Chain Challenge help

[Hirotune]

Alright, so i've got to the point in chain challenge (Lunatic of course, others are easy AF) to where no matter what i do, i can't complete them with my measly F2P team. My current team consists of

Lv. 40 Minerva

Skills

A. Iote's Shield

B. Renewal 2

C. Threaten Attack 3

Combat Art: Ignis

Assist Skill: Rally Res

Lv. 40 Sharena

Skills

A. Speed +3

B. Seal Speed 3

C. Fortify Def 3

Combat Art: Dragon Fang

Assist Skill: Rally Attack

Lv. 40 Prescilla

Skills

A. nothing

B. Renewal 3

C. Spur Def 2

Combat Art: Imbue

Assist Skill: Rehabilitation

 

Lv. 40 Katarina

Skills

A. Swift Sparrow 2

B. Vantage 3

C. Atk Plo 3

 

And at this point when i do the "All in a row" stages i get to about stage 7/10 before shit hits the fan. Any idea on what i should do?

[Vaximillian]

Maybe there’s some advice in the thread that still exists?

[Wanda]

I'll be honest, that's not a great squad to bring to Lunatic Chain Challenges where everybody is HUGE and where, honestly, nukes like buffed WTA blade-tome-mages have the easiest time dealing with enemies. However, I'm guessing these are your best units, or so you think, and for a long time I had a worse team to work with, so I'll just share a few principles which worked for me.

For a long time, my A team consisted of Tiki, Clair, Tharja and Azura. That team is four 5* units, but they're nothing special. Tharja is -SPD, +HP (the worst IV she could possibly have). Clair is -RES — she has the same RES as Azura ffs. Tiki is a dragon, so it doesn't take much to frighten her, just a falchion or a unit with high RES, or Julia. That team can just about hold its own against favourable match-ups. There are myriad cases, however, where I have prevailed with that team against very unfavourable match-ups (e.g. Clarisse infernal GHB) thanks to position play, buff/blade tome abuse, WTA abuse, dancing and emergency healing with Ardent Sacrifice/Breath of Life/Reciprocal Healing.

 

1. Leave the healer at home

I never bring a healer. I either use Ardent Sacrifice or Reciprocal Healing. Healers are just too inefficient, every member of the team needs to pull their weight when they have to last for an average of 5 battles. Healing assist skills also happen to synergise with B-skills like Desperation and Vantage too, making healers even less desirable to have on the team. Obviously, this is only super viable if you have someone with a Falchion or Renewal — which you do, with Minerva.

Making the most out of four combat units is more effective than having three combat units and one healer, because even Priscilla/Clarine can't be everywhere at once, and any unit can provide healing or buffs, may as well use units who can do damage as well.

 

2. Get better assist and passive skills for moving your heroes around the field and buffing stats

Being able to move units out of harms way after they have done their action helps to remove the need to bring a healer, because units will seldom be hit by other units on enemy phase. Chances are if you mess up, an unlucky unit will not survive the enemy phase to be healed anyway. Generally speaking, it's better to avoid damage as much as possible, using repositioning skills and so on. 

Invest in Honing C-skills. This removes the need for rally assist skills (which gives you room for positioning assist skills). I say Hones because Spurs require that your units be adjacent to each other, which is actually less likely to happen than it sounds. Similarly, Threaten skills, like the one you have on Minerva, probably won't help that much in the Lunatic challenges — the enemy's ATK is still going to be insanely high, the trick will be to strike with weapon triangle advantage or from range. 

It's often better to get as many buffs on your own units as possible, ideally ATK & SPD, just in case it can give you enough of an edge to avoid being doubled. Doubling is the biggest killer at any difficulty of the game, not sheer force (except from perhaps a magic nuke with WTA but anyway...) 

YMMV with this one, it's not entirely objective I admit, it's how I play. I use blade tomes a lot so that's probably the reason for my bias. That said, you're using Katarina — a good red mage, but unfortunately comes with a poor bad tome. If you can pull a Tharja, see which has the better stats and make sure the better mage has the Raudrblade tome. This will greatly increase damage potential and give your red mage killing power against both reds and even low RES blues.

