Bound Hero Battle: Corrin (M) & Azura

Fresh from Fateslandia comes Corrin and Azura, ready and waiting to do battle once again in this Bound Hero Battle! As one of the less difficult infernal maps, this ranks of this BHB may have a refresher in their midsts, but does not feature reinforcements spawns -- or the requirement to bait or strike to get the map moving. This time, your foes will come to you, therefore making your job much, much easier. With a strong enough tank, you shouldn’t need to do a lot of complex maneuvering; and though Corrin may present a threat (more on that later) dealing with him really isn’t that difficult if you bring the right units into the fray.

Before you begin teambuilding, though it’s completely possible you already possess everything you need to beat this map. Created by Gamepress staff member RedFerrari1998, the video guide below uses only F2P units, one instance Skill Inheritance, and some Seals -- see the description for more details. If it doesn’t work for you, though, then read on!

As is generally true of Bound Hero Battles, the individual units used is very important as they will primarily inform your strategy. There are a few routes one can take depending on what units are available to you, and, of course, adjustment based on the units one possesses is always a possibility.

Tanks

Since this map is split up into two chokepoints, you’ll likely want to bring at least one tank to hold the line. You don’t have to worry about baiting here since the enemies will move regardless, but that definitely doesn’t mean you have to go an all-striker route.

Armors such as Zelgius, Black Knight, Winter Tharja, Fallen Hardin, Hector, LA Hector, Legendary Hector, and Fallen Robin are able to hit hard very upon counterattacking, especially if they’re making use of Quick Riposte or Vengeful Fighter. Calvary tanks like Xander, Camus, and Sigurd perform better with class-specific buffs -- Sigurd is notable for his ability to tank a fair bit of magic damage due to Divine Tyrfing and the Crusader’s Ward. An amazing F2P option is Fjorm, who is able to tank ranged foes extremely well with her exclusive Special, Ice Mirror, and Legendary Ike, whose native Warding Breath grants him accelerated cooldown and extra Resistance.

Dragons are also very strong tanks, especially when they’re equipped with Lightning Breath (or another Breath and Distant Counter, if you’re feeling fancy). Nowi, Female Corrin, Male Kana, Fae, Myrrh, Legendary Robin, Female Kana, Adult Tiki, Young Tiki, and/or Summer Young Tiki will all likely be able to do the job and do it well.

Strikers

Although slightly less necessary than usual, the lack of exceptionally powerful foes on this map means that strikers will easily overpower foes and break through enemy lines. Do note that fliers are preferable here for their maneuverability -- cavalry and infantry do risk getting stuck in a dead end.

Fliers also can make excellent use of Skills like Reposition, Hit and Run, Drag Back, Guidance, and Flier Formation since they have no terrain restrictions. In fact, you can reunite your forces quite easily with a flier, given that the stream that separates both sides of the map is only one space wide.

In particular, archers can be incredibly potent strikers due to their ability to overpower and/or finish off any enemies your tank may otherwise struggle with, especially if they are equipped with a Brave Bow. Brave Lyn, WF Hinoka, Bridal Cordelia, Summer Takumi, Setsuna, and Klein are potential strikers you may want to use, with a special mention going to Brave Lyn given her F2P status.

Alternatively, melee Brave users are able to hit foes twice without retaliation, and may even quad hit if they outspeed an enemy. Cherche, Cordelia, Elincia, and WT Reinhardt are all great Brave users who can make excellent use of class-specific buffs. Finn is an F2P option who would work particularly well in an all-cavalry team.

Brave and Blade tome wielders can also serve to be useful if your team composition provides them with the appropriate buffs, though speedy mages can also be powerful strikers. Tharja, Bridal Tharja, Reinhardt, Tailtiu, Ishtar, Linde, WT Olwen, SF Nino, and Nino are potential options here, especially if they are equipped with a Breaker skill to add to their coverage.

Healers

While not generally a great choice over units who can deal heavy damage or dancers, Healers can be incredibly useful in this Bound Hero Battle due to their ability to provide valuable healing to your tanks. Genny, Priscilla, Elise, Nanna, Wrys, and Lissa are potential additions to a team that may serve you well on this map.

