Ice Dragon

If it wasn't added for Three Houses, I don't think it'll be added for Engage. Adding a brawling weapon would have the exact same issues that we currently have for beasts and colorless tomes, which is that every unit is functionally locked to a single weapon because there are no inheritable weapons for that weapon type. Sure, colorless tomes recently got Hvitrvulture, but no one is going to use it over their exclusive weapon, so it's effectively just Nimue's exclusive weapon for the time being. With brawling being a weapon that is likely even rarer than colorless tomes, it'll end up being even more of a novelty class than colorless tomes. Colorless tomes at least have a lot more units that could canonically use the weapon as a non-seasonal unit, whereas brawling would end up on only a handful of non-seasonal units and otherwise be relegated to being almost purely seasonal after that. And because brawling will be rare, there's basically no way it'll get more than one color. Additionally, unlike colored bows, daggers, and dragons, which have a reason to individually exist, colored brawling weapons would basically just end up filling the same roles as swords, lances, and axes, but without any of the benefits of having access to their inheritable weapons.

Green Olwen isn't anything special, but Thunderhead is still Litrblade with an additional effective +5 Atk/Spd, so it can't really age too poorly. With the release of more B skills for infantry, Lull skills are probably going to decrease in prevalence, which should make Litrblade a bit more consistent to use. Tanith is straight-up better than her in pretty much everything, so there's no reason to really use her outside of playing favorites. Tanith needs 5 fewer Dragonflowers, has better offensive stats with max Dragonflowers (due to having a superboon in Spd that Annand lacks), more physical bulk, and is available from the 3- to 4-star pool. Annand's skills are also not particularly great. Unbound Blade is okay at best. Sturdy Impact is situational, but does have its uses and can save you from foddering a copy of Tibarn if you're merging him. Guard Bearing has a niche use on Spring Maria and Haar. Personally, I'd lean towards Lif since he won't be added to the standard pool after the banner is over. If you have an immediate use for Hilda's floret, she's might be worth more to you than Lif, though.

54 pulls on the Double Special Heroes banner: 4 Gustav (+1 spark) 3 Catria 13.0% focus rate is obviously well above average. Gustav is now +6. Catria was already +10, so all 3 copies are available for A/D Near Trace fodder. I'll wait until I see who the next Legendary Hero is before I pull some more from the festival banner.

Pretty much every game mode gives orbs, but story maps are the easiest to clear at the start of the game before you have your units leveled up all the way. Hall of Forms is currently running in the events list and has you use "rental" units, so you don't need to worry about your own units being leveled, though it can be a bit daunting if you aren't familiar with the game's huge catalog of skills. Once you're comfortable with the game, try poking at the special maps and other events. You probably don't need to bother with the Summoner Duels event yet, though.

Just an alternate pronunciation. Most Japanese compound words are pronounced using on'yomi (Chinese-derived) readings with only some compound words being pronounced using kun'yomi (native Japanese) readings, but there are a few, like here, that can be pronounced either way. It's impossible for me to determine which pronunciation was intended or if one was intended over the other at all, so I'm just favoring the on'yomi reading in the main entry and including the kun'yomi reading in the follow-up notes.

The Resplendent boost brings Jeorge's stats up to 44/39/39/31/29 with max Dragonflowers. 39/39 neutral offenses isn't exactly bad, but it also isn't particularly impressive. For comparison, the premier free-to-play bow infantry, Young Innes, has 40/41 offenses and a weapon that grants +6/+6 and +7 damage on Special activation. Compared to the two strongest fast infantry bows in the game, Ulir has 45/44 offenses, +6/+6 on her weapon, and nearly every offensive non-stat skill effect in the game between her weapon and exclusive skill. Legendary Alm has 41/41 offenses, +10/+13 on his weapon, deals additional damage based on the opponent's Def, and has one of the strongest Special skills in the game. Parthia isn't actually too awful, as it lowers the damage from the first hit from a tome unit by 30% and grants him +6 Atk. You can probably make it work with Atk/Res Finish and try to one-hit kill tome units on the counterattack. The only problem is that half of the new tome units coming out have some way to deal with that by either having the Desperation effect or having damage reduction of their own on the opponent's first attack. Otherwise, he can still be decent with Whitecap Bow. Summer Elincia has 38/42 offenses, which isn't too far off from Jeorge's. Still quite underwhelming, though.

