Ice Dragon

That's not a "good" example. That's the only example. Every New Heroes banner since the introduction of Florets has had an Ascended Hero on it except for Ash's banner and the Fallen Heroes banner (which gets a pass for the same reason the upcoming CYL banner gets a pass). It's unlikely that they'll release another New Heroes banner (other than the aforementioned banner themes that get a pass and possibly banners for newly released games) without a Floret because of how valuable they are to players. Even if every New Heroes banner (other than the aforementioned passes) gets a Floret going forward, that's only 10 Florets per year, which is already extremely low. Est deserves an Echoes alt for the same reason that Sirius, Zeke, and Zelgius in Begnion armor deserve to be in the game. Ascended Celica, on the other hand, was completely unnecessary, and the Ascended Hero slot should've been used to Overclass someone. Delthea and Faye are both safe picks, and I'm pretty sure they could even hype up Boey if they tried hard enough to make him good (we still don't have a legitimately good Close Counter unit in the game). I'm pretty sure they realized that they're not releasing Florets fast enough.

Every time we get an original character on a normal banner (starting Book IV, which is when they started putting original characters on normal banners on a regular basis), they make sure to add an off-banner demote so that we still get the same number of units from the banner's game. Peony's banner had Tanya. Mirabilis's banner had Emmeryn Reginn's banner had Knoll Nott's banner had Tatiana Nifl's banner had Benny Muspell's banner had Balthus Ascended Fjorm's banner had Vyland Ascended Laegjarn's banner had Tanith Ash's banner had Miriel Letizia's banner had Guy Ymir's banner has Atlas So no, we didn't get one less Echoes character. If Ymir weren't on the banner, then we would've just gotten a banner with Ascended Celica, Est, Kamui, and Atlas and not gotten an off-banner demote, which is still four characters. Or, you know, there aren't any remaining popular characters from Echoes that aren't already in the game, so it makes sense to give Echoes banners two demotes instead of one and save one of the banner slots for an original character.

Translation things, I suppose: The banner's name, "Special Summon: Ymir & More", is "特別召喚　新英雄＆開花英雄＆ユーミル" (tokubetsu shōkan: shin eiyū & kaika eiyū & yūmiru), "Special Summon: New Heroes & Blooming Hero & Ymir". As usual, "開花" (kaika), "bloom", is the Japanese terminology for Ascended Heroes. Celica's epithet, "Valentia's Hope", is "バレンシアの希望" (barenshia no kibō), "Valentia's Hope". Mila's Testament is "大地母神の聖書" (daichi boshin no seisho), "Scriptures of Mother Earth". "大地母神" (daichi boshin) literally translates as "mother-earth goddess". Compare with Mila's Nurturing Breath, which is "大地母神のブレス" (daichi boshi no buresu), "Breath of Mother Earth", and is what Mila's Testament's animation is based off of. Inf. Null Follow is "歩行の見切り追撃" (hokō no mikiri tsuigeki), "Infantry Nihil Follow-Up Attack". "見切り・追撃効果" (mikiri: tsuigeki kōka), "Nihil: Follow-Up Attack Effects", is the Japanese name of the Null Follow-Up skill. "見切り" (mikiri), "seeing through everything", is the Japanese name of the Nihil skill from the main series. Est's epithet, "Sweet Baby Sis", is "天真爛漫な末っ子" (tenshin ranman na suekko), "Naive Youngest Child". Tri-Edge Lance is "天馬姉妹の三角槍" (tenba shimai no sankaku-sō), "Pegasus Sisters' Triangle Lance". Flow Feather is "怒涛・天馬行空" (dotō: tenba kōkū), "Surging Waves: Pegasus Flight". "天馬行空" (tenba kōkū), "pegasus flight", is the Japanese name of the Pegasus Flight skill. Compare with "怒涛・飛竜行空" (dotō: hiryū kōkū), "Surging Waves: Wyvern Flight", which is the Japanese name of the Flow Flight skill. Kamui's epithet, "Wandering Blade", is "流れ者の傭兵" (nagaremono no yōhei), "Wanderer Mercenary". Up-Front Blade is "正々堂々の剣" (seisei dōdō no tsurugi), "Fair-and-Square Blade". Ymir's epithet, "Life-Mother", is "生命の母なる竜" (seimei no haha-naru ryū), "Mother Dragon of Life". Everliving Breath is "永生のブレス" (eisei no buresu), "Breath of Eternal Life". A/R Near Trace is "攻撃魔防の近影" (kōgeki mabō no kin'ei), "Atk/Res Near Trace". "影" (ei) here means "something that is left behind", referring to the fact that the attacking unit is no longer there. Everliving Domain is "永生結界", (eisei kekkai), "Boundary of Eternal Life". Atlas's epithet, "Forest Muscle", is "森の剛腕" (mori no gōwan), "Strong Arm of the Forest". "剛腕" (gōwan) literally translates as "strong arm", but also refers to a person that can carry out a difficult task. Stout Axe is "堅固の斧" (kengo no ono), "Solid Axe". Brigand Boss's epithet, "Known Criminal", is "乱世の凶風" (ransei no kyōfū), "Sinister Wind of Unrest". What the fuck did this guy do to deserve such an edgy epithet when Gatekeeper only got "of the Monastery"? Vulture Axe is "禿鷹の斧" (hagetaka no ono), "Vulture Axe". Undomesticated animals typically have their names written out phonetically in kana rather than in kanji (often because the kanji are either complicated or obscure), but Heroes uses the kanji name, likely to save space. Bruno's epithet, "Prince Beset", is "憑かれし皇子" (tsukareshi ōji), "Possessed Imperial Prince". Compare with Veronica: Princess Beset's epithet, "憑かれし皇女" (tsukareshi ōjo), "Possessed Imperial Princess". Veiled Valaskjalf is "幽暗ヴラスキャルフ" (yūan vurasukyarufu), "Gloom Valaskjalf" or "Seclusion Valaskjalf".

