Tree

The game seems to want to give me Cherches whether I want them or not. I keep using them to give attack +3 to healers or pivot to armor units, and I still have at least a dozen left. She seems like a decent unit especially with the recent refine. I don't have a +10 unit yet (Reinhardt is +8). I'm wondering what iv would work best at +10. [+atk, -res] looks like a nice choice for lower or higher merges. (I don't have [+atk, -spd]) OR [+spd, -hp or -res] could be interesting. Speed is a super boon, so that adds +4 spd for a base of 29. Ten merges and a speed refine add 4+3=7 more. Life and death would cancel out the -5 speed from the special brave axe. Final stats should be 58 atk and 36 spd. A speed seal could bring that to 39 and hone, goad, or any other speed buff could extend that further. Is this a crazy idea? Did I make an arithmetic mistake? She would get 5 hp from the refine also, so I'm not sure if -hp or -res works better for this. (Resistance is a super bane, although I don't think it affects the arena score tier either way.) The life and death skill implies that -res might be better. The speed could work well with the hammer too. I already have a +4 Michalis, although he really is a different type of unit. I could merge Fae instead (have over 10), but I like Myrrh much better (as a character, and for skills and stats) and I don't really care for Fae more or less than Cherche. I don't have a good +def Fae either. I have 2 5* Cherches and around 300,000 feathers left.

That works with one magic user, but I was thinking about situations with multiple enemy magic users. The separate hits from each one would cause a similar effect to getting doubled. The rest of my melee armor units have very poor resistance, so he would have to deal with most magic threats.

Considering you can substitute most staff users, your guide is actually really good for fp2. You shouldn't feel bad if you are having difficulties. I used an overpowered, merged team and it still took me multiple tries. I started playing a little before the Black Knight tempest trial began, and had to manually play hard difficulty all the way up to 30,000 points (which was required for the 5* Black Knight). Regular Ike and Bowlyn were the only good units I had; when they fell fighting the Black Knight it was gameover. I tried team after team of my remaining units, and if lucky, could get maybe 5 or so HP damage on the boss before the inevitable gameover occurred. Most of my units couldn't even damage him at all (they weren't level 40), and those that could do a little damage, he would one-shot. It was exhausting, took every last one of my stamina refills, and I still barely reached 30,000 near the 14th day. I didn't get any of the rewards from 30,000 -100,000 which were quite a lot. My units are considerably better now, but there are still challenges that I cannot do without a guide (after a year). I think Ice Dragon's guide is excellent, but if for some reason you want to try a different approach here are some other options with mostly common units: Pheonixmaster1 (3 infernal solutions) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrdRjQpl_J4 Brotel (4 infernal solutions) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRZUY2cAezc Be sure to click "SHOW MORE" in the description for the skills and seals used. (Most of these shouldn't require any skill inheritance.) (Brotel's four Takumi splash damage is fun to watch.)

Yes, he's not a bad unit, just not particularly great. It's probably a more efficient use of skill inheritance to raise Camus' resistance than to give Berkut distance counter (although Camus won't be able to get nearly as much resistance as Berkut). Oh, Maltet is definitely better, just was considering Berkut's lance as an option if there are a lot of magic users. With his special distance counter his defense would be 44 and his resistance would be 43 without a ward or the even wave skill. The distant defense seal could be added also. [edit] Those numbers are based off of +2 merges.

Many f2p guides don't use any skill inheritance. Palla is commonly used in f2p guides because she comes with Wings of Mercy. It was probably assumed you knew that, so that's most likely why it wasn't specifically listed. If you don't use guides too often, then you might not know that. I guess you could inherit the skill to Ryoma, but there is a risk that the AI behavior would change.

If you have +atk, -spd, that is the best iv! (+atk, -res is still very good though.) I think mine is +atk, -def. Cavalry cannot use trees, and defense tiles do not slow unit movement like trees. I thought those were the differences. Perhaps I'm wrong. I'll go do some checks. [edit] Seems that they take the same damage with or without a tree. Guess trees don't help with defense. (That's rather sad. I guess my username is less effective now.)

Do trees not boost defense? I thought for sure they did.

Really? Did it require defensive buffs, a tree or perhaps both? My Reinhardt has 47 base attack. I just tried it with the quickened pulse / moonbow combination and it worked. I disabled death blow entirely and did not use any buffs at all, not even hone cavalry. If you can get 47 attack on your Reinhardt (you can use attack +3 A skill, death blow, hone cavalry, or some combination to get there) then that should take him out in one strike. You might not even need 47 total attack (after buffs). The quickened pulse and moonbow on Reinhardt basically one-shots anything. I met one in arena that even took out my distance counter Myrrh.

Cavalry shouldn't be a problem by itself. If you are only using melee cavalry, that could be rough though.

That is true. He took out my Hector (44 def, 49 hp) with one shot. I used the Reinhardt with moonbow and quickened pulse seal. The brave effect combined with quickened pulse guarantees that the moonbow will process before the counter attack. It might even work with a brave bow even though his defense is higher than his resistance. A fast ranged unit with desperation active could also probably do it. If you have a unit that can handle the magic on the left, you could use reciprocal aid to get the other unit into desperation range.

I have not used a limited unit for skill inheritance before, but I am tempted to put Berkut's lance on Hector as a secondary option... Not sure if that is a good idea or not. Mine is +res and has 31 base resistance (plus one more resistance from merges). The lance could add up to 11 more resistance. With the distant defense seal, wards, and the "even resistance wave" skill, he would make any challenging armor emblem quest a lot easier... Berkut has one of the nicest looking armor designs. It's too bad he doesn't have great stats; his weapon doesn't work all that well on him either.

