Meta Changes and Updates 18 (03/03/2023)

This is the monthly blog about changes in the meta for Fire Emblem Heroes (FEH). To know about any units that defined February's meta and any other game changes, read on!

New Content in February

New Weapon Refines

Weapon Refinery Update
Peony				Thrasir				New Year Lethe
Dimitri			Norne			Sigrun			Valentian Catria

New Banners

New Heroes & Ascended Elincia

Active Period: 02/17/2023 ~ 03/06/2023

Who Should You Pull From New Heroes & Ascended Elincia?
Lucia [9.5/10]	Geoffrey [9.0/10]	Bastian [8.5/10]	Ascended Elincia [9.5/10]

A Special Gift

Active Period: 02/07/2023 ~ 03/07/2023

Who Should You Pull From A Special Gift?
Valentine's Takumi [9.0/10]	Valentine's Leo [9.0/10]	Valentine's Hana [9.0/10]	Valentine's Elise [9.5/10]

New Legendary Hero

New Legendary Hero
Legendary Robin (M) [9.5/10]

New Resplendents

02/25 to 03/09	03/10 to 03/24
Innes	Brave Lyn

List of Resplendent Heroes

Are they meta defining?

A lot of meta defining units dropped this February, including Valentine's Elise and Ascended Elincia who introduce offensive Staff Specials into the game with Holy Pressure and Light's Restraint respectively.

They also bring upgrades to Wrathful Staff and Dazzling Staff with the new Poetic Justice and Dazzling Shift skills.

These two units may have started the movement to reintroduce Staff units into the metagame.

February also brough us Lucia, the real 1v1 unit who disables Specials, supports, defensive terrain, effects that change attack priority, and all skills of all allies and foes except her foe in combat.

With Queensblade disabling the above effects and granting both Null Follow-Up and Null C-Disrupt to herself and her foe, she forces combat to be reliant on both stats and equipped skills alone.

Finally, Legendary Robin (M) is a well-rounded Green mage who excels in both offense and support.

He inflicts visible debuffs onto himself, his nearby allies, the closest foe, and all foes within 3 spaces of the closest foe, and then applies 【Grand Strategy】 to himself and his nearby allies.

Robin stacks two Unity effects with both 【Grand Strategy】 and Part of the Plan, turning those visible stat penalties into large stat swings during combat.

Meta Changes

Arena

Meta Units

Meta Units
Legendary Nanna [9.5/10]	Legendary Robin (M) [9.5/10]	Legendary Claude [9.5/10]	Lumera [9.0/10]

It is currently an Earth Season month and these are the heroes we expect to see the most in Arena aside from the usual suspects like Valentine's Chrom, New Year Peony, and Ninja Corrin (F).

Legendary Nanna is the best Earth Legendary hero in our opinion, with her amazing tankbusting prowess through her true damage effect and shutting down damage reduction and defensive Specials.

Legendary Robin (M) is the newest Earth Legendary hero and the bonus Legendary for the month. He inflicts visible debuffs onto himself, his nearby allies, the closest foe, and all foes within 3 spaces of the closest foe, and then applies 【Grand Strategy】 to himself and his nearby allies, turning those penalties into massive stat swings.

Legendary Claude is old compared to these other two Legendary heroes, but his utility is still amazing. As a Flying unit, his mobility excels in combat, and his Fallen Star exclusive skill makes him incredibly sturdy while applying 【Gravity】 to his foes.

Lumera was also listed as a notable unit on the previous Meta Blog, but her addition into the Heroic Grail shop on the March update will propel her higher as she is a popular merge project. Her Monarch Blade grants a flat Spd+3, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5 during combat, applies a Guard effect onto the foe, deals damage equal to 15% of Lumera's Spd, and applies Spd-based damage reduction up to 40%.

Together with her impressive base 43 Atk and Spd, she is a fantastic free unit with most of the effects that fast units would ever need. She is missing an accelerated Special trigger, but this can be worked around by equipping quick charge Specials.

How to Counter

Legendary Nanna is an amazing offensive unit, but her bulk is rather lackluster. Simply allow her to approach without engaging, and then defeat her on player phase.

Legendary Robin (M) applies stat debuffs to the closest foe and all foes within 3 spaces. To counter this, you can isolate the unit that Robin's AI is targetting and move the other units away from that unit. Alternatively, you can field units that neutralize penalties, or have Unity effects to reverse those penalties.

Legendary Claudes 【Fallen Star】 status is only applied after his first attack. Before this, he is a frail unit who can be easily taken down by most good offensive units.

Lumera does not have a Distant Counter effect and no accelerated Special trigger, leaving her prone to be attacked by ranged units without fear of her activating her Special for extra damage.

She can be equipped with these skills, but that would hinder her performance by losing her valuable A slot which is home to the best skills for speedy infantry units like Atk/Spd Finish 4 and Atk/Spd Ideal 4. A speedy unit without these skills (or similar) on their A slots are significantly worse than those with said skills. Having less Atk/Spd reduces Lumera's true damage and damage reduction, and can lead to her being outsped by her foes.

Aether Raids

Meta-Defining Units

Meta Units
Fomortiis [9.5/10]	Gotoh [9.0/10]	Arval [9.5/10]	Embla [9.5/10]

The Aether Raids meta has not changed since the introduction of Fomortiis and Gotoh.

Fomortiis

Fomortiis is a tanky Anima Mythic hero with multiple effects that hinder offensive raiding parties immensely.

What makes Fomortiis a pain to face in battle is his exclusive A skill Nightmare. This skill inflicts Atk/Def-10 on his foe during combat and reduces damage from his foe's first attack by 30%.

