Ice Dragon

And translation notes: The banner name, "Holiday Handoff", is "おねだり大作戦" (onedari daisakusen), "Great Begging Campaign". Given the context, I assume this is referring to asking for presents. Black Knight's epithet, "The Night's Blade", is "聖夜の守人" (seiya no shunin), "Defender of the Holy Night". The word "聖夜" (seiya), literally "holy night", usually translates as "Christmas Eve". However, as this is a fictional world that likely doesn't celebrate Christmas as "Christmas", I'll use the non-brand-name version. Solemn Axe is "荘厳なる祝福の聖斧" (sōgon-naru shukufuku no seifu), "Holy Axe of Solemn Blessings". Special Fighter is "奥義隊形" (ōgi taikei), "Special Skill Formation". The word "奥義" (ōgi), "secret technique", is the terminology for Special skills. The word "隊形" (taikei), "battle formation", is the terminology for the Fighter skill series, hence why the icons depict a set of dots in a formation. Dorothea's epithet, "Yuletide Dancer", is "聖夜に舞う華" (seiya ni mau hana), "Brilliant Flower Dancing in the Holy Night". The word "華" (hana) is a standard alternate spelling of "花" (hana), "flower", and normally means "brilliance" or "splendor". Sevenfold Gifts is "皆への七つの贈り物" (minna e no nanatsu no okurimono), "Seven Presents For Everyone". That's seven presents in total, not seven presents for each person. Annette's epithet, "Festive Helper", is "努力家の冬祭り" (doryokuka no fuyumatsuri), "The Hard Worker's Winter Festival". Peppy Bow is "聖夜の弓" (seiya no yumi), "Bow of the Holy Night". Cordelia's epithet, "Unyielding Snow", is "負けず嫌いの聖夜" (makezugirai no seiya), "Holy Night of Those That Hate to Lose". Inseverable Spear is "母娘の静やかな祝福" (oyako no shizuyaka na shukufuku), "Mother and Daughter's Quiet Blessing". The word "静やか" (shizuyaka), "calm" or "silent", appears to be archaic. Dual Strike is "デュアルアタック" (dyuaru atakku), "Dual Attack". Def/Res Hold is "守備魔防の大牽制" (shubi mabō no daikensei), "Def/Res Great Restraint". The word "牽制" (kensei), "restraint", is the terminology for the Rein skill series. Bruno's epithet, "Masked Reveler", is "仮面が彩る聖夜" (kamen ga irodoru seiya), "Mask-Decorated Holy Night". Peppy Cane is "聖夜のステッキ" (seiya no sutekki), "Cane of the Holy Night". Bruno's art is already up on the character introductions page. Like all of his other versions, he once again features his signature ripped shirt in his damaged art.

Honestly, Aether Raids defense isn't a very high priority unless you really, really need to squeeze out some extra points. Offense is the primary source of points and should be your first priority. If you don't want to spend too much effort on your defense teams, it's actually quite efficient to just make a half-decent team with one or two Mythic Heroes, bless the rest of the team, and use nothing but the loss reduction for points. Watch your replays (both wins and losses) and see what can be improved from them. Are your units unable to reach the opponent? Are your units leaving buff ranges? Is your dancer moving too early? Is it worth rearranging your team to handle a specific counter, or do you just let yourself take those losses and focus your efforts on getting wins elsewhere? Oh, and use Embla as much as possible. She's even worth using on her off season. Embla is a deceptively difficult unit to deal with because even if the opponent gets around her Severance debuffs, they still have to deal with the fact that she's stupidly fast and difficult to take out in one round of combat. Spd Smoke 4 is more defensive, whereas Atk/Spd Oath 4 is more offensive. Use whichever one fits your playstyle better. Both are good options for her.

