In the post I made about Epic Seven‘s Nightmare Raid last year, I promised to write about Expedition auto teams if I was ever able to build them. It took a while to have enough leftover gear to do so, but now I can mostly auto these three at least, so I’m sharing here. Epic Seven Expeditions are the best source of mod gems (change an equipment’s sub-stats) and a good source of equipment reforging materials as well as monthly rewards like molagoras, so it’s a mode worth engaging with despite some annoyances.

Why bother, though?

Doing Expeditions is one thing, but why try to auto-beat bosses in Epic Seven at all? After all, you can open each Expo so others can join and help you kill the bosses. While they occasionally fail, it’s usually not too hard to get max rewards for the month that way, especially if you have lots of friends or are in a very active guild. That’s how I made it through for ages. Moreover, in a recent livestream, the developers Smilegate promised some changes that will encourage more people to hit others’ Expeditions. So, no, you don’t have to auto Expedition bosses.

Setting the “auto” part aside, though, since that is purely for convenience, it helps to be able to defeat your own bosses even if you have to do it manually. Here are seven reasons why, off the top of my head.

1) It saves stamina. It’s free to attack your own Expo the first time, but after that it costs stamina, so repeated attacks are a painful waste.

2) Guaranteed success means guaranteed rewards, i.e. more chances at getting mod gems. Actually I’m sitting on a ton of them since I rarely mod anything, but people love those things, and they do have their uses.

3) It costs 30 stamina (!) to join other people’s Expos. That’s a lot of stamina, so people might not join yours, especially at time when there are a lot of Expos open, or when most people have done theirs already (usually around the middle of the month). That will lead to wasted Expo posters if you can’t finish your own.

4) Even if you rely on others to finish off your Expos, it’s much more likely that people will join if you’ve knocked a big chunk of its HP out already. That way they can complete the Expo instead of hoping it will succeed. Back when I couldn’t auto anything, I wouldn’t even look at untouched Expos.

5) Smilegate has promised Expedition sweeps soon. You’ll save a lot of time and frustration if you can clear your own and others’ Expos in one attack. I’m interested in what mechanisms the devs will put in place to prevent stronger players from instagibbing all the Expos and leaving none for weaker players to pick over.

6) It’s not that hard once you’ve been playing for a while. After a year or two, most players will have almost all of the fire, earth and ice units in the game, and in fact the most commonly used heroes (Brieg, Tamarinne, Adventurer Ras, Cermia) are either free or very easy to get. You will also have a lot of gear that rolled decently but not decently enough to go on your mains, so it won’t be hard to set up teams one by one that can finish off Expedition bosses manually, if not automatically.

7) You get one-time Dagger Sicar reputation rewards for soloing them. Not super important, but nice to have.

TL;DR, beating your own bosses makes your life way easier. Auto-beating them is even better for convenience’s sake. I say that as someone who leeched them for a while but now finds it much more comfortable to start one and tab out and come back when it’s done, like putting a ready meal in the microwave.

Here are teams that worked for me, as well as a simplified explanation of the bosses’ mechanics. Knowing how the boss helps is useful because then you can think up of substitutes more easily.

Brutal Pherus

The easiest boss to solo in the game. So easy, in fact, that I even use Tamarinne as the soul weaver in this fight, even though she should be weak against it due to her element because the boss does more damage to and takes less damage from non-ice elementals.

Boss mechanics:

• The boss will cast an undispellable silence from time to time.
• He goes into Offensive Posture, where he has increased defense and attack. If your party can hit him six times in a row before he gets a turn, this posture will be dispelled along with the silence, making him weaker and freeing you to do more damage. So you don’t want your party to be too slow, or you want to slow him down if you can.
• Furthermore, if you put three or more debuffs on him when he uses an attack called Gust, he will cleanse himself and put all those debuffs on you. Do not want!

You will need a knight in front, a soul weaver, and two ice DPS who don’t inflict too many debuffs. Just defense break and slow should be enough.

