Blue: Red: Let me know if I completely forgot about a good skill. It's hard to remember all of the new ones since they're usually too difficult to get extra copies of for me to actually play with, and so I forget they exist. EDIT: To keep things together, here's a list of all of the non-Legendary/Mythic Heroes that have recently been available through non-rerun Halls of Forms, including this upcoming one, ordered by the units' release dates, in order to get a pulse on what's likely coming in upcoming Halls of Forms:

According to the datamine, No Quarter is usable by Everything else's inheritance restrictions are exactly what you'd expect. Assassin's Strike and Weaving Fighter, being "Phys." skills, are restricted to physical units in addition to their base skills' (Poison Strike and Wary Fighter, respectively) restrictions, and Armored Blaze has the same restrictions as the other armor Specials.

Brave Lyn is a decent pick if you want to use Sacae's Blessing and you aren't already running Whitecap Bow or Whitewind Bow on her since Sacae's Blessing can't be used with an Arcane weapon. Everyone else on the list has no such drawback to running an Arcane weapon. Whitewind Bow has the advantage of granting a higher boost to Spd (+11 with a Spd refine and the weapon's native 2 Bonuses with another +2 for each additional non-stat Bonus) as well as Null Follow-Up, but you can't activate a Special easily with it while running Sacae's Blessing. Golden Yule Bow grants less Spd (+9 with a Spd refine) and no additional non-stat effects, but lets you land a Deadeye on every first attack (if the opponent doesn't have Scowl effects). Whitecap Bow grants the smallest boost to Spd (+7 with a Spd refine), but has a Brave effect if your Spd is 10 points higher, allowing you to land Deadeye on the 4th attack if the opponent doesn't have Guard or follow-up prevention. The smaller Spd boost and restrictive Spd comparison means it'll probably only be useful against slow tanks given that Lyn's Spd stat is falling behind, and you'll still need to have answers to Guard and follow-up prevention, which are pretty common on slower units.

The Sacred Seals are pretty disappointing again. Odd Res Wave is basically useless like all of the other Wave skills. I'm not sure what use the Special Fighter Sacred Seal actually has. It's a good skill, but not when its competition is everything else that can be in the Sacred Seal slot. The main issue is that there is very little competition for Special Fighter in the B slot, but a lot of competition in the Sacred Seal slot. Special Fighter has the most competition in the B slot on fast armors where it competes with Savvy Fighter, Hardy Fighter, Gambit, and Counter Roar, all of which are usually better than Special Fighter in that slot. However, the problem is that fast armors are unable to give up their Sacred Seal slot to run Special Fighter there because they absolutely need the +7 Spd from a Spd Form skill in order to have any hope of dealing with the current Spd creep. Pretty much all modern(ized) slow armors already have a guaranteed follow-up on their weapon, which means Special Fighter is already going to be run in their B slot because they don't need any of the other Fighter skills. The ones that don't have a guaranteed follow-up are going to be running Vengeful Fighter or Crafty Fighter in their B slot, which means they'll already be overlapping half of Special Fighter's effects. The only situation I can see (other than simply lacking resources) where Special Fighter in the Sacred Seal slot is actually a viable option is if a slow armor is running Hardy Fighter or Gambit and it doesn't have either of Special Fighter's effects in a different skill slot. Claude's weapon is pretty good on literally any offensive unit. Getting a free fully charged Deadeye just for having any debuff on the opponent is pretty amazing. There's very little reason to use the primary condition on the effect (distance moved) when the alternate condition is so easy to fulfill. Infantry bows are now open to run Incite + Oath Echo without needing any form of Special acceleration in any other skill slot. Cavalry and fliers, which normally don't have access to most forms of Special acceleration, now have a much easier time running Deadeye and can also run it with Desperation 4 to avoid counterattacks. On Save armors, it still loses to Arcane Nastrond, the main reason being that Armored Beacon and Armored Floe don't need to themselves be charged in order to activate their defensive effect, and it's really hard to pass up Arcane Nastrond's guaranteed follow-up and 30% first-hit damage reduction.

Percentage damage reduction nullification is always multiplicative, not additive, so an opponent's 50% damage reduction becomes 5% after 90% nullification. Also, Yune can get 100% damage reduction. Hardy Bearing is still a thing. The maximum number of units that can be adjacent to a unit is 5 because of Savior and Assign Decoy.

