LordFrigid

This confuses me a bit, because both of our Sullys are neutral Atk O.o . Did the enemies move differently? If Navarre didn't get a Def buff before attacking Sully, then I can see how that might have happened. Could Olivia chip Navarre instead? Running the initial calculations...looks like she lives one Navarre hit and an Axe Fighter hit with 8 HP if she's next to Sully for both fights (edit: she needs to be next to Sully for at least one of them). And she leaves him with 1 as well: Sully deals 2* [floor(33*1.4) - 24] = 44, and Olivia deals 37 - 24 = 13, which is 57 when Navarre has 58 HP.

4882 score update: 4pm PDT 4/26: 272 6pm PDT 4/27: 430 Reasonably sized drop, but not unexpected, I wouldn't say...especially given that people not getting extra swords would be completing streaks of 7 by today at the earliest. Team Flier has picked up 3 defensive wins, maxing out at 288.

That set (Fury, Swordbreaker, Moonbow, Rally Resistance) looks solid to me; this coming from the perspective of someone who actually runs the team comp you mentioned at the end there, albeit with different skill sets. I use Fury on mine (+Atk/-HP) as well, and I've found that she can actually bait all of those green mages even without Triangle Adept, except maybe a Nino that doubles her. Heck, I even had her eat a full cavalry buff Gronnblade/Fury Cecilia (5*, lv. 40 +6...I don't record boons & banes, unfortunately) shot once, for reference. It hurts a lot more, sure, but she can do it if you need her to. I don't think I'd trade Fury for anything other than Distant Counter in an infinite resource world, but even that choice honestly comes down to my playstyle. Out of curiosity, what Swordbreaker sword units are you running into? I've got Renewal on her, and have found that she can actually take a round with Swordbreaker Eirika, but if you're running into higher Atk swords like Lucina, then yeah, Swordbreaker is probably the better call. Oddly enough, I rarely see Lucina anymore...hm.

Nino with a bit of buff-stack 2HKOs her. Other than that, it allows her to ORKO green tomes so you don't have to spend 2 phases dealing with them. She's strong, but not usually OHKO green mages strong. My Julia would not have been able to carry my arena team for three weeks straight without it...the only problem is when you run into an enemy Nino with G Tomebreaker (yeah, some people are weird/evil and put that on their defense team. Edit: I don't think I've seen one in a while though), or something similar. Edit 2: thought we were discussing Julia's matchups...whoops. Cecilia should be ok with it...I'd personally keep Escape Route though. Edit 3 (Escape Route justification): It doesn't really take much in the way of buff-stack for Nino to OHKO Cecilia, unless you're running Fortify Cavalry. Like Banryu said (and I misinterpreted...sorry again), Julia's HP & Res are so high that -raven Cecilia doesn't really take much out of her health bar, at least compared with a sword. Or most things physical, really. Spring Princess Camillas, as far as I've seen, are pretty likely to be running G Tomebreaker themselves, and with Hone Fliers they'll double & KO Cecilia unless she's got a Cavalry buff on her. On the other hand, Escape Route goes pretty well with her kit. Gronnraven lets her trade well with colorless foes, but it really doesn't take much to put her below half HP. At that point, it'd be nice to get the extra movement options. Escape Route → positioning assist, to extend the get-out-of-danger utility to Cecilia's teammates, or Escape Route → smack something, which is a bit more straightforward, come to mind.

Managed to get 6 consecutive deathless wins with the free swords (possibly the map set, possibly team changes, too early to tell...but I'm thinking it's the map set; I like this one much better), so I went ahead and used a crest to finish it off...the lead was a Caeda, which screamed "Flier Emblem". However, it was on the forest-y map, and they all had Goad Fliers and a positioning skill, meaning no buffs for the Gronnblade Camilla (real head-scratcher there, but I'm not complaining =P )...so it was actually the easiest match of the lot. A few 694s, a 696, and even a few random 700/704s put the score at 4882, which is currently rank 272. I could try fishing for 700+ matches, but meh. If the past two weeks are any indication, this score will be just fine.

