For this iteration of Hall of Forms, we're yet again given a group of all-seasonal units coming from the Sacred Stones game. Notably, unlike recent Hall of Forms events, there are no heroes summoned via Heroic Grails this time around. Rather, we are given a dagger-wielding and a dragonstone armor, a lance flier, and a green tome cavalry unit, all of whom are seasonally summoned through Orbs and thus difficult to acquire copies and merges outside of their once-a-year reruns. Players have the chance to build up and possibly add the following units to their roster permanently by spending a Forma Soul:
We will briefly display optimal inheritance options for each unit and the advantages/disadvantages of spending your Forma Soul on them. As Forma Souls take a considerable amount of resources to acquire, it is important to get the most out of your Forma units before purchasing.
Note that any Forma unit you purchase will come with their base skills already. Therefore, there is little need to inherit these base skills during Hall of Forms unless you need to save refinery costs (especially PRF weapons needing Divine Dew) or simply don’t care for hyper-optimal inheritance. They also come completely neutral with no Assets and Flaws, which can be a factor depending on if you care to use Trait Fruits or not.
General Considerations
Forma Unit Rules
- Any Forma unit you purchase will come with their base skills already. Therefore, there is little need to inherit these base skills during Hall of Forms unless you need to save refinery costs (especially PRF weapons needing Divine Dew) or simply don’t care for hyper-optimal inheritance.
- Formas are acquired completely neutral with no Assets and Flaws. If you desire a certain Asset/Flaw combination, you will have to utilize Trait Fruits. Since you cannot merge Forma units into existing copies, this may pose an issue on resource spending if you already have the same unit with an ideal Asset.
Skill Considerations
- When rolling skills from the current Forma skill pool, unique PRF skills are often prioritized over inheritables. It's a good idea to take PRF skills first to improve your chances at finding good inheritable alternatives; Hall of Forms will pretty much constantly hound you to take the PRF skills if you don't take them otherwise.
- Due to their extreme rarity and superior SP value over most other Special skills, Ruptured Sky (typically available only on Byleth and their variations) and Blue Flame (available only on Owain) will vastly be preferred as a final Special choice. For bow-using units, this extends to the bow-exclusive Deadeye.
- For the same reason as above, high-tier Assist skills like Rally+'s and Harsh Command+ are preferred on a potential purchased Forma to increase the unit's Arena scoring slightly as well as their overall value.
- These, too, are also not necessarily optimal as positional Assists like Reposition are vastly preferred in most situations, and those can easily be inherited from lower rarity units like Norne or Barst.
- Inheriting rally skills or Harsh Command+ too early in your Hall of Forms run can also inhibit your unit's ability to support other Forma allies and escape enemy range as well, increasing the likelihood of wasted Torches (the stamina currency for Hall of Forms) and thus wasted opportunities to get better skills.
- Though optimal C Passive skills exist on a case-to-case basis, Joint Drives are essentially the most universal there is as they boost the stats of the unit as well as surrounding allies. Go for these (especially Joint Drive Atk) if available and there aren't better C slot options for your unit in particular.
Special Considerations: Save Skills
Because the Save Skills (such as A/R Far Save or A/D Near Save) currently dominate our meta and have been very difficult to come by, many Summoners are looking to the Hall of Forms to obtain these rare skills in order to keep up. With this HoF having two fairly good armored units to choose from, there are many considerations at play here.
Investment
Beyond skill inheritance, many save units also require significant investment since they are generally frontline tanks. Merges and dragonflowers help Save units quite a bit, and so a unit who you get for free and can purchase with Grails might be more beneficial for a F2P player than a unit who is hard capped at +0 or even +1.
Unfortunately, having a powerful prf weapon also tilts things in Save Unit's favor. Without one, there's simply no way to fit in all the combat requirements we like in order to keep units alive: nullifying enemy follow-ups, ensuring your own follow-ups, debuffing enemy Attack, damage reduction... you name it. Since none of the three armored units in this HoF have prf weapons, you'll have to settle for inheritable weapons paired with armor B slots in order to keep them alive.
Range
The second consideration should be if you want to prioritize Near Save or Far Save. While both melee and ranged units can equip either, it's generally better to try and keep your unit's A slot for a significant combat buff such as Distant Def 4 or Mirror Stance 3. Therefore, you should generally try to keep Near Save on a melee unit (Myrrh in this case) and Far Save on a ranged unit. In this case, Dozla's pretty average Resistance may lead you off the idea (though he's not much less bulkier than the likes of Winter Felix, especially with Courtly Mask) and you can comfortably run a Near Save with Close Counter or Close Foil.
