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[Ninferno]

Just like last time, I don't know what I can do once I run out of flags. Seems like a design flaw to me.

You can certainly do "x1" attacks without flags and inch your score forward; when you are at higher rank in a congested bandwagon, that is actually what differentiates things. I personally won't do that; I use all the flags while fielding the hero I support and get 120k+ points, but there are still thousands of people ahead of me. So obviously, some people did actually do that sort of things

 

[Ninferno]

I thought I could hoard flags. Nope. Well fuck this then.

Except you can? It is the flag quests that are refreshed each round, not your reserve of flags. The name of the flags are "Flags for Voting Gauntlet April 2017", not "Flags for Voting Gauntlet April 2017 round 1", right?

 

[commish]

I'm in the top 100 for team Cordelia using all the available flags (as Cordelia for an extra 10%)

Gonna be an easy 3000 feathers. Meanwhile team Udder band-wagoners gonna have to settle for their 500 lol

I'm currently in the top 1000 for Hinoka without spending many flags at all. I'm not understanding the benefit of riding the train of the most popular character when you can get so many more feathers by getting a high placement with less popular characters. I thought everyone would realize this after the first voting competition. When I was on team lucina, it was so much harder to get anything higher than the 50k bracket without spending all my flags. I expect to get thousands more feathers this time around.

 

[Firemind]

Except you can? It is the flag quests that are refreshed each round, not your reserve of flags. The name of the flags are "Flags for Voting Gauntlet April 2017", not "Flags for Voting Gauntlet April 2017 round 1", right?

I mean I can't use flags from past gauntlets. I did most of the quests last gauntlet but didn't have time to actually spend them.

 

[Man-is-Obsolete]

Yesssss! Crossed doesn't 4600 for the third week in a row. Just barely this time with 4606.

Did it with Effie, Eirika, Roy, Bunnicina.

 

[Cryxok]

Is Spring Chrom good enough to replace Camilla? If so, what would be a good build for him?
I saw recommended Carrot Axe + Fury, while the wiki recommends Killer Axe + Life and Death. Any other suggestions?

 

[MANUELF]

Im actually on the top 10k on Camilla without spending all my flags, still have a stock of 200

 

[Snakethesniper]

where do I get the blue Shields to upgrade a blue unit?

 

[Cryxok]

where do I get the blue Shields to upgrade a blue unit?

You can get every color of shields in the Training Tower, but colors rotate every day. Blue is Tuesday or Wednesday, not sure. You also get random colors during weekends

 

[Akuun]

I've been using 4* level 40 Michaelis too. My team for this bonus character set is Lucina - Ephriam - MRobin - Michaelis.

He's okay for a low-effort bonus character. My team has no greens, so he adds that to the group, plus his status as a flier lets him take spaces that my other units can't. It helps when I spend most of my time keeping everyone around Ephriam for buffs. If he can't fight an enemy team, I can fly him far away from the rest of the group and hope he baits people away.

He can fight so-so physically, and I mostly use him to finish off units that my main team couldn't quite kill. He hits blues pretty hard, though he rarely oneshots them. I haven't tried using him to tank anything yet. He's generally tougher than the other bonus characters I've used.

Yesssss! Crossed doesn't 4600 for the third week in a row. Just barely this time with 4606.

Did it with Effie, Eirika, Roy, Bunnicina.

Nice. I can't seem to break into 4500 myself. My best is always in the mid 4400s with a death or two every win streak.

Now that my Michaelis is 40, hopefully I can get that good run in.

 

[spiritfox]

You can get every color of shields in the Training Tower, but colors rotate every day. Blue is Tuesday or Wednesday, not sure. You also get random colors during weekends

It's Red on Tues, Blue on Wed, Green on Thurs, Colorless on Fri, then random for 3 days.

 

[Cryxok]

It's Red on Tues, Blue on Wed, Green on Thurs, Colorless on Fri, then random for 3 days.

Thanks, wasn't sure if the cycle started again with Reds on Mondays or Tuesdays.

 

[Roman]

Sure, there you go (I just rolled once hahaha)

Well, you don't have that many options. I would still not promote either of them and wait for banners with better reds. Promoting Hana does give you access to Life and Death 3, but that's a consideration for much further down the line.

