Kaden

Oh, you needed a 5* Sharena... Welp, that didn't work and trying to rig it to work with other units like Ninian to buff Sharena's defense didn't work as well because Sharena gets doubled unless she's a 5* with Speed +3. And then Mkv. does this with 3* Navarre and 3* F!Robin at the same time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Pu6ijtwIM. I guess I don't need to promote either then. Sweet.

@ILikeKirbys, just checked for someone to one-shot Lunatic 9-5 Xander, they would need to do 66 damage. If the cleric is anywhere near him, then he gets +4 to his resistance putting him up to 23 meaning you'd have to do 70 damage. For whatever reason, when I did the strategy Iris gave me: https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/70605-quests-and-missions-discussion-thread/&do=findComment&comment=4773217, the cleric would follow Xander down towards Olivia and Ursula. Heh, it seems my curse with Ursula is that I don't notice units getting their resistance buffed; happened in 9-5 for the deathless quest and Zephiel's GHB. 9-5 Lunatic Xander in spoiler. So, yeah, Ursula would be a powerful member for Xander's GHB, but at the same time, a very risky one because of how fragile she is to physical attacks.

Last thing I remember is that 3* Ursula dies to Xander on Lunatic 9-5 because she can't one-shot him with Hone Attack 3? and because of Distant Counter and I think he's fast enough to double her. If his stats are around Lunatic 9-5 Xander's, then Ursula will need to be a 4* or someone needs to chip him down a bit before Ursula attacks. Weird thing, but I think it would be neat if Laslow and Peri fought alongside Xander for his GHB with suped up stats and added skills if necessary. It would be quite fitting for his retainers to be with him and because they exist since outside of F!Robin and kind of Navarre, the other GHB units don't have anyone in the game that fought alongside them or don't have retainers as far as I know.

Re-watching the nstyler's video just made me remember that my +Atk, -Res Subaki will 2HKO Lunatic Navarre if he is anywhere near Olivia or anyone with Hone Attack 3. I'll have to drop Hone Attack 3 to 2 which will leave Lunatic Navarre at 4 HP which is more than enough for ally Navarre to finish him. But there's the other problem involving Donnel since as a 3* with neutral stats, he cannot ORKO the Rogue Dagger thief regardless if Olivia has Hone Attack 3; he can if he's a 4* with Olivia with Hone Attack 2. I mean, I could have him attack again with Olivia's help, but assuming the same or similar thing happens in the normal strategy by Mkv, then Donnel's going to be taken down to 1 HP by the Silver Dagger thief, the healer is right above him to kill him if he doesn't move out, and because Navarre is not Sophia or any red mage, it might change the AI's positioning, especially the jerk of an axe fighter. Man, Donnel, you've been a thorn at my side ever since Navarre's GHB. I'm working on getting you trained, man! Edit: Dammit, game! If I give Donnel an Attack +1 Seal, he can ORKO the Rogue Dagger thief. Problem: he needs Olivia's Hone Attack 3 which leads to the other problem: +Atk, -Res 4* Subaki ORKO's Lunatic Navarre if he receives Olivia's Hone Attack 3 buff. If I can somehow position Subaki away from Olivia, then he can leave Lunatic Navarre with 12 HP after hitting twice. 3* Navarre gets doubled, so he needs to do 12 damage which he can with Hone Attack 3. Great, this is going to mess with the enemy positioning, won't it?

I accidentally chose Navarre's damn map instead of F!Robin's. Have no idea how that happened other than being stupid. Was just going to do the have Navarre beat F!Robin with it. Navarre would have taken F!Robin's place anyway while Ursula does her thing with Blarrblade, Eirika provides buffs, and Olivia dances. He probably could have done it as a lv. 36 considering Ursula would have killed off 3 of the units leaving Navarre to deal with F!Robin and maybe survive against the lance infantry for Ursula to destroy him. Well, that was a waste of stamina. On the bright side, got enough SP for Felicia to get Seal Speed 3. Also, F!Robin really needs T-Adept if she wants to live or do anything against the thieves on Lunatic Navarre. Welp, gonna have to figure something out...

Probably not if all he needs to do is land the finishing blow, but it's going to be annoying when one member of the team is just hanging out. Hmm, this probably how people feel with F!Robin being used for Lunatic Navarre.

His robe, especially the collar reminds me of old Chinese clothing. Navarre being this lone, wandering swordsman with Eastern motifs adds to that. Man, he's 5 levels off from being level 40 as a 3*... and I don't want to make a 4* either... MEH.

