Ice Dragon

Looks like it should be the next Book's freebie character since the next Book should be starting next week. The only oddity is that the New Heroes banner for the character starts a day after the start of the Arena season, though I doubt that's actually a problem.

It looks like Laegjarn and Igrene both went down, so I guess I'm going to join team Camilla to Vantage everything to death.

Moonbow is better against opponents whose bulk is based on Def, whereas Glimmer is better against opponents whose bulk is based on HP. Since percentage damage reduction is functionally an increase in effective HP, ignoring damage reduction actually favors Moonbow. However, if you're planning on using her in game modes with inflated HP, like Abyssal maps or Resonant Battles, it might be a good ideal to have both.

Got impatient and decided to do the rest of my pulls for Veronica and Embla early. 169 pulls: 6 Veronica 6 Embla 3 Nanna 1 Celica 9.5% focus rate is above average by about 2 pulls. 8.9% red focus rate is also above average. I somehow pulled 4 copies of Veronica in a span of 10 pulls, which got me up from 2 copies to the final 6, but I was still short one copy of Embla, so I had to keep pulling to get the last copy. Total 374 pulls: 12 Veronica (+1 spark) 12 Embla 9 Nanna 1 Bramimond 3 Celica 9.9% focus rate is above average by about 5 pulls. 8.8% red focus rate is still above average by about 1 pull. No Micaiahs in my 4 pity breakers is a bit disappointing. I'm well under budget for this month (my budget months start on the 15th of each month), which is really nice since I'll have some buffer for the holidays next month. EDIT: After Laegjarn's and Igrene's losses in the Voting Gauntlet, I decided to use my leftover orbs to see if I can get another Ninja Camilla and maybe at least fix her Flaw (my one copy was [+HP, -Res]). 24 pulls: 2 Camilla No pity breakers. 8.3% focus rate is obviously above average, but by only 1 pull. The first Camilla was neutral, which was nice, but the second Camilla was [+Atk, -Res], which is way more than I could have hoped for. Yay.