 

[Man-is-Obsolete]

Is Spring Chrom good enough to replace Camilla? If so, what would be a good build for him?
I saw recommended Carrot Axe + Fury, while the wiki recommends Killer Axe + Life and Death. Any other suggestions?

I went with:

Carrot Axe+
Reciprocal Aid
Luna (Bonfire or Moonbow would also be good)
Fury
Renewal
Threaten Defense

Commish gave me the idea for Reciprocal Aid and Renewal. Much like Camilla there will be moments in a lot of matches where Chrom isn't active much and this kit gives him some use as a back line healer who can heal himself in return. Has been quite useful so far.

 

[commish]

I went with:

Carrot Axe+
Reciprocal Aid
Luna (Bonfire or Moonbow would also be good)
Fury
Renewal
Threaten Defense

Commish gave me the idea for Reciprocal Aid and Renewal. Much like Camilla there will be moments in a lot of matches where Chrom isn't active much and this kit gives him some use as a back line healer who can heal himself in return. Has been quite useful so far.

Man, as I was reading your post, I was thinking "hey, that's just like my build!" It's pretty useful, right?? He'll always have a use on a team.

 

[Man-is-Obsolete]

Man, as I was reading your post, I was thinking "hey, that's just like my build!" It's pretty useful, right?? He'll always have a use on a team.

Very useful. Mine is +Spd/-Res so I can see using him combined with Eirika for some time.

 

[Akuun]

Reciprocal Aid is so good. Usually you have one guy doing more of the heavy lifting than others because of team matchups, and Reciprocal Aid lets you trade health bars to get more mileage out of whoever's doing more work.

 

[Ndayday]

I'm currently in the top 1000 for Hinoka without spending many flags at all. I'm not understanding the benefit of riding the train of the most popular character when you can get so many more feathers by getting a high placement with less popular characters. I thought everyone would realize this after the first voting competition. When I was on team lucina, it was so much harder to get anything higher than the 50k bracket without spending all my flags. I expect to get thousands more feathers this time around.

This is often the problem with contests like these it seems. Splatoon had a similar thing where eventually people would just pick the team that was clearly going to lose.
guessing the best strategy would be:
round 1: choose losing team, make it to top 1000 while using minimal flags.
round 2: choose losing team, make it to top 1000 while using minimal flags.
final: choose losing team, spend all your flags (although wondering if you would land anywhere near top 1000 even on the losing team)

kind of expect you'll see it more and more as time goes on, but also wondering if they'll increase the win reward because of it.

 

[Cryxok]

I went with:

Carrot Axe+
Reciprocal Aid
Luna (Bonfire or Moonbow would also be good)
Fury
Renewal
Threaten Defense

Commish gave me the idea for Reciprocal Aid and Renewal. Much like Camilla there will be moments in a lot of matches where Chrom isn't active much and this kit gives him some use as a back line healer who can heal himself in return. Has been quite useful so far.

I'm like that build a lot. Thanks, hope you don't mind if I do something similar with mine. Now I just need a Hinata to get him Fury lol

 

[Whizkid7]

These poor, poor fools. I almost feel sorry for them.

 

[StAidan]

Well, about 10 stamina potions and many attempts later, I finally managed to cobble together a team that could conquer the current GHB. This was my very first Lunatic GHB victory. A lot of y'all mentioned how easy this one was, but none of my higher level units were equipped to deal with all the stuff this battle threw at me.

Anyway, my winning team was 5* Ephraim, 5* Spring Lucina, 4* Cherche, and 4* Eirika. I was lucky to have the Cherche, it was an early unit that I leveled up before I knew anything about IVs and she's -ATK (with no boons at all, according to the IV calculator), so I never would've wasted time on her with the knowledge I have now.

The whole story of how I figured everything out could be a Tolstoy novel, so I'll just cut to the chase and say that the ultimate solution involved:
- (1) feeding one of my dozen trashy Donnels to Ephraim for Brave Lance and Drag Back (I got this idea from the 3* strategy guy on YouTube)
- (2) using Cherche's Fortify Def to further tankify Ephraim, and
- (3) a liberal use of Cherche and Eirika's Pivot abilities (and Eirika's Drag Back) to take down the troubador and the knight while Ephraim and Spring Lucina ganged up on Navarre and the final ninja.

