Looking back on the year 2019, we’ve gotten a ton of new heroes. As a free-to-play player, I haven’t spent a single penny on the game. So far, I’ve reached tier 21 in Arena, top 1k in allegiance battles, and tier 27 in Aether Raids.
The only thing I haven’t done so far is reach top 1k arena assault… I’ve only managed to reach about rank 1,500, so I’m still a little ways off.
In this article, I will give my reasoning as to why I chose to summon them, and my thoughts on their gameplay, along with what their purpose is in my collection.
Most of the units which I summon are only used for the Arena Assault if they aren’t used on my core teams for Aether raids.
Summoning Strategy
In the year 2019, I mostly stuck to summoning on the legendary banners, as they were the most value for your orbs.
Unlike a lot of the top-tier free-to-play players, I do not want to fodder my only copy of a unit—I still haven’t foddered any of my 5* units in which I have a single copy of, no matter how bad they are.
A Retrospective Look
Because of the large amount of heroes I got during the year 2019, I’ve decided to break this article into many parts. This article will only contain units which I’ve received in January 2019.
Most of the time, I use the unit for a bit, like the tempest trials, but after that, I rarely use them again after that point if they are “too weak” in my eyes. Every hero has their own use, and all of them can be used for PVE content (like using in the training tower),in squad assaults, or in the blessed gardens.
But for PVP-type purposes such as the Arena, highly-merged units are required, with suboptimal builds. Movement assist skills are much better gameplay-wise than playing with rallies.
I feel that I should use my units that I’ve gotten more often. However, I don’t really “feel” like using them mainly because my go-to teams are already set in place. Additionally, with my huge collection of 5* heroes, it’s hard to go around and use everyone because the game modes restrict your formation to only a handful of units, and since these aren’t highly invested, I don’t use them too often outside of the AA or other multi-map battles.
This article is part of a series I’m working on where I look at the units I’ve gotten within a certain time frame. To see the my progress in January 2019, see THIS post.
Overview of November and December
In November and December 2019, the main banners included Altina’s Mythic Banner, the Guardians of Peace banner (ft. Igrene, Larum, Perceval, and Echidna), the Desert Mercenaries banner (ft. Ewan, Tethys, Gerik, and duo Ephraim), Legendary Celica’s Banner, the Christmas banner, and the Book 4 Begins banner (ft. Mareeta, Eyvel, Peony, and Osian).
During Late November, Book 4 was getting announced, and the new game mode Mjolnir Strikes just got announced on the Feh Channel.
Sothis
In November, the only banner I summoned on besides the free summons was the Altina Mythic banner. I went all out on that banner and spent just under 300 orbs which I’ve saved up for the month. However, I did not end up getting Altina, and ended up on the unlucky side with only getting two 5* heroes in 300 orbs. (For more information on luckiness and expected average 5* rates, you should see THIS post.)
I got really lucky with a +Spd IV Sothis. Sothis is really powerful. I wish I used her more often. She’s a good unit with her weapon having built-in distant counter and removes her dragon-effective weakness. Her special skill Sirius is also really good, boosting damage by 30% of her speed and combining that with noontime.
She’s really fast, has good offensive power, while also not being too squishy.
What is she doing now?
At the moment, my Sothis is on my AR-Defense team because of her lift loss. Despite me not getting Altina, Sothis is not bad. I really should use her more, because she is a really good unit.
Bride Fjorm
I got Bride Fjorm because I chose the colorless stones. There were no red stones and colorless was my second option. I was lucky enough to get Bride Fjorm instead of getting Duma or Gunnthra (even though I don’t have Summer Gunnthra, she’s not that strong of a unit).
Bride Fjorm is a really good unit in Aether Raids because she basically stops the dancers from dancing. The problem is that her HP is sometimes not high enough to stop infantry pulse dancers who have upwards of 66 HP.
