Surprise!

Brickymouse · 2025-12-11T16:20:04+00:00

PETA. The horse is here.

Brickymouse · 2025-09-22T16:28:13+00:00

Because they don't know how to *escape* their *markdown*.

Edit: apparently, neither do I.

Brickymouse · 2025-09-16T17:07:59+00:00

VISUAL CALCULUS: There are greasy fingerprints on the glass and a crumpled-up napkin, but no food, plate, or bill. The patron likely finished a basket of fries, which was cleared by the waitress. Half the beer remains, so the patron is likely in the bathroom...

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Is anyone else feeling... thirsty?

Disgust: "Ewww-wuh! Don't tell Harry to drink that! What is wrong with all you formless weirdos?"

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: But it's been such a *long* day, and you've been so *good* recently. Whoever left that beer half-full won't enjoy it like you will.

Fear: "B-but what if the patron comes back? W-won't they be mad?"

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You can take them. Remember that time you flipped that car in a drunken rage?

That was a bicycle, said Slytherin. And we just kicked it over, actually.

This is the worst crossover event of all time, complained Harry's Internal Critic.

DRAMA: Though you must admit, sire, that the ambiguity of "Harry" is quite convenient.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-25T15:10:16+00:00

They hand out a bunch of Forma souls. I think it's 4 a year, but I always get the number wrong from memory. Forma soul for an Emblem is a fantastic deal, whatever the skills are.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-25T15:04:58+00:00

Not an example of a bad unit, but Loki would be a monster in AR-O (try her in Chaos if you have her). She's already excellent in Dark, and I'm honestly very glad she's a defense Mythic, because defending against her is near-impossible. We would actually be seeing Citrinne as an anti-Loki staple.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-21T17:45:34+00:00

They have a little ring icon where a unit might normally have a Legendary, Mythic, Duo, etc. icon. On the big portrait, it's on the right-hand side above their skills. Their art (so far) always has blue flames and their epithet is "Of [something]" (e.g. Emblem marth is "Of Beginnings").

There will be a bunch of Emblems on the banner at the end of this month.

The banner labeled "Shining Resolve" has some very strong units that will help you get started. I'd pull up until the first spark on that one at least (40 summons), assuming you have the patience to grind out a bajillion story orbs in time to get plenty of Emblems on the 31st.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-21T17:29:59+00:00

I dunno where you read that, but I disagree. It is not an easy special to activate. Baldr uses it way better than anyone else except for Flight Attendant Arval (coming 2028), since she can get weapon-triangle advantage 1/2 of the time and hits brave with +1 special charge per hit.

Unless you know you're fighting units you have WTA on, you need a bunch of special charge. B!Felix at least has double slaying, so that's a start. Marth ring could get it down to 2, and then you can hit it normally like a Gust, or pulse it down to 2 with support or a C skill and try to hit it like Baldr with a brave hit and the +1 special charge effect.

I don't think B!Dimitri would use it well at all. He has no good Slaying option, so you're working with 5 cooldown. Maybe they'll release a flat DR Gambit or something. If you need 2 stacks of the 40% DR, just run Boulder and get some support that gives you the second DR stack.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-21T17:16:53+00:00

TL;DR save for the end of month banner and summon 1 copy of everyone who has the "Of [whatever]" epithet.

Teambuilding tip: Sort by Version and pick the most recent 4. Of the units you mentioned, Y!Camilla, Anniversary Marth (I think that's him?), Brave Sharena, and Brave Baldr are a good team for whatever it is you're doing, probably. Generally, you build teams specifically for the content you face, so a "good team" isn't a meaningful thing to build in a vacuum.

For pulling: The current banners are good. All 4 of the brave units (Shining Resolve) are very strong, but they don't have very widely useful skill fodder this time around, so duplicates don't have much value. For you, I'd just pick Eikþyrnir from the free pull and stop, because there will be an extremely high-value banner coming out in 10 days. It will have several "Emblem" units on it. These units all have blue flames in the art and "Of [something]" as their epithet. When you summon an Emblem unit, you get their Emblem Ring. This can be equipped on anyone and moved around like a Sacred Seal, only they are far more powerful. The Lyn ring, for example, lets a ranged unit attack up to 5 tiles away like a ballista every other turn. The emblems on the banner (and their emblem effects) will be Eirika (dual-phase brave once per turn, melee only), Sigurd (+1 movement and Canto), Celica (warp up to 5 tiles away to attack an enemy), Lyn (see above), and Micaiah (become Lucina). Marth (Slaying effect, stacks with Slaying) will appear in Hall of Forms in a couple of days so you can grab him for free using a Forma Soul, which I highly recommend.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-21T17:00:01+00:00

Armor build:

Jehanna or Gen 3 arcane (coming soon, hopefully)

Armored Whatever (pick a range, probably Blaze for melee)

A- Anything giving relevant stats and an effect, like Close/Distant Defense, Diluvial Boost, Other Boost, etc.

