Ice Dragon

Regarding the leaked units, I'm hoping the Duo Hero won't be a must-have like Duo Chrom was and the the 4-star will viable in the Arena for their bonus weeks because it would be nice to get a month off from needing to go full throttle on banners (the New Year banner always being in addition to the regularly scheduled banners throws a wrench in my budgeting), and the character picks are low-key enough (all but the Duo Hero fall squarely in my ambivalent range) that it might actually be possible for me to not mind passing them up. Looking forward to the next Special Hero refine, though. Gotoh returns very soon at the end of March, whereas Fomortiis returns a ways off in June. It also looks like they shuffled the schedule around quite a bit from April onwards. However next month's banner is looking extremely underwhelming in terms of Legendary/Mythic Hero reruns with Xander being the most recent one (and Eitri and Thorr sharing a banner with each other again). I really want to know how they're planning on making the banner worth pulling on. Blue and green are full with reruns, again with Xander being the most recently released unit. Red has Seliph as the only returning Legendary/Mythic Hero, and the next regular unit in line is Male Shez, who is mostly notable just for being fodder for Atk/Spd Oath 4 and Spd/Def Bulwark. Unless they skip forward to Ascended Tiki or Rearmed Ophelia, I'm not sure they can make red even remotely worth pulling on unless the new unit is extremely good. If they make the new unit colorless, they'll share the banner with Ashera and Elimine and push the more desirable Rearmed Grima back another 2 months. Someone didn't think this schedule through.

Have some stats: Fomortiis has superboons in Atk and Spd. Gotoh has superboons in Atk, Spd, and Def, and superbanes in everything else. 25% is the lowest growth rate they're willing to give any unit in the game, and both of them have it in Spd. They only way they could have min-maxed them even more while remaining within the confines of how low other units have gotten is if they dropped their level-1 Spd stat down to 3 and handed those points to a different stat. Now that their stats are released, I do still wish that they gave Fomortiis D/R Far Save instead of A/D Far Save. Fomortiis's untransformed sprite is not just Lyon, it's actually Lyon's dead and limp body being held up at standing height. When he transforms, his body flops to the ground before being lifted into the air and possessed, allowing him to do the both-arms yorokobe shōnen pose in the air before being replaced by Fomortiis, who pushes himself up into his idle position. I was hoping for a bit more flair on the Fomortiis side, but the Lyon side of the transformation makes up for it. It's a pity you'll almost never get to see the animation since it only plays if he is untransformed at the start of combat, and the map transformation animation is nothing special.

The Creation is still huge compared to humans and still wouldn't really fit on the castle screen without a smaller form to transform into, which I assume he doesn't canonically have at that point. (Also, pretty much everything is "way smaller" than Awakening Grima since he's about the size of a city.) I believe Surtr is still the biggest single unit in the game on the castle screen (including all of his clothing, Pirate Surtr is bigger than a Gullinbursti), and I don't think they intend on making anyone bigger than him since he's about as big as a unit can get before it starts clipping into other units' personal spaces. CYL also treats Grima's human proxy as Grima, so it's unlikely that we'll get a permanently transformed Grima. However, because he is an option in CYL, I think he does have a shot to appear as a Mythic Hero eventually, and if he does, it would be cool to have his art actually include his dragon form in it in the background. Gotoh almost certainly couldn't carry a banner on his own. Fomortiis could probably carry a banner on his own if he were anything but a defense Mythic. They really need to figure out some way to make defense Mythic Heroes actually worth pulling for. There are some things I'd nitpick about how he does shading for skin and loose cloth in his art style, mostly involving contrast and sharpness, but those are the exact things that make his armor and creatures look amazing. He easily has the most impressive art of dragons in Cipher, most notably his art for Mediuth featuring all of Akaneia's non-divine dragons, and if I were Heroes's art director, I'd also have had him be my first pick for Demon King Fomortiis without question. He also draws his faces generally on the long side, which looks a bit odd on some characters. It's not relevant for Fomortiis for obvious reasons, though it's still a nitpick that prevents him from taking the spot of "best" overall from me, at least.

I think the reason why Grima was handled the way he is in Heroes is because Robin still has a body when fought as Grima. Lyon doesn't really have that luxury, as his (dead) body disintegrates when Fomortiis reclaims his original body (and having the permanent transformation skills now existing means they don't have to bring back Lyon's body until the end of the map). EDIT: A permanently transformed Grima with no human body would also be a problem when he shows up in your castle at full size.

