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thoughts-of-loyalty · 6 years ago

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Fire Emblem: Three Houses 2/13 Trailer Analysis - Gameplay Elements

After such a long wait for information about the newest Fire Emblem title, we finally had a trailer drop on 2/13 , giving us another glimpse of the game we have been so eagerly anticipating. While still very much so a Fire Emblem game, it has no doubt taken a lot of people by surprise, given what we’ve learned about the cast and story - while we figured Byleth was being referred to as teacher by the narrator, I don’t think we expected for Byleth to be a teacher at an Officer’s Academy for nobles.

Regardless, the game is due to launch on July 26th, so a lot of what we’ve seen in this trailer is likely what we’re due to be seeing in this game. While I am analyzing the trailers we’ve been given, due to the sheer length I will be focusing on the gameplay for this post. If you want a refresher before reading, you can see the trailer here. The analysis is below.

In the first look at gameplay, we see Byleth approaching the Black Eagles house - presumably, the trailer decided to go with Byleth instructing the Black Eagles. It looks to be a meeting before the house travels out to fight the bandits, which will likely be the pre-mission structure for some of the earlier maps. Of note is in the upper-left corner of the screen, which reads “Entrance Hall - Day.” The former isn’t particularly interesting, but I find the latter worth noting: while a time system isn’t exactly new to FE (in Fates, certain events would be available at certain times of the day or after a day had passed), it makes me think it will play a role in this one as well - perhaps you can only teach during the day, which can be interrupted by events like needing to go into battle, and there are nighttime events unrelated to teaching.

As we see shortly thereafter, the presumably-aforementioned bandits that were located by the knights are confronted by the Black Eagles. While this just mostly pre-battle map stuff, I did notice he’s standing on a glowing tile (it’s even more glowing in the Japanese trailer, interestingly enough). There’s a couple of potential meanings for that, such as it being a heal/”throne” tile (where Kostas stays holed up to give himself a boost/recovery like most bosses) and/or a seize location (the two can be identical, after all). It’s impossible to say for sure, but it does make me wonder...

We get an overall look at the Black Eagles in this shot. There’s a few things of note here, so let’s delve into it: 1) Byleth (and as we can see below, Bernadetta) both have a total movement of 4 squares, which is rather low for a Fire Emblem game - Not counting Heroes, I think only Gaiden and Echoes have movement that low to start with for non-armored units. Given that we’ve seen Byleth with 5 movement in the previous trailer, I believe movement ranges might have been decreased, though why is still up in the air. 2) Almost every single unit has three upwards facing green arrows to the bottom-right of left model, and both Byleth and Bernadetta have those same green arrows in their little info box on the bottom-left of the screen, to the right of their HP. Notably, only Dorothea is lacking this indicator. What this means is unknown for the time being, but it makes me wonder.

Bernadetta is selected to be the one going forth, so we get a slightly clearer view of some of the basic UI. In the top left, we see a small tab dedicated to describing the current highlighted terrain and it’s effects - in this case, Flatlands, which is noted to be “Terrain with no special effects.” In the bottom left, we’re informed of basic info on the unit - their Name, HP, Level, currently equipped weapon, a 3DS-esque overworld sprite, and those triangles again. Nothing more to say, however, so continuing on...

We see the updated drop down options menu. For one, it seems “Attack” has been shortened to Atk (I kinda hope they undo that, personally, it’s weird to see it shortened). “Combat Arts” has also been shortened to “Arts” (a bit iffy on that, too, but I’m not as bothered there). We can also see “Gambit,” which has possibly replaced what was “Formation” prior. “Equip” and “Items” were also options beforehand, but it’s likely “Equip” has been merged into “Items” like in prior games. Meanwhile, while “Trade” was technically not seen beforehand, no one was close enough to allies in the previous trailer, so it’s probably there now for that reason. “Magic” has also been removed from the options - whether it’s due to Magic being merged with “Attack” (and “Heal” having it’s own location) or because Bernadetta can’t use magic currently, I couldn’t say.

