Evaluating the new merge system

There are pros and cons to IS' new way of handling merges.

Pro:
- Interesting option to go for neutral as a balanced approach (ex: units with 35/35 offensive stats will probably gain +2 spd and +1 atk on the first merge for 36/37, which might be preferable to 35/39 in some cases)
- On a squishy mage, say, Linde, with her 35/36 offensive spread, neutral IVs bring her to 36/38 which is a nice balanced boost, but she also gains 1HP, which can be the tipping point for surviving one counterattack. I find this possibility quite interesting. I think this comes into play also with Eir, who, of course, is very common with neutral IVs.
- Creates interesting dilemmas for players with bad IVs on a character with good fodder and an extra copy. Do you want 4 more spd on a fast unit, or do you prefer to make a monster out of another unit? Both could be pretty good for the barracks, and you have to choose.

Con:
- Banes are sometimes very strategic, such as forcing opponents to double you using -spd so that you can charge your special or -HP in order to reach certain thresholds for infantry pulse or brazen+desperation (Celica especially with Ragnarok + fury recoil)
- Disadvantageous to gen 1 units who tend to have more HP than gen 2 units, who have it in other stats. Gen 1 units are at a disadvantage as it is due to lower BST and often distributed in such a manner that they are less pungent than their gen 2 counterparts. The last thing we need is to give gen 2 units back the bulk they dumped, making them squishy, while giving gen 1 units back HP which wasn't really helping them. This is very poor of IS from the perspective of game management.
- no longer possible to meme with 9 res on a fully merged Ogma or Bartre until we get L&D seal (but then it could have been 4 res. Screw it just don't merge the guy and have 0 res.)
- feeds the obsessive preoccupation people have with IVs and their pathological inability to accept an undesired bane. I think there's a life lesson to be learned in this microcosm and they're giving people a ticket to insisting on their immaturity.

Unclear or matter of taste, combat aspects:
- speedy mixed tanks like Nowi or Fae +spd might actually become resistant to Aversa, which poses some potential conundrums to players who like using Aversa. +spd Sheena also goes from maybe resistant to likely resistant.
- along similar lines, merged Aversa now has 1HP more than she used to.
- squishy mages (or other ranged units) are a little less squishy than before. I feel neutral about this because in most cases they could always go for -res instead of -def or -HP, which would give them the same physical bulk they have after the update. In any case, merging is supposed to make units less squishy twice as fast as any target gains atk, so I think it's consistent with what merges do, so I consider this a positive.
- A lot of non-armours just moved one step closer to equalling armours in arena score - in fact, the 167BST dragons have arisen to be on a level with the f2p armours. I would say that the absurdity of the arena scoring system has been mitigated very slightly by this change and that this is good.
- Benefits units who use all five stats more than units that don't. (This is along similar lines to the point in the cons section about gen 1 vs gen 2 units.) Probably it's inevitable that some updates will do this; not all units will always be affected equally by any systematic changes. As a case in point, Adrift Corrins are extremely happy about this change. HP was arguably the only good bane, on F.Corrin especially who has 27 neutral res, and their HP is already pretty thin, which is the main downside to these two units. If they had 50HP, they probably just tank everything with healing specials, but when they only have 42-43HP, it's not necessarily enough to cover the heavier hits before healing specials can activate. (Some builds of Soleil have this issue too.) Now they get some HP back, which reduces the main obstacle to their tanking everything. I would say this is a negative change because its main benefit is to units that are borderline OP with the ability to just run everything over with sheer stats. It's the same premise as the point I made in the cons section - these are not the units you want to buff with systematic changes; it's everybody but them.

Unclear or matter of taste, summoning and philosophical aspects:
- Assuming there are two IVs you like (say, +spd -HP and +spd -res, for example), the probability of finding your desired IV in 11 tries has gone from about 2 in 3 to 9 in 10. I personally think 2 in 3 seems like a good balanced number and that 9 in 10 is a little too easy because we should learn to work with suboptimal IVs; others might consider that you should be able to find perfect IVs in 11 tries.
- Creates some new interest in older units for veterans who already have a lot of 5* exclusives. If these units appear on legendary banners or - more likely - if they come off focus, the first merge can be a lot more meaningful than before. But this is arguably a cheap and poor way for IS to try to create interest against the tides of a bad powercreep model.
- Semi-obvious cash grab. "Got a bad IV? Pull another one and you're guaranteed to be able to patch it." But that's an interpretation of a game mechanic they introduced. A more neutral way to look at it is that it's just an option they introduce and that every time we get a unit with a bad bane (or even with neutral IVs) we need to consider whether we summon for another copy to improve our unit or whether we summon for something else. It's actually adding more shades to the question of how to spend 70-200 orbs.
- Choosing a bane is one of the good challenges in the game and a decision that allowed players to exercise their knowledge of the game more fully. Generally, I find that the game is going in a direction where it seems more and more watered down, straightforward, obvious, and I don't think that's good for any game. And I think this is the overarching read on this change which really settles the matter for me - ridding the game of its colour and flavour in favour of "easy," and "comfortable" is not a good thing, so this update is bane more than it is boon.