Ice Dragon

Some of us literally don't care about what units get in the game as long as our favorites get in. That opinion is no less valid than the other opinions in this thread.

Refines are out. Thea: Icy Maltet Base effect is: +6 Atk/Def if unit has 10 or more Dragonflowers If opponent's HP is 75% or higher or Stance condition: +4 to all stats +1 to all stats if unit has 1 or more Dragonflowers Guard if unit has 5 or more Dragonflowers Refine effect is: If there is at least one ally within 3 spaces: +4 to all stats Bonus Doubler Thea gets a total of +15/9/15/9, Guard, and Bonus Doubler with trivial conditions if she has 10 Dragonflowers. This brings her stats up to 43+/65/47/49/40- with max Dragonflowers and only her weapon equipped before accounting for Bonus Doubler. For comparison, the previous best non-Brave 4-star lance flier, Shigure, had 46-/69/50/30-/28. Shigure has +4/+3 offenses before accounting for Bonus Doubler, but Thea easily beats that if she has Bonuses active. The best non-Brave 5-star lance fliers are currently Young Tana and Legendary Caeda. Tana has 42-/63+/49+/41-/35 with the Slaying effect on player phase (-10 Def/Res on enemy phase). Caeda has 40-/63/49+/33-/37 with effective damage and Canto (2) and steals her opponent's Bonuses. Thea now dethrones Shigure as the best non-Brave 4-star lance flier. She's significantly bulkier than modern 5-star fast lance fliers, but relies on having Bonus Doubler active to keep up with her Spd. Gharnef: Imhullu Base effect has been changed to add +5 Atk/Spd with a Blow-or-Solo condition, and the damage on turn 3 has been increased from 5 to 7. Refine effect is: If HP is 25% or higher: +5 Atk/Spd Opponent cannot counterattack if opponent is not a tome unit 30% damage reduction from in-combat damage and AoE Special damage if opponent is not a tome unit His turn-3 effect is still pretty useless, as the only change to it is that it now deals 7 damage instead of 5. However, he now gets a sizable +10 Atk/Spd with trivial conditions. And he blocks counterattacks and gets 30% damage reduction against everything except tomes. Gharnef now has 58-/48 offenses with max Dragonflowers and only his weapon equipped. Compared to recent infantry red tomes, Hugh has 60+/53- offenses before accounting for his Bonus Doubler. The more similar Nyx has 64+/51+ and deals bonus damage equal to the amount reduced by her damage reduction. While Gharnef's offenses still fall noticeably behind the leaders, he's a ranged Sweeper unit that's easy to obtain and merge. Idunn: Demonic Breath Base effect's condition has been changed from "unit has a Penalty or HP is less than 100%" to "Stance condition or HP is less than 100%". Refine effect is: If opponent's HP is 75% or higher or Stance condition: +5 Atk to self and -5 Atk to opponent 70% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack if the opponent can make a follow-up attack Idunn interestingly loses her weapon's base effect if she's at full health with a Penalty, though that shouldn't be too much of a problem since she isn't typically used on player phase. Unfortunately, she doesn't get some form of Svalinn Shield like her other versions, which is kind of disappointing. Her refine effect gives her the typical +5 Atk to herself and -5 Atk to her opponent that pretty much every dragon has been getting ever since the release of Lantern Breath. With the 70% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack if they can make a follow-up attack, the weapon's refine effect is nearly identical to Valentine Gustav's Loyalist Axe... except Demonic Breath has a full base effect on top. Idunn now effectively has 51/63/33-/54+/46+ with max Dragonflowers and only her weapon equipped in addition to Penalty nullification and effective damage. Gustav has 51/65+/20-/54-/39 plus the Slaying effect. Given that Idunn is extremely similar to Gustav, her only real drawback for running a Near Save build (other than getting the skills) is the fact that her color makes her exceptionally weak to Brave Eirika. Picnic Felicia: Eldhrimnir Base effect has been changed to also reduce the opponent's Def on top of the existing Atk/Spd and increases the scaling from 50% to 80%. Maximum is still 8. Additionally adds +4 to all stats if HP is 25% or higher. Refine effect is: If opponent's HP is 75% or higher or Stance condition: +4 to all stats The defensive half of Null Follow-Up 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack if unit's Res is greater than opponent's Res As predicted. Felicia got the exact same treatment as Selkie. She now gets a flat +8 to all stats and effectively an additional maximum +8 to all stats from the Res comparison. Felicia now effectively has 49-/65-/59/49-/54 with max Dragonflowers and only her weapon equipped in addition to effective damage, half of Null Follow-Up, and 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack. Selkie effectively has 41+/68-/57/42/61 on player phase (-4 Atk/Def/Res on enemy phase) in addition to the other half of Null Follow-Up and Guard as well as follow-up prevention on player phase. Felicia notably has a bit more Spd (and actually has the highest Spd in the game now, not