#agito’s super strength is so cool

[origin-spirits-of-the-past]

Agito: I want to achieve "he's adorable and I will protect him at all costs but also I am slightly frightened by his power."

[chaosxtrio]

Okay, now that the final chapter is officially out, and here are my thoughts... (under cut because manga spoilers)

It's not a bad ending.

People, mostly the overly obsessive Gojo fans, are just upset because Gojo didn't return. Or they are mad because everyone has "seemingly forgotten about Gojo" especially since no one mourned him.

But wanna know something?

As much as it's sad that no one mourned Gojo's death after the battle. It actually makes sense because Gojo himself wouldn't want people to mourn him.

Like there's a reason the letters he left Megumi and Nobara were more silly and referencing a parent instead of him saying anything super serious.

Because Gojo probably figured Nobara wouldn't really care about her mom's whereabouts. And he knew Megumi didn't give a shit about Toji. But Gojo still went ahead and told them regardless to spark something in them other than sadness for him not being around. (Nobara was pissed but didn't care, and Megumi genuinely laughed.)

Satoru Gojo's goal was to raise up sorcerers that could do what he did.. but do it as a team rather than Jujutsu Society depending on one person (like it did with Gojo). And what happened? He achieved just that with his students: Yuji, Megumi, Nobara, Maki, Yuta, Panda (kinda), Inumaki, and Hakari.

As well as Kusakabe, Higuruma, Hana(Angel), Todo, UiUi (who was getting the injured off the battlefield), Shoko (healing up everyone), MeiMei (recon info about what was happening), and even Miwa (providing backup with simple domain to protect against Shrine)

Everyone (minus Panda) was involved in defeating Sukuna in one way or another. Either directly or indirectly.

Like it's understandable why Gojo, in the afterlife, stated and was upset that Sukuna didn't go all out against him. And instead Sukuna more relied on Mahoraga and, to a lesser extent, Merged Beast Agito. Because he knew that once Gojo was defeated.. everyone else would jump him.

So Sukuna opted to pace himself more.

It was Gojo who had to go all out. Because IF he beat Sukuna.. cool, but that would solidify him in the eyes of Jujutsu Society as basically a god. And make his life even lonelier than it already was.

I'm not saying that Sukuna didn't give Gojo a helluva fight. Because there were moments in Gojo vs. Sukuna, where Sukuna could've gone into his true form but opted to just RCT heal Megumi's body instead.

But Sukuna was playing the long game while Gojo had to start off strong (200% Hollow Purple) and maintain that level of strength the whole time.

But Gojo, despite losing, DID do something major he removed the biggest threat against everyone else that Sukuna had. And that was Mahoraga (and Merged Beast Agito; even though Agito didn't really do much against Gojo, however, it would've provided a challenge for everyone else).

[kenganparadise]

This is a weird ask, but could I ask for headcanons for Ohma, Raian, Okubo, and Agito if they ended up bonding with a symbiote a la Venom?

I’m a huge fan of the venom comics so I had a lot of fun with this!! Thanks so much for sending in a request!! I have the hots for venom so bad.

Ohma-

• Ohma doesn’t know what’s happening to him. He feels sick- but he rarely ever gets sick like this. But then he realizes that something is inside him. Some creature has infected his body and is trying to become one with him.

• He thinks about going to see Hanafusa or some Kure doctor to try and cure him.

• He doesn’t really know what aliens are. He does know of supernatural entities

• Then he starts hearing a voice in his head. Now this really freaks him out. He thinks he’s going crazy. Finally he tries speaking to the thing that has infected him. To his complete and utter shock it responds.

• He realizes that the Symbiote has infected him- he doesn’t even know that that is he just thinks he’s been possessed by something supernatural.

• the Symbiote gives him super human abilities. He is pretty much already super human with his strength, the Symbiote gives him more. More speed, agility, strength, and so much more- it’s all beyond his comprehension.

• He feels lowkey violated that an alien creature has melded itself with him. He doesn’t like that it can read his thoughts.

Raian-

• Raian knows of aliens. He doesn’t believe in them of course. He just think they’re cool in movies.

• When he melded with the Symbiote he feels sick. His body is repeatedly tried to reject the Symbiote however its there to stay. He hates it. When he gets sick he gets so pissed. He probably has Fusui take care of him.

• When he starts hearing a voice he gets a little scared. He is NOT going to see a doctor. He takes out this anger by doing his hobby and what he does best, beating up people that piss him off.

• While doing what he does best his body acts... strange. He’s faster, stronger, not only that but tentacles and appendages come out of his body. He thinks it’s pretty fucking sick annnnd also a little frightening

• Finally he “speaks” to the Symbiote. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY BODY ASSHOLE.” He screams over and over again.

• However the Symbiote has bound itself to him and now he has to live with it. Raian will use it for his own gain of course.

Okubo-

• Okubo loves alien movies, video games, and comics. He can’t get enough of them. He’s fascinated with Si-fi.

• So when a Symbiote bounds itself to him and Okubo gets horribly sick he just thinks it’s a regular virus.

• When his body goes through changes and also when he hears voices he is filled with complete fear. Okubo does a lot of screaming and freaking out as he realizes he’s been infected with an alien.

• He thinks it’s somewhat cool an alien has attached itself to him. However he’s also scared shitless.

• He thinks the added perks or super strength, speed, agility, and all the alien tentacles and appendages are super awesome.

• He wants to turn himself into a super hero lowkey. He’ll try and use his new powers for good.

Agito-

• Agito thinks aliens are actually real. He is super gullible. He probably gets sucked into a lot of conspiracy theories. He watches alien movies and thinks they’re documentaries.

• He rarely gets sick, let along how sick he gets when a Symbiote binds itself to him. He’s in bed sweating up a storm he’s got an horrible fever.

• He starts hearing another voice in his head that sends off very obvious alarm bells. He tries to speak back. “Who are you? What do you want?” He asks, his muscles are tense.

• He finds out that an Alien has embedded itself in his body. He finds it quite fascinating. He has many many questions.

• He does like the added benefits of extra strength, speed, and agility. He enjoyed using the other worldly powers he now has.

[murasaki-murasame]

After a billion years of waiting, the 2nd anniversary digest is out, and even though it didn’t talk about quite as much stuff as I expected, the stuff it DID show off was extremely good on just about every level, and oh boy do I have some thoughts about it, lol.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this one, lmao. There’s so much stuff they talked about, and so much stuff they DIDN’T even talk about. Like how they didn’t talk about the October events and banners even though they’re teased at on the 2nd anniversary website, which I guess means we’ll have to wait longer for info on that.

we also didn’t get any info on a collab, but I assume they’re going to announce that at the start of November and have the collab itself release a few weeks later.

I’m kinda sad that they accidentally leaked out the existence of guns, but I still got to experience all the shock and surprise about it, so that was fun. I’m really surprised that they’re adding a new weapon type so late into the game. Especially since they don’t seem to be planning to retcon any old adventurers into being gun units, which means that they’re going to make up a super tiny portion of the pool. But I still really like how they work, from what we’ve seen of them.

It’s great that Joe got a new gun alt who everyone gets for free, but it really feels like they screwed him over by making him a 3-star, lol. He’s probably gonna get immediately replaced by any light gun units they introduce after this point. But it’s still nice to see him get some love. He was the perfect unit to go for to showcase the new weapon type.

All the changes to weapon and wyrmprints are extremely overwhelming, so it’ll probably be a while until I have an actual opinion on them. But thus far I think it’s fine, but we REALLY need the ability to save wyrmprint set-ups so we don’t have to spend so much time shuffling them about again and again.

