New Heroes & Ascended Mareeta

[King Marth 64]

Dang, I did heard August was not useable in Battle in Thracia 776, but that Staff Attack made me think August should have fight with Leif in Thracia 776, but I do know that Staff Users can't fight back with Staves except in Valentia nor Tellius.

But I do dig with the Ascended Mareeta since she definitely looked like she became a Swordmaster. But, it's nice to see Galzus is here in Heroes.

[Othin]

Vulture on Salem is disappointing bit not surprising.

I think featuring Galzus here makes sense, but his kit is underwhelming, and I don't like his art much either. I feel like at this point they should stop feeling the need to have characters pick between prfs and inheritable weapons and start just giving most units both, the same way they'd end up after starting with an inheritable and then getting a prf from the refinery. (The inheritable slot could just be a silver weapon for units where they really don't care.)

As of this group, Perne and Fergus are now newly referenced in Meet Some of the Heroes.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Othin

[Jotari]

Ascended Mareeta, huh. 😕 I guess this means they do plan to give an ascended character in each new heroes banner. Though Thracia really didn't need an alt given it has a paltry number of its characters in the roster, especially Mareeta to whom this is the third alt, if an ascended was unavoidable I would have went for Earth Sword Nana, or hell, they've given us August, throw him a bone and make him our Ascended Unit and free up a space that isn't a third Mareeta.

I really thought they'd make  Galzus an axe unit. Unlike other mercenary axe units they've introduced so far, he actually does come with and use axes in his own game. Particularly surprising given this means we're getting two reds and zero greens on this banner. I guess being Odo Blood just made anything other than a swordie out of the question. Still, he's kind of underwhelming for how great he is as a unit in Thracia 😕 I think I'd have rather ascended Galzus than ascended Mareeta. Oh well, at least we're getting a Thracia banner at all, can't complain there (even if my orbs are critically low meaning I probably won't be able to pull much).

[Othin]

54 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Ascended Mareeta, huh. 😕 I guess this means they do plan to give an ascended character in each new heroes banner. Though Thracia really didn't need an alt given it has a paltry number of its characters in the roster, especially Mareeta to whom this is the third alt, if an ascended was unavoidable I would have went for Earth Sword Nana, or hell, they've given us August, throw him a bone and make him our Ascended Unit and free up a space that isn't a third Mareeta.

I really thought they'd make  Galzus an axe unit. Unlike other mercenary axe units they've introduced so far, he actually does come with and use axes in his own game. Particularly surprising given this means we're getting two reds and zero greens on this banner. I guess being Odo Blood just made anything other than a swordie out of the question. Still, he's kind of underwhelming for how great he is as a unit in Thracia 😕 I think I'd have rather ascended Galzus than ascended Mareeta. Oh well, at least we're getting a Thracia banner at all, can't complain there (even if my orbs are critically low meaning I probably won't be able to pull much).

Given that the remaining Thracia characters are not especially well-known, I can see why they want to lean on established ones to prop up the banner. Although I certainly would have preferred sword Nanna or bow Eyvel for the Ascended unit, or even dagger Mareeta. Let her have a new weapon type!

Thinking about Galzus and his weapon, I checked who has the Rein Axe and it's Gonzales. So they gave Galzus a weapon that could go to a GHB unit, that's irritating.

[Rinco]

Well, now we have a red Ascended Hero.
Not much to say besides that.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Othin said:

Given that the remaining Thracia characters are not especially well-known, I can see why they want to lean on established ones to prop up the banner. Although I certainly would have preferred sword Nanna or bow Eyvel for the Ascended unit, or even dagger Mareeta. Let her have a new weapon type!

Honestly I don't see that as an issue. Basically no one knew who Reinhardt was before Heroes, yet he managed to become a staple of the game. Why? Well partly because of just good artwork and voice work (I assume), but more than that because of a very desirable gameplay niche (that has remained incredibly relevant even now, what like half a decade on). Some people have had exposure to Mareeta alright, but I don't think sales would be all that much lower if we got Ascended Galzus or Ascended Linoan, provided they manage to make the character look appealing enough (both in artwork or in gameplay). Is Mareeta a safer bet? Well, probably, a bunch of people probably are that simple to just think "Ohh, sword girl, I recognize her. Here's 30 euro," but something "riskier" like Galzus or Linoan...it might just pay off bigger for the likes of people who have actually played Thracia (all seven hundred and seventy six of us) and want to see more of the cast. I think I would have even liked Saias better as an ascended unit (as I think he even should have been a staff unit originally).

