Ice Dragon

Do we normally get our Voting Gauntlet announcements this far in advance? Not sure which team I'll start on. I haven't actually pulled on the Fallen Heroes banner yet since I'm waiting for the Legendary Hero banner to be announced first (not entirely sure why, though, since I know I'm only going to be pulling for the sparks and stopping; maybe I hadn't already decided when the banner was first released). Of the other units, I'd probably only pick Corrin or Minerva. I don't have Shez leveled yet, and Robin was a jerk on his release banner. We have new B skills now that she'd really wish to have over Shield Pulse, namely Guard 4 or Dragon's Wrath 4, so it's possible that Shield Pulse's effects will be moved to her weapon or Special. However, if they did that, they'd likely give her a replacement for Shield Pulse as her remix skill, and I'm not entirely sure they'd be willing to give her Guard 4 or Dragon's Wrath 4 quite yet considering both have very sparse distribution, but I could be wrong. Other than that, her current optimal build replaces her default Distant Counter with Atk/Spd Finish 4 and moves Distant Counter to the Sacred Seal slot with the Distant Counter (D) Sacred Seal. I somewhat doubt that they'd give her Atk/Spd Finish 4 as her remix skill given that it's a stronger skill than the aforementioned B skills, even if it has better distribution. We recently got the Scowl skill series, but Corrin can't really use it with her low Res stat, and it isn't too important of a skill effect since Specials can't nullify Negating Fang's damage reduction. Skill effects that Corrin would really want to have, but doesn't really have the skill slots for, are Null Follow-Up (both halves) and Tempo (at least the offensive half). She would also like Negating Fang to have 1 less base cooldown (and wouldn't need Tempo with this if she keeps the +1 Special charge rate on her weapon), but I doubt that'd happen.

We get another Hel outfit, but I can kind of forgive them since it thematically works for Sigurd: 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 But that doesn't mean I'm not going to continue to complain about the lack of Nidavellir outfits.

The flame effect in the glowy parts of Sigurd's armor is really pretty. I wish more Hel outfits did something like this instead of just having it look glowy. I also like that Sigurd mentions Eldigan's Resplendent outfit in his voice lines. The Resplendent stat boost brings Sigurd's stat spread up to a quite respectable 47/41/38/40/23 with maximum Dragonflowers. While his default Divine Tyrfing is pretty old, it still holds up well due to granting a sizable +10 Atk/Def, a guaranteed follow-up, and 50% damage reduction against the opponent's first attack if they are a tome unit. For comparison, Arcane Eljudnir grants +6 Atk/Def/Res, the Slaying effect, a guaranteed follow-up, follow-up prevention, and Guard plus your choice of refine stats and is the only other weapon really worth considering outside of niche use cases. Losing the Slaying effect from Arcane Eljudnir isn't too big of a hindrance as it mostly just means he's running Ruptured Sky or Moonbow instead of Luna or Bonfire. Unlike Legendary Sigurd, Resplendent Sigurd actually has a high-middling Spd stat, which means he can be built to out-speed other units with middling Spd if you so choose, though it's likely still best to run an Atk Asset even for this build. Optimized builds will probably look something like this: Sigurd [+Atk] Divine Tyrfing [unique] [Assist] Ruptured Sky Atk/Def Clash 4 / Atk/Def Catch 4 / Sturdy Surge / Distant Storm / Distant Ferocity / Distant A/D Solo (once released) Guard 4 / A/D Near Trace 3 Alarm Atk/Def (once released) / Atk/Def Menace / [tier-4 Smoke] [any Sacred Seal that boosts Atk/Def] For Spd-based builds, replace Atk/Def-boosting skills with Atk/Spd and Atk/Def-reducing skills with Spd/Def. For Arcane Eljudnir, replace Ruptured Sky with Luna or Bonfire and don't run Guard 4. Mystic Boost 4 can be used with Distant Counter builds as a counter to staves and to counteract the recoil damage from Distant Storm. However, Distant Counter builds are vulnerable to Special Spiral 4 builds as well as tome units with the Brave effect that bypass Sigurd's damage reduction and exploit Sigurd's otherwise low Res.

