Haven't had a lot of time to play the gauntlet so just dumping flags over the past couple of days whenever we have a bonus.

Had like 5 attempts at Berkut w/ Sharena and infantry lol. Might have to look up a guide tomorrow. :B I've been looking for him in AA slots but no show yet. Need to do Michalis too, been lazy.

- On the one hand, it's nice when people do that for the quests... on the other, I've gotten unequipped Berkut as an ally in the Gauntle three time! OTL. It sucks. I do still have to get the chapter 10 lunatic december quests, but I've got all month for that, the GHB only last a few days.

I'm saving my orbs for... Hector. lol. The Christmas banner looks rather silly.

Best ally from the Gauntlet has been a Soren whose skills have flitted through a few variations but always proved an asset, been with me since round one. Scariest foe I've encountered is... a Mia who destroyed my Sigurd despite him having +12 def when targeted. She's deadly fast and tore through my squad; I can usually count on Sigurd to sit there, take hits and destroy with Bonfire. Not on that occasion!

i spent some time chasing 50x arena medal rewards while i was clearing flag quests and i got bumped into t19... i'm afraid to see what nonsense i'm going to be matched up with now, advanced matches are going to be awful 😨

they were well-intentioned but they were doing it wrong ;o; you gotta set a team that isn't your first slot as your arena defense team so you don't hamstring your voting gauntlet buddies ;w; ah well, too late now haha

[edit] re/t19 i'm running fred / siegbert / fjorm / inigo because it got me some nice deathless runs in t19 t18 but now all i run into is merged vantage black knight who demands a sacrifice each and every single time he has his stupid special up and Let Me Tell You, I Hate Everything

- I flip flop between 18 and 19, T19 isn't too bad. Azura is a surprisingly effective counter to BK. My team is B!Ike B!Lyn (with BB), Azura, and whatever ally from the bonus pool that meshes with them (this week it's Ayra) Everyone but Azura has reposition, reposition shenanigans are great for pulling people out of BKs range if needed.

- Mine best ally has been (one of the) Kagero (she's +4 now, they just keep building her up i love it) She's got DeathBlow and Desperation with Moonbow, so she can deal a ton of damage even to things that aren't infantry. Her C slot is hone attack to help out the rest of the team too, and now she packs att smoke seal. I love it. I say one of, cus this past time I had another friend with Kagero as their main, but just with her default set, still good, but less useful.

I've only ever pulled one Kagero and her IVs were decided average so I decided it wasn't worth promoting her. She sits as a 4* level 40 and occasionally makes an appearance for Arena Assault if I think she might be useful, but SI would definitely give her the oomph she needs to be great. I can imagine that she wipes the floor with a little love (also loved using her in Fates, ninjas are the bomb, Kaze when???). Currently she's a bit too slow, bit too weak. And yeah the Soren was +8 hahaha so that definitely helped.

I ended up in the top 1k for team Sigurd on our final round thanks to the mass of flags I'd accumulated. I was spending on basically every bonus we had haha. Just under 5k for total rank. I'm sat at just over 70k feathers. Going to need heavy SI for Bunny Camilla so she's gonna eat the majority of them. Not sure if I should run her with Gronnraven or Gronnblade. Blade has the most damage potential, ofc, but I definitely need an answer to B!Lyn + dancer.

Speaking of, had an awful time in Arena last week. Ended up switching my squad around and spending three extra duelling crests to head back into T19. Currently running Nino, Ryoma, Inigo and Sharena. Inigo is great for B!Lyn BUT he's -Atk... so routinely left B!Lyn with 1 HP if she initiated on a defensive tile, paving the way for Wings of Mercy shenanigans. Drove me nuts. I don't really wanna swap out DD3 seal for Atk 3 so rotated in Nino so she can pass on Hone Atk 3 if necessary. Sharena is kinda trash nowadays but actually has a niche on my squad thanks to Lancebreaker 3. Lets her duel any Fjorms, who even Nino hates. Also it doesn't matter which tier you're in, your foes solely depend on your arena score. Seems kinda silly but you could duel a tier 1 team if their BST is high enough.

