Wanda

I suppose my Setsuna is my biggest project to date: Alternative set: ... and I suppose my Est is also pretty heavily invested, but still unfinished (needs a Brave Lance+, but I can't prioritise that since she does the job) My current work in progress is (original) Henry, but he's a long way off as I need a Takumi for Close Counter, a Klein/Leo for QR3, and, in the fullness of time, a Luke for Panic Ploy 3 (I need Quickened Pulse so Henry procs Ignis in every round of combat on enemy phase, so he has Threaten Res 3 for now).

I've been recording how I beat all of the chain challenges on lunatic. Here, maybe it will give you some inspiration: Chain Challenge videos

Infernal clear Really this is why you invest in an archer. Even Klein will suffice for this BHB.

Infernal clear, infantry-only (Tharja, Sonya, Innes, Azura) Divide and conquer™

No, I just don't care about the minutiae of their stat penalties, precisely because they aren't game-changing or powercrept units.

Still not powercreep. Henry certainly isn't. He can easily be built into a Reinhardt/Brave Lyn counter, but he's easily wrecked by red mages, sword-users and probably brave axe users like Cherche. If anything, his addition to the game might just increase the number of people bringing a red unit, but I imagine most bring at least one red unit anyway. Jakob... I am reluctant to call him powercrept either. Distant Counter Sheena is just as good when it comes to the task of tanking and Ignis-bombing. I imagine some will want to put a Brave Bow on him, but I think his crap armored mobility makes this a bad idea. Bridelia, Brave Lyn, Leon, Innes, Setsuna or even plain old Klein — they're all better candidates for the Brave Bow as they can actually get around a map and slay teams quickly, especially with dancer support. Jakob would struggle mobility-wise, he'd need a dancer and Armor March and suddenly your team composition isn't looking so hot, and neither is your Arena score. Jakob is best built as an enemy phase Ignis bomber with a Killer/Slaying Bow and Quick Riposte. He'll fit in very well with Black Knight, Hector, Halloween Henry, DC Sheena, DC Effie, especially with a bunch of Wards stacking up his defensive stats. With Close Counter he'd naturally to good damage to melee units and obliterate melee fliers, while also threatening mages etc. Brave Bow is just wasted on him. He has so much potential as an enemy phase unit, but no matter how people build him, he requires a lot of investment to become a great unit. What I'm trying to say is that for Jakob to be an example of powercreep, he'd have to be a straight upgrade on existing bow users — well, his atk is equal to Bridelia's but has no speed or mobility to run Firesweep or quad builds; he is only slightly def-tankier than Leon but has resistance because he's armored, but has less speed. Leon also comes with the appropriate base kit of a Slaying Bow, Ignis and Guard to run a tank/enemy phase bomb build, while Jakob has to inherit these skills. Hell, Leon doesn't want to run the Ignis build anyway, because he has such great attack and defence and infantry movement he wants to run a Brave Bow 100%. Jakob is, like, only powercreep compared to Faye or Gordin, who are the worst archers anyway. Even Clarisse is better than them. And if to compare Jakob to res-tanky archers, Innes has more speed and Nidhogg to make him immortal with adjacent allies, while Niles has much higher resistance and spd to make him better at tanking mages and dealing bigger damage with Glacies or Iceberg. He also comes with a Killer Bow in his base kit, while Jakob comes with a gimmick bow designed to screw with buff teams — except it doesn't work on the buffed unit that attacks him, so it's kinda pointless. Sure, Niles and Innes don't have access to armor buffs, but they don't need them, they just need to double up on Distant Defence skills/seals or Fortress Res if Innes is on a budget. So not really seeing the powercreep. Innes is himself a better example of powercreep, since he literally comes with an almost optimal base kit of Fortress Res, Iceberg, Nidhogg and Cancel Affinity while simultaneously having considerably more attack than Niles even after the Fortress Res penalty has been applied. Meanwhile units like Ayra come with an almost optimal base kit and stats that are a total upgrade over practically every other sword unit. Even my +spd Lucina only matches up because she has Fury 3, and Ayra has more defence so she will have better longevity in battle. And don't even get started on Witch Nowi/Neko Sakura. Nowi has a laughable 32 speed and a joke base kit, while Neko Sakura is just a joke and anyone with a Felicia or a Kagero should just SI her immediately. Nowi should be sacked for Hone Fliers immediately or saved for Aversa, who will most probably be a better red flying mage.

... They're armored units. They're supposed to have high stats. The point is that Jakob is just Sheena with more atk and less def/res, and a bow; Henry is, what, Sonya with more defence and a worse weapon? They're limited to 1-move unless they use Armor March. Jakob has no player phase except against fliers. Henry will die to virtually any red sword unit or red mage that can double him. Are they good for armor teams? Yes. Did armor teams badly need some ranged units so that people could actually use armored teams without whaling for multiple Hectors for the Distant Counter skill? Yes. Is it powercreep to add ranged armors, esp. considering they have stat penalties befitting of ranged units compared to armored melee units? No, it's not powercreep. Is Ayra a truer example powercreep? Yes, but not only because of her boosted BST for infantry — she's powercreep because she has a legendary weapon with built in, spd-based Heavy Blade and because she has a 2-cooldown, spd-based Bonfire/Iceberg equivalent. With +def IV and Steady Stance 3/Close Defence 3, she can hit 49 atk, 40 spd and 40 defence on enemy phase, or with her base kit she can out-duel virtually any green, red, or weak blue unit on player phase. Using the enemy phase build I outlined above, you could add Wrath and she'll out-duel pretty much everything except Effie and Nowi.