Ascended Hero versions of characters that already have a Legendary Hero version is pretty cool. I expect them to do this only for characters that have already gotten a Legendary Hero version, though. And also probably rarely. Valentia has a relatively small cast, so there aren't that many choices, though I am a bit disappointed they went with palette-swap Celica instead of Overclassing literally anyone. I'm sure Mach Faye would sell well. Est is a given for this banner since the other two have already gotten their Echoes versions. It's kind of funny since I was doing the Plumeria Limited Hero Battle a few hours ago and realized I couldn't include all of the pegasus knight sisters because Est didn't have an Echoes version yet. Ymir is cute. Her dragon form is pretty, but those feet are creepy. Also, her legs don't look like they can hold her weight, especially with the back legs bent like that. I think the feet would also look better if the legs were fleshed out a bit more. Ymir looks like a ridiculously good heal bot. She even has the ability to remove penalties, but only after healing, so there's no getting around Fatal Smoke too easily. She's also bringing A/R Near Trace to round out the melee Res Trace skills after Nifl brought S/R Near Trace in the most recent banner. Her Miracle looks like it'll be a bit finnicky to make use of since it only activates from 75% or higher, though it should at least help stop the couple units that rely on Lethality to break tanks. It's also nice to be getting her as a normal Hero, which allows her to be run on either side in Aether Raids. Celica has built-in Miracle, but only from 25% or higher. She could give up Soul of Zofia to run double Mystic Boost to do the same invincibility shenanigans that Hel and Harmonized Leaf can do, but I don't think it's worth it. The other characters don't really stand out to me in terms of gameplay performance. Est doesn't even have Triangle Attack despite her weapon's name referencing it. Likely just pulling for the spark and then cleaning up my pity rate. It's probably most efficient for me to snipe green for Ymir and use my spark on Celica to get the Floret. Please no. That thing is so ugly.

I don't really follow banner release patterns, but it's certainly possible. We haven't had a Tellius New Heroes banner since the start of the current book (the last one was November 2021, and the current book started in December 2021), and we haven't had a Radiant Dawn New Heroes banner since the Laguz banners in early 2019, which are now old enough to be getting refines.

Not that I know of. If there's terminology you aren't sure about, feel free to ask. We don't bite hard. Until I finish getting everything together to update the main site, the usual reference the Fandom wiki page, which has several different sortable lists under "More > Heroes" in the top bar.

