Grand Hero Battle: Berkut!

[Thane]

Berkut knocked me out so hard on Lunatic that I don't know if it's night or day anymore. Why couldn't he have been this competent in Echoes?

[kcirrot]

Did Lunatic and Infernal with:

All 5*

Lukas (+Squad Ace seal - standard kit otherwise)

Azura (with Wings of Mercy and spur defense seal)

Lyn (with Res+1 seal)

Robin (F) +1 (with Atk +1 seal)

Azura and Lyn below, Robin up top, Lukas in the middle. 

Very easy on Lunatic, harder, but not too bad on Infernal, took a couple of tries, but no stamina potions.  I think different units can do it, you just have to pull Berkut and the archer to the upper units and get the greens, mage and other lancer below.   

[Ice Dragon]

22 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

To be honest, there probably IS some way to beat it with the units I have trained up, but if there is then I clearly shouldn't be trying to figure it out at 3 in the morning.

I feel like there are better ways to inspire difficulty than boosting some numbers though. At least within the limits of Heroes.

Literally the only things they can do are boost stats, add skills, position units, add terrain, and add units.

I don't see how "boosting numbers" is an invalid means of inducing difficulty. The end result is just the same as adding skills or moving the units around: certain units can't tank all of the hits, certain units can't deal enough damage, certain units can no longer double attack, and so on and so forth, but simply target a different set of the players' units.

[Othin]

2 hours ago, Vaximillian said:

Nstyler has beaten Infernal with 4⋆ Camus, Olivia, Ursula, and Palla:

 

Seems solid, but unfortunately it doesn't work with 5* Camus because he doesn't take enough damage for Palla to jump to him with Wings of Mercy.

I could have Palla inherit Escape Route, but that seems a bit wasteful, so I decided to explore other options. Tried it with Marth instead but it messed up the enemy movements. I wonder if using Cecilia in place of Ursula would work... Alternatively, I've already been thinking about upgrading Palla to 5*, which would give her Wings of Mercy 3, and that would let her jump to Camus.

[Dolce]

After it came out, my sister beat Infernal and Hard after like 20 minutes... presumably on her first tries too, idk I didn't ask... I had only enough energy to do Hard lol. I asked her what her strategy was to help me (and possibly others struggling) out and all she said was "uh yolo" lolol. She probably forgot most of what she did as soon as it was over tbh.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I got annoyed with the team starting separated, so I said screw it with a WoM2 team that was a bit of a hodge-podge because it involved 2 reds and 2 greens. Basically, I already had Olivia and a Hector wingsed up for Arena defense shenanigans, so I added Palla and gave a spare set to Nino (she's my star member and I was looking for an excuse to break that 9999 SP, anyway). Once everyone got low on HP (other than Olivia, she only tanked a poke from the green mage, so she couldn't act as a WoM beacon), things got really silly.

I used Nino 5* +5 with Quickened Pulse (merges can probably be ignored as she's always doing massive overkill such that the Atk bonus doesn't matter, outspeeds everything and the HP deficit can be made up for with the seal, since Quickened Pulse ended up being entirely useless), Hector +Def/-HP (any boon/bane should work, really), Olivia 4* +2 (merges irrelevant due to only taking one poke and being -HP), Palla 4* +Spd/-Def (+Spd didn't help and the -Def almost got her killed).

 

• Turn 1: Nino and Olivia started on the bottom. Palla started up top. Hector started on the right. Nino ganked the generic lance, then got danced to safety. Hector moved down 1 tile. Palla moved up to bait the red mage and axe. Palla gets the shit kicked out of her, but lives. Hector gets the shit kicked out of him, but trades Bonfire damage onto Berkut. Green mage decides to pitch a tent in the woods to his right.
• Turn 2: Nino teleports to Hector and wrecks Berkut. Hector moves up one and axes the Firesweep asshole in the gut. Olivia teleports below Hector and dances Nino, who then wrecks the Firesweep asshole. Palla teleports north of Hector. On Enemy Phase, the green mage pokes Olivia ineffectually.
• Turn 3: Nino does some damage to the green mage, but she has no buffs, so she needs Olivia to give her another shot. This puts Nino at 1 HP (mostly from Fury), so Hector and Palla are now free to teleport around her as they will. Everyone basically gets out of range of the remaining cavs (who are attached at the hip). Cavs decide to hang out against the right border of the map.
• Turn 4: Using what's essentially free movement to anywhere I damn well please, I position everything outside the enemy's range. They close in on their turn.
• Turn 5: Ganked the remaining enemies. Nino took down axe cav (who was already injured from Palla, so the proc ended up being entirely unnecessary), then Palla New Mooned the mage, got danced, then stabbed him again. Worth noting that mine had Atk+2, so a normal Palla might not be able to do this. A Hector that isn't -Atk can have Palla act as a warp beacon so he can get danced by Olivia for 2x23 exactly (-Atk will need help from either Hone Atker on the team).

