[DATAMINE/SPECULATION] Anniversary Present?

[Baldrick]

I don't have any of the green legendaries, so picking a colour would actually be easier for me than picking a hero.

[Lewyn]

I'm missing Ephraim. Azura and Blucina from Blue, Marth from red, and that's it. 

If I get to choose specific hero, even though Marth is phenomenal looking I can't pass on Azura.  The only one that enables extra movement with her dance and the prayer wheel is phenomenal as well.  In addition fliers are my favorite type.

If I have to pick a color and then get a random legendary of that color, then definitely blue.  I am missing the most from that, and even if it ends up being a duplicate Fjorm I have some merges on her and wouldn't mind another.  Tiki is great fodder and merging her is real good too. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

59 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Why those three in particular? You should go for Azura or Lucina due to their utility. As a new player, Azura is an easy way of buffing a unit of your choice because I doubt you can build a full tactics team this early on. Even I can't really do that and I've been playing for over six months. Azura also gives your two movement units an extra tile of movement which can allow you to overcome tough situations. 

1. I already have Vike. 
2. Legendary Lyn is contaminated by Brave Lyn, I should be fine with both Lyn alts, but IS has all these months later yet to add a single canonical Bow Cavalry. And I blame it on Brave Lyn, maybe its because she was too broken at the time. Maybe it's because IS wants to keep her "special" out of Lyn bias. Whatever it is, since Legendary Lyn also uses Mulagir, I refuse to use either until a canonical Bow Cav arrives. This near-monopoly mustn't stand.

3. For everyone else, it comes down to subjectivity.

• Normally in FE, I play according to utility; I like Rolf, but I often don't use him in PoR, since Archers are quite bad there. On the other hand, I find Harken a bit boring, but he is a monster in gameplay so I let him loose in FE7.
• However, with FEH, I'm choosing to engage my subjectivity, and only use characters I like. If I play the origin games again, it'll be back to utility with me, but here, I wish to relax from that.
• I don't play FEH for OCs, so I don't use those, I already got rid of my free Fjorm, and plan to do the same with Eir, so there goes Fjorm/Gunnthra/Hrid. 
• In a choice to remain neutral in all Fates disputes, I've done like ten runs of the game, never have I seen the story or read the supports, so Azura and Ryoma do not appeal to me.
• Awakening, the only supports I ever saw of Lucina's were those with her parents, since I never cared for breeding the second generation, and nowadays, I try to forget Awakening and assume a neutral stance towards it. So there goes Lucina and Female Grima.
• As for the Sacred Twins, Ephraim as you know had a falling out with me. And Eirika, well I'm just not exactly a fan of her, I don't dislike her, but I don't particularly love her either.
• Had Jugdral a Legendary,  I'm not sure if I'd use it. If a character from a game I haven't played is easily digestible to understand e.g. Ares (he has like twenty lines at most in FE4) and I like what I read, I'll use them. If they're more complex, e.g. Lewyn, I may not. I'm also presently going to assume an anti-Reinhardt stance due to the uncalled for alt.

 

So, at the end of it all, I'm left with Hector, Marth, and Tiki. Hector is my favorite of the lords, albeit I'm a little bit hesitant towards having a second him- isn't that a little boring (never mind I have Vike and Bike)? Marth's Legendary is very befitting of him, but do I really need a good dragonslayer? And isn't Red Sword Infantry an Orb a hundred? Tiki is the most unique of the three in gameplay for me, but... she is the least deserving of a Legendary of these three, even if she does to some extent.

I know my personal preferences and refusal to use Seasonals blocks me from access to a lot of things, like anything not Dagger Infantry and all Tome Fliers and Armors. But it is not like I'm really concerned with the super challenges of this game or staying on top of the metagame. I can do without. I just play for what I want, which shouldn't be so plentiful at the present pace of additions that I need every last Orb.

