Ice Dragon

Last week's free Arena ticket got me Laevatein again. This week's gets me Brave Lysithea: Did the customary full first session on the Harmonized Mystery Tiki Halloween banner and somehow got TIki. 58 pulls on the Double Special Heroes banner because it took 18 pulls to clear my pity rate after the spark: 3 Bernadetta 1 Anna 0 Tiki (+1 spark) Pretty decent. One of the copies of Bernadetta has a Spd Asset, which will be the new merge base. Anna's still stuck with a junk Asset since my previous one has HP and the new one has Def. I might pull on the Halloween banner and Attuned Heroes banner this weekend, but that's really only if I can be bothered clean up my barracks since I'm back down to 10 open slots again. If not, it's back to procrastination again.

He has the same purple flame aura on his map/battle sprite that most units on the fallen banners have.

I'm finally actually taking a look at Hestia's and Marla's stats since the ranged special training maps are on rotation today, and holy crap Hestia is disappointing. Marla manages to basically be red Bastian, having the highest Res stat and second-highest Atk stat of all red tomes with 47 Atk and 46+ Res with maximum Dragonflowers. For comparison, Bastian has 46 Atk and 47+ Res. Good stuff all around. Hestia, on the other hand, is just a budget version of Desert Soren. She only has 46 Atk and 44+ Res, whereas Soren has 45 Atk and 47 Res. Sure, she has 1 more Atk, but this stat spread is pretty much made to use Sabotage and Ploy, and Soren is just flat-out better. She scores one bucket higher than Soren in the Arena, but that's it. As far as I can remember, yes, this is the first time the Japanese epithets for two characters are identical to each other.

Not strictly the best, but this is basically the cookie-cutter build for any fast infantry tome unit that doesn't have a special gimmick to build around. Everything else is pretty much a side-grade. Mag. Null Follow is the easiest general-use premium B skill to get since you're pretty much always going to grab it from Brave Soren at the same time that you grab Flare (and if you're using Ophelia or Sonya to duplicate Flare, then you'll also always have it available for the same reason). There are quite a few other cookie-cutter options with different B skills depending on what you want to do with the unit (all of these assume an Arcane weapon for simplicity of listing alternate options): Flare + Remote Sparrow + Mag. Null Follow + Atk/Spd Oath 4 This is the vanilla cookie-cutter build. With Arcane Euphoria, you can replace the A skill with Atk/Spd Finish 4 if you don't need the additional damage reduction. With any weapon other than Arcane Caliburnus, you can replace the C skill with Atk/Spd Pledge to counter Guard or land Flare on opponents that can't counterattack. Flare + Atk/Spd Finish 4 + Desperation 4 + Atk/Spd Pledge Desperation 4 is generally safer than damage reduction, but you lose a counterattack to charge your Special. With Arcane Caliburnus, replace the C skill with Atk/Spd Oath 4. With any other weapon, you can alternatively run Flash Sparrow + Atk/Spd Oath 4 or Ruptured Sky + Atk/Spd Oath 4 if you want teleportation. Flare + Atk/Spd Finish 4 + Brash Assault 4 + Atk/Spd Oath 4 This gives you a bunch of additional damage on your follow-up from Finish 4 and Brash Assault 4. The more damage you take from the opponent's counterattack, the more additional damage you get, so you'll get more mileage if both the unit's Def and Res are low instead of having lopsided defenses. You can replace the A skill with Remote Sparrow for more safety. With any weapon other than Arcane Caliburnus, you can replace the C skill with Atk/Spd Pledge to counter Guard or land Flare on opponents that can't counterattack. Flare + Remote Sparrow + Escape Route 4 + Atk/Spd Pledge This gives you Canto. With Arcane Euphoria, you can replace the A skill with Atk/Spd Finish 4 if you don't need the additional damage reduction. With Arcane Caliburnus, replace the C skill with Atk/Spd Oath 4. With any weapon other than Arcane Caliburnus, you can also replace the C skill with Atk/Spd Oath 4 if you want teleportation before taking damage. Flare + Remote Sparrow + Special Spiral 4 + Atk/Spd Pledge This lets you land Flare on both attacks (starting from the second round of combat unless you have Pulse support) and fully nullify percentage damage reduction. With Arcane Euphoria, you can run Atk/Spd Finish 4 + Atk/Spd Pledge or Flash Sparrow + Atk/Spd Oath 4 if you don't need the additional damage reduction. With Arcane Caliburnus, replace the C skill with Atk/Spd Oath 4. Flare + Atk/Spd Finish 4 + Special Spiral 4 + Atk/Spd Oath 4 This is the standard one-hit-kill build for Flare. You need 2 stacks of Pulse from any source to have Flare charged for the first round of combat. With Arcane Eclipse, you can replace the C skill with Infantry Pulse 4 or Time's Pulse 4 to not have to rely on Pulse support from a teammate. Atk/Spd Oath 4 on any of the above builds that have it can be replaced with Def/Res Smoke 3 if you want Pathfinder support and can pass up on some combat performance.