counting effects that copy the values of Bonuses and Penalties), but has less visible Res to use for her Res comparison and less Res to use for her in-combat Res comparison (for damage reduction) due to the fact that the +8 to all stats from the Res comparison is actually a penalty to the opponent's Atk for Felicia whereas it's an actual bonus to her own Res for Selkie. This is also an issue for Felicia's Atk stat because the extra +8 from the Res comparison is a penalty to the opponent's Def, meaning it doesn't scale with her effective damage (which is kind of a big deal for dealing with Fallen Edelgard). Like with Selkie, Felicia now finally has a competitive Atk stat, as long as her Res is higher than her opponent's by enough, but suffers from the fact that her visible Res stat isn't reliably that much higher than the Res stat on a lot of bulky attackers. But at the very least, Felicia does get the defensive half of Null Follow-Up, which does help against bulky attackers that typically rely on guaranteed follow-ups. Also, Felicia has the major advantage of being an armor unit and therefore has access to Savvy Fighter, though it does make the half of Null Follow-Up on Felicia's weapon kind of pointless since Savvy Fighter already comes with all of Null Follow-Up. Kaden: Kitsune Fang Base effect has been changed to add +5 Atk/Spd if there is at least one ally within 3 spaces. Refine effect is: +5 Atk/Spd if there is at least one ally within 3 spaces +2 Def/Res and Guard as a Drive effect (There is a translation error in the English description. This is a Drive effect, not a self buff.) Kaden's base offenses were actually pretty okay before his refine, but his combat potential was limited by the fact that he didn't get any combat effects on his weapon. With the +10 Atk/Spd from his refine, he now has 65/49 offenses with max Dragonflowers and only his weapon equipped. Unfortunately, he doesn't have any other combat effects besides the beast cavalry common Impact effect, but it should let him function as a clean-up unit after his support is no longer necessary. The only new support effect he gained was +2 Def/Res and Guard as a Drive effect, but Drive Guard is quite useful and lets tanks run alternative skills in their A and B slots to gain additional effects. Interestingly, the two +5 Atk/Spd effects from the base effect and the refine effect both have the exact same condition, which is pretty rare for refines. Duma: Fell Breath Base effect's condition has been changed from "opponent's HP is less than 100%" to "opponent's HP is less than 100% or unit's Atk is greater than opponent's Atk". Refine effect is: With a Blow-or-Unity condition: +5 Atk to self and -5 Atk to opponent 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack Additional damage equal to 30% of the difference between unit's Atk and opponent's Res if unit's Atk is greater than opponent's Res Adding the Atk comparison to his base effect was easily predictable due to Upheaval+ having this exact combination of conditions for its new Dull All effect. The refine effect of course gives him the same +5 Atk to himself and -5 Atk to the opponent from Lantern Breath. Flat 30% damage reduction on the opponent's first attack is pretty good, considering he has follow-up prevention on his weapon's base effect, and what is effectively +30% damage on his first attack is quite nice, especially since he can't get a guaranteed follow-up on both phases without support. That said, not having a way to inflict Deep Wounds to prevent opponents from healing back the damage from Upheaval is a bit disappointing, especially since he shares a season with Elimine, so even if he can destroy the Healing Tower, there's still a decent chance that the challenger will have a source of healing. Additionally, he also doesn't get a way to mitigate the recoil damage from his new default Fury 4, which hurts his sustain and makes it easier to wear him down. Overall thoughts: A lot of these refines feel like they were missing something that would have really helped the units stand out. It's not that they're bad, just that they fell short of the high bar that other recent refines have set. Idunn didn't get Svalinn Shield, unlike her other versions. Kaden didn't get Null Panic to prevent his support effects from being blocked by Panic. Duma didn't get En Garde to counteract Fury's recoil or a means of inflicting Deep Wounds to make it harder to heal off the damage from Upheaval. Felicia is unfortunately even more susceptible to not getting her full stat bonus compared to Selkie due to her lower visible Res stat. The defensive half of Null Follow-Up on her weapon is also somewhat wasted when running Savvy Fighter. However, it's quite annoying that her visible Res is lower than Fallen Edelgard's, which does make enough of a difference. As it is, Felicia only barely manages to get enough Atk to kill Edelgard in one round, even with effective damage. Gharnef still falls noticeably behind modern units, but I suppose that's an acceptable tradeoff for having a very powerful Sweep effect on a unit as easily obtainable as he is. Thea's is the only refine that I don't have any complaints about.

