Introduction
For this iteration of Hall of Forms, we have a pretty colorful lineup with units from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. Notably, all units featured are five-star exclusive. So, if you're picking a Forma unit from this bunch, you'll likely be sticking with that one copy unless you're also planning on pulling more merges from their rerunning banners. 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 and Menace skills are essentially the most universal there is. Go for these (Joint Drive Atk, at minimum) if available and there aren't better C slot options for your unit in particular.
L'Arachel
Summary:
A year and a half after her debut, Young L'Arachel is still considered the cream of the healer crop. With Atk and Spd superior to the rest of the healer competition (at this time of writing, 37/38 outclasses every other offensively-inclined healer) as well as a personal staff with strong offensive properties, L'Arachel nearly puts current competition out of the picture. She does have pretty terrible defenses, but this is merely a universal case for many other healers, and she can skirt by this setback with the anti-counterattacking effects inflicted by Staff of Rausten. By these positives alone, L'Arachel is an amazing unit that is likely worth a Forma Soul, especially if you don't have a copy of her yet.
Given that L'Arachel already comes with a pretty prebuilt kit with rare and powerful skills upon summoning her, she's a rather fail-safe choice in this Hall of Forms — you can simply equip all her default skills even with the most terrible skill rolls.
The only high-priority task here, then, would simply be filling in her C-slot with a rare and useful skill, then perhaps making extremely optional sidegrades / improvements to her already-solid defaults.
Recommended Skills:
Weapons: Staff of Rausten
Assist: Return+, Rescue+, Nudge+
Special: Windfire Balm+ (or any other premium Balm+)
A-Passive: Atk/Spd Catch 4, Still Water 4, Atk/Spd Solo 4, Atk/Spd Push 4
B-Passive: Dazzling Staff, S/R Far Trace
C-Passive: Atk/Spd Menace, Rouse Atk/Spd, Joint Drive Spd, Joint Drive Atk, Odd Recovery, Even Recovery
As a disclaimer, it's really, really difficult to recommend anything much on a princess of light that's literally prebuilt with everything she could ever want:
- Staff of Rausten makes L'Arachel an absolute unit as-is.
- Rescue+ is a rare and useful heal that safely draws allies away from enemy attack range.
- Windfire Balm+ is also rare and useful with no particularly game-changing swap-outs.
- Atk/Spd Push 4 is a basic but effective and modern stat boost.
- S/R Far Trace grants Canto movement while directly improving L'Arachel's follow-up potential and damage output.
Basically, the largest priority task here is equipping literally anything remotely decent in her C-slot. Being a cavalry healer, this narrows down to a few choices: L'Arachel can further improve on her awesome offenses with a Menace, Rouse, or Joint Drive, or potentially include herself on Aether Raids Defense setups with the penalty-cleansing, setup enabling utilities of Even or Odd Recovery. After that, it's only sidegrades or miniscule improvements for the rest of the build.
Above everything else, Staff of Rausten is one of the main reasons you'd be deploying L'Arachel over any other healer, so we're investing absolutely zero thought in replacing it. L'Arachel's A-slot, on the other hand, has room for a little improvement as Push 4's recoil and HP threshould can be inconvenient at times. Atk/Spd Catch, in particular, synergizes very well with the penalties inflicted by Staff of Rausten and thus can reach its maximum Atk/Spd ceiling of +9 versus full-health enemies. Still Water is a distinctive choice since it boosts L'Arachel's Atk by 7 visibly, thus improving her heals, though sadly it doesn't do the same for her follow-up potential. Finally, Atk/Spd Solo 4 is the only other A-slot L'Arachel can access as a healer; its positioning can be a tad unwieldy, but L'Arachel can easily activate it with her extended cavalry movement, and it doesn't inflict recoil like Push.
For the sake of alternative options, you can seek functionally equal alternatives to L'Arachel's healing Assist and Special, and B-slot. Nudge and Return have their own unique positional benefits, and perhaps several potential allies may appreciate the stat boosts of other Balm+ versions than Windfire's Atk/Spd +6. Though potentially redundant with the anti-counterattacking status inflicted by Staff of Rausten, Dazzling Staff allows L'Arachel to make safe initiations against all other foes (except, of course, those with Null C-Disrupt) rather than the nearest one her staff usually chooses.
