Ice Dragon

Going down the list of Grail units from oldest to newest, I guess: Masked Marth: Still a decent unit with Sealed Falchion, even if he's somewhat outperformed by more recent sword infantry. +10 Atk/Spd on a unit with 38/40 neutral offenses after Dragonflowers is quite good. Worth using if you don't already have a +10 Lucina or a heavily merged recent sword infantry. Linus: Better than Legion, but arguably not as good as Ninja Hana or Ninja Shamir. Aversa: Support unit. Panne: Really good refine. On par with modern units. Kempf: Flash + Pain support unit for Aether Raids defense or Pawns of Loki. Walhart is better at Flash, but Pain is pretty good. Ninja Hana: Hana has 1 more Spd than Ninja Shamir, but Shamir has a higher stat total for Arena scoring and requires fewer Dragonflowers to max out. Summer Leonie: Leonie is pretty good with Whitecap Bow, being the strongest bow cavalry without an exclusive weapon. Summer Norne: The best 4-star lance infantry if you don't have one of the better 5-star ones. Ninja Shamir: See Ninja Hana. Yen'fay: Solid sword infantry. Riev: Support unit. Desert Deen: Basically Summer Leonie with 1 less Atk and Spd and a dagger instead of a bow. Cath and Summer Claude are stronger, but don't have cavalry movement range. Young Boyd: Matches Charlotte's performance on odd turns. Fallen Muarim: Strong beast infantry that doesn't need to be run on a non-human team. Limstella: Basically a Litrblade mage, but with no Spd. Deals damage to allies, which can be useful for setting up on some team compositions. (Not yet available in the Grail shop.) Every Grail dancer: Because dancer. If I recall correctly, every Grand Hero Battle unit through Nemesis (released between Kempf and Hana in the list) has had all of their reruns and therefore have no risk of wasting Grails going up to +9 (in anticipation of possibly getting a Forma). Of this list, Kempf, Dancer Rinea, and Dancer Eldigan are the only units have currently have Forma (or at least, Kempf will have his in 4 hours and some change). Only if you have the spare fodder. Blue Flame does slightly less damage than Bonfire on Tiki, which is a pretty good trade for score. You lose the healing from Aether, but unless she's running Special cooldown boosts, she's likely not healing more than once per match anyways.

Tempest Trials aren't particularly difficult, so you can get by with just picking your strongest units, preferably spreading around the colors a bit. For a simple team composition, I recommend bringing two attackers, one dancer, and one staff unit and just making sure that the two attackers are different colors from each other. It doesn't really matter who the dancer and staff unit are since they shouldn't really be entering combat. Three attackers and one staff unit is also doable if you're comfortable playing without a dancer. Since the boss of this Tempest Trials will be Duo Thorr, you should ideally pick either a bow unit or a strong green unit to deal with her.

Ooh, those are some nice Sacred Seals. Pity no Catch or Ideal since it'll take a while to get them all, but the ones we're getting are quite nice. Atk/Spd Push goes to Genny. The after-combat healing on her weapon looks like it's specifically there to offset Push's recoil damage since, if I recall correctly, her refine was released back when Solo and Push were the only real options for staff units. Bonus Doubler is a good alternative Sacred Seal for units that have Menace skills or can otherwise buff themselves.

