LordFrigid

The power of stacking a gazillion Spurs. As in, "when/why did that happen?", or "what else am I hiding in my barracks?" For the former, Naga's actually been there since before I resurrected Aether Raids Offense. I pulled blue on both of her first two appearances. On the second, I was actually just trying for the last copy of Legendary Tiki, and the game basically said “so I heard you want a bunch of Nagas”. Unexpected, but not unwelcome, and not unlike what happened this month, where I just wanted another Thrasir (for some Anima defense team stuff that’s...uh...totally not evil at all), and the game decided “here, have some Edelgard!” For the latter...time will tell. Or possibly not; I've got a bunch of units that may well never see the light of Hero Battle clears.

It let me drop 2x Thrasir on the same team just now, so I don’t see why not.

I’ve been using Knock Back + Galeforce for all the ranged bosses recently. It’s not bad against Melees either, though (I was too lazy to switch skills after the 1st round). You can probably get the best of both worlds with Pair Up heroes, with Knock Back on one, and Seal on the other, if you have them available. I’ve been running Legendary Roy with Est backlined, and Legendary Leif with Legendary Azura backlined (which is absolute overkill for this round, but...*shrug*).

Well when you put it that way, it just sounds weird. But the answer is: AS MANY AS IT TAKES. My initial thought was to compare her to Thrasir, on whom I find +Spd to be reasonably competitive with +Atk, despite having 33/39 offenses. I figured that at 38/38, with a weapon that adds in ~50% of enemy Res as damage, +Spd would probably be preferable. I don’t know for certain, though. Pain into Glimmer to take out Celica before Miracle came online; clever. Sticking Kagero in front of both the Lance Cav and Bow Fighter looked weird in the moment, I forgot that the AI would prioritize the Lance Cav because he doesn’t die. Nice work! ~ I got bored yesterday, so I loaded up the Dragon Wagon with some “Divine” Dragons and set out to conquer some Abyssal battles. My love for Guidance is reaffirmed. Also, Sothis is great.

*Proceeds to trip three waves of reinforcements at once.* I had to take a second to process that when it happened, and realized that despite the sheer quantity, there wasn’t actually that much range overlap. Nice work! ~ Blarserpent + DDef seal was painful enough. Now they had to go and throw in TA? *grumble*. Dragon Fang still rips into the B Tome Cav’s HP bar, but Celica needed assistance to get the job done. Thrasir’s solution to the Miracle dilemma was to simply let it happen and eat Celica’s counterattack. Ífingr is great. I low-key want to try doing Legendary Celica assisted solos, but Thrasir is also a green mage, and I literally just finished catching her up on Abyssal L/MHBs. Also I’d have to look into whether +Atk or +Spd is optimal...though off the top of my head, I’d guess +Spd.

Ephraim & Lyon make their one-turn debut. Also, Caeda adds yet another item to her skill closet. RIP Halloween Rolf, more expendable than my Spd Smoke fodder. @Landmaster @SatsumaFSoysoy

Green and Colorless look great, outside of Robin. A tempting banner, to be sure.

Currently up through Chamber 17. Depending on how Chamber 18 looks at reset, I'll probably have to spend some time grinding in the lower chambers, because my Forma builds are just a liiiiiittle bit lopsided. I suppose that prioritizing advancing through the Chambers over ensuring my units are all well built inevitably leads to a bit of snowballing. As to who was doing the snowballing...is that even a question? Marth (Lv. 33): Slaying Axe+ (Res), Atk/Spd Ruse 3 Caeda (Lv. 40+7): Blárblade+, Growing Flame, Atk/Res Push 4, Null C-Disrupt 3, Atk Tactic 3, Brazen Atk/Def 3 Draug (Lv. 19): Silver Sword+, Galeforce Merric (Lv. 32): Excalibur (Eff), Rally Spd/Res+, Warding Stance 4, Drive Atk 2 I figured that since the game was being pretty Rally-happy, I'd just pick up the Ruse for Marth while it was there, and give him a Rally later. He proceeded to not get any more first kills. Caeda was running Blue Egg+ (Def) before Blárblade+ came up, which had pretty neat interactions with Atk/Res Push. The game refused to give her more useful B Passives and Specials. Overall, I'm very surprised that I managed to make it as far as I did. Good luck on the enemy and map RNG, I guess.

See, I knew you’d pick it up for her at the next opportunity. And wow, she really rocks it! I also just realized...did you give all 3 Elises Close Counter? Those two Sirius-ly obliterated the enemy team. ... ... ... I’ll uh, show myself the door. Nice work on both clears!

