Next grand hero battle: Zephiel

[Korath88]

The quests asked for Armour emblem so I used armours for all the quests bar the fonse ones. LA!Lyn, LA!Hector, BK and Effie trivialise Infernal. Swapped in Zephiel for his quest on the lunatic map.

[Usana]

@LordFrigid HAH! Just as you were about to finish youtube glitched out on me and throws the staticy black 'an error has occurred'. Yeah you bet. HEALERS HEAL. Not kill! I just thought it was funny that it glitched just as you were about to win :D. Actualyl my computer is pretty laggy right now even on Serenes. Apparently my computer decided now is a good time to fire up all the virus/malware scanners.

Anyways this took me a second on infernal. Kept making stupid mistakes such as forgetting that brave weapons attack twice on initiation. Would have managed the 2nd time if it weren't for that. Then I couldn't get back to that same spot. Apparently a single space of movement different was all it took to through a kink in my strategy. Took me about 60 stamina to figure out why it wasn't working anymore when it did so well the previous time. The first time I just didn't clear fast enough. Tried to use my not quite build Hardin to deal with Zeph instead of my Close Counter Blarblade Booklyn.

[Florete]

The armor march on Infernal ironically made it easier for me. Bait 'em out with dragon emblem (I have Tiki, Nowi, and Myrrh all with DC and QR) and the win is easy.

[Ice Dragon]

ピエリのおもちゃなの！

This one was... interesting. Enemy axe armors should go to hell.

This Grand Hero Battle finally gave me the excuse I've been needing to level up my Attack Plus Sacred Seal to Attack +3. Wings of Mercy was completely unnecessary because of how little space there is to move around on this map. Axe armors make me extremely happy that my Peri is +Atk and not +Spd.

+0 Olivia [+Spd, -Res] (Dance, Wings of Mercy 3, Hone Atk 3)
+10 Peri [+Atk, -Res] (Firesweep Lance+, Draw Back, Dragon Fang, Life and Death 3, Drag Back, Threaten Def 3, Attack +3)
+6 Azura [+Spd, -Def] (Sing, Wings of Mercy 3, Drive Res 2, Def Ploy 3)
+10 Ninian [+Spd, -Res] (Dance, Wings of Mercy 3, Hone Spd 3, Squad Ace D 3)

This is the first time I've had to bring Def Ploy into one of these.

The usual imgur gallery with annotations: https://imgur.com/a/z3HNa.

[Kaden]

Infernal was surprisingly easy for me. I was thinking that the developers would have considered changing Zephiel's skill set like they did with Xander, but they only gave him Distant Counter and Armor March. Infernal Zephiel doesn't even have Swap or Bonfire, Ignis, Bold Fighter, Vengeful Fighter, and whatever else that would have made him terrifying or at least annoying like infernal Xander having Aegis partially charged. I even expected them to give Zephiel his refined Eckesachs with or without Distant Counter because it was pretty easy to cheese his GHB on lunatic and hard with ranged units, primarily mages and now, healers with Wrathful Staff.

Anyway, cleared with a team of 5* Gunnthra (+Spd, -Atk), 5* vanguard Ike (neutral), 5* Lukas (+Def, -Spd), and 5* BH Lyn (neutral) who was only really there for moral support.

Spoiler

Gunnthra has her default skills minus Fortress Res and has a Hone Atk 1 seal, vanguard Ike has Swap and a Quick Riposte 3 seal, Lukas has a defense refined Slaying Lance+, Swap, Ignis, Guard 3, Hone Spd 3, and a Close Def 3 seal, and BH Lyn has Reposition and a Drive Def 2 seal. The idea for the strategy was pretty the same one I used for lunatic: take out the mages. The blue mage has 80 total or 54x2 physical and 89 total or 63x2 magical bulk. You're probably not going to one-shot them, but with WTA and >= 40 speed, a green mage would need 53 total attack. +Spd, -Atk Gunnthra has 42/36 offenses with Blizzard and without her Fortress Res 3. Chilling Seal, -6 Atk/Spd on units with the lowest defense, affects both mages because they share 22 defense, so she would have 54 attack against them. +Spd Gunnthra only needs +4 speed to double them naturally and +6 comes from her Chilling Seal's. A =Spd Gunnthra has 33 speed, so she'd need +7 total speed; +6 comes from her debuff and +1 could be anything really.  I bet you could replicate this with any of the other green mages with high enough speed or B Tomebreaker and attack, naturally or with buffs and/or a Gronnblade tome, but Gunnthra just happened to be there and +Spd Gunnthra was just 4 speed under from doubling the blue mage.