Off the top of my head, Legendary Eliwood, Harmonized Caeda, and Sumia all would do well with Flow Refresh 4. All three of them have Canto on a different skill slot, and none of them have the Slaying effect on their weapon, so they need to take a counterattack to land a 2-cooldown Special and therefore can't run the safer Flow Desperation and still reliably land a Special. Eliwood and Caeda also have the convenience of already having Flow Refresh 3. It also works well on a setup with Arcane Downfall + Galeforce / Aether + Flow Refresh 4 + Alarm Atk/Spd, though the inheritance to get to this build is pretty inefficient, and we don't actually have any axe cavalry with a modern high Spd stat that doesn't already have a good exclusive weapon (Desert Kris is the fastest, and he's not even that fast anymore).

Flow Refresh 4 is actually pretty decent for units that want both the Null Follow-Up effect and percentage damage reduction and get neither from their weapon. It's still a somewhat niche skill, but it's more generally useful than Atk/Spd Unity at the very least. The passive healing also allows units to run a more offensive A skill instead of Surge Sparrow when sustain is necessary (and is also good for sustain on Galeforce units since they couldn't use Surge Sparrow for sustain in the first place). Spd/Def Hold is not terribly useful since Spd/Def Rein 3 is usually good enough, but if you can eventually get S/D Rein Snap on her, it would be good to let her duplicate that, too.

Normally, you'd obviously be running Lunar Brace II, but in the event that you need to switch it to Gambit 4 for a map, you'll also want to switch her Special to either Dragon Fang (if you need a functional Special and are running a weapon with +1 Special charge rate, like Storm Sieglinde or Arcane Devourer) or Aether (if you don't need a functional Special or if you have some way to make up for the 1 point of additional cooldown needed to activate it on each round of combat). Atk/Spd Unity is a pretty niche skill since without debuffs it grants fewer points of stats than most other relevant A skills. All of the other relevant A skills except for the Distant Counter skills all grant strictly more stats when the unit doesn't have debuffs. The only times when you'll want to use it over something else are in game modes where debuffs are common (namely Aether Raids and Arena) or when you're running Grand Strategy, and even then, it's really only reliable on enemy-phase units and teleporters due to the positioning condition. I would definitely recommend using her to duplicate an A skill that is better for general use (Flared Sparrow, Atk/Spd Clash 4, Distant A/S Solo, etc.).

