Mythic "Bound" Hero Battle: Fomortiis and Gotoh

[Xenomata]

In a teamup that could ONLY happen in Fire Emblem Heroes, Fomortiis: Demon King from The Sacred Stones and Gotoh: White Sage from Mystery of the Emblem are both your opponent in this Mythic battle.

First, Fomortiis. Ravager only needs him to not be near death, and it will inflict an Atk/Def -6 penalty and Guard on the opponent. If he's transformed, WHICH HE IS BY THE WAY, he gets extra special charge per hit he takes. Opponent initiates combat, and their follow-up attacks become virtually useless with 80% of their power lost. And of course he gets Slaying and the standard Beast Armor transformation effect.
Nightmare only asks either the enemy initiate combat or they be over 75% of their HP to inflict a dangerous Atk/Def -10 debuff and take 30% reduced damage from their first attack. Be careful how your units are positioned when you attack him, because after combat Fomortiis will immediately end the action of the nearest allies within 4 spaces of the unit who initiates on him. This effect can and will affect MULTIPLE ally units if you don't take special care. Carelessness ends your turn after just one attack, if he didn't just kill the attacker anyway.
Beast Follow-Up makes his transformation permanent and enables him an automatic follow-up attack, while A/D Far Save makes trying to pick off anyone near him a dangerous task. On Infernal he gets the Mystic Boost Sacred Seal, making Staves next to useless on him and also recovering 6 HP after every combat.

Gotoh then. His Brilliant Starlight means you can't use Area of Effect specials on him or any enemy he starts near, because he grants a bonus that reduces the damage such skills deal by 80% on top of a Def/Res bonus. In combat himself, expect an Atk/Res -6 penalty, don't count on any Atk/Res bonuses since he removes them, don't even bother trying to use a ranged unit who denies counterattacks because he ignores such effects, and if he survives expect him to restore 7 HP.
Gift of magic activates if he initiates combat or if his target is 2 range. Atk/Res -10 debuff is bad enough, guaranteed follow-up honestly should have been expected, but he also reduces the damage of consecutive attacks by 80% and forces a Desperation effect on his attacker, thereby rendering any attempt at attacking him from range deathly.
Guard 4 inflicts Atk -4 and the Guard effect on your unit, plus reduces the damage of the first attack you perform by 30%. Joint Distant Guard is just extra ranged bulk on top of all the bulk he already has, both for himself and nearby allies of his. On Abyssal you cannot shut down his guaranteed follow-up attack or enable yourself a guaranteed follow-up thanks to his Null Follow-up sacred seal.

Two mobile fortresses of defense and utter raw power. The demon to the north, the sage south. Both will fall eventually, it's up to you to decide how the battle must go from here...

[Xenomata]

I never know if I should be proud of my clears that use explicitly powerful units, but... well, if the game wants to throw everything at me, where's the harm in throwing everything I can at it?

Marth and Eirika are thematic to the battle, but they're also the strongest versions of themselves that I have.
Brave Marth's Special Triggers ignore all non-special Damage Reduction thanks to Special Spiral 4 (definitely worth not having Arcane Eclipse on one of my red tomes!), and since both of them have non-special damage reduction, it sure as hell helped break through them. It would have probably been better if he could trigger his special on the 80% damage reduction strikes, but... I got the kills anyway, so no harm done.
Brave Eirika wound up being able to deal good damage to the Armored enemies, Fomortiis included. A shame she herself has no way to ignore non-special damage reduction yet...

Walhart's purpose is obvious. Fomortiis kills if he is allowed to attack... so don't let him attack. Bonus, he also inflicts a Defense penalty, so that's a little extra damage for when it came time to actually attack.
And Ninian... I don't want to say my taking her in was perfectly calculated, but once I realized having her extra action would be more helpful on turn 3 than turn 2, it fell perfectly into place how I needed to use her. Any of those 5 being left alive during EP3 could have been dangerous... and then there's her absorbing Fomortiis's action stealing effect. That was DEFINITELY not according to plan, but I'm glad it happened the way it did!

[Some Jerk]

Me, playing Engage: "Nope, not gettin' outta this chair."
Me, suddenly looking at two FEH bosses at once: "NOW LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO"

Both the Rapier and the Arcane Éljúðnir proved their weight in gold here. I was not expecting Phina to shave off 3/4th's of Fomortiis' HP on Player Phase, so getting rid of him was as simple as letting Olivia tank him once and then running him over. I found Gotoh to be far more of a pain, and that rude-ass Lance Flier with Firesweep wasn't far behind. I had to keep the upper-left corner clear so Olivia had somewhere to flee to when she finally couldn't take any more.

Fun Fact #1: I almost had this map cleared with Merrybilis having Atk Smoke 4 instead of Atk/Def Rein. The reason it failed? Gotoh survived with 1 HP. It was fortunately an easy fix aside from the Lance Flier going wacky.