I'm really loving the icicles on Black Knight now that we can actually see more than just the silhouette of them. His kit also looks pretty cool and helps out against a lot of the units that Far Save normally struggles with. But he probably still dies to Duo Chrom. Completely ambivalent to Dorothea, Annette, and Bruno, though it's nice that we're getting a tome armor from Tempest Trials. Cordelia looks pretty cool. Dual Strike looks pretty fun. It'll probably replace Harmonized Catria's Triangle Attack in certain Rally ball team compositions in Aether Raids, but is less reliable when using units with higher movement range. It looks like I'll probably be pulling for a +10 Cordelia with my backup colors being green and then colorless, in that order. Sparks will go to Cordelia, Black Knight, and Dorothea. Hopefully, I'll get one 4-star copy of Annette before I finish. Priorities may change when stats come out, namely if Annette turns out to be insanely min-maxed.

The pauldrons are pretty distinctive, though. No one else's pauldrons have that exact silhouette, and even the ones that get closest are still nowhere near the correct shape to even be plausible.

Neither of the two interest me much as characters, so we'll see if the other units on the banner are characters I care about. If none of the characters interest me as characters, I'll probably pull solely for Arena performance. In the extremely unlikely event that none of them interest me even in the Arena, I might go back to pull for Seidr instead depending on what the next set of Arena bonus units looks like. Oh, and the character on the left is definitely Lucina. (So is the one on the right, but I have to mention the one on the left because it's so obvious.)

Here's this week's: The translation of the third panel is odd. Assuming I'm understanding the Japanese correctly (I'm not 100% sure about Yuri's lines), both Leon and Yuri only talk about how make-up affects them mentally (Leon says it's fun and lifts his mood, and I think Yuri says that it helps him focus) and make no mention of their appearance.

The free pull from the New Power banner got me another Ascended Laegjarn. Wrong 5-star, but another copy of A/D Far Trace is certainly welcome since she's already +10. The weekly 4-star SR pull was Leila, who is now +5. Nice.

Huh, it looks like Grail units as a whole aren't available. I suppose that makes sense since they aren't going to be on a banner, after all. Sucks that we can't get Duo Sothis to pad stocks on blue even more since Byleth literally only has two options. I've edited my list. EDIT: It looks like the voting format works like this: One character opens up for voting each day, with voting open for all characters through the last day. You get 1 vote per day. It looks like once you make a vote for a character, you can no longer make another vote for the same character (including other alts). The last point is a guess, but is really the only way any of this would make sense based on the first two points. So it looks like even if you miss a day, you can still go back and add a vote for someone other than the character that opens up that day at the cost of not being able to vote for a later character.

Free Godlike Reflexes is all I really care about. If the banner has a spark (which it probably will), I'll probably grab Valentine Lucina for Savvy Fighter to give to Rearmed Robin. I'm hoping Halloween Corrin wins her category since I'd like to have another good blue unit to have as a pity breaker, especially with how much she evaded me during her original banner. Do we know if backpacks count or if Masked Marth counts for Lucina? That would add 2 more options for Lucina (Masked Marth and Harmonized Mia) and 1 more option for Byleth (Duo Sothis). Byleth's options kind of don't exist otherwise. Here's a breakdown of options and colors (likely frontrunners are bolded): Marth: Red: Base, Legendary, Young, Brave Colorless: Duo Celica: Red: Base, Fallen, Brave Green: Legendary Colorless: Ascended Sigurd: Red: Base, Duo, Legendary Leaf: Red: Base Colorless: Legendary, Harmonized Roy: Red: Base, Brave, Legendary Green: Harmonized Colorless: Valentine Lyn: Red: Base Blue: Valentine, Summer, Festival Green: Legendary Colorless: Bride, Brave, Ninja Eirika: Red: Base, Tome, Legendary, Duo Blue: Brave Green: Summer Colorless: Winter Ike: Red: Base, Legendary, Valentine, Fallen, Duo Green: Brave Micaiah: Red: Festival Blue: Base Green: Brave Colorless: Duo, Legendary, Summer Lucina: Red: Base Blue: Spring, Brave, Legendary Green: Valentine Corrin: Blue: Base, Summer, Halloween Green: Dream, Duo Colorless: Fallen, Legendary Byleth: Red: Base Green: Legendary And by color, only counting frontrunners (characters in multiple colors in italics): Red: Sigurd: Duo, Legendary Eirika: Duo Ike: Duo Blue: Lyn: Festival Eirika: Brave Corrin: Halloween Green: Roy: Harmonized Eirika: Summer Lucina: Valentine Corrin: Duo Byleth: Legendary Colorless: Marth: Duo Celica: Ascended Leaf: Harmonized Micaiah: Legendary, Summer