The Sacred Seals for the upcoming Tempest Trials are Odd Res Wave and Special Fighter. Odd Res Wave is your standard mostly useless skill. Special Fighter is interesting, but I'm not sure there's actually a good use for it. Fast armors don't want to run it because it costs them 7 points of Spd from giving up a Spd Form skill, and slow armors typically already have half of the effect from Vengeful Fighter or Crafty Fighter or have a weapon with a guaranteed follow-up and are already running Special Fighter in their B slot. Arcane Eljudnir, Devourer, Qiang, and Downfall also already have half of the effect on the weapon. And the usual translation notes: The banner name, "Holiday Lessons", is "聖夜の課外授業" (seiya no kagai jugyō), "Holy Night's Extracurricular Classes". Because everyone knows they want to be stuck in school on Christmas Eve. "聖夜" (seiya), literally "holy night", refers to Christmas Eve, but a thing called "Christmas" likely doesn't exist in the worlds of Heroes. Yunaka's epithet, "Spirited Envoy", is "賑やかな冬の使者" (nigiyaka na fuyu no shisha), "Lively Winter's Envoy". Silent Yule Knife is "見えざる聖夜の刃" (miezaru seiya no yaiba), "Invisible Blade of the Holy Night". Assassin's Strike is "理の蛇毒" (ri no jadoku), "Physical Snake Venom". Compare with Occultist's Strike, "魔の蛇毒" (ma no jadoku, "Magical Snake Venom"), and Poison Strike, "蛇毒" (jadoku, "Snake Venom"). This is the same naming scheme used for Phys. Null Follow and Mag. Null Follow. Edelgard's epithet, "Snowfall Future", is "雪に舞う黒鷲" (yuki ni mau kurowashi), "Black Eagle Dancing In the Snow". Black Yule Lance is "黒鷲の聖夜の槍" (kurowashi no seiya no yari), "Black Eagle's Lance of the Holy Night". Armored Blaze is "重装の大炎" (jūsō no daien), "Great Flame of Armor". "重装" (jūsō) literally translates as "heavy equipment", but is used to refer to the armor movement type. Atk/Def Prime is "攻撃守備の備え" (kōgeki shubi no sonae), "Atk/Def Preparation". Raging Tempest is "真狂嵐" (shin kyōran), "True Raging Storm". Dimitri's epithet, "Blessed Protector", is "神聖なる青獅子" (shinsei naru aoshishi), "Holy Blue Lion". Blue Yule Axe is "青獅子の聖夜の斧" (aoshishi no seiya no ono), "Blue Lion's Axe of the Holy Night". No Quarter is "車懸" (kurumagakari), "Ceaseless Attack". "車懸" (kurumagakari) roughly translates as "wheel engagement" and refers to a tactic of sending wave after wave of soldiers to give the enemy no chance to regroup. When one wave passes by, the next wave is already on its way with no end in sight, like a revolving door. Barbarity is "真無惨" (shin muzan), "True Atrocity". Byleth's epithet, "Frosty Professors", is "雪原を駆ける指導者" (setsugen o kakeru shidōsha), "Mentors Crossing the Snowfield". Holy Yule Blade is "師の聖夜の剣" (shi no seiya no ken), "Teachers' Sword of the Holy Night". Anything but a "sword". Supreme Heaven is "真覇天" (shin haten), "True Conquering Heaven". "覇天" (haten), "conquering heaven", is the name of the Sublime Heaven skill and is a homophone with "破天" (haten), "rending heaven", which is the name of the Ruptured Sky and Ruptured Heaven skills. Weaving Fighter is "理の守備隊形" (ri no shubi taikei), "Physical Defensive Formation". "守備隊形" (shubi taikei), "defensive formation", is the name of the Wary Fighter skill. Claude's epithet, "Yuletide Schemer", is "聖夜の金鹿" (seiya no kinshika), "Golden Deer of the Holy Night". Golden Yule Bow is "金鹿の聖夜の弓" (kinshika no seiya no yumi), "Golden Deer's Bow of the Holy Night".

So what exactly is the point of defensive Divine Vein effects again when everyone and their dog gets Divine Vein (Flame) and it overrides all other terrain?

