Legendary Hero - Guinivere: Queen of Bern

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I guess this explains why she wasn't on the most recent Binding Blade banner a couple weeks ago. This month's Legendary Hero is Guinivere, from Binding Blade.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Fire Emblem Fan

[Humanoid]

Standard so-so June legendary set up for failure by being wedged between the two Summer banners.

Having not played FE6 I have no real idea how much sense it makes for an NPC legendary. Not that that's a problem if she had any appeal to me as a unit, but nope. Just as well I suppose, since I'm looking to spend my entire orb income over the next month or so on a seasonal banner trifecta.

[Sunwoo]

I mean, in theory I'm not opposed to her.

But the degree to which FE will go to in order to avoid giving us male legendaries is getting ridiculous. We should've had m!Corrin a long time ago. Yes, I get he's less popular than his brothers and female counterpart, but he still beats out several of the women who've already gotten legendaries. Not to mention that we still haven't gotten Sothe, who falls under the "love interest" banner like Lilina, Ninian, Deirdre, and Nanna and he's the only male of that group. Heck, Mist and Elincia probably deserve to have gotten legendaries long before any of the love interests or dragon girls or Guinevere, and they haven't got legendaries either. Guin should've just been the Ascended on the Binding Blade banner and we should've gotten a different legendary for this month.

Oh, and another thing. Guinevere canonically can wield staves. Why not just make her a staff legendary instead of rehashing her normal self's gimmick with a different color? I hate IS's decisions sometimes.

[Tybrosion]

RIP Guin, they definitely sent her out to die here because of Xander's massive flop in this slot last year.

Also, this is yet another Legendary who could've easily been a Staff unit but isn't for no particular reason. Instead, here's just 2020 Guinivere except she's being released in 2023 now.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

10 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Having not played FE6 I have no real idea how much sense it makes for an NPC legendary.

Guinivere is very important to Binding's plot. More so than Lilina, in all honesty. Her being a Legendary isn't undeserved in terms of importance and relevance, but at the same time, this could have easily been an Ascended unit instead.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Fire Emblem Fan

[Florete]

First legendary who was not originally a playable unit (in a story campaign, at least).

[XRay]

She got Slaying, effective damage against mages, true damage, flat damage reduction, Guard, and Null-Hexblade on Radiant Aureola. She also got after combat healing for her and her allies, and charge+1 on her exclusive C slot Bern's New Way.

Null C-Disrupt 4 is not the most amazing thing, but it is pretty solid since it comes with damage reduction.

I guess the time they allow us to refine Kitty Paddle will also be the time when they allow us to refine Poison Dagger and Brave Weapons. Arcane Weapons are nice, but it would also be nice if they let us do something with inheritable Weapons and old Refines. Being able to combine multiple inheritable Weapon effects with each other would be nice; I think four is a good number considering Arcane Weapons have the same amount, and they get all stat+5 on top.

5 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Why not just make her a staff legendary instead of rehashing her normal self's gimmick with a different color?

Staff unit with effective damage against mages sounds like an interesting idea. And more access to Holy Pressure would be nice if she comes with it.

[Karuu30]

she could’ve been this month’s ascended hero, or even the rearmed bringing an arcane blue tome/staff.

doesn’t matter if they only added the crown, the long cape and a new version of her og tome, i already love her design.

however, she’s still no sothe or m!corrin, so yeah. existing between the summer banners won’t help her either.

[Xenomata]

Well as a unit, Guin "only" gets all stat +10, Res-based damage boosts and reductions, Special Acceleration and Guard, disables adaptive damage, and has a 3-space wide Breath of Life effect on top of similar healing for herself. When considering the insanity of units like M!Robin and Hinoka, this honestly doesn't seem that scary. She will obviously be fast, but unlike most fast units these days she has no form of NFU anywhere on her kit, so a melee unit with guaranteed follow-ups can probably wear her down quite fast. She'll probably have the NFU seal in her Abyssal battle.

I don't particularly care about the summer banners, especially given my very vocal hate of Fodlan characters, but even then I'm not feeling this legendary hero. There's nothing gamechanging about her, she's not the unit who brings the Null C-Disrupt effect to the whole party, in fact NCD4 itself is really just an okay skill overall.

