The recent Awakening children banner drained a whole bunch of orbs, so I was hoping this summer banner would be low-key. Something I wouldn’t feel pressured to invest a lot into.
Gunnthrá and Helbindi aren’t my favorite original characters from Book II. Plus her ability to disarm Aether Raids traps and his ability to excel in the Arena don’t inspire me to open my wallet.
Laegjarn does stand out thanks to Swift Sparrow 3.
Yet… Despite the Internet fawning over her, I can’t get over how fucked up her idle pose looks. It’s like she has no armpit, and that leaves her with one monstrous arm.
I can’t unsee it.
Thus Laevatein is really the only character I’d say I’m very interested in summoning. She’s my favorite Book II character, has cute artwork and packs a great 1-2 punch against other mages with Mirror Impact.
Seriously Intelligent Systems? +6 Attack, +10 Resistance and no counterattacks?
You can’t just make these characters that broken.
I used the Paralogue orbs to get a few extra shots at her, but I haven’t pulled anything special and I’m not going to rush it.
The banner will be here for 50 days.
Which I’m assuming means we won’t get a second set of summer units this year. Something that’s totally fine by me considering last year’s was disappointingly non-Sacred Stones and I’ll need the orbs later.
Speaking of that Paralogue… Let’s talk about it.
Paralogue 35 — Summer Returns
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Once again we cut away from dramatic story progression to bring you the latest in Anna’s attempts to make money off of some softcore pornography.
Or… Do we?
Anna is feeling self-reflective this year and promises not to do anything that can give her a bad reputation at risk of being fired by the royal family.
Which means the entire Paralogue is going to be focused on trying to avoid money-making schemes, isn’t it?
Yep.
Well to be fair the first two battles completely disregard this plot point and focus on the reunion of the Múspell sisters.
Then the reunion of Ylgr (future Tempest Trials reward) and Helbindi.
They’re both cute interactions. But that doesn’t stop them from being pure filler in an admittedly great dusk luau-themed environment.
Don’t worry, though. We return to the exploits of Anna soon after.
By which I mean Anna buckles under the pressure of trying to repress her desire for cash and falls ill. She passes out on the beach, leading to the Order of Heroes realizing just how integral money is to her character.
To a ridiculous degree.
So that’s Fire Emblem Heroes’ 2019 summer banner. Probably the only one we’re getting this year.
I’m a little lukewarm because of my orb stinginess, but I will absolutely try to building my Laevatein squad.
Let me know what you think of the banner down in the comments! How does it compare to previous summer banners? Do you agree that Laegjarn’s arm looks fucked up?
Seriously, do you? I need to know that I’m not alone here.
Oh boy, it’s a brand new year! Everything feels fresh and crisp, absolutely rife with possibilities. I can’t imagine what kind of great blog posts are going to come out of 2019!
…
What’s that? Fire Emblem Heroes updated?
Welp. If that’s not the most Jason’s Blog way of starting off the new year, I don’t know what is.
Grants Speed +3. At the start of the turn, inflicts Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance -4 on the nearest foe within four spaces through their next actions.
Glimmer (Cooldown = 2)
Boosts damage dealt by 50 percent.
Swift Sparrow (A Skill)
If unit initiates combat, grants Attack and Speed +4 during combat.
Desperation (B Skill)
If unit’s Health ≤ 75 percent and unit initiates combat, unit can make a follow-up attack before foe can counterattack.
Joint Hone Speed (C Skill)
At the start of the turn, if unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Speed +5 to unit and adjacent allies for one turn.
Effective against flying foes. At the start of the turn, inflicts Speed -7 on foe on the enemy team with the highest Speed through its next action.
Reposition (Range = 1)
Target ally moves to opposite side of unit.
Attack/Speed Bond (A Skill)
If unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Attack and Speed +5 during combat.
Attack/Speed Link (B Skill)
If a Movement Assist skill is used by unit or targets unit, grants Attack and Speed +6 to both units for one turn.
Even Resistance Wave (C Skill)
At the start of even-numbered turns, grants Resistance +6 to unit and adjacent allies for one turn (bonus granted to unit even if no allies are adjacent).
At the start of the turn, inflicts Attack and Speed -5 on foe on the enemy team with the highest Defense through its next action.
Rehabilitate (Range = 1)
Restores Health = 50 percent of Attack -10 (Minimum of 7). If target’s Health is ≤ 50 percent, the lower the target’s Health, the more Health is restored.
Earthfire Balm (Cooldown = 1)
When healing an ally with a staff, grants Attack and Defense +6 to all allies for one turn.
Wrathful Staff (B Skill)
Calculates damage from staff like other weapons.
Even Defense Wave (C Skill)
At the start of even-numbered turns, grants Defense +6 to unit and adjacent allies for one turn (bonus granted to unit even if no allies are adjacent).
With Legendary Azura having literally just happened and the Christmas units still in rotation, I was a little burnt out coming into this New Year’s banner.
Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see that the Múspell and Nifl units getting more love. Even if they still had to be in Hoshido to make this another pseudo-Fates banner.
But I paid little-to-no attention to what they were actually offering. I wasn’t strongly anticipating any of the units besides Laevatein, as she’s my favorite.
It seemed Intelligent Systems knew that, as they offered me a little New Year’s gift:
Yee.
Having paid their skills more mind now, I can easily say Laevatein is the weakest of the bunch… But character preference is half the battle.
We’re getting free summon tickets for this banner, so I’ll keep throwing some orbs at it to get some of the Nifl units. Any of them look great honestly.
Luckily, even if I’m ambiguous on the units, there’s plenty happening at the start of 2019 to keep me invested. Not only are there January quests, we also have New Year’s celebration orbs, Aether Raids quests AND a new run of the Tempest Trials.
Plus, of course, there’s the Paralogue.
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The interesting thing about Paralogue 29 is that there really isn’t too much of a story to discuss. Rather, it serves as an outrealm circumstance of sorts.
It stipulates how great things could have been if the Nifl and Múspell siblings teamed up to defeat Surtr instead of slaughtering one another. Because they get along quite well.
Laegjarn and Fjorm have a moment together:
As do Gunnthrá and Laevatein:
And everything ends with the very sweet sentiment of Laegjarn’s wish:
It’s a feel-good moment meant to wrap up the Book II character arcs.
Unfortunately, it would ring out much more sweetly if we didn’t have the knowledge that in our universe they do, in fact, all slaughter one another and end their stories in a more somber note.
Alright I know, it’s silly for me to start the year off with one of these. But what can I say? It’s an easier banner this time around, and that gives me the chance to spend the first day of 2019 relaxing.
… If that weren’t obvious by the fact that I seem to have completely abandoned my desire to put these out early in the morning. *Glances anxiously at the clock*
I’m sure you all don’t mind, though.
Still convinced I’m the only one who enjoys these posts.
But that said I dostill enjoy them, even in our new year of 2019! There are still interesting little tidbits that entice me. Like the fact that Laegjarn is more prominent in the Paralogue than Hríd in spite of being a Tempest Trials reward.
So let me know what you think about this first banner of 2019, and what you might be looking forward to seeing later into the year! Lord knows I’ll still be blathering on about this game.
With the addition of our newest Legendary Hero Hríd, the sole Prince of Nifl, we finally have every Book II character released as a playable unit in Fire Emblem Heroes.
Just in time for Book III to start in December. It’s almost like Intelligent Systems planned this stuff out!
Grants Attack +3. If a penalty inflicted by a skill like Panic or Threaten, and/or a negative status effect (preventing counterattacks or restricting movement) is active on foe, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack and foe cannot.
Moonbow (Cooldown = 2)
Treats foe’s Defense or Resistance as if reduced by 30 percent during combat.
Distant Counter (A Skill)
Unit can counterattack regardless of foe’s range.
Freezing Seal (B Skill)
At the start of a turn, if unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent, inflicts Attack/Speed -6 on foe with the lowest Resistance through its next action.