And this requires you to have double the number of units with Null Follow-Up on their weapons. Yes, that is called "saving orbs". The best Far Save tanks are significantly harder to kill than Edelgard and are countered by a mostly-different set of units. Windsweep and Watersweep have drawbacks that I already mentioned and you haven't refuted. You can remove all of the melee units from that list because they are no better than running Firesweep Sword and Firesweep Lance, which I have already argued are significantly worse than Firesweep Bow. Innes and Jaffar are both absolute garbage at sweeping. Staff units are typically not good at wall breaking due to having less powerful weapons and less access to relevant skills (no Blow skills, forcing them to use skills that are harder to get, and no Poison Strike). This leaves only Faye, Ishtar, and Sue in the first list and Constance, Eleonora, Ascended Joshua, Ascended Laegjarn, Rennac, and Selena in the second. That's 3 out of 124 units in the 4-star SR pool and 6 out of 100 units in the 5-star pool. That's about 1 in every 400 pulls to get a unit from one of these two lists when pulling from non-Legendary/Mythic Hero banners. When running only on free orbs, that comes out to about one very 5-6 months. But that's only the current summon rate. Half of the units in the second list didn't even exist 6 months ago, and a fourth unit didn't exist if you go back another 2 months. Selena was released a year and a half ago, leaving only Eleonora to have existed for the entire last 2 years. Sue was dropped to the 4-star SR pool during this year's anniversary, and the 4-star SR pool itself has only existed since last year's anniversary. For the first year of the 4-star SR pool, the expected value of the number of units from the list gotten from the 4-star SR pool is only about 0.7. In the three months since the recent set of demotes, the expected value is about 0.15. For simplicity of calculation, I'll assume that the size of the 5-star pool remains relatively constant at about 100 units. It takes roughly 40-50 months on average to pull any individual unit as a pity breaker. Joshua and Rennac have been in the pool for 3 months (reminder that it takes a month after release to drop into the pity breaker pool), Laegjarn for 4.5 months, Constance for 6.5 months, Selena for 16 months, and Eleonora for more than the past 2 years. For a player that has been playing for the past 2 years and spends none of their orbs on Legendary/Mythic Hero banners, the expected value of the number of units from the two lists is very close to 2, effectively one from the first list and one from the second. So no, the average player does not have reasonable access to good sweepers. Unless you're specifically pulling for them, you probably have 2 at best.

I'm running a Far Save tank on my team, so there's no need to run Deflect Magic. I'm running a Far Save tank, one ranged nuke, one melee nuke, one dancer, and Maria. Having Maria be able to attack on player phase is at least somewhat useful to me. I don't think Guard is too impactful partly because of how ridiculously fast she is and partly because her damage reduction is capable of absorbing Special damage. Pre-charged Specials are pretty common in this game mode, especially with Duo Chrom running around, so Guard doesn't really prevent enemies from activating Specials.

Ranked is still shit, as usual. I got my 4 wins to climb to the next tier, which is enough to satisfy me. She obviously can't deal with Nanna for obvious reasons, but other than that, nothing else bothered to attack her other than a few ranged units after my Far Save tank was taken out, so I just have to assume that no melee unit other than Nanna could actually touch her. A Duo Chrom was also incapable of taking her out in one round, which was kind of funny. I don't remember what build it was running, but it probably wasn't optimized. I'm currently running her with +6+5 Spring Maria [+Spd] Pastel Poleaxe Reposition Moonbow Steady Posture 3 Guard Bearing 3 Atk/Spd Rein 3 Steady Posture 2 Her biggest weakness is the fact that she has very little presence on player phase, which I'm hoping will be fixed when Spd/Def Catch and the Spd/Def Push Sacred Seal are released. I was using her as my captain with the skill that gives her Pathfinder, which was pretty convenient for getting Nanna over the trenches for free since opponents couldn't stop Maria from just sitting on the trenches.

