Ice Dragon

Ascended Eir has 35 HP, which means that even at +10+5, she would have 40 HP, which is low enough that Mystic Boost 4 would heal her above 25% and reactivate her Miracle. If you're using her in Aether Raids, you can still use her in Light season with regular Eir to get the extra healing needed to get back above 25% or sacrifice some stats to run Mystic Boost in the Sacred Seal slot.

And the usual translation notes: The banner name, "Special: Rearmed Robin & More", is "新英雄＆開花英雄＆魔器ルフレ" (shin-eiyū & kaika eiyū & maki rufure), "New Heroes & Blooming Hero & Arcane Robin". The "Special" in the English banner name comes from the fact that this banner is categorized as "特別召喚" (tokubetsu shōkan), "Special Summon", instead of the usual "New Heroes" (新英雄, shin-eiyū, "New Heroes"), "Special Heroes" (超英雄, chō-eiyū, "Super Heroes"), "Legendary Hero" (伝承英雄, denshō-eiyū, "Legendary Hero"), etc. categorizations. This is possibly because Rearmed Heroes are not being added to the standard summoning pool, though that didn't stop Rearmed Lif's banner from being categorized normally as a "New Heroes" banner. The video name is also formatted differently in Japanese than usual. Normally, the name of the banner is in parentheses, but this time it isn't. Not sure if that's meaningful in any way. As usual, "開花" (kaika), "blooming", is the name of the Ascended Hero mechanic. As usual, "魔器" (maki), "magic weapon", is the name of both the Rearmed Hero mechanic and the Arcane weapon mechanic. Robin's epithet, "Fell Tactician", is "絶望へ導くもの" (zetsubō e michibiku mono), "The One Leading the Way to Despair". Arcane Grima is "魔器ギムレー" (maki gimurē), "Arcane Grima". "ギムレー" (gimurē), "Gimurei", is Grima's name in Japanese. Dragonhide is "邪竜の重鱗" (jaryū no jūrin), "Fell Dragon's Heavy Scales". Compare with Dragonskin, which is "邪竜の鱗" (jaryū no uroko), "Fell Dragon's Scales", and Dragonscale, which is "邪竜の大鱗" (jaryū no tairin), "Fell Dragon's Great Scales". A/S Near Save is "刃の護り手・近間" (yaiba no mamorite: chikama), "Guardian of the Blade: Near". Compare with A/D Save, which is "鎧の護り手" (yoroi no mamorite), "Guardian of the Armor", A/R Save, which is "兜の護り手" (kabuto no mamorite), "Guardian of the Helmet", and D/R Save, which is "盾の護り手" (tate no mamorite), "Guardian of the Shield". Gregor's epithet, "Swell Sword", is "不敵なる傭兵" (futeki-naru yōhei), "Fearless Mercenary". Sword of Favors is "厚情の剛剣" (kōjō no gōken), "Solid Sword of Hospitality". Because nothing says hospitality like -6 Atk/Spd/Def. Solid Ground is "不壊" (fue), "Indestructible". Phila's epithet, "Pegasus Master", is "天馬の忠臣" (tenba no chūshin), "Loyal Retainer Pegasus". Rein Lance is "牽制の槍" (kensei no yari), "Restraint Lance". "牽制" (kensei), "restraint", is the name of the Rein skill series. Eir's epithet, "Life Ascendant", is "咲き誇る命" (sakihokoru inochi), "Life in Full Bloom". The word "咲き誇る" (sakihokoru), "to be in full bloom" or "to blossom in full glory", translates word for word as "to blossom and be proud of it". Ymir, Everliving is "永生ユーミル" (eisei yūmiru), "Eternal Life, Ymir". Mystic Boost is "生命の護符" (seimei no gofu), "Talisman of Life". Ricken's epithet, "Shephard Novice", is "自警団見習い" (jikeidan minarai), "Trainee Shephard". "自警団" (jikeidan), literally "vigilante group", is the Japanese name for the Shephards. Gronnrabbit is "グルンラビット" (gurunrabitto), "Gronnrabbit". Cervantes's epithet, "Invincible General", is "不敗の将" (fuhai no shō), "Undefeated General". Defier's Lance is "守備逆用の槍" (shubi gyakuyō no yari), "Defense-Abuse Lance". Veronica's epithet, "Princess Beset", is "憑かれし皇女" (tsukareshi kōjo), "Possessed Imperial Princess". This is the same as her previous epithet. Enclosing Dark is "絶闇エンブラ" (zetsuan enbura), "Unparalleled Darkness, Embla". This follows the same naming scheme as Nifl's Bite, "絶氷ニフル" (zehhyō nifuru), "Unparalleled Ice, Nifl", and Flame of Muspell, "絶炎ムスペル" (zetsuen musuperu), "Unparalleled Flame, Muspell".

