#((Some of which are passively healing allies that are next to the unit.))

[antihibikase-archive]

Poisonous Flower, Slater

Weapon: Fairy Lock (Wand) A peculiar wand in the shape of a key. Legends say that this wand opens the gates of the heavens. When used in battle, it increases the wielder's defense and special defense by one stage. This effect can only be used three times per battle.

Equipment: Destiny Knot A ribbon brooch part of the Plasma Harmonia Chorale's uniform, with a pearl sewn on by Slater. Hoennians believe that pearls carry the power of the sea. Cannot be unequipped. When a sound-based move is used, its effects target all enemies/allies on the field.

Abilities: Serene Grace, Healer Moves: Relic Song, Chatter, Sparkling Aria, Heal Bell

"A songster of Plasma Harmonia Academia's Aspertia City branch. Does not particularly excel in strength or studies, but is the star of his school's choir. His songs assist his allies in the battlefield. Born on 12/28."

[rimeiii]

Just watched the gameplay trailer and...

Well, it's a lot like Path to Nowhere. Can't say I'm surprised, considering the unit placement and map layouts from all the trailers we've seen.

(More under the cut because we all know I'm the bitch who's more interested in the gameplay compared to other things-)

Some corrections regarding the symbols:

Angel wings are enemies remaining, paw prints are movement opportunities remaining.

Whatever that last icon is, it's supposed to be is your HP.

Two tilesets is real, but it's only used to indicate pathing.

There doesn't seem to be a distinction between low ground and high ground tiles - it's just the lighter tiles are the enemy paths, and you place units on lighter tiles if you want to block enemies.

The limits of the battlefield are the black picket fences along the edges!

But holy shit some of these abilities sound so fucking broken on paper, but the applications...

Marbas's skill, if handled properly, can act like Bard Supporters in Arknights. However, the healing seems to be very limited, at 1 HP per tick? How would it scale based on skill level and stats? Is 1 HP a lot for friendlies? At least it seems to be an infinite duration skill, so...

Paimon's slow is manual targeting. Personally I'm not a fan, or maybe it's because I think in the realm of tower defense, Suzuran is a slower done right. Or Snow Peas. These sorts of units, in essence, slow enemies down so our units can burst them down easily. Which might be uh...let's just say, underutilized based on the DPS options we have down the line.

At this point, Paimon seems to play a lot like May, and even then May is more effective in slowing down enemies with her first skill.

Anyways, what in the fuck is going on here?

That 'Miss' in blue text. Is that a damage instance miss, an ailment miss, or something else? If it's a damage instance miss (which is what I think it is) then mygod I think I'm actually going to rage while playing this game. That is, unless it's due to a unit's passive - then for my own sanity I won't be using them, ever. Because hey, fellow Arknights players, remember these fuckers?

Yeah. Silence and freeze came in clutch, honestly. There's a reason why a lot of players would rather not deal with dodge enemies and just want to nuke them out of existence with true damage and status effects. Though to be fair it's the Nethersea Brand that makes Stultifera Navis a hard event/Intermezzi...

ANYWAYS! The next skill I'll be looking at is Eligos's skill.

That's a unique skill, honestly! Mechanically, it's most similar to Mlynar's second talent, which gives him innate Taunt (makes enemy ranged attacks target him when he's in their range) - except Mlynar is Broken Like That and has damage reflect while maintaining that the Talent is always active, all with respectable defenses and a sizable HP pool. Like Mlynar, depending on how much damage the enemy does on average and how strong Eligos's shield is, the skill can easily turn into a double-edged sword, however - in a much more dangerous way compared to Mlynar.

Think of it this way. It doesn't seem like WHB has a redeployment mechanic, as a similar "style" of tower defense with Path to Nowhere. Which means, if an ally is dead, then they stay dead for the entirety of the stage.

Compare that with Arknights, which allows retreating and redeployment.

Losing Texas the Omertosa on the battlefield wouldn't matter as much as losing Eligos, because I know I can still use Texas down the line. Plus, the Executor subclass is built around redeployment, making that mechanic necessary to use her properly. Same thing with me retreating Chen - her positioning wasn't the most optimal after clearing the treasure chest, and if the stage went on any longer I'd redeploy her in a more strategic position/direction. But I know this stage's mobs aren't particularly tanky, and Mountain with Sweeping Stance (S2) would be more than enough to hold that lane, with his 2-block + DPS + self-sustain.

These are the words of a chronic IS player.

Meanwhile, if I lost Eligos, then I'd lose a valuable blocker unit. He's a defender in WHB, and he definitely has more tanking capabilities. But that means you'll have to consider adding either a healer to keep him healed up or more DPS to kill off enemies before you lose said defender to continuous attacks.

The final three skills shown in the trailer all fall under the same category: burst damage over an area.

This is where I can say slowers might eventually be underutilized in WHB on launch. They work the best with consistent, large damage sources over a period of time. What do I mean by that? Well, let's take a look at Suzuran - specifically, her second passive.

Suzuran, in my opinion, reflects the most effective way a slower is used in tower defense. Not only does she slow enemies down, she inflicts them with a debuff that makes them take more damage (Fragile). This effect is doubled with her third skill Foxfire Haze, where she stops attacking - but her slow turns into an area of effect deal, heals allies, and has an increased range. She is oftentimes used in conjunction with damage dealers and an extra debuffer (optional, but typically Saria S3) with steady burst damage over a set period of time - SilverAsh, Surtr, Mlynar, Eyjafjalla, Mostima, and Exusiai, just to name a few.

Granted, she is a 6* unit (L rarity in WHB terms would likely be the closest approximation), but even then other Decel Binders (slowers like Suzuran) without the debuff application still has the 80% Slow on all enemies they attack, and has ways to increase their slowing and damage capabilities.

It's hard to see with how the battle is presented, but if Paimon's slow is only on skill proc, then him in conjunction with these DPS options would be the equivalent of using Decel Binders with Chiave/Pinecone - which isn't bad per se (unless you managed to stack charges - then it becomes good) but less effective compared to using, say, Pozëmka/Schwarz. And let's not forget that some of these characters have huge attack ranges (Satan and Gabriel specifically) - making the entire point of slowers more or less moot.

Also, it would seem that skills may inflict status ailments! Stun seems to work like in Arknights (enemy stops attacking and moving for a set period of time), but Bleed I will assume is a damage over time deal. Kinda like Blue Poison and Thorns's passives.

The final and arguably biggest gripe I have with what I see in the trailer, though?

Little to no potential for AFK gaming- //SHOT

[we-cross-universe-king-relate]

Young Justice animated x fire emblem unit

the next member of the team I'm making into a fire emblem unit is this character:

Name: Zatanna Zatara

personal skill: showtime: at the start of the turn allies adjacent to unit receive +1 to all stats.

Overview: Zatanna, befitting any mage unit, has good magic, resistance and dexterity she also has good charm but the trade-off is her strength, defense, speed and luck are her worse stats. The good magic and resistance help her go toe to toe with magical units and her dexterity means she's able to consistently land hits on enemy units. Her good charm means her gambits are likely to succeed a majority of the time. But her low strength and defense means she cannot take many physical hits or deal any and her low speed means it will be hard for her to get more than one hit off of the enemy and make it hard for her to dodge attacks also her low luck means she is very susceptible to being critical.

Zatanna has proficiencies in reason, faith and authority but a subject weakness in axes. Given her low strength and defense it is best to keep Zatanna away from any sort of physical class. Putting Zatanna in the mage class and gaining fiendish blow will increase her already strong magic stats and turning her into a warlock and giving her access to bow breaker to make her something of an anti bow unit. Turning Zatanna into a priest and then a bishop can further enhance her resistance making her even more tankier against magical attacks and gaining miracle and renewal from priest and Bishop respectively gives her survival and self-sustaining capabilities. Eventually it could also be a good idea to turn Zatanna into a gremory. Because of her good charm it may also be a good idea to turn Zatanna into a dancer which gives her more versatility in supporting allies giving her access to dance and then special dance to raise their stats and allow them to move again. Because she has no weakness in swords flying or riding it may be ideal to turn Zatanna into a trickster dark flyer or Valkyrie. Trickster gives Zatanna access to foul Play which allows her to switch places with an ally and let her do healing enhancing her versatility and utility in helping out teammates, making her a dark flyer it's her mobile freedom and gaining access to transmute further helps her magical tanking capabilities when she's hit with a magical attack, Valkyrie gives her more mobility and access to uncanny blow which enhances her hit rate and given her dexterity means she can almost always land her hits. Zatanna has access to a some rally skills and her spell pool in both reason and faith is very good with her spell pool and reason being a list of fire and some anima spells and her spell pool in faith is a mix of healing and utility

Rally skills pool:

Rally magic

Rally resistance

Rally charm

Reason spell pool:

Fire

Bolganone

Ragnarok

Sagittae

Meteor

Faith spell pool:

Heal

Recover

Physic

Warp

Ward

Zatanna's personal skills: Showtime Grant's allies adjacent to her +1 to all stats at the start of the turn. Well this personal skill of hers might be weak it buffs all allies adjacent to her not just one at a time and it does stack with her rally skills as well as other outside sources of buffing.

Overall: overall, given her passive and other skills, Zatanna is the combat support of the team well she has solid combat capabilities Zatanna is more then capable of backing up allies through all manner of support options while still being able to lay down damaging cover fire.

[crystalelemental]

Unit Teambuilding - Neo Champion Rosa

Fun fact! Meloetta is my favorite mythical Pokemon. I adore this little Vocaloid baby. So I've been anticipating the day it finally got added. I always expected more of a seasonal/PokeFair kinda deal, maybe with Lisia, but apparently we're going full-on Master Fair with Rosa. So she's gonna be good, right?

General Overview Psychic Support.  An instant OHKO on my hopes for a Normal Meloetta that type shifts, but I guess the plus side is my Psychic army is ever-growing.  Also, she does type shift to Fighting, and all her moves seem to be Normal, as her sync is listed with Normal-type damage modifiers, so...I don't know, theme skills are weird.

Buddy Relic Song has AoE, and gives +1 crit, +2 to a random stat, and transforms Meloetta each use, with a passive giving +1 PMUN and SMUN each transformation.  Her first attack in each form applies Psychic or Fighting rebuff, she gets both, and each attack gives +1 Sp Def (Aria) or +1 Def (Pirouette).  Her trainer move is a pop +2 PMUN (Pirouette) or SMUN (Aria), with +2 team speed.  She is the most consistent moves up next stacker in the game, with the most consistent fast-acting stacks in the game at present for either offensive type.  And that's just her base kit, with two moves.  She has Potion, and changes between Sing in Aria, and Teeter Dance in Pirouette.  Her grid provides options like Precision Pals, MPR1 for even more stacking, Force Field/Team Stoic to get some guaranteed defenses, Curative Confusion for passive regen, Easy Pickings for random debuffs on foes, double Potion MPR, and Go Viral in case you really need Sing to just mess with the whole team, but I actually think Go Viral sleep is detrimental at this point in my life.