But yeah, even accepting Mareeta is the inexplicable only choice, she totally could have been a dagger unit. We really didn't need two red units on this banner.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Jotari

[Yggi]

I'm really happy overall!
This morning I got right of bed and watched the trailer right away.
I was.....conflicted, in the end.
For once, the characters are really niche or generic for it to be 2022, and I've seen a lot of people getting turned off by the whole banner: I'm kinda sad for this 😕
But it's still Jugdral, I cannot turn my head away from new characters from my favourite continent.
It's my duty to pull every one of them and use them as best as I can!!!!

[Othin]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Honestly I don't see that as an issue. Basically no one knew who Reinhardt was before Heroes, yet he managed to become a staple of the game. Why? Well partly because of just good artwork and voice work (I assume), but more than that because of a very desirable gameplay niche (that has remained incredibly relevant even now, what like half a decade on). Some people have had exposure to Mareeta alright, but I don't think sales would be all that much lower if we got Ascended Galzus or Ascended Linoan, provided they manage to make the character look appealing enough (both in artwork or in gameplay). Is Mareeta a safer bet? Well, probably, a bunch of people probably are that simple to just think "Ohh, sword girl, I recognize her. Here's 30 euro," but something "riskier" like Galzus or Linoan...it might just pay off bigger for the likes of people who have actually played Thracia (all seven hundred and seventy six of us) and want to see more of the cast. I think I would have even liked Saias better as an ascended unit (as I think he even should have been a staff unit originally).

But yeah, even accepting Mareeta is the inexplicable only choice, she totally could have been a dagger unit. We really didn't need two red units on this banner.

Bear in mind that it was easy for units to stand out when the game was newer and the roster was stronger. Reinhardt and Olwen were the only brave tome units for a long time, and Reinhardt is still the most easily accessible one. New units, especially rare ones, have a much harder time carving out significant niches.

Being alts of an already-popular unit seems to be part of the concept behind Ascended units, I don't think Galzus or Linoan would have qualified. Saias in CYL5 was rank 411 with 99 votes - I'd like for him to get a seasonal staff alt eventually, but I don't think he'd work well as a selling point. I'd also expect most Ascended units to be female, so the dwindling number of missing female characters becomes less of an issue for banners that want to offer rare female units.

[Humanoid]

In a literal sense, you also kind of need a base unit to ascend from so all of them being alts is kind of a given. (Dunno if that holds true for whatever the original Japanese naming of the scheme is though)

But yeah, the other factor is that back then, IS themselves didn't really know what made a unit "work" and so whether a unit was easily accessible at 3* (remembering the days before the 3* and 4* rates were swapped) gave little indication on how relevant they were. F2P darlings (and memelords) Reinhardt and Nino were of course the defining examples of that. It wasn't second-hand knowledge: players *lived* through playing with these units themselves, seeing them, hearing them, every day. Hearing the majestic proclamation "magic is everything" or the earnest "do my best" was fundamentally a shared experience, and therein lies the difference.

Nowadays a unit of their relative quality would be 5-star locked, be re-run maybe twice a year, and so regardless of their performance they'd still be non-entities to a majority of the player base by sheer inaccessibility. Odds are they'll never experience using them, never hear most of their voice lines, probably never see their full artwork outside of the banner trailer. You might chuckle at the Spring Maria 99x4 meme, but no one will really experience that, and once her banner is gone it'll all be forgotten. IS can take an obscure character, give them a great kit, that part's easy. Die-hard fans and dolphins will pull for them. But to the rest of the player base, they'll just be another face in the crowd of great units.

That said, the recent good Grail units of obscure characters sort of harkens back to those days where people can unite over a common shared unit, and hopefully that trend continues.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Humanoid

[Use the Falchion]

Ascended Mareeta looks cool, and August looks at least a little unique in terms of design, but I'm still skipping this banner. I'm more interested in B!Marianne so I can work on +10'ing her than the units here. Still, I'm really happy for Thracia fans! (And I'm really happy this isn't a banner I'm partial to...)

[Othin]

2 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Nowadays a unit of their relative quality would be 5-star locked, be re-run maybe twice a year, and so regardless of their performance they'd still be non-entities to a majority of the player base by sheer inaccessibility. Odds are they'll never experience using them, never hear most of their voice lines, probably never see their full artwork outside of the banner trailer. You might chuckle at the Spring Maria 99x4 meme, but no one will really experience that, and once her banner is gone it'll all be forgotten. IS can take an obscure character, give them a great kit, that part's easy. Die-hard fans and dolphins will pull for them. But to the rest of the player base, they'll just be another face in the crowd of great units.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. A player willing to spend half their monthly allotment of free orbs on New Heroes banners can pick up most of the 5* units released on them between the spark and other banner pulls, and can make sure to grab all the most exciting ones on the first run of each of those banners. (Seasonals are a lot less reliable without Feh Pass, but they're also less relevant.)