Attack Smoke (C Skill)
Inflicts Attack -7 on foes within two spaces of target through their next actions after combat.
From a purely conceptual standpoint, I actually really like the idea behind Hríd’s base skill kit. His B skill weakens the strongest enemy on the opposing team so that he can race in on his horse and slay them with the guaranteed follow-up of his sword.
On top of that he has defensive capabilities thanks to Distant Counter, which balances things out.
Overall it’s a really solid set of capabilities, and if nothing else it’s great to have a new unit with Distant Counter given how rare the ability is.
To be completely honest my only real problem with Hríd is the fact that… Well…
Come on Intelligent Systems, at least separate out the weapon/move type combinations a little better. Maybe make Hríd a sword armor unit or something, that way we can have a power crept Black Knight as a Legendary Hero.
I don’t know , the quick repetition bugs me. But even so I don’t mind the character himself.
On top of that, his entourage in the special Legendary Hero banner isn’t so bad:
Red and green hold the most interest for me this time around. Hríd, Legendary Ryoma, Summer Innes and Kana are all not in my current arsenal, and thus all worth summoning.
In the other two colors the only character I’m missing is Brave Hector.
I do want Brave Hector, but I’m not sure he’s worth potentially getting another Legendary Lucina or Summer Cordelia.
Also can we hold an intervention for Intelligent Systems to not include female Grima in any more of these banners? I’m pretty sure she’s been in every single one.
There better be some cool story thing that comes out of that eventually.
While I started with about 200 orbs once again, it took me 50 or so to get something of particular interest to me:
All the animosity I stored toward the Legendary Lobster since his first appearance when he took all my orbs and never showed up has finally been relieved.
I don’t know that I’ll ever be the same still… But he’s +Attack, -Resistance. Which I think is his best build.
So hey I guess I can’t really complain.
I’ve also gotten a second Laevatein at this point, but she’s not very good compared to the one I had already.
I don’t know whether I’ll spend a lot more orbs on this banner unless I get a bunch in the near future. At this point there aren’t enough units left to justify it.
But at least there are Legendary Battle Maps to score some extra orbs, right?
Nailed the transition.
While most of the Legendary Battle Maps have been cool examples of a stage from the character’s original game, I particularly appreciate what they did for Hríd.
His map appears to be the Rite of Frost chamber from Heroes’ main story, seen back when Kinshi Hinoka first came out, but frozen over more than ever. It’s a nice touch for people who have been sticking with this game for a long time.
As far as the difficulty goes? I mean it’s the same old reinforcement map bs as always. Not very fun in my opinion.
What is more fun to discuss is the Forging Bonds that coincides with Hríd’s addition featuring the four Nifl siblings:
I haven’t gotten very far into any of the support conversation threads, but what I have seen has been so different than usual that it’s pretty engaging.
The overall theme of the event is a prequel of sorts. The story starts off prior to Surtr’s invasion right around the time when Gunnthrá apparently has a premonition that he will be coming soon.
Group sections seem to focus on the siblings preparing together (a somber twist considering how the story goes) while the individual conversations each have the siblings meeting you in their dreams.
Again I don’t know where they wind up going just yet, but I’m very excited to see!
I’m going to level with you guys, I thought I was going to end this off early tonight and go to bed.
Then I got distracted with some videos online and somehow it turned into 2:00 a.m.
So I’m not going to put a lot of fanfare into this conclusion. Just let me know what you think of Hríd, what you want to see in the future, all that fun stuff.
That said, I’ll see you in the next FEH post where I’ll hopefully be more awake.
After the last Heroes summoning banner left me feeling so burned, I’m glad we finally have a new one that’s pretty cool to make me throw my orbs against the wall again.
…
Get it? Burned? Cool?
Because it’s the Fire and Ice banner?
Here let me explain the joke, then it’ll definitely be funnier that way.
Grants Speed +3. At start of combat, if unit’s Speed > foe’s Speed, grants Attack and Speed +4 during combat. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Defense and Resistance -7 on target and foes within two spaces of target through their next actions.
Glimmer (Cooldown = 2)
Boosts damage dealt by 50 percent.
Sorcery Blade (A Skill)
At start of combat, if unit is adjacent to a magic ally, calculates damage using the lower of foe’s Defense or Resistance.
Chill Speed (B Skill)
At start of turn, inflicts Speed -7 on foe on the enemy team with the highest Speed through its next action.
Speed Tactic (C Skill)
At start of turn, grants Speed +6 to allies within two spaces for one turn. Granted only if number of ally’s movement type on current team ≤ 2.
Grants Defense +3. At start of turn, deals 20 damage to foes within two spaces.
Bonfire (Cooldown = 3)
Boosts damage by 50 percent of unit’s Defense.
Steady Stance (A Skill)
If foe initiates combat, grants Defense +8 during combat and inflicts Special Attack cooldown charge -1 on foe per attack (only highest value applied, does not stack).
Wary Fighter (B Skill)
If unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent, unit and foe cannot make a follow-up attack.
Surtr’s Menace (C Skill)
At start of turn, if unit is within two spaces of a foe, grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +4 for one turn and inflicts Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance -4 on foes within two spaces through their next actions.
I think this is the first time in the history of Fire Emblem Heroes that we’ve had only two new characters on a banner. The acuteness is intriguing from a historic perspective, but also because it’s that much easier for me to talk about them both together!
First we have Nilf’s youngest royal sibling, Ylgr. Her natural skill set seems to fit well with her character.
Given the girl’s small stature, this makes sense that she’s focused primarily on speed.
Her unique colored dagger, Chill Speed and Speed Tactic all focus on debuffing an opponent’s speed and incurring buffs when she’s faster. She’ll be a perfect candidate for the Flashing Blade Sacred Seal, that way she’ll gain stat buffs and a Special Cooldown charge.
The only strange thing about Ylgr is her unique A Skill, which lets her hit the opponent’s weaker defense stat if she’s with a mage. Seems somewhat impractical?
Perhaps they want us to run her alongside her sister Gunnthrá, who also works on lowering Speed.
King Surtr has skills equally fitting his stature in that he’s large, imposing and overwhelms his enemies. Everyone within two spaces of the guy takes 20 damage and loses 4 points in each stat EVERY turn. It’s kind of nuts, especially considering he gains +4 to each stat at the same time.
That’s like a natural +8. To Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance.
Arguably Surtr’s only problem is that he would be far better with Distant Counter so he could hit everyone within two spaces that are debuffed. Plus… There are a ton of Distant Counter green armored units that fill his niche.
However, both units are pretty cool. Worth summoning I’d say!
Though, even if I’ve accumulated a small fortune of ~240 orbs in my silent protest against the Adrift banner, I don’t want to spend them all on these two. I’ll keep everything above 200 at least, just in case something better comes around soon.
I really haven’t pulled anything of note just yet. Mainly some fodder for skills to inherit later.
Thus I keep working on orb accumulation. Luckily there’s a whole bunch of extra orbs in story and special maps this time around!
For the first time in a long time, we have a Xenologue. Essentially a continuation of the main story, but framed as a short bridge between the end of Book II and Book III.
Oh, and by short I mean just one map with a bit of dialogue.
The scene opens with Surtr waking up following his death by the hands of the Order of Heroes. He receives word from a mysterious new figure that his powers will posthumously taken on by them. Only for him to be told that they are:
Apparently, Hel assumes that one such group unworthy of a greater reward is… Well…
Yeah. Us.
Soon after the reveal of the next Book’s villain, the Order encounters Loki who talks about how she’s after Hel in some capacity. She wants the power on her side, or some such deal.
Plus she allude to Sharena being important in the next Book’s story, which is nice considering Alfonse wound up having the spotlight in Book II.
That’s essentially that, however. I consider this Xenologue a simple ‘come back in December for more’ tidbit that gave us nine extra orbs.
