Originally Posted by
KTA
This is correct, Dark will get some great (read: free) FLB weapons from the upcoming UE's (so make sure you're in a UE that can get it all!). Dark is primarily sad because no love is going to be given to it at the top end for the next year, combined with the obsolescence of debuff abilities like Satan AW's defense down and most of what of Hades AW offers. Units like Berith, Pluto, Susanoo AW and Chernobog remain individually good, but there's not any in-built synergy between them, which is why there's hope that the upcoming Osiris buff will come with either a rework and/or an AW to make her be the glue between other hime. Overall, Dark feels really neglected in terms of getting together an exciting team, but the free dark grid options are definitely nice (btw, that dark UE is coming in like, 3-5 days, so if you don't have a union now, you better hurry up).
For fire, you definitely run Shingen with the lance grid. Shingen already has great compatibility with Fire's high combo rates and BG increases, whether flat or on hit; a weapon mastery bonus on top of that is just icing on the cake. For the sword grid... that's kind of hard to answer. I'll start by stating that if you equip Arthur's 2T self-vigor EX skill and had the god-like 5 Ascalon Sword grid, you'd probably bust a nut on the first turn with Arthur's solo burst breaking through the stratosphere. The problem is that I don't know how good this actually is, because I don't know anyone with 5 Ascalons.
The thing about sword grid is that we mostly talk about it as a theoretical concept, because you have multiple copies of Holy Sword Ascalon, a draconic eye weapon. Note that you need to have at least 6 weapons of the same type to activate the secondary bonus of a null grid. Excluding the weapon itself, that means 5 more, and if the soul weapon is compatible, then that means 4. So it that regard, Arthur has an advantage over Shingen in terms of activating a null grid by equipping Excalibur.
The issue is still that you need 4 more swords, so where do you get them? One way to is to wait for the fire UE, when "Wrath Sword Burn Punisher" will be released. Luckily, this UE weapon is the one with Assault(L)/Exceed(S) and is, of course, a sword. For argument's sake, let's say you split these swords into two and use 4 Holy Steel Argentum's to create two FLB copies. You will still need two more swords, and the theory is that you will satisfy them with FLB Ascalons.
Ascalon is a powerful weapon because it can be FLB'd to Assault(L)/Pride(M), which offers a combined 36% character attack even when himes are at full HP. But... it's a draconic eye weapon. The only way to reliably get it is to collect 15 eyes, and even then you still need 3 Holy Steel Argentum's to bring it to 3 stars. Let alone two copies, it's hard to get one, unless you get lucky with the bimonthly dragonic eye weapon gacha. But let's just suppose you can and will run one Ascalon, for argument's sake- you can actually satisfy the last remaining sword with the free "God Prominence", the Haruhi Crossover Event SSR weapon. It only offers Assault (L) and can't be FLB'd, but it will help you reach that 6 sword requirement if you happen to not have two Ascalon's and 10 Argentum's lying around (every other SSR fire sword is a limited hime weapon)...
So then, the question arises: are spears any better? The answer is (in terms of money) as resounding YES. First of all, the free spear from the vlad event Dragon Spear Fell Tepes is a thing, and can be bought monthly for Orichalcum. It offers Assault(M)/Stinger(S), but is overall serviceable for F2P. Second, we are about to get the Typhon Advent Reprint around February 19th, 2019. This will come with the FLB of Brutal Lance Typhoeus, bringing it to Assault(L)/Defender(S). So immediately, fire players who run Shingen can satisfy 4/6 of the weapon requirements for the null grid right off the bat. Where it gets juicy is the money option, to acquire multiple copies of Crimson Chain Spear, or "Mars Lance" as we like to refer to it since it obviously releases Mars.
Mars lance is currently Assault(L)/Defender(S), but upon FLB, it will become Assault(L)/Rampart(S). Rampart is one of those rare two skills in one: it's grants Defender(S) and a persistent vigor effect. I've already talked about why vigor at max efficacy is absolutely bonkers, but to have such a powerful effect on top of extra HP is icing on the cake. This is also where we need to talk about null grid secondary effects: for the null sword Calamity Blade, when 6 or more swords are equipped, it grants Avalanche(L), an unknown increase in double and triple attacks. But of the null spear Calamity Sarissa, when 6 or more spears are equipped, it grants Strength(L), which is equivalent to Assault(L)/Defender(L).