This Ninian is a reference to Chapter 19 when she was mind-controlled by Nergal and summons a fire dragon through the gate. The name of her custom dance skill in Japanese is a direct reference to the line she says right before the illustration cut-in of the fire dragon coming out from the gate. Edelgard doesn't have 80% damage reduction, though. I think you got that mixed up with Brave Edelgard, who has 80% damage reduction on follow-up attacks. Edelgard has: Slaying effect -6 Atk/Def on opponent Wary Fighter Galeforce Distant Counter Special charge rate +1 Guard 7 HP recovery after combat 40% damage reduction from opponent's first attack, once per phase Rhea has: Slaying effect -6 Atk on opponent, +6 Atk on self (functionally the same as Edelgard's but is compatible with her almost-Luna and targeting the lower defense stat) Damage equal to 40% of opponent's Res on first attack per round of combat Wary Fighter Targets lower defense stat against ranged opponents Max 60% damage reduction during the first round of combat per phase Max 40% damage reduction afterwards 7 HP recovery after combat 7 HP recovery at the start of the turn Rhea's damage reduction is significantly stronger than Edelgard's as long as the opponent is unable to match her Res. Edelgard get 40% damage reduction for a single attack each phase and gets 0% after that. Rhea gets 60% damage reduction for an entire round of combat each phase and gets 40% after that. Rhea also gets better passive recovery, though she requires at least one dragon or beast on her team to do so, which isn't too hard. Rhea gets a built-in 40% Moonbow/Luna on the first attack during every round of combat, whereas Edelgard gets Galeforce once per player phase, both on top of their actual Special skills. Both can have their actual Special skills permanently blocked with Pulse Smoke. Edelgard gets Distant Counter, Special charge rate +1, and Guard, which allows her to counterattack against ranged units, run Bonfire over a 2-cooldown Special or a second Galeforce, and allows her to run a stronger Ideal skill in the A slot instead of a tier-4 Stance skill to get Guard. Basically, Edelgard is more threatening than Rhea on player phase and Rhea is more threatening than Edelgard on enemy phase. Rhea's player phase still shouldn't be taken too lightly because even if she lacks access to Galeforce and Armored Stride, she still has an almost-Luna built into her attack. And Edelgard's enemy phase obviously shouldn't be take too lightly either due to her instant Bonfire and Distant Counter.

I think 40 orbs is a bit cheaper to me than 400 Divine Codes, and I don't really need any of the other manuals on that path, so it's probably still a bit more economical for me to grab her off of her banner. Louise is probably the only other unit on that path that was interesting, but with Byleth likely sharing a color with the next Legendary Hero, I'm likely going to have a decent stock of Atk/Spd Ideal 4 after that.

I have the most budget of budget builds on Frederick (Frederick's Axe, Reposition, Luna, Death Blow 3, Lancebreaker 3, Hone Cavalry) and no build on Jeigan (base skills), so I suppose I'll be joining Team Frederick. Seeing Frederick's sprite again reminds me just how much I hate the design of the horse armor for Awakening's Great Knights. Ew.

Hall of Forms is a massive troll. I finally got Ruptured Sky on Rinea on the last possible map before the event ends. I did get Ruptured Sky as an option on one previous roll, but that roll also had Spd Cantrip on it, so I picked up Spd Cantrip since the B skill pool is way more diluted. I didn't think it'd be this long before they rolled Ruptured Sky again. Normally I can get it pretty quickly. Ended up picking Flora Guide as her weapon even though I got Love Bouquet as an option several times. Juno is a 4-star unit, so I decided it would be better to just grab it off of her banner. Still was really tempted to grab Thoron, though, just for the novelty.