Given that Bernadetta prepares to attack, we then get to transition into the combat preparation menu. It bares a lot of resemblance to the previous menu, containing a lot of the same layout, only a bit more uncluttered. On the bottom-right, we can see that it’s been laid out into more organized boxes. Defense has also presumably been changed back after it was “Endurance” last trailer, but it seems “Resistance” may be “Resilience” now. The top-left is much the same as beforehand, albeit we now see those triangles to the right of the Bernadetta’s HP and Bernadetta’s class is “Noble,” presumably a class she shares with everyone else that isn’t Byleth and maybe Edelgard (her class in the previous trailer was Aristocrat, but in the Japanese trailers, Bernadetta and Edelgard share the same class, so it’s likely she’ll have been made into a “Noble” now).

On the top right, we see the weapon menu, which is very much similar to how it was in the prior trailer. One thing of note, however, is that the “Mini Bow” Bernadetta is carrying lacks the Feather icon that the Iron Bow has. This indicates that said bow isn’t effective against flying units, so I figure the bow probably has some extra effect to make it worth using alongside the Iron Bow (such as how the Short Bow had lower weight and better crit in the GBA games, or 1 range like in Fates).

We now get to see the combat forecast menu, and it’s about what we’d expect it to be compared given what we saw last trailer (seen to the right), pretty much the exact same layout as before. That said, it seems we now have an idea of what that tab above the weapon’s is for, as the “None” has now been replaced with “No Combat Arts.” There’s also a icon above Bernadetta similar to Byleth’s, so it’s probably a skill icon of some sort. Finally, there’s two weapon icons next to said icon with “Lv 1″ at the bottom right, which wasn’t there before: what exactly this means isn’t clear, perhaps it’s just an indication of current weapon rank but it’s impossible to say for sure.

Continuing from the above, we can see that Combat Arts can be cycled through in the same ways as weapons/spells in other Fire Emblems. In this case, Bernadetta swaps to Curved Shot - introduced in Shadows of Valentia, it decreased HP by 1 to increase damage by 1 and hit chance by 30%. This Curved Shot seems to increase range by 1 (something that probably didn’t see use in Shadows of Valentia due to bows having 1 massive 5 range already) and a damage increase of 1 as well (no way to tell if it also increases hit chance, as Bernadetta had max hit chance already). It also doesn’t use any HP, but given the 3 placed above the Bow’s 50 durability, it makes me think that Three Houses will have weapon durability be used up to trigger Arts.

As a final note, in Echoes, every Combat Art would prevent follow-up attack from triggering (with a few exceptions like Double Lion, which functioned akin to doubles a la later-game Brave weapons). While Bernadetta couldn’t double beforehand due to not being fast enough anyway, I’m thinking this will remain as well to help continue the balance there.

On the right, I included the Japanese trailer’s representation of the same - interestingly, the range does not increase by 1 (and we can tell it IS supposedly the same skill because that’s the same name for Curved Shot in Japan). I don’t know what to make of this discrepancy yet, but I’m certain it means something...

Now, just a more minor thing, but they’ve definitely put a bit more effort into making the allied soldiers look a bit more unique than those “Blond dudes in blue clothing” that was nigh-omnipresent beforehand. Definitely good to know that what we saw in the first trailer was not everything we’d be seeing beforehand.

And then we get to see a Critical Hit in action, which definitely tells us that what we saw at the tail end of the first trailer with Byleth was a critical hit then, too. And it looks like they forced that critical, too, unless Petra is such a broken unit she’s got a natural 100% critical rate with an Iron Sword. That said, I can’t complain too much, as...

We finally get to see a post-battle experience gain screen - something we haven’t seen at all up to this point, so this is pretty valuable to us. I also made sure to take a screen shot of the before situation, so we can see exactly what she gained. So, let’s break down everything we see, bit by bit: 1) The top is the standard “Until Next Level” experience bar most FEs have, but there’s a slight twist: it looks like Petra needs to gain a total of 110 experience instead of the regular 100. Why exactly this change exists is difficult to know for sure, though here’s hoping this doesn’t impact unit progression too significantly. 2) We also see her gain points in what is referred to as the “Professor Level,” which seems to likely be akin to Weapon Ranks in most FEs. We see her gain 3 points in Swords, and 2 points in what we later know to be Authority; interestingly, given the clip beforehand, it’s impossible to say why she gained it, given she didn’t seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary, nor why it only gained two points. I have a theory I’ll elaborate on later tying into this, though. 3) We also see her gain a single point in a bar under a tad labeled “Until class is mastered.” While we can likely tie toward class progression seen later in the video, I’ll elaborate how I think it ties in during that analysis. 4) There’s finally an experience bat under a tab labelled “Until Battalion levels up,” and she gains 15 points in “Empire Infantry.” Now, it’s easy enough to know what those are: the generic soldiers fighting beside her. But what I’m curious about is what will occur as they level up. Does leveling them up grant access to different types of infantry, or does is that tied to “Authority” and does leveling those up grant access to new gambits? To be seen, I suppose.