It’s kinda sad that it’s such an eldwater sink if you want to equip the same print to multiple units, but it’s much cheaper to do that with event prints, so you can still fill your team out with some good prints. And on the other hand, this is actually why I’m fine with the fact that so many prints are almost identical now, since it means you have way less of a need to actually spend eldwater to get extra copies. There’s like 4+ different prints that all give 30% skill damage, so you’d never actually have a reason to bother getting extra copies of any of them, if you at least already had all these prints before this update. It does make it harder to keep track of if you end up using like 15+ different prints across a whole team, but still, the eldwater cost is more or less avoidable if you just use different prints with the same effects.

I think the weapon bonus thing is going to be the most grindy, long-term part of this update, but I’m cool with it. It gives everyone something to slowly work towards, like when you’re at the stage of leveling your dojos. The issue is that people will want to max their weapon boosts as quickly as possible, but it’s clearly not designed to be rushed like that.

It’ll all take a lot of getting used to, but I’m happy that they’ve drastically cut down on the amount of weapons in the game, and made the progression system more linear. Once everyone gets used to it and more people start playing the game after this update, it’ll become more natural.

We also got a bit of an overhaul to the textures and lighting/rendering for all the 3D models, which still feels like a really strange decision to me. It gives them a really different sort of aesthetic, and I have mixed feelings about it. I think if they made it a bit less ‘harsh’ I’d really like it, but at the moment there’s a bit too much contrast between the lighting and the shading, and the black outlining just looks a bit odd.

We also got the big adventurer balance change, and even though it’ll be a while before we’ve got all the new numbers and stuff for everyone, I already get the feeling that Vice is gonna end up way worse than he was before this. Which is sad, since outright nerfing people always sucks, but I get why they did it. It messed with the balance too much to have a 3-star be in like the top 3 for DPS units across the entire game. At the very least they gave him poison on his S1 so he can afflict that more often now, instead of it just being on his S2.

Just going by what they’ve said, and what we can see in-game, one of the really big changes seems to be how basically all of the healers except Grace now have strength buffs on their S1s, which basically all seem to be 15% for 60 seconds. Which is a really interesting way to make healers more relevant, but I like it. I think it doesn’t stack, so you won’t get as much buff uprime as with dedicated buff units, but it at least means they contribute SOMETHING to the team’s DPS.

One other notable change is how T-Hope now has a 15% strength buff on his S1, which makes it pretty much exactly the same as Patia. So that should make auto eCiella a lot faster, with how often he gets that skill off, lol. This was something I expected him to eventually get via a spiral, but in general a lot of stuff in this balance patch feels like mana spiral upgrades in all but name, which is neat.

Lots of characters also got more status punisher stuff, which should hopefully at least make more units stronger. Most of it’s all pretty self-explanatory, but it’s kinda interesting that Norwin is now a poison punisher unit. I guess it’s one way to make him somewhat relevant to the shadow meta, lol.

They also buffed the older gala units, which is great. At least this way they can put off on establishing the precedent of gala mana spirals, by just directly buffing the old ones. We’ll see how it turns out when all the exact numbers have been datamined, but it seems like they’ve addressed the main isseus with G-Mym, G-Sarisse, G-Ranzal, and G-Euden. 

I also noticed that they added defense debuffs to a fair amount of units, and made a lot of existing defense debuff moves land more often, so that’s interesting.

I’m also pretty excited to try out Pipple with this balance patch, since he now gets a 30% strength buff for himself with his S2. It at least makes it so that it’s always worth using whenever you can.

They didn’t announce anything about new endgame bosses like we expected, but it does sound like we’re still getting some eventually, and it’ll just come up later. Which is a good idea, probably, since we need some time to keep focusing on Agito stuff.

And on the note of the Agito fights, and current endgame content in general, I really like the addition of solo versions of all of them. For one thing it means a new wave of first clear bonuses, but it also means that you can pretty much entirely avoid co-op if you want to. The solo fights seem to give less rewards, but hopefully still enough that you can just stick to doing them exclusively if you want to. I haven’t tried any of it out, but it sounds like they’re all balanced around solo play, which should make it way more easier to do them than it was to try and solo fights that were designed for co-op.

It’s also kinda funny to me that even though they said we’re getting another tier of difficulty for the Agito fights, the only thing we know that we’re getting from it is fancier skins for the Agito weapons. They’ll probably still get stat boosts, but I could see them pretty much just being cosmetic upgrades.

They also upgraded the amount of weekly chests for HDTs and Agitos to five, and it sounds like we’re gonna start getting double drop events for them soon, so that’s great. In general I think this whole update will make it way easier to actually do endgame grinding, especially with the solo fights.

And then there’s the elephant in the room, which is the new battle royale mode. I haven’t tried it yet, but honestly I actually like the sound of it, lol. I absolutely never expected that they’d add something like this, especially since it’s effectively PVP, but it actually sounds perfectly fine. It’ll probably get tweaked as time goes on, but it sounds like you barely even get any extra rewards from it by winning compared to just dying immediately, and the whole mode is designed to have you start from a blank slate where you and everyone else are at the same playing field, so it’s basically entirely skill-based, and you don’t even need to be good at it to get rewards.

I wasn’t even sure how they’d handle PVP in an action RPG like this, but I think this is a good way to go about it.

We’re also getting a return of the time attack mode, which is . . . worrying, but hopefully now that people are much more familiar with both HDTs and Agitos, it’ll go by a lot more smoothly.  I’m surprised they’re even touching this concept again after how badly it was received the first time, but I’m curious to see how it goes. I know a lot of people really liked it, so hopefully it’s balanced so that you can ignore it if you want to, without feeling like you’re missing out on too much.

They also finally got around to adding sparking, which is great. I honestly wasn’t really expecting it at this point, but after the patch notes got revealed yesterday I figured this was probably gonna happen. I know some people would wish it had been introduced earlier, but I’m glad it’s finally a thing. I still don’t think it’s as much of a make or break issue for me as it is for others, but it’s still pretty much an objective bonus over the old/current system. My main concern with sparking, though, has always been that it might lead them to notably tanking the amount of summons we can do each month as F2P players, which would cancel out the good parts of sparking, but I doubt they’d do that.

Either way, it seems to work in exactly the same way as GBF, in that each summon gets you a unique bit of currency, and when you get 300 of it, you can trade it for a featured unit of your choice. But also like with GBF, your sparks reset after each banner and turn into different items that you can exchange at a store for regular in-game items, so your 300 summons all have to be on the same banner, and you can’t just accumulate a spark by summoning across several banners. Though one thing that seems to be different to GBF is that summons done with diamantum give you twice the amount of sparks, which is really interesting, since it really cuts down on the amount of money you’d need to spend to get a spark that way. It’d still be super expensive to do an entire spark just through diamantum, but 150 summons with diamantum is still way cheaper than 300, lol.

If they keep our monthly summon income about the same as it’s been thus far even after they add sparking, I think that we’d be able to do a spark every 6-8 weeks just from event and log-in bonus rewards. At the moment we get around 150-200 summons per month just from all that, so it seems like it’ll be WAY faster to save for a spark than it is in GBF [where outside of specific holiday periods that have free summon events you’re probably looking at 4+ months of saving to be able to spark].

This at least means it’ll be way easier to plan out my hoarding, since I know that as long as I have 300+ summons saved, I can at least spark a new unit I want. And there’s always the possibility of just getting them early and being able to quit while I’m ahead.

And on the note of summons, we’re also getting 330 free summons total between the anniversary and the end of October, which is absolutely insane. Sadly you can’t save up sparks across banners, so you won’t be able to do a spark JUST from that, but it’d go a long way to helping supplement a spark on a specific banner.

