Power Creep and Changing Gacha Philosphy in Heroes

[Rafiel's Aria]

On one hand, I'm cautiously optimistic. On the other, I'm a little terrified. Granted, this is the first and probably only gacha game I'll ever play. I've looked into others, but FEH just has the most appeal to me, probably because I know and love the characters already. (Also. I'm sorry. This post turned into a novel.)

I'm never of the mindset that the game SHOULD hand out characters for free. When we were given a free Lucina Masked Marth, I was pleasantly surprised considering she's a powerful unit and rated high on the tier lists. Taking away her base kit aside from Falchion seemed fair enough. So I was surprised when the following TTs gave us free 5 star units with skills and whatnot, even if they were a little underwhelming stat-wise. Tobin and Clive are still useful if you're willing to put in some work. But the Black Knight was incredibly surprising. Distant counter weapon? A unique special? Great stats? Honestly, he made much more sense as a GHB. You'd think that IS would want you to put in the time to level, promote, and SP grind the guy considering when they first started handing out 5* characters they didn't want to give you access to things like free Aether. As a person who plays for all of the rewards, I'm ecstatic because as the game evolves, I'll have the opportunity to pick up so-so characters as well as awesome ones by using stamina and hardwork instead of orbs. So while in the past, characters that have appeared alongside focus characters have become free rewards (through TT or GHB), IS doesn't HAVE to give us Ayra for free. Is it disappointing that she was kind of teased to be a potential reward? Definitely. I'm sure for someone whose favorite character is Ayra, it's absolutely infuriating. I know if that had happened with someone I love, I'd be pretty upset.

So the rage from players who wanted an amazing unit for free is unwarranted. It's wishful thinking even if there is precedent. Honestly, I thought that having the flipped 4* and 3* percentage rate stick around was wishful thinking. Same with the free summon. And the free CYL character. I wholeheartedly expected the summoning changes to be done away with after a month. Maybe two. But here they are. So I've just learned to be pleasantly surprised when we get a free/generous anything. The rage from people who love Ayra is definitely fair. She's a new character. She should be introduced on a banner with new characters not as an afterthought after you've more than likely spent your orbs. While this is likely a huge cash grab for IS, if anything, it's taught me to spend less. If there's a chance IS is going to introduce new characters randomly, I need to be more frugal now than ever. The gacha giveth. The gacha taketh away.

Now on the subject of powercreep... It's kind of inevitable. On one hand, the game would be really stale if the devs didn't introduce new skills, meta-changing stuff, etc. For a while, it looked like Reinhardt was the answer to everything. In away, he still is. He's definitely a problem, but there are more ways to counter him and other units who can be just as problematic. It also looks like the devs are adapting to what players want. Roy and Seliph got some kind of lame passives on their weapons. The legendaries that have been introduced later on have been much better imo. It sucks for the older characters, but it's a relief to see some improvements. The increased BST is kind of...random. I suppose on one hand, IS wants the Holy Wars banner to appeal to a wider audience outside of Japan. Then again, it could just be favoritism. Who knows?

If anything, I'm more concerned about these 3 character banners... They've been dropping fewer and fewer characters to 4 stars. It makes me wonder if they'll just stop dropping their rarities altogether. I doubt it, but I don't have anything to compare this game to.

But yeah. the tl;dr version of all of this is: Never expect anything for free. Ayra fans were screwed over by the afterthought banner. Powercreep's gonna happen to keep the game interesting even if it's unfair. But it still might be something to worry about. BE SUSPICIOUS OF EVERYTHING.

I'll likely provide some feedback.

 

[LordFrigid]

51 minutes ago, Rafiel's Aria said:

Snip

Re. Ayra, I think a lot of the aversion comes from the fact that, unlike every other new banner character, there was never any real “heads up” that she was going to be on one. Regardless of what their actual intentions were, it feels like she was snuck onto the TT banner as a ploy, particularly to those who burned orbs on the Sigurd/Deirdre/Tailtiu focus that was released just a few days prior.

