Mythic Hero - Askr

[Ice Dragon]

9 minutes ago, Mercakete said:

But yeah, I can't help but feel that the Askrans need a lesson on the difference between dragons and bovines. I wonder if this means Embla's also a beast unit... No, actually, I'm sure she is...

Well, there's no reason to believe that Embla isn't a bat like Elm, but at least bats are a bit easier to confuse with dragons.

Maybe whoever wrote the legends never got a good look at Askr and just assumed that the big thing was most likely a dragon. Maybe they confused him with a Duramboros or a Banbaro.

[Mercakete]

29 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Well, there's no reason to believe that Embla isn't a bat like Elm, but at least bats are a bit easier to confuse with dragons.

Maybe whoever wrote the legends never got a good look at Askr and just assumed that the big thing was most likely a dragon. Maybe they confused him with a Duramboros or a Banbaro.

I mean, I get it, especially if the one who wrote Askr's legends saw Ash doing her laser cow thing. "Shoots a beam of energy, has horns, is huge." "That's a dragon, right?" "Sure."

[Diovani Bressan]

To be fair, from what I understood based on the book story... The current Askr Kingdom and Emblam Empire didnt meet their gods in person until now. Maybe something was lost in translation from old archives and ruins or whatever. So maybe they believed they were dragons? Idk. Not that matters to me.

[Xenomata]

12 hours ago, Florete said:

Despite having that one similar effect, Bulwark in practice is going to be very different from Detailed Report. Warp blocking is the primary feature of Detailed Report to stop things Orders and Wings of Mercy, while Bulwark looks like it's designed for a unit who's not an armor to mimic being a save unit.

In short, Bulwark is definitely not "just a better Detailed Report." I use Gatekeeper all the time and could never be convinced to lose warp blocking for Atk/Res -4 and post-combat healing.

Warping is not a feature every unit has, let alone something that lets non-armors mimic being a save unit. At least Bulwark has universal application.

Also keep in mind that Warp-blocking doesn't even do anything for the vast majority of units, as warping only comes into effect after most combats have already occurred. Maybe I'm just someone who values the enemy being dead in one go, but I already find it a problem if the enemy is still alive at all, let alone if they enable warp strategies.

[DefyingFates]

5 hours ago, Mercakete said:

"You can do better. :)"

He really is a kind guy, huh?

Also (coupled with Ymir's sudden debut), either IS has changed how they handle OCs to "release them ASAP/ as soon as they become an ally"... or Askr is dying in the next chapter. Either or.

As for the "not a dragon" thing, real mythological dragons have a vast array of traits, so maybe FEH uses Dragalia Lost rules (i.e. "anything powerful and clearly not a human/ sylvan is a dragon"). Either that or this:

Quote

I mean, I get it, especially if the one who wrote Askr's legends saw Ash doing her laser cow thing. "Shoots a beam of energy, has horns, is huge." "That's a dragon, right?" "Sure."

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by DefyingFates

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Warping is not a feature every unit has, let alone something that lets non-armors mimic being a save unit.

The part that lets non-armors mimic having Savior is the super-Obstruct effect that Detailed Report and Bulwark share and has nothing to do with the Warp Bubble effect.

 

4 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Also keep in mind that Warp-blocking doesn't even do anything for the vast majority of units, as warping only comes into effect after most combats have already occurred. Maybe I'm just someone who values the enemy being dead in one go, but I already find it a problem if the enemy is still alive at all, let alone if they enable warp strategies.

Harmonized Catria allowing the entire team to teleport and having extremely high usage in Aether Raids defense says hi.

Leaving the enemy alive is also just a normal occurrence nowadays. Null Follow-Up and follow-up prevention are now more common, and there are also commonly used offensive units that either have extremely high bulk or enough damage reduction to avoid dying in one round of combat. It's no longer possible to expect that you'll always kill every opponent in one round of combat.

[Florete]

38 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Warping is not a feature every unit has, let alone something that lets non-armors mimic being a save unit. At least Bulwark has universal application.