ALSO what do you guys think of Fjorm? I'm kinda coming around to her as a unit. She helped out in the Berkut GHB thanks to her near-impermeability to magic attacks, let her stand up nicely to the green mage. Need to finish her skill set (few more SP for Drive Atk 2 required, then obligatory movement skill, probs Reposition) but she could be a lot worse.

I am using my neutral Fjorm (training her along side my sorely neglected Askr trio) and I am enjoying her, she is pretty strong and it's good to have another DC lance. I have turned off battle animations because her defeated art... bothers me.

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I have started my Oboro project, I have 5* her and given her a slaying lance+ (RIP Peri). She's also got Bonfire as her special, and will have Lancebreaker when I get enough SP. She's doing well so far:)

Oboro is a fun pick, what A skill are you planning to give her? :) I hate how good Steady Breath is haha, seems like the best choice for almost every Enemy Phase unit. Shame it's only on Brave Ike! I'd really like it for my Nowi as she's currently lumped with her default Defence +3.

And I hope we get a new banner or two soon! I have... a lot of orbs burning in my pocket with no banners to blow them on. Pray for best units on Legendary Heroes banner II.

i had a moment of insanity the other night and fed inigo two f!robins for keen gronnwolf+ and b tomebreaker. will it be worth it? who knows!

i don't mind being in t19, the four orbs is nice, i just miss getting the higher arena medal rewards relatively consistently. i think my matches were faster/scored better while i was getting deathless runs last weekend? i pulled 50x pretty often and 60x once or twice, and i want that back haha reposition is my favorite! i need more reposition fodder. unfortunately i don't have an azura (my only dancers are inigo and regular olivia), so i'll have to play around with my arena team and see what works o: i've been relying on fred to smoosh most of the armors with fjorm cleaning up the reds, but no one on my current team can hit black knight without getting him into vantage range, and that's causing most of my problems p;

huh. that explains some things o: in that case, everyone in the 690 range needs to cut that vantage black knight stuff out so i can resume my coin collecting (she says, as she picks an advance team with black knight lead that is obviously armor emblem and will definitely have henry and armor march) also fjorm has been great in general and wonderful with this arena team since fred and siegbert are delicate babies that can't take magic damage, haha. hopefully the other legendary-blessing heroes are around her level of quality.

- I would also love to put steady breath on my Nowi. My Kagero is also bad IVs, she just sits there at 4*, I did pull another one once upon a time and I gave her poison dagger to my +att Gaius, but that was way back. Now I've made that Gaius 5* and he's still running just the poison dagger, I need another Kagero to get to 5* to give him poison dagger+, unlike my 5* Matthew, he doesn't really have the defensive stats to benefit from the rouge dagger. (Matthew has 43 def after rogue dagger buff, Gaius still only has a measly 22)

- I pulled a lot of Barst trying to get Hector. Reposition for everyone! Too bad Swap isn't as useful. Send all the Arthur's home.

I haven't decided yet, I am thinking of something to boost her defence but I am also limited by what I have for fodder. I was thinking Fury 3 ( got a lot of Hinatas while trying for Celica) or even Armoured blow, or fortress defence. I could even slap on Defence+3 or Earth Boost.

Steady breath would be great but I only have 1 BIke and it was traumatic enough pulling for him so I can't let him go just yet.

You rebel!

i prefer reposition's range but idk, i wouldn't go that far, o: i like having being able to choose between swap and reposition on occasion, it helps with maps that force you to group up like the one with the mountain pass, or those awful grid maps.

only sorta! i gave inigo gronnraven+ and triangle adept previously, so... this was really unnecessary haha

- Both make him a great counter to B!Lyn and Reinhardt, so shrug Mine is still carrying the dancer fan + Breathe of Life seal. To bad he dances more often than he attacks. He has gronraven (not +) but not enough sp to learn it.

@ Jensen - I have a bunch of people with swap just cus they picked it up off Arthur while getting lancebreaker. Why couldn't he have lancebreaker 3 at 4*?? I have a number of units with swap and reposition. I need more drag back units.

