New Heroes and Rearmed Chrom

[Sunwoo]

When the skills are so long the game needs to scroll.

[Florete]

Curious about Anankos' JP voice since I know one of them (the one who voiced the dragon iirc) died. Can anyone who knows Japanese assess the situation?

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Well, we're finally getting that Fallen Chrom everyone's been talking about the last couple of years. I don't like that he's a Rearmed unit, though, because we've gotten a couple in a row now. It makes Three Hopes Ingrid being Rearmed instead of Ascended even more baffling. Plus...Fallen Chrom is giving us another sword.

I like the additions of Maria and Linus, though, I didn't expect them. If they were gonna use one of the maidens from (New) Mystery, I fully expected Nyna or Lena. Anakos is an interesting addition, as well. Another I didn't expect.

[Sunwoo]

I swear eclipse and I were joking about the fallen priestesses showing up this year. Sure, only 1/4 is actually here, but that just means the other three will make this theme drag out longer. Also, I wonder if male Byleth's getting a spot on next year's fallen banner too since the female one is here. It'd be weird to not have him here after Robin and Corrin and Morgan had both male and female versions as fallen units.

The only complaint I have about Chrom was that I was hoping the second rearmed sword would be Diamant. It probably doesn't stop him from showing up as a Rearmed sword at some point, but makes it less likely. I think?

[Ether]

The injustice of the Arcane Sword not giving any speed has been righted. Chrom himself will likely make the game worse for existing like almost all of his other recent versions have because of how dumb his assists are, but I don't even care, that sword justified his existence.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I'm also wondering if this signals Anakos maybe won't be a Mythic unit anytime soon? Far as I can tell, this is just...Anakos. Just as we see him in Fates. I guess they could give us a not-evil one for a Mythic.

[Diovani Bressan]

So... You wanted Risen King Chrom for all these years right? Well, congrats! He is here... But too bad, because he is a Rearmed Hero, so better summon now. Oh, but too bad again, he is color sharing.

Jokes aside, this banner is pretty nice. Very good units and very nice skills being added to the main pool.

I kinda don't like Byleth not having her VA, but oh well.

Also, not a fun of Drive Life Unending on Fallen Maria. That makes Legendary Fae less unique, and kinda lame honestly. How your Sabe Armor can probably survive Duo Chroms, kill him on the counterattack, and heal all HP back. C Feud's value increased today.

Anankos being here surprised me! I was expecting him to be a Mythic Hero, but I guess this is the human form. Maybe the Dragon form will be the Mythic one, like how Demon King Fomortiis is the Mythic.

Again... Great banner. And with 2 sparks! Pretty nice. But I am skipping it. I have others priorities. Tickets on red though.

But also... Linus as the GHB? Again? That's very lame.

[Alexmender]

F!Maria is going to bring hell for SD players, luckily she doesn't do anything noteworthy for AR-D or arena so those modes will remain unaffected. Embla shuts her down so she won't be great for Light/Dark season but she'll be a great asset for Astra in case some teleporting thing catches you off guard or a nuke being too much for your Save armor. 

Anyway, checking skills:

• F!Byleth's prf gets Spectrum+5, Slaying, Dull all, Bullwark and Spd Preempt. Strong stuff but she'll need the NFU seal or from an external source to be competitive with other infantry swords. Fodder is godtier so it's nice to get her if one tries to go for R!Chrom.
• F!Maria's stats are 37/44/45/16/35 with likely superassets on one or both of her offensive stats. Prf gives Maria Dazzling, Slaying, Spectrum+5 and Null Guard. For allies it gives Drive Spectrum and L!Fae's Life Unending. The Life Unending is only once per map and only works for the player so no funky shenanigans for AR-D teams, and due to it having a Drive conditon it won't be great against Embla as I mentioned before. This is mostly to make SD even more of a shitshow but that means little as not many play that mode. 
• Anankos gets Slaying, Spectrum+5, in-combat Panic, Spd based true dmg (excluding AoE) and a flat 7 dmg reduction. He's another speedy armor so we'll have to see how he compares to R!F!Grima. 
• R!Chrom gets Fate Unchanged as his exclusive skill, which does the same Repositon+extra action every other Chrom minus the super old ones has, the difference is that this Chrom inflicts Exposure on nearby foes and Save armors that are close to those foes. Arcane Devourer is the sword for speedy infantry units. It has the typical Slaying and Spectrum+5 of every Arcane weapon but this one gives Spd based NFU, special acceleration and 40% DR on first hit. Pretty nifty for Galeforcers and Vital Astra/Godlike Reflexes users. 