Also make sure it's a unit you actually intend to use. As far as good options, Summer Lyon: Arcane Eljudnir is literally just an upgraded version of Coral Saber, and his stats are competitive with other similar units despite being a 4-star unit. Unlikely to ever get an exclusive weapon. Skasaher: Basically Summer Lyon, but in the standard summoning pool. His stats are also competitive with other similar units, but he sacrifices his Res stat for more Spd and Def. Recently released, so it will be a long time before he gets an exclusive weapon. Spring Bartre: Basically Skasaher, but with a bit more HP and a bit less Def. Unlikely to ever get an exclusive weapon, but as a unit released a long time ago, he needs a lot of Dragonflowers to boost his stats. Otherwise, after Dragonflowers, his stats are still competitive. Galzus: Has the same Atk stat with an Asset as the above three units, but is also fast. Arcane Eljudnir trades his ability to deal with fast units running Null Follow-Up for the ability to function as a wall breaker against pretty much everything that doesn't have both Null Follow-Up and follow-up prevention. It'll be a long time before he gets an exclusive weapon. New Year Hrid: Benefits from being able to inherit Trace skills from Lif. Unlikely to ever get an exclusive weapon. Also needs a lot of Dragonflowers. Winter Manuela, Valentine Ike, and Winter Zephiel: Arcane Eljudnir is a good weapon on enemy phase and can help with Near Save builds as long as you stay away from Brave Eirika. As much as it's meant to be a joke, I think Mirabilis could also be a decent option. Her combat stats are okay, and she can also inherit Trace skills. There unfortunately aren't many options for sword cavalry, as Bertram and Kent are the strongest options that don't have an exclusive weapon or have an outdated refine. However, it can be worth giving Arcane Eljudnir to Legendary Seliph, as his remix is still more than a year away, and his base weapon is worse than Arcane Eljudnir.

I realized while leveling up my new units in the special training maps today that I completely forgot to add Shez's weapon to the translation notes.

If you are close to the spark, it's pretty much always worth it to go for it since it's a guaranteed 5-star of your choice. If you are far from the spark, it depends on how much you value Shez. If both Lif and Shez are of value to you, then I think it's probably worth going for the spark since you have almost a double focus rate while sniping red on this banner. If you don't care about Shez, then it depends on how much you think you're going to be utilizing Lif's weapon inheritance and his ability to duplicate skills. It's worth noting that Lif's ability to duplicate skills is somewhat hampered by him being cavalry, as cavalry really only have Trace as a worthwhile B skill to duplicate, and it might be worth waiting for a Rearmed Hero of a different class if you are prioritizing duplication and don't really make use of the skills he has access to (since fliers have access to pretty much everything cavalry do).

Too early to tell. I think it's uncontroversial to say that at least part of the popularity of Three Houses characters in CYL came from Three Houses being a very well-liked game and Three Houses having a pretty strong focus on its dating sim element, which forces the writers to flesh out more characters, increases the chances that a player will have a character they like, and makes it more likely that the player will use more votes on said character. I don't think they'd include Engage in CYL 7 due to the fact that players literally would not have had a chance to have even played the game yet. That would mean a full one year delay between Engage's release and the first CYL that it participates in, which will certainly have a cooling off effect on it. Whether or not it will be able to weather that delay I think would depend almost entirely on how well received the game is. I think Engage will probably still be able to get at least 2 characters in CYL 8, though, even if its reception after launch is still a bit lukewarm. Meanwhile, I just want Mika Pikazo to do some art for Heroes. She's one of my favorite artists, up there with Fuzichoco, who as already done art for this game. (Now that I think about it, Fuzichoco doing a seasonal Ymir would probably be amazing.)

When you're just starting the game, you can get through quite a bit of content ignoring everything except for (1) what color the unit is, (2) how far the unit can move, and (3) what range the unit attacks from. As far as game modes, focus on the main story maps (they give you orbs). You can also go to the Special Maps section and run the Special Training maps. They're the most stamina-efficient way to level up units. Today's map is for melee units. I assume by "free Legendaries", you're referring to the Choose Your Legends banners. Those are typically referred to as "Brave" units due to the name of the first banner of that type. Legendary Heroes are something different. Also try checking out the Heroes' Path quests, which are visible near the top of the home screen. They're meant to be a tutorial into the other features in the game.