Well, at least the powercreep stopped for this banner. Nothing is particularly enticing about any of these units. Witch Nowi... well, if you run flier emblem sure, go for it. Spring Camilla and Summer Corrin are both better at being flying mages, since Spring Camilla has better defensive stats while Summer Corrin has better offensive stats. Roll if you desperately need a flying mage for some reason or if you really like Nowi I guess. Neko Sakura's kit would be better on Felicia (her weapon, Warding Stance or Guard if your Felicia already has Distant Defence, which is slightly better for Felicia since she really doesn't need to worry about dragons). Her weapon could also be inherited to Kagero, as with her high atk and effective damage scaling with atk, she'll suddenly have great viability against mages of any kind, be they armors, fliers, infantry or cavaliers. It'll look absurd but this weapon could see Kagero return to the meta game. Henry is just meh. A Reinhardt counter. Defence is pretty poor, will be eaten alive by red units. The only advantage he has over other res-tanky green mages is his armored BST, but it's nothing to write home about. Roll green if you like Henry. Jakob's artwork is pretty weak, and I don't like him as a character, but he's the best unit on the banner by a long shot. Armored BST (penalty for ranged but still much better than most infantry units), and he has excellent stat distribution for enemy phase murder (high def, high res, good atk, low spd – ideal for QR + Ignis/Glacies). He needs a Killer Bow or Slaying Bow along with Distant Defence A-slot, Quick Riposte B-slot, and the Distant Defence seal. This makes him a great counter to both Brave Lyn and Reinhardt and it makes it very difficult to initiate on him safely with a ranged attacker. He could also run Close Counter quite effectively. Spamming Ward Armors would make him even nastier and you could theoretically just run 4 Jakobs, each with Ward Armors and either Distant Defence or Close Counter, and you should expect to see plenty of defence wins. Maybe stick Cancel Affinity on one of them just in case. Personally, I'ma wait to see what November brings before I go ham on this banner. Given the datamine showing two BHB repeats, no new GHBs and some special skill maps, along with armored team quests, I don't think we'll be seeing anything particularly exciting this month. The Halloween banner is the seasonal banner for this month and there will most probably be a Christmas seasonal banner occupying December. I could be wrong, maybe there will be loads of content this month too, but I doubt it, they'll be working hard to prep content for December.

Chain Challenge Paralogues 13 & 14, lunatic Nothing complicated this time.

My Infernal clear, using only infantry units: More entertaining than Arvis's GHB.

Atk, Spd, Squad Ace D, Distant Defence, then wait to see what comes next.

I hope the Ursula GHB rerun drops soon. I've got nothing left to do besides grinding TT and my thumbs will erode away soon.

It's hard to narrow the list down to just five, but I'll give it a shot. Lute Jill Louise Pent Myrrh (with Hone Dragons) Idunn/Julius/Aversa GHBs would be good too.

My Infernal clear: idk I thought this one was easy.

My Chain Challenge Story 11 & 12 lunatic clear, if anyone is looking for inspiration. I miss-click on map 5 and hit Boey instead of Celica. Fortunately it all worked out anyway. This is also a guide regarding how to build Rebecca — it's easy, just turn her Silver Bow into a 13 mt Brave Bow with an atk/spd enhancing A-skill and Desperation! I have uploaded my clear of the Paralogue 11 & 12 Lunatic Chain Challenge as well, just check my channel.

Easy for armors or fliers to shine on this map. Piece of cake. Would have been considerably more interesting if the enemy didn't move without being aggro'd. Here's a video of my infernal clear:

My Squad Assault 4 clear: Map 5 is not so bad eh.

Merges: Tharja Sonya Delthea Olwen Setsuna Kagero Azura Elincia Innes Tana Rebecca Y!Tiki Henry SI: Hinoka (Hone Fliers / Brave Lance+) Cordelia (Brave Lance+) Roy (TA3) Klein (Brave Bow+ / DB3 / QR3) Matthew (Hone Spd 3) Selena / Barst (Reposition) Favourites: Nephenee (... it's Nephenee. need) Cherche (seriously, never rolled one) Linde (... it's Linde. need) Eirika (need to complete Sacred Stones team) Mae (had her, -spd, foddered for something, regret) Minerva (... it's Minerva. need) Leon (complete my archer team pls)

Not my original Infernal clear, but it was a good deal easier this time around with BK. Music is a nod to another tsundere's finest moment.

That's actually a great point, I hadn't thought about that. I'm not happy about sacrificing Innes' resistance though, so I think I'll keep my Quadsuna and I'm thinking I'll try to pull a Faye in the long term as I think Innes will be much more effective with a Firesweep Bow+ so he can attack the likes of Ryoma without any worries about his low def. In the meantime I'll just prep Innes with Fury and his native Cancel Affinity B-slot and use his owl bow to full effect. I'm focusing on TT at the moment anyway as I want the feathers, i.e. I've got no stamina to spare to train him up right now, and it would be better to wait for SP weekend anyway. I'll yolo on the SS banner for Tana while she's a focus and see what happens.

+atk/-def I dropped 40k feathers finishing Quadsuna, and now I pull this.

Pretty straightforward, especially if you have Bridelia or Quadsuna and dancers. My Quadsuna is still a work in progress (need to 5* Gordin for the bow...) so I did Infernal with Y!Tiki (w. Lightning Breath), Setsuna (just to kill the peg), Azura & Delthea. The trickiest part was getting Delthea to survive Lilina's special attack.

I'm not sorry

After a week The following were injured/lost/killed in pursuit of my waifu: Est ×2 Florina ×2 Subaki ×3 Oboro ×2 Shanna ×2 Donnel ×1 Robin ×1 Cordelia ×1 Sully ×1 Roderick ×1

I had a good feeling about today. Second week in a row I've been able to do deathless with my eyes closed. Unlike some I'm always happy to see Reinhardt and Hector. Hopefully this will be just enough to scrape tier 19...