Still, even though anyone who wants those units can get them, it's not the same. Everyone got Reinhardt and Nino without even trying, and with the much narrower unit pool, they faced them as PvP opponents much more frequently. The scale of the experience isn't repeatable. Reinhardt was a perfect storm of circumstances that no longer exist.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Othin

[Ice Dragon]

6 hours ago, Othin said:

Given that the remaining Thracia characters are not especially well-known, I can see why they want to lean on established ones to prop up the banner. Although I certainly would have preferred sword Nanna or bow Eyvel for the Ascended unit, or even dagger Mareeta. Let her have a new weapon type!

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

But yeah, even accepting Mareeta is the inexplicable only choice, she totally could have been a dagger unit. We really didn't need two red units on this banner.

So far, all three of the non-Heroes Ascended Heroes use canon weapon types. Joshua has Assassin as one of his promotion routes and is a dagger unit. Idunn is a recovering divine dragon and is a blue dragonstone unit. Mareeta promotes into a Swordmaster and is a sword unit.

This is similar to Legendary Heroes where only one of the 30 non-Heroes Legendary Heroes has a non-canon class (Lilina) and only one has a non-canon weapon type (Azura). (For classes and weapon types, I'm counting reclasses available by default as canon in games that have stronger reclassing restrictions, which gives Ryoma access to Kinshi Knight for his mount, Lucina and Chrom access to Sniper for their weapons, and Azura access to Sky Knight for her mount.)

Edited March 17, 2022 by Ice Dragon

[Tybrosion]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Honestly I don't see that as an issue. Basically no one knew who Reinhardt was before Heroes, yet he managed to become a staple of the game. Why? Well partly because of just good artwork and voice work (I assume), but more than that because of a very desirable gameplay niche (that has remained incredibly relevant even now, what like half a decade on). Some people have had exposure to Mareeta alright, but I don't think sales would be all that much lower if we got Ascended Galzus or Ascended Linoan, provided they manage to make the character look appealing enough (both in artwork or in gameplay). Is Mareeta a safer bet? Well, probably, a bunch of people probably are that simple to just think "Ohh, sword girl, I recognize her. Here's 30 euro," but something "riskier" like Galzus or Linoan...it might just pay off bigger for the likes of people who have actually played Thracia (all seven hundred and seventy six of us) and want to see more of the cast. I think I would have even liked Saias better as an ascended unit (as I think he even should have been a staff unit originally).

But yeah, even accepting Mareeta is the inexplicable only choice, she totally could have been a dagger unit. We really didn't need two red units on this banner.

Yeah, it really didn’t matter who got picked for the Ascended Hero here in regards to sales.

This banner was clearly just sent out to die in the wilderness, probably to the AHR banner specifically. Picking a popular Thracia character for the Ascended Hero like Mareeta wasn’t going to save it from that fate, so it really would’ve been nice if they went for a more interesting choice for the Ascended Hero.

[indigoasis]

Mareeta just powercrept Mareeta... again. She's done this twice now to herself, lol (we have 4 versions of Astra now, too)

Anyway, I'm kinda disappointed that there are two sword units on red, but it is what it is, I suppose... I just hope I can get Mareeta for the floret and dip out.

[FailWood]

Poor Galzus.  A powerful endgame recruit given such a lackluster kit in favor of an uninspired Mareeta because IS leans one way as usual (his connection to her makes it even more unfortunate)  At least August getting in is cool.

[Ice Dragon]

54 minutes ago, FailWood said:

Poor Galzus.  A powerful endgame recruit given such a lackluster kit in favor of an uninspired Mareeta because IS leans one way as usual (his connection to her makes it even more unfortunate)  At least August getting in is cool.

You say that as if there were oh so many other characters would've even qualified as an Ascended Hero from Thracia.

Right now, it's basically just Eyvel and maybe Reinhardt, Olwen, or Cyas, assuming Nanna and Finn are more likely to get Legendary versions instead of Ascended versions.

[Some Jerk]

Ascended Mareeta sure is a Mareeta. Galzus and Karin are whatever. My interest in August is solely for the "diplomacy has failed" memes, but that's not enough to get me to roll.

