Ice Dragon

Well, it looks like I can ignore the sparks on all of the rerun banners and focus only on the Hero Fest banner because I still need more copies of Grima. I can also skimp out on the Special Heroes banner a bit, which is nice given that I need to save gacha budget for too many things that are coming up in the next month. I don't really have any reason to pull for a +10 Ferdinand when it looks like he's just a watered-down version of Harmonized Tana, who I already have at +10, but I might see if I get lucky with Ayra pulls since Genealogy is one of my weaker Resonant Battle single-game scoring line-ups (which is relevant now that we have both TMS and Engage as scoring dead weight). Also, what in the ever-loving fuck is Ayra's Canto effect? That's 4 movement after Canto activated from a 3-move action. Remix thoughts are over in the remix thread so that I don't have to copy them over here.

New remixes are announced: Seliph: Holy War's End II If HP is 25% or higher at start of combat (previously 50%): -5 Atk/Def to opponent in combat (new) Guaranteed follow-up (new) Follow-up prevention (new) With a Stance condition: Brave effect (previously guaranteed follow-up and Desperation effect) New skill is Distant Ferocity Holy War's End has the enemy-phase guaranteed follow-up and Desperation effect replaced with an enemy-phase Brave effect, which does the exact same thing, but better. It now also grants a guaranteed follow-up on both phases and follow-up prevention as well as an obligatory stat boost. Distant Counter is upgraded to Distant Ferocity, which was previously only available from Duo Duma. Unfortunately, Distant A/D Solo hasn't been released yet, and even if it had, it would likely still be considered to recently released of a skill to be giving to him on a remix. Personally I think Distant Storm would be better for him since his guaranteed follow-up on both phases now grants him presence on player phase and he has passive healing on his weapon, but Distant Ferocity makes more sense to give him here simply to increase its distribution. The upgrade to Holy War's End is pretty substantial and includes a lot of the skill effects that Seliph would ideally get from a refine. I'm thinking he'll probably get some combination of Miracle, Canto, Vantage, and/or additional damage and damage reduction based on Def on his refine. Freyja: Binding Necklace+ Removes transformation condition (new) +7 Phantom Spd effect (new) With a Stance condition or if there is 1 or fewer adjacent allies (previously only Solo condition): +3 to all stats in combat (previously +2) -3 to all stats on opponent in combat (previously -2) The offensive half of Tempo (new) Boost to all stats in combat equal to opponent's stat bonus on the corresponding stat Reduction to all stats on opponent equal to opponent's stat bonus on the corresponding stat New skill is Spd Smoke 4 As I expected, they skipped ahead to Freyja, almost certainly because of the release of Arcane Nihility. Binding Necklace is upgraded with unconditional transformation, Phantom Spd, Tempo, and an additional effective +2 to all stats. Additionally, its activation condition is significantly less restrictive, now allowing 1 adjacent ally on player phase and having no condition on enemy phase instead of being just a Solo condition. The unconditional transformation and Phantom Spd are obviously there specifically to match Eitr's Beast Perception. Pulse Smoke is replaced with Spd Smoke 4, which is fine. Alarm would obviously be better, but they wouldn't hand it out so soon after its release, and cavalry don't really have access to much else (it's basically just Alarm, Smoke, and Menace for optimal picks). Additionally, as Freyja isn't getting Alarm and doesn't have Canto as part of her exclusive B skill, she's probably going to get Canto on her refine to make her more usable on player phase. She's also probably getting Null Follow-Up just to make sure her weapon is superior to Arcane Nihility. I can see her also getting a healing effect of some sort to improve her sustain as a unit that is intended to be used on enemy phase. I also wouldn't be surprised if they upgraded her weapon's Dodge effect to the tier-4 version or added flat damage reduction based on her Spd (in the same vein that Arcane Nihility deals additional damage based on Spd).

I'll start on best kouhai's team. Backups are Larchel and Tharja or maybe Ymir.

