User blog:Linathan/Squad Spotlight: Trial 003

Summary
According to the people who commented on my previous squad analysis, they wanted to see more of my squad analyses so here's another one! This time, I'll give a lot more setups this time and I will limit all discussions about these setups to Trial 003 ONLY. I'm also not listing Pros and Cons for this squad analysis as this only focuses on Trial 003. Feel free to leave a comment below on the squad you used to defeat Maxwell!

Trial 003 is, by no means, a difficult trial. Many people struggle over and over and over again, but once they defeat Maxwell for the very first time, they will start to realize that all of that hard work put into this one trial is worth it. Let's take a look at what the bosses in this trial have in store for us...

Juggernaut tends to deal a considerable amount of damage so you generally want to defeat Juggernaut as fast as possible before he cripples you even further. It does deal Paralysis to your units so it's already a check that you need to have some sort of status immunity on your team.

Abaddon likes to deal Curse and remove all buffs on random units almost every turn. He does not deal as much damage as Juggernaut, but do keep his 50% and 30% HP thresholds. Abaddon will use Death Gate twice at 50% and four times at 30%. For those who don't know what Death Gate does, it is a single-target attack which can OHKO a unit without any type of mitigation. If you're unlucky, Abaddon can single-focus on one unit, costing you one or more Revives.

Maxwell has a specific attack pattern. She casts Sacred Song, which gives her a 100,000 HP revive buff, and Rune, which is a single-target attack that removes all buffs on the targeted unit and will grant Maxwell the ignore-DEF buff, on the same turn every four turns. Secondly, she casts Destiny every five turns, which deals a fixed 14,000 damage to one of your units. She casts this once, but twice once she reaches below 30%. Mitigation will lower this damage. Lastly, she casts Endless at 20%, which is a massive 33-hit combo Light attack to all of your units. Those are the major attacks caused by Maxwell. There are other moves that Maxwell has like Meteor and Resurrection, but those can be dealt with quite easily if you have mitigation up. Remember to count your turns on Turn 1 of Juggernaut.

For a very effective turn counter, visit this link.

Squad 1: Typical
Recommended Item Set: Most guides would recommend using Grahdens as your lead, an anti-debuff healer, a damage mitigator, two attacking units, and a Lilly Matah friend. If you have units that have infinite SBB refill, I highly recommend using those as your attacking units.
 * Lead1: Grahdens
 * Sub1: Fire Goddess Ulkina
 * Sub2: Lightning Gun Rowgen
 * Sub3: Thunder Savior Shera
 * Sub4: Phoenix God Arus
 * Friend: Tyrant Lilly Matah
 * Cure x10
 * Fujin Potion x2
 * Fujin Tonic x3
 * Revive x1/Crescent Dew x2
 * Revive Light x2

Grahdens provides a 20% boost to all parameters and a 15% reduction in damage from Light and Dark enemies. He's essential to have since it is recommended to have the highest HP units possible for all of your units. An even better alternative would be using Tridon. He provides a 30% boost to all units' HP and a 10% reduction in ALL damage. He also provides a shield with his BB and SBB, making Destiny almost a joke to handle.

If you do not have a anti-debuff healer, you can use Exvehl as one of your attacking units and another healer. If you do not have Exvehl, you can use any type of status protection unit, like Melchio and Narza.

As for Sub3 and Sub4, use any type of attacking unit. There are many of them out there. Units include, Lilith, Michele, Lodin, Elza, etc.

At the bare minimum, make sure all units have over 7000 HP. You need enough HP to resist Maxwell's Destiny. Mitigate and guard with all other units when Rune is coming.

Squad 2: Hardcore F2P
Recommended Spheres on Units: Recommended Item Set: If you happen to get insanely unlucky in your Rare Summons, you can use this squad. The most important thing to do with this squad is to PRAY WITH ALL OF YOUR MIGHT TO RNGESUS. This squad does not include Vortex units since Vortex units rarely get revisited. In fact, this squad lacks a damage mitigator so you would have to guard whenever Destiny or Rune comes. At least you have a total of 25% mitigation from Maxwell, but that's the best this squad can get.
 * Lead: Grahdens
 * Sub1: Finkell
 * Sub2: Bow God Lario
 * Sub3: Bow God Lario
 * Sub4: Inferno Beast Zegar
 * Friend: Colossal Tridon/Thunder Savior Shera
 * Finkell (Drevas)
 * Fujin Potion x2/Holy Flute x3
 * Fujin Tonic x3/Ares' Flute x3
 * Revive x1
 * Revive Light x2
 * Crescent Dew x2

Grahdens is there for obvious reasons. 20% boost to all parameters. He can important when attempting to kill Maxwell before the Sacred Song loop starts since he grants you Light and Dark elements to attacks.

