Ice Dragon

Haar: Tempest's Claw Base effect is: Nullifies effective damage against fliers. Receives effective damage from blue tomes. Meister effect Permanent -5 Spd Refine effect is: With a Blow-or-Unity condition: +5 Atk/Def Damage reduction equal to 15% of Def, excludes AoE Specials Guard effect Trades effective damage from fliers for effective damage from blue tomes. This is an obvious reference to the dragon knight classes from Radiant Dawn, which had no weakness to bows, but instead had a weakness to thunder magic. Honestly, this is pretty cool and helps Haar quite a bit. The effective damage shouldn't be too much of an issue for him since his Res is awful, and he shouldn't be taking hits from magic units anyways. The damage reduction comes out to about 8~10 points depending on the build. It's not quite as high as Spring Maria's, but it allows him to be built the same way, stacking percentage damage reduction, which is applied before the flat damage reduction. Solid weapon. Sothis: Sublime Surge Base effect is unchanged: Nullifies effective damage against dragons Distant Counter Dragonstone common effect Refine effect is: If HP is 25% or higher: +4 to all stats Reduces damage from opponent's first attack by 40% Sothis doesn't have access to Dodge, and her ability to use Dragon Wall is questionable at best, so damage reduction is the effect she most needed, and that's what she got. And that's all she got. On the bright side, the damage reduction is fixed at 40%, which is extremely nice to have. She can also run the newly released Dragon's Wrath 4 for a total of 55% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack. Sothis still suffers from the fact that she has a 2-cooldown Special with no reliable way to lower the cooldown. Ideally, she wants to start combat on enemy phase with zero or 1 cooldown so that she can activate Sirius on the attack after the opponent's hit, but because her means of lowering her cooldown is Time's Pulse, which activates at the start of each turn, she can't reliably have her cooldown lowered down to zero or 1 except on the first round of combat on each turn. Or you can just permanently glue the Darting Breath Sacred Seal to her. I think what Sothis wants right now is for Atk/Spd Finish to be released. Brave Lysithea: Dark Spikes T Base effect is unchanged: Effective damage against cavalry Permanent +3 Spd If opponent's HP is 75% or higher: +6 Atk/Spd If HP is 99% or lower and with the Blow condition: Guaranteed follow-up Desperation effect Refine effect is: Slaying effect At start of turn: Grants self Warp Powder effect as a status effect Deals 1 damage to self With a Blow-or-Unity condition: +6 Atk/Spd +1 Special charge rate on unit's own attacks Self damage at the start of each turn is exactly the effect she wanted. Everything else is just icing on the cake, and there's a lot of icing. The Slaying effect and the Special charge rate boost mean she can run Luna and reliably have it activate on her follow-up attack, though it can be blocked by Guard or Tempo. If she runs Ruptured Sky (or Moonbow or Glimmer), it can only be blocked if the opponent has both Guard and Tempo. Warp Powder and the additional +6 Atk/Spd is the rest of the large helping of icing. Brave Dimitri: Moon Gradivus Base effect is unchanged: +1 Special charge rate on opponent's attacks Distant Counter Refine effect is: If there is at least 1 ally within 3 spaces: +5 Spd/Def/Res Additional damage equal to 20% of Def Damage reduction equal to 20% of Def, excludes AoE Specials -5 Def to opponent Nullifies opponent's Bonuses to Atk/Def Effectively gets +5 to all stats, around 12~15 points of additional damage, around 12~15 points of flat damage reduction, and nullifies the opponent's Bonuses to Atk/Def. Notably, the +5 to all stats is distributed as +5 to Spd/Def/Res and -5 to the opponent's Def instead of +5 to Dimitri's Atk, which is an effective total 10-point boost to Def for the purpose of Blue Lion Rule's damage reduction effect. And since the refine effect's damage reduction is flat damage reduction, it's applied after Blue Lion Rule's percentage damage reduction, which makes Dimitri stupidly bulky now. He's going to be a nightmare to kill and can potentially turn into the new Fallen Edelgard. Legendary Julia: Virtuous Naga Base effect is updated: Effective damage against dragons Permanent +3 Atk If visible Atk is greater than opponent's visible Atk or if opponent's HP is 75% or higher (HP condition is new): +6 Atk/Res Dragon Wall 3 (new) Refine effect is: If there is at least 1 ally within 3 spaces: +4 to all stats Guaranteed follow-up If opponent is dragonstone: Close Counter And so ends the era of running Life and Death on Julia. She no longer needs to rely on a comparison of visible Atk to gain her weapon's effects, and she now also wants to run Res for Dragon Wall's effect. There's an argument that she should probably run Atk/Res Finish instead of Atk/Res Ideal or Still Water, though, since her refine effect has the same positioning condition as Finish, and being a Legendary Hero means she's likely to run into mirror matches against herself, where Light and Dark on the opposing Julia will make it difficult to activate both stacks of Ideal. A guaranteed follow-up also means that she no longer needs to build for Spd, though it's possible that she still might want to do so to break follow-up prevention on some slow units, though getting a total effective +9 Spd from the combination of her weapon and Light and Dark II on top of nullifying her Penalties and the opponent's Bonuses makes it hard for slower units to actually manage to claw back enough Spd to block her follow-up. Close Counter against dragons is a nice reference back to her base version. Brave Edelgard: Flower Hauteclere Base effect is unchanged: Slaying effect If HP is 25% or higher at start of turn: Grants +1 movement as a status effect Grants the Warp Powder effect as a status effect If unit's HP is 25% or higher: -6 Atk/Def to opponent Refine effect is: If there is at least 1 ally within 3 spaces: +3 Atk/Def/Res Boost to Atk/Def/Res equal to the number of spaces attacking unit moved ×2 (max +6) 7 HP regeneration on unit's own attacks -6 Atk/Def on opponent If number of spaces attacking unit moved is at least 1: Guard effect So basically a minimum of +9 Atk/Def/Res on top of the +6 Atk/Def/Res from the base effect and an additional 2 points of all three stats for each space she or the opponent moves when attacking, up to a maximum of 3 spaces. That's a maximum of +21 Atk/Def/Res. Seriously, what the fuck. At least she's still vulnerable to Duo Chrom. Brave Claude: Wind Parthia Base effect is updated: Bow common effect Slaying effect With Blow-or-Unity condition: +5 to all stats Recovers HP equal to 50% of max HP when unit activates a damaging Special in combat Nullifies 60% of Deep Wounds in combat (new) Refine effect is: If HP is 25% or higher: +5 to all stats The offensive half of Null Follow-Up The offensive half of Tempo If unit has a Bonus: Reduces damage from opponent's first attack by 30% And we finally have our first skill effect that specifically nullifies Deep Wounds. The Slaying effect, Null Follow-Up, and Tempo means that he can reliably land Deadeye on his follow-up attack, and 30% damage reduction helps him survive the counterattack, though it's not quite as reliable as Legendary Claude's 80% damage reduction. The only caveat is that he needs to have a Bonus in order to get the damage reduction, and he doesn't have the ability to do so on his own with his base kit. Landing Deadeye on his follow-up also heals himself for 50% of his max HP, and even if he has Deep Wounds, he still heals 30% of his max HP.