With all of the new busted cavalry units recently released, this is probably the most fun I've ever had in Grand Conquest. My current lead team (Legendary Sigurd, Brave Eirika, Legendary Xander, Summer Nifl, Legendary Lilina, Bride Lilina, Harmonized Azura, and Legendary Leaf) is so good at covering ground with +1 movement, Canto, and Galeforce that I can usually have the enemy forward base captured by the end of the first turn and the enemy main base surrounded by the end of the second turn. It's kind of disgusting. Not looking forward to going back to "normal" units for the remaining two rounds, but at least I have Pathfinder available on both teams for both of the remaining rounds (and Duo Dagr's give-the-entire-team-Pathfinder bullshit for next round). Made it to tier 20 before running out of stamina restores.

40 pulls on the remix banner: 1 Roy 2 Volke Sparked for a third Volke since I already sparked for Yuri on the other banner and Volke has Lethality and Yuri does not. Though it's not like I actually know what to do with Lethality since its cooldown is so long.

Dragon Wall has higher damage reduction, but requires a Res comparison. Run the numbers. My Henriette typically has Flayn and Elimine with her in Aether Raids and has support with Gustav and can still have trouble with wall breakers, so you still want to make sure Tiki is fine not running extra defenses even if you have team support. Yes, Walhart has already been run in Hall of Forms.

You're going to want to run the calculations against the opponents you're expecting to use her against in the Arena, but my gut feeling says she'll probably want Res over Atk. Tiki is easily the weakest Far Save tank of the units that get it by default or commonly run it, and the introduction of Summer Micaiah isn't helping. From my experience, her Res is pretty iffy, and you'll want to check if she can tank whatever you're expecting her to tank. At +10+15, she has 44 neutral Res, a self-activated 6 Res from her C skill, and reduces her opponent's Atk by 9 if her Bonuses aren't nullified for a total of 59 effective Res if you have no Res-boosting skills in her A slot or Sacred Seal. For comparison, a +10+10 Henriette has 57 effective Res with her default weapon before accounting for Assets, her weapon refine, A skill, and Sacred Seal, and unlike your proposed Tiki, she typically runs Res in both her A slot if not running Svalinn Shield (+8) and Sacred Seal slot (+6~7). I would at the minimum replace Darting Stance with Spd/Res Form and potentially consider replacing Kestrel Stance with Swift Stance unless you think you can get one-hit kills with Atk/Spd Form + Kestrel Stance instead. Also consider Dragon Wall for her B skill. Either way, run the numbers on her. The high Arena right now is not particularly friendly towards tanks.

This again, Lex? Do we need to stick a Byleth in every body of water just to be safe? At least Byleth is in the 4-star SR pool now. I was wondering why the axe in the head seemed so familiar to me and it took me a while to remember that Kūki Yomi did a similar gag based on the same folk tale where the woodcutter's axe also ended up stuck in the person-coming-out-of-the-water's head.

Sniping red on the Muspell banner because it has the highest 5-star rate and because I don't have either of Muspell or Constanze fully merged yet (or a decent merge base for Constanze, either). Pulled for the spark and then cleaned up my (not actually high) 3.25% pity rate. 48 pulls: 2 Muspell (now +8) 3 Constanze (now +4 with a neutral merge base) 0 Yuri (+1 spark) (now +6) 1 Fina (would be +5 if I had a merge base to work with) 1 Male Byleth (now +8) 10.4% focus rate and 12.5% 5-star rate are both quite a bit above average. I'm still not used to the fact that the original Byleths are now in the 4-star SR pool.

Personally, I'm hoping it'll be red since I already have both Ashera and Mediuth at +10 and have neither Plumeria nor Nanna at +10, but between Ashera being significantly more recent than Plumeria and the larger backlog of red units from the standard summoning pool, it'll probably by colorless. If we get Lehran as a staff unit, can we finally get an offensive Special for staff units so that we can hear their Special activation quotes outside of the Herodex?

Testing out a new team composition (at least, new to Ranked) with both Duo Chrom and Harmonized Edelgard in it. It worked out okay. Edelgard is hilariously good at zoning, but the terrain in the middle of the map made it difficult for Chrom to apply pressure if the opponent was running fliers. I probably should have replaced Legendary Myrrh with Duo Thorr after taking my free loss or maybe even replaced Harmonized Azura. I got into Platinum D from Gold A and then made a push for Platinum C, but ran out of losses one victory away from promotion at 6 wins and 4 losses. Ended up with 3,616 points at rank 973.