Buffers

As units that offer extra utility, buffers typically fit one of the above roles while also supporting your other units. Since one of the easiest ways to beat this map is to establish chokepoints, buffers can help reduce chip damage on your tanks and assist them in netting key KOs.

Because of Skill Inheritance, any unit can be a buffer with enough investment -- many Drives, Spurs, Hones, Fortifies, and Dual Rallies are readily accessible on 4 star units, and can be further stacked with seals for maximum coverage. Notable options who natively provide buffs through their exclusive weapons include YT Olivia, Performing Azura, Eirika, and Ephraim, while Brave Lucina, New Year Corrin, and New Year Azura are able to stack Drives through theirs.

Strategizing for this Bound Hero Battle should be fairly simple due to the absence of reinforcements. While it can be difficult to exactly predict what will happen due to IV / Merge variance, here’s some general tips to get you started.

Identify Yourself!

As per usual, you’ll likely want to start off this map by browsing through the foes you’ll be facing, taking note of any particularly potent threats. Given the relatively low Speed and average Attack of most of these enemies, the most obvious threat are, well, Azura and Corrin. No big surprises there.

Thankfully, neither of them have particularly high Defense or Resistance -- any unit with a Weapons Triangle Advantage or an appropriate Breaker Skill should be able to handle them fairly handily. The hardest part about dealing with them is making sure they don’t catch you off guard -- either by getting refreshed in Corrin’s case, or by taking advantage of her Sapphire Lance in Azura’s.

Bountiful Boosts

If you’re making use of Hones, Fortifies, Rallies, or Spurs to help your bulky units tank more effectively, you’ll want to keep in mind your positioning so that your stat boosts will actually take effect. Drives are a bit less stringent in this regard -- requiring the unit with the Drive Skill to be within 2 spaces of the unit they’re boosting instead of adjacent to them. Given their reasonable accessibility, you may want to use them instead, assuming they offer a potent enough stat boost to get you through.

Hop, Skip, Jump

While this map seems to expect you to deal with having your forces split up, fliers sort of split it wide open. By using Guidance or Reposition to sling a unit over the gap that separates the two starting positions, you can easily reunite your forces and lead any foes that are trailing behind you in the dust. This can present a valuable opportunity to regroup once the map is nearly completed, and given the relative lack of archers on this map (there’s only one!) is reason enough to make use of a flier here.

Perfect Positioning

Buffs and Spurs aren’t the only reason you’ll want to keep your positioning tight -- Bond Skills can also make the difference between netting a KO or taking a loss. This is particularly notable with Fjrom due to her native Atk/Def Bond; often, being next to an ally can offer her a significant offensive and defensive boost. The same is true for any unit that makes use of Owl tomes or Innes when he’s using Nidhogg; since their activation effects are dependent on allies being adjacent to them, units making use of these weapons will likely want an ally (or three) close by.

Burly Breakers

If you need a dedicated check to a particular unit and none of your available units are making the cut, Breaker Skills can be a great low-cost way to ensure you’re able to KO that last tricky unit. They’ll also prevent follow-ups by that specific weapon type from being performed on your unit with the Breaker Skill (assuming your unit’s HP is ≥ 50%), making them as defensively useful as they are offensively potent.

If At First You Don’t Succeed

Don’t be fooled by video walkthroughs of any Bound Hero Battle that you watch -- it’s very rare for anyone to beat high-difficulty content (or record a video of themselves doing so!) on their first try.  Additionally, the potential variance in unit builds that Skill Inheritance brought along with the random nature of summoning has resulted in pretty much every single summoner having different building blocks to work with. This, when combined with the high difficulty level of Infernal, may prove frustrating while someone is trying to find the right combination of units and moves. The key thing to keep in mind is that it may take some light Skill Inheritance and seal shuffling as well as multiple tries of the map to find a strategy that works for you. Every single turn you complete gets you one step closer to completing the puzzle. Finally, reading about or watching videos of successful strategies may also help you break through a particularly difficult turn that you can’t complete, or may give you ideas of a new unit to use.