Autobattle HM Farming in Chain Challenges

[Tbone]

For those of you that aren't aware, Chain Challenges got changed in a previous patch to now give you HM even if you have cleared them previously.  I feel(?) like this wasn't in the patch notes which is why it hasn't been talked about as much as it should, because this gives really good opportunities for those of us with excess stamina to farm feathers with very minimal effort.  While the rewards aren't as lucrative as Tempest Trials, they have the advantage of being available 100% of the time and being 100% absent of RNG meaning they will be consistently lower effort than TT which always have a chance of putting you into an infinite loop or something similar.

For example, using the following team I can clear CC 1+2 Normal on autobattle:
 

Parenthesis denote stars, as well as non-baseline skills that may be relevant.

Merric (4)

Azama (4, Renewal 3, Reconcile, Imbue, unarmed)

Clarisse (4, Draw Back)

Red Lyn (5, Smite, Brash Assault 3, Galeforce)

On Autobattle in that deployment order, this team clears the first 7 maps without losing a unit for a total of 89.4 HM.  The following 3 maps are cleared without Merric totaling an additional 31.8 HM giving a grand total of ~120 HM for 30 stamina.  With 288 potential stamina per day you can run this 9 times with some stamina to spare, which would equate to 1080 HM per day.   Not bad if you have nothing else to spend stamina on!  Obviously you can get more by actually playing the maps, but that requires more time and effort than some of us who don't really enjoy grinding are willing to put in.

But wait person with five posts on their account, even if I had those particular units, I'll cap out on HM with those units after a few days, making this post exceedingly niche.

Not exactly!  Remember a lot of units in this game have very similar stat spreads, and these are some of the easiest maps in the game against primarily under leveled enemies.  This means we can mix and match to produce similar or even identical results with different characters.  For example, 4 star Clarisse has very generic archer stats, what happens if we replace her with the following unit:

Jeorge (4, Draw Back)

As you might guess because otherwise I wouldn't be posting this, he works in an identical fashion.  Lyn can be replaced in a similar vein with  M!Marth (5+1, Renewal 3, Moonbow, LnD 2, Recipricol Aid) or Alfonse (5, Swap, Growing Wind).  From a purely hypothetical perspective, Merric can likely be replaced with F!Robin who has a similar statline, maybe even M!Robin.  Azama is a worse example since he's the only healer with such high defense, but Lissa would probably work.

That's great but what else can we do with this?  Other than max out our Azama and Merric HM

I'm presuming that there are much more efficient levels and builds with which to reliably build farming teams.  1+2 are lower on enemy count than any of the other CC's, which does make it easy to run, but also is giving up potential HM on harder levels.  That being said, theorycrafting potential levels is not a task for one person.  So, with some conditions in place for replications sake, I am perhaps naively hoping others would be willing to share their HM farming setups if they happen across any teams that can mix and match in a similar fashion.  In a show of eternal thanks I will copy-paste your work into this post and give you credit which you can use to impress all the girls on SF.

Also if you wanted to add that you are replicating another person's team and strategy with specific character swapped in, I will be happy to add that.  The more data we have the better.

 

Notes as to things that can screw up the ability for others to replicate your run:

1.  TEAM ORDER.  This is important enough I might make a separate section about it entirely.  When autobattling your team enters each new map based on the order they are in on the team section.  If I switch Lyn and Merric in my example section, the autobattle run does not work.

2. Assists.  Self explanatory enough, while the AI will always use an assist in the same way, it will change how the map plays out should you have one equipped vers empty.  Also it won't be that helpful if you post autobattle teams with Rally Spd/Attack, not many of us have B!Cordelia's to use on inheritance.

3. IV's.  For the most part I don't think they matter -that- much, but I put in a 5 star uninherited Karel and one of his stats was low enough that he ended up dying (Or perhaps he simply lacked the self healing of the other reds I used).  They are more likely to matter if you have a character with less balanced stats (IE Felicia) vs a character with more balanced stats (IE Clarisse).  Don't worry to much about this, if your team only works with a certain stat threshold I'll just make a note of it.

4. Healers and weapons:  I assume most successful strategies will have unequipped healers since AI healers are otherwise typically out for blood.  Make sure you make a note if you do use a weapon.  Also what staff and skill they are using since they're more vulnerable to replication error.

 

An example of the Thread Cred you could obtain for sharing your wisdom with us ignorant masses:

Chapters: CC 1+2 (Normal)

Team Order and non-base skills:

1. Merric (4)

2. Azama (4,  Renewal 3, Reconcile, Imbue, unarmed)

3. Clarisse (4, Draw Back);  Jeorge (4, Draw Back)

4.Red Lyn (5, Smite, Brash Assault 3, Galeforce); M!Marth (5+1, Renewal 3, Life and Death 2, Recipricol Aid, Moonbow); Alfonse (5, Swap, Growing Wind)

Possible HM: 120

Credits: T-Bone

Edited November 20, 2017 by Tbone

[Jingle Jangle]

Wow I didn't know that. Now I can stop doing battles on the 9&10 chain challenge, and get feathers faster.

[mampfoid]

Hey, that's good news. Thanks for the info and your experience farming in CCs. Too bad I didn't know this some days earlier. Tomorrow will start the new TTs. 

The solved CCs still give reduced SP, don't they?