Rosa's rotation is fairly clear, at least to me.  Spam Buddy move out the gate, while your allies handle boosting Atk/Sp Atk by themselves.  By the time they're done, you're around first sync, which Rosa takes, getting Support EX buff.  She then kicks in Sprint role and ramps so you're guaranteed second sync before foe's first.  Then you either use Buddy move once to get to the form you want, or go straight to TM to stack moves up, until the opponent dies.  There is no mercy.  Only Meloetta.

Rosa's problems, however, are just as apparent. The main one is her Buddy move conditional. She needs to "not be in a pinch." Which is that red blinking HP level around 25%. Heavy hits in CS are a massive threat to her, and if she's taking Half Healing as a parameter, which is often free money in CS, it's hard to get her back on track. She also can't reliably buff Atk/Sp Atk, which means she's excellent for top-tier self-sufficient damage dealers, but pretty bad otherwise. Also she needs partners with good DPS attacks; low DPS gets borderline nothing from her. Another flaw, and this seems to be a personal stance, is that Sing is a bad decision. Yes, I hear you, general meta theorists. Sleep is insanely powerful and broken as a status for disruption. But it also means Rosa can't queue another action before the foe re-queues, which means if she's sleep-locking, she's not doing literally anything else. It also means having to run Troublemaker as a lucky skill to hit literally anything ever, because 45% accuracy. Even with the +20 accuracy she can get from grid, which is expensive and removes her better utility, AND the Precision Pals effect on TM, that's...around 85% accuracy. Which is still far too shaky to rely on. But she doesn't get Vigilance, so you're leaving yourself wide open on crits.

Which brings us to the big flaw. My first opinion of Rosa was "this seems kinda tame." It's because her grid sucks ass. Her kit does a lot, but considering that Blue not only had a super good base kit but also got an absurd grid that gave him even further tools that were unnecessary? Rosa feels like she should be getting more than this. Her tools are underwhelming on grid, and it's hard to build anything overly cohesive out of it. And like...no built-in Vigilance? I thought we fixed this shit with Melony; if you have Sing, you want Vigilance on grid so you can take Troublemaker, otherwise you're Elio, who is bad. Melony got this, but somehow Master Fair Rosa didn't? Why? This isn't exactly a tall order if a general pool can do it. Even her ability to boost team defense is +1 per attack, similar to Blue, but without his offense debuffing and chance for flinch. They even have the audacity to make them two separate skills on opposite ends of the grid. Rosa's grid legitimately feels like one of the worst all year for very little reason.

My stance on Rosa lands somewhere between "This is the best support in the game" and "Oddly under-kitted." Depending on partner, she's either the unquestionable best partner for 3v3 content given her stacking and defensive backbone with healing, or she's accomplishing next to nothing because her kit locked her into one niche unlike NC Blue who got to do literally everything at the same time. I think if the grid were less garbage, she'd have an argument for being better than him. But as it stands, she's at home among the other Master Fair support, but I don't know if I'd call her strictly better than Bede, and certainly not better than Blue. Which is just typical Kanto bias shit. My favorite couldn't just lose to Kanto, but to Zapdos? Rude.

EX, Role, and Move Level? If you're looking at Rosa like damn.  I wish I had that kind of stacking power.  1/5 has all you need.  Legitimately, she's fine 1/5.  EX is a good idea for the stats, given her buddy move conditional, but you only need the one copy.  3/5 is when you just get silly with the defensive backbone she doesn't need but will gladly take, and some other niche tools that don't do much because again, I do not respect her grid.  The EX Role is honestly one of the most worth it things ever.  Support/Sprint is one of the best combos in the game, and my pick for outright best.  It's perfect pace for 3v3 metas, ensuring two syncs before foe's first even without quad queue, denial, or Adrenaline.  Supremely worth it. And good news! She's the first and currently only Sprint sub-Role! So you have the cake. Choose wisely though, because there's good odds of SST Red and Aura Cynthia at the start of the year with roles, and I have a feeling Cynthia's getting Sprint.

Team 1: NC Rosa, SS Lana, SS Lusamine Alright let's start with one on-type pick each, the best of each kind.  Lusamine Hours.  Rosa's +1 crit is all Lusamine needs for a successful fast-ramping nuke, and the ability to stack both types of Moves Up Next means both Lana and Lusamine fire at maximum capacity at all times.  With a defensive-minded grid, she is able to consistently provide what Bede could not: a serious means of survival in High Score.  Potion's pop heal just doubles down on this flexibility, achieving an absolutely bonkers performance.  With Lana and Lusamine already fast-ramping to Lusamine's transformation, and Meloetta's Sprint role, she even contributes meaningfully to the ongoing Psychic Ramp meta.

Team 2: NC Rosa, NC Hop, Rei "But Aura Cynthia-" redundant.  Rosa stacks harder than Cynthia could ever imagine, and the rebuff is much better than duplication of Zone.  And with Rei's Sprint role, welcome to fast ramp central, complete with sure-flinch lockdown and rapid defensive drops.

Team 3: NC Rosa, Anni Lillie, Renegade Cynthia Okay, time to start getting a little silly with it.  NC Rosa's ability to boost team speed, as well as boosting both offenses, anchors a dual strike opportunity like Lillie and Cynthia.  Anni Lillie has tremendous DPS, and adores the stacks of SMUN.  Meanwhile, Cynthia has the ability to store one type of moves up for the other, including a potential explosion off of Shadow Force.  Having both options at her disposal allows Cynthia to just go ballistic here.

Team 4: NC Rosa, SS N, Glaceon/Colress As alluded to in the previous set, one thing Rosa can be incredibly funny for is the 2-turn move nuke. SS N's Freeze Shock is bullshit powerful, having 300BP at base. Now consider a situation where N gets to throw out Freeze Shock, but he's loaded up with PMUN. And also there's either Zone, or there's Def debuffs. Are we really...going to argue this one? I might actually, a non-EX SS N often fails me. Two-turn damage is still a problem.

Team 5: NC Rosa, SS Hilda, Blaine/NC Leaf SS Hilda is similar to Renegade Cynthia, being extremely high damage, but having both physical and special moves available.  She can DPS nuke both ways.  Add in Sun, and her damage is frankly batty.  It doesn't even matter where the Sun comes from, anyone will do, but Leaf is the comedy hour option.

Team 6: NC Rosa, Nemona, Volkner/Jolteon Another fun option: Nemona.  Nemona operates on burst damage, she's not good at DPS.  Rosa's stacks PMUN for Nemona to throw around on her Buddy move as needed, while also having that coveted Sprint role for repeat fast-ramping.  Nemona instant ramps, Rosa ramps off her sync, into Nemona's sync, which is also a ramp.  Speedrunning. There's honestly an argument for Paulo in here if you have him. Just triple fast-ramp sync nuke deluxe, with two of them being Support.

Team 7: NC Rosa, Anni Steven, S!Liza Okay, NOW it's time to talk.  NC Rosa, because of her buddy conditional, approaches CS with a bit of apprehension around field effects.  The shuffling of parameters often means taking Offenses +5, which is when things get scary.  When she ignores field effects, Rosa is at her most devastating.  And with that in mind, enter one of my favorite cores, Anni Steven and Summer Liza.  Both of them have very effective physical DPS, with Steven having fantastic speed control and Liza having the ability to rotate in Free Moves Next and her own PMUN.  Rosa's ability to boost defense for the team off a 3/5 grid allows Liza to get to TM second turn with full Atk.  Her TM boosting team speed eases their rotation of offense as well, as they throw around ridiculous numbers.  And again, because Rosa can ramp with Sprint role, there's no more of this need for a denial to keep on pace.  Liza will sync, and she will kill.

Team 8: NC Rosa, Paulo, Emmet Sprint ramping is real, and Paulo was a huge proponent of it with his sub-Support role.  Paulo can take first sync to throw out his own Buddy move, which also removes Rosa's grid energy from defense boosting to put into other fun tools like Precision Pals on TM for their accuracy issues.  Paulo's GMax having Sandstorm application, and his free -2 with Emmet's -1 TM in Sandstorm composing a fast-ramp, makes this a fairly strong Sandstorm core.  That can then pivot into Rosa taking second sync for further ramping, with double Support EX bonus and massive stacks of moves up next on both allies.  The accuracy here is key; Rosa's ability to grid in accuracy salvages the issues I have with Paulo's base kit.

Team 9: NC Rosa, Roxie, Looker I want to use this opportunity to stress something important.  When you're dealing with these heavy moves up next stackers?  +4 offense is sufficient.  Obviously, +6 is the ideal, but you can make do.  To that end, Roxie and Looker.  +4 offenses is just fine for them, with the moves up next stacks more than making up for the missing +2.  And with Rosa, there's always the chance that she rolls that +2 anyway.

Team 10: NC Rosa, Will, Brycen Okay this is really stupid but I realized something I could do and it was WAY too funny not to consider. So, Rosa has Teeter Dance, right? But no Stop Hitting Yourself. She partners with pairs who do, though. Mallow has poor offensive setup, and Sidney has poor DPS. But Will? Will has Stored Power. "But wait," you say. "Will has no self setup at all! How is he relevant?" Not so. Remember, Five Stats +3 is a thing. Will can simply copy and double their buffs, to get all his stats to +6 instantly! "Okay but...now you're dealing with stronger opponents." Not with Brycen here to Haze that shit. "Crystal this feels like a bad plan that could very easily backfire." True. But I bet it works.

Final Thoughts Rosa seems very good, and I am excited to try out her kit. I will acknowledge I think she also has some serious flaws which limit the teams she can support. She does not play well with sync nukers with low DPS, and she doesn't play nice with those who need full offensive support. But she does offer the best and most consistent moves up next stacking in the game at current, and given it's literally "every time you attack, +1 to both," this feels like a cap in the same way Aura Cynthia was. I doubt we'll get directly better than this any time soon. We just have to hope the Buddy move conditional isn't too great a burden.

[theterribletenno]

Bellatrix, the Gladiator Champion warframe

I am very pleased with how she came out. I kept her abilities on the simpler side but also made them truly unique even when compared to similar abilities and effects. Meanwhile her signature weapons have a lot going on lol.

Health: 160 (480 at rank 30) Shields: 160 (480 at rank 30) Armor: 500 Energy: 120 (180 at rank 30) Sprint Speed: 0.9

Passive: Converts 30% of damage on health to energy. Hunter Adrenaline replaces this amount instead of stacking with it. No change if the equipped Hunter Adrenaline would offer a lower value.

Ability 1: Shield Bash, 25 energy. Brandishing the Sororis shield, Bellatrix thrusts it forward with a kinetic blast. Enemies within 12 meters in a 90 degree arc in front of Bellatrix and in any direction within 5 meters are dealt 600 impact damage, ragdolled and knocked away.