No one runs any of those units in Aether Raids other than Brave Alm, and even then, he's still extremely rare. Parking your Save tank in the front causes them to lose the 4 Atk/Def from their Save skill. Every slot used on Guidance or Orders is 3-4 points of Atk or Def that you could have had from a Drive or Guard skill. Using Arden on player phase has stat costs that aren't just from Arden's own skills, but also the loss of stats gained from teammates' support skills that had to be given up to run mobility. PvE game modes are the only excuse to run a dual-phase build on Arden, and even then, you could just run Bold Fighter on Ephraim instead since Ephraim can afford to not run a guaranteed follow-up on enemy phase due to his enormous Atk stat. +10+15 Arden has 56 visible Atk. Unless Arden is the only unit on your team that intends to attack, Arden is not getting hit with Chill Atk. Not with his garbage visible Atk stat. For comparison, +0+10 Henriette with no Atk Asset has the same visible Atk stat as +10+15 Arden with an Atk Asset. Arden's Atk stat is such garbage that even if Arden gets hit with Chill Atk, Arden with Atk/Def Unity hit with Chill Atk has exactly the same Atk stat as Ephraim with Atk/Def Ideal 4 hit with Chill Atk when Ephraim has both stacks of Ideal. If Ephraim is not at full health, Arden only beats Ephraim by 2 Atk. That's what 17 points of difference is. Have you seen how many things can actually live 2 hits from Harmonized Edelgard? There aren't many that aren't named Dimitri. EDIT: Oh, and you can also just offload Guard or penalty nullification into the B slot. Crafty Fighter and Slick Fighter both exist.

Defensively, Panne has 104 single-hit physical bulk at +10 merge with maximum Dragonflowers, which is enough to deal with pretty much anything short of an instant Ruptured Sky from a unit with Tempo or Time's Pulse. Offensively, Panne matches Mareeta on player phase and has access to Trace for more mobility and additional offensive stats. That's good for unit in general and insanely good for a free unit. Oh, and Panne has weapon triangle advantage and effective damage against Sigurd, which lets her just flat-out one-shot Sigurd. In case you need someone else to delete Sigurd with. You're looking at only losing about 5 points of Atk in penalties by not affecting in-combat Atk boosts. Not the end of the world when you're already hitting the opponent for a combined penalty of 22+ Atk just from the weapon alone. That's all of the opponent's in-combat Atk bonuses for a modern unit (6 Atk from weapon, 9 Atk from Ideal, 6 Atk from Solo) nullified with the weapon alone, allowing for Kjelle's passive skills to nullify the opponent's weapon Mt (6-8 Def from Stance or Close Def, 4 Def from Save, 7 Def from Form). Fighting against Kjelle is basically just your base Atk with no skills equipped (including weapon skill) against Kjelle's base Def with no skills equipped. Which is a losing battle unless you have something fancy up your sleeve like effective damage or a charged Special.

Oh, shit. Valter made it to the finals. Since Minerva went down last round, I guess I'm joining Team Valter for the final round.

Firesweep is still basically non-existent on melee units. I don't remember the last time I saw one, but I'm pretty sure it was Ingrid, and Ingrid has a really hard time doing anything to Ephraim. The Brave effect is also rare on melee units outside of Triangle Attack. Having player-phase presence is better than not having it, but only when it doesn't cost you enemy-phase performance. Arden has 1 movement range, which is not enough to get through your wall of Flayns and Elimines to lead the charge unless the wall of Flayns and Elimines wasn't there. Ideal. Because +7 Atk/Def is better than +5 Atk/Def. Shrines may not be the only source of Penalties, but they're the only consistent source of Penalties. Heck, I wouldn't even consider Unity a good pick for Arden for Arena where Menace is common because as a Near Save tank, Arden shouldn't be the closest unit to anything to get hit by Menace. Ephraim still has +17 Atk and -2 Def compared to Arden, both with an Atk Asset, maximum Dragonflowers, and only their weapons equipped. Ephraim has 2 more Atk than Harmonized Edelgard (when Edelgard doesn't have her Harmonized Skill active). I'm pretty sure he can afford to not have Guard.