Fun Fact #2: For the curious, Phina can actually oneshot Abyssal Fomortiis. All she needed was Atk+6 and a Def-6 on Fomo, both of which Merrybilis can supply. The only reason this didn't feature in the clear was because of - you guessed it - the Lance Flier.

[Ice Dragon]

The easiest way to beat a Save tank is to let them walk into your own Save tank. Fomortiis can land Bonfires on Valentine Lucina, but there's not much else he can do when he can't double her and she heals back 5 HP on each of her own attacks due to Valentine Robin's support effect, which means all of the regular mooks attacking her are just healing up the damage she took from Fomortiis.

Gotoh ended up being the last enemy standing and got backed into a corner where I just had New Year Ash and Ashera do single-digit damage to him for a few turns to eventually whittle away his HP.

 

Infernal was instead cleared with Desert Nino, Duo Linde, Legendary Ninian, and Harmonized Azura. Linde can kill Fomortiis in two rounds of combat on the first turn before he can transform. Gotoh again ended up being the most troublesome unit to kill due to his ridiculous bulk and ability to counterattack against ranged units, which meant I needed Ninian to soften him up before having someone else land some chip damage for the finishing blow.

[Sunwoo]

So, I just wanted to mention that I haaaaaaate Formortiis.

Gotoh at least can't counter from 1-range, so I can safely hit him with a melee unit without taking any damage back. Formortiis just hits too hard from both ranges and makes it really difficult to gang up on him in a single turn with his move canceling bullshit. Did they really have to put all this garbage on a single unit?

I still cleared abyssal, although it was a fucking pain in the ass.  Thank goodness for Brave Seliph, Halloween m!Corrin, and Harmonic Roy. That said, I did need to stack up attack boosts for Roy to be able to 1RKO Formortiis after Brave Seliph weakened him. Because Formortiis is a JERK and lived with like 9 HP before the attack boosts.

[GuiltyLove]

@Some Jerk That didn't look very fun. I am surprised Olivia survived Gotoh's special. It's nice seeing Mirabilis get a kill. I hope Phina gets a refine that she can share with young Marth!

 

Sorry to say that Lilith and Grima can't do this on their own. Rearmed Grima can take on the enemies, but only she and Legendary Grima are able to survive and kill the opponents. Lilith's skills aren't enough to help out : / I can actually clear out all of the enemies except the demon king with Spring Palla and the other units on here, but Spring Palla doesn't seem to have a way to charge her special due to Fomortiis' Guard effect, so it just ended up being 0x4 over and over. I ended up just switching her with Petra as a guest unit.

 

Edited January 28, 2023 by GuiltyLove

[Yggi]

This was the hardest map I've ever completed, not one comes close. The amount of luck I had with the numbers is immeasureable.

 

[Othin]

Cleared Abyssal with Duo Edelgard, Duo Nina, Rearmed Robin, and Winter BK. All pretty much at base, aside from giving Reposition to everyone and giving Galeforce to Edelgard. Gotoh's group was the biggest trouble, but once I found a way to pick off the Close Save armor, I was able to use Nina's Duo skill to debuff Gotoh enough for Edelgard to take him out. At the end, Robin easily beat up Fomortiis.

[Landmaster]

Took quite a bit of fodder to pull this off. I almost thought it might be impossible~

HS!Elise got four different skills foddered for this clear: Atk/Spd Catch, Fatal Smoke, Pulse Smoke, and Heavy Blade 4, with the latter two not ending up mattering, so rip Pent and Tibarn. The Elises' lack of any Defensive stats showed itself here in how hard it was for S!Elise to tank Gotoh. While the reinforcements weren't all that hard, the two big bosses were extremely tough, especially when I noticed Gotoh was running NFU (which I had already put on S!Elise anyway to deal with him). 

Once I realized that this map could be won without Elise's Staff, it was just figuring out which between Candlelight, Witchy Wand, and Serpentine was the one to counter Fomortiis. Turns out Candlelight saved the day. I am really glad this map came during HS!Elise's rerun.

@Some Jerk - Broadleaf was needed for me, too. Looks like we both had to take advantage of debuffs to do some damage her. Olivia is quite the wall, it's incredible how well these new Skills are working to make her unkillable. I can't wait for her eventual Resplendent. 

@GuiltyLove - Nice work, Petra was just what the team needed to get rid of Fomortiis! Playing around with Nightmare is a lot easier when you have Trace and Canto.

@Yggi - Awesome final showdown with Seliph and Fomortiis. A bit of Pulse Smoke and Deadeye makes him a lot less scary. I can see how it was so troublesome looking at Turn 4, but you pulled though!