Yeah, this one is a hard skip for me. Which is good, because at present I don't have the orbs to spark for August or the floretMareeta even if I wanted to.

[Sunwoo]

Admittedly, I can't think of too many Ascended Heroes candidates for Thracia other than Mareeta ... although you could totally BS a reason for Reinhardt if they wanted to push him. But I'm more annoyed that all Mareetas are infantry swords and that Galzus got so screwed over for no real reason. I would've been totally cool with Saias or Eyvel, although I'm really not liking this trend of Ascended units being primarily female again. They don't even really have an excuse for this one, quite a few male characters would qualify.

[Tybrosion]

In my opinion, Ced was a valid option for the Ascended Hero too. I guess they still wanted to avoid the whole "Lewyn is 100% his father in FE5" bit.....except now they kinda have to acknowledge it through Karin anyways since her whole reason for ending up in Munster was that she was sent to find Prince Ced.

[Xenomata]

...wait, would Ascended Heroes give Intsys a reason to push out an Ascended Arvis, aka the armored Red Mage everyone keeps asking for?

What an interesting thought...

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

So far, all three of the non-Heroes Ascended Heroes use canon weapon types. Joshua has Assassin as one of his promotion routes and is a dagger unit. Idunn is a recovering divine dragon and is a blue dragonstone unit. Mareeta promotes into a Swordmaster and is a sword unit.

This is similar to Legendary Heroes where only one of the 30 non-Heroes Legendary Heroes has a non-canon class (Lilina) and only one has a non-canon weapon type (Azura). (For classes and weapon types, I'm counting reclasses available by default as canon in games that have stronger reclassing restrictions, which gives Ryoma access to Kinshi Knight for his mount, Lucina and Chrom access to Sniper for their weapons, and Azura access to Sky Knight for her mount.)

I'm all for canon weapon types, but I don't think if they wanted to diverge it would cause much if a stir. Further more when it comes to swords you have a bit more freedom given they are basically thr same thing. Knives weren't in Thracia but the likes of Lifis will certainly use them. I think this logic could be applied to more units than just the thief classes. Saber, for example, I think really should have been a dagger unit giving they ended up making him use the folder dagger in the end.

But considering the following things as important for an ascended unit.

*Alt of a unit already in the game.

*Canon weapon type 

*Relatively important to the story

*...female 

Then the best choice for the first Thracia ascended unit, I think, would be Earth Sword Nana. This is a signature weapon for both her games that is missing from heroes and ascended units, if they should be anything, should be for exploring alternate potential in characters. Mareeta,  with her two versions in the game already, was a pretty well represented and fully explored character in Heroes. Ascended Mareeta doesn't really give us any other Mareeta aspect (as far as I can see). If just has her powercreeping herself.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Jotari

[Acacia Sgt]

59 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

In my opinion, Ced was a valid option for the Ascended Hero too. I guess they still wanted to avoid the whole "Lewyn is 100% his father in FE5" bit.....except now they kinda have to acknowledge it through Karin anyways since her whole reason for ending up in Munster was that she was sent to find Prince Ced.

Or they simply have her say "The Prince", without ever saying the name.

Though yeah, it's inevitable for Thracia since Ced being Lewyn's son is 100% canon no matter what. They could get away with ambiguity by labeling Ced as being from Genealogy, but yeah, in the context of Thracia it's impossible to hide it.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Acacia Sgt

[FailWood]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

You say that as if there were oh so many other characters would've even qualified as an Ascended Hero from Thracia.

That's not what I was saying.  I was indirectly agreeing with Sunwoo's dislike of Galzus getting a lackluster kit because both him and Mareeta are Red, and since she's meant to be the star of the banner, he had to be made worse to accommodate.  You can take your assumption about me and shove it.

Edited March 18, 2022 by FailWood

[Tybrosion]

12 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Or they simply have her say "The Prince", without ever saying the name.

They already acknowledged Ced as being Silesse's prince on Karin's Meet the Heroes page, so I don't think they'll be going that route (especially if Karin's Forging Bonds involves Ced himself).

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Tybrosion said:

They already acknowledged Ced as being Silesse's prince on Karin's Meet the Heroes page, so I don't think they'll be going that route (especially if Karin's Forging Bonds involves Ced himself).

Oh, they have? Well, that should settle it, then.

Would be interesting if Ced is like "I am a prince in your world?", as a nod that in Genealogy he can possible be not.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Acacia Sgt