Nightmayre

...twice now, I end up in the brutally losing team with just two territories at the end of round. I guess that's what I get for saying I like this mode =/

I love this mode. My problems with this mode are actually Rival Domains-related issues, not Grand Conquest-related issues (imbalance of TP+attack, maps skewed heavily over certain unit types, senselessness of infinite reinforcements, stupidly high effectiveness of facewalling etc). However I love the Risk-like elements. So far it seems I've been blessed with a rather good team (although people keep making the mistake of investing in areas that face both enemies at once, which is a bad idea) and we're 2 lands ahead, but it's still too early to tell. I generally go only for Lunatic (never gonna try Infernal in this hell mode). At this point I'm really unsure why people are saying saving the recharges is a good idea. More stamina spent early -> higher GC tier -> higher influence -> faster consolidation of nearby areas with each battle -> much less chance for the opponent to be able to do anything late game. If it wasn't for the influence mechanic, it wouldn't matter much and it might be a preferable strategy to burn recharges later on in order to capture key areas, but as it is...

Kagero holds a special place in my roster as she was the first unit I manually upgraded to 5*, before SI was even a thing. It was before I knew natures were a thing, too, so I am rather lucky I randomly upgraded one with good IVs (+Spd -Def). She carried me through a lot of early game content. She doesn't see much use any more, but she's still a valuable counterpick in AA/SA against infantry threats. I use: Poison Dagger+, Moonbow, Ardent Sacrifice (to get into desperation range), L&D2 (all the L&D3 fodder I could spare have been fed to my Bladetome mages), Desperation and a blank C slot as she doesn't need it for the battles I'm using her for. Kagero's real value I think is that she's a very good budget unit for AA/SA that requires little investment to act her role as counterpick. But if you're looking for a main team dagger unit rather than a switch-in, there are better options now.

Wing Sword is a pref weapon though (and I have already refined it on my +Spd Caeda for truly excellent performance)

EDIT: accidental double post

Alright, I need some advice. I have stockpiled 630 refining stones and I want to convert 400 of it to Divine Dew, in order to upgrade a couple of key units in my roster. Right now I would not like to raise units to 5* just to inherit their weapons, unless there is a serious power-jump (example: raising a Setsuna to give H!Jakob a Guard Bow). Therefore my question is simple: which heroes do you think get a significant boost from weapon refinery to push them into a competitive level with their original, non-legendary weapons? Feel free to recommend inheritance as well, but I am more skeptical about it, as I do not have too many feathers (200k). Please do not recommend dragons, as I have already refined the Breaths on all my available manaketes. For the rest of the units, anything is up for grabs - I have the vast majority of the cast including most seasonals. The units I do not have mostly have pref weapons anyway. EDIT: Also no healers, the only ones I use are already refined and I have no need for more

Pft. 140 orbs for Neutral Summer Leo +SPD/-HP Legendary Ike +DEF/-HP Gunnthra I mean, I'm happy about getting a better IV than the free neutral Ike (means I can safely fodder off my neutral for WB), and I'm happy about a Leo for completionism purposes but... come on. Out of the 9 possible rolls (skipping colorless as I already have everything I need from there), they were the 3 least desired ones... I'm probably going to be able to do a couple more full pulls before the banner ends with the March orbs but... bleh.

Vanguard Ike - don't have him, and though we'll be getting one for free, extra EB + potential WB fodder is nice Mia - don't have her Summer Leo - don't have him Legendary Ephraim - obviously my target Summer Corrin - don't have her, also really need mage flier Shiro - don't have him Gunnthra - got one, but mediocre IV Dorcas - don't have him Brave Ike - got one, but bad IV plus SB fodder Jaffar - got one, and all my heroes that need LAD3 have it already Performing Olivia - got one Summer Gaius - got one I'm rather happy with this lineup since I can pull for all colors except white, which I don't need at all. Can't really go wrong with red or blue, and worst I can get out of green are duplicate Bike and Gunnthra which, best case will be an improvement IV-wise, worst case will make good fodder / net me a Wind blessing. All-in-all, this is probably the first legendary banner I'm not gonna regret rolling for (sitting at a decent 140 orbs atm), although I probably shouldn't celebrate just yet with how easy it is to just get swarmed with multiple copies of one hero...