Selena
Summary:
Selena is a pretty solid unit with an unfortunate history of being overshadowed. This is more in part due to being part of a largely unnecessary archetype in Heroes PVP rather than powercreep from fellow blue tome cavalry — although Reinhardt IS low-rarity and easily mergeable while Spring Delthea lives up to her title of Prodigy …a little too hard.
Regardless, Selena is a potent and low-maintenance pickup with solid offenses, pretty good options between cavalry exclusive skills, high threat range, and a tome with Null Follow-Up built-in.
Recommended Skills:
Weapons: Tome of Storms
Assist: Any Rally+ or Harsh Command+
Special: Ruptured Sky, Blue Flame
A-Passive: Atk/Spd Catch 4, Atk/Spd Solo 4, Atk/Spd Push 4, Swift Sparrow 3
B-Passive: Windsweep, S/R Far Trace, A/R Far Trace, A/S Far Trace
C-Passive: Atk/Spd Menace, Spd/Res Menace, Atk/Res Menace, Rouse Atk/Spd, Joint Drive Spd, Joint Drive Atk, Panic Smoke, Fatal Smoke
Selena's unique Tome of Storms is hard to swap out, considering its superior offensive boosts and built-in Null Follow-Up effect rules out the use case of most other blue tome inheritables. Said NFU effect also makes Windsweep a standardly valuable option on her, as she is able to disable counterattacks from slower physical enemies entirely without killing her ability to follow-up. Due to Selena's low bulk, getting Windsweep as the B-passive is far preferred to the usual Far Trace recommendations we've been used to seeing on other cavalry units nowadays; regardless, the Traces are great and expensive combat options whereas Windsweep is easily acquired from Heroic Grail units.
Selena's default Life and Death 4 will usually work out fine for her as the combination of Tome of Storms and Windsweep prevents physical counterattacks anyway. If you prefer a sturdier Selena in emergencies or if Windsweep is not taken, though, there are a bunch of great Atk/Spd A-slots she can take; Atk/Spd Catch 4, for instance, offers a potentially higher stat boost ceiling of +9.
Finally, like L'Arachel, Selena wants her missing C-slot to be best filled in by a variety of self-boosting options like Atk/Spd Menace or Joint Drives, though Selena's playstyle does allow safe usage of penalty-infliction options such as Panic and Fatal Smoke.
Selena comes equipped by default with Rally Atk/Res+ upon summoning, so little thought should be spared for both her weapon and Assist in general throughout all building considerations
Joshua
Summary:
Summer Joshua is a generic seasonal bow unit with pretty great (but not modernly exceptional) Atk and Spd stats and actually pretty alright mixed defenses. With the number of fantastic bow inheritables and infantry goodies he has access to, he's more than able to make great shots in your barracks with the right build.
With the increasing number of bow units matching Joshua's statline and being able to access the same tools as him, though, picking him up would be more of a favor of love (or collection purposes) than an act of necessity.
Recommended Skills:
Weapons: Whitecap Bow+, Ninja Yumi+, Plegian Bow+, Spendthrift Bow+
Assist: Any Rally+ or Harsh Command+
Special: Deadeye, Ruptured Sky, Blue Flame
A-Passive: Atk/Spd Ideal 4, Swift Sparrow 3, Atk/Spd Push 4, Atk/Spd Solo 4, Sturdy Impact, Mirror Impact, Fury 4, Flashing Blade 4
B-Passive: Spd/Def Tempo, Lull Spd/Def, Lull Atk/Def, Lull Ak/Spd, Null Follow-Up, Special Spiral
C-Passive: Time's Pulse, Atk/Spd Oath 4, Atk/Spd Menace, Atk/Def Menace, Spd/Def Menace, Rouse Atk/Spd, Joint Drive Spd, Joint Drive Atk, Spd Smoke 4, Inf. Null Follow-Up
A lot of previously underwhelming bow units have recently gotten their break with Whitecap Bow's ability to potentially attack twice paired with great offensive boosts, and Joshua's definitely more than happy to take it up as a direct upgrade to his default Coral Bow. Ninja Yumi is a similarly good second choice; it has weaker DPS, though its Brave effect is guaranteed versus faster enemies. Finally, Joshua's defenses are generally okay enough to consider Plegian and Spendthrift Bow as choices on more sturdier builds — you should use them as an avenue to bulky offensive playstyles rather than run the usual tanky builds associated with them, though.