So a 3* Navarre would have the same effect, right? Though...I guess it doesn't matter, since it's doable either way.

idk if he will, I had another go at it, and Navarre still went left instead of towards Takumi on the Turn 3 EP. It should still be doable, I think, as long as Navarre is behind the thief, because Lyn can eat two hits from Navarre...I could've sworn that Navarre somehow ended up in front of the thief on my first try yesterday, but I doubt the AI would do two different things in the same situation...so I must have screwed up somewhere D: . fwiw, turn 4+ of that run:

Blazing Wind charge, just in case it mattered. I don't think it did, but...*shrug*. That was the 1st run where I actually made it that far LOL. That sounds interesting. I think you might be able to swap Lyn for Sully (assuming you're ok with training her up), and use Vantage/Vengeance to KO the Silver Dagger on the 1st EP welcome back to Awakening. Still ironing things out. Have to pull a pie out of the oven soon, so I'll edit any updates in (actually...I could probably try the Lyn variant too). Edit: Sully variant works. Some points & considerations: Takumi needs the Atk +1 seal due to -Atk. He will fall 1 dmg short of OHKO'ing the Silver Dagger Thief after the Rogue Dagger Thief attacks him otherwise, and must be next to Sully with Spur Def 3 for this strategy, otherwise the Silver Dagger will just walk up and ORKO him. Takumi will 2HKO the Rogue Dagger even with -Atk (unless the Axe Fighter suddenly decides that he should maybe use Ardent Sacrifice), if he has the Hone Atk buff (both turns) & Atk +1 seal (48 - 24 = 24 dmg on the EP, then 48 - 19 = 29 on the next PP). -Atk Takumi will still 2KHO that Axe Fighter with Vengeance with Hone Atk and the seal. 3* Navarre can surely deal 4 damage to enemy Navarre, you just need to make sure he can survive the Axe afterward. Going to go see about that Lyn run...(I think my Lyn might have a merge on her though...idk if that'll matter). Edit 2: I'm not seeing the Lyn run. I have no idea if that's because the enemies are moving differently than expected, or I'm doing something wrong (probably the latter lol), but something's not quite going the way it should. Edit 3: Lyn run works...not sure what I was doing wrong last time. Details can be found here.

If QR 1 inheritance is on the table, then TA3 + Hone Atk buff will ORKO both of the Thieves on turn 1. If it's not on the table...ignore me =P . I don't have any spare TA3s, so I just did it with TA2 and Sully (needs the Def aura to preserve the QR threshold. Mine's +Atk/-Spd, but 2 damage does not break QR 1 on -HP). Subaki can be used instead with TA3 on M!Robin...I think.

Forgot to update for a couple days. 4864 points finished at rank 796. 288 Def score.

Enemy F!Robin only has 18 Res on the hard version of her map (3* Lv. 40 F!Robin has 31 Atk). You might want to chip her first, but...yeah, she can. Edit: I've been nailed by a wild shuriken D: .

I'll agree that in general, more replicable runs are better. I also think that people looking for replicable may as well just watch the 3* clear videos; imo there's no issue with keeping allowed units for clear-focused runs and turn count-focused runs separate. Leaving the list of allowed units more open gives more opportunity to experiment with people that might not see use otherwise. All that said, I wouldn't turn down a replicable + low turn challenge, but then you run into the issue of what to consider "replicable"...or more accurately, how to make a challenge where the runs are reasonably replicable without also being restrictive and annoying.

Guess I have to go find a Life and Death person now. I wasn't really worried about her offensive capabilities, I'm well aware of those. It's more that I'm not sure that sort of set fits my style. I was wondering if maybe there was a set that did. That said, I'm definitely not opposed to trying out hyper-offense...I think I'll just go ahead and do that.

How restricted is +Spd/-Res Linde to a hyper-offensive build? I wound up with her after deciding to try for a Reinhardt on the Zephiel banner, which is really nice since I've found myself needing a solid answer to red mages. On the other hand, hyper-offensive isn't usually my playstyle (ex. I'm running Vantage Nino, and was/still am strongly considering switching out Ephraim for Triangle Adept/Quick Riposte Nowi). I'm just pondering my options, given Linde's defenses, such as they are...or rather, aren't. I guess I could always learn the ways of the hyper-offense too. I'd imagine she'd make the transition pretty easy =P .

