Summoners War Trial of Ascension Hard Guide

Summoners War Trial of Ascension Hard Guide by Abs01ut3

Hi, Abs01ut3 here. This time, I want to give a short guide for ToA Hard, both old and new version. It won’t be as long as my usual guide, but I’ll try to cover as many aspects as possible.

Please, note that this is more of “what tips/lineup I found useful for ToA H”, not an overarching guide on it. Expect it to be a more extravagant version of “Hey guys I’ve cleared ToA H, and this is what I use”, and don’t expect too much out of it :S

Overview

1. My own ToA H progress

I cleared old ToA H last month, and new ToA H this month. I feel that I should be able to clear ToA H much earlier than this since the runes+monsters are already there (more below). I usually do ToA Hard on the last few days, and mostly stopped at 70-ish due to frustration and lack of time. Last month I set a goal to reach F90, and here we are. Special thanks to Mokies/Mellonin and Richay! Some pic

2. What I think about ToA Hard

It’s devilishly tedious and trying, especially if you have to manual early (I started manualing from F40-ish). Reaching F100 is more a matter of dedication than available resources. For some stages you have no choice (given your box) but to slog through 2 waves, then roll a dice on the last wave to see if RNG is in your favor (or not). This means repeated bashing on your head against one floor to pass it. I might be biased, but I think ToA H should double the stones gained and gem awarded on X5 floor, while leaving X0 rewards intact. I got crap from all 2 LnD, 2 LS, but I’ll keep on doing it because y’know, F2P mentality and such. It’s not worth the effort for many people though, and I understand them.

3. Tips for ToA H

I recommend everyone to at least aim for F70 Hard. It awards a devilmon and the scaling isn’t that bad yet. I also (highly) recommend to do it early, and not wait for free ToA. This is because free ToA is too close to reset day, and you’ll be hard pressed for time. The few extra energy saved isn’t worth missing the upper tier rewards. If there’s any troublesome stages, you’ll want FRR day, not free ToA, because there you can put on the best possible runes, then put it back at no cost. Lastly, don’t be like me and underestimate yourself too much. Try as far as you can before resigning yourself to stop; you might be surprised.

P.S: There are 3 requirements for ToA H: monsters, runes, and tactics. You can make do with 100% farmable monsters (if you include HoH, or even if not) and the runes required to clear F100 hard would be around c3-g1 Asia. I’ll be focusing more on tactics here.

Recommended monsters

These are all I use. You don’t need to have them all, and most floors are done with farmables, so there’s flexibility.

• Baretta (Despair, spd tanky): ToA god. For bosses, Turbulence on 70%+ ATB (with spd debuff), or ~40% (without spd debuff on boss).
• Aria (Despair-Revenge, spd tanky): ToA goddess. Please max her sleep out (80%). A small tip: You can cycle her 3rd skill faster on boss stages by hitting the minions instead of bosses. If the 80% sleep lands she’ll recover much of the ATB. This is why I kept one imp alive vs double OG stage and managed to debuff both permanently.
• Bernard (Swift, spd tanky): More speed than tanky. This is the battery of your team, the one which allows you to chain CC and debuff pesky bosses (more on this later). Mine’s spd/hp/acc with < 230 spd and still going strong. You can sub in Verde for this, but he’s not farmable (I don’t have him), he complicates some stages (Ragdolls, Leo, Jultan) and he can’t put debuffs.
• Thrain (Violent, spd tanky): Yes yes, another spd tanky monster. What we want is the 2nd DoT skill. He speed things up considerably (making the climb less tedious), and his 3rd skill is not that reliable. Substitutable with Hemos, and in some cases he’s the first one to go if you need more utility; he’s more of a luxury if you already have everything else.
• Talc (Violent, Spd/HP/HP): Mine’s on Megan’s Swift and still going strong. His trademark is Def buff, 80% provoke (super useful) and maintenance heal. He can’t solo heal boss stages, but for the usual floors you hardly need any healing, and the 80% CC chance is super strong (actually as strong as Aria’s sleep). Note that starting F80 or so, his passive won’t work anymore (unless you have the appropriate buff/debuff in place), although he can still absorb some hits.