Deadeye is a good Special to increase the value of your Joshua forma; it's rare, limited to bow units, busts past damage reduction, and generally pairs well with Special accelerating techniques like Whitebow's brave hits, Special Spiral, Time's Pulse, and/or Flashing Blade 4. Otherwise, it's not too terribly essential, as revamping Joshua's entire Passive kit altogether is a far higher priority for a better combat unit. For that goal precisely, you'll want to watch out for offense-boosting A-passives such as Atk/Spd Ideal or Swift Sparrow 3, and C-passives like Atk/Spd Oath 4 and Menace. The Impacts are generally acceptable for bulkier builds and can be paired with skills such as Null Follow-Up, Lull Atk/Spd, and Atk/Spd Menace for added unit stability.
Miscellaneously, Inf. Null Follow-Up is an extremely valuable but rare support skill that's new to Hall of Forms. The sheer ability to even give Null Follow-Up to someone else and free up their B-slot for other skills is something you'll seriously want to consider sacrificing a selfish C-skill for.
Lyon
Summary:
The Demon King stands to gain the most from this Hall of Forms overall. His base kit has a ton of room for improvement (Null C-Disrupt is pretty good, but Bonus Doubler and Rouse Atk/Res 3 definitely are sore spots), and Lyon simply needs an overhaul to keep up with the rest of the game's threats.
Unfortunately, it will definitely be a good while before Blood Tome receives its refinery update and thus bettering Lyon's non-ranged combat overall, so we're potentially shooting a few shots in the dark here. At the end of the day, Lyon will still largely have to deal with some of the pitfalls of being a slow green mage with no guaranteed follow-up tricks — not to mention Limstella is free and powerful.
Recommended Skills:
Weapons: Snow Globe+, Amity Blooms+, Plegian Torch+, Gronnvulture+, Blood Tome
Assist: Any Rally+ or Harsh Command+
Special: Ruptured Sky, Blue Flame
A-Passive: Mirror Stance 3, Atk/Res Ideal 4, Atk/Res Solo 4, Atk/Res Unity, Distant Def 4, Close Reversal, Close Foil, Def/Res or Atk/Def versions of previous recommendations
B-Passive: Lull Atk/Res, Special Spiral, Quick Riposte
C-Passive: Atk Smoke 4, Time’s Pulse, Pulse Smoke, Joint Dist. Guard, Joint Drive Atk, Joint Drive Res, Atk/Res Menace, Def/Res Menace
Unlike the other PRF holders, Fallen Lyon isn't particularly beholden to his own tome at the moment. Blood Tome's combat benefits only apply to ranged enemies — thus limiting the scope of things he can actually fight if given the chance — and doesn't offer additional combat stats necessary to fight off modern threats. Until Blood Tome receives its refinery update, the Demon King is happy to run with some pretty good enemy phase-oriented inheritables, including Snow Globe, Amity Blooms, and either Gronnvulture or its seasonal version.
The rest of Lyon's preferred skill rollout is standard slow mage waters. Various A-slot skills of the Atk, Def, and Res-flavored fare will suit Lyon depending on your preferred stat focuses. Lyon already comes equipped with a valuable B-slot skill — Null C-Disrupt — upon earning him, and his next best choice, Quick Riposte, is easily inherited from low-rarity units (though it IS good in HoF for securing kills), so this narrows down potential luxury choices to either Lull Atk/Res or Special Spiral. Finally, Lyon lacks follow-up negation tactics, so Atk Smoke 4 is the golden goose of all possible C-slot choices; it's otherwise fair game between mostly a bunch of Joint Drives and Menaces. For improved player or mixed phase damage, it's best to run Gronnvulture or Plegian Torch with Atk/Res Menace and Ideal or Solo.
Miscellaneously, Inf. Null Follow-Up is an extremely valuable but rare support skill that's new to Hall of Forms. The sheer ability to even give Null Follow-Up to someone else and free up their B-slot for other skills is something you'll seriously want to consider sacrificing a selfish C-skill for.
