Fire Emblem Heroes General Discussion and Links

[EricaofRenais]

29 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

I hope so too. I'd had high hopes for Celica when SoV came out (I knew nothing of Gaiden beforehand) and I got the impression she'd be a strong character from the footage before playing. Instead, her side of the story ended up being an inconsistent mess and needed to be saved by Alm in the end like any other damsel in distress princess. I still like her nice design, but man was her character a disappointment to me.

Since I'm not digging her design like I did with Celica's, I'm hoping her character itself ends up being good to make me care about her more.

I tend to forget about Celica because she ended up being my least favorite female lord because of what happens in SoV.  But I agree I am really sick of female lords who are supposed to be able to fight but has to be saved like a princess who can't do much in the way of fighting.  I can't see why it is so hard for IS to write a strong female lord who can fight and make good decisions in terms of how to lead their army and what side to fight on, let alone not needing a guy to save the day.  I am hoping since Edelgard's design is fairly modest and dull her personality will be no nonsense and she will be able to take care of her self, in fact I would find really cool and funny if she has to bail out one of the male lords because they got in trouble for a change:)

Edited June 13, 2018 by EricaofRenais

[silverserpent]

30 minutes ago, EricaofRenais said:

I tend to forget about Celica because she ended up being my least favorite female lord because of what happens in SoV.  But I agree I am really sick of female lords who are supposed to be able to fight but has to be saved like a princess who can't do much in the way of fighting.  I can't see why it is so hard for IS to write a strong female lord who can fight and make good decisions in terms of how to lead their army and what side to fight on, let alone not needing a guy to save the day.  I am hoping since Edelgard's design is fairly modest and dull her personality will be no nonsense and she will be able to take care of her self, in fact I would find really cool and funny if she has to bail out one of the male lords because they got in trouble for a change:)

I think, based on the portraits' expressions, the one she ends up bailing out most is Claude. Claude just screams "Massive Ego and I Know It" to me. He's still attractive, though, and I don't know why...

[Vaximillian]

2 minutes ago, silverserpent said:

Claude just screams "Massive Ego and I Know It" to me. He's still attractive, though, and I don't know why...

Darker-than-usual skin, crazy hairstyle, smug grin. Voila.

[EricaofRenais]

12 minutes ago, silverserpent said:

I think, based on the portraits' expressions, the one she ends up bailing out most is Claude. Claude just screams "Massive Ego and I Know It" to me. He's still attractive, though, and I don't know why...

That would be fine I just want to see a girl doing the bailing out for a change.  Claude seems to be the self assured knows he looks good type, of course have darker skin, dark hair and smug grin does not hurt him.

[silverserpent]

12 minutes ago, EricaofRenais said:

That would be fine I just want to see a girl doing the bailing out for a change.  Claude seems to be the self assured knows he looks good type, of course have darker skin, dark hair and smug grin does not hurt him.

With that, I think I'll shoe in Claude as a Spaniard for my Nationality Emblem. Don't know too much about the MU to place a country to him. I'll look at the other revealed characters and try to pick out a fitting country. Maybe do some Hetalia-esque art with them XD

[Ice Dragon]

5 minutes ago, silverserpent said:

With that, I think I'll shoe in Claude as a Spaniard for my Nationality Emblem. Don't know too much about the MU to place a country to him. I'll look at the other revealed characters and try to pick out a fitting country. Maybe do some Hetalia-esque art with them XD

Edelgard's name is German. Dimitri's name is Russian. Claude's name is French. And they all more or less look the part, too, with some creative liberties taken.

Everything becomes a mess when you start looking at their surnames and the regions they hail from.

[silverserpent]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Edelgard's name is German. Dimitri's name is Russian. Claude's name is French. And they all more or less look the part, too, with some creative liberties taken.

Everything becomes a mess when you start looking at their surnames and the regions they hail from.

I know Claude is a French name, but it's also based on their main colors. Germany and Spain flags are red, yellow and black with Russia's being red, white and blue. So...Edelgard-Germany, Claude-Spain, Dimitri-Russia based on cloak colors.

[Ice Dragon]

31 minutes ago, silverserpent said:

I know Claude is a French name, but it's also based on their main colors. Germany and Spain flags are red, yellow and black with Russia's being red, white and blue. So...Edelgard-Germany, Claude-Spain, Dimitri-Russia based on cloak colors.