I planned to use her on my Astra team, which is why I gave her an Astra blessing. However, I don’t have any Astra Mythic Heroes. I gave her the Astra blessing early because I needed to clear the Astra Blessing quests at the time.
What is she doing now?
Even though I don’t use her on Aether raids very often, I use her quite often on my flier emblem team to clear the 10th stratum lots of times per month. Basically, my flier teams need more healers, and since I’ve already max HM’d my Halloween Mia, I need a new flier to HM farm, which Fjorm fit the bill.
Fjorm is a really good unit, and I enjoy using her, especially with some Ground Order shenanigans in Aether Raids, because that effect basically ignores Gravity, allowing a gravity-trapped unit to teleport around. She’s not optimal for AR because she doesn’t have the +10 HP support yet, but she can work occasionally with lower-HP unmerged dancers such as L!Azura.
Peony
Moving onto December, I got Peony for free by clearing the story. She’s there for dancer support, and for scoring high on the Mjolnir Strike mode because of her base kit including a 400 SP weapon, 400 SP assist skill, B Duel Flying, and a 300 SP C-skill.
This is what I’m currently running on her. I gave her Aether to maximize her scoring in the Mjolnir Strike mode, because she needs a 500 SP special. Since she can’t inherit galeforce, the only other option I have as a free-to-play player is Aether.
What is she doing now?
At the moment, she has replaced one of my Eirs in my Light Season Aether raids offense. Her ground order tactics make testing gravity tests super easy, and also her long-range drive atk/spd is really helpful for supporting a unit from far away.
She is a really good support unit. As for combat, she can deal with some red units in the Arena (because she’s currently a bonus unit at the moment). Other than that, her combat capabilities are not very high. Her main use is support and a requirement for reaching Tier 27 in Aether Raids.
Forsythe
In December, my main focus was the Book 4 begins banner. I spent most of my orbs there, and didn’t spend many orbs on the Legendary Celica banner. My main targets on the banner was Peony and Mareeta. Mareeta is one of the fastest units in the game, with 42 base speed and a speed superboon. I started off the banner by pulling both blue and red orbs only.
Starting off the disheartening chain of pity-breakers, I ended up getting Forsythe after reaching a disappointing 4.50% focus pity rate. My luck around this time was pretty bad… I was unlucky on Altina’s banner and on this one too.
Although I was really sad that he ruined my enormous pity rate, after using him a ton during the tempest trials, he is a really good unit. He is super tanky but also able to player-phase many units if he has movement. I switch my armor boots seal a ton.
His weapon is really unique, restoring 10 HP to him whenever he hits an enemy. Each hit heals him, making him a great Tempest Trials unit.
What is he doing now?
At the moment, my Forsythe isn’t really doing much other than just sitting in my barracks and waiting for me to put him on a team to counter a red unit in AA, such as Altina or L!Marth. Basically, his defense is so high that physical red units in AA do very little damage to Forsyth, and he heals it straight back up.
I really like using him. However, he is 5* locked and likely won’t ever get merged up.
Lethe
Another one of my pity breakers occurred on the Book 4 Begins banner. I got Lethe.
Just like Mareeta, she is a really, really fast unit. Her weapon has built-in Atk/Spd solo and her A-skill is Spd/Def solo, meaning that she gets +12 Spd when she’s alone. She is a really fast unit, just like Claude (who I don’t have but wish I had).
What is she doing now?
I gave her desperation because of her biggest flaw, of having not enough attack. Her attack honestly should be higher. It’s too low to be much use at the moment. Her physical bulk is okay, but is relatively low. Currently, I’ve used her a few times to counter some units in the Squad Assaults but I don’t often use her mainly because her attack is just not high enough to secure all the kills.
She’s not a bad unit, I just have better units to use, such as Tobin or Marth, as they specifically counter a certain unit (type) in AA, while Lethe is just an all-round good unit.
I already have a built red cavalier (Ares) so I don’t have much need for another one at the moment.
