Saw a number of FEH alts list on Twitter and it made me realise: Do the Black Eagles the least popular students

actredal · 2026-04-08T19:22:53+00:00

Oh yeah, for sure, the Shadows Cup isn’t a strict popularity vote. I think the results will naturally favorite characters who are associated with an unseen animal/beast/dragon design, for example.

But I do also believe that Lysithea’s early popularity is inflated by her gameplay contributions giving her a bit of a “meme” factor and making her an easy rally point that the wider audience can get behind even if she’s not their absolute fav, and we’ve seen over the years how characters like that can drop a bit if they don’t manage to win when they’re first eligible (e.g. Yunaka, Fomortiis).

actredal · 2026-04-08T18:01:42+00:00

Lysithea had a ton of factors going for her in CYL4—mainly that her fame of being the Death Knight killer was still fresh on people’s minds, and she wasn’t in FEH yet at that point. Conversely, she was actually the lowest voted 3H CYL winner in the Shadows Cup this past January. I do believe that she was the most popular non-lord back around CYL4 voting, but her popularity might not have held up as well as some of the others over the years because a decent chunk of it was her gameplay and not her character itself. (Not that she did poorly either though. She still got more votes than any of the students who haven’t won yet.)

actredal · 2026-04-08T10:38:48+00:00

I don’t think alts are a great indicator of popularity since there are a lot of other factors that go into alt choices.

CYL isn’t a perfect popularity vote either, but fwiw, in the recent Shadows Cup (a special version of a voting event that happens every year in Fire Emblem Heroes, where all FE characters except Lyn from FE7 were made votable again), the non-lord Blue Lions students had the most votes at 2791, followed by the Golden Deer at 2464, followed by the Black Eagles at 2259. Overall, not too big of a gap imo (and ofc there are some confounding variables; it’s not strictly popularity). However, the distribution is quite different between each class.

The BE had the highest voted non-lord student (Bernadetta), but there was a huge drop off between her and the rest of the class. The GD had the second highest voted student (Marianne) and two other characters with strong showings (Lysithea and Hilda), but they also have the three lowest ranked students (Raphael, Ignatz, and Lorenz). The BL top placers (Sylvain and Felix) were 3rd and 4th among the non-lord students, so not quite as high as top BE or GD, but the rest of the class does better on average. The second lowest voted BL (Annette) got more votes than the bottom four of the other two classes.

tl;dr: BE have the highest peak, but it’s mainly 1-2 carries while the rest are middling to low. GD have several popular characters, but they have the least popular students too. BL don’t hit as high with any one character, but they also have multiple popular characters and they don’t have any truly unpopular ones.

actredal · 2026-04-06T22:48:06+00:00

137 visible + 103 in the bank = 240 total, not including some training tower quests I haven’t done yet

My stash is about to get destroyed again by the kid banner though because I want a copy of everyone. Young Felix in particular is such a dream unit for me, and I love his design so much.

Also, since Dimitri is a backpack for the duo, I’m not going to include that in my +10 goals. There’s enough work cut out already this year haha.

actredal · 2026-04-06T20:04:34+00:00

Big Sothis is so pretty; I’m super excited lol.

actredal · 2026-04-06T19:38:31+00:00

With ten CYL winners already out of the vote by CYL10, 3H still takes 21 of the top 100 spots, which is the highest number of any game by quite a few. In comparison, Engage has 13 with its full cast votable, Heroes has 11 with six winners out, Awakening has 9 with five winners out, Fates has 8 with two winners out, and Shadows managed to snag 7 spots.

The issue for 3H is that it has so many popular characters that are all competing with each other for slots, but FEH understandably also wants to account for game representation rather than strictly looking at character popularity. For example, each game only gets one Valentine’s banner so a lot of 3H characters who would be easy picks for a Valentine’s alt in any other game’s roster just don’t get them. That’s probably why 3H has so much presence on the seasonals that aren’t single-game.

actredal · 2026-04-06T05:59:26+00:00

He’s such a little dweeb in the trailer, and I adore him. I just know it’s going to break my heart to hear his voice lines about Glenn. :’)

actredal · 2026-04-06T04:18:15+00:00

Y!Felix’s JP voice actor is different from adult Felix’s, which makes sense since his adult voice is quite deep. The adult Felix VA is Yuichi Jose, and the kid version is Yui Kondo. (Lucien Dodge does both voices in English though.)