So I'm saving up orbs for new announcements before committing (currently @250 F2P orbs though I may whale some if anniversary stuff proves exciting. Nonetheless I decided to go in the SS banner. My pref order was: Myrrh (flying + green + dragon = three very good things I want) > Eirika (I lack Leo so red horsemage helps me open up a lot more Horse emblem builds for AA) > L'Arachel (she has very little to offer to my roster as between Olwen, Ursula and Reinhardt another blue horsemage would be redundant, as I wouldn't have enough horse coverage to support her, I only want her because I like her as a character). First summon, 1 green 4 reds. I excitedly pull for green with the freebie but as usual Bartre appears. I pull for a red... and it's Eirika!! I was super-excited...... right before finding out she's -Atk +Res. If she'd been a good IVd one I'd have stopped right there and focused future pulls on green and blue, but I had to try and fish for something better... unfortunately a Fir, a Stahl and another swordie I don't remember joined their multitude of copies in the back of the barracks. Oh well. I think even this Eirika, I can make work somewhat by turning her into a red- and green-tome baiter and killer (w/ Red Tomebreaker). For her unfortunate bane, I can only hope Horse Emblem shenanigans will cover her up. If nothing else, I should have a 40% unit for the TT without dedicating more than 15 orbs for it, which I'm grateful for.

For me the axe MVPs tend to be seasonals, unfortunately. PA Azura is of course the one I use most, due to Dance utility making her able to fit in any team (and I practically never run teams without a dancer). It helps that she is the best dancer, too. Summer Tiki is a very good unit, which I don't use as much exactly because I have Hector. But she works well as a more mobile physical tank. Brave Ike is also very strong, though for some reason I can't seem to build a proper team around him. I only use him when I run into a blue-oriented team in AA. Winter Lissa is mostly Hector lite, but I found she requires a PP-oriented Armor team, rather than an EP-oriented, so I don't use her much. Frederick and Minerva shine in Horse and Flier Emblem respectively. And finally there's Anna, who is neither bad nor awesome. With some dedication she can do very good, but I'm waiting for an Askr trio update before dedicating resources. Overall I've found the easiest Axe user to use for quests and such (assuming none of the above seasonals) is Frederick in a basic Horse emblem team.

Guize pls e_e Can someone clarify if Divine Dew is available at this point in the game or just not at all? Because I can't see the option to create it in the Refinery even though the game states it should be there.

Soo... the game says that you can buy Dew with Stones, but I'm not seeing any such option in the Refinery. Has anyone been able to obtain Dew yet and how?

THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS!!!! This is honestly my number one complaint. While I also have a problem with seasonals in terms of how often we are barraged with them and as a consequence often pulling my attention completely off the regular banners in an attempt to get the rare heroes, my main issue is that certain gameplay elements are locked behind these limited events. 3/3 ranged fliers, 2/2 ranged armors and 4/7 dancers are event-limited, meaning huge blows to those who want to build flier or armor teams - and having 7 unique dancers as opposed to only 3 makes AA and SA exponentially easier. It would be fine if these 'special' hero types were first introduced in limited banners and after a while moved to the regular summoning pool, but this hasn't happened yet and we haven't seen much of an indication that it will.

Just make redundant tokens redeemable into Feathers, pretty much like extra Sacred Seals, and you have no problem. No, my main issue with merge tokens is that quite simply it should have already begun several months ago. I feel that now it is too late to initiate a token hunt, unless the token:merge ratio is high enough and/or token availability is high enough (in which case missing even a few tokens might be very punishing for someone who aspires to max out their heroes) That is why I generally feel that flat-out giving more copies through non-time limited story events / quests is preferable at least until we get to +3 or so. From there on we can have some alternate system.

