Ice Dragon

The one on the left has Lalum's hair buns. The one on the right is obviously Medjed.

Pulse Tie isn't used for tanks. It's used to stop nukes, and nukes have garbage HP stats, even with blessing boosts. I'm not seeing what the purpose of Res is. She has no skill effects dependent on Res, and there are no sources of Isolation that use a Res comparison (Gjallarbru compares HP, and Mila's Turnwheel compares Def). False Start currently is a Res comparison, but her Res isn't high enough to actually compete, and start-of-turn debuffs aren't really her primary job. Even as far as HP comparisons go, I'm not even sure how common Fjorm is, and Ninian has nowhere near enough Def to block Mila. Why does which stat True Dragon Wall's comparison use matter? Its effect can be directly measured and compared to changes to other stats. As I mentioned, a Res Asset is at best equal to 2 damage reduction against physical melee units, whereas a Def Asset is always worth 4 damage reduction. Unlike Mediuth, Rhea doesn't have a binary skill effect tied to a Res comparison. Also, what's the point in attempting to disable Wary Fighter? If I'm not mistaken, every support effect that grants Null Follow-Up has a Spd comparison, and Rhea's Spd stat is far too low to be reliable for that. Additionally, disabling Wary Fighter eats up skill slots on herself and/or teammates that could instead be used to support her primary job of being a tank.

To be fair, a full one third (4 of 12) of the game's Harmonized Heroes have the same weapon type as one of their serious versions (5 if you count Adrift Azura as serious).

Following up on my previous Mediuth question, I finally built my Mediuth today to make my Arena run easier after realizing that running a team that consists entirely of units deathly weak to Duo Chrom is a bad idea (Duo Dagr, Idunn, Legendary Edelgard, Eitri). I ended up going with this build: +10+5 Mediuth [+Res] Shadow Breath Reposition Aether Fury 4 Assured Rebirth Canto Control 3 Fury 3 The build doesn't do well against Fallen Edelgard, but that really didn't matter because I haven't actually been running into them lately. I didn't see a single one this week, and I think I only ran into one last week. And even if I did run into her, having two free losses now means surrendering isn't particularly expensive. Double Fury isn't as strong defensively as some of his other options, but it's really good for a general-use build. He has 70+6 effective Res for the Res comparison for his guaranteed follow-up and 58+6 visible Res, which lets him tank Legendary Lilina, taking only 10 damage from Gifted Magic. Having 30 Spd was also pretty nice for denying guaranteed follow-ups from all of the axe armor Edelgards, which were pretty common this week. Canto Control isn't very useful in the Arena, since enemies typically form a Rally ball too far away to actually hit them with it, so I'll probably eventually switch it out for something else, but that's not too much of a priority right now. Anyways, I have two new units that I'm indecisive about: Fallen Ninian: +HP or +Spd +HP is obviously better for a support role, given that Ninian has a high HP stat for a dancer. However, she's actually currently 5 HP short of the current leader (regular Ninian) due to the fact that her weapon doesn't have a refine. (Technically, Nils is ahead of Ninian by 2 points, but Nils has to give up his exclusive weapon to leverage that.) Ninian doesn't have any effects on her exclusive skills that are based on HP, so the only things that it matters for are her default Pulse Tie skill and avoiding getting hit by Gjallarbru. Bride Fjorm currently has a maximum HP of 62 before blessing bonuses and Summoner Support, which allows her to hit units with up to 59 HP. Ninian already has a maximum HP of 60 without an Asset, which goes up to 63 with an Asset, and currently doesn't need the Asset to block Gjallarbru (and is incapable of blocking Gjallarbru regardless of the Asset if Fjorm has one more Mythic blessing bonus than her), though that could potentially change when Gjallarbru gets its refine in July. +Spd is better at keeping her alive if she gets attacked, but being a support unit with noodles for arms, it's unlikely she'll get attacked in the first place. Fallen Rhea: +Def or +Res +Def is strictly better than +Res as a Near Save tank. 3 Res is at most a reduction of 2 damage against a physical opponent, whereas 4 Def is a guaranteed reduction of 4 damage against a physical opponent. Dragons are not common enough to offset the difference, and dragons also simply lack access to a lot of skills and skill effects that are threatening to Near Save tanks. I don't know if Rhea has enough of an argument to be run as a Far Save tank to justify +Res. She relies heavily on percentage damage reduction to function, and the most common strong ranged threats all nullify percentage damage reduction to some extent. Additionally, since she's forced to run a Distant Counter skill in her A slot, she loses out on stats and effects that other Far Save tanks have access to, making her arguably worse than both Robin and Henriette.