So, Baretta (L), Thrain, Aria, Bernard, Talc. With this team, you can already do 80-90% of ToA Hard stages. Because of Thrain (event) and Aria (HoH), they might be classified as farmables, they might not. Most of the subs are for boss stages and cheeses. Other monsters:

• Chasun: This is to cover “big healer” role. You can do Ariel, you can do Ahman, etc, just make sure that the healing output is enough (you might have to go Talc + Bella, for example). Her atk buff isn’t that relevant; most of the stages requiring her is solely for the heal. A small tip: There are cases where you don’t need the heal, and the best course of action is to Blossom the highest ATB member in your team. This is to cast and sustain atk buff as long as possible.
• Shannon: The little ToA stepsister. People just don’t realize how good she is. She’s my only def buffer aside from Talc, she has plenty of debuffs (especially when Aria can’t be brought in), and she’s staple in many of the boss stages.
• Malaka: I have no Tyron, so he’s covering the additional CC role. And you know what, he’s actually better than Tyron in ToA! 100% base stun rate on bomb detonation, AoE atk/def debuff with 95% base rate. Think Tyron’s freeze -1 cd, with AoE Bernard debuffs. Most of the time I spent my Aria, Baretta and Thrain’s AoE, laying on DoT and stuns. Malaka fills out the 2nd turn stun nicely while the 3 AoE are refreshing. His 1st skill scales to debuffs (mini-Amir), so I chip down 10-15% HP from def broken enemies, even in F80+. Also, Malaka+Aria means atk, def, spd, glancing debuff in AoE; a perfect complement. Just be aware of the 10 debuff limit when using him; it’ll happen, trust me.
• Neal: The ultimate cheeser. There are a few stages where she makes a world of difference. As I use her on GO as well, I’ve 6 starred her and no regret so far. Most of your FRR activities on ToA will be on her runes.
• Veromos: Good leader skill, (almost) a must for bomb stages, and 60% 3-turn cd stun is insane. For some stages you can even let go of Baretta + Thrain and still win from his dot. My go-to monster for CC (when you can’t let the opponent do anything = water DK, wind mammoth, spd buffer) and assorted utility.
• Ahman: A Talc with no def buff but higher healing output. You’ll use him when you need both a provoker and main healer. Provoke is the best solution for many bosses, and in many cases it’s as good as a stun.

The niches:

• Jubelle: Only used in 1 stage (double akroma). Good defensive passive and 100% spammable taunt. Should be usable in other floors as well but I didn’t bother.
• Hwa: I only use her on 1 stage (old F100). Not good enough for normal stages, but for bosses she’s useful. You can do without her though.
• Sigmarus: Also used in 1 floor only (new F100). Very squishy, but he has some stuns, AoE atk debuff and (most importantly) damage proportionate to boss HP.
• Chloe/Michelle/Kona: This is the complement for Neal’s strat. Personally, I only use Chloe, since Michelle brings almost nothing else to the table and I have to strip Tesa’s runes for her. Fast Chloe + slow Neal should be enough.
• Mikene: You could do without her, but with Violent she goes nuts. First you must make sure that there’s no crit sensitive enemies before putting her in. No need to skill her up, her freeze is the main selling point.

So 5 cores, 4-6 substitutes and a few one-floor wonder units (that you can equip during FRR, then remove again). Not that many required to tackle 200 floors of ToA, eh?

P.S: I’m missing Verde and Briand. These two are insanely good in ToA H (one is a super-battery version of Bernard, another is revive + heal block + (most importantly) AoE atk debuff), yet I’ve managed. I’m sure that someone else with these but without, say, Aria and Thrain can still clear all 200 floors. Just gotta make do with what we have.

Floor Overview

This is about the same as the advice you’ve been hearing. The difference is the tactics you need to think of. Delaying AoE stun to be used in-between the gap of Neal’s shield and who to CC is not immediately obvious, yet it’s these little things that matter.

Old ToA

Fire ninja + 4 fire sylphids: The sylphids have abnormal damage on the AoE (much higher than equivalent monsters). You need to let them die from DoT (no passive proc), and be diligent in CC-ing them. Wind tank is not of much use here because the AoE is pretty devastating in itself.