[Landmaster]

Ephraim, I guess~

[Roflolxp54]

8 hours ago, Tybrosion said:

Though if it's low Rofl wants, he should look at ol' LA!Lyn instead.

I've actually been building Valentines Lyn; she's currently +3 +Atk and is mainly missing Death Blow 4 (and merges if possible).

If I were to pick a color and hope that the RNG is not against me...

Red: Ryoma, Marth, Eirika, Hrid
Blue: Ephraim, Lucina, Tiki, Azura
Green: Gunnthra, Lyn, Hector
Colorless: Grima, Duma 

I'd likely still pick green. Lyn merge is always welcome, Hector has decent fodder (if I were to need him for that), and Gunnthra is a unit I have yet to get.

Colorless doesn't interest me at all (Grima may have a cute design but her investment cost isn't worthwhile to me and chances are that I likely wouldn't use her anyways and Duma is practically a joke from a gameplay design point).

For blue, I'd be interested in Lucina but I already have Azura and have little interest in Ephraim. Tiki is cute but I've played the game for a very long while without armored dragons (for a refresher, Winter Fae was my only armored dragon pull and was -Atk, 5K HM'd, and was foddered for VF3; I had never pulled any armored dragons previously and haven't pulled any after Fae) and I just don't use dragons a lot (practically the only dragon that sees consistent use if any is Ninian due to being a dancer and Myrrh and OG and Summer YTiki only occasionally see usage as counterpick units in Assault modes).

For red, I'd be interested in Eirika for the purposes of merging and have no interest in Ryoma and Hrid. Marth is cool but I already have like 10 different dragonslayer units leveled and built - more if I ever decide to actually build Roy, OG Chrom, and adult Tiki.

[Zeo]

I'm missing Lyn, Ryoma, Hrid, Eirika, Tiki and Azura.

Among these, Hrid, Ryoma and Eirika are whatevers. Which leaves Lyn, Tiki and Azura. Tiki is incredibly powerful and Lyn is a favorite I've been pulling for since the beginning, but the level of QoL improvement that Azura provides simply can't be matched by any other unit in the game right now.

So yeah, picking Azura.

[Tybrosion]

12 minutes ago, Roflolxp54 said:

I've actually been building Valentines Lyn; she's currently +3 +Atk and is mainly missing Death Blow 4 (and merges if possible).

I mean, she and all the other ranged armors do have low HP. I just singled her out as a playful dig since I figured you're a Lyn fan.

[May]

I really want L!Ephraim... But I kind of need Azura even though she would be my 4th one. ; o;

[NegativeExponents-]

The ones I have are:

The hands down choice would be:

Leg!Lyn is currently in a banner though so if I get her before it ends then my next choices are:

Why these two over the other Leg Heroes? Well I just really don’t care for the rest of them really and besides that Lucina’s Future Vision always looked like a great thing to mess around with and you can never go wrong with an 180 bst unit.

Azura may seem like an odd omission since she provides unparalleled utility and support and I honestly do like her as a character but I really hate how hard she power creeped the other dancers. It’s off-putting really. I’ll probably get over it later but as of right now I still don’t like her.

[Ice Dragon]

7 hours ago, Wanda said:

I imagine the number 13 refers to the 14th legendary hero in a 0-indexed list, i.e. Fjorm is 0, Gun is 1, bla bla bla, Azura is 13.

The probability of that is pretty much zero. The first Spring banner used a suffix of SPRING01 on its units, and the second Spring banner used SPRING02. All Legendary Heroes so far use LEGEND01, and all Mythic Heroes so far use GOD01, with them presumably switching to -02 after they complete the 16-unit grid.