While sword infantry is bloated as a class in general, we actually haven't gotten a single Legendary or Mythic sword infantry in over two years, with the last one being Lif in January 2020. If you limit it to just Legendary Heroes, the last one we got was Roy back in February 2019 over three years ago. Meanwhile, in the three-odd years since Legendary Roy, of the 8 Legendary/Mythic Heroes that we got that used swords, 5 of them were cavalry (Eliwood, Seliph, Reginn, Sigurd, and Nanna). Additionally, we actually only have a total of 4 sword infantry units in the Legendary/Mythic Hero pool overall due to the fact that they gave alternate weapon or movement types to Robin, Lyn, Ryoma, Lucina, Alm, Altina, Celica, Chrom, Corrin, and both Byleths, all of whom are normally sword infantry even when promoted, and used the mounted promoted classes for Eirika, Eliwood, Leaf, and Seliph. I don't think it would hurt to get another sword infantry at this point.

Outside of Aether Raids defense, he basically functions like any other armor with an exclusive weapon. He can run Save, but his stats aren't particularly great, having lower defenses than more recent armors, even after Dragonflowers are considered, while also having a slight lean towards Res, which is less useful for Near Save. He does have follow-up prevention and 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack, but follow-up prevention is unreliable due to how common Null Follow-Up is on melee units. That said, he's still better than armors that lack an exclusive weapon. I personally use him in Arena Assault as a means to enable Thrasir with Upheaval's full-map damage effect. Bold Fighter is a red herring. Whether an armor is typically player-phase or enemy-phase depends entirely on the effects of their exclusive skills, not on their inheritable skills. Duma has no lean towards any phase, so his designation is the default of "enemy phase unless you are running Armor March somewhere". Idunn has 52/64/34/55(59)/47, effective damage against armors, 70% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack if the opponent can make a follow-up attack, and nullifies her stat penalties. Has 42 actual Res. Myrrh has 53/68/27/57(60)/46, a guaranteed follow-up, and 70% damage reduction on the opponent's follow-up attacks. Has 36 actual Res. The number in parentheses is the stat with a Def Asset (which, if you're using Near Save, you should really switch to on Idunn). Idunn's main advantage is the fact that she has the superior damage reduction effect as long as the opponent doesn't have a Brave weapon (or Triangle Attack). Myrrh's main advantage is the fact that she has a guaranteed follow-up on her weapon, which leaves her B slot open for better skills. I think Myrrh is the better option if you can get either Hardy Fighter or Dragon Wall on her, but Idunn is better in the meantime. Your pick depending on urgency. As Save tanks, I think their ideal builds look like this: Idunn [+Def] Demonic Breath [unique] [Assist] Bonfire Close Def 4 Crafty Fighter 3 A/D Near Save 3 / D/R Near Save 3 Close Def 3 Halloween Myrrh [+Def] Spirit Breath [unique] [Assist] Escutcheon Close Def 4 / Bracing Stance 3 / Sturdy Stance 3 Hardy Fighter 3 A/D Near Save 3 / D/R Near Save 3 Steady Breath Halloween Myrrh [+Def] Spirit Breath [unique] [Assist] Bonfire Close Def 4 / Bracing Stance 3 Dragon Wall 3 D/R Near Save 3 Close Def 3

