It’s getting close to that time of year again. A Hero Rises time!
Currently, I have managed to save 485 orbs. I would’ve saved up more by this time, but I spent some on the Legendary Camilla banner to finally finish +10ing my Askr. You can check out my summoning results for that banner here.
In this article, I will go over my predictions for potential A Hero Rises candidates. Players will vote on a hero. The top 8 heroes will be placed on a voting gauntlet. All players get one copy of the winner, and the heroes that make the top 4 will get put on a banner. If 3-4 of the units on that banner share the same color, then +10ing at least one of them will cost significantly less orbs! On top of that, the unit quality on these is generally very high.
Last year’s A Hero Rises event
2023 has been great for my barracks. I managed to +10 Alear and Legendary Veronica during last year’s A Hero Rises event, which you can read about here. During that summoning session, I mentioned that I preferred Legendary Yuri over Alear for Arena scoring purposes. However, after using Alear over this past year, and finally getting around to playing and beating Fire Emblem: Engage over the winter holiday, I can say I’m glad FEH gave me Alear over Yuri.
Predictions for Red
For this year’s A Hero Rises, here is a list of heroes that are likely to win. This is based on my experiences playing the Arena, Aether Raids, and Summoner Duels.
- Legendary Hinoka – She grants fliers within 2 spaces of her the Charge status and the Special Charges status. She also comes with a sweep effect. She also has Wings of Mercy 4, which is a very good, but rare, skill.
- Legendary Elincia – She has Guidance 4 + Soaring Guidance, same as Mythic Ash. However, she’s a flier and also comes with Canto (2), making her so much more mobile.
- Duo Ayra & Mercedes – She’s able to hit an opponent with back-to-back specials, and with Canto (Dist. + 1, max 4), she can retreat all the way back to her starting square, making her really annoying to take out if you don’t have Canto control.
- Duo Sanaki & Micaiah – She has so much attack and can obliterate opponents with ease, and due to the high amount of damage reduction she has, she survives most counter-attacks. She reminds me of a Reinhardt, comparatively to how strong he was earlier on in FEH.
- Duo Byleth (M) & Byleth (F) – The current best far-save unit in the game. Byleth is also the main protagonist in Three Houses, so they are very popular.
- Kvasir – She has a Dance refresh special like Brave Marianne, and has a skill allowing allies within 4 spaces to warp next to her. Will make Aether raids easier.
- Lucia – She disables specials, and pretty much all of my units rely on specials to deal the finishing blow. Gambit 4 Lucia is very difficult to defeat.
Something I noticed in the red pool is that a lot of these units have weapons with the Brave effect.
Predictions for Blue
My predictions for blue units this year are:
- Gullevig – She gets extra actions, which is very strong. She also has Flared Sparrow.
- Winter Edelgard – Just like the Summer Harmonic Edelgard, she gets another action after she attacks something. For a total of 3 actions if you give her Galeforce. She also puts a bunch of flames on the ground when she attacks, which makes it annoying for the opponent to move around the map, as the flame terrain counts as 2 movement for ranged units.
- Duo Seidr & Heidr – They are able to immediately end an opponent’s action at the beginning of the turn. Extremely strong in Summoner duels and Arena, since they can move in front of your unit, and then there is nothing you can do to get your unit to safety.
- Mythic Veyle – Veyle and Alear are my favorite units from Fire Emblem: Engage due to their character arc. Veyle is probably a very popular unit. She grants drive 30% damage reduction to allies and a drive scowl effect (inflicts Special cooldown count+1 on foe before foe’s first attack during ally’s combat). A really good upgrade to Flayn, which I’ve been using in Aether Raids for the longest time.
- Rearmed Reinhardt – He comes with Near Trace 4. Although I think Near Trace 3 has some use cases (for example, moving 3 spaces with Duo Corrin & Elise, attacking, then using the duo button, attacking again then retreating 3 spaces is a unique ability that Near Trace 4 cannot provide, in the general case, Near Trace 4 is better.
- Mythic Freyr – He’s just so tanky and neutralizes all debuffs. Provides great support.
- Duo Shamir & Catherine – Their feud duo ability is nice for disabling the Miracle effect from Fallen Maria and Duo Ymir.
- Rearmed Ingrid – She has Guard bearing 4, great for fodder.
Predictions for Green
My predictions for green units this year are:
- Wind Tribe Claude – Every attack from him is a Special. He also inflicts Gravity within opponents within 1 space of the target, so they can’t even attack Claude after he Canto’s away. He also gets 80% damage reduction after attacking.
- Attuned Peony – She comes with Atk Oath Echo X skill, which is pretty decent. Attuned Triandra’s Death Blow Echo skill is okay, but I think the warping from the Oath skill is probably better utility in the long run.
- Duo Ana & Anna – Her harmonic skill lets her charge miracle, so you can’t take her out in one hit. She also comes with damage reduction halving, and her weapon has the hexblade status (adaptive damage). Since she comes with Atk/Spd prime and Gambit 4, she will defeat your unit before they’re able to defeat her.
- Legendary Robin – He provides incredible support via Grand Strategy. Unity is very powerful. We have counters now with the Def/Res ploy 3, but unless someone actually uses that, Unity skills are still amazing.
- Summer Ephraim – He gets the +1 movement like Brave Seliph, always moving 4 squares and also comes with a brave weapon.
- Legendary Alear – She’s the main protagonist from Fire Emblem: Engage. She might appear due to popularity.
- Spring Duo Karla & Freyja – She disables damage reduction skills on her specials, making her one-shot abilities very good.
- Attuned Nino – She comes with the Fleeting Echo X skill, which grants 30% damage reduction, like Remote Sparrow.
- Winter Dimitri – He comes with a dual-phase brave weapon, and also has vantage at 100% HP.
Predictions for Colorless
My predictions for colorless units this year are:
- Duo Ymir and Eir – They are extremely tanky, as they inflict massive Atk debuffs on the opponent. Since this is Ymir, they also have the miracle effect.
- Wind Tribe Kagero – She has Canto (Dist, max 3), allowing her to Canto all the way back to her starting square. Her Duo skill grants +1 movement. Really good for hit and run. From my experience though, she doesn’t tend to do as much damage as Duo Ayra.
- Mythic Gullevig – Similar to the Blue Gullevig, the gray one allows for multiple actions. The gray one also comes with Flared Sparrow as well, so even more fodder.
- Yunaka – She comes with Canto (Dist, max 3), so she can do similar things to Wind Tribe Kagero and run away. She comes with Flared Sparrow though, and also comes with Assassin’s Strike, allowing her to deal 20% of the foe’s defense as damage.
- Fallen Maria – She allows allies within 2 spaces to survive an engagement where they would have otherwise died. Other than that, her combat isn’t really that amazing.
- Rearmed Tana – She comes with Guidance 4, which is a very strong skill.
Conclusion
Overall, I’m fine with Red, Blue, or Green winning. The units that have come out this year are so strong, and I don’t actually have many of them. I still need to +10 an Astra Mythic unit in FEH. When I did 40 summons on Plumeria’s Remix banner, I only got one (the spark), so I was disappointed there.
I would really like blue to win, since Veyle is on the banner, and if she ends up on the top, I can finally have my first +10 Astra mythic. I also don’t have any +10 armor units that are 5-star exclusive, so having Winter Edelgard would be amazing. Duo Seidr & Heidr would make a great addition to my barracks as I also do not currently have any attack-oriented 5-star mage fliers. Currently, I only have Legendary Azura as a mage flier, and she’s only there for Gray Waves support. Having her would make Pawns of Loki, Allegiance battles, and the Arena so much easier.