Double OG floor: This is what I use, very balanced and safe. The key is to keep all 4 debuffs on both OG. For Bernard it’s easy (mine managed with relatively low speed), while for Aria, you need to do a bit of fine-tuning. Have both imps CC-ed, but keep one (the stunned one, not slept one) as punching bag for Aria and spam 1st skill there. Proccing sleep repeatedly effectively doubles her speed, and this allows you to maintain permanent spd and glancing debuffs on both bosses. Start to work on light OG in both dps and provoke. A atk debuffed, glancing OG hits for very meager amount and unlikely to proc sleep. Use Turbulence as emergency only, and always make sure that whichever OG will be attacking soon has at least 1-turn atk debuff, 1-turn glancing debuff and 2-turn spd debuff (not 1 because she’ll move too fast after her turn). Pretty straightforward once you know what you’re doing.

Craka floor: Two things: DoT and provoke. You’ll want Baretta/Thrain (or both) to let DoT finish the infernos up, then have Ahman/Talc powered by Baretta/Bernard/Verde to maintain permanent provoke on the boss. That’ll prevent her from reviving any of her cronies. Veromos could help for cleansing the AoE def breaks.

Seara floor: Pending for her ToA H post-buff. Most likely can’t be Veromosed away; that or using Briand. Do not touch Liebli unless it’s AoE or if your attack has 50%++ CC rate (Talc, Aria).

Any dark stages: Of which there are many, the dark elemental stage is excluded. For everything else, Neal is a must to make things much easier. Michelle doesn’t bring enough to bring you to boss stage, so I often resort to Neal+Chloe. The other 3 slots are usually Baretta+Thrain +1 (2 DoT so the enemies will die before your RNG fails). Before all that, please rerune Baretta to minimal CR, or else he’ll proc his crit buff too often and die before 2nd/3rd AoE. Dark kitty stages is doable without Neal if you made Baretta and your other AoE with low CR. One exception is the floor with Jultan and dark golem; the 2nd wave has the super-damaging wind low elementals. I use this lineup, using Talc to tank them. Cast Chloe’s shield first (your 0 spd subs Neal will get killed before it’s her turn), and second Fanatic after the shield is about to expire. Do not Turbulence or Doomsday when shield is up; only use them on the gap between the cd. As for wave 1-2 on these stages, it’s easy to take no damage with shield (ie: shield Neal on shumar + groggo stages and sleep groggo), etc.

Any light AA stages: Bring Briand (atk debuff + heal block) or Aria (sleep + heal block). Old ToA’s AA has low damage.

Light vamp + AA: This lineup shows you just how low the AA damage is (it can be healed by Talc even at F90 Hard), and the power of Malaka. Land all 4 debuffs on everyone, sleep one AA then start working on the other, taking care to lay down the heal block. Julianne can be autoed afterwards.

F99: Leo + Verde + Spectra: This is actually quite simple. This is a sample lineup. All you need to know is that they have no AoE, so as long as your wind tank + water tank doesn’t die, they cannot possibly kill you. Talc is super recommended here. Have him taunt Verde and along with glancing debuff, they won’t proc the passive. You’re free to CC any of them depending on whether your wind or water tank is dying.

Old F100: I used Baretta Bernard Aria Chasun Hwa, but most common is probably Baretta Bernard Veromos Chasun Hwa. Heal block helps a ton in making the fight shorter, but it’s not needed to win (my Aria actually dies early on because she revenges with def break on, stupid 15%). Note that Hwa without Baretta cannot keep the boss in lockdown (Hwa+Verd hitting left tower might be possible). The biggest danger is when the right tower is alive, because then you need to have it have its turn and accelerates the boss, possibly causing a wipe. Make sure it dies the fastest possible (no more than 3-4 turns), making sure that the 10 debuff limit doesn’t prevent a dot from sticking (atk def glancing etc debuffs are a waste of a debuff slot). If the tower dies, you’ve pretty much won. Feel free to kill left tower too if the debuff annoys you, since the boss will never move again). Turbulence timing is key, as is speed debuff if he somehow moves. Anything below 5 stacks is fine, and remember that Hwa’s 1st can apply spd debuff too.

If you don’t have Hwa, you could do the tanky route such as Verde Ariel Briand etc. It’s more strict on the rune requirement, however.

New ToA

There are only 5 super-tough stages in the new ToA: super-passive boss (Vero+Perna+Hwadam), super-counter boss (Artamiel+monkeys+yetis), double akroma, F93 and F100. Everything else is passable with the conventional team, perhaps with one or two roster changes.

Vero floor: Here you can go with 2 target priorities and 2 lineups, and both are viable.