Ability 2: Indomitable, 50 energy. With a rallying battlecry Bellatrix heals herself and all allies within 30 meters for 50 health/shields and grants herself and her allies within 20 meters temporary invulnerability to damage and status for 5 seconds. If an ally within 60 meters is bleeding out when Indomitable is cast their bleedout timer is extended by 5 seconds.

Ability 3: Battle Sister's Bastion, 75 energy. A field of protective energies absorbs 50% of damage dealt to allies within 15 meters, and 50% of the absorbed damage is dealt to Bellatrix instead for 15 seconds. While Battle Sister's Bastion is active Indomitable's self-healing is increased by 100%, and Shield Bash's damage is increased by 30%.

Ability 4: Praesidium et Sororis, toggled ability, each attack costs 5 energy. Bellatrix's gladiatorial melee of choice, her exalted sword and shield Praesidium et Sororis is both a weapon and a symbol. Deals mostly slash damage, moderate puncture, and low impact. Every hit has a guaranteed impact proc. Very high status chance at the cost of reduced crit. Above average reach for a S&S. While active Bellatrix gains 20% bonus armor. 10% of Damage blocked by Praesidium et Sororis is added to a pool of blast damage which is released in a 10 meter radial nova when heavy attacks, slam attacks, slide attacks, and Shield Bash are used.

Subsumed ability: Indomitable (invulnerability duration and bleedout extension are reduced to 3 seconds)

Signature Weapons Trident: A Tenno spear-gun based on weapons used by historical gladiators and adapted with Orokin technology to become a totally new weapon. Primary fire mode has semi-auto trigger which fires extremely accurate hitscan projectiles with minimal recoil dealing high puncture, moderate impact, and low slash with high crit at the cost of low status and 1 meter of innate punch-through. On a successful hit this firing mode gains 20% bonus damage on its next shot for 2 seconds, stacks up to five times. When wielded by Bellatrix this limit increases to eight stacks. Alt-fire throws the spear-gun, creating a 10 meter field of magnetic energy. Enemies that enter this field suffer a magnetic proc once every 2 seconds, have their armor stripped by 50%, and are disarmed. Robotic and mechanical units are stunned while in the field. Field duration is based on ammunition remaining in magazine when the weapon is thrown. Gladius and Scutum: Although it may only be a poor substitute for her exalted weapon, the Gladius sword and Scutum shield are nonetheless a natural fit for Bellatrix the gladiator. Sword & Shield melee weapon that deals mostly slash, moderate impact, and low puncture damage. High crit at the cost of low status. This weapon has a naturally increased counter chance. When wielded by Bellatrix, blolocking with Gladius and Scutum taunts enemies within 10 meters to attack her instead of her allies. This effect can stack with Guardian Derision.

Closing Notes: Bellatrix was very satisfying to design. And I hope some of you will enjoy having another "step on me, mommy" warframe. I know at least one of you specifically requested it. As with all my warframe ideas, artists are welcome to draw them! If you have suggestions for new warframe ideas please don't hesistate to let me know!

[af1899]

FEH - So... quick thoughts on [CYL 2021]

The [Feh Channel] was released here and we’ve finally got news on artwork, base kit and stats on everyone, I’ll share some early thoughts and reactions on each of the four, plus the identity of the new [Grand Hero Battle] unit right below, feel free to read on.

First of all, you might be most interested on our latest [Grand Hero Battle] unit, that’s... Pelleas “Ashnard’s Orphan”, going to be available starting August 18th at 4:00 a.m. (GMT-3). Quite the interesting pick and the guy deserved to be added to the game for a long time, he's a [Grand Hero Battle] because he's fought (albeit optionally) in a snowy map early on part 4, and he has a smaller room for growth compared to most of the cast in the game.

Now, I’ve read he’s using a generic red tome with a lion pattern engraved on it, this could very well mean it’ll have [Fury 3] or something similar, but this is a R.I.P. for him because he gets no PRF to stand out and is just going to be another free infantry red tome in 2021... ugh... but I’ll wait and see on the data mine when it rolls out tomorrow.

Next up, kits for everyone and stats:

(As for what are the other skills other than the weapons, feel free to check the trailer linked above)

Now, I’ll order the characters from most to least anticipated by me, along with what I think of each:

Marianne: I’d say she’s the absolute winner for me but... much as I adore her, I actually feel rather mixed about this alt. She comes with [Atk/Spd Unity] which reverses field penalties on those stats and her kit+stats priming her for pure offense on player phase, she’s going to be really fast and able to take in a large portion of damage for the first strike from the enemy per combat. Not really shabby and actually really interesting colorless tome offensive unit, but I’d have liked to see a version of her wielding [Blutgang] after timeskip... I’m guessing we’ll see that in an alt like the Valentian Whitewings. Sadly, I’ve been eagerly waiting for [Atk/Spd Unity] so that my Clarisse would have it, but the worst thing that could happen is that she already has the other two passive skillas Marianne has, so I think I’ll keep waiting. As for artwork, I like it but at the same time, I feel slightly uncomfortable by the styling itself, Marianne’s expression in her special art is particularly bothersome but not to the extent I’d be upset about... it just feels odd, like maybe another artist such as Asatani Tomoyo might have proposed a take that’s more my liking.

Eirika: she’s kind of a special case here, in this ocassion, she takes up on Ephraim’s weapon and garment, I actually like this idea, since it references her strong connection with her beloved brother. The art is pretty and I find it refreshing her hair is tied into a ponytail this time; but now, in terms of gameplay, she plays similarly to Marianne, yet there are many glaring differences for sure, like lowered damage reduction and easy stats plus follow-up negation effects nulled, making of her yet another excellent [Windsweep 3] source. *Presses F in the chat for Lifis* She also carries a powercrept [Swift Sparrow 3] which I have no doubt will be inheritable, as it can heal the user by large amounts, complimenting skills with large cooldowns like [Aether] really well (do note that works when an offensive skill triggers in-battle).

Marth: the wait has been long worth for his fans, although I was never too drawn by him, I still like him from the Akaneia titles (yes, I just used an old translation all right). Although he’s just another infantry sword user, I actually appreciate he’s doning Anri’s armor, Marth’s ancestor from old times, the concept itself is actually so good and the artwork is impressive. From a gameplay standpoint: his weapon is loaded with a ton of effects that require consistent stat boosting in field for the maximum effect, fortunately, you don’t have to worry as much about positioning allies near Marth, just keeping them buffed with at least a +5 on everything, Fae with her preference weapon (no need to refine) got you covered, but having a total of 25 is enough and easy to make of him a powerhouse. Again, he also comes pre-built, without any need for investment except of course adding an assist skill like for Eirika and Marianne, slightly gearing towards enemy phase but rather flexible to build.

Gatekeeper: I never hated (or will hate) him, he’s a well revered guard in the Garreg Mach Monastery with a cheerful and dutiful attitude that I like.. I’m just not really attached to him nor find the popular meme that interesting or funny. Anyway, I have to admit that I.S. went very creative with his quotes, epithet and skill naming (and did you see that weapon’s animation? That’s crazy). His artwork is amazing too, you just have to look at all the detail on it like the castle on Gatekeeper’s background and his teammates accompanying him in his special attack. As for gameplay, he’s pure enemy phase, a strong and durable mixed wall with tendence towards buffing his physical defense and carries an ability to block the enemy’s advancement and warping skills within an area centered on him, plus he also offers a little support as well, a rather interesting unit indeed, I don’t think he’ll be too annoying or even a common threat in PvP, but he might see use in some situations.

As for my free summon, I’m probably picking Eirika actually, I quite like her and that new A-skill plus [Atk/Spd Menace] on regular pool is looking spicy, perhaps my Nyx is going to love these, but I’ll wait for data mine to confirm inheritance restrictions on all new non-PRF skills.

Oh, I almost forgot but we’re getting a {Dragonflower} stat boost cap increase as follows:

And these rewards tomorrow:

I like this because my Sonya will have 69 base attack for a month but again my maxed out projects will be incomplete aaaaaaaaa.

[magiamemoriareview]

Mischievous Duo

Effect: Defense Up [30%] (Self / 3 Turns) & HP Restore [30%] (Lowest HP Ally)

TLDR: “Mischievous Duo” is surprisingly excellent and is a memoria that can serve many different purposes. It’s best used for long-term fights such as the Hundred Calamities. You can either try and get maximum usage out of its two effects (which shouldn’t be too difficult), use it as a tank memoria, use it as an on-demand heal, or as a way to protect tank-adjacent units. It’s very good for what amounts to as a free shop memoria. This memoria is exclusive to the Halloween Castle of Payers and Funeral event shop, though it’s likely it’ll be rerun during next year’s Halloween event.

Review: “Mischievous Duo” is actually rather good and can be useful for difficult, long battles such as the Hundred Calamities. It provides an excellent effect in Defense Up and HP Restore (though, we’ll go into more on that effect later), and is overall a good defensive cooldown. For something so simple, it has a lot of utility and can be used in a variety of situations.

Defense Up is a good effect and will increase the unit’s base defense by the percentage shown, taking place before any buffs or debuffs are calculated. HP Restore will instantly restore health to the character.

You can see how well these two effects synergize. If a character needs defense, it’s likely a character needs some HP restored too. However, note that this HP Restore is for “the lowest HP Ally”-- so using this memoria will heal the lowest character on the team, not the character who uses it.

This gives “Mischievous Duo” a lot of variability. You can try and get max usage out of it, where you use it when the equipped character needs Defense Up, and the heal is needed somewhere on the board. This shouldn’t be too difficult, and if used on a tank, often that heal will be used on the tank anyways, effectively being a nice bonus for them. However, this memoria can be used for a variety of other scenarios too. 

For example, maybe you want your tank to have two active provoke memoria instead. Because the heal here is used on the lowest character, you could use “Mischievous Duo” on a different unit instead, saving it for when the tank needs help. The Defense Up might not be wasted, depending on where the equipped character sits. 

If Matsuri (the tank here) needs health, and you have this memoria equipped on Emiri or Manaka, you can use this memoria and protect the equipped character at the same time. Characters towards the front of the party (aka Matsuri and Emiri here) will take more hits in PVE situations, while characters in the back will take less. 

If Matsuri has provoke as a passive (or if you’re using it as an active), then Emiri will be protected by “Mischievous Duo’s” 30% Defense Up. In fact, since it lasts for three turns, you can plan ahead and use it when you know you’ll be using Provoke actives on your tank, keeping your frontline character safer from hits.

The other possible uses of this memoria are just whenever you need an on-demand heal or whenever you need some extra defense. You don’t necessarily need to ring it out for efficiency-- you can use it for either case when needed.

The only problem with that method is that “Mischievous Duo” has a ten turn cooldown, making it not very reliable unless you’re in a long fight (such as the Hundred Calamities). This can be mitigated by using it on a character with Skill Quicken, but even then, you probably want that said character to have a more important memoria such as Mito Rain instead.

But overall, this is an excellent memoria, absolutely worth using in difficult quests. 

“Mischievous Duo” won’t be great on your Supports due to the fact that followers will prefer active memoria with attack/damage up.