And the usual translation notes: Fomortiis's epithet, "Demon King", is "闇に君臨する魔王" (yami ni kunrin suru maō), "The Demon King That Reigns Over Darkness". Ravager is "滅びの魔拳" (horobi no maken), "Demon Fist of Ruination". This is the same name as the Ravager weapon from The Sacred Stones. Nightmare is "漆黒の悪夢" (shikkoku no akumu), "Pitch-Black Nightmare". This is the same name as the Nightmare weapon from The Sacred Stones. Beast Follow-Up is "絶対化身・追撃" (zettai keshin: tsuigeki), "Guaranteed Transformation: Follow-Up Attack". Gotoh's epithet, "White Sage", is "大賢者" (daikenja), "Archsage". "大賢者" (daikenja) more literally translates as "great sage", but it's the same name as the Archsage class in Blazing Sword. Brilliant Starlight is "聖光スターライト" (seikō sutāraito), "The Holy Light, Starlight". Gift of Magic is "人に魔道を授けし者" (hito ni madō o sazukeshi mono), "The One Who Taught Humanity Magic". Guard is "キャンセル" (kyanseru), "Cancel". Also, for those who haven't played The Sacred Stones, Fomortiis's normal attack animation and Special attack animation in Heroes use his Ravager animation from The Sacred Stones, and his non-Special finishing attack animation uses his Nightmare animation (including the glowing eyes as part of his casting animation, but the tail thump afterward is new and a great addition). In the Japanese version of the game, he is equipped with the 1-Range Ravager by default, but this was changed in the localized versions so that he would instead be equipped with the 1-to-2-Range Nightmare, which prevents players from getting free hits against him with ranged weapons before he can change his equipped weapon. As a result, it's not uncommon for non-Japanese players to have never seen the Ravager animation in a playthrough of the game. God, I love how they ported over his animations into Heroes. They already looked amazing on the GBA, and they still look great here. I hope the animation of him transforming from Lyon looks just as good. I'll probably lose it if they translated his original pre-combat animation of him simultaneously rising from the ground and fading in from the back background into a transformation animation. I also just realized that he has different poses in all three of the artworks we can see of him. His damaged artwork is up on the character introductions page and is also different (and looks badass as fuck): I'm so happy.

This week's Arena ticket gets me Phina, who I forgot existed to the extent that I had to look up how to spell both her localized name and her official Japanese name (I use those on my spreadsheet so that I don't have to try to remember the localized name when reading a Japanese name on my phone screen).

They did it. They actually did it. We got Fomortiis as a "Fallen Lyon", and they gave him Fomortiis's art. And Daisuke Izuka is a perfect pick for the artist. I'm happy. My wallet isn't. I haven't pulled from the AHR banner yet, so I might just reallocate that portion of my budget to this banner instead and fit my AHR budget at the start of next month instead. The extra banner for New Year at the start of the year fucks with my budget planning. Colorless is by far the best color to pick on this banner. Red looks like the highest priority when there aren't any colorless orbs since it has Arcane Eljudnir (and merges for Reginn, who has somehow managed to evade me). Holy shit, it's really hard for me to type Fomortiis when his name has always been "Fodeth" for me and my internal monologue still reads his name as such. As far as gameplay, it looks like Fomortiis is basically an improved version of Brave Edelgard. It's a bit of a pity that he's a defense Mythic because I would've really liked to use him on offense. Far Save tanks in Aether Raids offense are underpowered as it is, and getting a stronger one would've helped. That said, every time we get a stronger one, they just release an offensive unit that kills it a few months later, which continues to render Far Save tanks underpowered. I'm also a bit disappointed that he comes with A/D Far Save instead of the superior D/R Far Save. He also looks like he'll die to Duo Chrom due to his lack of Svalinn Shield, but maybe his -16 Atk debuff is enough to make up for it. He also looks like he'll die to Duo Nina's Lethality, but only if you can actually manage to charge it before combat. Gotoh is basically Brave Ike, but only against ranged opponents. If his stats are good enough, it looks like he might be able to function in place of a Far Save unit and just have a unit with Near Save 2 spaces behind him to cover him against melee units. The issue is, of course, that Embla shares his season, but you might be able to get around that with some position finagling. Still looks like a solid unit, though. It would've been cool if they gave him Far Save on his weapon. He'd work really well with Askr in front.

Updated the lists for Muspell Brave Roy. So far this year: Embla Gordin Dokkalfheimr Female Corrin Muspell Brave Roy

I'll react to it properly when it's officially announced, but here are my preliminary reactions (in spoilers, but with no direct spoilers other than weapon type):

The punchline is in the title.