• Target priorities: Do you kill Hwadam or Perna first. Hwadam is easier to kill (let him die from DoT with heal block on and he’s done), yet if you kill Perna first twice, you’ve basically already won. It’s similar to the argument of PVP, whether to kill revivers first or dps first. I went for Perna first, but either way is viable as long as you stick to the plan.
• Lineups: Forgo debuffs or stack debuffs? You can go either full on DoT mode with spd debuff and Turbulence on Vero to overload them, or only use def break + big crits to focus fire one by one. Both are also correct, but always aim your lineup to be one or the other, not both at the same time. The higher this floor is, the harder it is to use conventional dps. Heal block is a necessity no matter what.

I’m using this lineup, delaying them while killing Perna first. It’s harder at beginning because it takes a long time to bring it down, but afterwards it’s a cake. You might want to have a wind tank for Perna (I use Chasun, you might want Briand) and more importantly, heal block (Aria or Briand).

AA floor: This counter attack fest is such a b**** at high floors (such as this month’s F80). This should be the first time you face the “cruel RNG” mentality: You climb 2 waves perfectly, and then everything is decided on the first 2 turns of the boss stage. Not stun enough of them, and off you go to square 1. Get used to wasting 15+ mins just to be invalidated in 1 turn, both for this floor and future ones.

First off, this is the lineup I use. Now, there are several key points to this fight. First off, Baretta, Aria, Shannon, etc AoE must stun at least 3 of them from the start. Failure to do this means you might as well restart. Secondly, you have to decide between def buff and another Despair RNG on your Shannon for the first turn. Much depends on who’s not stunned. If only 1 is stunned, might as well AoE since Def buff cannot save you anyway, while if 2-3 are stunned, it depends on who exactly are stunned. Bernard’s job will be spd buff > debuffs on AA (not monkeys, more on this later).

If everything goes well (perhaps after several retries), you now have a chance. Now, your job is to prevent yeti from casting its buff, but otherwise leave him alone. Why? It’s because you’re better off focusing the dps on the monkeys. You see, suppose both monkeys are not stunned/slept. If you attack anyone else, both monkeys are able to proc the passive. However, if you only attack the monkeys, only 1 of them can counter. This effectively halves the incoming damage and stun. If one of them is stunned, focus dps on the unstunned one because you will never get stunned by the monkey anymore. If both are already stunned, continue hitting the monkeys unless the yetis are not stunned yet and your attacker has Despair. Most of the time, 1 slap each from Aria should disable both yetis. You can use provoke against the yetis, but not the monkeys, so adjust accordingly.

If you do this, only AA will be attacking you, which is why we’re debuffing him with Bernard to begin with. Focus on the monkeys, putting heal block when it’s close to 50% HP and def breaking with Bernard if possible. Sooner or later, the monkeys will die and it’s downhill from there.

This is an example of careful tactics making things much easier. Ofc, you could try other methods.

Double akroma: This can go 2 ways. Either you make everyone tanky enough to take a hit from akroma, or you put a dark tank in there. In the former case a def buffer is mandatory, while for the latter it’s only strongly recommended. I did the dark tank route with this lineup.

First thing to note is that I don’t use def buffer. It does come close many times, so I recommend a def buffer (Shannon or Talc) to accompany you. Def buffer is important because you can’t touch them with debuff, but youcan touch yourself with buff, and def buff is the best one there is. The most common dark tank is Veromos or Jubelle. Jultan is an offensive tank which can’t tank much, and you could ofc go for Neal strat. However, I think that Jubelle / Veromos provides much more utility to reach the boss stage. Veromos is better for wave 1-2 but weaker for boss stage, while Jubelle is the opposite (because of his passive, although a 100% taunt is by no means weak). Once one akroma is dead you should be able to auto it (watch the game though; sometimes the AI is stupid).

F93: 4 ragdolls + leo: This will forever be F93, and this will also forever be my most hated floor. The wave composition is fire+water for the first 2 waves, both absurdly fast (~180 speed) that using conventional Neal tactics is very hard to do. The boss stage is 4 dark + 1 wind, with each of them capable of 1-2 shotting everyone. Also, you’re bound to Leo’s passive, and every crit is +40% ATB for them. Imagine an AoE critting into them, prompting them to 18k hit you each. After 12++ hours of bashing my head, I ended up with this lineup, and it still requires me to slog through wave 1-2 (which is perfectly capable of mowing you down, unlike the measly skeleton + golem thingy before dark yetis), just to hope that Violent works the way I wanted.