[thebibliomancer]

Dark Crystal Age of Resistance Tactics liveblog pt 9

Even though I already befriended the Drenchen forever last time, I keep hanging around a swamp because I heard there was a SkekSil hanging around and I wanted to see him in his natural habitat.

Zing.

Now that the Drenchen are my best friends forever (high five, Gurjin!), I have to save them from the Chamberlain doing Chamberlain things.

Mission: Bogged Down - Putrid Banks

"The heroes set out to aid a Drenchen encampment. Rumor has it that the Chamberlain has been causing trouble."

I hope he doesn't have any threaders. Thats too much mind control in one place.

Aw dammit a bunch of hostile Drenchen. I'm always fighting Gelfling! There's not going to be any left to unify after everything at this rate! Short-coming of the narrative, I guess. If it was set later in the timeline, we could fight Garthim and Crystal Bats.

Maybe the sequel should get on that, hint hint?

And there's poisonous swamp water everywhere!

My swamp dream team is Gurjin, Naia, Rek'yr, Hup, and Kylan.

Because they're my lowest levelled but also because Gurjin and Naia are Drenchen and are immune to poison swamp water.

Dammit, the Chamberlain told the Drenchen that my group were fugitives.

Gurjin, you're a prince or something, can't you do something about this?

Apparently not.

But things are going okay. Sure, I can't cross the swamp very effectively except with the pet Nurloc, Naia, and Gurjin but do you know what is very effectively?

Kylan and Naia as a combo. Mark plus Double Strike? Very good. Beating up all the fools/members of her own clan.

AND GURJIN!

I've never used Defeaning Roar before even though its been on his movelist for a while but I love the graphic for it! It creates a blue energy shell around the unit which they bang ineffectually on with their fist! Its like noise proofing, for annoying mages!

Rek'yr, as you might expect from a desert guy, doesn't take well to the swamp. Most of the enemies that have attacked so far have ganged up on him. But he's still holding his own.

I'm very proud of my resistance group.

And then I gang up on the last guy, stack him with conditions, and kick the crap out of him.

Then Gurjin delivers a speech about freeing everyone from the Skeksis' tyranny which everyone is too unconscious to hear.

Its a feel good victory.

EVERYONE LEVELED UP!

Rek'yr learned Evasive (passive +15 evasion), Gurjin learned Tempered Stone (attack up for three turns if critical hit), Hup learned Friendship (he had this all along (ok fine, buffs accuracy and critical chance to adjacent allied beasts)), Naia learned Flurry of Steel (attack and take your next turn sooner), and Kylan learned Aimed Shot (attack a marked enemy for massive damage).

Oops, Kylan got to level 5, so I have to start training him on Mender so he can be a Song Teller, like the prophecy says.

Gurjin and Naia will stay Stone Warden and Paladin respectively. Feels like good symmetry for them.

I'm just going around the wheel with Hup so he needs five more levels in Tamer so he can become a Potion Master.

Rek'yr I'm going to try to make a Grave Dancer because it sounds rad and because he flirts over funerary arrangements. But he's a level 5 thief now so I need to get him to Paladin, which means Soldier. Since I'm making him a fighty guy, I'm giving him the Dousan Axe.

---

Encounter - Putrid Banks - Fight a challenge to test your mettle

Always with the testing my mettle, geez.

Dang the swamp is full of darkened nurlocs and windsifters. This game is doing a slightly better job at making me remember the Darkening is an ongoing concern than the show.

Since encounters help you get more xp, I'm bringing my lowest levelled people Breg, Alyadon, Rian, Brea, and... Rek'yr? You just levelled!

New guy has to play catch-up a lot.

Well. That went well enough. Breg died. Poor Breg.

Rian leveled up so now I can start him on Stone Wardening so I can eventually make him the big-brained strategist of the resistance. And Alyadon levelled up so I can make her a tracker or thief. I forgot what the plan was for her. I don't have a dedicated Mender and she was one of those so maybe time to lean into that?

But if she's going to be in a basic job, I'm giving her nice things. A Dusty Tome so she can attack from afar, an Apprentice's Cloak because I was out of clothes, and a Pouch of Hollerbat Fur.

Decked to the nines.

---

Geez, you never get much money in this game. I feel like a really long time goes by between being able to buy next tier equipment for my party but other than grinding on Encounters (which don't give much) I don't see what I can do.

---

Mission: Creepy-Crawlies - Muddy Shallows

"Hot on the Chamberlain's trail, the heroes are stopped when they encounter an army of Arathim."

Dangit SkekSil!

My party is Breg and Rek'yr, doomed to always be the lowest levelled guys from some reason (its because Rek'yr just joined and Breg keeps dying), Brea and Boggi because a girl and her shouty dog is just classic, and Hup because Hup already knows Friendship.

The spiders talk, which I know they can do from the show but I don't think they've done in the game yet.

Gurjin: "Now he's convinced the Arathim to help him? We have to stop the Chamberlain and his manipulative ways."

Just keep Rian away from him. He's a good kid but way too easily swayed.

"Well this is not going great, what with all the spit but at least nobody as died so f- HUP NOOOOOO"

But despite spending much of the mission with most of my party hovering in low health, Hup is the only one who did die by the end. I'm surprised. Usually my team starts dropping like flies.

It occurs to me that this was a filler mission padding out a filler story arc padding out the show plot by having Chamberlain Up To Something.

Good news is that everyone level up!

Breg learned Evasive, Boggi learned Concentrate (Magic Up and Shell for one turn, take next turn sooner), Brea learned Landslide (Stun all adjacent units, nice), Hup learns NOTHING, Rek'yr learned to Shove people.

---

Mission: The Chamberlain's Deception - Drenchen Encampment

"The heroes reach the Drenchen encampment and confront the manipulative Chamberlain"

Well, I won't say no to kicking his butt a second and a half time and stealing his clothes again.

I do wonder if we'll get to fight more Skeksis besides the Chamberlain, the Hunter, and presumably the General.

Geez, this map is huge.

I'm bringing Deet, Gurjin and Naia (home turf), Kylan (because he's Naia's bestie), and Breg. Because I'm always bringing Breg. Poor guy needs more experience constantly.

Gurjin: "Begone Chamberlain! Your kind is no longer welcome, drainer!"

The Chamberlain: "Please... Skeksis come only to help Gelfling living so far away. We bring them back to the castle. GIve them much-needed food and supplies."

He has a trustworthy face, I say we trust him.

Rian: "Don't listen to him! He plans to drain you all for your essence!"

Then again, Rian is a protagonist. He might be right.

Chamberlain: "Wicked Gelfling spread lies! Capture the fugitives and skekSil will reward you all at the Castle!"

-me hits a Drenchen after they hit me-

Chamberlain: "You see! Gelfling here to hurt you"

I MEAN. It doesn't look good for us! 90% of what we do is roll into town and beat up other Gelfling!

Soo. I lost.

Its a bad setup. There's a lot of swamp water in the middle that Chamberlain can just sit on the other side of and lob his ridiculous 4 and 5 ranged apparently perfect accuracy confuse Please, Please and stun Spithead abilities across.

All the Gelfling enemies are Drenchen so they can cross the swamp water no problem or darkened armaligs which have ridiculous defense.

Chamberlain himself has 1000 HP. You only have to beat him but he plays keep away on the other side of the swamp. And if you try to keep out of his range, then he'll cross over but run away if you attack him too much. And he's seemingly immune to status effects.

Trying again with Rian, Gurjin, Naia, Brea, and Hup. The all-star squad.

And I lost again. Chamberlain is just too able to lock down the party with confuse and stun and not to mention converting your people onto his team. I even got his MP down to nothing and he still used an ability to I can't win via attrition either. And when you take out half the enemy units, he automatically goes hopped up on essence and can use Skeksis Friend to convert a confused team member.

I had Hup, who could clear confusion but he died.

Eesh, what a disaster.

Going to try Hup, Alyadon, Brea, Rian and Naia. Alyadon and Hup can both clear statuses, Brea and Alyadon can heal. Rian can hit things. And Naia can hit things but look cooler when she does.

Oh, shit I actually won. I lost everyone but Naia. Heck, I lost everyone but Brea, Alyadon, and Naia just getting across the swamp to where Chamberlain was. Hup and Rian both got cornered and slowly beaten to death =(

I had Alyadon mark the Chamberlain, then he executed her =(

I had Brea dreamfast to give Naia more MP, then two armaligs bumped her to death at the cost of their own lives =(

And then Naia did double strike AND IT WAS THE DRAMATIC LAST BLOW! GOOD STUFF!

I didn't denude the Chamberlain again but I did steal his Signet Ring and got a book of Drenchen legends.

The ring lets the equipped hero start battle with ten turns of Guardian's Blessing! Which means an auto-revive! I'd have to suck a lot to die in the first ten turns but STILL NEAT

Giving it to Naia, she more than earned it!

Drenchen Legends is a spellbook, grants a ranged magic attack with 30% chance to inflict poison. GIVING IT TO BREA, SHE EARNED IT! Plus, she loves to read.

And Brea and Naia levelled up, as befits THE LAST TWO PEOPLE STANDING.

PHEW

Brea learned Channel (grant adjacent allies MP regen? YES THANK YOU) and Naia learned Retribution WHICH IS VERY APPROPRIATE FOR HOW I GOT IT (50% chance to counter attack melee attacks). I kept wishing Naia could counter the whole mission when she was confused and being slowly beaten to death by a mender.

I spent some of my battle spoils giving some teeth to Gurjin and Rek'yr and buying Brea some bat fur.

And thats where I leave off because that is just enough for right now. I really thought I'd just be stuck at this point and have to grind on bar fights!

[sosei]

Brief Thoughts on upcoming Granblue Reworks

Here is the preliminary list of changes

Anthuria (Fire)

JUST LAST WEEK I COMPLAINED ABOUT HER NOT HAVING HARP PROFICIENCY AND THEY’RE GIVING IT TO HER! AS FORETOLD. She will now dodge much more reliably, but her red dance no longer grants hype when dodging, only extending any current hype stacks as well as granting a stacking ATK buff. But instead her 3rd skill gives her Instant Charge as well as a party wide Uplifted, Shield and Hype buff. I suspect she’ll go really REALLY well in a Rising Force/Aoidos comp.

Overall assessment: Good update, her kit does roughly the same thing, but should function way more smoothly. Plus the way they changed the kit should make her viable for Full Auto comps!

Percival (Fire)

I love this guy, but I don’t have too much to say about him. His Light Unit that came out yesterday was foreshadowing for the changes they were gonna do it seems. He now gains 20% charge on Charge Attack instead of his next nuke hitting twice, which is a shame since I was under the impressing that was supposed to be a signature thing for the Knights. In exchange they’ve buffed the self heal on his first skill and had it give him a Fire Crest. I like the change to his Petrify debuff so it includes a delay, bc it sucks when the boss is at full diamonds and petrify wont do shit to save you. I am not sure how his crest effect on his 3rd skill will play out, but I suspect Percy will hit even harder than before in longer fights thanks to it. Thats always been his job, so him being able to do it better should be a good thing.