~

On the power creep issue...I can definitely see it in some things, particularly the way recent Legendary weapons have tier 3 passives built in rather than tier 2s.

Other things, like the extra effects of Divine Tyrfing and Divine Naga, I’m not really convinced are actually power creep. Imo damage mitigation and buff nullifying effects are just continuations of IS’s response to the meta that began with Urvan and Mulagir from the CYL focus...it just gets seen as power creep because the weapons these effects were slapped onto happened to share names with weapons that were already in the game. That’s how it seems to me, anyway.

I’m not sure how I feel about the uninheritable trend. It’s simultaneously annoying that we can’t use all the shiny new things for our old favorites, and relieving that we won’t have to deal with stuff like Pulse/Regnal Astra/skill-damage-boosting weapon every time we walk into the arena (admittedly, this is an extreme example). I guess what I’m getting at is that even though it is power creep-y, I think keeping it locked to certain characters that can be countered in consistent ways limits the outrageousness.

The BST bumps Sigurd and Ayra got are troubling. Sure, they’re popular lord characters, but there are plenty of other popular lord characters that didn’t receive that same treatment. I see no reason they couldn’t have followed the same “rules” as those that came before them. They’d certainly still be potent units. Hopefully this doesn’t become a trend, but that doesn’t seem like something I should hold my breath over, sadly. I’ll see how it plays out as time goes on.

[Prince Endriu]

Pretty underwhelming. 

I guess hell has a new name : Eldigan

Honestly, I couldnt care less. Ayra is here to stay and I might get her eventually. My pull didnt contain any reds, picked the only blue and got a 5* Reinhardt for free. Not gonna pull a second time from her banner.

As for powercreep, it was inevitable, and probably needed. I remember when Soren came out and people complained that he is worse than Nino. New characters need to become better with time, otherwise there is no real incentive for a player to buy the units. I dont thing the recent powercreeps are gamebreaking or anything, still pretty much doable with the right teams.

One thing that is getting annoying, though, is Arena Assault, you can only use a character once, but the AI opponents can use that very same character up to seven times, if more powercreep characters will be introduced it might get hard for f2p players to have a counter ready everytime.

[mampfoid]

31 minutes ago, Prince Endriu said:

[...]

One thing that is getting annoying, though, is Arena Assault, you can only use a character once, but the AI opponents can use that very same character up to seven times, if more powercreep characters will be introduced it might get hard for f2p players to have a counter ready everytime.

Strong melee units shouldn't be much of a problem in AA. Give Clive, Tobin etc a breaker (and perhaps a movement assist and gem weapon) and they are a good counter against their opposing color, even if the enemy unit has got a higher merge level. Running seven times in a row into BH!Lyn + Reinhardt + Bladetome Cav + dancer is by far more annoying. 

[Okigen]

I don't like Ayra so I'm quite indifferent to all of this.

That said, the most troubling issue for me is with the powercreep the game is becoming less and less balanced. For example, there is an OP unit who wipes out almost everyone. Then they generate another unit with specific skills to counter that unit. The new unit is however very OP as well and we need another OP unit with uninheritable skill as an answer, and it goes on. It is somewhat a crude way of balancing the game - or maybe I have been naivethere is no balance in a gacha game. 

I also hate that the good skills are now uninheritable. A good way to force us to buy the new unit I guess, but I hate that my old favs are now useless and there is no way I can help them even if I try to get the new unit who has better skills.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

16 minutes ago, Okigen said:

I don't like Ayra so I'm quite indifferent to all of this.

That said, the most troubling issue for me is with the powercreep the game is becoming less and less balanced. For example, there is an OP unit who wipes out almost everyone. Then they generate another unit with specific skills to counter that unit. The new unit is however very OP as well and we need another OP unit with uninheritable skill as an answer, and it goes on. It is somewhat a crude way of balancing the game - or maybe I have been naivethere is no balance in a gacha game. 