Spain's flag is yellow and red. Claude is yellow and black with no red. Dimitri is black and blue with no white or red.

[Alkaid]

3 hours ago, EricaofRenais said:

I tend to forget about Celica because she ended up being my least favorite female lord because of what happens in SoV.  But I agree I am really sick of female lords who are supposed to be able to fight but has to be saved like a princess who can't do much in the way of fighting.  I can't see why it is so hard for IS to write a strong female lord who can fight and make good decisions in terms of how to lead their army and what side to fight on, let alone not needing a guy to save the day.  I am hoping since Edelgard's design is fairly modest and dull her personality will be no nonsense and she will be able to take care of her self, in fact I would find really cool and funny if she has to bail out one of the male lords because they got in trouble for a change:)

I've played plenty of JRPGs and the like with good female leads and other characters(Velvet from Tales of Beseria comes to mind as a recent one), so hopefully IS will give it a try this time. The meek/damsel kind of stereotype is fine sometimes, but it does get boring after a while. We've had a fair amount of cool female side characters with strength and attitude, so it'd be cool if they give a female lead more of those traits too. I want a female lord that's got attitude and can kick ass on the battlefield. That's even part of why I like Camilla a lot is she's a monster in battle.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Alkaid

[silverserpent]

11 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Spain's flag is yellow and red. Claude is yellow and black with no red. Dimitri is black and blue with no white or red.

So it is. Found a country perfect for Claude: Belgium. It's red, black and yellow like Germany's, but one of the official languages is French. As for Dimitri-Russia...i know he's black/blue/grey, but I honestly couldn't find a better match. I guess, if you account hair and eye color, Ukraine could work?

[Ice Dragon]

4 minutes ago, silverserpent said:

As for Dimitri-Russia...i know he's black/blue/grey, but I honestly couldn't find a better match.

Estonia.

[silverserpent]

32 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Estonia.

Estonia works.

[Jingle Jangle]

 

V5 of the figures  my guess is the the extra figure is Gunnthra.

[Junkhead]

Is there any functional reason why one would aspire to consistently stay in Tier 20, assuming they're F2P? I keep seeing people basically "sell" themselves off to Dragon teams and investing tons of feathers on merges...to eventually get feathers? Seems to me it'll take a lot longer for that to end up paying off, even if it's long term investment. It takes around 200k feathers to make one +10, and it doesn't seem like an extra 1,2k a week pays off anytime soon.

Is it just a status symbol and competitive value? I literally can't even justify promoting my trio when I can rotate T19>20 and so on. The only real benefit is the sense of variety in teams at that score range, which makes it more fun than generic cavalry teams.

[Korath88]

22 minutes ago, Oz ♠ said:

Is there any functional reason why one would aspire to consistently stay in Tier 20, assuming they're F2P? I keep seeing people basically "sell" themselves off to Dragon teams and investing tons of feathers on merges...to eventually get feathers? Seems to me it'll take a lot longer for that to end up paying off, even if it's long term investment. It takes around 200k feathers to make one +10, and it doesn't seem like an extra 1,2k a week pays off anytime soon.

Is it just a status symbol and competitive value? I literally can't even justify promoting my trio when I can rotate T19>20 and so on. The only real benefit is the sense of variety in teams at that score range, which makes it more fun than generic cavalry teams.

I remember using nearly the exact same argument in my old arena rant after score inflation prevented me from getting to tier 20 with my normal teams. Honestly I still don't really understand it either. You basically spend a crapton of feathers on characters you probably don't even like, and the only real payoff is slightly more coins and stones every week because the feathers most definitely do not even out anytime soon. Probably just the novelty of having high scores.

Getting your favourite character to 5* +10 I can understand, but this, not so much.

[Junkhead]

4 minutes ago, Korath88 said:

I remember using nearly the exact same argument in my old arena rant after score inflation prevented me from getting to tier 20 with my normal teams. Honestly I still don't really understand it either. You basically spend a crapton of feathers on characters you probably don't even like, and the only real payoff is slightly more coins and stones every week because the feathers most definitely do not even out anytime soon. Probably just the novelty of having high scores.

Getting your favourite character to 5* +10 I can understand, but this, not so much.

