Harvestella is a fantastic game except for the combat

You ever start a game and realize almost immediately what you’ll eventually quit over? It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I can tell right away what is going to be a pain point down the road, whether it’s a character, a plot point, or in Harvestella‘s case, a game mechanic. To put it plainly, the combat sucks!

I’m getting that out of the way early because I really like Harvestella. I think it’s a very well-designed game, great soundtrack, nice variety of crops, tasty-looking recipes, moderately-paced day and night cycle, the whole shebang. And I’m going to say as much later below. But there’s a real possibility that I’ll make a future post saying “Harvestella dropped!” and it will be like “what is wrong with this old lady?” so I’m just putting that out there: great game, sucky combat system.

Yes, yes, I shouldn’t expect too much from a farming ARPG… except the Rune Factory series exists and it’s been way more fun to play right from the first clunky game on the DS. The problem with Harvestella‘s fighting is that it’s an ARPG, but you can’t roll or dodge properly to escape enemy attacks. Google is telling me that I’ll eventually unlock some kind of dash dodge… except I’ve already unlocked it and it’s hard and frustrating to use. You can see the boss’s attack aiming for you and your character just. won’t. move. COME ON!

It seems you’re just supposed to stand there and trade hits with the enemy until someone dies. If that’s the case, then why not make it a turn-based game? Square Enix is good at turn based games, and I don’t have a problem with them either. An ARPG with poor mobility and positioning is super frustrating.

Also there are super powered enemies dotting the maps, called FEAR. Think of FOES in the Etrian Odyssey games. I really, really, really hate that kind of thing in video games. Especially in open world or semi-open world games. If you don’t want me to explore an area too soon, block it off. Otherwise just leave me alone, sheesh. So far the FEAR haven’t been too hard to avoid, but if they get too annoying, I will delete Harvestella without a backward glance. It’s the only way these companies will learn.

Love the quest markers, they make life so easy.

“But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” The rest of Harvestella is fantastic, actually. Okay the story is a bit bland because it’s about Ein, the usual farming story amnesiac. And since it’s a Square Enix game, there are these giant crystals all over the place which are acting up so we have to figure out what’s wrong with them. And there are bad guys who are going to turn out to be not so bad in the end because that’s just how JRPGs roll. I really like that while Harvestella strongly hinted at the direction it wants me to go, they left it up to me to decide which crystal secretly evil abomination seaslight to travel to.

I’ve done all of them now, unlocked the Waterside and Cave biomes, almost at the end of Summer in the first year. Although days pass, there are no hard deadlines like in the Persona or Atelier games so it’s very chill. Since I’ve finished all the available dungeons, I’m right on the cusp of unlocking the next stage of the story (I just need to sleep and wake up), hoping they don’t mess things up too much. Did you know that farming games don’t need stories? But if Harvestella insists on having one, I hope it’s a good one.

Other random notes on why I’m liking the game so much

1. The maps are very easy to navigate. I haven’t gotten lost once, the game clearly marks quests and collectibles on the map, and it has by far the least irritating ice dungeon I have encountered in all my years of gaming. I’m also a big fan of all the bridges, ladders and other shortcuts that cut travel time and reduce frustration by a lot. Square-Enix clearly put a lot of thought into not making the dungeons annoying (based on their decades of experience in making annoying dungeons), and I appreciate that the results respect my limited time and energy.

2. The sidequests are a bit, no, very wordy, but they’re chained and develop as the game progresses so they’re interesting to follow. And they’re very rewarding for a perpetually-broke player like me.

Why is everyone dragging me into their romantic drama tho

3. Speaking of which, I like being broke. Too many farming games make you rich too quickly and then there’s nothing to save up for or prioritize. I’m enjoying not being an instant billionaire (mining in OG Rune Factory, those were the days) so that every improvement feels hard-earned and rewarding.

4. For all my complaints about the combat system, I’ve made it this far without too many wipe-outs. Lorelei was a beotch though. I’ve accomplished this by playing exclusively as a Mage so I can hang back while my party members tank hits for me. There’s a non-zero chance that this will come back to bite me in the tushie before the end of the game, but well, if I end up dropping the game, so be it. It is enough to play a whole lot of Harvestella.

