B!Hector counters (budget) for AA

[Vicarious]

B!Hector is already very frequent in both Arena and AA.
So, I’m looking in my barracks for budget counterpicks for AA.
Requirements:

• Must survive and KO +10 B!Hector within 1 EP and 1 PP encounter or 2 EP encounters
• Must do so for both B!Hector’s EP build (Special Fighter 3) and MP build (Bold Fighter 3)
• Must do so with no support whatsoever
• Besides +1 merge, no 20k feathers should be used for SI (so no QR3/Guard 3, regretfully)
• Must not be outspeeded naturally
• Preferably green unit

2 examples that first come to mind:

Titania

Boey

I’m open to sugestions.
Thank you!

[Krazytre]

Ross/Echidna?

[GVader]

@Vicarious

B!Hector is already very frequent in both Arena and AA.

Is he tho, I’ve only seen him once across both gamemodes so far, and the one time I did see him I took 0 damage from him

[nobody625]

Minierva too.

Any NFU user that’s not red. Cecilia.

[Vicarious]

Already have them both on my initial +10 score team.

[Krazytre]

You have two of the best Brave Hector counters crossed off of your Brave Hector counter list…

That’s quite convenient, lol.

What about Groom Hinata?

[Vicarious]

I saw him 3 times in 1 AA run. Match up luck is a thing I guess.

[Krazytre]

Can you describe his build, so I can actually test some things on the battle simulator and see whet exactly works with your conditions?

[Zartholomew3K]

Dude, just Dull Armor refine a Slaying Hammer (free lull effect) and TA Lancebreaker the hell out of him. 4*+10 Bartre does the job decently. Pretty much any axe unit can do this comfortably.

Use a healer and chip him down. 20 000 feathers for a dazzling refined pain or grav is plenty enough and beats pretty much all armors from lack of NCD.

Guard 2 and QR 2 are pretty much the same as their tier 3 versions on a budget. You’re fine not spending the feathers on them in the grand scheme of things.

[Vicarious]

It is, lol.

I have him too at +0 with budget set. He may very well indeed beat B!Hector with his base kit. Idk why I always forget about him.

[Vicarious]

I though about Cecilia but is she safe against Special Fighter B!Hector without CC/Close Foil?

[nobody625]

Tbh I got no idea because I never have built one

[Vicarious]

Maltet (Special Refine)
Any assist
Aether
Ostian Counter
SF3/BF3
Joint Drive Atk 3
Mirror Stance/Strike 2

[Krazytre]

Is this budget enough?

[Zartholomew3K]

Without lancebreaker, she probably wouldn’t.

Lancebreaker is just that good at… breaking lances. Lancebreaker pretty much makes and breaks the matchup against Hector because cancelling his breaker effect is very important. It’s hard. for an AI controlled B!Hector to stack up a lot of speed so a mid 20’s speed unit easily checkmates with lancebreaker, and a mid 30’s speed unit has a really good chance of putting him down.

[Vicarious]

I normally don’t like giving incomplete skills to units, call me obsessive, it just kinda cracks my head haha But I guess that’s always a fair option.

Slaying Hammer Dull Armor refine is honestly the best sugestion so far, Idk why I didn’t think about it. TA Lancebreaker is what came to mind first, and on Boey seems pretty good.

[Zartholomew3K]

For the sake of this thread, my Bartre:

To get some laughs with incomplete skills and merges with a lady I’m honestly proud of for taking down Lunatic Brave Edelgard, my Hana:

Fun fact: If this were TA3 Hana, she’d be having 69 effective attack. Nice.

[Vicarious]

That’s true.
Anyhow Cecilia is my water season counterpick against L!Leif and sometimes L!Chrom. I use Bowbreaker 3 on her, but might try giving her Lancebreaker 3 and DB3 and use her against B!Hector when not on water season as a last meassure, in order to not reduce max score.

[Zartholomew3K]

Oh, don’t forget that you can use defensive AR blessings like the dark and anime blessings for your AA counters. Building a few key units with those and adding other units to help with team building using the arena season blessings makes for a really nice barracks setup for AA.

[Vicarious]

That is indeed haha and I just refined her hammer for Dull Armor, not sure if in the long run that’s better over her brave axe with panic. If so I believe DB3 is better than LnD3 in order to not lose bulk. Nice idea!