We can cross that bridge when we reach it. Worry over what might happen in the future shouldn't stop you from dealing with what's in front of you now.

Investing in Linhardt would be good in the short run because merges are generally more important for your score than any other factor (other than blessings), but isn't good in the long run because staff units have a lower score ceiling (the Assist skill with the highest SP cost for staves costs 300 SP compared to 400 SP for other classes, and the Special skill with the highest SP cost for staves costs 300 SP compared to 500 SP for other classes) and also have lower availability of skills worth the maximum SP (Rally+ and Aether are much easier to get than the highest-scoring skills for staves in those slots).

We have a bunch of units and builds that are capable of just ignoring most effects. Units with Sweep effects can pretty much just ignore every common effect the opponent has that isn't Null C-Disrupt. Units with the ability to spam AoE Specials typically only need to worry about damage reduction that applies to AoE Specials, which is less common than damage reduction in general. Units with effective damage can typically one-hit kill offensive units even through damage reduction. Litrblade becomes more viable with more competition in the B slot for Lull, and we're getting more units that use an ally's Bonuses or the opponent's Penalties instead to boost damage. All the effects in the world don't really do much against just dealing a shitload of damage or getting free attacks. No, this won't solve all of your problems, but it covers a lot of the common annoying units. And if you aren't playing competitively, then you really don't need to worry all that much about the PvP modes. The only difference between the Arena rewards for tier 18 and tier 20 is the number of Divine Codes you receive. Even if you play competitively, the game gives you a decent number of free losses in each competitive game mode, with Arena Assault requiring a 78% win rate and infinite retries, Arena requiring a 71% win rate, and Aether Raids only requiring a 62% win rate..

Here is the right place. As long as you're not spending orbs unnecessarily, it's not difficult to get a decent team using sparks to get newly released units in combination with the large number of free pulls the game gives out. I don't really see power creep as too significant of an issue right now. Power creep in weapons has been slow for the last two years, and refines have been keeping pace with brand new weapons. Recent inheritable passive skills have pretty much all been side-grades. Only Save and Trace really stand out, and those are pretty old at this point and have gotten no real changes recently other than the combinations of stats they give and their availability. Unless a ranged unit has an insane weapon, I don't think it's worth running Close Counter on them. They not only have fewer points of stats overall compared to melee units, but they also need those points spread out across more stats and are at an automatic disadvantage from the start due to the fact that Atk always gets a boost from a unit's weapon Mt. If you're going to run an enemy-phase build, it's better to just focus on maximizing stats and defensive effects and limit the unit's role to just dealing with ranged opponents.

Rearmed Heroes that have not yet used Arcane Inheritance can be turned into manuals. They behave like normal manuals and disappear after use. When merging using a manual, it presumably counts as a Rearmed Hero that has not yet used Arcane Inheritance and should refresh the Arcane Inheritance status of the merge base. (Not 100% sure, but this is logically what should happen.) Rearmed Heroes that have already used Arcane Inheritance cannot be turned into manuals.

If you're in no rush to merge him, just hold onto him for later. The best units to fodder Lif to are slow sword units that have outdated refines and slow sword units that are seasonal, ideally units that you intend to actually use. Unless you're swimming in copies of Lif, you should really always be transferring Arcane Eljudnir every time. Effie's Lance has +11 Atk and nullifies the opponent's Def Bonuses. It may do only one job, but it does the one job decently well, and Effie has the stats to actually pull it off, unlike Draug, who is a purely physical tank that hits like a wet noodle and is the wrong color to deal with the most common dragons. It mostly depends on the availability of skills for the individual player. (For example, I have a decent supply of Hrid manuals left over that can be used for Distant Counter and Atk/Def Menace.) I think the best skills to consider giving Lif for skill duplication are Ruptured Sky, Distant Storm, Atk/Def Catch 4 (wait until we get Atk/Def Catch 3 on a non-Grail 4-star before using), A/D Near Trace 3, Atk Smoke 4, and Def/Res Smoke 3. Also possibly R Duel Cavalry 4.