Godlike Reflexes is only worth running if you can reliably have it fully charged at the start of every round of combat (other than the first round of combat if the first round of combat is on player phase). If you can't, then it's pretty much always better to run Vital Astra (or Ruptured Sky), even if you can't reliably activate Vital Astra's Dodge effect. There are way to do it without the Slaying effect, but unless the unit has some form of post-combat Pulse effect, they aren't really reliable. (Also, Time's Pulse 4 doesn't work because it only activates if the Special is completely uncharged at the end of combat, and Godlike Reflexes will almost always be at least partly charged.)

I completely forgot that I didn't get around to doing an analysis last night because I was tired. With the Resplendent boosts, Ephraim's stats are pretty good, but not amazing, coming out to 53/45/34-/44/33+ with max Dragonflowers. His exclusive weapon grants him +8/5/5/5, a guaranteed follow-up, offensive Null Follow-Up, and 7 HP regeneration per attack, which is actually not bad despite its age, given that it's comparable to Arcane Downfall. Because Garm grants a guaranteed follow-up and Arcane Downfall doesn't, it lets him run Special Fighter 4 in his B slot, which arguably makes him a superior Close Save option to either Dedue or Ludveck, who have better base stats than he does, but don't have exclusive weapons, though he'll still fall behind Brave Edelgard, Valentine Gustav, and Mamori for the role (as well as Young Hector, though Hector would prefer to keep running Far Save). Arcane Thrima, on the other hand, would give Dedue and Ludveck more bulk at the cost of having to rely on allies (or Sol or Aether) for sustain.

The last Resplendent Hero of this calendar year has been announced to be Muspell Brave Ephraim, being the first CYL 2 Resplendent Hero: Embla Gordin Dokkalfheimr Female Corrin Muspell Brave Roy Askr Innes Muspell Brave Lyn Ljosalfheimr Palla Ljosalfheimr Aversa Dokkalfheimr Cecilia Hel Surtr Nifl Ninian Hel Sigurd Hel Female Robin Ljosalfheimr Nina Muspell Lucius Jotunheimr Nephenee Muspell Male Morgan Dokkalfheimr Rhajat Dokkalfheimr Ursula Nifl Shigure Embla Sheena Nifl Fir N▀█▄▌▄▌▌▀█ A█▄▐▄ Dokkalfheimr Awakening Tiki Muspell Brave Ephraim Muspell already has the most outfits, with this bringing the total up to 15. Embla is second at 13.

Now that the Grand Hero Battle is out so I don't have to use spoiler tags, Validar is kind of ridiculous. His weapon inflicts -6 Def/Res, Panic, and Discord with a Ploy 3 condition and Ploy 4 range, and he gets 4 additional damage for each non-stat debuff on the opponent and enemies within 2 spaces of them. If you run him with Ploy 4 in his C slot, he inflicts 4 debuffs on enemies in range, which gives him 16 additional damage plus another 16 for each enemy with the same debuffs within 2 spaces of the target. Now if only they'd release Atk/Spd Ploy 3 already so that he doesn't overlap his stat debuffs. The only thing he has any notable issues with is the fact that he doesn't have the Slaying effect on his weapon, which means he can't run Flare without some other source of Special acceleration. Also, I find it funny that he has a guaranteed follow-up on his weapon, but he also has Brash Assault. I mean, yeah, his weapon's guaranteed follow-up only activates at 25% HP or higher, but covering that gap with Brash Assault is kind of pointless with how lenient his weapon's condition is.

The next Resplendent Hero is our first CYL 2 unit, Muspell Brave Ephraim:

This week's free Arena ticket gets me Echoes Catria: 41 pulls on the Hall of Forms banner: 1 Black Knight (+1 spark) 2 pity breakers: Brave Soren Ymir Black Knight is now +7. I foddered off my first copy of Brave Soren (the spark copy from his release banner) to duplicate Flare, so this one is functionally my first copy of him, and he has an Atk Asset, which is pretty much perfect. This copy of Ymir gets her to +10. Still going to hold of on pulling on the Double Special Heroes and Ratatoskr banners until sometime later because I still haven't cleaned out my barracks, and Soren ate yet another barracks slot. And I still have like 2 weeks to continue procrastinating.