It looks like we’re gonna get a short pre-gala of sorts soon that’ll contain all the previous gala units, but I’m probably gonna skip that, outside of the free pulls. The only one I don’t have from that set is Gala Alex, and at this point I’d rather just chase her when she’s in a future gala remix. If it’s anything like the same type of bonus gala we got for the first anniversary, all the featured units on this banner will probably have lower than normal rates to make up for how many of them will be on the banner, so it’d just be a really low-value banner for someone like me who already has all but one of them. I’m also not even sure if I’d be able to get all the way to 300 summons that quickly.

Either way I’m more interested in saving for stuff like Halloween, Christmas, new gala dragons, and New Years.

We’re also getting Gala Zena on the anniversary itself, and I think everyone saw her coming, lol. She’s not a gun unit, though, which is actually a bit lame, even though I figured it wouldn’t happen. Her being an attack-type light staff unit is really interesting, at least if she ends up working like Heinwald, but I’m still not sure if I’d be interested in actually spending resources to try and get her.

The gala banner is also going to have the new girl from the anniversary event, and a Midgardsormr alt. Though it sounds like he’s going to be non-limited, so he’s not our wind gala dragon.

The anniversary event also sounds extremely interesting. It sounds like we’re time-traveling back 1000 years to when Ilia created her religion, and she seems to basically be a punk biker girl, which is extremely cool on so many levels. It also kinda looks like Zethia is going to be the MC of this event, and it might not even feature Euden and co, which would be a nice change of pace.

I thought Ilia might be our new welfare unit, but going by the preview image for the event it looks like it’ll be Mordecai, who looks like he’s gonna end up possessed by Morsayati or something, since he looks a lot like Morsayati’s human form we’ve seen a few times. I hope he’s a gun unit, just so we can get more of them, but we’ll see how it goes.

I’m guessing that Ilia will eventually be playable, but maybe just for the 3rd anniversary event or something.

We also got a tease at the next three main story chapters, which all look really interesting. It seems like the Archangels event is going to pretty immediately become important to the story, and now we’re heading off to North Grastaea. We’re also going to be going to the fairy kingdom eventually, which is cool, especially since the teaser for it heavily implied that Notte will become a playable character then.

Which also reminds me that we’re probably eventually going to get a gun unit from the main story, since we have all the other weapon types already, but I doubt Notte will be a gun unit, lol.

Going by the teasers, I also get the feeling that Leonidas and Chelle will be our next two gala adventurers, and at least one of them, if not both, will probably be a gun unit. I think one of the shots of Leonidas had a gun visible in it, but Chelle’s also apparently the one who introduced guns to the world, so who knows how that’ll turn out. At the very least they did say that we’re gonna start getting new gun units soon, and we might get a lot of them really quickly to help fill out the pool. Which also means that some of the new holiday units might end up using guns, so that’s also worth saving for.

I also get the feeling that we might take a break from gala dragons for a while, since we’ve basically run out of good options for them. But who knows. We still need ones for water and wind.

Hopefully with the spark system in place I’ll be able to spark on at least the Halloween and New Years banners, since those are my top two priorities, but we’ll see how it goes. It’s always scary to enter limited holiday banner hell season, but at least they introduced sparking right before it all starts. At the moment I think I’ve got like 150 summons saved up, but I’ve still got most of my reset co-op rewards to go through, and I haven’t touched the Halloween event they added to the compendium, so that’ll add a lot. I think the anniversary log-in bonus will also give us like 2k wyrmite, and if the retweet event succeeds we’ll get an extra 1.2k wyrmite. So as long as they don’t tank our monthly summon currency, I should be able to spark on Halloween if I can commit to saving for it. Which is much easier said than done, lol.

All in all I think I really love this update, but it REALLY changes the entire game, so it’s gonna take a long time to get used to. And thankfully even with the introduction of stuff like sort-of-PVP, it doesn’t look like they’re going in any sort of P2W direction with the game.

Also, there’s still the 45-minute Game Live presentation set to come later tonight, but I’m not expecting that to tell us much, since it’ll probably be targeted at new players. I’m still holding out hope for a Switch port announcement, though.

[hypocritehero]

This is my Spooky Santa gift for @heartfulmind! I got a little ahead of myself with this project and wasn’t able to completely finish the fic in time for the deadline;;; But I have scattered scenes written out for later in the timeline!!! I just have to actually string them together into another chapter… @_@;;

(Thanks again @icypyre for putting this event together!)

Title: Transceiver

Ship: Shinsou/Female Background Character

Word Count: 3,351

Chapters: 1/?

The air in the classroom feels heavy. One wouldn’t think these twenty students had just made it into the most prestigious school in the nation with the amount of gloomy faces filling the seats, but the fact of the matter is that a good portion of them had applied for another course entirely.

Is that really all General Education was created for? To hold the overflow of rejected Hero hopefuls?

Tsunagi hopes not. She’s one of the few who didn’t even bother with the Hero Entrance Exam. With a Quirk like hers, she knew she didn’t stand a chance against whatever crazy test UA was sure to cook up- but she didn’t apply for Support or Business either. There’s more ways to help people, to help heroes, than just giving them things to punch harder or promoting their brand.

Like now. The amount of disappointment in the room is enough to suffocate the few sparks of excitement and hope flickering in the dark atmosphere. That just won’t do. There’s no teacher yet, so Tsunagi feels free to go all out.

“HEY!” She slams the oversized door shut behind her and lets out a boisterous greeting. “Why’s it look like a funeral in here?! Did someone die? Am I dead?” She waves her hands in front of her face to check for transparency, then points at the closest occupied desk. “Do I look dead to you?”

The boy looks absolutely baffled by her sudden question. His voice comes out uncertain and high, “Uh- No?”

“There you have it!” Tsunagi places her hands on her hips and surveys the classroom like a Queen looking upon her kingdom. “I’m alive, and I’m pretty sure so are all of you. This isn’t the end of the line, not by far. It’s only the first stop!”

Her sheer volume is starting to gather attention. She waits patiently for the mood to turn over slowly like a wave, muddy thoughts becoming alert in confusion and apprehension. There’s some annoyed looks as well for disturbing the peace, but some sacrifices must be made.

“If you’d given up already, you wouldn’t even be sitting here, right? There’s nothing more stupid than turning around to go home when you’ve already left the house, so you might as well give it your all!” She punctuates her impromptu peptalk with two thumbs up- the ultimate finisher move!

But the disappointment lingers. Tough crowd…

“Couldn’t’ve put it better myself,” a deep, muffled voice remarks from behind. She jolts and spins around with a short yelp. The man standing at the door is tall and intimidating in his deep red cloak and gas mask, but the class breaks out into awed murmurs at the sight of him.

“It’s Snipe!”

“I heard all the teachers here were Pro Heroes but-”

“-our Homeroom teacher is Snipe?!”

“Awesome!”

Just like that, the tide shifts all at once, dismay and irritation erupting into excitement. That more than anything is what impresses Tsunagi the most. So this is the aura of a Pro… She can’t sense anything from him but calm determination- oh, and is that an inkling of amusement?

“That’s right, I’m Snipe. I’ll be your Homeroom teacher from now on.” Snipe takes his place at the front of the class, spurs jingling with every heavy footstep. “General Education might not sound like much, but that doesn’t mean you can slack off. Everyone at this school follows the same motto. I’m sure you all know what that is?”

Tsunagi recognizes a hype call for what it is. She punches her fist into the air, “Plus Ultra! Go beyond!” A few other students even chime in at the end as well, much to her delight.

Snipe tips his cowboy hat towards her, “That’s right, miss. You ought to take your seat now, by the way. Class is in session.”