I'm disappointed that we aren't getting two sparks again for a banner that has both a Rearmed and Ascended unit. Since Eir is going to be in the standard summoning pool and Robin is not, I guess I'm just not pulling for Eir, then. Hopefully she'll end up pity breaking me as often as all of the other Ascended units have been because they've been pity breaking me a lot. Grima looks pretty nice. Her weapon's existence means I can give it to Halloween Naga instead of spending Grails to give Nil's weapon to her. Dragons are kind of in a stupid position as far as Arcane Inheritance goes since all of the fancy new dragon-exclusive skills have 4 skill tiers, but the older units that only have up to the third tier are all still stupid rare. But I guess we can at least get both Arcane Grima and Dragon Wall 3 at the same time, which isn't too bad (even if Dragon Wall is already the easiest to get of the dragon-exclusive B skills). A/S Near Save is nice. I would have preferred S/D Near Save, but I suppose A/S Near Save is good enough for Lucina. Her art is really nice, though I feel this is what they should have done for Legendary Robin instead of just giving her her boring Tactician outfit. Hopefully, male Robin will at least get his Grandmaster outfit in his Legendary version if he isn't going to be a Grima (or even if he is a Grima). Eir looks interesting. Her HP is low enough that even at +10+5, she regenerates enough HP with Mystic Boost 4 to put her back above the threshold to activate her weapon's Miracle effect again. Sparkling Boost feels like a waste of a skill slot, though, especially since other units have been getting stronger versions of their previous exclusive skills. I believe Gregor's weapon is the first skill that activates at the start of the opponent's turn. That's pretty fancy, even if the effect itself doesn't significantly benefit from it. All it really does is make it a bit easier to hit things with the debuff when baiting enemies at you. And lets it get through False Start, I guess. Solid Ground is a thing, I guess. It doesn't really look like Gregor is the best unit for it, though, since it seems he does want to have a boost to Spd. There aren't really many units that actually use an out-of-combat Def comparison, though, unlike Res. And I'm not really convinced that it's worth giving Mila 1 more point of Def in exchange for losing 11 points of Res. Rein Lance is pretty cool.

And no Grail units again. And also there goes my shot of ever getting a ninja weapon on Young Minerva. Bad news all around for me.

Lethality is significantly harder to get than Time's Pulse, so I think it's more worth it to prioritize who would make better use of Lethality over inheritance efficiency in this case. Lethality is currently only available from Volke in the standard pool, whereas Time's Pulse is available from 8 different units.