But wait, there’s more!
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Yes we’ve got three separate special maps based on the Book II characters. They don’t have any extra dialogue or anything, just an additional four orbs each.
If I were a suspicious man, I would think Intelligent Systems is fattening us up so we’ll be ready for some big banners coming soon.
But when have I ever ben a suspicious man? Haha.
Ha.
Anyway, that’s all we’ve got for the day! A quick two units, a quick Xenologue.
Simple and clean.
I think I’m going to take the cue and leave things with a sparse conclusion. Let me know what you think of these new units, and what you’re expecting out of the upcoming Book III!
It’s certainly going to be exciting to cover, if you ask me.
Well allow me to completely destroy all credibility in that regard by immediately jumping into another post all about Fire Emblem Heroes. Everyone’s favorite, I’m sure.
What can I say, it’s hard for me to stay away when this game updates itself and gives us some new people to play around with, especially now that I’ve personally gotten more into creating powerful units to fool around with. That or it’s just hard for me to get away from this writing crutch that I’ve rested on one too many times as an excuse to write more fun things that I’m interested in.
Either or works as an explanation honestly.
But that said, let’s quit all the meta talk and move into some Fire Emblem talk.
Mm-mmm, That’s the kind of meme quality I’m after.
Though with that said, I think the elephant in this particular room should be addressed before I get too deep into things.
No, I will not apologize for using such a perfect pun in my post title.
Don’t bother asking.
But in all seriousness, my actual gripe comes from the fact that half of this new hero summoning banner is literally a re-tread of the only heroes from this game that we actually already have from that early update.
Like what’s the deal Intelligent Systems? I know that Reinhardt is a popular meme — as I’ve so graciously pointed out before — but are there really no more than three new heroes we can include from this generally unacknowledged title before resigning ourselves to new versions of ones that are already here?
They aren’t even special holiday variants guys. Seriously guys, come on.
But I digress. Even if they are partially re-releases, these heroes must have something to offer in their own rights, right?
Where to begin with these new heroes… I don’t have that much of a connection to any of them, so I suppose I’ll have to stick with their possible competitive viability. Lief arguably has the best chance to fit in somewhere in my opinion. His weapon has a cool effect that boosts his own defense and subsequently boosts his attack based on his defense. Add that to the Spd and Def boost and he’s got a nice core if you disregard the just ‘ok’ special attack. Plus I’ve been getting more into Drive skills lately so I dig that. However… He comes with an energy drink. For some reason. If it’s a reference I don’t get it, but what I do know is that drink is literally useless outside of Chain Challenges and Tempest Trial runs. So clearly this boy isn’t meant to be used in too many other places.
Nanna is painfully forgettable. There aren’t too many cavalier healers in the game so she has a slight boost in intrigue there, but it clearly falls off a cliff from there. Her staff absorbs health, which is really only useful if you buff the staff to equal the damage of regular weapons. Restore is interesting but highly situational if the opponent doesn’t have stat negating abilities. Healing everyone with the special attack is also situational. A +2 buff to two stats isn’t anything to write home about. It’s just a mess. Granted, not pictured is a Drive Def skill, but even then it’s mostly good for passing off onto others. 0/10, would not want to summon.
Here we go, into the strange clones. It’s like when Eirika showed up in the last Sacred Stones banner as a totally new unit all over again. Except this time she isn’t even radically different since our previous Olwen was also a mage cavalier. Blue last time to be fair, but in this iteration she simply gains a slightly bugged version of the Gronnblade tome. I already have a +10 merged Gronnblade Cecilia, game. I don’t need a new one. Even if she does come with Swift Sparrow, which is a decent ability to pass along. Next…
Despite being another clone, this Reinhardt offers something interesting for himself at the very least. Rather than being a buffed up brave blue tome using cavalier, now he’s a buffed up brave sword using cavalier. Because that makes sense in the lore I suppose? I like his weapon a lot, since it’s along the lines of Elincia’s Amiti sword but works offensively and defensively. Plus adding onto that with Death Blow and Vantage is fantastic. Just switch out Pavise for something, get a new C skill other than the Spur x2 and he’d be pretty useful. It’s just a shame that weapon of his can’t be passed on… Especially because of it’s fantastic name. Meisterschwert. That’s on par with Mystletainn honestly.
Oh yeah by the way, there’s also a lance cavalier named Finn lingering around in the story mode who seems like the great knight early game protector-archetype character. But he’s a Tempest Trial reward character for the future, so we don’t need to worry about him yet.
All-and-all I’m not super excited about any of these guys. Leif and Reinhardt take two are probably the best looking units in the bunch, but I won’t be clawing at the seams trying to summon them desperately with the last of my orb reserves.
I’m back up to 70 at this point following my female Grima debacle, so I’d like to keep storing up for a rainy day at this point.
It doesn’t help that Mia from the Radiant games decided to show up unannounced as a red five-star unit instead of the two aforementioned characters I wanted.
Even though there’s currently a banner running that features her as a focus unit.
But that’s a gripe for another day. Because new character update also means new story missions! So let’s jump into that.
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So one thing I have to give props to for the team that designs Fire Emblem Heroes is the map design. Even though we’ve mostly moved away from maps that reference the original titles directly (outside of Paralogues of course), Nifl is still an interesting winter wonderland to see develop over time.
Plus the transition into the last map where most of the snow is melted away thanks to the flames of the enemy is particularly beautiful.
Unfortunately, losing out on referential maps also coincides with losing out on a lot of the referential character-driven dialogue. As much as I enjoy the overall story arc being woven, it would be nice to see the characters being added into the fray getting a little more time to shine.
But hey I haven’t even gotten into the overarching story, so why don’t we discuss that first.
Once again this chapter begins with a dream sequence.
That’s right, Gunnthrá is back again and ready to drop some exposition all up on us.
You just know that if a fairly plot important character shows up with secret knowledge about how to win a war and the intent to meet with your party soon following a multi-chapter build-up, everything is going to work out.
But hey, dream sequences are so overrated. We’ve gotta get back to where the actual real plot left off.
Feel caught up? Good, because that’s about all they give us to jump back into things. I suppose it does the job, and gives us more time to get into who these strange Thracia people are.
Except just kidding. They all get one or two lines and that’s it. Most of the missions have no plot, hurray!
Though to be fair, in this case I’m led to believe it’s 100 percent intentionally cast aside just to show how in-tuned they are with the Reinhardt memes.
Clearly magic isn’t everything.
Also for real support these Fire Emblem meme generators, they’re awesome.
But back on track, after dealing with a couple of mindless battles the Order of Heroes finally arrives at the temple they’re supposed to meet Gunnthrá in. Except- Oh no! Plot development!
Darn right it is, owl.
The story actually gets surprisingly dark and serious at this point kind of out of nowhere.
Yeah it looks like Surtr straight up set a trap by capturing Gunnthrá and tortured her (not that her in-game art changed to reflect that) trying to find out what the Order of Heroes is planning to do in order to stop him.
Except obviously nobody tells him what we’re planning, so he does the next best thing.
She’s dead, yo.
Yeah in a dark twist, someone actually dies in this mobile Fire Emblem game. A pseudo-main character no less.
I was totally caught off guard by this development honestly, how could they have done something of this caliber without totally telegraphing their plot thread ahead of-
Oh wait they totally did.
Yeah, the whole death scene as a whole was hinted at a bit too strongly for my tastes. Kind of too obvious to really be a good twist.
Though to be fair, the fact that they killed a main character is still rather impressive. Especially considering they let us summon her… Months ago. In a Legendary Hero banner. Because she’s a Legendary Hero.
Who is now suddenly dead in the canonical story without having done anything.
But we can still use her if we summoned her…
So how much bearing does the canonical story bear on the in-game mechanics then? Because I’ve always been under the impression that they’re fairly tightly linked due to the fact that heroes in Paralogue missions always mention they can join you in your main army.