This actually made me think of something. I mentioned in Rearmed Plumeria's banner's translation notes that all of the fairies' exclusive dance skills were written entirely phonetically, that that is extremely strange, and that I had no idea why they did that. Well, for practical purposes, there are really only four reasons why you'd write Japanese purely phonetically (other than purely for stylistic purposes): The medium you're using doesn't support kanji. For example, video games need every character that can be displayed to be stored somewhere in the game data as an image. Nowadays, that can be done by simply importing a font, but before that was possible, these images had to be manually drawn. This is obviously a lot of work and could actually take up a sizable amount of limited storage space back in the day, and so older games would typically have a limited set of kanji available to be used and often none at all if you go far enough back. You're a child and haven't learned enough kanji to read and/or write yet (or the work is intended to be read by children). You're learning the language and haven't learned enough kanji to read and/or write yet (or the work is intended to be read by people learning the language). When the ambiguity is necessary (such as for puns involving homophones). Number 2 above is looking to be an interesting possibility. If these skills are intended to be interpreted as being seen from a child's point of view, they would make sense to be written phonetically. Additionally, it's worth mentioning that all of the fairies' dance skills use extremely simple words (especially in contrast to their epithets and weapons) and are words that children would be expected to know how to say (even if they don't know how to read or write them): Peony has "やさしいゆめ" (yasashii yume), "Kind Dream" and "やさしいひとのゆめ" (yasashii hito no yume), "Dream of a Kind Person". Mirabilis has "しろいゆめ" (shiroi yume), "White Dream". This is clearly a play on "白昼夢" (hakuchūmu), "daydream" or "fantasy", which literally translates as "to dream in the white [light] of day" (white being the color most closely associated with daytime in both Japanese and Chinese), simplifying it to something easier to write and pronounce. Triandra has "こわいゆめ" (kowai yume), "Frightening Dream" and "こわいかこのゆめ" (kowai kako no yume), "Dream of a Frightening Past". Plumeria has "あまいゆめ" (amai yume), "Sweet Dream" and "あまいみつのゆめ" (amai mitsu no yume), "Dream of Sweet Nectar". These sound like names you would find in an actual fairy tale. (And yes, the skills for the fancier versions of each character all use the same adjective as the skill from the regular version, but with the adjective applied to a new noun instead of to "dream".)

The official announcement hasn't been made yet, but we can probably safely assume that skills up through Legendary Alear should now be available (since the previous one didn't add anything new, and the one before that added skills through Freyr). Notably, this means we now have access to Desperation 4, Atk/Spd Pledge, and all of the CYL banner skills. Not listing exclusive skills because there's no reason to grab them from Hall of Forms if you're keeping the unit (unless you haven't refined the weapon yet and want to save dew on the refine). The Assist slot can be anything with maximum SP. I typically prefer one of Rally Atk/Spd+ or Harsh Command+, but use whatever suits your play style best. Legendary Eirika [+Spd] Petalfall Blade+ [Spd] [Assist] Ruptured Sky Flared Sparrow / Atk/Spd Clash 4 / Distant A/S Solo Gambit 4 / Desperation 4 Alarm Atk/Spd Storm Sieglinde [unique], Lunar Brace II, and Galeforce are more optimal; however, it's obviously best to grab skills that are harder to get in those slots. While the Canto effect from Alarm is obviously not necessary due to Lunar Brace II having a better Canto effect, Alarm is still the preferred skill in the C slot due to the in-combat stat boost (same reason Oath 4 and Pledge were recommended for Lumera previously). Legendary Ephraim [+Atk] Hare's Lance+ [Def / Atk] [Assist] Ruptured Sky Atk/Def Clash 4 Gambit 4 / Brash Assault 4 / Desperation 4 / Flow Desperation / Flow Near Trace 3 Alarm Atk/Def Basically identical notes as for Eirika, but replace the Eirika's skills with the corresponding ones for Ephraim. Winter Artur [+Res] Teacake Tower+ [Res] [Assist] Armored Floe Fireflood Boost 3 / Def/Res Unity Special Fighter 4 D/R Far Save 3 The addition of Arcane Caliburnus makes things a bit weird for Artur because it overlaps Artur's B options quite a bit. And if it wasn't already clear, he should be switching his weapon to Arcane Caliburnus [Res] as soon as possible. Special Fighter 4 is still the preferred B skill due to its healing effect, even if its Special acceleration won't stack with Arcane Caliburnus. However, Vengeful Fighter 4 and Guard 4 also have effects that are at least somewhat worth considering. Def/Res Unity is really only useful for Aether Raids, but it's harder to get than Distant Def 4, which is more generally useful (although it doesn't play nice with Teacake Tower if you don't have Arcane Caliburnus). Fireflood Boost 3 isn't the correct stat combination, but it's the only Boost 4 skill currently available and is decent enough if aren't being haunted by the increasingly prevalent bows and daggers. Young Innes [+Spd] Whitecap Bow+ [Spd] [Assist] Ruptured Sky / Deadeye Flash Sparrow / Remote Sparrow / Atk/Spd Hexblade / Atk/Spd Finish 4 Phys. Null Follow / Brash Assault 4 / Desperation 4 / Escape Route 4 Atk/Spd Oath 4 / Atk/Spd Pledge Innes is a bit interesting because Whitecap Bow+ [Spd], Whitewind Bow+ [Spd], Arcane Nastrond [Spd], and Arcane Darkbow [Spd] are all really strong and are very much competitive with Bow of Frelia due to all of them granting a larger boost to Spd, and it'll be a while before Bow of Frelia finally gets a refine since we haven't even gotten to the first set of children yet. Whitecap Bow is the only one that's actually available from Hall of Forms, though, so that's the one being recommended. The skills for each slot depend entirely on what you have in other slots and the weapon you intend to run. Obviously, don't run skills that render the unique bonuses from another skill slot useless (like Desperation 4 making Remote Sparrow's damage reduction mostly useless). It's worth noting that Brash Assault 4 is still usable with Arcane Nastrond even though you're doubling up on guaranteed follow-ups because the damage boost from Brash Assault is really good and still worth considering.