The next Resplendent Hero is once again announced early, and this one will be Askr Brave Lucina: The art is excellent again, and once again even among Resplendent outfits. Easily at the top with units like Eldigan and Ishtar, probably because I think it's the same artist. At long last, we finally get a second Brave Hero with a Resplendent outfit, and once again, it's not Brave Lyn, who is still the one who needs it the most because Mulagir still sucks. Brave Lucina isn't really in need of the Resplendent stats since she's a support unit that has no effects on her weapon that affect herself except for effective damage, which is kind of a bummer. If you switch out her weapon for an inheritable weapon, she actually comes out on top compared to other lance infantry with easy availability. Lucina has 41/43 offenses with her Resplendent boosts and maximum Dragonflowers. Her competition in this category is Summer Norne from the Grail pool with 40/42+ offenses, 4-star Special Hero Summer Ogma with 41+/41, and 4-star Special Hero Ninja Male Corrin with 42+/40. However, if you compare her to recent 5-star units, like the Dimitris and Festival Lyn, among others, Lucina will end up falling behind at similar merges, though an Arcane lance with a Spd boost would help close the gap.

The default optimized setup for fast non-beast physical melee (without Godlike Reflexes) is something like: [Weapon] [Assist] Ruptured Sky / Vital Astra Atk/Spd Ideal 4 / Surge Sparrow / Atk/Spd Finish 4 / (Atk/Spd Clash 4) Velocity 3 / Spd/Def Tempo 3 / Spd/Def Bulwark 3 / Spurn 3 / Frenzy 3 / Null Follow-Up 3 / (Special Spiral 4) Time's Pulse 3 / Atk/Spd Menace / Atk/Spd Oath 4 / (any Tempest) / (Rouse Atk/Spd 4) [Sacred Seal] Options in parentheses are more situational. Obviously, don't pick skills that have effects that won't stack with whatever's on the weapon or that have incompatible activation conditions. As far as optimal use of resources goes, assuming you have everything or are willing to wait for anything, I'd grab Ruptured Sky and Atk/Spd Ideal 4 from Legendary Female Byleth and then any B skill from the list from whoever has it, though probably not Frenzy since he lacks the Slaying effect and needs the opponent to counterattack to activate his Special. Hans's default Rouse Atk/Spd 3 is good enough unless you really need the extra points from a 300-SP skill for scoring (it moves you up a scoring bucket if you're running Reposition with 240-SP skills in the B and Sacred Seal slots, but doesn't move you up if you're running a Rally+) since none of the current units with Rouse Atk/Spd 4 have any other skills worth grabbing at the same time. Aurgelmir has no effect on enemy phase if he's adjacent to an ally, so running Oath means having a non-functional enemy phase. While that isn't really a problem, it does limit what you can do with him in exchange for getting the teleportation effect. If you don't mind that restriction, grabbing Atk/Spd Ideal 4 and Atk/Spd Oath 3 from Louise and then waiting for Male Shez is fine. You can also just use Rouse Atk/Spd 3 and ignore Atk/Spd Oath 3 until you actually get Atk/Spd Oath 4. Instead of Male Shez (or while you wait for Male Shez, depending on if you feel like you can afford to spend the extra resources), you can grab Vital Astra and Spurn 3 from Ascended Mareeta, though that means the Atk/Spd Oath from Louise will end up unused (unless you also use Male Shez later on).

40 pulls on the Seidr banner: 2 Seidr 0 Ophelia (+1 spark) 2 pity breakers Fallen Lyon Rennac 5% focus rate and 10% total 5-star rate are both well above average, though that's nothing out of the ordinary for such a small number of total pulls. One of the copies of Seidr is [+Atk, -Def], which is perfect for a merge base. Lyon is now +8. Rennac is [+Spd, -Atk], which means he'll be a merge base instead of weapon fodder. Overall a good haul. I'm still sad I don't have the budget this month to pull for more copies of Seidr and Ophelia. I might come back to this banner after the next Legendary/Mythic Hero banner if I somehow have space in my budget after the holidays.