Close Counter is rarely worth it on units under player control. Most ranged units simply don't have the bulk to run the skill reliably. If you're running a purely enemy-phase build, you're better off focusing on only ranged opponents (and even then, you're probably going to have difficulty with some of the stronger units).

Limstella is the stronger of the two (the comparison is not even close), but she's more expensive to merge due to requiring Grails.

Tana's Resplendent outfit relates her to her paired character, not to the banner's theme. Lyn having a Nifl-themed Resplendent outfit shouldn't really matter. And, it makes sense to have more different outfits rather than more same outfits anyways. (Meanwhile, Brave Lyn is literally just in her regular outfit. Can we please get a Resplendent Brave Lyn already? Preferably Nidavellir? Though I wouldn't mind Jotunheim either.)

The skill is basically a combination of Finish and Dodge. There's a chance it'll have the less restrictive Finish restrictions (infantry only), but it's a bit more likely it'll share its restrictions with Dodge (sword, lance, and axe infantry only). At the very least, I don't think it'll have less restrictive restrictions than Finish.

This Lyn is clearly not designed to be running Galeforce.

It looks like Mordecai's weapon is an upgraded version of Rinkah's weapon. In addition to Flame Gunbai's effects, it also grants an additional +1 Atk/Def (total +6), prevents the opponent's follow-up effects (same condition as the other effects), and has a permanent +3 Def on top of also having the standard infantry beast transformation effects. Not bad at all. The only issue is that, unlike Rinkah, he's probably not fast and is therefore stuck just being an enemy-phase unit running Quick Riposte. Also, he's a sumo wrestler.

Sounds like a job for Inf. Spd Tactic. I have no idea what you mean by positioning requirements. It's nearly impossible to move more than 4 spaces away from an ally during normal gameplay, and even having only 1 ally within 4 spaces is still a ridiculous +8 to all stats. As for Tempo, Verdict of Sacae is strong enough that you can afford to give up a stat-boosting Sacred Seal to run Flashing Blade in the case that you need her to function as a wall breaker. But I think it's better to just let a teammate take the role of wallbreaker instead.

A 5% boost over the tier-3 skill might not seem like much, but it's still almost always at least a 1-point boost to both damage dealt and damage mitigated (guaranteed 1-point boost at a base value of 16 or higher, and almost guaranteed at a base value of 12 or higher with only a base value of 15 not getting a boost). But notably, dragons uniquely have access to a 300-SP Sacred Seal, which means a 300-SP passive B skill allows them to get a 1-scoring-bucket boost in Arena scoring regardless of their Assist skill. If it weren't on a seasonal unit (noting that even the tier-3 version is only available from seasonal units), I'd probably give it to Legendary Myrrh over her default Dragon Wall. The damage boost is pretty nice to have, especially in the Arena where you're fucking stuck with Aether as your only viable Special, and Myrrh already gets damage reduction from her weapon.

And the usual translation notes: The banner name, "Bite of Flame", is "炎の祭りは甘くない" (honō no matsuri wa amakunai), "The Festival of Flame Is Not Easy". "甘くない" (amakunai) in this context means "is not easy" or "will not go easy on you" with connotations of "should not be underestimated". Lyn's epithet, "Blazing Whirlwind", is "炎巻く風" (honō maku kaze), "Flame-Wrapped Wind". "巻く" (maku), "to wrap", specifically implies a coiling motion. Firelight Lance is "炎と風舞う霊槍" (honō to kaze mau reisō), "Spirit Lance of Dancing Flames and Wind". Godlike Reflexes is "神速回避" (shinsoku kaihi), "God-Speed Evasion". As a bit of trivia, "神速" (shinsoku), "extreme speed" or literally "god-speed", stylized as "しんそく" (shinsoku) because kanji is not used in the names of moves, is the name of the move Extreme Speed in Pokémon. Verdict of Sacae is "大いなるサカの掟" (ōi-naru saka no okite), "Great Laws of Sacae". For comparison, Laws of Sacae is "サカの掟" (saka no okite). Muspell's epithet, "Raging Inferno", is "猛る業炎" (takeru gōen), "Raging Hellfire". "猛る" (takeru), "to rage", can refer to any of anger, ferocity, or excitement, and it probably refers to all three here. Breath of Flame is "炎祭のブレス" (ensai no buresu), "Breath of the Flame Festival". Dragon's Wrath is "竜の魔鱗" (ryū no marin), "Dragon's Magic Scale". Rinkah's epithet, "Consuming Flame", is "平らげる猛火" (tairageru mōka), "All-Consuming Raging Flames". Flame Gunbai is "炎の軍配" (honō no gunbai), "Flame Gunbai". "軍配" (gunbai) is an abbreviation for "軍配団扇" (gunbai uchiwa), literally "fan distributed among the army", a fan typically made of wood originally used in war for signaling and communication. In modern times, it is still in use for signaling by referees in sumo wrestling. Tana's epithet, "Soothing Warmth", is "温かなる絆" (atataka-naru kizuna), "Warm Bonds". Kindling Taiko is "原初の炎の太鼓" (gensho no honō no taiko), "Taiko of the Origin Flame". The word "太鼓" (taiko) in Japanese simply means "drum" and can refer to any drum of any design. The English word "taiko" specifically refers traditional Japanese drums, some of which are closely associated with traditional Japanese festivals. Spd/Def Hold is "速さ守備の大牽制" (hayasa shubi no daikensei), "Spd/Def Great Restraint". For comparison, Spd/Def Rein is "速さ守備の牽制" (hayasa shubi no kensei), "Spd/Def Restraint". Mordecai's epithet, "Gentle Firetender", is "優しき篝火" (yasashiki kagaribi), "Gentle Bonfire". Fiery Fang is "炎虎の爪牙" (enko no sōga), "Flame Tiger's Claws and Fangs".