If there aren't Spd penalties being thrown around, Seal Spd 4 is the largest possible boost to Spd. Otherwise, it's Lull Spd/Def 4. S/D Far Trace grants a decent boost to stats with Canto (Rem.), though Canto (Rem.) is often a bit iffy since it has no effect if you use the unit's maximum movement, which is kind of what you're supposed to be doing with cavalry. Escape Route 4 gives Canto (1), which is arguably a bit better than Canto (Rem.), but it only activates if the unit has taken damage, which is somewhat difficult when running Arcane Darkbow due to its Desperation effect on player phase making it difficult to take damage at all and its complete lack of defensive effects on enemy phase making it difficult to take damage and survive. Windsweep and Watersweep are options for the Sweep effect while still having Arcane Darkbow's Desperation effect as a fallback against the other weapon types. Brash Assault 4 is an option when running Hardy Bearing. While it may seem a bit counterintuitive to nullify Arcane Darkbow's Desperation effect, this option makes Deadeye actually viable and hit extremely hard with Brash Assault 4's additional damage effect while also nullifying an opponent's Vantage. But you'll still die to enemy-phase Brave weapons, and it's arguably better to run this with Arcane Nastrond instead of Arcane Darkbow.

The only reason to run Res on Guinevere over Atk (Spd is better than both) is if you're actually failing to survive counterattacks and need the extra Res to keep her alive, but this only applies against opponents that target Res. Against opponents that target Def, the extra 0.2 effective Def per point of Res is still not worth a Res Asset. It's actually easier to justify running a Res-boosting skill over an Atk-boosting skill than to justify running a Res Asset over an Atk Asset since while skills have a higher up-front cost to inheriting them and result in a larger swing in stats, they have zero cost changing them to suit the situation. Percentage damage reduction wasn't as common earlier in the game, and additional damage was unaffected by the opponent's Def/Res, which meant it was guaranteed damage you dealt even to the bulkiest of tanks, even at weapon triangle disadvantage (noting that additional damage is unaffected by the weapon triangle). If the opponent had no way to counterattack you, you were guaranteed to win eventually because you were always guaranteed to deal at least 1 damage each round of combat. Percentage damage reduction being more common hasn't actually changed this, though, as you still deal at least 1 damage unless the opponent has 100% damage reduction due to the direction of rounding (for percentage damage reduction, the damage reduced is rounded down, so the damage dealt is rounded up; staff damage is calculated the other way with the damage dealt being rounded down). The difference now is that most offensive units have so much Atk that they don't have to worry about dealing zero damage in the first place, and at the same time, there are more bulky units that have post-combat healing or flat damage reduction that mean you can no longer rely on additional damage granting guaranteed damage. In the current stat of the metagame, additional damage is mostly indistinguishable from regular damage.

Oh, my "and" usage was ambiguous there. My bad. What I had meant was: Between [Dream Deliverer and C Feud] and [False Start having been useless in Summoner Duels from the start], what even is the point of Elimine existing anymore? Dream Deliverer nullifies False Start. C Feud nullifies Elimine's percentage damage reduction. While it isn't as common anymore due to Harmonized Lysithea being less common in favor of newer units that don't have C Feud by default, it's still the optimal C skill for ranged cavalry in Aether Raids. False Start is useless in Summoner Duels because it activates at the same time as most other start-of-turn effects, which means it only stops start-of-turn HP regeneration because that is the only effect that happens after False Start is applied. I ended up dropping a rank in both event versions of it last time each one ran because I can't be bothered to actually try anymore. Each match takes too long and is too mentally exhausting when I have better things to be doing with my time.

40 pulls on the Freyr banner just to reach the spark for now since I had enough orbs left over from the summer banner plus the discounted orb packs to do so: 0 Freyr (+1 spark) 2 Nerthuz 0 Ingrid 2 Mediuth On the plus side, I got 2 copies of Nerthuz, who is more valuable than Freyr. On the minus side, I got pity broken by Mediuth twice. I decided to spark for Freyr after all since this gives me an excuse to not pull on this banner later if I need to spend my budget elsewhere.