Added Hans's weapon and Gullveig's epithet and weapon. Gullveig is a colorless tome cavalry with a self-Gravity Galeforce that has a 2-turn cooldown. Null Follow-Up on her weapon means she can run Windsweep or Watersweep when she becomes summonable, but having 60% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack means she'll probably prefer running something that grants stats. She has Spd Preempt as a boss in the "first" chapter, which seems kind of pointless since she doesn't get damage reduction on enemy phase and nearly died to my Valentine Robin initiating against her, which is kind of underwhelming. Her art is very pretty. I like her hair. It is long and has pretty colors. She looks round and squishy, as expected of Yoshiku. Seidr gives me the same vibes as Fuecoco: "あっ…バカだ。" EDIT: If the internal names in the game files are to be trusted (they sometimes are and sometimes aren't), Hans's name in Japanese is officially "Guns".

I still don't really like the idea of running Special Spiral with Vital Astra with the reasoning of being able to consistently get the damage reduction because you end up having to give up Dodge in the B slot for it, and running Dodge is strictly better defensively and more consistent: Vital Astra with Special Spiral gives you 30% damage reduction all the time against an opponent with 10 less Spd (unless the opponent has a drain at the start of combat). Vital Astra with a Dodge skill gives you 40% damage reduction against an opponent with 10 less Spd if Vital Astra is not charged and 58% damage reduction if Vital Astra is charged. The only advantage of running Special Spiral is the extra 5 damage and the ability to nullify the opponent's percentage damage reduction. This is fine if your goal is to make a wall breaker, but that's just the normal usage of Special Spiral 4 and isn't really anything particularly special about Vital Astra in particular. If your goal was specifically to get the consistent damage reduction, Dodge skills are always going to be more consistent.

The best options are units that charge 2 or more points of their Special cooldown before their first round of combat because it lets you make use of Special Spiral immediately. This does include any support effects you can reliably get, like from Velouria, Rafiel, Pent, Legendary Hector, Duo Chrom, etc., so there is quite a bit of leeway if you use said support units. Whether or not the unit has access to percentage damage reduction negation isn't as important as whether the unit viably uses it. Lethality has a really high cooldown and is really viable on only a few units. Deadeye has a more reasonable cooldown, but has limited viability on units without the Slaying effect. If you're running Lethality or Deadeye purely for scoring, then it's a more efficient use of resources to leave them on Special Spiral 3 and give Special Spiral 4 to a different unit unless you really, really need the SP boost for scoring purposes noting, as usual, that going up a 100-SP bucket is only worth an average of 0.5 points per match. If you're not running a 2-cooldown Special on Nino, I don't think it's really worth running Special Spiral 4. Lull Spd/Res is preferable to Lull Atk/Res in the B slot if you have the resources unless you're worried about counterattacks. Otherwise, any Res Lull is fine. Since you're running a mostly non-functional Special, I think Atk/Res Menace is more useful than Time's Pulse both because it powers up her weapon and because it provides debuff support. For a more selfish build, Atk/Spd Oath 4 is also an option if you have the resources.

Brave Veronica from the Arena ticket. Wrathful Staff fodder is good. Nothing else to report.

I wasn't paying attention during the trailer, but now that the character introductions are up, I just realized that Ophelia's Special art really is something extra. I really wish I didn't have to skip this banner. It's really lame that Rearmed Heroes get sent off to Duo Ephraim's former limbo. I don't see why they shouldn't just be added to the standard summoning pool with how unlikely it is to get any specific unit from it.

A/D Near Save is at least available from Dedue in the standard summoning pool. Savvy Fighter's main competition is Lucina wanting merges to boost her Spd and defensive stats, which is even more of an issue now with how stupidly fast Abyssal bats are.

Savvy Fighter is probably the best skill in that slot since it grants both halves of Null Follow-Up, though it's annoyingly still only obtainable from Valentine Lucina.

