I mean, if the rerun is really in April, I'm fine waiting for that for my last merge. Like I said, it's gonna take me at least that long to build up enough grails anyways. I'm not 100% sure what stats she even gets on +10 to be honest. (if it's another point of HP that's actually pretty good)
Late, late April. Probably at the earliest. But that's just based on me eyeballing the recent calendars and assuming they do the next revival at roughly the same rate.
It's Def and Res at +10, btw.
Honestly that's all fine. I'm in no hurry - would be nice to spend grails on something else for once :P And Def/Res is still nice. I always like my heroes having a little bulk to them.
Anyone want to make predictions about the new Spring banner? I’m gonna say...bunnygirl Tharja.
I dunno, but I hope there's also something more cute and wholesome (along the lines of Xmas Fae) to help balance out whatever sultry bunny there is this time. Like...Spring Nino or some such.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited March 2019
I can't decide who I think they'll do, but I feel like it might not be Fates/Awakening this time. They've been trying to branch out with the holiday banners recently I feel, mostly sticking to Sacred Stones/Radiance games, but also a few others like Binding/Blazing Blade, etc.
I'm gonna go on a limb and say we might finally get seasonal Echoes. Hard to say though, they have weirdly been avoiding that game like the plague
Dr. Flamingo49 Gilded Disc Perceives the SunRegistered Userregular
Spring banners are such a wild card, which is dangerous. But, if I had to bet, I'd say Anna will be on it, despite the memes.
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Dr. Flamingo49 Gilded Disc Perceives the SunRegistered Userregular
So, with April being the month last year when they demoted nearly the entire 4*-5* pool, I'd love to discuss the possibility of a mass demotion of 5-star exclusive units. It feels inevitable, no matter how much they try to avoid it. And I'd like to start by talking about each 5-star unit individually.
First things first, here's a quick reference chart. Every non-seasonal, 5-star exclusive unit until the start of Book 2 in chronological order, plus a few factoids:
The last two banners here, World of Holy War and Farfetched Heroes, happened after the finale of book 1, but before the beginning of book 2.
The simultaneous banners Alm's Army and Celica's Army were the first banners to feature only one demotion. Although since there were two banners, two units were still demoted. Either way, no banner ever featured multiple demotions again.
Alright, now here's the list again, but with my commentary. Warning: huge post. Part 1: The Obvious Candidates... and Hector
The original twelve. These guys are about on par with the 4-star pool in terms of power and skill distribution, with one exception. As such, my opinion is that everyone here except Hector can be easily demoted. You could argue that Takumi has too valuable a skill to demote, even though he's been available at 4-star before. Besides Hinoka, Leo, and Minerva, none of these units would increase the value of the 4-star skill pool that much, unfortunately, but most of them are popular enough that people would be elated to suddenly be able to easily merge them up.
"But Flamingo!" you ask, "shouldn't these units be kept at 5-star to tempt diehard fans into pulling for them?" But I say, only the most diehard fans of these characters would attempt to pull multiple copies of these old, outclassed units. And we have another way to hook these fans: alts. Consider the following:
11/12 of these units have an alternate version available. (Sorry Minerva)
10/12 of these units have two or more alternate versions available! (Sorry Linde)
Demoting all 11 non-Hector units would be a boon to the game, putting Hone Fliers on the same availability as the other hone skills, adding a blue dancer to the 4-star pool, putting a new dragon in the 4-star random summon pool for the first time EVER, and giving 4-star its first non-GHB/TT Distant Counter unit: Ryoma.
The next three banners were mostly about filling in some obvious gaps in the roster. The only unit here I could see IS hesitating to demote would be Ninian, who, despite being in the game for quite awhile and having no 5-star exclusive skills, could still be considered unique enough to leave as 5-stars. But you could still demote her with little worry. Now, this could be a good cutoff point for a mass demote. After all, excluding Hector, we'd be moving 19 units out of the 5-star pool, which would drastically change summoning as we know it. But I will continue with my reviews:
Part 2: The Challengers
-Alm
-Faye
These two could be problematic demotions. Alm's refine-able Falchion is fairly strong, but there's plenty of 4-stars with strong refines. Faye, on the other hand, has the exclusive Firesweep Bow. But I'd say it's been exclusive long enough.
-Ike
-Mist
Breaking up the Valentia heroes for some reason, we have Mist, the poster child for "Should be a 4-star." Her brother Ike, however, has a DC weapon, which they've been squeamish about demoting. I guess giving assets/flaws to a DC unit is too scary? His Heavy Blade has been available on Jamke, but a skill being on a GHB unit is still a world of difference in availability to being in the summon pool. Even given all this, I think Ike would be a very solid demotion. He's popular enough that people would want more copies of him, even if he's been outclassed by his older self.