 

[explodet]

These poor, poor fools. I almost feel sorry for them.

This was my most lopsided victory.

 

[Cryxok]

Well, about 10 stamina potions and many attempts later, I finally managed to cobble together a team that could conquer the current GHB. This was my very first Lunatic GHB victory. A lot of y'all mentioned how easy this one was, but none of my higher level units were equipped to deal with all the stuff this battle threw at me.

Anyway, my winning team was 5* Ephraim, 5* Spring Lucina, 4* Cherche, and 4* Eirika. I was lucky to have the Cherche, it was an early unit that I leveled up before I knew anything about IVs and she's -ATK (with no boons at all, according to the IV calculator), so I never would've wasted time on her with the knowledge I have now.

The whole story of how I figured everything out could be a Tolstoy novel, so I'll just cut to the chase and say that the ultimate solution involved:
- (1) feeding one of my dozen trashy Donnels to Ephraim for Brave Lance and Drag Back (I got this idea from the 3* strategy guy on YouTube)
- (2) using Cherche's Fortify Def to further tankify Ephraim, and
- (3) a liberal use of Cherche and Eirika's Pivot abilities (and Eirika's Drag Back) to take down the troubador and the knight while Ephraim and Spring Lucina ganged up on Navarre and the final ninja.

That's not possible AFAIK. Every character has always 1 boon and 1 bane or neither, since the Stat Total shoud be the same.
Anyhow, congratz on beating it. A good flier definitely makes this one easier.

 

[Pejo]

Well, about 10 stamina potions and many attempts later, I finally managed to cobble together a team that could conquer the current GHB. This was my very first Lunatic GHB victory. A lot of y'all mentioned how easy this one was, but none of my higher level units were equipped to deal with all the stuff this battle threw at me.

Anyway, my winning team was 5* Ephraim, 5* Spring Lucina, 4* Cherche, and 4* Eirika. I was lucky to have the Cherche, it was an early unit that I leveled up before I knew anything about IVs and she's -ATK (with no boons at all, according to the IV calculator), so I never would've wasted time on her with the knowledge I have now.

The whole story of how I figured everything out could be a Tolstoy novel, so I'll just cut to the chase and say that the ultimate solution involved:
- (1) feeding one of my dozen trashy Donnels to Ephraim for Brave Lance and Drag Back (I got this idea from the 3* strategy guy on YouTube)
- (2) using Cherche's Fortify Def to further tankify Ephraim, and
- (3) a liberal use of Cherche and Eirika's Pivot abilities (and Eirika's Drag Back) to take down the troubador and the knight while Ephraim and Spring Lucina ganged up on Navarre and the final ninja.

You probably have a +atk Cherche. Since she's only using her 4* weapon, the attack would be lower, so it's probably equaling out. Unless you were looking at 4* stats and subtracting the weapon correctly, in which case iunno.

Either way, congrats! This is the first level 40 one I was able to beat too.

 

[Man-is-Obsolete]

I'm like that build a lot. Thanks, hope you don't mind if I do something similar with mine. Now I just need a Hinata to get him Fury lol

Don't mind at all. Fury 2 works well enough as well. Combined with his weapon he loses no health from Fury 2 when attacking.

 

[theprodigy]

Im actually on the top 10k on Camilla without spending all my flags, still have a stock of 200

you spent all but 200 flags and are in top 10k, I spent only 200 flags on Minerva and am barely outside top 10k

hmm

 

[Sushen]

I need second opinions. For Reinhardt, I'm thinking either Fury or Death blow. He is an one hit damage dealer in my team, and I'm trying to raise the odds of one hit kills.

For Ephraim who's another damage dealer, I'm thinking brash assault, desperation, or Lance breaker. He already has defiant attack and I want something to synergize with it.
[Update] changed to death blow for Reinhardt as that's what I meant.
Also added desperation for Ephraim.

 

[Akuun]

I need second opinions. For Reinhardt, I'm thinking either Fury or Darting blow. He is an one hit damage dealer in my team, and I'm trying to raise the oddsame of one hit kills.

