Hi guys! Back with another review. And looks like ill be doing yet another one sometime next week as well with SinoAlice collab being announced as well! But first, before the review we have to talk about the "banner" itself and what the Summon Box Mechanic actually is.

Summon box and how it works

The summon box was an added layer of RNG that Alim added to this banner. It involves the use of keys to get particular units. There are two kinds of keys, Silver Keys and Gold keys. These were given out for free (2x each), as well as given out for doing the step up. For each individual step on the banner you received a silver key, and for each lap completed you received a Gold key, Silver keys had a limit of 25 total given, after which keys would be rendered useless. They pulled from a fixed box, with 4x of each Hero unit, 4 50% moogles, and 5 10% moogles, for 25 items total. The rates for the heroes seem to be higher than the moogles, but no rates were given on the box as its a fixed gacha and thus does not fall under Apple's rates requirement, given you can theoretically get everything in the box. Outside of silver keys were the gold keys, which were random, but gave you a guaranteed hero unit (equal chance 25% for each hero). The Step up had unlimited amount of laps that can be run, but after 5 laps there really isnt a point to pulling on the banner unless you wanted multiple STM. In which case you're probably a whale and this review is useless for you. The step up also gave two guaranteed rainbows in addition to the keys, on step 1 and 3, with Step 1 being random rainbow, and step 3 being a guaranteed Jasper or Mordegon. You can, with all the keys considered, pull up to 8 rainbows with just the extra items, although you'll probably pull around 6 rainbows with a bit of luck, plus whatever you get from actual gacha. Overall it isnt that bad of a banner but it is selling horribly so it may just be me talking here.

Introduction - Luminary

Luminary is a very flexible unit, similar to how Mordegon is build wise but physical. Luminary has some forced element skills (one fire and one thunder), but a lot of his damage will be coming from nonelemental moves, meaning he's extemely flexible with Elements and is a W/T-SR caster, and gets along well with other units without losing too terribly much damage himself. As with most units nowadays though, he prefers TDW unless going an LB build, which is possible for him (not recommended, as it comes with all the fun flaws of a LB based build, but possible) Good news about being fire or Thunder based is that he gets along with most of the SR chainers and brings his own imperils at 120% if he want to dual element Chain with them, for instance having Earth Fire or thunder to chain with Madam, or Water Thunder to chain alongside Tidus. (Tidus also has a fire imbue so he can completely ignore that as well). Luminary damage wise hangs with the best of them as well.

TM, STM, TMP, LB - Luminary

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YAY A HELMET FOR KING RAIN err... I mean, His helm is really nice for a lot of physical units that use their LB regularly, and since its the only head equipment with LB , even if you only got one of him its still worth farming. At 40atk it also has a very respectable base and the damage increase more than makes up for the less attack, which 80 max (Karlette STM) for TDH units using LB. Arguing this over Eileen STM is a bit harder however, because it all depends on how much killer you currently have as well as race of the enemy. If single race, favorable, any more than 150% killer would render this better than Eileen STM, if using LB as sole damage source with 0 LB (3x/2.5x = 1.2 or 20% boost) With dual race, one unfavorable, this will almost always be better if you have any amount of killer for either race at all. NOTE: The more you add of one, the more the other becomes effective, so with high killer % and low LB , Luminary helm is better, with high LB and low killer %, Eileens hat becomes better, if killers apply. Luminary STM isnt going to be something feasible worth chasing, but the added LB damage is always welcome, and it won't really change Luminary's gearing by much. As always, the TMP is definitely welcome although if you really wanted to and didn't plan on using Luminary's LB (hint: youre going to end up using it) you could theoretically skip it and not lose much.