It depends on the older units you're using. All four of them have at least one skill worth using for fodder, even if it isn't the new skill: Atk/Spd Clash is a side-grade for the typical Atk/Spd skills in the A slot. It can be used pretty well on nearly any fast melee cavalry unit, and it's also pretty good on any fast Galeforce infantry that is unable to reliably activate both stacks of Ideal. Infantry Spd Tactic is specific to Tactic team compositions that include infantry units, ideally given to a unit that isn't infantry. It's pretty good on pretty much any non-infantry support unit that is likely to be used with infantry, like Harmonized Azura. Even if you don't have any use for Infantry Spd Tactic, Brave Chrom can still hand out both Surge Sparrow and S/D Near Trace with a single copy (typically using Luthier for Surge Sparrow's prerequisite Swift Sparrow 2). Atk/Res Finish is very specific to certain units. Other than Brave Tiki herself, Legendary Fae is the best unit to give it to. However, pretty much any non-Spd-based infantry unit that wants Res for any reason and can fully charge their Special for their follow-up attack has an argument to use it over other options. Spd Preempt is the only new skill that is currently worthless (or close enough to it) as fodder, as Brave Byleth is the only unit that can really make use of it at the moment. However, Brave Byleth still has Spd/Res Hold, which is worth using. Also Atk/Spd Catch, though that's easier to get from other sources.

Seliph is a fast wall breaker and general offensive unit. He has Legendary Sigurd's gimmick of having a nearly permanent +1 movement range as well as his own gimmick of having a non-Special Miracle. He's extremely difficult to kill on counterattack due to having high Spd, Null Follow-Up, Atk/Spd Penalty nullification, and non-Special Miracle and can easily retreat after combat with Canto (2). His base kit is good to go from the start, though you have the option of replacing Atk/Spd Clash with Surge Sparrow for passive healing in exchange for a smaller stat boost (skills learned by default in bold) : Brave Seliph [+Spd / +Atk] Holytide Tyrfing [Assist] Luna / Ruptured Sky Atk/Spd Clash 4 / Surge Sparrow / Atk/Spd Catch 4 Lull Spd/Def 3 / Flow Guard 3 / Flow Refresh 3 Heir to Light Atk/Spd Solo 3 / Blade Session 3 / etc. Atk/Spd Clash is the new skill he brings. It's a side-grade to Atk/Spd Catch, Atk/Spd Ideal, and Surge Sparrow, preferably used on units with high movement range or the ability to warp. Chrom is also a fast wall breaker and general offensive unit. He has his previous gimmick of having Reposition with the ability to move again afterwards, but this time, he also copies all of the buffs that the targeted ally has on them, which gives him a lot of potential when used with teammates with powerful unique buffs, like Claude's Fallen Star. Chrom lacks Null Follow-Up, but is intended to use his default Infantry Spd Tactic to grant the Null Follow-Up status effect to an ally and then copy the buff for himself. Chrom doesn't come with a Special, so you'll have to provide him one yourself: Brave Chrom [+Spd / +Atk] Geirdriful A Fate Changed! Aether / Galeforce / Ruptured Sky / Luna Surge Sparrow / Atk/Spd Clash 4 / Atk/Spd Catch 4 S/D Near Trace 3 Inf. Spd Tactic / Atk/Spd Menace / Fatal Smoke / etc. Atk/Spd Solo 3 / Blade Session 3 / etc. Chrom's Special charge rate boost allows him to activate Aether if the opponent can counterattack and doesn't have Guard or Tempo. Ruptured Sky and Luna are more reliable, but don't grant the additional healing. Galeforce is also usable, though you'd want to switch out his A skill to Clash or Catch. Infantry Spd Tactic can be swapped out for other C skills depending on the team composition. Chrom's new skill is Infantry Spd Tactic, which is situational at best and requires team planning, though it is seen in some competitive game modes to create an infantry super tank. Otherwise, Chrom is a new source of Surge Sparrow and S/D Near Trace, both of which are otherwise rare skills. Tiki is a slow super tank with player-phase presence. Her primary gimmick is her ability to charge 1 point of her own Special and uncharge 1 point of her opponent's Special before combat starts, which prevents the opponent from blocking her Special with Guard and prevents the opponent from using their own Special on their first attack on enemy phase. She also has passive healing, Dragon Wall, a guaranteed follow-up, and follow-up prevention, making it hard to take her down. Her base kit is good to go from the start: Brave Tiki [+Atk / +Res] Remote Breath [Assist] Glimmer / Moonbow Atk/Res Finish 4 New Divinity Def/Res Menace / Atk/Res Menace / etc. Distant Counter (D) / Def/Res Form 3 / etc. Atk/Res Menace is arguably a slightly better option for her C slot if you can separate the opponent's units so that they only attack one unit per turn or if the opponent only has units that target Res. Distant Counter (D) is the preferred Sacred Seal, but a stat-boosting Sacred Seal can be used if Distant Counter is unnecessary. Tiki's new skill is Atk/Res Finish, which isn't amazing on its own due to the specific pairing of stats, but introduces the new Finish skill series that is amazing for units that can easily have their Special skills charged from the start of combat, namely units with Shield Pulse (Legendary Corrin, etc.), Time's Pulse (Duo Chrom, etc.), or Specials that charge themselves (Legendary Fae, etc.). Byleth is a reboot of the Vantage tank archetype combined with a fast wall breaker. Her gimmick is the fact that she automatically fully charges her Special at the start of each turn and after each round of combat, combined with the fact that her Special reduces the damage of opponent's first attack after the Special activates and the fact that she has Vantage, allowing her to use always use her Special before the opponent's first attack. Additionally, her Special boosts the damage of her own next attack in case the opponent can block her Special from activating again. She is designed to be virtually unkillable on player phase or when attacked by a ranged unit on top of being able to safely break walls, but is relatively easily killed by melee units on her enemy phase. She basically has no need for any skills other than her base skills: Brave Byleth [+Spd / +Atk] Inner Wellspring [Assist] Divine Pulse Atk/Spd Catch 4 Spd Preempt 3 Spd/Res Hold / Atk/Spd Menace Atk/Spd Solo 3 / Atk/Spd Form 3 / etc. Atk/Spd Menace is listed to activate both stacks of Catch without the need for support from teammates, but it's usually better to let teammates handle it. Byleth's new skill, Spd Preempt, is far too niche to be practical on most units and is for the time being functionally limited to herself. However, she is a new source of Atk/Spd Catch and Spd/Res Hold.