Oops. What was her assigned seating again? The number totally flew her mind! Everyone else is already sitting though, so it must be the last empty desk there. She jogs over and swiftly slides into her seat, casting a glance to either side of her to check out her neighbors. Two boys; one with an extremely strong jawline, the other with eyebags that could probably hold all his school books.

Jawline’s nerves pop when she makes eye contact and waves, and he jerkily turns to face the front of the class. Cute. Eyebags doesn’t even acknowledge her at all. He’s one of the stubborn few still mired in his own murky emotions. She could tell that from a mile away even without her Quirk. What a sour face!

Snipe is just going over the entrance ceremony lineup and orientation handouts, nothing too important, so she focuses all her attention on Eyebags. Her Quirk is technically a one way street- she can only sense other people’s emotions, not make them feel hers- but she’s sending out pay attention to me vibes as hard as she can think them.

Impressively, he doesn’t even glance at her once, even when they all get up to form a line for the opening ceremony. This one is going to be a tough nut to crack…

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

“You kind of remind me of a nutcracker!” Tsunagi places her lunch tray down on the table with a decisive clack. This is a good table; there’s a nice view out the window and everything. She decides to claim it as hers- for now, until she finds a better spot.

“…Excuse me?” Jawline, who was already occupying said table, responds to her comment belatedly. His aura is a little confused, a mixture between shock and affront, like he’s not quite sure how to take her words. That’s normal.

“You know, because of all this.” She gestures to her own decidedly smaller and narrow jaw in explanation. “Is that your Quirk? Do you, like, have a super bite strength? Like an alligator?”

“No…” Jawline answers slowly. “I can make ‘all this’ turn to metal though, so maybe I could crack a nut. Never tried before.”

“Ooh, even better.” Tsunagi snaps her disposable chopsticks and they split down the seams perfectly even. Nice. That’s a good omen, right? “You probably tried out for Hero Course with a Quirk like that, huh? I heard there was robots though. That must have been super tough.”

“Yeah… It was…” Jawline looks down at his tray, his wide mouth downturned into a frown. Woops. Must have still been a sore spot. It is only the second day, after all.

“I’m Kantoshi Tsunagi, by the way!” Tsunagi sticks out her hand across the table like a Western businessman. “I’ve got an empathy quirk, just in case you were wondering.”

“Ah… I’m Agito Koutsuchi.” Agito stares at her hand before taking it hesitantly. They shake and she makes sure to grip firmly to give off a good impression. First impressions are important- at least, that’s what her dad always said. “I’m guessing you didn’t take the practical then?”

“Oh, no way!” She forms an X with her arms and shakes her head. “I don’t even want to be a Hero. At least not like that.”

“Not like that?” 

“Yeah. I want to be a therapist for Heroes! So I figured I should go to a Hero school, right? Get lots of practice ahead of time.” She taps a finger to her temple with a self-satisfied smile. Yeah, she’s pretty much a genius.

“Right.” Agito looks more amused than bemused now, which is always a good thing in her books. His aura is looking a lot warmer. “Are you studying psychology then? I didn’t know we had any classes for that kind of thing.”

“Oh, we don’t.” She shrugs nonchalantly. “I’m just, like, kind of winging it?”

“…You’re ‘just kind of winging it’…”

Tsunagi is getting some major ‘judgey’ vibes off this guy. She pouts. “Hey, not everyone has their entire life mapped out as a first year! Sheesh. You’d grind your teeth a lot less if you learned to relax a little. Did you know I can hear you doing it from where I sit?”

“Hey-!”

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“Why are you staring at me?” It takes three days for Shinsou (she learned Eyebags’ name by sneaking a peak at his handout) to finally crack. During the layover between Math and English he stares back at Tsunagi with dead eyes, no less intense despite the listless boredom permeating his aura. She can’t really sense anything else off him.

Maybe he really is just looking for something to do? She holds his gaze for a long, extended moment of silence. He blinks.

“Aha!” She slaps one hand against the desktop and points at him with the other. “You blinked first!”

“I didn’t think it was a contest,” he says dryly. “Does it really count if I wasn’t looking back until now?”

“It totally does, don’t be a sore loser,” she replies with a dismissive wave of her hand. A small jolt of surprise goes through him. Interesting. She leans in closer. “So you noticed? And you didn’t even think to say ‘Hi’ to your Class Prez?”

The title is new, but she’s taking every opportunity possible to flaunt it. Honestly, no one else was really vying for the position… Still, a win is a win!

“…You’re still talking to me,” Shinsou says instead of answering the question. It kind of sounds like he’s talking more to himself than her. “Why?”

Tsunagi raises an eyebrow. “Should I not be?” 

Shinsou rubs at the back of his neck and glances away, his aura fluctuating agitatedly despite the strained smirk on his face. “Heh. If you have to ask that, that probably explains it.”

Okay, the mysterious cool guy bit is already getting on her nerves a little bit. She squints at him with an extended, suspicious hmmmm.

“Do you have like, a contagious disease or something?” He stares at her flatly and she taps her nose before trying again. “Is it your Quirk?” The second guess earns her another emotional jolt, even as his expression persists. Bingo. “It can’t be that bad. What is it?”

Ectoplasm glides into the room just then. Shinsou swiftly turns to face the front again, lips pressed into a thin line.

Wait. Is he really not going to answer?!

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Tsunagi ends up making a game of it. It’s a good way to kill time between classes- and an excuse to talk to/at her aloof neighbor. Sometimes she even ropes Agito into it for some fresh ideas. He seemed reluctant at first, but as Shinsou seemed to bear their increasingly wild guesses with surprising patience, he’s been really getting into the spirit of the game.

“Do you curse people to die in seven days if you speak more than two sentences at a time?” Agito suggests from across Tsunagi’s desk, leaning on his forearm to see around her.

“Ooh, good one!” Tsunagi snaps her fingers. “But what about when he read that passage out loud for English? It’s been a week since then, and nobody’s died yet.”

“They wouldn’t allow me on campus if I had a Quirk as dangerous as that…” Shinsou mutters without looking up from his notes.

“True… What if it’s a love curse though?” Tsunagi waggles her eyebrows with a lecherous grin. “I could believe that. Are you all cool and jaded from breaking so many hearts because of your Quirk?”

“…Cool?” Shinsou focuses on that out of all the other things that came out of her mouth. He seems surprised. “Me?”

“Uh, yeah? You’re like, Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Broody over here. Back me up, Agito!”

“You are kind of broody,” Agito admits in an apologetic tone.

“Huh…”

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UA ends up on the news. Despite having the best security out of every high school in the country, there was a bonafide Villain attack at USJ. Even without having been there, the fact that it happened at all is enough to fill the campus with waves of unease. Trickles of frightened conversation drift by Tsunagi’s desk the next morning as the classroom fills up.

“Damn, and I thought that false alarm at lunch was scary…”

“-was technically off campus, right? They couldn’t get in here… right?”

“They should beef up security or something! That just ain’t right-”

Tsunagi drums her pencil against the desk. Tk-tk-tk. As Class President, there should be something she can do to put everyone at ease, but the situation feels so much bigger than she can handle. It doesn’t help that her own stomach is turning and flipping just remembering those mugshots.

If you see these men, contact your local Heroes as soon as possible… Yeah, no, she’d rather never see another Villain in person in her lifetime, thanks.

“…We should do the buddy system.” She’s just thinking out loud, but her VP glances over at her with interest.

“Buddy system? Isn’t that a little kiddish?” Agito inquires. He doesn’t sound entirely dismissive about it though. Tsunagi points her eraserhead at him.