There really aren't that many good options for cavalry. I think the best ones are (depending on what you have available to you): Ruptured Sky Atk/Spd Menace (Threaten Atk/Spd is available from Grail shop from Gonzalez) Atk/Res Menace (Threaten Atk/Res is available from Grail shop from Sonia) Def/Res Smoke 3 Less "best" options include: Harsh Command+ Rally Atk/Spd+ (Rally Atk/Spd is available from the Grail shop from Winter Ignatz or the 4-star SR pool from tome Eirika) Life and Death 4 Swift Sparrow 3 Brazen Atk/Spd 4 The Assist skills are options if you're going for score. None of the Atk/Spd skills are optimal and are in this list because they are just there to fill the skill slot while you wait for a copy of Catch. Annoyingly, the Atk/Res versions of the Blow and Brazen lines don't have tier 4 skills at all, and Still Water 4 is pointless when all of the sources of Still Water 3 are also sources of Still Water 4. For infantry, you probably want: Ruptured Sky Special Spiral 4 One of: Atk/Spd Ideal 4 (Atk/Spd Ideal 3 is available from Miriel) Atk/Res Ideal 4 (Atk/Res Ideal 3 is available from Elice) Wait forever for tier-3 Finish skills to be added to the 4-star pool Whichever one you use more or intend to use more, though if usage is about the same, I lean slightly towards Atk/Def Menace since it's barely slightly rarer. Excluding Fallen Female Morgan, Atk/Def Menace is available from 1 non-Remixed Legendary/Mythic Hero (Otr), 1 Remixed Legendary/Mythic Hero (Hrid), and 1 Rearmed Hero (Lif), while Dive-Bomb is available from 1 Special Hero (Pirate Tibarn), 1 Remixed Legendary/Mythic Hero (Naga), and 1 standard-pool unit (Fallen Lilith).

The draw of Hubert is the fact that anyone on the team can benefit from the Exposure application. You can have someone Reposition him to allow him to take advantage of it himself or you have have him Reposition someone else so that they can take advantage of it. It's a bit more work to set up than Duo Thorr, but Hubert is way easier to get your hands on. Null C-Disrupt is infantry only.

Not really. Still Water is pretty niche and most of the units that want it already have it. I think Elimine is the only unit that would really like to have it and doesn't already, though you lose only 1 Res running Fortress Def/Res, so it's not entirely necessary if you already have that instead. Chill Atk/Res 4 is decent, but has strong competition from the other B skills you could otherwise be running. My main issue is the fact that Anima has a generally lower power level than Dark, which leaves fewer targets actually worth hitting. Arval is the most troublesome unit by far, but its high Res makes it hard to actually land the effect on it, especially with how quickly the stat threshold decreases with each space between the units. Add to that the ubiquity of dancers in Aether Raids, and I don't really see the effect being that impactful, even if you have two or three of them, unless you manage to hit a dancer.