Though more than just raising a strange existential in-game question, the fact that Gunnthrá was summonable months ago also brings up the question of why Fjorm needed to have a moment of emotional turmoil?
Like I get it your sister died, but did she really? I could go S-rank your relationship right now if I wanted. And if that wouldn’t be a total waste of stat buffs.
Also, evil laugh is evil. Just saying.
Except wait, plot twist take two. As suddenly as before, turns out she’s not really dead?
Darn right again, owl friend.
Except just kidding again, she totally is dead. We just needed hers back for two seconds to Deus Ex Machina a solution for killing the ultimate invincible bad guy.
Just like she also telegraphed in her dream sequence.
So you go to follow the light because the invincible evil general who planned the ultimate evil ruse in this chapter and killed a main character… Kind of just lets you escape.
All is good in the world and now your party has a new mission to complete this ancient ritual and gain the power to defeat Surtr and get revenge. Even though your mission was already about revenge because Nifl was being destroyed as is.
So same mission, different route to get there?
The end.
…
Or is it?!
Dun dun duuuuuuunnnn!
But for real, that’s about it for the plot.
I know I made fun of it a lot in this post, but let’s be honest it is a bit too obvious and contrived as a way to move the story along this time around. It’s serviceable, but just a bit disappointing for my tastes.
Also I’m expecting a revival Jesus-style in the near future. But if they keep Gunnthrá dead, I suppose I’ll be impressed by the balls it took to kill off someone integral in this kind of silly mobile game.
Despite the fact that I already ripped that decision apart for being a little nonsensical from a gameplay perspective.
Fire Emblem Heroes also had a new big update just the other day. Version 2.4.0 baby!
I feel kind of bad about skipping over it before thanks to my class/work schedule, so I wanted to just run down exactly what was added into the game in my continued effort to keep a running log of the Heroes evolution over time.
But I’m already at 2,100 words, so I’m going to summarize it all with screenshots.
Totally not because I’m just lazy.
There are a few cool things that were added into the game this time around.
More Grand Hero Battles being available on a regular basis is pretty dope, especially for someone like Berkut who sucks but I love as a character.
I don’t use any of the heroes that are getting weapon upgrades in this cycle, though I have a Roy who might get some use now that he has a better Binding Blade. Plus it’s cool that OG Ephraim and Hector can use the weapons their variants own.
I’ll probably delve more into Tempest Trial changes when the next Tempest Trial run arrives, since I haven’t done a post on the special game mode in a while.
Aesthetic changes like a scrolling banner are neat, though somewhat negligible.
SPECIAL ORB PROMO MORE LIKE SPECIAL GIVE US YOUR MONEY!
Let’s see how many times these deals force me to spend money on the game for good deals…
New game mode: Grand Conquests?
Whoa, mysterious new game mode time. I’m going to love talking about tha-
Oh. It’s just a tease at this point. So I literally don’t have a lot to say yet.
Alright, guess that will be a post for another day.
With that, we come to the end of the line once again.
Obviously there was a lot to tackle here between the new characters and the overall Version 2.4.0 update. I didn’t even get into the recent Feh Channel that I still haven’t watched… But considering what they talked about there is likely coming out with all of these updates, I’ll just let it slide.
However, speaking personally, I think there’s one major takeaway from everything that happened here today:
I’m going to abuse the hell out of this. Get ready, world.
How do you all feel about the new Thracia heroes? Or the fact that half of them are just rehashed versions of heroes we already have?
Let me know in the comments down below!
Though if you’re more interested in other Heroes topics… Well… Just wait a few days. Seems like there’s some stuff coming down the pipeline.
Never before has my disinterest in a previous summoning banner turned out to be such a prescient blessing.
Today we have been given a brand new set of focus heroes in Fire Emblem Heroes and a new chapter in Book II’s story to go along with them. However, rather than showcasing some characters from one game, we’ve gotten a very special grouping.
That’s right, this special summoning focus is based on heroes who have dark, demented forms for one reason or another. It’s a brilliant idea for a collection to put forward… Though I do sort of wish they were saved for some kind of special holiday or event in which it would make a little more sense for them to appear.
But I can’t exactly call that a serious complaint by any means. After all I really DO love who we got here.
Just to kick things off I have a question. Why didn’t they just call this character Grima? I get that he’s supposed to be a corrupted Robin basically, but it would’ve made so much more sense to just change his nametag to ‘Grima.’ But I digress, as that petty consideration shines a light nowhere near as intense as the character himself. He has interesting skills and is our first armored dragon unit — with a broken ass weapon at that. Seriously it’s mad powerful and looks insane too. On top of being a good looking unit that’ll fit on my dragon team, I just generally love the twist in Awakening. Robin here will be my main hunt as a result!
Despite a few logical flaws, Celica is a great character in Fire Emblem Echoes. She’s so great in fact that the community voted for her in its second ‘Choose Your Legends’ event. That means a third Celica will be coming in the near future, which in hind sight is not a great thing. After all, Beloved Zofia went to this version, so what is the new Celica going to use? Seraphim magic perhaps? Not completely sure. Though what I am completely sure about is that I will be going after Celica too. Not only is she great-looking skill wise, but she’s just an overall amazing character like I said. Who wouldn’t love her, even with her soul stolen so she becomes a witch?
I’ll be honest, I have the least amount of connections to Hardin given that I didn’t even know who he was before this, so if there’s anyone on this list I’m not going to try summoning… It’s him. Robin and Celica are way more important, plus I already have a powerful Effie as my blue lance armored unit. Though I will say, I like how he fits into this theme as an ally of Marth who lets absolute power corrupt absolutely once he becomes Emperor of Archanea. That’s the kind of example of character information I’m glad I learned more about so I can feel better when I do encounter the guy.
I just… I’m not sure what else I have to say on this matter.
Seriously, I love these heroes. Besides perhaps Hardin’s picks, I have a strong desire to summon all of them.
Plus, Intelligent Systems surprised me by actually reading my mind. When I first saw the trailer show up for this banner online, I was very concerned seeing that Takumi corrupted at the end of Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest version did not show up. He’s basically a meme in his own right, and I figured it was a missed opportunity.
Then I found out Takumi corrupted is specifically going to show up later in a Grand Hero Battle. Like… That’s amazing! I suppose it was just an obvious choice, but knowing my thought process was validated is an incredibly satisfying feeling.
He’s not going to show up until later though. So for now, let’s look back at the heroes we have.
I’ll level with you, audience — when I started on this banner tonight, I had a mountain of orbs. 200.
Yeah, 200. You read that right.
That’s the blessing of my general disinterest in the Valentine’s Day banner that I mentioned before. Between all of the special anniversary events and the current Tempest Trial run I’ve been able to really bolster my reserves for an event just like this where I really, REALLY want the heroes.
Luckily I didn’t have to make too huge of a dent to get there:
It’s my boi Grima, yo! So excited to see him!
He’s going to make an amazing addition to the manakete team I’ve been building up since summoning Myrhh in the latest Sacred Stones banner.
It helps that he has a deep, kinda sexy voice too. You go evil Robin.
I spent about 35 orbs to get to him, and even though I’m showing some restraint for now I’ll definitely still go after Celica soon enough.
Also, it’s worth noting that somehow I got another five-star on the way to Grima:
Yeah… Not totally sure where Lucina came from, but I suppose I can’t complain. I’ve never gotten her before, so I finally have a new cinematic summoning animation to enjoy.
Even if Masked Lucina is still the better bae. Just saying.
Now earlier I mentioned that I wished these heroes got a bit more of a situational treatment elevating them specifically. That was referring primarily to the new story missions we got alongside our three new evil children.
See, as much as I appreciate the fact that we’re moving the game’s main plot along, the fact that we’re doing so leaves the new heroes as more of a footnote.