We then transition to a scene presumably in the Garreg Mach Monastery, where Ferdinand and Sylvain are poised to duel each other with Training Lances. This reminds me of some degree to the Arena in a number of FEs, as well as the duels one could have in New Mystery of the Emblem. There’s a couple of interesting things to note here: 1) The tab at the top indicates this is “Round 2,” likely indicating some fight preceded this one in some way. Whether it’s Ferdinand fighting his way through some students or it’s several paired into duels, it’s impossible to say. 2) The reward for winning the duel is apparently 300G and an Intermediate Seal. We later learn that the latter is required to change classes, as it’s listed as such when Edelgard class changes to Brigand. As it’s unknown how else these will be earned, these duels might be important when it comes to improving your units. 3) Sylvain and Ferdinand have both Lances and Axes to choose from (and Ferdinand also has Swords), though both use Lances to duel each other. This makes me think that units in these situations will be saddled with the same weapons so as to make the duels relatively fair, presuming the weapon triangle is present. 4) Back to the Arena comparisons, we see that the player is given an option to withdraw in the bottom right. The player obviously accepts the duel, given they have no chance to lose, but it’s nice that we’re given the option to back out of duels we can’t win/don’t want to risk before they begin, especially since we’re given a combat forecast to help us make our decision. 5) Finally, most of the Arena duels in previous Fire Emblems (even in New Mystery’s Barracks duels you had to pay to enter) had your units facing generic enemies. As we see Sylvain in the Monastery earlier, but not as part of the Black Eagles, this makes me think most of the enemies one can fight in the Monastery will be picked from other houses. Whether we will end up fighting generics as well in these duels, or maybe even teachers, is unknown. We also don’t know for sure if arenas exist outside of the barracks, as they did in New Mystery, so who knows how this will end up being?

We’re then given a look at the teaching mechanics that this game looks to be pushing as a major mechanic. At the very top, we see a meter with the number 3 below it - given the various icons beside “Turoring” and “Auto-Tutor,” it’s likely that you get a maximum of 3 tutors before you run out of time that “day”, so that one can’t abuse the tutor system. Both Tutoring and Set Goals is explored in more detail later in the trailer, so I’ll save those for later. Auto-Tutor, considering the 3 icon, is likely allowing the game to determine which someones are selected for tutoring; this would no doubt be useful for those who either don’t want to be bothered to figure out/use the tutor system or just can’t decide - hopefully, there will be options to select auto-tutor after using up a few tutor plans in case one figures out a couple to tutor but can’t figure out what to use the final one(s) on. Group Task is a complete enigma, given that we’re never given a peek at how it works - while it obviously involves students working together, the time costs involved and how it is used is still unknown. There’s also “Start Class” as the final option - this makes me think that you first select who you want to tutor and set up the goals/group tasks, and then select this option to put it all into action; that said, Tutoring vs Start Class could be different matters entirely, like classes being focused on everyone gaining progression in Goals while Tutoring is focused on individual students. To be seen, I suppose. Finally, of note is the rather empty classroom - only Edelgard, Dorothea, Bernadetta, and Ferdinand (hidden behind the “Group Task” bar, visible very briefly after Tutoring is selected) are visible in this shot. Perhaps this means tutoring will be limited to select students if they’re around, akin to how you had limited options with who you could spend time with in the Private Quarters portion of the My Castle. Of course, it could mean nothing and you’re not limited by who is seen on-screen.