-Celica
-Genny
Celica is strong and popular enough that a possible demotion should be called into question, but Genny here is our first real game-changer since Hector. Wrathful Staff for all? Perhaps that'd be too big a shake-up. That's a skill they still put on recent units to entice you into pulling for them. Genny seems really unlikely.
-Katarina
-Luke
Luke is, memetically, just a pity breaker at this point who everyone would love to see demoted. But Katarina has Swift Sparrow. It's finally been put on a GHB unit but being in the general 4* pool would be a massive step-up. Still I think that, with 17 units having it, its use as a bait skill has finally run dry.
-Delthea
-Gray
-Saber
-Sonya
Welcome to the banner(s) of "Wait, that skill's still 5* exclusive!?" Delthea's Drive Attack has been on only one non-5*, Groom Marth, a TT unit. Gray has Sword Valor, a pretty exclusive skill, but I'd imagine Valor skills' allure is starting to wear thin. They could easily make Sword Valor the first one available at 4*. Saber's got Shield Pulse, which.... nobody really cares about. And then there's Sonya. Probably one of the more popular options on this list, she also has Res Ploy, which is APPARENTLY 5* EXCLUSIVE! Sure it's a seal, but none of the GHB or TT units have it! I had no idea!
-Amelia
-Innes
-Tana
Another surprising exclusive, demoting Innes would add Fortress Res to the 4* pool for the first time ever! ...Good, do it already! Tana's Guidance is still a pretty exclusive skill, but being a seal takes the edge off a bit. Still, only three units have it! But Amelia on the other hand... Armor March is one of the biggest bait skills there is. But maybe it's time for them to move on and give it to the public. They still have the Fighter skills to fall back on. I'm a bit biased though: Amelia is one of my favorite characters. All my copies would go to merges, not fodder.
Part 3: The Increasingly Unlikely
-Brave Ike
-Brave Lyn
-Brave Roy
-Brave Lucina
Ah, the brave heroes. You could make a very strong case that none of them should be demoted, ever. Ike and Lyn definitely shouldn't be. Even if they weren't monstrously powerful with strong exclusive skills, they still have 3 passive skills each. How would that even work? Would you unlock two of them when you hit 5*? Regardless, there's still Roy and Lucina to consider. The weaker two of the bunch, with common skills, they'd be solid includes in the 4* pool. But, can you imagine a worse feeling than starting FEH and choosing Roy or Lucina, only to have your barracks flooded with 4* copies?
-Elincia
-Nephenee
Two powerful units with strong exclusive skills. Either would be a spicy addition to the 4* pool: strong and interesting, but unlikely. As much as I want it.
-Deidre
-Sigurd
-Ayra
Sigurd's got three skills so he's right out. Ayra's a popular bait unit so I don't see her getting demoted any time soon. But Deirdre would be a great source of QR and Speed Ploy, or a good unit in her own right. The perfect demotion, really.
-Dorcas
-Lute
-Mia
Dorcas is another three-skill premium unit, but the other two would both be great demotes. Mia's got the completely exclusive Flashing Blade, but that never really took off in popularity so making it more available wouldn't change the landscape dramatically. Lute probably should have been demoted in the first place, but again, I'm biased toward her.
I feel like, even in a Magical Christmas Dreamland, demoting every unit up til Book 2 would be an insane move. But they should definitely demote some. Whether it's all at once, in small, consistent updates like how they do refines, or whatever.
I changed my Aether defense team to stop trying Ophelia cheese or common annoyances like Veronica or Reinhardt. Only really common meta unit is LAzura, unmerged.
Somehow I'm getting a lot of actual victories! My +10 Titania, Soren, and Clair are doing some work, and +9 Black Knight with bonus stats and bold fighter and steady breath is scary.
My favorite replay showed someone actually step on my 50 damage lightning trap. From there, close counter vantage Soren cackled and solo'd the rest of the team.
I also included a Brave bow Jeorge to discourage Eir tanking. He likes to get danced by his neighbor Azura and run off to kill a squishy.
If this keeps up during light week I might actually stumble into tier 21.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
Spring banners are such a wild card, which is dangerous. But, if I had to bet, I'd say Anna will be on it, despite the memes.
See I suspect not. I think it's too soon for IS to react to CYL3 results, so they're probably still working off CYL2 for the next couple months. Granted, they *could* have just wanted to do an Anna anyways, but we'll see I guess.
So, with April being the month last year when they demoted nearly the entire 4*-5* pool, I'd love to discuss the possibility of a mass demotion of 5-star exclusive units. It feels inevitable, no matter how much they try to avoid it. And I'd like to start by talking about each 5-star unit individually.