Robin is better than Henriette in general due to the fact that Robin's exclusive weapon is better than what Henriette has access to. If Harmonized Tana becomes more popular, then that will be a good reason to use Henriette over Robin since Henriette has zero issue tanking Tana. However, right now, the primary ranged threats in Aether Raids are largely red (Duo Chrom) and colorless (Harmonized Lysithea), so there isn't much of an advantage in using Henriette at the moment, as she's weapon-triangle neutral to them, just like Robin. (Henriette isn't affected by Lysithea's C Feud's stat penalty, but that's not too significant of an issue compared to the fact that you're losing Flayn/Elimine support regardless of who your tank is.)

Between the two of them, Eleonora definitely has the harder-to-get premium skills. Not only for Deadeye and Spd/Def Tempo, but also for Whitecap Bow. You're going to want to look for something like this: Whitecap Bow+ [Spd] / any other refine Rally Atk/Spd+ / Harsh Command+ Deadeye / Ruptured Sky Atk/Spd Ideal 4 Spd/Def Tempo 3 / Chill Def/Res 3 Spd Smoke 4 / Def/Res Smoke 3 / Fatal Smoke 3 / Atk/Spd Menace / Time's Pulse 3 If you do end up able to grab another Forma Soul before the Hall of Forms switches (based on the fact that the non-rerun Hall of Forms Forma Soul redemption period goes through the rerun Hall of Forms, the two will probably have redemption periods that are separate from each other), Kiria will probably want something like this: Unity Blooms+ [Res] / Bridal Orchid+ [Res] / Raudhrvulture+ [Res] / any other refine Rally Atk/Spd + / Harsh Command+ Ruptured Sky Atk/Res Finish 4 Atk/Res Tempo 3 / Chill Def/Res 3 Atk Smoke 4 / Def/Res Smoke 3 / Fatal Smoke 3 / Atk/Res Menace / Time's Pulse 3