The main reason to use Atk/Spd Oath 4 (or Atk/Spd Pledge) is because of the additional +3 Atk/Spd in combat that both skills come with. As long as the unit doesn't have a glaring need for a specific other skill in that slot (like a mobility skill, Time's Pulse, etc.), you almost always want a skill that grants an in-combat stat boost in the C slot. In the long run, the best setup (with existing skill series) would be Atk/Spd Pledge + Def Oath Echo / Res Oath Echo. Pledge is there to give you the in-combat boost to Atk/Spd, while the Oath Echo is there to give you the teleportation without stepping on each other's toes. Godlike Reflexes is only really viable on a unit that has both the Slaying effect and either +1 Special charge rate or Special Spiral (or an equivalent effect). You need to be able to guarantee that the skill will be fully charged at the start of every round of combat (except the first if the first round of combat is on player phase instead of enemy phase). Nino should do fine with Arcane Caliburnus. She'll miss out on getting the Litrblade effect from her base weapon, but the extra Spd and being able to more reliably land a Special should make up for it. Atk/Res Ploy 3 isn't great on her because her Res stat isn't particularly high. Even with Resplendent boosts, she has a maximum of 34 neutral Res with max Dragonflowers before merges and skills, which hits only 40 visible Res with merges and G Duel Infantry 4. While that'll hit most enemies (44 visible Res or lower), it misses pretty much every slow Res-based tank (as those typically have 50+ visible Res) and even has a decent chance to miss Brave Corrin, as a +10+5 Brave Corrin has 45 neutral Res. You can, of course, give up more Spd to run Still Water 3 or Phantom Res 3 in the Sacred Seal slot to help out and rely on Arcane Caliburnus's guaranteed follow-up, but it'll be even harder to contest any fast unit that has Null Follow-Up. However, I think it's better to build her with a more normal build instead (Remote Sparrow / Mag. Null Follow / Atk/Spd Oath 4). If you're looking for a good unit to make use of Sonya's Atk/Res Ploy 3, Bastian is by far the best unit for a single Sonya inheritance (and also the best recipient of Arcane Caliburnus in general). He has the highest Atk and highest Res among all viable candidates for Arcane Caliburnus (matching Brave Soren in Atk and only 1 point short in Res) and also has a base stat total high enough to not need G Duel Infantry 4 (180-181 after the first merge bonus) to max out his Arena score. He'll probably want to run something like this: Bastian [+Atk / +Res] Arcane Caliburnus [Res] [Assist] Flare Remote Mirror / Atk/Res Finish 4 / Fireflood Boost 3 / Still Water 4 Escape Route 4 / Null C-Disrupt 4 / Guard 4 / Mag. Null Follow / Sabotage A/R 3 Atk/Res Ploy 3 [any skill that boosts Atk/Res] / Still Water 3 / Phantom Res 3 No real order for slashed skills. Just make sure they play nice with each other and don't duplicate any of the effects that don't stack. Remote Mirror, Null C-Disrupt 4, and Guard 4 grant percentage damage reduction in case you don't want to rely only on debuffing opponents' Atk stats into the ground. Remote Mirror is obviously for player-phase use only, whereas the other options for the A slot are active on both phases. Finish 4 obviously doesn't play nice with Escape Route 4. EDIT: Areone [+Atk / +Def] Heired Gungnir [Assist] Aether / Ignis Atk/Def Clash 4 / Atk/Def Catch 4 / Sturdy Surge Gambit 4 Atk/Def Hold / Guidance 4 / Soaring Guidance [any Sacred Seal that boosts Atk/Def] You don't really need Atk/Def Hold, as Atk/Def Rein 3 is good enough. The only advantage of Atk/Def Hold is 1 extra range for the debuff, so unless the Hold will boost your score by enough to matter, you can just run Rein until A/D Rein Snap is released. Aether gives a bigger Gambit boost and scores better. Ignis gives better performance if you have a teammate that can grant +1 Special charge rate, but comes at a cost of Arena score. Brash Assault 4, Guard Bearing 4, and A/D Near Trace are all decent alternative options for the B slot and let you run Ruptured Sky on him instead of Aether. Guard 4 is also an option (until we get Caldera Boost 3).