5. I like the faerie achievement system. I like achievements in general. I really like being rewarded for stuff I would do anyway. Nothing beats Rune Factory giving experience for walking and sleeping, but as long as I get something just for playing, I’m happy.

6. I already mentioned the great-looking recipes, but I’ll add that I love them including meat dishes. I didn’t have a problem with Harvest Moon‘s pescatarian lifestyle, and Animal Crossing‘s English localization scrubbing all mentions of eating fish or using animal products was a certainly a choice, but… just feast your eyes on this beauty.

Harvestella BBQ Churrasco

Mmm, looks so yummy. Here’s another one:

Ah, so rich and juicy. Nothing against meat-free games, but when I imagine my ideal farm lifestyle, it definitely includes thick cuts of meat and hearty stews. GIVE ME MEAT! Also cozy winter nights spent knitting in front of the fireplace with a bowl of soup. Let’s see if Harvestella can keep my dream alive.

7. Fast pace. No scene, plot arc or dungeon lasts long enough to become annoying, everything moves along snappily. Even the flavor text is short. Love it. One of the things I dread most when starting a new RPG is the endless reams of text, tons of forgettable lore and backstories, and the never-ending cutscenes that developers seem to think is mandatory these days. For once Square-Enix has understood the assignment: if you make a farming game, let the players farm! Keep the convoluted stories for Final Fantasy and let me farm!

8. Simple controls. I’ve played games where swapping tools or equipment is an ordeal, and it wears you down slowly but surely. Here it’s pretty easy to map an item to a button and use it right away. It took me all of 10 minutes to master the system, which is more than long enough.

These flowers and this whole stage remind me of 7th Dragon 2020

9. And on the theme of simplicity, I also like the simplicity of weapons, accessories, etc. in Harvestella. There’s no armor, leveling your weapon just means paying for upgrades, and your party members are super independent so you don’t need to worry about their equipment or skills or attacks, or anything. Like I said, let me farm!

And so on, and so forth. There are other things I want to talk about, but my throat is all scratchy (am I getting a cold?!) so I need gaming therapy right now. 2026 is my year of slow gaming and taking my time with every game so I’ll be focusing on Harvestella even more going forward. See you next time!

Happy New Year 2026!


Happy new year, everyone! If I’m not much mistaken, this humble little blog will be 17 years old in May 2026, and this is also the 14th edition of my New Year’s greeting (the first was a whole lifetime ago in 2012). No idea how much longer I’ll be doing this, but then again I never set out to blog with any specific timeline or goal in mind, so I’ll just keep taking it one day at a time. Hope you all had a nice restful Christmas break and didn’t pig out disgracefully like I always do, haha haha… ha… (my head still hurts)

Here’s the full list of all the past “Happy New Year” posts btw, if anyone’s really bored.

2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025

This year I’m not gonna sully your eyes by making New Year’s gaming resolutions I won’t keep… even though I did attempt some of the games on last year’s list. I played almost all of Xenoblade Chronicles X, I’m still playing Triangle Strategy very very slowly, I started Monster Hunter Rise, created a character and then dropped it immediately, and the only reason I didn’t play Atelier Ryza 2 is because I hear Nintendo is coming out (has come out???) with DX versions of the Ryza series and so I have to wait another year or two for those to go on sale. Yes, I’m cheap, how did you know?

But I’m thinking that setting goals for the year may have contributed, at least subconsciously, to the pressure I felt to finish Xenoblade X last year, with less than optimal results, so 2026 is going to be the year of just playing whatever, whenever, no matter how long it takes me to finish it. Actually I bought a whole bunch of games on sale over the holidays, but I won’t say what they are in case that jinxes it. Okay, I’ll mention just one: Harvestella. Been wanting to play that for a while, even though I don’t know if I still like farm sims or not. Barring any grand cataclysm, I’ll be playing that sooner rather than later.

On the gacha game front, nothing has really stuck with me except Epic Seven and Love Nikki, and again that’s okay. I won’t force myself to drop them if I’m having fun, and I won’t force myself to continue the minute they become a chore. I dropped Chaos Zero Nightmare because it was super tedious and repetitive, but thanks to that I’m interested in card games like Slay the Spire, Chrono Ark, and Darkest Dungeon. Might try some of those this year but zero promises. Negative, even. I may have doomed them to eternal non-playability just by mentioning them.