Oh, great, then I should get him up to 4*. Trying to position him to get the kill is going to be a pain. Trying to make sure Lunatic Navarre doesn't accidentally die is another issue since the last time I fought him, he decided charging into Sully was a good idea. Sure, Tiki would have taken no damage, but really, dude? Wait until the thief attacks Tiki first and then attack Tiki. Nope, charge into Sully while Tiki destroys the thief... Idiot. Maybe I should try nstyler's strategy. Gonna need to level up Donnel who keeps popping up in Mkv's strategies that it's annoying because I haven't gotten him to level 40 yet. Well, I kind of like Navarre's design -- he, unsurprisingly, reminds me of old Chinese kung fu films -- and I like his voice. As a unit on the other hand, he got the short end of the stick compared to the other GHB units. Then again, he's a sword infantry and there are tons of them.

And now I wait if to learn if it's possible for a 3* Navarre to fight Lunatic Navarre. Probably gonna be a drag. F!Robin fighting F!Robin was a bit easy. Then again, she and Narcian only had hard versions unlike the recent GHBs which had lunatic versions and on my end, F!Robin has Gronnraven+ for extra damage and Ursula has Blarblade and R Tomebreaker letting her trivialize the axe fighter, red mage, and kind of the blue mage. I tried to go Horse Emblem, but it was overkill, so F!Robin couldn't even do a thing. I think I ended up using Eirika, Olivia, F!Robin, and Ursula to have F!Robin defeat herself. The question is how will I do the Navarre quests? I don't even want another Navarre; I just want to complete the quests. I just got rid of +6 units and now I'm getting even more. F!Robin at least has B Tomebreaker, but Navarre... What am I going to do with your skills? F!Robin on Lunatic Navarre is doable, but she does have Gronnraven+, I can't get T-Adept 3. I can't even afford T-Adept 1 without having to grind F!Robin and the end result is a 4* Navarre... I'd rather do the 3 other quests since I'd get another 3* F!Robin and 2 orbs, but hey, at least I'll get more Desperation 2 and Threaten Speed 3 fodder, so might as well...

Do you not have a Hinata? 4* Hinata gives Fury 3 while Bartre and Jagen give it at 5*. From 0 to 2,000 feathers for Fury 3 vs. 20,000 to 22,000 feathers, I'd say Hinata is a better choice. Also, Eldigan, but you better have dozens of him before you do that. Bartre is better off passing Brash Assault to Alfonse, Lyn, or someone else, Smite because only he and Effie have it and Effie's a 4* to 5*-only unit, and I guess if you want, a Hammer, which Cherche and Frederick can give as well, but they have other stuff they can give. Jagen is better off giving Aegis probably to a knight without Distant Counter because as everyone should be aware now with how you can troll the knights in Zephiel's with ranged units, especially magic ones since only Sheena has good resistance -- Golbez-like mage, when? --, Fortify Cavalry for a cavalry team, and Silver Lance because the only other Silver Lance users are Clair and Effie and nobody knows who's going to be made into a 4* unit out of the Echoes units.

F!Robin as M!Robin is pretty good... Also, the fact she comes with B Tomebreaker really helps her ignore her average speed again blue mages unlike M!Robin of whom mine got screwed with -Atk making it even more annoying when he leaves enemies with 1 HP. Plus, whenever Ursula shows up again, you can just hard counter her like always with F!Robin. :p I do wish that she had different stats since M!Robin proves with default tome and stats that a tank-y mage is pretty much the best user of a -raven tome to counter archers and thieves. They're the "same person", but still. Maybe we'll get Morgan one day and they'll be a red version of them... I swear if that happens. We'd have 3 of the same freaking characters doing the same thing. "What's the best build for Morgan?" "Swap out Rauorblade+ for Rauorraven+." "B-but, Hen-" "JUST. DO. IT." And then a team of Morgan, F!Robin, and M!Robin terrorizes everyone until they meet high resistance units. Cue the other Morgan coming in as an archer with Close Counter and Quick Riposte by default. And so the family reigns again.