Arcane Caliburnus is the new Arcane green tome. It grants the usual Slaying effect, +5 to all stats, and a guaranteed follow-up. Its additional effects are +1 Special charge rate and stat bonus nullification on the opponent's Atk/Res. The +1 Special charge rate means it's compatible with Flare + Desperation 4, which is very nifty. You can also run it with Aether and actually have a functional Special as long as the opponent can counterattack and doesn't have Guard or Tempo. It's worth noting, though, that it has actual competition on fast units with Tea Party Ferdinand's Teatime Set, which grants +5 Atk/Spd, Canto (1), and Null Follow-Up, which grants the same boost to Spd and comes with Canto, but loses out on damage output due to the lower effective Atk and lack of Special acceleration of any kind. Rearmed Sonya being an infantry unit gives her some pretty good options for skill duplication. Flare is the most notable, and she can get that along with Mag. Null Follow and Time's Pulse 4 from Brave Soren at the same time. She also gets access to the Finish skills, Remote Sparrow, Remote Mirror, and the Oath skills. The only notable skill that she won't be able to duplicate is Flared Sparrow. As far as the best users of Arcane Caliburnus, Bastian easily comes out on top, having the highest Atk stat of all green tome units that don't already have an up-to-date exclusive weapon and having a massive Res stat to use Rearmed Sonya's Atk/Res Ploy 3. And here's everyone else:

Now that I'm back home and have a proper keyboard to type things on, here are the usual translation notes: The banner name, "Attuned: Peony & Triandra", is "響心ピアニー＆響心スカビオサ", (kyōshin pianī & kyōshin sukabiosa), "Resonance Peony & Resonance Triandra". The word for Attuned Heroes and Attuned skills is "響心" (kyōshin), "resonating hearts". Sonya's epithet, "Beautiful Mage", is "美しき魔道士" (utsukushiki madōshi), "Beautiful Mage". Arcane Caliburnus is "魔器カリブルヌス" (maki kariburunusu), "Arcane Weapon Caliburnus". As usual, the word for both Rearmed Heroes and Arcane weapon is "魔器" (maki), "magic weapon". Beyond Witchery is "魔女を超える者" (majo o koeru mono), "One Who Has Surpassed Witches". Atk/Res Ploy is "攻撃魔防の謀策" (kōgeki mabō no bōsaku), "Atk/Res Scheme". Mycen's epithet, "Zofia's Champion", is "ソフィアの英雄" (sofia no eiyū), "Hero of Zofia". Worldly Lance is "老練の槍" (rōren no yari), "Veteran's Lance". Joint Close Guard is "近距離相互警戒" (kinkyori sōgo keikai), "Close-Range Reciprocal Vigilance". Triandra's epithet, "Reverent Dream", is "献身の夢" (kenshin no yume), "Dream of Dedication". Flower of Tribute is "犠牲の花" (gisei no hana), "Flower of Sacrifice". Harrowing Dream is "こわいかこのゆめ" (kowai kako no yume), "Dream of a Frightening Past". Flow Refresh is "怒涛・再起" (dotō: saiki), "Surging Waves: Recovery". Death Blow Echo is "響・鬼神の一撃" (hibiki: kishin no ichigeki), "Resonance: Fierce Deity Strike". The prefix for Attuned skills is "響" (hibiki), "resonance" or "echo", which is an abbreviation for the word for Attuned Heroes and Attuned skills, "響心" (kyōshin), "resonating hearts". I'm unsure if it's intended to be read "hibiki", which is how it is read as a standalone word, or if it's intended to be read "kyō", which is how it is read in compound words, as this is clearly meant to be an abbreviation. Peony's epithet, "Cherished Dream", is "親愛の夢" (shin'ai no yume), "Dream of Deep Affection". Flower of Caring is "親愛の花" (shin'ai no hana), "Flower of Deep Affection". Tender Dream is "やさしいひとのゆめ" (yasashii hito no yume), "Dream of a Kind Person". Rockslide Dance is "疾風大地の舞い" (shippū daichi no mai), "Gale/Earth Dance". Cross Spur Spd is "速さの十字紋章" (hayasa no jūji monshō), "Spd Cross Emblem". "紋章" (monshō), "emblem", is the name of the Spur skill series. Atk Oath Echo is "響・攻撃の信義" (hibiki: kōgeki no shingi), "Resonance: Atk Loyalty". Hestia's epithet, "Duma's Witch", is "ドーマの魔女" (dōma no majo), "Duma's Witch". Marla's epithet, "Duma's Witch", is "ドーマの魔女" (dōma no majo), "Duma's Witch".