178 pulls to finish up the Legendary Ninian banner: 7 Ninian 3 Xander 5 Male Byleth 1 Mila 9.0% focus rate is slightly above average, by about 1 unit. Very skewed towards Ninian with a 3.9% Ninian rate, though, which is uncharacteristically generous for a Legendary/Mythic Hero banner. With my previous pulls, this comes out to 301 total pulls: 10 Ninian (+1 spark) 4 Xander 12 Male Byleth 1 Lilina 1 Lilith 2 Mila 1 Tinny 10.3% focus rate is quite a bit above average, by about 5-6 units. 3.3% Ninian rate is also quite a bit above average, by something like 4 pulls or so. But as expected, I get a giant pile of the unit I wanted the least. Byleth literally has no skills of any value to me because they had to give him an exclusive version of Ruptured Sky instead of normal Ruptured Sky. I wish they'd have just given him both so that he'd actually be worth something for fodder. And my initial 55 pulls on the Halloween banner: 2 Duma (+1 spark) 4 4-star Naga And pity breakers: Sain (first copy) Brave Marth (now +10) Yuri 3.6% focus rate is basically average, 9.1% overall 5-star rate is slightly more than 1 pull above average. My goals for this banner are to pull 1 of each Corrin and then pull red and colorless until I get a +10 Naga. So far doing okay, though it would be nice to get the Corrins soon so that I don't have to keep pulling blue and green. EDIT: 5 more pulls gets me Flavia as a pity breaker.

Yep. Dragon's Wrath is the hardest one to get right now, so it should be your highest priority until an easier-to-get source is released. Special Fighter should be the lowest priority of the three since it's significantly easier to get than the other two. Tana has Windsweep, "Triangle Adept", and native weapon triangle advantage against Brave Hector, whereas she lacks both Windsweep and native weapon triangle advantage against Valentine Robin. Not only does Tana have an easier time killing Hector in one round, but even if she fails to do so, she's not at risk of being killed by a counterattack. Robin is more likely to survive, and if she does, Tana is unlikely to survive a counterattack (noting that Tana doesn't have the defensive half of Null Follow-Up to block Robin's guaranteed follow-up).

Yes. Robin is worth using, but it's usually not worth building Robin if you already have a perfectly serviceable Brave Hector. Brave Hector's Hardy Fighter + Deflect Magic build is better suited for Aether Raids than Robin is since he can deal with both Duo Chrom and Harmonized Lysithea with one build, whereas Robin can only deal with one of the two at a time (and even then struggles with Lysithea). However, Robin isn't vulnerable to Windsweep and doesn't get hard countered by Harmonized Tana (in case Tana becomes more common). Dragon's Wrath is fine. Special Fighter is fine, but is relatively easy to get. Hardy Fighter is usable on a Save build. Dragon's Ire is situationally useful due to the offensive Null Follow-Up effect and the stat penalty. The guaranteed follow-up on Slick Fighter and Wily Fighter are superfluous, but their secondary effects can be situationally useful. Bold Fighter and Vengeful Fighter are mostly useless since Special Fighter is better than either of them. Savvy Fighter is mostly useless because Myrrh doesn't have the Spd to make use of its primary effect. Daring Fighter is mostly useless.

Trap placement is pretty simple in this case. Since you have a Far Save unit and not a Near Save unit, you just need to cover the spaces where a melee unit can attack any of your units that are exposed. Use the Heavy Trap and the Hex Trap. Your units are capable of teleporting, so the Heavy Trap doesn't really do much of anything to you. I don't recommend bluffing with fake traps, but if you want to try, you can run a real Bolt Trap, fake Bolt Trap, and have one of the two traps actually protecting your units be fake so that the opponent still has to guess which one it is even when they realize that one of them has to be fake.

