Looking back on the year 2019, we’ve gotten a ton of new heroes. As a free-to-play player, I haven’t spent a single penny on the game. So far, I’ve reached tier 21 in Arena, top 1k in allegiance battles, and tier 27 in Aether Raids.
The only thing I haven’t done so far is reach top 1k arena assault… I’ve only managed to reach about rank 1,500, so I’m still a little ways off.
In this article, I will give my reasoning as to why I chose to summon them, and my thoughts on their gameplay, along with what their purpose is in my collection.
Most of the units which I summon are only used for the Arena Assault if they aren’t used on my core teams for Aether raids.
Summoning Strategy
In the year 2019, I mostly stuck to summoning on the legendary banners, as they were the most value for your orbs.
Unlike a lot of the top-tier free-to-play players, I do not want to fodder my only copy of a unit—I still haven’t foddered any of my 5* units in which I have a single copy of, no matter how bad they are.
A Retrospective Look
Because of the large amount of heroes I got during the year 2019, I’ve decided to break this article into many parts. This article will only contain units which I’ve received in January 2019.
Most of the time, I use the unit for a bit, like the tempest trials, but after that, I rarely use them again after that point if they are “too weak” in my eyes. Every hero has their own use, and all of them can be used for PVE content (like using in the training tower),in squad assaults, or in the blessed gardens.
But for PVP-type purposes such as the Arena, highly-merged units are required, with suboptimal builds. Movement assist skills are much better gameplay-wise than playing with rallies.
I feel that I should use my units that I’ve gotten more often. However, I don’t really “feel” like using them mainly because my go-to teams are already set in place. Additionally, with my huge collection of 5* heroes, it’s hard to go around and use everyone because the game modes restrict your formation to only a handful of units, and since these aren’t highly invested, I don’t use them too often outside of the AA or other multi-map battles.
Overview of January
In January 2019, the main banners included the New Year Banner, Duma’s Mythic Hero banner, the Hostile Springs banner, and the Laguz Beast Banner.
New Year’s Fjorm
Starting off the year of 2019, I got NY!Fjorm, the only green flying archer in the game. At the time, I really wanted her because she was a unique movement type. Link skills (she has Atk/Spd Link) were also fairly new to the game, making her very valuable to summon for.
In case you don’t know what her weapon is, Kabura Ya+ is just a bow with built-in Chill Spd 3.
Even though she has a spd bane, she’s still a pretty viable unit. Her attack gets pretty high, good enough to deal with many squishier mages. However, she has low res, so she can’t enemy-phase mages too well.
What is she doing now?
Well, at the moment, she’s just sitting in my barracks not doing much. I use her only in the arena assault to counter L!Azura. L!Azura does more than 5 damage to Fjorm, meaning that L!Azura will always attack Fjorm over dancing, and Fjorm will also one-shot her in return.
Additionally, she is much too squishy to deal with the current arena assault threats. She is too slow to deal with blue mages, and is too squishy to deal with the armor lances. Sadly, although she’s unique, I don’t often use Fjorm outside of the AA.
Lute
I got Lute from my free summon on a banner… I can’t remember which one, but I did get Lute with a speed bane.
Lute’s weapon grants Spd+3, and has built-in Spd Ploy 3.
One of the biggest downsides with my Lute is that she is -Spd, meaning that she’s too slow. She has spd ploy built into her weapon, however in the current arena assault meta, her res is much too low, thus I rarely use her.
What is she doing now?
Just sitting in my barracks, collecting dust.
Most of the units I face in AA have so much res that her tome rarely goes off. Additionally, 50 Atk is usually not enough to deal with many of the red armor units I face. She cannot deal with most of the red mages in AA also because her attack is too low for the amount of res that the enemy mages usually have.
I seldom use mages in AA because they often are too squishy to deal with the enemies. Most of the enemies I face in AA have distant counter, and since all of them are +10, I almost never use her.
Laevatein
On the Duma Mythic Hero Banner, I got Laevatein.
Her main gimmick was her -blade weapon, basically making her like Nino. I used her quite often back then because she was so powerful and did so much damage in one strike. I even used her on my AR-Defense team in a rally trap formation with L!Azura giving her a spectrum +6 buff. Her damage output was so high.
What is she doing now?
At the moment, she’s used in the Arena Assault to counter some green units… though not that often. The biggest problem I have with Laevatein is that Fury makes her really squishy. Although her attack is really, really good, she often has trouble one-shotting or one-rounding many armor units, such as Zelgius or Surtr.
