Today we got a brand new bunch of dancin’ fools in Fire Emblem Heroes on top of the ramifications of the latest version update that came yesterday.
That’s a lot of ground to cover, so I’m not going to waste your time with a flashy intro.
Let’s just see who’s new and what they can do!
Xander — Dancing Knight
Skill Set:
- Dusk Uchiwa (Might = 12 / Range = 2)
- Effective against cavalry foes. Disables unit’s and foe’s skills that change attack priority. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Defense and Resistance -7 on target and foes within two spaces of target through their next actions.
- Dance (Range = 1)
- Grants another action to target ally (cannot target an ally with Sing or Dance).
- Close Counter (A Skill)
- Unit can counterattack regardless of foe’s range.
- Quick Riposte (B Skill)
- If unit’s Health ≥ 70 percent and foe initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack.
- Odd Defense Wave (C Skill)
- At start of odd-numbered turns, grants Defense +6 to unit and adjacent allies for one turn (bonus granted to unit even if no allies are adjacent).
Analysis:
If I’m just being honest, the most important thing about this Performing Arts Xander is his dance.
Like. I don’t know how Intelligent Systems did it. But they created literal perfection.
Outside of that dance animation, however, he still seems to be one of the most worthwhile heroes on this banner to summon. Like every hero here, his weapon disables priority-changing skills on top of being effective against a specific kind of unit.
Plus he comes with three passive skills, again like every unit here. I don’t know why IS decided to make these dancers so stacked, but I’m not complaining.
Xander is obviously built to be an interesting defensive dancing dagger user. His close combat lets him hit from one space away, where his Wave and Quick Riposte can help him survive an attack and hit back twice.
If his stat line is any good, he’ll be an interesting character to throw onto a team.
Mainly because of that dance, though.
Elincia — Estival Princess
Skill Set:
- Cloud Maiougi (Might = 12 / Range = 2)
- Effective against dragon foes. Disables unit’s and foe’s skills that change attack priority. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Defense and Resistance -7 on target and foes within two spaces of target through their next actions.
- Dance (Range = 1)
- Grants another action to target ally (cannot target an ally with Sing or Dance).
- Attack/Speed Push (A Skill)
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- At start of combat, if unit’s Health = 100 percent, grants Attack and Speed +5, but if unit attacked, deals one damage to unit after combat.
- Rockslide Dance (B Skill)
- If Sing or Dance is used, grants Speed +3 and Defense +4 to target.
- Drive Resistance (C Skill)
- Grants Resistance +3 to allies within two spaces during combat.
Analysis:
Elincia holds the distinction of being the very first colored dagger unit in Fire Emblem Heroes. Hurray! Congratulations on your accomplishments girl, you’re doing the Radiant games proud.
Now I already have a pretty strong tie to Elincia as a unit in FEH because she’s such a powerful staple on my flying team. One that I happened to summon when I was in the hospital.
Unlike Xander, her skills are a little more spread around and don’t fit one play style in particular. But they leave her more readily available to fill a variety of niches.
She can be a solid blue dragon killer with that dagger of hers and the Attack/Speed Push. Probably combined with a healing skill.
Or she can be focused purely on buffing dances through that double stat improving Rockslide, improved further by her ability to grant Resistance buffs to nearby allies during combat.
There’s just a lot of potential with her, and I’d be excited to summon Elincia as well.
Ryoma — Dancing Samurai
Skill Set:
- Sky Maiougi (Might = 12 / Range = 2)
- Effective against armored foes. Disables unit’s and foe’s skills that change attack priority. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Defense and Resistance -7 on target and foes within two spaces of target through their next actions.
- Dance (Range = 1)
- Grants another action to target ally (cannot target an ally with Sing or Dance).
- Triangle Adept (A Skill)
- If unit has weapon-triangle advantage, boosts Attack by 20 percent. If unit has weapon-triangle disadvantage, reduces Attack by 20 percent.
- Chill Defense (B Skill)
- At start of turn, inflicts Defense -7 on foe on the enemy team with the highest Defense through its next action.
- Spur Speed/Resistance (C Skill)
- Grants Speed and Resistance +3 to adjacent allies during combat.
Analysis:
Ohh, so sorry Ryoma. If only you were one reveal ahead, you could have been our first colored dagger unit.
Luckily we have a consolation prize in the form of a very special niche for you to fill as a red armor killer.
Yeah, oddly enough this unarmored lobster seems built to kill powerful red armor units like the Black Knight or Zelgius. He has color priority on a ranged weapon that’s boosted by Triangle Adept and effective against armor units specifically. Plus, he inflicts a hell of a defense debuff at the beginning of each turn.
Now I can’t promise Ryoma will be defensive enough himself to tank a counterattack should his effort to kill fail, but still. Thanks to canceling out abilities like Vantage he may actually have a chance to be a super solid tech choice on teams that are weak to red armored boys.
Micaiah — Summer’s Dawn
Skill Set:
- Dawn Suzu (Might = 14 / Range = 2)
- Effective against armored and cavalry foes. Disables unit’s and foe’s skills that change attack priority.
- Dance (Range = 1)
- Grants another action to target ally (cannot target an ally with Sing or Dance).
- Attack/Resistance Bond (A Skill)
- If unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Attack and Resistance +5 during combat.
- Fireflood Dance (B Skill)
- If Sing or Dance is used, grants Attack +3 and Resistance +4 to target.
- Resistance Ploy (C Skill)
- At start of turn, inflicts Resistance -5 on foes in cardinal directions with Resistance > unit’s Resistance through their next actions.