Lucina's Spd/Def Snag 4 has the Spd/Res Snag 4 icon for some reason, but Spd/Res Snag 4 doesn't exist yet. This appears to be only a visual error, as she has properly has Spd/Def Snag 4 in the Feh Channel footage. In Japanese, Severa and Inigo have the same epithets as Selena and Laslow, respectively, which are also the same epithets they have in their respective source games. English also uses the same epithets as their source games, but their epithets aren't shared between games, and so they are also not the same as each other's in Heroes. This is also true of Owain and Odin in both languages. And the usual translation notes: The name of the banner, "Ratatoskr and More", is "新英雄＆魔器英雄＆ラタトスク" (shin-eiyū & maki eiyū & ratatosuku), "New Heroes & Arcane Weapon Hero & Ratatoskr". As usual, "魔器" (maki), "magic weapon", is the name for both Rearmed Heroes and Arcane weapons. Lucina's epithet, "Fate's Resolve", is "未来への決意" (mirai e no ketsui), "Resolve Towards the Future". Arcane Thrima is "魔器スリマ" (maki surima), "Arcane Weapon Thrima". Future Sight is "未来を変える瞳" (mirai o kaeru hitomi), "Eye That Changes the Future". Compare with Future Vision, "未来を映す瞳" (mirai o utsusu hitomi), "Eye That Reflects the Future". Alarm Def/Res is "守備魔防の奮進" (shubi mabō no funshin), "Def/Res Rousing Advance". Severa's epithet, "Secret Dreamer", is "秘めた憧憬" (himeta dōkei), "Hidden Aspiration". This is the same epithet that Selena has in Japanese. Striving Sword is "憧憬の剣" (dōkei no ken), "Sword of Aspiration". It's a sword! Buffer is "回避・盾の鼓動" (kaihi: tate no kodō), "Evasion: Shield Pulse". Laurent's epithet, "The Elucidator", is "真理の探究者" (shinri no tankyūsha), "Researcher of Truth". Hvitrdeer is "ヒータディア" (hītadia), "Hvitrdeer". Ratatoskr's epithet, "Mending Hand", is "看護の癒し手" (kango no iyashi-te), "Nurse Healer". As in "a healer that is a nurse". World-Tree Tail is "世界樹の栗鼠の尻尾" (sekaiju no risu no shippo), "Tail of the World Tree's Squirrel". Beast Agility is "絶対化身・敏捷" (zettai keshin: binshō), "Guaranteed Transformation: Agility". Mending Heart is "癒し手の心" (iyashi-te no kokoro), "Healer's Heart". Divine Vein (Green) is "天脈・緑" (tenmyaku: ryoku), "Sky Vein: Green". Inigo's epithet, "Flower Picker", is "花咲く笑顔" (hanasaku egao), "Blooming Smile". This is the same epithet that Laslow has in Japanese. Null Blade is "見切り追撃の剣" (mikiri tsuigeki no ken), "Null Follow-Up Sword". Compare with Null Follow-Up, "見切り・追撃効果" (mikiri: tsuigeki kōka), "Nullification: Follow-Up Attack Effects". "見切り" (mikiri) is the name of the Nihil skill and means "seeing clearly", literally translating as "to cut with one's sight", which is why the skill icon is an eye. And as usual, it's anything but a "sword". Validar's epithet, "Fell Architect", is "絶望への導師" (zetsubō e no dōshi), "Priest [That Leads] Towards Despair". "導師" (dōshi) typically refers to a Buddhist priest and translates literally as "a teacher [that provides] guidance". Grimleal Text is "禁書ギムレー" (kinsho gimurē), "Forbidden Text: Grima" For now, yes. Whether the unit needs to survive combat is dependent on the condition to activate Divine Vein (Flame) on the skill that activates it and has nothing to do with Divine Vein (Flame) itself. Flared Sparrow and Flared Mirror have the condition "after combat", which requires survival. If a future skill has the condition "after combat, if unit attacked", then that skill would not require survival.

Buffer 4 doesn't really change anything. The viability of Godlike Reflexes is based on how easy it is to have it fully charged at the start of every round of combat, which currently still requires the Slaying effect and +1 Special charge rate (or a pre-combat or post-combat Pulse). Buffer only helps with the first round of combat and not any subsequent rounds of combat, and the first round of combat was already the easiest round of combat to have it fully charged by. Unless your first round of combat needs to be on enemy phase and you have no other means of fully charging Godlike Reflexes before that, Spurn 4 is still going to be better than Buffer 4. If Buffer 4 also had the flat damage reduction that Shield Pulse has, then this would be a different story, but it doesn't.