Y'know, I'm just going to explore this part as well. The above was done without Fury 3 on everyone. With it, as will be shown below, Gaius loses almost half of his wins. Silver Dagger time; everyone with Silver Dagger+ and Life & Death 3 against everyone with Fury 3. Excluded from this is Jaffar since he comes with his own personal dagger that is essentially a stronger Silver Dagger+ i.e. there is absolutely no reason to give him a Silver Dagger+. Saizo will have Smoke Dagger+ as well to compare. Also, no seals just 'cause. Details in spoiler. First off, never give Kagero a Silver Dagger. The moment you do, she drops by 14 wins and gains 3 losses. Like in the previous check with Poison Dagger on everyone else, she retains her commanding lead. +Atk, -Def Kagero has 10 wins over the second-best, Gaius, but that comes at the cost of being very volatile since she's dependent on Swordbreaker to have that many wins. Without Swordbreaker, she can drop by upwards of 15 wins and compared to a +Atk, -Def Gaius without -breaker skills, Gaius actually comes out as being slightly better. +Spd, -Def Kagero is more stable and without a -breaker, Kagero beats +Spd, -Def Gaius without -breaker skills and even comes close to matching him when he has Swordbreaker 3 when she doesn't. Felicia performs the worst, as to be expected. It might actually be overkill for her when you consider that most mages don't have high defenses and you're giving her a glass cannon build. Felicia's probably better off doing a similar build to Niles with Fury, Quick Riposte, and Iceberg, but she'll underperform when there is no such thing as a Killer Dagger to let her activate Iceberg per round. Gaius is once again, the second-best candidate for a Silver Dagger as he has a 13 win lead over Saizo, the third-best. He is also uniquely the only one that actually wants Reprisal rather than Moonbow. Then again, he has the highest HP out of the current thieves and is the fastest by default. And once again, I did not expect Jakob to perform this bad. He's around Felicia and Matthew's level. Bowbreaker is good, but probably more situational than Lancebreaker and Swordbreaker which does not change his results like Matthew. Maybe Jakob is a bit too balanced... As for Matthew, I realized when I did the Poison Dagger check that Matthew's stats are pretty similar to Jaffar's, but he lacks the natural edge Jaffar has of having a personal weapon, Life & Death, and a special. Lastly, Saizo. Silver Dagger is probably not worth it for 1 overall extra win. He's better off being given Poison Dagger in the future rather than a Silver Dagger. Eh, just to compare a bit since big numbers are just that: big numbers. So, +Atk, -Def Gaius vs. +Spd, -Def Kagero -- higher overall wins without any -breaker skill.

For who? Roy?

Well, budget in a sense that sacrificing Kagero for Poison Dagger when she's the only one that has it and Daggerbreaker is pretty steep compared to a 5* Jakob who has skills other units can give e.g. Fae gives a full set of Renewal, M!Corrin and Stahl give a full set of Defense +, Cecilia can give Rally Resistance, and of course, if you have a spare 5* Felicia, she can give Silver Dagger+ too or if she's a 3* or 4*, she can start the branch of getting a Silver Dagger+. That and this is the, "ideal" 5* build. You could get by with Silver Dagger and L&D 2 for a 4* Gaius and that would be fine. He won't be as powerful, but he'd still be pretty good. Oh, and Silver Dagger's MT being 7 makes it a Rogue Dagger+ without its self-buff and needing to promote him into a 5*. I'd put Gaius in the same boat as Caeda, M!Corrin, Draug, Est, Florina, Hana, and Matthew. Their stats are fine, but their weapons and skills leave much to be desired like M!Corrin's stats are good and Yato has a built-in Darting Blow 2, but his skills outside of Dragon Fang are kind of meh, or they just don't work with their stats like who thought it was a good idea for the low defense, high resistance Pegasus Knights to have Armorslayer and Heavy Lance? Above them would be units who given a different weapon or just one more skill would be amazing: Bartre, Cherche, Frederick, Oboro, and Setsuna come to mind. The hilarity is that almost all of them want Brave weapons. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's more work for units like Gaius since you'd have to basically overhaul them while adding to their empty slots like out of the skills I would keep on Gaius, it would be Rally Speed and that's it. Defiant Attack would be better on a tanky unit who can drop to critical HP and survive and Pass might be better on someone else rather than fragile, speedy Gaius. With someone like Cherche, all you really need to make her better is Brave Axe. Yes, getting stuff like Death Blow, a B-slot, and a special would be amazing for her, but Attack +3 still boosts her already fearsome attack, Pivot is great, and Fortify Def is a buff skill and what's bad about them? Setsuna has situational skills, but they're good situational skills that can work with her. Could be better on someone else, but at least it works with her without issues like I need glass cannon Hana to smack a knight and hopefully not die or take too much damage or somehow get Draug to initiate combat when he's a knight. So yeah, I was curious, Gaius is one of my favorite characters, and I was wondering exactly how'd he do with a Poison Dagger and also, a Silver Dagger since I really need to get rid of units and there's this clumsy, extra Felicia with a Silver Dagger waiting for someone.