Enough with the rambling, I guess? I don’t have to work until the 12th, but I’m filling the time with food, manga, food, food, sleep, sleep, and just a little bit of videogames. IRL my only goal is to read a few more books and practice a little more on the piano and I am doing exactly zero of that right now. Down with resolutions! Up with going with the flow! And that’s my mood going into the rest of the year. See you guys around!

My Xenoblade Chronicles X! I’ve failed you! (spoilers)

So… I dropped Xenoblade Chronicles X. It’s been three days and I’m still feeling absolutely rotten about it. That almost never happens to me because despite popular rumor, I don’t drop games that easily. When I let something go, it’s because I’m sick and tired of it and don’t see myself going on any further.

In the case of XCX, however, I was still having fun. Not with the story, which was surprisingly not completely crappy and not completely nonsensical for a Xenoblade story, but with the gameplay. Although I said I was getting tired of the game in my last post, once I got past that fake final dungeon, I got back into the game again in a major way. There were still tons of quests I hadn’t finished when I dropped the game, especially the affinity quests, and while I wasn’t planning on taking down superbosses like Territorial Rotbart, I was definitely aiming to beat some of the bigger ones like that big Xe-Dom in Sylvalum that kept attacking my Skells. And I still had one party member to unlock and test. And I hadn’t yet found the best combination of weapons and skills to make me truly overpowered.

Come on, they’re not THAT much bigger.

Why did I drop the game, then? Short story: pure stupidity. Longer explanation: there were two reasons. First, as I mentioned in the last post, I set myself a deadline of finishing the game before the end of November (and later before the end of the year) so I could play Persona 5 Strikers (which I don’t even want to play now because I’m still upset). I felt I had been playing just one proper (offline) RPG all year long so I should try something else. Thus even though I wasn’t actually ready to move on, I forced myself to continue the story.

Secondly, despite loving the heck out of the sidequests and exploration, I definitely spent too much time on them at the expense of progressing the story so I admit I was a tiiiny bit sick of the game and okay with it ending at that point. I should have paced myself better on that front. That said, I definitely wasn’t sick enough to drop it like I did.

Stop raising those flags!!

Combining the two reasons meant I started forcing myself to rush through the game, only to find that there was a lot more story and game left than I had bargained for. You know when I said last time that I probably had a few dungeons left to go before the game ended? Yeah no, I was waaaay off. Finding the Lifehold is only like 60% of the way through the game. In fact, it’s when the game’s story really begins. That’s when they introduce the real bad guy(s) of the game (we all knew it couldn’t be the Ganglion), explain stuff like why Earth was attacked, how they got such fantastic technology like space travel in such a short time, what and where Mira is, etc. They also introduced new characters including some great hero with his awesome Skell that everyone’s fawning over when I’m just rolling my eyes like “Whatever, just let me finish the game already!”

Excuuuse me for not bowing at thy feet in worship, o great hero

I’ve rarely, if ever, been this sorry about dropping a game as I am about Xenoblade Chronicles X. In retrospect, why was I forcing myself to finish a game just because I felt I “should” move on? I’m not sharing the Switch with anyone, so this was 100% self-imposed pressure. What’s more, I bought XCX full price on day one, so why didn’t I just slow down and get my money’s worth? I can’t even rant about the story now because I skipped huge chunks of it thinking I was practically done.

At this point, readers who haven’t played XCX might ask, “Well, why don’t you just download it again and continue?” Unfortunately, XCX has a pretty final point of no return where everything on Mira and New LA is destroyed (zomg spoilers), meaning that all the quests are gone as well. The superbosses, the continents, the secret areas, all gone. The game does warn you about this, but I blithely clicked on and saved to boot because I thought for sure I was just going to fight the final boss and finish the game at that point. Nooooope.

Annoying thing about the game is they kept asking my opinion like they actually cared.

