Fire Emblem Heroes

[Hathen]

Annoying to miss out on every single victory feather, but more annoying to see Tharja win again.

Whatever the case it doesn't seem like there's going to be a lot going on until the end of the month. A few maps here and there which are just elaborate ways to give us free orbs pretty much. Well, so far the ones today seem decently challenging at least. After I do these I'll have pretty much nothing to spend stamina on at this point. I promoted another Nino to 5* so I could have another unit to level up. This one's +SPD -DEF as opposed to the -HP one I already had, and I'll probably keep the new one because those 3 points of HP will probably allow her to just barely survive Reinhardt.

[Aeolus]

I feel that once again, Jugdral got screwed over by the years of never getting mentioned by Smash. Getting an Echoes style remake would likely do more for that setting than what SoV did for Gaiden.

As for Heroes content, they really need to do another t_t. The first one was really good, especially the part where you didn't have to be a fucking whale or really lucky to have a decent score. At least I don't feel as bad about dragging my heels in regards to some of the current content, but I'm still not looking forward to The Squad Assault/Chain Challenge Purgatory.


Banner BHeB Edit: Done with the Gheb BHeB thanks to my now, actually acceptable, Flier Emblem (I did swap my Camilla for Michalis since there were few mages this time around and he's not -Def), and pulled from the banner for a 4 star Hawkeye as my freebie (now only Soren remains my one elusive Uncommon pull), with a 4 star Cherche, 5 star Amelia, 5 star Eirika and 4 star Priscilla in tow. Amelia is +Spd/-Res and Eirika is +Atk/-Spd (ooh, so close). My one regret (other than that -Spd...) is that I couldn't have this kind of luck with the Holiday/Christmas/Winter Banner. And speaking of, I'm pretty damn sure that one of them will be Lissa.

Merry Edit 2: Hohoho! After everyone's complaints about the game lacking in Armored Units back in March, they've decided to Deck the Halls in Armored Units for Christmas. And they're Event Units, specific to Awakening, and only lasting two weeks instead of an entire month. Lololol.

[Hathen]

There's supposedly a banner with a Legendary Hero coming at the end of the month (might just be Fjorm again though), so I might save for that, though hopefully news of that will come before the Christmas banner ends. The flood of armor units is one thing, but I'm not crazy about those insanely broken B slot skills. I guess armor units did need a boost of some kind but that's probably too much, especially with the options that weapon refining opened. That and these units being limited.

A really popular build on lance units now is a refined Berkut's Lance which makes Effie really bulky (to say nothing of Wendy- the build works really well on Oboro and Donnel too, since most of them get +4 on a RES boon). The prize pull here is Tharja I'd say, because with that B slot, DC, Berkut's Lance and probably an Aether special it functions very similar to Brave Ike except able to get both the special charge acceleration and distant counter in the same build.

Also my free pull from Tana/Amelia BHB was 3* Nino.

[Tomara]

I don't know what to make of it and if I should throw orbs at it or not...

Pro:
-I could really use units like Robin and Tharja, and it's nice to see Lissa with an axe
-Strong skils
-Limited

Con:
-Tharja is celebrating Christmas in Australia in the worst way?
-I don't like the designs
-It doesn't make sense they're armour units!
-Best ones will probably appear in a Legendary banner eventually, perhaps as soon as the next one
-It's just plain yuck that's all Awakening again

I'm sitting on 107 orbs right now, so maybe I should just try to get one of them and be happy with whatever I get.

[Hathen]

Well, do keep in mind that if you average everything out you get like 1 focus unit per 120 orbs or something similar, so if luck's not on your side you could dump everything and have nothing to show for it.

[Tomara]

Fortunately(?), I';m running low on fodder. I could really use some of the common units that give skills like Reposition, Moonbow/Luna, Fury and so on. It's unlikely I'll get nothing worthwhile.

[Hathen]

I'm really not a fan of the massive BSTs these new units have on top of their ridiculous power creeped skills, coming right off the weapon refining update which you'd think was intended to balance out some of the power creep that had been going on. At this rate they're going to have to introduce some way to boost the BSTs of the older units (I still doubt a 6* rank is coming, so the simplest way I can think of is allowing older units to be merged beyond +10).