That leaves the red mage who I was trying to check with a blue unit or some kind on my first try. That didn't work out so well with the armors making their way forward and me not noticing that the blue armor has Armor March too and that got Joshua killed. My first try was with Joshua and a 5* Ursula with Blarblade+ and R Tomebreaker. Ursula couldn't get in range of the red mage safely. So, for my second try, I thought things over and intended to use Fjorm, but settled on using vanguard Ike and BH Lyn instead.

Taking out the blue mage leaves Gunnthra in range of the left axe armor and Zephiel. My plan for that was to use Lukas to wall out Zephiel and the blue armor, but with only Swap, he'd also be in range of the axe armor who I wasn't so sure if he'd do damage to Lukas even with me stacking defense on him like crazy. To get Lukas only in range of Zephiel after his Armor March buff, I would need someone to Reposition them out and have Lukas use Swap from the right to take their place. That would also put the unit with Reposition in range of the right axe armor and red mage, however. The first try I used Joshua to do that and had Ursula use Draw Back on him to get him out of range. This try I decided on BH Lyn to Reposition Gunnthra, Lukas to Swap with BH Lyn, and vanguard Ike to Swap with BH Lyn. I had intended for BH Lyn to deal with the red mage and use her Atk Smoke for support and her as my non-infantry unit to get Def Tactics to work, but then I remembered how much of a pain having the red mage around with the armors and that vanguard Ike has Warding Breath and Radiant Aether. With Quick Riposte, vanguard Ike makes short work of the axe armor and the red mage.

Moving on, Zephiel attacked Lukas who prevented him from charging his special with Guard and the remaining axe and lance armors move toward everyone and swap around a bit to which I responded by pulling back everyone leaving vanguard Ike and Lukas in range of the armors they don't have WTD against, especially vanguard Ike since the lance armor has Brave Lance. Vanguard Ike had a close call with the remaining axe armor, but he was under half health after dealing with the red mage and I think he might have had his defense debuffed by Zephiel's Eckesachs. After Zephiel was taken out, I had Lukas wall out the axe and lance armor who not only had to go through his 62 defense after Close Def 3 and Def Tactics 3, but also had to deal with Gunnthra's Chilling Seal inflicting -6 Atk/Spd on them. He took no damage from them, they couldn't charge their specials because of Guard, and Ignis powered through the axe armor's defense. I could have used Gunnthra and BH Lyn to finish the axe armor, but it was pretty amusing to see them not be able to do anything against Lukas, so I just let it happen.

Welp, that leaves the nightmare that will be Zephiel's eventual movement-type quests in the future.

Edit: Okay, apparently there's an armor team quest. Did that on lunatic because I didn't want to figure out infernal with an armor team.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Kaden

[Nanima]

Still doing cheese runs with Brave Bow Dancer squad. The trick to this one is to slowly wear down the armours with the Savage Blow skill and seal combined. Just gotta do it before the mages reach you.

[Infinite Dreams]

This one was fun.  I gave it a go using 2 of my arena core dudes + Olivia and Alfie (for the Zephiel kill) and that worked.  I probably didn't really need a dancer, though, since she didn't do much (reposition probably would have worked fine).  

My clear:

Spoiler

 

 

[Punished Dayni]

Well, Armour clear was too easy with LALyn, Vamp Henry, Hunktor and Zephiel himself. Zephiel killed himself and everything.

Alfonse clear was done with the Askrtrio and Sprincina, because Springcina is just that good. Alfonse finished the last two armours after her effective wipeout of the mages and blue lance.

Infernal got tough by one simple change: Dammit Zephiel, you're ridiculous with Armour March. Sorry, wait, it's the armour next to you that ruins my old plans.

[Nowi's Husband]

I used Nowi alone for this one, since there's no reinforcements to deal with I didn't need Witch Nowi. For all armor I used Amelia, Black Knight, Hardin, Henry. 

 

Edited March 10, 2018 by Nowi's Husband

[Dengres]

RIP Laslow. Killed for Axebreaker 1....

This was fun though. I really am coming around to Katarina after this and her being a monster during the newest CC. Hopefully I get some Glimmer fodder for her soon otherwise I might sacrifice her friend to her.
The armour quest was also pretty fun. I used LA!Hector, LA!Lyn, WE!Tharja and BK.