Oh I'm not arguing that it's good against killing armors, I'm only arguing that a pref +4 MT Armorslayer+ with the added effectiveness against dragons isn't that bad. That said, as mentioned I didn't really look at the unit's stats much, 37 attack is on the high side. @KiwiScribble Looking through the five dragons... I'm seeing some serious balance issues right off the bat. Edgar: his weapon is broken, it's literally just a green bow, I could accept it as a pref weapon but inheritability breaks it completely. His special is relatively ok, depending on if it works on current or max HP. Teal Tomebreaker... I'm worried about the amount of coverage dual-breaker B skills can give, maybe even moreso than I'm worried about dual effectiveness. Still I can probably give it a pass. His Equalizer is fair enough. With Ivy, while I like both Superior Lance and Shelter skills, I have issues with bother her passives. Her A skill is clearly meant to work just with her B skill, otherwise being too weak to consider. Her B skill on the other hand is ridiculous. With a Spd bane and her A skill she reaches 11 Spd which is the lowest a unit can get without debuffs - actually exactly 5 Spd less than the next highest Spd, ensuring that no unit can ever double her and she can always double her target. Such a skill working at all HP thresholds is beyond unacceptable and needs immediate redesign to only work at reasonably high HP (if you want to keep the same effect). Liam is alright, I like Hvitrwolf which is a neat original skill. I'm not sure about Sharpen Spd. It feels like an unnecessary step between Drive and Hone. Phelan on the other hand is a no-go. Bloodstone is ridiculous, literally negating triangle disadvantage as long as you can keep the unit healthy. Lifetaker will be instantly replaced with Fury to capitalize on his absurd offense. His B skill would have been alright if he didn't have such a high offensive statline. Yolanda is probably the most balanced of the bunch. Does Serrated Dagger's secondary effect last only until the end of that battle or until the end of foe's next action? So if I attack someone, both units take 6 dmg from Fury, then I dance Yolanda and attack another foe, will the first foe also take 6 damage from Fury again?

@Corrobin They're more balanced now. Mirage Falchion is reasonable because armor effectiveness isn't as versatile as say horse effectiveness - against armors, your best bet is still magic damage even with an effective weapon, so you're not breaking anything here. Mirage Wo Dao is pretty decent and Threaten Poison is a nice skill, though I'd probably rename it to something like Poison Aura / Toxic Aura. I haven't looked at BST but stats look pretty solid though Tsurugi's offensive spread seems on the high side. @The Lord Of Gems I like Evasive Stance. Tempest Dance is broken. The reason you can combine Def and Res into one Dance skill with impunity is that you can only use one of these stats at a time - with Atk and Spd both contribute to offense. The Glacier Dance is at least more reasonable, rallying an offensive and a defensive stat - I suggest making Blazing Dance work with Atk and Def instead. Also, just saying but if you receive/ask for feedback on your creations it is common courtesy to give back feedback as well. My next project is a pair of Genealogy antagonists, generally inspired by the recent flux of characters from that game, which despite its flaws I think that among the Fire Emblem games, it does one of the best jobs at capturing the feeling of a "war". They are the ever-popular Ishtar and, of course, Julius (you can check my previous post on L'Arachel as to why Julius is a green tome user and not a red one). These two are of course meant to synergize with each other as infantry mages with the appropriate skills. I would want them to appear in some sort of chain-GHB challenge - something like a series of 3 maps that culminates in a BHB that rewards the units at the end in 3* versions, and you can complete certain challenges to get the 4* versions. Both have received a +2 BST bonus over the previous cap for their class in an effort to bridge the meta gap between regular and "Brave"/special units. Julius: Ishtar:

Alright, first of all, a character from Sacred Stones that I liked a lot, L'Arachel, in two variations: standard (cavalry staff healer) and Brave unit (cavalry blue tome mage). First, a bit of a small rant regarding light magic in Heroes that you may or may not want to read. Standard L'Arachel; Brave L'Arachel @Usana " Soldier wise my biggest worry is that effecting all three of Axe/Lance/Sword could be close to a general hone-infantry + Dancer type deal(who could also join in the hone fun). That said dividing infantry into 4(Bow/Dagger, Tome/Staff, Axe/Lance/Sword, Dragon) may not be that bad. Axe/Lance/Sword Infantry is just a rather big category is all. Not sure if it is bigger than Cavalry, but it is probably pretty close. " -> while you are correct on paper (51 "soldiers" vs 35 cavalry), there's one big factor here that's very important. It's very hard to make a "balanced" team with "soldiers" - you will lack both magic damage and range (at least until magic weapons with 1-2 range sneak their way into the game), which is even worse when you're limited to 2 MOV. Comparatively horse teams suffer no such issues - provided you can summon the necessary units, you can achieve full coverage with a Cavalry team and the only weakness is the vulnerability to effective damage. And I have to disagree - the big reason cavalry teams are so big is the extra MOV and the availability of ranged units in the movement type, which gives them extreme reach. If the Hone skills were the decisive factor then armor or flier teams would be as oppressive as horse teams or even more (now that both movement categories have access to ranged units, albeit event limited) Regarding Minerva I'd probably decide whether I want her to be an anti-archer focused unit, or a Raven Lance unit. In the first case I'd drop the Raven effect altogether and give her a defensive skill that instead focuses on defending her from bows (say a Deflect Missile-esque skill along with +x Def when attacked from range). If I wanted to focus on the colorless aspect then I'd drop the effective damage vs archers and keep the Raven aspect (if its meant to be Legendary, give it +3 MT and +3 Def, if not leave as is), and let players decide between TA3 for greater coverage and Iote's Shield for archer survivability. Trying to make everything work in one weapon is not often a good idea. @Hero_Lucina What help do you need? If you want BST stat totals then: Infantry dancer ranged: 139-140 Horse ranged: 144-145 (149 "Brave") Infantry / flier ranged: 147-149 Infantry dancer melee: 149-150 Horse melee: 148-155 (159 "Brave") Infantry / flier: 156-158 (162-163 "Brave") Non-dancer dragon: 157-163 Armor ranged: 165 Armor melee: 168-169 (173 "Brave") I think I covered mostly everything. Brave's general what you'd put on a unit that's either, well, a Brave unit, or a Trainee, or you just feel like you want it to be stronger than the others for no reason at all... (Sigurd Ayra etc) Going from there you can extrapolate. For example if you want to make a mounted ranged dancer for some reason, see how much an infantry ranged dancer drops from infantry ranged (somewhere in the ballpark of 10 points) and then subtract it from the appropriate category, to get the new BST (in this case 134-135 would be a safe bet). I'd personally not worry too much about going over or under by a point or two. Now individual stat caps are a different monster entirely. Like Usana says min-maxing stats to come up with a monster character dedicated to being oppressively good at one thing (like Arden) is a bad idea - it creates a polarized unit and by extension a polarized meta. You'd have to have a really good reason to kick a character to the bottom of the list in any one stat, or kick it over the top of said list. It'd take too much time to list here the individual current stat caps for all categories but currently the min-max value per stat are: HP 30-60, Atk 20-40, Spd 15-40, Def 13-41, Res 13-36 (smoothing up-down for a couple of stats intentionally). What this means is not that you SHOULDN'T make a unit that breaks those limits. It's that if you make a unit with 61 HP and 42 Def you should know that you are making a unit with the highest physical soak in the game, and if you make a unit with 42 Atk and 42 Spd you are making a unit with the best offensive spread in the game. If you go about distributing stats like "I want to make a unit that's good at tanking magic, hm, so the best stats are Res and Spd, it also needs some Atk and HP, so I'll just drop Def all the way to the minimum and max out what I want" then you end up with an overly-optimized unit that is what I call "best-in-role". Too many such units can make the game completely unfun.

@Usana Re:effectiveness. Yes I mostly agree with you. In general "effective damage" needs to be very carefully applied. The reason for Hunting Bow being what it is is that it is attached to the Bow weapon type which does suffer from usability issues in general. Originally, I had Hunting Bow's effect (basically effective damage vs fliers and cavalry) attached to my version of Nidhogg, which was a 14 MT Bow with said effect and additionally -5 Spd to offset it. Furthermore it was attached to my Innes, a character who was meant to have too low Spd to realistically double attack anything. I received a comment or two on that saying it was probably too weak (it was a long time ago too, before power creep). Deciding to both make it generic at that MT and removing the Spd penalty was probably a leap, though. I'd have to crunch some math to say anything though. The thing is that you can't exactly compare it to to a Brave weapon. Anything that can survive a quadstrike without WTA can probably survive 2x non-WTA effective damage as well. It's easier to doublestrike with effective damage than quadstrike with a Brave weapon, but then again effective damage is limited. Like I said it needs a bit of math to make do. Re:Yukimura. For me the issue aren't his stats at all, though they definitely play a part. Just being a 3 movement Dancer is already very good. Add to that that he can run Hone Cavalry to further support a Cavalry core, and even if he had literally no other attack or effect whatsoever and always died in one hit, he'd practically become a staple in any Cavalry team and I'm not even joking. My go-to team when I need to clear a map without casualties is Rein, BLyn, Xander/Cecilia (depending on map) and a dancer that literally does nothing but use his assist. The extra movement and Hone Cavalry source on that Dancer alone would make my job that much easier. Re:Minerva. For this one I was wrong. I didn't take into account the -raven part of her weapon adding to her survivability against archers. Thinking this through... forget CC and Iote, just slap TA3 and make her a frighteningly effective bane to red and colorless units everywhere that becomes even better in Flier Emblem, can Dance, and doesn't fall to archers without the niche Cancel Affinity. I think we're treading into dangerous territory here - a scaling back is needed. I mean Inigo is already very good and that's just with the standard Gronnraven and TA3 as an Infantry. Re:Wallace. Yeah he's of course meant to be armored, my bad. Re:Athos. Yep, he's indeed a bit min-maxed, which I've tried to avoid with my other units - however given that we're talking about a literally ancient hero of legend here, I felt that handpicking his stats a little bit was justified. I should probably mention that I have plotted out the theoretical Hone/Ward/Goad/Fortify for infantry Mages. I'm not sure if Hone Mages (locked to infantry, of course) would be such a huge concern. It'd basically be the same situation as stacking Hone/Fortify Cavalry on a mounted mage with a Blade tome (granted it bypasses the need for expensive inheritance but eh). Also such a skill would be locked to infantry mages as well, meaning you'd probably be running at least 3 of those to make reasonable use of the skill - and I'm gradually putting out more units that can act as effective magic soaks, preemptively preventing an oppressive meta to emerge from those skills. If you're interested, here's how I've plotted out the skills:

Gonna comment on some recent posts. Here's to maybe building some commentary back-and-forth here, it's unfortunate that several good designs are entirely overlooked and left without comment. As a side note, the link in my signature points to one of my posts in this thread which contains links to all custom characters I've made (since they're currently scattered in the thread and first post is not being updated any more). Feel free to check them out and comment on any of them at will (even though some of the older ones desperately need redesigns and also need to have stats added) @Corrobin @Usana @MageKnightEcho @MilodicMellodi @BlazingMage And finally, @Hilda

Four Blazing Blade characters, meant to be in a banner together. After the banner ends, Athos and Nils stay as 5*, Rath and Wallace drop to 4*-5* pool. Nothing much to add, just read the concepts for more information. CHANGELOG: - Fixed Wallace move type - Modified Hone Mages to work with Staff users

@silveraura25 Lex looks pretty good but that axe feels oppressive. Or at least it would be if he didn't have such a respectable speed stat, which makes the axe only work on dedicated speedsters and Brave users... but nonetheless I'd err on the side of caution, suppressing 50% or 75% of a unit's potential damage before any modifiers can be too good, especially since it applies to any form of damage, and especially since it covers such a wide spectrum of the meta - and it's not like you can't heal him back up above 80% either. Hell if you replace Vantage with QR you have a literal monster, so I'd strongly suggest reworking the Axe to something akin to Urvan. @Usana Heck I really like that Axebearing Inigo. My only complain is the exact same complain I had when the Performing Banner was announced. Why'd the new Dancers have to be 2 entirely new heroes + 2 heroes who were ALREADY dancers? Wouldn't it make for more variety to have someone a bit random take up a flute for example? I mean gameplay-wise it's no big deal but in a game like this variety is important. If I wanted to add a dancer to my team I had the options of Ninian, Azura, Olivia - and after the PA banner I had Shigure and Inigo, Ninian, and two variants each of Azura and Olivia character to fill the same role. I'd have rather had someone else as an alternate form dancer, and have Olivia or Azura's reworks as, say, hardcore frontliners or something. But yeah, that fact aside, this new Shigure is pretty cool, having a dancer who can actually stand at the front line and dish out significant chip damage is very interesting. Only issue being that as an Armor unit without access to Pivot he'd quickly fall behind any non-Armors, meaning he'd better have an Armor team preferably with Armor march along to truly fulfill his role. Otherwise Quickened Beats is very cool, especially with something like Galeforce. @CorrobinMirage Falchion is absurd no matter its base MT (even if we don't assume 16). "Effective damage" shouldn't be toyed with so lightly - it should be one category max per weapon, otherwise you get a pretty oppressive answer to a very wide spectrum of the meta, which is imbalanced regardless of its comparative value. As for your second character, significant reworks are needed especially because of PVE interactions. In maps where the enemy doesn't move, he can bring all enemy units to 1 HP before making a move (OR they could make damage from his C skill aggro, but then it would STILL be imbalanced because it would remove the need of baiting in certain encounters). In a similar vibe Mirage Wo Dao is absurd because if it reduces special charge by 1 at start of turn if unit's HP is >= 80%, then in the above scenario unit just sits there at start of combat and builds up his Galeforce to proc immediately on first combat. Easy fix would be to change it to only work at <= 80% HP. Here goes my Halloween Faye. As usual new skills in red. Make healers great again TITLE: Witch in Love NAME: Faye ORB AFFINITY: Colorless Staff STARTING STAR RANK: 5* (banner) CHARACTER DESCRIPTION: A cleric from Ram Village who decided to dress up as a witch for All Hallow's Eve and try to brew a love potion for her beloved. Appears in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. MOV: 