Also I hear the next TT is going to have these limited units as the bonus units, which would be pretty shitty, but I won't put it past them, so I'll save my free roll until we hear a bit more.

[Aeolus]

Meanwhile, only Soleil got demoted to Uncommon, which is fine with me since I pulled a Shiro from the previous banner.

But it is really shitty that the next t_t (its assumed to be a t_t due to no other new units getting added with the update) 40%ers are seasonal units (I never would've sprung for that Prince Pineapple if I had known; glad I didn't bother gunning for Rhajat, who's handling is now pretty poor), especially compared to the previous t_t which had 40%ers that players might have had, including one from the Common pool.

Further meanwhile, my free pull was a 3 star Nino with a bunch of SI fodder to follow suit, so I'm back to paying for my earlier stupidity regarding the Gheb BHeB banner.

[Tomara]

Atleast the 20% units are likely to be to easily available. The last one had 'Marth' and Anna. If it really is Awakening themed, options include a lot of 3-4* (and even 1*!) stars.

I decided to not invest in the Christman banner, by the way. I can manage with 1.2x if it means saving up more orbs. I figure that now that we're getting special units every month, the next banner is likely to be new year themed. New Year -> Shōgatsu -> Hoshido banner, finally!

(Now, if they'd give us some otoshidama in the form of orbs, that'd be great.)

Edit: After seeing regular Lissa being a bonus unit yet again and my favourites not being among or really working with the other options (not counting surrounding Berkut by other horsies), I promoted her to 5* and forged her weapon. Put her in a team with Black Knight, Hector and Lancina and... it worked surprisingly well. Lissa is a adorable little wall herself with her relatively high HP, Def and Res. A teleporting wall, because she has Wings of Mercy, which is nice, because Hector and Black Knight both have QR. Decent score to. Have seen opponents go as high as 700.

They're my defence team now, too, led by Lissa to screw with people to play low-level mind games. What could be hiding behind that cute little healer? Reinhardt and Bridelia, ready to murder everything? Just some beginner units and maybe a BIke or something, because who the f promotes a Lissa to 5* unless they really like the unit or don't know what the hell they're doing? Or, oh my god, three other Lissas! Every Lissa more merged than the last, ready to Razzle Dazle their way to victory!

(No, just her bodyguards, ready to make the most of those defence tiles. Hope you brought a wide variety of mages.)

If that doesn't get me any wins, I'll just switch to some sort of themed horse team consisting of three men who made bad decisions and one adorable Elise to remind them of their deadly fuck-ups.

[Tomara]

Did something I'd wanted to do for a while...



... and failed miserably.

[Aeolus]

I'm so tempted to promote my 4 star Fir right now. I'm sitting on a shitload of Feathers, and that Fir I started the game with has the perfect traits for a promotion (+Atk/-Def). Trouble is wanting to raise her or to even play this game for a while (not when I have FEW, XBC2, God Wars, TitS 2nd, Ys VIII, Tokyo Xanadu eX+, Romancing SaGa 2, etc, staring me down this Christmas). Doesn't help that my 5 star backlog continues to grow rather than shrink (hell, Frederick, my last vanity promotion, still isn't Level 40 yet). On the other hand, promoting Fir would give me an excuse to spend 20 Poprocks on giving her a decent weapon and puts me 20 Mountain Dews closer to either upping Eliwood's old/busted Durandal or Michalis' Hauteclere into something slightly nicer (plus, I like Fir dammit; granted she's no Ayra or even Rutger, but I like her a lot more than Hana and it sucks that she got so badly screwed over by powercreep and sheer competition).

Also contemplating upping Legion and/or Clarisse to 5 star. Clarisse benefits immensely, but Legion kinda doesn't and both have to contend with getting backlogged (which is dangerous for GHeB units).