I don’t like their change to Kingly Aura, since I liked how you could double up on it and Shiva’s passive. But it makes sense to change it, since you kinda feel locked into bringing Shiva alongside Percy if you were bringing him.

Overall assessment: Big shrug. Percy had fallen out of the meta for a while and I dont know if this will do that much for him. But the change to his Petrify is nice and he’ll likely outdamage his old self thanks to his reworked 3rd skill.

Narmaya (Summer)

I have not used her before the rework, but since they’re making her a proper dodgememe character I likely will now.

Aglovale

I don’t have him, so can’t say much. But it looks like they are just making him a slightly more defensive Percy.

Threo Sarasa

Looks interesting, she was a solid unit before the rework, and the rework just looks like its making what she does more clear and how she does it less clunky. I particularly like the change to her first skill, since I really didn’t like how the old one work. She should work even better with a Hollowsky Axe now with her new passive.

Overall assessment: You kept what her core appeal is in her kit, and made the rest of her kit work better and do more. Nice tune up!

Valentine’s Medusa

I dont have her so won’t make a judgment.

Gawain

He no longer half-asses two things, but whole-asses them both. Plus the addition of spear proficiency will make me consider him for spearmemes.

Carmelina

It looks like she does things now! Her new support skill activates my kengo senses.

De La Fille (Light)

This, along with her upcoming uncap, means she might just see some use at some point ever!

Seruel

His old 1st skill is now an autoactivating passive, which is a good call, since that’s how its used already. Good change. His new first skill is another nuke, but this time with ATKdebuffs.This along with his passive changing from a generic “slight chance of Dodge-and-Counter “ that didn’t go with his kit to a multiattack buff to the whole team while Seruel isn’t debuffed seems like a good change. Since the whole point of bringing Seruel is that you dont wanna be debuffed.

Overall assessment: Seruel was a solid but boring unit. I don’t know how much this will help in the fun department, but it does make him even more solid in my eyes.

Vira (Dark SSR)

Her buffs/debuffs on her first skill are now of the stackable kind, so they’ll play nicer with other buff/debuff sources. Making her usable in more comps. Her 3rd skill is getting a higher healing cap AND debuffs light AND dark ATK/DEF, giving her even more debuffing power. But the most interesting change I see is a 1-turn cut to her cooldowns on charge attack. 

Olivia

Her nukes just do more, and her 3rd skill now gives a Shield, Veil, Damage Cap up and Echoes on top of what it already did, but ends upon her taking damage. I have some ideas for how to use this.

We were speculating in the server that she’d get the Dark Disciple passive and she did get SOMETHING like that, but not quite. So yay for partial correctness?

Weapon Specialty changes

All of the “dancer” type units are getting Harp proficiency, which is about time. This prompted me to make a Ultima Harp for Aoidos and Wind usage.

Yuel’s change from sword to harp prof is unusual, but nice. I’d rather have less sword prof allies if it means more variation.

[slumberinglabyrinth]

Modern Shin Megami Tensei (read: megaten games that do more than just a damage multiplier for hitting a weakness) typically are designed in a way where setting yourself and your allies up for a magic build is the better and/or only viable option. Notable exceptions include going for the True Demon Ending in Nocturne Maniax, which effectively forces you to use the pierce passive which in turn requires your damage to be physical, and Apocalypse difficulty for IVA, which has a hefty hitrate reduction for all your attacks and a mid-game skill that guarantees your next phys attack will hit (because it makes it a crit, and you can’t crit if you miss :^U with the added bonus of getting extra actions just like if you had hit a weakness since you’re getting a crit), but those examples are heavily lopsided in favor of Phys and usually the other games don’t have enough enemies with phys/gun/etc weaknesses to make investing in it worth it and they often don’t give you a large enough MP pool on phys-oriented allies to make using them worth the effort (IV is incredibly guilty of this).

Not doing this happens to be one of the things sharpFE does incredibly well, and though it’s not without a few issues (on the scale of a handful of skills instead of the usual ‘entire build archtypes’), the most recent footage they’ve shown off makes it seem like it’s entirely possible those problems have already been addressed in Encore.

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Some required reading before I actually get to the point of this post: for those of you with actual taste who haven’t played TMSFE, its “hit a weakness” gimmick is Sessions. When you hit a weakness with a skill or an item (but not an auto attack), if a character in your party has a session skill that corresponds to the element that you hit with, you’ll start a session and they’ll do an attack which has its own element. If a character who hasn’t participated in that session yet has a skill that will start a session off of the session attack that just ended, they will then perform their own attack. This continues until someone’s attack is nullified (through a Null, Reflect, or Absorb) or until everybody who can participate in that session has attacked, though there are ways to extend sessions (Duo Arts, which I’ll also explain) and ways to start sessions against an enemy that isn’t weak to that specific element (which I’ll also go into). When there are multiple possible sequences for a given session, the game automatically selects a path that doesn’t end prematurely (if at all possible) and the one that deals the most damage most.

For example, let’s say you’ve just started the first chapter and your party is only Itsuki, Tsubasa, and Touma. Among whatever their other skills may be, Itsuki has the light sword-element command skill Cleave, Tsubasa has the session skill Fire-Lunge (where she does a light lance attack when a session includes a fire attack), and Touma has the session skill Sword-Blaze (which, you guessed it, is a light fire attack that follows a sword attack).

Itsuki hits an enemy’s sword weakness, Touma does a followup fire attack, and Tsubasa does a followup lance attack.

You’ve tripled your damage output against that enemy in a single attack, which, needless to say, is why Session attacks (especially when you can start getting party members who aren’t on the field to join in and when you can extend them even further through Duo Arts) are vital to killing your enemy before they kill you with a session of their own.

Duo Arts are the other Main Big Thing for dealing enough damage to not die a horrible (but incredibly stylish!) death. They’re special attacks with a skill-based (the stat) chance of randomly appearing during a session that have varying effects when activated (ranging from just Big AoE Damage, to Healing status and/or hp and AoE Damage, to AoE Damage and an AoE status effect, and so on). When the chance to activate a Duo Art appears you’ll have the choice between two of the ones you’ve obtained and you can opt to go for whatever you need more at the time, but the super important thing about Duo Arts is that they act as a starting point for a follow-up session (which excludes the two people who cast the duo art) if there’s a character that can start a session off of that Duo Art’s element. You can activate a Duo Art twice off of a single skill usage (meaning up to three sessions), which, in addition to whatever damage you’re dealing through the duo arts, gives you up to 17 attacks.

The last piece of background information that I feel the need to touch upon is the elemental affinity/weakness system. Every attack and skill (barring healing skills and support skills like Charge or Tarukaja) has a elemental affinity from one of the following categories: Sword, Lance, Axe, Bow, Fire, Ice, Electric, Wind, Spirit, Body, and Almighty. Almighty attacks can be considered ‘untyped’ damage, but every enemy could potentially be weak or resistant (or take unmodified damage, reflect that damage, nullify that damage, or absorb that damage) to any of the other elements. Spirit and Body are almost exclusively reserved for ailment attacks (turning the ‘nerve’ and ‘mind’ classifications for ailments from the mainline games into an actual type that you actually can see if an enemy resists or is weak to), though there are damage-dealing Spirit and Body skills available to both you and -much more commonly- to enemies.

There are also skills with "effective against [class]” effects, like Armorslayer or Wyrmicide, which allow you to ignore any potential resistances when you use them against an enemy of that class (or when used against you) and start a session without them being weak to the element of the skill (which also ignore resistances).

Finally, there’s a special type of skill called a Special Performance that each character has a few of that can do various things (ranging from damage, to buffs and healing, to creating weaknesses on the enemies, to giving everyone an extra turn), and if they deal damage they operate under the same rules as [class]bane skills for starting a session. There’s a shared meter that you cast from for Special Performances but how that works isn’t important to this post.

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ANYWAYS:

The main reason why TMSFE doesn’t fall into the trap that a lot of megaten games do regarding STR and MAG builds is because the elemental affinity of an attack is uncoupled from being Str/Mag based. In game this really only manifests for Fire/Ice/Elec/Wind skills having the potential to be str-based since it doesn’t really make sense to make a sword Mag-based, but it means that every character can specialize in Str or Mag and still have access to both both a traditionally physical element and a traditionally magical element (ex. Touma is Str based, but learns both Lance and Fire element skills). Within your party, Kiria is Mag-based, Itsuki and Tsubasa have a mix of Mag- and Str-based attacks (while Itsuki leans more towards a Str-focused statline and Tsubasa more towards Mag) and everyone else is Str-based.

Speaking of Kiria, who acts as a dedicated mage/healer, she does not have a traditionally physical element that she can deal damage through (her autoattack deals untyped phys damage and is also really really bad) and instead has access to every other traditionally magic element when everyone else gets like, a single fire/ice/elec/wind attack that isn’t what they specialize in (ex. Touma getting a Wind attack).

I’ll be coming back to her in a moment.

The other reason why TMSFE doesn’t succumb to a chronic state of ‘phys is bad’ is because it just. Makes enemies weak to physical elements.

Wild, isn’t it? When you have four different types to spread these weaknesses across instead of one or two (and make your weakness exploitation gimmick not work with autoattacks) you can actually use them. I glanced through the enemy list and it’s nearly a universal rule that when an enemy doesn’t have a weakness to a weapon element and a magic element, they have a bunch of weaknesses to one and a ton of resistances to the other (in the same way that Knights in FE are heavily geared towards wanted to not be attacked by mages).

It’s free re- good game design

Anyways.

Kiria. And the one real problem (oversight, really) with this system. The problem isn’t but it’s a problem that’s a problem for her.

So Kiria has access to the only pure damage dealing Spirit skill you get (Flux, while Tsubasa has Life Drain and Life Leech) and the only damage dealing Body skills that you get (Nosferatu, which functions exactly as you’d expect, and Naga, which is also the only Wyrmslaying effect that isn’t on Itsuki), and is the only unit who has access to AoE Almighty (the only other Almighty skill being Overload, which has significant utility beyond dealing damage since it alters turn order but can only be found on Elenora and Kiria). On top of that, there a few other Body skills that don’t deal damage but allow Kiria to restore her MP.

To cap off your almighty skills, Elenora also has a Duo Art with Tsubasa that deals Almighty damage, inflicts charm, and fully heals your active party (Dream Catcher), alongside a Special Performance that deals Almighty damage in the process of draining the enemy’s HP and EP and inflicts charm (Horror Hunter Angel).

Cutting to the chase, you cannot perform a session by striking a weakness with Body or Spirit or in general with Almighty attacks because there are no session skills that follow Body-, Spirit-, or Almighty-element attacks. While this is totally justifiable with Almighty skills since their conceit is and always has been to not interact with the flavor of the week weakness gimmick, Body and Spirit skills (namely Flux, Nosferatu, and especially Naga) aren’t designed under the same philosophy and the primary reason to use a Duo Art or a damage-dealing Special Performance is to bypass resistances and initiate (or extend) a session in the first place.