Now that Freyr is released, I can confirm that Dream Deliverer nullifies False Start. This is stupid. Between Dream Deliverer and C Feud and False Start having been useless in Summoner Duels from the start, what even is the point of Elimine existing anymore?

Hardy Fighter cannot activate on both of two consecutive hits. Hardy Fighter also cannot be used on ranged units, so you're stuck giving up a skill slot for Distant Counter. Hardy Fighter also means you're passing up on a damaging Special, and most of these units can soak up a non-Special hit.

Additional damage based on a percentage of a stat is never worth getting an Asset for if that's the only effect that depends on that stat. Even adding in damage reduction based on a percentage of the stat is still not worth it if those are the only effects depending on the stat. Legendary Guinevere's most important stat is her Spd, then Atk, then Res. Even in PvE game modes, creeping Spd is pretty important, mostly because of those damned bats. In general, the only reasons to run a different Asset are if the unit is intended to be a slow tank (fast tanks still want Spd) or if the unit needs to pass a stat comparison to activate an effect essential to the unit's function. There is actually only one flavor of additional damage (if you aren't counting boosts to Atk). All of those terms refer to the same effect. Damage calculation looks like this: Increase damage by attacker's Atk stat plus all boosts to Atk, including from weapon triangle and effective damage Reduce damage by defender's Def/Res stat plus all boosts to Def/Res; if the result is less than zero, set to zero Increase damage by attacker's additional damage If attacker activated a Special, increase damage by attacker's Special damage If attacker is a staff unit and doesn't have the Wrathful Staff effect active, apply staff damage penalty Reduce damage by defender's percentage damage reduction, including from defensive Specials Reduce damage by defender's flat damage reduction; if the result is less than zero, set to zero If defender activated a Miracle effect, reduce damage to leave defender with 1 HP The damage number displayed in the battle forecast is the result after step 5 with no Special activation included.

Not if there's a Lethality or Deadeye or Special Spiral 4 or unit with 50% percentage damage reduction nullification mixed in.

This week's free Arena ticket gets me Celica: 187 pulls on the second summer banner: 1 Ymir (+1 spark) 2 Fjorm 1 Ivy 2 5-star Tharja 11 4-star Tharja 7 pity breakers Male Shez Brave Chrom Farina Ascended Fir Brave Eirika Sain Neimi 3.2% focus rate is average. 7.0% 5-star rate is about 1 pull above average. I got everything I wanted, and I'm below budget, so I'm content with the results. Fjorm didn't come home until after I had already gotten 12 copies of Tharja, and she had a Spd Flaw because of course she would, so I tried for a second one because I was far enough below budget to do so, and ended up getting one with a Spd Asset, so all is still well. Ivy is [+Res, -Spd], which is fine. The non-spark copy of Ymir has a Def Asset, and I'm considering letting her keep that one over the neutral spark since the extra bulk is nice to have.

The Duo Catria map archetype has had the additions of Legendary Shez, Duo Askr, Duo Mark, Legendary Robin, and Arval, all of whom are stupidly strong. Assuming False Start is now off the table as a viable counter, this setup is now virtually unstoppable in Astra season like it already is in Light season. Brave Edelgard's refine and recent appearance in Hall of Forms makes her one of the strongest Near Save tanks and is extremely hard to break. She's usually the one preventing you from breaking Duo Catria setups with a Galeforcer. Canto Control means you usually have to use a Galeforcer instead of a Canto unit. No, Harmonized Edelgard doesn't work; I've tried. Embla still sees usage on Astra season as a counter to Save teams because why reduce the amount of lift you lose on a defense loss when you can just not lose in the first place. Brave Seliph is virtually unkillable in one round of combat and can be used as a Wings of Mercy beacon. He's also just really good at killing things. Duo Elise and Duo Shamir are new additions to cavalry lines as well as regular maps. I've fought one Summer Ephraim so far, and he was scary. Cornelia is a bitch. So is Legendary Robin.

