The Asgardr Report - 6th Edition: January 2022

The Asgardr Report aims to provide high-level Fire Emblem Heroes content on a regular basis. Each article will contain 3-4 topics related to the end-game content of the game; Aether Raids (Offense & Defense, Arena and Summoner Duels. 

For the first edition of the Asgardr’s report in 2022, we would first discuss some of the common units you encounter in Summoner Duels and how you could deal with them. In the second half of the report, we would move to Aether Raids Defense likely for the last time where we touch upon the unfortunate state of it and why it would probably stay that way. 

In this segment, we would focus on units or skills that the author thinks are new and going to be meta-relevant moving forward due to the updates introduced in the game. For this month, this segment would cover all the content introduced for the month. 

New Year Dagr

New Year Dagr is our first source of Pathfinder that isn’t a Mythic (Dagr as a Light Mythic, Nott as a Dark Mythic). This meant that it is now possible to run a team that revolves around Pathfinder in Anima Defense. However, being a normal unit does mean that in terms of actual pressure in combat, Dagr needs to be assessed more rigorously compared to the likes of Nott or any other defensive Mythic for that matter due to the lack of stat bonuses as a Mythic unit. 

This comes to the biggest issue with Dagr; as a green unit, there is pressure to at the very least beat Brave Hector, which is one of the most prominently used offensive units in the game. This issue is also briefly touched upon in the Tier List update in January. Effects based on bonuses from the likes of Dagr is difficult to activate reliably due to the lack of accessible Null Panic defensively (Rouse 4 is not available on Fliers either), and Dagr hitting for physical does not help when Brave Hector’s physical bulk is the more significant of the 2. While under minimal support, Dagr should beat Brave Hector, this pretty much goes out of the window the moment considerable support is considered on the offensive end.

Perhaps a more apt approach would be to look at New Year Dagr’s application in Aether Raids Offense rather than Defense. The bonus-based effect such as her weapon is much easier to activate offensively, which meant that Dagr’s weapon becomes a giant stat stick that can be difficult to shut down. Essentially, she now becomes a more offensive version of Legendary Claude; she makes up for the lack of Gravity and Damage Reduction by having brute-force firepower, which can be relevant against some of the most durable Far Save Tank. Pathfinder is an extra bonus for further engagement similar to the normal Mythic Dagr but is less integral as part of the strategy as a whole.

Lastly, New Year Dagr’s Duo Skill is exceedingly powerful on Summoner Duels due to the potential extension of threat ranges. When activated, if the other player had no way of dealing with even 1 nuke, it could spell extreme danger as the Dagr user could activate the Duo Skill to potentially extend the said nuke’s threat range to the very front. This includes units such as Brave Alm, Lethality Yuri, and Area-of-Effect units in general.

Fury 3 Seal

The presence of the Fury 3 seal unlocks a lot of strategies that were previously not possible. Any strategies that revolve around HP thresholds such as Galeforce with Wings of Mercy and Vantage can now consider the seal as part of their strategy. For example, Ninja Lyn before would need to be unmerged, take a flaw in HP and only 2 Mythics in order to be used effectively as she can get into the Wings of Mercy threshold in 3 combats. Now, this can be done even at max merges and 3 mythic so long as Ninja Lyn uses the Fury 3 seal. Another case in point; units such as Altina can also get into the Vantage range immediately upon taking the recoil damage from Fury 4 on her A slot and Fury 3 seal. 

The above are just quick examples, so long as there is an HP condition, the Fury seal will always be part of the considerations. We are eager to see more creative use of the seal in the near future. 

Hatari Azura

Hatari Azura being a harmonic unit that is not Legendary meant that Gray Waves on Aether Raids Defense is no longer locked to Water Season. This meant that the movement shenanigans from Gray Waves can now be used throughout all seasons so long as Hatari Azura is blessed. As also seen by the likes of Masquerade Sigurd, a 3 movement dancer is a double-edged sword; she can be used to potentially set up Turn 1 traps, but Azura’s high attack and threat range could be an issue as she could potentially be baited out should she deal more than 5 damage in the damage preview.

Specifically for the Turn 1 trap, Gray Waves does mean that Infantry and Fliers can now be part of the Turn 1 trap so long as the said unit has enough firepower to break through tanks. Specifically, a 2-range infantry/flier can now be used as a 3-movement nuke, which is really helpful for space denial set-ups. 

Offensively, she pairs extremely well with the likes of Ninja Corrin due to having the same movement as her while also having the Harmonic skill to refresh Corrin. Other than that, Gray Wave’s utility is surprisingly mild as Dance is usually used after attacking, which meant that the extra movement is probably not necessary as chances are the nuke is already inside the nuke’s attack range.