With two Mars lances and 6 Argentum's, the free FLB weapon, and the null grid effect, you get 61% character HP, a very robust baseline. Not only does it help you maintain vigor, it makes fire (which is lacking in SSR healers) very durable as well. In contrast, even after constructing our Ascalon scenario, you still need to find a way to get enough Defender in the last 3 slots of your grid (unless you have 5 FLB Ascalons and literally annihilate everything by just looking at it).
But while the lance grid is cheap compared to the sword, the expensive part is, of course, getting two or more Mars Lances to reach the absolute pinnacle. But the interesting part is that even having none, you can still have a serviceable grid because the Fire Raid SR Assault(M) weapon is... a spear. The Assault(S)/Exceed(S) in this current raid event is... a spear. Even discounting the spear base stat bonus granted by null weapons, would you want a Strength(L) weapon in a completely F2P grid? I wouldn't hesitate to say yes.
tl;dr - swords are for space whales.
...Oh yeah, and for Thunder. This is going to sound like a non-answer, but both Hercules and Shingen are perfectly viable. I'm being vague here because it really depends on how fast your other two hime are; neither Thunder Aphrodite nor Marduk AW grant much in the way of burst speed, except Marduk AW who can solo burst on Turn 1 and catch up with the inspiration effect (it's a 10 BG zeal, but with no burn and can stack on-top of zeal). The key piece to add to empowering Shingen is Raiko. Raiko has a lot of anti-synergy with Thunder Aphrodite because her Zeal bursts teammates for 4% maxx HP per turn, for a total of 12% after 3 turns. If your himes have an average of 13,000 HP, that becomes 1560 points of damage, which already spills over Thunder Aphrodite's 1000 HP barrier. Marduk AW's 2500 barrier on top then is critical to mitigating this burn and maintaining vigor. 3 turns of Zeal + solo burst from Marduk means that after 3 turns of attacking, you will reach a baseline 30 + 30 + 10 = 70 BG without any combo attacks. If Shingen used her 35 BG skill at the start of battle, she will also be at 100 BG and the skill will have reset. This means you can immediately execute Provisional Forest -> Roaring Blaze -> EX skill, bringing everyone to 90 for full burst.
What's good about this set-up is that you can full burst immediately after the pursuit effect wears off, preventing you from wasting it. What's unfortunate is that the vigor effect wears off too. But these first four turns are what makes using Shingen (who also gives team-wide combo attack up during the purusit buff) with Raiko very worth it; if you can end the battle in this time frame, then of course this set-up is the best because of its initial DPS. But if you can't, then it starts to get muddy as to what the best set-up is. For example, it might be more worth it to run Athena, who can shield the team from long term damage and make that second/third rotation of vigor more effective. Maybe you want Brahma AW to speed up your next burst cycle even further. The answer depends on how fast your himes are, and to choose the Soul which fits that speed the best. I think most people would be inclined towards fast burst set ups, so Brahma AW and Raiko to match Shingen, but if you want a slower hime like Athena and don't want/have Raiko, Hercules might be a better fit.
In general, you can see the prevailing trend: Shingen gets good, and all of it involves using her team-wide 20 BG up skill to set up a fast burst in some way or another. There are other factors that play into this too, such as Tiara set bonus and MP bonuses to Souls, the debuff resistance to Herc's Soul Weapon effect, the poor-hit rate of Sniper Shot being even worse as a result- all of it adds up to making Shingen and Provisional Forest really, really good, just generally speaking. Slashley talks about this a little in his Soul thread. But it's not like Shingen being good makes other Souls nonviable. If Shingen is too fast for the rest of your team, she's just going to end up solo bursting a lot of the time, taking out much of her perceived value. In these slower scenarios, Herc and Arthur are still perfectly good choices, maybe even better. Hope that gives some insight into the question.
tl;dr - choose soul based on overall team speed... but top end, Shingen's (probably) the best.