Why exactly do we need this story's Ascended Hero to be some god's champion? This isn't Nifl and Muspell's children's card game proxy battle anymore. It could just be a non-amnesiac Eir.

Fuck. I just realized that Exposure is going to absolutely destroy my Aether Raids offense teams, as if Brave weapons didn't already cause them enough trouble. Valentine Robin ties with Mila for the slowest unit on my Light team (when Eir, Freyja, or Dagr is the bonus unit), and Valentine Gustav ties with Thorr for the slowest unit on my Astra team (when anyone other than Plumeria is the bonus unit). Both of those could be fixed with merges (Robin needs 1 merge to break the tie, and Gustav needs 2), but Robin isn't getting a banner until presumably next month's Double Special Heroes banner, and Gustav isn't getting another banner until next year. I could alternatively give Gustav summoner support for the time being, but Robin will have to wait for a merge since she already has summoner support. This sucks.

Yep. I'd also add "Neutralizes effects that grant weapon triangle advantage to foe and effects that inflict weapon triangle disadvantage to unit" (only on turns when he has advantage against the opponent's color) so that we don't get weird things happening when he goes up against Litrraven or himself. Against Litrraven, his effect will win on turns that he has advantage against the opponent's color, and against himself, both units will always be neutral to each other.

Oh wow, look at how smug he is to be getting his Resplendent outfit before the other Corrin, knowing that the other Corrin would still be awful even with a Resplendent outfit. Art is good, as usual. He now has 48/38/38/34/30 with maximum Dragonflowers and 51/56/40/36/32 with maximum Dragonflowers and his refined weapon equipped (which is entirely visible stats). Yato has no combat effect other than its stat boost, and Corrin is not really a combat unit, but instead is a Drive bot for his support partner and ideally also functions as a Chill magnet. If you need him to be a Chill magnet, the extra stats not only help him close the gap with units that have extremely high stats, but it also means he has a better chance of not needing a stat-boosting Sacred Seal to do so and lets him run another Drive effect in that slot. At +10+20 with a Spd Asset Life and Death 4, he has 67/54 visible offenses, which is already high enough to function as a Bright Shrine magnet for Valentine Lucina (60/54), but he needs another point in Spd to pull Chill Spd. However, most Spd tanks don't have quite as much visible Spd as Valentine Lucina, so he should be fine for almost everyone else. It's worth noting that Yen'fay does have 54 visible Spd, but Ninja Hana has only 53. At +10+20 with a Res Asset and Fortress Def/Res 3, he has 46/46 visible defenses, which isn't quite enough to function as a Dark Shrine magnet for Halloween Dheginhansea with a Res refine (47/53), but sacrificing his Sacred Seal slot for Fortress Def/Res 2 gives him 50/50 visible defenses, which is 1 point short of pulling Dark Shrine from Dheginhansea. This should theoretically allow him to pull Dark Shrine, Chill Def, and Chill Res for pretty much anyone else since Dheginhansea has the highest visible defenses of any unit not running passive skills that boost visible stats, though you might need to finagle with his support partner's Asset or refine if their defensive stats are lopsided toward one or the other stat. That said, he can have trouble pulling Chill Res off of units that are stacking Res to mitigate AoE Special damage or to power Dragon Wall. We don't talk about Corrin's combat performance. Overall not game-changing, but Corrin was definitely lagging behind in stats for being a Chill magnet when run with a super tank, and this definitely helps.

Velezark would probably just be in a Grima situation where a possessed Darios would summon Velezark behind him. And yes, I'm definitely joking about having a new character banner with 4 red units on it, but it would definitely be funny. (And Velezark makes more sense to be colorless anyways since his entire gameplay gimmick is that he periodically changes his weapon triangle affinity.)

As far as CYL goes, it seems fine to just add them under a separate title. Having multiple versions of the same character hasn't been an issue ever since they started combining votes across all versions of the same character. If they were to ever be added to Heroes, they'd probably still be under the Sothis head icon, like how all of the Akaneia games are combined under the Marth head icon despite listing different source games in their descriptions. Why limit it to 3 red units when it could be 4 red units with Velezark as a red dragon?