Translation notes: Retainer's Report is "参謀役の書" (sanbō-yaku no sho), "Advisor's Tome". "参謀役" (sanbō-yaku) more literally means "(person in the) role of advisor". The list of new refines looks so empty after a month with 2 remixes, even though it's just the same "3 units from the standard pool, 1 Grail unit, and 1 Special Hero" as usual. Hubert: Retainer's Report Currently has Raudhrfox. Raudhrfox's effect is just a generic stat effect, so it's functionally indistinguishable from the obligatory stat boosts on new refinery weapons. Hubert himself doesn't really stand out. He has one of the highest Atk stats among infantry red tomes while also having an okay Spd stat, but it's not a particularly good look when your stats are extremely similar to Pelleas's from the Grail pool. Thankfully, he is somehow a 5-star unit and will probably get something good, though none of his current weapon, his stat spread, or his base skills really give any hints as to what it will be. Ideally, though, he should get a guaranteed follow-up so that he can focus more on his high Atk stat, using his okay Spd stat to break follow-up prevention on slower units. Hubert's personal skill in Three Houses, Officer Duty, increases his damage when using gambits. As gambits don't exist in Heroes, this could potentially be incorporated as a damage bonus on Special activation and a focus on charging up his Special skill. However, given that they've recently been reluctant to give units weapons that enable AoE Specials outside of extremely premium units, it's somewhat unlikely that they'll give Hubert anything that specifically synergizes with his default Growing Thunder. Nah: Oracle's Breath Base effect is: Permanent +3 Atk If unit has a stat Bonus: Follow-up prevention Dragonstone common effect Nah is clearly designed to be a giant ball of stats with as many stacks of Bonus Doubler as she can get, and I wouldn't be surprised if her weapon got another stack of Bonus Doubler. This would also make up for the fact that she loses a stack of Bonus Doubler if she wants to run Distant Counter. She has Quick Riposte in the B slot, so it's unlikely that she'll gain a guaranteed follow-up on her weapon, meaning it's likely that she'll get some form of percentage damage reduction on her weapon to make up for the fact that she can't simultaneously run Dragon Wall or Dragon's Wrath in that slot, even though Quick Riposte 4 now grants percentage damage reduction. It's worth noting that Nah has higher Def than Res, so it's possible that if she has a Dragon Wall-like effect, it might be based on Def instead of Res, like Blue Lion Rule. Null Panic is also likely. If they want to be even fancier, they could also give her the Unity effect in order to also counter regular Penalties. I also wouldn't be surprised if they updated the condition on her weapon's base effect to always be active on enemy phase and to also include non-stat Bonuses. Given that they really want players to stop using Savior and use Bulwark instead, she could totally get Bulwark, too. Duo Ephraim: Reginleif Base effect is: Effective damage against armor and cavalry Permanent +3 Atk If Atk is greater than opponent's Atk or if unit has +1 movement: Guaranteed follow-up All he really wants is more Atk and more damage mitigation. His default Heavy Blade 4 is quite outdated, so it's possible that it will be incorporated into his weapon so that he can run a better A skill. Modern weapons for paired units often have a reference to the unit in back, and it would be cool if they added the Litrraven effect. Duo Marth: Tanngrisnir Base effect is: Bow common effect Permanent +3 Spd If unit has a stat Bonus or if unit has +1 movement: +3 to all stats in combat +1 Special charge rate to unit's attacks Marth is still the fastest ranged armor in the game and his base Spd stat is in a many-way tie for the second highest of all ranged units in the game. However, his poor movement range makes him a generally less viable option compared to the huge number of ranged units with similar Spd stats and better movement types. Fast ranged tanks haven't had a place in the meta for a while due to their inability to use Sacred Cowl and Aegis to counter Deadeye and Lethality, so it's likely he'll remain an offensive unit in accordance to his base kit. Being an armor means that Marth doesn't have access to Atk/Spd Oath 4, which would otherwise have fixed his poor mobility as well as granted him a better self-buff than his default Joint Hone Spd. Being ranged means that he doesn't have access to Assault Troop. In order to make him actually viable as an offensive unit, he needs to get one of these effects or, at the very least, +1 movement. Daring Fighter means that he doesn't really need damage mitigation, though it wouldn't hurt to have percentage damage reduction on the opponent's first attack or Dodge outright. Like Nah, it's likely that the condition on the weapon's base effect will be updated to include all Bonuses and possibly also be permanently active on player phase. Kronya: Athame Base effect is: Permanent +3 Res If opponent's HP is 99% or lower at start of combat: +5 Atk/Spd in combat Vantage effect Dagger common effect Athame is designed very specifically to go for Vantage kills after first softening up the opponent. At the minimum, it ideally wants Sweep (or some other defensive effect to make sure Kronya survives initiating combat), Fatal Smoke, and Pain+, though Fatal Smoke can at least be offloaded into her C slot. It would be nice to get Special Spiral so that Kronya could run Special Spiral in the B slot to fully charge Lethality after every round of combat. Otherwise, she's stuck with just Glimmer or Ruptured Sky, which isn't quite as scary. Stuff that would be nice to have are Panic Smoke, "Isolation Smoke" (to block Harsh Command), and Close Counter (so that Kronya can run Finish instead of Close Salvo). Dull could also work in place of Panic Smoke, but Panic Smoke is better. In-combat Panic would be even better still. It would also be nice to have the condition for the weapon's base effect upgraded to also include if the opponent has a Penalty, as it kind of sucks that the current weapon will almost never get the +5 Atk/Spd on Kronya's first round of combat.

Severance isn't going to stop me from using a Save team. Neither is the fact that most of the other enemies are also built specifically to wreck Save teams. Two attacks to kill the axe fighter on the first turn and two uses of To Change Fate! allow Nina to land Deadeye on Embla at the start of the second turn. Nina also has to hit Embla with her Duo skill in order to actually have enough damage to pull this off. Conveniently enough, Embla is the unit on the map with the highest Atk stat, so running Chill Atk on Chrom's Sacred Seal slot gives Nina the ability to target Embla with her Duo skill. Nina and Embla actually have identical Spd stats after accounting for all of their in-combat modifiers. Spd creep on Abyssal bats is ridiculous. Chrom lands a Deadeye on Veronica to kill her in a single hit on turn 3 after having Lucina use Future Vision on him to recharge Deadeye after using it to kill the red mamkute reinforcement on the previous turn. Having Chrom use his Duo skill at the end of turn 2 gives Lucina and Robin some more stats for their Save marathon and lets Lucina clear out most of the melee units, namely the blue bat. All of that damage on Robin is from Veronica. Without Chrom's Duo skill, Robin would have survived Veronica with only 1 HP left (starting from her full 53 HP) and recovered 5 HP from attacking the blue mage, starting the turn with 6 HP. Lucina would've started the turn with 9 HP with the red bat at full health after healing and the blue bat still at large. The rest of the map is mostly uneventful. I just have to make sure to leave something with some damage at the end of each turn so that the staff knight heals instead of attacking with Flash, though that's trivial since Robin can't really kill anything on player phase.