I really don't understand all of the commotion over this banner. We're literally at the bottom of the barrel for Echoes, and I don't see the value of making a banner full of characters that are at the bottom of the barrel, even with the novelty of finishing out a game's roster. I honestly would've preferred it if they made Mycen the instant demote and added an Ascended Hero to the banner if they were going to add yet another special unit type to the game and further reduce the rate that we get florets going forward. The thing that actually annoys me about this banner is the fact that they made both of the new skills in the X slot be offensive skills as if offensive units needed any more help killing things these days. According to the accompanying announcement explaining Attuned units, X skills cost zero SP to learn, so they wouldn't affect your Arena score either way.

The time zone for the English calendar is U.S. Pacific time, which is the literal worst time zone to pick because daylight savings time moves the daily reset from midnight during daylight savings to 11 PM the day before outside of daylight savings. (If they had picked U.S. Central time or anything east of that, we wouldn't have this problem even with the existence of daylight savings time.) Daylight savings time in the U.S. ends 5 November this year. This means that any event starting on 5 November or later needs to have a day added to the start date for most of the world, and all events need to have a day added to the end date for most of the world. @Diovani Bressan's vertical calendar listing uses the dates for any time zone UTC-6 or higher (U.S. Central time or east of that).

You just explained how they keep making more new game modes and events, though, and that's by sunsetting older game modes or events or at the very least running them less often. The difference here is that it's harder to really justify reducing the rate that any of the existing special unit types are released. Even with the diminishing pool of eligible Legendary Heroes, I don't think it's really in their interest to replace some of them with a new unit type due to the new bonus Legendary Hero mechanic in the Arena making it more worthwhile for competitive players to spend orbs on new Legendary Heroes. Duo Heroes could viably be partially replaced with a new unit type since the only major selling point of them over other units is their Duel scoring effect, but Duo Heroes currently occupy a slot on Special Heroes banners, and at least this time around, if we're getting a new unit type for Peony, it's not going to be one that goes on Special Heroes banners.

I wouldn't be surprised if we simply don't get a new unit type this year, and the new Peony is just Ascended Peony. As it is, we don't really have space for more unit types. Legendary and Mythic Heroes trade off one banner each month. Duo and Harmonized Heroes also trade off a unit slot in one banner each month. Ascended and Rearmed Heroes vie for spots on the other banner each month. We're no longer getting Ascended Florets every month anymore, and we still have a ways to go with filling out Arcane weapons. I think it would be better for them to make an improved version of Ascended Heroes in a similar fashion to how they made Pair-Up Legendary Heroes and extra-team-slot Mythic Heroes instead of introducing something brand new this year.