“They teach it to us as kids because it’s important! If something happens to one of you, there’s still someone else to go get help. It just makes sense.”

“When you put it like that, I guess you’re right…”

Tsunagi nods with satisfaction. “That settles it then. I’ll make an announcement during homeroom. Everyone needs to find a buddy to walk home with from now on. That includes you, too, Mr. Lone Wolf!”

“Pass.”

“You don’t get to pass! This is a Presidential decree!”

“You’re only Class President,” Shinsou points out coolly. “Off campus, you can’t really control what anyone does.”

Well, of course she can’t, but he didn’t have to be so obstinate about it. She puts on her most serious face. “This isn’t a drill, you know. A real Villain attack happened, not a practice exercise. Even Pro Heroes can’t be everywhere at once. If you ever wanted to be a Hero, you should recognize that we all have to do our part to keep each other safe.”

Shinsou goes quiet after that. Tsunagi leaves him to his thoughts and works on hashing out a quick speech with Agito before homeroom starts. She can only lead a horse to water, not make him drink it. Whatever decision he comes to, he’ll have to get there on his own.

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The UA Sports Festival is absolutely legendary. It’s hard to believe this is only the turnout for the first years- the stadium is enormous and yet every seat is filled. Tsunagi’s only ever watched it on TV. She never expected to be on the other side of the screen.

Present Mic’s voice was loud enough to rattle her teeth even inside the entry tunnel, but when the Gen Ed students start filing out his enthusiasm dies down considerably. It’s still boisterous, sure, but there’s no pizzaz in the way he lists off rotely, “And following Class B, here come Classes C, D, and E from the department of General Education!”

“Man, they’re treating us like we’re just their foils or something,” Agito complains, not bothering to quiet his displeasure whatsoever. Tsunagi is inclined to agree.

“What a load of…” She swears under her breath. Just because their class wasn’t attacked by Villains doesn’t mean they’re not trying their hardest like everyone else in the Hero Course. She’s seen her peers practicing together in their free time, working out the kinks in their Quirks in the gym, discussing Hero names over lunch-

It just doesn’t feel right to let their efforts get lowkey dismissed like this!

Tsunagi turns to walk backwards, facing the rest of Class C head-on. She claps her hands over her head. “Alright, alright! Everyone, do your best out there! Fight on!” When she turns back around, she catches Shinsou’s eye and winks at him carelessly. “That’s also a Presidential Decree.”

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So, Tsunagi didn’t place in the obstacle race, but come on! An empathy Quirk doesn’t really come in handy against ice and robots and tightrope walking. Honestly, it would have taken a miracle to even make it to the finish line.

And yet Shinsou did- within the cutoff even. She’s not quite sure how he did it. It kind of looked like he got some randos to help him?

…That kind of smarts. If he had a team plan to pass, why not get his own class to help?

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“Midoriya! The match just started… and he’s completely frozen?! He’s got a blank look on his face and isn’t moving a muscle!”

Midoriya isn’t only one. The entirety of Class C is stock still in their seats, eyes wide and mouths gaping in shock.

“…Is that…?” Agito turns towards Tsunagi slowly. She looks back at him with a blooming grin, “His Quirk!“ 

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Tsunagi really isn’t sure what’s happening. One minute Shinsou’s opponent was walking out of bounds, a sure win- then there was suddenly an explosion? And now Shinsou is grappling with a member of the Hero Course. It’s all happening so quickly, she’s on the edge of her seat, heart leaping up into her throat as her classmate is suddenly bodily heaved into the air.

"No!” She can’t help but cry out, even though it’s already too late. He hits the ground before she can even take her next breath and she flinches. “No…” It doesn’t feel fair. He came so far!

“Damn, he got got.” Agito sighs from beside her, slumping back into his seat heavily. It’s right then that she realizes her tunnel vision, her awareness of her surroundings slowly returning to her. It’s strange… She’s grown so used to other people’s ambient emotions vying for her attention constantly, it’s not often that she finds herself so completely caught up in a moment that all she can do herself is feel.

Despite Shinsou’s loss, their entire seating section is lit up with pinpricks of bright, sparkling emotions, a bittersweet ocean of disappointment mingled with awe, of so close yet so far! It’s like being surrounded by a sky of stars, shimmering on the edges of her vision, but she still can’t tear her eyes away from Shinsou.

Shinsou, who refused to tell anyone his Quirk. Shinsou, who was surprised that anyone would even talk to him at all. Shinsou, who fought tooth and nail to make it to the final tournament. His wile and determination is absolutely insane, but his heart is so fragile. He’s just a speck of doom and gloom down on the field and she can’t help but remember the first day they met, how deeply his dejection rooted itself in his soul.

Well, that just won’t do.

Tsunagi rushes out of her seat to lean up against the railing. A stampede of footsteps follow in her wake.

“You were so cool, Shinsou!!” She waves her arm to catch his attention, smile broadening when their eyes meet across the distance. He looks surprised to see them all lined up above the exit gate for some reason. She doesn’t let that deter her and gives him her super special double thumbs up. “Nice job!”

Almost as if her words were the opening to a dam, more praise comes rushing in from their gathered classmates. Everyone is calling out as loud as they can so that Shinsou can hear them over the clamoring audience.

“We were on the edges of our seats, dude! For real!”

“You’re like the star of hope for all us Gen Ed kids!”

“You gave the kid who placed in the top 3 from the obstacle race a real run for his money!”

Tsunagi can’t quite pin down the aura Shinsou is giving off right now. Something bright and delicate… a wavering light that shimmers over the vulnerable look on his face like he’s underwater. For such an aloof boy, he looks overwhelmed now, but in a good way.

“Can you hear them, Shinsou-kun?” Her heart feels heavy and full in her chest. She’s just so damn proud of him. She wants him to be proud of himself, too. “You’re amazing!”

She’ll grind that into his fluffy head until it finally sticks, as many times as it takes.

[murasaki-murasame]

I honestly wasn’t planning to summon for Gala Thor at first, since I want to focus on saving for stuff like the end of year holiday banners, but he ended up looking really strong and also I want to make Tartarus less of a miserable slog to get through with my light units in any way possible, without resorting to ‘haha dark characters go brr :)’, so here we are, lol.

Results under the cut [plus some of my thoughts about the new Tartarus fight]

I started with about 260 summons saved up [which is part of why I wanted to skip it, since I prefer to have at least 300 summons before pulling on a banner], but in just 60 summons I got:

-Ramona dupe [one day I’ll get Gala Elly . . . ]

-Dupe Liger [now at either 1UB or 2UB, I can’t remember which]

-Dupe Pazuzu and Simurgh [they’re both now MUB so that’s nice, even though I don’t use them, lol]

-Ramiel x2 [I don’t really care much about him one way or another since I have other good shadow dragons but it’s nice to have him]

-Gala Thor

At first I was a bit disappointed by Gala Thor, since he gives a base 50% strength and an additional 45% bonus strength based on your energy stacks, which seemed kinda lame compared to Mars, but it turns out that having just one energy stack gives you a bonus 25% strength, with the other stacks giving an extra 5% each, so basically you almost always have 75% strength, which is really nice, and I think at least puts him at par with Daikokuten.

Also apparently his damage mods when shapeshifted, including his dragon skill, are super high, so he works really nicely with someone like Gala Euden, who I’ve basically ended up maining against Tartarus. 

It’ll be a while before the DPS sim updates, but I think Thor’s probably gonna have a pretty big impact on how strong the light roster is, so that’s neat.