Slow units with exclusive skills have generally been pretty successful due to the fact that they get some combination of skill effects that makes up for their being slow. It would make sense, then, to implement similar effects on inheritable skills. In particular, the most impactful effects are Guaranteed follow-up Currently, the only reliable source is Quick Riposte, which is only usable on enemy phase and is inferior to just being fast Brash Assault exists, but sucks due to its restrictive HP restriction and is inferior to just being fast Fighter skills and Dragon's Ire are not strictly inferior to being fast due to having additional effects, but are exclusive to armored units and dragons, respectively Pulse effects and Special charge rate boost to fully charge a Special for the first hit on each round of combat Time's Pulse exists for player-phase units, but is only reliable with 2-cooldown Specials, forces usage of a Slaying weapon, and is inferior to running the exact same build on a faster unit Special Spiral does work, but requires Infantry Pulse support to actually function for the first round of combat and requires a Slaying weapon to use stronger Special skills that are actually worth using Breath skills work, but cost a significant amount of stats to run, especially since you typically want to run Quick Riposte with them Infantry Pulse is mostly fine as is Infantry Rush and Infantry Flash have useful effects, but are held back by their low range, which makes it hard for them to be used with player-phase units Infantry Breath is absolute shit with its 1 radius, especially now that Worldbreaker exists and is better in every way other than distribution Damage boost if the unit cannot make a follow-up (functionally similar to the previous effect) This effect doesn't exist yet on inheritable skills, but is on Fallen Dimitri's Vengeful Lance Things I'd like to see to fix this: Riposte Sword+, etc. (weapon): If unit's HP ≥ 50% and foe initiates combat, grants Def/Res+4 during combat and unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack. Being able to offload Quick Riposte into the weapon slot opens units up to run other skills in the B slot and Sacred Seal slot, which are increasing in power faster than inheritable weapons. Unfortunately, this is definitely not happening until Armads gets a refine. Quick Riposte 4 (B): If unit's HP ≥ 50% and foe initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack, and also, if unit and foe have the same Range, neutralizes effects that prevent unit's counterattacks during combat. Dragon's Ire, but with half of Null C-Disrupt instead of half of Null Follow-Up. Armors have access to Fighter skills with HP thresholds as low as 25%, and dragons have access to Dragon's Ire with an HP threshold at 50%. It's about time Quick Riposte received an update to at least match Dragon's Ire's HP threshold. Brash Assault 4 (B): If unit initiates combat against a foe that can counter and unit's HP ≤ 75%, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack, and also, if unit's Def > foe's Def, reduces damage from attacks during combat and from area-of-effect Specials (excluding Røkkr area-of-effect Specials) by percentage=difference between stats × 4 (max 40%). Basically a weaker version of Blue Lion Rule. Probably restricted to physical melee units. Alternatively, it could have flat damage reduction instead of percentage damage reduction, like Flow Flight and Pastel Poleaxe, though that would only be really useful if the unit could stack percentage damage reduction, which is more difficult for player-phase units. Also, it might make sense to be a single-tier skill with Brash Assault as a prerequisite in order to have a different name. As mentioned above, the current Brash Assault is absolutely awful, and the primary reason for this is its extremely low HP threshold, which is the same as the equally awful Defiant skills. Brash Assault's HP threshold should at least be boosted up to 75%, like Sol Katti's refine effect, and adding Blue Lion Rule's percentage damage reduction makes it easier to remain alive at low HP without the need to simultaneously run Desperation. Stat/Stat Gambit 1/2/3/4 (A): At start of turn 1, deals X damage to unit (X=25% of HP, + 1). If unit's HP ≤ 75% at start of combat, grants Stat/Stat+2/4/6/7 to unit during combat and disables unit's and foe's skills that change attack priority. Weaker than Brazen, but activates itself. Incompatible with Desperation and Vantage, but also disables the opponent's Desperation and Vantage. Basically here specifically for Brash Assault 4. I'm sure someone can find other uses for it, though. Could also include Hrist's 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack. Decisive Blow 1/2/3 (B): If unit's Atk > foe's Def during combat and unit cannot make a follow-up attack, deals damage = 30/40/50% of unit's Atk minus foe's Def. Fallen Dimitri's Vengeful Lance. Probably restricted to sword, lance, and axe infantry. Functionally equivalent to an instant Glimmer or half of a follow-up, but only if the unit cannot make a follow-up. This effect basically functions as a damage floor for the unit, making it so that even if the unit can't make a follow-up, they'll still deal half of the damage (excluding the chance of activating a Special). Initiative 1/2/3 (B): If unit's HP ≥ 100/90/80% and unit initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack. Initiative 4 (B): If unit's HP ≥ 80% and unit initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack and neutralizes effects that prevent unit's follow-up attacks during combat. A high-HP version of Brash Assault with a very restrictive HP restriction. Intended to be used with Surge skills in order to maintain high HP. Infantry Rush 4 (C): Infantry allies within 3 spaces gain: "If unit's Atk > foe's Atk, grants Special cooldown charge +1 per unit's attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)" Infantry Flash 4 (C): Infantry allies within 3 spaces gain: "If unit's Spd > foe's Spd, grants Special cooldown charge +1 per unit's attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)" Infantry Breath 4 (C): Infantry allies within 2 spaces gain: "If foe initiates combat, grants Def/Res+2 during combat and Special cooldown charge +1 per attack. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack.)" Extend the range of all three skills by 1. Giving Infantry Rush and Infantry Flash 3 range means that any infantry unit that starts the turn adjacent to the unit with the skill will remain within range regardless of where they move (as long as they don't teleport or have +1 Movement). Giving Infantry Breath 2 range allows it to match Worldbreaker's range. No changes to the actual effects themselves. I think they are good enough as is. Also just because I think it would be fun: Unstoppable Force 1/2/3 (B): If unit initiates combat, at start of combat, if unit's Atk > foe's Atk, unit's Spd ≤ foe's Spd-20/15/10, unit and target foe swap spaces after combat and enables【Canto (1)】. Low speed. High mass. Pushes through and keeps going. Alternatively, instead of granting Canto (1), it could activate Galeforce and inflict Gravity on the unit to give the unit another attack and another chance to Lunge. I think it would be interesting to have some more novel effects like this.