Part of the reason why Body, Spirit, and (especially) Almighty skills don’t have session skills they’d link into is because there just isn’t enough of them to make dedicating a whole session skill slot to them worth it. And then this feeds back into the reasons to not use Flux/Nosferatu/Dream Catcher/etc., which in turn makes there less of a reason to make session skills that-

But what if it didn’t have to be like this? What if I didn’t pad this post out any further?

One of the changes that they’re making for Encore is giving an expanded role to the backup cast (Maiko, B****, and Tiki), who previous were characters with some passive effects that you could unlock that did neat stuff like increase the money you earned from sessions or the individual cap for each item you could carry, but will now be able to participate in sessions. We don’t know how you’ll be able to get these skills (probably side-stories alongside one of their passives) or if they’ll even be customizable to the extent of the main casts’ session portfolio (probably not), BUT! From the like half a second of English footage released right now we do know that they operate differently from other session skills.

We see Maiko use Weapon-Slash to session off of Elenora performing what was probably a bow attack, and then B**** follow that up with Weapon-Cyclone, and then Tiki follow that up with Magic-Fire.

The common thread between their session skills? They’re sessioning based off of the element family and not the sole element, and since B****’s session skill was ‘Cyclone’ and not ‘Wind’ or ‘Elwind’, we can be absolutely certain that it was Str-based and that Tiki’s ‘Magic’ criteria was looking at it being wind element (within the magic element family) and not looking at the stat ‘Magic’.

This is easily the best possible solution for both fitting the backup cast into the session system in a way that’s simple and doesn’t make the party system cumbersome to manage wrt weapon mastery and exp distribution, and also addressing the problem with the session system that I’ve pointed out without needlessly including Megido/Megidolaon/Overload assuming that Tiki will be able to properly identify Spirit, Body, and Almighty as Magic. 

Also I guess I kinda didn’t really explain why this is a problem if, with the exception of turning Dream Catcher into a session-ender that doesn’t output enough damage (or healing) to justify cutting a session off so soon, it’s just freeing up skill slots to use for things you’d actually use.

I mentioned that Kiria is the only other source of a wyrmslaying effect, right?

It isn’t really a concern until you get to ng+ but the extra boss (and probably the final boss on lunatic, which is also requires you to do a second cycle) does a ton of stupid stuff which will ABSOLUTELY be the subject of a post for another day and having a second way to initiate a session off of it that ignores its constantly rotating reflect-level elemental resistances would make it. Significantly Less Stupid. and immediately make it feel like a good final challenge the game throws at you and not just an exercise in masochism rivaled only by the unlock requirements for said boss

[mezzopurrloin]

Chapter 1-2: Blackrock & Roll

Arthas arrives at Uther's base stationed near the orc encampment.

Uther fills him in on the situation.

Yeah, about that...

This certainly couldn't be foreshadowing anything, no sir.

Arthas agrees, and they get started.

The first thing to do is establish a base here, which serves as the tutorial for Human base building.

Town Hall: Central building of the Human base. Trains Peasants and serves as a return point for collected resources. Much like the Great Hall, eventually gains additional upgrades that unlock new technologies.

Altar of Kings: Altar where fallen heroes can be revived.

Peasant: Worker unit of the Alliance. Can gather gold and lumber, build Human structures, and repair, similarly to Peons.

Lumber Mill: Return point for gathered lumber. Also holds a few upgrades related to base development (not unlocked yet).

Multiple Peasants can work together on a building, speeding up construction at the cost of a few extra resources.

Scout Tower: This tower does nothing on its own, but can be upgraded into a defensive Guard Tower. There are other types of towers it can upgrade to, to be unlocked later.

Militia: By using the Call to Arms ability, Peasants can be temporarily upgraded into Militia to serve as an emergency base defense. This increases their attack power, but prevents them from using worker abilities.

Farm: Provides only 6 food as opposed to Burrows' 10, but is cheaper. Doesn't do anything else.

Barracks: Basically the same as the Orc Barracks. Footmen can be recruited from here.

Uther can't be controlled and patrols both entrances to the base. He's level 10, the maximum, and can easily fight off any incoming attack waves. He also frequently uses Divine Shield to protect himself, causing the enemies to go for my towers instead. That's a bit annoying.

Once we have six footmen, this objective is complete.

Uther strikes the blademaster, and he vanishes in a puff of smoke.

Poor Unlucky Footman. You deserved better.

This gives us a new objective: Find and kill the blademaster.

Just outside Arthas' base is a dwarf encampment. They're hunting black dragons and could use some help. Arthas agrees to help out, and they join him, unlocking a new unit and building type.

Rifleman: Dwarven gunner armed with his trusty blunderbuss. The basic ranged unit of the Alliance. Good at shooting down flying units. Can be recruited at the Barracks.

Blacksmith: Holds weapon and armor upgrades for all Human units. Weapon upgrades are split between metal and gunpowder weapons, while armor is split between plate and leather. There are three levels of each, one for each tier of the Town Hall.

These black dragons are flying units and can't be hit by melee attacks. Riflemen are just what we need to clip their wings. Arthas is still good for healing, and the footmen are... moral support I guess.

The dragon Searinox summons a few skeleton archers along with him, giving them something to do.

Slaying the fiend brought Arthas to level 3, and I put a point into his third ability.

Devotion Aura: Aura abilities provide a passive effect to both the hero and all allied units in a large radius around them. This one increases armor.

Bringing the Heart of Searinox back to the smithy has him convert it into an Orb of Fire. That'll come in handy the next time we encounter any flyers.

I encountered an incoming attack wave on the way to the blademaster's lair. Thankfully they weren't that hard to deal with.

The Blademaster himself is a level 2 hero, and doesn't have any other units accompanying him.

His Mirror Image ability creates an illusory duplicate of himself.

But that definitely wasn't enough to save him.

Arthas is concerned that the orcs were using sacrifices to try and summon demons.

Yeah, I'm not so sure about that.

Chapter complete.

[tacticsroom]

Mercedes: Kindly Devotee (Unit Review)

Available at 4-5★

Lvl 40 Stats (Flaw/Neutral/Asset)

HP:  35/39/42

Atk: 30/33/36

Spd: 27/30/33

Def: 19/22/25

Res: 30/33/36

Neutral BST: 156

Max Dragonflowers: 5

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Skills

Weapon: Gravity+ (300 SP)

Mt: 10. Rng: 2. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts status on target and foes within 1 space of target restricting movement to 1 space through their next actions.

Staff. Can be inherited. Can be refined.

Assist: Martyr+ (300 SP)

Rng: 1. Restores HP = damage dealt to unit +50% of Atk. (Minimum of 7 HP.) Restores HP to unit = half damage dealt to unit. 

Can be inherited.

Special: Miracle (200 SP)

CD: 5. If unit's HP > 1 and foe would reduce unit's HP to 0, unit survives with 1 HP.

Can be inherited.

A: AR-D Spd/Res 3 (240 SP)

If defending in Aether Raids, grants Spd/Res+X during combat. (Calculates X based on number of your defensive structures: ≥5 structures grants +10; 4 grants +7; 3 grants +4; ≤2 grants +1. Destroyed defensive structures are not counted.) 

Can be inherited.

B: None.

C: Odd Res Wave 3 (240 SP)

At start of odd-numbered turns, grants Res+6 to unit and adjacent allies for 1 turn. (Bonus granted to unit even if no allies are adjacent.) 

Can be inherited. 

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Analysis

Despite being a unit released in 2019 and receiving extra BST, Mercedes is a very underwhelming healer with an awkward statline and lack of a PRF staff, making several other infantry healers outclass her right from her introduction. Her offenses leave a lot to be desired, 33 Atk and 30 Spd is awful in today’s standards, even for healers. Being an infantry unit also means she lacks the mobility of a flying or cavalry healer, but it also means she gets access to infantry exclusive support skills like Infantry Pulse or Infantry Rush.

Mercedes’ skill set doesn’t help her case either: she does not bring any new or rare staff like Flash+; her A skill is useless on literally any mode that isn’t Aether Raids, and even there she is far from the best hero to use in defense, and while Odd Res Wave helps her boost her decent Res, she prefers other support C skills or even other Wave skills.

Despite all of this, Mercedes can still find herself useful thanks to the powerful combination of Wrathful Pain and Dazzling Staff, a set that is impossible for a healer to be bad at. Mercedes also has a decent Res stat sitting at 33, which with enough investment, can allow Mercedes to use Ploys or serve as a Res tank, but its better for her to stay true to her title and stay devoted to supporting others.

Mercedes prefers an asset/boon in Atk and Res, while she prefers a flaw/bane in HP and Def (keep in mind that HP is a superflaw/bane, meaning she will lose 4 points of HP rather than 3).

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Similar Units

Brady: Daunting Priest (41/33/32/23/28)

Mercedes: Kindly Devotee (-2/+0/-2/-1/+5)

Lucius: The Light (37/32/30/13/35)

Mercedes: Kindly Devotee (+2/+1/+0/+9/-2)

Mikoto: Caring Mother (38/35/32/20/26)

Mercedes: Kindly Devotee (+1/-2/-2/+2/+7)

Sakura: Loving Priestess (36/28/30/24/30)

Mercedes: Kindly Devotee (+3/+2/+0/-2/+3)

Serra: Outspoken Cleric (33/31/30/21/33)

Mercedes: Kindly Devotee (+6/+2/+0/-2/+0)

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Builds

Budget

While Mercedes comes with a very lacking skill set, due to nature of being a healer she doesn’t need much inheritance to fill her role. It is prefered to refine Gravity with Dazzling Staff rather than Wrathful since Mercedes’ Atk is nothing to write home about, so it’s better for her to support her team via inflicting negative status on her foes while not fearing enemy counterattacks. 

Replacing AR-D Spd/Res is extremely recommended, since she won’t  benefit from it at all outside of Aether Raids. Due to healer’s limited A skill options, even moreso in a budget set, she is better off with a simple stat boosting skill like Atk +3 or Res +3. Her B slot can vary, it can be Wings of Mercy on a tight budget, or maybe a Chill skill or Live to Serve. Since its a low investment set. Odd Res Wave can be kept because it boosts Mercedes’ decent Res a bit, and with a seal like Even Def Wave, she can also support her allies when alternating turns.

Mercedes’ sacred seals options are: Atk +3, Atk/Res 2, Atk/Res Bond, Renewal, Live to Serve, Chill Atk and Chill Spd.

Savage Blow Pain+

Even with all of her downsides, Mercedes does have a saving grace: the Savage Blow Pain Build, that is impossible for any healer to be bad at since having an Atk or a Spd stat doesn’t matter for this build to work. With Pain and double Savage Blow, Mercedes deals 10 true damage to her foe and 24 to any foes around them. Add the infamous Dazzling Staff to be extra annoying.