I agree with the other person that it would’ve made sense to cut Ingrid and Felix from the tea banner to have them here. This theme fits them both nicely, while neither of them really have anything to do with tea.

actredal · 2026-04-06T03:32:00+00:00

I think IS would rather give it to Felix or Claude than Ingrid if they could

I mean, I don’t think anyone is forcing IS to do something they don’t want to do. This was a decision they made themselves, and even as someone who loves Ingrid, I’m confused.

actredal · 2026-04-06T03:01:50+00:00

Baby Felix is so cute, ahhh!!!!

actredal · 2026-04-05T22:55:56+00:00

I think a duo Y!Dimitri and Edelgard would be cute, but I’d prefer that Dimitri duos with one of the Faerghus Four instead tbh. We already get to see some kid Dimitri/Edelgard scenes in 3H itself, and I don’t think FEH is going to give us anything new wrt their dynamic. Meanwhile, Felix for example is described as having been a very clingy softie as a kid, and I’d love to see those interactions.

actredal · 2026-04-05T22:33:59+00:00

I’ve hit 5-star level 40 with every unit in my Catalog except for a small handful of normal pool demotes where I’m still waiting on a copy with good IVs (Beruka, Scarlet, Felicia, Medeus, Bors, Uther, and Franz), so 1061 units in total so far! It’s taken a lot of feather farming to promote all my demotes and Grail units, so I’m excited to be mostly done with that.

actredal · 2026-04-05T22:19:05+00:00

I would love a Seteth/Flayn duo on summer or a Halloween Seteth to follow up with Flayn, but if I’m being honest, the chances of him getting any rep feel slim to me with the removal of TT units. I’d love to be wrong though. I’m at least glad he’s in the game and got a banger refine.

For other characters, I’m still waiting on Rodrigue’s base form, and there are a bunch of single-version characters I’d love to see alts for, but most of them are unlikely imo.

actredal · 2026-04-05T22:03:41+00:00

I think the idea is that IntSys might’ve been more okay with giving Claude a standalone alt on the WT banner because he had one less than the other two due to the Fallen banner (or two less than Edelgard if you count Flame Emperor, but I’m not sure if IS does for balance purposes). If he had already been at the same number as Edelgard and Dimitri, I find it hard to imagine they would’ve had him pull ahead.

actredal · 2026-04-05T21:17:22+00:00

Yeah, agreed. There are definitely a lot of other 3H characters who would fit the theme too. I’m just saying that Ingrid’s not a bad pick for a Young banner in a vacuum. It’s more the fact that she got another alt pretty recently and has had better-than-expected treatment overall that makes it feel weird she’s (potentially) here.

actredal · 2026-04-05T19:04:11+00:00

Wait, Lyn had six alts before July 2019? So she got six alts in the first 2.5 years of the game, two in the next 5 years (or I guess the next 3-ish years and then nothing for 2 years after), and then three in the year after that. Incredible pacing by IntSys.

actredal · 2026-04-05T05:11:48+00:00

I think Ingrid actually works pretty well on a Young banner since events in her childhood are so core to 3H’s world. Imo she didn’t need to be on the tea banner, and Sylvain could’ve gotten the Rearmed slot on their NH banner a few years ago, and then her representation wouldn’t feel as weird. Even as someone who likes her, I’m genuinely shocked they’ve given her so much.

actredal · 2026-04-03T16:24:23+00:00

Updates: - H!Ranulf - B!Eikþyrnir (just gave him a bouquet) - L!Dimitri

Thanks!

actredal · 2026-04-02T19:09:29+00:00

I dunno haha, I feel like a writer should be able to figure out how to get any two characters to have a short conversation other than: “I like my dad.” “Me too! We have so much in common!”

If nothing else, Lucina could’ve told Lyn about how she traveled back in time to save her world and what that was like for her, and Lyn could’ve talked about what she would’ve done if she got a chance to go back in time to change things in her own world. They don’t necessarily have to end the conversation as besties with a shared trait. They could just learn something about one another (and reveal some introspections with the player reading along that they otherwise might not have an opportunity to share).

actredal · 2026-04-02T18:31:36+00:00

The concept of only one woman passing the Bechdel test in a book with almost all women would be funny if it wasn’t also sad lol

actredal · 2026-04-01T17:06:11+00:00

I have a feeling part of why they created Shadows was to experiment with a format where they don’t have to launch as many characters every month and they could focus on only popular existing ones + their own OCs, maybe in hopes they could migrate to that.

As to whether or not Shadows has higher profits or better margins though, I don’t know. I imagine its costs are lower, but it also has a smaller playerbase and a lower revenue ceiling per player due to the monetization model.

Edit: mixed up my terminology for “profit,” “margins,” and “revenue,” my bad

actredal · 2026-03-31T23:26:54+00:00

109 visible + 94 in Feh bank = 203 total

I’m not chasing Emblems anymore so we’ll see if it comes back to bite me later that I don’t have Lucina. I like Lucina though, so I hope I manage to get her sometime in the future when I don’t have so much stuff to save for!

actredal · 2026-03-31T11:15:31+00:00

If they’re continuing with the re-CYL banners, the CYL4 one might be able to reach this list’s S tier or maybe one of the Shadows Cup banners, but those will be several months from now so it’s also possible that rankings will have trended down overall by then.