[mampfoid]

Ok, if we get to choose a color, then I'd need to prioritize:

Spoiler

(1 = low priority, 2 = neutral, 3 = high)

Name	Color	have	want
Eirika	red	no	3
Ike Marth	red red	yes yes	3 1
Hrid Ryoma	red red	yes no	2 3
Tiki	blue	yes	2
Fjorm Azura	blue blue	yes yes	1 1
Ephraim Lucina	blue blue	no yes	3 1
Lyn	green	no	3
Hector	green	yes	1
Gunnthrá	green	yes	1
Duma	grey	no	3
Robin	grey	yes	1

I'd like to get Ike merges and fix Hrids bane most, also new units are nice. 

red: 2.4
grey: 2
green: 1.66
blue: 1.6

Looks like I'll be pulling red. 

Also I wonder, if we will be able continue to pull from that leg-only banner after the free pick? 

 

[Diovani Bressan]

I will pull for red if we can only choose the color. i don't have Ryoma, Eirika and Hríd (3 of 5), so the chances I am getting one of them are high. I have all greens and colorless, and I don't have Azura from blue, but I would not take the risk.

[Cute Chao]

22 hours ago, TheWill said:

I'm sure 99% of F2P guides will assume players picked Azura. 

And I'm just sitting here leaning towards my horsie lord. 

That's what I was thinking, but I refuse to pick Azura. I want Hrid, darn it all! 

Ofc, can wait and see if the banner does last and see who he's with this month :D 

I will be getting him!

[Wanda]

Honestly, if we really do get to choose a legendary hero, I'd probably pick Eirika since she's the only one I both want and didn't get. But I'd stop myself because I'd probably just sacrifice her to my megamerged Veronica for Atk/Spd Solo, which would make me feel bad... but I'm not one to leave a truly great skill on an unmerged unit who will basically never do anything besides occasionally participate in AA. I was fortunate enough to get Legendary Lucina on her original banner, definitely one of the best units to pick if you don't have her already. She's a very good unit and a neutral IV is fine for her, very easy to put her to work. An excellent unit to bring to Grand Conquests in the second half of your team so she can swoop in, Future Vision and snipe either the enemy fort or just an enemy. Great artwork, cool character, good weapon, Future Vision is busted whether you pair it with WoM or a Link skill — you can't really go wrong.

Now, if it were purely an aesthetic choice, I'd probably pick legendary Lyn. I love her sprite and her artwork. Unfortunately she's not a very good unit at all, pretty much any traditional colorless archer can do her job better than her because they're outside the weapon triangle. Her skillset is frankly bizarre, it's very difficult to see its appeal. She can probably be good if you completely change her build, even down to her weapon, but even when you finish doing that, she'll still be a green unit dealing physical damage — almost any colorless archer or green mage with the same stats will be better than her and bring more to the table (and a lot of archers/mages have better stats than her, just look at Nino who outclasses her offensively or Soren whose prf tome has a lot of utility). Having said that, I like that Lyn isn't a particularly good unit because, well, she isn't a particularly good unit in FE7. I remember when everyone kicked off about how much stronger Ayra was than original Lyn when Ayra first released, but I was okay with how they compared.

Anyway, Hrid seems like quite a strong unit but I think he's a naff character and he doesn't interest me in the slightest. My legendary Ike is pretty much useless to me and I've only kept him around in case they were going to do a "kill 20 red units with legendary Ike" quest one day. Already killed legendary Hector for DC, sorry about that. Not a unit I used often either, because I favour an aggressive, PP-intensive approach to FEH. Legendary Tiki and Marth are much better, both solid picks if you don't have them already, but I would still take Lucina over both of them unless you feel you're lacking units that can trivialise dragons.

I know a lot of people would pick legendary Azura... I can't say I would. I have many many dancers already, I use the full spectrum of tactics buffs already, and her 3 move gimmick isn't all that useful for content where I actually use a sweeper, big buffs and multiple dancers. More importantly, it's Azura, not a character I like at all. I mean, even if I felt like she would be useful to me, and as a dancer she's automatically useful, I'd still find it difficult to stomach actually choosing her.

