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Should You Summon: May Gala Remix Ft. Saiga, Armored Yachiyo, Gala Leif and Gala Reborn Zephyr

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Should You Summon: May 2021 Gala Remix Ft. Saiga, Armored Yachiyo, Gala Leif and Gala Reborn Zephyr

Disclaimer: The opinions below are written by GamePress and do not actually reflect Nintendo, Cygames, or the fairy Notte's opinions... probably. If they somehow do, it's merely coincidental!

Welcome back to another Should You Summon article, where the newest units are discussed and analysed to see if they have what it takes to make a play for their respective elemental meta. This being the middle of the month another Gala Remix banner has come along, and with it the introduction of two new units to coincide with the current Shadow of the Mukuroshu event, and two previously released Gala units on rate up. And yes, you have not heard wrong. There are a total of 4 focus units on this banner, which is one of the highest amounts we have seen on a single banner for a while. However, this is not so surprising considering that this banner will most likely be released before the rerun of the Fire Emblem Heroes limited banners, acting as bait to try to get those players who have been saving for a while to splurge beforehand. Let us hope for those players that these units are not too meta defining or tempting to summon on.

The ex-Mukuroshu Assassin

Another close-range manacaster from Hinomoto? I'm sure Chelle is planning right now to find where they conceal this technology.

First on the list is Saiga, Yachiyo’s brother in-law, bringing the first close-range manacaster to the wind element. Like other close-range mana casters before him, these units typically focus on dealing their most damage with standard attacks, with skills playing more of a backseat role for damage. To start off with his kit, his first ability will be discussed in detail, as this is where most of the success of his damage will come from. This ability Know Thine Enemy grants two effects:

  • The first, when he has attained Level 3 Enemy Insight, it increases the amount the user’s next force strike depletes the overdrive bar by 300%, consuming Enemy Insight Level 3 in the process
  • The second, when he has the Calculated Shots effect active, his standard attacks are increased in power, the amount it fills the skill gauges and the critical rate by 10% each.

To attain Enemy Insight Level 3 and the Calculated Shots effect, we must dive into his skills. His skill 1 Dirge Shot deals a comparatively weak 5 hits of 225% wind damage, inflicts stormlash and grants the user one level of Enemy Insight if he is directly next to his foes. His skill 2 meanwhile Karmic Quietus simply dispels one buff from multiple targets and grants the user one level of Enemy Insight. Both skills are at an SP cost of 4080, which seems strange until you realise that both have variants that can be used when the user has attained Enemy Insight Level 3. At Enemy Insight Level 3, if Dirge Shot is used it will instead deal 5 hits of 400% and inflict stormlash, with an additional stormlash punisher modifier of 120%. Meanwhile, his Karmic Quietus effect will grant the Calculated Shots effect for 30 seconds, which grants the bonuses as described in his Know Thine Enemy ability discussed previously.

As such, this unit was obviously designed to give many utility options available to the player when they have attained Enemy Insight Level 3. Like Summer Norwin before, they can utilise each of these skills interchangeably to deal with the situation at hand. Do you need a good burst damage option? You may wish to utilise his empowered Skill 1. Improved overall DPS? The calculated shots buff has your back with the empowered Skill 2. Need to delete an overdrive gauge bar for fights such as Legend Ciella? Simply utilise his empowered force strike. Besides this available utility, his second unique ability HP 70 = Strength simply increases his strength by 13% when his HP is at 70% or above.

Overall, like other close-range manacasters, his personal damage is not that impressive due to the standard attacks of this weapon archetype not making up for the loss of damage from other units reliant on skill abuse, and that utilise skill damage prints and perks to further boost it. When this unit archetype is granted either buffs to further improve their standard attack damage, or wyrmprints which provide standard attack damage benefits, it will see much more use within the meta.

However, thanks to overdamage, the innate high hit count of close range manacasters, and dragon affinity wyrmprints, Saiga can abuse Gala Notte’s chain co-ability, which fills the dragon gauge by 3% for each 50-hit combo. As such, Saiga becomes a dragon battery, able to abuse dragon form often and in an empowered state with the help of the Calculated Shots buff from his Skill 2 variant. As such, Saiga makes up for his innate damage weakness with the ability to utilise dragon form often, ensuring he boasts impressive damage within the wind element. Combined this with his dispel utility in his Skill 2, and the ability to deplete the overdrive gauge rapidly with his Level 3 Enemy Insight forcestrike, allows Saiga to have usefulness within the Legend Ciella fight. Thanks to both his Enemy Insights and Calculated Shots buffs not being nullified in the curse of nihility environment, his overall utility also has excellent usefulness in Sinister of the Dominion fights such as Master Jaldabaoth.

Even with these advantages though, Gala Notte and Gala Ranzal still have a slight damage advantage over him in a doublebuff environment, and as such I can only recommend pulling for him if you do not possess either of these units for damage utility for your wind teams.  