Just throwing in some more food for thought to supplement @Landmaster’s comments; I actually ended up going with a Light blessing for mine. That’s without mythic bonuses, which is 2x Eir for +10 HP/Res. I’ve paired her with Idunn: The idea is that one Eir has 51 Atk/45 Spd (+Spd, +3 merges, +3 Dragonflowers, and Fury 3), so she eats Chill Spd and Bright Shrine, which she doesn’t care about because she doesn’t fight much. Idunn eats Dark Shrine, and Chill Atk, Def, and Res, which she doesn’t really care about because Demonic Breath makes her immune to stat debuffs during combat. I’ve been messing around with it a bit in mock battles, and it works well enough. It’s a bit situational, obviously, and I probably wouldn’t deploy it against a team stacked with anti-armor weapons (at least not without doing a lot of math first). I’m not really sure about Atk/Spd Bond for her seal. All of the ones that better suit her are taken by other units, so I figured this would be the next best thing, since it bumps up her stats and plays well with Armor March.

@Landmaster Holy guaca-freakin’-mole double Brazen Elise hits like a truck. Nice work! Not really specific to your clear, but I was surprised that there were no cavalry reinforcements from behind. I thought that’s what the trench tiles down there would be for (to add pressure, but not an overwhelming amount). ~ I haven’t had the occasion to use Lucina in a while. I also needed to reduce Peri’s HP because I haven’t used Dimitri enough to get him WoM 3. Poor guy.

Taking lateness to a new level. @Landmaster That was some pretty crazy stuff, with Elise soaking damage but still able to deliver deadly strikes on the player phase. Eirika falling to explosions of toasted marshmallows was much funnier than it had any right to be. Hopefully she at least got a nice snack out of it. ~ I had to tank Leif’s Atk so he wouldn’t 2HKO no-Def Innes, but the enemy placement made it pretty easy to get the job done after that.

@Landmaster Staff Elise did a great job eliminating those Lance Cavs, but the most impressive part for me was that 1 HP survival from Nowi after eating a hit from both the G Tome Cav and Twin Blades. Nice work! @Diovani Bressan I like how you were able to just walk Nowi right up into Altina’s range right from the get-go. That really stifled a lot of the pressure from the top of the map. Great job! ~ Thrasir continues to do the things. This can be done 1 turn faster with Savage Blow 2 (three hits of Savage Blow 3 barely puts Altina in Vantage range), but KOing her from full was much more fun. Celica & Co almost complete a full circuit around the map. Not having to deal with weapon triangle disadvantage went a long way against Altina herself.

Deflect Melee coming in clutch. ...Never thought I’d say that. @Landmaster

I am in this exact boat right now. Although, thinking it over, I’m not sure it’s all that bad. Converting a Naga to a Mythic that can fight capably on the EP doesn’t hurt, and if I’m deploying DC/Vantage anyway, doubling up on it probably wouldn’t make things worse. ~ I’m strongly considering pulling for a copy of her. The Atk boost would be nice for my Galeforce teams, and she’s basically a walking floating backup strategy all on her own.

Full text, for reference: Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1). During combat, neutralizes effects that guarantee foe's follow-up attacks, prevent unit's follow-up attacks, grant "Special cooldown charge +X" to foe, or inflict "Special cooldown charge -X" on unit. You probably already know about “Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1)”: it’s just the generic Killer/Slaying weapon effect. For the rest of it, it might be easier to think about it if you distribute the “During combat, neutralizes effects that” portion to each of the four segments of the statement, so: ”During combat, neutralizes effects that guarantee foe’s follow-up attacks” Negates automatic follow-up effects granted to the enemy (e.g. Vengeful Fighter, Bold Fighter, Quick Riposte, Hawk King Claw). “During combat, neutralizes effects that prevent unit’s follow-up attacks” Negates any effect that prevents Byleth from performing a follow-up (e.g. Swordbreaker or Wary Fighter on the enemy, or Windsweep on Byleth). ”During combat, neutralizes effects that grant “Special cooldown charge +X” to foe” Negates any effects that grant increased Special charge rate to the enemy (e.g. Steady/Warding Breath, Geirskögul). ”During combat, neutralizes effects that inflict “Special cooldown charge-X” on unit” Negates any effects that reduce Byleth’s Special charge rate (e.g. Guard).