Obviously Fjorm and Gunnthra are just an instant no. I don't like either of them as characters (well, Fjorm's all right I guess) and I have had both already. I think I just exchanged Gunnthra for feathers in the end, that or Res Ploy? I don't remember. Not a great unit. Fjorm is a great unit, but I have her already and I never really use her except AA. That's where most of these legendary heroes end up, because I haven't wanted to +10 any of them yet. If I had been rolling for and merging Fjorms, I'd be tempted to grab another merge, she has a lot of potential if you give her Steady Stance 4 and Null C-Disrupt. But I don't +10 units I don't like as characters so yeah, won't be doing that. I already have a Null C-Disrupter anyway.

Who have I missed out... oh right, F!Grima. F!Grima is an excellent unit, being colorless and having balanced stats with good spd makes her really tanky, 300SP prf A-slot Dragonskin removes the arrow weakness while also augmenting her defences (which is a good deal if you compare it to Svalinn/Grani/Iotes shield) and she's a very flexible unit when it comes to builds. You can stick with her basekit and just slap Renewal or Mystic Boost on her, or you can turn her into a very effective Windsweep-debuffer. The build is obviously best on defence teams where the opponent would want to bait her with a Falchion user. Obviously F!Corrin can do this already, but F!Grima will enjoy better match-ups against a broader range of opponents and also has unimpeded movement thanks to being a flying unit. She is definitely a unit who benefits from desperately wants merges to be really good. I would not choose her over Lucina, and I do have a legendary Grima already. There is another aspect to the Grima thing though — she's been a focus on so many legendary banners at this point that it's feasible that many players will have her fairly heavily merged, so getting another merge for free is a probably a good shout for them.

Still feel like I've forgotten someone... oh right, Ephraim. Good unit, he has his uses. A very effective Galeforcer with his auto-doubling and big atk stat for Heavy Blade. The solo skills have opened up his potential even more if you have Atk/Def Solo, don't hesitate, slap it on him. I already have him though, and I wouldn't pick him anyway because his gimmick, though potent, is not something I find myself using for anything. I think I used him for my cav-only Ursula clear (i.e. a GHB elite quest) and since then he hasn't done much, maybe an occasional AA use.

That has to be all of them now. Yup, so I'd still recommend most people to pick Lucina, Tiki or Marth for units that are generally powerful and cool. Maybe pick F!Grima or Fjorm if you've got them to +6 already or something and you like them.

I'm still undecided really. Probably going to choose Eirika just to make complete my Veronica, since I'd really rather not roll for that skill when legendary Ike and Laegjarn are comparatively poor alternatives that I could end up getting instead (I had both already, I mean I still have Ike, Laegjarn I sacrificed for R Duel Flying on Aversa obviously). We'll see what happens I guess. This choose your legendary might not even happen at all.

* * * *

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

The probability of that is pretty much zero. The first Spring banner used a suffix of SPRING01 on its units, and the second Spring banner used SPRING02. All Legendary Heroes so far use LEGEND01, and all Mythic Heroes so far use GOD01, with them presumably switching to -02 after they complete the 16-unit grid.

Dang. Thanks for correcting me on that.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Wanda

[bottlegnomes]

If it's heroes, this'll be tough. Hrid is bae, but Azura is super good. Will probably go Hrid because bias, but I'll see. If it's color, definitely blue if they don't include the freebies as I only have one of the four and with a shitty nature. Red and colorless are 50/50 so I'd be taking a bigger risk even if I like the options better. No matter what, definitely not green as I already have all three.

[Xenovia]

I spent a total of ~800 orbs on the Legendary Lyn and Azura banners, and the only LH I pulled was Fjorm.

 

I'm never summoning for a Legendary/Mythic banner again.

 

If I can get one for free, I will choose Azura.  Though I like Loli Tiki's art the best.

[Othin]

15 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

The probability of that is pretty much zero. The first Spring banner used a suffix of SPRING01 on its units, and the second Spring banner used SPRING02. All Legendary Heroes so far use LEGEND01, and all Mythic Heroes so far use GOD01, with them presumably switching to -02 after they complete the 16-unit grid.