For Ephraim who's another damage dealer, I'm thinking brash assault or Lance breaker. He already has defiant attack and I want something to synergize with it.

Reinhardt has really low speed right? Fury would do a better job getting him that ORKO, I think. He might not be able to quad, even with Darting Blow.

My Ephriam has Lancebreaker and it's great on him. It lets him completely counter lance users, prevents doubles on him since he's slow, and making Ephriam double people himself is devastating. He can toe to toe with Effie with it, though mine (-atk) can't ORKO her. I think Lancebreaker goes through Wary Fighter. I play Ephriam in a mostly support role though, so it might be very different from what you're looking to do with him.

It doesn't synergize with defiant attack though, since Lancebreaker works through high HP and defiant attack doesn't. I have Fury 2 in his A slot instead.

 

[StAidan]

That's not possible AFAIK. Every character has always 1 boon and 1 bane or neither, since the Stat Total shoud be the same.
Anyhow, congratz on beating it. A good flier definitely makes this one easier.

Yeah I don't know how it's possible, but here are her base 5* numbers (looking at Unlock Potential screen) with everything unequipped:

HP 20
ATK 10
SPD 6
DEF 8
RES 3

According to the IV calc, there are no boons there, and ATK would be 11 for neutral. But maybe you can check my work.

I can't check her 4* numbers exactly since she's not level 40.

 

[Man-is-Obsolete]

I need second opinions. For Reinhardt, I'm thinking either Fury or Darting blow. He is an one hit damage dealer in my team, and I'm trying to raise the odds of one hit kills.

For Ephraim who's another damage dealer, I'm thinking brash assault or Lance breaker. He already has defiant attack and I want something to synergize with it.

You mean Death Blow for Reinhardt? Death Blow on him is the best.

 

[spiritfox]

Yeah I don't know how it's possible, but here are her base 5* numbers (looking at Unlock Potential screen) with everything unequipped:

HP 20
ATK 10
SPD 6
DEF 8
RES 3

According to the IV calc, there are no boons there, and ATK would be 11 for neutral. But maybe you can check my work.

I can't check her 4* numbers exactly since she's not level 40.

10 is her neutral attack. The calc is wrong. Your Cherche is neutral.

 

[Sushen]

Reinhardt has really low speed right? Fury would do a better job getting him that ORKO, I think. He might not be able to quad, even with Darting Blow.

My Ephriam has Lancebreaker and it's great on him. It lets him completely counter lance users, prevents doubles on him since he's slow, and making Ephriam double people himself is devastating. He can toe to toe with Effie with it, though mine (-atk) can't ORKO her. I think Lancebreaker goes through Wary Fighter. I play Ephriam in a mostly support role though, so it might be very different from what you're looking to do with him.

It doesn't synergize with defiant attack though, since Lancebreaker works through high HP and defiant attack doesn't. I have Fury 2 in his A slot instead.

Thanks. I meant death blow for Reinhardt to raise his attack even further.

How about Desperation for Ephraim to synergize with defiant attack?

 

[TheRedSnifit]

One of the IV calculators for Cherche is messed up (I think the one at the gamepress site) and registers her level 1 attack as being 1 higher than it should be.

At 4*, her attack can be 9, 10, or 11. You probably have a Cherche with even stats.

 

[SenorArdilla]

Neutral 5* Cherche has 10 base at level 1.

 

[StAidan]

10 is her neutral attack. The calc is wrong. Your Cherche is neutral.

Ah, ok, thanks guys. Well, that's not so bad then. I have another Cherche who's +DEF -RES, I had thought about leveling her up instead, but maybe that would be unnecessary.

 

[Akuun]

Thanks. I meant death blow for Reinhardt to raise his attack even further.

Oh, in that case Death Blow is probably better than Fury for him. He's not going to benefit from anything besides attack in his case because his ideal situation is going in to kill somoene, and then having no one nearby to kill him on the enemy turn.

 

[Achtius]

I thought putting vantage on takumi would help with defense...Doesn't seem like it

 

[Man-is-Obsolete]

I thought putting vantage on takumi would help with defense...Doesn't seem like it

Skill inheritance hasn't been kind to him. There's a lot of ways of dealing with him now.