Embla Sheena is next up: 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 Embla is the second least recent outfit to be released with the previous one being Gordin at the very beginning of the year. That's almost as old as Nidavellir, but it's still not Nidavellir.

And the next Resplendent Hero is surprise, surprise yet another not-Nidavellir outfit. Embla Sheena is next: Her art is very pretty. Her stats, however, are pretty underwhelming. Axe armors are a fairly saturated class, and there simply are better options. There's very little reason to use Sheena over Murdock or Brave Edelgard. With max Dragonflowers, she has 52/37/32/43/40, which is too many points in Spd that could have gone to Atk. While the Resplendent boost makes her no longer the axe armor with the lowest base Atk stat in the game, Picnic Felicia's weapon is way stronger than anything Sheena has access to, so she functionally is still the axe armor with the lowest Atk stat. Defensively, she's not bad, being on par with Legendary Edelgard, but again, she lacks a weapon that can actually compare to refined Aymr. Her only real strength is that she has a higher Res stat than any of the other free-to-play axe armors, but in a meta where you no longer need to run Distant Counter on armors, Res isn't as useful anymore on an axe armor.

Lute is possible. Ewan is too recent. I have this post in the 2023 Resplendents thread that lists all of the units currently known to be eligible based on their release date: Right now, Surtr is the most recently released unit with a Resplendent outfit, but everyone up to (but not including) CYL 3 should be theoretically possible (since that's when Dragonflowers start to allow units to catch up to modern ones in terms of stat totals and Resplendent boosts are no longer needed in addition to do so).

While I would like to get Resplendent Catria to finally complete the Whitewings, she's unlikely to be next because it's unlikely that they'd release two 4-star lance fliers in a row. She also probably wouldn't get a Nidavellir outfit. As everyone probably already knows by now, I don't care who it is as long as it's a Nidavellir outfit. There are only 5 more Resplendent outfits left for this calendar year and there still hasn't been a single Nidavellir outfit. Similarly, Echoes, Thracia, and Radiant Dawn also haven't gotten an outfit yet this year, though Radiant Dawn only has 2 guaranteed eligible units left, so I also wouldn't expect one (though Nidavellir Zelgius would probably be pretty cool). From Echoes, Boey and Genny are still relevant due to their refined weapons, and from Thracia, I would personally like to see Finn get a Resplendent outfit. It's of course also worth noting that Myrrh, Tharja, and Camilla still don't have Resplendent outfits. And as far as other units that I haven't mentioned above that I'd like to see get outfits, there's Laevatein, Laegjarn, Hardin, Zephiel, Marisa, Black Knight, Owain, Hana, Hinoka, Peri, and Xander. More resplendent dancers would also be welcome since we only have Ninian and Azura (and they happen to both be Nifl outfits).

The main point to keep in mind between Ruptured Sky and Vital Astra (when you aren't building for the Dodge effect) isn't so much the fact that you have control over your damage with Vital Astra, but that in order for Ruptured Sky to hit the same amount of damage as Vital Astra against a human opponent, the opponent needs to have an Atk stat that is 1.5× higher than your Spd stat. A reasonably built Lumera will easily hit 60+ Spd, so the only time Ruptured Sky is hitting for more damage against human opponents is if they have 90+ Atk, and while it's not too uncommon for units to hit this much effective Atk, it's rare for them to hit this much actual Atk. Obviously, if you do need Ruptured Sky's damage boost against non-human opponents or if you are building towards Vital Astra's Dodge effect, that effect is obviously more meaningful than the couple points of regular Special damage. Time's Pulse 4 feels a bit weird on Lumera since at best, all it will do is lower her cooldown to 1 for the start of each round of combat. On player phase, the only difference is that she can land her Special against opponents that can't counterattack, and on enemy phase, the only difference is that she will land her Special on her first counterattack instead of her second, which really only matters if both Lumera and her opponent can double. I would personally lean more towards Atk/Spd Oath 4. Between Phys. Null Follow and Dodge 4, I think it mostly depends on how often you expect to run into opponents with weapons with the Brave effect compared to guaranteed follow-ups. Phys. Null Follow does better defensively against opponents with guaranteed follow-ups, whereas Dodge 4 does better defensively against opponents with the Brave effect. While you can run the Null Follow-Up Sacred Seal with Dodge 4 to get both effects, you're losing out on a Spd-boosting Sacred Seal, which I think is too high of a cost. (But if you have a teammate that can provide Null Follow-Up as a status effect, then definitely go with Dodge 4.) Spd/Res Hexblade is fine as a placeholder, though you'd ideally run something that boosts Atk/Spd instead. In general, the only time I would suggest running anything other than Atk/Spd on a fast unit is if the unit's primary role is as a fast tank and has a defensive effect that is based on their Def or Res. I'm always a bit leery of running an AoE Special without any way to charge it up on the first turn. But at the same time, this is coming from someone who runs Aether on a lot of my Legendary Heroes in the Arena, which is even worse in terms of performance, but they still do well enough even without a functional Special, so it probably isn't too big of a deal. Ideally, you'd find space for Infantry Pulse 4 somewhere on the team (on a unit with more HP than Soren, not on Soren himself since he really wants to keep his Ploy), which will fully charge Soren's Special by the start of turn 3, but that's not strictly necessary.