The other problem with these options is that I'm also contemplating upping Narcian, Valter, Palla, Adult Tiki, Donnel, Female Corrin, Nino, Gunter, and Beruka, Navarre, Setsuna, Barst, Bartre, Gwendolyn, Draug, Clarine, Shanna, and/or Gordin if I can get ones with non-crap Traits or a serious reason why I should bother at this point.


Reasons for the season I guess:
Fir: (+)A good vanity pick for me and the prep work's all done. (-)Lacks real value beyond Ass Assault fodder.
Clarisse: (+)4 star stat line sucks whereas 5 star's doesn't and GHeBs are pretty safe promotions. (-)She's still not terribly thrilling and poor timing can leave me with an ugly grind to muscle through.
Legion: (+)Is a GHeB unit on the better half of the powercreep curve. (-)Already level 40 4 star and doesn't gain much from a promotion.
Valter: (+)GHeB flier and would be a fairly decent alternative to my Cordelia. (-)Flier demand is still low and Cordelia's better.
Narcian: (+)GHeB and decent Green Flier. (-)I already have Michalis and Camilla up and running.
Navarre: (+)GHeB unit. (-)Too much competition and nothing to bring to the table.
Palla: (+)Red Fliers are still fairly scarce and she's a pretty good option. (-)My current Palla's Traits sucks (+Res/-HP) and I can't fill the Flier Emblem gap in the meanwhile.
Adult Tiki: (+)Forging just made her Lightning Breath really fucking good and I lack a good Red unit for Dragon Emblem. (-)Ambivalent towards Traits (+Spd/-HP; unless I go +Spd Forge, there are better options) and still zero demand for Dragon Emblem for some reason.
Donnel: (+)Trainee BST and a solid enough Blue Infantry to make an Assault Team. (-)No idea on what to do about his skills.
Female Corrin: (+)Blue Dragon with an interesting and kinda useful for a Dragon Emblem team 5 star weapon. (-)I have two Nowis and still no demand for Dragon Emblem.
Nino: (+)One of the best Green Mages, F2P or no, and a solid choice all around. (-)I have a Cecilia for Anti-Reinhardt/Bowlin, Sonya and Summer Elise for general Green nukes, Boey for a Ranged Green Infantry Tank, and a Female Robin for shits and giggles, also sub-optimal Traits (+Atk/-Res; +Spd/-Def would be ideal).
Gunter: (+)Vanity pick since he and Titania are the only Green Calvary I don't have at 5 stars right now. (-)Too bad Titania and Frederick are better overall.
Beruka: (+)Forging makes her viable again and she'd be another vanity pick. (-)My current one has terrible Traits (+Res/-Spd; she needs +Atk/-Spd or Res).
Setsuna: (+)Forging also saves her from the dustbin of powercreep. (-)Horrible Traits with no good alternatives right now (current has +HP/-Atk; +Atk is a must).
Barst: (+)Good Traits (+Atk/-Def). (-)Could be better and still needs prep work (I have a +Atk/-Spd waiting in the wings, but Barst could aim for having decent Spd even with a Brave Axe weighing him down).
Bartre: (+)Good Traits (+Atk/-Def) and Forging helps him even more. (-)He actually wants +Spd since that, plus Fury 3 gives him over 30 Spd which gets him out of the 'gets doubled by everybody' club.
Gwendolyn: (+)Would grant me complete 5 star coverage over all Blue Armors if I pull a Tannenboom!. (-)None that I have right now are +Atk, plus Promotion wouldn't help her very much since she works much better with a Sapphire Lance.
Draug: (+/-) See Gwendolyn, but substitute gender pronouns, all Blue Unit references with Red ones, and the Sapphire Lance spiel with competition.
Clarine: (+)Mounted Staffbot in a post 'there is a reason to promote Staffbots to 5 star now' world, plus I like her design well enough. (-)How many 5 star Staffbots do I need when I have the two most important ones and she isn't #3? Also prep work needed.
Shanna: (+)Recent-ish VG and Forging has promoted her to a vanity pick. (-)Lots of prep work required as my current one has +Def/-Atk traits and the one with +Atk/-HP is a level 1 3 star.
Gordin: (+)Contemplated promoting him up to 5 stars back when my Archer situation consisted of Klein. (-)My Archer situation now consists of Klein, Bowlin, Bridelia, Leon and Takumi (I guess, despite his awful Traits).