 

[Sushen]

Skill inheritance hasn't been kind to him. There's a lot of ways of dealing with him now.

It feels like archers in general need some buffs in current meta. Takumi for me a free easy kill for my Reinhardt for example.

 

[Achtius]

Skill inheritance hasn't been kind to him. There's a lot of ways of dealing with him now.

What's a good defense team?

 

[Sushen]

What's a good defense team?

Something that you have found tricky to deal with and doesn't rely on AI making right decisions. Since there are many compositions, better to aim for a specific type as your targets.

 

[Ninferno]

Yesssss! Crossed doesn't 4600 for the third week in a row. Just barely this time with 4606.

Did it with Effie, Eirika, Roy, Bunnicina.

Congrats on the great score! I managed to pull off a deathless streak today as well, but of course with a 4* Michalis I was a bit short of 4600 at 4590.

I may try to cherry-pick some higher score fights to see if I can crack 4600 but tbh, I'm not too thrilled to go through that hell again; just the thought of it makes me cringe...

Man, my life in the 650 - 660 BST arena with a pure melee team has been really rough. With no ranged, no mages, no dancers, 3 vs 4 most of the time (though I will say Michalis is above the average arena bonus dead weight), you just can't afford to make any mistake. It is testing my analytic and planning skills to the limit and I'm not even joking.

And it's not like if you don't make any mistake you are guaranteed to succeed, no, it also requires quite a bit of luck. Ran into a +10 Fury 3 Julia? You are most likely fucked. Spawned at the 2 parallel walls map? You are definitely fucked, because you have no ranged fire and no goddamn space to organize you formation before enemy Lindes and Ninos are at your door step!

Well, guess that's the price to pay when you:
1. Are a F2P.
2. Got shitty luck in pulling focus units.
3. But somehow still want to get a decent arena score.

 

[SenorArdilla]

It feels like archers in general need some buffs in current meta. Takumi for me a free easy kill for my Reinhardt for example.

Poison Bow never.

 

[Man-is-Obsolete]

What's a good defense team?

A great mage and a dancer should get you an easy win. Dropping rally skills in favor of mobility skills. Wings of Mercy is a great troll skill for defense and works great on offense as well.

Basically you want reach and mobility as they cause the player to have to be mindful about positioning and solve for more scenarios. All you need to do is have your team kill one unit and that may cause the other team to forfeit.

 

[Akuun]

I fear defense teams that have either a lot of ranged glass cannon units (hard to kill them all without leaving someone vulnerable for a oneshot on an enemy turn), or have one or two heavy hitters that are backed by dancers and/or tanky buffers.

Strong duelist-style characters like Eldigan and Catria are good on defensive teams too, because they can absorb a few hits without dying while the two teams get close together, which can surprise attackers who were expecting to oneshot them. It'll make it harder for the attacking team to safely kill people without taking damage or losing units themselves.

Dancers help a lot on defensive teams because they just greatly raise the possibilities that the defensive team can do. When paired with a strong attacker, it's suddenly much easier for an attacking team to lose a character in one turn thanks to an unexpected use of dance. Dancers with Wings of Mercy can really surprise you, or otherwise making a dancer tanky (like giving Ninian Swordbreaker) can give people a lot of trouble because they usually want to kill the dancer fast to limit enemy options.

You could also try to build a defensive team to be specialized against one particular team type, since you're really only looking for one defensive win.

I also saw an interesting team once that had two blue dragons that both had Swordbreaker, plus Hector. I thought it was interesting because it was clearly trying to snipe teams that had only one red, or one Falchion user by overloading the amount of work a Falchion user would need to do against a team like that.

I don't think Vantage Takumi is bad in a defensive team. You might just need to change up the other people around him. Having said that, I think the main thing about Vantage is that it works best on characters that are likely to take several hits to take down, like Hector. With SI, it's a lot easier to ORKO Takumi and get past Vantage entirely.

 

[Ninferno]

How about Desperation for Ephraim to synergize with defiant attack?

Ephraim is not fast enough to make good use of Desperation.

 

[Technoweirdo]

I need second opinions. For Reinhardt, I'm thinking either Fury or Darting blow. He is an one hit damage dealer in my team, and I'm trying to raise the oddsame of one hit kills.