Being a defense Mythic Hero means I can at least justify not pulling too much on this banner. I might try to go for a minimum of +2 like with any other Legendary/Mythic Hero banner, but if he decides to not show up like they always do, I wouldn't mind stopping early. I might even skip sparking for him and use it on Nerthuz instead, especially if I pull him before the spark. Based on a reading of Dream Deliverer's description in both English and Japanese, it looks like it prevents False Start from being applied to begin with, even if Freyr himself would be hit by it. Which is stupid if that's in fact the case. Aether Raids defense teams are oppressive enough as it is even with False Start available. Do people still like this game mode anymore? Every new defense Mythic they release and half of the new Duo/Harmonized units look like they're specifically designed to make Aether Raids be as little fun as possible because negative fun is apparently still too fun. Anyways, have some translation notes: Freyr's epithet, "Dream-King", is "夢の王" (yume no ō), "King of Dreams". Dream Horn is "夢の王の角" (yume no ō no tsuno), "Horns of the King of Dreams". Lull Atk/Def is "攻撃守備の凪" (kōgeki shubi no nagi), "Atk/Def Lull". "Lull" as a noun meaning "calm", not as a verb. Dream Deliverer is "人に安らかな夢を" (hito ni yasuraka na yume o), "[Granting] Peaceful Dreams to People". "安らかな夢" (yasuraka na yume), "peaceful dreams", is the direct object of an omitted verb that is implied by context. The omitted verb is clearly "to grant", "to give", or "to bring", which all mean the same thing when applied to dreams. However, this particular format of having a direct object with the verb "to grant" omitted is typically used for wishes, so this skill name can also be, perhaps more accurately, translated as "may peaceful dreams be granted to people". For another example of this format, see the full Japanese name of the anime Konosuba, "この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!" (kono subarashii sekai ni shukufuku o!), "[may] blessings [be granted] to this wonderful world!".

Jotunheimr Nephenee is the first Jotunheimr outfit this year: 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 The previous Jotunheimr outfit was Mia back in November of last year. This means we're still missing Nidavellir, where the previous outfit was Jaffar, also in November of last year. Nidavellir remains the theme with the fewest outfits. And we still haven't had a Vanaheimr outfit despite being well past the halfway point of the current book.

Jotunheimr Nephenee is next: A bit sad this means I won't have her with HACCAN's art anymore, but this one is really pretty, too. And we finally get another Jotunheimr outfit. Hopefully next month's is going to be Nidavellir. As far as stats, 38/42 isn't the best given that Summer Norne has 40/42 and Resplendent Lucina has 41/43, but it's still usable. On the other hand, Nephenee now ends up with 41 Def, which is comparable to Dimitri's and makes her more viable for a melee Spd tank than the other non-premium options.

I really don't care who it is anymore as long as we get a Nidavellir, Jotunheimr, or Vanaheimr outfit. It's already August and we haven't gotten a single one of these yet.

If all you want is "eventually", then you really don't really have much to worry about, unlike the person in the Reddit post. They did get either extremely lucky with their Diamants or extremely unlucky with their Lapises, though. You have a 1.41× higher chance to pull Diamant over Lapis at base rate (and the ratio gets higher as your pity rate goes up), so you should on average expect to get about 17 copies of Diamant for every 11 copies of Lapis on their release banner.

With Zephia released, added translation note for her weapon.

