Special Heroes (Gifts of Winter)

[redlight]

Compared to last year's banner this one is rather tame. Did armors hit their peak with fighter skills? As in, progress stops at fighter skills. I guess there's trainee BST

[Shiki]

10 hours ago, Sunsurge said:

Or you know ... read a post fully or ask for clarification. 

Maybe you should take your advice for yourself and read your post carefully. There is little reason to ask for clarification considering your choice of words.
But hey, just words of a "Western" scrub who thinks that criticism called "complaining" is better than sitting on patience alone.

@topic of CYL females in general:
Every single Top 10 entry bar Loki got an Alt this year. It's not only Camilla or Eirika, Azura got her 4th, Nino received a flying version and even Micaiah has a seasonal variant to show in the same year, she was introduced. Never mind Corrin and Tharja who are in the same situation as Camilla, having received another Alt this year.

Considering that I don't think the picks for CYL3 won't change that much unless they decide to release results midway again which might introduce a huge influx of votes like in case of Tharja. With the introduction of Beast units even remaining favorites like Selkie are bound to happen next year, regardless of their position.
... the question is if there are other female contenders, popular enough to be memed into the game. Honestly we're running out of relevant women. Can we just expand the male list by 10 spots instead?

Meanwhile Alm sits in his dark corner, alone. Waiting to get his chance for a Brave version. Beware of Dreadfighter Alm, destroyer of the meta 2019!

Edited December 17, 2018 by The Priest

[Ice Dragon]

9 hours ago, silveraura25 said:

Compared to last year's banner this one is rather tame. Did armors hit their peak with fighter skills? As in, progress stops at fighter skills. I guess there's trainee BST

Based on current trends, it looks like they're done directly buffing armors and have been working on infantry instead, which makes sense considering infantry are currently the weakest movement type. As such, it's no surprise that this banner doesn't bring all that much new to the table specific to armors compared to last year.

[DefyingFates]

21 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

And probably sabotaged her chances of winning the most

I'm still furious about this. You understand we have to vote for her this year to right this wrong, right? And yeah, I feel awful about her getting this alt too, but I still want her to win. Hmm...

17 hours ago, Lord-Zero said:

Characters like Micaiah and Nino could end up getting a boost.

This would be the next best outcome. Thank you so much for remembering Nino!

15 hours ago, Icelerate said:

But Camilla has one more alt so why do you think it won't reduce Camilla's chances while substantially reducing Eirika's? 

Camilla's from the 3DS and...appeals to a larger demographic (plus I've seen more people wanting a CYL win for her here and on Reddit even after Adrift). But Eclipse is right, we probably shouldn't dwell on this particular individual for too long.

8 hours ago, The Priest said:

Considering that I don't think the picks for CYL3 won't change that much

As long as Eirika edges ahead of Camilla (and Loki, I think?) to take the crown, I wouldn't mind everything else about CYL 3 staying the same :P

8 hours ago, The Priest said:

unless they decide to release results midway again which might introduce a huge influx of votes like in case of Tharja.

Unless you-know-who's the one who memes her way to victory, I sure hope not! (And wasn't it Veronica who got the boost? I was surprised to see Tharja come in so low last year considering her place in CYL 1.)

Edited December 17, 2018 by DefyingFates

[Mercakete]

Well, if I get Christmas Ephraim and Legendary Ephraim, I could build an Ephraim Emblem. Cool, though I wish there could be color balance with a red Ephraim. Ephraim, Erika, and Fae have good designs. Funniest thing: I gave my vanilla Ephraim the Tannenboom a while ago, so I "already had" a Christmas Ephraim. XD (He's also wearing the bunny hood.)

[DehNutCase]

14 hours ago, silveraura25 said:

Compared to last year's banner this one is rather tame. Did armors hit their peak with fighter skills? As in, progress stops at fighter skills. I guess there's trainee BST

4 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Based on current trends, it looks like they're done directly buffing armors and have been working on infantry instead, which makes sense considering infantry are currently the weakest movement type. As such, it's no surprise that this banner doesn't bring all that much new to the table specific to armors compared to last year.