Winter Jaffar
After wasting more than 200 of my precious F2P orbs on that Book 4 begins banner, I ran out of orbs. I decided that my best option at this point would be to give up on one of them and just focus on the other. I chose to focus on Mareeta because I wasn’t sure if she was going to get another rate up banner anytime soon. Peony should come back in about 4 months or so, so I chose to just pull red orbs from this point onwards.
I needed more orbs so I finished all of the chain challenges (on Lunatic difficulty), and finished up the blessed gardens (the ones with orbs only). While that was happening, the Christmas baner rolled around and the tempest trials started. I wanted Mareeta more than the other winter units, so I didn’t roll for any of them.
During the tempest trials, I leveled up our free unit Jaffar, who, in my opinion, is not as good as Forsythe, who I got prior to this.
Jaffar is an okay unit. The main problem with him is that his attack is just too low. He has a decent amount of speed, but since I had other better dagger units (such as Eir, Hot Springs Camilla) combined with the fact that I don’t use daggers very often anyways, I decided that I wasn’t going to use him very much.
What is he doing now?
He’s sitting on the bench at the moment. He does have a very high BST, but the problem with him is that he is an armor (low movement) and also doesn’t have a PRF weapon. I built Astram mainly because he scored in the 175 BST (172 + 3 on the first merge) bin (same as Jaffar, 174 + 3 on the first merge) but Astram would score slightly higher than Jaffar because he lacked the PRF weapon. Additionally, he’s pretty weak, so unless I gave him an expensive dagger such as Broadleaf Fan+, I wasn’t going to build up Jaffar.
Because he’s an armor, he requires high investment skill-wise, so I’m going to stick with someone that requires less investment. I’m thinking maybe Echidna or Ross, depending on who I get more of first. However, I don’t really want to build either of them too because they don’t have a PRF weapon. FEH needs more high-scoring F2P axe users with PRF weapons.
Duplicate: Sword Reinhardt
Thanks to the Tempest Trials, Blessed Gardens, and finishing the Lunatic-difficulty Chain Challenges, I was able to scavenge enough orbs to continue trying for Mareeta. I was disheartened when I got my third pitybreaker: Sword Reinhardt.
The one I already summoned previously was +HP, but this one I got was +Res. I merged the +Res one because then Reinhardt would have an evenly-matched Def and Res stat. He has no good fodder, so I didn’t keep them both around until I needed it.
His weapon is a brave weapon which hits twice both on enemy phase and on player phase. (My brother had a +5 fort advantage in AR with his Sword Reinhardt, HERE are some screenshots of the ridiculous statspread of his Reinhardt.)
What is he doing now?
He’s used on my AA team to counter many green units, such as Winter Sothis, or Nino. I most often use him on player-phase. His weapon is super awesome.
I don’t use him in Arena or Aether Raids because he doesn’t score very high. I wish I used him more often, because despite him being a really good unit, I haven’t invested Distant Counter into him, mainly because that’s expensive, and I already have Ares and Astram fulfilling the red roles.
Eyvel
The Book 4 banner ended in a few days, and I was growing more and more disappointed. I got so many 3* Stahls, 3* Raighs, and 3* Sophias. I got a few 3* Hinatas, but I would have liked to at least gotten 4* units. My summons were super unlucky at this time.
Finally, when I thought all hope was lost and I would end up spending my Christmas without Mareeta, I ended up pulling Eyvel. Not bad.
However, now that I’ve pulled Eyvel, my pity rate went back down to 3%. “At least I got a focus unit finally” I thought to myself.
Eyvel is a very good unit. I haven’t used her much yet (since she was summoned around a week ago) but from the little I’ve used her, she has decent attack, but very high defense. She’s like a red Lukas, but with more speed.
What is she doing now?