When everyone's a Witch, cavalry spam's mobility ain't got anything on them.

[silverserpent]

3 hours ago, Vaximillian said:

Nstyler has beaten Infernal with 4⋆ Camus, Olivia, Ursula, and Palla:

 

Used the same units, but the AI moved differently for me. Still finally cleared it though, haha

[Ice Dragon]

Completed Infernal on my "first try" (had a mis-move on my last turn on my actual first try). This is the first Infernal Grand Hero Battle clear for my dragon team:

+10 Ninian [+Spd, -Res] (Lightning Breath+, Dance, Aether, Triangle Adept 3, Escape Route 3, Fortify Dragons, Squad Ace A 1)
+10 Tiki (Mystery) [+Spd, -HP] (Lightning Breath+, Reciprocal Aid, Aether, Triangle Adept 3, Quick Riposte 3, Fortify Dragons, HP +3)
+10 Nowi [+Atk, -Res] (Lightning Breath+, Reciprocal Aid, Aether, Triangle Adept 3, Quick Riposte 3, Fortify Dragons, Attack +1)
+10 Fae [+Atk, -Def] (Lightning Breath+, Reciprocal Aid, Aether, Triangle Adept 3, Quick Riposte 3, Fortify Dragons)

1. Ninian moves 1 square right onto the forest. Tiki moves 2 squares up onto the fortification. Nowi moves 2 squares right.
   1. Lance knight attacks Fae (50→50) and dies. Red knight moves down, other units move up.
2. Tiki moves 2 squares down. Ninian moves 2 squares down and uses Dance on Tiki. Tiki moves 2 squares down. Fae moves 2 squares right into the corner. Nowi moves between Tiki and Fae.
   1. Bow knight attacks Ninian (49→28). Berkut attacks Ninian from the fortification (28→9 HP). Red knight attacks Nowi (49→49) and dies.
3. Tiki moves 2 squares left. Ninian teleports below Tiki and uses Dance. Tiki moves left of Ninian onto the fortification. Nowi moves 1 square left and uses Reciprocal Aid on Ninian. Fae moves 1 square left and uses Reciprocal Aid on Nowi.
   1. Bow knight attacks Ninian (49→22). Green mage attacks Tiki (45→45) and dies.
4. Nowi attacks bow knight from above Ninian (55→9). Ninian uses Dance on Nowi. Nowi kills bow knight without moving. Fae moves 1 square up onto the forest. Tiki moves below Ninian.
   1. Axe knight attacks Nowi (49→14) and Nowi counterattacks with Aether (57→41, 14→22).
5. Nowi moves left of Ninian onto the fortification. Tiki kills axe knight and takes a Moonbow (45→42). Fae moves 1 square up onto the fortification. Ninian moves 1 square right onto the forest and uses Dance on Fae. Fae attacks Berkut (69→1) and takes a counterattack (9→9) (or does whatever she wants because she can kill him on the counterattack regardless).
   1. Berkut attacks Fae with Blazing Fire (9→1) and Fae kills him with Aether (1→1).

Edited July 18, 2017 by Ice Dragon

[Xenomata]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Literally the only things they can do are boost stats, add skills, position units, add terrain, and add units.

I don't see how "boosting numbers" is an invalid means of inducing difficulty. The end result is just the same as adding skills or moving the units around: certain units can't tank all of the hits, certain units can't deal enough damage, certain units can no longer double attack, and so on and so forth, but simply target a different set of the players' units.

Alternate win conditions are a thing, and some things FE Heroes haven't touched upon yet is the defeat of a certain unit or the seizing of a throne, ala main-series FE games. It's always been "defeat them all", "defeat them all in 5 turns", or "defeat them all without dying" or best yet "survive for 6 turns because one of the enemy is immortal and can't die anyways, so it's not like you can kill them all anyways". There might have even been "defeat them all without dying within 5 turns", but I'm also not sure.