Eirika's skills are actually great for armors---the biggest problem with armors is that basically all buffs are positioning dependent, which meant they never actually had the stat advantage they were supposed to have. (More mobile teams just stack more buffs than you and split you up---a lot of people don't do this, but I'm noticing that even the top 10k Aether Raids players are kind of... terrible... so yeah.) This means they have problems handling maps where objectives are in multiple locations---like, say, Aether Raids maps where they split the pots/units.

 

Eirika + Eir both have positioning independent buffs, though, which pushes armor into being hilariously strong, since Atk/Def/Res all get better the more of it you already have. If I liked armors I'd like this change, but personally I would've preferred armors to be 2nd tier forever, but that's a personal preference. If they were just trying to milk money from whales it's better to rotate which unit type is 'overpowered,' so *shrug.*

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

Eirika's skills are actually great for armors

Eirika's skills are great for one armor on your team unless you can manipulate your entire team to have the same Atk stat, and it will always be the same unit every turn and every map. It's hilariously inflexible, letting you have a single juggernaut while being of no help to the rest of the team (including the fact that the weapon can't even debuff the opponent with its attack).

Because stat comparisons are performed after your previous turn's buffs expire and before new buffs are applied, literally the only way to influence which unit on your team gets the buff is to purposefully get your highest-Atk unit hit with a debuff to Atk from the opponent.

It's pretty much only good for the march-Surtr-in-and-laugh meta.

[DehNutCase]

50 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Because stat comparisons are performed after your previous turn's buffs expire and before new buffs are applied, literally the only way to influence which unit on your team gets the buff is to purposefully get your highest-Atk unit hit with a debuff to Atk from the opponent.

Don't buffs & debuffs stat checks happen at the same time? (Or do debuffs check for stats first.)

51 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Eirika's skills are great for one armor on your team unless you can manipulate your entire team to have the same Atk stat, and it will always be the same unit every turn and every map. It's hilariously inflexible, letting you have a single juggernaut while being of no help to the rest of the team (including the fact that the weapon can't even debuff the opponent with its attack).

We do have a fair bit of leeway in manipulating the Atk stat with refines, merge levels, and 'field stat' skills vs. 'combat stat' skills (L&D vs. Brazen, etc.) . Although refines are only an option if generics are comparable with Prfs, which isn't the trend---and Merge levels is kind of 'I hope you enjoy running this team forever, because it's stuck in stone'. 

 

Mind, I do agree it's restrictive, but I find team comp restrictions a bit easier to deal with, for armors, than positioning restrictions. (Personally I wish they tried out positioning independent buffs sooner, so armors never fell behind to the point where they kind of needed skills on the level of Bold Fighter to compete. If Eirika's skills as is was too restrictive they could've lowered the restrictions without increasing the stats, which is safer from a game balance perspective.)

[Ice Dragon]

42 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Don't buffs & debuffs stat checks happen at the same time? (Or do debuffs check for stats first.)

Debuffs that you apply on your opponent are calculated at the same time. The debuffs that your opponent landed on you are already there and don't need a stat check at the time you are applying your own buffs.

 

42 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

We do have a fair bit of leeway in manipulating the Atk stat with refines, merge levels, and 'field stat' skills vs. 'combat stat' skills (L&D vs. Brazen, etc.) .

All of those can only be applied outside of the map. Once you're in a map, there's no way to manipulate the Atk stat used for stat comparisons except to be purposefully hit by an opponent's Atk debuff skill.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Baldrick]

14 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

All of those can only be applied outside of the map. Once you're in a map, there's no way to manipulate the Atk stat used for stat comparisons except to be purposefully hit by an opponent's Atk debuff skill.

There's no need to manipulate attack values in-map if you can make them all the same outside of the map..

Opening buffs are only good for a small number of team compositions, but it's the best buff skills bar none for those team compositions.

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, Baldrick said:

There's no need to manipulate attack values in-map if you can make them all the same outside of the map..

Opening buffs are only good for a small number of team compositions, but it's the best buff skills bar none for those team compositions.

That requires you to make them all the same outside of the map, which is most certainly not always possible.

DehNutCase asserted that Eirika's skills are "great for armors", which is not the same as "great for team compositions where every unit has the exact same Atk stat".