 

3. Abuse the Weapon Triangle

Now, as you're going through the Lunatic challenges, you'll probably be noticing that the enemy has crazy inflated stats. This means that your own team will need to focus heavily on min-maxing, getting every point of ATK & SPD out of them. Skills like Iote's Shield, while very nice in theory, are ill-advised. I know from experience, I gave Iote's Shield to Clair and watched her get slaughtered every battle. I replaced it with Triangle Adept 3 and kept her away from archers, and she was suddenly an efficient unit again.

This is because Triangle Adept isn't only an offensive skill, but defensive as well, it reduces damage even more. WTA can turn any unit into a tank/nuke against units of a certain type, and while they become a whole lot glassier to other units, with good positioning you can reap the benefits Triangle Adept has to offer without suffering the negative consequences.

Try to acquire gem weapons (Ruby Sword, Sapphire Lance, Emerald Axe) or Triangle Adept skills to maximise your damage potential against particular units while adding defence to those units. At this level of the game, you really won't be able to get away with fighting against the weapon triangle in most cases, so you may as well go all in on it. Remember gem weapons and TA do not stack, so gem weapons tend to be the better choice because you can keep your A-slot skills like Fury, Life & Death, Death Blow etc.

 

4. Get a dancer.

I cannot stress how important it is to have at least once dancer. They immediately make life a lot easier on even the hardest difficulty. Even the best players rely on dancer support if they don't have a Camus/Xander/Eldigan/Reinhardt/Cecilia horse meme team. And even then, plenty of them have a dancer instead of Cecilia. The ability to conduct a second action with a unit is all but mandatory to comfortably complete these challenges, especially if you have some nukes who really appreciate being either moved away from danger or given an opportunity to knock out a second enemy.

When you watch MKV do his F2P Lunatic/Infernal runs, the one thing he always has is at least one dancer, sometimes more. I tend to bring one and rely on positioning skills to do some extra manoeuvring when needed — that way I can bring another killer unit. That said, Azura counts as a killer anyway, with reasonably good stats across the board and a Sapphire Lance+ to eviscerate red units.

Olivia is also a pretty good unit — not sure how well she'll hold her own on Lunatic challenges, but with a gem weapon or TA she might just be table to tank a hit from a slow green if you're lucky. Ninian's pretty good too, she's just hard to get like Azura. All the dancers are not atrociously squishy and can finish off a heavily wounded unit if necessary. They're definitely worth rolling for.

-------------------

If you're totally F2P, and you haven't invested too much of your time into the game, and you aren't extremely attached to Minerva, you might consider restarting the game or creating a second account and rerolling until you have some amazing starting units that will see you through any conflict. I got lucky, I didn't need to even reroll because the first unit I ever rolled was Azura. A dancer is invaluable, let alone one that can hold their own in a fight against both physical and magical units (provided no WT disadvantage).

The other reason to restart is to have all of those story orbs at your disposal again, ready for you to summon the best units and build a large store of SI fodder with which to create optimal builds for Lunatic/Infernal maps.

If restarting is a bit extreme — maybe you have other good units, you just haven't shown us or mentioned them or whatever — then consider what I've said and be patient. Let the daily orbs build up, don't be tempted to roll as soon as you have 5 or 9 or 13. Build up 20 and do a full five roll. 

Because no unit is useless because they nearly all have some kind of useful skill. Look at Roy — I used to dread pulling Roy, but when I noticed he has Triangle Adept 3 at 4*, he suddenly became a more welcome sight. Look at Robin, I laughed when I looked at his stats, but the boy is extremely difficult to kill without a strong green. Remember I said I had a team of Clair, Tiki, Tharja & Azura? Two reds, two blues, vs Robin. Had WTA over Tiki and Tharja, tanky enough to absorb Clair & Azura's attacks. Checkmate, scales were tipped. By a unit that pretty much sucks on paper.