First things first, here's a quick reference chart. Every non-seasonal, 5-star exclusive unit until the start of Book 2 in chronological order, plus a few factoids:
The last two banners here, World of Holy War and Farfetched Heroes, happened after the finale of book 1, but before the beginning of book 2.
The simultaneous banners Alm's Army and Celica's Army were the first banners to feature only one demotion. Although since there were two banners, two units were still demoted. Either way, no banner ever featured multiple demotions again.
Alright, now here's the list again, but with my commentary. Warning: huge post. Part 1: The Obvious Candidates... and Hector
The original twelve. These guys are about on par with the 4-star pool in terms of power and skill distribution, with one exception. As such, my opinion is that everyone here except Hector can be easily demoted. You could argue that Takumi has too valuable a skill to demote, even though he's been available at 4-star before. Besides Hinoka, Leo, and Minerva, none of these units would increase the value of the 4-star skill pool that much, unfortunately, but most of them are popular enough that people would be elated to suddenly be able to easily merge them up.
"But Flamingo!" you ask, "shouldn't these units be kept at 5-star to tempt diehard fans into pulling for them?" But I say, only the most diehard fans of these characters would attempt to pull multiple copies of these old, outclassed units. And we have another way to hook these fans: alts. Consider the following:
11/12 of these units have an alternate version available. (Sorry Minerva)
10/12 of these units have two or more alternate versions available! (Sorry Linde)
Demoting all 11 non-Hector units would be a boon to the game, putting Hone Fliers on the same availability as the other hone skills, adding a blue dancer to the 4-star pool, putting a new dragon in the 4-star random summon pool for the first time EVER, and giving 4-star its first non-GHB/TT Distant Counter unit: Ryoma.
The next three banners were mostly about filling in some obvious gaps in the roster. The only unit here I could see IS hesitating to demote would be Ninian, who, despite being in the game for quite awhile and having no 5-star exclusive skills, could still be considered unique enough to leave as 5-stars. But you could still demote her with little worry. Now, this could be a good cutoff point for a mass demote. After all, excluding Hector, we'd be moving 19 units out of the 5-star pool, which would drastically change summoning as we know it. But I will continue with my reviews:
Part 2: The Challengers
-Alm
-Faye
These two could be problematic demotions. Alm's refine-able Falchion is fairly strong, but there's plenty of 4-stars with strong refines. Faye, on the other hand, has the exclusive Firesweep Bow. But I'd say it's been exclusive long enough.
-Ike
-Mist
Breaking up the Valentia heroes for some reason, we have Mist, the poster child for "Should be a 4-star." Her brother Ike, however, has a DC weapon, which they've been squeamish about demoting. I guess giving assets/flaws to a DC unit is too scary? His Heavy Blade has been available on Jamke, but a skill being on a GHB unit is still a world of difference in availability to being in the summon pool. Even given all this, I think Ike would be a very solid demotion. He's popular enough that people would want more copies of him, even if he's been outclassed by his older self.
-Celica
-Genny
Celica is strong and popular enough that a possible demotion should be called into question, but Genny here is our first real game-changer since Hector. Wrathful Staff for all? Perhaps that'd be too big a shake-up. That's a skill they still put on recent units to entice you into pulling for them. Genny seems really unlikely.
-Katarina
-Luke
Luke is, memetically, just a pity breaker at this point who everyone would love to see demoted. But Katarina has Swift Sparrow. It's finally been put on a GHB unit but being in the general 4* pool would be a massive step-up. Still I think that, with 17 units having it, its use as a bait skill has finally run dry.
-Delthea
-Gray
-Saber
-Sonya
Welcome to the banner(s) of "Wait, that skill's still 5* exclusive!?" Delthea's Drive Attack has been on only one non-5*, Groom Marth, a TT unit. Gray has Sword Valor, a pretty exclusive skill, but I'd imagine Valor skills' allure is starting to wear thin. They could easily make Sword Valor the first one available at 4*. Saber's got Shield Pulse, which.... nobody really cares about. And then there's Sonya. Probably one of the more popular options on this list, she also has Res Ploy, which is APPARENTLY 5* EXCLUSIVE! Sure it's a seal, but none of the GHB or TT units have it! I had no idea!
-Amelia
-Innes
-Tana
Another surprising exclusive, demoting Innes would add Fortress Res to the 4* pool for the first time ever! ...Good, do it already! Tana's Guidance is still a pretty exclusive skill, but being a seal takes the edge off a bit. Still, only three units have it! But Amelia on the other hand... Armor March is one of the biggest bait skills there is. But maybe it's time for them to move on and give it to the public. They still have the Fighter skills to fall back on. I'm a bit biased though: Amelia is one of my favorite characters. All my copies would go to merges, not fodder.