Got bored, wanted to see how others would use Poison Dagger. Long story short: Kagero is the queen. She's essentially Takumi in regard to daggers. Unsurprising considering her base neutral attack is 35 which is 6 above the second-highest of Gaius, Jakob, and Saizo. Much rougher competition compared to the archers. So, I tried to get the best overall numbers for Gaius, Jakob, Kagero, Saizo, and also Felicia, Jaffar, and Matthew since I was curious and why not, let's do them all. All of them have Poison Dagger+ and Life & Death 3 and are pitted against everyone with Fury 3. Couldn't get Desperation to work; I got lower numbers with it instead. Details in spoiler. Basically, I did this to confirm my suspicion that Gaius wants Life & Death to succeed well. He's fragile and has fairly average attack, but is very fast and has high HP; Gaius is basically Lon'qu, a similar situation he had in Awakening. The problem is that he starts out with arguably the worst dagger in the game that he's dependent on for survival meaning if you want to use him well, you're going to have to spend SP for a Poison Dagger which is rare and used much better by Kagero or more easier to come by, but not as strong, a Silver Dagger which Jakob by default uses effectively. And then you have to replace his other skills which is probably more work than Kagero who starts out with Poison Dagger and Reprisal and only really needs Life & Death and a B-skill. That said, if you really like Gaius, got screwed by a terrible Kagero which even then, she's still powerful with stuff like -Atk or -Spd, or you want another Poison Dagger thief, Gaius might be the best candidate. Also, he's kind of the Hinoka to Kagero's Cordelia and Hinoka performs well, but not as well as Cordelia offensively. That would make Saizo Est, then... The other reason was to check on Saizo. Poison Dagger works, but because Life & Death is needed to maximize damage output, it hurts one of Saizo's greatest strengths: his defense. The problem is that the meta revolves around who can instantly vaporize units which if you can't, then it's a problem. If it weren't, I'd figure a defensive, supportive Saizo would be a useful ally to have and not just dead weight who can't kill or do enough damage. Part of this came from experimenting with eclipse's idea of Seal Speed on a Silver Dagger user. Let's just say it's really fun. Saizo's Smoke Dagger reminds me of Corrin's Dark Breath. I wonder if a default Corrin-like build would be good on him. Well, it would help, but it's probably not going to be favored by the meta. Edit: Huh... Budget build for Gaius: +Atk, -Def, Silver Dagger+, Life & Death 3, Swordbreaker 3, any C-slot, default or any Assist, and Moonbow. 62 wins, 3 losses, 55 draws against everyone without Fury 3. If he's +Spd, -Def, then 45 wins, 3 losses, 72 draws and if neutral, then 41 wins, 3 losses, 76 draws.

*insert Raven's sigh here* Welp, that's 4 units down dropping me down to 145 units. Still have 40-ish to go. Screwed up a bit with using Draug to give Hana Brave Sword and Buckler first instead of using Cain to give her Brave Sword and Escutcheon since I was considering Threaten Attack, but I think it might work out better at the cost of 2k feathers if I promote a spare Gwendolyn to get Escutcheon and Hone Attack 2 -- might want to replace Hana's Rally Attack in the future since while great, maybe she would want something else if she can indirectly buff everyone's attack. So, spare Donnel, Draug, Matthew, and Palla are gone. Est can access Brave Lance and Drag Back, Hana has Brave Sword and Buckler, Olivia has Moonbow and access to Ruby Sword, and Setsuna has Hone Speed 1 and access to Hone Speed 3 -- felt fitting for the fastest archer to boost speed. I want to give Setsuna Luna, but I wanted to do this weird thing for Rebecca, Setsuna, or someone else where a 3* Frederick gives New Moon and Fortify Def 2 and a 4* Frederick gives Luna and Fortify Def 3. That being said, it might be better if someone else was buffing defense instead since Rebecca's defense isn't that great. And then the 1* units from the special maps... Yeah... I'm going to do something stupid for one of them: merge summoned 3* Felicia to a 1* Felicia, get the remaining SP for Seal Speed 3, and there you go, one less 1* unit. I wonder what assist would she want? Rally Res works, but Jakob does that by default. Maybe Ardent Sacrifice or Reciprocal Aid? Kind of worries me since if she gets hit by anything physical, she'll probably die. Otherwise, Draw Back, but I don't have anyone with Draw Back other than my only Sully.