Though tbh I think a lot of people are still gonna end up just using shadow units against Tartarus, even if Thor helps bridge the gap between light and shadow units a bit. Which is it’s own whole problem with the game’s balance, lol. I think if they just gave Tartarus poison immunity, that’d probably be enough to actually make everyone use light units in the fight, but I still feel like they need to give endgame bosses way higher off-element damage resistance.

I haven’t managed to get many clears of Tartarus yet, but I have a lot of mixed feelings about the fight. I’m happy to finally have a relevant piece of content to use my light units in, and I like most of the mechanics in the fight, but a lot of it doesn’t really work well in practice, and there’s some really annoying parts of the fight too. Mainly the fact that they decided to keep the enervation mechanic from Void Nidhogg, lol. I quit doing that fight as soon as the shadow Chimera came out specifically because it makes that fight such a goddamn slog, and it continues to be just as awful in Tartarus. And they somehow made it even worse by deciding to give it to you unavoidably at least once in the fight. At least in Void Nidhogg you could dodge everything and never get enervated, but you have to deal with it at least once in this fight.

Also, the whole portal mechanic is extremely cool, and I hope they experiment with more stuff like this in the future, but I feel like every time I go back to the main arena, I have like I have to immediately try and figure out which part of the fight I walked back in on, and usually I have like two seconds to react before one of the screen-wide attacks happens and kills me. It’s really disorienting, lol.

The prison mechanic in general is also kinda hard to wrap my head around, and I feel like it requires maybe a bit more team coordination than is reasonable to expect from a game like this, but really I think it’s just my punishment for never doing High Zodiark, since I think it’s one of the many parts of this fight that are really similar to that fight, and I have absolutely no experience with any of them.

Anyway, now that Tartarus is out it’s making me think back on the Agito bosses as a whole, before we move into the 2nd anniversary where we’ll probably at least get a hint at the next phase of endgame content, and in spite of the various issues I have with them, I think the Agito fights are a huge improvement over the High Dragon fights. You can really tell how Cygames [for better or worse] was trying to shake things up and figure out how to make engaging endgame fights, and for the most part I think it worked out.

The difficulty balance between all the fights [especially counting the Master fights] is kinda all of the place, like how eKai is extremely easy while eAO and eTart are kinda obnoxiously long and difficult if you do them in the intended ways, but I think that at least shows how they kept trying new things. mKai’s also apparently a lot harder than eKai [though I haven’t tried it], so they clearly learnt from the feedback they got from that.

I think Volk and Ciella are probably my favourite of the Agito fights at the moment, for different reasons. Volk feels really well-balanced for the current state of the flame roster, and has mechanics that require a degree of cooperation and coordination without being overly punishing like Tartarus kinda feels at the moment. And on the other hand, I really like Ciella’s fight because it feels like it’s just at the right level of difficulty for me to be able to reliably do by myself. At least on manual. I’ve never really managed to get auto solo to work, but I enjoy doing it manually. Either way, it’s nice to have endgame fights like this that can be comfortably soloed if you have a strong enough team, and I really like how for Ciella you have to build a really tanky, defense-oriented team in order to be able to solo it. I feel like 90% of the game basically punishes you for trying to do anything other than raw damage-dealing, so I really appreciate that Ciella is designed in a way that rewards you for making tanky team comps. It also lets Sylas be genuinely meta for something, which I’m grateful for, and it gave Templar Hope some redemption after he was initially deemed as being kinda worthless after he came out.

I also like how status effects are integrated into the fight mechanics, and [for the most part] both status resistances for each element feel like they have a purpose in their Agito fight. Compared to HDTs where it feels like every element roster is split between ‘units that are good for the fight’ and ‘units that are immediately handicapped’. This is actually one part where I think Tartarus works really well as a boss fight, since unless you can kill him before the poison portals happen, you really need a poison-res character to deal with them.

We still have three more of the Master fights to come out, but either way I really like the Agito fights, and I’m optimistic for whatever the next set of endgame content will be. Personally, I’m still hoping for them to build upon the Imperial Onslaught mode, since that feels like an almost obsolete part of the game, but that sort of wave-based content would be nice to have for endgame co-op.

Also, I still really hope that the Agito bosses end up being DL’s version of the Eternals/Evokers from GBF, where we can eventually get the ability to recruit them as playable characters by doing lots of grinding. They might just get released as gala units instead, but I’d prefer it if they were obtainable through grinding.

On the one hand they’re basically all villains, but on the other hand the recent story chapter made it pretty obvious that they’re probably all being warped and twisted by the masks Nedrick gave them, so it’d be pretty easy to explain how they could eventually be recruited. Also GBF has it’s own share of characters who probably shouldn’t be recruitable for moral reasons but they still are, lol.

Also when you fight them in-game it already looks like they have the same sorts of character model rigs as normal adventurers, and their attack animations all seem at least roughly based on regular weapon types [Volk being a lance unit, Kai Yan being an axe unit, Ciella being a bow unit, Ayaha/Otoha being dagger units, and Tartarus being a blade unit], so I feel like it wouldn’t be hard to make them playable. Ayaha/Otoha would probably be the hardest one to make work unless they get released as two separate characters, but it’s possible that they’d be a unique case where you use them both in combat at the same time, and switch between which one you’re actively controlling. 

It’s probably a bit too early for any of this to happen since the Agito have basically only just gotten introduced in the main story, so it probably won’t be touched upon for the 2nd anniversary, but I still think it’ll happen eventually.

Anyway, all that aside, at the moment I’m basically just gonna keep saving my summons for either a rerun of Gala Elly/Alex, or the holiday banners. In particular I really want to do lots of summons on the New Years banner. I know we’re gonna have Gala Zena or something next month for the anniversary, but if it’s anything like last year we’ll get lots of free summons during her banner, so I’ll at least wait and see how that works out before I spend any resources chasing her.

I also don’t really care much for Nevin and Pinon so even though I didn’t get them, I’m just gonna quit on this banner while I’m ahead, lol

[murasaki-murasame]

A whole buncha shit went down in Chapter 12 today and we got a new Chimera fight to begin shaking up the shadow meta in preparation for the new mana spiral batch and the new Agito fight, but like 90% of my brainpower is currently being spent thinking about how the new influx of wyrmite rewards let me do another tenfold on the Valentine’s banner, which finally got me Epimetheus.

But I still have some thoughts on the new chapter so I’m gonna put them under a cut because of spoilers

I’m feeling extremely vindicated in my choice to dream summon Laranoa, since chapter 12 ended up having flame enemies, and she even showed up in the story, which is like the last thing I saw coming.

Even though my water team is probably my weakest one overall, I didn’t actually have too much difficulty with anything up until the last couple of Very Hard battles, which I wasn’t able to do, and probably won’t be able to for a while.

I still think that the higher difficulty main campaign maps are really fun and well-balanced, though. It’s pretty rare to get challenging content based around dealing with waves of mob enemies. It really forces you to play differently, especially in Very Hard where every enemy hits super hard.

And on the note of the main bosses in the chapter, I’m still wondering if the whole deal with the cube bosses is actually gonna lead somewhere. Thus far they’re just this giant question-mark with no real in-universe explanation or acknowledgement, and their whole sci-fi vibe and the cryptic references to space probes just feels like the exact opposite of how the rest of the game is. It’s possible that they’re just there to be challenging boss fights with no real context behind them, but I kinda hope something happens with them. Maybe once we’ve gotten one for each element.

Story-wise this chapter was shorter and a bit less eventful than I expected, but it was still really fun. It really feels like things are heating up now. Especially with how it ended, it really feels like the first half of a two-chapter story arc, so that’s probably why it felt kinda brief. It definitely raised a lot of interesting questions that’ll probably get addressed in the next chapter.