It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, honestly.
But… I do really like the development in this chapter, so I’ll let it slide. For now.
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The new chapter picks up where the last one left off (obviously enough). The Order of Heroes have moved into Fjorm’s home nation having protected the village just outside the boundary, and now have to make their way to Gunnthrá who is hiding away.
However, their progress is quickly impeded by the arrival of Surtr’s army.
After defeating Laevatein, she retreats and the Order starts to make their way through the snow once more.
However, they’re troubled by the thought that thick tracks left in the heavy snow is going to lead the fiery army toward them wherever they go.
So Anna comes up with the brilliant idea of leaving one pathway in the snow as a diversion while masking their actual direction.
It seems to be working well enough with Laevatein… But not for our newly introduced villain: Her older sister.
I suppose this is as good a place as any to address my thoughts on Laegjarn…
I love her.
Seriously, she very quickly jumped up to being my favorite member of the opposing army. Not only is she intelligent, she’s cool and collected in a way that makes her seem like a methodical and more dastardly villain with undertones. Plus she totally sits around and gets out of jams with her little sister and it’s dope!
At one point, Fjorm even says she’s an amicable woman that’s willing to use diplomacy and build happiness among the oppressed.
My only real point of contention with her right now, as I think about it in my witching hour daze, is her overall relationship with her younger sister.
That relationship has me awfully conflicted. On the one hand, it’s freaking adorable. Laevatein clearly loves and adores her older sister, wanting to be just like her. Laegjarn appreciates the love and wants her younger sister to be happy.
It’s great because it reminds me of my relationship with my own younger sister in a way! That makes them awfully endearing characters to think that they care for each other in place of their awful father.
However… Even if I love the relationship, something about the way Laevatein has been portrayed now that her sister is around bugs me.
On the one hand it’s sweet seeing her have an endearing bond with her older sister. But on the other hand, as soon as the sister showed up Laevatein’s dialogue suddenly began to sound… Infantilized.
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I get wanting to be respectful of your older sibling, but it seems like the girl has been neutered or something, and that seems like a shame considering she was previously my favorite.
Though maybe I’m over thinking it. If anything that same concern might just be a sign of her complex double facing nature. Who knows, only time will tell.
Anyway though I got WAY off track. But to be fair, once you beat the first mission not a lot happens until you arrive at the last mission when you’re backed into a wall.
After your group beats them, Laegjarn realizes they might be outclassed in terms of skill and orders a retreat.
While the Order goes off and does… Whatever they do… The focus stays on our fiery sisters.
As Laegjarn reflects on the fact that they’ll need new strategies if they want to win, Laevatein suggests a plan that receives quite a bit of flak.
I don’t know what this special skill is, but it sounds dope and I want to see it.
Unless it kills her. In which case, don’t put it in the game Intelligent Systems. I’d rather not have to deal with any painful self-sacrifices.
Luckily, in place of the hellfire skill a different idea is suggested:
Then things cut off. That’s all you get. Thanks for the money folks, come back another day.
A bit of an abrupt stop this time around, but I suppose I can’t complain. You’ve now seen how much of an emotional journey I felt watching these new characters interact, after all.
Though once again I really would have liked to see what a story focused around Grima and zombie Celica would look like. Talk about a missed opportunity.
That’s about that for my Fire Emblem Heroes blog post for the day. Obviously, I liked these new updates to the roster!
The new heroes are cool, the new villain is cool… I just really appreciate everything this time around. Plus I’ve been able to keep a lot of my orbs in storage, so I feel great about that going forward.
I could end this by asking about everything I talked about, but let’s keep things more simple this time around.
How do you feel about the relationship between Laevatein and Laegjarn? Am I overreacting to Laevatein’s silent obedience around her sister?
I’m admittedly a day late and a dollar short with this one, considering Heroes came out on February 2, 2017… But I wanted to put out my Comm 436 post first before the week was out, so I figured this would still be relevant as long as the anniversary celebration is still ongoing.
That being said, Fire Emblem Heroes is a year old this weekend! I still distinctly remember the day I started playing, going through the tutorial as I rode down an elevator in College Park while thinking over what I would say for a review. I also remember sitting out in front of the room where my honors history class was held in the basement of the education building, waiting for class to start as I actually wrote the thing.
It’s a little hard to believe we’re now a full rotation around the sun since then, and frankly I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised that I’m still as hooked on the mobile title that sparked my interest in mobile titles as I was that first day.
Hell, just last night I finally got my very first completely merged unit.
Good old Cecilia. She and Reinhardt still make a wonderful team.
I don’t plan to go too in-depth with this, it’s mostly just a small congratulations to the game for making it where it is today while still going strong.
Though while I’m here, I also figured I would go over the stuff Intelligent Systems are doing for the anniversary, since there’s a nice amount going on.
Okay, so I’m probably not going to show off what’s happening so much as I’m just going to show off what they said, given that I probably couldn’t sum it up any better than this.
The great thing about this little anniversary celebration is how the developers know to give us exactly what we want: Orbs.
50 free orbs right off the bat.
Daily missions that are going to keep us coming back for a while and give us an extra 50 orbs in the long run.
Add to that a daily log-in bonus and some more Tempest Trial grinding and hoo boy is there a lot to be excited about. Orbs go away in this game pretty fast, after all.
Especially when there are multiple big, special summoning events happening at once.
Yeah… That’s a hell of a cash grab if I’ve ever seen one. Especially considering there seems to be another special banner coming around for Valentine’s Day.
Luckily, I already have all the heroes from the Hero Fest this time around and I got a special unit from the Legendary Banner.
She’s no Ike, but she is a nice addition to my horde.
I’m not planning on spending any more orbs on these, so hopefully whatever comes down the pipeline is worth the wait.
Speaking of down the pipeline, it’s also probably worth mentioning the big future special hero events that have been happening.
For instance, the second Choose Your Legends event ended recently, and we got a… Well… Expected top choices list.
Come on guys, I like these characters and all, but I was really banking on you all helping me get Neimi up on the list.
Feh…
Anyway, while I suppose I am looking forward to seeing a Brave Ephraim coming one day, there’s also a more novel event happening as we speak (if you read this the day it comes out, of course).
Yeah, basically everyone gets a few votes on every hero that has been in the game thus far, and whichever unit wins will be given out for free.
That includes the special holiday heroes, legendary heroes and all the rest.
It’s a cool idea, and I’m pretty interested to see who comes out on top.
That’s all I have to say for now, however, since I’ve got to go to bed in a hurry. Tomorrow morning (this morning when this is posted because time shenanigans) I’m going to be out in Fullerton helping to cover the homeless situation along the Santa Ana river. Ironically enough a topic I was also enmeshed in about a year ago for Bonnie’s Investigative Reporting class.
Anyway, that’s a story for another day. In the meantime, let me know: What are some of your favorite memories with Fire Emblem Heroes one year in?
Personally, I don’t think I’ll ever forget how this game had become a cementing point that keeps a lot of my high school friend group talking and playing together consistently.
Tell me about some of your favorite things in the comments below! Here’s looking forward to more and more content down the line.
Welcome to your multi-faceted Fire Emblem Heroes post for the week.
Yesterday, Heroes got a semi-large scale update that implemented some new features. Today, brand new heroes from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn were added into the game.
So let’s not mess around friends, there’s plenty to cover and a limited amount of moonlight to write about it, but I’m just as excited to get into it all the same.
This little list in the notifications page kind of covers everything succinctly, but in trademarked Jason Rochlin fashion I’m going to jump into each point individually, likely over-embellishing their descriptions as I discuss my thoughts.
Hero Merit limit increase
Is my unit bias showing yet?
For those of you who don’t know about Hero Merit, one of the many underlying systems in Fire Emblem Heroes that runs as you use your units to battle others is the accumulation of Hero Merit. This Merit doesn’t necessarily affect the heroes themselves in any way, but it’s highly beneficial for players to work toward maxing it out all the same.