Here we see Tutoring in action, with Dorothea as the subject of a tutoring session. While Byleth decides aid her in learning how to use Reason magic, we can see that technically every option is available (including Hvy Armor, Riding, and Flying lower on the list, considering the sidebar has lower to go). Below the Skill Details box, we can see her Current Goals is Sword and Reason focus - to be elaborated upon later. Above that, meanwhile, we can see a bar with a Smiley icon, below which reads “You can train one more times.” This likely means, in the English trailer version, Byleth had already instructed twice before.

Focusing on the “Skill Details” box, we can see that deciding to tutor her in Reason magic would yield 6 EXP to that rank - +4 from Base (likely meaning tutoring in general offers a certain base growth) and +2 from “Strengths.” The latter likely means that Dorothea is incline toward growth in the categories marked by the Blue upwards arrows (It likely does not mean it’s because of her focus - you’ll see why under Linhardt’s instruction). There’s also a Red downward arrows, by what is later identified Faith magic - likely meaning that she would have a penalty if one tried to tutor her in that. Interestingly, Faith is also marked by 3 stars, but what those could mean is unknown.

In the Japanese trailer, meanwhile, we can see her getting instruction in Swords, which gives us a peek at that other icon I left for now. Now, my best translation efforts via Google Translate (And I only found out after Serenes Forest already translated it...) revealed it to say “Teacher correction,” which... probably isn’t 100% accurate. But this makes me believe that selecting skills tagged with the index finger add a bonus to EXP gained related to Byleth in some way (maybe Byleth is trained in the marked skills, and tutoring the students in skills he’s proficient with offers a bonus). We can also see the “Tutor Bar” from the classroom above Dorothea in the Japanese version, but it’s mysteriously missing in the English version. Wish I knew why, but who knows for sure.

We can see what gains is made from the tutoring now, with Dorothea gaining EXP x 1.5 - whereas the prior screen said she’d gain 6, she gains 9 instead, going from 62 to 53 (in the Japanese version, the same happens, where she gains 12 EXP instead of 8, going from 15 to 3). I can’t offer up a good reason why she’s gained 1.5 times the expected amount. Perhaps those smiley faces indicate mood, with students earning more EXP if in a good mood; alternatively, it could be based on supports between Byleth and his students, or maybe it’s just random and we had some brute-forced luck. Again, to be determined.

Above her dialogue tab, on the left, we see her portrait in a small square with a yellow arrow pointing upward on the upper-left corner and a heart in the upper-right corner. We’ve all pretty certain to see supports in some capacity, so it’s likely that indicates a support gain because of him tutoring her. As an aside, in the Japanese version, Dorothea has two arrows instead of one - this can likely be chalked up to focusing on a skill she’d have better gains in (since she has two bonuses in Swords to Reason’s one bonus) being responsible for the increase, but I can’t say for sure.

This is the Set Goals option of the teaching mentioned above. At the beginning, Linhardt’s current focus is Reason and Faith Focus, but the player in the trailer decides to swap Linhardt’s focus to Faith and Riding instead. Given that Linhardt’s best skill is Faith, it’s not surprising, but I guess they want him to branch out into being a horseback mage later. In the bottom-right of the screen, we see X can bring up the status screen, likely so one can see how well their focuses will work with their stats.

I’ve danced around discussing this beforehand, but Heavy Armor, Riding, and Flying are given growth ranks starting from E, like every other skill in the game. While not fully surprising, as it’s likely to serve as a gateway for Nobles seeking to reclass into classes with those traits, it makes me wonder if there’s any particular benefit to leveling up those skills beyond that point. As we know, the weapon ranks give us better weapons as we rank up, but will there be an equivalent for the others? Or do the ranks act as gateways throughout, forcing us to to level from E to A/S to access, say, the Paladin class? It makes me wonder.

Returning back to focusing on the screenshot, one thing of note is one can possibly select to have only one focus at once, given that there’s a None option below Flying. What sort of benefits one could achieve from choosing to focus on one skill instead of two is uncertain, given that it goes unexplored (my best guess is faster growth, but that’s just a guess), but it seems like it’s an option all the same. Unsurprisingly, one can’t double down on the same focus (as the confirmation screen doesn’t pop up until after Linhardt selects Riding, despite Faith being double under the Custom Focus), so if you’re going to focus on one skill, guess one probably will have to use the None option.