Not having the second stack of Catch on the first round of combat isn't too much of an issue, as it's only 2 Atk/Def that you're missing, and as you mentioned, it's not hard to get the second stack with support, especially with Menace skills being somewhat common on recent units. Smoke is easier to land the debuffs on player phase, but the tier-4 skills' secondary effects remain through enemy phase. Gustav is effectively a dual-phase unit with an obligate player phase, i.e. he needs to engage in combat during player phase in order to make the most of his enemy phase. As for not having Distant Counter, that probably won't be much of an issue because, if his stats are similar to his enemy stats, his Res will likely be too low to be particularly useful against tome units.

She doesn't need to be close to her support partner to teleport. She can teleport to her support partner from anywhere on the map. Both when attacking and when hit and on both phases. It's a status effect, so it'll be in effect for the entirety of the following enemy phase. Duel is arguably the best skill for that slot on her with her base kit, as tier-4 Duel is the best skill for boosting HP. Ninian is tied with herself for the second-highest HP of all dancers after Dragonflowers, with only Nils having more HP, though she drops to tied for sixth if you count refined weapons on units with no exclusive weapon. Yes, he can Galeforce. I'm not sure what you mean by "skills for both phases that don't do anything on the opposite phase". Everything he has is dual-phase. Headsman Glitnir's stat penalty is active on both phases, and its guaranteed follow-up is always active on enemy phase and active on player phase if the opponent can counterattack. Atk/Def Catch is active on both phases. A/D Near Trace's stat penalties are active on both phases. Atk Smoke 4 grants +6 Def/Res and follow-up prevention as status effects on the user, so they're active through enemy phase until the start of the next player phase.

Translation things: The banner's name "Beyond Control" is "まつろわぬ魂たち" (matsurowanu tamashi-tachi), "Disobedient Souls". The word "服わぬ" (matsurowanu) appears to be extremely archaic. A Google search seems to find that it really only appears in two set phrases, "まつろわぬ神" (matsurowanu kami), "disobedient god", generally referring to the Shinto god Amatsu-Mikaboshi, and "まつろわぬ民" (matsurowanu tami), "disobedient citizenry". Lilith's epithet, "Silent Broodling", is "透魔竜の娘" (tōmaryū no musume), "Daughter of the Silent Dragon". "透魔竜" (tōmaryū) is Anankos's class name, localized as "Silent Dragon". The word translates literally as "Transparent-Magic Dragon", though the word translated here as "transparent", "透" (tō), has multiple meanings, all related to "passing through", as it could mean "transparent", "creating a gap to pass through", or "silent". "透魔" (tōma) is also the name of Valla in Japanese. Silent Power is "透魔竜の力" (tōmaryū no chikara), "Power of the Silent Dragon". Spd Smoke is "速さの紫煙" (hayasa no shien), "Spd Smoke". The word "紫煙" (shien) literally translates as "purple smoke", hence why the smoke in the icon is purple. Ninian's epithet, "Frozen Heart", is "心を奪われし氷竜" (kokoro o ubawareshi hyōryū), "Ice Dragon Whose Heart Was Stolen". Enveloping Breath is "茫漠のブレス" (bōbaku no buresu), "Enveloping Breath". The word "茫漠" (bōbaku) means "vast, but with no clear boundary". Call to Flame is "オイデ、ヒノコタチ" (oide, hi-no-ko-tachi), "COME, CHILDREN OF FIRE". This is the line from Chapter 19E/20H when Ninian opens the Dragon's Gate the first time and summons the first fire dragon. It is originally styled "・・・オイデ / ヒノ・・・コ・・・タチ / ココニ・・・オイデ・・・" (...oide / hi no... ko... tachi / koko ni... oide...), "...COME / CHILDREN... OF... FIRE / COME... HERE...". As mentioned previously in Mediuth's translation notes, these lines are written entirely in katakana, which is used to indicate that the voice is inhuman, e.g. robotic or monstrous. The localized line in English is "Here… / Come, children of…flame. / Come…to me…" Gustav's epithet, "Sovereign Slain", is "死せる王" (shi-seru ō), "Slain King". Headsman Glitnir is "死斧グリトニル" (shifu guritoniru), "Death Axe Glitnir". Atk Smoke is "攻撃の紫煙" (kōgeki no shien), "Atk Smoke". Rhea's epithet, "Immaculate One", is "白きもの" (shiroki mono), "The Immaculate One". "白きもの" (shiroki mono), "The White One", is Rhea's class name, localized as "The Immaculate One". Ruinous Frost is "滅亡の霜雪" (metsubō no sōsetsu), "Hoarfrost of Ruin". "霜雪" (sōsetsu), "frost and snow", is the name of Rhea's Staggering Blow in Silver Snow, localized as "Hoarfrost". True Dragon Wall is "真竜鱗障壁" (shin ryūrin shōheki), "True Dragon-Scale Wall". "竜鱗障壁" (ryūrin shōheki), "Dragonscale Barrier", is the name of the Dragon-Scale Wall Barrier ability in Three Houses and the name of the Dragon Wall skill in Heroes. Muarim's epithet, "Raw Instinct", is "暴走する本能" (bōsō-suru honnō), "Berserk Instinct". Wild Tiger Fang is "暴走の虎の爪牙" (bōsō no tora no sōga), "Berserk Tiger's Claws and Fangs".