I ended up also trying this with only the free units (+0 Male Alear, +2 Lumera, +0 Etie, +2 Zephia). All neutral. No skill inheritance. No Sacred Seals. Quite doable:

Zephia doesn't have the Slaying effect on her weapon, so the only way to reliably land her Special is to take a counterattack or have a form of Special acceleration as a support effect from a teammate. The problem is that her defenses are not great, and she can't reliably take a counterattack without something like Remote Sparrow or Guard 4 equipped to mitigate the damage. I don't think it's ever worth running an AoE Special on a unit that doesn't have the Slaying effect outside of teams specifically dedicated to charging the AoE Special quickly (start-of-turn Pulse effects like Pent, active Pulse effects like Duo Chrom, +1 Special charge rate like Thorr, etc.). Charging up 3 points of Special cooldown is much easier to do quickly than 4 points, and getting it charged back up for a second use is also easier. With the exception of game modes like Summoner Duels, there's also very little reason to run AoE Specials on units that don't have access to Special Spiral. (And even if you do run an AoE Special, you're better off running Life and Death 4 instead of Atk/Spd Catch 4.) Zephia has a few optimized builds I can see her viably run: Sweep: Zephia [+Spd] Packleader Tome [Assist] Ruptured Sky / Glimmer / Moonbow / [Luna] Atk/Spd Catch 4 Windsweep 3 / Watersweep 3 Spd/Res Hold / Atk/Spd Oath 4 / Guidance 4 / Def/Res Smoke 3 [any Sacred Seal that boosts Atk/Spd] / Phantom Spd 3 Damage reduction in the B slot: Zephia [+Spd] Packleader Tome [Assist] Ruptured Sky / Glimmer / Moonbow Atk/Spd Catch 4 Guard 4 / Brash Assault 4 Spd/Res Hold / Atk/Spd Oath 4 / Guidance 4 / Atk/Spd Menace / Def/Res Smoke 3 [any Sacred Seal that boosts Atk/Spd] Damage reduction in the A slot: Zephia [+Spd] Packleader Tome [Assist] Ruptured Sky / Glimmer / Moonbow Remote Sparrow S/R Far Trace 3 / Escape Route 4 Spd/Res Hold / Atk/Spd Oath 4 / Guidance 4 / Atk/Spd Menace / Def/Res Smoke 3 [any Sacred Seal that boosts Atk/Spd] Luna is only an option in the first build if she doesn't have a support effect that charges her Special faster. If she can get a support effect from a teammate to charge her Special faster (+1 Special charge rate, Pulse, etc.), she should always run a 2-cooldown Special. Her Sweep build is the safest build on her, and I think it should be the default build for general use. It's only really countered by the Null C-Disrupt effect, which is still rare, and by a few units that have multiple stacks of Phantom Spd or units that have high Spd and penalty nullification (or the Unity effect). The other builds are stronger, but are more prone to being stopped by an enemy-phase Brave effect, percentage damage reduction nullification, or just a hell of a lot of damage.