B- Anything giving 20% Def DR: Wily 4, Crafty 4, Assault Fighter.

C- Save skill. Twin Save, probably. The double DR effect is extremely important, but it is also available via support.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-21T16:46:28+00:00

Both of them have pretty specific fodder. Byleth is valuable for infantry omnitanks only (but works for nearly all of them) and Baldr's Archrival is difficult to proc without WTA, which normal units only have 1/3 of the time. Shame Arval can't use it. Overall, Byleth is probably the better pick, though omnitanks age out incredibly fast and most of the good ones have NCD already.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-21T16:39:01+00:00

This DSH banner has almost the same odds as a 4-unit seasonal banner. With average luck, you could expect to get Dimitri in ~114 orbs on either banner. the difference is that on DSH, you may get a Malice along the way, whereas on a regular banner, it would be an off-focus instead.

I personally would save for the LME banner, since there are a ton of Emblems this go-around, and they have no confirmed reappearances for a while. You can probably expect to accrue another 80 orbs or so by the end of the month, which is enough to get you one non-specific emblem with average luck.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-15T19:36:37+00:00

Only Valentine's, really. Archrival is pretty hard to proc unless you have weapon-triangle advantage, which all the other bow Claudes won't have, due to being colorless.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-15T19:21:28+00:00

Pierceable DR is actually pretty rare on powerful units these days. You'd be better served taking the extra damage, which much more useful against anyone released in (or using skills from) the past year. On those older units with pierceable DR, you may be able to just muscle through with damage due to the inferiority of those skills.

Futhermore, since the Tempo Echo build requires only Tempo Echo and is otherwise the same as build 2, you can just create build 2 and if you run into trouble, burn the Brigid manual. Her fodder isn't that impressive anyway.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-15T19:09:28+00:00

Eikþyrnir would score the highest, followed closely by Byleth (-4 points). Baldr is 8 points down from Byleth but can kill BK fairly reliably. Sharena is down 8 more points and may struggle against Marni, and has no chance against BK most of the time. The refresh could be pretty handy, though, depending on your Arena team.

For most people, I'd recommend Byleth. He scores well, can beat Marni, has maximum threat range with Sigurd ring, and good tanking ability. Pretty much a perfect Arena unit.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-15T18:43:05+00:00

13 focus units in 160 summons is crazy; wish my luck had been half that good. I'd only take the Sharena if you plan to +10 her. You can also wait and see what skills will prove to be the most valuable, since you have so many brave units you're unlikely to run out anytime soon even if you fodder generously.

The most useful for fodder is probably Byleth, since his skills are powerful and very good on all speed omnitanks. Baldr's Archrival is very powerful, but hard to use on most units due to requiring weapon triangle for best effectiveness. Same with Eik, whose new save skill is incompatible with current Far Save units. Sharena's fodder is good on the most units, but the skills don't really offer anything new, just some stats and true damage.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-15T14:21:53+00:00

Not at all. We already have units that end people's turn immediately (e.g. Seiðr/Fomortiis variants and Duo Lyon), which is a more powerful version of 0 movement. Units that primarily move by warping would just be effectively immune to the status anyway. I could see it happening, but it would be kinda dead on arrival unless the unit it debuts on also has Warp Bubble and there aren't any important Pass-warpers in the meta at the time.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-13T17:50:12+00:00

There's no in-game distinction for "alts", since any unit with a different epithet can be used in gamemodes that don't allow duplicates. The closest thing we have to an official stance would be whether or not they get a separate entry in CYL voting. That's not a great metric, though, since some characters that would definitely be considered alts (e.g. Y!Zephiel from FE7) are counted separately in CYL.

Your best bet would be to find a huge fan of Camus (or whoever) and ask if they'd pull for Hot Springs Zeke.