My point is that for every battle there is a team composition that will beat even the greatest and shiniest SS+++ tier units, with enough planning and tactical manoeuvring.

The Chain Challenges are just the story maps, so it's easy to check what units are going to pop up — and you can make a note of what units you can expect to face, what their stats are, what their skills are (if they have any) and use teams tuned specifically for handling those units and maps.

At the same time, these challenges are intended to be difficult. I'm sure many of us who haven't spent our salaries on building the perfect Horse Memblem teams arehaving to attempt and reattempt some of these challenges, because even if you have the right team it's easy to make a mistake. Something I'm doing all too often is mis-tapping the screen and putting a unit one square to the left of where the unit needed to be, and boom dead.

It can be disheartening, but every attempt is just more data about what the enemy can do and will do under certain circumstances. Sometimes it has been through mistakes that I have discovered, to my surprise, that the enemy AI either ignores a vulnerable unit or doesn't do as much damage as I had feared, due to a detail I had forgotten. I'd never know without trying and failing a few times.

------------------------

The conclusion: you probably need to grind more. Maybe a lot more. You must have some 4* units which have better potential to be powerful if only you had the feathers. Invest time in Tempest Trials, there's a huge feather reward for ranking in the top 5,000 or whatever. That'd get you almost halfway to a 5* unit, and would net you a couple of seals and a couple of Tobins in the process.

You can feed the 4* Tobin to a better unit for Seal Spd 3 and max out the HM of the 5* Tobin on Tempest Trials or Training Tower for 2000 more feathers. Think about it, each unit has 2000 HM, which corresponds to 2000 feathers. Max out 10 units HM and you have enough feathers to promote a 4* to a 5*. It takes a long time, but it's worth it in the end. 

And don't forget, if you're running low on stamina, make sure you're collecting your My Nintendo points each week to help buy stamina drinks. There's also a stamina drink to be gotten by winning on a Tempest Trial just once. Just in case you're like me and you battle more than you probably should and run out of stamina and find yourself with the rest of the day to occupy and nothing more enjoyable to do.

 

I hope I don't come across as some kind of ass, I'm nobody special and I'm not an authority on this game, I'm just sharing what I've learned. YMMV, and indeed I'm not quite F2P, I've spent about $60 on the game but every time I have I've pulled Subakis and Hinatas. Which is frustrating, but on the flip side, lots of my units have Fury 3 and Quick Riposte 2 so I guess it turned out okay in the end.

 

Edited July 13, 2017 by Wanda

[Lushen]

As wanda said, use someone with reciprocal aid and renewal.  Even breath of life on your nuker can work (works great for me)

Preferably someone with Falchion, if you have a Chrom/Lucina/Alm/Marth.  They will be your best healing colored units because they have discount renewal that can stack with regular renewal.

I think this is your best bet.  

[Othin]

Your first problem is only having one team prepared. That's fine for the three-map Paralogue challenges where you can only use one team in the first place, but for the others, you really need to have enough decent picks to fill as many teams as the challenge lets you use. Even on the three-map ones, it's valuable to have a wide variety of characters so you can pick which ones are best suited for the maps and enemies you have to face.

[Hirotune]

I do have other back up teams, they're just ones that i have lvl 40. I have 11 5* units (3 of which i used feathers to get to 5*) and only 3 of them aren't lvl 40, i have maybe one or two decent 4* units but other than that, it's all i got. Since i got Summer Tiki, im not going to restart since i doubt with my luck i'll even pull her again, let alone her AND summer robin (Who i'm still trying to go for atm) if you want, i'll list my 5* units

Katarina

Minerva

Sharena

Fir

Klein

Clarisse

Summer Tiki

Jeorge

Non Lv. 40 5*'s

Seliph 

Young Tiki

Sanaki

 

Right now, im working on getting another 20k feathers to try to get Camus or Xander to 5* cause i heard they're good units and the fact they have distant counter built into their weapons.

