Frontiersmann

I love that it's been over a year and this dungeon is still a topic for people. As it should be. Dungeon is freaking hard! @Mods given the frequency of posts in this subforum please do not lock this for threadmancy. The terror of Thabes lives on. I started playing echoes in April (first time!) I finished the main content by June 1. I finished Thabes last weekend, July 15 at 3:30 a.m. Normal/Classic No DLC No warning or notice of what awaited me at the end of the game. Very casual playthrough, terribly optimized. Grinding yes. This dungeon destroyed my soul. First attempt, I used: Alm Celica Mycen Mathilda Python Zeke Tatiana Tobin Kliff Sonya I got to floor 8, had two turnwheels left, and kept going. I needed three. Sonya died. I freaked out. Evacuated dungeon, thought I had wasted a bunch of time, and then I remembered that there were resurrection shrines. So I got to bank all my levels and silver marks (about 1,000). Very humbling first experience. I made some substitutions and started grinding up dread fighters using the villager loop. I made my second real attempt while Jesse and Saber were both mercenaries -- I got to floor 9, people were starting to get max stats, I got cocky. Kept on going. I should have turned around... A bunch of entombed steamrolled right through my front lines with a critical hit, and surrounded Celica. Game Over. Bear in mind, I'm a busy dad with a career, two dogs, two little kids. My gaming time is instead of sleeping. I stayed up late on a Saturday for this, and I was completely wasted Sunday from lack of sleep. I was so upset. Ready to rage quit. I stopped trying for about a month. Third attempt last weekend. Alm (Hero / Falchion 1*) Celica (Princess / Beloved Zofia 1*) Tobin (Dread Fighter / Zweihander 3*) Saber (Dread Fighter / Brave Sword 3*) Kamui (Dread Fighter / Brave Sword 3*) Jesse (Dread Fighter / Brave Sword 3*) Python (Bow Knight / Killer Bow 2*) Silque (Saint / Blessed Ring) Genny (Saint / Blessed Ring) Tatiana (Saint / Prayer Ring) Strategy is probably obvious with the Dread Fighters. Went down to about floor 7 to max out 2-3 different stats. Got them back to dread fighters, and made my final attempt. Final run probably took 1 hour. Even with all the raw stats, every single member of the team was necessary for offense at various points near the bottom floors. Which I hated, because using Alm and Celica is risky. Silque and Tatiana both have warp, which I used frequently. Genny and Silque both have expel, which was pretty much necessary on Floor 9. All three of the healers have invoke, which I shamelessly abused. Sorry, I just had to make sure. You're talking about Clive and Mathilda right...? EDIT: Sorry! My finger slipped, I hit ctrl+enter and posted too early.

I've been trying to play Thabes after my first play through. It sucks. I hate it. If I had min-maxed my stats I might be less irritated, but as it is, I'm just planning on running Jesse, Saber, Kamui, Tobin (dread fighter), Alm, Celica, Tatiana, Genny, Silque, and I dunno probably Mathilda or maybe Python. The first four have been through the villager loop a couple of times and their most important stats are maxed. The three healers will be using Invoke mostly. Alm and Celica will lie low. Mathilda and Python are both bad compared to the dread fighters. The two of them, and Alm and Celica all seriously underperform once you get to floor 9. I've had one close call with one of my characters dying (first time I used a revival spring), and I've had two instances after hours of heavy grinding where Alm or Celica were exposed by a death in the front lines, and the turnwheel was useless. Thabes is awful.

I heard from a friend recently that in Gaiden, it was possible to kill off three of Alm's units, and then revive them on Celica's side using the revival spring at the dragon shrine. Apparently they stay in Celica's army if you do this. Hypothetically it would work with the Fear Mountain spring too. So if you wanted to send Clive to the temple of Mila, then give Nomah to the Deliverance, you could. I've tried googling this but I'm having a hard time finding results. Has anyone tested this to see if it works in Shadows of Valentia? Is anyone inclined to?