I also hate that the good skills are now uninheritable. A good way to force us to buy the new unit I guess, but I hate that my old favs are now useless and there is no way I can help them even if I try to get the new unit who has better skills.

The last part still doesnt happen tbh

Nothing in the past few week have been even half as good as Steady Stance

[Prince Endriu]

2 hours ago, mampfoid said:

Strong melee units shouldn't be much of a problem in AA. Give Clive, Tobin etc a breaker (and perhaps a movement assist and gem weapon) and they are a good counter against their opposing color, even if the enemy unit has got a higher merge level. Running seven times in a row into BH!Lyn + Reinhardt + Bladetome Cav + dancer is by far more annoying. 

I actually had Blyn in mind :)

The thing is, there is lots of possible counters to blyn, but you have to prepare those units, sometimes its hindered by SI Fodder - I mean going into colorless hell for Bowbreaker Setsuna is something that I would like to avoid. So it takes to time to adjust for f2p players. If there is more such units introduced it might become a little bit tedious imo. Time will tell.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

9 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

unless Ayra proves to be hilariously opressive(which is fairly unlikely) she doesnt fall into power creep area because Infantry Sword just isnt that much of a strong class(Steady Ryoma is arguably still the best Sword Lord in the game)

Actually, she is the best Sword in the game now, through some matchup calculations. It basically revolves around Regnal Astra being retardedly strong and her stupidly good spread. Not only does she dominate the Player Phase Infantry Sword offense by a long shot (she pushes into Elincia territory with Swift Sparrow Wrath, while also not losing to Brave Ike, though her default Swift Sparrow Desperation is already insanely strong), she can also run other things very well. All of these assume +Spd -Res Ayra, her optimal nature, and all the people compared against her have their optimal natures as well.

Because she somehow has 31 Def despite her ridiculous offensive spread, her Steady Breath set is insanely strong such that she performs better than all non-DC Swords with Steady Breath. She is, aside from Quickened Pulse BK, the only Sword unit who has enough Speed to get away with Wrath over Quick Riposte on a SB set, which gives her Regnal Astra 27 raw damage, alongside a high chance of doubling with her 43 Spd. She pushes close to Steady Breath Ryoma and Ike's performance, though she loses out on kills because of no natural DC.

But DC, you say? Believe it or not, Ayra with Distant Counter is better than Ryoma and Ike, and overall likely the single best standalone DC Sword. You might think I'm making this up, but I wish I was. Distant Counter Wrath Quickened Pulse Ayra has a better Enemy Phase performance than all the Ryoma and Ike builds; Fury Vantage/QR, Steady Breath QR, put some Seals on, and STILL, they do not kill as many things as DC QP Ayra. Her destructive power isn't as high as SB QP Black Knight, but compared to Ryoma, Ike and BK, DC Ayra maintains a very strong Player Phase, killing more than Fury Ryoma with Swordbreaker, and no doubt more than any Steady Breath build. This applies to the above Steady Breath build as well.

If you want even more salt in the wounds, Ayra can run Brave Roy's gimmick better than him (aside from 2 Mov). While Brave Roy is quite strong, he requires a Hone Cav to reach his true potential. Galeforce Ayra with QP outperforms Roy with his own build when neither have buffs. B!Roy with buffs can push past Ayra, but we're still talking about buff-less Ayra.

And yes, EVERYTHING in this post assumes Ayra without buffs. She is already that broken as a standalone, able to run multiple sets at top class performance, and she only gets better if you put someone like Delthea or Brave Lucina next to her. So yes, she is hilariously oppressive.

[The Geek]

My argument earlier wasn't "Other similar games already do this so it's okay for this one to" it was "This type of game is inherently scummy, so why are you only complaining now?"

What's been done with the main FE4 banner and the new Ayra banner is the practice known as a "Bait Gacha" where they offer something that people will want to tempt them to spend their summoning resource right before releasing a new character that people really want.  It's scummy, but that's how these types of games work.