[Tomara]

Warriors maps are available again. You could level Fir up during 2x SP weekend in 15 minutes.

As for the other ones: I'd focus on promoting the better GHeB units first. That makes those rerun quests easier and you'll be able to use them in AA runs.

[Aeolus]

Warriors maps are available again. You could level Fir up during 2x SP weekend in 15 minutes.

As for the other ones: I'd focus on promoting the better GHeB units first. That makes those rerun quests easier and you'll be able to use them in AA runs.

While I ended up acting on this advice, the final decision came from noticing that I had only 3 5 star Axe using Infantry (most of my 5 star Green units are Mages surprisingly; and hell, once you have as many 5 star Armors of a particular color as you do 5 star Infantry, its time to promote some fuckers), one of which being Anna, and another Summer Tiki. Once I decided on promoting Legion to help fill the gap, Clarisse followed suit and then I said fuck it and promoted Fir so that the three of them can do low level Tower/Story quests for grinding purposes together.

[Hathen]

Since ISIS decided to be dicks about the bonus units, I put about 50 orbs into the Christmas banner before I came out with a 5* Christmas Robin with -HP +DEF. Might've preferred Tharja for that broken ass B skill she has, but finally having an Armor Marcher is nice too, despite already having a +6 Effie to fill the blue armor slot. Didn't get much in fodder, most notably I got another Reinhardt, Tailtiu and Caeda, but they were all +HP.

Afterwards I took my free pull of the Weapons banner which gave me 3* Draug, and my free pull of the Tempest Banner which gave me...5* Ike. Feels like a waste of luck for me personally. Ike's a great unit and all, but sword is a ridiculously crowded unit type and I barely use the Ike I have. I still haven't done anything with that extra Ike I got from the Legendary banner so now I just have 3 Ikes sitting around. It'd be fun to play around and give Heavy Blade to a high ATK unit like Lilina or something, but I just know the instant I do that they'll release some other Heavy Blade unit who will get demoted to 4*.

[Aeolus]

Son of a BITCH! I 'just' promoted Frederick and have almost brought him back to Level 40 and they go and make him T_T grindable. Fuck. (At least I no longer have a reason not to promote my 4 star Nowi and feed her my current 5 star even if its horribly inefficient; not having to spend a single Orb on the T_T banner is also nice I guess; although all I got out of it was a 4 star Catria).

Rest of this T_T can bite me as well. Masked Marth the third and Holiday bullshit instead of Fates Gen 2 bullshit, and even if I get a Christmas Armor, I'm not going anywhere above the 99k mark.


At least promoting Frederick early made it much easier to deal with all those 'Devs Says Thanks' and 'Winter Paralogue' Maps.


Edit: 4.0 pity rate and not a holiday Armor to show for it, or good SI Fodder beyond a 4 star Fae. Merry Pissmas indeed. At least the Sacred Seals make up for Masked Marth the Third ("Why yes. I would like to neuter Archers using only my Flier's S-Slot."; also Threaten Spd and Heavy Blade).


T_T Edit: And its begun again. Paralogue maps tend to suck more than not, especially the one where an enemy can try to slip behind the big structure and be untouchable to Calvary for a turn or two while you drag your team around to intercept. Male Robin is a big bag of stats and hates Archers with a passion, but otherwise its his wingmen that make or break the final map. In order to make as much use of this T_T as I could, I went and promoted my 4 star +Atk/-HP Nowi and used her to eat my previous 5 star +Def/-HP Nowi (this was a surprisingly difficult decision). Fun fact: You can forge a weapon, then merge said unit onto another unit and not only will said merged unit have said forge, but also all of the prerequisite weapons unlocked for essentially free (I mean aside from the 5 star unit you just ate). Also, a Three Heroes special thing is going on where Laslow, Florina and Bartre are the units of the hour.