Ninian~ Yay! Dragons~ Yay! Gustav~ Yay! I am happy; my wallet is not. My only disappointment is that Gustav doesn't have his Exsanguinator title. "Exsanguinator" is such a good word.

For top-tier modern units, the difference between a +10 unit and a +1 unit is less about performance and more about score. The reason why whaling for merges is a thing is not because you need the merges to make the unit good, but because you need the merges to score high enough to remain at the top. As a reminder of just how important merges are for scoring in the Arena (and other game modes that use Arena scoring), 10 points of stats, 200 SP of skills, and 1 merge are all worth the same amount (1 point per match). The difference in score between the unit with the highest stat total and the unit with the lowest stat total is equivalent to only 6 merges.

You can maintain tier 17.5 in the Arena with nothing but a budget build Askr trio, so a half-assed team including the bonus Askr trio unit should have zero trouble maintaining tier 18.5. The difference between tier 18 and tier 20 is 4 Divine Codes and 1,200 feathers, which is insignificant. You absolutely don't need to invest in fancy things to get a decent haul from PvP modes. Investing in your favorites is generally a more satisfying use of resources, and any resources spent on other things are resources not spent on your favorites. The average player doesn't find min-maxing as fun as you do. You can't run both Windsweep and Watersweep simultaneously, and no PvP game modes let you switch builds after you can see the opponent's team. And you're still stuck with Ishtar having access to only one stack of Poison Strike and Alm being a melee unit. Pulling from a rerun means you're having to stretch your orbs across four banners in that month. Except this rerun happened during the winter holidays. Not only is there an extra banner running during the winter holidays (the New Year banner goes between the mid-December banner and the early January banner), but this rerun had to also compete with the three sparks from the Winter banner. Good luck having orbs to spare. And Joshua's banner was the early January banner this year. You know, the one right after everyone has already spent all of their orbs on the Winter and New Year banners. Wouldn't it be nice if Edelgard were the only tank out there. There exist 4-star dancers. There don't exist 4-star units with Firesweep Bow. Putting resources into getting more resources only matters if the resources you get are more than the resources you spent. There is no difference in the orb rewards between tier 18 and tier 20 in the Arena, and reaching tier 18 is beyond trivial. Aether Raids has no orb rewards at all. Divine Codes, Dragonflowers, and Grails are nice and all, but are far less impactful of resources.

