![No Limited OE and No Whale Borrow Dtide 425 [Aequor Ring] June 29th - July 5th](https://preview.redd.it/d0i8gdi3xpah1.png?width=140&height=78&auto=webp&s=1416600c3c17431a8154e72bf6b2feffd0b0d753)
No Limited OE and No Whale Borrow Dtide 425 [Aequor Ring] June 29th - July 5th
Draco from discord here again. Finally managed to get both no limited OE and no whale borrow this time, last time Aequor ring came along I was only able to manage no limited OE. Just have Caro and Chaos ring left to complete with no limited OE and no whale... after that I'm not sure what kind of Dtide challenge runs to do. As always I have to use the borrow to replace my OE units because Biav won't let us un-overexalt units :(. Thank you to Spooky, Juno, and Arisu for letting me use their units as borrows. Additional thanks to Frost, Monchi, and Al for cheering me on during this journey,
Stream Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmqLue0Jp8I&list=PLYDfb-zae9w8&pp=sAgC
(I swear I played so poorly this tide oml. I just started my internship which is a 2 hour daily commute and I was on 3 hours of sleep when I was dtiding.)
Approximate time for 425 with OEs (since I need to borrrow 3-4 units to replace my OEs and therefore can't hit leaderboard 425 unless I run OE teams first) and then no limited OE clears with borrows: 9 hours and 20 minutes
The first mob fight is almost always the hardest part of an A5 just because you have no resources or tools at your disposal and I'm almost always looking for a weakness in my opening hand. I usually say if you can beat the first mob fight with like an amount of keyflare that should be enough for a rouse on turn 1/2 of the next fight and exalts more charged than you started with, that you can likely beat the boss unless it is a bad matchup for the team.
W1 [Endless Hunger]
Replay Code; 77b3d7d4-a096-38cc-a7ed-e8ed7f6a6dab#E#a
Pretty typical Vortex comp, This easily could have been a 0 dr fight but I had 200% DR so I took the DR for extra arith and a silver key the next turn. DRs are just another tool in the toolbox. Celeste and Murphy were overkill in the sustain department this time but usually needed in higher waves. Vortex Pursuits + Ancient embers are always a great combination for damage and very nice for knocking out the bosses 10 DRs.
Replay Code: 6af76545-7f40-3aa5-b27b-f10078bd227e#E#a
Stall Kath comp my beloved. I'm not sure if this comp needed Horla or not. I usually starve my Kath teams and use Doll/Winkle for consistent weak instead of Horla. This was one of my last clears and I had no teams running Ultra left so Horla got thrown into this comp. I tried to speedrun stacking strength to be able to knock out the bosses death resistance hp bars with things that were not Hyperflare. I think I really like Tinct keyflare bot with Murphy's wheel because Tinct's defense gives 2 instances of shield and her 3 cost which I play frequently to make up for stall Kath's sad crit rate, also gives shield so it helps charge keyflare. The stage relic was also really nice for keyflare regeneration so I was able to run a shitter keyflare wheel for Tinct's second wheel instead of something better like Gateway of Truth since Kath really really wants to posse every turn.
W2 [Skull Huntress (Daffodil)]
Replay Code: b85dcb3e-71a1-3514-880b-3b4a63d335b5#E#a
Honestly I was so suprised this team worked especially with how poorly I navigated the map. I forgot what the map layout was and accidentally got stuck going into the Elite at 100 hp instead of grabbing the existing heal point. Somehow I still ended up going hp positive to 900 hp courtesy of Clem's 2 cost by the end of the elite fight and then I accidentally went into the next mob fight without checking the shop. This was meant to be Xu-less Faros Aurita poison because Xu was needed on another team more but oh my goodness it was rough without Xu to poison trigger my sad amounts of poison and was mostly Aurita killing the mobs and elites. On the boss I managed to hit a lot of poison... the turn before it died (it was sitting at like 20k poison before turn 7 or 8) so I'm unsure how helpful Faros was compared to Tulu for pure Aurita DPS. If only Aurita teams felt this nice to play outside of blue ring. Agate was definitely a god tier pull for Aurita dps and the stage relic was pretty nice too since this comp discards and redraws a lot.
Replay Code: d5460f2f-c322-3d9f-843f-5ee1239127fb#E#a
For the past few tides, wave 3 has not been very friendly to poison comps and finding a home for poison has been a bit rough. This clear was incredibly janky. Caro's keyflare generation with the Lifedrain Covenant sucks since instead of regenerating 200% of the wielders Keyflare regeneration at turn end, you get extra embryo fusion. I could not find a Gdoll to borrow for the life of me that was equiped with wheels I had not yet used and also was not OE that had Dreams meaning my poison application and consistency of weakness was very suboptimal and I had to take Lifedrain off of Nymph since there was no point in running 2 sets of it and I desperately needed to hit DRs. The boss has a few multihit turns so Xu's devour and posse were really nice here. Please if someone has a somewhat built E3 Gdoll hit me up.