Guin herself is a major NPC, but that seems to be about it, as this is her first appearance in years since her original release.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Xenomata

[Ice Dragon]

+5 to all stats in the C slot is pretty big. Currently, we only have skills like Oath and Alarm that grant +3 to two stats on top of granting visible buffs and Rein that grants +4 to up to three stats. On top of that, she also has a 3-range "Joint Drive Mystic Boost" and +1 special charge rate in that slot. That's a really solid C skill.

Null C-Disrupt 4 is nice and makes the skill actually worth using. Sothis would like to get it, and if Legendary Corrin gets Shield Pulse moved to her weapon, she'd also like to have the skill, especially since I don't see Shield Pulse 4 being released soon enough to make it a viable option for her upcoming remix. I could also see Gotoh or Duo Askr having it as an alternative to their default B skills.

 

As a banner, Guinevere and Fomortiis make the banner decent for colorless. My Askr is already +10, and he doesn't have skills that are in demand, so he's unfortunately a dud. I'm probably going to stick with my original plan and just pull for +2 Guinevere and stop there. Hopefully, I'll get a few more copies of Fomortiis to merge.

 

I find it funny that Thorr's art is still censored in the trailer.

 

I think someone fucked up the video titles because it's her normal version's epithet in both the English and Japanese videos.

So here are the usual translation notes:

 

Guinevere's epithet in the video title, "Princess of Bern", is "ベルンの王妹" (berun no ōmai), "Princess of Bern". "王妹" (ōmai) literally translates as "the king's younger sister". As mentioned above, this is her normal version's epithet.

Guinevere's epithet, "Queen of Bern", is "ベルン王国女王" (berun ōkoku joō), "Queen of the Kingdom of Bern".

Radiant Aureola is "至光アーリアル" (shikō āriaru), "Supreme Light, Aureole". "至光" (shikō), literally "supreme light", is obviously a contraction of Aureola's Japanese epithet, "至高の光" (shikō no hikari), "Light of Supremacy".

Null C-Disrupt is "見切り・反撃不可" (mikiri: hangeki fuka), "Awareness: Counterattack Prevention". As usual, "見切り" (mikiri), "seeing everything", is the name of the Nihil skill, which in the main series prevents the activation of most other skills. The original skill's localization as "Nihil" is likely due to the fact that "見切り" (mikiri) can also mean "abandonment".

Bern's New Way is "新たなるベルンの道" (aratanaru berun no michi), "Bern's New Way". Technically speaking, "new" here should modify "Bern's way", as in "taking Bern's path in a new direction", but this is already implied in the English phrasing.

[eclipse]

Byleth with NCD4 is not gonna be fun to go against.

That being said, most of the colors have something I want, so pulling anyone will be a win.

[Sunwoo]

27 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Byleth with NCD4 is not gonna be fun to go against.

... Fuck.

I already don't have any units who can beat Byleth without a firesweep effect.

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, eclipse said:

Byleth with NCD4 is not gonna be fun to go against.

1 hour ago, Sunwoo said:

... Fuck.

I already don't have any units who can beat Byleth without a firesweep effect.

Null C-Disrupt means no Dodge effect, so you should be able to beat that variant with any reasonably strong unit with a Brave weapon and Hardy Bearing.

Pretty sure Legendary Lilina and the old-school Hardy Bearing Ophelia build should also work due to the lack of Dodge.

[Diovani Bressan]

5 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

I could also see Gotoh or Duo Askr having it as an alternative to their default B skills.

You mean giving Null C-Disrupt 4 to Gotoh? But doesn't he have that effect on his tome already? 

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

You mean giving Null C-Disrupt 4 to Gotoh? But doesn't he have that effect on his tome already? 

It's hard to remember when the last time Gotoh was a bonus unit was 3 months ago and was a bonus unit due to the fact that he was the most recently released Mythic Hero at the time and hasn't been a bonus unit since.

[Diovani Bressan]

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

It's hard to remember when the last time Gotoh was a bonus unit was 3 months ago and was a bonus unit due to the fact that he was the most recently released Mythic Hero at the time and hasn't been a bonus unit since.

Yeah. I know Gotoh has Null C on his tome because I use him as my Null C unit in Light Seasons. He is great for that.

If that was not the case, then yeah... Null C-Disrupt 4 would be good on him, even though he wouldn't use the Spd debuff part. It also doesn't have a HP check, like how Guard 4 has... or any other condition to get that Damage Reduction. By just having the skill equipped, you will have the damage reduction in both phases for the first attack.