Cute girls in sarashi, and two with nice abs. Very nice. A bit disappointed Muspell isn't also wearing a sarashi. I think he would've looked good in one. (Men wear sarashi around their waist, e.g. Kamina from TTGL. It's supposed to help support your core during physical exertion.) Rinkah is the demote? Her inheritable weapon is really good, too. Sarashi is love. Sarashi is life. I want everyone. Fuck my life. And my wallet. The new skills are pretty cool. Godlike Reflexes is a new defensive Special that also boosts damage. It looks like they're really leaning into the new condition that Finish introduced. Dragon's Wrath 4 finally makes Dragon's Wrath actually worth using. That said, it looks like Muspell is mostly just using it for the extra damage. I'm expecting him to be slow just like his base version, which means if he can't kill the opponent in one hit on enemy phase, he's stuck eating the second attack at full damage, which is not a fun time. Works fine on player phase, though. EDIT: I'm absolutely willing to bet that it's inheritable.

Chrom is easily the most versatile of the four, excelling in both mobility and mobility support due to having one of the best Assist skills in the game. Having access to Canto is also a pretty notable advantage over his Legendary and Duo versions, though he is obviously hindered by his melee range and his vulnerability to map terrain. Tiki is both a wall and a wall breaker. Notably, Tiki can cleanly kill Fallen Edelgard on either phase with both units running their most typical sets. She can also kill Duo Chrom on the counterattack, but the margins are extremely narrow. I haven't used Byleth yet, but I've played against one in the Arena. She's really scary as a wall breaker since it's really hard to kill her on the counterattack if you let her initiate combat (or if she activates Preempt on you). But she's hilariously squishy when attacked by a melee unit. Preempt makes her actually viable as a ranged Vantage tank, though you need to be absolutely sure Preempt will actually activate. I've seen an increase in the use of AR-D Atk/Spd in Vault of Heaven, and Sweep and Hardy Bearing (Legendary Lilina) are also not uncommon in general. I haven't used or seen Seliph used yet, but I don't really see him bringing anything substantially new to the table. He's a fast Legendary Sigurd with Null Follow-Up and Canto built in. This gives him better combat performance than Sigurd, but comes at the cost of losing SIgurd's mobility support utility, which is a pretty major loss.

If this Voting Gauntlet is anything to go by, the male characters aren't as popular as the female ones. Determining which character is more popular isn't done by seeing who wins; it's done by seeing who has the largest team. Based on the first hour scores, Byleth, Tiki, and Eirika were the most popular characters in round one, in that order. And one can assume that IS has access to more data than we do. They probably know exactly how many player joined each team instead of needing to extrapolate that data from scores.

424 pulls from the Legendary Hero banner: 10 Deirdre (+1 spark) 15 Fae 10 Myrrh 1 Triandra 1 Gustav 1 Rhea 9.0% focus rate, which is a bit higher than average (by about 2 pulls). 2.4% Deirdre rate, which is probably a bit below average (but probably by less than 1 pull), even if you account for sessions without a blue orb. Can't really complain about the lopsided pulls since my Deirdre rate was not the usual awfulness, and Fae is good fodder. Oof. That screenshot is way too relatable.

Since the skill is Wings of Mercy, it's most likely that I used Claude once for Resonant Battles and just never reverted his skills back afterward. My Reposition fodder is always 3-star manuals, so I won't ever bother grabbing Wings of Mercy from Merlinus even if I do use one of his manuals.

Huh... Why the fuck does my Claude have Wings of Mercy? I just assume that whatever skills are on units I don't remember ever using are their default skills. I don't remember ever using Brave Claude, so I have no idea why he has any skills (other than Reposition) inherited.