W3 [Luminary]
Replay Code: 86345b3c-c727-398b-9b03-6b7f111c2c0d#E#a
I don't think wave 3 was the hardest wave, but it definitely was the most restrictive wave as only a few comps actually worked into it. Vortex, Gmurphy, Castor Pollux, and Pontus comps worked mostly due to their ability to generate enough shield to block the bosses first hit turn 1 and prevent it from spawning in mobs to give it DR and poisoning you. And Mouchette can kill anything as long as you hit enough DRs. Saya Sanga was the other comp that actually worked via corrosion + Sanga Exalt being nice damage but man it was rough. Especially because the boss couldn't take over a certain amount of damage until its hp dropped below 50%. Routing around this wave was challenging since all the comps that actually worked into this wave were some of the strongest comps in the game that other waves really wanted. I definitely needed Faint + Salvador to keep me alive at this investment. Notably this comp should also run well into W5 since Saya applies double the corrosion against Caro enemies. I ran tide before Pontus came out but just didn't finish the writeup until now.
Replay Code: 9b4e07f4-b9e9-39b2-b36d-fd1b3b8c85af#E#a
I decided to not run keyflare wheels on this team to save them for other teams since I could just DR with Dusk and Dawn for all the keyflare I theoretically would need. Pandia was ran to remove the bosses counter so I didn't end up killing myself from hitting it when I was bursting. I normally would run Ramona but she was ran on my 24 team so Hameln was ran as filler to doubleplay a card.
W4 [Swordsmanship Instructor]
Replay Code: fc0d4d10-5748-3013-9126-83894d21417f#E#a
This was my first time playing Chaos 24 and I was pleasently suprised by how nicely it ran with wellfare unit teamates, Doll and Ogier do a good job of keeping vuln and weak up. I didn't really utilize Sakura Reveries as much as I could have because it was not needed. I used Tawil wheel here to be able to hold up to 3k keyflare since this team generates a boatload of keyflare and you want to double posse every turn to scale 24 up. The stage relic was pretty nice for 24 since she benefits pretty nicely from base damage.
Aigis normally lives on my Ghelot team since usually I'm dying on turn 2 from taking a hit on turn 1 and Crimson Shackling but I decided to try for Aigisless Ghelot because I felt another team needed her a lot more. I like Daff because her exalt can create 0 cost cards that apply weak/vuln, draw 1, give the team aliemus, or give 1 arith while also adding a copy to Ultra turn which lets you enter ultra turn faster which was very useful to build more flails, regenerate keyflare, and giving me breathing room. Daff's soulforge also increases the rate you can find discounted relics which is nice too especially on maps with multiple shops. Leigh's exalt came in cluth a few times to stop me from dying too since she heals more the lower your hp is. The stage relic was also amazing for Ghelot since I'm pretty sure the base damage from the relic is multaplicative instead of addative with the base damage Ghelot gains from her rouse.
Replay Code: 8ae8a11f-dbd7-3610-ad8c-aa4608074096#E#a
W5 [The Painter (Pickman)]
Note for cards that Pickman paints, that they will show up in your hand in the order that they show up in your skill screen. Ie strikes and defenses will always be the leftmost cards and skills the rightmost when you have multiple painted cards in hand.
Replay Code: 065c07a7-5e1b-39aa-9dd2-8d337c61361d#E#a
The first mob fight in this wave is actually hot garbage oh my god. I hate the stupid cats and they were unironically harder than the boss. Getting strength downed twice, and then punished for hitting the mobs at all is no bueno. I pushed my birds to level 80 this wave and then ended up taking 0 DRs so I do think it would have been possible at a lower level. I saved a lot of my wheel power budget for this wave since I was expecting it to be awful and because of how nasty the first mob fight was. I ran Aigis here because I needed to stun the mobs and I wanted to leave the option open to stun Pickman during his big hit while you are vuln to avoid a DR since I was not sure how fast I would be killing the boss. Rewinding time is on Aigis for a chance of bringing her 3 cost back to hand in order to draw Sacred Hearts though she is not really the best user of it, it's just that the units that could utilize it better didn't need it.
Replay Code: 8acb37e1-d410-36d0-aace-6eb458416772#E#a
Pretty standard Lemurian comp though I typically run Faros in this comp for consistent draw and self vuln removal instead of Tulu. I mobbed for this clear but I've definitely seen some straigh to boss clears with E3 Gmuprhy on this wave since her portrait is so busted.
As always, I hope this writeup was helpful for showing people that A5 Dtide does not have to be super scary and also gives yall some ideas. Thank you so much for if you have read this far and feel free to ask questions or give feedback. Please do not take my teams as reference for what the 'strongest team' is as they are usually the most starving version of a team comp that still is able to function rather than the best team since 425 Dtide is about managing your limited resources.