[GuiltyLove]

@Landmaster The battle between Summer Elise and Gotoh will be recorded in memory for all to witness. I was so scared every single time Gotoh attacked! Looks like you used a lot of fodder for this! I hope the other skills come in handy one day~

[eclipse]

This battle sucked.  Decided that Team Tank Dragon With Four-Letter Names was the way to go.  Duo Duma (Armor March scroll), Fallen Rhea, Summer Nifl, and Nils were able to get past this.  I kept everyone together so Duma/Rhea could keep everyone safe.  Used Duma's Duo Skill when Gotoh got his health down.  Summer Nifl was able to blow up squishy units with no fear of retaliation.

[Sasori]

Well this map took a few tries..and a different team then I had planned. But now its Embla/Askr babysitting some bad boys and girl. I haven't gotten a chance to use the evil morgans or NYelm yet.
 

@Landmaster Oh wow. Sticking to your team even in maps like this. Selise really did a good job at continiously tanking the old man. I'm surprised Formi went down a lot quicker.

@Diovani Bressan@SatsumaFSoysoy @BoaFerox

[Seafarer]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JiGlunwa1Bt1MZi9EC5iN9yEUkCBhUUM/view?usp=sharing

Okay, this map was expensive in terms of inheritance. Azura got her second ever inherited skill, Wings of Mercy; Cordelia picked up Even Tempest as her first premium C-skill; and Nino needed Blazing Light, Windsweep, and Drive Atk (and Blazing Wind, but that was a mistake).

This map hammered home my distaste for all these new armour skills - those Assault Troop assholes were way too good at controlling space in conjunction with the two bosses with more durability than they have any right to, and of course Saves continue to be horrible.

IMO, the Infernal version of this map is on par with or harder than the majority of older Abyssals. I really don't know how I'm going to keep up if they continue to make units with effects like Nightmare...

[BoaFerox]

@Some JerkInclredibly impressive as always, but perhaps even more this time considering the map. I actually got an extra Rearmed Líf on the associated banner, so I've been a bit tempted to replicate your Olivia.

@GuiltyLoveVery nice clear, bringing Petra was definitely a good choice for getting past Fomortiis. Bride Catria made short work of Gotoh as well!

@YggiThat looked rough, but it was really cool to see the two bosses remain at the end. Pulse Smoke was a really great skill for handling Fomortiis, and Jamke's Deadeye was the perfect thing to use against them both. Nice work!

@LandmasterAmazing job by the Elise brigade this time, having your emblem team be all ranged units and then having to deal with Gotoh is not the sort of thing you like to see. Very impressive job finding a way through this!

@SasoriNice clear, these New Year units are incredibly strong! Good job playing around Nightmare at the end.

 

I'm sad to say that I don't think this map is possible to one-turn with my usual Tana team. Not only did they place the enemies further apart than ever before, but they're also pretty much the bulkiest bosses we've ever had in a map and there's two of them. I did clear it in one turn using other units, and I was going to record that but I forgot. I basically remembered while on a train, 10 minutes before reset, and decided it wasn't worth stressing over since Gotoh is back pretty soon regardless. Pretty sad the Tanas weren't able to do it for the first time ever, but it had to happen eventually. I just didn't expect it to be like this, I always thought it would happen when we got a boss with permanent Warp Bubble or they made a full barricade of breakable walls or something. 

On another note, I'm not very fond of this map in general. Usually when we get a final boss in the game they do a really cool recreation of the final map from their respective game, complete with music, but just because giving us two maps at once would be too many rewards they drop that completely here and give us whatever this map is... Guess Sacred Stones will never get its final map recreated in Heroes. And they used music that was already in the game too, and despite it being kind of related to Gotoh it's not really a fitting choice for this map. Disappointed all around.

[GuiltyLove]

@BoaFeroxIf you ever want to record the one turn clear with other units when this map returns, I'm interested in seeing it! I hated this map too. The new units just get more and more effects. I can't imagine doing this map with a limited roster. Hope the game will be dead by then

[GuiltyLove]

Now that Catria got a refine, she's actually decent!  I managed to do this without a guest unit. It's probably still too hard with purely Grima and Lilith, though.

Maria getting merges and DC helped a little bit.

[BoaFerox]

@GuiltyLove I missed this clear back in April, but it's a great showcase of Catria's new powers! I think this map still stands as the hardest Mythic/Legendary map in the game, so being able to beat it with the Macedon gang is a good achievement. Catria slicing through both bosses was great, and using Triangle Attack to get two strong hits off on Fomortiis at the end was good. Nice clear!

 

Thanks to new broken skills, as well as a whole new unit in Rearmed Tana, I am now able to one turn this map with the Tana team. 
 

 

[GuiltyLove]

@BoaFeroxNice! You finally did the one-turn clear. I can't believe Tana survived Gotoh's special! The Whitecap bow helped destroy Fomortiis!

I originally wanted to switch someone for Brave Corrin, but I figured out a way to trap Gotoh. Most of the battle was Rearmed Grima intensely fighting Fomortiis.

 

[Aior0sS@ggitar!us]

This is going to sound crazy, but after a few tries, I managed to finally beat abyssal...using the new Halloween units, no additional seals or skills included.