Quick analysis of new units

Winter Fae: *_*
- Glittering breath: mild powercreep over water breath because higher cap and no phase restriction. Not game-changing; lightning breath probably continues to be pretty popular anyways but if you want to spoil your favourite prf-less manakete (except Fae and Nowi are probably getting prfs sooner or later) it's going to cost 100-ish orbs or less for at least half of those who want to do it, and 'tis the season isn't it?
- Def/res bond: an interesting alternative to fort. def/res if you want to cut costs. She's green on a 3-person banner so she's actually cheaper than pulling Kliff unless you go for Kliff on a legendary banner, but if you don't like any of the other units Kliff appears with, that's shot. The positional requirement is very tolerable in PvE because it's obviously quite suited to enemy phase play, but against player-built setups it can make a huge difference because if you're dealing with ranged units (especially in AR) they get danced and they can hit the ally behind you. So fort. def/res is probably still preferred, and also there's the scoring consideration because she has full-blown armour BST. If your name is Y.Roy and you have just the amount of atk you need and you don't want to sacrifice a point of it because you might need every bit (especially with effective damage and high-def opponents) you can consider this. But unless you have DC on your weapon then close def is probably better.
- Vengeful fighter: rawr rawr :>
- The unit herself: will have ridiculous stats. I wouldn't be surprised if we're going to 185 BST now. She's a trainee post CYL2. We got 167BST infantry. Isn't gen 1 armour 169-170 BST, gen 2 171-175, and gen 3 179-180? So if gen 3 is 179-180 and she's a trainee, she can hit 185 right? Let me try to do some math here: something like 48 HP 34 atk 33 spd 32 def 38 res? If we cut her res a bit she'll have either more atk or spd.

Ephraim: just has insane amounts of atk and def, probably low spd and res like his other variants. This would be absolutely nothing new for an armour. The only thing that stands out is that he seems to be the second ushering in the 50+ def meta. I think they're probably giving him at least 38 def at neutral, probably 40; with his weapon and A-skill that's 50 def. But I don't like the prf because armours tend to clump together and he wants to play enemy phase without forcing his teammates out of position. So I think he can consider getting rid of the weapon if his statline is what I predict.
- Atk/def solo: on first glance, seems niche. Good on Walhart (especially with brash assault, but just use brazen atk/def and don't bother spending orbs for this guy. You'll even get into brazen range more easily) and Ephraim's other variants. On anyone else it's potentially an issue because how do you double without spd, and if you're going to go with low spd high atk and def, you're probably playing enemy phase where solo skills I think are actually quite awkward because it prevents teammates from getting into the action once it's their turn to move.

Eirika:
- armoured healer = can use wary fighter and receive ward armour = potentially extremely hard to kill, especially if she goes for Svalinn shield because what A-slots do healers have?
- Joyous lantern is really good if you have an armour with enough HP to resist panic ploy. The problem is that the current armours with the highest atk often have prfs which don't refine for extra HP (ex: M.Grima, L.Hector, B.Hector, Surtr). In any situation where you're not concerned about panic ploy, this weapon is amazing as an alternative to the debuffs healers can inflict because it goes on a healer. So you have some high atk slow-tank, and they just tank and tank and tank all day because +5 def/res (and if we're handling Eirika maybe ward armour on top of it), and any damage they do take she will simply heal up.
- Atk opening: is often going to be inferior to atk tactic, but if you want to buff specifically one unit (ex: so that the others can't get panicked) this is very useful, which means it has good potential on def teams. Also good on def teams because AI is not good at positioning units to receive hones. Also good on ranged nuker + triple dancers (all the more because no positional requirement). It's a useful option to have for team building, but generally speaking I think it's a worse hone / atk wave.
- Beware of dazzling staff bait. We're soon going to get a skill that ignores it.
- 170 BST? Likely, because of gen 3. But she still won't score as well as duel skill prf units, especially due to lack of 500SP special and 400SP assist, especially now that rally up atk+ is available on hero fest.

The banner:
- we need to wait for stat lines to reveal
- only has three focus units, so it can be considered, but it's competing with Kliff on the fortress skills banner in 2 weeks and a legendary banner which is looking to me to be decent.
- also competing with second round of seasonals promised in 14 days after the opening of this banner.
- also competing slightly with HNY rerun (which includes NY Azura)