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Wow, this is actually pretty nice! Luminary has two uses for his LB, there's this, and theres a 0 MP Cost 3400LS cost move that Fully heals and fully revives the party in a pinch, on a 6T CD. More often than not you'll find yourself using this to refresh his T-Cast which has 1 turn of down time from his CD. At 44x it's a fairly strong LB and he pairs well if you went and picked up Cantilena for her LB dmg LB, as he doesn't contain LB anywhere else in his kit. You can with enough effort use this to solely deal damage but Luminary will have trouble filling his LB to do so. Luckily if you resolve yourself to using this to enable T-Cast he has no trouble filling it because of having 6 turns to do so. Leveling this only increases damage, like the others, so its a luxury level.

Passives - Luminary

First, the interesting part of Luminary's kit. Luminary's passive grants him an autocast heal 10% HP/MP at the beginning of every turn. Basically a 10% refresh, but at the beginning instead of end, better for explorations and Multiwave battles like MK. His 7 star also gains an auto cast passive that boosts his main damage SR skill 3.5x turn 3 and 7x on turn 6. These do not stack unfortunately, and will allow his nonCD SR skill to reach a modifier of 16x on turn 3 and 23x on turn 6, which seems fairly low at first glance, but most of his damage comes from Cooldowns. Stat wise, Luminary has fairly balanced stats, with 50% HP, 50% MP 60% Def, and 60% Spr, lending pretty fair tankiness across the board including his 100% Lightning resist, but nothing stellar. Where he excels, is his atk passive. He has 170% Atk (with swords), 150% pTDH and 150% pTDW, with 6x passive when dual wielding. So long as he's using swords he doesnt care if hes using one hand or two, which is good because Swords and Greatswords are all he can use equipment wise. Luckily we have about a bajillion greatswords of both varieties and both classes of weapons have trial rewards, with Ancient Sword from Tiamat, and Black Zantetsuken from Iron Giant. As far as 2h swords go, if you're the poor sap who ended up with Firion's sword You can use that.

Actives - Luminary

Now I mentioned earlier Luminary has SR frames, he also has bad BS frames (right frame count wrong delay) for an AOE setting but they deal dreadful damage. He can restore HP in a pinch, via the aforementioned cooldown that consumes LB and a skill that restores 3000 flat to all allies, but does dreadful damage. Luminary has a 3 strike attack that seems useless at first but does great damage in Arena, as well as being extremely useful for stripping Mirage stacks off an enemy. Luminary follows a rotation after 3 turns pass of: LB -> {Imperil CD EleCD SR} -> {Unlock x3} -> {SR x3} -> {Imperil CD EleCD SR} -> {Unlock x3} -> LB , or you can combo the Element unlocks back to back to unlock the big chain multiple turns ({Unlock x2 OtherEleCD} -> {Unlock x3} -> {Imperil CD EleCD SR}). However that assumes the boss is not immune to fire or thunder. Luminary prefers having a fire or thunder weapon on hand, but if not he can always reimbue on the CD turn while losing a little bit of mod. When T-Cast is needed he typically will use LB to enable it, or he can use the T-Cast CD to refresh it. Typically using the T-Cast CD SRx2 is preferable but the T-Cast wont last all the way through his rotation with reliance on the T-Cast CD only. Luminary max mod, which is his unlock turn, is rated at 38x3, or 114x. (Note: a rotation page will be made for him as well, working on that here shortly)

Introduction - Erik

Erik is basically a mono element Madam Edel, same deal with the gearing everything. Erik is a W-SR chainer, with strict use of TDW only. That being said, he has to occasionally refresh some of his modifier boosts but when hes not refreshing he does a ton of damage. His ramp up is also way quicker than Edel, only taking about 3-4 turns depending on LB generation. He does occasionally have to refresh imperil, if not being used in conjunction with Edel or someone who can imperil Earth (hint: there's him and Edel, otherwise OK but you're not gonna rely or chain OK effectively with Erik). Erik has a very vague equipment selection of Dagger, Sword, Throwing Weapon and Fist. He can't use Helmets or Heavy armor either, so don't plan on going that route. Luckily for him, his equipment selection isn't too horrible to work around due to free stuff and his own TMR. Finding atk materia for him is rough though. Hope you have some Lockes!