I still needed 2 copies of Ephraim to finally get him to +10, so I decided to pull for him on the Remix banner. And then I got him on my free pull. So I spent the rest of the banner pulling both blue and colorless for either the last copy of Ephraim or a copy of Laegjarn (and if I didn't get Ephraim, I'd spark for him). And then it took 32 pulls after the spark to clean out my pity rate. What the fuck. 75 pulls on the Remix banner. 1 Ephraim (+1 spark) 2 Laegjarn 1 Ascended Fjorm 5.3% 5-star rate is well below average, granted it's below average by only 1 unit. But still below average. Ephraim is now +10. Laegjarn is now +5. The Fjorm was from my final session where I had a 10% pity rate and decided the pull the remainder of the session after finally clearing my pity rate with Laegjarn. Fjorm is amazing for skill inheritance, so more copies of her are always welcome. On the bright side, all of the 5-star units I got were units I wanted, so it isn't all bad. The New Power banner was complete garbage, though. I pulled green since I could use additional copies of both Kaden and Felicia, and sharing colors improves the 5-star rate. It took 24 pulls to get a copy of Kaden. So I gave up on that banner.

I've been consistently Tier 21 with two Harmonized Heroes with 1-3 merges each. I did a run with zero merges a few months back and didn't score high enough to stay in Tier 21 and had to redo it with a different unit that had merges. Only recently have I finally gotten Harmonized Heroes with more merges, but the extra merges don't really matter as far as reaching Tier 21. In general for the other two slots, I've been able to get away with just picking my most mobile units with good damage output. I prioritize units with Canto, then units with high movement range. I generally don't bother with dancers (unless one of the Harmonized Heroes is a dancer) because they often have trouble keeping up with other units since it's hard to keep Wings of Mercy active due to the fact that units heal when they kill an enemy.