Hubert: Retainer's Report Base effect is: If opponent's HP is 75% or higher at start of combat or if opponent has a Penalty: +4 to all stats in combat Guaranteed follow-up Refine effect is: When unit uses a Rally or movement Assist skill or is the target of one: Inflicts -7 Atk/Def/Res, Guard, and Exposure to enemies in cardinal directions of both unit and target after movement (if applicable) If HP is 25% or higher at start of combat +4 to all stats in combat Hubert gets +8 to all stats and a guaranteed follow-up, which allows him to actually run an Atk Asset instead of a Spd Asset and leverage his high base Atk stat. That's really nice. He also gets a really good support effect, inflicting a bunch of good unconditional offensive and defensive debuffs with decent targeting. It looks like Officer Duty is implemented as inflicting Exposure. Not fancy, but quite solid. Nah: Oracle's Breath Base effect is updated: Permanent +3 Atk Dragonstone common effect If HP is 50% or higher at start of combat (new) or if unit has a Bonus (previously only stat Bonuses): +4 to all stats (new) Follow-up prevention Refine effect is: At start of turn, if there is an ally within 2 spaces: +6 Def/Res to unit and allies within 2 spaces +1 Special charge rate to allies within 2 spaces as a status effect With Blow-or-Unity condition: +4 to all stats Boosts all stats in combat by an amount equal to the highest Bonus on each stat on allies within 2 spaces (each stat calculated separately) The effects on herself are a bit underwhelming. Half of her +8 to all stats requires her to stay near her allies, so you can't really take advantage of the fact that Vision of Arcadia has infinite range. Additionally, her Special charge rate boost is only applied if she starts the turn near an ally and completely renders her default Infantry Breath pointless (as if Infantry Breath weren't useless enough already). While the ability to borrow Bonuses from allies is technically always active on player phase, because its search range is 2 spaces, it functionally only has the Unity condition. Still mostly useless on player phase due to the lack of a guaranteed follow-up and the lack of any other skill effects that could make up for it. Underwhelming compared to other dragons on enemy phase since she still needs a guaranteed follow-up on a passive skill slot or Sacred Seal and therefore has to give up something for it and can't run off to kill things without dragging at least one ally along with her. Duo Ephraim: Reginleif Base effect is updated: Effective against armor and cavalry Permanent +3 Atk All passable terrain counts as 1 movement cost (new) If unit's Atk is higher than opponent's Atk at start of combat or if unit has a Bonus: +4 to all stats in combat (new) If unit's Atk is higher than opponent's Atk in combat (unchanged) or if unit has a Bonus (previously if unit has +1 movement): Guaranteed follow-up Refine effect is: If unit has a Bonus: Canto (Rem.+1) Even Tempest 3 If HP is 25% or higher at start of combat: +4 to all stats in combat If unit has a Bonus: Follow-up prevention Ephraim gets +8 to all stats, follow-up prevention, Canto, and Even Tempest. This means he can now run Odd Tempest in the C slot and always have +1 movement, which also means he'll always have all of the effects that require a Bonus because even if he is hit with Gravity or Stall, the +1 movement is still there. Unfortunately, he didn't get a Special charge rate boost on his weapon, so you lose that effect if you want to give him a better A skill than his default Heavy Blade 4. Honestly, this was a lot tamer than I expected, as his only defensive effects are the follow-up prevention and +8 Def/Res. Duo Marth: Tanngrisnir Base effect is updated: Bow common effect Permanent +3 Spd If HP is 50% or higher at start of combat (new) or if unit has a Bonus (previously only stat Bonus or +1 movement): +4 to all stats in combat (previously +3) +1 Special charge rate (previously only on unit's own attacks) Refine effect is: If there is an ally within 3 spaces: +4 to all stats in combat With Stance condition, if opponent has 2 range, and if unit's Spd is higher than opponent's Spd in combat: Vantage effect (Enemy-phase) Desperation effect Marth basically gets Spd Preempt and Holy War's End, which more or less fixes the issue of fast ranged tanks not having enough defensive stats to tank. As long as the opponent doesn't have Guard or Tempo, he's also guaranteed to land Fire Emblem on his follow-up attack, which activates more Bonuses if he didn't have them already. It's unfortunate A/S Far Save doesn't exist yet. It's also unfortunate that Legendary Lilina still has decent usage and has Hardy Bearing on her weapon. It's also unfortunate that Embla exists. Other than those issues, Marth is probably now one of the best Far Save units in the game. His Spd is probably good enough to avoid being hit with Windsweep, though I'm not sure how well he can handle some of the more recent Spd creep, like Legendary Veronica, who easily gains a massive +14 Spd from her weapon. Kronya: Athame Base effect is updated: Permanent +3 Res With Blow condition (new) or if opponent's HP is 99% or lower at start of combat: +5 Atk/Spd in combat If opponent's HP is 99% or lower at start of combat: Vantage effect Dagger common effect Refine effect is: With Blow-or-Solo condition: +5 Atk/Spd in combat With Blow condition and if unit attacked in combat, after combat: Inflicts 5 damage and Exposure to opponent and enemies within 2 spaces of opponent Kronya still has no defensive effect to keep her alive when initiating combat, which is a bummer. She's going to have to rely on teammates to help her out when going up against stronger units that can counterattack. No Special Spiral means that she can't run a second stack of Special Spiral to land Lethality, though at the very least, Special Spiral 4 now exists and makes Glimmer more threatening, especially when combined with the effect of Exposure added on. They did fix the condition on the +5 Atk/Spd on the base effect, though, so that she can actually activate it on player phase, and the total +10 Atk/Spd is quite nice. They also added a Pain+ effect so that she doesn't need to run Savage Blow to actually function. However, it does look like they held back quite a bit so that she's still forced to run less powerful skills. It's not bad, but it could have been much better. Overall thoughts: Marth's refine looks really good as long as you don't go up anything that specifically counters it, but the things that counter him counter him pretty hard. Ephraim's and Hubert's are pretty good. No complaints there. Nah's is pretty underwhelming compared to other recent dragons. She's a huge ball of stats, but needs a babysitter to follow her around if she actually wants skill effects to be active. I'm not sure about Kronya's. She still relies on one-hit kills to function, but got an additional +20 damage compared to before (5 from Atk, 5 from the Pain effect, and 10 from Exposure). I'm just not sure if that's enough to be reliable, even if you add more damage from Close Salvo and Special Spiral 4.