[Mackc2]

I wouldn't have a problem with ayra, if they didn't lock regal astra to her, and they didn't release her in a separate banner to the rest of the genealogy characters, also if they plan to make three character banners going forward then I will have a serious problem because three new characters is boring, four is a good number 

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

54 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

Actually, she is the best Sword in the game now, through some matchup calculations. It basically revolves around Regnal Astra being retardedly strong and her stupidly good spread. Not only does she dominate the Player Phase Infantry Sword offense by a long shot (she pushes into Elincia territory with Swift Sparrow Wrath, while also not losing to Brave Ike, though her default Swift Sparrow Desperation is already insanely strong), she can also run other things very well. All of these assume +Spd -Res Ayra, her optimal nature, and all the people compared against her have their optimal natures as well.

Because she somehow has 31 Def despite her ridiculous offensive spread, her Steady Breath set is insanely strong such that she performs better than all non-DC Swords with Steady Breath. She is, aside from Quickened Pulse BK, the only Sword unit who has enough Speed to get away with Wrath over Quick Riposte on a SB set, which gives her Regnal Astra 27 raw damage, alongside a high chance of doubling with her 43 Spd. She pushes close to Steady Breath Ryoma and Ike's performance, though she loses out on kills because of no natural DC.

But DC, you say? Believe it or not, Ayra with Distant Counter is better than Ryoma and Ike, and overall likely the single best standalone DC Sword. You might think I'm making this up, but I wish I was. Distant Counter Wrath Quickened Pulse Ayra has a better Enemy Phase performance than all the Ryoma and Ike builds; Fury Vantage/QR, Steady Breath QR, put some Seals on, and STILL, they do not kill as many things as DC QP Ayra. Her destructive power isn't as high as SB QP Black Knight, but compared to Ryoma, Ike and BK, DC Ayra maintains a very strong Player Phase, killing more than Fury Ryoma with Swordbreaker, and no doubt more than any Steady Breath build. This applies to the above Steady Breath build as well.

If you want even more salt in the wounds, Ayra can run Brave Roy's gimmick better than him (aside from 2 Mov). While Brave Roy is quite strong, he requires a Hone Cav to reach his true potential. Galeforce Ayra with QP outperforms Roy with his own build when neither have buffs. B!Roy with buffs can push past Ayra, but we're still talking about buff-less Ayra.

And yes, EVERYTHING in this post assumes Ayra without buffs. She is already that broken as a standalone, able to run multiple sets at top class performance, and she only gets better if you put someone like Delthea or Brave Lucina next to her. So yes, she is hilariously oppressive.

Honestly though i haven't met Ayra yet in Arena, so i'd take this. The thing with this game is that its really mainly coinciding range that does the shit and thats something that only ranged unit can really achieve 90% of the time

If you asked me who are IMO the most opressive unit in the game right now i won't even have any second thought in my answer - Cellica. As much as i joked that Brave Roy is the most broken unit in the game(which i do think he is) he really isn't opressive

[Okigen]

2 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

The last part still doesnt happen tbh

Nothing in the past few week have been even half as good as Steady Stance

This is up to each beholder's eye. I don't like Steady Stance that much.

[Prince Endriu]

1 hour ago, The Geek said:

My argument earlier wasn't "Other similar games already do this so it's okay for this one to" it was "This type of game is inherently scummy, so why are you only complaining now?"

What's been done with the main FE4 banner and the new Ayra banner is the practice known as a "Bait Gacha" where they offer something that people will want to tempt them to spend their summoning resource right before releasing a new character that people really want.  It's scummy, but that's how these types of games work.

The whole gacha system is designed to make people spend as much money as possible. Even though Fe Heroes is said to be not as bad as others (cant say, its my first gacha game, and probably last) I think it needs to be judged by its own merits and not in comparison. 