Another thing to consider when looking at ranged units is that Armors cannot inherit Null C-Disrupt. This means that any armor with Far Save automatically is put at a disadvantage vs powerful staff units like Young L'arachel. The best way to counter this is by using a Near-Save armor with a ranged mage buddy who knows Null-C Disrupt.
Color/Meta Viability
This is where things get tricky. There are a dozen 'meta' units in Aether Raids Defense and picking the right unit to counter them all is virtually impossible. With Save units, you can selectively choose melee or ranged engagements, but even then there are quite a few threats for each.
Let's take Myrrh, for example. While she may be able to hold her own against the omnipresent Legendary Sigurd and will destroy Hel with the right kit, she still has a debilitating color weakness vs. Seiros and Nott, two legendary defensive units who are present in most meta setups. For this reason, be prepared to have countermeasures against such enemies despite Myrrh's great performance otherwise.
Dozla, the other armored unit here, is also a nice Savior pick but is not a necessary pickup by any means as you have to deal with some baggage, such as his Resistance needing superinvestment to make his magic tankability a tad more decent. For this reason, his colorless status and resulting lack of advantageous matchups also sometimes benefits him less than, say, Fallen Edelgard.
Halloween Myrrh
Summary:
Some things about Halloween Myrrh fell off quite a bit despite being a top pick back then. Fortunately, a wide list of some almost outright broken Dragon and armor exclusive skills has got you covered for 2021 updating needs, and Myrrh's statline aged pretty darn solidly despite being technically outdone by fellow Halloween-goer Dheginsea.
In particular, if you're lucky enough to get your paws on either of the available Near Save skills, Myrrh's red coloring, high Defense, and nice Attack lend themselves well to a nice Near Savior build. In any case, to make her worth the Soul, try to make Myrrh's kit synergistic as possible — a lot of highly-wanted A-slot and B-slot passives share similar effects.
For example, avoid redundant combinations such as:
- Pale Breath + Atk/Def Unity + Slick Fighter (all provide penalty protection)
- Sturdy Stance 3 + Crafty Fighter / Special Fighter (all provide enemy Special blockage).
Recommended Skills:
Weapons: Pale Breath+, Blackfire Breath+, Glittering Breath+
Assist: Any Rally+ or Harsh Command+
Special: Blue Flame
A-Passive: Close Def 4, Sturdy Stance 3, Distant Counter, Atk/Def Ideal 4, Atk/Def Unity, Atk/Def Bond 4, Bracing Stance 3
B-Passive: Dragon's Ire, Crafty Fighter, Slick Fighter, Dragon Wall, Special Fighter
C-Passive: A/D Near Save, D/R Near Save, Joint Drive Atk, Atk/Res Menace, Atk/Def Menace, Pulse Smoke
Though Spirit Breath is definitely antiquated in this day and age, you don't need to pay too much priority towards replacing it. Her best alternative, Pale Breath, is freely available through the Heroic Grail shop and will only cost you an additional 20,000 feathers and 100 Grails at worst. Blackfire Breath is the next best alternative as it's rare to summon and greatly debilitates the enemy's Atk and Res as long as Myrrh isn't adjacent to her allies. Because of this condition, however, it is antisynergistic with Save skills, and thus you should either change goalposts entirely or go for Pale Breath instead.
Though A/R Far Save can be run and Myrrh's more than decent enough at the distant bodyguard job, Distant Counter in some form is pretty much required to utilize it at all (get Lightning Breath from the regular pool rather than this event if you must). Additionally, note that you'll probably have to compensate for Myrrh's not-all-fantastic Resistance with additional passives, outsourced skills, and possibly running Glittering Breath (a mostly good choice given Myrrh will likely be saving multiple allies nearby). This goes for running Dragon Wall too, since its success is based on how much Resistance Myrrh boasts over her enemy.
As a dragon, Myrrh sadly can't get Ruptured Sky, though Blue Flame tends to work better on her anyway given she typically requires two actions in one turn to get a special off. Even better, it will pretty much always do its max 25 damage when Myrrh's chosen Save skill is active.
I'm sure you're already tired of hearing how great Save skills are, so in case you don't plan on running into those, you can run a host of other conventional tanky passives like Menace or expensive Joint Drives and Smokes. As a result, Myrrh can turn out to be a decent carry unit by her lonesome rather than a Save bodyguard.