Their hostility to Savior in recent Legendary and Mythic Hero Battles isn't going to top me from trying. Severance can't do jack squat if Embla dies to Lethality on turn 2: Duo Chrom's Special battery is busted. Unfortunately, "just snipe Embla" isn't exactly an option in Aether Raids.

Cleaned up my barracks a bit so I now have a bit more than 20 open spots and a bit more space in my reserves. 165 more pulls from the Legendary/Mythic banner: 6 Veronica 5 Embla 5 Nanna 1 Celica 10.3% focus rate is pretty good, above average by about 3 pulls. 9.7% red focus rate is also pretty good. I'll probably pull some more this weekend. If my luck remains pretty good, I might revise my goals to a +10 Veronica, a +10 Embla, and another extra +0 Embla. My Nanna goal has now been met. A bit annoyed that I haven't gotten Micaiah as a pity breaker yet. Current totals: 6 Veronica (+1 spark) 6 Embla 6 Nanna 1 Bramimond 2 Celica

I really need to clean out my barracks at some point. Having less than 10 open slots makes it really hard to mass pull. My goal is to pull a +10 Veronica, get as many copies of Embla as possible in the process, and get the remaining 5 copies I need to get Nanna to +10. Given my awful luck with these things, I'll probably instead have two +10 Emblas and two +10 Nannas before I get a +10 Veronica. 40 pulls on the Legendary/Mythic banner so far. I'll pull some more later, hopefully after finally cleaning out my barracks: 0 Veronica (+1 spark) 1 Embla 1 Nanna 1 Bramimond 1 Celica 10% focus rate is above average, but 5% red focus rate is depressing. This is going to be an awful banner. I can already feel it. Bramimond, Celica, and Nanna were pulls 37, 38, and 40, respectively, all on different summoning sessions and with a 10.5% pity rate on Bramimond.

Dark-haired Swordmasters: From left to right, Not sure how he failed to realize that Lakche's hair is short, whereas Ayra's hair is long. This is an anime game. People don't change their hairstyles. Ever. (Or at least within one game.)

Assuming everything follows the same pattern as before, we'll be getting the new free story character at the start of the month and a new Legendary Hero at the end of the month, with both being on the banner, which means one of them will be blue and the other will be green. We haven't had a green free story character yet, so I'm hoping we get one this time. However, Ninian being the most recently released returning unit means the new Legendary Hero has a slightly higher chance of taking that spot. If the new Legendary Hero is blue, I'm guessing Finn. If I keep guessing him, I'll be right eventually. If green, then Sothe since he's the only remaining option for green before needing to dip into the non-main-character candidates (other than Robin and Corrin, who could only be green if they aren't using swords).

Changing your mind was never the point, and whether you care doesn't matter (though you clearly care enough to respond). Most people you argue with on the internet cannot be convinced because they have a vested interest in not being wrong on the interwebs. My intended audience is not you; it's everyone else reading the post. Those who haven't yet expressed their opinion are more free to change their mind because they can do so without needing to admit that they were wrong on the interwebs. Yep, exactly like that. ...Wait hol' up. Do the newer games not do that anymore? (I haven't touched the main-series games since Awakening and haven't finished a main-series game since Radiant Dawn.)

And why does not coming from a different world count as a large enough difference to disqualify a character from being a Legendary Hero? The fact that Veronica is a human main character that isn't a member of the Askr trio should be more than enough to qualify her as a Legendary Hero. She has at least cleared the bar by being more involved with the main story than either of Gunnthra or Hrid. Furthermore, none of these arguments explain why Veronica would at all make sense as an Ascended Hero based on existing patterns. All of the existing Heroes-original Ascended Heroes come from story arcs occurring after the events of the corresponding Book in the main story told through Tempest Trials, where the character was already previously released as a summonable unit during (or soon after) the events of the main story. The only thing Veronica has that connects her with the existing Ascended Heroes is the naming scheme of her weapon, but Ganglot's weapon has the same naming scheme and Ganglot also isn't an Ascended Hero. Veronica has significantly more in common with existing Legendary Heroes than with existing Ascended Heroes. And I've said this before and I'll say this again: Whether or not a character qualifies as a Legendary, Mythic, Ascended, etc. Hero is a qualification, not a mandate. Just because Nifl, Muspell, and Ymir obviously qualify as Mythic Heroes doesn't mean they have to be Mythic Heroes. Just because Laevatein, Laegjarn, and Surtr make sense to qualify as Legendary Heroes doesn't mean they have to be Legendary Heroes. A character being released as a "normal" Hero is not evidence against a categorization; it's simply lack of evidence for a categorization. The bar for how Legendary a character has to be to qualify as a Legendary Hero is set by the least-Legendary Legendary Hero, not by the most-Legendary normal Hero. I would not be surprised at all if they decided to bend the rules to make a way to upgrade the Askr trio unlocked by reaching some climactic story event that requires them to power up. They already have a means of modifying a unit's artwork and stats through Resplendent Heroes and adding new skills to a unit through all sorts of methods, and I don't think it would be stretch if they implemented a way to give the Askr trio additional "unit-type tags" like Legendary status or some new-fangled unit type on top of stat and skill updates upon reaching a specific point in the story.