 

[Othin]

Solid lineup. Byleth doesn't feel super novel but I'll definitely do a spark to pick up Chrom, and hopefully Anankos or Maria as well. Nice to see them dipping into both the priestesses and the morphs.

[Flying Shogi]

1 hour ago, Florete said:

Curious about Anankos' JP voice since I know one of them (the one who voiced the dragon iirc) died. Can anyone who knows Japanese assess the situation?

They went with the human form VA, 島崎信長 (Nobunaga Shimazaki). His dragon form VA is 納谷六郎 (Rokuro Naya).

EDIT: Here's a list of Fates VAs in case anyone was curious: English | Japanese

Edited May 7, 2023 by Flying Shogi

[Humanoid]

Good that we get a Rearmed hero when it was quite possible there'd be no special hero types on the banner at all. Bad that it's a repeat. Not just a repeat of an arcane sword even, but specifically an arcane sword cavalry, and one with a Clash skill even.

All in all, powerful but boring, with an arcane weapon I probably wouldn't be able to give to anyone until either the NY banner is re-run, or more Clash 3 skills arrive in the 4* pool. Blah.

Edited May 7, 2023 by Humanoid

[Medeus]

That Maria will be perfect for my villains team.

Also, with a version of Anankos finally making his debut we're just missing the Fire Dragon, Sombron, and Fell Xenologue spoiler before we have all of the final bosses.  

1 hour ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

I'm also wondering if this signals Anakos maybe won't be a Mythic unit anytime soon? Far as I can tell, this is just...Anakos. Just as we see him in Fates. I guess they could give us a not-evil one for a Mythic.

Probably just the not-evil one. The base human form already exists in Fates DLC with the Awakening trio and they actually gave us artwork of the dragon form in both Cipher and concept art so he can easily be made into a Mythic unit. It'd also dodge any potential issues with the JP VA since they can reuse the human form's VA for him again and it'd be fitting since it's his non-corrupted form.

Edited May 7, 2023 by Medeus

[Some Jerk]

You'd better fucking believe my Silvia is mugging Risen Chrom for that sword. I never thought I'd be happy to ditch Flashing Blade 4.

Distant A/S Solo... I should be happy about this one because it's food for Phina and now Silvia too, but I can't help but be grumpy because I just gave Phina my only Distant Ferocity not that long ago.

[Mercakete]

... WHY DOES IT ONLY JUST OCCUR TO ME THAT I CAN SPARK ON THIS?! Ugh, and Mark and Eliwood never showed up for me... I do NOT have the orbs for this... Oh well. I'll just do what I can. :') That Chrom looks amazing, and I love the name of that assist skill! MAN you can just feel the despair! (I like drama in fiction, okay?) Also, Anakos is finally here! Surprised he's not a mythic, but okay. I want him.

Maria feels kind of like Fallen Julia 2.0 (except Medeus instead of Manfroy) but DANG that staff's ally miracle and healing effect! The layering of Byleth and Sothis' voices was kind of cool, but I'm getting kind of tired of all the Byleth+Sothis stuff... I'm sure there's more contributing to feeling underwhelmed by that, but eh.

Anyway, really, REALLY hoping I can pull Anakos/Chrom...but I shouldn't get my hopes up. =_=;

[GuiltyLove]

You know, I just sparked for Lif on the recent banner and became short on orbs as a result, right after expending all my orbs for the Whitewings spring alts. Now, I have to pull and potentially spark for Maria? This year has not been kind to me.

Edited May 7, 2023 by GuiltyLove

[Tybrosion]

Meat puppet Maria instead of mecha dragon Fafnir sure is a choice (and a very bad one at that). F!Byleth as Sothis’s meat puppet was painfully predictable. Fell Chrom was an inevitability. Morph Linus as the GHB is just straight up redundant. So that leaves Anankos as this banner’s only good point.

Yeah, I think this theme (like the kid theme) has officially run its course with me. Without Engage, they really only have bottom of the barrel choices left for new Fallen Heroes.

[Sunwoo]

I'm not opposed to Maria being here, but I wonder why they picked her first. Of the four priestesses she's the only one with an actual alt already (Winter Elice is a backpack). And if Nyna and Elice are too recent to get alts (which is weird logic) there's still Lena.