For me, the whole gacha thing is a little bit ridiculous. The gap between f2p and p2w whaling is just enormous. I paid for the FE Fates limited edition (three games in one basically), about 90 EUR, brandnew and sealed. For that money I wouldnt even get 140 orbs. And even then 140 doesnt mean anything, you might as well get only useless 3* for it. So its a gamble. In order to be on the competitive whaling side of the game you would need to spend much, much more in order to get a new +10 character each new focus banner - thats some crazy spending already (no offense). I ask myself, what happens if they shut this game down? Ok, I only nine 23 orbs packs - so its not a great deal. I might buy some more in the long run. But there is people who have spent insane amounts on it already - if this game gets shut down for whatever reason... I dont want to think about it.

BUT releasing Ayra in a focus with Eldigan - thats some crazy shit. Especially since Ayra was rumoured to be TT reward (fe heroes wiki), so nobody saw this one coming. Pretty unfair to everyone IMO - especially for whales.

[Armagon]

Regarding Ayra: While i was able to get her on my second try, it was still a scummy move on IS' part. As others have mentioned before, it's not even the fact that she's in a banner. It's the fact that she's in a banner with old units even though a banner with new units was released just days earlier. We all assumed she would be a GHB or TT reward based on recent trends, and tbh, i don't blame anyone for thinking that. I thought that. But releasing new units in a banner with old units while a banner with new units is going on is something i never want to see again. I already sent IS my player feedback regarding that.

Regarding powercreep: It's going to happen. It probably already started. But the reason i wasn't so concerend before was because of Skill Inheritance. Even with new, better Heroes releasing, you could just transfer those better Skills on to your old Heroes to help them catch up. But now we have uninheritable Skills. On one hand, this has always been around in the form of Legendary Weapons such as Falchion. On the other hand, while i don't mind uninheritable Specials (Black Knight having Black Luna and Arya having Regnal Astra make sense, the former being BK's signature Skill and the latter having a lore-connection to Astra) and, tbh, it's great that they are finally adding more Specials. However, what i don't like is the uninheritable A-B-C Skills. Sacae and Beroc's Blessing were fine because they were the Skills of CYL Ike and Lyn, and it was a very special event. I guess i can make a pass for Crusader's Ward too, since it'd be weird for someone aside from Sigurd to have it. But why are the Recovery and Follow-Up Rings uninheritable? Follow-Up Ring would've been amazing for my Sophia and, tbh, there's a ton of units that could benefit from those rings. There's no reason for them to be uninheritable.

[Arcanite]

14 hours ago, Charmeleonbrah said:

Give Ayra as a free unit to all players who did not summon her

This is not going to happen

The whole point of putting her on another banner is to make money

People have no orbs from pulling on PA and the holy war banner, so now people might have to spend money to get her

But it isn't completely bad, because we have TT in a few days anyway.... as well as log in orbs to get.

[Usana]

Honestly I don't mind uninheritable skills, after all that is effectively what the legendary weapons are. What I do mind is units getting multiple legendary skills. The CYL winners got a pass due to the nature of the event. Though it did miff me a bit. So if BK had Black Luna but didn't have a legendary sword. Great. If Sigurd had Crusader's ward but no legendary sword(though being able to inherit the regular one from Seliph would have been alright in my eyes). Deirdre doesn't bother me due to having only 1 legendary skill, but I must admit it would have been interesting if she had something else that was a legendary but could inherit Naga from Julia. Of course Blazing Durandal should have warned me that upgraded legendaries were coming, but seeing the two Divine's still managed to surprise me.

Basically 1 Legendary per unit please. Anything more just makes me sad.

[Superbus]

12 hours ago, LuxSpes said:

@Superbus @The Geek

I find this argument really weak. "This is a gacha game and other gacha games are scummier, so don't protest when this one does something scummy". Just because others are worse than you doesn't give you a pass to be bad as well. Why should we lay down and accept it when a game that was pretty good at not being too scummy suddenly does a blatantly scummy move? Isn't the game not being too scummy a good thing for every players? Why would you defend a game for taking a turn for the worse? Heroes was plenty successful without resorting to blatant cash grabs like this.

