Why my interest in FE Heroes tanked...

I've been playing a lot of Fire Emblem Heroes since its release. For a mobile game, it's quite fun. But the simplistic maps' designs are starting to become repetitive and unchallenging, so the bulk of the lasting entertainment the game provides is in the realm of character acquisition.

I've had some great summons, with favorites like Camilla, Setsuna, Arthur, Niles, and some other characters that didn't appear in Fates.

But I've made it clear to all my readers that Hector is my personal endgame for Heroes.

Even though I haven't spent any money on orbs, I've gotten almost all of the in-game orbs that have been made available thus far. I've been smart with them, summoning heroes in batches to maximize efficiency. But still no Hector.

Am I just unlucky?

Kotaku ran an interesting story where someone spent $1,000 on orbs and still didn't get Hector. What about this dude? Was he just unlucky? I figured I'd do some simple math to find out.

Hector is only available as a 5-star hero. This was done for obvious reasons. Hector is the best character in the franchise, so why would he possibly exist in a form where he could be objectively inferior to others? The problem is, there's only a 3% chance of summoning a non-focus 5-star hero (Hector hasn't been part of a focus yet). The problem is, there's 38 potential 5-star pulls.

So we divide 3% by 38. That's a whopping 0.079%. So what?

If we divide 100 by 0.079%, we can get the average number of summons needed to get Hector one time. Pull out your calculators, and let's see what we get.

1,265 and some change. Since summons are whole numbers, we'll round up to 1,266.

To take it one step further, let's assume that you're summoning in batches of 5, with an average cost per summon of 4 orbs. So multiply 1,266 by 4, and you realize it will take an average of 5,064 orbs to summon 1 Hector.

The best value for buying orbs is 140 orbs for $75. If you buy orbs in batches of 140, you'll need to buy 36 batches to get you up to 5,040 orbs, and then buy a set of 35 orbs for $20. That makes the total cost

Two thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars. ($2,720)

So that guy that spent $1,000? He barely spent a third of what the average player will "spend" to get Hector. So he's not particularly unlucky, either.

So a few disclaimers. First, the game does have a mechanic where your probability of summoning a 5-star increases for every session that you don't get a 5-star. This increase in probability resets after the session where a 5-star is summoned. Truthfully, this mechanic would only marginally increase the odds of pulling Hector through that stone, and would make for messy math, so I didn't figure that into my high-school level calculations.

Secondly, we are dealing with probability. Obviously, you don't have to summon 1,266 times to get Hector. This is the average number of summons it will take to get him. So, if a million different users summoned a million times each, the mean number of times it would take for a summoner to get their first Hector would almost certainly be 1,266. There would be a less likely chance of summoning him the further number of tries one gets on either side of 1,266, but one would expect these anomalies to still indeed occur. If this is confusing to you, go read up on normal curves.

As a shiny Pokemon hunter, I deal with these kinds of basic probabilities all of the time, and I like thinking in these terms. But at the same time, this has really taken the wind out of my sails when it comes to playing Heroes. There's a limited amount of orbs you can get in-game without spending money, and I'm not planning on spending any money on this game.

So what? The recent "Choose your Heroes" event showed us that Hector is the third most popular dude in Fire Emblem, and he's numero uno for characters that haven't appeared in at least two Smash Bros games. So I think it's a pretty safe bet that we'll see him as a Hero Focus at some point in the future. So I don't know about you, but I'm saving my orbs for that day.

Fire Emblem Heroes: Who I'm Rockin; Who I Wanna Rock

I've been playing a lot of Fire Emblem Heroes lately, and despite being a mobile game, it is actually quite good so far. While I'll save my thoughts on the game as a whole for another day, I thought it would be fun to share the characters that I've been using for each "class" (only one mage, one neutral attacker, and one healer) and who my ideal character for that class would be. I'll try to keep this one brief-ish.

Sword

Who I'm Rockin: Palla (Shadow Dragon)

There's not a whole lot of standout sword users so far in Heroes, so I've resorted to using a character from a game I haven't played yet. That being said, Palla is doing great for me, with her high defense and resistance stats and versatility of flight. She isn't irreplaceable, and only really sees use if the opposition has multiple greens, but she fills in nicely for now. 

Who I Wanna Rock: Lyn (Blazing Sword)

Lyndis is among my favorite Lords in the series for multiple reasons, not the least of which is the fact that she represents all the ideals of a perfect sword user. She strikes hard and fast, but can be a serious glass cannon. I think this has translated well in Heroes, where she has the ability to move again after attacking. I've summoned from her focus every single time, but am still lacking in the Lyn department. Hopefully our event Lyn will be available soon.