First of all, the big elephant in the room is the reveal that apparently we’re going to see the fifth heir in the next chapter, which just kinda came out of nowhere, lol. I really thought they’d be a mystery for longer than this.

It’s not like there’s anything to go on one way or another, but I kinda hope that the fifth heir is that wyrmclan leader we saw that looks a whole lot like Euden. But who knows.

They’re still a huge mystery, but the stuff with Phares in this chapter makes me think that the fifth heir is somehow involved in the whole concept of black mana and how it corrupts dragons, if we’re meant to assume that Phares showing up with the void dragons at the end of the chapter was related to him getting help from the fifth heir. Which might explain why Chelle and Leonidas seemed genuinely freaked out at the idea of Phares working with their mystery sibling. I don’t think the idea of black mana has been introduced or explored at all outside of the descriptions of the void bosses, so it’ll be cool if it gets properly explored soon.

And on that note, I really wasn’t expecting this chapter to provide an actual in-universe explanation for stuff like the void dragons and the IO bosses. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s nice that the void dragons aren’t just in their own little weird pocket of ambiguous canon.

It’s kinda weird to see the main story basically introduce the concept of void battles when those have been in the game forever, but it’s nice to see them finally addressing it, lol.

The whole deal with Leonidas talking about ‘dracoshifting’ is also totally a hint at a future game mechanic, isn’t it? People have been wondering for a while now if there’s going to be some sort of revamp to dragons as a mechanic to basically rebalance them according to the current needs of the endgame meta, and I could totally see some variation of what Leonidas did to Mars being used to explain a new mechanic about buffing existing dragons. I imagine that if we get to do it, we’d do it in a more humane way than Leonidas, but still.

I’ve been thinking ever since they introduced mana spirals for adventurers that dragons should probably get something like that to make them better, and I could see this basically being how they do it. I dunno exactly how they’d do it, but maybe it’ll be like promoting dragons to make them stronger and giving them a new sci-fi design like Mars has. There’s definitely a lot of old dragons that need some sort of buff to make them more relevant. I’d want it to be slowly rolled out for specific dragons that need it, though, like with mana spirals.

Mainly I think that the 60% strength dragons probably need a buff since we’re starting to get conditional 80% strength dragons, but there’s also other relatively weak 5-star dragons like Prometheus, Takemikazuchi, Nidhogg, etc, that could use a buff.

This also might be a good way for them to make it worthwhile to actually be shapeshifted for a while, instead of just using the dragon to use a single skill or to tank a hit. At the moment they’re basically all weaker than if you weren’t shapeshifted, but maybe this sort of buff would also lead to their shapeshifted forms being way better. Which would at least be great for characters like Xainfried, Mym, Lathna, etc.

I’m also kinda wondering now if this chapter might be setting up for Leonidas joining us and being playable eventually. It kinda feels like that’s what they’re setting up, but honestly I kinda hate all of Euden’s siblings and I don’t really want to see any of them become our allies, lol. Also Leonidas would probably just be a flame sword, and we really don’t need more of them.

On a similar note I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’re probably getting Gala Alex next month. I dunno if I’ll go out of my way to save for her, but we’ll see. I’m curious to see what her gala alt would play like, though, especially if she’s still a shadow unit. There’s just a whole lot of competition in shadow at the moment. Either way, I think she’ll probably end up being a sword. Shadow doesn’t really have any noteworthy sword units at the moment, so that’d be nice.

Once we get into March I might start saving for her, but for now I’m probably gonna put some resources into the new dragon banner, since all of the featured ones really interest me [especially Apollo since I don’t have him yet], and I just got Epimetheus so now I’m done with the Valentine’s banner.

That also reminds me that at this point it’s basically confirmed that both Epimetheus and the three old Valentine’s adventurers are permanent now, which is really interesting. I guess this means that later this year they’ll make the old Halloween and Christmas units permanent, too. That’d be a nice way to keep introducing new holiday units without it getting bloated and hard to manage. And honestly most of the older holiday units aren’t particularly good anymore, so there’s no real harm in making them permanent. RIP in pieces to all the people who whaled for V-Hilde, though, lol. Maybe now that she’s permanent she has a chance of getting a mana spiral to make her better.

Anyway, I’ve felt a little let down by some of the recent story chapters, but I ended up really liking this one. Now I’m excited to see what reveals and developments the next chapter brings.

I’m also still extremely hyped about the upcoming shadow mana spiral batch, and the new Agito fight. I’m still clinging onto my pipe dream wish of them improving Norwin by making him more like V-Addis or Natalie. I’ve actually been thinking some more about the different ways that could go [even after I made a whole post about it lmao], and I think it’d be interesting if in addition to adding an enmity effect to his S1, they added an effect to his S2 where he takes non-lethal damage relative to the amount of damage he does to the enemy with the skill, as a way to manually get him down to low health. So I guess in that case he’d be more like a shadow version of Chelsea, which could be fun. I also think there’s a lot of interesting things they could do with him by, say, adding a team health regen effect to his Blind = Team Strength ability. But who knows. I just want him to get some special attention and become genuinely good because I really love him, lol. Though in general I like the idea of them using mana spiral upgrades to basically give certain characters a whole different play-style. Sorta like how Karl can now be used more or less as a buffer, but that has more to do with D-Rathalos than Karl’s mana spiral. It’s still an interesting way to give older units a niche in the meta.

[murasaki-murasame]

After all this waiting, we finally know what the new gala is gonna be like, and it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting in a whole bunch of ways, lmao. But I’m still extremely excited for it.

Since i’ve been saving for this ever since the Gala Alex banner ended, I’m currently sitting on a grand total of 600 summons, so let’s just hope I can get what I want with that.

So firstly we now officially know about Gala Leif being a thing, and man was that a roller-coaster of emotions for me. Mostly I’m just happy he’s finally coming out, but I’m still feeling extremely iffy about him being a wind sword, both because Gala Ranzal already exists, and also because I don’t even do eCiella in co-op anymore. But on the other hand, I’m also feeling kinda smug about correctly guessing that he’s be a support unit with two stances, though that probably wasn’t the hardest thing to guess, lol. But even then, his kit just looks . . . kinda strange. I really think I’ll need to hold back on making any judgments about it one way or another until we get his SP costs and damage mods, since that might really make or break him. His abilities also don’t say anything about his stance mechanic, so there might be additional things it does beyond just changing what his skills do.

On paper I think he just looks odd because the strength and defense debuffs don’t really seem that potent, and his S1 defense buff is self-only, which seems like it wouldn’t really be that great in eCiella anyway, and it wouldn’t be able to trigger doublebuff on everyone. Which is weird since he also has a strength doublebuff chain co-ab, with no apparent way to trigger it for the entire team by himself.

And since he doesn’t seem to give team-wide defense buffs, I’m honestly not sure if he’d actually be able to replace T-Hope’s role in eCiella, but for manual play that might not be a huge deal. He also doesn’t seem to have any heals or buff dispel, so he probably won’t also be replacing Lowen or OG Ranzal. And Sylas provides more potent buffs and debuffs. So I’m worried that Gala Leif might just not be able to find a place in the meta, but we’ll see how it goes. Since he has two attacking skills depending on what stance he’s in, he might be a good DPS unit, if nothing else. Which might also go with his Flurry Strength passive, which seems like a really weird ability to give to what seems like a support unit.

His unique debuff punisher co-ab and his debuff skill time ability are also really interesting, but I’m not sure how that’ll work out.

I just think there’s a big possibility that there’s additional mechanics to his kit that aren’t clear just from reading his skills and abilities, so we’ll have towait and see how he goes in practice. It’s entirely possible that he’s like Tobias, and being in his shielding stance lets him attack from range.