[XRay]

@Nep Nep For modes with multiple maps, the following team composition worked best for me.

Nuke #1 Magical: Preferably, it this should be green or blue. Ideally, it should not be red. C passive depends on your team and play style, but I like to put Savage Blow on my nukes since it helps the other nuke kill things.

Katarina: If you can, get Rauðrblade for her. If not, her default tome is okay. You might want to give her Swordbreaker or Desperation.

Nino: She is relatively easy to summon, comes with Gronnblade, and has good stats. You can give her Fury 3 if you cannot afford Life and Death 3. She also needs Desperation.

Reinhardt: He is really powerful. Give him Moonbow, Death Blow, and Quickened Pulse.

— — — — — — —

Nuke #2 Physical (or magical): These archers take out things your magic nuke cannot. You can run two magic nukes and no physical nukes if both of them have high offensive potential. Again, C passive depends on your team and play style.

Klein/Jeorge: check their nature, and test the following build on the calculator. Pick the one that performs better.
Brave Bow, Luna
Life and Death, Swordbreaker/Desperation

— — — — — — —

Dancer: Again, preferably not red, but Olivia will do.

Olivia: If you do not have her, get her and level her to 4* level 40 as soon as possible. You can get two of her early next week when her map becomes available in the Special Map.

Azura: She dances and kills reds.

— — — — — — —

Healer: This is your red Falchion unit that heals you and takes out green units. Lucina is the best in my opinion, but Marth and Alm are good substitutes. Chrom is the least ideal, but he can still work. Give them Reciprocal Aid and Renewal 3. If you do not have any Falchion users, then you may need to slap Reciprocal Aid and Renewal 3 on somebody else. Preferably, it should be a color that is not on your team yet.

Minerva: Get rid of Iote's Shield. It is useless at best. She should keep her default Life and Death. Get her Renewal 3 and Reciprocal Aid if you can. Get rid of Ignis and give her Moonbow, Luna, or Draconic Aura.

[Hirotune]

4 hours ago, XRay said:

@Nep Nep For modes with multiple maps, the following team composition worked best for me.

Nuke #1 Magical: Preferably, it this should be green or blue. Ideally, it should not be red. C passive depends on your team and play style, but I like to put Savage Blow on my nukes since it helps the other nuke kill things.

Katarina: If you can, get Rauðrblade for her. If not, her default tome is okay. You might want to give her Swordbreaker or Desperation.

Nino: She is relatively easy to summon, comes with Gronnblade, and has good stats. You can give her Fury 3 if you cannot afford Life and Death 3. She also needs Desperation.

Reinhardt: He is really powerful. Give him Moonbow, Death Blow, and Quickened Pulse.

— — — — — — —

Nuke #2 Physical (or magical): These archers take out things your magic nuke cannot. You can run two magic nukes and no physical nukes if both of them have high offensive potential. Again, C passive depends on your team and play style.

Klein/Jeorge: check their nature, and test the following build on the calculator. Pick the one that performs better.
Brave Bow, Luna
Life and Death, Swordbreaker/Desperation

— — — — — — —

Dancer: Again, preferably not red, but Olivia will do.

Olivia: If you do not have her, get her and level her to 4* level 40 as soon as possible. You can get two of her early next week when her map becomes available in the Special Map.

Azura: She dances and kills reds.

— — — — — — —

Healer: This is your red Falchion unit that heals you and takes out green units. Lucina is the best in my opinion, but Marth and Alm are good substitutes. Chrom is the least ideal, but he can still work. Give them Reciprocal Aid and Renewal 3. If you do not have any Falchion users, then you may need to slap Reciprocal Aid and Renewal 3 on somebody else. Preferably, it should be a color that is not on your team yet.

Minerva: Get rid of Iote's Shield. It is useless at best. She should keep her default Life and Death. Get her Renewal 3 and Reciprocal Aid if you can. Get rid of Ignis and give her Moonbow, Luna, or Draconic Aura.