The next Resplendent Hero is Hel Sigurd:

This week's Arena ticket gets me Elincia: And now all of the old sparkable banners. Free pulls only on CYL 1 and got nothing of note. Free pulls only on CYL 2 and got Brave Celica. Free pulls only on CYL 4 and got Duo Ephraim from the SR pool. Free pull on the Edelgard Remix banner and got nothing. 40 pulls on CYL 3 for the spark pulling blue and colorless: 1 Eliwood (+1 spark) 3 Camilla 1 pity breaker: Ronan The Eliwood is my first copy with a Spd Asset. Eliwood is now +7. Camilla is now +10 with 1 extra copy that is Wrathful Staff fodder. 40 pulls on CYL 5 for the spark pulling colorless: 2 Marianne (+1 spark) Also got my first copy of Marianne with a Spd Asset. Marianne is now +9. Also got another Duo Ephraim. 42 pulls on CYL 6 for the spark pulling every color except green: 1 Chrom 0 Byleth (+1 spark) Chrom is now +10 (or would be if I merged all of my copies). Byleth is now +4 (or would be). 41 pulls on the Lif Remix for the spark pulling red: 3 Shez 1 Peony (+1 spark) 1 Robin Basically got everyone but Lif. But I sparked for Peony since merges for her actually affect my Aether Raids score every once in a while. Peony is now +7. Also got my first copy of Shannan with a Spd Asset, but I'll wait until we see his upcoming refine before I decide if I want to switch his Asset from Atk to Spd. 52 pulls on the Hall of Forms banner because it took that many pulls to get a copy of Delthea: 1 Delthea (+1 spark) 1 pity breaker: Echoes Est Delthea is now +7. And I got yet another Duo Ephraim. Ephraim is now +7, but I still don't have a merge base better than neutral. I'll pull on the Fallen and Bride banners after the next Legendary Hero is announced.

Cynthia's main gimmick is her Wings of Mercy-style teleportation, and she gets extra stats with a Clash effect and a Unity effect. Cynthia [+Spd (+Atk)] Lance of Heroics [unique] [Assist] Ruptured Sky Atk/Spd Catch 4 / Surge Sparrow / Atk/Spd Unity Flow Guard 3 / Flow N Trace 3 / S/D Near Trace 3 / [Guard 4] / [Dive-Bomb 3] / [Escape Route 4] S/D Rein Snap / Spd/Def Hold / Atk/Spd Menace [any Sacred Seal that boosts Atk/Spd] Despite Cynthia having teleportation, Atk/Spd Clash doesn't actually work well with her because it nullifies the bonus to Atk/Spd from her weapon's Unity effect, so it's better to run Atk/Spd Catch instead when going for pure stats. Surge Sparrow sacrifices a few points of stats for passive healing. Atk/Spd Unity grants the highest stat boost in game modes where debuffs are common, but is worse everywhere else. Of the B skills, pick whichever one suits your play style and the role you need her to play most. The two tier-4 skills in the Rein tree are the best choices for the C slot if you have another unit on the team providing buffing and debuffing support or in game modes where Grand Strategy is common. Menace is always a good general-use option otherwise.

The other thread reminded me that this hasn't been updated in a while. The Marth and Alear one is adorable.

Like this:

Bleh. Another Hall of Forms with no Grail unit.

"Armored ally" and "infantry ally with Range = 1" are separate. Both the trigger and the effect are for all armored units and for melee infantry units.

Cleared with Harmonized Linde, Legendary Lucina, Legendary Male Robin, and Duo Elise. Robin was particularly funny with the sheer number of Def/Res boosts I gave him.

The Japanese skill description is pretty clear that it works as long as unit with the skill equipped doesn't have Dance/Sing: この効果はスキル所持者が 「歌う」「踊る」スキルを装備していない時のみ発動 kono kōka wa sukiru shojisha ga "utau" "odoru" sukiru o sōbi shite inai toki nomi hatsudō This effect activates only when the owner of this skill does not have Sing or Dance equipped And again, based on the fact that it only applies to the unit with the skill equipped and armored and melee infantry allies, it's highly likely that the skill can only be equipped on melee fliers. Distant Counter in the Sacred Seal slot is at least more efficient than Distant Counter in the A slot. Sure, it's not as efficient as Distant Counter on the weapon, but everyone knows that they'd drop one of the weapon's fancy effects if they gave it Distant Counter, and, if so, that would actually make it still less efficient than Distant Counter in the Sacred Seal slot.