Also keep in mind that Warp-blocking doesn't even do anything for the vast majority of units, as warping only comes into effect after most combats have already occurred. Maybe I'm just someone who values the enemy being dead in one go, but I already find it a problem if the enemy is still alive at all, let alone if they enable warp strategies.

I don't understand the purpose of this first paragraph. What does it matter that warping is not a feature every unit has? What is shared between every unit to begin with?

Warping definitely does not only come into effect after most combats have occurred. Grounds Orders, Air Orders, and Harmonic Catria activate warping at the start of the turn, and Guidance and Aerobatics enable warping whenever. Gatekeeper isn't a unit you want engaging in combat most of the time, so he shouldn't be leaving enemies alive to begin with. However, as valuable as it is to kill enemies in one go, it's just not always feasible to do so, and if you can't plan for when it doesn't happen, you're going to run into trouble. Assuming PvP, of course.

[Some Jerk]

Man, upon reflection, Askr really isn't endearing me. I have several questions and gripes about him having the exact same Class and Blessing as Ash. They couldn't have stood to diversify him even a little? Also, I was told Askr and Embla were dragons. This is not a dragon. He could've at least had an anti-dragon weapon weakness to maintain some illusion of the original lore. The only thing that feels right about him is that he's actually a mythical figure and thus deserves to be a Mythic unit.

As for Bulwark, it's definitely interesting on the surface: Super Obstruct, Mystic Boost, and two stat debuffs rolled into a single skill. The obvious question is how it compares to Gatekeeper's Detailed Report, which trades the latter two gimmicks for Anti-Warp. And honestly? I think I'd rather keep the Anti-Warp. Bulwark taking the B Slot means it's going to need a specific kind of unit to use effectively, namely one that doesn't have better options than Bulwark, and I'm finding myself hard-pressed to think of one that isn't Askr himself (the closest is Halloween Rhea, who typically wants Dragon Wall in her B).

[Xenomata]

1 hour ago, Florete said:

I don't understand the purpose of this first paragraph. What does it matter that warping is not a feature every unit has? What is shared between every unit to begin with?

I'm only now realizing that I did not speech into your earholes goodly. I also could not tell you what I was possibly trying to say...

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Harmonized Catria allowing the entire team to teleport and having extremely high usage in Aether Raids defense says hi.

My Brave Marth and Muspell say hi as well.

I know not everyone runs those two units together, but if anything that just means I don't understand the problem everyone else is having because I'm not having that problem.

1 hour ago, Florete said:

Warping definitely does not only come into effect after most combats have occurred. Grounds Orders, Air Orders, and Harmonic Catria activate warping at the start of the turn, and Guidance and Aerobatics enable warping whenever.

You can PLAN for Orders and Harmonic Catria, at least as long as you are paying attention. Guidance effects are slightly harder to plan for, but not by much if you are running a defensive team.

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Leaving the enemy alive is also just a normal occurrence nowadays. Null Follow-Up and follow-up prevention are now more common, and there are also commonly used offensive units that either have extremely high bulk or enough damage reduction to avoid dying in one round of combat. It's no longer possible to expect that you'll always kill every opponent in one round of combat.

Again, Marth and Muspell say hi.

It's only become an issue for me with Harmonic Edelgard's recent release, but anytime I run into her it's either been with my non-Marth team or she's not running her default offensive kit so I have yet to really test him out against her in an actual fight...

[Jave]

Askr looks great, but I'll probably skip him since I'm down on orbs and after the last three banners I'm not in the mood to spend more. At least I'll wait until I see the next banner.

[Some Jerk]

It just occurred to me that this upcoming Mythic Hero Battle is going to answer a long-standing question: do enemy generics count as "Heroes" units?

(I hope the answer is yes, because otherwise this map is going to be really goddamn lame.)

Edited July 25, 2022 by Some Jerk

[Ice Dragon]

33 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

My Brave Marth and Muspell say hi as well.

I have no idea how this has anything to do with teleporting. Is this just a "I don't need to worry about teleportation because everything dies when they try to attack"?

 

34 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Again, Marth and Muspell say hi.