We've had normal human characters from Nifl be Legendary from literally the very beginning. What makes Embla any different? They've clearly suggested that you should pull for Rearmed Lif to give Alfonse his Arcane Eljudnir. Arcane Downfall is also coincidentally conveniently well suited for Anna. (I've also been using the Askr trio with no investment other than giving all of them Reposition, and haven't had too much issue using them for quests, though I occasionally have to use convoluted setups to get Anna to kill her mark due to her godawful Atk stat.)

We've had nullification skill effects for a very long time now and still no skill effects that ignore nullification, and I don't see that happening ever. At best, we'll get skill effects that nullify non-stat Penalties or a status effect that protects a unit from being hit with Penalties. More likely, we'll just get more sources of False Start. In the extremely unlikely chance that they retroactively change the effect of Undefended, I think the best implementation would be to make it prevent Savior from activating from more than one space away, as there is at least some counter-play against that. Whatever their solution will be, there's a decent likelihood it'll come on the Winter banner since it traditionally has a focus on armors. That said, we'll have to see if Aether Raids even survives long enough to get to the Winter banner before everyone left gives up on it.

It's Veronica in a Bruno-inspired outfit, so no. The only "normal" versions of Veronica right now (that are named "Veronica" and not "Thrasir") are her enemy-only green tome infantry version, her Legendary version, and the Embla-possessed versions of each.

All of our Heroes Ascended Heroes so far have come from Tempest Trials stories, so I don't think it should really be out of left field that the main story characters are still going into the Legendary/Mythic pool. And even more so since this is the first time we're getting a "normal" version of Veronica.

I'm not sure "try" is the correct verb to describe me throwing Valentine Lucina and Valentine Robin at everything and surrendering if they die.

Probably not worth a separate thread, but (Legendary) Veronica's 1/7-scale figure is now officially open for pre-orders (with pre-orders closing in early March). She's pretty cute. Good Smile's U.S. site has pre-orders for 188 USD, but only ships to the U.S. and Canada. Good Smile's international site has pre-orders for 29,700 JPY. From my experience, if it's being billed in USD, it will have the same price as the U.S. site and the same price displayed during checkout, which means that even if the JPY's value increases before shipment, you'll still only pay 188 USD. I assume this is the case with any other currency. Note that at current exchange rates, 29,700 JPY is about 210-220 USD. I have no idea why Good Smile is charging significantly less than that, but I won't complain. The international site estimates shipping around February 2024, whereas the U.S. site estimates shipping around April 2024. The IS main site also lists February. No idea what's up with the discrepancy, but the long interval between pre-orders closing and shipping is pretty typical for larger figures like this (I think it used to be a bit shorter before the pandemic, but a year is pretty normal nowadays). Good Smile won't charge you for the figure until about a week or two before the figure ships (so keep that in mind if you budget month by month or something like that), though I don't think they let you cancel your order if you change your mind. Oh, and there's also a cute celebration illustration by Kozaki on the IS main site: Is cute.