With some investment, Mercedes can actually become a powerful offensive staff unit, but it requires an asset/boon in either Atk or Spd, and another A skill like Atk/Spd Bond or Atk/Spd Solo; the former was given for free on Tempest Trial unit Louise: Eternal Devotion, while the later is still locked to 5 star exclusive units.

Ranged Tank

Mercedes does have a decent Atk and Res stats, and with some investment and an asset/flaw on either of them, she can fill the role of a Magic tank or even a general Ranged tank.

The first set is more on the budget side and focuses on Mercedes’ Atk and Res, boosting them with a double Atk/Res Bond so she can get +10 Atk/Res when adjacent to an ally, but Atk/Res Solo can work as well. Dull Ranged is there so Mercedes won’t have to fear Bladetome mages who would ORKO her otherwise. Odd Res Wave can be kept to further boost her Res, but it can be replaced by an Atk Wave skill.

The second set is a rather expensive one, requiring 2 5 star exclusive units and probably a preferable asset/boon. This build also turns Mercedes in a mixed ranged tank, being able to tank mages easily and also withstand attacks from daggers and bows, though far less reliable. With Distant Defense 4 and the Distant Defense sacred seal, Mercedes gets +14 Def/Res when in combat agains a ranged unit on top of neutralizing enemy buffs, meaning she can be a little though for them to kill even if they double her. Null-C Disrupt is for her to be able to retaliate against other healers, who will most likely deal no damage against her at all. 

Arena Support

Thanks to Colorless Duel Infantry, infantry healers can now be used in the higher tiers of Arena. Mercedes’ low Atk actually benefits her a lot here since she will likely deal very little damage to her foes and thus is not prone to stealing kills from the bonus unit. And for all of the Mercedes fans out there who wish to use her as a support unit, she has a wide range of staves to choose from, but most of them come from seasonal units, so these builds are rather expensive.

The first one makes use of the Ovoid Staff to passively heal her allies every turn, and even she can heal the non-bonus unit that was damaged tanking something so they don’t die. Dual Savage Blow is used as chip damage to help the bonus unit secure kills, and Chill Atk is there for general support.

The second build makes Mercedes a Def/Res buffer with the Toasty Skewer, which grants her allies within 2 spaces +3 Def/Res during combat, which, combined with 2 Drives on her C slot and Sacred Seal, can turn Mercedes into either an Omni-Drive unit like Marth, or grant +6 Def/Res to her allies when they are in combat. Both of these options are equally great for support, but its up to personal preference and the team’s needs. 

[fehelp]

Halloween Mia

Overview

Well she’s the bane of my existence so I’m trying really hard to not be super biased and >:( 

But Halloween Mia is a flying staff user with Witchy Wand as a weapon that honestly does too much. It resets the special cooldown of the unit she attacked and units within two spaces. On their next round, they suffer -1 cooldown charge on each attack, meaning instead of charging it, they keep it full and unusable. 

She also has Spd/Res Bond which is probably the passive you’d fodder her off for.

Pros/Cons

+ Flier, nearly unlimited mobility as a healer

+ Dazzling Staff + Wrathful Staff can make her into a powerful debuffing unit

- she’s mia

- Weak to anti-flier skills

- Limited by her class as a healer so she can’t be as offensive as she’d like + her desired B slot (Wrathful/Dazzling Staff) is pretty expensive.

Similar Units

She’s the first of her kind as a flying healer which makes her stand out in the crowd of healers.

As far as more offensive healers go, Brave Veronica has better atk and spd, was given out for free, has Dazzling Staff built into her weapon, and Wrathful Staff inherent in her base kit. She also has a longer range of movement and anti-cavalry skills are more rare than archers in most cases. Veronica also has a generally more useful buff/debuff in her weapon (-4 to atk/spd/def/res to enemies and +4 to atk/spd/def/res to allies). 

Team Options

Flier Emblem.

Most teams, besides those that are like all running Desperation or Brazens, will be ok with a healer. She’d be good for Tempest Trials teams or Chain Challenges or whatever else requires your units to survive a long time.

She needs protection against archers, so if you’re running her on a Flier Emblem team, be sure to have someone with a Raven tome + Iote’s shield or DC + Iote’s shield or whatever works for you. She’ll also just. Need someone else to kill for her in general? Without Wrathful Staff, she gets about 5 kills against base kit units (PA Inigo, PA Shigure, Spring Camilla, Matthew, and Saizo).

IVS

+Atk for better damage and healing output, putting her at 33 atk. +spd is also a good option to get her to 37 spd, allowing her to get more doubles as well as avoid doubles.

Her res isn’t too bad, so it’s best to keep that neutral. It’s also a superBANE.

-Def and  -HP are her best drops.

Builds

first mia pity breaks me twice trying for summer leo on a legendary banner 

Weapon: Witchy Wand+ (Dazzling ref)

Assist: Recover+ or your preference

Special: Heavenly Light or your preference

A: Spd/Res Bond 3

B: Wings of Mercy 3, Aerobatics 3, Flier Formation 3

C: Hone Fliers is good for emblem team, Guidance is a good option for a mixed team

Seal: Live to Serve is an option, but it’s up to you if you want to ruin Guidance here instead or something else support-y

This is a support build, notice the lack of Wrathful Staff and the cheap-ish fodder. This way, she can take some hits from mages with her Spd/Res boost and be able to get around the map pretty easily while also potentially ferrying others around the map. Do not expect too much damage to be done by her with this, the Dazzling Refine is there so she can hit, debuff, and then get pulled back to safety or danced for so she can debuff another unit.

then she steals his spot on the halloween banner

Weapon: Witchy Wand+ (Wrathful or Dazzling ref)

Assist: Again, this is all your preference

Special: ask the stars

A: Atk/Spd Push 3, Atk/Spd Bond 3

B: Wrathful Staff, Dazzling Staff, whichever wasn’t refined

C: Up to you

Seal: Live to Serve is actually pretty good here so she can continue making use of Atk/Spd Push even with the 1 dmg she’ll take

For a higher price, you can have a healer who can actually do some damage. Unfortunately, Wrathful Staff and Dazzling Staff can be hard to get currently so you have to be ready to make the investment. You can just go with Wrathful refine and risk the damage she will take, but it can make debuffing with her a little more dangerous. Atk/Spd Push can make her more independent, while Atk/Spd Bond will require positioning but is honestly just as good as long as you use it properly.

Get skills from...

Atk/Spd Push 3: 5* Summer Tana, HS Elincia

Atk/Spd Bond 3: 5* LA Lyn, WF Hinoka, Legendary Marth, Bridal Tharja

Wings of Mercy 3: 4* Cain

Aerobatics 3:  5* SF Nino

Flier Formation 3: 5* Elincia, WF Hinoka, Summer Camilla

Wrathful Staff 3: 5* Genny, Brave Veronica

Dazzling Staff 3: 5* Bridal Lyn, Maribelle

Guidance 3: 5* Legendary Ryoma, Tana, YT Olivia

[crystalelemental]

Unit Teambuilding - Neo Champion Blue

So of course he gets to be the support. God forbid we switch it up from Kantrio 1.0.

General Overview Blue is a special support, out to ruin Mina's life. It is not often that something completely invalidates another pair's entire purpose in life, but damn if Blue isn't trying. In one trainer move, +3 crit, and gives +6 special attack by consuming 3 gauges. Then +2 Special Moves Up Next. His other boost is X Speed All+, for +3 team speed per use. In three actions, max Sp Atk/Spd/Crit, with +2 SMUN. Okay. Then, he gets to attack, throwing in a Rebuff AoE, which also then kicks off getting Free Moves Next every attack, AND has a 30% flinch rate as a passive so it flinches everything at once, AND boosts team defenses by 1 for each attack. SS Mina was relevant in a broad sense just for Team Sharp Entry and max special attack by eating her rain. Blue here is free money. The opposite of gauge issues, with far better secondary effects.

"But Mina can heal!" Buddy move is Roost. +30% HP to all allies, +30% to himself, removes status, grants regen. It requires rebuff being present, which really limits what he can do late in a Gauntlet fight. But it's 2MP, so he gets obscene levels of healing well above what Mina can provide for 3v3.

Blue is that kind of support that's hard to find fault with. While I initially hated it, the transition to the 3v3 meta again does shift the focus, and defensive buffing will offset some threat late in a Gauntlet. There's nothing that does this much this quickly.

So of course it's my least favorite bird, and I'm still really pissed about Leaf, so I should also mention "he's not a requirement."

Blue is just another in a growing list of Sp Atk/crit buffers. His particular gimmick is speed and Free Moves, which facilitates Dual Strike well. But other options exist with their own brand of utility. SS Brendan creates comparable effects with substantial debuffs for any type, not just Electric. SC Lillie has a fantastic flinch rate, and consistent gradual healing for the team. SC Jasmine has fast-acting bulk, and easy gauges with MGR9 on Absorb. Yes, Blue will outperform them. Will he outperform them enough that he's worth the gems? Can you honestly say any of these picks were having trouble doing their jobs? We have enough of these types of buff bots that Blue's presence isn't essential. The same is true of the defensive angle. Yes, he can steadily buff defenses and debuff foe's offenses, creating a very tanky party. Were you honestly having trouble with survival if you pulled Aura Cynthia or Winter Jasmine? The only draw that is decisively his, is the Electric rebuff. Great for the Electric High Score we're about to hit! Then not really that useful for the next 35 months as they rotate through other types. On his consistent merits, is this something you need?

EX, Role, and Move Level? Support, so EX is always good. Surprisingly, this is a Master Fair that does its supportive duties at 1/5. All he really gets is offense debuffs and Vigilance. Oh, and sync damage. Because his EX Role is Strike. So he can deal damage too. Kinda wish it was Field. Maybe that's a bit much but come on.

Team 1: NC Blue, Hau, P!Dawn/C!Elesa Starting a little general, Blue completely boosts a pair like Hau to maximum. P!Dawn has debuffing, which is generally great, but C!Elesa bears mentioning because she's another who needs all of what Blue offers, and can set Electric Terrain with Max Move.

Team 2: NC Blue, SS Leaf, SC Rosa Okay, now we talk. NC Blue, as someone capping team speed and then never touching gauge, is a master of Dual Strike. SS Leaf needs all his buffing, while SC Rosa appreciates not having to incorporate trainer move into her rotation. She can just debuff. And that rules.

Team 3: NC Blue, Anni N, Blaine/Leon If this seems confusing, you haven't realized. Blue's grid gives debuffs to both offenses per attack, which are all free. He immediately caps N, who can focus on Noble Roar debuffing, then debuffs the entire enemy team as well. Anni N has full sync nuke privileges. Alternatively, you can bring Leon for the Dual Strike focus again.

Team 4: NC Blue, SS Hilbert, Lusamine/Alder Lusamine wins. All the boosts she could ever want. SS Hilbert is another great win. He can bypass the slow setup and just spam either attacks or his debuff. Alder can be used instead, as he loves avoiding his trainer move's horrendous defense debuffs.