It's only become an issue for me with Harmonic Edelgard's recent release, but anytime I run into her it's either been with my non-Marth team or she's not running her default offensive kit so I have yet to really test him out against her in an actual fight...

Ophelia (Hardy Bearing)? Legendary Lilina (Hardy Bearing)? Legendary Claude (Fallen Star)? Summer Claude (Fallen Star and weapon triangle advantage)? Summer Dimitri (a lot of Def and weapon triangle advantage)? Ishtar (Windsweep)? Young Larchel (Flash)? Brave Eirika (30% damage reduction and weapon triangle advantage)?

[Diovani Bressan]

43 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Summer Dimitri (a lot of Def and weapon triangle advantage)?

Isn't Summer Dimitri a green unit? That would be Weapon Triangle Disavantage, right?

[Ice Dragon]

9 minutes ago, Diovani Bressan said:

Isn't Summer Dimitri a green unit? That would be Weapon Triangle Disavantage, right?

Right. The one Dimitri that isn't a lance.

[Florete]

3 hours ago, Xenomata said:

You can PLAN for Orders and Harmonic Catria, at least as long as you are paying attention. Guidance effects are slightly harder to plan for, but not by much if you are running a defensive team.

I mean, sure, maybe...but blocking the warping altogether is typically a lot simpler. There are a lot of different ways a team can use warping to approach, and thus many different ways a defensive team may need to plan for it, but blocking the warping just stops it outright.

On kind of an unrelated tangent, as a Gatekeeper user, it is funny to me that people considered LMyrrh and especially Askr to be stepping on GK's toes when really the unit that invalidated him the most is Elimine. She can prevent Catria's Orders buff (and others) from activating at all, which is far and away the most common and threatening usage of warp in the meta and one of the primary reasons to use Gatekeeper, which I no longer do in Astra season. She doesn't have his Charging Horn buff, but she still provides a good alternative in Holy Ground.

[Jotari]

11 hours ago, Mercakete said:

I mean, I get it, especially if the one who wrote Askr's legends saw Ash doing her laser cow thing. "Shoots a beam of energy, has horns, is huge." "That's a dragon, right?" "Sure."

Some historian was transcribing their history and was just like "We can't tell everyone we were saves by a bloody cow! That sounds so embarrassing. That's it, I'm editing the line. Dragon, we were saves by a big manly Dragon."

[Some Jerk]

Datamine is out.

Spoiler

• Askr: 40-/43-/26-/43+/31-
• Bulwark is 240 SP, locked to Infantry Melee

why does Askr have four fucking superbanes

 

[Ice Dragon]

3 hours ago, Some Jerk said:

why does Askr have four fucking superbanes

The same reason Young Mia has four superbanes. He has a 183 stat total, which is higher than the average for his class of 181-182. This means he got favorable rounding on his growth rates for more stats than usual, which means he'll get unfavorable rounding (i.e. superbanes) on more Flaws (which are -5.7% to growth rates) than usual.

[Mercakete]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

Some historian was transcribing their history and was just like "We can't tell everyone we were saves by a bloody cow! That sounds so embarrassing. That's it, I'm editing the line. Dragon, we were saves by a big manly Dragon."

They weren't saved by a cow. They were saved by a bull. 🙂 (Cows are female.) That said, this makes a lot of sense, actually. That is, that historically, bovines were greatly appreciated, and even worshipped. This is because of their significance in agricultural cultures. Gentle (for the most part) giants who provided milk, meat, and could be a working animal, they really made life a lot easier for people. It also makes sense for Askr's helpful and laid-back disposition -- happy to lend some help and just being overall chill.

...Still not a dragon, but you know.