For Ephraim who's another damage dealer, I'm thinking brash assault or Lance breaker. He already has defiant attack and I want something to synergize with it.

Would recommend Death Blow over Fury. Feel if he's taking hits that would make the +Spd/Def/Res a factor in the first place, you're doing something wrong.

For Ephraim, I've said before that Brash Assault is an interesting piece of kit. Depends on how comfortable you are being below 50% HP as it certainly meshes with Defiant skills. Perhaps not Defiant Attack though.

Sharena (5* w/ stock skills)
43 HP | 32+16 Atk | 32+3 Spd | 29 Def | 22 Res

Ephraim (5* w/ Siegmund, Defiant Attack and Brash Assault active)
45-23 HP | 35+16+7 Atk | 25 Spd | 32 Def | 20 Res

Now, if Brash Assault and Defiant Attack are to be active, Ephraim requires an HP of 22. Sharena will hit him for 16. That gives Ephraim a mere 6 HP of wiggle room to make it all work without dying on the counter.

If we were to go with Defiant Def instead, that would be a saner 13 HP of wiggle room. I don't think he'd miss the Atk too much as Sharena falls either way in this case, though you may want an Atk buffer on your team. Sharena's tough, but there's a few just a bit more durable than her. Edit: I forgot he has Moonbow by default. No Atk buffer should be needed.

As a bonus, a 50 Atk swordsman like Lucina would deal 1 damage to Ephraim w/ Defiant Def active. Plenty of wiggle room.

That said, the danger of the build -almost- makes a healer necessary. At the same time, if you do roll a healer, I'd ask why you don't roll Quick Riposte or Lancebreaker instead as they're about staying above an HP threshold rather than below.

 

[Shinypogs]

I use Camilla so much in fates either as a fronterliner, pairup bot or mom for velouria that I couldn't not vote for her in the gauntlet. She not the best character in the running but I guess I feel like I owe something to the incredible unit she is. Now if Jill or Haar were in the running things would be different. God I have good memories of Jill with my bright pink " stabby stick" forged javelin with extra crit.

Just like last gauntlet Fem Corrin continues to be a monster in battles. There's not enough units that can tangle with her one on one and come out ahead. Gotta avoid the odd Julia though and take her out with something else.

Corrin+ Merric + Spring camilla+ Olivia = best arena performance in a while. I still need to do some skill inheriting but team "all the defense and no res" is working out nicely. I haven't run into a single flier with iotes shield on yet so Excalibur is just slaying them. I'd actually like to run into a full flier emblem team to see if I could kill them and if I could do it with no losses. I am shamelessly dodging all the Nino and Julia I see though. Scary ladies are scary.

 

[Xist2inspire]

So strange, I fought a Hector that had Aegis and G Tome Breaker. He was made to fight green mages but probably only for defense.

This is actually exactly what I'm planning on doing with my Hector. Aegis is a must to help with his biggest weakness, but I'm unsure of which Tomebreaker I should go with, Green or Blue. Green is better for overall coverage and gives Lyn time to get her hands on Nino/Julia, but Blue takes advantage of the color triangle, and I've run into too many Reinhardts and MRobins that successfully put Hector in the danger zone.

I went with:

Carrot Axe+
Reciprocal Aid
Luna (Bonfire or Moonbow would also be good)
Fury
Renewal
Threaten Defense

Commish gave me the idea for Reciprocal Aid and Renewal.

...and this is similar to an idea I had for Sheena. I have a dupe Bunny Chrom and Fae, so I had the idea to turn Sheena into a self-healing tank with Ardent Sacrifice for healing allies in a pinch. Her ability to absorb ranged attacks makes her a solid choice to bait enemies and draw away fire from squishy units. Since her main purpose would be to absorb hits, she might even be able to make good use of the Blazing/Growing specials.

 

[Akuun]

Does it really make sense to make Hector an anti-caster though? I thought he destroyed most casters on counterattack anyway.

If it's about casters slowly wearing him down by suiciding on him, then maybe putting Reciprocal Aid on someone else on the team to bring him back up might be an easier solution. Plus it would free up that B slot on Hector as well.