And it's not like this decision is good for the game long term.

 

I think you misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not defending the game just because others are worse. I'm literally saying that the design of the system being used is bad and there is no real defence. The fact that it hasn't been outright shitty until now is more of a happy accident. I can assure you: I would never have gotten into it had it not been Fire Emblem, and even then, IS has - by far - the best system. Even your initial 1* Virion can be a good unit with some effort; I can't say the same for low-star units in the few others I've tolerated long enough to play a bit. But in no way is that a defence; damning with faint praise might be more appropriate.

Without reading the entire thread again, I think someone mentioned that part of the problem was that people said "I'm surprised IS did this to us!". Noble, but also naive. I don't know if they've changed since the FESS days, but back then - I'm going back over a decade - they were quite difficult to deal with from a fandom perspective. Furthermore, the $50 "Season Pass" for a Gaiden remake, three separate games to tell one "canon" story, whatever the hell is going on in Warriors, the increased focus on fanservice (which is saying something!)... these decisions stick in my craw because they're decidedly anti-consumer. IS - and really, no mid to large tier developer - is worthy of "trust". Cautious optimism, maybe. But never, ever trust.

[The Lord Of Gems]

Imo, Sigurd deserves the extra stats. He's supposed to be powerful. Ayra doesn't deserve them though. It can't be because of Holy Blood because other FE4 characters don't have increased stats.

[Prince Endriu]

48 minutes ago, Superbus said:

I think you misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not defending the game just because others are worse. I'm literally saying that the design of the system being used is bad and there is no real defence. The fact that it hasn't been outright shitty until now is more of a happy accident. I can assure you: I would never have gotten into it had it not been Fire Emblem, and even then, IS has - by far - the best system. Even your initial 1* Virion can be a good unit with some effort; I can't say the same for low-star units in the few others I've tolerated long enough to play a bit. But in no way is that a defence; damning with faint praise might be more appropriate.

Without reading the entire thread again, I think someone mentioned that part of the problem was that people said "I'm surprised IS did this to us!". Noble, but also naive. I don't know if they've changed since the FESS days, but back then - I'm going back over a decade - they were quite difficult to deal with from a fandom perspective. Furthermore, the $50 "Season Pass" for a Gaiden remake, three separate games to tell one "canon" story, whatever the hell is going on in Warriors, the increased focus on fanservice (which is saying something!)... these decisions stick in my craw because they're decidedly anti-consumer. IS - and really, no mid to large tier developer - is worthy of "trust". Cautious optimism, maybe. But never, ever trust.

Totally agree with you. IS is not out to make us happy or something. They might not be as bad as others but they surely run a business and need to make money. It is their consumer friendlyness and feh on its own merit by which they should be judged.

Lets be honest, this is a gatcha game! We should all know what we are getting into - orbs are priced at ridiculous premium, the game is designed to keep us constantly pulling - its not like there will ever be an end to it. There is always gonna be new, nicer and stronger units that will be introduced on a regular basis. Free orbs will always be hard to come by. There has even be a thread of how many orbs people left on the table the last TT. That shows that not everyone was willing to play through the exact maps time and time again. Why have us do it for two entire weeks? It could last three days and have the same effect. Thats monotonous! Its a chore. Completing the 10th stratum 15 times? For one orb? Thats a chore! You cannot even pull a unit for that! You have to do it 75 times to get 5 orbs together -  thats quite a lot imo - and then you can pull one unit - who might turn out to be Bartre.

So I wouldnt exactly call IS the saints of the gatcha world. 

[XRay]

I personally have no problem with Anna milking us, but only up to a certain point though. As long as the majority of paying players continue to spend at their current level, I am fine with Anna doing whatever she wants. I think milking will only start to be a problem if paying players reduce their spending on the game.