Recommended setups: For co-abilities, his damage is reliant on the use of generating dragon gauge as quickly as possible using Gala Notte’s chain co-ability. Without it his damage drops significantly to the point where options such as Grimnir, Gala Lief and Humanoid Midgardsormr would be preferrable for damage. Besides this, Dragonyule Xainfried is also preferrable as a co-ability due to not only boasting the Skill Damage boost, but the Dragon Claws chain co-ability, which boosts wind adventurer’s strength permanently each time they shapeshift. Outside of these two co-abilities, boosts to standard attack damage, strength and wind elemental damage would be preferable to further improve his damage output both in and out of dragon form.

For wyrmprints, any which have the dragon damage affinity will serve him well in boosting his damage further while in dragon form. The Rivalry of Kings skill damage wyrmprint exclusive to manacaster units already comes with the dragon damage affinity, and with additional prints such as An Ancient Oath (Dragon Claws) and Dueling Dancers (Flurry Devastation), you can further boost the bonus the dragon damage affinity gives. As a consistent Stormlash applier, it is a good idea to rock the Sweet Surprise wyrmprint to dish out an additional 25% damage to foes afflicted by Stormlash. Outside of this, you can choose other wyrmprint options which grant further improvements to his dragon damage, improvements to his own personal damage, or improvements to foes afflicted by poison from his allies. In a Curse of Nihility environment, it is a good idea to swap out An Ancient Oath for a flurry strength print, as the Dragon Claws benefits to not work under this debuff.

In a doublebuff environment, it is a good idea to run the typical strength and critical damage doublebuff prints if you have them. In particular, the Sisters of the Anvil wyrmprint comes with the dragon damage affinity, which further adds to his dragon-oriented build to focus towards.

Yes that is Heavy Armor

Wow, that's a cool new look for Yachiyo, but heavy armor? That looks fairly light and agile. Well, as long as it works, maybe I should ask how I could get my hands on it.

The second of these two new units, Armored Yachiyo brings with her a force-strike oriented kit to try to make a name for herself within the flame element, like she did for the light element in the early of High Zodiark. Like other force-strike oriented units, she comes with a unique force-strike tied to her first ability Unrelenting Blade. This ability also comes with the added effects of granting her force-strikes the ability to dispel when the combo count is 15 or higher, the ability to have immunity to knockback while charging her force strike, and the ability to increase her strength by 20% for every 15 seconds she does not receive knockback (up to three times). Do note that the strength buffs are immune to the Curse of Nihility debuff. To further boost her force strike damage, she comes with the Force Strike passive ability, which increases her force strike damage by 50%.

To take her force strike damage to the next level, her Skill 1 Peerless Eternity activates the Peerless Flourish effect (immune to Curse of Nihility), which empowers her next three force strikes and provides a scorchrend punisher effect. For raw damage numbers, her force strike deals 1 hit of 211% and 1 hit of 415% flame damage, generating 750 SP per hit. At a skill cost of 2710, Armored Yachiyo should have not troubles chaining her empowered force strikes back-to-back. Her Skill 2 Blossom Dance is a damage dealer, dealing 6 hits of 165%, 1 hit of 523%, and 3 hits of 267% flame damage, while inflicting scorchrend. It also grants the user immunity to knockback for 15 seconds, further helping towards her Unrelenting Blade strength uptime.

Overall, Armored Yachiyo’s damage is very solid in Legend Volk and the Sinister of the Dominion boss fights. Her ability to dispel buffs, as well as the generous area of effect of her force strike, enables her to cleave the numerous enemies that spawn in waves in Master Jaldabaoth, making her an excellent alternative to Gala Leonidas. Her dispel utility meanwhile ensures that she is able to immediately remove the defence buffs that Jaldabaoth generates on himself throughout the fight, ensuring that your and your allies damage is unaffected. Her beefy force strikes meanwhile can dish the damage out to Volk during the berserk phase of his Legend fight, making it easier to break him and reducing the risk of adventurers being knocked out immediately. However, while she boasts impressive damage she is just outshined currently by Gala Leonidas, whose prowess is only matched by Gala Mym in Legend Volk, but absolutely outshines the flame element in Curse of Nihility environments. As such, I can only recommend summoning for Armored Yachiyo if you do not possess Gala Leonidas.

Recommended setup: For co-abilities, it is advised where possible to rock the force strike damage boost present on Grace to further improve her force strike prowess. Co-abilities which further improve her strength, such as Marth’s chain co-ability 10 hits = 13% strength, or critical rate, such as Kimono Elisanne’s chain co-ability combo = critical rate, will also help improve her force-strike focused setup. In a curse of nihility environment where the combo time benefit present on agito weapons will not be used, you may wish to use co-abilities which grant the chain co-ability combo time, which increases the amount of time before the hit counter resets. This ensures she can maintain good uptime on prints which are reliant on conditions where the user must attain a certain amount of hits, such as flurry wyrmprints. As such, Ezelith would be the preferred co-ability choice due to her critical rate boost. Halloween Mym’s critical damage boost co-ability is also an excellent option in Curse of Nihility environments where Armored Yachiyo may be able to produce several critical hits due to her setup.