Team 5: NC Blue, Shauntal, Agatha I'm talking like all his best partners are limited, but Blue can work with lower-tier threats. I do think NC Bede is a more broadly useful option that gives more power, given the repetition of Moves Up Next, but he can work just fine for options like Shauntal and Agatha, who really want help with the offenses.

Final Thoughts Blue does a lot for a team. This is SS Mina, if SS Mina were good. Honestly it's better if I'm being honest. His abilities are frankly ridiculous. But at the same time, it's optimizing stuff that already exists, and it doesn't revolutionize offensive ability like NC Bede. Blue is good, but not a necessity.

[theterribletenno]

Keziah, the Black Magic Warframe

As some of you already know a lot of work has gone into Keziah at pretty much every step of the process. She's gone through both front-end and back-end overhauls.

Health: 100 (300 at rank 30) Shields: 100 (300 at rank 30) Armor: 100 Energy: 150 (225 at rank 30) Sprint Speed: 1.15

Passive: Keziah's shapeless, expansive soul touches the souls of those around her, revealing their weaknesses. The damage type inflicted by Keziah's abilities is determined by the faction which controls the mission she is deployed to. If the node is controlled by Grineer, her abilities will deal corrosive damage. If the node is controlled by the Corpus her abilities will deal magnetic damage. If the node is Infested her abilities will deal gas damage. If the node is Tenno controlled her abilities deal blast damage, and if the node is Corrupted, Crossfire, or other her abilities will deal radiation damage.

Ability 1: Silver Nail, 25 energy. Keziah uses one of her silver nails to pierce herself in the hand, leg, head, or heart. Enemies connected by the tendrils of her eldritch soul are harmed in her place. Hold to change the targeted body part or tap to activate. All enemies within 15 meters and connected by Spirit Tether are dealt 400 damage with 100% status chance with a bonus effect for the body part targeted. Hand, disarms all enemies affected. Keziah and her tethered allies gain increased accuracy and reduced recoil for 10 seconds. Leg, decreases movement speed of all enemies affected by 75%. Keziah and her tethered allies gain 20% sprint speed for 10 seconds. Head, causes enemies to be stunned, unable to move or attack for 5 seconds and vulnerable to melee finishers for the next 15 seconds. Keziah and her tethered allies gain 30% ability strength for 10 seconds. Heart, deals 1.5x damage and instantly kills enemies with less than 15% remaining health. Keziah and her tethered allies are healed for 35 health for each enemy killed by a Silver Nail to the Heart.

Ability 2: Spirit Tether, 35 energy. Tethers the targeted enemy or ally with a tendril of Keziah's eldritch spirit for 30 seconds. 40% of damage dealt to Keziah and her tethered teammates will be divided evenly between and dealt to all tethered enemies. The tether is broken on allies that move more than 30 meters from Keziah and enemies that move more than 60 meters from her. Casting Spirit Tether on an downed ally will cause them to be instantly revived at the cost of 50% of Keziah's current health.

Ability 3: Golden Incense, 50 energy. Keziah burns a poultice of soothing herbs and inhales the vapors. The potent neurochemical depressants heal warframes connected by Keziah's spirit tether, but enemies will be overwhlemed by them, being tranquilized. Keziah and her allies connected by Spirit Tether are healed for 25 health per second and gain 250 armor for 10 seconds while enemies within 15 meters and connected by Spirit Tether are put to sleep for 15 seconds, becoming vulnerable to melee finisher attacks and taking 300% damage.

Ability 4: Tormenting Spirits, 100 energy. Summons 2 angry spirits from beyond the Void to torment Keziah's enemies. Spirits will lunge at enemies and attack them with spectral talons dealing 500+X damage (where X is equal to 10% of the enemy's max health) up to once per second. Spirits have a lifespan of 20 seconds. An additional spirit is summoned for every unit in the Spirit Tether's web, and if a tethered enemy is killed by a spirit they will become a new spirit. Spirits cannot be targeted or killed by enemies.

Subsumed ability: Silver Nail (Head and Heart only, bonus ability strength is removed from Head, healing is removed from Heart)

Signature Weapons Singulum: An exotic sidearm decorated with precious metals and gems, preferred by warframes of a mystical persuasion. Held-trigger beam secondary weapon. This weapon creates a spherical area of damage at the point of the beam's contact or termination that starts with a 3 meter radius which expands by 0.1 meters each time an enemy is damaged by it up to a maximum of 7.5 meters. Radius expansion decays by 0.5 meters per half second while not damaging enemies, and resets on reload or holster. Deals roughly even values of impact, puncture, and slash with high crit at the cost of low status. When wielded by Keziah this weapon gains bonus damage of the same element as her abilities. Athame: A shortsword with a potent blade. These shortswords were made by the Orokin for ceremonial use, and in their golden hands the blade was considered despoiled if it ever spilled blood. These despoiled blades were passed on to their Tenno assassins rather than being destroyed as ritual demanded. A single-sword melee weapon. High attack speed offset by a below-average range with high status chance without sacrificing crit. Deals mostly slash damage with moderate puncture and impact. When wielded by Keziah this weapon gains bonus damage of the same element as her abilities during missions.

Closing notes: This was kind of exhausting to work on but at the end of the day, I like how she turned out. Feedback and suggestions are encouraged. Some elements of her original concept remain intact but I have done everything I can to incorporate them in a culturally sensitive way.

[af1899]

FEH - My free summons on 9/17/2021 + data mine thoughts

Hey, what's good?

So, the banner based on the [Cindered Shadows] DLC from Fire Emblem: Three Houses (with Múspell on it) + its respective data update is finally out.

First, my free summons in the banner mostly weren't anything of special, prioritized blue as planned but nothing. In the round with the fourth free summon though, was forced to pick the fallback category (colorless) and...

Heh... nice, that's my second Leila, I won't complain at all, it's always nice to get a 5★ with valuable fodder or an unexpected merge on a project. I'll try to max her [HM] then fodder to Legendary Lilina for [Life and Death 4] as well as [Rally Atk/Spd+], fortunately these will be easy to get.

Nothing else but that's OK. I'll just move on and at least I know I'll eventually run on the other skill I want on Legendary Lilina, which is [A/R Far Trace 3], since it's going to be in the regular pool after this banner is over.

Now, onto data mine stuff, you can find the thread by redditor u/MrGengar123 right here, but feel free to read my thoughts onto what we've gotten (there'll be no talk about story spoilers and the like).

So... the thing that probably interests players the most when a data mine rolls out would be stats on the Heroes that come with the update.

Múspell doesn't really play so differently from what we've possibly experienced on [Ice & Flame 3] with him as an enemy, he's more of a dual-phase unit that focus his strength on a single blow, is durable both physically and magically (but slow as hecc) and prevents the foe from healing. Noteworthy is that he brings [Dragon Wall 3] to the regular pool, which you should definitely prioritize from his fodder if that's your plan and got him.

Also, more or less expected the statlines on the other three banner units, nothing too special to stand out in those but Yuri is probably going to give us new worries in nowadays metagame in PvP.

But Balthus has a similar statline to Mustafa (45/38/25+/36/28-) but Balthus's statline is superior, as you could have imagined, just being one point slower than Mustafa, but the rest, Balthus has the upper hand. About him there's also the skill choice, I didn't realize before that his weapon indeed looked like an {Instant} one, and it is, it's a good one and we're getting it for free, so, be sure you got your 5★ Balthus (check in-game inbox with Feh)! But I.S. just ruined it up with the passive skill choice, why do we have [Close Guard 3] still as a 5★ skill? It's just stupid specially since [Brazen Atk/Def 3] is already on Ares at 4★ and there's like nothing that should justify it staying locked to that rarity nowadays.

And Aelfric just got the worst treatment out of this batch, while his class seems to make sense due to how he's designed as a unit in his home game, his kit just feels completely lacking in creativity and also, he's just one of the several free red tome users we've been getting this year, his statline is basically a slightly beefed up Arete but without a horse, it's also our second month in a row with a red tome infantry user, their statlines are different (comparing to Pelleas) but this doesn't change he's the fourth unit in the year with that class, with not much to make him stand out compared to the other ones except for maybe the post-[CYL 2021] statline boost benefit, but chances are Pelleas will do better for you and his starting weapon is better too, {Rabbit} weapons in general are mostly terrible Imo, they're okay for short battles but generally, there are better options, including good ol' {Blade} tomes. At least his rarer skill is at 4★, it's [Threat. Def/Res 2], which you can use to get [Def/Res Menace] and another skill from Zeke's fodder ([Atk/Def Catch 3] if you plan to fodder a Legendary Sigurd with the Lv.4 version + [Fatal Smoke 3] or [Lull Atk/Def 3]).

Anyway, my plans on them would be:

Aelfric: fodder of [Threat. Def/Res 2] to users of physical weapons (thought of Legendary Lucina and Ephraim) after maxing out [HM], will keep one copy at 5★ for rerun quests.

Balthus: fodder of [Instant Axe+] and [Close Guard 3] for Groom Zealot, also after maxing out Balthus' [HM], working on that as of writing date of this post.

Now, next [Hall of Forms] lineup consists of these units from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance:

Bridal Sanaki: green tome flier.

Ashnard: sword flier. ([GHB] unit)

Halloween Ilyana: blue tome armored. (!!!)

Soiree Nephenee: colorless bow infantry user with ability to refresh an ally. (And she's currently summonable and obtainable for a limited time as a [Combat Manual])

Now this is a really well balanced team, no healers but you get a refresher and one unit of each color, two that use physical weapons and two that use magical ones, which should make things more workable in the event as it goes on and you fill everyone with skills that suit them. It's a nice line-up indeed and Halloween Ilyana is great for [A/R Far Save 3], if you'll go for her, [Atk/Res Unity], [Pact Blooms+] (go for another seasonal weapon if you already have (or can get) Valentine's Veronica!) and an enemy-phase oriented {Fighter} B-skill such as [Slick Fighter 3] are also excellent to take along (if you take these, remember [Atk/Res Unity] and [Slick Fighter 3] are counterproductive, you'd like [Crafty Fighter 3] instead!).

Two of them happen to be my Tellius favs (Ilyana and Nephenee) but sadly can't purchase them and only got 1 [Celestial Stone] out of 3. Still, I'll build them as best as RNG allows it to, I specially adore Ilyana and I'll do what I can to make her great.

Bonuses in [Arena]... hmm... not much of interesting, at least I got Scion Julia but I'll use Scion Nanna so that I can balance the team color distribution in the team I'll use and have a healer (Idoun, Sonya and Ninian are the rest of the members).

In [Aether Raids] I got better luck with Mila and Naga, both of which are projects and characters I actually appreciate, so I'm set for two weeks there.

The End

That's all! I do apologize if the post was too long for you, I often need more words to express properly what I mean while also palcing some extra things for convenience.

If you've made it this far, I appreciate you took the time to read my thoughts, I hope you found something helpful in this post and good luck in your summons!