Sadly, i do only have olivia, so im S.o.l there and i only have a 4* nino. As for the "healer" the game has completely f'd me over in that turn as chrom is my only falchion user and is also 4*. With my slow ass way of getting feathers, it'll take forever. and say what you will about Ignis, but if you were to use it + fury, she'd be a monster. If the game would actually give me marth or lucina from a summon for once, MAYBE i'd have better luck there.

[eclipse]

So here's my F2P perspective:

- I suggest running Olivia, and give her a Ruby Sword (Stahl comes with it).  This will allow her to reliably tank greens, which is better than her default set.
- You have a solid ranged character in Katarina, and given your spread, you need magical damage.  Minerva is more for nuking, and Sharena's your only listed blue unit.
- For skills, give Katarina the Breath of Life seal, so she can heal as she chips.  She'll also want Desperation, since she wants to attack on player phase while not tanking too many hits.  Minerva works best with her native LaD, and I'd swap out her C skill for either a buff or Breath of Life.  Olivia's B skill is up in the air - she works well enough with Wings of Mercy.  Sharena's B skill can either be Renewal or Escape Route - warping rallybot is pretty funny.

Hope this helps~!

[ruruo]

I wouldn't stress too much about rolling for one of the rarer blue dancers. Olivia holds her own really well. I do recommend getting Wings of Mercy on her because it synergises really well with units that need Desperation or ones that would be taking hits. 

I think, you can also get away with using 4* Nino so long as she can get her buffs, Fury/+3 Spd/Darting Blow, and Desperation (I use 4* Nino for Tempest Trials and she's still pretty good). Sharena works decently as a rallybot, I'd also give her the Fortify Res Seal, if you got it, and a Hone Speed to one of her other allies and buffs for all 4 stats covered.

If you're going to run Xander and Camus, be sure to get Hone Cavalry on Xander from Gunter. Camus comes with his Goad.

Also for the Chain challenges that allows for multiple teams, I like go out with a weaker team first, and do as many maps as I can with them, then switch to the stronger main team for what's left. 

The Chain Challenges are there permanently, so it's really okay to take time on building characters to be ready for them. 

 

[XRay]

4 hours ago, Nep Nep said:

Sadly, i do only have olivia, so im S.o.l there and i only have a 4* nino. As for the "healer" the game has completely f'd me over in that turn as chrom is my only falchion user and is also 4*. With my slow ass way of getting feathers, it'll take forever. and say what you will about Ignis, but if you were to use it + fury, she'd be a monster. If the game would actually give me marth or lucina from a summon for once, MAYBE i'd have better luck there.

Olivia will have to do. 4* Nino should be more than an enough. With a few merges, she will be almost as good as a her 5* version.

Minerva should be running Life and Death. That is the best player phase skill and she comes with it naturally. There is no reason to use Fury; Fury is for Enemy Phase units, or as a budget option for Player Phase units if they cannot afford Life and Death or Swift Sparrow. Out of Life and Death, Swift Sparrow, and Fury, Fury is the worst Player Phase A passive. If Minerva is going to be your healer, she should not be running Fury at all and should not be in enemy range to tank hits. On a neutral vanilla Minerva, replacing her Life and Death with Fury makes her worst as a unit, reducing her win:loss:draw ratio from 62:5:85 to 47:3:102. Having 2 fewer losses for the price of 15 fewer kills is a horrible trade off. You can check the calculator yourself.

[Ignis, Fury, Quick Riposte, Quickened Pulse] would be better on someone like her brother, Michalis, who has a higher Attack, HP, and Defense to utilize the Enemy Phase build better.

Depending on Chrom's stats, he can still work well with Falchion. Speed boon Chrom is the best version of him to run Falchion; Attack boon will still work, but it is less ideal. He needs Life and Death to patch his Speed. I would not promote him unless he has a Speed or Attack boon.

You can earn over 5,000 Feathers a week in the Arena as Tier 19. With Tempest Trials and other quests going on, you should be able to 5* a unit every month and outfit that unit with reasonable skills.

Edited July 14, 2017 by XRay