[Hilda]

welp Zephiel infernal vs Askrtrio & Legendary Ike

This one was easy, especially with Armorbreaker weapons ¬.¬, Alfonse even one shot Zephiel and for once Alfonse was very very usefull lol

 

[Wanda]

Infernal:

 

[Kaden]

Huh, I just realized that the team I used for infernal is kind of F2P friendly. This is assuming Gunnthra will be a free unit in the future. BH Lyn didn't do anything for me, so she could be replaced by anyone with Reposition or a dancer or supported by one since she would be able to bypass Zephiel's Distant Counter. That just leaves Lukas unfortunately as the highly invested unit.

[VincentASM]

After some fumbling around, I cleared Infernal with my dragon team (Young Tiki, Nowi, Ninian and Myrrh). It's what Zephiel would have wanted, right?

I kept getting stuck around the halfway point, when all the enemies start clustering near the middle. But then I remembered to use Myrrh's Reposition to get my dragons out of danger.

[Cute Chao]

I did it all by myself on Infernal this time :D So proud of myself ^.^

I did it with only cheap, easy to obtain units :D

...

Just kidding. Smashed it with Reinhardt, Sigurd, PA!Azura and Cecilia, all at 5* xD

But I did it and I'm happy :D The missions shouldn't be too hard, although I'm trying to use Olwen instead of Reinhardt since he maxed HM a long, long time ago.

[Silverly]

The new infernal mode took a couple tries to get right, but I got it done with Nowi, Axura, Micaiah, and Celica. Zephiel’s GHB is probably one of the easiest GHBs out there (if not the easiest), so the difficulty rose to slightly tough but doable. I knew for a fact that Armor March would be a thing and Zephiel would ditch that useless L&D.

The lunatic missions were laughably easy. 

[Poimagic]

Anyways, another clear for flier emblem, with the team being H!Nowi, S!Corrin, PA!Azura, and F!Morgan. Normally I run S!Camilla, but she had no real use in this map since their were no colorless units. Plus F!Morgan was the linchpin, as she weakened Zephiel without charging his special, via Guard. 

[Xenomata]

I have a video , but let me just say that Infernal looked SCARY.

...until I remembered that I had just spent most of last night training a +Spd -Def Pain Lucius.

Lemme just say that dealing 24 AoE damage to Armor units, even when one of them has 90 HP, makes the enemy team a joke no matter how much Combat Buff Def and Res they have.

[Othin]

Did Infernal with Zephiel, Hardin, Lyn, and Grima. Took a few tries, but managed to make it work, and even took down two of the quests in the process. I hadn't even noticed the usual infantry team one had been replaced with armors until afterward.

[EricaofRenais]

I need to do infernal because I am lazy, but the quests were easy thanks to a team of Fjorm, F!Robin, Olivia and Alfonse/Zephiel and I did the armor quest with my standard team of BK, H!Henry, C!Robin and C!Chrom.  I think I will just try armor on Infernal once I have the stamina.

[mampfoid]

Nothing original:

Infernal: Micaiah, Genny, Myrrh and Olivia. 

Zephiel/Alfonse Missions: Tiki, Myrrh and Micaiah. 

Armor mission: Hector, BK, Eliwood, Tharja. 

I'm looking forward to the Elite quests ^^ 

[Vince777]

9 minutes ago, mampfoid said:

 

I'm looking forward to the Elite quests ^^ 

I sure am not. For Zephiel's map, sure but not for any involving reinforcements. :(

With no restriction it took me forever to find a way to beat Takumi infernal. I can't image having to do it several times with elite quest limitations. 

[Vaximillian]

Do you like darkness dragons?

[mampfoid]

14 minutes ago, Vince777 said:

I sure am not. For Zephiel's map, sure but not for any involving reinforcements. :(

With no restriction it took me forever to find a way to beat Takumi infernal. I can't image having to do it several times with elite quest limitations. 

I don't think we'll see new elite missions anytime soon, perhaps in one year. Much time for powercreep to improve your teams. 

Last year the current GHBs seemed much more difficult, but we got many powerful units and skills since then. 

[Vince777]

Reinforcements were such a huge difficulty hike though.

I can only hope next year only includes the GHBs that remain with no reinforcements like Zephiel, Clarisse, Berkut, Oliver and Camus's.