Fire Emblem Heroes

First time I try to summon a 5-star variant of the one character I wanted: Robin, and after a 4-star Peri, Serra, Gordin, and a 3-star Donnel, I get a 5-star Robin (got me 20 orbs before I started so I could maximize my chances)! Literally the one I wanted! I'm so bloody happy, given I never have good luck getting the specific one I wanted!

Christmas Robin and Tharja found via data mining

Oh man, I really need a green unit - the only one I have at all is Anna. My draws have not been useful for that, though I did get a 5-star Lucina and she's been getting great stat-ups.

Well, Nino makes a pretty good magic beatstick, even though she's just a 3 star. Otherwise, I know Raven's available as 4 star green and Camilla comes in 5 star.

Robin looks pretty awesome dressing up as Santa Claus and wielding a bloody christmas tree and presents! The question now is if he's supposed to be wielding it as a sword or lance.

Tharja looks like she's dressed as a reindeer.

edited 3rd Feb '17 12:02:32 PM by Folt

Anna is a decent Crutch Character.

I have two other green units. Beruka and Freddy.

Given Robin's reputation for swords and tomes, I'd guess a sword.

Merric was a pretty good green pick-up for me. He's got passable Spd, but the craziest thing about him is the 33 HP and 12 Def at level 18. It's less Def than my tanks, but nearly 33% more HP. Rising Wind is also obscenely strong, given the small maps and enemies' tendency to zerg together, allowing the AoE to obliterate them.

Finished the main story. No plot whatsoever, but I had low expectations anyway. I suppose now is grinding time + tackling Hard mode.

Yeah, 4-star female Corrin has what seems to be an AOE Atk down after combat, which is very handy.

Came into this wanting Robin. Got him in my second pull, at 3 stars. I am okay with this.

My first pull had a 4 star Arthur (he kills and eats blue users for breakfast AND has been idiotically lucky with his levels) and a 5 star Ogma (who kills everything in his first attack thanks to the upgraded Brave Sword). Got Caeda in my last set of pulls, who might be fun to build a flying team around. Oh and I got silver Sevara. How appropriate.

But yeah I don't see myself sticking with this for any length of time. Gameplay isn't good enough to keep me in and the story is worse than an Excuse Plot so it's actively putting me off. I'll give it a week and decide then.

Not just Attack down, but Speed, which is ludicrous. I don't know if there's any variance in skills between different copies of the same star rating, but I've got Seal Res 2 on mine, so engaging her such that she can counterattack (or letting her get the first strike) results in a crippling barrage of -5 Atk/Spd/Res.This sets up Merric to basically waste anything dangerous. Nowi can usually wreck most things debuffed by Corrin, as well. And Corrin can and will tank like crazy thanks to Nowi's Rally Def and Merric's Spur Res. Shanna's almost kinda just... there at times, but being the only member of the team to hit physically and having flier mobility makes her a great mage assassin, which is good, since the rest of the team is usually brawling with the bulkier enemies.

If you weren't already doing Hard at intervals before the end of the story, expect your team to utterly roll at least the early stuff. The enemy power bump is very nominal at best. I'm kinda expecting it to pick up more as the story progresses, but I dunno (I'm only in Chapter 7 and it feels like the enemies there have way more skills and interesting weapons over Hard in Chapter 2, despite the roughly equal recommended level). Once I get one or two characters to 20, I'ma take a shot at the first chapter on Lunatic.

edited 3rd Feb '17 12:40:21 PM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

I switched to a secondary team for Hard, at least until they can't keep up.

Third Summon. Got Est, Est, Cecilia (3*), Sully, and Niles (4*). Mediocre, but not the worst. Sully is awkward though since I've been training a 3* Sully for a bit. Not sure what to do with the old one now.

Ah, yeah, that makes sense.

I was going to suggest maybe that Merge thing they talked about, but taking a quick look at it, looks like one can't just merge any old multiple copies of a hero.

From what I can tell, the characters need to be the same star level, too.

From my experience with other mobile games, you hoard up the same characters and keep merging them until Power Creep happens and all the old units are mediocre

Merging lower star heroes into higher star heroes gets the recipient SP. Merging equal or higher star versions of characters gives you a level bonus as well.

If they're the same star rank, their level is transferred. If not, it's only worth some SP.

edited 3rd Feb '17 1:30:30 PM by Perseus

I believe merging also lowers the feather requirement for raising that unit's star rating. However, I also believe that it's equal to the number of feathers you would get if you just sold them, so in general I think it's better to sell off extras so that you have more flexibility in where you use your feathers.

The requirements for them are ludicrous, especially 4->5 (20,000 feathers). I'm sure there will be a more reasonable way to grind them later, but right now it's beyond ridiculous.

...Yikes. That's insane.

I've seen someone here complain about the Excuse Plot, and tbh, it's a smartphone game, what did you expect?

The game is aimed at smartphone players, who have different standards when it comes to that

Yeah, that's cray AF. That's several weeks of arena grinding assuming you get the full offensive score and rank decently on the leaderboard each week.

Fate/Grand Order is also a smartphone game and has a very deep plot that for many players is its main draw. I'm not really disappointed myself, but it would hardly have been impossible for them to do more.

edited 3rd Feb '17 2:13:43 PM by Perseus

It probably wouldn't be impossible to do a solid storyline, at least, but the competition between fans of the different series would be fierce. Making a solid plot about only members of the Askar Empire, with the heroes from the other games showing up as interchangeable fanservice roles, would be disappointing, and focusing too much on one series of games would draw ire from fans of the others.

Also that, yeah.

On another thing, is it random if a Hero gets a Special Attack in the game? Or do some heroes just not have access to one? Like, my Roy, for instance, doesn't learn one

@ Perseus: Fate/Grand Order didn't really get the ball rolling until Londinium started, which was the 4th Arc. In fact the story was considered especially bad in Rome. Starting with America Nasu started doing more for it because fans were also playing for the story.

Granblue's story was much the same but with its first story arc only getting better by the end. Though it tends to do a good job on event stories like the one that's heavily inspired by Red Line or Romeo and Juliet.

edited 3rd Feb '17 3:31:15 PM by OmegaRadiance

On my 2nd (or 3rd try) try on Deep Devotion, I got a 5-star Camilla. I also got a 4-star Sully, Hawkeye, and Robin... and a 3-star Cecilia.