TM, STM, TMP, LB - Erik

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What has the world come to when we get 50% TDW on a weapon as a TM?! Oh yeah its on a banner you'll likely never see the unit. Plus its using an element that hardly anyone uses. Onion Knight might like it though seeing as how he can use daggers and it gives his LB an element that it doesn't normally have. Earth can also be used in many trials, in fact all trials except for Demon wall with no restriction on mechanics. The biggest downside of the TM, however, is lack of a good IW rare. The IW for daggers being high tide means that Erik has a hard time slotting both Atk and HP into this, which is the most common IW enhancement that people want for DPS weapons. Erik's STM is an 80/80 materia, which is pretty much unheard of in strength. Sword and throwing weapon can be used by Erik and Onion Knight, which is good because of trial gear available in those weapon classes are top notch, especially with Moose Kai's reward sporting one of the highest attacks in the game. Long story short, this isn't a bad item to walk away with if you happen to pull 4 Eriks. TMP is a TMP. Use it if you want, don't use it if the enemy is immune to earth or absorbs it. Doesn't really affect Erik too much.

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Like the other heroes, Erik's LB only gains extra damage as it increases in Level. Unfortunately this is a single hit attack and doesn't deal too great of damage, but the bonus effect is what we are after here. It boosts both of Erik's big damage skills, one of which is a 2T CD. This, combined with his other CD, gives his 2T CD an absolutely huge 80x modifier, which will dual cast for an impressive 160x. His other skill that he will be using on off turns is a 69x modifier attack (138x total). Personally, don't level this. No reason to and it does shit damage compared to the rest of his kit.

Passives - Erik

Erik has a rather impressive set of passives as well, with notable mention being 40% PhysDodge and 40% wind and earth resist, and stat wise he has 70% HP, 80% MP, 60% Def/Spr, when wearing clothes. Big plus to this is the fact that he gets access to using Arie's STM for an additional 30% HP and Atk. His Atk passives, speaking of, are 100% pTDW, with 170% Atk, which seems to be about norm for Fest level units. He's naturally immune to Sleep and confuse, which is a big plus in his direction as confuse is one of the most dangerous ailments for a pDPS to have. Usually ends up in one or more of your units flat out dying due to self hitting. Erik has a bit of what may possibly be a bug in his kit: His 105 passive and 120 passive will both cast on Turn 4 (after 3 turns), but only the highest one remains active, so he only gains 4x to his mods instead of 6x. (this would mean a difference of 8x on his burst altogether)

Actives - Erik

Unlike Luminary, who has most of his kit semi useful, Erik straight up doesn't use any of his kit except four moves: His imperil, His SR chain, and his Cooldowns. The extra dragon damage is useful for Shinryu or Tiamat, but otherwise can be ignored. He has a defense spirit break and a self cleanse 150% LB fill rate for all allies. Most of these will be covered by your supports so you might as well just ignore it anyways. Erik's rotation is extremely simple once his LB is filled: LB -> CooldownBoost Imperil -> BurstCD -> Burst (48mp) -> Burst CD. The only issue is getting the LB filled before hand. After that just burst away. Most things won't live through the second CDBurst due to how heavy it hits. This assumes he has his dagger and is using Earth element. Otherwise just swap his stacking skill instead of the Earth Nuke and you get one turn with dramatically less damage. The overall modifier amount of his tiny 5T rotation is 35x 4.8x 160x 138x 160x for 497.8x total over 5 turns (Bartz for example after initial 4 turns (5-9 is 316x). Making him INCREDIBLY strong as far as damage dealing goes.