Overall role: Bernard is useless for boss stage, but ATB boost allows you to grab the initiative, else you’ll be dead after Aria/someone else AoE. Helps immensely in wave 1-2 (this stage is harsh on all 3 waves, not just 1). Baretta+Thrain is comboed because I need to kill them before my luck runs out. Never cast Doomsday while the shield is still up, and pray for Violent into double Plague. Baretta should Turbulence Leo because otherwise Talc will be dead soon afterwards, else save Turbulence to use on the closest Ragdoll to have its turn after Neal. Talc will cry here; almost every hit from wave 1-3 (except fire monsters) will pierce his passive. His role is to tank Leo and provide def buff.

Lastly, we have Neal. She’s very specific for my case, a Vio-Nemesis Atk/Atk/Atk, 14k HP. This is intentional, because you need all of these. Atk to keep her HP low, and to heal though wave 1-2. What I did was shielding self, prayed that she doesn’t violent through the shield, while unleashed all DoT on them. The first heal and Turbulence should be used to keep Talc alive. Now, there’ll be 2 turns downtime between her shield. I tried putting Kona, Chloe, Michelle in, but they’re a liability for wave 1-2. Camules could work, but I don’t have him. What needs to be done is for 1 (and only 1) Ragdoll to hit her when she has def buff. This will almost kill her, but (more importantly) give her a turn immediately because of the Nemesis set. Afterwards, you need yet another RNG to proc Violent so she can shield herself again.

So we’re talking about passing though wave 1-2 (past the hungry Raoq passive and def break, then wave 2 of spd buff into def break -> pursuit -> pursuit -> pursuit onto your poor poor Baretta), then on wave 3 you need 3 kinds of luck: to have your first shield not violent-ed away, to not die from 1 hit and gain enough ATB for a turn, and to proc violent immediately after so you can shield again. Bonus RNG would be Thrain somehow going wacky with double/triple Plague, which didn’t happen to me. Neal’s job in wave 1-2 is usually to shield Baretta, but be flexible. Btw, a def broken and invic Baretta is a very nice magnet :D.

Ofc, if you’re better equipped (Neal Baretta Talc Bernard Thrain is 100% farmable btw, and Hemos works nearly as well), you could do it the old-fashioned way, with AoE atk debuff (Briand/Arnold) and def buff (Talc/Shannon). The reason I didn’t go this way is because I don’t have Briand/Arnold, and my only Atk debuffers are Malaka and Sig, both water and thus dead to Leo. If you have them, joy be with you. Else, I’m afraid cheese it is. I really hope someone has a better lineup than mine; I don’t know if I want to suffer through this hell again in 2 months.

Light hell lady: Sample lineup. Actually a very easy boss stage. I only put it here because I happened to store the SS. As long as your Veromos doesn’t fail you on the AoE def break, you should be fine.

F94-F99: These floors are hard not because they’re unique, but the absurd scaling makes every skill they have more potent. These are some example lineups: F94, F99. For the monkey, CC everyone, but if wind monkey is not stunned, focus on him or he’ll counterattack you. For wind mammoth and water DK, they’re coded to use AoE cleanse when they’re heavily debuffed, focus on them first. Remember that going with 5 CC 0 healer is a valid strategy.

New F100: (As if this isn’t long enough) This is the bulk of the “guide”, since my old guide only covers old ToA bosses. First of all, there’s an excellent primer by KimhariRonso, which helped me understand the mechanics (believe it or not, I know little of it off ToA N F100 :x). Next up, this is my lineup. Please don’t balk on the Cami; there’s an equivalent substitute in this lineup. You could replace the Aria with Veromos, and the Chasun with any big healer.

