I Need Summoning Advice

It's all probability. You could get them after 500 orbs have been used or you can get them on your first pull. If you want a specific character, summon only from those stones. Eg. If you want hinoka, summon only blue colored orbs. Good luck!

I feel your pain. I've had bad luck on every banner since Alm/Celica's Army except for Nohrian Summer. I didn't pull a single focus unit during Hero Fest, CYL, or the most recent TT banner. I did get two focus units out of Sacred Stones...two Seths with bad IVs. Honestly, it's starting to drag down my interest in the game. So many fun new units locked away with their fun new abilities (granted, one free CYL unit and TT reward Black Knight were great).

In any case, I don't know. Personally I shouldn't complain as I had fantastic luck prior to that point but...it does wear thin. I might just start pulling only once per banner to maximize orbs. Perhaps not the best strategy but it would keep me from dumping 160 orbs on a banner with not a single 5* (the current TT banner).

Well I don't know what you mean by "at the hands of ludicrous probability", but you're at the mercy of the gatcha odds.

The best way to pull for a specific hero is to only pull that color. The number of orbs it takes on average to get the hero you want will be far less if you're only pulling that color.

The downside of this is your average cost / hero goes up, and it takes longer for the increased pull rate values to kick in (which happens at every five non-5star pulls).

If you're completely free to play, then you should consider yourself pretty lucky to pull 1 or 2 heros from a given banner. You say that you got "completely screwed" on the summer banner, hero banner, and CYL banner: does this mean you didn't pull any of the heros? And you spent all of your orbs? If so, then yes you're having bad luck, but not unreasonable given the rates on the gatcha.

And please don't listen to anyone who says that the rates are better if you pull at a certain time of day, or any other personal ritual that people go through. Those are just gambling superstitions.

It should be noted that on average you have the highest chance of getting a focus green unit than any other due to the relatively low number of green units. So soling greens gives youj actually pretty decent odds of acquiring P Inigo or P Azura blessed-be-her

I know how you feel, I pulled for Elincia but I got Celica instead, +Def -Spd. Before that, I had bad luck with summons, not a single 5* appeared and the rate went up only to stay there, without any orbs left to use.

That made me stop playing the game some days, only played to get the Panic Ploy Seal and login bonus. I was having a very bad day and found out I had enough orbs to do a session. I was with a 3.25% rate and then this happened, it was the first time I pulled two 5* in the same session, which is surprising since it was the second session I did in that banner so my rate was low. Two 5* stars, Reposition and Hone Cavalry fodder and a +Spd -Def Felicia, really made me happy.

If you're F2P, do full sessions to increase your rate a little (3 or 4 are enough, depends on you) and then snipe. This way you can save orbs and you may get many heroes, let them be the ones from the focus, viable heroes, SI fodder or Feathers fodder. There's a lot of luck involved, so don't snipe everytime at the start of a banner because you may waste a lot of orbs and lose a potential 5* hero even in the first sessions. For example, in my case, if I decided to pull only greens for P!Azura or P!Inigo, I would've lost that P!Olivia and P!Shigure.

Anyway, good luck. I really hope you get one of them and since the banner lasts a month, there's still plenty of time. It was my day and I hope you get yours too.

Like fullrain and everyone else says it all chance you could get one after one pull or after 120 summons(because at that point on a banner bumps it up to 100%, but obviously no one gets there.) I've been lucky and got a lot of 5*, hell even with this new banner I got 2 PAzuras and Polivia on my first summon session. But if you want any 5* star hero and it doesn't matter who pull full summon sessions with all five orbs it gives you. But if you want a particular hero snipe that color orb if you don't get any of that color go with your second favorite on the banner for example you want PInigo and got 3 colorless and two red pull the colorless. I would never go into a summoning session with less than 17 orbs because I've had 4 blue pop up when trying for Ninian awhile back and you rarely get a session with all the same color. I hope this helps!