Analysis:
Color me impressed, every single unit on this banner is actually friggen useful. Micaiah here because she carries a legendary weapon with double ranged type effectiveness that cancels out abilities like Vantage while also lowering an opponent’s resistance and boosting her own Attack and Resistance during battle.
Yeah that’s front loaded I know, but it’s really solid on paper.
Of course the Fireflood Dance is a bit more situational as it seems better fitting for a purely supportive dancer, but hey. Maybe she’ll be a great offensive and defensive dancer.
Seriously I don’t have too much to say here because she’s just a good unit. I do wish she had a red dagger just to round out a banner full of each other colored dagger… But beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.
I don’t think I can state enough how great every unit on this banner is. Seriously, if you didn’t waste too many orbs on the last Summer/Awakening/Legendary banners like I didn’t, you can have a good time stacking your roster with dancers that can fit on a variety of teams.
Personally I think Elincia and Ryoma are my favorites just based on skills alone. But I’d frankly be happy to get any of them.
In fact, for that reason I’m spending a whole bunch of my ~170 orbs on this sucker. Though probably not enough to go below 100 orbs considering all of the summoning banners coming up soon…
But with my recent lucky streaks, I should have a good time here, right?
Actually, interestingly enough I have been rather lucky. Just… Not in the way that I’d like to be.
I’m admittedly not entirely sure where these three came from. Micaiah was sort of funny just from the novelty of her alternate skin being in this new banner, but the other two were just. Eh.
I didn’t have a five-star Shigure before, so he’s got some catalog novelty, but Sonya is unfortunately just merging fodder.
So yeah, three five-stars in about 70 orbs. Can’t necessarily complain since my friend Jonathan didn’t get anything tonight… But boy do I want to complain about only getting duplicates.
At least there’s a whole month to score some silly dancers! Plus, the story mode we got to accompany this Paralogue is as interesting in lore as it is useful for orbs.
Unlike most Paralogues in Fire Emblem Heroes, I would argue the ‘Festival in Hoshido’ Paralogue is much cooler for the story it presents than the pretty art style.
Though that, of course, is just as pretty as ever.
We start off, as you can see, with some exposition by the great Lobster himself regarding the history of the Hoshidan festival. He’s introducing the festivities to Princess Elincia, who has been invited to partake alongside Micaiah. Also Xander. But he’s just right across the gorge so it’s a little bit less of an interesting invitation.
The stakes are raised very quickly when Loki shows up to remind the two that they’ve been put into a contract by Veronica. As they distract the Order of Heroes, who have come to protect the festivities:
Loki goes off to investigate whatever it is she has come to Hoshido seeking. Something that I’ll get into in a minute.
Already this plot is more engaging than the fifth session of Anna tries to sneak peeks at naked Heroes to raise money.
Even if Sharena doesn’t seem to be taking it too seriously.
As the Order makes their way around, they then come across Xander giving some similar exposition to Micaiah.
While Loki arriving to put a wrench in the festivities was already an interesting point of contention, Xander adds more depth into this particular event by explaining how he’s there in more of a peaceful mission following the conclusion of Fates.
That’s actually some pretty cool world-building. Especially in a world where heroes from other realms can show up to experience the same activities.
It kind of makes up for the fact that I was upset seeing another Fates-based alternate art banner. Even with the Radiant representation, we just have way too many Awakening/Fates characters getting special treatment at this point.
Anyway, once the Order arrives at the final stage, Loki adds even more intrigue to her arrival at the festival.
Yeah, that’s right. Loki is after Anakos. ANAKOS of all things.
Apparently a fire dragon god isn’t good enough for the Múspell army. Now to be completely honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of this ultimate dragonic antagonist in Fates. Especially following Grima in Awakening, he was just sort of forgettable and weird.
But if they incorporate him into the plot of the mobile gotcha game somehow, I’m all in IS. You’ll have us good.
I agree completely.
But am also very invested in exactly where this sideplot is headed.
Normally I would just conclude my pieces here with a quick question about who you’re most interested in summoning off the banner and what you think about the suddenly interesting developments in the Paralogue story.
But this time I have a little more to jump on.
Version 2.8.0 dropped yesterday, and while it may not have added enough to warrant a full post yesterday I still wanted to dedicate some time to it. Because you know. I like cataloging this stuff.
A lot of what was implemented here are minor adjustments to pre-existing modes. Adjustments that don’t really do a lot for me specifically.
First and foremost is a new tier being added to the Arena. Once players hit tier 20, now they can go further and become a Great Summoner. Anyone who does gets an aesthetic crown mark on top of Feh’s head on the home screen.
I’ve never made it to tier 20. So… Yeah. Doesn’t mean too much for me.
Intelligent Systems also added in the ability to have multiple skill sets for each unit. That way you could have a build if your Reinhardt is on a cavalry only team versus if your Reinhardt is on his own. For example.
There’s also some more options in the allies menu to sort different combinations of favorite characters together. But that’s another functionality I never used in the first place so… Yeah. Again.
Probably the only thing that was added which I could actually see myself using is the Order of Heroes weapon refines.
Perhaps these three could actually be useful now! Which would be very beneficial to new players especially.
With those changes out-of-the-way, everything else is summed up as minor additions. Very cleanly summed up by this succinct list:
Gaining extra rewards during Grand Conquests is probably the best thing just in this section alone, though I am very interested to see what it will be like to play tap battles at triple speed.
Also I would be interested in having my orbs hit quadruple digits. But that’s a different story.
That’s about all I have to say for Fire Emblem Heroes for the day.
Since I was already on track for this earlier, let me know what you think about those questions I asked in the comments! Based on the events calendar, it’ll be a couple of weeks before one of these shows up again. Considering I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who enjoys them, hopefully you all enjoy the hiatus.
Work in Progress 
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