Introduction - Serena

Taking a break from DPS units for a spell, we have Serena. Serena is an entirely Ability based healer, with a little bit of both Myra and Lenna. She has an extremely stacked kit and specializes in shitting out reraise like she was a rabbit and reraise was running out of style. Her kit does have some glaring holes, mainly a lack of being able to cure charm/stop outside of a 8T CD and 2 turn downtime on her AOE Immunity. Luckily AOE stop isn't exactly spammed in a trial and you can stall at spots if you're down on her AOE immunity. Dispel really jacks her kit to pieces but she makes up for this with spammable mitigation and great magic mitigation as well as element resist buffs. Both her AOE cure and her Mag mitigation spells have heal next turns attached to them making her capable of anticipating thresholds where you'll need healing extremely well. Overall a slight side grade to Lenna and really feels like a bastardized version of Myra, except no stat buffs.

TM, STM, TMP, LB - Serena

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Yay! Charm immunity on a robe, well, sort of. Charm resist is always a good thing, and when combined with Rinoa STM will give Charm immunity. Finally another gear that can be used with that (even if its a limited limited piece of gearing.) Her STM is basically Primrose's without the extra magic. Only point in that is that it can be used to trigger Serena's trust passive which she absolutely needs and then Serena can use rainbow robe or something. Stop resist is not easy to find. The auto-cast helps her use her 0MP cost 100MP restore/Entrust on any given turn in the event of mana drain.

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YAY More reraise! At very cheap cost too. This also does a exceedingly large amount of damage for a healer's attack. Its single hit so can be used as extra damage to cap a chain. That being said, leveling only modifies the damage not the reraise, heal, or cost. So you don't have to worry about that unless you're really stressing squeezing every last drop of damage out of your team. Serena can get a fairly decent spirit stat so she can hit well using this, just not enough to make a huge difference. Don't Level her LB.

Passives - Serena

Serena has an extremely stacked passive set: 80% Wind/Dark resist, 20% PhysDodge, 10% Refresh, 100% high tide and Para, Pet, Dis, Stop immunity. This means that notably shes missing sleep, confuse (given by TM) and Charm (half by TM) resists so you'll need to plan accordingly with gearing. Stat wise shes a healthy healer, with 80% HP, 100% MP, 60% Def, and 150% Spr, She doesn't need that much spirit to heal because a lot of her actives are fixed healing, or just a curaja ability that's going to restore an exorbitant amount of HP anyways. Serena will give everyone a free heal on T4, and will give everyone a free heal Reraise on T7 via her unique passive, meaning killing her and reraising her to trigger this again and again may be a viable strat for you. Please dont abuse Serena though, shes best girl.

Actives - Serena

Whew, Talk about STACKED kit. I mean this girl pretty much has it all, except for two glaring holes: Curing Stop/Charm is on CD, and so is AOE Ailment/StopCharm immune, but she does have ST all immune. Now this isn't a huge deal, it just means players are going to have to be careful in using her. The benefits of using her is: 4 Elemental bar-ga, capable of being W-Casted with the rest of her kit, Entrust MP heal on a 0MP move for mana drain reasons, also W-Castable. Insane flat LB generation as well as MP generation, and a ST 100% Heal that applies reraise. Her CD's are also incredibly stacked, containing what it essentially Aerith's LB as an emergency use button on an 8T CD, and two 45% Mitigation skills that restore Flat HP and MP to the party which is always nice. She also lacks dispelga, but instead has a Dispel-Buffs only on a 5T CD, which with all the other units having dispel is frankly better. Its on a short enough CD that if an enemy needs to be dispelled she can remove the big buffs and can free up some space for breakers or supports to do not-dispel stuff and avoid removing breaks. As previously mentioned she has a next turn heal on two of her abilities, one of which removes all ailments and the other is a 30% Mag mitigation buff. Everything is W-Castable too for funsies. When it comes to non-ailment stuff, shes strictly the best at healing, when it comes to ailment stuff you're better off with Lenna imo.

Introduction - Veronica

Ah yes. The mage. The crazy lady with a huge nonelemental mod, but if the enemy is immune to elemental damage, she's mid tier. Veronica deals in AZ frames, and Mystic Cross frames, which seems to be the new Chaos Wave, but better. Also has a flavor cooldown that kills herself but buffs and restores everyone else. Oh hey Serena has reraise, shes back now. Veronica focuses on dealing fire damage, but also has thunder, light in a pinch and non elemental damage as her main damage source when possible.