We are seeing an increasing number of units with special abilities that negate Field Buffs. For one, I just played the Blazing Blade and I was so impressed by how difficult Ursula's chapter was that I decided to upgrade her to 5* in heroes and give her Keen Blarwolf ++, which cancels bonuses on opposing Cavalry units. Upcoming Morgan (M) has a similar skill that looks like it will ignore Buffs on any ranged unit. Blade tomes calculate their damage by adding the total number of field Buffs the unit is affected by to the end damage calculation. So if you run Cecilia with gronnblade and she is affected by hone Cavalry and fortify cavalry, she will deal 24 extra damage (30 if you account for the fact that her attack is boosted by 6, independent of the blade Tome rule). When a buffed blade tome is it combat with an enemy that ignores its Buffs, what happens? I see two possibilities. One is that the blade Tome effect is ruined completely. The other is that the blade Tome still works because the units are still technically buffed, just that the Buffs themselves are ignored.

So, with the conclusion of the Brave Banner, I have spent 180 orbs (almost all F2P) and pulled a single 5 star: Lucas. In my last pull I got TWO 4 star Lucius. Don't get me wrong, I like him fine. He is a staple on my reciprocal Aid + martyr team for tempest trials. Gets me lots of Double A's. But I really don't need more than the single five-star I've got, and I'm not about to spend the feathers to upgrade him. So I am looking for good ways to use Miracle. Seems like the biggest downside to the skill is its long charge time. You can mitigate this with the following tools and techniques: - Killer and slaying weapons - Quicken pulse - Weapons that generate extra attacks (I.e. Brave weapons, especially on characters with either extremely high or extremely low speeds). - B skills that generate extra attacks (e.g. quick riposte and brash assault). - take free strikes on units that can't attack back due to range limitations and/or fire sweep. - Run a dancer to give the unit more combat actions per turn. - Steady breath and/or heavy blade (I wish I could do this...) Of course, surviving when a hit would otherwise be lethal is an obvious upside. One less obvious benefit to miracle is the potential to use it offensively. For instance, a unit with fully charged miracle could attack a unit with Vantage, get hit, survive, and kill. Similarly , a fast glass Cannon who has taken a little bit of damage could strike, absorb an otherwise lethal hit, and follow up for the kill. In the enemy phase, it could also be used as an answer to desperation and even hypothetically QP moonbow Reinhart (just let them hit you twice -- they won't kill unless both attacks are strong enough to kill). Though to be fair, my experience suggests that Rinehart usually draws First Blood so miracle would not generally be charged. After that, it would be smart to use A Healer with rehabilitate, or run a unit with reciprocal Aid and a Healer with martyr. Also worth considering are Falchion + renewal, or any other skill that restores HP to the miracle unit. Given all this info, which unit do you think is best suited to use Miracle? I'm sort of considering seliph for kicks and giggles.

Thank you Lordfrigid! That looks like it took quite a bit of thought and planning. Alas, poor merrick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest! ... To brash, or not to brash? That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageously named spells, or take arms against Bruno, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep no more; and by a sleep, to say we end.

As a side note, I am interested in Hector counters. I just pulled Ryoma and Linde, and I got Hector in the hero fest. So given enough time I ought to have a pretty good Arena team. I don't know if it's because of Ryoma's natures (-Spd +Res) or what, but he seems very fragile and Hector remains my biggest obstacle. Until recently I've been running Sanaki as a check to Hector, but she's -Atk so the rest of the team has to pump the gas a little (rally/Hone/spur Atk) to score a OHKO.

Ah, yup. Forgot to up Hector's speed. That changed it in both calculators.