Them being the same between versions doesn't change the fact that someone clearly told the artist to cover it up. Though the funny thing is that, based on the datamined art, this is only for the YouTube video, and the art in game is not covered up. So someone had to tell the artist to add the random objects just for the YouTube video. And it's not just the random objects in front of Thorr's cleavage. It appears to be all of the random objects entirely that are only for the YouTube video (all of the water in the idle art and all of the orchids in the attacking art except for the ones that are normally around Thorr's waist). Also, those are orchids. All the more reason to pull for and run Ashera. Also, since I mentioned the art that hasn't been released yet, EDIT: The Tempest Trials announcement is up on the in-game board, so I've added the translation notes for Seth's weapon:

Updated my original post with analysis and other comments. Given that Selkie has trouble activating a full half of her stat bonus against bulky opponents where she really wants the extra Atk, giving Panne fewer points of stats in exchange for having a much easier time activating all of them is a good trade. Especially since Panne gets an additional +7 damage that ignores Def to hit slow, bulky units with. Fallen Mareeta already has the highest practical Spd stat in the game for the next 5 days (after which Resplendent Karla will beat her by 2 points). She doesn't need -8 Spd against slow, bulky units, and the only fast units where the -8 Def would actually make a difference are named Dimitri or Maria. Getting only one stat gives them a reasonable excuse to make the magnitude of that stat as big as it is. With her stat boosts, her stats are literally comparable with Ascended Mareeta's. Yes, all 5 stats is 35%. The Atk reduction applies to the opponent's visible Atk, which means most nukes will only have a visible Atk stat around 70 tops (counting a +6 Bonus). This is also only in combat, so it won't protect against AoE Special skills, and she'll probably still die to them since her Res isn't particularly great.