Part 3: The Increasingly Unlikely
-Brave Ike
-Brave Lyn
-Brave Roy
-Brave Lucina
Ah, the brave heroes. You could make a very strong case that none of them should be demoted, ever. Ike and Lyn definitely shouldn't be. Even if they weren't monstrously powerful with strong exclusive skills, they still have 3 passive skills each. How would that even work? Would you unlock two of them when you hit 5*? Regardless, there's still Roy and Lucina to consider. The weaker two of the bunch, with common skills, they'd be solid includes in the 4* pool. But, can you imagine a worse feeling than starting FEH and choosing Roy or Lucina, only to have your barracks flooded with 4* copies?
-Elincia
-Nephenee
Two powerful units with strong exclusive skills. Either would be a spicy addition to the 4* pool: strong and interesting, but unlikely. As much as I want it.
-Deidre
-Sigurd
-Ayra
Sigurd's got three skills so he's right out. Ayra's a popular bait unit so I don't see her getting demoted any time soon. But Deirdre would be a great source of QR and Speed Ploy, or a good unit in her own right. The perfect demotion, really.
-Dorcas
-Lute
-Mia
Dorcas is another three-skill premium unit, but the other two would both be great demotes. Mia's got the completely exclusive Flashing Blade, but that never really took off in popularity so making it more available wouldn't change the landscape dramatically. Lute probably should have been demoted in the first place, but again, I'm biased toward her.
I feel like, even in a Magical Christmas Dreamland, demoting every unit up til Book 2 would be an insane move. But they should definitely demote some. Whether it's all at once, in small, consistent updates like how they do refines, or whatever.
Finally had a chance to read through this. My opinions:
Group 1: I agree most of these can be demoted. Obviously not Hector. I would also argue Hinoka may not get demoted as she's still quite good and Hone Fliers is still an exclusive skill. Takumi is a wild card for me because of Close Counter. He's a pretty garbage unit these days but it's hard to say if they want to keep CC exclusive. Though he's technically already been demoted as a free unit in the intro replacing Virion (rip Virion). But that's just one copy. I could also see Lucina as an iffy one since she's still quite good (her refine is super nice) and popular, but less iffy than the others I mentioned. (I could also see them being weird about Young Tiki since Japan friggin loves her, but who knows. She *should* be demoted)
The rest, probably. Julia may stay exclusive actually. And I agree with you on Ninian being up in the air.
Group 2: I doubt Alm and Faye would get demoted. I'm just not feeling it. Mist for sure, Ike I'm like 50/50 on. Celica and Genny no way. Luke for sure, Katarina probably (like you said, Swift Sparrow is on everyone and their mother at this point, it's not rare). Saber yes, the rest of the Echoes cast probably not. They seem intent on keeping Valor skills exclusive so Gray probably wouldn't demote and the rest are still really good units.
The Sacred Stones group I could see going either way. Amelia and Innes feel like good candidates but they do have some exclusive skills.
Group 3: Yeah nothing here will be demoted. No way in hell.
Side note, curious if they'd ever consider demoting 4* units to being 3* exclusive as well. There's a handful that are just pure garbage that they could potentially drop down - a lot of the original daggers for example, a lot of the original healers, characters like Seliph and Merric... Basically units that are both terrible and don't really even fodder for anything good. Although in some cases they could probably just rebalance what skills are available at 4* to make them less trash as fodder.
I thought there was a GHB unit with Hone fliers? That would be a pretty good argument that Hinoka is demotable. Lucina is nice and all, but masked marth is super common, and is basically just a SI-yourself version of her that is up to what, +7 now?
I could see faye being demoted. I forget about the other weapon types, but soliel is a 4* firesweep weapon user
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
I thought there was a GHB unit with Hone fliers? That would be a pretty good argument that Hinoka is demotable. Lucina is nice and all, but masked marth is super common, and is basically just a SI-yourself version of her that is up to what, +7 now?
I could see faye being demoted. I forget about the other weapon types, but soliel is a 4* firesweep weapon user
Bath Camilla has it. But that's still someone you gotta spend grails to get, so it's debatable if they'd want to make that skill more accessable or not.
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited March 2019
Most people are guessing Micaiah for the left one. Can definitely see that.
To be honest, the right one kinda reminds me of Raven, though I doubt that's who it is.
Edit: A little curious what they'll do regarding running previous year banners. Easter was the very first holiday banner so this would be their first opportunity to have two years worth of past banners. Curious if they'll run both old ones alongside this or just last year's
I'm going with miciah or palla and raven or Innes.