Thea misses the kill by only 6 damage against that build on the second round of combat, assuming Edelgard has +6 to all stats and no Penalties. Edelgard is only likely to have those Bonuses in the Arena, and only when her allies aren't dead. On the other hand, even if you somehow can't get rid of her Bonuses or apply a Def Penalty, Edelgard with less post-combat healing and no Res Asset can easily be finished off by another teammate (instead of dancing Thea). Edelgard can also run Atk/Def Menace, but then she'll be without mobility and definitely end up as the last unit alive. And because of her immobility, it's easy enough to either get out of her Menace range entirely and then rush her or just let her get the Bonuses, but let a different unit take the Penalties. If you want a wall breaker Thea that absolutely won't die to Edelgard regardless of Edelgard's build, all you need to do is switch her skills out for Sturdy Surge and Pulse Smoke. That's 10 Spd and 3 Atk for 7 Def and Pulse Smoke. But again, there's basically no real reason to do so since the chances that you'll need to fight a fully buffed Edelgard are extremely low, and Edelgard can't stack all three of Atk, Def, and Res at the same time. (But if you're still worried, running Pulse Smoke instead of Spd/Def Rein is a small enough sacrifice, and you don't need to swap out her A skill.) That's nice, but Thea doesn't need one of a small handful of support units and can work with any party composition. And pretty much any unit with Null Follow-Up, Guard, and Ruptured Sky can kill Edelgard with Fallen Ninian support, granted their Atk and Def stats aren't complete garbage. Thea doesn't even need all of those fancy skills from before to pull it off with Fallen Ninian support. Thea can kill Edelgard cleanly in a single round of combat with just Ruptured Sky, Swift Sparrow 2, Flow * 3, and the Atk/Spd Solo Sacred Seal.

Valter. And his 59/42- offenses? That's the best you could come up with for a "relevant niche"? Sure, Slaying means he can Galeforce without needing to eat a counterattack, but first, he has to double, and second, he has to beat his opponent's Atk stat to activate Heavy Blade, which is kind of hard when his stats are so outdated and he's losing his Sacred Seal slot for Heavy Blade. Meanwhile, Thea can cleanly two-round kill Fallen Edelgard with only rudimentary support (just standard +6 Bonuses) or one-round kill Edelgard if Edelgard doesn't have any Def Bonuses. This is a perfect case of skill effects not being able to make up for bad stats and good stats being able to make up for a lack of skill effects. For anyone curious,

Added Muarim's weapon to the translation notes. Now that Muarim is officially released, I can talk about him. Muarim looks really awesome as a unit. His offenses are great at 43/40 with a superboon in Spd, and his weapon grants the typical +6 Atk/Spd in combat, which lets him keep up reasonably well. His permanent stat bonus is +3 Atk, which would have been better as Spd, but Atk is the next best thing. He also gets Walhart's 4-range Threaten, but with -6 to all stats instead of Walhart's -7 Atk/Def and Flash, making him a really good all-round debuffer. As mentioned before in spoilers, he has a new and unique transformation condition, which has him untransformed on turns 1 and 3 and transformed on all other turns with no other conditions, and the only drawback is that he has Push recoil. Since he is an infantry beast, this also gives him an additional 7 damage when his Special activates and Tempo. His transformation condition being completely detached from team composition is pretty amazing, as it allows him to be used even without dragon or beast units to ease the usual transformation condition. With transformation conditions no longer being the same all the time, I'm hoping this means we can get skills or status effects that can force teammates to transform. For example, Izca can potentially get a skill (probably a weapon effect) that forces nearby beast allies to transform at the beginning of the turn, and a heron could potentially force a transformation with an exclusive dance skill to reference Radiant Dawn's Valor song. Similarly, we could potentially get Volug and Ascended or Legendary Laguz kings with permanent transformations. As far as skills go, he is the second unit to have Wrath unlocked as a 4-star unit (the first was Ninja Hana), and Wrath works well in combination with his transformation's Push recoil. Dragon Fang and Even Atk Wave are throwaway skills. His major drawbacks are the skill restrictions he faces due to being a beast unit, as he doesn't have access to Dodge, Ruptured Sky, or Vital Astra. He would also prefer to have access to Catch instead of Ideal, but he doesn't due to being infantry. I wonder how effective Surge Sparrow would be on him. On the one hand, he'd be constantly healing out of Wrath range and pretty much never activate Wrath's start-of-turn effect, but he can still get Wrath's damage bonus by taking counterattack damage, given that he'll always be starting combat with a minimum of 5 damage. If you assume that he'll never have enough damage on him to activate Wrath's start-of-turn effect, he can run Luna and have it always activate on his second attack against an opponent that can counterattack: Fallen Muarim [+Spd] Wild Tiger Fang [Assist] Luna Surge Sparrow Wrath 3 Time's Pulse 3 Atk/Spd Solo 3 / etc. If you do want to make use of Wrath's start-of-turn effect, he'll probably be better off running Moonbow/Glimmer with Atk/Spd Ideal 4, which will give him a fully charged Special at the start of every turn. Or if you don't care about losing a ton of stats on his first round of combat, you can give him Brazen Atk/Spd.