Yeah, that's why I feel like Hector would like having WoM, but I don't have him. A knight suddenly dropping in to wreck stuff is quite hilarious. Welp, guess I'll save it for Hector, Serra, or whatever. Maybe the eventual Black Knight who if he has Escape Route instead of having Wings of Mercy by default. Oh dear. If he's a GHB unit in the future, that would be horrible. Accidentally left someone alive and didn't take out the Black Knight? RIP. And then there's Alondite probably going to have a built-in Distant Counter on it. Yay... Anyway, I digress. Thanks, eclipse.

Great, I should have just gotten Brave Sword and Escutcheon from Cain then... Oh well, I was trying to get rid of units, so that's fine. Having a rough time figuring out who wants Wings of Mercy outside of someone like Hector, Olivia, and Ninian, but at the same time, hanging onto units is becoming detrimental since I'm being limited to 11 summons now. Edit: Eh, it's still a C-slot, she doesn't have one, and it could help out the other units.

Dude, you could dump Life & Death on her and she'd have 54 attack and 44 speed which is stupid! But she'd have 9 defense and 18 resistance. XD With Draconic Aura, assuming she could activate it, she could do 70 damage before weapon triangle (dis)advantage and resistance are factored in. That assumes she survives that long and to activate it. Aww, ninja'd by eclipse.

Would Threaten Attack be good on Hana? I feel like I'm going to answer my own question since if it can activate before she engages an enemy, it could really help her out to lower the damage she takes. Then again, it might be better if someone else had it. Maybe I should have grabbed Spur Def from Draug, then, but I don't know if she'll be that close to people at times if she's the one always on the offense. Plan was to use a -Atk, +Def 3* Draug to give Brave Sword and Buckler and a spare Cain to give Escutcheon and Threaten Attack 2.

You already got a response, but the -Def one should probably go as Emerald Axe, Lancebreaker, and Swap fodder. Emerald Axe lowers the damage he takes from blues, but sometimes its not enough and if you're looking to specifically counter lance units, then taking no damage is better than taking bits of damage that could drop him below Lancebreaker's range, especially since he cannot get Lancebreaker 3 as a 4* which would give him more leeway by needing to be above 50% HP instead of 70% with Lancebreaker 2. Going off of what eclipse said, he really is dependent on Lancebreaker to double lance units. 29 speed as a 5* is about average, right? Arthur's a very specific unit, but that's not much of a problem if you intend to hard counter lance units which can make him very good for future GHBs since you could always ensure he'd be able to counter them. Personally, I'd recommend looking for a +Atk Arthur in the future. It's overkill for lancers, but hey, sometimes overkill is better than kill. It does put him up to 35 attack which means you could swap out his Emerald Axe for a Brave Axe, but other units do that build better or start out with it like Barst who is equally as tough, but is slightly stronger and faster at the cost of having worse resistance which shouldn't matter for him.

Yeah, that was a concern I had, but it's still a 2 cooldown and they could just make it a 3 cooldown instead. Eh, okay. Unrelated: Serene's Forest is a bit weird on mobile when it comes to quotes and spoilers.

@Ice Dragon, would removing the +1 to special cooldown on the stronger heal spells also work without making them stupid?

Such a lust for strategy! WHOOOO!? :P Would it be possible to murder the red mage to start, somehow bait the blue mage to get murdered, and then wall the knights? Might need a healer to do this since there's no way to actually cover all 3 knights with 2 units unless one of the ranged units had Close Counter and high def and Wary Fighter prevents you from nuking them. The strategy I came up with could work without Reposition -- I just wanted to use Selena --, but if Dance counts as postioning which it probably does, then no. Edit: Also needs inherited skills, so, if that's not allowed, then another no.

Maybe I should just wait for offensive versions of the healers which by that time, maybe light magic animations are made or alternatively since some of the healers can use different weapons, there could be stuff like Great Master Azama -- why do I feel like this could be a FE version of Great Teacher Onizuka -- and axe-wielding War Cleric Lissa while someone like Libra could have a healer version.