Plus another Camilla
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Dr. Flamingo49 Gilded Disc Perceives the SunRegistered Userregular
edited March 2019
Camilla #6 had free Hone Fliers so I'm legally never allowed to complain about a Camilla alt again.
As for Easter, I wasn't totally buying Micaiah being the one on the left, but taking a closer look at the right silhouette.... His hair is a dead-ringer for Zelgius. I don't know if I can handle an Easter funtimes Zelgius. I do wish it were The Reinhardt but but his hair would be too slicked back to be the silhouette.
Dr. Flamingo on
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited March 2019
I saw some suggest the right one may be Seth and I can definitely see that. Though overall it's one of those silhouettes that is not distinct enough to definitely say for sure it's some specific character
The main reason I'm leaning away from Palla on the left one, even if that was my first thought, is that the look matches her HEROES art but is quite a bit different from how she's depicted in most other situations (most notably Echoes having the newest interpretation). Generally speaking having flatter looking hair (that is to say, the Heroes art is "wilder" or "messier" looking than most official art of her)
Dr. Flamingo49 Gilded Disc Perceives the SunRegistered Userregular
Flatter in which way? That silhouette looks like it could be any incarnation of Palla. And we did get Catria last year. But it could be anybody, and we'll know in 50 minutes.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
Flatter in which way? That silhouette looks like it could be any incarnation of Palla. And we did get Catria last year. But it could be anybody, and we'll know in 50 minutes.
I mean she typically has very straight hair, not wavy hair like the picture
Hm, I wonder why the copyright for that Spring Palla is 2017: is it a template created back at launch that hasn't been updated but is still being used or was she originally designed back in 2017 and is just now being used?
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Dr. Flamingo49 Gilded Disc Perceives the SunRegistered Userregular
Oh! Loki's trolling. Fair enough.
As for this banner... The girls are kiiinda cute but don't really fill any new niches for me. And once that's gone, what's left? A couple of mid-tier waifus and a child? Who would spend orbs on that?????
......I need ALL OF THEM.
Well, ok, I should look at this logically. Palla's the one I like the most. But she's a flying dagger unit. Even if that was a good niche, she's got a non-grey dagger. Although it is an armorpiercing dagger that breaks through Wary Fighter and has triangle advantage on Surtr... She could certainly fight her way through her stint as an Arena bonus unit, though her score would be low. I could definitely still find a use for her after that, too. As for her character, I didn't really care about her until FEH, and that was mostly for her voice actor, who has been replaced...
Veronica I'm not super attached to as a character, but her little white bunny outfit is adorable. And her Duel skill plus PRF means that taking her into the arena would be a good time. And if I pull multiple copies down the line, there's plenty of willing recipients of G Duel Flying. Cherche could use it when she's in cheerleading mode, and I'm still working on merging up Reyson.
Then there's Marisa. I really liked her in Sacred Stones but not so much in FEH. Her "grumpy bunny" shtick is funny but kind of a repeat of Catria's. And she's just another lance flier.... She seems like a really good consolation prize for a Legendary banner. But really, I could say that about all of them. I need to show some restraint. I should wait for the legendary banner I'm saving up for, then set aside a defined number of orbs to spend before giving up.
Oh and I wonder what skill Loki's gonna have. Dare I speculate... Guidance?
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Dr. Flamingo49 Gilded Disc Perceives the SunRegistered Userregular
Sorry to double post but I've spent what must be 150-200 Duel Crests to bump up my score from 3743 to 3750 and if I don't get into Tier 21 I'm going to scream.
Wow, I finally bit the bullet and invested actual effort into a defense team and got three successes in a row. The team doesn't even work right! I made so many mistakes! I don't understand why it's working.
I am a cheesecake aficionado and Loki here takes the (carrot) cake.
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Dr. Flamingo49 Gilded Disc Perceives the SunRegistered Userregular
I've never really been big on Loki, but this would make her the first bow flier I could reasonably +10... Guess it just depends on if she's got a good skill.
I've never really been big on Loki, but this would make her the first bow flier I could reasonably +10... Guess it just depends on if she's got a good skill.
Oh wow, that ad. I play the game "Girls' Frontline", and I'm not sure if that ad is better or worse than the time that they outsourced the advertisements and we had GFL ads with screenshots from Nier Automata.
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Honestly that's all fine. I'm in no hurry - would be nice to spend grails on something else for once :P And Def/Res is still nice. I always like my heroes having a little bulk to them.