Yen'fay costs Grails and Trait Fruits and doesn't have access to flier mobility. Arden costs Grails and has even worse mobility. Nowi has significantly lower stats and doesn't have flier mobility. Archers aren't a problem on player phase. You are trying to use Thea as a dual-phase unit with a focus on enemy phase. I see Thea as a player-phase unit with enemy-phase presence because that's what her movement type promotes. No, needing to stay within 3 spaces of an ally is not a problem for player-phase units with 2 movement. You should be. A unit can have all the fancy effects they want, but if they don't have the stats to back them up, there's no point. A unit with high stats and no additional effects on their weapon can still function using only the effects on their passive skills and teammates, especially now that there are so many different effects you can stack from teammates. Henriette is the best example of this, as the only non-stat effect on her weapon is passive healing. Vital Astra is a shit defensive effect on every unit that isn't Ascended Mareeta. The only way to reliably have it fully charged at the start of combat is to run Special Spiral, which prevents you from being able to run a Dodge skill in the B slot. This means that you aren't actually getting an extra stack of Dodge; you're just moving it from the B slot to the Special slot and lowering its effectiveness from Dodge 3 to Dodge 2. On the contrary, Guard is actually weakening in power due to the fact that more units have been gaining effects that instantly charge their Special, and more units are now gaining Tempo effects. Damage reduction stacking is only reliably usable on player-controlled teams. Players themselves don't typically need to deal with enemies stacking damage reduction. Units that self-stack damage reduction typically only reliably get up to 50-60% in the form of Dodge effects, which is still breakable with modern wall breakers and is easily breakable with fast attackers. Firesweep chipping is also only reliably usable on player-controlled teams. Players themselves don't typically need to deal with enemies using Firesweep to chip against them, and the one game mode where it actually appears has the Healing Tower (and ladders) to counteract it.

If you aren't going to be using Ally Support on Lilith or are unlikely to field the two units together regularly, Summer Tiki is actually pretty comparable. Tiki loses 4 Spd (both units at max Dragonflowers), but has a more reliable and stronger Special. But if you are going to be using her with her support partner, Null Follow-Up and being able to teleport across the map are both really good effects to have. The teleportation is probably extremely abusable in Resonant Battles. Ninian is really only notable for having a similar dance effect as Triandra's dance skill (debuffs different stats, mostly useful for dragons and tomes) and granting +1 Special charge rate to the dance target. The +1 movement effect for dragons isn't too impactful at the moment because the only units that it matters for are Nifl and Muspell, and both of them have issues when it comes to making the most out of the extra movement (no access to Galeforce, optimal Trace skills haven't been released yet, Domain skills require them to stay near teammates, etc.). And unlike a lot of the more recent dancers, Ninian has noodles for arms and zero combat presence. And her default Pulse Tie is the wrong one for player use. That said, Ninian is good if you need a dedicated support dancer on a magic- or dragon-heavy team, and her base kit is especially suitable for AoE Special usage on tome units (Atk buff, Res debuff, +1 Special charge rate to counter Guard, Pulse Tie to disable defensive Specials). Gustav is Legendary Ephraim with an axe and a better Res stat. If you like Legendary Ephraim, but wish you had a bulkier one with an axe, Gustav is your man.