Her utility in Summoner Duels is fairly clear-cut as well; use Gray Waves as a potential way to close in on the foe with the extra movement. Being a cavalry also meant that it is possible for Azura to run the Pulse Tie skills, although that would take some investment to trigger it reliably as Azura’s base HP is fairly low. 

Mythic Elimine

The effect of Elimine will be discussed in the last section.

Other news

• Summoner Duel Skills had a refresh, and Quick Draw is broken.
• Ascendant Joshua is released that is able to either block counter or do true damage depending on his positioning. The main application is likely to be in duels where he had more control in his attack positioning.
• Riev is released as a Grand Hero Battle unit. He is a relatively decent support unit while not being absolutely terrible in combat. Should players be struggling against the likes of Brave Alm and Legendary Sigurd, Riev is a worthwhile consideration. 
• ATK/SPD Form is now released, which can be pretty helpful for some of the nukes in Aether Raids Defense. Could also be useful for enemy-phase should bulk not be a primary concern. 
• We have our very first instance of double chill skill in the form of Chill SPD/RES. This could potentially allow for more granular control in terms of the target to debuff. We look forward to the release of more double chill skills for more specific scenarios, such as Chill ATK/DEF against melee specialists. 

The Asgardr’s Hall of Fame is a form of recognition for units that fulfills either of the following 2 requirements.

1. The unit is sufficiently common in Aether Raids Offense strategies and performs at a sufficiently high level.
2. The unit performs at an exceptional level even if they are less accessible without a steep learning curve. 

Updates

Winter Altina and Micaiah are removed due to a significant drop-off with usage as more and more players gravitate towards using strategies revolving around the Savior skills. Brave Ike despite its drop-off in capabilities continues to see some play, so he retains his spot for now. 

While Flayn shares remarkable similarities with Elimine, she retains her spot as she is likely to still be one of the commonly used supports for any Savior-based strategies.

Hinoka (WF) and Muspell are both added to the Hall of Fame. Hinoka provides a huge stat swing that can be used effectively by many physical units while not overlapping with Elimine in terms of effects compared to Flayn, and Muspell is just an aggressive support to ensure that the foes are taken out much more easily.

Hatari Azura is added due to the refresh capabilities that work well with predominantly Fates characters such as Azura and Ninja Corrin. 

Updates

It has been 1 month since the release of Summoner Duels, and a distinct meta has emerged as players had the natural tendency of gravitating towards the units that allows them to get the most victories. We should now have sufficient data on the things that people tend to gravitate towards.

Horses; The 2 Extremes

Since the inception of the mode, there had been 4 rotations of the maps, namely Long River, Bridges, On Slopes, and Walls and Trees (W&T). Out of the 4 maps, Bridges is extremely favorable for cavalry due to the extremely short distance between the 2 players, while On Slope and W&T are extremely unfavorable for the said movement type due to their trench placements.

While units such as Legendary Sigurd and Brave Eirika are rather common on the first 2 maps, these units struggled quite a bit if the map is not to favor of the movement type. Trenches are particularly damning for Canto on horses as they take up multiple movements, which meant the possibility of mistakes from the retreat movement of Canto is rather high. 

 The main way to bypass trenches would be the use of Pathfinder, which does allow cavalry to bypass the terrain without any movement cost. This makes any of the Jotun sisters (Nott, Dagr, and her New Year form) one of the more useful partners should there be a desire to use cavalry units.

While the Cavalry shenanigans are largely curbed by terrain, unfortunately, that does not mean that 3 movement-ranged foes are eradicated, because… 

Yuri is literally everywhere

Yeah, I know.  Especially at the higher favor levels of the game mode, it is almost a given to see a Yuri every now and then, and who could blame them? Yuri is the only 3 movement that is ranged and not inhibited by the terrain woes. Coupled with special charges for powerful specials such as Lethality and Blazing Wind, Yuri is a huge menace to face in Summoner Duels. 

However, only facing Yuri as the dominant threat does open up for specific counters. Triangle Adept and Raventomes for example are excellent checks for Lethality variants to outright reduce the damage done by him, although prudence will still be necessary against Area-of-Effect variants. Hardy Fighter also works fairly well against Yuri by either reducing the Lethality damage by a percentage amount or totally negating the damage done from the in-combat attacks of Area-of-Effects.

The other solution is actually using Vantage. Unless Yuri rocks the sweep skills such as Watersweep or Windsweep, Yuri usually will not bring any form of Vantage prevention as Yuri is usually built with maximum damage in mind. Using Winter Bernadetta could potentially allow you to set up Turn 1 Vantage strategies, although one should probably still watch out for the Hardy Bearing tech option against Vantage strategies.