And now the one CYL 1 unit that needed the Resplendent stat boosts the most is the only one that doesn't have them yet. The thing about Brave Roy was that regular Eliwood used to be better than him after Eliwood got Blazing Durandal and his Resplendent outfit. Well, no longer. Resplendent Eliwood has 45-/37/36-/29/38 with max Dragonflowers. Resplendent Brave Roy now has 44-/38/40/32+/30, which is more optimized for general use at the cost of being quite a bit weaker against counterattacks from dragons. The overall stat advantage Roy has over Eliwood now comes out to -1/+1/+4/+3/-8, with the 4 extra Spd being the most notable advantage. Even if your Brave Roy isn't fully merged, if he's merged at least a few times at all, he'll likely come out ahead. Blazing Durandal has also held up to the passage of time decently well, being very much comparable to Arcane Eljudnir. Refined Blazing Durandal grants +3/3/7/10/0, +1 Special charge rate, Guard, and follow-up prevention. Arcane Eljudnir [Spd] grants +5/6/3/6/6, the Slaying effect, Guard, a guaranteed follow-up, and follow-up prevention. The only real wrench in Roy's plans is the fact that Kent exists and has comparable stats, 44/39+/42+/32-/26, which comes out to +0/+1/+3/+0/-4 over Roy with max Dragonflowers and a Spd Asset. Kent ends up with comparable performance when running Arcane Eljudnir [Spd], coming out to a total of +2/+4/-1/-4/+2 over Roy with only their weapons equipped, and requires significantly fewer Dragonflowers at the cost of needing Arcane Eljudnir. Roy also falls short of more recent sword cavalry, like Legendary Nanna, Legendary Eliwood, Legendary Eirika, and Brave Seliph, though he is obviously easier to obtain and, for the average player, can make up for his shortcomings in stats with more merges. Overall, Resplendent Brave Roy is very much a solid unit. Blazing Durandal having a ton of effects is great for Roy and gives him options for his builds. Brave Roy [+Spd] Blazing Durandal [unique] [Assist] Ruptured Sky / Astra / Galeforce Surge Sparrow / Atk/Spd Catch 4 / Atk/Spd Clash 4 S/D Near Trace 3 / Flow Refresh / Flow Force / Seal Spd 4 / Seal Def 4 Atk/Spd Menace / Spd Smoke 4 / Def/Res Smoke 3 / etc. [Any Sacred Seal that boosts Atk/Spd] Galeforce builds have less need to run Trace and more optimally run a Flow skill to make up for Blazing Durandal not having a means of breaking follow-up prevention. Blazing Durandal already comes with Guard, which opens him up to run one of the less used Flow skills for extra benefits. While Arcane Eljudnir has a guaranteed follow-up and therefore is less inclined to run Flow skills, it lacks a means of reliably activating Galeforce and also doesn't have the option of running Astra in game modes with inflated HP. Obviously, don't run Galeforce with Surge Sparrow or run Atk/Spd Clash with Flow Force.

The next Resplendent Hero is Muspell Brave Roy: He looks very pretty.

Have a cute, confused, fluffy Elimine this week:

Some extra information since I've been collecting numbers on this for a while: You will never receive points for a color that is already maxed. If the current rate-up color is not already maxed, you have a 45-50% chance of getting points for that color. The remainder is split evenly across the remaining colors (that are not already maxed). If the current rate-up color is already maxed, you have an equal chance of getting points for any remaining color (that is not already maxed). If all colors are maxed, you will not receive points. The game will warn you when you attempt to start a map. If all colors are maxed and you already received all of the first-run-of-the-day rewards, the event will drop out of the active events list and become grayed out, though you can still go in and do more runs if you want. And numbers for people interested in statistics:

I wonder if Cordelia could commission an artist to draw that and then have Cheine transform.