So I did fight the boss and thought I had won, but then he had a massive temper tantrum and scattered my whole party. I got tossed onto a whole new continent and had to wander around searching for everyone and all our Skells before we could take on the boss again. I was just done at that point. And that’s sad, because if I had taken my time and gotten to the boss organically, I might have been like “Aww noo, I don’t wanna finish XCX, I wanna explore more!” And then I might have been absolutely thrilled for one last chance to run around before finally finishing the game. I really should have keep a much earlier save, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

Well, at least I learned a powerful lesson from this, which is not to pressure or force myself game-wise in 2026. Some years ago, I set a motto of “It is enough to play just a little bit of a game,” and that made it easier for me to drop games that weren’t fun, whether I had given them enough of a chance or not. It’s time to set a caveat motto: “It is okay to keep playing a game you’re enjoying.” Even if I only play one game in a year, or two years, or heck a whole decade, it’s okay as long as I have fun with it.

I’m sorry about Xenoblade Chronicles X, I really am. It deserved better. I deserved better. 2026 isn’t here yet, and I can’t say for sure what, if anything I’ll be playing then, but I won’t force myself to play if it sucks, and I won’t force myself to stop playing it if I like it. I never want to feel this way after dropping a game again.

115 hours into Xenoblade Chronicles X – Almost done!

There comes a time in every gamer’s life when you can feel yourself about to drop a game. You start skipping text where you used to read everything. Little things start to piss you off. You’re tired of hearing the same songs and sound effects. You still play, but not as excitedly as before. That’s your cue, my cue, to start wrapping things up in Xenoblade Chronicles X before I end up dropping it. Plus I had fun playing Persona 5 Royal at the end of last year, so it would be fun to close out 2025 playing Persona 5 Strikers, which I hear is extremely robust for a spin-off game.

And yet… I can’t bring myself to finish it. I’m suffering from a terrible, terrible case of Last Dungeon Fatigue and I don’t know how to get over it. The stage is literally right in front of me and I just don’t want to go in.

It’s right down the street, just behind the McDonalds.

Wait… I’m getting a signal from my dungeon-dar… Let’s see what the readout says. “Since… the characters swear that this must be… the final dungeon… there must be two or three more stages after this.” Good golly gosh, it’s right! So I’m NOT en route to the final dungeon; this is just another area to explore!

Phew. Oddly enough that makes me feel better about things. The more I play JRPGs, the more I hate final dungeons for being so long and plodding and tedious (they’re all like that. All of them). But if it’s business as usual in Xenoblade Chronicles X, then I’m all for it. After all, despite some early annoyances and some ongoing annoyances, I’ve had a fantastic time with this game. Definitely worth the day-one purchase and worthy of being the only “regular” game i.e. offline game I’ve played this year. I’ve got a busy weekend ahead of me, but I’ll try to finish it before the end of November, God willing.

In other gaming news, Epic Seven has gotten super boring, so I’m planning to pull Swift Flagbearer Sigret, try (and probably fail) to get School Nurse Yulha and then take a log-in only break for a while. At least until headhunt is announced, as well as whatever Smilegate is cooking for us for Christmas. I recently started their new game Chaos Zero Nightmare. I had some thoughts about that and I was going to write a post, but then they released their first update and gave me even more food for thought, so I’ll need to re-think and re-evaluate things. More on either CZN or XCX next time, depending on which one appeals to me more and actually gets played.

Epic Seven – Totally not worth climbing from Champion V to Emperor V, but here’s how I did it anyway

Last year I made a post about climbing to Champion V in Epic Seven‘s regular arena (not RTA, all my homies hate RTA). More recently I decided to make the push to Emperor V just to see if I could. I actually made it to Emperor III before dropping all the way back to Champion V, it was pretty crazy. How quickly you climb and how long you stay there depends on the day of the week and where in the season you are, but the whole point of this post is to say that it is very possible to climb to Emperor V after lurking in Champion V for a while.

“Possible” is not the same as “worth it,” though. All you get is an extra 50 skystones a week which is yes, an extra 2500 skystones or so per year, but is it really worth the effort of building teams and spending precious minutes on selecting and beating other players’ teams versus just auto-ing NPC teams? I don’t think so. The bigger draw is getting a few more conquest points to spend on gear charms, but even then, it’s like mehhh… So really the main gain is the one-time rewards for making it to Emperor V and above for the first time, after that you can just coast.