Rath: Sacaen-Wolf Bow Base effect is: Bow common effect Slaying effect With a Blow-or-Unity condition: +4 to all stats in combat 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack Refine effect is: If HP is 25% or higher at start of combat: +4 to all stats in combat Guaranteed follow-up Offensive Tempo effect I feel like it's been ages since we last got a weapon that does what it needs to do without needing whole a master's thesis to explain it. No +1 Special charge rate is a bit of a bummer since it means he won't be guaranteed to land Deadeye on an opponent if they can't counterattack, though it's not that much of an issue since it'll still activate against opponents that can counterattack, and he can still run Ruptured Sky otherwise. Shannan: Balmung Base effect is updated: Permanent +3 Spd With a Stance condition or if opponent's HP is 75% or higher at start of combat (previously 100%): Nullifies stat penalties +5 to all stats in combat Tempo effect (new) Refine effect is: If HP is 25% or higher at start of combat: +4 to all stats in combat Boost to all stats in combat equal to 15% of Spd at start of combat Dodge 3 effect Unfortunately, Shannan ends up with the usual cookie-cutter skill effects that other fast sword infantry have. They did still make sure that he isn't going to be using Vital Astra or Godlike Reflexes over his default Imperial Astra, though, as he has no form of Special acceleration at all on his weapon. On the plus side, he's a huge pile of stats, as the Spd-based stat boost should be able to get him about +7~8 points to all stats on top of the +9 that he already gets from the fixed-value effects. He already has an enormous Def stat that's somehow higher than his neutral base Spd stat as well as an above-average HP stat, so this just makes him even more comically bulky on the physical side. Iago: Iago's Tome Base effect is updated: Permanent +3 Res At the start of odd turns: If enemy is not adjacent to another enemy and unit's HP is at least 3 higher than enemy's HP, inflicts the following status effects on enemy: -6 Atk/Spd (previously -4) Guard At the start of even turns: If enemy is adjacent to another enemy and unit's HP is at least 3 higher than enemy's HP, inflicts the following status effects on enemy: -6 Def/Res (previously -4) Panic If HP is 25% or higher at start of combat: +4 to all stats in combat (new) Refine effect is: At start of odd turns: Grants the following status effects to self and allies within 2 spaces: +6 Def/Res Follow-up prevention Nullifies opponent's stat bonuses At start of even turns: Grants the following status effects to self and allies within 2 spaces: +6 Atk/Spd Guaranteed follow-up with a Blow condition Hexblade With a Stance condition or if opponent's HP is 75% or higher at start of combat: +4 to all stats in combat Essentially, he grants +0/6/12/12 to allies on odd turns against opponents hit by his debuffs and +12/6/0/0 to allies on even turns against opponents hit by his debuffs with additional defensive status effects on odd turns and additional offensive status effects on even turns to complement the stat buffs. On top of the HP comparison, the Sabotage and anti-Sabotage conditions on his debuffs still make them too unreliable to use most of the time. However, the buffs from his refine are a completely different story. He's a really good unit to have for activating Prime, as the non-stat bonuses he grants are all pretty rare and are unlikely to overlap any that the unit with Prime will receive from its own skills. Since he grants 2 effects each turn, a unit with Prime only needs 2 other status effects to activate the Close/Distant Counter effect. Amusingly, he doesn't directly get a guaranteed follow-up from his weapon and instead gets it on even turns from his turn-based buffs. Duo Palla: Whitedown Spear Base effect is updated: Permanent +3 Atk With a Blow condition or if there is an ally within 3 spaces (previously "if there are at least 3 fliers on the team and with a Blow condition"): -4 Atk/Spd/Def on opponent in combat (previously only Atk/Def) Guaranteed follow-up If there are at least 2 flier allies within 3 spaces (previously 2 spaces and with a Blow condition): Brave effect Refine effect is: If there is a flier ally within 3 spaces: Canto (Rem.+1) If HP is 25% or higher at start of combat: +4 to all stats in combat Additional damage equal to 15% of Atk, excluding AoE Specials If there are at least 2 flier allies within 3 spaces: +1 Special charge rate Her Duo Skill grants +1 movement to herself and adjacent fliers and refreshes at the start of every odd turn. Palla no longer requires 3 fliers on the team (including herself) to activate the weapon's base effect. Additionally, all Unity positioning conditions have been changed to Finish positioning conditions, though some of them still require 2 flier allies. Most notably, she gets the Brave effect on both phases and Canto. She also gets something like 10~12 points of additional damage, which is kind of ridiculous given that she has the Brave effect on her weapon. She also gets +1 Special charge rate just in case it wasn't easy enough for her to activate Galeforce. Yeah, it's pretty busted. Unfortunately, she doesn't get Aerial Maneuvers and Soaring Guidance built into her weapon, but already having Canto on her weapon means she doesn't have much opportunity cost running those in her passive skill slots. Eleonora: Mirage Longbow Base effect is updated: Bow common effect Permanent +3 Spd With a Blow-or-Unity condition (previously "if Spd is higher than opponent's Spd"): +5 Atk/Spd in combat (new) Additional damage equal to 15% of Spd, excluding AoE Specials (new) Sweep effect Refine effect is: Slaying effect If HP is 25% or higher at start of combat: +5 Atk/Spd Nullifies stat penalties to Atk/Spd Nullifies stat bonuses to Spd/Def on opponent So they really did just give her an unconditional Sweep effect. Color me actually surprised. And they also gave her the Slaying effect. Unfortunately, she doesn't get Tempo or Null Follow-Up, which means she can't have both without giving up a stat-boosting skill to run Null Follow-Up in the Sacred Seal slot. Kind of a bummer, though it's not going to make or break her since she already has an unconditional Sweep. Both Tempo 4 and Phys. Null Follow have partial percentage damage reduction nullification, so running Deadeye isn't strictly necessary, and she can instead run Ruptured Sky if she wants. With Ruptured Sky, she won't need any other form of Special acceleration, which is nice. With Deadeye, she'll need either Flash Sparrow or Pledge in order charge it for her follow-up, and it's vulnerable to opponents with the defensive Tempo effect. Overall thoughts Palla's is obviously insane. All of the rest are solid, even if I have some nitpicks on some of them.