Refines are up: Legendary Roy: Dragonbind Base effect is unchanged: Effective damage against dragons Distant Counter Refine effect is: If HP is 25% or higher: +4 to all stats +1 Special charge rate the offensive half of Tempo +4 to all stats is standard for Distant Counter weapons, but feels somewhat lackluster for Roy, who could really use as much Spd as he can get due to the fact that he's a good amount behind the current leaders. Human Virtue II makes up for it somewhat by giving him Sieglinde's refine effect, which lets him borrow the Bonuses from nearby allies, but much of that boost can be made up for with skills like Rein. +1 Special charge rate and Tempo allows him to land Ruptured Sky on his first counterattack, which combos well with Human Virtue II's percentage damage reduction on the opponent's first attack. However, Roy lacks any means of blocking an opponent's guaranteed follow-up or breaking through an opponent's follow-up prevention, which is a problem for him when dealing with bulkier units that often have one or both effects. Ultimately, it might be best to forgo his new default Spurn in his B slot and switch to Null Follow-Up instead, relying instead on just Human Virtue II's percentage damage reduction on the opponent's first attack. Without Null Follow-Up on his weapon or exclusive skill, Roy is somewhat disappointing. He ends up as a generalist ball of stats, which is underwhelming in the current meta where the best units do one useful thing and do it exceptionally well. Kjelle: Heartbeat Lance Base effect is: If HP is 25% or higher: -5 Atk/Def to opponent follow-up prevention Refine effect is: If opponent initiates combat or opponent's HP is 75% or higher: -5 Atk/Def to opponent reduces opponent's Atk by an amount equal to [opponent's Atk at start of combat] × (10 + [number of stats unit has higher than opponent at start of combat] × 5)% "number of stats" refers to the stat itself, not the value, so a maximum of 5 if all 5 of Kjelle's HP, Atk, Spd, Def, and Res are greater than the opponent's respective stat I had to reread the effect several times just to confirm that it says what I thought it said. Heartbeat Lance reduces the opponent's Atk (based on the value at the start of combat) by 10% plus an additional 5% for each stat that Kjelle has that is higher than the opponent's at the start of combat. This results in a maximum possible Atk reduction of 35% of its value at the start of combat, but realistically, it'll more likely be 20-25%. However, even at 20% reduction, against an opponent with 60 visible Atk, it'll lower the opponent's Atk by a very substantial 12 points. Combined with the flat Atk reductions from her other effects, an opponent will realistically suffer a bare minimum of -22 Atk, which is massive. You could run Fury 4 + Fury 3 on her to boost her visible stats as much as possible with Mediuth as support, but I don't think it's really necessary. Her stats are high enough that she'll already be winning 2 or 3 stats against most units that aren't armors. Follow-up prevention is nice, too. Fallen Mareeta: Shadow Sword Base effect is changed: Slaying effect If HP is 25% or higher (previously 50%): +5 Atk/Spd (new) Desperation effect Refine effect is: If opponent's HP is 75% or higher: +5 Atk/Spd the offensive half of Tempo if unit's Spd is greater than opponent's Def at start of combat: -8 Spd to opponent if unit's Spd is not greater than opponent's Def at start of combat: -8 Def to opponent +10 Spd allows Mareeta to tie Karla (at least until Resplendent Karla is released later this month) for realistically the fastest unit in the game. At least, that's what it would have been if it weren't for the Spd-to-Def comparison that pushes Mareeta even higher. Essentially, fast units are unlikely to have high Def and will therefore be guaranteed to be out-sped by the additional -8 Spd, whereas units with high Def are unlikely to be fast and therefore don't care about losing Spd and will be hurt more by the -8 Def. The only units that can potentially get around Mareeta's Spd-to-Def comparison are all of the infantry Dimitris and Spring Maria, who have high Spd and high Def, but not enough Def to trigger the Def reduction. Other than that, Tempo is as expected and is welcomed. Panne: Taguel Fang Base effect is changed: Effective damage against cavalry If unit is not adjacent to a human-class ally: +4 to all stats (previously +3) if opponent is human-class (new): +4 to all stats Guard effect Standard transform condition and standard beast cavalry transform effect Refine effect: If HP is 25% or higher: +4 to all stats if unit's Spd is greater than opponent's Spd: guaranteed follow-up If unit's Spd is at least 5 greater than opponent's Spd: damage +7 +12 to all stats against human-class opponents is a lot, and Panne really needs it since her base stats are so awful. Both her Atk and Spd are worse than Kaden's, Ranulf's, and Selkie's, which is saying a lot since all of three of them have awful Atk and only decent Spd. With the stat boost, she can actually compete with modern units. With a Spd Asset, maximum Dragonflowers, and only her weapon equipped Panne has the same Spd as Ascended Mareeta with the same setup. Before counting the +7 damage from the Spd comparison, Panne also beats Mareeta's Atk by 2 points on player phase (the cavalry transform effect is very nice and is probably why a lot of early beast cavalry had awful Atk stats), though Mareeta has a free Atk Ascended Asset that gives Mareeta a 2-point lead instead. Guard and a guaranteed follow-up are also nice to have, as it makes up for the fact that she can't run Flow Guard. The Impact effect from her transform effect is also worth mentioning, even if it hasn't changed. While it's most important to highlight the boost to her offensive performance, her defensive stats are not to be ignored, as +12 to all stats means she also gets +12 Def/Res. Combined with the cavalry transform effect, she has 47/49/42 defenses at +0 merge with maximum Dragonflowers and only her weapon equipped, which is nothing to sneeze at. Mordecai: Sabertooth Fang Base effect is changed: +3 Def After unit uses a movement Assist or ally uses a movement Assist on unit: -5 to all stats on enemies within 2 spaces of unit and target ally or unit and targeting ally (previously -4) If opponent's HP is 75% or higher (new): +5 Atk/Def Standard transform condition and new beast infantry transform effect (previously old effect) Refine effect is: After unit uses a movement Assist or ally uses a movement Assist on unit: +1 Special cooldown (Pulse Smoke) on enemies within 2 spaces of unit and target ally or unit and targeting ally If there is at least 1 ally within 3 spaces: +5 Atk/Def The changes to the weapon's base effect were all expected, though I would have liked -6 instead of -5. The refine effect adds Pulse Smoke to the debuff effects after using a movement Assist, which is nice, but isn't game-changing. Not much else to say since he's a support unit. If you were using him before, he's better. If you weren't using him before, you probably still won't be using him. Bride Fjorm: Gjallarbru Base effect is changed: Wrathful Staff effect Inflicts Isolation with Ploy targeting against opponents with less HP than unit (previously at least 3 less HP) Refine effect is: Allies within 2 spaces receive: +4 Atk/Spd nullifies Penalties in combat If there is at least 1 ally within 3 spaces: +4 Atk/Spd The Isolation application condition was improved to a 1-HP difference, which is all it really needed. Everything else is just icing on the cake. Nullifying penalties as a Drive effect is pretty novel, though. General thoughts Dragonbind is quite a bit underwhelming, given that it's for a Legendary Hero. Not getting Null Follow-Up is disappointing. Mordecai's is good, but doesn't really stand out. It's probably not going to convince anyone to use him if they aren't already using him. The other four are all pretty amazing. Kjelle lowers the opponent's Atk by a massive amount with a novel comparison condition, and it isn't that hard to get enough stacks to make a dent sizable enough to make a meaningful difference. I can see her actually being a pretty good Near Save tank. Mareeta is just stupidly fast and stupidly strong and has all of the effects she needs to function without dying. No complaints. I'll probably actually build her now. Panne went from being utter crap to actually being good. My only complaint is that she hasn't has a Forma released of her yet, which means I can't justify getting her to +10 and giving her Trait Fruits. Fjorm got the boost she needed, and that's all that mattered.