Study the most common teams and characters and see if there are any you can take down with the characters/gear you have

Now then, the 2024 post is hopelessly outdated when it comes to the meta at the time. Most of the terrors back then like Navy Captain Landy, ae-Karina and Ocean Breeze Luluca are nowhere to be seen even in Guild Wars these days. However the main principle that led me to Champion V is the same: find counters to the most common teams and then farm them exclusively. Easier said than done, though. Let’s break it down into two not-so-easy steps.

How to find counters

Two ways. 1) Get advice from others. In my case I watched a lot of YouTube videos about people fighting Guild Wars and Arena battles, and even RTA sometimes. Just search for things like epic seven arena defense or whatever. For example, here’s a video that straight up says “HOW TO BEAT EVERY ARENA DEFENSE CURRENTLY! OCTOBER 2025! Epic Seven.” Other people might have characters and builds that aren’t attainable for you, but you’re bound to get some powerful clues that lead to a solution.

2) Set the offending team as your own defense and see all the ways people counter them. Of course this method only works if you have the common units. I don’t have Bystander Hwayoung or Witch of the Mere Tenebria, so I can’t do that, but I have most of the others. I would never have thought of using Benimaru against Rinak and Setsuka if someone hadn’t done it to me first, of course.

How to farm them

As I did steps 1 and 2, I compiled a Word document showing the most common teams and how other people handled them. Here’s a screenshot showing several the possible counters to the Genesis Ras / Lady of the Scales / Setsuka / Frieren team I used to have so much trouble with at first.

The ones crossed out are the teams I tried to use but failed. Other people reported great success with New Moon Luna, for example, but I was never able to get the speed tuning right on mine to avoid getting cut by Lady of the Scales, so I abandoned it. The team in bold is the one I eventually found success with. So much success, in fact, that I actually auto-battle those teams. Genesis Ras, Lady of the Scales, Setsuka and Frieren have turned from an object of dread into free points that I eagerly hunt for. And that’s the whole purpose of this exercise.

But then you might ask, “What if I don’t have any of the common counter units?” I’m going to post my most commonly used counter teams below, and they will contain a lot of moonlight, collab and limited characters and artifacts. That’s just the kind of game Epic Seven is. They make their money by creating problems and selling the solutions. The good news is that the meta is constantly changing, and eventually Smilegate will release enough counters to send whatever unit is terrorizing you into hiding. In the meantime, you should try to get at least one copy of every limited and collab unit and artifact. The unit part, at least, is not hard as long as you don’t waste skystones. Moonlight units are a little more challenging. You just have to collect them over time, focusing on the meta-defining ones, i.e. anyone who does something really annoying or unfair.

Then you might also ask, “What if I have the units but I don’t have the gear?” Uh… welcome to the club? Epic Seven players who are fully satisfied with the builds of all their characters don’t exist. The beauty of the “hunt specific teams” method is that you don’t need to gear your whole roster, you just have to put your very best gear on your hunters and go to town. You’re bound to have some good gear somewhere, even if you’re relatively new. Otherwise you wouldn’t have made it to Champion V in the first place.

Moreover, to be honest, unless you’re trying to outspeed everyone, you’re unlikely to run into any crazy strong builds between Champion V and Emperor V. It’s only from Emperor onward that people try all kinds of psychedelic builds just to mess with your sanity. You won’t win 100% of the opponents you challenge, but as long as you win most of them, you’ll naturally climb.

Last note, what about arena defense? LOL IDK. Mine has like an 8% win rate, not gonna lie. It’s a good place to put annoying characters (like Belian) and assorted trap builds, but I can’t be bothered.

Teams I actually used

Time to share what I targeted and how I did it. I learned from others, others can naturally learn from me. Besides, there’s no point gatekeeping any of this stuff anyway: new characters like School Nurse Yulha and Rider Sigret are bound to shake up the meta in the coming weeks.

Enemy team 1: Basically anything without Harsetti or Lady of the Scales

Solution: Cleave with Straze and Amid. Those teams are the most likely to be booby-trapped, so I honestly avoid them until nothing easier is showing up. A Ruele of Light could be 300 speed for example (almost certainly not at the Champion level but you never know), or 280 with Sole Consolation to cut and apply Invincible. If your Amid is 310 or higher, Straze cleaves become much safer, and then you can aim for unprotected Rinak teams as well (i.e. still no Harsetti or Lady).