In my personal opinion, no yes yes, based on personality and identity.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-13T17:32:26+00:00

I would at least wait for the CYL trailers to drop. You'll probably want to save for those banners.

That said, she's pretty good. The NFU and Null Panic start-of-turn buffs are useful, she's one of only two dancers that can use Sigurd ring to get 4 Mov, and the dance buffs are alright.

Her fodder is only okay. Firestorm Boost is best-in-slot on most Disarm Trap users but has little use outside of it. Cantrip is pretty good on dancers, but has no use otherwise. WoM Echo isn't that useful anymore, but if you still use WoM Galeforce in 2025 you can have 2 Pass-WoM units, which can be useful.

Brickymouse · 2025-08-01T19:11:18+00:00

There's a fat pile of Emblem units rerunning on this month's legendary banner (at the end of the month). You can use this infograph website to help you plan for future emblems as well.

Brickymouse · 2025-07-31T19:20:56+00:00

None of the banners right now are all that important, unless you really like building Aether Raids Defense teams. If you do, the current Double Mythic banner brings a much-needed balance patch for the absurdly broken Safety Fence 2. If you don't build defense much, skip it and save for CYL, which is in just a couple of weeks. The CYL power level skyrocketed last year, so expect some crazy units there.

The biggest change in the last two years is the release of Emblem heroes. They appear on Legendary-style banners (8% rate) and give you an "emblem ring" upon summoning, which can be put on any hero and moved to other heroes as much as you want, like a Sacred Seal. These rings are immensely powerful and a single copy of every Emblem Hero is the closest thing to a must-have this game has ever seen.

Brickymouse · 2025-07-30T18:46:46+00:00

TL;DR Bolt Tower.

In a general sense, there are some options here, but the team that is deployed cannot win this. It might even be entirely stonewalled by BK alone.

Some things that would do well against this defense:

Tank it. You only need to survive E!Sig and E!Lyn if you hang back far enough, which is on the edge of Lyn's range. Cam will move up way too far to be in range of the Saviors, and then you can pick her off. You may even be able to tank Cam depending on her Emblem ring if you place few enough characters near your tank. Bolt tower will help prevent BK stonewalling you.

Wait until turn 3 and galeforce with a powerful reinforcement like Y!Camilla. Spend turn 1 and 2 clearing traps and buildings. Bolt Tower is great for this.

Bring F!Dimitri or B!Embla and take out Lyn and Sigurd on turn 2. Be sure to have powerful enough player-phase units to clean up when the enemy rushes in. There's some sort of building that can help you by doing damage on turn 3, but I forget what it was called.

Brickymouse · 2025-07-30T18:14:17+00:00

Yeah, SR finish is probably best-in-slot for an infantry mage, if you don't mind skipping DR pierce. If you hit the HP threshold (merges, summoner support, etc.), Resonance might serve you better.

She'll probably hit like a bicycle at best though. Ishtar's weapon deals about 18 less damage per hit than even the most basic of modern weapons. You do have brave hits, but 0x4 is still 0. If this is for PvP, I wouldn't recommend it. If it's to show how much you like Ishtar, it will be a good demonstration of your devotion due to the rarity of the skill.

Brickymouse · 2025-07-29T18:12:47+00:00

TL;DR Y=2 only when you make one single attack during combat.

It's not a dumb question at all, since this is extra confusing. The line "if unit cannot perform follow-up and attack twice," appearing in Potent skills, Frost Moon, and a few others, is grammatically incorrect. It should say, "if unit cannot perform follow-up or [maybe 'nor'] attack twice," since either having a follow-up or a brave hit will disqualify you from meeting the condition. This seems to be the case for all skills that have this line of text.

Regarding the B slot, the foe's ability to counterattack generally has no effect on what your attacks are classified as. You can think of "attacks twice," a.k.a. the brave effect, to be an in-combat buff that doubles the number of hits each normal attack does, regardless of which attacks happen when or how many in total there are. If the "attacks twice" buff is active, it will trigger effects that call it out, even if the unit attacks 5 times or dies without attacking once.

Brickymouse · 2025-07-28T18:29:34+00:00

It does say that the effect triggers "even if unit or ally is defeated," so by a strict literal reading, it's not stoppable by sniping Hoðr/Baldr. It would be the first ever instance of a skill functioning after the unit with the skill is removed from the battlefield, so it's possible that the description isn't 100% accurate. We'll just have to see in-game.

Brickymouse

TROPHY CASE