The usual translation things: The name of the banner, "Taken by the Tide", is "あの日の砂の城" (ano hi no suna no shiro), "The Sandcastle From That Day". Eirika's epithet, "Beach Restorer", is "渚の優王女" (nagisa no yasa-ōjo), "Gentle Princess of the Shore". Her epithet in both English and Japanese is a reference to her normal version's epithet in their respective languages, but use different parts. In English, her normal version's epithet is "Restoration Princess". In Japanese, it's "碧風の優王女" (aokaze no yasa-ōjo), "Gentle Princess of the Blue Wind". Caring Conch is "深き優しさの聖器" (fukaki yasashisa no seiki), "Sacred Vessel of Deep Kindness". Moonlit Bangle F is "華月の腕輪・遠" (kagetsu no udewa: en), "Bracelet of the Brilliant Moon: Far". For comparison, Moonlit Bangle is "華月の腕輪" (kagetsu no udewa), "Bracelet of the Brilliant Moon", and Lunar Brace is "月の腕輪" (tsuki no udewa), "Moon Bracelet". Atk/Spd Oath is "攻撃速さの信義" (kōgeki hayasa no shingi), "Atk/Spd Faith". Nifl's epithet, "Tropical Ice God", is "南国の氷神" (nankoku no hyōjin), "Ice God of the Tropics". Chilled Breath is "夏氷のブレス" (natsukōri no buresu), "Breath of Summer Ice". S/R Near Trace is "速さ魔防の近影" (hayasa mabō no kin'ei), "Spd/Res Near Trace". The word "影" (ei) here means "trace" as in "a sign that something was there" referring to the fact that the attacker has moved away. Lyon's epithet, "Sunlit Prince", is "陽光煌めく皇子" (yōkō kirameku ōji), "Imperial Prince Gleaming with Sunlight". Coral Saber is "珊瑚の剣" (sango no tsurugi), "Coral Sword". Thorr's epithet, "Sun-Kissed Gods", is "戦神たちの夏" (senjin-tachi no natsu), "The War God's (and Plus-One's) Summer". The Japanese suffix "たち" (tachi) is usually explained as making a word (always referring to something animate) plural, but that isn't quite correct. It more accurately means "and others" referring to others that are considered grouped with the word it's attached to. Compare to English where the plural pronouns ("we", "you", and "they") are all used in the same way ("I and others with me", "you and others with you", "he/she/they/it and others with him/her/them/it", respectively), which is not the same as an actual plural, which is necessarily exclusive of things that cannot be referred to individually by the singular form. Divine Whimsy is "戦神と戯神の気紛れ" (senjin to gishin no kimagure), "The War God's and Prankster God's Whims". Exposure is "弱点露呈" (jakuten rotei), "Expose Weakness". Seth's epithet, "Silver-Sea Knight", is "浜辺の忠臣" (hamabe no chūshin), "Loyal Retainer of the Beach". Seahorse Axe is "竜の落とし子の斧" (tatsu-no-otoshi-go no ono), "Seahorse Axe". The word for "seahorse", "竜の落とし子" (tatsu-no-otoshi-go), more commonly written entirely in kana as with other undomesticated animals as "タツノオトシゴ" or "たつのおとしご", literally means "the illegitimate child of dragons".