Anyways, back on the subject of power creep...

12 hours ago, LordFrigid said:

On the power creep issue...I can definitely see it in some things, particularly the way recent Legendary weapons have tier 3 passives built in rather than tier 2s.

Other things, like the extra effects of Divine Tyrfing and Divine Naga, I’m not really convinced are actually power creep. Imo damage mitigation and buff nullifying effects are just continuations of IS’s response to the meta that began with Urvan and Mulagir from the CYL focus...it just gets seen as power creep because the weapons these effects were slapped onto happened to share names with weapons that were already in the game. That’s how it seems to me, anyway.

I’m not sure how I feel about the uninheritable trend. It’s simultaneously annoying that we can’t use all the shiny new things for our old favorites, and relieving that we won’t have to deal with stuff like Pulse/Regnal Astra/skill-damage-boosting weapon every time we walk into the arena (admittedly, this is an extreme example). I guess what I’m getting at is that even though it is power creep-y, I think keeping it locked to certain characters that can be countered in consistent ways limits the outrageousness.

The BST bumps Sigurd and Ayra got are troubling. Sure, they’re popular lord characters, but there are plenty of other popular lord characters that didn’t receive that same treatment. I see no reason they couldn’t have followed the same “rules” as those that came before them. They’d certainly still be potent units. Hopefully this doesn’t become a trend, but that doesn’t seem like something I should hold my breath over, sadly. I’ll see how it plays out as time goes on.

I agree mostly with this, although I do not think having just tier 3 skills built in constitutes power creep, especially for melee Weapons. Even with all the cool effects exclusive melee Weapons have with Urvan, Divine Tyrfing, and Ayra's Blade, ranged weapons are still leagues better than melee weapons in my opinion. Urvan is never going to strike fear in players' hearts the way Dire Thunder, Blades, Brave Bow, and apparently Firesweep Bow do.

I do not see much power creep recently from exclusive skills outside of Sacae's Blessing. As a player who relies on cancer Player Phase nukes, for me, damage mitigation on opposing Enemy Phase units does not really stop me from nuking them down.

Sigurd and Ayra is not going cause trouble for anyone who is prepared, and Ayra being infantry is another strike against her; Reinhardt eats them alive. Dierdre is pin cushion for any Brave Bow archer. BH!Ike is nowhere as scary as Bonfire-Vantage Hector. Black Knight is a joke when Reinhardt and BH!Lyn rule the meta.

I am bothered by the fact that Sigurd and Ayra got a stat boost though. While those two getting a stat boost does not really help them in the current meta, it sets a precedent for future units to eventually ignore the stat growth pattern entirely so new units can stay relevant in the meta.

8 hours ago, mampfoid said:

BH!Lyn + Reinhardt + Bladetome Cav + dancer

That is my Arena team this week! Cecilia and Olivia.

Edited October 20, 2017 by XRay

[mampfoid]

31 minutes ago, XRay said:

 

That is my Arena team this week! Cecilia and Olivia.

Yeah, I knew you would be first in the not yet existing leaderboard of effective and annoying defense teams. ;-)

I keep mine as a last resort, if my regular team didn't get any defense wins until the weekend. 

@topic: I agree with @XRay. Could live without Ryoma and Ike, I'll live also without that new shiny infantry unit. 

Edited October 20, 2017 by mampfoid

[Usana]

Regarding Sigurd I just ran into one in Arena, default skills + Bonfire + Reposition. None of Reinhardt, BowLyn, B!Roy, or Blade Cecilia could KO him. Heck any two failed to KO him. It would have taken nearly all 4 of them to bring him down on offense without a charged special. Thankfully I was able to lure him out of dance range with B!Roy who could tank him. Speed smoke then left me in a very bad place as far as our boy Roy was concerned. I think Rein came close to half damage, so SwordBreaker Rein might have buried him. I still need moonbow and DeathBlow fodder for Rein(Atk +3) though, so that might be why mine can't bury the blighter even with a hone cav under his belt.