[Jotari]

11 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

I hate IS's decisions sometimes.

Complaining about decisions they make in regards to Heroes has slowly become more entertaining to me than Heroes itself.

[Sunwoo]

11 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Null C-Disrupt means no Dodge effect, so you should be able to beat that variant with any reasonably strong unit with a Brave weapon and Hardy Bearing.

Pretty sure Legendary Lilina and the old-school Hardy Bearing Ophelia build should also work due to the lack of Dodge.

This is true.

Petition IS to put hardy bearing in Dire Thunder refine

[Ice Dragon]

39 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Petition IS to put hardy bearing in Dire Thunder refine

It would be funny if they actually did because it would make Reinhardt's default Vantage pointless (as if it weren't already pointless).

Though this talk of Hardy Bearing just made me realize that you can get rid of Summer Ephraim's reverse Vantage effect by giving him Hardy Bearing.

[Tybrosion]

1 hour ago, Sunwoo said:

This is true.

Petition IS to put hardy bearing in Dire Thunder refine

Nah, we'll just get an Arcane Dire Thunder from a Rearmed Reinhardt.

That's how IS will the Dire Thunder refine problem they created: by forcing Reinhardt to inherit a different Dire Thunder from a different him instead. Genius, if I do say so myself.

[Sunwoo]

Just now, Tybrosion said:

Nah, we'll just get an Arcane Dire Thunder from a Rearmed Reinhardt.

That's how IS will the Dire Thunder refine problem they created: by forcing Reinhardt to inherit a different Dire Thunder from a different him instead. Genius, if I do say so myself.

You know, I wonder if they'll actually be willing to make an inheritable brave tome. Prf brave weapons in general have become ridiculous lately (the Shezes being the most egregious so far, having no drawbacks when everyone else had them) and we've had a few inheritable brave weapons from the ninja banners. However, they've always stuck to inheritable physical weapons with less bonkers effects.

A hypothetical Arcane Dire Thunder would be more powerful than whatever inheritable ninja weapons we already got, and it would be the first inheritable brave tome. To be safe, if Reinhardt or Olwen ever get another special alt, they should just be Ascended ...

[Diovani Bressan]

They fixed the trailer's name.

Anyway, Guinivere is a hero that exists. She is not a bad unit (she is quite good, honestly), but she is not someone that I really need to have right now. I will still summon on this banner, since I want some Fomortiis merges, but I will not even use my spark on her.

She will be back in November, sharing with Fomortiis again. Also, my guess is that November's Mythic (or at least one of them) will be Gullveig. So Gullveig sharing with Fomortiis and Guinivere looks good to me.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Diovani Bressan

[Fire Emblem Fan]

And fixed the topic name.

On another note, I wonder if we'll get any additional Legendary units from Binding Blade. Roy, Lilina, Fae, and Guinivere are really the only four I'd think would be important enough to use. Roy is Roy, Fae is very important and mandatory for the true end of the game, Guinivere is part of the whole reason the game happens in the first place, and Lilina has the "Roy's primary love interest + Hector's daughter" combo going for her. No one else really measures up to those four to make sense as a Legendary, in my opinion.

[Ice Dragon]

22 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

And fixed the topic name.

On another note, I wonder if we'll get any additional Legendary units from Binding Blade. Roy, Lilina, Fae, and Guinivere are really the only four I'd think would be important enough to use. Roy is Roy, Fae is very important and mandatory for the true end of the game, Guinivere is part of the whole reason the game happens in the first place, and Lilina has the "Roy's primary love interest + Hector's daughter" combo going for her. No one else really measures up to those four to make sense as a Legendary, in my opinion.

If they want another Legendary Hero from Binding, there's nothing really stopping them from adding a Legendary Zephiel.

I'm sure people will whine about him being an enemy-only character, but it's not like there are any hard rules about it, and Zephiel is unarguably the most important character from the game when you exclude characters that already have a Legendary/Mythic version.

[Sunwoo]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

If they want another Legendary Hero from Binding, there's nothing really stopping them from adding a Legendary Zephiel.

I'm sure people will whine about him being an enemy-only character, but it's not like there are any hard rules about it, and Zephiel is unarguably the most important character from the game when you exclude characters that already have a Legendary/Mythic version.

I mean, legendary Grima exists and has existed for a very long time. So it wouldn't technically be breaking precedent.