TM, STM, TMP, LB - Veronica

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OH. MY. GOSH. More mTDH!!! Finally. There's only three sources of this stuff and 1 is an STM with the other $$$ locked, so more sources are always great. Her TM is just a slightly worse version of Kefka STM, sporting much lower mTDH. Her STM is the second highest mag head piece behind Heins STM, with the added benefit of lower mana cost, which is phenomenal for any mage that isnt Golbez, because he cant wear hats. Poor man, what does he wear on his birthday? Veronica has no excuse not to have her TMP, so use it.

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This LB does a ton of damage, but is a pain to fill. She can shorten the Fill requirement dramatically by using a CD but otherwise filling it every 4 turns can be a chore without LB support. Luckily both Lenna and Serena have said support so have fun. Leveling this increases the damage and increases the modifier boost, but unless you're planning on non elemental chaining don't even remotely worry about this. You'll understand why Im talking about non-elemental chaining a lot in a bit.

Passives - Veronica

As far as passives go, Veronica is glassy as can be, with 20% HP, 50% Def and 110% Spr, shes basically built for Moon with her high SPR though. Equipment limited passives don't affect her hardly at all, with 30% MP tied to Rods and 50% Dark resist tied to Robes, so she can actually use Legs' STM Whip extremely well, and she has 225% (250% w/TM) mTDH so this her TM will cap her mTDH and let you build wild. Offensively she has 170% Mag, 130% passive buff at all times, with all the gear that has high Mag% she will cap easily. She's got charm, sleep and confuse resist, which is the exact opposite of what her twin has for fun flavor reasons. With her passives, her Fire MC skill has a max mod of 40, (120x max cast), Thunder 22x and Light 28x. Her Autocast passive increases her non elemental MC skill by 2x on T4, 4x on T7, and 6x on T10, like Erik and Luminary hers dont stack with each other.

Actives - Veronica

Veronica is probably the weirdest mage we've had in a while, because she doesn't have permanent T-Cast, instead its on an unlock that can easily manage to keep it up 100% of the time. Her biggest skill is her nonelemental Mystic Cross chain, which after all the stacks and junk add up has 21x for 27.5x(50%) 27.5x(50%) for 110x total mod PER CAST, this means with T-Cast this thing hits for 330x. Nonelement Mystic Cross due to the extra hits is not nearly as much of a worry as nonelement Chaos Wave, and because this is 50% Back loaded it will hit even harder for some nutty numbers. This thing is the moon killer, as its the highest mod a mage has been able to put out non elemental in quite some time. Her elemental stuff is much worse as she completely lacks imperils, so requires support help for that. Machina 120% fire imperil comes in handy here! As mentioned previously her fire skill hits 40x before CD, with 46x after CD for 138x total mod which is rather large, but limited to one enemy. Her other skills, the thunder and light element, are AOE though and don't require stacking so she can use those to wipe out Apostles for moon. She can also be used to great effectiveness for Tiamat as well, excelling in both current mage trials.

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Conclusion - 4 Heroes

Lots of text, lots of typing, too little wine. Anywho, General consensus is that the ones to go after on this banner are Luminary and Erik, Followed by Veronica and lastly Serena. But due to the box system you're not given on choice and wherever the die land is what you get. Good thing is that they're all incredibly powerful, if not lacking in a key aspect each. Luminary is much like a Fire/Lightning CG Tidus, or King Rain to a lesser extent, Erik is basically Madam v1.1, and Veronica is the next big mage if shes got support, while Serena is the white mage that shits out reraise more than anyone else and calls it shiny. Serena can be used in a lot of places, but for convenience sake, Lenna is much easier to use and requires much less care than Serena, plus she's UoCable and 99% of JP owns a Lenna currently sooooo yeah. This banner is a mess and I'll be happy when it's over, but rate wise its not that bad of an idea.