I'm disappointed. I seriously hope no units with exclusive weapons released after CYL 4 get refines before launch units get a second chance at a refine. CYL units are supposed to be special, and I get that, and they are also the earliest set of "modern" weapons, so they are also slightly behind more recently released weapons, but I'm still disappointed. Anyways, one translation note: Tempest's Claw is "黒疾風の爪斧" (koku-shippū no sōfu), "Claw Axe of the Black Gale". "黒疾風" might be pronounced "kuro shippū" instead. Either way, it's Haar's epithet. "爪斧" might be pronounced "tsume-ono" instead. I hate novel Japanese compound words. Trying to figure out how they're supposed to be pronounced is the absolute worst. And hopes and predictions: Haar: Tempest's Claw Currently has Brave Axe+. Haar is a pretty stock-standard slow unit with high Atk and Def and a Brave weapon. I'm expecting him to get a Brave weapon that boosts his Atk and Def more. And because they've been pretty gimmicky with new weapons recently, I would not be surprised to see some experimental gimmick on the weapon. Sothis: Sublime Surge Current effect is: Nullifies effective damage against dragons Distant Counter Dragonstone common effect Sothis is getting the offensive half of Tempo on Sirius+ and Null C-Disrupt from her remix. Null C-Disrupt notably replaces Wrath. The fact that Sothis is getting Null C-Disrupt is interesting because the skill is generally considered to be pretty underwhelming. If it's worth giving to Sothis as a remix skill, then they're probably giving her a refine that lessens the demand for other skills in that slot. Sirius+ is already granting the offensive half of Tempo. I'm expecting the refine to grant some means of helping her charge her Special if they're expecting players to replace Wrath. She already has Time's Pulse, but Time's Pulse only activates at the start of the turn, which doesn't help when taking multiple rounds of combat on enemy phase. Notably, the fact that she has a 2-cooldown Special that heals based on the damage dealt means that if her Special is at maximum cooldown at the start of combat on enemy phase, she won't be able to activate her Special until her second counterattack, which potentially reduces the amount of healing she receives. Ideally, she gets the Slaying effect, but a Special charge rate boost on enemy phase (she doesn't need it on player phase) also works. Given that Sothis is a fast unit with Distant Counter that doesn't normally have access to Dodge, the refine is almost certainly going to give her some form of damage reduction. It'll probably get +4 or +5 to all stats for its obligatory stat boost. Distant Counter weapons historically get weaker refines (see Legendary Roy for a very recent example), so I'm not expecting any other effects. Brave Lysithea: Dark Spikes T Current effect is: Effective damage against cavalry Permanent +3 Spd If opponent's HP is 75% or higher: +6 Atk/Spd If HP is 99% or lower and with the Blow condition: guaranteed follow-up Desperation effect Lysithea already has an absolutely solid weapon, which is expected of a modern weapon. Lysithea's only notable weakness is her low bulk, which can make it difficult to survive a round of combat to actually activate the Desperation effect on her weapon. All she really needs is damage reduction on the opponent's first attack or 1 point of self-damage at the start of turn 1, the latter of which also allows you to more easily swap out her default Atk/Spd Push for a different skill (though there aren't currently any skills actually worth switching to). It'll probably get +5 or +6 Atk/Spd for its obligatory stat boost. Brave Dimitri: Moon Gradivus Current effect is: +1 Special charge rate on opponent's attacks Distant Counter Dimitri is cursed with a Distant Counter weapon, which means it's not likely to get a lot of effects. Thankfully, he already has a Def-based Dodge and a guaranteed follow-up on his exclusive B skill, which covers some of the effect he already wants. Ideally, the refine includes Guard due to the fact that he has Unity as his default A skill instead of Stance. Dull would also be nice. Passive healing would also be nice. Tempo would also be nice. A second stack of Unity would also be nice. Throw some darts at this dartboard. It would be really, really damned cool if he inflicts -7 Atk/Def on himself at the start of the opponent's turn or after he performs any action just to permanently activate his default Atk/Def Unity. I'm expecting -5 or -6 Atk/Def on the opponent for its obligatory stat boost, though -4 or -5 Atk/Spd/Def is also likely. Legendary Julia: Virtuous Naga Current effect is: Effective damage against dragons Permanent +3 Atk If Atk is greater than opponent's Atk at the start of combat, +6 Atk/Res Julia is getting penalty nullification on Life and Death II and Atk/Res Menace from her remix. Life and Death II also has the stat penalty it inflicts on opponents increased from -2 to a massive -5. Julia's remix skills are functionally extensions of her existing skills in those slots, so I don't see them affecting her refine much. Julia is an interesting unit due to the fact that she has an out-of-combat Atk comparison on her weapon, which promotes the use of Life and Death or Still Water. She was released prior to the release of Still Water, so it's likely players will have Life and Death already on her if they already tried to optimize her kit, replacing her default Mirror Impact. Julia also doesn't have a guaranteed follow-up, which additionally promotes the use of Life and Death on her over Still Water, but that comes at the cost of losing Res, which seems counter to how she was intended to be used. The biggest limitation for Julia is the fact that Legendary Deirdre is so ridiculously similar to her, so it really wouldn't make sense to have her refined weapon overlap Deirdre's skill effects too much. A guaranteed follow-up is still possible for a refine effect, which would push Julia towards running Still Water (though she still runs into the issue that there is no Still Water Sacred Seal yet). However, I can see them changing the base effect's condition so that the effect is always active on player phase, which would allow her to run her default Mirror Impact. However, if they want to lean into Life and Death a bit more, I can see her weapon nullifying or reducing percentage damage reduction, which helps her break Dragon Wall more easily even with Life and Death's penalty to Res. Brave Edelgard: Flower Hauteclere Current effect is: Slaying effect If HP is 25% or higher at start of turn: Grants +1 movement as a status effect Grants the Warp Powder effect as a status effect If unit's HP is 25% or higher: -6 Atk/Def to opponent Flower Hauteclere is actually pretty tame for a modern weapon. It's Edelgard's exclusive B skill that makes her hard to deal with. What Edelgard probably wants the most is damage reduction on the opponent's first attack or on consecutive attacks, which allows her to emulate Brave Ike more closely, and damage reduction against AoE Specials, which allows her to tank tomes with AoE Specials a bit better. Svalinn Shield would also be nice to allow her to emulate Brave Hector. Guard would be nice since she can't really fit it in her A or B slots. The defensive half of Tempo would be nice. Increasing the opponent's Special cooldown by 1 at the start of combat would be nice. Anything that tells Duo Chrom to go fuck himself would be nice (even if units like Brave Edelgard are exactly what Duo Chrom was supposed to counter, Duo Chrom simply deserves to get fucked). Brave Claude: Wind Parthia Current effect is: Bow common effect Slaying effect With Blow-or-Unity condition: +5 to all stats Recovers HP equal to 50% of max HP when unit activates a damaging Special Wind Parthia is at least the CYL 4 weapon that is most deserving of a refine since bows hadn't caught up with other weapons at the time of its release. Claude relies on the healing from his weapon for survivability. He does have decent bulk for a ranged unit, but can still be vulnerable to being killed in one round of combat by strong units with guaranteed follow-ups. Claude would definitely prefer to give up the extra defenses from Fury for a more offensive A skill. Perhaps 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack is enough to give up Fury without really stepping on Legendary Claude's toes. Claude also lacks access to Tempo effects, which is a huge problem for activating his weapon's healing effect. The offensive half of Tempo seems like a reasonable effect to give him and makes him more distinct from his Legendary version. His default Wings of Mercy has never really fit with the rest of his kit. If they want to get fancy, Canto [Recall] would synergize with it pretty well. I'm expecting +5 to all stats for its obligatory stat boost. Miracle on a ranged Galeforcer is fine because said ranged Galeforcer sucks at breaking walls and has paper for magic bulk. A melee Galeforcer with a guaranteed follow-up that doesn't actually need to charge Galeforce to activate it and also can't die is stupid.