The English version unfortunately cuts away too early, but we see aftermath of it in the Japanese trailer. There’s not much, but there’s a few things to glean from it. For one, we can see that Linhardt doesn’t automatically gain a Blue arrow for Riding when it’s selected, despite it being his new Focus, meaning it’s not a Strength for him. While understandable, given that this would help prevent abusing easier EXP gains, it likely means Strengths are set in stone (and so are the Red arrows, too) and branching out from that would take extra effort. Second, when Linhardt’s custom focus is selected, it gains an E next to it (on the top left box), while the previous Reason and Faith focus is placed below, indicating that the Custom Focus is equipped. This tells us that the students have preset Focuses (likely tailored to their Strengths, like Linhardt with Reason/Faith and Dorothea with Swords/Reason) and will probably keep them around as quick-select options.

Finally, I should make it clear that the Japanese and English builds are different, and while most of what they do is the same, their selections do result in notable differences . For instance, in the Japanese trailer, the Tutor bar was at 2 the whole time, while in the English trailer, it was at 3 the whole time. I bring this up because this number doesn’t change when the Goals are changed in the Japanese trailer. This thankfully means tweaking a student’s Goals won’t interfere with your tutoring, so changing around your student’s focuses before tutoring them won’t eat up any of your allotted time.

And Linhardt shows us that one aspect of Faith is healing, likely having replaced staves this time around. He uses the spell heal to restore 11 HP to Byleth. Fire Emblem has never been fully consistent with the calculations, generally using “Healer’s Magic +10″ in older games, “Healer’s Magic/2 +8″ in the Archanea remakes and Awakening, and “Healer’s Magic/3 +10″ in Fates. This makes me believe they’re following FE11/12/Awakening’s formula for healing (or I hope so, otherwise Linhardt’s healing is trash), given how low the restored amount is.

Now, in theory, this is taking part after Linhardt’s goals have been switched to Faith and Riding, but obviously, Linhardt isn’t on a horse in this scene. Most Fire Emblems haven’t had their healers dismount to heal their targets after combat, so I don’t think this is the situation either. This leads me to believe that even if you decide to focus on a certain movement-altering skill, you still need to increase your Ranking before you can see it in action (I’d guess to E+ at the very least?). Thankfully, I believe that this isn’t too major an issue in the game. As you’ll recall under the bit during Petra’s gains, we see her make gains in both Swords and Authority after battle, and I said I’d discuss my theory on it later. Here it is: I believe that units will gain EXP in their current focus regardless of whether or not they’re currently making use of said skill. Of course, I can’t prove this, but I do hope this is the case because otherwise progression will take forever.

Moving away from the teaching and its results, we cut to Caspar fighting a “Western Church Soldier,” wielding “Iron Gauntlets.” Interestingly, when using these gauntlets, Caspar has a x2 next to his Mt, and deals two consecutive hits to the soldier before he can counterattack. There is no indication he used any sort of Combat Arts, too, considering it generally shows above the unit’s name if one is active. Therefore, it seems like it may be an innate feature of the gauntlets weapons is to attack twice consecutively a la Brave weapons. I figure that as a trade-off, they’re weaker than most (consider that he’s dealing 7 damage per hit despite facing a not particularly powerful unit). But what exactly the case with that is will be seen when we learn more, I suppose.

The trailer then hops back over to the more scholarly side of things, where we see Edelgard preparing to take the Brigand Certification Exam. This seems to be an equivalent of sorts to exiting a trainee class, which I believe we’ve established is likely what all of the students (and possibly Byleth, in a unique one of his own) start out in. Given all the classes shown on the left side, it’s likely that all classes will be available to every student and rather they must be trained up in certain skills before one can access them.

On the right side, meanwhile, we get to see peek at what exactly these “exams” will contain. Speaking of Exam Contents, there’s a ZL and ZR option to the left and right of where it says “Exam Contents.” It mostly makes me wonder what the other screen(s) will show, I figure something like “Here’s how this class change will change this unit’s stats” but I can’t say for sure, but just make note of those buttons there.

