Wanda

Infernal, infantry only. Ridiculously easy.

I don't think it'll be purely Fates/Awakening. I think we'll see an Echoes unit like Celica on this banner.

Marisa is the unit I really wanted, and she's a TT reward (which is really, really great because I didn't want to whale)... so while I like L'Arachel and Myrrh a lot, I'm going to wait and see what will be on this Legendary Hero banner.

To be fair, Lyon is an incredibly weak boss in FE8. His tome had no special effects in his game, it just had a shit ton of might. It was so heavy that almost anyone could double him. I think he has been represented accurately, given his balanced defences, low speed and decent attack/HP. He's lucky his tome has the raven effect at all. He has pretty decent defence – combined with the raven effect, he won't need much more than the DD3 seal in order to take very little damage from the likes of Brave Lyn – she'd probably do like 10 damage her hit, and with QR as his B-slot, he could proc Iceberg on his follow-up attack and KO her pretty easily. Henry and Sophia have been used in the same way for a long time, Lyon's just an upgrade on Sophia and a more versatile alternative to Henry. Also, what do you mean by "since Oliver"? He was literally the last GHB unit before Lyon, so that isn't saying much. However, the GHB units do not exactly have a good track record compared to their summoned counterparts. For example, Arvis is a super awkward unit – too slow to be a good player phase sweeper, but also not slow enough to play the QR Iceberg bomb enemy phase role. He lacks the defence to bait archers, and his legendary weapon is awkward to use and rarely secures him extra KOs. He also has basically no hit points, meaning that any mage that can double him has a good chance of powering through him, regardless of his decent resistance. His Recover Ring is pretty cool on paper, but in practice it's almost pointless. Before Arvis, we had Valter, F!Robin, Ursula, Narcian, Navarre, Lloyd, Berkut, Clarisse – all units who are... sort of underwhelming. Don't get me wrong, if you're a true F2P player, all of these units can be useful for something, but I wouldn't call any of them particularly powerful compared to summoned units of similar archetypes. Berkut and Navarre especially, they're among the worst of their respective types. The GHB units that are actually pretty busted are Michalis, Zephiel, Camus, Xander... and maybe Legion... and that's about it. Sure, you can build Clarisse into a Brave Bow archer, F!Robin can put archers in check, and Ursula can be buffed and given Blarblade etc... but still. The fact that these units require so much investment to be good, and the fact that even after investment they can perform worse than summoned units who fulfil similar roles (Klein, Jeorge, Setsuna, Brave Lyn, Bridelia, Innes, Leon – they can all outclass Clarisse at the Brave Bow game; Ursula kinda sucks compared to, say, Reinhardt or Olwen; and so on) is an indicator that the GHB units have never been particularly powerful. And this is intentional – if the freely obtainable units were as good as, or better than, the summonable units, people wouldn't buy orbs. If anything, Lyon is one of the better GHB units yet – at least, in his niche. Much more attack and resistance than Henry, while having salvageable defence. He's more or less a straight upgrade over Sophia in all stats but defence, where he takes a slight penalty. Double up on Distant Defence, add QR and Iceberg and Lyon will be a very capable enemy phase baiter. He also has the highest BST of any infantry mage. Combine that with the fact that he has a legendary weapon (and not Lyon's Tome+) and I think you have a recipe for a worthwhile unit. Not seeing any nerfing going on at all. Oh, and another thing – the Shine tome is supposed to be a bad tome? It's basically just a silver weapon, like Bolganone+ or Rexcalibur+. Are these tomes better than blade tomes? In the hands of a glass cannon, no, they are objectively worse. But in the hands of a mage that doesn't have the ability to double? These tomes, when refined, can help bolster stats of mages that expect to be enemy phase units and consequently want more HP and def/res. Shine+ is just the blue version of Bolganone/Rexcalibur. And honestly, it really isn't bad at all. There are units like Deirdre and Brave Lyn who can ignore buffs when they are attacked, so against such units (and there will be more of them in the future) having extra permanent stat boosts and higher might in general (thanks to the refinery) can prove to be preferable. Just a thought. Also, Oliver yields Atk Ploy (previously only obtainable from an almost impossible-to-acquire, 5*-locked red mage) and Mirror Strike (less desirable but also locked to a 5* exclusive mage who tends not to appear). What were you expecting from him, a brave tome and 50 resistance? Nah, I think the GHB units are pretty much on point, I just wish they were more frequent and more challenging. Valter and Legion were the best so far, and even they were not difficult if you have a Brave Bow archer and a couple of Olivias.

Chain Challenge: Book 2, Story 3 & 4 combined, Lunatic 1 infantry team Would have liked to have cleared it deathlessly, but I also wanted to use a new crew (one that lacks a blade tome, an enemy phase altogether, and has less Wings of Mercy hax than my usual PvE clearing squad).

So, I got bored... and did a speed run: Eagerly awaiting the next TT... * wipes blood from permanently-open eyes *

Yawn.

Squad Assault 6 is pretty straightforward.

Idunn. Lyon. Ishtar. Julius. Manfroy. Emperor Arvis. Sonia. Ismaire. Cormag. Raydrik.

Infernal, 1 minute, infantry-only. Kagero's a good shout if you don't have brave bow/blade tome users.

Infernal

Here we see that the Chilling Seal B-slot skill can debuff multiple enemies if they have the same defence: For anyone else wondering, I can confirm that it only works on base defence, i.e. defence debuffs are not counted. As you can see here from this screenshot: all of the units with 11 base def have been debuffed, despite the axe dude having been Def Ploy'd by Arvis.

Infernal in 1 minute (infantry only)

For the record, I agree that Brave Bow+ is pretty much the best weapon for any archer in most cases, Setsuna included. My Setsuna has a Brave Bow+/Desperation set as well. However, regarding Firesweep set, I... couldn't disagree with you more. The absolute key to doing good damage with the Firesweep Bow is speed. This is why all the Bridelia Firesweep sets you see out there recommend a +spd IV. This is why Setsuna, provided that she is +atk, is actually an excellent Firesweep user. Assuming the same build of Lnd3 & Atk+3 seal, +spd Bridelia ends up with 54/43 in atk/spd, which isn't much better than +atk Setsuna's 50/42. Certainly not a big deal for Setsuna, a unit you can easily cherry-pick (in terms of IVs) and merge, vs a limited-run unit.

^ Yeah, Setsuna works very well with a Firesweep Bow: A good trick for protracted PvE content like Tempest Trials or Chain Challenges is to give her Seal Defence 3 and pair her with a dancer. Helps her finish off high-defence foes.

Chain Challenge: Paralogues 15 & 16, Lunatic/deathless (1 infantry team)

I was working today, so this is a little late. But... Infernal, infantry-only:

All maps, Lunatic/deathless clears, infantry-only. Spicy, but not spicy enough. Interesting to see the units/builds the devs are using though.

Infernal, infantry-only, 1 minute clear: Wings of Mercy OP.

Chain Challenge: Book 2, Story 1 & 2, Lunatic/deathless (1 infantry team)

Really easy stages for this one. Still, here's a video anyway.

Just FYI

Infernal in less than a minute, infantry units only:

So, Setsuna can do this in 60 seconds with a dancer retinue:

Infernal clear, infantry only