2, Flier STAT DISTRIBUTION: BST: 148 HP: 38 ATK: 26 SPD: 30 DEF: 30 RES: 24 WEAPON: 3* - Gravity (6 MT, 2 RNG. After any combat, prevents foe from moving more than 1 space through its next action) 5* - Adoration (12 MT, 2 RNG. After any combat, foe must move at least 1 space towards unit through its next action, and if it attacks unit during that action, damage is reduced by 50%. Non-inheritable) ASSIST: 1* - Heal (1 RNG. Restores 5 HP.) 3* - Restore (1 RNG. Restores 8 HP and removes all enemy effects from target.) SPECIAL: 2* - Twilight Balm (2 CT. When healing an ally with a staff, grants target Atk/Def/Res/Spd +3 for 1 turn.) SKILL A: n/a SKILL B: 2* - Dazzling Staff 1 (If unit has 100% HP at the start of combat, the enemy cannot counterattack.) 4* - Dazzling Staff 2 (If unit has >=50% HP at the start of combat, the enemy cannot counterattack.) 5* - Dazzling Staff 3 (The enemy cannot counterattack.) SKILL C: n/a CONCEPT: Halloween Faye is my attempt to do something fun with Staff users. As a healer she comes with a basic low BST compared to her peers. Her attack is subpar - she won't be doing much damage. But unlike most healers her survivability is decent and actually defense-oriented. Still she won't be able to take much of a beating - which is where her unique weapon, Adoration, comes in. With the ability to not only force her target to move towards her during the next turn, but also reduce said target's ability to damage her significantly, she becomes an excellent baiter for isolated physical units (I chose 12 as baseline MT for legendary staffs, making them slightly weaker than Bows and Tomes). Dazzling Staff in B slot makes her an even better initiator during the bait phase. The Restore assist is a basic heal skill that also removes all enemy effects from the target including any stat penalties and movement restrictions as well as other debilitating effects (for example, it would completely remove the effects of Adoration). Twilight Balm feels like a natural effect for healers who are intent on taking a support role in a team. Of note is of course her Flier-type movement which lets her navigate around the map easily and apply her buffs and debuffs, at the cost of being very vulnerable to archery.

I would return to P2W status if and only if some major changes happen to the game. One of the big changes that directly impacts pulls and is almost an absolute requirement for me to spend money again is a thorough cleansing of the overly bloated 5* character pool. At least half of the characters currently in the 5* exclusive pool need to become more easily accessible. As it is you are relying on a 5* pull for the majority of the characters you'd want, and add to that the potential of a bad nature and it just gets even worse.

Turtle. Around 750 Euros spent. Won't be spending any more on the foreseeable future, though - not unless the plummeting of the game's quality and enjoyability reverses itself, which I just don't see happening any time soon. EDIT: Also IMO there should be a class in-between Clown Fish and Turtle, ranging from 100-400$. There's a big difference between people who may spent a few bucks here and there, probably capping at around 50-100$ over the course of several months, and relatively dedicated spenders who will climb over 100$ with their purposes.

Clearly we're getting an "apology" in about a week or so complimented by the grand consolation package of 10 orbs! And everyone is going to be happy as they are compensated with a 3* Draug and a 3* Raigh and all will be well in the kingdom of Askr!

Oh no, I fully understand that. I actually enjoyed those story chapters, as they were a refreshing change of pace compared to the usual. Building one team with the purpose of winning an endurance match is not a hard task. It's when they are mixed in with the inherent challenge of an endurance run like the Chain Challenges, that I feel they get too oppressive. You'll have to build a team that can sweep the earlier maps AND survive the endurance battle(s)... it requires a narrow balance that significantly blows a great variety of team options away, forcing you down to a bare few choices - choices which, depending on your roster, may be hard to build effectively.