Pulse Tie Shenanigans

It is also known that Pulse Tie is pretty useful in 2 ways; removing the special charges of defensive specials that derived from Hardy Fighter, and removing a specific nuke that might cause a problem in the team. Similar to Aether Raids Defense, there is also the possibility of soaking the Pulse Tie by fielding a lower HP unit with an instantly charged special. Another option would be to only charge specials from Turn 2 onwards. Some ways include New Year Alfonse’s Duo Skill and the Captain Skill Secret Maneuver from the previous rotation. 

To Save or Not to Save?

Running a Save skill provides the team some defensive capabilities, although it is usually an expense to another nuke. The main case in which Saves skills are useful is if a player goes 2nd; the player who goes first tends to have the more offensive positioning, which allows him to likely land the first strike. Should a player not run a Save Skill, he might be forced to either go on the defensive or start taking trades from the other player as he inevitably enters into the attack range. Using a Save skill does mean that the user can potentially enter into the attack range without risking their damage dealers. 

Saves are not the only solution for this problem however; one could probably out-pressure the opponent through the use the sheer movement. This includes effects such as Pathfinder, Ash’s Opening Retainer, Yuri’s Foul Play, and Astrid’s Damiell Bow. Right now, Hardy Fighter Far Saves are particularly popular to shut down the foe’s damage dealers, but it is hard to say for certain if this will persist in the future should the nukes be too hard to handle. 

Disclaimer: While I usually try to keep things objective, this section will be more based on my opinions. As always, please feel free to disagree. 

With the release of Elimine, it is yet another blow to the defensive side of the metagame, as False Start is an extremely powerful effect that disables pretty much a third of the skills in the game. Most noteworthily, it singlehandedly disables 2 commonly used units on Aether Raids Defense; Bridal Catria (removal of Triangle Attack) and Legendary Sigurd (removal of Quickened Pulse and Holy Knight Aura’s additional movement). 

While Elimine’s debuffs are based on a RES-check, most of these units simply lack the RES stat to keep up with Elimine and relying on buffs and debuffs is also not reliable as Elimine can also choose to False Start the debuff wielder to allow Elimine to win the stat check again. Lastly, it also disables any form of cooldown acceleration, which includes Infantry Pulse, Shield Pulse, Time’s Pulse, and even Hardy Fighter. The sheer versatility of False Start is extremely favorable to the attacker and the total opposite for the defense. 

Personally, I believe that it is not in the developer’s interest to create a powerful game state for the defensive side of the mode. Simply put, it is not to the benefit of the bottom line. It is not a long while ago that the defensive side of the metagame is overbearing for the players (Legendary Sigurd + Pathfinder). The impact that it had on the general populace is damning, to say the least. It essentially forced the Safety Fence into existence, which alleviated some of the issues against the Turn 1 archetype that people mostly hated. 

In theory, such frustrations could potentially lead to people just giving up the mode outright (which still is the case looking at Summoner Duels), which does potentially mean lower spending overall. Whereas, not winning on defense is not as painful in comparison as it is not the player that is controlling the team. While it is possible to manipulate how the game controls the units, it is not absolute control and it is easy for the players to blame the game for making stupid mistakes. 

Furthermore, looking into the lens of a top player, there is zero incentive for pulling for merges or even just 1 copy on defensive mythic units. This is because these players are so high on lift that their season is pretty much dead the moment they lose a single lift as they strive for a perfect season. For them, losing 20 lift less simply does not change anything, be it from bonuses or from merges. The proportion of large spenders at the top echelon is significantly higher than the general populace, which meant that these players in theory should have more influence on the bottom line of the developers. This could potentially explain the extremely poor performance of Otr on his debut banner (or it could just be because it’s Otr, it’s up in the air for this one). 

While the sample size of mythic banners is still small, it seems that there is a general reluctance of releasing defensive mythic units. For the past year (February 2021 to January 2022), there has been 1 Dark Mythic (Nott) and 1 Anima Mythics (Otr), compared to 3 Light Mythics (Ash, Ullr, Dagr) and 3 Astra Mythics (Thorr, Ashera, Elimine). This reluctance could also be seen by the general attitude towards structures; people had been complaining about the Bolt Tower being too ridiculous, but nothing is done to stop it outside of playing whack-a-mole with Catapult and sometimes Duma (which can be disabled by False Start, how splendid).

Hence, this is why the author thinks that Aether Raids Defense is probably dead for good.  It is of the author’s opinion that the developer simply does not want the defensive side of Aether Raids to be dominating due to the stress it exerts on the players. It is the lesser evil to make the mode easy enough for players to pick up so that at the very least players would pull for offensive merges. There also had been some evidence to prove the above statements in the previous paragraph.

While that is a sour note to end the report, we hope you enjoyed this month’s edition of the Asgardr Report.

For February's issue of the Asgardr Report, I (Maskilraid) will not be around due to personal commitments. The report will be handled by another writer for the month of February. Once again, thank you for your support, and as for myself, I will see you all again soon.