We also see, below that, a basic blurb describing Brigands in the standard Fire Emblem style (like if you tap/highlight a unit’s class). Lower down, we see ”Exam Skills” which notes Axe being C or higher - whether this is a requirement or recommendation isn’t fully clear, however. That said, we do see we are required to have an Intermediate Seal - something we see is a prize when Ferdinand duels Sylvain, making it one known way to obtain these seals.

Finally, we can see a “Pass Rate,” which Edelgard has as 100% going in to this exam, meaning she’ll become a Brigand with no problem. This makes me wonder: will these be binary rates, with either a 100% if you meet all the requirements and 0% if you don’t? Or will there be a bit more variety, like having extra points in Axes, or even reaching B, guarantee better success than having just a C rank, thus making success semi-dependent on luck if going on unprepared? Impossible to say, of course, but it’s definitely something I’d keep an eye on going forward.

Of course, Edelgard passes and is promoted to Brigand. This part progresses no further, so there’s no indication of what effects this will have on Edelgard as a unit beyond changing class and focusing more on axes, such as growths or class change stat influences. We’ll probably see more as time goes on.

We then cut to a scene of Ashe (who is likely from the Golden Deer) having a meal with a blond-haired girl (possibly from the Blue Lions, but unknown for sure) having a meal together. The dialogue over the meal indicates it to be some kind of team-building, but whether this is meant as the equivalent of a Support Conversation, simply a means to help build supports, or is unrelated to supports and simply tied to building bonds for gambits. Hopefully, we’ll learn more in the future.

Now, we see the beginnings of a Gambit Boost in action, being a part of a Gambit led by Edelgard. The Gambit is targeting a monster (identified as Black Beast) these units are nearby, with the particular targets being in front of Edelgard (with two arrows in front of Edelgard, interestingly). We can also see Byleth with a glowing sword (which has been identified as the chain sword from the prior trailers), making it unclear when exactly in the game this is. Interestingly, Byleth is the only one with a particularly unique-looking weapon, so it’s possible he’ll be getting one before the others (presuming Edelgard/Claude/Dimitri do as well).

In the Japanese version, there’s a few differences in presentation, but the end result is still the same. For one, Edelgard and Ferdinand are facing a bit to the right (compared to being front-facing in the English version), and the squares below and arrows above the Black Beast in the English version aren’t present. Otherwise, however, they’re positioned in the exact same way as before.

We then see the “Gambit Boost” activating, which involves Byleth, the black-haired guy from the Black Eagles we’ve seen a few times, Ferdinand, and Edelgard. The four being in close proximity to each other and the Black Beast seems to be relevant to their performing the gambit, which raises the future question of how complex or simple the Gambit Boosts can be.

Meanwhile, in the Japanese version, there’s a few differences. For one, Byleth and Ferdinand have swapped positions, but there isn’t any visible reason why. Byleth and the black-haired guy have visibly different outfits, with Byleth being much more armored and the black-haired guy sporting red robes (Ferdinand’s outfit might be somewhat different, too, it’s difficult to tell) - which points towards most units being rather customizable, possibly even allowing Byleth to become an armored unit.

Finally, we the (beginning?) of the Coordinated Gambit in action. Edelgard twirls her axe, which is the indication for a bunch of “Assault Troop” soldiers to charge forward, hitting the Black Beast. It possesses 14 Mt (likely using similar damage calculations as normal attacks), a 100% hit rate (does that mean that gambits have a chance of missing?), and 0 Crit (again raising a question, this time if gambits can cause critical hits). The Black Beast, meanwhile, has absolutely no indication it can counter Edelgard despite her being right in front of it - perhaps this means Gambits can allow units a form of attack without putting themselves at risk.

Finally, despite being referred to as a “Coordinated Gambit,” there’s a significant lack of coordination being displayed here, especially after the whole big thing with the Gambit Boost before. There’s a couple possible explanations for this, however. One could be that their involvement could be the reason why Edelgard isn’t at risk of taking a counterattack. The other option is that Edelgard is the first of a few gambits set to take place, and we only get to see the first because the trailer doesn’t want to spoil. Whatever the reason, I’m sure the game will eventually make it clear.

