User blog:Ruhrohshingo/Eriole EX Trial Strategy - 1st Clear

Sweet jesus I finally finished this stupid trial with single squad:

-Radiating Grandeur Paris (L): Barbato's Ring, Honor Armor

-Virtuous Champion Krantz: Heresy Orb, Perserverence Jewel

-Obsidian Seraph Zenia: Obsidian Core Amplifier, Fallacy Orb

-Monster Hunter Avani: Vorbal Chainblades, Phantom Gizmo

-Fulgur Halycon Eze: Celgrad Gem, Batootha - No Enhancements

-Fabled Emperor Kulyuk (Friend): Not listing spheres as it's not really a factor you can control...

Item loadout: Fujin Tonics and Potions, Hero Gem, Revive Light, Crescent Dew Key Desirable Attributes:

In no particular order...

-Spark damage boosts BB Gauge (Avani, Piany, Rosetta, Felice, Zeal, Lafiel, etc.)

-Burst Healing (Krantz, Selena, Aurelia, Paris, etc.)

-Spark Damage Boost (Eze, Kuyluk Omni Enhancement, Rosetta, Tazer, Chrome, Zenia, Ensa-Taya, Avani, Zedus, etc.)

-Hit Count Boost (Berdette, Avani, Rahgan, Ark, Sakura Miku, etc.)

-BB Gauge Boost When Attacked (Bestie, Paris LS, Reud LS, etc.)

-Elemental Damage Immunity (Kuyluk, etc.)

-Ailment Immunity - Perpetual/Duration (Kuyluk, Aurelia, Elimo, Piany, Semira, etc.)

 -Stat buffs - ideally all stats (Paris in particular, Dolk, Avant, etc.)

I don't place as much premium on crit rate and crit damage as it didn't seem to make as much of an impact when I trying it with Avant in party and some wild attempts using a friend's 7* Owen. It could very have been that I was getting hit with Injury and Weakness reflects, so you're welcome to shoot for critical boosts rather than spark if you don't have the characters for it. I just like Spark more because there are more available buffs that work together in terms of spark crits, spark vulnerability, spark damage, and spark damage boosts BB gauge.
 * I list this one last intentionally to discuss.  I note Paris in particular because she's useful in that the SBB boosts all stats except HP.  Paris' SBB buff will stack with a few other buffs, but the degree to which you want to shoot for buffs depends on you.  Just be certain the effects will stack and not replace one another.

1st fight: Largely just follow the thresholds. If you're worried about reflects and hitting the 1 HP attack thresholds at the same time then consider looking for a friend who uses an Omni Selena lead or a Kuyluk with the enhancement that heals during S/BB since the timing of the reflects may overlap. When Eriole gets down to maybe 20% try to have Avani's Spark DMG BB boost and Paris' SBB buffs in place then spam everyone's SBB at once. With any luck, the Spark Vulnerability effect will get applied and Eze's SBB will the bulk of your damage by hitting mostly Sparks and S Crits. At worst, you will have to suffer through one Heroic Anthem but depending on who he hits, the character could very survive with Kuyluk's elemental shield and Krantz' mitigation in place (it usually does around 22k on my party and most characters in my form had 20k+ HP). If you want to conservative, you can just defend with the characters you fear you may lose to the Heroic Anthem. In my case, he killed one so I had to pop a Revive Light going into 2nd round.

2nd fight: I ignored the paralysis strategy since I only recently got Kafka, 6* Semira isn't really very durable, and I don't have Andaria so this was mostly a brute force/attrition effort. The first turn just focus on getting buffs in place/healing. If anything use Krantz only for his BB, not SBB if not full; Paris' SBB for stat buff; Avani BB to renew Spark BB boost buff; and Kuyluk for HC/BC efficacy and elemental shielf. Most of the round will be uneventful - just watch your buffs, their buffs, and HP thresholds. Zenia is helpful here in case you start a turn where you're just shy of an SBB or BB for a key character (Paris/Krantz). If you BB with Zenia, target Tesla since it's ST. When Tesla starts getting downard of 50% HP I used Kuyluk's UBB with Krantz SBB for heavy mitigation knowing I'd be getting hammered with Tesla and Eriole thresholds. Oddly, I never had Tesla and Eriole use their lowest HP threshold attacks on the same turn.

If you follow this strategy, Tesla and Eriole will revive once but if I recall, on revival their buffs aren't in place? When Tesla came back I wiped her out the next turn using the Avani+Eze SBB combo. When Eriole is alone keep an eye on health - when he's around 40% consider popping the Hero Gem and firing Kuyluk's UBB again. When I took him down the first time it was on the 2nd turn of the UBB mitigation, so when I got him down to like 5-7% on the following turn (3rd turn 75% mitigation) his Cataclysmic End attack didn't really affect me much since Krantz' S/BB was also in place. He gave up the ghost the following turn. <p style="font-weight:normal;">Formation Logic:

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Kuyluk is pretty cheap but he's really useful regardless of how your friends might have distributed his enhancements. The Kuyluk I have focused on Spark Dmg boost, and I don't recall which enhancements the friend unit I used had - Kuyluk is mainly useful for elemental damage and status ailment immunity (not that the formation above has any elemental weaknesses save Zenia). His elemental shield is also useful and sticks around for a few turns so it's not necessary to treat it like 1 turn 50% mitigation. When I first tried this, I was using Avant rather than Avani and found I had BC deficit problems. Popping Avani in, I didn't need to rely on BC drop but what I did get was helped out by Kuyluk's efficacy boost. Paris' LS also helps out a lot when Tesla/Eriol uses an MT attack. This is really advantageous when trying to set up a mass SBB spam by having only mitigation in place then attacking normally with everyone else (optimally with Avani's BB and SBB buffs in place together).

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Zenia is more helpful in this formation as a BB booster than for the BB Atk buff from her SBB. At several points you'll get hit with a BB Atk debuff and the SBB buff doesn't seem to really level out the effect much - at that point it's better to just get the extra attack buff, spark damage, and spark BB boost effects in place.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">You could definitely swap units around and out. For example, you could nix Zenia and use Ophelia (which in retrospect, I might have actually gone with instead) or replace Krantz with Shera for a ST mitigation BB (however, you'd want to have a better burst healer or HoT unit to replace Krantz). The latter replacement is debatable as Krantz' BB/SBB is useful for the Dark element addition against Eriole and the burst healing is decent. If you're thinking of using Kafka, it might actually be a good idea to consider swapping Zenia out for her but also use the Kuyluk friend/lead with Avani. With all three in place, you have three opportunities (in two forms) to inflict status effects and Kafka's +dmg to afflicted target can be utilized better. I've never used Kafka so I can't really endorse it, but it is an alternative.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">If you don't have Paris, using a unit like Gazia as lead is also not a bad choice and frees up a unit slot to replace Krantz for mitigation.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Spheres...it kind of depends on what you have on hand but do try for as big a stat boost as you can. Because HC are harder to come by in 2nd fight a higher REC does help out a bit. Closing Comments:

I understand this guide/summary is extremely late game based on my formation and spheres used. However, I think several of the ideas that went into the squad can be feasible without several of the units used - the section above explores this a bit but is by no means exhaustive.

Like others, I often want to go into these Trials winning on the first attempt and save for the first series of GGCs I had to learn to go in thinking what I thought would work and readjust from loss after loss before finally winning. The only thing I would be mindful of is your item stock - particularly Crescent Dews since they aren't too easy to come by and Hero Gems can be kind of annoying to craft.