It took them long enough. Her art is adorable. This gives her 56/45 neutral offenses with maximum Dragonflowers and only her weapon equipped. For comparison against other cavalry staves with exclusive weapons, Young Larchel has 60/47 neutral offenses with a superboon in Spd and inflicts -6 Res and Flash at the start of the turn Maribelle has 57/41 neutral offenses and grants her +6 Atk at the start of the turn Brave Veronica has 53/40 neutral offenses And for comparison with other staves with exclusive weapons, Brave Camilla has 60/50 neutral offenses and inflicts -7 Res at the start of the turn Duo Hilda has 60/49 neutral offenses with a superboon in Spd Bride Fjorm has 56/42 neutral offenses Elise is effectively a weaker version of Brave Camilla with cavalry movement instead of flier movement. Unlike Brave Camilla, though, Elise is unable to activate both stacks of Atk/Spd Catch with just her weapon alone and needs either a C skill or teammate to do so for her. That said, Elise doesn't have access to Rein and would instead run Menace anyways if not running Fatal Smoke. Additionally, Camilla has Dazzling Staff on her weapon, whereas Elise has Wrathful Staff. This allows Camilla to run a full Gravity support build with Far Trace, whereas Elise is forced to run Dazzling Staff in her B slot to avoid counterattacks. However, because this Gravity, Trace is not exactly a necessity as long as there is a teammate that can pull Elise out of the way if the target was a ranged unit. That said, Camilla still has the advantage here in that she is much harder to be blocked by terrain when being pulled back, whereas Elise can easily be blocked by trees, which are not uncommon. In the end, Elise is still a pretty good unit simply because she's Gravity support, and the Resplendent boost just makes her a bit better than she was before.

@DefyingFates If you want another team slot for something else, it's viable to drop the Near Save unit and simply put traps to block melee attackers. If at all possible, you'll also want one of your units to have Canto Control to make it harder for the opponent to trigger a trap and then use a unit with Canto to get the unit back out of range.

Trying to clean up the Flame Festival banner and failing miserably. 213 pulls sniping both blue and green: 1 Lyn 3 Tana 6 blue pity breakers 3 green pity breakers 1.9% focus rate, 6.1% overall 5-star rate. 78 pulls sniping green: 1 Lyn 2 Tana 5 green pity breakers 3.8% focus rate, 10.3% overall 5-star rate. Including my previous pulls, 718 pulls total: 10 Tana (+1 spark) 5 Lyn 1 Muspell 4 5-star Rinkah 8 4-star Rinkah 30 pity breakers 2.8% focus rate, which is 3 units less than average. 7.0% overall 5-star rate, which is 3 units more than average. It's really, really annoying knowing that if I had gotten just average pulls, I would have a +10 Tana and a +7 Lyn by now. But instead, I only have a +4 Lyn.

How many are currently in the game doesn't matter because at one time, colorless tome was a viable weapon type with only one unit in the game. The size of the pool of candidates is what makes the weapon type viable, not the number of units currently released in the game. Hilda placed 9th in the last CYL and is the 5th-highest-voted character from Three Houses that doesn't have a Legendary alt (including Lysithea and Marianne above her). Balthus placed 256th and is something like the 32nd-highest-voted character from Three Houses that doesn't have a Legendary alt. Is it possible for Balthus to get an Ascended version? Sure. Is it likely? Not at all. For comparison: Florina is 4th-highest-voted playable character from Blazing Sword that doesn't yet have a Legendary alt Hilda is the 5th-highest-voted playable character from Three Houses that doesn't yet have a Legendary alt Idunn placed higher than the 1st-highest-voted playable character from Binding Blade that doesn't yet have a Legendary alt Ishtar placed higher than the 3rd-highest-voted playable character from Genealogy that doesn't yet have a Legendary alt Joshua is the 5th-highest-voted playable character from The Sacred Stones that doesn't yet have a Legendary alt Mareeta is the 2nd-highest-voted playable character from Thracia that doesn't yet have a Legendary alt Each game in the series gets about 1 standard banner each year. Since we only have two games with canon brawlers (Three Houses and Engage), that's 2 units per year at most in the standard pool, assuming each banner for those games has a brawler in it. In order to match the rate of release of colorless tomes, a full 2/3 of all brawlers would need to be seasonal. The only way to boost that rate (since the probability of there being a brawler Legendary/Mythic Hero is pretty much zero right now) is to have one brawler on the banner and then have a Heroes character on the banner so that the banner has a brawler as an instant demote, but that's absolutely unrealistic to expect to happen enough times to match the release rate of colorless tomes. For comparison, less than half, only 6 of the 14 colorless tomes, are Special Heroes. And unlike brawlers, there are candidates from every game, so there's no difficulty finding non-seasonal banners to put them on. 12 of the 14 units are either a main character, a legendary super character, or a Special Hero, any of which is a better reason to be a novelty class.