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't have gotten either run completed nearly as quickly without hit & run to chip the enemies towards the Wary Fighter thresholds. That, and AoEs; now I kinda want to train up more AoE people. I initially thought about Lilina, but she had to go and be A+. Also, thanks for putting out this challenge! I've really enjoyed it, it's probably the most fun I've had in a bit, actually. Edit: training Sully shouldn't be bad...I got Leo from 26 or 28 to 40 in about a bar and a third of stamina iirc...Hone Cavalry Elise was hilariously useful.

4864 update: 9pm PDT 4/19: 341 7pm PDT 4/20: 462 7pm PDT 4/21 (or at least before the 8 pm update =P ): 553 If that rank drop keeps being low, that score might actually stay top 1k O.o .

Welp. +Res Leo OP. Sometimes, the solution is to smack the enemy and get out before they can react. And sometimes...well, sometimes the solution is to take a Blazing Thunder to the face. 4-turned it with the following team: 4* Cecilia (+Atk/-Def; +1, see below), Sully (+Spd/-HP), Gunter (+HP/-Spd), and 5* Leo (+Res/-Def). Cecilia got +1 HP & Atk on her merge (is this even necessary, since she's not a 5*?). She never got near 1 HP, and I downgraded her Atk +2 to Atk +1 to make up for the Atk point. Video: Turn by turn: Interestingly, +Atk Cecilia with Hone Atk Cavalry buffs and Atk +3 has 55 Atk at 5*, which breaks the Axe Knight's Wary Fighter...so she could KO the Axe Knight by turn 2. Except that would let Zephiel escape Leo's Blazing Light range...idk, it might be worth checking out. I don't really want to jump her ahead of Anna and Alfonse in my promotion queue though. I really wanted to see if I could use Gunter's Harsh Command, but I ended up not needing it, so w/e.

I might try horse power myself, actually...thinking about Leo, Gunter, Cecilia/Ursula, and Sully for that. idk though. I'd have to level Leo first, but AoE (that strangely shaped area might be a little weird though) + Savage Blow seems pretty interesting.

I think I've just been trolled O.o .

What about Felicia D: . Yeah, I was only half-expecting that sort of performance as well when I first flicked through my units, trying to figure out who would make the best team for that map. I was actually toying with using Spring Princess Camilla at first, but ended up deciding on Merric, mostly because of that AoE. This map practically screams "Growing Wind us, please!"

4864 update: 9pm PDT 4/19: 341 7pm PDT 4/20: 462 I ended up deciding to just have some fun with team flier, at least for a streak's worth of matches. They also picked up another defensive win, which was nice.

Ok, completed @Ice Dragon's challenge. Not going to lie, things did not go as planned. I thought I had a reasonably solid 5-turn, but the Swap Knights have rules for swapping beyond my ability to fathom. It ended up taking me 6. I might retry it later. Also, turns out I didn't use or need Seals. Edit: Just realized that I failed super hard. It's a 5 turn. Still no seals, same team, same basic strategy up to the end, where I actually take Zephiel down instead of sitting there, watching him for a turn LOL. Team was 4* Sully (+Spd/-HP, 'cause Swordbreaker + Draw Back = OP), along with 5* versions of Merric (neutral, for the bulk and AoE), Felicia (neutral, for the -7 Def/Res debuff and the huge Glacies damage), and Fae (+Def/-Atk, Draw Back and a bit 'o tanking). Video version below, somewhat loose turn-by-turn under that, and justifications for the +1s (Fae & Felicia) just below that. Video Turn by turn And finally, the merge notes/justification

3 questions: Can non-"Strategists Three" folk participate? Can a +1 be used if it can be shown that the stat gains are not required to hit the survival/KO/doubling/etc. benchmarks? I have 2 units I (think that I) need, but they're both +1 and I won't get 40k feathers together before this GHB is over =P . Are Seals ok? If the answer to those three are yes, and my theories hold up, I think I can put together a team that can clear in 5-6, possibly depending on how Zephiel moves.

It's too early to think of anything fancy, so I decided to go with Dragons, 'cause they're always fun. Took one more turn than I needed to, but oh well.

Put together a streak worth 4864, which is currently rank 341. I'm kinda debating whether to try and improve that or just have some fun with other teams. Realistically I'd only be able to get it like...6 points higher unless I reeeeally went hard for the high-point matches so...idk. Speaking of other teams...it seems that Team Flier's high defensive win count from last week was probably the map set, at least in part. That or the people facing my team don't believe in love. Only 2 on the board so far, but that gets the defense reward, so w/e.