[DehNutCase]

21 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Debuffs that you apply on your opponent are calculated at the same time. The debuffs that your opponent landed on you are already there and don't need a stat check at the time you are applying your own buffs.

Derp.

21 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

All of those can only be applied outside of the map. Once you're in a map, there's no way to manipulate the Atk stat used for stat comparisons except to be purposefully hit by an opponent's Atk debuff skill.

I mean, presumably the team is built so that you're at the optimal state of 3 units buffed (for a 4 unit team) to begin with, so you'd be actively trying not to get debuffed (or get everyone debuffed, if your buffs are stronger than the debuffs) rather than trying to get some specific member(s) debuffed. It's not as flexible as horses with Hone etc. when you don't want to get buffed (vs. Laegjarn, Cleaner, and Panic etc.), but 'Always Buffed' isn't that much worse than 'Only Buffed on Demand.'

It's definitely a downside, just not a big one.

6 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

DehNutCase asserted that Eirika's skills are "great for armors", which is not the same as "great for team compositions where every unit has the exact same Atk stat".

If it's combined arms Tactics should still be better. If it's anything but armors you should either have Type Buffs or you're Infantry (and crying). It's better than not having the option, but I think only armors really care about this type of buff. (Infantry do like it second best, since we have enough that it's easier to make an Infantry team match Atk than any other team, and their buffs are the worst of the lot---but even Infantry has stuff like Link & Bow Lucina.)

Basically I treated the C & Staff as armor buffs because no other unit type cares too much---they already have comparable options, and they don't value the 'position independent' upside as much as armors. Kind of like how horses basically never run Hone Atk, they just don't value the 'type independent' upside, considering what they're giving up.

[Kaden]

Well, their stats were found.

Spoiler

They're all pretty much min-maxed.

Winter Eirika's 42 HP, 36 Atk, 23 Spd, 30 Def, and 34 Res gives her 165 BST. Eirika has no superboons and one superbane in defense.

Winter Cecilia's 41 HP, 35 Atk, 23 Spd, 30 Def, and 36 Res gives her 165 BST. Cecilia is a colorless, +Spd, -Atk Land's Bounty Kagero.

Winter Fae's 45 HP, 35 Atk, 26 Spd, 33 Def, and 41 Res gives her 180 BST. Jeebus that base neutral resistance winter Fae has. Compared to her regular self, -1 HP, +2 Atk, -2 Spd, +8 Def, and +11 Res. Fae has no superboons and two superbanes in speed and resistance.

Winter Ephraim's 45 HP, 41 Atk, 23 Spd, 36 Def, and 29 Res gives him 174 BST. Dude's basically Effie with -5 HP for +Atk, +1 Spd, +3 Def, and +6 Res. Compared to his Brave self, -1 HP, +3 Atk, -4 Spd, -1 Def, and +3 Res. Ephraim has a superboon in attack and a superbane in resistance.

Edit: In spoilers.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Kaden

[Ice Dragon]

22 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I mean, presumably the team is built so that you're at the optimal state of 3 units buffed (for a 4 unit team) to begin with, so you'd be actively trying not to get debuffed (or get everyone debuffed, if your buffs are stronger than the debuffs) rather than trying to get some specific member(s) debuffed.

Your typical min-maxed armors don't ever tie for Atk unless they are all the same color (green). It's actually kind of silly, really.

 

EDIT: Stats:

I wish they weren't all so goddamn slow. Especially Eirika. They missed their opportunity to have another legitimately fast armor, which disappoints me.

And all of them have crap for HP, at least as far as armors are concerned.

Not going to stop me from pulling, though.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Kaden]

Winter Cecilia's weapon has the best name ever. Also, boots to the head. :p

[Sunwoo]

Whuh ... Eirika is slow. Actually, they're all slow, lol. Did not expect Eirika to be slow but super powerful, honestly. They all have high mixed defenses though.

[DehNutCase]

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

Your typical min-maxed armors don't ever tie for Atk unless they are all the same color (green). It's actually kind of silly, really.