For wyrmprints, due to the availability of 7 slot weapons in the flame element now, she has access to prints available within the Sinister of the Dominion content, therefore broadening her build opportunities. As such, she has numerous options to utilise affliction punisher prints, particularly scorchrend (The Cutie Competition) and poison (The Plaguebringers) due to excellent uptimes she can uphold with her Skill 2 and Formal Joachim SS use. She can also utility burning punisher prints when in a team with an adventurer who can maintain good burn uptime on a boss (Me and My Bestie!). Besides this, force strike prints either in the 5 star or 4-star slots will certainly help boost her already impressive force strikes, such as the Warrioresses or The Lurker in the Woods, while the use of flurry strength prints with the force strike affinity will further improve these effects, such as Memory of a Friend. To the Extreme! is also a solid wyrmprint option for flame attuned adventurers, as it grants a bonus 12% to critical rate when the user has a hit counter above 15.

For Dominion prints, it is best to spend these slots on further improving her skill damage with the +20% skill damage wyrmprints, which will help her Skill 2 and Dragon form damage output. If you are not running a source of burn affliction you may also wish to run the Savage Hawk (Lance’s Boon) print instead, which not only adds to the force-strike damage affinity but reduces the sword’s boon affinity to 1. You can then run the +20% skill damage print A Small Courage in the 4-star slot, which will grant the 8% strength buff from the sword’s boon affinity, in the place of a 4-star force strike print, and instead investing into a 5-star force strike damage print instead.

The White Sparrow Returns

This time for returning rate up Gala’s we have Leif, the second wind-sword Gala adventurer released nearly a year ago. Gala Leif continues to be an excellent damage choice in the wind element, supporting great burst utility with the high mods of his Shield Stance Skill 2 Parrying Slash, and some nice team utility with his consistent 5% defence reduction he inflicts with his Striking Stance Skill 1 Feathered Gale. He also continues to have an excellent set of abilities, from his unique co-ability which increases damage to enemies with reduced strength or defence by 8%, his flurry strength ability, his strength doublebuff chain co-ability, and his excellent striking stance combo. However, time has not been so kind on Leif, and while his damage has still allowed him to be a competitive option in Master Jaldabaoth, he has dropped off from the meta dominated by damage powerhouses Gala Notte and Ranzal. Due to this, I will only recommend Gala Leif is you still do not have him and are in need of a good damage option for Master Jaldabaoth, or a good team utility option for standard content.

Howling Fury

Besides Gala Leif, Gala Reborn Zephyr returns, giving players another chance of summoning the premier dragon for the wind element. Having only been released 6 months ago, Zephyr still boasts an excellent passive which dramatically improves the damage of strength reliant units such as Saiga and Gala Ranzal, while his dragon form deals excellent damage to rival that of Midgardsormr Zero. His value has only further increased thanks to the Curse of Nihility environment, as it can be difficult for certain adventurers to achieve and maintain the flurry skill damage passive that Midgardsormr Zero has for damage dealing units. Meanwhile Gala Reborn Zephyr only requires the user to gain 10% dragon gauge over a 45 second timeframe, which continues to be generous to get an effective 100% strength bonus, especially due to the additional enemies spawning in Master Jaladabaoth. Because of this, I do recommend trying to get at least one copy of this dragon if you still do not possess it due to his excellent damage boost for both Legend Ciella and Master Jaldabaoth fights.

Final Verdict

On Summoning Rates and Wyrmsigils

  • As this is a Gala banner, the summoning rate of a 5-star adventurer or dragon has been boosted to 6% from 4%.
  • Gala Leif, Saiga and Armored Yachiyo have a 0.5% chance to pull individually, while Gala Reborn Zephyr has a 0.8% chance.
  • Besides the 4 focus units, you can also spark the dragons Horus and Menoetius from the banner.

Final Verdict: No if you are saving for the Fire Emblem Heroes Limited Banners, maybe for everyone else

For those waiting to spend on the Fire Emblem Heroes rerun banners, it is in your best interest to continue saving to have the best chance of pulling for those limited adventurers if you do not already own them. For everyone else, no matter which focus you get, you will probably get at least a unit who will add value to your team (unless it is a duplicate). Saiga and Armored Yachiyo, while not being meta defining, have certainly earned their place as excellent permanent and alternative options to the competition surrounding them. Meanwhile Gala Reborn Zephyr is still a recommended dragon for players hoping to optimise the utility of their damage adventurers, and Gala Lief is a great all-around utility option. Your choice of summoning will boil down to how weak your wind and flame teams are now. If the units that you have available can pull their weight in endgame content, then your desire to summon will be fairly low. However, for those players who currently struggle to enter these endgame fights, you could not go wrong with trying you luck in attaining these great adventurers and dragon.

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