[Ice Dragon]

19 hours ago, Rezzy said:

Legendary weapons went above their  second rung skill on top of 16 Might to now having the equivalent of two third rung skills for no apparent reason.  On top of that Ike and Lyn got a 5 BST bonus for no apparent reason.  If it was a one time thing awarded to the CYL winners, I could have lived with it, but now both Sigurd and Ayra got the BST bonus and overpowered Legendary weapons for and I'm worried this is going to be a new trend which will make all the old units overshadowed in every way.

As far as I can tell right now, having two third-tier skills is still limited to the CYL winners and Sigurd and Ira (Amiti is arguable depending on how you rate being a Brave weapon). The +10 growth rates were clearly meant to be a bonus for the top-placing characters because they are meant to be special.

Jugdral has had the unlucky position of being the only "pre-modern" games that have not yet had a remake to a modern system along with a Western localization. Prior to this banner, it was also the least represented continent in Heroes, having had a total of 6 total characters across two games.

Until proven otherwise, my assumption is still that Sigurd and Ira, who were the top-placing male and female characters from Jugdral in CYL, are receiving the same treatment as the CYL winners as an "apology" of sorts for Jugdral's current position.

We simply don't have enough data points at this point to know if the CYL winner bonus is intended to be a recurring thing.

 

On the subject of Ira being on her own banner, there were really only two possible options the developers could have had. If my memory is correct, all of the Tempest Trials so far have had all of their characters either available as free units or available from a concurrently running banner (and never both).

This means that either Ira would need to not be a Tempest Trials bonus unit (which could have been done by making her a Grand Hero Battle character starting after the beginning of the Tempest Trials) or she would need to be on a banner with whichever one or two returning characters are featured as bonus character. Including Ira on the World of Holy War banner would force the Tempest Trials banner to only be two units, which is likely not an option.

While I agree that the situation could have been handled better, if the original plan was to set the bonus units first, then fit the banners around that, what we have right now was the only possible option (outside of running Ira as a Grand Hero Battle concurrently with Alvis, which is probably also not an option).

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

6 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Honestly though i haven't met Ayra yet in Arena, so i'd take this. The thing with this game is that its really mainly coinciding range that does the shit and thats something that only ranged unit can really achieve 90% of the time

If you asked me who are IMO the most opressive unit in the game right now i won't even have any second thought in my answer - Cellica. As much as i joked that Brave Roy is the most broken unit in the game(which i do think he is) he really isn't opressive

Oppressive as in what though? Too few counters?

When I said Ayra was oppressive, I mostly meant that she can invalidate every other unit in her class, though combat wise she is also dumb. Some TA Blues lose to her.

[Stroud]

As a Deirdre player who picked Deirdre on CYL I would have been happy if she also got better stats. D=

That aside. I understand that people are getting salty for being baited before Ayra and that which IS has done, but I also do understand that the concept of a gatcha game are such tactics to draw some money from people who are likely to spend money for their favorite characters. They aren't the first one to do this and it could have been expected.

In this game we have the luck that we can compensate the powercreep a bit with skill inheritance. Which does not exist in other gatcha games. (Even if this can also depend on luck, because some skills are hard to get). 
As one who likes Athena and maybe wanted to invest some feathers in her this made me a bit thinking about this and now I rather wait and see what happens to new units in term of bst, which also influences the arena score by now at least it's worth 2.5 merges.

With my very defensive arena team I also don't think that Sigurd and Ayra are truly a problem. I also know that I can handle Arden.
But sometimes B.Lyn can still be a problem. I never feared such units as BIke and Hector, especially not with my A-Tiki, but B.Lyn can still be dangerous to my defensive unites like Gwendolyn if I don't use the deflect missile seal of if I don't watch out in my positioning.