Knight: Daddy Brieg. He’s free to get if you progress a bit. He’s excellent for this fight because he brings both defense buff and speed down, letting your party get more turns and do more damage. He can pull off his defense breaking S3 even when the boss uses silence because of the way Fighting Spirit works. Having him on counter set greatly speeds this process along, but you can build him however you like, just make him tanky. I’ve used Rose as a knight in this fight in the past, but TBH I didn’t build her very well so she wasn’t impressive.

Pretty much any artifact will do, though War Horn is probably best in slot unless you’re struggling to keep the team alive.

Soul Weaver: Tamarinne. Also free to get. I’ve used Angelic Montomorancy in the past too, but Tama’s CR push and attack buffs are what make her the queen of PVE.

DPS: Fenne and Choux. Fenne is particularly recommended because she does amazing damage once she ramps up, and she tops up the heals from Tamarinne too.

I used Luna before I got Fenne, she also works well. You could also use Kise. Seaside Bellona and Sigret don’t work well because they deal too many debuffs.

…Huh, it just occurred to me that maybe Fenne alone could keep the party alive with her heals. Time for a quick experiment…

And it worked just great, though it wasn’t much faster or safer than the Tama-empowered team. I guess Brutal Pherus is just that weak. Daddy Brieg got down to 850 HP in the second fight, maybe give him a tiny bit more bulk or the Sword of Ezera artifact.

Blooming Snag Lich

Boss mechanics:

• Does more damage to the unit in front if the unit is not a knight. Like way more damage.
• Takes less damage from single attacks, so you want AOE.
• Hits a unit twice if the unit’s HP is under 50% when he attacks. This will almost always strike the frontline unit unless s/he is dead.
• Uses an attack that does huge damage unless your party has the Immunization buff. The only way to get this buff is to attack the crystal in front of it 5 times. The crystal will respawn after being defeated, and the Immunization buff will disappear once it saves you from the boss’s attack. So basically you need to hit both the crystal and the boss as much as possible at the same time.

In short, you need a tanky knight in front and lots of AOE attacks. For this fight, you can forgo the soul weaver and use a ranger with the Bloodstone artifact if you have it. You might not, since it’s a 5-star artifact, in which case a knight, a soul weaver and two AOE attacks should do the trick. But Bloodstone is worth using an artifact selector on IMO since it is useful in all kinds of PVE situations. I even use it on Afternoon Soak Flan in Guild Wars sometimes.

Full disclaimer: the team below very occasionally fails to auto-clear and leaves Blooming Snag Lich with a tiny sliver of health remaining. I find this happens when Cecilia and Baal & Sezan fail to land enough defense breaks on the boss. Nothing you can do about it except boost the whole party’s damage more to compensate.

Knight: I use Cecilia because she has AOE attacks, defense break and also immunity to keep the poisons at bay. Adventurer Ras would probably work. I could swear I’ve seen someone use Brieg before, and I suppose he could technically work with Symbol of Unity for increased hit chance. Whoever it is must be tanky to prevent the boss from getting more attacks in. I used to have Cecilia on Sword of Ezera for more sustain, but I find War Horn is better for a consistent clear.

Soul weaver: Not recommended if you have the Bloodstone artifact, but otherwise I think Mascot Hazel would be best in slot here because she gives an attack buff to fire units which cycles faster than Tamarinne’s does. Either could work, though.

AOE DPS: Mercedes (free).

Any offensive gear will do. I forget why I built her this way. Magic for Friends is essential.

Bomb Model Kanna. Really great for this fight. Free to get, ranger, holds Bloodstone, has Exclusive Equipment that inflicts the “unbuffable” debuff that prevents Blooming Snag Lich from putting on Attack Up.