I would assume that they de-equip Sing/Dance from at least one unit during those runs, as running the entire team with Sing/Dance equipped functionally makes the entire team have no Assist skill equipped. Rein Snap grants its full effect even on a dancer as long as it doesn't have the Sing/Dance skill equipped.

One of the conveniences of the Japanese skill descriptions is that most named skill effects have extremely literal, descriptive names so you don't have to see it being shown off in the video or see the effect description to know exactly what it does (which is probably why they didn't show it off in the video). In this case, Canto (Ally 2) is the not-so-simply called "再移動（周囲２マスの味方隣）" (sai-idō (shūi 2-masu no mikata tonari)), "Move Again (adjacent to an ally within 2 spaces)".

And that's still token diversity if it's based off of real-life cultures.

And the usual translation notes: The name of the banner, "Bridal Dreams", is "二人の花嫁の願い" (futari no hanayome no negai), "The Two Brides' Wishes". Anna's epithet, "Secret Charmer", is "秘密多き花嫁" (himitsu-ōki hanayome), "Bride With Many Secrets". Heartbroker Bow is "射止める花嫁の花弓" (itomeru hanayome no kakyū), "Flower Bow of the Heart-Winning Bride". "射止める" (itomeru) here means "to win someone or something" or "to make someone or something one's own". There is no direct object here because Japanese allows you to drop anything that is known through context, and the context says that the object should be someone's heart. But this is Anna, so it could very well just be someone's money. Or it could be the more literal translation and mean "to shoot someone or something dead" (literally "to shoot and end [someone or something's life]"). Say'ri's epithet, "Righteous Bride", is "高潔なる花嫁" (kōketsu-naru hanayome), "Virtuous Bride". Chon'sin Sprig is "ソンシンの花嫁の槍" (sonshin no hanayome no yari), "Lance of the Chon'sin Bride". S/D Rein Snap is "速守牽制・運び手" (sokushu kensei: hakobi-te), "Spd/Def Restraint: Carrier". "牽制" (kensei), "restraint", is the name of the Rein skill series. Like with the recent Distant A/S Solo, this skill uses single-character abbreviations for stat names, shortening "速さ" (hayasa), "Spd", to "速" (soku) and "守備" (shubi), "Def", to "守" (shu). Flavia's epithet, "Bold Bride", is "猛烈女傑の花嫁" (mōretsu joketsu no hanayome), "Fierce Brave Bride". "女傑" (joketsu) translates a bit more accurately as "brave woman", but "woman" is somewhat redundant with the immediately following "bride". Bridal Blade is "花嫁の剣" (hanayome no ken), "Bride's Sword". Still allergic to the word "sword". Tiki's epithet, "Bridal Reflections", is "追憶の花嫁" (tsuioku no hanayome), "Reminiscing Brides". Twin Divinestone is "神竜王女二人の竜石" (shinryū ōjo futari no ryūseki), "Dragonstone of the Two Divine Dragon Princesses". Armored Floe is "重装の聖氷" (jūsō no seihyō), "Sacred Ice of Armor". Compare with Armored Beacon, which is "重装の聖炎" (jūsō no seien), "Sacred Flame of Armor". Robin's epithet, "Keen Groom", is "機略縦横の花婿" (kiryaku jūō no hanamuko), "Resourceful Bridegroom". "機略縦横" (kiryaku jūō), more accurately translates as "being able to quickly adapt to your circumstances" and literally translates as "[knowing your] resources front and back" (or, even more literally, "vertically and horizontally"). EDIT: Translation notes for Heartbroker Bow.