Finkell is currently the only you can use as an anti-debuff unit and even as a healer, she has VERY low defenses. It's highly recommended that you guard with her every turn. She can die really easily. Provided that the two Larios are able to produce a lot of BC, Finkell should be able to receive enough BC for her BB. After all, Finkell only needs 15 BCs to get her BB ready. As crazy as this may sound, you can feed her a Sphere Frog and equip her with Drevas and Evil Shard.

Two Larios can spark very well and farming Larios isn't a hard thing to do. Even with just two Larios alone, you can still spark very well with the two 40-hit combo SBBs you have available. Zegar is there to boost Spark damage by 50% and to make your time with killing Maxwell after she revives a lot easier.

When Maxwell is about to do Endless, make sure you use Tridon/Shera's BB and guard the rest. Finkell may die so revive her if she does. She needs to keep your units all healed up and you need as much of the heal as you can possibly get.

In terms of selecting Friends, Tridon can provide a 30% boost to HP with his Leader Skill and a shield with his BB/SBB, but he does not have a -50% damage mitigation ability. With Shera, she can provide -50% damage mitigation along with reduction in BC cost of all units, but your units will lose the 30% boost to HP. Personally, I would go with Shera since she can reduce the cost of BC for all units and she provides damage mitigation. However, it would be advised to guard anyone who has at least 3500 HP when Destiny comes.

Make sure all of your units are Anima-type, excluding Grahdens since he's a Trial unit. You need as much HP as you can possibly get. Equip Medulla Gems, Legwand Gems, Dandelga, Leomurg, Drevas, or even Xentar to get the best results.

Squad 3: No Rare Summon F2P
Recommended Spheres: Recommended Item Set: Using the Vortex and Honor Summon units currently available in Global, we have constructed a hyper-BB spam squad against a single enemy. Unlike the first F2P squad, we have more options available.
 * Lead1: Shadow Chakra Oboro
 * Sub1: Bow God Lario
 * Sub2: Bow God Lario
 * Sub3: Bow God Lario
 * Sub4: Fast God Lucana
 * Friend: Thunder Savior Shera
 * Refined Gem on all Units except Lucana
 * Fast God Lucana (Drevas)
 * Cure x10
 * Fujin Potion x2/Holy Flute x3
 * Fujin Tonic x3
 * Revive x1/Crescent Dew x2
 * Revive Light x2

Oboro has the Ares' Excelsior Leader Skill, which boosts BB fill rate by 50%. With three Larios capable of using their 40-hit combo SBB, you can produce well enough BC to get Shera's BB every turn. With Lucana in our party, she can provide a small boost to ATK, DEF, and REC to help support the team and heal. Lucana also has more HP than Finkell so she has a better chance of surviving than Finkell.

Make sure all units have some form of status immunity. Using a Darvanshel Friend is viable since he provides immunity to all status ailments, but not as effective as using a Shera Friend. Shera reduces the BC cost of all units as Darvanshel lacks that effect.

Squad 4: Hadaron
Required Spheres on Units: I am sure a lot of people know of this method and how it is viable for almost any Quest (this squad does not work in some Grand Gaia Chronicles quests due to certain enemies that have BC drop resist). This utilizes Rin's 25% boost to BC drop rate. Because we have two Rin leads, we get a total of 50% boost to BC drop rate. Hadaron's Sol Creator boosts BC drop by 15%. It is also worth noting that the base BC drop rate is 35%. If you add all of the numbers up, Hadaron gets a total of a 100% boost in BC drop rate, which makes that he is guaranteed to produce enough BC to fill his SBB within two turns. If you do not know what Hadaron's SBB does, it is a massive single-target attack that provides a two-turn Stealth buff to himself. If Hadaron is the only unit and he's in Stealth mode, the enemy cannot target him due to the lack of a visible enemy, causing them to skip turns.
 * Lead1: Melody Kagamine Rin
 * Sub1: Netherking Hadaron
 * Friend: Melody Kagamine Rin
 * Netherking Hadaron (Sol Creator & Lexida)

Since Juggernaut deals considerable amounts of damage, guard with Hadaron or use a Fujin Potion on him so he doesn't get targeted. Let the two Rin leads die and ensure that Hadaron is able to produce enough BC to get his SBB ready within two turns from the the usage of his SBB. Once you use his SBB, attack the next turn and repeat the process. You can even auto-battle this Trial with this setup.

There are scripted events within this Trial, like Maxwell doing Endless, Abaddon doing Death Gate, etc. With the lack of a visible target, the enemy won't be using those moves, skipping their turns.

If you do not have Rin, you can use another unit with the Ares' Excelsior Leader Skill, like Elza, Felneus, Faris, Uda, Oboro, etc. However, your chances of getting Hadaron's SBB ready within two turns from the usage of his SBB is around 98-99%. It's a very small difference, but it still works. I still advise you to pray to RNGesus if that 1-2% starts to worry you.

More to come...
Coming soon! I will be adding more squads to this post and making edits to some of the squads featured! As mentioned before, feel free to share your squads used in Trial 003 by commenting down below!