I’d like to use her on the AA against green units. However, I already have that role filled by Tobin, Astram, Ares, L!Marth, Alfonse, L!Ike, Hrid, Xander, Sothis, Elincia, and much more. I just have more options to use now.
She will likely just sit in my barracks not doing much because this game limits your deployment to 4 Heroes.
The Struggle for Mareeta
Two days left. Monday night, I collect my arena orbs. I also complete most of the Squad Assaults, which I’ve put off doing because they were so unappealing and not really that fun to play in my opinion. By the end, I scavenged barely enough orbs to do a last few summons. In my desperation, I even wasted a few of my 950 (yes I have a lot of them and use them occasionally) stamina potions doing the December Quests (doing all the training stratums which gave orb bonuses).
Didn’t get anything worth mentioning.
The last day. I literally ran out of orbs to get. No more chain challenges, squad assaults, quests… nothing. I had to rely on the daily login bonuses. On this last day, I collected my login bonus to see that I only had a total of 5 orbs. I only had one chance left. By the title of this heading, you already know what happens next right?
I tap summon.
There’s one red orb.
I see the smoke.
Woo! I was super happy and lucky that I got her on the last summon. I jump up and celebrate. After so many pity breaks, and after spending tons of hours playing unfair and tedious maps with enemies having unfair stats later, I finally got her. Glad I didn’t have to pull out the wallet.
Mareeta (the not fallen version)
Looking at her IV’s, I’m glad that she’s not -Atk or -Spd. That would have been very sad for me. I’m just glad that I got her and didn’t have to wait like 7 months or something for her to come back on a legendary banner.
Her weapon is a spectrum solo, giving her +4 to all stats as an in-combat buff when she’s not next to anyone, while also having null follow-up built-in.
Since she’s pretty recent, I haven’t had a chance to use her much. She’s really fast, and has decent attack, unlike another certain unit I got a while ago…
The problem with the Fallen Mareeta that I have is that her Atk is quite low. Despite her weapon being very similar to Lewyn’s weapon (reverse desperation), her Atk sadly is just too low for me to effectively rely on. I have used her, but she often misses the KO. I wish she had a better Atk stat.
With the new Mareeta (the not fallen one) her Atk is much higher than the fallen one. Her Atk is 61 when she’s not next to anyone, and with her spd is also much higher than the fallen one.
What is she doing now?
I haven’t used her very much, but I’d like to use her for the AA. She should be able to help me deal with the faster green units which axebreaker won’t work, like Winter Sothis or Halloween Fae.
From the little I used her, she is really good. A big plus is that she doesn’t take fury recoil damage which I really dislike (which is why I often don’t use units with Fury). She has enough bulk to survive hits in the AA, and also has enough offensive power to secure the KO (unlike fallen one).
I’m glad that I got her. Even though it drained a lot of my orb resources, I got a unit that I really wanted, which I rarely do in this game. I summoned only on a select few non-legendary banners in 2019, and this was one of those few.
I’m so lucky that I got her on my very last possible summon.
Edelgard
To my surprise, later that night (11 pm where I’m at) was Christmas, and I didn’t expect any Christmas present from the developers. I’m super surprised that they gave us 9 summoning tickets! I was super surprised and happy. Thanks devs!
I started off with the 2017 Christmas Banner. Got nobody worth mentioning.
I then summoned on the 2018 Christmas Banner. Again, got no one worth mentioning.
Finally, I used my free summon and two of the tickets for the Celica Banner.
Well, I didn’t get anyone great with my Christmas present from the developers. Not surprising that I didn’t get anyone considering I just got Mareeta right?
Well, you can guess what happened next with the title of this section.
I used my last ticket on the Legendary Celica banner. Boom. Smoke.
Whoa! I did not expect to get Edelgard on my free summon. I’m pretty happy.
At least she’s not -Atk. I haven’t used her much, but I plan to use her on AA to counter lance units. I don’t have very many strong axe units (I only have Libra, Ylgr, Cherche, B!Ike, and Frederick). I have others like Gerome and Groom Marth, but those are not very strong in my opinion (Marth is too squishy and Gerome is too slow).