Wonderful. Time to see how much this game hates me when pulling for Tiki. I'll probably wait until after the next Legendary banner is announced to pull, though, so I know how much I can spare here, but with the new Arena scoring mechanics, there's been very little reason for me to pull more than a few copies of any new Legendary Hero. A bit disappointing that Tiki comes with A/R Far Save, though, since D/R Far Save is still generally better. Armored Floe is nice to have. I'm glad I didn't start handing out Armored Beacon yet. But this also means I'll need to use one of my copies of Tiki to give Robin Armored Floe for duplication. Rein Snap looks pretty cool. Based on how it works, I'm going to guess that it's probably restricted to melee fliers. It's also nice to see one of the novel Canto variants returning.

I thought you were the one who wanted actual diversity and not token diversity.

That's absolutely Lucina and Lucina Flavia and Anna. The one on the left can't be Sully. The silhouette has side locks, which is something Sully doesn't have. The one on the right can't be Larchel. The silhouette has bangs that point outward at the side, whereas Larchel's bangs are wavy and point downward at the sides.

Last week's Arena ticket got me another Sigurd. This week's gets me another Ike. Nothing else of note from free pulls, and I won't be doing anything other than free pulls until after this weekend when I get back from my anime convention and figure out how much of my budget I have left over.

There are only one and a half female Sacaean characters, and both of them are more likely to be paired with a non-Sacaean. Notably, if Sue gets a bride alt, it'll likely be a stylized normal wedding dress to match with the existing theme of Roy's potential pairings. The only way to get actual diversity is to have actual diversity in the characters, and there largely isn't any outside of Hoshido due to the setting. Combine that with the fact that most non-Hoshidan, "non-European" female characters are more likely to be paired with a "European" character and that this festival itself is Askran in universe, and there is very little reason to deviate from the standard outfit outside of stylization. Which is why this is "medieval European fantasy" and not "medieval Europe". The goal is not authenticity; it's aesthetic. And all of the seasonal themes with a modern aesthetic are similarly Western or Japanese (with all of the Japanese ones specifically originating from Hoshido in universe). EDIT: In unrelated news, Hall of Forms has absolutely refused to give me Escape Route so far, and there are only 2 days left of the event. Meanwhile, I've gotten Wings of Mercy offered 3 or 4 times already. Really frustrating.

Other than for token diversity, which is generally considered to be in bad taste, why would they ever bother to do this? There are quite a few reasons why a Western wedding dress is used for this theme: Western wedding dresses are already considered to be foreign and novel in Japan. However, they are still well enough known to also be immediately recognizable for what they are, and this is true almost globally. There's very little reason to look into finding something more novel, and doing so is even likely to be detrimental to marketability due to being less recognizable. Additionally, with very few exceptions, Fire Emblem is set in a medieval European fantasy setting, and no one is going to be offended by its characters wearing Western wedding dresses. It's worth noting that the only non-Western wedding attire used so far was Japanese wedding attire used specifically on Hoshidan characters.

What the hell is up with this month's Legendary Hero banner? Both Robin and Seidr are on a full color, and the most recent unit on a color with an opening for a new unit is Myrrh, who was released exactly a year ago.

Definitely try to get Def/Res Smoke on Delthea. Otherwise, those are literally the exact builds I'm running, so go for it. It might still be worth getting Ruptured Sky on Sonya instead of Blue Flame just for flexibility, though, as you'd pretty much never use Blue Flame over Iceberg unless you're in a mode with Arena scoring. As for whether or not to grab Sonya, that's mostly a question of whether you think you'll be using her you get her. Her weapon is pretty comparable to Arcane Eclipse, granting an additional +5 effective Atk (but only for one hit) and not needing to run Quickened Pulse (or team support) to set up the first round of combat in exchange for not getting the Slaying effect, so her performance should be pretty similar to Arcane Eclipse builds on units with her Atk stat (if you have her Resplendent outfit, she hits 40 neutral Atk with maximum-minus-3 Dragonflowers (you need an Atk Asset and no Res Asset, though, otherwise, it's maximum-minus-2)).

And getting counterattacked exactly once fulfills 4 attacks. You'd need to one-shot both opponents in order to fail to activate Galeforce.