[Seafarer]

2 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

I'm also wondering if this signals Anakos maybe won't be a Mythic unit anytime soon? Far as I can tell, this is just...Anakos. Just as we see him in Fates. I guess they could give us a not-evil one for a Mythic.

It looks like the Anankos from the final map of Heirs of Fate, which is the only time he fought in his human form. The mythic would likely use the dragon form from Revelation.

[Tybrosion]

14 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Of the four priestesses she's the only one with an actual alt already (Winter Elice is a backpack).

And that's the entire reason why I don't like the choice of Maria. She already got a strong alt while the other three are still stuck just being dead on arrival demote healers.

[Sunwoo]

4 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

And that's the entire reason why I don't like the choice of Maria. She already got a strong alt while the other three are still stuck just being dead on arrival demote healers.

I'm now wondering if they made Nyna and Elice bad demotes on their debut banner so people who want a good version of them would be incentivized to pull for the inevitable busted Fallen Elice and Fallen Nyna with busted prf staff and skills.

[Xenomata]

Well, the Arcane Weapon went back to being evil as hell. Strange they're not ALL Arcane weapons, lol.

I've got no love for fallen units these days, not gonna lie...

[Sunwoo]

Just now, Xenomata said:

I've got no love for fallen units these days, not gonna lie...

Those skills though

[DefyingFates]

6 hours ago, Alexmender said:

F!Byleth's prf gets Spectrum+5, Slaying, Dull all, Bullwark and Spd Preempt. Strong stuff but she'll need the NFU seal or from an external source to be competitive with other infantry swords. Fodder is godtier so it's nice to get her if one tries to go for R!Chrom.

R!Chrom gets Fate Unchanged as his exclusive skill, which does the same Repositon+extra action every other Chrom minus the super old ones has, the difference is that this Chrom inflicts Exposure on nearby foes and Save armors that are close to those foes. Arcane Devourer is the sword for speedy infantry units. It has the typical Slaying and Spectrum+5 of every Arcane weapon but this one gives Spd based NFU, special acceleration and 40% DR on first hit. Pretty nifty for Galeforcers and Vital Astra/Godlike Reflexes users. 

I think this may be why we're getting two Sparks out of nowhere?

I think it's funny that Byleth's sword gets both Bulwark and Spd Preempt, two brand new skills introduced last year (and one of them from her Brave self at that). Chrom adding a Spd-focused Arcane Sword will be nice for my og!Eirika... after we get easier-to-access sources for Chrom's other skills. A shame that Byleth wasn't the Rearmed Hero because her fodder is incredible.

Also, Anankos is a Spd Save Armor? Didn't expect one of those so soon! And he's debuting right alongside Maria who's going to make Saviors even more difficult to deal with... yay?

Also also: IS has broken the rule that units only get at most 5 skills on release. I wonder if that's going to persist after this banner, and if that means demote units will get 5 skills as well (Clash 3 skills and the like would be nice to have).

Edited May 7, 2023 by DefyingFates

[Ice Dragon]

Oh hey, they finally added Risen King Chrom. Yay!

Maria looks amazing for any kind of defensive team.

I wasn't expecting Savvy Fighter 4 to show up anytime soon since it's already a good skill, but it's here and it finally grants a counter to opponents with the Brave effect, which was long overdue.

Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to pull on this banner until the latter half of its duration since I have an anime convention that I need to budget for, and I don't want to spend any more on orbs until after that. However, it looks like I'll be pulling red for the double focus rate and sparking Maria and Chrom. If I get enough free orbs before that, I might spark for Maria first just to put her on my Aether Raids offense teams as soon as possible.

 

14 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Also also: IS has broken the rule that units only get at most 5 skills on release. I wonder if that's going to persist after this banner, and if that means demote units will get 5 skills as well (Clash 3 skills and the like would be nice to have).

It looks like they're only doing this with premium staff units and premium premium units, so I don't think it'll really change anything for 4-star units.

Even then, it hardly matters on non-staff units anyways because unless their Assist or Special is one of the new premium Specials or an exclusive skill, it literally doesn't matter if that slot is filled or not since it's not like anyone that isn't new to the game is in need of yet another source of Glimmer or Luna.

[Diovani Bressan]

7 hours ago, Alexmender said:

luckily she doesn't do anything noteworthy for AR-D

I don't know... Having Fomortiis survive a combat in AR-D, for then heal all his HP back and still end your unit's turns doesn't sound good.