Most players don't care how well 4-star units compare to 5-star units because comparing a unit they have to a unit they don't have is pointless. We currently get boosts in base stats at the same time that we get Dragonflower cap increases. When Dragonflowers are taken into consideration, there has actually been zero stat creep in terms of base stat totals since CYL 3 and only small amounts of stat creep in individual stats. Modern exclusive weapons almost always grant either +5 to all stats or +6 to two or three stats plus the "permanent stat" effect and one or two additional effects (I'm counting step-up effects as one big effect) (weapon-type common effects and effective damage are free effects). The only change between CYL 4 and now is that stronger weapons have two effects in the additional effects category instead of just one. (If a unit has Distant/Close Counter on their weapon, it replaces one of the aforementioned effects.) The bulk of power creep happening right now comes from exclusive non-weapon skills, which are getting more and more effects, but are pretty much restricted to Legendary/Mythic Heroes, CYL units, and the occasional alt of a former unit in the previous categories, and from inheritable skills, which are available to all units of the unit class. I don't think just being a giant ball of stats is that bad, especially with how often we're currently getting fancy new units with full skill effects as Bonuses or Drives.

Well, at least my luck eventually improved. 384 pulls: 10 Ninian (+1 spark for a total of 11) 3 Rhea 2 Lilith Also pity breakers: 1 Brave Dimitri 1 Guinivere 3 Marianne 1 Fiora (first +Spd) 1 Zeke Total 3.9% focus rate, which is quite a bit above average (average is about 3.3%). 5.7% 5-star rate, which is quite a bit below average (average is about 6.5%). Also managed to get 1 Nina (now +10), 2 Shiro (now +10), and 2 Lute (now +8) as notable merges from the 4-star SR pool.

These two pictures aptly describe my luck so far on this banner: That's my first non-spark Ninian. I've now pulled more copies of Kjelle than Ninian and Rhea combined.

Coolio. Here's the entire paragraph for context, in case anyone is interested: ちなみに性別は作中で言及されておらず、チキの親とは言うが父親なのか母親なのかは定かではない。 ただ紋章ではOPに出てくる姿が男な事と、神竜女王ではなく神竜王と呼ばれているので、父親の可能性が高いというくらいか。 しかしナーガの姿に初めて言及した聖戦では人間体は幼い少女の姿になっていたし、直接登場した覚醒でも女性の姿だったので女性の可能性も高い。 そしてヒーローズにて紋章ナーガと覚醒ナーガが同一人物となったので、女性でありチキの母親であったことが確定となった。 As an aside, Naga's gender is not mentioned within the source material. Though they are said to be Tiki's parent, it is not certain if they are her father or mother. However, with their appearance in Mystery's OP being masculine and being called "神竜王" (shinryū-ō, gender-neutral "Divine Dragon King") instead of "神竜女王" (shinryū-joō, strictly feminine "Divine Dragon Queen"), the possibility that they are the father is high. However, because Naga's appearance was first mentioned in Genealogy as having the human form of a young girl and their direct appearance in Awakening was in a female form, the possibility that they are female is also high. Finally, with Heroes indicating that Naga from Mystery and Naga from Awakening are the same individual, it is conformed that she is Tiki's mother.

Out of curiosity, do you know where those lines come from (game and chapter)?