They also did reinforcements in Legion's GHB. They could do a sort of TT GHB where you face multiple armies in a row before reaching the final boss, kind of like advancing toward Rudolf in Gaiden/Echoes. "Boosting numbers" can be a way to increase difficulty, sure, but it isn't really a "fair" way to boost it, or for that matter a unique way.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Xenomata

[silverserpent]

1 hour ago, Othin said:

Seems solid, but unfortunately it doesn't work with 5* Camus because he doesn't take enough damage for Palla to jump to him with Wings of Mercy.

I think that if you have Fury 2/3 on Camus, it puts him right in that threshold for WoM2 to trigger. I could be wrong though.

[Othin]

1 minute ago, silverserpent said:

I think that if you have Fury 2/3 on Camus, it puts him right in that threshold for WoM2 to trigger. I could be wrong though.

I don't have it on him, and in any case I don't think it'd be enough. With 42 HP, he'd need to be at at most 16 HP, but the enemy left him with 20 when I tried it. Fury 2/3 do 4+ damage to him, but they also decrease the damage from being hit, so the net result would be less than 4 extra damage.

[silverserpent]

10 minutes ago, Othin said:

I don't have it on him, and in any case I don't think it'd be enough. With 42 HP, he'd need to be at at most 16 HP, but the enemy left him with 20 when I tried it. Fury 2/3 do 4+ damage to him, but they also decrease the damage from being hit, so the net result would be less than 4 extra damage.

Okay, you're right. Camus is left at 1HP higher than you would need for WoM2 to trigger while Fury 2 leaves him 2 HP higher than threshold. Sorry :(

It doesn't hurt that I forgot I had gotten Palla to 5*...

[Alexmender]

It took 2 Stamina Potions but I cleared Infernal. I started following some guide who was using Reinhardt and stuff and I got killed more than I'd like to admit. He can't damage the red mage at all so he's pretty bad on this map. After a lot of tries I gave up on following others strategies and did my own thing with Minerva, Nino, Olivia, Caeda. 

 

1. Nino kills the lance cavalier and olivia dances her to safety, Caeda and Minerva stay on the top right away from danger luring the red mage and the archer.
2. Caeda repositions Minerva and she kills the archer (I think she can kill him with Moonbow, mine had Luna so I had to give her the Quickened Pulse seal to score the kill), Nino kills Berkut. The axe Cavalier is going for Nino and the green mage is stuck in the forest.
3. Caeda and Minerva kill the red mage (it needs both of them due to Caeda's low attack) while Nino kills the green cavalier.
4. Nino kills the green mage.

Here are the builds of each member:

• Nino 5*: Life and Death 3, Desperation, Hone Attack 3, Gronnblade+, Draw Back, Moonbow (important, without this she can't kill Berkut), Spd+1 Seal.
• Olivia 4*: No A skill, Wings of Mercy 2 (she didn't use this skill at all), Hone attack 3 (neccesary for Nino), Silver Sword, Dance, New Moon, Fortify res Seal.
• Minerva 5*: Life and Death 3, Desperation, Threaten Speed 3 (didn't use this), Hauteclere, Ardent Sacrifice, Luna (needs QP to work, if you don't have it use Moonbow instead), QP seal.
• Caeda 5*: No A skill, Drag Back, Fortify Fliers, Wo Dao+ (it may or may not alter the neccesary damage to kill the red mage), Reposition (necessary, without this Minerva will die to the archer on the second turn), Moonbow (didn't proc during the map), No seal.

[Bartozio]

15 minutes ago, Othin said:

I don't have it on him, and in any case I don't think it'd be enough. With 42 HP, he'd need to be at at most 16 HP, but the enemy left him with 20 when I tried it. Fury 2/3 do 4+ damage to him, but they also decrease the damage from being hit, so the net result would be less than 4 extra damage.

You're forgetting that Camus is in combat twice before Palla needs to come in. Once for luring the guy, the second time to kill him. It's 6 extra damage in total (+8 for fury 2 damage, -2 for having more defence).

If my calculations are correct, Camus should have only 14 hp left after killing the lance dude if he has fury 2, although it wouldn't be the first time they were wrong...

[Othin]

1 minute ago, Bartozio said:

You're forgetting that Camus is in combat twice before Palla needs to come in. Once for luring the guy, the second time to kill him. It's 6 extra damage in total (+8 for fury 2 damage, -2 for having more defence).