I dunno, but I hope there's also something more cute and wholesome (along the lines of Xmas Fae) to help balance out whatever sultry bunny there is this time. Like...Spring Nino or some such.
I'm gonna go on a limb and say we might finally get seasonal Echoes. Hard to say though, they have weirdly been avoiding that game like the plague
First things first, here's a quick reference chart. Every non-seasonal, 5-star exclusive unit until the start of Book 2 in chronological order, plus a few factoids:
4*-5* pool totals: Red: 4 Blue: 4 Green: 2 Colorless: 3 Total: 13
3*-4* pool totals: Red: 28 Blue: 25 Green: 18 Colorless: 25 Total: 96
-Azura
-Elise
-Hector
-Hinoka
-Leo
-Linde
-Lucina
-Lyn
-Minerva
-Ryoma
-Takumi
-Young Tiki
-Ephraim
-Julia
-Eldigan
-Olwen
-Sanaki
-Jaffar
-Karel
-Ninian
-Alm
-Faye
-Ike
-Mist
-Celica
-Genny
-Katarina
-Luke
-Delthea
-Gray
-Saber
-Sonya
-Amelia
-Innes
-Tana
-Brave Ike* (3 passive skills)
-Brave Lucina
-Brave Lyn* (3 passive skills)
-Brave Roy
-Elincia
-Nephenee
-Deirdre
-Sigurd* (3 passive skills)
-Ayra
-Dorcas* (3 passive skills)
-Lute
-Mia
The last two banners here, World of Holy War and Farfetched Heroes, happened after the finale of book 1, but before the beginning of book 2.
The simultaneous banners Alm's Army and Celica's Army were the first banners to feature only one demotion. Although since there were two banners, two units were still demoted. Either way, no banner ever featured multiple demotions again.
Alright, now here's the list again, but with my commentary. Warning: huge post.
Part 1: The Obvious Candidates... and Hector
-Elise
-Hector
-Hinoka
-Leo
-Linde
-Lucina
-Lyn
-Minerva
-Ryoma
-Takumi
-Young Tiki
The original twelve. These guys are about on par with the 4-star pool in terms of power and skill distribution, with one exception. As such, my opinion is that everyone here except Hector can be easily demoted. You could argue that Takumi has too valuable a skill to demote, even though he's been available at 4-star before. Besides Hinoka, Leo, and Minerva, none of these units would increase the value of the 4-star skill pool that much, unfortunately, but most of them are popular enough that people would be elated to suddenly be able to easily merge them up.
"But Flamingo!" you ask, "shouldn't these units be kept at 5-star to tempt diehard fans into pulling for them?" But I say, only the most diehard fans of these characters would attempt to pull multiple copies of these old, outclassed units. And we have another way to hook these fans: alts. Consider the following:
11/12 of these units have an alternate version available. (Sorry Minerva)
10/12 of these units have two or more alternate versions available! (Sorry Linde)
Demoting all 11 non-Hector units would be a boon to the game, putting Hone Fliers on the same availability as the other hone skills, adding a blue dancer to the 4-star pool, putting a new dragon in the 4-star random summon pool for the first time EVER, and giving 4-star its first non-GHB/TT Distant Counter unit: Ryoma.
-Ephraim
-Julia
-Eldigan
-Olwen
-Sanaki
-Jaffar
-Karel
-Ninian
The next three banners were mostly about filling in some obvious gaps in the roster. The only unit here I could see IS hesitating to demote would be Ninian, who, despite being in the game for quite awhile and having no 5-star exclusive skills, could still be considered unique enough to leave as 5-stars. But you could still demote her with little worry. Now, this could be a good cutoff point for a mass demote. After all, excluding Hector, we'd be moving 19 units out of the 5-star pool, which would drastically change summoning as we know it. But I will continue with my reviews:
Part 2: The Challengers
-Faye
These two could be problematic demotions. Alm's refine-able Falchion is fairly strong, but there's plenty of 4-stars with strong refines. Faye, on the other hand, has the exclusive Firesweep Bow. But I'd say it's been exclusive long enough.
-Ike
-Mist
Breaking up the Valentia heroes for some reason, we have Mist, the poster child for "Should be a 4-star." Her brother Ike, however, has a DC weapon, which they've been squeamish about demoting. I guess giving assets/flaws to a DC unit is too scary? His Heavy Blade has been available on Jamke, but a skill being on a GHB unit is still a world of difference in availability to being in the summon pool. Even given all this, I think Ike would be a very solid demotion. He's popular enough that people would want more copies of him, even if he's been outclassed by his older self.
-Celica
-Genny
Celica is strong and popular enough that a possible demotion should be called into question, but Genny here is our first real game-changer since Hector. Wrathful Staff for all? Perhaps that'd be too big a shake-up. That's a skill they still put on recent units to entice you into pulling for them. Genny seems really unlikely.