17 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

As for the "not a dragon" thing, real mythological dragons have a vast array of traits, so maybe FEH uses Dragalia Lost rules (i.e. "anything powerful and clearly not a human/ sylvan is a dragon"). Either that or this:

In all seriousness, the issue there is that we're not just talking design. He's a beast unit by weapon type, which makes him treated as a beast unit for all other advantages and disadvantages, rather than having dragon advantages as disadvantages. I don't think this would even be talked about if it wasn't for that, honestly. (Like how Nifl's a dragon but looks like a horse crossed with a wolf.) It's been established in this series that dragons are a particular subset of creatures (which can further be divided into gods (Naga, Duma, etc.), manaketes (Myrrh, Tiki, etc.), and Laguz (Dheginsea, Ena, etc.), and even further divided from there (loosely by element: Naga is the ruler of the divine dragons (as opposed to earth dragons), Nasir is a white dragon Laguz, and so on.)) The closest we have to dragon-beasts are the Laguz, but even they are treated the same as other dragons in FEH (not transforming on the map, not having bonus "transformed" weapon effects, etc.)

So, using how this game operates, Askr is a beast unit, not a dragon unit, despite the lore up until now referring to him as a dragon. Maybe the historians just thought that anything that transforms is a dragon. *shrug*

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Mercakete said:

They weren't saved by a cow. They were saved by a bull. 🙂 (Cows are female.) That said, this makes a lot of sense, actually. That is, that historically, bovines were greatly appreciated, and even worshipped. This is because of their significance in agricultural cultures. Gentle (for the most part) giants who provided milk, meat, and could be a working animal, they really made life a lot easier for people. It also makes sense for Askr's helpful and laid-back disposition -- happy to lend some help and just being overall chill.

...Still not a dragon, but you know.

I refuse to refer to the species as cattle. That just sounds too awkward in the singular.

[Mercakete]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I refuse to refer to the species as cattle. That just sounds too awkward in the singular.

That's fine. "Bovine" is better anyway, since I think cattle is specifically livestock.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Mercakete

[Sunwoo]

Alternatively, in-lore they're all dragon deities but half of them are just labeled as beasts for variation. Freyja makes it clear she's a god in her voice lines, but she and Freyr were the original two beast units of Heroes. Askr, Embla, Nifl, Muspell, Freyja, Freyr, and Ymir are probably all just some species that could be represented as either dragons or beasts but it in the lore they're just the same thing.

Not sure what this makes Hel, who says she is the ruler of the realm of the dead but is also portrayed as a human.

[Mercakete]

2 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

Alternatively, in-lore they're all dragon deities but half of them are just labeled as beasts for variation. Freyja makes it clear she's a god in her voice lines, but she and Freyr were the original two beast units of Heroes. Askr, Embla, Nifl, Muspell, Freyja, Freyr, and Ymir are probably all just some species that could be represented as either dragons or beasts but it in the lore they're just the same thing.

Not sure what this makes Hel, who says she is the ruler of the realm of the dead but is also portrayed as a human.

As I recall, no one ever claimed that Freyr or Freyja were dragons, but it was made clear that they were gods. Likewise, I don't think it was ever said that Hel was human, but it was stated very clearly that she was a god (same for Loki and Thorr.) Askr and Embla, however, were explicitly called dragons (and it's pretty clear that people in the world of Heroes know what dragons are.)

In all honesty, I think this is just IS deciding that they wanted to put out more beast units and realizing it's too late to change what people have been calling Askr and Embla all along, and so they hope the players just kind of accept the unit type and the in-lore terms used. (In short, IS said things about characters they hadn't fully developed yet and it kind of bit them so they're not making a big deal about it and hoping it just slides by the players.)

[Fire Emblem Fan]

On 7/25/2022 at 1:57 PM, DefyingFates said:

Also (coupled with Ymir's sudden debut), either IS has changed how they handle OCs to "release them ASAP/ as soon as they become an ally"... or Askr is dying in the next chapter. Either or.

That tracks. Every single time a Heroes OC comes along that I'm okay with and kinda like, they end up dying. Since I like Askr, you can safely bet that he's gonna end up dead. In fact, I'll just go ahead and predict it now: Askr is gonna die and Ash will inherit his powers and become to new Askr.

[Jotari]

11 hours ago, Mercakete said:

That's fine. "Bovine" is better anyway, since I think cattle is specifically livestock.

But bovine refers to a genus and not a species...though more accurate since Askr does look like a buffalo.