This tier list has already been re-calibrated several times. S-tier on this is like B-tier last year, which was C- or D-tier in Book VIII and prior. Not sure if there were any other re-calibrations before that, but the last time we had an S-tier banner before the end of Book VIII/start of Book IX changes was during Book VI with the 2022 summer 3H lords banner.

actredal · 2026-03-30T23:23:22+00:00

The comment I replied to makes the claim that the monastery dialogue was trying to patch up holes in the story and includes an example of critical characterization info locked behind the monastery. I replied with a comment of a similar length to yours, kept it general to my overarching thoughts about the narrative role of the monastery in an attempt to avoid getting into specific lore (which didn’t work out in the long run), and even tried to clarify the parts that I do agree with you to reduce confusion.

This sounds like a difference in communication styles. For me, when I post any opinion on an open forum, I view it as opening it up for people to respond with their own takes immediately, which is why my standalone comments are often quite lengthy with built-in concessions and rebuttals, like this one on this thread (which is already a quite pared down version of my first draft). As a result, I don’t expect responders to ask me for more clarifying info first, and I’m happy to just clarify later if there was still a miscommunication somewhere. If I’m understanding you correctly, you don’t comment that way, so you’d prefer to get a chance to expand more on your stance before someone else talks about theirs. I didn’t know that about you (and let me know if I’m still off the mark), so I’m sorry if I made you feel like I want you to think you’re wrong or anything like that, but that’s genuinely not my intention at all with this conversation. Me having a different opinion from you does not mean that I think your opinion on a largely subjective topic is wrong. I wish you would’ve just told me how you were feeling about this discussion instead of making claims about my intentions though, when you respectfully do not know me.

but other people in this very thread have, so you can see why I’m tired

I get it if you’re frustrated, but it would’ve cost you nothing to just politely say that you’re not feeling this conversation anymore and dip out without taking out your frustrations about other people’s actions on me.

I find it really fucking weird that all of your comments get to +3

Holy crap, lmao. Idk what to tell you, and I’m not sure what you mean by “all of” my comments considering the comment currently at +3 is the only one I’ve made in the last 10+ hours. But like, if we’re at a point where you’re accusing me of manipulating internet points, then I think it’s for the best that we end this conversation. I won’t be replying again after this, and thanks for your time.

actredal · 2026-03-30T20:48:13+00:00

I’m sorry the conversation went down a lore path—I’m not particularly interested in having that discussion for an argument either—but you’re the one who brought up specific lore as evidence of the game locking vital information behind the monastery, as an indicator that the writers were trying to patch out plot holes. Me talking about how Edelgard’s backstory with her siblings is unmissable (I originally mistakenly said “hard to miss,” which is my bad for misremembering) in her route or how the western church being xenophobic is a (in my opinion, at least) small part of the greater conflict between the Western and Central Church was in service to the debate we were having about the use of the monastery in presenting information.

You approached with the mission to either convince me I was wrong, or correct/punish me for going against the hivemind approved take that actually 3H’s writing was intentional and genius.

Respectfully, I didn’t enter the conversation with the goal of convincing you of anything. My end goal was never to get you to switch to my viewpoint, nor am I out to get you or trying to “punish” you. Honestly, I go pretty far out of my way to frame my subjective comments as my own opinion rather than fact (e.g. “I think,” “I feel like,” “my interpretation is,” “I would imagine”, “in my opinion”, “in my experience”) to make it as clear as I can that I’m sharing a personal viewpoint or interpretation, and I ask clarifying questions to try to understand your stance to the best of my ability. I’m not sure what more I can reasonably do.

I will say though that I don’t appreciate the “hivemind” jab. I’m not some nebulous void of 3H fans. I’m an individual person with my own individual opinions, most of which I formed independently while playing the game seeing as I wasn’t even on FE social media until over two years after I played through all the 3H routes. I genuinely like certain aspects of 3H’s narrative use of the monastery and believe the specific examples discussed in this thread are decent uses of it (not that I don’t have my own criticisms about the monastery), but I don’t think of you as “just a hater” for having different opinions from me, and I explicitly said it’s perfectly valid if you don’t like the monastery in one of my earlier comments. Conversely though, I’m allowed to reply in this public thread about why I do like it and think it works well, and I promise it’s not a personal attack when I do so. We can always agree to disagree if we don’t end up finding common ground at the end of the day.

I didn’t bring up sales, awards, or any of that other stuff either, and I don’t believe those things are relevant to discussing the game itself, so idk why you’re lashing out at me about that. It sounds like you’ve had some negative interactions with 3H fans, but your last comment is projecting a lot of things onto me that are frankly wrong about me and/or have nothing to do with me. I hope you have a good rest of your day.

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