Over the entire length of the game, sure, but players typically don't plan on time scales that long except on units that they actually have an attachment to (like CYL or reruns of favorite units). 200 orbs is about 50-70% of the orbs a player receives in a month, and the orbs earned each month already need to be split across three new unit banners and savings for future banners. It may be optimal to save orbs to pull for a copy of Faye, but that assumes players are expected to play optimally, which is not a valid assumption. Normative statements like "players should have pulled for a copy of Faye" are not a statement of reality. Ishtar is only able to run a single stack of Poison Strike instead of two and is unable to Sweep dragons and tomes. Brave Alm is a melee unit and suffers the restrictions mentioned below on top of being unable to Sweep dragons (effective damage breaks through most, but not the bulkiest ones) and being unable to Sweep fast tanks. Pulling for a spark still costs a minimum of 135 orbs (full sessions and 4 tickets) and needs to be weighed against the other units on the banner. Fallen Dimitri being released on the same banner as Fallen Edelgard is an immediate blow to him because Edelgard was clearly the better pick for a spark, and Ascended Joshua was in the unfortunate situation of being the only unit on his banner worth pulling for, making it harder to justify spending orbs on his banner in the first place. And Ascended Ishtar isn't a Sweeper unless you're planning on getting rid of her follow-up and relying purely on her Brave effect. It may be optimal to have a Sweeper on hand, but you absolutely cannot expect "just use a Sweeper" to be the recommended solution to a threat. The problem with melee Firesweep is the fact that they have a much harder time getting back out of range of the unit you're trying to chip. It takes 3 actions per turn to use a ranged Firesweep unit against a melee opponent with 2 movement range (attack, dance, Reposition the dancer). It takes 4 actions per turn to use a melee Firesweep unit against the same opponent (attack, dance, Reposition the dancer, Reposition the attacker). Additionally, melee Firesweep units are more easily blocked by terrain, both due to the fact that they have to travel over more terrain to reach the opponent, but also the fact that the three supporting actions to get the unit out are also affected by more terrain. Yes, they can be used as a replacement when you don't have access to ranged Firesweep units, but their shortcomings are significant.

Yeah. And the average player doesn't have the resources to sink into "far more expensive Arena cores and super tank teams". I generally get the impression that most F2P players are saving their orbs for CYL, Special Heroes banners, and whoever their favorite characters are.

Alm was released almost five and a half months after Surtr. Surtr didn't "do okay" in Arena. He was literally the single best unit in the game for Arena. This was back when each kill with a bonus unit gave you 3 points, so you needed to get all 28 kills in an Arena run with a bonus unit. Surtr being able to deal out-of-combat damage meant that you would never be at risk of accidentally killing an enemy unit with the wrong unit. Also, Surtr was never threatened by armor-effective weapons because enemies with armor-effective weapon have to reach him first. Enemies need to enter combat in order to damage Surtr. Surtr does not need to enter combat to damage enemies. Also, Ophelia was not a threat to him, at least in the high Arena, because she didn't score high enough to appear on defense teams in the high Arena. She could run B Duel Infantry 3, but would then fail to kill Surtr in a single hit, and Surtr could be set up to be able to survive the entire round of combat with some Res boosts. And you're acting like everyone has access to a 5-star-exclusive unit.

I'd personally fodder Rennac. You're more likely to randomly get another copy of Rennac than Ethlin, and Ethlin at least has a unique niche in being a flying dancer with actual combat performance. If you're going to fodder Ethlin, it would be better to spend the Divine Codes to fodder the manual instead of foddering a usable unit.

Titania is one of my oldest built melee cavalry units (alongside Eldigan and Peri), so I'll be starting on her team. If she goes down, I also have Ingrid and Perceval built and Frederick and Xander with budget builds.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say because that's literally what I just said. Just because it was a long time ago when he was last able to handle common ranged units doesn't change the fact that he was able to "before". And not being able to handle ranged units doesn't change the fact that he's still one of the most reliable wall breakers for dealing with all of the annoying melee units with high Spd and damage reduction as long as you're good at handling positioning.

Surtr is still viable as a player-controlled unit in game modes with no turn limit. The only difference from before is that he can no longer deal with ranged units since most of them are now strong enough to kill him.

Unlikely. Surtr is almost certainly joining Hector, Reinhardt, Olwen, and Ophelia in refinery limbo.

The next update is increasing the number of free losses in the Arena from 1 to 2. Yay. In Summoner Duels, the Erosion Captain Skill, which previously just inflicted an in-combat penalty when Savior activates will now prevent Savior from activating entirely when your captain attacks. That's terrifying and is going to make playing footsies a lot worse. On the other hand, I can probably do something to make my New Year Reginn and Fafnir kind of terrifying as Erosion captains with their better-than-normal Cantos for ranged units. And Yuri, I guess. And apparently, some desert maps are getting their graphics updated. I'm curious what's up.