Thing is, it's not so much an arguement as it is part of a legitimate question I have:

Are the costs worth it? You summed up the rest of my thoughts perfectly. I would love be able to build and use my favourite characters, but I can't. Some of them are rare and/or limited characters, and some are ranged (some mage nukes that are also *5-exclusive and have low BST either way). If people actually like using Dragons, then that's alright. But I'm seeing way too many of them that I have a bit of trouble believing it that way.

[TheWill]

1 hour ago, Oz ♠ said:

Thing is, it's not so much an arguement as it is part of a legitimate question I have:

Are the costs worth it? You summed up the rest of my thoughts perfectly. I would love be able to build and use my favourite characters, but I can't. Some of them are rare and/or limited characters, and some are ranged (some mage nukes that are also *5-exclusive and have low BST either way). If people actually like using Dragons, then that's alright. But I'm seeing way too many of them that I have a bit of trouble believing it that way.

Different priorities for different people. Some people want to stay in T20, the extra feathers do add up eventually. Some people only want to invest in a core 4 units, whilst others (like me and you) prefer to build a large number of our favourite units. The thoughts you're having about people who are investing in a minimal number of units... are probably the same thoughts they're having about you. "Why would someone invest in a large number of units when they're not even going to use most of them anyway?" "Why have more than one sword unit if you've already invested in an Ayra/Karla?" and so on.

[Junkhead]

3 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

The thoughts you're having about people who are investing in a minimal number of units... are probably the same thoughts they're having about you. "Why would someone invest in a large number of units when they're not even going to use most of them anyway?" "Why have more than one sword unit if you've already invested in an Ayra/Karla?" and so on.

I can't see how that would make sense, because then it would bring back to the question as to why. Why would you be building units that aren't your favourites just to assimiliate score that makes minimal differences in terms of rewards? Bragging rights? This isn't like actual competitive games, where winning with top tiers eventually nets you something worth it.

[Humanoid]

18 minutes ago, Oz ♠ said:

I can't see how that would make sense, because then it would bring back to the question as to why. Why would you be building units that aren't your favourites just to assimiliate score that makes minimal differences in terms of rewards? Bragging rights? This isn't like actual competitive games, where winning with top tiers eventually nets you something worth it.

I mean there are side perks too such as trivialising other PvE content, so it's fully reasonable to take the pragmatic option and merge up the most powerful units that are practically available.

It's also worth remembering that not everyone is equally invested into the Fire Emblem universe. Hell, some people hadn't even played a Fire Emblem game before this. I myself only have some mild favourites, no one I'd give particularly special treatment to. Maybe we're the minority here, but it significantly changes the dynamic of summoning and building units when the question becomes not *who* the units are, but *what*.

[Vaximillian]

2 hours ago, Jingle Jangle said:

V5 of the figures  my guess is the the extra figure is Gunnthra.

It’s obviously Loki.

[Tybrosion]

8 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

It’s obviously Loki.

Close, but it's actually a Ditto disguised as Xane who is disguised as Doopliss who is disguised as Loki who is disguised as Gunnthra.

[Vaximillian]

2 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

Close, but it's actually a Ditto disguised as Xane who is disguised as Doopliss who is disguised as Loki who is disguised as Gunnthra.

This explains everything. I didn’t think this through hard enough.

[mcsilas]

31 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

Close, but it's actually a Ditto disguised as Xane who is disguised as Doopliss who is disguised as Loki who is disguised as Gunnthra.

It’s a jigglypuff seen from above.

@Xenomata i remember Celica’s debut banner had good balance since it had mages of all colours. Genny was pretty much a mage with Wrathful Staff so that was pretty neat.

also i like how Edelgard has a classy, non-fanservicey design. Also FE needs more axe females so i can’t wait for more info. I think i like Claude the most. Hopefully Dmitri isn’t too grumpy/serious/stuck-up like his appearance suggests- if he is actually pretty kind then that would be nice

[DLNarshen]

3 hours ago, Oz ♠ said:

Is there any functional reason why one would aspire to consistently stay in Tier 20, assuming they're F2P? I keep seeing people basically "sell" themselves off to Dragon teams and investing tons of feathers on merges...to eventually get feathers? Seems to me it'll take a lot longer for that to end up paying off, even if it's long term investment. It takes around 200k feathers to make one +10, and it doesn't seem like an extra 1,2k a week pays off anytime soon.