Um... what the fuck. Coral Saber is amazing for an inheritable weapon. It literally has the one effect that slow melee units want the most on top of a good stat boost. And it's on the banner's 4-star unit. And Seth's axe probably has the same effect. What the fuck is this. There's no way they're being this generous. I'm torn between pulling for Nifl and Thorr. On the one hand, Thorr is a Duo unit and will therefore be great for Arena scoring during her bonus weeks and after it. On the other hand, I already have three high-scoring units for my two non-Legendary slots and don't really need another unit for scoring. And while she's good, she doesn't really do anything out of the ordinary. And on the other hand, Nifl is adorable. Her shaved ice changes color from blue to red when she attacks. And we're finally getting tier-4 Oath skills. And they're amazing. Normal summoning pool when? Eitri's Canto is limited to the first 4 turns. Units with Canto only on the first 4 turns get 1 extra range added to their Canto. The only exception is Yuri, who has Canto (2), but his whole schtick is the fact that he has silly movement between both his weapon and his exclusive Assist skill. He probably got Canto (2) instead of Canto (1) to reflect the fact that his weapon gives him +1 movement. I'm pretty sure Thorr. The bottom half of her cleavage is covered by random floating things in every art of her.

Ephraim shouldn't need to run Guard in the first place because he's supposed to be killing the opponent in two hits with his Brave effect. He should theoretically be running Atk/Def Ideal 4 for the maximum Atk boost, and he has a decent time maintaining both conditions on Ideal due to his passive healing. Winning the Atk comparison should be a walk in the park for Ephraim since he is only 2 points short of the current leader (with an Atk Asset and maximum Dragonflowers), but has an effective +9 Atk on his weapon for the purpose of stat comparison, whereas all other units with base Atk stats higher than his only have +6 Atk. Additionally, as a Save tank, Ephraim is able to run Atk/Def Form on his Sacred Seal slot, which grants more Atk than any other Sacred Seal other than Blade Session. Additionally, Near Save tanks shouldn't really ever be in a position to use their player phase presence (unless you're using teleportation support). Putting a Near Save tank in the front row completely wastes the stat boost from the Save skill. Also, Unity is shit on Arden outside of the Arena where debuffers for Atk/Def are moderately common. Penalties are unreliable in PvE, and Arden has trouble getting hit by Shrines in Aether Raids due to his awful Spd and Res. And in the Arena, his scoring potential is crap due to the fact that he doesn't have access to Duel skills, putting him permanently behind more recent armored units and even putting him behind modern infantry, who don't even need to run Duel skills.

Save tanks shouldn't be running dual-phase builds in the first place. The arms race between offense and defense is currently swinging in the direction of offense again, and the amount of leeway that defensive units have is getting smaller. There isn't much room to spare running skills that trade power for the ability to be active on both phases. Right now, there aren't many units that can outright kill the best Save tanks in PvE (at least, not in one turn), but there are units that take zero damage on the counterattack and have the ability to chip for a decent amount of damage. The only reason to run Lissa over a different Save tank is on Limited Hero Battles where other Save tanks are not available or in Arena Assault. For the former, you can't run Elimine with her in the first place, and for the latter, you can only run one Elimine and only if you haven't already used Elimine in a previous match (and don't plan on using her in a future match).