-Katarina
-Luke
Luke is, memetically, just a pity breaker at this point who everyone would love to see demoted. But Katarina has Swift Sparrow. It's finally been put on a GHB unit but being in the general 4* pool would be a massive step-up. Still I think that, with 17 units having it, its use as a bait skill has finally run dry.
-Delthea
-Gray
-Saber
-Sonya
Welcome to the banner(s) of "Wait, that skill's still 5* exclusive!?" Delthea's Drive Attack has been on only one non-5*, Groom Marth, a TT unit. Gray has Sword Valor, a pretty exclusive skill, but I'd imagine Valor skills' allure is starting to wear thin. They could easily make Sword Valor the first one available at 4*. Saber's got Shield Pulse, which.... nobody really cares about. And then there's Sonya. Probably one of the more popular options on this list, she also has Res Ploy, which is APPARENTLY 5* EXCLUSIVE! Sure it's a seal, but none of the GHB or TT units have it! I had no idea!
-Amelia
-Innes
-Tana
Another surprising exclusive, demoting Innes would add Fortress Res to the 4* pool for the first time ever! ...Good, do it already! Tana's Guidance is still a pretty exclusive skill, but being a seal takes the edge off a bit. Still, only three units have it! But Amelia on the other hand... Armor March is one of the biggest bait skills there is. But maybe it's time for them to move on and give it to the public. They still have the Fighter skills to fall back on. I'm a bit biased though: Amelia is one of my favorite characters. All my copies would go to merges, not fodder.
Part 3: The Increasingly Unlikely
-Brave Lyn
-Brave Roy
-Brave Lucina
Ah, the brave heroes. You could make a very strong case that none of them should be demoted, ever. Ike and Lyn definitely shouldn't be. Even if they weren't monstrously powerful with strong exclusive skills, they still have 3 passive skills each. How would that even work? Would you unlock two of them when you hit 5*? Regardless, there's still Roy and Lucina to consider. The weaker two of the bunch, with common skills, they'd be solid includes in the 4* pool. But, can you imagine a worse feeling than starting FEH and choosing Roy or Lucina, only to have your barracks flooded with 4* copies?
-Elincia
-Nephenee
Two powerful units with strong exclusive skills. Either would be a spicy addition to the 4* pool: strong and interesting, but unlikely. As much as I want it.
-Deidre
-Sigurd
-Ayra
Sigurd's got three skills so he's right out. Ayra's a popular bait unit so I don't see her getting demoted any time soon. But Deirdre would be a great source of QR and Speed Ploy, or a good unit in her own right. The perfect demotion, really.
-Dorcas
-Lute
-Mia
Dorcas is another three-skill premium unit, but the other two would both be great demotes. Mia's got the completely exclusive Flashing Blade, but that never really took off in popularity so making it more available wouldn't change the landscape dramatically. Lute probably should have been demoted in the first place, but again, I'm biased toward her.
I feel like, even in a Magical Christmas Dreamland, demoting every unit up til Book 2 would be an insane move. But they should definitely demote some. Whether it's all at once, in small, consistent updates like how they do refines, or whatever.
Somehow I'm getting a lot of actual victories! My +10 Titania, Soren, and Clair are doing some work, and +9 Black Knight with bonus stats and bold fighter and steady breath is scary.
My favorite replay showed someone actually step on my 50 damage lightning trap. From there, close counter vantage Soren cackled and solo'd the rest of the team.
I also included a Brave bow Jeorge to discourage Eir tanking. He likes to get danced by his neighbor Azura and run off to kill a squishy.
If this keeps up during light week I might actually stumble into tier 21.
See I suspect not. I think it's too soon for IS to react to CYL3 results, so they're probably still working off CYL2 for the next couple months. Granted, they *could* have just wanted to do an Anna anyways, but we'll see I guess.
Finally had a chance to read through this. My opinions:
Group 1: I agree most of these can be demoted. Obviously not Hector. I would also argue Hinoka may not get demoted as she's still quite good and Hone Fliers is still an exclusive skill. Takumi is a wild card for me because of Close Counter. He's a pretty garbage unit these days but it's hard to say if they want to keep CC exclusive. Though he's technically already been demoted as a free unit in the intro replacing Virion (rip Virion). But that's just one copy. I could also see Lucina as an iffy one since she's still quite good (her refine is super nice) and popular, but less iffy than the others I mentioned. (I could also see them being weird about Young Tiki since Japan friggin loves her, but who knows. She *should* be demoted)
The rest, probably. Julia may stay exclusive actually. And I agree with you on Ninian being up in the air.