Pretending that I can put my criticism aside, here are the usual translation notes: Veronica's epithet, "Princess Rising", is "変わりゆく皇女" (kawari-yuku kōjo), "Changing Imperial Princess". Enclosing Dark is "絶闇エンブラ" (zetsuan enbura), "Absolute Darkness, Embla". This follows the same naming pattern as the Heroes Ascended Heroes' weapons. Enclosure is "閉界" (heikai), "Closed Domain". Compare with Open the Future, which is "開世" (kaisei), "Open World". Transposing the characters in their names gives two standard compound words, "開閉" (kaihei), "opening and closing" (such as in "開閉器" (kaiheiki), "switch", literally "opening-and-closing device"), and "世界" (sekai), "the world". Panic Smoke is "恐慌の幻煙" (kyōkō no gen'en), "Illusory Smoke of Panic". It's worth noting that the status effect Smoke skills use a different word for "smoke", "幻煙" (gen'en), "illusory smoke", than the stat reduction Smoke skills, "紫煙" (shien), "smoke", literally "purple smoke". I don't know why. Foe Penalty Doubler is "敵弱化増幅" (teki jakka zōfuku), "Enemy Penalty Amplification". Compare with Bonus Doubler, which is "強化増幅" (kyōka zōfuku), "Bonus Amplification", using the localized translations for "弱化" (jakka), "weakening" → "Penalty", and "強化" (kyōka), "strengthening" → "Bonus". Embla's epithet, "God of Closure", is "閉神" (heishin), "God of Closing". Enclosing Claw is "絶闇の翼爪" (zetsuan no yokusō), "Wings and Claws of Absolute Darkness". "翼爪" (yokusō) could also translate as "wing-claw", i.e. claws that are on the wings, though that doesn't follow the pattern that other beast weapons use. The other two-character beast weapon-type names are "爪牙" (sōga), "claws and fangs", which is used for all mammalian beasts that aren't Nailah and don't attack with horns (interestingly, bats also use this weapon name), and "嘴爪" (shisō), "beak and claws", which is used for all non-heron birds, both of which indicate two distinct body parts as opposed to one body part. Beast Agility is "絶対化身・敏捷" (zettai kashin: binshō), "Guaranteed Transformation: Agility". I'm guessing on the pronunciation of "化身" because there is a standard pronunciation of it, "keshin", but this refers to the Buddhist concept of the "avatar" as well as associated meanings derived from it, like "personification", which is decidedly not what this is referring to. "化" in this case means "to transform" ("化身" literally translates as "transforming one's body") and is normally pronounced "ka" in compounds when used this way. Severance is "すべてが閉じた世界" (subete ga tojita sekai), "A World Where Everything Is Closed". Undefended is "護られ不可" (mamorare fuka), "Unable to Be Protected". Feud is "暗闘" (antō), "Secret Feud". This is the same as the Feud skill series.

Aether Raids is unpopular enough as it is. How nice of them to give players yet another reason to not want to play the game mode. The problem with Severance isn't as much the fact that it introduces Undefended so much as it's the fact that it applies the effect with no condition and the fact that you can cover the entire map with only two copies of Embla. Meanwhile, the counter, False Start, only covers one column and is only found on a unit from the wrong season. Also, there's nothing stopping players from putting Embla on their Anima defense teams because, unlike Upheaval, Severance isn't conditional on season. But that doesn't mean Undefended isn't without problems of its own. It's a counter to Savior that completely ignores the reason why Savior is so popular to begin with. Defensive units in this game are still awful. They've certainly been trying to make better enemy-phase units with Brave Tiki, Ascended Tiki, and Ninja Camilla, but as a whole, they are nowhere near as strong as Save tanks, and Save tanks already have trouble dealing with how strong player-phase units have become. Severance is a mistake. The developers are completely out of touch with the reality of how their game is played and why it is played that way.

Embla is a mistake.

Laegjarn has been tearing up the Arena for me, so I'll be joining her team at the start. Igrene is next if Laegjarn loses since she's the only other one I have merged. If she drops out, I do at least have the entire right side leveled, so I'll probably pick one of them if both Laegjarn and Igrene fall. Or maybe Camilla since her gimmick is pretty fun, even if it means I'll have to level her up.

Well, that was the absolute fucking worst. I got Volke about halfway to the spark, which is already worse than average, and then it took 63 pulls before I get pity broken by another Volke at a pity rate of 12%. This banner can go fuck itself. 85 pulls: 0 Mareeta (+1 spark) 2 Volke 2.4% focus rate is garbage, below average by 3 and a half pulls. This banner can go fuck itself.

Two wins and 4 losses brings me up from 4,599 to 4,682, which keeps me in Diamond D (Tier 17) and puts me at rank 863 with 75 minutes left on the clock. I should probably do some real team building at some point, but it always feels like too much work. I also just realized that it now takes 400 points just to go up from Tier 17 to Tier 18. After that, it's 500 per tier for the next three tiers, but then it inexplicably drops down to 200 to get from Tier 21 to Tier 22, and then it's 300 per tier for the next two tiers. What the hell?