General requirement:

• DPS scaling to enemy HP (Spectra, Sigmarus, Jamire, Camilla, etc)
• AoE speed slow (Shannon, Spectra, Aria, etc)
• Def break (Bernard, Bella, etc)
• DoT (Veromos, Baretta, etc)
• Major healer (Chasun, Ariel, etc)
• ATB manipulator (Baretta, Hwa, etc)

Strongly recommended:

• Good CC (Baretta, Aria, Veromos, etc)
• Speed battery (Verde, Bernard, etc)
• Heal block (Aria, Briand, etc)

Have one of each and it’s a good setup. There are 2 general lineups, with Hwa and without Hwa. With Hwa, you almost always need Verde (Baretta+Bernard can barely catch up), but you can afford to be more tanky and survivable. Example: Veromos, Hwa, Verde, Ariel, Bella. Without Hwa, you need a way to kill both incarnations fast. For most people, this will be Baretta. With the boss getting more turns, you’d need more utility in your hands, such as Aria or Veromos. This guide is for the without Hwa part.

Now, while you know what’s going to happen, in practice there may be more subtleties you didn’t notice. I’m here to help you out on that.

Wave 1 (Anavel + Juno)

This is a very annoying and dangerous wave. First of all, if you do not have Veromos, CC Anavel at all cost because her AoE def break is 3 turns long and Juno can’t be CC-ed effectively. I’d even go as far as Turbulencing Anavel. Aria shouldn’t cast AoE here, and just focus on sleeping both Anavels. Likewise, Baretta should only use 1st and 2nd skill on Juno to hopefully stun them.

A very important part is Juno. She has ~2.5k hit times 3 on each attack, most of which are crits. Therefore, your Chasun/wind unit will be suffering quite a beatdown here. Also, they should never have 2 debuffs each. Count out the types of the debuffs, and make sure you don’t stack them. For me, I had sleep, stun, spd debuff (from Camilla), and glancing hits from Chasun (never tempt RNG because it will land when Juno already has 1 debuff). Your task is to CC+kill Anavel first (Bernard’s debuff), then split the damage equally among the Junos. Why split? Because if you kill them one by one, in the end it’ll be very hard if the last Juno is full health, yet she kept on having 2+ debuffs. By having all 3 Juno alive, you can also split the debuff separately (eg: Chasun will only go for left Juno, Aria to middle, Baretta to right, etc). As for Aria, please take special care not to hit a Juno who’s almost had her turn. The reason is because you can hit sleep + stun at the same time, then she’ll heal. You can cancel the sleep by hitting it with others (preferably not Chasun). It’ll take a long time because you can’t DoT any of these, but it’s doable.

Wave 2 (Veromos + Aria)

Yet another wave specifically designed to screw the typical debuff heavy ToA team. What I did was land as many debuffs as possible. Land Aria’s and Baretta’s AoE, heal block and Bernard debuff on 1 Veromos, then wail away with your designated dps. It must die fast, else Aria’s AoE will overwhelm you. You will get AoE (preferably with glancing debuff on); don’t panic and keep on sleeping Aria while focus firing the Veromos. Unlike the first wave, this will end fast, for better or worse.

Boss stage

After reading the linked guide above, there are a few things you need to know.

Firstly, the boss will (almost?) always cast Incarnation Split on her first turn. Do not bother debuffing or Turbulencing her here, she regens way too fast and all debuffs will be removed once she casts it.

Secondly, be aware of what passive she keeps and what she unleashed:

• Greed: Gives 100% lifesteal as passive. You need heal block for this. The incarnation version has AoE attack that recovers ~10-20% of her HP.
• Vendetta: Gives 100% revenge whenever attacked as passive. Along with Greed passive’s, she’s unstoppable without heal block. The counterattack can remove buff. The incarnation version has AoE attack with 50% provoke, forcing you to be counterattacked by her.
• Protection: Gives insane Def buff (around twice as powerful as regular Def buff) as passive. Usually 1/3 or 1/4 incoming damage. The incarnation version will stun on attack and hits insanely hard. 32k damage is not unheard of. It scales with Def (of which the incarnation has a lot of). Always, always land Bernard’s debuff on her.

So what’ll happen is, she’ll unleash 2 incarnations. Any incarnation thus unleashed means she won’t have that respective passive (so she’ll only keep 1 passive). At the end of the duration (there’s a countdown on the skill cd), she’ll absorb the remaining incarnations. What’ll happen:

• If both incarnations are dead: She’ll remove all debuffs, then be stunned for a turn. She can only split again after 2 turns. During this time, her passive is only 1 (the only she keeps since the beginning). This is your DPS phase.
• If any incarnation is alive: She’ll remove all debuffs, then absorb the living incarnation(s), gaining back the passive (thus if both are alive, she’s back to 3 passives). The permanent stat boost is really noticeable (unlike Ath’taros), and most likely she’ll heal to full and wipe you out, one by one. This is often game over for you, especially if she casts her AoE (which applies def break), followed by the inevitable counterattacks (God forbid if it heals).