Power creep in Heroes is largely driven by three mechanics: base stats, inheritable skill strength, and exclusive skill strength. Inheritable skills are obviously a completely solved issue. Due to skill inheritance, as inheritable skills become more powerful, older units still always have access to them. Base stats are a largely solved issue. Dragonflowers are a viable permanent solution to the slow increase in base stats, as the developers can just add another stack of Dragonflowers to older units every time they increase base stats. Because this now happens immediately when stats are boosted, players can always keep their favorite older units up to date in terms of stats by saving Dragonflowers for each time stats are boosted. The only issue is that "Gen 1" units have access to the same number of Dragonflowers as "Gen 2" units despite having lower base stats. Resplendent outfits are the current solution to that, but it moves extremely slowly, is unlikely to ever include every Gen 1 unit, and also includes several Gen 2 units. Exclusive skills are the only unsolved issue with this game's power creep. The weapon refinery is the intended solution, but it moves at a rate slower than the rate that new units are released, which comes with the issue that older refined weapons will become outdated just like any other weapon. If weapons plateau in strength, it's possible to eventually get every unit caught up, but it will take a long time. I wrote this up a few days ago addressing the weapon refinery and power creep and what could possibly be done about it:

Harmonized Edelgard Atk Asset. Spd is the Flaw that affects her performance the least if you aren't planning on running Spd-boosting skills to out-speed Fallen Edelgard. Otherwise, I'd go with either Res or HP. Ascended Florina Atk or Spd Asset and the other as an Ascended Asset. HP Flaw if you want to try to use recoil damage to activate her weapon and have no intention of ever merging her or Def Flaw if you just want to use her normally. Duo Dagr Spd Asset. Flaw can be whatever if you're merging her, but I'd go with Res. Harmonized Lysithea I lean towards a Spd Asset for units that have Brave effects conditional on winning a Spd check since you'll need the Spd to double fast units, but an Atk Asset is usable to sacrifice performance against fast opponents for better wall breaking ability. Flaw can be whatever since Lysithea should theoretically never get attacked. Halloween Rhea I lean towards an Atk Asset for more power, but a Res Asset is usable for a bit more bulk. Spd Flaw. As for which units to pick, I'd definitely go with Edelgard. The other pick depends on what roles you're lacking. I like Dagr due to Pathfinder.

I don't know what my phone was smoking, but it must've been good stuff. My initial intention was to pull for both Thorr and Nifl until I was satisfied with the number of Thorrs I got before switching to just sniping for a +10 Nifl, but then this happened. 404 pulls: 10 Nifl (+1 spark) 11 Thorr 1 Eirika 1 5-star Lyon 1 4-star Lyon 5.7% focus rate, which is way above average. "Way above average" as in this is normally the number of pulls I need for just a single +10. (Even though this is two +10's in the number of pulls normally needed for a single +10, the rate is less than double the average because for a single +10, you're likely to get a few focus units of the wrong color due to summon circles that are missing the color you're sniping.) The 4-star Lyon was my free pull. I also barely managed to pull one copy of each character before my spark (I got Nifl on pull 40). I also got two copies each of Ascended Laegjarn, Fallen Rhea, and Nimue for some reason among the other pity breakers.

The only units with any form of Sweep in 754+ Arena Assault are ranged. It's not just Arden that's losing Atk/Def. Your Far Save tank is also losing the same support effects, and Far Save tanks don't have that luxury, having lower stats, less powerful weapons, lack of access to defensive Specials, and having to deal with stronger wall breakers than Near Save tanks do. Setting a higher floor is nice, but you're still dealing with the fact that Arden's ceiling is only as high as Ephraim's floor. As I said, there aren't many that aren't named Dimitri. And unlike Harmonized Edelgard, Ephraim has 2 more Atk and significantly more Spd (30 Spd at +0 merge, maximum Dragonflowers and with only his weapon equipped). Ephraim has the ability to naturally double most bulky green units and can break follow-up prevention if he's running a guaranteed follow-up. Meanwhile, Arden still has shit Atk and barely damages bulky blue units even if he's using an offensive Special (which it sounds like you aren't). Still an option. Again, not like Ephraim actually needs a B skill most of the time, unlike Arden.

Character introductions are up. Thorr and Loki's art is now up in all its uncensored not-safe-for-YouTube (NSFYT?) glory. That aside, Nifl is cute.