So I gave in and bought another orb pack in addition to the Otherworld Bond pack and did a few more pulls on the Legendary Hero banner. 71 pulls on the Legendary Hero banner: 1 Elincia 1 Hinoka 3 Chrom Total 208 pulls: 4 Elincia (+1 spark) 10 Hinoka 6 Chrom 9.6% focus rate is still about 2 or 3 pulls above average. But as always, the pulls are skewed towards the older units, and I'm 2 pulls below average on Elincia. So in the end, I have a +4 Elincia with an Atk Asset, 10 total copies of Chrom for skill duplication with a Spd Asset on the merge base, and a +10 Hinoka with a Spd Asset and 2 spare copies for... Deadeye or something.

Just one. You can check by using the button to go to the banner announcement from the banner screen, tapping on the blue text at the top about Celestial Stones, and seeing how many pulls it says you need to get one. If there is more than one spark, then there will be red text saying you'll get a spark and Celestial Stone at 40 pulls and 80 pulls (and 120 pulls and 160 pulls if there are that many sparks). On the notifications board (on the screen before opening the announcement), banners with more than one spark will have text in red and bold that uses the same wording.

This week's free Arena ticket gets me Echoes Catria: 40 pulls on the Hall of Forms banner: 3 Leila (+1 spark) 1 Ninian 1 pity breaker Priam Really good luck with Leila pulls. Leila is now +7, and I now have a copy with a Spd Asset that I can use as a merge base. 42 pulls on the Forging Bonds banner: 1 Alfred (+1 spark) 1 Alear 1 pity breaker Ascended Idunn Continuing to be an Ascended Hero magnet. Also got another copy of Duo Ephraim from the 4-star SR pool, which brings him up to +8, but it's yet another one with a Spd Asset. 289 pulls on the wind festival banner: 4 Kagero (+1 spark) 2 Dagr 1 Claude 4 5-star Catria 7 4-star Catria 6 pity breakers Brave Eirika Monica Gregor Brave Byleth Rhea Ascended Celica I think my complaining about Claude being broken as fuck made him not want to come home. I originally intended to pull less on this banner, but I had already gotten 11 copies of Catria and stopped pulling blue altogether before he finally came home. 3.8% focus rate is about 1 and a half pulls above average. 5.9% 5-star rate is about 1 and half pulls below average. None of my Kagero copies has an Atk or Spd Asset. But Dagr and Claude are both [+Atk, -Res], which is nice. 137 pulls on the Legendary Hero banner: 3 Elincia (+1 spark) 9 Hinoka 3 Chrom 10.9% focus rate is about 3 or 4 pulls above average, and they were all Hinoka. I now have a +10 Hinoka with 1 spare copy and have a copy with a Spd Asset as a new merge base. Hinoka reaching +10 is really nice since it means I'll actually have a fire team for Allegiance battles that doesn't suck at scoring. I now also have a Chrom with a Spd Asset. Elincia has an Atk Asset. There's a chance that I might put another orb pack into this banner before it ends since there aren't remix banners this month and hope for another copy of Elincia and Chrom, but we'll see.