Is it just a status symbol and competitive value? I literally can't even justify promoting my trio when I can rotate T19>20 and so on. The only real benefit is the sense of variety in teams at that score range, which makes it more fun than generic cavalry teams.

I cannot speak for everyone who plays like this, but I can give you my own perspective and motivations.

1. Pride.  It is as you say.  The feathers I gain from staying in tier 20 will nowhere near make up for the amount I'll spend merging units required to do so in the first place.  At least, not on reasonable time scales.  It will take 20 weeks of consecutively staying in tier 20 to make back the cost of just one merge.  Less so when we consider AA rewards as well, but the point remains that the benefits don't seem to justify the costs.  For me though, that's not the point.  Plain and simple, it feels good to stay on the highest echelon of the arena week after week.  While there is no true PvP in this game, Arena and AA are the closest thing Heroes has to a consistent, ever-present competitive mode.  Those of us with the drive to compete to the fullest will take advantage of that.  Especially so when considering...

2. What else is there to do in this game?  Obviously, everyone has their own motivations for sticking around with this game.  Yet despite all the new game modes and changes IS has implemented over the course of its lifetime, the fact is that Arena and AA are the only modes I would consider to be truly "end-game" content.  No other permanent mode pushes players to build their characters as strong as the game will allow while at the same time ranking their performance among the rest of the player base.  Sure, I could save a lot more feathers in the mid-term by not bothering, but to what end?  It's different for newer players, but there comes a point where no more important niches can be filled by promoting 4* characters, and all of one's favorites are promoted and reasonably well built.  Again, I can't speak for everyone, but I am not so attached to every 3-4* character that I would bother spending 20-22K feathers on them just so they can paint my bench gold.

In any case, forgoing one's favorites in favor of meta choices is pretty standard for any game with competitive elements.  For this game in particular, it also comes down to luck of the draw.  Not everyone has access to the same units, so we work with what we get.  Often times that means heavily investing in units in the 3-4* pool, whether they're our absolute favorites or not.  Many people's favorites are locked behind 5* exclusivity, making them hard to pull, and merging them doesn't dip into one's feather supply anyway.  Sometimes one's favorites are merge-limited, making them far less viable for high-level arena play, or are simply not in the game yet.  All that being said, I have yet to see anyone build a heavily-merged team of units they dislike solely so they could score better in the arena.  As for myself, I have Caeda and Shanna as part of my 5*+10 arena core.  I certainly liked them well enough before Heroes came out, but there were other units I would have preferred at the time.  I wanted to build a flying team around my favorite unit (Narcian), and they happened to fill the roles I needed to fill quite well.  They grew on me as I used them more and more, and now I would rank them among my favorites.  That's one of the cool things about this game in my opinion -- depending on what you get and what your goals are, you can get new favorites :) 

[Humanoid]

16 minutes ago, DLNarshen said:

It will take 20 weeks of consecutively staying in tier 20 to make back the cost of just one merge.  Less so when we consider AA rewards as well, but the point remains that the benefits don't seem to justify the costs.

40 weeks even, since T19.5 is an average of 2500 feathers a week. The next step down, which I've resigned myself to, is 1900/week. Going from top 20k to top 10k AA is 600 extra a week though so the figure 20 weeks is fairly close if you consider both modes.

___________

Anyway, returning to the general idea, another factor to consider is what value each unit gets out of a merge. Sure, all units gain +4 to all stats but the actual value of those stats can vary considerably between units. Merging up Reinhardt for example seems far less value than most units because he fundamentally only really cares about one of those stats. The units that make the most value of all their stats are probably DC units, and what easily obtainable units fit that profile? Dragons.

Right now though, I'm mostly focusing on getting my commonly used units to +2, and again this based on the perceived value of each single merge. +1 adds HP and your best stat, +2 adds your second and third best stats, so both are pretty nice. Actually, the second merge often adds your best stat instead because level 1 statlines tend to be fairly funky - Caeda for example will gain res instead of speed on the first merge, making the second merge a very tasty spd+atk. On the other hand, +3 adds HP and your worst stat, so taken on its own, it's not a very attractive proposition. So I'll +2 about half a dozen of my most used units first, then pick out someone to +10 afterwards.