When a specific unit reaches an interval of 500 Hero Merit, the player can receive 500 Hero Feathers. With the new increased capacity, players can earn 4,000 Hero Feathers with each character.
I’ve become more of a fan of Hero Feathers as of late, as they are what allow you to unlock an individual unit’s potential. In other words it allows you to grow a unit from a three star rarity to a four star rarity or a four star rarity to a five star rarity.
Now that I know the value of merging multiple five star units together to increase their power, I have a much more positive outlook on these collectibles – and a much higher need of them considering it takes 20,000 Hero Feathers to buff one unit to a five star.
Ouch.
Pre-battle map checking
Just tap the blue icon for a handy dandy strategizing bonus!
This kind of system was implemented in other game modes, especially those where you have to fight multiple maps in a row like Squad Assault, but now you can use it any time for just about any map you can access.
As far as what it does… Well, it should be fairly self-explanatory when I say “pre-battle map checking.” Want to see what your units will be up against in the next fight? Check the map ahead of time, take a look at the opponent units and what skills they have to come in better prepared.
That’s really about that. It’s a simply but highly useful change.
More Sacred Seals & Weapon Refining
For context, the additional Sacred Seals are Brash Assault, Savage Blow, Hone Speed, Close Defense, Guidance and Attack Smoke.
To be completely honest I can’t do this particular change any more justice than the screenshot above does.
Two new legendary weapons can be refined, though the only one that really matters to me is Sanaki’s special red tome, as she’s a five star unit I have and use fairly often.
Personally I hope this change is an indication that more upgrades will be coming in the near future, since there are plenty of other units that have legendary weapons that I would love to buff.
Cough cough Eirika cough
The Sacred Seals that were added to the construction option also aren’t very important to me personally. They’re all Seals that were available in the past as part of Tempest Trials rewards, so I already had all of them leading up to this addition.
Thus, I can’t actually build any of them. I already have them.
Oh well, at least other newer players now have access to some cool additional skills.
New terrain type: Trenches
It’s all quiet on the Western Front, Xander.
While the screenshot above once again covers all of the information I currently have about this new terrain type, I’m quite interested in seeing how trenches affect the game going forward.
From the description alone, it just seems like trenches are being added as a check to cavalry units. Instead of their usual three space movement range, heroes on horseback can only go one space when moving across trenches. It’s a small debuff if the maps where they’re featured don’t have an excessive amount, but it is interesting to note that Intelligent Systems is trying to hit one of the most prevalent unit types in competitive play.
Of course we don’t know whether the trenches have extra utility because they aren’t featured in any of the new story maps… But that’s a different story. For now it just seems like these things might be more of an aesthetic implementation than a practical one.
Beyond those major points, the other changes are small or tie into bug fixes specifically. The only one I can recall having an impact on me is the way they’ve made it so units without weapons aren’t added to the pool of potential allies when playing in a Voting Gauntlet.
That’s cool, but also I never ran into the problem personally so I guess I never well.
With all that said, let’s move into the next leg of this marathon. Everyone’s favorite: A new summoning focus banner.
Three heroes from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn have arrived in Heroes, and their appearance also continues on the legacy of Radiant game focuses apparently being Intelligent System’s choice to advance the game’s overarching plot.
But of course, we can’t get into silly things like plot without discussing the merits of our new potential allies.
Micaiah is interesting in that she is apparently a fan favorite unit who also happens to look quite overpowered. As an added note, she actually has five skills but I could only get four to line up for a picture so know that she also has Drive Attack as her C skill. This girl’s weapon is kind of crazy and all over the place, being a blue tome that’s good against horses and armored units while also combining the effects of three other really good weapons from the past. Her resistance to damage on account of that weapon is accentuated by her Distant Defense and Guard, yet she can also buff allies with Drive Attack and give them health through Sacrifice. In a way, she’s a really well-rounded unit, and I’m assuming her stats reflect the same thing.
Here’s a dagger unit that finally seems worth his weight (sorry Neko Sakura, your cute Halloween cat ears are still in my dreams, but not in a creepy way). Sothe appears to be any team’s best friend with a weapon that debuffs every enemy stat within a certain range while also buffing every stat for allies in a certain range. Plus, he also Spurs Attack and Speed during combat. However, without proper protection this kind of benefit appears temporary as his other skills suggest he’s quite the glass canon. An interesting unit indeed, and one that seems like he would mesh well with a blade tome user.
So in case it wasn’t obvious, Zelgius is the Black Knight without his helmet on — the Black Knight being a unit who was a prize some time ago in a Tempest Trial, except now he’s apparently stronger stat-wise from what I’ve been told. Also there’s apparently some controversy over the fact that his appearance in this form spoils Radiant Dawn plot points? But to be completely honest a lot of characters spoil plot points in their games so I’m not sure what the problem is. I don’t think I have a lot to say about this guy’s skills. He has the same weapon/special attack as his reskin, but now he gains attack when attacked, can warp around like crazy and converts opponent buffs into penalties. Definitely sounds like a strong guy… But I just can’t get over how much his face isn’t what I expected to see without the mask.
Despite the fact that he got the least amount of writing up above, I think Sothe is actually the character on this banner that I want the most.
Like I said before he looks like a match made in heaven for a blade tome user, and as a result would make a perfect balance on my infantry team alongside Nino and my other stat buffing unit Eirika.
Even though I want Sothe a lot (much to the teasing pleasure of my friend Jonathan who managed to summon the guy almost immediately), the other two wouldn’t be so bad either. Micaiah especially. I’d be very down to join the scarf squad with her.
Luckily, I managed to enter this banner with an abundance of orbs thanks to the recent Tempest Trials and my early summon of flying New Year Azura.
Yeah that’s right, 95. Well earned if I do say so myself, and there’s more waiting in the sidelines from a new Squad Assault and Chain Challenges.
After blowing through about 30 of those orbs, however… I more or less learned my lesson to be careful where I put my money.
Don’t get me wrong, five stars are never a bad thing necessarily… But as much as I love Clair from Echoes, she’s just not a fantastic unit in Heroes.
Especially compared to Cordelia, who’s served me loyally since the very beginning.
As I keep cautious with my orb horde, I think that makes it a good time to jump over to the story accompanying these three new heroes.
I kind of spoiled this earlier, but the Radiant Dawn banner opens itself up in a continuation of the Book II storyline.
Speaking of… Don’t get me started on how much I want to throw my phone at the irony of Gunnthrá suggesting we should meet after I got screwed out of summoning her to meet in person already.
Talk about a hell of a tease.
Anyway, her dream guidance is that the Order of Heroes should come to the ice kingdom to meet with her so everyone can combine forces to fight the evil fire king.
The story for this leg of Book II is fairly front loaded actually, as you immediately jump to the Order discussing their war plans in the face of a new powerful enemy. Namely, Anna mentions that the king of Askr is off leading some troops into battle.
The fiery King Surtr is also given more characterization suggesting that he’s nuts and bloodthirsty, a theme we will return to later.
When Fjorm hears that you met her sister in a dream, she pretty much immediately suggests you follow her direction and head to their homeland for backup.
Once that is established, the fighting begins.
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The maps themselves for this story mission are decent, though it seems odd to me that they would go with Askrian terrain rather than copying maps from Radiant Dawn, considering this is that game’s unit’s time in the spotlight.
In hindsight that is a complaint I could have aired when the Children of Fate were new… But then again it does all make sense in light of the fact that Book II is less a series of connected miniature adventures than Book I in place of a more serialized story.
That said, there isn’t a lot of serialized story across the majority of the ice-covered maps, Chapter 3-1 through Chapter 3-4. The little bits of plot are pretty much just introductions for the Radiant Dawn characters you fight.
Don’t mind Oliver, by the way. He’s uhh… He’s a special looking, apparently meme-worthy guy who’s going to show up in a Grand Hero Battle soon.