Pretty much any of the B-passives listed is a straight upgrade from Myrrh's base Vengeful Fighter, though note that she will require the Quick Riposte Sacred Seal with Dragon Wall and Special Fighter as these skills do not provide a guaranteed follow-up like the others.
Halloween Dozla
Summary:
The underdog pick for this round, and arguably the most flexible unit of the bunch.
Despite his solid inheritance options and statline, Dozla has historically been a bit of a forgotten unit performance-wise. Understandably, all of his base skill fodder is way too good to pass up for the success of other units, and Winter Cecilia presents herself as a free, more conventionally attractive alternative with higher Resistance (a key point for Aether Raid carry units).
This Hall of Forms fortunately provides him the opportunity to grab some neat skills and become a surprisingly utile unit for a variety of modes. In particular, the number of dagger weapons he can run is staggering, and one should keep an eye out for those shiny armor-exclusive Fighters; it affects Dozla's playstyle almost entirely, plus he lacks a B-slot skill by default anyway. Since his Resistance and Speed are somewhat sparse by default, some compensation may be necessary via skills or ally support.
Recommended Skills:
Weapons: Sky Maiougi+, Courtly Mask+, Courtly Fan+, Broadleaf Fan+, Starfish+, Goodie Boot+, Ouch Pouch+, Dusk Uchiwa+, Caltrop Dagger+
Assist: Any Rally+ or Harsh Command+
Special: Ruptured Sky, Blue Flame
A-Passive: Death Blow 4, Close Foil, Close Counter, Distant Def 4, Atk/Def Ideal 4 or Solo 4 or Push 4 or Unity, Atk/Spd Ideal 4 or Solo 4 or Push 4, Atk/Res Unity, Mirror Stance 3
B-Passive: Bold Fighter, Special Fighter, Crafty Fighter, Slick Fighter, Even/Odd Follow-Up
C-Passive: Atk/Def Menace, A/D Near Save, D/R Near Save, A/R Far Save, Joint Drive Atk, Fatal Smoke, Panic Smoke
As mentioned, Dozla's B-slot will mostly dictate what sort of build he'll be running.
Bold Fighter:
Given Dozla's great Attack stat, ranged status, and list of fantastic inheritable weaponry, you pretty much can't go wrong with just running him as a simple Bold Fighter nuke for AR-D and general content. By default, he already comes with the ideal C slot for this exact setup too (Armor March), so all that's left here is considering his A-slot and weapon.
Most Atk-boosting A-passives like Death Blow 4 or Atk/Def or Atk/Spd Push work beautifully here, of course. However, if you manage to score both Atk/Def Menace and an Atk-based Ideal skill, that would be the most preferred combination.
As far as weapons are concerned, go for those that either further stack on Dozla's Attack power (Courtly Fan, Courtly Mask, fully-powered Broadleaf Fan) or come with useful effects (Sky Maiougi tears through armors, while Starfish provides initiation safety with Desperation built-in, etc).
Special Fighter / Crafty Fighter / Slick Fighter + Save:
These Fighters contribute greatly to a more defensive playstyle and are especially far preferred for builds involving Save skills. Far Save should be accompanied with Distant Def 4 or your choice of Stance or Unity to specialize versus ranged enemies, while Close Counter or Close Foil pretty much the jelly to Near Save's peanut butter.
The defensive dagger variety is a bit low, so your choices here are limited to Courtly Mask (the 50% first-hit damage reduction is ultra-appreciated), Ouch Pouch (which works well with Special Fighter for instant Ignis on first retaliation, which can be very nasty on AR-D), or, if this Hall of Forms is really screwing you over, Goodie Boot (which is free and easy to get anyway outside of this event anyway).
Caltrop Dagger (and its seasonal variant) are also notable for their cavalry effectiveness, allowing Dozla to take out cavalry AR-D threats more quickly and efficiently.
Even/Odd Follow-Up:
An odd mix of the previously-mentioned fighters as long as Dozla engages on the appropriate turn. Either can be run as a possible Fighter substitution depending on the build. This sees nice value on Aether Raids Offense in particular as all matchups are basically skewed in Dozla's favor as long as he engages on the right turn and doesn't run into tough enemies with Null Follow-Up.
Halloween L'Arachel
Summary:
With a short list of inheritable weapons and stats that are both "pretty alright" at best (not to mention both of which are beaten out the minute you pull a Winter Bernie or Gunnthra) while having an archetype that generally lacks metagame presence, L'Arachel might have a little trouble making herself worthy of that Forma Soul.