This is not exclusive to Arcane Nihility, but I noticed that the new cavalry transformation effect is different from when I made my previous analysis. I don't know if the datamined information was inaccurate (or if there was a typo in the datamine) or if it was accurate, but the effect was changed after the Tempest Trials ended and before Eitr's release, but the 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack is now triggered by the attacking unit moving 2 spaces instead of the 5 in the analysis. This is obviously a huge difference, and I think it's enough to justify getting the new refine for all existing refinable cavalry beast weapons (as long as you have the resources and actively use the unit). The only situation where the old refine is better is if you fail to kill the opponent and the follow-up prevention is not nullified and prevents the opponent's follow-up from killing you in return. For reference, the old effect is: With a Blow condition: -4 Atk/Def on the opponent in combat Follow-up prevention And the new effect is: -3 Atk/Def on the opponent in combat Reduces opponent's Atk/Def in combat by the number of spaces the unit initiating combat moved, maximum 3 If the number of spaces the unit initiating combat moved is 2 or higher: 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack And now to reanalyze Arcane Nihility: Because all cavalry beasts that already have a refine now have access to the exact same transformation effect as Arcane Nihility, I can ignore the entire effect in comparisons for those units. For these comparisons, Arcane Nihility grants: Permanent +2 HP and +3 Spd Slaying effect +5 to all stats Defier effect for all stats Additional damage equal to 15% of Spd (including AoE Specials) If Spd is higher than opponent's Spd: Null Follow-Up If the Defier effect is not active, every cavalry beast weapon that already has a refine surpasses Arcane Nihility in stats (including the additional damage). All of them except for Ranulf's also grant strictly more Spd than a refined Arcane Nihility, with Ranulf's granting the same Spd. All of them also grant either the offensive half of Null Follow-Up or a guaranteed follow-up except for Kaden's, which is a support weapon. The only effects that Arcane Nihility actually have over existing refinable cavalry beast weapons are its Slaying effect (which only New Year Selkie's weapon has, though Lethe has +1 Special charge rate, and Yarne has two stacks of Pulse after combat) and the Defier effect. The Defier effect is effectively +12 to all stats if the opponent has +6 stat bonuses on all stats, but that's really only reliable in certain game modes. If you aren't primarily using the unit in one of those game modes, it's probably not worth swapping to Arcane Nihility. Also, if you're running Galeforce on Lethe or Yarne, you don't want to switch to Arcane Nihility even if you can reliably activate the Defier effect because Arcane Nihility cannot reliably activate Galeforce. Compared to cavalry beasts that don't have a refinable weapon, the transformation effect grants an additional +2 Atk/Def/Res with the maximum Clash effect and 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack if the unit initiating combat moved at least 2 spaces. Assuming you aren't willing to wait for refines, Arcane Nihility is going to be better on both versions of Freyja. Arcane Nihility + Beast Sense 4 is strictly better than their original weapons + Binding Necklace, though regular Freyja needs Distant A/S Solo to keep Distant Counter without losing stats. It's only worth it to give Arcane Nihility to Summer Freyr if you can give him a guaranteed follow-up in a passive skill slot. Nerthuz, New Year Lyre, New Year Panne, and New Year Yarne all have weapons that can reliably activate Galeforce, and as long as you're running Galeforce on them, there's no reason to switch to Arcane Nihility because Arcane Nihility cannot reliably activate Galeforce. Even if you aren't running Galeforce, Nerthuz probably still wants to keep her original weapon because, while she can't quite match Arcane Nihility's Defier effect granting a maximum +12 to all stats, she does get a nearly unconditional +8 to all stats just for running Aether as her Special and has a powerful exclusive skill that she can't equip with Arcane Nihility. New Year Panne also has a decent argument to run her original weapon with a Special other than Galeforce if you cannot reliably activate Arcane Nihility's Defier effect, but Arcane Nihility is better if you can. Her weapon notably has a stronger percentage damage reduction effect than Arcane Nihility's transformation effect and some other perks that Arcane Nihility doesn't have, so it's really only the Defier effect that makes Arcane Nihility worth using on her. New Year Kaden is weird because, with his original weapon, he has a gigantic Spd stat and literally nothing else. I want to say he wants to run Arcane Nihility even if he can't reliably activate the Defier effect simply because of everything else he gains from the weapon, but he's still losing a full Spd tier. If you can reliably activate the Defier effect, though, he still wants Arcane Nihility. The only problem with all of this is that there's currently no way to get Arcane Nihility, Beast Sense 4, and Alarm Atk/Spd with a single copy of Eitr because there is no other source of Beast Sense 3.

That's literally the definition of tsundere. If you're only tsun and not dere, you're not tsundere.

81 pulls on the double Rearmed banner: 2 Eitr (+1 spark) 0 Alcryst (+1 spark) 3 pity breakers Ascended Idunn Brave Byleth Hapi 2.5% focus rate is below average by about half a pull. 6.2% 5-star rate is basically average. I got my sparks and ended up with a cleared pity rate, so I'm good. Both copies of Eitr have a Res Asset because of course they would. This week's free Arena ticket gets me Fallen Mareeta:

It's in the in-game announcements board. Find the announcement that the Hall of Forms started (it's a few pages down, on July 10), tap the announcement, then tap the blue text at the top to expand the list of new skills.