Muspell Gaius. His art looks really nice. I really like the flame pattern on his headband and the flame effects in his Special art. As far as stats go... he's still overshadowed by Cath, Colm, and Legault in the 4-star pool. He ends up pretty close to Gangrel and Kaze. He beats Kronya in damage, but his weapon only deals damage, whereas Kronya gets a conditional full-HP Vantage. At max Dragonflowers with a Spd Asset and only their weapon equipped (Vicious Dagger+ [Spd] on units without exclusive weapons), Resplendent Gaius has 48/56+α/49/28/25 with the additional damage equal to 10% of his Spd, so 6-7 at max merge with a typical build. Cath has 44/54/55/28/31. Colm has 46/54/53/25/33. Legault has 43/64+α/55/28/23 with the additional damage equal to the total Bonuses on the opponent, so typically 12-24 in the high Arena and unreliable in other game modes. Kaze has 38/61/51/21/46. Kronya has 47/53/50/25/32. Gangrel has 48/53+α/48/31/37 with the additional damage equal to 20% of his Res, so 8-9 at max merge with a typical build. Gaius's main issue is his Spd, which is already lower than Cath's, Colm's, and Legault's, and isn't helped by the fact that his weapon grants less Spd than theirs. Kaze also ends up faster than him due to getting a larger boost from his weapon. But if you like Gaius, at least this helps him catch up a bit.

Right, I was too focused on flying dragons. But since a Legendary Myrrh is likely to have her original movement type, I don't think overlapping the color of her armored version makes too significant of a difference. We already have 4 Legendary/Mythic blue dragons (one of which is flying) and 5 Legendary/Mythic colorless dragons (one of which is flying) compared to only 1 Legendary/Mythic red dragon and no Legendary/Mythic green dragons. With Myrrh not being a divine dragon and having a presumably fire-based breath attack (as opposed to mist or light), I think she's less likely to end up being blue.

Well, the next Legendary is pretty certain to be blue, given the line-up. Of the remaining top Legendary contenders, Elincia, Itsuki, and Xander are almost guaranteed to not be blue Tsubasa and Finn are almost guaranteed to be blue Robin, Corrin, Ninian, Deirdre, Sothe, and Myrrh are potentially blue While the general sentiment is that male Robin should be in his Grandmaster outfit with Levin Sword, they could pull the same stunt as they did with the Byleths and turn the weapon into a tome. However, this would end up with Legendary Robin having the same weapon type as his normal version, which is kind of boring, though another sword infantry is not that much less boring. The general sentiment is that male Corrin should have Omega Yato. He also already has two blue dragon versions, so the likelihood of Legendary Corrin being blue is low. Ninian is already getting a new version this month, so it's unlikely she'll be this month's Legendary Hero. All three of her versions are blue dragons, and Nils is also a blue dragon, so I think it's less likely that a Legendary Ninian would also be blue. She'll more likely be either green or colorless instead. I personally think Deirdre is less likely to be blue simply because we already have Julia with a blue Naga. I think she's more likely to end up with either a colorless tome (with Naga) or a staff (with Silence). Sothe could be any color of dagger, but given his association with the color green (both of his existing versions have the color green in their Japanese titles), he'll probably be green. Myrrh could be any color dragon, though she already has a green and colorless version, so it's more likely a Legendary Myrrh would be either red or blue instead. However, we are quite lacking in red dragon fliers (currently only Summer Tiki and Fallen Lilith), so I lean more towards red instead of blue. I'd also put reprising colorless higher than blue because we also have only two colorless dragon fliers (Legendary Robin and Harmonized Myrrh), even if one of them is also a Myrrh. If for some reason they want to skip all of these options, we have Hinoka and Awakening Tiki also as potential candidates for blue. Or Larchel if they really want to stretch all the way down into the Ascended pool for whatever reason. But I don't think they'll go that far down the barrel. I'm going to predict Finn for this month with Robin as my second guess. It might be a bit weird to get Nanna and Finn back to back, but we've already twice had two consecutive Legendary Heroes from the same game (Marth and Tiki and Julia and Leaf).

Datamine stuff:

Hot, doting older brother Camilla was not a thought I realized I needed in my life.

@XRay You have your wish now. There is now no excuse for a player to not have Gharnef as a Sweeper.