If my calculations are correct, Camus should have only 14 hp left after killing the lance dude if he has fury 2, although it wouldn't be the first time they were wrong...

I forgot about that, and yeah those numbers look right.

Hmm. Fury 2 would probably be an improvement over Defiant Attack 3 outside of Arena scoring, and I have an extra 4* Legion, plus Camus has plenty of SP to spare. Might not be a terrible idea.

[Raven]

To beat Infernal, I used this guy's strat: http://hweiro.tumblr.com/post/163127079992/grand-hero-battle-prideful-prince

I used:
Bridelia
Tikini (replaced S-Chrom)
Azura
Bikini Robin (Replaced Mathilda)

In his video, the green mage infantry unit stays on the bottom-side with the red mage cav unit. But for me, he went top-side towards Azura and Bridelia. It wasn't a problem since everything else was killed before he could do anything.

[Ice Dragon]

Just now, Xenomata said:

the defeat of a certain unit

Which is trivial without significantly boosting that unit's stats.

 

2 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

the seizing of a throne

Which usually involves the defeat of a certain unit that permanently sits on the throne with seizing the throne simply being a single extra move necessary for completion. Which is again trivial without significantly boosting that certain unit's stats.

 

7 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

but it isn't really a "fair" way to boost it, or for that matter a unique way.

I'm not seeing how any other method is in any way "unique" or any more "fair". The point of difficulty is to place handicaps on the player (directly or indirectly) to give the opponent an advantage (or at least reduce the advantage that the player has). An AI-controlled opponent on "equal footing" with a player is already at a massive disadvantage due to its inability to learn and its inability to use strategies that it isn't programmed to be able to use.

"Unfair" then must refer to a challenge that is insurmountable by players who have the resources expected of them, such as dodging Yian Garuga's beak slam, which has a start-up time faster than human reflexes.

 

[Xaos Steel Wing]

I got Lunatic done on about the 8th attempt.

I used Xander, Camus, Hector, Sharena.

I passed out and fell asleep after a few attempts at Infernal... The units starting separated and the enemies being high movement cavalry is super annoying.

[BANRYU]

JFC Berkut's shit is hard. Like, damn dude, take some freakin' stool softener or somethin christ.

Help .-.

(not pictured: Also have a mediocre-IV'd Klein and a -Atk Olwen, don't imagine they'll be doing much but hey JIC)

[Bartozio]

5 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

JFC Berkut's shit is hard. Like, damn dude, take some freakin' stool softener or somethin christ.

Help .-.

(not pictured: Also have a mediocre-IV'd Klein and a -Atk Olwen, don't imagine they'll be doing much but hey JIC)

Two questions before hand:

1. Have you already looked at the video's on the first post of this thread? They are all done with free units and no SI, so they shouldn't be to hard to reproduce.
2. Does this picture show all of your lvl 40 4* units as well? Sometimes a 4* unit is just better fit for a specific job then your 5*'s, so considering those units as well can really expand the number of possible strategies.

[Astellius]

4 hours ago, Vaximillian said:

Nstyler has beaten Infernal with 4⋆ Camus, Olivia, Ursula, and Palla:

 

I was having a bit of a rough time getting a coherent strategy together, but this basically worked for me--so thanks! My Camus is 5* w/Fury 3, but the damage from Fury is sufficient to trigger Palla's WoM. Olivia also had a Ruby Sword, but that didn't affect the AI.

[Raven]

37 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

JFC Berkut's shit is hard. Like, damn dude, take some freakin' stool softener or somethin christ.

Help .-.

(not pictured: Also have a mediocre-IV'd Klein and a -Atk Olwen, don't imagine they'll be doing much but hey JIC)

Tikini can do work since she can take a few hits and return a kill. Try her in place of Nino.

[Xenomata]

25 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Which is trivial without significantly boosting that unit's stats.

 

Which usually involves the defeat of a certain unit that permanently sits on the throne with seizing the throne simply being a single extra move necessary for completion. Which is again trivial without significantly boosting that certain unit's stats.

 

I'm not seeing how any other method is in any way "unique" or any more "fair". The point of difficulty is to place handicaps on the player (directly or indirectly) to give the opponent an advantage (or at least reduce the advantage that the player has). An AI-controlled opponent on "equal footing" with a player is already at a massive disadvantage due to its inability to learn and its inability to use strategies that it isn't programmed to be able to use.