There are two big things to be wary of when using a team focused heavily on one unit: effective damage if applicable, and Fort disadvantage. Focusing on one unit generally involves providing enough stat-boosting support to allow that unit to weather out multiple rounds of combat against all sorts of foes. Having a fort disadvantage really hurts that effort, and may make it impossible in some cases. That seems like a good game plan. One thing that might be worth considering: if Titania doesn’t need anything combat-related in her B slot, and you have the fodder available, Spd/Def Link would combine well with refined Draconic Poleaxe and Atk Tactic (C or Seal). I would honestly use Oscar as a companion to Eliwood on a Galeforce team, as opposed to choosing one or the other. But to answer your questions: Eliwood is a bit more expensive to build, since refined Blazing Durandal is his best pick for a Galeforce set (150 Divine Dew to get Blazing Durandal, and 200 more to refine it), but I wouldn’t say he’s significantly more or less effective. Nowi is easier to continue investing in later down the line, because she’s not 5* locked, but she takes more effort to get going. She also has a different set of weaknesses (dragon vs beast/armor), which makes it harder to compare the two. I personally lean toward Caineghis, but you should definitely seek out a second opinion. I think the Firesweep + Galeforce pairing is bad on a unit whose goal is to maximize Galeforce activations, because it is rarely useful for activating Galeforce. Maybe you could get away with it on an Infantry unit running Time’s Pulse. Otherwise, I think that Slaying Lance is significantly better; it reduces the cooldown count, and can be refined to provide a stat boost.

@TEKWRX I took a look at your unit list. Keep in mind that all my comments below are based heavily on my own experiences and preferences. ~ I didn’t realize that Norne is just 4*-available Faye with Spd, inverted Def & Res, and no personal weapon. I kind of want to build one for whenever they release a Res-boosting Astra mythic.

It seems like you may have had a fort level disadvantage. The Panic Manor is the bonus structure this week, which means that if you deploy it on your offense structure line, your Offense Fort will be treated as having an additional level. On the flip side, if a defense setup has the Panic Manor deployed (like this one does), the enemy defense fort is treated as having an additional level. That’s a 4 point swing in all stats (except HP) you’re missing out on. This is just a side note, but a defensive special alone can’t actually reduce non-zero damage to zero. Did he have Brazen + Shield Pulse or something? imo, you are correct in your assessment that this Raiding Party would have been your best shot. The reasons for this are: Tiki is a better response to Kjelle, Fjorm, and Corrin, especially since you mentioned that the enemies were stacked up with “if foe initiates combat” skills. Tiki can force them to attack her instead, so they won’t have all those extra stats. Alm with the Flashing Blade seal is a pretty good check to Surtr, and would probably have been able to take him out over the course of a couple rounds of combat. I strongly recommend planning out your approach to a map, including any necessary calculations, before even entering the battle at all. It’s neither worse nor better, from a scoring standpoint. You don’t keep Aether from destroying Aether structures in a battle you lose (I believe this is mentioned in the structures’ descriptions). The only thing you really lost there was time. Dazzling is the better pick. She loses out on damage, but you won’t have to worry about taking a Dragon Fang to the face when she tries to defuse an Infantry Pulse setup. Your Raiding Parties look like they would benefit from a bit more variety, if I’m being honest. You may already have gotten this advice, I admit that I haven’t been following this discussion super closely. At the bare minimum, I strongly recommend a Raiding Party centered around a solid 2-range tank. It wouldn’t have mattered too much here, with 4/5 enemies being melee, but it’s really nice to have. Did you post a listing of your units somewhere here? I can try to dig back through the thread and toss some suggestions together if you have.

@Landmaster Wow, Team Elise really did just walk all over them, managing to clear out the battle before Cormag & Co. could find Nowi and prove your team wasn’t all Elise. Nice work!

This was a pretty straightforward battle. Truth, Despair, and Hope definitely did not play on the SS version of this map, but I won’t say no to hearing it for about a minute. v1 felt like I was...no, it wasn’t even like taking a page out of @mampfoid’s book. It was more like I was taking the entire book, replacing one page with summoner supported Caeda, and then throwing the whole thing at Cormag’s face. Thus, v2: @Landmaster

@Landmaster Ah, the days of +10ing someone “just because”. He looks great, congrats!

Alright, alright...better? Well that’s just evil.

@Landmaster Dang, you really went all out for her. I doubt I'll be able to match that level of dedication. Linked your post in the OP!

@Landmaster I only just now realized that you edited your clear into the OP. That initial hit and run strike, plus the big threat ranges of your units, really messed with the AI's approach. Nice work! Neither, actually, I just haven't promoted the last manual yet. idk why, either, since I'm closing in on 300k feathers at this point.