Example:

Stats on my team:

Amid

My fastest unit, but considered slow as far as Amids go. I pulled her on release and she was a bench warmer for the longest time, but she’s useful now I have some speed gear. That’s why I say you should pull every limited unit if you can. I occasionally give her Young Senya’s Proof of Friendship artifact to make sure Straze goes after her.

Straze

The legend. Probably my favorite character as far as design and cool factor goes. I would love to get that crit damage to 350 and the speed to about 200. Triple torrent is in the cards for him in the future as well.

Watcher Schuri

The same one I use for Dark Constellation. He’s mostly here for the speed imprint, which brings Amid to 306 speed. He usually doesn’t get a turn, but something slips past Briseria and Straze sometimes, and then he finishes the job. Ka-blammo!

Briar Witch Iseria

In this team, her job is just to prevent revive by existing. Since she often cuts Straze, I can fish for defense breaks with her S3 if I think it’s safe. However AOEs can be risky depending on who you’re fighting.

Enemy Team 2: Genesis Ras/Yulha with Lady of the Scales, Harsetti, Setsuka
Enemy Team 3: Genesis Ras, Lady of the Scales, Setsuka, Frieren

Solution: Empyrean Ilynav, Shadow Knight Pyllis, Roana, Lionheart Cermia.

Foolishness, Your Majesty. This is no curse, but providence!

I use the same team for auto-battling both of the enemy teams I mentioned, with a very high win rate. Shadow Knight Pyllis is sorta, kinda replaceable in this setup (Boss Arunka, Belian or some other fixed damage knight should work). And maaaybe you could replace Empyrean Ilynav with Diene to stop defense penetration? Haven’t tried it myself.

Empyrean Ilynav

Didn’t understand the hype until I got her. And then still didn’t understand the hype until I fought Genesis Ras first with her, then without her. My knight in shining armor, please protect me forever more. A Protection Set build would be great when going up against Frieren, because your whole team needs to survive her initial S3.

Shadow Knight Pyllis

Shadow Knight Pyllis has two purposes in this comp: to reduce damage through her passive (reduces counterattack damage) and to beat up Frieren using the extra damage from Rocket Punch. You have to outlast Genesis Ras/Yulha’s damage-absorbing phase, but after that Frieren goes down in like two hits max. Getting Collapsed by Genesis Ras can be a real problem, but it only happens once in a blue moon.

Roana 

Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted Roana in last year’s Champion V post as well. She really is evergreen because of her passive that heals from extra attacks and counter attacks. When it works, it REALLY works. Setsuka, Harsetti and Frieren are all about the counters and extras, so Roana has a field day just standing there. Heck, she even heals up all of the damage from Setsuka’s S3, as long as you don’t die from the initial hit. Get Roana from the next RGB selector if you don’t have her already. I think Stella Harpa and Shimadra’s Staff are the best artifacts for this team.

Lionheart Cermia

Also one of my MVPs last year. And this year. And every year. Another evergreen unit due to her passive and recent Exclusive Equipment. As long as enemies insist on spamming counters and extra attacks, there will always be a place for Lionheart Cermia. I recently switched her from a Lifesteal to a Destruction Set build. Her DEF went down but Crit Damage went up so she hits about the same. I intend to pour more resources into making better gear for her, e.g. both the helmet and the armor need urgent replacement.

Enemy Team 4: Lady of the Scales, Harsetti, Setsuka, Blood Blade Karin

Solution: Aram, Argent Waves Hwayoung, Briar Witch Iseria, Silver Blade Aramintha.

Cry out to her. Beg her to drive her sword into your heart!

In theory, this should also work if there’s a different unit in the front instead of BBK, e.g. Elvira. This team can veeeery occasionally fail if you run into a cockroach Setsuka who dodges and counters absolutely everything, but that’s just how RNG works. Team stats:

Aram

She exists mainly to counter Harsetti by triggering Argent Waves Hwayoung. If there’s no Harsetti, you can use Conqueror Lilias to trigger AHwa, depending on who you’re facing. I haven’t had much luck with my CLilias, so I stick with Harsetti-hunting. Use her S3 on Argent Waves Hwayoung (if she survives) or Silver Blade Aramintha to clean up anyone who survives the initial onslaught.