Group 2: I doubt Alm and Faye would get demoted. I'm just not feeling it. Mist for sure, Ike I'm like 50/50 on. Celica and Genny no way. Luke for sure, Katarina probably (like you said, Swift Sparrow is on everyone and their mother at this point, it's not rare). Saber yes, the rest of the Echoes cast probably not. They seem intent on keeping Valor skills exclusive so Gray probably wouldn't demote and the rest are still really good units.
The Sacred Stones group I could see going either way. Amelia and Innes feel like good candidates but they do have some exclusive skills.
Group 3: Yeah nothing here will be demoted. No way in hell.
Side note, curious if they'd ever consider demoting 4* units to being 3* exclusive as well. There's a handful that are just pure garbage that they could potentially drop down - a lot of the original daggers for example, a lot of the original healers, characters like Seliph and Merric... Basically units that are both terrible and don't really even fodder for anything good. Although in some cases they could probably just rebalance what skills are available at 4* to make them less trash as fodder.
I could see faye being demoted. I forget about the other weapon types, but soliel is a 4* firesweep weapon user
Bath Camilla has it. But that's still someone you gotta spend grails to get, so it's debatable if they'd want to make that skill more accessable or not.
Wow, this is almost a 100% Binding Blade arena if Ephraim wasn't there ruining it (and Anna, but I mean you can argue she's in Binding Blade too
To be honest, the right one kinda reminds me of Raven, though I doubt that's who it is.
Edit: A little curious what they'll do regarding running previous year banners. Easter was the very first holiday banner so this would be their first opportunity to have two years worth of past banners. Curious if they'll run both old ones alongside this or just last year's
Palla was actually my initial thought but the more I look at it the more I think Micaiah is correct. We'll find out tonight
Plus another Camilla
As for Easter, I wasn't totally buying Micaiah being the one on the left, but taking a closer look at the right silhouette.... His hair is a dead-ringer for Zelgius. I don't know if I can handle an Easter funtimes Zelgius. I do wish it were The Reinhardt but but his hair would be too slicked back to be the silhouette.
The main reason I'm leaning away from Palla on the left one, even if that was my first thought, is that the look matches her HEROES art but is quite a bit different from how she's depicted in most other situations (most notably Echoes having the newest interpretation). Generally speaking having flatter looking hair (that is to say, the Heroes art is "wilder" or "messier" looking than most official art of her)
I mean she typically has very straight hair, not wavy hair like the picture
So it was indeed Palla. I am ok with this :P
Edit: Flying bow Loki I see
Hmmm....
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
She is one of my favorite artists on there. Super nice on Twitter
I'm saying that its appropriate for the troll to troll you :rotate:
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
As for this banner... The girls are kiiinda cute but don't really fill any new niches for me. And once that's gone, what's left? A couple of mid-tier waifus and a child? Who would spend orbs on that?????
......I need ALL OF THEM.
Well, ok, I should look at this logically. Palla's the one I like the most. But she's a flying dagger unit. Even if that was a good niche, she's got a non-grey dagger. Although it is an armorpiercing dagger that breaks through Wary Fighter and has triangle advantage on Surtr... She could certainly fight her way through her stint as an Arena bonus unit, though her score would be low. I could definitely still find a use for her after that, too. As for her character, I didn't really care about her until FEH, and that was mostly for her voice actor, who has been replaced...
Veronica I'm not super attached to as a character, but her little white bunny outfit is adorable. And her Duel skill plus PRF means that taking her into the arena would be a good time. And if I pull multiple copies down the line, there's plenty of willing recipients of G Duel Flying. Cherche could use it when she's in cheerleading mode, and I'm still working on merging up Reyson.
Then there's Marisa. I really liked her in Sacred Stones but not so much in FEH. Her "grumpy bunny" shtick is funny but kind of a repeat of Catria's. And she's just another lance flier.... She seems like a really good consolation prize for a Legendary banner. But really, I could say that about all of them. I need to show some restraint. I should wait for the legendary banner I'm saving up for, then set aside a defined number of orbs to spend before giving up.
Oh and I wonder what skill Loki's gonna have. Dare I speculate... Guidance?
Maybe I need a more dedicated Res tank.
Also since her art wasn't in the trailer:
It's ridiculous and cheesecakey and I should really hate it
I've never really been big on Loki, but this would make her the first bow flier I could reasonably +10... Guess it just depends on if she's got a good skill.
Oh wow, that ad. I play the game "Girls' Frontline", and I'm not sure if that ad is better or worse than the time that they outsourced the advertisements and we had GFL ads with screenshots from Nier Automata.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012