Right.

The next Remixes are Julia and Sothis: Julia: Light and Dark II Nullifies own penalties (new) -5 to all stats on opponent in combat (previously -2) Nullifies opponent's bonuses to all stats Nullifies effects on opponent that calculate damage based on the lower defense stat Gains Atk/Res Menace as a new skill. Light and Dark was already quite good. Light and Dark II is pretty busted, considering the best inheritable stat-boosting skills in the B slot only grant 4 points to three stats in addition to a non-stat effect. Nullifying the opponent's bonuses was already extremely powerful in the Arena, and with the increasing prevalence of skills that inflict penalties, nullifying your own penalties is also quite strong. Atk/Res Menace makes sense. Sothis: Sirius+ Cooldown 2 Deals damage equal to 35% of Spd (previously 30%) Heals HP equal to 35% of damage dealt (previously 30%) The offensive half of Tempo (new) Gains Null C-Disrupt as a new skill. Sirius+ notably gains the offensive half of Tempo, which prevents the opponent from stopping Sothis from activating her Special. That's nice and reduces competition in her B slot. The extra damage and healing is pretty minor and amounts to about 3 additional points of damage. What's more interesting is the fact that they're giving her Null C-Disrupt to replace Wrath. Null C-Disrupt is a rather underwhelming skill, so assuming that the developers aren't idiots (which is unfortunately not a valid assumption), they're planning on giving her refine something that can replace Wrath and actually makes Null C-Disrupt viable on her.