Argent Waves Hwayoung

Summer Photogenic or go home. AHwa is easy to build and does lots of damage, but you need that artifact to make this work.

Briar Witch Iseria: Stats shown above. In this team, her job is not to prevent revives but to block immortality by applying Unable to Buff to the enemy frontliner. To do so reliably, she needs to soulburn her S3. You either need a souls generating artifact on Aram or a mage carrying Tagehel’s Ancient Book to give you enough souls.

Silver Blade Aramintha

Holding Tagehel’s Book is a must, but she has other important roles. First, her passive pushes her up whenever anyone acts, so she takes a turn pretty quickly without needing a lot of speed. With her high Effectiveness, she also has a good chance of inflicting Burn and Stun on the enemies, even on Lady of the Scales with her high Effect Resistance. And you can use her S3 a second time if AHwa is dead, to fish for more Stuns. I can’t believe I slept on this unit all these years.

Enemy Team 5: Genesis Ras, Lady of the Scales, Setsuka, Rinak

Solution: Yulha, Lady of the Scales, Setsuka, Benimaru.

Rinak reminds me of a little rat scampering about the field. I always get great satisfaction from wiping her off the map. The biggest threat to this team is actually Genesis Ras failing to crit Yulha and get his second turn. If he fires his S3 later on when Yulha has lost her damage-absorbing buff, it can wipe my whole team. I’d say this team has an 80% success rate. 50-50 if I auto, which is why I usually do it manually.

Yulha

I love a good rags-to-riches story. Lady of the Scales plus good EEs resurrected Yulha’s career. On defense, I use the EE that increases her reflect damage. For attacks, you should use the one that resets her S3 cooldown, instead of being too lazy to switch like me. One S3 can kill Rinak easily even with a miss, and a second one should do the same to Setsuka. But the real reason I use Yulha here is to kill Genesis Ras once with her spike damage. I get a kick out of people exploding after attacking Yulha, it’s just a ton of fun to watch.

Lady of the Scales

If you can’t beat them, join them! She’s there to turn Yulha into a roach. I hold back her S3 until the enemy Setsuka blinds everyone, then I cleanse. What is she even wearing, tho…

Setsuka

Needs about 3000 more HP  and 50 more Crit Damage IMO. Her job is to hit everyone with Blind and then just hang out until her Fighting Spirit is full. Her S3 is usually enough to kill or severely maim everyone on the field, though sometimes Yulha + her counters + Benimaru finish the job long before her S3 is ready.

Benimaru

Oh, you missed the Slime collab? Whoops, too bad. Benimaru has increased hit chance in his kit, but his main job is to S3 to trigger Genesis Ras’s immortality so that GRas can kill himself against Yulha in his first turn. Once GRas loses his damage-absorbing buff, Benimaru goes after Rinak, Setsuka and Genesis Ras in that order. 4000 attack and 320 crit damage without losing HP is the dream.

Enemy Team 6: Genesis Ras, Lady of the Scales, Bystander Hwayoung, Setsuka

Solution: Boss Arunka, Empyrean Ilynav, Lionheart Cermia, Roana

The enemy team I have the least handle on, and one I avoid unless I’ve refreshed for ages and can’t find anyone easier. I should be able to beat them more reliably with an Empyrean Ilynav on Protection Set and a Boss Arunka with Immunity Set and at least 25,000 HP. Right now it’s around a 60% chance depending on how beastly the Bystander Hwayoung and Setsuka are, and whether Boss Arunka gets sealed by Genesis Ras or not.

Boss Arunka

This HP is way, way too low, and I would like to give her Immunity Set instead of HP, so she has a looong way to go. In my defense, I just got her recently on the 40% discount mystic banner, so I’m still figuring her out. I’ve seen the vision, now I just have to make it work.

Updated Boss Arunka

Much better, and also much better at staying alive against Bystander Hwayoung. Not that it helps when Bwayoung aims for another character, but it’s better than nothing. Just need a better necklace and boots to get rid of the wasted Effectiveness and I’m done. Very simple character to build.

And that’s it for the teams I hunted! If you have any comments, suggestions or tips for other players, leave them down below! Happy hunting!