Radiant Dragon

I've been very busy lately, so I'm incredibly late in clearing this map, and I haven't even tried Abyssal yet! I hope you guys still find my clear entertaining even though it is only on Infernal.

Takumi's Grand Hero Battle was the first one I ever beat on Infernal (thanks to the combined might of Fjorm and Legendary Ike), so I've been looking forward to recording it with my current team. The recent updates to the music settings make recording this map even more sweet now, since hearing 'End of All' interrupted every five seconds by the generic battle/enemy phase themes was incredibly jarring when this map was first released. All of my units put in some work here, but Tiki does most of the heavy lifting. Klein had to start in the last slot in the deployment order for this strategy to work so he could manipulate the Lance Cavalier to go north towards him instead of east towards Tiki on turn one. Apparently the AI tends to prioritize targeting the character in the right-most slot when all other factors are equal.

Someone had to sit out to make room for Tiki, and I decided on Julia to have full weapon triangle coverage. Just in case I needed it, since I didn't know what to expect or what the reinforcements would be. I figured I'd go in, see what worked and what didn't, and go from there, but I managed to beat the map on my trial run so I just went with it. I'm actually considering recording another run, this time including Julia and Siegbert, so hopefully I'll have time to do so before the map goes away.

I hope I didn't add to your frustration with my comments. I had less trouble with this map simply because I managed to stumble upon something that worked really quickly. Tiki is my best tank, and Klein is one of my best offensive units (although my recently acquired Siegbert is giving him a run for his money), so I certainly didn't go in pulling any punches.

@Xenomata I hope that the AI is just as incompetent with Future Vision in the Arena as it was with it in your clear. I worry it's going to be a difficult skill to play around. @mampfoid @LordFrigid I wonder if IS put Guard on so many of the melee enemies to try and discourage people from clearing this map in one turn? Nevertheless, your teams are clearly too strong to be stopped by such measures! Great clears! Normally, Legendary Hero Battles give me quite a bit of trouble, but I was able to beat Lucina on my first try. After that, all that was left to do was stack enough speed on Morgan so she could ORKO the Manakete so I didn't have to spend an extra turn killing her. Tiki gets to take advantage of her merges, and Klein gets to show off his S-rank Summoner Support.

@mcsilas Impressive Awakening themed clears! They feel especially appropriate for this map, considering the reinforcement triggers appear to reference Cervantes and Excellus from Awakening's Chapter 20. Lon'qu defies the infantry sword power-creep by going one-on-one with Walhart himself! Here's my clear of this battle! I'm glad to see another GHB, it feels like it's been so long since the last new one. All of my fighters needed Death Blow to kill all of the enemies quickly enough, and Siegbert's Galeforce was incredibly helpful. I'm very happy to have invested as much into him as I have.

I didn't beat this map on Infernal the first time it was here, so I was happy to have a second chance at it now that I'm recording my clears. This map felt more difficult than Hector's, somehow, and I think that shows with how many skills I actually needed to equip to meet stat benchmarks and keep my team from getting swarmed.

I finally had some time to work on clearing the maps that dropped this week, so here's my clear. I tried for quite a while to try and stack enough defense on Tiki that she could tank through the enemy's specials, but eventually I realized it would be simpler to just give her the Guard skill. This also marks the debut of Red units in my clears, somehow I've managed to coincidentally avoid them until now.

That green mage was no match for your Shiro! Your Shiro and Siegbert look strong enough to take on anything! I wasn't expecting Lucius to be able to ORKO so many of the enemies, I wonder if he's starting to make Raven feel a little inadequate? Awesome clear! It's cool to see Marisa so good at tanking considering she wasn't very good at it in Sacred Stones. You and mampfoid have really strong teams! Your Galeforce clears are really fun to watch, especially because I know I'll probably never have that many highly merged Galeforce units myself. Here's my attempt at a video; Julia is a very effective counter to many of the enemies on this map, so the rest of the team just had to help take out the red units.

Radiant - 7143938853 I'm usually running Cecilia as my lead (Gronnraven+ w/Triangle Adept), but I'm open to switching it up if anyone needs something specific and I'm able to provide.

Low-manning is a bit of a grey area where the Dawn Brigade is concerned, yeah. Still, most efficient playthroughs will still take advantage of all or most (Fiona is nigh useless) of the units you can deploy in their chapters for auxiliary tasks while funneling the majority of the EXP into 2-3 units being seriously trained for Part 4. Sothe, Volug and Zihark are all capable of contributing without needing any EXP, Leonardo has Lughnasadh and ballista utility, Jill can ferry people, Laura heals regardless of her level, etc. It's more relevant in other games in the series, however, especially Sacred Stones (where basically soloing the game with Seth is easier than trying to train all the scrubs the game gives you) and Awakening (Robin gets ridiculous really fast thanks to Veteran). Still, even in the rest of the series, putting a majority of the game's early EXP into a single unit/small amount of units lets them snowball out of control until basically endgame. It can make the game really easy, but also extremely boring.

Any Tier 3 DB member can take out Ike; I'm especially fond of having Meg go mano a mano with him in draft playthroughs, although that would definitely count as low-manning, so YMMV. However, it's usually not worth it since the DB units you're trying to train could really use the EXP for waiting this chapter out to help them in Part 4, and it's not like you get anything for beating him anyway. LTC/Draft playthroughs are the only times I would consider going after him. Even with Ragnell equipped, he's not that difficult to take down, though.

Authority only matters for the unit leading the party for that chapter. Ike and Micaiah in their respective chapters (although Micaiah doesn't have any, unfortunately), Elincia in 2-P and 2-E, Nephenee in 2-1, Lucia in 2-2, Geoffrey in 2-3 and 3-9, and Tibarn in 4-2 and 4-5. Ike is considered the commander for the Tower, so everyone gets the bonuses for his stars there. For every other playable character with authority (Sanaki, Caineghis, Renning, etc.), it is purely cosmetic. Note that enemies (and NPCs also, I believe) get the same boosts from their commander's stars as well, which can be particularly problematic in Micaiah's chapters. Interestingly, the Crimean Royal Knights that join partway through 2-E do not get any bonuses from Elincia for that map, since they're considered to be under Geoffrey's command, but since he's not leading the party that chapter his stars do not apply. I don't remember if this happens anywhere else, though.

The Brave Sword only has 5 less hit than the Vague Katti, and 10 more hot than Alondite, so you may as well bless that one. Urvan is hilariously accurate at 110 hit for some reason, though. The Wishblade also has 20 more hit than the Brave Lance.

To be fair, he needs capped strength, Blood Tide, and a refresh to accomplish this. @Quintessence: Blessing a Wyrmslayer is mostly just a draft strategy though, where you don't have access to all of the Laguz Royals, and have more Endgame slots than you do drafted units. It can be nice to have if you're against bringing any laguz royals to Endgame for some reason, though (although Ike can not bless a Wyrmslayer himself, as he is forced to bless Ragnell). Also, I'm pretty sure Auras actually have 90 HP, so none of the calcs you listed can actually ORKO them. I think only Cain, Giffca and Brave Axe!Reavers (all with double Blood Tide) can ORKO the non-Cover Auras without a Triangle Attack.