Just wait until they get their refines. Vital Astra isn't really necessary since it isn't reliable, especially since Yen'fay doesn't have the Slaying effect on his weapon. But yeah, he's good. The only downside is that Yen'fay hasn't had any of his reruns yet, so if you get him to +10, you're likely ending up wasting at least 1,450 Grails in the long run. I don't know your current Grail situation, but you should keep that in mind. Unless you need a Near Save unit for Limited Hero Battles, I'd probably skip Arden if you already have Winter Ephraim and the pile of other Near Save units you already have. He's getting outdated by this point, and Ephraim is just better. At this point, I feel like the thing that Arden does that sets him apart from other units is the shenanigans he can pull off in Rokkr Sieges due to having a weapon with the Meister effect. Kyza is good, but suffers from the same issues as all other slow units without a guaranteed follow-up in that they have to sacrifice a skill slot for Quick Riposte and have no player-phase presence. But, as far as slow units go, Kyza does have +1 Special charge rate on the opponent's attacks, Tempo, and +12 damage on Special activations, which is quite a bit more than most units get. His Spd is passable, but not particularly great, seeing as his Spd stat with Dragonflowers is a full 10 points below the current top, counting the fact that his weapon only grants him +4 Spd compared to fast player-phase units typically getting +6. If you need a Distant Counter lance cavalry for PvE, I'm sure he's usable, but he's pretty outdated at this point, even with a decent refine and premium skills. Finn is definitely better than a Spring Luthier with Ninja Naginata+ if you can spare the Dragonflowers to patch up his stats and the Trait Fruits to fix his lack of an Asset. I'm not sure he's strong enough to pull it off, but I also don't really use many melee units with Brave weapons these days that don't have some gigantic Atk boost attached to them, so I can't really say for certain. Favorites are favorites. Just make sure you're not using resources that you might need later. Functionally, I prefer Pact Blooms (also a Grail weapon) over Spider Plush for bulky units since Guard can be offloaded onto a different skill slot at little cost to slot efficiency, so spreading around plushies counts more as favoritism, as well. He matches Charlotte on odd turns, which is pretty good, and he's probably the best argument in the game for running a Tempest skill over the more typical melee infantry C skills. She has the bulk, but not the damage output, having substantially less Atk than premier Far Save units and also lacking the ability to run an offensive Special. Additionally, given that even the premier Far Save units are struggling with the massive firepower of recent ranged wall breakers, it's hard for me to recommend Lissa for anything other than PvE maps, and even then, there are some bulky wall breakers that she'll struggle to deal with both in terms of dealing and taking damage (given that my Henriette and Robin both struggle with them). Leave conventional combat to the staff units with exclusive weapons. Observant Staff is the only good offensive staff for conventional damage, and that's locked to a 5-star Special Hero and has a team composition condition for its effect. If you want an offensive staff unit with an inheritable weapon, it's generally better to run Serpentine Staff. Guard can be offloaded onto the A slot at very little cost, especially for a Near Save unit that doesn't need both defenses and can afford to run Sturdy Stance 3 over Close Def 4. Guard also does jack squat against opponents with Tempo and also does jack squat against opponents that you kill before their follow-up, which is kind of what a weapon with the Meister effect is supposed to do.

I was worried my +5 Micaiah wouldn't make the cut in terms of scoring since I don't have any other bonus unit this week, but as it turns out, the 195 Duel effects on Duo Dagr and Duo Chrom and the exclusive Assist skills on Duo Chrom and Legendary Micaiah seemed to have made up for it. Somehow, I feel like I shouldn't be surprised, though, since I completely forgot to put a blessing on Harmonized Edelgard last week after having her replace Idunn's slot and still managed to get my usual 764+ matches despite that. The recent influx of Duo Chroms in the high Arena due to the Double Special Heroes banner is really annoying, though.

They released a new Chibi Playhouse in anticipation of what appears to be a series of Book-III-themed Tempest Trials. As usual, the chibi characters are really cute. Not actual gameplay footage.

