LogFAQs > #888470177

I still have not pulled a single banner unit on the dancer banner despite dropping all orbs on it since it came out.

> https://twitter.com/FE_Heroes_JP/status/918738707401674752

Ninian is now the 11th-most summoner-supported unit, despite being one of the least useful characters to have that on. Camilla and Azura ended up high on that list, too (but still below Ninian!), indicating it isn't purely about gameplay.

Ninian is not surprising to me; she's been on 6 banners, and the big reason you run her over other dancers is that it's easy to get her Distant Counter (Lightning Breath+ is inheritable and has distant counter built-in). But distant counter builds need a big pile of stats, and being a dancer she doesn't have a big pile of stats. Summoner support gives her a big pile of stats. She's probably the only dancer for whom I'd consider summoner support; although any of them do fine with it if you give them distant counter.

Azura is a little weirder, but makes sense if you give her distant counter. (And we know from arena frequency charts that a lot more people have/run Azura than Ninian; most of them don't have spare distant counter inheritance, but a few do).

The surprising ones to me are Takumi (I thought he disappeared from the meta completely?? Although again I can gameplay justify it--he has lower stats, which is why close counter builds went away, but jack up his stats and he's probably competitive with distant counter builds).

Also Brave Lucina being #2 is weird to me (she's fine and all, I'd expect to see her in the top 20 but...#2?)

Camilla's in a weird spot, where the subreddit thinks she's terrible cause her default skills don't fit her stats at all, but she's the green axe with by far the highest RES so if you get up into whale territory, people give her Emerald Axe and Distant Counter as a reinhardt counter. Often with green tomebreaker too so that she can kill green mages. Still doesn't explain the amount of people summoner supporting her, though--whales are a small percentage of the population.

And sure, obviously there is some level of popularity contest going on here. Like...I would take Ryoma over Ike every day of the week as a sword distant counter, yet Ike is 3rd and Ryoma is 10th, weird. I would expect both to be up there, though along with every other common distant counter unit like Hector, Nowi--distant counter builds need all 4 stats.

All the mages make sense to me. Reinhardt only needs attack, so doesn't benefit that much from summoner support, which is why he's not like #1 range up there with Bow Lyn. Nino and Tharja have built in blade tomes and good stats. M.Robin with triangle adept...yeah, I run him on my main team of 3, and I'd like a couple extra stats in...every category. (I supported Nino, but understand the pick). Julia baits Reinhardt, a task that calls for speed cause she might not double him if he has hone cavalry on, attack because she might not OHKO him, res obviously. Yeah, sensible support.

Vanilla Lyn is the really puzzling one, though. She...hits people with swords? That one feels like a favourites pick not a gameplay pick. (To some degree vanilla Lucina is puzzling too, but Lucina was considered top or near top tier early in the game, so I can imagine there are people who merged her a lot; maybe inherited Distant Counter to her, in which case, sure, if you already have tons of work into one character, summoner support makes sense).
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