Things start to develop when you arrive at the final map and come face-to-face with a new challenge.
The source of those flames are Laevatein, my favorite of the lot, showing what seems to suggest the beginning of a pattern where each of the fiery nation’s main units are going to headline each chapter from here on.
Her gimmick seems to be an almost robotic adherence to the rules set in place by her father and sister, which is an interesting touch I wasn’t quite expecting.
Once you beat her, she retreats and the Order decides to take a break from their journey to help restore the burned village. Though this move makes sense, it’s almost comically similar to them straight up saying “here’s the commercial break before our next episode.”
Yet… The story doesn’t end quite yet.
For some reason tired of their alliance, Veronica decides to leave having assisted the fire nation with her contracted units.
That doesn’t sit well with the king.
Yeah… Remember when I said this guy is a crazy, sadistic nut job?
Case an point: Crazy grin while imagining a little girl burning to death.
Honestly for as over-the-top as this comes across, I do admittedly appreciate the way they made a villain who’s undeniably awful for everyone to stand up again.
I’m just hoping Veronica switches sides and we get the chance to use her against this ultimate foe. That would be pretty awesome.
Boy howdy, this really was a hell of a marathon wasn’t it? I love it when there are a lot of things to cover, but it is a bit exhausting when everything takes this long.
I guess if nothing else I can appreciate it as a little something fun before I dive back into killing myself with work that I for some reason thought would be a good way to get back into the swing of things.
So, how about I take a break from talking your ear off and once more offer the chance for a larger discussion.
How do you feel about the updates that came with version 2.1.0?
Out of the Radiant Dawn heroes added, which is your favorite?
What do you think of the way Book II is developing? Personally, I happen to think the way they’ve gone with it is pretty intriguing.
Is the best part of this update the new game loading screen that I used as the featured image for this post?
Let me know your thoughts somewhere on the internet, and until next time… I’ll be resisting the urge not to make myself broke again.
Well, it seems as though we’re actually going to have a short Fire Emblem post here today because we got a pretty underwhelming and small update all things being equal.
Even if there’s going to be another update soon enough, a subject I’m also going to touch upon here to make things a bit heftier, I wanted to write this post now while I’m also thinking about the future of this kind of content on my blog.
That said, before I jump into all of that existential BS, let’s look at this new Legendary Hero Summoning Banner.
Fjorm’s sister, Gunnthrá (gotta love these probably Slavic inspired names – if I have that Etimology right), is now available through a special summoning event.
Isn’t it just nifty how that kind of premonition-y future sight works?
Despite that minor degree of plot importance and characterization in the past, Gunnthrá’s actually arrival in the world of Heroes now is a little downplayed to say the least. Literally, the developers announced she would be coming in a banner a few days ago, and now she’s here. There’s no new story missions or paralogue missions or anything offering some sort of further explanation as to who the character is or to offer her the chance to interact with her sister. She’s just here.
Have fun with your random chance to summon.
She isn’t a free gift through the story of the game like Fjorm was. To add her to your army, you have to brave the now infamous 12 character, 8 percent summoning chance banner. It has high potential to force you into wasting a lot of orbs for the chance to get her, only to wind up with one of the other two green heroes on the banner.
Our new Legendary Hero is a green mage cavalier, making her an arguably apt replacement for the horse-based team staple, Cecilia. Her special tome Blizzard gives her +3 Resistance and adds to her Attack stat when the opponent has debuffs applied, an effect similar to the well-worn Gronnblade. She also comes with the special attack Glacies to deal massive damage based on her Resistance stat and three passive skills: Fortress Resistance grants her a +5 Resistance boost in exchange for a -3 Attack reduction, Resistance Ploy makes foes in cardinal directions suffer -5 Resistance and the new skill Chilling Seal inflicts -6 Attack and Speed to the opponent’s unit with the lowest defense as long as she’s above 50 percent health. As far as the wording suggests, this afflicts anyone no matter where they are on the map.
In my opinion, Gunnthrá seems interesting… But not necessarily worth the effort.
Of course, she does come with the ability to bless an ally using her Wind element, which gives said blessed ally a +3 Health and +4 Resistance boost during a Wind season if they go into battle together. Especially for a cavalier unit, this ability can probably give her a solid place on a horse team boosting someone like Reinhardt.
That blessing and her Chilling Seal skill sound interesting, but the rest of her packaging just feels… Okay. Nothing particularly awe-inspiring.
Not knowing her actual stat spread, she looks to be a highly resistant unit with low attack that’s compensated by a weapon with an effect less useful than its counterpart, the Gronnblade.
I think of the situation similarly to Pokémon in this respect. In a Pokémon battle, it’s always better to use a status move that buffs one’s own stats as opposed to one that debuffs an opponent’s stats. In the latter situation you defeat that opponent and start from zero, while in the prior situation you keep your stronger standing for multiple opponents to come.
Similarly, Gronnblade buffs a Fire Emblem Heroes unit based on the stat boosts you give to your unit, whereas Blizzard gives Gunnthrá a boost based on the debuffs attached to the single opponent you hit. Decent synergy if you hit the unit afflicted with your Chilling Seal, but otherwise not the most optimal.
On top of that, Gunnthrá is a limited time unit that’s hard to summon, making her inherently a little less desirable than a unit like Cecilia who can constantly be merged and improved, despite whatever power creep might be involved for their stat differences.
At least, that’s my opinion on the matter. It’s one of the reasons I don’t think I’m going to spend a lot of orbs on this banner.
Another one of the reasons is the aforementioned saturation of heroes on the banner. Like I said, there are 12 available:
Greens: Gunnthrá, Amelia, Spring Chrom
Reds: Ryoma, Sigurd, Brave Roy
Blues: Fjorm, Spring Lucina, Bride Charlotte
Colorless: Innes, Elise, Bride Lyn
If I was going for any of these outside of Gunnthrá, I would personally focus on Ryoma, Bride Charlotte and Bride Lyn.
However… My efforts right off the bat didn’t give me the best results.
A sparkling new unit, but unfortunately a duplicate.
Yes, I did get a 5 star Sigurd. However, I already have one. If anything, that just makes him unit merging fodder. While that’s not an inherently bad thing, I would have much preferred getting someone like Ryoma.
That kind of disappointment from the over-saturation of the heroes leads to the third main reason why I won’t be spending a lot of orbs on this banner, despite it ending on January 1st.
Apparently there are going to be New Year-themed Heroes coming out.
And I’ve been spoiled on who they’re going to be by my friend Jonathan.
Obviously I’m going to talk about these guys when they arrive, but as for my first impressions:
Takumi is going to throw soup at people and that’s amazing, Azura is a cutie in that kimono, Corrin got his arrows as a gift from Lilith which is also amazing and Camilla… Well she’s Camilla.
I want them more than I want Gunnthrá, so for now I’m going to save the energy and orbs I get from the current Tempest Trial for later.
With that said, I believe that about sums up everything I have to say about this banner. Of course, the post as a whole is far longer than I expected because I need to learn to write less, but that’s a whole other story for another day.
Actually, it is somewhat of a story for today.
With New Years Heroes coming soon – a reminder of the more general arrival of 2018 in a couple days – I can’t help but reflect on my blog content a little.
2017 has been the first full year of my blog’s existence, and for the most part I’ve been keeping it afloat with a combination of archiving my Daily Titan articles and Fire Emblem Heroes posts.
The Fire Emblem posts are fun, but to be honest I think they’re a little bit of a crutch for me. It’s really easy to produce them in a sense because all I have to do is take screenshots on my phone and talk for a long time. For most other games I have to take external photos off my iPhone, which works… But not very well.
My Pokémon Ultra Moon tweets are a perfect example. I can get decent quality out of them, but I would definitely prefer to be able to capture those photos directly through some sort of capture card or something.