I guess the Legendary Hero banner is forgiven this time. The second half of the my pulls made up for the awful luck of the first half. Sniping green with priority given to colorless and then red if there was no green until I pulled 1 copy of Leaf. Then switched the backup priority to red then blue afterwards. Goals were 11 Xander, 2 Freyja, 1 Leaf, and as many Lif and Reginn as the game will give me, and I managed to hit all of them under budget. 339 pulls: 10 Xander (+1 spark) 6 Eitri 7 Freyja 1 Leaf 1 Nimue 1 August 4 Lif 0 Reginn 0 Sigurd 2.9% Xander rate, which is a decent amount above average (average is around 2.5% counting forced pulls of the wrong color). 8.8% focus rate, which is slightly above average (average is about 8.3%). Also got my first +Spd Ranulf. And somehow got 4 copies of flying Nino, which was more copies than I got of Xander at the time. I feel like this is me on every banner with Eitri on it minus attempting to another Eitri:

Because the most likely purpose of releasing second refines is to pad out time for newer weapons to become outdated, releasing a new resource makes no sense. If the rate of first refines slows down, the acquisition of Divine Dew will eventually catch up to the release of first refines, which will cause the value of Divine Dew to plummet. Additionally, even if they make a new resource, there is no way its acquisition will be tied to the usage of Divine Dew because that would screw over every player that used Divine Dew prior to the release of the new resource. Unlike some other games that actually have means to keep track of a player's resource acquisition and usage history and can actually account for resources used prior to the introduction of a new mechanic, it doesn't look like Heroes has anything of the sort.

Why would a second refine behave any differently than the first?

Yeah, Foul Play works exactly like Swap, but at 3 range instead of 1 range. It trades positions after the unit using the skill moves to the tile that it can target the target from, not from the unit's original position. EDIT: Oh, and there's no need to shrink the size of the screenshot. When you paste the link into the forum, it should shrink to a reasonable size automatically. If it still looks too big, it's common practice to just put it in a spoiler tag and not bother with resizing shenanigans.

CYL 4 is where I consider the line to be for when we started consistently getting "modern" weapons. Even if we get no power creep at all, it'll take about 20 months just for refines to reach that point. After that, we can fill another 8 months with post-CYL-4 units that didn't get an exclusive weapon (only counting the ones that are released as of today). So we're looking at 28 months just to reach what we currently have released right now. I personally think they're going to go back and give weapons with outdated refines a new refine because they can buy a huge amount of time doing that. It'll take about 2 and a half years to give a new refine to every weapon that has an outdated refine. After that, it'll take a bit under 2 years to then catch up on all of the units that didn't get an exclusive weapon, but was released after today and wasn't previously counted. This gives them about 7 years before they ever have to touch post-CYL-4 weapons. It is worth noting that power creep in the form of the number of weapon effects and the size of stat boosts basically stopped after CYL 4. For weapons, we've mostly been getting new effects instead of more effects and a greater distribution of effects that were once unique to only a small number of units. Power creep has largely only progressed through stronger non-weapon exclusive skills and stronger inheritable skills, and the former seems to have also begun to plateau. In terms of game longevity, I think focusing on power creep through inheritable skills (which can be given to older units, but still forces pulling newer units), base stats (which can be made up for by spending Dragonflowers, which are of limited supply), and new effects is the correct way to go about it, and I hope this is how they do things moving forward.

I think they're worried that they're going to run out of outdated units to give remixes to. There are only about 10 units that I think are really outdated at this point (Yune, Alm, Naga, Eliwood, Sothis, Thrasir, Altina, Celica, Lif, Seliph) plus Julia, Leaf, Chrom, and Corrin if I'm being a bit more generous. In a vacuum, I'd also say that the alfar are outdated, but due to the mechanics of Aether Raids, they don't actually need any buffs to function at the level expected of their role.

Can you post screenshots? It's really hard to figure out what you're doing just from text.

Are you trying to use Foul Play while Yuri is standing on a forest tile? Cavalry cannot move onto forest tiles. Yeah, that's Canto Control. It exists because Canto is one of the strongest skill effects in the game and absolutely deserves having a counter.