I’d like to give her axebreaker, but then she’ll lose out on her buffs. Additionally, most of my other units aren’t really running hones, fortify’s, or other sorts of tactics buffs. I often times don’t have the units to support Laevatein when she goes into battle, since the vast majority of my units run spurs and drives, thus I don’t use her that often.
Laegjarn
I didn’t get Laegjarn until Duma’s Mythic banner. She has R duel flying which I might fodder to the 2020 New Year’s Eir, so that I can make her another one of my core units. I don’t really want to fodder her though, as I only have one copy of her.
Still thinking about it.
In case you don’t know, her weapon gives her an in-combat bonus to all her stats equal to half the total of the enemy’s visible buffs. For example, if an attacker attacks her with +7 to all their stats, Laegjarn will get +14 (28÷2=14) to all her stats. It’s a neat gimmick if the foe uses a lot of visible buffs.
She’s pretty good, and often times catches attackers off guard in Aether raids, because her weapon counters those supertanks who use tons of buffs.
What is she doing now?
At the moment, my Laegjarn isn’t really doing much. I used her a ton during the tempest trials and clearing the tenth stratum 15 times per month.
She’s a good unit, I just don’t use her that much, because she’s not on my go-to team. I should give her axebreaker to help out with her matchups in the Arena Assault, but I rarely use her nowadays because I’m running low on all of my breaker-type skill fodders.
If I gave her axebreaker, I might use her more often, though I don’t really need many more green counters in AA.
Ryoma: Dancing Samurai
When I got Ryoma I was pretty happy, because he had hardy bearing and also had armor-slaying effectiveness in his weapon. He was also a very unique dagger choice, and also has Chill Def which was very rare at the time, although now it’s just a seal.
What is he doing now?
Unfortunately for him, he misses most of the red armor kills, making him not a very useful offensive nuke in the AA. He is a dancer, though, so his main purpose outside of PVE content is just dancing support. Chill Def is super useful still, since only one person can run each seal, so even though the Chill Def seal is used on someone else, I can still have another team with this skill.
I also currently use him on my AR-Defense team because he has chill def built-in, which should be annoying to some attackers. However, his attack is just too low to secure many kills, and he also has poor bulk, despite having the buffs given by the Dark blessing.
Duma
He was my main target for the mythic banner. I pulled for him not because of his skills, but because I wanted a defense loss decrease.
Duma’s weapon gives him Atk/Res+6 as an in-combat buff and also grants him Wary Fighter if the opponent’s HP is not full.
His unique C-skill Upheval does 7 damage to all the enemies at the start of turn 1, and also turns Duma into a Catapult Building when defending in Aether raids.
Duma isn’t the best unit, but he’s really bulky and a good offensive and defensive unit. He is almost never one-rounded and usually wins if he initiates.
He’s good in AR-defense because he knocks out enemy buildings in his row (catapult) regardless of their building’s level (the catapult needs to be at a level equal to or higher than the building which it’s trying to destroy). He also reduces the lift loss per defeat, which is the most important part of his kit.
What is he doing now?
He’s currently no longer on my Aether raids defense team, because I’ve replaced my defense team with an infantry pulse team that has two Thrasirs on it.
Currently, I use Duma when doing the Arena dailies. I run a team with just Duma on it, and he mostly wins if he is able to initiate. He usually is the one with Armor boots seal, but I was switching seals around for Rokkr Sieges and Mjolnir Strikes, so he has the wrong seal equipped.
Duma is good, but I rarely use him on the AA because he is an armor unit and due to that movement restriction, is almost never used.
Summary of January
In the month of January, I got 6 5* units, making my luck pretty average. Looking at the distributions of orbs, we typically get around 250~300 orbs per month. Below is the distribution of 5* Heroes you should receive from a legendary banner, got from a previous arcticle FEH Summoner: How lucky are you?.
My most-used unit that I got in January would probably be Duma for clearing the Arena daily quests, Fjorm for specifically countering L!Azura whenever it’s water season in the Arena, and Ryoma for dancing support.
I would like to use Laegjarn and Laevatein more, but I already have the anti-green armor unit roles filled by other heroes such as Tobin, which I would rather use over a red unit without Armorslayer. Additionally, because a lot of threats in the arena are much too bulky for Laegjarn to one-round, I rarely end up using her. Laevatein could one-round, but the support setup is often too hard to achieve because my teams aren’t built that way.
Lute… I’m not sure what I’m going to do with because she’s too weak to deal with distant counter red units in the Arena Assault, and doesn’t have much else of a purpose for me at the moment.
February 2019’s part is coming soon!