Because I can’t get nicer photos, I feel like I can’t write a lot on other subjects. So I don’t.
Fire Emblem provides a perfect solution to the problem: It’s easy to capture, fun to talk about and gives me plenty of opportunities to just write on a time frame I can handle.
Just writing practice in general is more or less the goal of my blog, besides making an archive of my work for future employers, so the content doesn’t make much of a difference in that regard.
However, the time frame is arguably a big part of the problem for me in my head right now. If it wasn’t obvious, I have to stay up pretty late whenever there’s a substantial update,so I can have something written about the 11 p.m. release out in the world by 8 a.m. the next day.
That’s arguably the job of a journalist I suppose, to be timely and quick with writing, so again this serves as decent practice… But it is a real energy drain for something that I’m feeling kind of iffy about sticking all my eggs in one basket for.
So, for 2018, I’m going to be thinking about restructuring how I do my Fire Emblem Heroes posts. They’re either going to get less abundant or I’m going to come up with a format that allows me to get them out faster and hopefully in a shorter form.
Working smarter, not harder and all that jazz.
I just wanted to get my thoughts out on that here so that anyone who reads this can potentially give me some advice on what they think.
How would you restructure what I do with Fire Emblem now? Do you have any advice or suggestions? Or do you like how I do things currently? Let me know in the comments below! For this I’m genuinely interested to hear what others have to say.
Also, on that note, let me know how you feel about the actual subject of this post originally, Gunntrá! Is she worth the hype? Or, as the case may be, is she worth the lack of hype?
Well, it came out. So here I am, a few days late as usual, but still quiet excited about the huge volume of things added. Huge enough that I’m splitting this post into two posts, one to go over the mechanical changes and one to go over the big story additions.
It’s a large task at hand, and I’d rather not be up all night doing it, so let’s get going shall we?
Version 2.0.0 is here, bringing with it Book II of the game’s story and some game-changing new additions. Like I said above, I go more into details on what Book II entails in this post here, so let’s dig more into what’s different about the Heroes experience from a technical level.
First and foremost, I would say the most immediately striking thing about this update is the User Interface changes, most of which contribute to making a more engaging and aesthetically pleasing experience.
Most notably to me was the menu background changes:
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Though these appear to be small additions, the change is actually fairly big all things being equal – and much appreciated at that. Most of the time spent playing Fire Emblem Heroes, while not specifically in battles, is spent on these menus deciding what to play and how to play it. Thus, having something new to look at all these months later is pretty wonderful in my opinion.
Especially since the new backgrounds look way better than what we had before.
The new menu backgrounds are also joined by other aesthetic differences to things like actual menu layouts and designs, including the addition of ‘Seasons’ in the main hub.
These seasons tie into another brand new concept introduced in Version 2.0.0: Legendary Heroes.
Fjorm, along with just about everything else I’m talking about here today, was introduced a while back during an episode of Feh Channel that I didn’t really talk about. Mostly because I knew eventually I’d get into a long post like this once the actual updates came out.
I’ll talk more about Fjorm’s role in the ever expanding story later on, so for now what you need to know is she’s a princess from an icy land near Askr who does cool flips, buffs her allies according to the in-game season and is just generally overpowered and great.
Legendary Hero blessings are a somewhat inherently confusing mechanic that I’m not even sure I full understand just yet, so I’ll let the game explain the blunt of it for now:
While I believe I understand the idea of applying a blessing to an ally who is going to be fighting alongside Fjorm during a Water season so they can get a substantial boost, what I’m still iffy on mostly ties back to some small questions that I’m sure will make sense as I actually get the chance to play with the mechanic. Where more blessings come from, whether or not the blessings last forever, whether you can have multiple blessings active at once… Things like that.
One thing I can say I understand about Fjorm is her summoning banner, which is extra special in a number of ways.
Firstly, it features a huge number of five star focus heroes rather than three or four like we usually get. Twelve to be exact.
Second, in that pool of twelve five star focus heroes, four of them are extra special seasonal heroes back from the dead. Spring Camilla and Xander return in their Easter bunny-themed attire alongside Bride Caeda and Cordelia from the June special banner. Though the two bride heroes are the ones I had personally pulled from the original, both the spring heroes are novel for my collection.
Third, not only are there a large amount of special heroes featured, but the banner has an inherent eight percent summoning chance for those special heroes. Eight percent! For context, most banners start at three percent, so eight is incredible.
Of course that eight percent hasn’t helped me out very much. I’ve only managed to pull one five star focus hero after blowing a ton of orbs, enough so that I’m probably going to wait and save up the rest of the orbs I can get with the special events going on right now for the Fates children coming in a few days.
Though I can’t complain all that much, since this is the hero I pulled.
Spring Camilla is quite the meme in my circle of friends for her… Well, sizable assets. So it’s honestly rather hilarious to me that I pulled her, as did a few of the others in my circle. She refuses to leave us alone.
Cute ice princesses and well-endowed bunny princesses aren’t the only things that are special about this update. There’s a much bigger mechanical addition to the game that once again seems to be shaking up the game’s tier list for useful heroes:
Weapon refining.
To unlock weapon refining, you have to go through a quick story mission, but it’s relatively separate from the Book II stuff, so I’ll go into it here.
The Rite of Blades intermission has one battle, which begins with a setup that introduces you to a mysterious girl in your dreams.
As it’s later revealed, Gunnthrá is related to Fjorm and wishes to help you prepare by gaining access to a new power.
By following her directions, the Order of Heroes arrives at a shrine where they must fight through a number of guardians to make their way to a tablet inscribed with Emblian text.
Your team decides to take that power and use it for your gain, because honestly how could they not?
The story leading into weapon refinement is simple, yes, but it sets up an interesting addition to the game.
As the text shows, refining weapons… Well, makes them more powerful. As obvious as that must sound. However, it does so at the cost of a ton of materials, so it must do something weighty, right?
It does, in fact. Most legendary weapon-wielding heroes can make use of the refinement to give their weapons a variety of buffs.
To show this off, Eldigan has the best example of these buffs for my purposes:
Mystletainn, one of my favorite weapons of all time in the Fire Emblem universe I might add, can be adjusted in a number of ways for the right price. One adjustment gives it the effect of Fury 3 inherently, boosting all of Eldigan’s stats at the cost of some life points with every hit. Eldigan comes with Fury naturally, so he has double the boost for double the cost. One adjustment increases his health and defense while also making it so he activates special attacks faster.
These extra weapon upgrades open up lots of opportunities for new strategic character builds with some high potential. A wide range of units can make use of these kinds of upgrades, too. Minerva is another unit I own who can have her weapon refined, and I know I want to take advantage of both possibilities.
While there are a few other small but important updates that came with this version, such as Staves getting a power boost to make healing units more useful, lowered special attack cooldowns in some cases, an increased barrack size to hold more units and an adjusted stamina use in story missions… Well, I just laid it all out right here. So I didn’t think I needed to go too much more into it.
From here, it’s time to go into the story changes that came with Book II’s addition. Unless of course you’re coming from that post to this one, in which case you’ve hit the end of the double update road, bucko. Congratulations!
Though of course I’m prone to breaking my own already thin fourth wall, so I’ll let you all know that I’m planning on writing the second half to this update later this afternoon or tomorrow… Since it’s about 2 a.m. right now.
So much for getting in and out quick on this one.
Oh well, either way look forward to seeing more later or tomorrow regarding my thoughts on Book II and what it brings to the table! Plus, now that December has hit, we’re going to be getting a new summoning focus soon with some heroes from Fire Emblem Fates… Including one of my favorites, Soleil. So I’ll probably be talking about that too.
Plus, in non-gaming news, I also have probably two more stories that will be coming out in the Daily Titan by the end of the semester, and some projects I’m doing might be worth putting up here as well. Look forward to that in the near future!
Jason's Blog - Work in Progress 