That's neat. Is there a list of those suffixes anywhere?

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Othin said:

That's neat. Is there a list of those suffixes anywhere?

None that I know of that are compiled in one place. You can find them in Gamepress's more recent datamine announcements or in the assets collections (in the sound file file names).

The ones I can remember offhand I think are:

• NEWYEAR
• ONSEN
• VALENTINE (?)
• SPRING
• BRIDE
• SUMMER
• POPULARITY
• DANCE
• HALLOWEEN
• WINTER
• LEGEND
• GOD
• DARK
• DREAM
• MIKATA

POPULARITY is used for CYL characters.

DANCE is Performing Arts and maybe Festival in Hoshido (I've never checked this one).

I'm not 100% sure on the Valentine's suffix, but I think it was VALENTINE.

DARK is used for the Fallen Heroes characters.

DREAM is used for the Adrift characters.

MIKATA is used for player-summonable versions of characters that have separate enemy-specific stats, like the Muspell characters and Loki. For the non-weebs, 味方 (mikata) means "ally" in Japanese.

All of the above suffixes come with 01 or 02 at the end to indicate which iteration of a series the characters comes from, even if the series has not yet been repeated. JOKER_HALLOWEEN01 is Halloween Jakob. MYRRH_HALLOWEEN02 is Halloween Myrrh. MIKOTO_DREAM01 is Adrift Mikoto. All current Legendary and Mythic Heroes are considered to be on the first iteration, so the most recent are still AQUA_LEGEND01 and DUMA_GOD01.

"Regular" alts simply have a number appended to their name, so Helpful Chrom is CHROM_02, I think (I forget if there's an underscore or not).

Characters with multiple variants of themselves have additional modifiers, like TIKI_A for Awakening Tiki (Mystery Tiki is just TIKI) or REFLET_M and REFLET_F for male and female Robin, respectively.

As should probably be obvious if you read this far, all characters also use the official romanizations of their names in Japanese internally, so Lyn is LIN, Tobin is ROBIN, Arthur is HAROLD, and Kliff is QULYF.

[bottlegnomes]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Kliff is QULYF.

Why couldn't that have been the official localization?

[thecrimsonflash]

1 hour ago, bottlegnomes said:

Why couldn't that have been the official localization?

because we live in a world of sin.

I may just take a tiki for a first merge, spd tactic is tempting, but I don't think it will do enough for me, then there is the ever infamous distant counter, possibly, would likely go on young tiki or myrrh, but I would only use that myrrh for GHBs and tiki has kind of fallen off lately and breath of fog hasn't really made a massive difference in general results, but then I need to put tiki on my armor emblem team, so I don't know how to go about this exactly, tiki seems to be the best bet.

[Diovani Bressan]

Well, it is not a random Free Legendary Hero, but 2 random Free Special Heroes + a new "A Hero Rises" but you can choose one of the top 4 units.

I am happy with it.

[Icelerate]

On 31/01/2019 at 9:07 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

1. Normally in FE, I play according to utility; I like Rolf, but I often don't use him in PoR, since Archers are quite bad there. On the other hand, I find Harken a bit boring, but he is a monster in gameplay so I let him loose in FE7.

• However, with FEH, I'm choosing to engage my subjectivity, and only use characters I like. If I play the origin games again, it'll be back to utility with me, but here, I wish to relax from that.
• I don't play FEH for OCs, so I don't use those, I already got rid of my free Fjorm, and plan to do the same with Eir, so there goes Fjorm/Gunnthra/Hrid. 
• In a choice to remain neutral in all Fates disputes, I've done like ten runs of the game, never have I seen the story or read the supports, so Azura and Ryoma do not appeal to me.
• Awakening, the only supports I ever saw of Lucina's were those with her parents, since I never cared for breeding the second generation, and nowadays, I try to forget Awakening and assume a neutral stance towards it. So there goes Lucina and Female Grima.
• As for the Sacred Twins, Ephraim as you know had a falling out with me. And Eirika, well I'm just not exactly a fan of her, I don't dislike her, but I don't particularly love her either.
• Had Jugdral a Legendary,  I'm not sure if I'd use it. If a character from a game I haven't played is easily digestible to understand e.g. Ares (he has like twenty lines at most in FE4) and I like what I read, I'll use them. If they're more complex, e.g. Lewyn, I may not. I'm also presently going to assume an anti-Reinhardt stance due to the uncalled for alt.