Still, with what she's got already, making a kit consisting of broken and updated skills should get her there pretty quickly, opportunity cost notwithstanding.
Recommended Skills:
Weapons: Plegian Torch+, Amity Blooms+, Gronnfox+, Madness Flask+
Assist: Any Rally+ or Harsh Command+
Special: Ruptured Sky, Blue Flame
A-Passive: Atk/Spd Solo 4 or Catch 4 or Push 4, Fury 4, Swift Sparrow 3
B-Passive: S/R Far Trace, A/R Far Trace, Lull Spd/Res, Lull Atk/Res, Lull Atk/Spd
C-Passive: Atk/Res Menace, Joint Drive Atk, Joint Drive Spd, Rouse Atk/Spd, Fatal Smoke
L'Arachel's low defenses but higher Attack and Speed essentially limit her to offensive builds and skills only.
The top weapon choice to shoot for is Plegian Torch, which grants some legitimately scary stat swings provided that existing visible penalties are in place on the enemy. Plegian Torch also sports generally superior penalties/swings than Amity Blooms, Gronnfox, and Madness Flask, all of which are also easier to acquire (or just comes by default in Madness Flask's case) outside of the event.
Pretty much all the usual high-tier Atk/Spd A-slot passive apply here. Atk/Spd Catch or Solo, in particular, further encourages L'Arachel to make full utilization of Plegian Torch by running debuffs or operating away from allies, respectively. Fury 4 also deserves special mention for stacking with Madness Flasks's recoil, which can allow L'Arachel to become a Wings of Mercy beacon of sorts — she can't do the job as well as Pumpkin-a-Box units due to lacking the dagger-exclusive Disarm Trap, though.
Any Lull or Trace skills you can acquire on L'Arachel is a great choice on her as long as they involve two of Attack, Resistance, or Speed. Similarly, Atk/Res Menace is L'Arachel's best C slot bar little else as it gives her a passive method of buffing herself and debuffing other enemies (which is synergistic with Plegian Torch and Atk/Spd Catch). Don't fret if you can't see it though, as there are perfectly good alternatives like Fatal Smoke and Joint Drives.
Spring Marisa
Summary:
Lance flier. That's, um, great. Gorgeous. Definitely unique.
Now, how could we possibly make that a more awkward investment?
Make it a seasonal lance flier.
Sure, you could gather a bunch of really great and expensive skills here and make the purchase worth the opportunity cost and effort. But, unless you're a dedicated Marisa fan or really starving for an invested lance flier in one go — the only reasons one would seriously go through the Soul — it's easy to see why players would pass this one up. Unlike some precious Forma lance fliers, especially Thea and Tsubasa, she doesn't even have the benefit of accessible merging or a unique and competitive personal weapon, too.
Recommended Skills:
Weapons: Ninja Yari+, Springy Lance+, Flowing Lance+, It's Curtains…+, Gilt Fork+
Assist: Any Rally+ or Harsh Command+
Special: Ruptured Sky, Blue Flame
A-Passive: Atk/Spd Solo 4 or Catch 4 or Push 4, Fury 4, Swift Sparrow 3, Life and Death 4, Heavy Blade 4
B-Passive: Dive-Bomb, S/D Near Trace, A/D Near Trace
C-Passive: Atk/Def Rein, Spd/Def Rein, Atk/Spd Rein, Atk/Def Menace, Joint Drive Atk, Joint Drive Spd, Ground Orders, Tempest skills
Marisa's best chance at being buyable is a straight-up no-frills offensive build. Luckily, lance units and melee fliers are gifted with a variety of fantastic weapons and passives that stack on each other beautifully. Like L'Arachel, pretty much any of the commonly-used offensive Atk/Spd slots apply. For Galeforce builds, you may be interested in Heavy Blade 4 so you don't have to run it in the Sacred Seal.
Dive-Bomb is a rare and coveted combat art on fliers as it quickly builds up follow-up damage. It's only contested by the Near Trace line, which is great for an additional stat swing while providing some nice post-action movement without needing to use Galeforce.
Similarly, most Rein skills are guaranteed to be great on her as long as they obviously don't involve Resistance. Your choice of Tempest (for additional movement), Joint Drives, Menace, or Orders (for movement support) skills are viable C-slot substitutes. To skew Attack comparisons in Marisa's favor for Galeforce and Heavy Blade activation, opt for Atk-based Reins, Near Traces, Menaces, etc.