One translation note this time: Icy Maltet is "氷槍マルテ" (hyōsō marute), "Ice Lance Maltet". The prefix is the exact same as the one for Icy Fimbulvetr, which is "氷槍フィンブル" (hyōsō finburu), "Ice Lance Fimbul". Thea: Icy Maltet Thea has Vanguard as her default weapon, which has a 7-Def Sturdy Stance as its base effect. Thea's stats are unimpressive. Karin is currently the best lance flier with no exclusive weapon, and Thea is behind by a pretty significant -2/-4/-5/+7/-1 when both units have max Dragonflowers. Shigure is currently the best 4-star lance flier, and Thea is behind by -3/-19/-12/+4/+3 when both units have max Dragonflowers and with weapon equipped (Thea has a weapon with 16 Mt and +3 HP for the purpose of comparison). I doubt Icy Maltet will use Vanguard as its base. Even if they wanted to make Thea a bulkier lance flier, she's already 9 points behind the current leaders from base stats alone with max Dragonflowers. They might still make Icy Maltet boost her bulk, but if they do, I'd expect it to be either player phase or both phases instead of enemy phase only. Gharnef: Imhullu Imhullu currently has the effect of inflicting 5 damage and Flash to non-tome units in 5 columns centered on Gharnef at the start of turn 3. Also permanent +3 Res. Gharnef is pretty notable for being unexpectedly fast, having the same base Spd as Tharja, male Morgan, and Katarina, but being weaker. Imhullu is pretty useless considering we've gotten significantly better exclusive tomes with support effects on more recent Grand Hero Battle units, like Riev. The base effect at the very minimum should be upgraded to apply to at least both turns 3 and 4. As with other similar weapons, it's likely that it'll also get a boost to its damage effect and possibly a second status effect. Imhullu's effect in its original games completely negated all damage (except from Starlight), and it's clear that inflicting Flash (except against tome units) was intended to mimic that effect, but in the end, it fails to really be effective. I expect to see damage reduction or some other method of significantly boosting Gharnef's bulk in its refine effect. Idunn: Demonic Breath Demonic Breath currently grants +4 to all stats and nullifies the unit's Penalties if the user is inflicted with a Penalty or the user's HP is not max. Also has effective damage against armors and a permanent +3 Def. Demonic Breath is already pretty stacked for effects. All versions of Idunn currently have a weapon that nullifies the user's Penalties, but this version of Idunn is the only one that is missing follow-up prevention and Svalinn Shield. It's possible that one of those two effects might come in the refine. I'm hoping for Svalinn Shield. Other than those, all Idunn really wants is either a guaranteed follow-up or damage reduction so that she can run the other effect in her B slot. Also obligatory more stats. Picnic Felicia: Eldhrimnir Eldhrimnir currently reduces the opponent's Atk/Spd by 50% of the difference between Felicia's Res and the opponent's to a maximum of -8. Also has effective damage against beasts and a permanent +3 Spd. Special Heroes typically get strong refines, so I'm expecting something similar to Selkie's from last month. Boost the calculation to 80% of the stat difference with the same maximum and add obligatory more stats. With just her base weapon, with the maximum inflicted Spd penalty, she's only 1 point shy of Valentine Lucina's Spd, and her defensive stats are pretty similar, though with Def and Res switched. I think they could turn Felicia into another Lucina. It would be really cool if they gave her Pastel Poleaxe's damage reduction effect, but based off of Res instead of Def. Kaden: Kitsune Fang Kitsune Fang currently grants a Drive effect with the boost to each stat equal to the current Bonus on Kaden's corresponding stat. Also permanent +3 Def. Give it Atk/Def Link to pair with his default Spd/Res Link. Also Null Panic as a self buff. Then add some other Drive effects. Duma: Fell Breath Fell Breath currently grants +6 Atk/Res and follow-up prevention, both effects if the opponent's HP is not max at the start of combat. Also permanent +3 Atk. Upheaval+ is gaining Dull All with the condition being if Duma's Atk is higher than the opponent's at the start of combat or if the opponent's HP is not max. Fell Breath's base effect is pretty clearly going to be updated to have the same condition. Duma is also gaining Fury 4 with his Remix, so it would probably be nice if he got some method of blocking its recoil damage. We just got the En Garde status effect with Mediuth, and I think it would be appropriate if Duma also got it, though perhaps only for himself. I can also see him inflicting Deep Wounds as a start-of-turn effect to make it harder for the opponent to heal up the damage from Upheaval.