For as long as Divine Vein (Flame) is capable of overriding defensive Divine Veins, defensive Divine Veins will be mostly pointless on the player side in Aether Raids as far as combat goes. I also wish they'd stop using thorns and eths in their character and skill names. Yes, I know they look fancy and are "more accurate to the original". I don't care. Those characters don't exist in modern English and including them is functionally no different from including characters from a non-Latin character set. Will comment more and do translation notes later. I'm tired, and I still have to go through the weapon refine analyses.

262 pulls on the Mythic Heroes banner: 3 Gullveig 7 Guinevere 7 Fomortiis 1 Kvasir (+1 spark) 4 Yuri 2 Byleth 1.5% new unit rate is garbage and is 3 and a half copies below average. 9.2% 5-star rate is just under 2 copies above average. Well, those are some very typically awful-looking pulls for a Mythic Hero banner. I had 5 pity breakers each of the matching color before pulling my first copies of Kvasir and Gullveig, and it didn't get any better afterward. Honestly, at this point, it's really more comical than anything else. Guinevere is now +9. Fomortiis is now +10 with 2 spare copies. Yuri is now +8. My one copy of Kvasir is [+Spd, -HP], which is fine. None of my copies of Gullveig have a useful Asset. I'm annoyed that the next time both of them are being rerun will again be on the same banner (both rerun in February), which means that one of them is guaranteed to not share a color with the new unit (and it's most likely Gullveig since red is otherwise empty that month and colorless is over-full). And since I have been counting, I'm currently at 178 copies of the new unit on the banner out of 624 total focus units of the matching color on Legendary/Mythic Hero banners counting since Bramimond's banner, which is only 28.5% (expected value is 33.3%). Put another way, I've gotten 2.51 copies of old units of the matching color (expected value is 2) for each 1 copy of the new unit. I'll pull from the Double Special Heroes banner and the Hall of Forms banner later. I still haven't cleaned out my barracks, and this banner has been absolutely tiring.

His name is one of the French names in Awakening that didn't get changed to a non-French name in the localization, and the localization team for Heroes seems to actually pay attention to French names for whatever reason. I believe that's the standard English pronunciation of the name. If you're thinking of a one Inigo Montoya, he is Spanish and pronounces his name almost as it would be in Spanish, though with the accent on the incorrect syllable (the Spanish name Íñigo should be "EE-nyee-go"). His neck is a bit exaggerated, but otherwise, his proportions are pretty on-model. His proportions have always looked weird like that.