Lyn is the most solid pick of the three. She comes with a complete kit out of the box, and while it does leave openings for optimization, her base kit is still extremely viable as is. In addition to good combat performance, she also has a powerful Pulse support effect on her weapon. And even if you already have her, she has extremely good skill fodder with Godlike Reflexes and Spd Smoke 4 (though if you're using her as fodder, you should be doing it specifically for Godlike Reflexes and tacking on Spd Smoke 4 since Spd Smoke 4 is available from the standard summoning pool) Lucina is still the gold standard for Near Save and also comes with a complete kit out of the box. The only real optimization for her beyond her base kit is to run A/S Near Save instead of her default A/D Near Save, though she also has the option to run a Hardy Fighter set as a side-grade. As far as skill fodder goes, it's only worth using her for Savvy Fighter since she's currently the only source of it (Kestrel Stance 3 and A/D Near Save are both available from the standard summoning pool). Eirika is a good unit, but has a very notable weakness in the fact that she doesn't have a reliable means of dealing with counterattacks with just her base kit and desperately wants the brand new Remote Sparrow. That said, she is still a good unit, being a ranged flier that has Canto (1) instead of the generally inferior Canto (Rem.) as well as the offensive halves of both Null Follow-Up and Tempo, but she doesn't break away from her competition as much as the units above. She's also pretty lacking in terms of skill fodder, as the only skill she has of significant value is Atk/Spd Oath 4, which is available from the standard summoning pool.

I really ought to actually clean out my barracks like I keep saying I will. It's such a pain being able to only pull 10-15 units before having to turn things into manuals. 106 pulls to get both sparks and then clean up my pity rate... which clearly didn't go so well considering that was 26 extra pulls, reaching a 4.75% pity rate on a double-focus color. 1 Alear (+1 spark) 2 Alfred (+1 spark) 2 Chloe 1 pity breaker Fallen Male Corrin 4.7% focus rate is slightly more than 1 pull below average. That said, even if I had stopped at the spark, I still would have had only a 4.9% focus rate, which is still almost a full pull below average. 5.7% total 5-star rate would have been below average even if blue weren't a shared color and is more than 3 and a half pulls below average in actuality. I'll deal with AHR later.

The opponent having 100% HP is an easy condition to activate since the game largely revolves around killing an opponent in a single round of combat. Having a debuff active on the opponent is moderately easy because Menace skills have decent distribution and have been optimal picks for a lot of Forma units ever since the release of Atk/Spd Menace a year and a half ago. The issue with having an ally within 2 spaces is the fact that offensive units typically move first and typically move away from allied units, making it more difficult and restrictive to actually stay within 2 spaces of allies, even when you have teleportation. He's an okay choice, but not amazing. Among cavalry units, Kent is currently the best option, as he doesn't need as many Dragonflowers to max out and has higher Atk even when compared to a maxed out Seth. A maxed out Seth with an Atk Asset has as much Atk as a maxed out Kent with a Spd Asset. As for builds for both of them, you're looking at Kent [+Spd] Arcane Eljudnir [Spd] [Assist] Ruptured Sky / Moonbow Atk/Spd Catch 4 / Atk/Spd Clash 4 / Surge Sparrow S/D Near Trace 3 / Flow N Trace 3 / Seal Spd 4 / Seal Def 4 / Lull Spd/Def 3 Atk/Spd Menace / Spd Smoke 4 / Def/Res Smoke 3 / Fatal Smoke 3 / Panic Smoke 4 [Anything that boosts Atk/Spd] Kent/Seth [+Atk] Arcane Eljudnir [Atk / Def] [Assist] Ruptured Sky / Moonbow / Bonfire Atk/Def Catch 4 / Atk/Def Clash 4 / Sturdy Surge A/D Near Trace 3 / Flow N Trace 3 / Seal Def 4 / Lull Atk/Def 3 Atk/Def Menace / Atk Smoke 4 / Def/Res Smoke 3 / Fatal Smoke 3 / Panic Smoke 4 [Anything that boosts Atk/Def] Lumera [+Spd] Monarch Blade [Assist] Ruptured Sky / Vital Astra / Moonbow Atk/Spd Finish 4 / Atk/Spd Ideal 4 / Surge Sparrow / Distant Dart / Distant Pressure Velocity 3 / Spd/Def Tempo 3 / Spd/Def Bulwark 3 / Spurn 3 / Lull Spd/Def 3 / Seal Spd 4 / Special Spiral 4 / Close Call 4 Atk/Spd Oath 4 / Time's Pulse 4 / Atk/Spd Menace [Anything that boosts Atk/Spd] / Null Follow-Up 3 Godlike Reflexes is viable as a Special, but only when running Special Spiral 3/4. As far as a Galeforce build is concerned, the only possible strict upgrade is Atk/Spd Catch 4 for its 2 additional points of Atk/Spd. Seal Atk 4 is a possible side-grade for the B slot to make it easier to trigger Heavy Blade at the cost of less damage. You can also run Atk/Spd Menace to get more immediate power in exchange for it being less useful after activating Galeforce. Panic Smoke 4 is an alternative option for game modes where the opponent is more likely to use visible Bonuses. Nope. Unless a skill comes out that allows Niles to leverage his gigantic Res stat to make up for his awful Atk and Def (something like Dragon Wall, but that also boosts damage by a lot), he'll likely never be viable in the more competitive competitive game modes.