Typical min-maxing don't deliberately try to Atk tie, though. If we know going in that we might want our team's units to hit a certain Atk we'd pay more a bit more attention to natures affecting Atk. I have +Def & +Atk Surtr, for example, and if I'm deliberately trying to Atk tie I'd pick the the one that's closer to my team's, and that's on top of possibly swapping out of Surtr's Prf for a weapon with a Refine option.

 

Coincidentally, my +Def Surtr and my Myrrh have the same Atk at the moment---he's running Hack-o'-Lantern since I'm expecting him to tank multiple rounds vs. the same people, and also S-Seal Fortress Res at the moment, costing him 5 Atk, whereas Myrrh is running +Res Lightning Breath, costing her 4. Myrrh and Surtr were weirdos within 1 Atk of each other, though.

That said, as long as 180 BST, Low Spd, high everything else is a standard for armors to shoot for we'll probably have really similar Atk stats on upcoming trainee armors.

[Kaden]

14 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

And all of them have crap for HP, at least as far as armors are concerned.

I had to check and winter Chrom was the last armor to have had more than 50 HP at... 51 HP. The last one with more than that was Arden with 60 HP which is still the highest in the game. I wonder how well an armor with decently high HP would be able to use a version of Aversa's Night. A version of Book of Dreams/Shadows would probably be more practical, though.

13 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I wish they weren't all so goddamn slow. Especially Eirika. They missed their opportunity to have another legitimately fast armor, which disappoints me.

Wait until we get armored Setsuna who's only an armor because she's perpetually stuck in some kind of mud trap. Still has around 37 speed, though.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Kaden

[Lord-Zero]

So...

Spoiler

180 BST green dragon loli is here to nearly complete the set. 

Cecilia’s weapon looks interesting. I’ll just get her to lv 40 and turn both copies into combat manuals and wait for a worthy future  dagger unit to have the weapon.

...my orbs are safe. 

[Alexmender]

Spoiler

Dang! Eirika isn't as min-maxed as I'd hoped her to be. 

Her Atk is quite high, but as a healer she doesn't need it as much as other weapon types so I'm 100% certain her best  nature is +Def -Spd. Give her CC/Absorb+/Miracle/Special Fighter/Atk Smoke and you get an unkillable unit. 

CC/Witchy Wand+/Martyr+/Miracle/Wary Fighter/Atk Smoke works just as well. 

I can also think of some funky PP builds with Pain+ and Armored boots. 

Regardless, I'm certainly going to have tons of fun with C!Eirika if I get her.

 

[Vaximillian]

We have six Ephraims now. Two of them are wearing a wig, but that’s okay. I won’t shame the Restoration Drag Lord for his kinks.

[Ice Dragon]

18 minutes ago, Kaden said:

I had to check and winter Chrom was the last armor to have had more than 50 HP at... 51 HP. The last one with more than that was Arden with 60 HP which is still the highest in the game.

Melee armors are now in a six-way tie for second-lowest HP at 45 HP with only Lissa having lower at 43 HP. In other words, a quarter of all of the melee armors (6 out of 26) have the exact same second-lowest HP stat.

 

And this batch of armors really nails home my biggest (and only real) peeve against armors, which is that there is no fucking diversity. Every godforsaken armor has the same godforsaken stats with a different personal weapon being the only thing setting them apart from the rest.

All but 4 melee armors have an HP stat between 45 and 50 (and all but 3 have an HP stat between 45 and 51). 12 (almost half) of the melee armors have an Atk stat 38 or higher. All but 3 melee armors have a Def stat 35 or higher (and all but 1 have a Def stat 33 or higher). Conversely, only 1 melee armor has 35 or higher Spd (Tiki at 35) and only one melee armor has 35 or higher Res (Fae at 41, though Lissa is close at 34).

 

But I will still love them all the same.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Sentinel07]

I think I'll take a run at getting Fae and/or Ephraim. Eirika looks cool but I just don't feel the need to go after staff units.

[eclipse]

I'd like Fae because it's Himukai, Ephraim because his weapon looks funny, and Eir because staffbot.  But Fae's at the top of my list.  Thank goodness Cecilia's free, because I'd go broke trying to get her!

[Mackc2]

Cecilia is beautiful, I'll probably sack off a bit of fodder I have lying around and give her the standard armour kit