"Unfair" then must refer to a challenge that is insurmountable by players who have the resources expected of them, such as dodging Yian Garuga's beak slam, which has a start-up time faster than human reflexes.

 

No, you can still have such objectives without lunatic-boosting a units stats. Maybe I'm just thinking too ideally for a phone-app game to be more in-line with standard FE games, but you can still put twists on the ideas I presented.

Slay a certain unit? Have a large army with average stats protecting one weaker unit who can't be reached easily, or don't make it obvious who it is among multiple units you need to kill (until a youtuber or dataminers reveal who it is and trivializes it all). Maybe they're pulling a Jedah and can only be attacked after a certain number of rounds of combat, or all other units on the map need to be killed before they can even be attacked, let alone damaged.

Seize the throne doesn't need anyone on the "throne", and it doesn't need to be a throne at all, it can be anything. An army is just as capable of protecting a single spot as one super-strong unit who is just standing on it. Have multiple "Seize" points, have a seize point that needs X amount of turns to be considered "seized", have units "seize" the map by "running away".

Pull a Battle Frontier over our eyes. Force us to use pre-made units with set natures and skill sets. Force control out of our hands and into the computer, hoping that your own units are strong enough to handle themselves (as opposed to the auto-battle we have anyways). Inflict status affects, stat/hp alterations, and other "fun" things to affect the flow of battle. Give us a choice of paths to follow in hopes of getting farther. Have one unit try to make it through by themselves. Have a "shop" between battles to allow for benefits to your army. All of the above with steadily increasing difficulty. I am literally listing off battle facilities in Pokemon Emerald.

Holy hell, they could have pulled what they did in Berkut's final battle in Echoes and had the enemy recover HP at the start of their turn, forcing you to prioritize finishing off all or as many enemy units you can in one turn.

...okay yeah I'm thinking far too ideally for a phone-app game.

[Ice Dragon]

11 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

No, you can still have such objectives without lunatic-boosting a units stats. Maybe I'm just thinking too ideally for a phone-app game to be more in-line with standard FE games, but you can still put twists on the ideas I presented.

Slay a certain unit? Have a large army with average stats protecting one weaker unit who can't be reached easily, or don't make it obvious who it is among multiple units you need to kill (until a youtuber or dataminers reveal who it is and trivializes it all). Maybe they're pulling a Jedah and can only be attacked after a certain number of rounds of combat, or all other units on the map need to be killed before they can even be attacked, let alone damaged.

Seize the throne doesn't need anyone on the "throne", and it doesn't need to be a throne at all, it can be anything. An army is just as capable of protecting a single spot as one super-strong unit who is just standing on it. Have multiple "Seize" points, have a seize point that needs X amount of turns to be considered "seized", have units "seize" the map by "running away".

In other words, instead of overwhelming the player with 6 units with huge stats, overwhelm the player with 50 units with "normal" stats.

1. How is that any more "fair" than the current situation?
2. How is that going to break through the tougher walls players have access to?
3. How is that going to avoid being cheesed by a single Close Counter Vantage Blarblade+ cavalry unit who will not be named?

 

18 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Force us to use pre-made units with set natures and skill sets.

Which means once one player has cleared the challenge and put the video on YouTube, everyone has cleared the challenge.

 

20 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Force control out of our hands and into the computer, hoping that your own units are strong enough to handle themselves (as opposed to the auto-battle we have anyways).

Which defeats the purpose of actually playing this game.

 

20 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Inflict status affects, stat/hp alterations, and other "fun" things to affect the flow of battle.

How is this any more fun or fair than bumping up enemy stats?

 

20 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Give us a choice of paths to follow in hopes of getting farther.

Why?

 

21 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Have one unit try to make it through by themselves.

Hector solo. Woo.

 

22 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Have a "shop" between battles to allow for benefits to your army.

Sounds like a good way to decrease the difficulty.

 

22 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

Holy hell, they could have pulled what they did in Berkut's final battle in Echoes and had the enemy recover HP at the start of their turn, forcing you to prioritize finishing off all or as many enemy units you can in one turn.

Most strategies already involve killing off individual units within one turn because an enemy with 60 HP usually does the same amount of damage as an enemy with 1 HP.

 

24 minutes ago, Xenomata said:

...okay yeah I'm thinking far too ideally for a phone-app game.

No, you're just trying to shoehorn ideas from other games into this game regardless of how well it would actually work.

[Tragonight]

Does anyone know the stats of the cavalier with Firesweep Bow on Lunatic/Infernal?