That's what I assumed would happen, but I didn't have any way to check with what I currently had in my barracks. My best guess for the explanation is that it takes the unit's highest stat at level 1, which is why it ended up giving HP. It's also worth mentioning that any time you merge two units (that you already have) together and want to know what the end result will be, you can always preview the resulting unit on the confirmation screen by tapping and holding on the icon.

Atk/Def Rein is technically better on Ashnard than Atk/Def Menace. However, that's only if you're offloading buffs and debuffs to other teammates. I like to use Menace as a benchmark for the C slot since all units have access to them, and they're either optimal or close to optimal for a large chunk of the roster.

There's no reason not to give him Atk Smoke 4 if you're already feeding Gustav to him for Trace. Atk Smoke 4 is best used on dual-phase units. You want to hit an enemy on player phase to activate the buffs and debuffs and then tank through the enemy phase. You lose a pretty big chunk of effective Atk compared to Atk/Def Menace and it requires a more active playstyle, but you gain follow-up prevention and a bit of Res in exchange.

If both units have an Ascended Asset, the base unit keeps their Ascended Asset, and the sacrificed unit's Ascended Asset is lost forever. If the base unit has an Ascended Asset and the sacrificed unit does not, nothing special happens. If the sacrificed unit has an Ascended Asset and the base unit does not, the base unit will gain an Ascended Asset in the same stat as the sacrificed unit's Ascended Asset. If the base unit already has a regular Asset in that stat, the base unit will instead gain an Ascended Asset in the same stat as the sacrificed unit's regular Asset. (I don't know what happens if the sacrificed unit has no regular Asset.)

So basically just a stronger Julia. I'm a bit disappointed that she's another blue tome when she could have been a colorless tome or staff. Uses an out-of-combat Res comparison instead of an out-of-combat Atk comparison, which gives them an excuse to give her Still Water, but we're still missing a Still Water Sacred Seal. Despite the fact that she uses a Res comparison, she still gains more from an Atk Asset than a Res Asset. Her damage increases by 100% of her Atk per attack, 100% of her Res per attack if she activates her Special once, or 120% of her Res per attack if she activates her Special twice. However, the extra effective Atk from increasing her Res doesn't scale with effective damage (since it's a penalty to the opponent's Res and not an actual boost to her Atk), any increase in her Res past 15 points over her opponent's does nothing, and even though the rate of scaling is faster for Res than Atk if she activates her Special twice, it's subject to rounding down twice (since it's actually 80% + 40%) and the superboon in Atk still makes up the difference and then some. I don't think it's worth running her with a Res Asset at all unless you're giving her a Floret. Tempo guarantees that her Special will be fully charged by the opponent's counterattack, which guarantees that she'll survive at least one round of combat as long as she's initiating combat. And translation notes: Deirdre's epithet, "Fated Saint", is "運命の聖女" (unmei no seijo), "Saint of Destiny" or "Saint of Fate". Spirit Forest Writ is "精霊の森の秘本" (seirei no mori no hihon), "Treasured Book of the Spirit Forest". Circlet of Balance is "聖神と暗黒神の冠" (seishin to ankokushin no kanmuri), "Crown of the Holy God and the Dark God" or, in context, "Crown of Naga and Loptous". Atk/Res Tempo is "攻撃魔防の拍節" (kōgeki mabō no hakusetsu), "Atk/Res Tempo".

Four wins and one loss bring me up one more tier to Platinum B. Currently sitting with 4,099 points at rank 566. Brought out Duo Nina this time around, and she's really fun to use. Just need to make sure the opponents don't have access to Canto Control or Brave Hector, and she'll just melt everything else.