Making Hunting by Daybreak easy

[LoneRecon400]

I see people still making comments of how difficult Hunting By Daybreak is. 

While they are correct in saying that it is a map to be prepared for, I find that people don’t give very good advice about it. Either they say to use very specific map skipping strategies that requires a lot of foresight to work or instead just give vague advice such as raise in house units without really looking to understand how the map works

The biggest piece of advice to beating Hunting By Daybreak is easily this: The two groups of enemies are triggered by the enemy Snipers.

Aside from the two thieves at the very beginning, they're 14 enemies at the start of the map that are split into two groups between the North and South. They’re triggered by a unit stepping into range of the two enemy Snipers in each group, regardless of if it’s a player or enemy unit. 

What typically gets players killed is that they trigger instantly trigger all 14 enemies at once by going Into the Northern Bush since that’s in range of both Snipers. If they instead go into the Southern Bush, they still trigger both groups as enemies from the back end of the south group will always walk into the range of the Northern Sniper and trigger that group anyways.  

As such, the easiest solution to beating Hunting By Daybreak is this: have Byleth and the other route character fly to the north corner of the map where Caspar/Gilbert/Ignatz show up. This will cause the Northern Group to aggro, but will prevent the Southern Group from aggroing and really limits the amount of enemies they have to face.

This does requires a Byleth in a flying class, but it’s a lot less restrictive than say having a specific unit be a Dance. On AM this also requires Byleth to learn Reposition since Dimitri is footlocked, but can use Reposition to go through the northern wall. 

But once the Northern group is dealt with, the map is easy pickings. There’s never a point where you’re swarmed by that many enemies compared to beginning. You can even go so far as to go straight through the North right to the boss without having to engage the south group at all. 

TL:DR; Make a flying Byleth and head to the north corner. Makes you have to face only 6 enemies at once rather than 14. Be sure to have Reposition to move a wild boar through a wall for it’s own safety. 

Edited August 15, 2021 by LoneRecon400

[Barren]

My first experience with this map on maddening was on the Verdant Wind route. Basically I had Byleth be the meat shield against these thieves and archers because she had weight -3, faith prowess and white magic avoid +20. They all happened to bunched themselves up to be in range of Claude’s battalion.
 

After that I was able to let Lorenz, Hilda and Leonie finish them off with their lance combat arts along with swordbreaker. Ignatz for me was killing assassins with HV. After that I just had Raphael soften up one of the other assassins for me while Lysithea finishes them off and Marianne dances. Once I got through the first half of that fight it wasn’t too bad from there.

[LoneStar]

"Flying Byleth". Listen I'm not trying to be a waifu chaser it's just the optimal choice.

I don't know if this post can be pinned or something because people are still going to post if they can't clear that map. Even though it will be rare since the game is decently old now.

I'm one of those "Just train your in-house characters" people. Honesty I don't have any real advice outside of that because I usually just BS my way through the map, and from my perspective if the units that you are forced to use have decent builds you can figure out something.

[Dark Holy Elf]

14 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

TL:DR; Make a flying Byleth and head to the north corner. Makes you have to face only 6 enemies at once rather than 14. Be sure to have Reposition to move a wild boar through a wall for it’s own safety. 

This is great advice. I've figured out before to be careful with aggroing each group and that obviously flight gives Byleth (among others) huge flexibility there, but it's neat to see this put so succinctly.

Worth mentioning that if you don't have Reposition on AM and/or Byleth/Seteth doesn't fly, you can also do a variation of this strategy using whatever fliers you do have from the central and southwest groups going up to support the northwest group to take out the north enemy set.

[Azz]

Damn this woulda been nice for my first NG Maddening run where I had stupidly decided to keep Byleth as Enlightened One lol. Thankfully I managed to get through it thanks to Gilbert with a steel shield being surprisingly tankier than I expected and Dimitri having the Chalice of Beginnings (and getting very lucky with avoiding things and criting things)...

I will definitely be using this strategy on future runs however (whenever I do tackle NG Maddening again)

[OriginalRaisins]

At this point, I've only done HBD on maddening 3 times, but I've clearly gotten better at preparing for it on each attempt. I'll give a basic rundown of what I did in each run and some general tips at the end.

First attempt: Verdant Wind

This was rough, and took probably 30-40 attempts (not divine pulses, chapter resets). The key was, honestly, learning that I could dismount Claude/Hilda to keep them safe against the snipers. I completely sacrificed Lorenz and Ignatz. With a bit of luck I got through the initial stages, then Thyrsus Lysithea did her thing. Leonie was an ordinary sniper and managed fine with her Fusillade gambit. I did end up discovering your sniper triggers a few attempts in and used that to my advantage.

Second attempt: Azure Moon

This only took two attempts. The hardest part was getting Annette and Mercedes to the north. Ashe delivered a silver shield to Gilbert and then promptly bit the dust. On my successful attempt I had to really think about my actions with Dimitri/Byleth, each of whom were in their personal classes, to make sure that gambits hit where they needed to. Once I got the southern grappler distracted (he was being mean and onerounding Annette/Mercedes) then Thyrsus Mercedes was able to wreck the map

Third attempt: Silver Snow

By far the easiest clear I've ever done. For one, the run was restricted to inhouse units/no recruits, so I had everyone reasonably trained. I also certed everyone into Fortress knight ahead of time so everyone had the base 17 defense, plus whatever their class provided. For most units, base 17 defense + a silver shield + rally defense meant I took zero damage from the ordinarily threatening enemies. The only tricky bit was clearing the assassins around Pallardo but even my weaker units were able to survive two rounds of combat. Also Petra was reclassed from Dancer to Wyvern for this map only for an easy escape from the southern enemies.

Lessons learned There are lots of ways to prepare for Hunting by Daybreak on Maddening mode. There is no "one simple trick" to prepare but rather a whole entire list of good habits that honestly serve you well anywhere if you follow them all the time.

• Know where your units spawn and when
• Cert into armor knight/fortress knight for quick base defense (you can go back to your normal class after earning the defense)
• Bring shields. You can have 2 silver shields by this point and more steel shields. Also don't forget defensive battalions
• Reclass to flier for the moment if you want. No point having Petra in dancer if she spawns alone with nobody to dance for.
• Pack healing. You know how your weapons get fully repaired? So do elixirs and concoctions :)
• Bring extra chest keys :)

[drattakbowser]

It's work in "Maddening" ?