Lance

Who I'm Rockin: Sharena (Heroes)

Heroes provided us with two original Lords from the get-go. While Alphonse is a Marth/Chrom clone, Sharena proved to be a little more interesting with her fangirl admiration for the other heroes in the game. I think lance users that aren't Knights or Cavaliers are awesome due to their exclusivity, and while she doesn't have any fancy skills, her above average speed and power make her a useful blue. 

Who I Wanna Rock: Effie (Conquest)

Conquest is my favorite Fire Emblem game, and Effie was by far my most powerful character from my original playthrough. It is my understanding that her stupidly high attack has translated to Heroes, and I haven't had the chance to use an armored unit yet. I feel like they would be impeccably useful. 

Magic Man

Who I'm Rockin: Cecilia (Binding Blade)

Again, the necessity of having a magic user forced me to use another character from a game I haven't played yet. Cecilia and I have a very professional relationship. She does her job of armor-busting and distance attacks well, and that's about it. No more, no less.

Who I Wanna Rock: Leo (Conqueast)

If I'm being completely honest, I don't really rely too heavily upon mages in most of my Fire Emblem adventures. So I don't have many I'm too nuts about. Leo's whole family is awesome, and I think he has a unique role in Conquest. He's the studious but dutiful wise-man of the kingdom, and he rides a hardcore dark horse and dishes out some tree magic. Good enough for me, let's add him to my Heroes lineup. As a bonus, I could really use more red. 

Colorless Attacker

I'm Rockin Exactly Who I Wanna Rock: Setsuna (Birthright)

Like Pokemon, there are two types of Fire Emblem Characters (there are actually way more than two types, just work with me): those who are pretty much universally acclaimed (Hector, Camilla, etc.) and those lower-profile characters that you have a soft spot for that maybe aren't as popular among the greater fanbase. Setsuna is totally one of those for me. I mentioned earlier that I'm not a fan of mages, but I'm serious about my archers. Setsuna was my archer of choice in Birthright, and I thought that her character was a lot of fun, too. She pulls off the always-falling-into-traps airhead perfectly without being too annoying (the voice actress in the original game wasn't great, to be fair), and was an above average bow user. And I think my infatuation with short hair has been noted before, so that's always a plus. In Heroes, I summoned her second overall (right after Camilla) and she's seen a ton of use. She doesn't really have a weakness in Heroes, so she's a safe pick to bring into any battle. 

Healer

Who I'm Rockin: Sakura (Birthright)

I wasn't a huge fan of Sakura in Birthright, but she's the only healer I've summoned so far and has been a life-saver (literally). With the ability to heal from a distance and dish out some nice buffs and debuffs that allow her to practice some preventative medicine, there's really no battle that I go into without her. 

Who I Wanna Rock: Elise (Conquest)

Elise is the superior little sister to Corrin, and I wish I'd have summoned her instead of Sakura. I haven't really looked at the difference between their skills, but just being a Troubadour instead of a generic healer would be a nice advantage. That's about all though.

Dat Axe

Who I'm Rockin: Camilla (Conquest)

I'm a sucker for Wyvern Riders, and Camilla is my favorite in that class. Probably my best moment in Heroes so far was Camilla coming out of that portal on my very first summon (my luck has gone steadily downhill from there). Her Brave Axe in Heroes allows her to almost always strike twice (and frequently four times) when she initiates combat. This makes her a blitzing offensive force that gets a lot of kills. Honestly, there's really only one other axe user I would rather have.

Who I Wanna Rock: Hector (Blazing Sword)

Hector is the best Fire Emblem character that will ever be coded into a game. True history fact, he was originally programmed to have a sword and be mild-mannered and polite like every other Lord, but the code rebelled against the devs and spontaneously transformed himself into an axe-dunking, battle-hungry dreamboat. His awesomeness is maintained in Heroes, where he is rendered in a style that is basically Fullmetal Alchemist in watercolor. He's armored, but can counterattack any ranged buffoon dumb enough to get within two spaces of him. Basically, if I'm ever deemed worthy enough by the RNG gods to be graced with the presence of Hector, I'll consider the game beaten. 

So there we go. Observant players will notice that there are no characters yet from Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Gaiden (or the upcoming remake, Echoes), and a few other Japanese exclusives. So we're bound to be getting more peeps down the pipe. I know ya'll don't use the comment section like, ever, but if you're so inclined, I'd be interested in knowing who you're rockin and who you wanna rock in Heroes.