No one else has it. All of the new skill series that have 4 tiers release all 4 tiers at once and then release units with only 3 tiers later.

40 pulls from the Forging Bonus rerun banner, pulling all colors for orb efficiency: 1 Laegjarn 0 Fjorm (+1 spark) 1 pity breaker Dieck 41 pulls from the Remix banner, pulling red then colorless: 2 Altina (+1 spark) 2 Marth 1 Florina Not going to bother with analysis due to the small total number of pulls, though the Remix banner was obviously quite a bit above average. I'm dragging my feet on the Engage banner and will get to it eventually, but that will not be today. This week's Arena ticket gets me Mareeta. I've switched over to prioritizing red so that I can go for Ruptured Sky now that both of my regular Byleths are +10.

If your luck is perfectly average, it should take about 36 pulls (plus about 5-7 off-color pulls) to snipe a specific character on a Legendary/Mythic Hero banner. In comparison, you have a guaranteed spark in 16 pulls plus anything you pull from those 16 pulls. If Alear and Veronica are of similar value to you, then it's definitely more worth it to go for the spark on Alear. If Veronica is more valuable, then it's up to to weigh their value against how many orbs you think it will take to pull Veronica and how large of a buffer you want (noting that it's always safer to expect your luck to be worse than average).

Added Etie's and Lumera's weapons to the translation notes now that they're both released.

Remote Sparrow would be the best option in the A slot if it weren't for the fact that it isn't in the Hall of Forms skill pool yet. Atk/Spd Catch is the best option that is currently available. Swift Sparrow is next in case you can't get your hands on Atk/Spd Catch. I don't recommend Atk/Spd Push because it simply makes her far too frail when not running any other defensive skills. Atk/Spd Solo and Atk/Spd Bond are both options, though they have restrictions based on her Orders effect (Solo means she pretty much has to move first and can't teleport, Bond means she usually can't move first unless she is starts the turn in the back). I don't think Atk/Spd Unity is worth it, as the loss of stats isn't really worth the more lenient condition, and penalty reversal is unreliable. Spd Spd and Seal Res are good options in the B slot, though I don't think Seal Spd 4 is in the skill pool yet. Otherwise, there's S/R Far Trace, which would be used more for the stat boost than the Canto effect. Spd Preempt also exists and has some synergy with the fact that she has a Treachery-like effect on her weapon. Offensive fliers typically want to run either Oath or Rein skills in the C slot. However, Veronica already gives herself all of the bonuses from Atk/Spd Oath, so the only part she'd gain is the in-combat stat boost. However, that boost is less than the boost from Rein, so her best-in-slot C skill is Spd/Res Hold with no real competition. Veronica doesn't really get much mileage from Menace or Smoke. With Menace, she gets the most mileage from Spd/Res Menace due to the debuffs, even though the Spd bonus overlaps with her weapon. With both Spd Smoke and Def/Res Smoke, the skills' bonus application overlaps with her weapon's, so she'd only get the debuffs and status effect. Spd Smoke is actually an okay choice when running Spd Preempt, as the debuff helps with skill activation and Dodge can be helpful if she can't take out the opponent in one hit. Def/Res Smoke would only really be useful for the debuffs, as Pathfinder loses a lot of its value when her weapon already grants the Orders status effect to allies, though Pathfinder can still be useful situationally when using cavalry.

Added Etie's and Lumera's epithets from the character introduction pages. Will update with weapons once they are officially announced.

We've had plenty enough good male units in the 6 years that his game has existed so far for them to collect data. There being less data on male characters than female characters doesn't mean that there isn't enough data. There are currently 12 male-led paired Heroes, 2 male Ascended or Rearmed Heroes, and 18 male Legendary or offense Mythic Heroes, all of whom are in unit categories that are intended to be the flagship on a banner, and that's before we start counting the good "regular" units since they almost certainly have data on finer details like the number of summons of each color that were made on each banner. That depends on the bow, and a lot of the bows in Fire Emblem are not of the the types that require that much strength. If we want to over-analyze the setting, the fact that most characters don't wear armor that can properly defend against arrows probably means that heavier bows were never a necessity, and defending against arrows likely never rose to a high enough level of priority due to the existence of magic.