#fire emblem three houses #three houses #fire emblem 16 #FE16 #potential FE 16 spoilers?#edelgard #byleth #ferdinand #dorothea #bernadetta #petra #linhardt #caspar #fire emblem three houses trailer analysis #three houses trailer analysis #2-13 trailer #gameplay analysis

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murasaki-murasame · 4 years ago

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I’ve got a whole bunch of thoughts about Gala Laxi and all the new summer units, and even though I should just wait until they actually come out and we get exact numbers for everything, I still wanna make a whole post about it, lol.

Anyway this will go under a cut.

Firstly, Gala Laxi is a flame dagger, as I expected, so that’s cool. I did think there was a chance of her being a water blade, but honestly her being a flame dagger unit just made more sense. I feel bad for everyone who invested in Ezelith, if Gala Laxi ends up being better, but I never invested in her so I’m fine with this, lol.

She does look really good on paper, though, and I need more good flame units so I want to get her. Like with all units, her overall damage output will depend on what her exact damage mods and whatnot are, so it’s impossible to tell for sure how good she’ll be, but on paper she looks really good. One of the first things that stands out to me, which makes me even more interested in getting her, is the fact that she has the same standard attack damage co-ability that Tiki does. Which I REALLY want, since I skipped Tiki’s banner when it came out.

Other than that, her kit seems pretty straightforward, and actually doesn’t have as many downsides as I thought it would. The whole concept of Eden Mode seemed like it’d be a real risk-reward type of thing, similar to how her original version works, but the only real downside to it is that her unique gauges don’t increase when she’s in Eden Mode, and they reset afterward. But those just give her extra buffs, so it’s not like she’d be notably handicapped after Eden Mode ends.

Going by how her gauges work, it sounds like the general idea is for you to use your standard attacks and your S1 to max them out before using Eden Mode, to make the most out of them before they reset once that ends. I get the feeling that the alternate versions of her skills that happen during Eden Mode are gonna be really strong, to give her that burst damage vibe.

It also looks like when Eden Mode’s activated she basically summons a robot companion that shoots additional projectiles, which is an extremely interesting idea. It makes me wonder if they might be experimenting with adding some kind of companion system, maybe based around the puppy from April Fools. Either way, I get the feeling it might give her a lot of additional DPS during Eden Mode, so that’ll be neat. It might also help her get combos going faster, which ties into her third ability, where if she can maintain a combo she can basically stack up to 12% crit rate and 40% crit damage, which resets when her combo ends. Which also kinda reminds me of Ezelith, lol.

I don’t really care that much for Laxi as a character, but as a unit she’s really tempting and I hope I can get her. I actually don’t have that many good flame units built up at the moment, so she’d really help flesh out my flame team.

Next we have Summer Sinoa, who’s a 5-star wind wand. I won’t mind much if I don’t manage to get her from the gala, but her kit does interest me a bit. I like that they kept the RNG team buffs idea from her original version and fleshed it out into something that works for a 5-star unit. Usually RNG buffs aren’t very good, but it’s nice that if you can max your Overload stacks, you can give the entire team all three buffs at once.

Going by how her Overload stacks make her S1 charge more and more slowly, I think you’ll have to choose between either 1: holding off on your S2 until you have max Overload stacks for the full team buff, at the cost of dealing with the slower S1 charging, or 2: using your S2 as much as you can to get rid of your Overload stacks so your S1 charges faster, at the cost of getting a random buff from it that only affects yourself. So it’s a choice between focusing on team support vs her own personal DPS. We’ll see how her damage mods go, but she has a 30% skill damage passive, and her first ability means that she gets an extra 20%, 25%, or 30% skill damage buff for her S1 based on her Overload stacks, so she might actually do enough damage that you could opt to use her more selfishly.

Then there’s Summer Norwin, who I obviously care the most about, lol. I’m kinda iffy about him being a wind dagger, but I don’t use any of the other ones I have so he won’t really interfere that much with my wind team set-up, so that’s nice. Basically everyone on this banner has a complicated kit, but his feels especially strange. It feels kinda impossible to make any predictions about how good he’ll be before we get more info on him.