 

So, at the end of it all, I'm left with Hector, Marth, and Tiki. Hector is my favorite of the lords, albeit I'm a little bit hesitant towards having a second him- isn't that a little boring (never mind I have Vike and Bike)? Marth's Legendary is very befitting of him, but do I really need a good dragonslayer? And isn't Red Sword Infantry an Orb a hundred? Tiki is the most unique of the three in gameplay for me, but... she is the least deserving of a Legendary of these three, even if she does to some extent.

I know my personal preferences and refusal to use Seasonals blocks me from access to a lot of things, like anything not Dagger Infantry and all Tome Fliers and Armors. But it is not like I'm really concerned with the super challenges of this game or staying on top of the metagame. I can do without. I just play for what I want, which shouldn't be so plentiful at the present pace of additions that I need every last Orb.

If you want to remain neutral, wouldn't it be best if you used those characters to show you're not against them? Because ignoring certain characters is like you're choosing to go against them. 

You're okay with using lords even if you don't love them like you do Hector, like Marth and Ike, so why not Eirika? 

Also arena assault is a pain if you're so picky this early on in your FEH career so it's pretty irrational to fodder Fjorm and Eir off as they are good units to use in various modes. 

Edited February 3, 2019 by Icelerate

[Interdimensional Observer]

 

19 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

You're okay with using lords even if you don't love them like you do Hector, like Marth and Ike, so why not Eirika? 

Well now that the free legendary idea is shown false, for now at least, there is no need for me to worry about this. 

However, when it comes to it, both for Eirika and all whom I show neutrality towards, if I've people who can do whatever role I need filled comparable to those characters, I'll just use them instead. I can summon for only so many, invest in so many. Even if I don't dislike Eirika, if there are say four other Sword Infantry or Cavalry able to compare with her in my inventory, and I like them all more, why use her? Why'd I need a Flying Olivia? I turned her into a manual, since Reyson and Leanne can do her job just as well, save for being a different color- which is only relevant for refreshers in niche situations.

 

27 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

If you want to remain neutral, wouldn't it be best if you used those characters to show you're not against them? Because ignoring certain characters is like you're choosing to go against them. 

Using someone I'm neutral towards is not using someone I like. It is not the same as hating them, but neutrality is still inferior to likability. No magnetic charge does not attract, and is not the same as a magnetic charge that repels. 

 

19 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Also arena assault is a pain if you're so picky this early on in your FEH career so it's pretty irrational to fodder Fjorm and Eir off as they are good units to use in various modes. 

I haven't done that mode yet. So I'm fine. If this involves fighting other players' units with my own units, well I know I'm doomed already, so why care about it?

[Othin]

Man, I can't imagine getting rid of my last copy of a unit no matter who they are. I've trained up all my 5*s, and I'm closing in on upgrading my last few unique units to 5*.

[Diovani Bressan]

Despite we not getting a Legendary of your choice for free, I am sure we will have 1 or 2 legendary/mythic heroes in the "Find and Vote Heroes" Banner. This will be just like the CYL, where we will get a free unit and a banner with the four winners. For each color:

• Halloween Myrrh and TIbarn are good candidates for the Red Color;
• Legendary Azura and Legendary Tiki are good candidates for the Blue Color;
• Surtr, Christmas Fae and Legendary Hector are good candidates for the Green Color.
• I believe Duma will win for the Colorless Color.

I am planning to save all my orbs for this banner, because it can be a good one!