If I had to restate the question, yeah, it would be "how does combat order of operations work when both units get follow up attacks and vantage is in play?" Normally it would be... Attacker primary>Defender primary (the "counter")>Attacker Follow up>Defender Follow up. With Vantage there are two possibilities: 1. Defender primary (the "counter")>Attacker primary>attacker follow up>Defender follow up. 2. Defender primary (the "counter")>Attacker primary>defender follow up>Attacker follow up. Both possibilities seem intuitive to me. On the one hand, where a defender is eligible for a follow up, an attacker generally doesn't get to follow up immediately after their primary attack. On the other hand, defenders generally don't get to follow up before their attacker. I never stopped to consider whether Vantage moves not only the counter, but the follow up forward in the stack as well. That RocketMo.github calculator suggests that vantage only moves the first attack forward. Cain would hit 4x in a row. I found another calculator that said the same thing. That said, I have no idea how these calculators were made. If they're done by deconstructing the game's code, that's confirmation enough for me. But failing that I'd like to know it works before I dump a bunch of SP into a Brave+ Brash assault user. My first impression of Brash assault was not good. But in a survivable unit (High Armor, Armored Blow, Defiant Defense, escutcheon, pavise, threaten Atk, Triangle adept, or any combination of these), I'm thinking now that the potential for a guaranteed follow up attack, even if the unit is very slow, could be quite handy. Like a breaker skill except it hits anything that can counter, rather than a single weapon type. And if vantage only moves the Defender's first attack forward, it would not make brash assault any less useful.

I am wondering about combat order of operations and a few different skills. Let's say that you have Cain with the following loadout: W: Brave Sword + Supp: flexible Special: flexible (escutcheon, moonbow) A: flexible (Defiant Def 3 / Triangle Adept 3 / Armored Blow 3 / Death Blow 3) B: Brash Assault 3 C: flexible (Threaten Def 3 / Hone or Fortify Cavalry) Versus Hector: W: Armads Supp: Pivot Special: Bonfire A: distant counter B: Vantage 3 C: flexible Cain has 50% HP or less, so Brash assault will proc. Are the following scenarios correct? If Hector has full HP. 1. Cain hits twice. 2. Hector hits once. 3. (Bonfire is now charged) Cain hits twice more in follow up. 4. If Hector is alive, he follows up with Bonfire. If Hector has 75% HP or less. 1. Hector hits. If Bonfire is charged, could kill and end combat. 2. Cain hits four times in a row (2 regular, 2 follow up). Bonfire is charged. 3. Hector follows up if his speed is high enough.

Yup my bad, realized the mistake just as you were typing. Fixed.

FYI Any green mage with Attack 31 and enough speed to double can kill Ursula in a single turn. (they will need to survive a hit, plus a bit of blast damage from the Thieves). Edit nevermind this doesn't work. I forgot to account for Robin(F)'s effective against Cavalry

Actually, you could try this: use the strategy from Reloaded's post quoted below, except exchange Robin (F) for Nino. Edit for the record, I forgot about RobinF's effective against cavalry, Nino might need a bit of help.

Nino and Maria look like must-haves. Probably Olivia too. If you are completely insane you could grab Subaki today and level him up to 3* Lv 35 or higher, and use him for a tank like one of the posters above did.

Just cleared lunatic, after lots of grinding and about 10 attempts. My team was: 3* Robin(F): level 40 HP 36 Atk 31 Spd 25 (not relevant thanks to tomebreaker) Def (not relevant) Res 19 Lachesis: Lv 36 With imbue equipped. Stats are irrelevant because she doesn't fight. Any healer with physic and imbue will work. 4* Saizo: Lv 38 Hp 30 Atk 32 Spd 35 Def 31 Res (not relevant) 4* Draug: Lv 38+2 Hp 44 Atk 33 Spd 23 Def 39 Res (not relevant) Spur Def 2 equipped. Kill Ursula in enemy turn 1 with Robin. Then retreat and use Draug as a road block. Lure out the top thief to attack Draug. Then use Saizo's harsh command ability on Draug to turn his debuff into a sweet, sweet +7. Have Draug turn the top thief into paste (so satisfying). Then back Draug up, playing defense while you keep Saizo and Draug's Hp up. With the top thief gone, you can retreat further into the corner of the map and use that space to reorganize your team. Dispatch the axe knight. The enemy will break both walls now. Keep Draug back to block the bottom thief from getting by. Once Saizo's Hp is full again, have him move in between Draug and your healer, and use harsh command on Draug. Have Draug turn the second thief to paste (still satisfying). Horseman will attack Saizo. Bring Draug back to attack the horseman. It's an unfavorable damage exchange but Draug's Lunge puts you back in a defensive position and allows you to do chip damage to the horseman until he finally dies. I hope this helps someone! If you're struggling, don't give up! Many teams have a path to victory.