But going by what we know from the preview, his main gimmicks are his self-inflicted debuff, and his unique version of skill shift. If I’m reading it right, both of his skills are skill-shift skills with four stages each, but using either skill moves BOTH skills to their next stage, so in practice he’ll get through them really fast. The first three stages of each skill are pretty basic, since they just do increasing amounts of damage, but the weird stuff is with how phase 4 of his two skills work. Phase 4 of his S2 does more damage and inflicts poison, but it also gives him one stack of his unique debuff, and makes him take damage relative to how many stacks of it he has, while phase 4 of his S1 removes all of his debuff stacks, and energizes the team. Which is all kinda hard to wrap my head around, lol. The whole order of operations involved is kinda hard to interpret. Like, does he take damage from his phase 4 S2 the very first time he uses it, or does it only happen if he uses it when he already has at least one stack of it beforehand? He’s also unable to get energy stacks while he has his debuff stacks, so I’m hoping that the cleanse effect on his phase 4 S1 triggers first, so he also gets to receive the energy buff.

His first ability is energy = skill haste, so I imagine that he must be able to give himself his own energy buff, since there’s basically no other sources of energy in wind for him to make use of. This whole ability in and of itself is kinda strange to me, though, and I’m not sure how much it’ll help him, since he’d lose his energy stacks when he uses a skill anyway, so there wouldn’t be much uptime on the skill haste. But it’s still a 25% skill haste buff when he’s energized, which isn’t exactly bad.

I think he’ll actually have pretty good uptime on the team energy buff, though. It feels like it’d be pretty slow since it’s the phase 4 effect of a skill shift, but if I’m right about how it works for him, it’d effectively only take two uses of his S1 for it to trigger.

If you want to maximize how often you do the team energy buff, I think his skill rotation would basically be S2 phase 1 -> S1 phase 2 -> S2 phase 3 -> S1 phase 4, though unless they have the same SP cost you probably won’t be able to just alternate between them like that. But still, he’d probably be able to get the buff off with every second or third use of his S1, if you focus on that.

But one weird consequence of how his skill shift seems to work is that in each skill shift rotation, you have to choose one skill to use at each stage, which means that if you use your phase 4 S1 all the time, you’ll be skipping your phase 4 S2. Which honestly seems like a good thing, since it means you’ll never actually inflict that debuff on yourself. But on the other hand, his phase 4 S1 doesn’t do damage and only does the team energy buff, while his phase 4 S2 does damage and inflicts poison in addition to the self-inflicted debuff, so depending on his damage mods you might want to focus on his S2 instead and just deal with the debuff if you want to maximize his personal DPS, and are willing to deal with the side-effects of the debuff.

Additionally, he also has a 30% poison punisher passive, which is nice, even if he’d probably have to rely on having someone else to inflict it most of the time. He also has a 10 his = hp regen chain co-ab, which I think is the first time we’ve seen something like that, and it seems really interesting. It might not be a very strong heal, but it means that if he works with people with good combo uptime, he’d effectively be a substitute healer, which might be really useful for stuff like eCiella.

In general he and Summer Sinoa actually feel pretty similar, in terms of how it seems like they can basically choose if they want to focus on team support or personal DPS, while each having different stack mechanics that have negative effects to juggle. Which makes me wonder exactly how good they’ll actually end up being in practice, and how well the AI will handle them.

Finally we have Summer Konohana Sakuya, who honestly seems kinda disappointing, lol. Basically she seems based around long fights where you’ll have time to actually build up her stacks, but I just don’t know if the effects they provide are worth the time. Wind also doesn’t really have any characters other than DY-Xainfried who can shapeshift a lot to make use of how she can apply an additional buff stack with her dragon skill.

I could see her being useful in eCiella, and probably mCiella when that comes out, if it’s an even longer fight. But at least for me, I already have a whole lot of good wind dragons, so she’s not super tempting. Which is good, since I want to focus my resources on future gala dragons instead, lol.

Basically everyone on this banner feels kinda weird and complicated, but hopefully they’ll all be worth getting. Gala Laxi seems like she’ll be the winner, but the summer units have potential to be really good too.

#murasaki rambles #dragalia lost #this got super long lmao #anyway even if he ends up being sad I'm still gonna summon for Summer Norwin and keep him in my wind team if I get him

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