As you can see, there are 3 cases:

• She keeps Greed passive: Boss will keep lifesteal passive. Apply heal block if you want, but not to the cost of letting incarnations alive. Spam both (Aria+Baretta) AoE on everyone (you did keep them off cd, didn’t you?), while using Turbulence on boss to delay her absorbing. Let the incarnations die off DoT, with Bernard’s def debuff helping out. CC the counterattacking incarn. If she’s merely slept, judge if you can take the damage since the other incarn’s def is too high even def broken. If she’s stunned, go all out on her. The other incarn only takes meaningful damage from DoT, but makes sure she’s Bernard debuffed if not CC-ed. Prevent her from absorbing Vendetta at all cost.
• She keeps Vendetta passive: Boss will keep counterattack passive. Spam both (Aria+Baretta) AoE on everyone, while using Turbulence on boss to delay her absorbing. Let the incarnations die off DoT, with Bernard’s def debuff helping out. I’d personally ignore the defensive incarn, putting heal block and def break on the lifestealing incarn and wail on her. If you’re confident she’ll die before the absorb, judge if you need to focus on the defensive incarn or if you can start dps-ing the boss early. Sometimes she dies on her own from Baretta’s DoT, sometimes you have to help out. DO make sure she’s either def broken or CC-ed, because her hits are painful. Prevent her from absorbing Greed at all cost.
• She keeps Protection passive: Boss will keep Def passive. The boss is the most relaxed this way, and you need not worry about incarn nuking you anymore. Spam both (Aria+Baretta) AoE on everyone, while using Turbulence on boss to delay her absorbing. Let the incarnations die off DoT, with Bernard’s def debuff helping out. Try to CC the counterattacking incarn first. If she’s stunned, go all out, but if she’s only slept, I’d go for the other incarn. Land heal block on the lifestealing incarn, then balance out the damage between the two incarns. This time, both are vulnerable to regular dps, so you need to split up the damage. If you have to choose, hit the stunned counterattacking one first, because she’s not always free to hit.

P.S: In all three cases, Aria must mostly hit the incarns, proccing the sleep multiple times and allowing her to perm-debuff all 3 incarns. Speed debuff is paramount for this stage.

If you have landed speed debuffs consistently and Turbulent in good timing, there’ll be 1-3 turns when the incarns are dead yet she can’t absorb them yet. Feel free to DPS the boss. The only meaningful damage is from “scale to enemy HP” damage, everything else is gravy. If the boss only has 1 passive, she’s not as threatening (especially with all 4 classic debuffs on her), and you can spam Turbulence more freely (anything above 70%+ ATB). If you’re using Chasun, you can afford to Blossom just for the ATB, so your Sig/Cami/Spectra/etc can burst harder with atk buff. However, remember to save all cooldown when after 2 turns (look at the cd meter once again) to repeat anew. It should take anywhere from 2-5 splits to kill her, depending on how often she’s left with def passive (it’s a slow yet safe passive).

Last but not least, there are several YT videos with very similar comp to mine. I became aware of it after writing this guide, and the similarity is uncanny. Hope you can learn something about it there. All credits are due as appropriate:

My lineup: Baretta Aria Chasun Camilla Bernard

AcePT Chiu: Baretta Aria Chasun Sigmarus Frigate Sigmarus is way squishier, but Frigate adds stun to help secure his survival, plus Bernard’s def break.

H377130Y: Baretta Aria Chasun Malaka Bernard Bomb deals damage regardless of super def buff, way safer with atk debuff.

ProcReadyGaming: Baretta Basalt Bella Spectra Verde Note the roles covered. Verde in place of Bernard, Spectra in place of Camilla, Bella in place of Chasun (and adds def break source after the absence of Bernard). Aria’s CC from Basalt+Spectra, and just when I finished talking about Bella+Talc replacing Chasun, here’s Bella+Basalt.

TeraFlux: Vero Hwa Verde Bella Ariel A superb Hwa lineup.

That’s all for now. I hope it can at least give some inspirations for you. Until the next guide!