Pulled a +Res -Atk Amelia on my free pull lolz. Went through the rest of the orbs (one blue, three reds) and got mostly junk (man just seeing those reds made my brain go CAEDA come home Caeda so I can fodder you). But Amelia is cool. Not sure if I'm gonna do anything much with her as -Atk is such a turn off, but +Res seems okay to counter mages and it'll be fun to play around with Armour March.

Haha no no don't eat poor B!Ike. I think Fury 3 would probs work, good increase to both offensive presence and general bulk. That's what I'd go for. Also because you're running Lancebreaker rather than QR so the HP drop isn't really a big deal.

Are you planning to do anything with the thieves now we have dagger buffs? Rogue and Smoke both seem pretty cool, Rogue better for tankiness (I hate TT Matthews enough as it is, his bulk is terrifying), Smoke good for team support.

edit: Managed to beat Michalis on Infernal first try, whoop. Used Horse Emblem cheese, Reinhardt, B!Lyn, Sigurd and Cecilia. Went in on the right side with Reinhardt (needed Hone Cavalry even with +1, Death Blow 3 and +3 Atk seal, damn) and Brave Lyn to tackle the blue lance flier, used Draw Back with Cecilia to get her out of there. Bow Lyn softened up Michalis as he swooped in, then Sigurd stepped up to take out Michalis and tank hits from the red fliers. They bruised him pretty badly but it was easy from there, just had to play around with Rein/Lyn and sent Cecilia up to the blue lancer who was slowly making his way around. Horse Emblem conquers all!

edit II: Looks like Christmas banner is gonna be Robin M, Tharja, Chrom and Lissa, due for release on Monday!

edit III: Decided to finally give my Firesweep Lance+ Cordelia some love after I keep trying to use her for content and she disappoints me (39 speed is good but not great, I have discovered). Realised I'm probs not gonna get Swift Sparrow fodder any time soon so promoted a Hana for Life & Death 3 and the difference is phenomenal, 44 is good and she can safely double and destroy most units with 55 attack, even without dedicated flier buffs. Also handed her Draconic Aura as I don't think Firesweep and Galeforce synergise particularly well (she just struggles to lower the cooldown with no retaliations). Very happy with the results! Used Cordelia, Elinica, Cherche and Azura to tackle both Hard and Lunatic Tana & Amelia BHB. Cordelia's Drag Back offered some nice utility in pulling units off defence tiles and flier mobility really helped play around a tricky map.

- I will probably buff Matthew's Rogue Dagger, I plan on giving him the attack smoke seal as well, I ran into one in the arena with that build the other day and it was tough to take him out. I like it. I finally had a stroke of luck and pulled Tana for my free pull (I already had the other two) and she's+Att -Res, which isn't too bad for her! I'm having no luck at all with the infernal BHB for Tana & Amelia. The Lunatic one was difficult enough! I'm probably going to be seeking some online guides for that one.

i really wish dancers earned sp for dancing/singing. it'd make things so much easier ;o; dancer's ring or gronnraven works just fine, i just... like the animation for gronnwolf better, haha. i've been playing with the sound/animations on so i can see specials, so i guess gronnwolf was worth it for that? p:

and ugh, i feel you on that -- having stuff like lancebreaker 3 be locked to 5* on some units but not others is super annoying, i hate spending feathers on fodder when i know (unit i didn't pull) has (excellent skill 3) at 4* >:c

[edit] fred needs sack o’ gifts. also, GIVE THARJA CLOTHES. WHY, GOD

I screamed when Tharja popped up and saw she's an armour unit. Wtf! The skills look so busted, wow.

- Yes Why Tharja! Why no clothes? Why armor? Why NO ARMOR? But her skills are so good! Ugh. I don't get it. Still think I'm going to ignore this banner though. I'll take my free pull, but that's about it. As much as I love War Cleric Lissa, I don't really anyone from this banner. Their fighter skills are all probably armor locked, so you probably can't even inherit.
(Not gonna lie, I really love Tharja, she was one of my favourite characters from awakening, but I hate that she has becoming nothing but the 'fan service character'.)

Absolutely. I feel like she has more substance in her supports in Awakening than what they've portrayed her as, it's a shame (I really dislike the slut-shaming I've seen on Reddit, it's pretty toxic, but the Christmas outfit is borderline ludicrous in plausibility).

Edit: double post