Bow Lyn, Reinhardt, and Ephraim (cavalry) worked well. Lance Hector took care of the magic on the left (although Fjorm might have done better). Was actually fun. Might try it with a less powerful team later.

That's true, but that's not a new issue. There are a lot of axe wielders that I would like to use simultaneously (and sword users as well), but that doesn't allow for a balanced team. I think Ice Dragon's design is the most faithful way to implement it. As was mentioned, it also somewhat helps fix the current pool's color imbalance by adding more green and fewer red. Works nicely for inheritance too. However, after seeing the direction they took with splitting out bows and daggers to separate colors, I would guess that they will implement it like that. The dragons would be rolled into the current type, and new types created for beasts and birds respectively. This works fine for inheritance, and also allows more color variety (for seasonals and potential original characters). I would be OK with either, but I would not want generic strike weapons. (It's unlikely they would do that anyway as that doesn't give them as much design freedom or headroom for new characters.) I've read that some think they will use the odd and even mechanic on the weapon which seems reasonable to me. Perhaps they could even increase the movement of beast types every other turn (although that might be difficult to keep track of).

I think Dorcas already has a tomahawk? They might give Gatrie a javelin. Wind edge will probably just be a distance counter sword, but sonic sword could be implemented as a "staff." That sounds like a very nice way to handle that. I hope its availability starts in the 4* pool though.

I don't really care about accessories either (although I would like the black knight's helmet). Honestly, if it weren't time restricted, I'd probably just leave them incomplete and try them again some other time.

That's probably true. She really requires the special and effective damage to work. I cannot find a +atk version though. I only have her attack armor and cavalry units generally (and usually green ones). She works quite well for that. Perhaps flashing blade isn't optimal for a general build, but I use other red units for that anyway.

The flashing blade effect works well on Caeda, but I haven't upgraded the flashing blade seal yet. I have upgraded two of the attack seals and one of the speed seals because they are very useful. I think the issue is that many seals are overpriced. I would have many uses for even a basic resistance seal, but not necessarily enough at the current cost.

Yes, but they will not have access to as many of the good seals if they do that. Attack and Speed seals are decent. Defense, resistance, and others similar to them likely won't get upgraded.

I'm personally OK with the amount of dew and refining stones, but I understand how others might want more - I certainly wouldn't complain if they added additional ones. I generally refine every weapon with at least one refine and still have 500+ most of the time. Dew is rarer, but most of the units I like do not have upgrades yet. If I had more dew, I'd probably start refining multiple options. (My Alfonse has the effective refine, but I wouldn't mind adding the defensive one.) Seals are a fun way to try out odd combinations without having to sacrifice a unit just for a test. Seals are also now considered an essential part of a unit's build set. The particular one can change, but you never want to leave it empty. Swapping out seals with rare skills makes sense, but I thought the original intention of the duplicate base stat seals was for leaving them somewhat permanently installed as a way to either fix or amplify a unit's IVs. You might upgrade one attack or speed seal, but it's generally not cost effective to upgrade multiple of the same type of seal considering they cost the same as a rare skill seal. The defense and resistant seals (and really any seal that is not a higher tier skill) may never be worth upgrading. I've upgraded some of the basic seals like spurs and hones out of necessity (to help make my units with different IVs match a guide for example). It's quite disappointing to be close to completing a challenge, but not have enough coins to purchase a seal to patch up a unit. I now have to keep a stash of 500 or so coins for emergencies. Perhaps they can change the upgrade cost of seals in a similar manner to how skills require different amounts of sp to upgrade. Edit: @Glennstavos I think the issue with people wanting good seals from TT is somewhat related to the fact that all seals have the same cost. If they introduced less valuable seals at a lower cost, more people would probably consider using them. Average level seals that are not going to get upgrade priority are sometimes not considered much of a reward at all; they essentially just become menu options we have to scroll past when equipping other seals.

Hmm, going to have to think about what I want for the unit long-term. (I really just need to get +def, -spd and the decision becomes easy!) Thanks for the advice.

OK, so the first two slots were atk and spd. That makes sense now. I thought the omni breaker thing only worked with the original Hector. I hadn't heard of the wary fighter / quick riposte combination. (Spelled quick riposte correctly that time.) I'm a semi casual player (tier 18.5). Seems a shame to not use bold fighter when he's the only unit I have that has that skill, but those results are impressive. I do have some spare units with wary fighter, so I could try it out. That does remove player phase potential though, doesn't it?

@XRay What does 0/0/4/4 and 0/0/8/8 represent?

I was leaning toward +res, -spd, but +def (super), -hp seemed rather good too. I'm not sure what you meant by wary fighter/quick reposte - I think quick reposte is built into the lance so he should always have that?

Yeah, for the really hard challenges it's more of a collection thing for me as I'm not even close to completing these on my own. I do try them on my own at first. If I get somewhat close, then I'll attempt to work it out. Otherwise, it's find a solution, collect the reward, and move on. A lot of times I have to improvise even with a guide because different IVs or merges can change the enemy movement dramatically.

I tried PheonixMaster's solution and it worked! My Veronica iv is +HP, -res (no merges), but that mostly evens out to neutral. My Ike and Reinhardt have merges, but that didn't seem to affect things here.