I’m still gonna immediately summon for him anyway and if I end up regretting that then that’ll by my problem, lmao. I’ve waited too long for this dude not to chase him.

They’re also putting the upcoming banner units on the gala, which is . . . extremely weird but also really cool. Considering that stuff like this doesn’t lead to anyone having lower than normal appearance rates, this just means that when I chase after Gala Leif I’ll have a good chance at getting some of these units too. Which would be nice, since I was already thinking that they might really tempt me.

It’s also just kinda funny that after finding out about the Xuan Zang alt I got worried that she’d be the new gala unit, which I knew wasn’t gonna happen, but then she ended up actually being on the gala banner anyway even if she’s not the gala unit, lol.

I hope this becomes a trend going forward, since it’d be a great way to give me a shot at non-limited banner units even if I just save for galas exclusively.

Anyway, these new units are the new batch of non-limited light units we’ve been desperately needing, and they look really nice. They still suffer from the fact that there’s no important fights to actually use them in until the shadow Agito boss comes out in like three months, but at least we can use them in this event.

I honestly couldn’t tell what weapon type the Xuan Zang alt was meant to be since she uses a unique weapon model in her boss battle, and she also dies way too fast for me to see her animations, so it’s nice to get confirmation that she’s a wand unit.

In general, Radiant Xuan Zang basically looks like a more tanky version of Peony, which is really interesting. I wonder if anyone will feel bad for summoning for Peony, lol. I think they’re different enough that it doesn’t matter, but they’re still really similar in a lot of ways.

Even though her DPS might not be as high as Peony’s, I do really like how Xuan Zang’s new kit looks. Her S1 strength debuff reminds me a lot of Sylas’, and she also has a shadow resistance buff on her S2. So if that sort of damage mitigation is good in the shadow Agito fight, that’d be really nice. She can also inspire the entire team with her enhanced S2, which seems to effect the entire team and not just people she’s near, so that might have a surprisingly big impact on her team DPS contribution. I think this also makes her the first light unit with inspiration, which is cool.

She also gets the new debuff skill time ability like Gala Leif does, which is cool. I guess that’ll probably be given to new units every once in a while now. The fact that it also covers bleed is really interesting, especially since there’s currently no way to have it apply to anyone who actually inflicts bleed, so maybe they’re laying the foundation for that to happen later. And since we have buff time prints, maybe we’ll get debuff time prints, which could be really useful on certain characters.

One thing that I think is really interesting is that when she maxes her charge gauge, she can lower an enemy’s paralysis resistance level. It sounds like a one-time, permanent effect, but it might have a real impact on team DPS if you rely on paralysis punishing, since this should effectively prolong the amount of uptime you can have on paralysis. It also opens up the possibility of other characters in other elements getting this sort of ability for other status effects, which could really increase the viability of certain units, especially if we get someone who can do this sort of thing for something like bog or blind resistance.

Other than how much she seems to be competing with Peony, my main worry with her is probably that her charge gauge mechanic might hold her back, and lead to her having low uptime on stuff like the strength buff it lets her give the team. Not to mention the fact that it’s an AoE buff effect, not a universal team one, so you might not be able to give it to everyone. It sounds like the amount her charge gauge gets boosted depends on how many teammates are within her AoE field when she uses her S2, so her potential seems to really depend on whether or not everyone’s grouped close to each other.

I honestly wasn’t super interested in her when we first saw her, but the fact that she’ll be on the same banner as Gala Leif makes me a lot more interested in picking her up, and I do really like how her kit looks. I already have Chitose, but I didn’t get Peony, so Xuan Zang might be worth getting. I also just appreciate that she’s effectively a non-limited light strength buff unit, which the element’s really needed for a long time now. It’s not quite as straight-forward as how Chitose’s buffs work, but it’s something.

I also just honestly really like her as a character, and like with Wu Kong I have a lot of nostalgia toward her because her event was the first one I actually got into when I started playing the game. I never really use her welfare version, so it’d be great to be able to use her alt.

Though even more than her, as soon as I saw Zhu Bajie and it became obvious he was gonna be a banner unit, I got really tempted to chase him, lol. Which is another reason why i’m glad that these units are getting bundled into the same banner as Leif. I don’t really need any light units any time soon in general, but I still really want him, and it’d be nice to not have to dream summon him.

In terms of his kit, I don’t really like enmity units in general, but he does look really strong on paper. We’ll have to see his exact damage mods, but the fact that he can manually lower his health while also having Resilient Offense seems like a really good combo. Sadly the shield he gets is just a regular shield like Natalie’s, but it does it’s job. It’s interesting that his S2 also makes it so that he can’t be healed for ten seconds. I’m not sure if that actually works well with his kit or not, since on the one hand he wants to stay at low health as much as possible, but he also needs to dip in and out of low HP to trigger Resilient Offense. He also has a unique force-strike via his ability that has a multi-step charge like the MH units, which gives him knockback res and has paralysis punisher mods. 

Light doesn’t really have the sort of support for enmity kits that shadow does via Grace’s shield utility, but I think he has a lot of potential to be a really good DPS unit, and honestly light really needs more of that, in terms of non-limited units. It’s also nice that he’s an axe, since I didn’t get DY-Malora, and I don’t use S-Luca anymore now that I have G-Luca.

It’s probably worth noting that even though there’s not currently someone like Grace for light, Xuan Zang has her strength debuffs and her team shadow res buffs that should help make Zhu Bajie a lot more tanky if you use them together.

And then there’s the wildcard in the form of Sha Wujing, who isn’t actually described in the blog post they put out because he’s a 4-star. Which is kinda lame, but considering that they’re bundling this with Gala Leif AND also including a new 5-star dragon, I get why they relegated him to being a 4-star.

But either way, he might be a really interesting unit. There’s nothing to go on, but him being a 4-star isn’t an automatic strike against the idea of him being really good. There’s just lots of different things they could do with him.

Basically my main two options I’m thinking about at the moment are in effectively being a light version of Emma, or a light version of Heinwald. It’d be great to get a dedicated, non-limited light strength buffer, but Xuan Zang can kinda do that too, and I’m not really sure if him being a lance unit or something with strength buffs really ‘fits’ his whole vibe. But on the other hand, I really like the idea of him being sort of like Heinwald but for light. It’s been over a year since our last light healer came out, so it’d be really nice to get another one. And tbh as a character he really reminds me of Heinwald, so it’d make sense if they end up being similar units. But who knows.

And finally we’re also getting a new light dragon for this banner, who seems to basically just be light Freyja, except her dragon skill only energizes the team instead of also healing them. Which is a bit lame, but light already has Cupid who can heal everyone, so it’s not a big deal. Either way I’d really like to get a copy of her to use on my light support/healer units.

Interestingly it seems like they’re all still gonna appear on the next banner once the gala ends, but I think this is by far going to be the best time to get them, unless they intentionally increase their appearance rates for their banner or something. Being able to get all of them AND Gala Leif from the same banner is way too good of a deal to pass up.

Also this means that we’re not getting a split banner for this event [at least not in the same way we’ve had with recent events], so that’s great. We’re still probably gonna get more split banners in the future, but it’s nice to have all these units on one banner.

I should probably hold off on my summoning spree until we know how good the new units are [especially since Gala Leif looks like he might be underwhelming in practice], but I’ve been saving for two months for this, so I don’t think I’m gonna be able to restrain myself, lol. Depending on how long I summon for, I might have to actually keep notes of what I get so I can remember it all.

Realistically it might be best for me to just stop if/when I get Gala Leif and then save for the next gala, but with the event units being on the gala banner as well, they might tempt me to keep pulling. We’ll just see how it goes, I guess.