Baal and Sezan. Good attack, sticks the boss with defense break and other debuffs and then does damage the more debuffs the boss has. He’s one of the first 5-star units I pulled, and I still remember how excited I was, only to find out he was largely useless. Happy to have found a permanent home for him. I suppose other AOE Fire units can be substituted for B&S, but no one really comes to mind right now.

Destructive Gigantes

Boss mechanics:

• Does extra damage to the unit in front if it is not a knight.
• The boss comes with an annoying invincible mob called Inpectio Cannon. It keeps increasing your party’s cooldowns, making it hard to use skills other than S1. You need characters with a way to decrease cooldowns, or characters with high effect resistance, or immunity, etc. Or those with very strong S1 attacks. You get the picture.
• Destructive Gigantes himself all casts a debuff called Electrocute that damages your whole party after a character takes a turn, unless that character dispels it by using a non-attack skill. If you don’t dispel or outheal it, you will die pretty quickly.
• Gigantes also casts a defense buff on himself that needs to be cleared so you don’t do piddling damage.

Disclaimer: the team below occasionally fails to auto clear unless I manually turn off Zahak’s skills for the first turn. I will experiment with other teams shortly, like in the next 10 minutes, to find a true auto setup.

Ideally you need a Knight, soul weaver and two DPS, all with at least one non-attack skill. I get away with using Fenne even though she doesn’t have one, because her S1 heals the party to slightly make up for the damage. Also she hits like a TANK, and she applies an immunity buff to herself to somewhat evade Inpectio Cannon’s attacks. If you’re interested in PVE at all, you will not go wrong by using a character selector to get Fenne.

Knight: Daddy Brieg. Inpectio Cannon increasing cooldowns doesn’t affect his S3 for reasons explained with Brutal Pherus, though it does make it harder for him to use his non-attack S2. He will occasionally die because of this, especially if I don’t play the first turn manually, so putting him on Sword of Ezera might not be a bad idea.

Soul weaver: Tamarinne is the best I’ve found for this position because of her attack buff and CR push that can help you slip past Inpectio Cannon’s turns sometimes. Also Fenne is technically a soul weaver, but… phew!

DPS: Fenne and Zahak. I used to use Cermia before I got Fenne, she also works great. I use Zahak because I like his design, and also he has an attack buff that can help speed things along.

Virtually any other DPS with a non-attack skill will do just fine, and might even be better because you don’t have to manual the first turn to prevent him from using it. As a matter of fact, I’ll try someone else right now and report back. Let’s start with Violet.

Okay, Violet works fine. More auto-friendly than Zahak because he’s slower, so he takes his first turn after the Destructive Gigantes’ first turn. But because he’s slower, he takes fewer turns overall, meaning the two runs I used him in both came down to the wire. He also doesn’t buff others like Zahak does.

Let’s try Cermia.Perfect blend. Faster than Violet, hits harder than Zahak, especially when her extra attack pops off. Daddy Brieg, Tamarinne, Cermia and Fenne is the team to go with IMO. But I encourage you to play around with other options to see what works for you. I’d say Destructive Gigantes is the second easiest boss to auto after Brutal Pherus.

Other Expedition bosses

There are two other bosses: Hopeless Symaqus and Pain Pursuer Moroi. However they are out of rotation right now, so I can’t show them. (update: they’re here) I’m still working on teams for them anyway, since I manage to get both of them down to around 5-10% health and then wipe. For Hopeless Symaqus I’ve been using Daddy Brieg, Tamarinne, Lilka and Immortal Wukong. For Pain Pursuer Moroi, I’ve been using Daddy Brieg, Cermia, Zealot Carminerose and Cerise, but I intend to sub in Fenne for Cerise next time. Update/new post to follow next time the roation changes.

I also need to figure out this whole Trial of Constellations mode thing. Or do I… I’m very salty about them getting rid of Nightmare Raid so I dunno. I have other things to do in E7 anyway, like the rest of Abyss, and the most recent Hall of Trials, so I’ll get to it when I get to it. Enough for one day, back to work!