And the usual translation things: The name of the banner, "Book VII Begins: Seiðr and More", is "新英雄＆魔器英雄＆セイズ" (shin-eiyū & maki eiyū & seizu), "New Heroes & Arcane Weapon Hero & Seiðr". The "Book VII Begins" is not part of the banner name in Japanese and is instead in front of the name where the "New Heroes" is in the English video title as "第７部開幕記念" (dai-nana-bu kaimaku kinen), "Book 7 Opening Commemoration". As usual, "魔器英雄" (maki eiyū), "magic weapon hero" is the term used for Rearmed Heroes, which I'm translating as "Arcane Weapon Hero". Ophelia's epithet, "Starlit Maiden", is "選ばれし星の乙女" (erabareshi hoshi no otome), "Maiden of the Chosen Star" or "Chosen Maiden of the Stars". It's ambiguous if "選ばれし" (erabareshi), "chosen", modifies "星" (hoshi), "star(s)", or if it modifies "星の乙女" (hoshi no otome), "maiden of the star(s)". Arcane Eclipse is "魔器ルナイクリプス" (maki runa ikuripusu), "Arcane Weapon: Luna Eclipse". Special Spiral is "奥義の螺旋" (ōgi no rasen), "Special Skill Spiral". "奥義" (ōgi), "secret technique", is the term used for Special skills. Caeldori's epithet, "Perfect Angel", is "完璧を追う翼" (kanpeki o ou tsubasa), "Wings That Chase Perfection". Prodigy Polearm is "天才肌の薄薙刀" (tensaihada no usu-naginata), "Prodigy's Light Naginata". "薄" (usu-), "light", could potentially be pronounced "haku" and could potentially mean Japanese pampas grass or any of several similar grasses, but I'm pretty sure it's neither. Watch me be wrong. Atk/Spd Hold is "攻撃速さの大牽制" (kōgeki hayasa no dai-kensei), "Atk/Spd Great Restraint". As usual, "牽制" (kensei), "restraint", is the name of the Rein skill series. Dwyer's epithet, "Sleepy Butler", is "無気力な杖使い" (mukiryoku na tsue-tsukai), "Lethargic Staff User". "無気力" (mukiryoku) literally translates as "lacking energy" or "lacking willpower" and can mean either "lethargy" or "apathy". Aid is "エイド" (eido), "Aid". Seiðr's epithet, "Goddess of Hope" is "希望の女神" (kibō no megami), "Goddess of Hope". Seiðr is "セイズ" (seizu), "Seiðr". Chill Atk/Spd is "攻撃魔防の封印" (kōgeki mabō no fūin), "Atk/Res Seal". The Chill series uses the word "封印" (fūin), which is the noun "seal". Contrast with the Seal skill series, which uses "封じ" (fūji), "sealing", which is the root of the verb "封じる" (fūjiru), "to seal", used as a gerund. Future-Focused is "共に未来を見つめて" (tomo ni mirai o mitsumete), "(Let's) Gaze At the Future Together". Kiragi's epithet, "Upbeat Archer", is "前向きな弓使い" (maemuki na yumi-tsukai), "Forward-Facing Archer". Unbound Bow is "孤絶の弓" (kozetsu no yumi), "Bow of Isolation". Hans's epithet, "Ambitious Brute", is "怪力栄進を欲す" (kairiki eishin o hossu), "Desiring the Progression of Superhuman Strength". Aurgelmir is "アウルゲルミル" (aurugerumiru), "Aurgelmir". Gullveig's epithet, "Golden Seer", is "黄金の魔女" (ōgon no majo), "Golden Witch". Gullveig is "グルヴェイグ" (guruveigu), "Gullveig". I still can't get behind Fates's localization of character names, particularly the fact that they keep shortening Hoshidans' names as if they think we're too dumb to remember names that are longer than three syllables. Caeldori's name is Matoi, though that's just a result of them fucking up the gimmick by renaming Tiamo into Cordelia in Awakening. Kiragi's name is Kisaragi. Dwyer's name is Deere. Not sure why they felt the need to change that. Hans's name is Ganz or something like that, though at least Hans is definitely a name while Ganz... might be name in some language. Enemies don't really matter that much, though, unless they're named Macbeth and get renamed to Iago for some reason. I assume that's probably because she isn't.