What is she doing now?
From the little I used her, she is very good. Her weapon is like L!Ephraim’s weapon that grants a guaranteed follow-up attack depending on the number of foes within two spaces of her.
Units with the Bold Figher effect are super annoying. Notable units include Dimitri and Halloween Myrrh. Edelgard basically has this effect too, the majority of the time. This is why she is super good in my opinion, and I hope to use her often. She is basically an armor unit with Bold Fighter without the armor movement restriction.
Duplicate: Thrasir
Well, I spent a few more orbs that I’ve gotten from the recent quests and events such as Rokkr Sieges, I got a few more orbs. I just decided to yolo summon, going in with 5 orbs at a time. I almost never do this, but I was so unlucky not too long ago, I’ve got to be luckier now, right? Right?
That’s not how randomness works, but I just went with it.
A bunch of yolo summons later, I ended up getting another Thrasir. Well, that makes 3.
She’s not a good IV (+Spd or +Atk) but oh well. More HP is pretty good.
I also invested Aether and a dual rally on her at the moment because I’m going to use her on my Mjolnir Strikes Anima/Astra (Anima being the prominent one) season. Her +1 mergemakes her score basically the equivalent to a +11 merged unit on the Anima/Astra season.
Although the merge doesn’t really affect my scoring in Mjolnir Strikes (756 with/without the merge), it does decrease my defense lift loss by 1, making my maximum lift loss 39 on Anima season. Not extremely useful, but it might help me gain a few ranks. Since I don’t have any Astra Mythic Heroes, my Astra score is low anyways, so it doesn’t really matter too much whether or not I merged Thrasir. I would’ve liked Celica, but oh well, not getting her is not the end of the world. I already have enough pair up heroes (Eliwood, Alm, and Leif) so that every season combination is covered.
What is she doing now?
Thrasir is on my AR-Defense team (my Astra defense is an infantry pulse team). She gets pulsed by two dancers, meaning that she has an instant moonbow. I only ran Aether in the above build because I’m currently setting up for the next Mjolnir Strikes shield phase. I also occasionally use her in the AA. Typically, I don’t usually use mages in AA (with the exception of Reinhardt, Brave Miciah, and L!Azura) since I know all of them are squishy and can’t take out the armors and armored dragons which I face in the high levels of AA.
I also use her in Mjolnir Strike’s Defense team on the Astra/Anima season. That’s pretty much the extent to which I use Thrasir. Her weapon’s debuff isn’t super annoying, since Thrasir almost always moves first, the debuff gets cleared when someone else moves.
I can’t say that Panic Smoke helps out much on my offense, but I’m sure it makes opponents think twice about buffing up their units when Thrasir’s defending.
Summary of November and December
During the November/December section, I was particularly unlucky with my summons. I got very few people on the Legendary Banner and also didn’t get Mareeta until the very end of the banner. I did get a bunch of other five-star heroes along the way, but considering I must’ve spent upwards of 650 orbs during this time frame, I was extremely unlucky during the legendary banner, and decently lucky on the normal banner, getting five 5* units for spending about 350 orbs (for more information on luckiness, check out THIS earlier article on the average summoning statistics).
Furthermore, for me spending between 20 and 40 orbs on the Celica Legendary banner and getting two 5* units, I would say I was also pretty lucky. My was pretty bad during November and the early parts of December, but near the end of December, my luck turned around.
Overall, I don’t regret my decisions spending a ton of orbs on Mareeta, despite her not really being super beneficial to my top 1k Arena Assault score, since she’s likely not ever possibly going to be highly merged, as I am a free-to-play by the way.
I’m having fun with this game at least, and that’s what matters and what FEH is all about—collecting your favorite heroes and using them, even if they aren’t the most highly-scoring units.