She's not yet available on a banner, but she's in the Tempest Trials, so I thought I'd still include Ascended Eir in the translation notes.

You're still comparing two different things, though. "Colorless tome" isn't a thing in the main series, and brawlers aren't a thing in Heroes. If we're comparing from the main series, the number of candidates for colorless tomes increases by a significantly larger amount than the number of candidates for brawling with each game released. If we're comparing in Heroes, we've already had two brawler candidates released, and both of them were released with a different weapon. An average of one every 2 months is not a small amount. We get about 11-12 new units every month, and there are 24 different weapon types in the game. One colorless tome every 24 units is literally par. I don't think petrification being tangentially related to throwing big rocks is a good enough reason for him to be colorless.

You're restricting your list of candidates for being a colorless tome to just the characters that actually got colorless tome as a weapon, but you're comparing it to the list of actual candidates for brawling from the main series regardless of if they got the weapon in Heroes (or if they're even in Heroes in the first place). If you actually extend the list of candidates for being a colorless tome to the same criteria you're using for brawling, that includes every tome user in the series. We've already seen thunder, light, and dark magic represented as a colorless tome, and there's nothing to suggest that fire or wind magic cannot be implemented as colorless in the future. (I'm even half-expecting an eventual Athos to be colorless with Forblaze.) That's a significantly larger pool of candidates than brawling has. Even if most of those candidates are unlikely to actually be released as a colorless tome, that's hardly too much different from being released as a weapon type that doesn't yet exist (especially when two of those candidates have already been released with a different weapon type). As soon as we got beast cavalry that kept their cavalry movement even when untransformed, it was only a matter of time before they'd do the same with dragons.

I'm not really convinced that botting played a significant factor. I haven't played Three Houses, but my friends who have all had only good things to say about him. So while he was a meme pick, he does seem to also be a well-liked character. Not "popular" enough to win a CYL, but the combination of being legitimately well-liked on top of being a meme character and a character that is normally not playable (like Veronica) seems like enough to make up for it. This is in contrast to previous characters that got meme votes that only had their meme cred to stand on.

Asians are the elves of real life, and dragons are the elves of Fire Emblem. It's not that dragons are Asian, but that dragons have the same aging patterns as Asians (and elves).

Mila's design makes her look to me like she should be on the taller side, but then there's Duma standing next to her a full head taller. Asians don't age until they suddenly wake up one day as a raisin, so they're probably similar. Being swole staves off turning into a raisin, which is why Mediuth still looks so good despite his apparent age, unlike Banutu (even if Banutu is supposed to look older, Mediuth will still take longer in apparent age to become a raisin). As for Naga, Mila, and Duma, I make the assumption that divine dragons age at a significantly slower rate than other dragons, hence why Duma hasn't even started graying yet (which typically precedes turning into a raisin by at least a decade or two in apparent age).

Character introductions are now up. This is adorable. Also, something that I noticed a while ago, but haven't actually said: Holy shit, Duma is tall compared to Mila.

...And Naga uses Nils's weapon better than Nils does and uses it better than her base weapon. Why exactly does Naga's weapon exist again? I'll take +15/0/10/15 over +5/0/5/5 and follow-up prevention any day of the week, even with Naga's awkward Spd stat.