For players that were already planning on getting a +10 merge on a Rearmed Hero, you're effectively turning one skill fodder unit into 11 for almost free (basically just the opportunity cost of not getting a different skill from the Rearmed Hero). For example, Trace skills are still pretty rare and are in relatively high demand, so you can fodder a Fallen Gustav to Rearmed Lif for A/D Near Trace. Then, by performing Arcane Inheritance after each merge, you can have up to 11 units inherit Arcane Eljudnir + A/D Near Trace 3 despite having foddered only a single copy of Fallen Gustav. (And since merging a Rearmed Hero with an available Arcane Inheritance into a Rearmed Hero with an already used Arcane Inheritance also passes down the usability of Arcane Inheritance, you can continue to merge additional copies of Lif past +10 into the merge base to keep getting A/D Near Trace from the unit.) Or, if you're willing to give up some copies of Arcane Eljudnir and prioritize the duplication of A/D Near Trace, you can have non-sword units inherit his Atk/Def Menace with A/D Near Trace instead (Threaten Atk/Def is available from Atlas and 3 Grail units). Other options for skill duplication once we get compatible Rearmed Heroes are the rare Special skills (Deadeye, Lethality, Vital Astra, and Godlike Reflexes), the slightly less rare Ruptured Sky (which has massive demand), the other Trace skills, the newer Fighter skills, the combination Close/Distant Counter skills, and Whitecap Bow (because even if you're getting an Arcane bow with it, it's probably still worth having Whitecap Bow as an option to switch to; heck, you can get an Arcane bow, Whitecap Bow, Whitecap Bow+, and Deadeye from a single Arcane Inheritance).

It makes more sense to have the unit with the shiny new mechanic share a color than to have a different pair of units share a color on a banner with a shiny new mechanic.

Sounds like a setup for an exploit to duplicate skills. Have the Rearmed Hero learn the skill you want to duplicate. Use that copy of the Rearmed Hero to teach the skill to another unit. Merge that copy of the Rearmed Hero into a fresh copy of the Rearmed Hero. The fresh copy of the Rearmed Hero will now have the skill you want to duplicate. Repeat from step 2.

85 pulls on the Lif banner: 2 Lif (+1 spark) 2 Shez 1 Monica 0 Hilda (+1 spark) 1 pity breaker (Catherine) 5.9% focus rate. 7.1% total 5-star rate. It's hard to calculate the expected values due to color sharing combined with sessions with no red orbs, but the focus rate seems close enough to average and the total 5-star rate seems to be 1 pull short of average. Overall an okay haul. The Lifs have an HP and a Spd Asset, which are useless. The Shezes both have HP Assets, which are useless. The Monica has an HP Asset, which is useless. What the fuck.

Female Shez's weapon appears to grant +6 Atk/Spd, so it's (1) different from Male Shez's weapon, and (2) unlikely that she'll be a slow unit. If she's a demote, then it's possible that she's getting the +6 Atk/Spd from a passive A skill instead, but then she's still unlikely to be a slow unit because there'd be no reason to give her the +6 Spd. Given that the reason why Male Shez has a Meister weapon is clearly the fact that he has two swords, I don't think Female Shez will have the Meister effect on her weapon. I think it's safe to say that she has the Desperation effect. It looks like we're not going to have a Kris situation, and the two Shezes will be different from each other.

Surprisingly bad luck on all of the rerun banners. 50 pulls from the Ascended Fjorm banner: 1 Ascended Fjorm (+1 spark) 1 Annette 55 pulls from the Remix banner: 1 Ascended Ishtar 1 Legendary Julia 0 Ascended Mareeta (+1 spark) 24 pulls from the Fuzzy Hat banner: 1 Harmonized Leaf That comes out to a miserably low 3.1% focus rate and 3.9% overall 5-star rate. Even if the Remix banner had a 3% focus rate instead of a 6% focus rate like the others, a 3.1% focus rate would still have been below average (average is about 3.3%). The Leaf also happened to be the exact same [+Atk, -Spd] that my merge base is. Go figure.

Xander. That should be extended to "characters original to Heroes", as Eitri's first version was also as a Legendary Hero. And it's probably less of an outlier and more of "original characters follow a different set of rules".

Side boob.