More importantly, after combat, Nightmare ends the turn of the closest foes within 4 spaces of the foe who attacked him. This is an amazing effect which indirectly improves his survival by receiving less attacks, and the 4 space condition makes it a difficult skill to play around. Galeforce teams will require careful positioning in order to avoid this effect.

Fomortiis' status as an Armored Defense Mythic hero allows him to fulfill the Savior role without taking up a valuable non-Mythic hero slot in Aether Raids Defense team compositions. He can equip Savior skills and protect the team from powerful initiators, while the rest of his team can be fully geared towards offensive performance.

While Duma is another Armored Defense Mythic, his C slot is occupied by Upheaval+, which is the primary reason to field Duma. Fomortiis doesn't have an exclusive skill in his C slot, allowing him to equip Savior skills while fulfilling his non-Savior role.

His overall bulk is impressive, with base 46 HP, 46 Def, and 44 Res. As of the time of his release, his base 46 Def is the highest in the entire game, and his base 44 Res is the second highest. He will need these stats in order to fulfill his role, as he will not receive Mythic blessing bonuses due to being a Mythic hero himself.

Gotoh

Gotoh is a Light Mythic hero which fulfills two roles as support and a Magic tank.

His Brilliant Starlight grants Def/Res+6 and 80% damage reduction against area-of-effect Specials to himself and his nearby allies at the start of each turn. This allows his team to reliably withstand area-of-effect Special damage from skills like Gifted Magic and Blazing Flame.

As for his combat potential, his exclusive A skill Gift of Magic inflicts Atk/Res-10 on his foe, grants him a guaranteed follow-up attack, and has a similar effect to refined Urvan where it grants him 80% damage reduction on consecutive attacks received after the first while forcing his foe to make all of his/her attacks consecutively.

Gift of Magic paired with his amazing Res and above average Def allows Gotoh to tank some hits and survive, allowing the raider to collect the Aether resources before clearing the map.

Arval

Arval isn't a new hero, but they are the third unit in the color-sharing trio on Fomortiis and Gotoh's banner, giving players a great opportunity to acquire more Arval copies.

Rite of Souls is the main reason to field Arval in your Defense teams. It accelerates Special trigger, inflicts 【Guard】 on foes within 3 rows or 3 columns at the start of turn, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5 to Arval during combat, deals true damage equal to 20% of Arval's Res, and denies their foe's follow-up attacks.

Applying 【Guard】 to multiple enemies discourages enemy phase strategies by preventing Specials from being triggered, encouraging a player phase strategy. Paired with Fomortiis, the two can protect each other's weaknesses, making the Defense team truly formidable.

While Elimine's Staff of the Saint can nullify Rite of Souls, Arval's base 43 Res and base Still Water 4 make applying 【False Start】 very difficult.

Embla

Embla still warps Light/Dark season by being the Mythic to prepare multiple teams for.

Her exclusive C skill Severance inflicts 【Undefended】 and 【Feud】 on all foes within 3 columns or 3 rows centered on Embla at the start of the turn, shutting off Savior skills and rendering supports useless.

Players have begun fielding two Emblas, with one in column 2 and the other in column 5. This setup inflicts 【Undefended】 and 【Feud】 onto all six columns, effectively shutting down Save balls from the start.

Cavlines have been the main teammates of an Embla composition, with their extended range allowing instant offense on turn one. With the Emblas shutting off support and Savior, the Cavalry units have no trouble picking off the weaker members of raiding parties.

How to Counter

Fomortiis has different counters depending on his build.

The Far Save build requires reaching enemy phase turn one in order to transform and activate his Distant Counter effect. Field an aggressive raiding party and use a powerful ranged unit to defeat him on turn one while he cannot counterattack. Nightmare's end-turn effect won't trigger if Fomortiis falls in combat.

The Near Save build is trickier to defeat, especially if he is equipped with Hardy Fighter 3. We recommend fortifying your team's survival against aggressive compositions like Cavlines and leaving Fomortiis as the last unit.

Gotoh protects his team from area-of-effect damage, but doesn't protect against other pre-charged Specials.

Instead of area-of-effect Specials, equip single target Specials like Glacies and Dragon Fang instead. Defeating one enemy usually leads to a surrender anyway, ensuring you do not lose Lift.

Arval's Rite of Souls can be shut down by a properly built Elimine. Change her boon to +Res and equip skills that boost visible Res like Still Water 4 or Fort. Def/Res 3, and pair those with Phantom Res 3.

Embla shuts down Savior balls, and is often fielded on a Cavline team. These teams have powerful offensive options, but they all lack bulk.

Ensure you field an offensive raiding party in Light season such as Galeforce or Hit and Run. Using these teams, you can pick off most of the enemy units on turn one and then either retreat or unit block the remaining enemies in order to collect Aether resources on future turns.

Summer Edelgard is an amazing unit to field against Embla Cavlines, with her ability to act up to three times in one turn with Raging Storm and Galeforce. Equip self-recoil skills like Fury on her A and Sacred Seal slots, and bring a handful of units that can act multiple times in one turn with Wings of Mercy 3 equipped in order to sweep the map and keep your units safe.

Alternatively, a Vantage strategy can be fielded against these teams in order to prevent knockouts on any of your raiding party units.

Use a unit with high Atk, equip Vantage 3 or similar skills onto them, and move them forward. If using Vantage, ensure that they are under the HP threshold and that none of the enemy units can bypass it through the use of Hardy Bearing or sweep effects.

Finally, consider bringing an Omnitank unit and move them forward into the line of fire. This unit should be incredibly self-sufficient and capable of withstanding multiple attacks from different foes.

As of the time of this post, Brave Dimitri is in the Hall of Forms. He is arguably the best Omnitank in the game with his multiple damage reduction effects, one of which is true damage reduction. If you have trouble against Embla teams, we highly recommend using a Forma Soul to acquire a fully built Brave Dimitri.

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