Holy shit everything is iridescent. It looks like this book's new characters are all being drawn by Yoshiku again, which means everyone will be round and squishy-looking. It's the holiday season, which means we're getting one more banner than usual, which means that as much as I want to pull for Ophelia and Seidr, I really need to be saving my money for the winter and New Year banners. I'll probably just pull until the spark (pull for Seidr and spark for Ophelia) and wait to see what's on the upcoming banners before committing any more orbs to it. If the Arena bonus list functions the same as last year, the second half of December will have Seidr, the winter units, and half of the units from this banner, and the first half of January will have the upcoming Legendary/Mythic Hero, the New Year units, and the other half of the units from this banner. This means I can get away with not pulling from this banner and also not pulling the upcoming Legendary/Mythic Hero if I so choose to do so (or drop the winter and/or New Year banners, but I doubt they'll be worth dropping since they're usually quite solid both in terms of unit viability and how much I like the characters). Also, we finally have a green freebie story unit (not including Anna). As for the banner: They at least gave Arcane Eclipse a guaranteed follow-up this time, so it'll actually be usable on most units instead of just the fast ones. Its effect is good enough to give to pretty much any unit that doesn't have a better exclusive weapon, maybe also including tanks, though I'm not 100% convinced that getting a guaranteed follow-up on the weapon slot is worth losing passive healing from Unity Blooms. It would let Henriette switch out Crafty Fighter for something else, but she still wants the Guard effect, and there isn't really anything else worth running that grants it (I guess she could run Special Fighter + Aether or something). Conveniently, Arcane Eclipse + Special Spiral 4 + Time's Pulse is a build that works on literally every offensive infantry red tome. Inconveniently, you can't inherit all of those in one go, though at least Time's Pulse has pretty decent distribution now. I'm a bit disappointed Ophelia comes with Atk/Res Finish instead of Atk/Spd Finish. There are fewer units that can make use of Atk/Res Finish, and it's already in the standard summoning pool. Special Spiral 4 is pretty cool and gives you more options for breaking Brave Dimitri, Brave Edelgard, and Fallen Edelgard. It looks like it'll be pretty busted for Infantry Pulse teams. The +5 damage and ignoring percentage damage reduction also makes the skill actually competitive with other B skills so that it'll actually be worth using even on units that wouldn't normally run Special Spiral 3. Dwyer's Aid+ is actually pretty cool. It's Sparkling Boost in the weapon slot. Seidr's Future-Focused is interesting, but I'm not sure how useful it will actually be, at least as far as Aether Raids is concerned. The most annoying unit to deal with on Astra season is Arval, and Arval's Res is way too high to reliably hit it with it. Activating on odd turns also overlaps with the fence, which is a bit annoying since I think it would be a bit more useful if it activated on turn 2 instead. Otherwise, Seidr is pretty average with a solid kit, but nothing particularly special it. Arcane Eclipse + Ruptured Sky. If you don't mind giving up a Gonzalez and/or Sonia to get the prerequisites, you can also pass down Atk/Spd Menace and/or Atk/Res Menace, respectively. Def/Res Smoke 3 is technically an option, but it's kind of hard to actually get your hands on it. You can alternatively give up Ruptured Sky to get Fatal Smoke, I guess, but I think Ruptured Sky is more valuable.