My team last time
My team this time
Last time I commented that Leonidas proved pretty useless, due to a difficult board that never ended up charging him during my whole boss battle.
I had considered bringing 4-70 Sonya after last time instead, figuring at least with Fast mana she might charge once or twice. But with no purpose to her dispel and a relatively soft single target hit, I opted instead this time for Wu Kong to amplify my 3-stack of red.
Even if he can’t charge frequently in the boss battle, he can assist with the monsters along the way.
Other than the swap to Wu Kong, there’s little changed on my team from last time, since my second Guardian Falcon hasn’t yet become a leveling priority (he’s next in line now after Gormek, though!).
Wilbur has gone from +5 last time to +9 this time, and I’ve upgraded my 3* fire and holy troops a bit, as I head into month 9 of waiting for 4* troops in those colors.
The Battle – The First Time #fail 
The first two stages were easy, and I didn’t need any items.
For the last stage, as I did last time, I used up all my minor healing by fairly early into the boss battle.
Despite that, things were going fairly well at first.
I used a single bomb early on to debuff the bosses’ attack, and used a mix of Wilbur and the two Falcons to wear down the bosses.
Cyprian also helped contribute some damage back from slash attacks, though I don’t think targeting for specials had ended up making him very relevant for big damage.
Joon had fired once while Wilbur was active, which wasn’t too bad. Richard had fired once too, and an antidote to clear the debuff was mostly sufficient.
Things started getting messier when slash attacks took out the 3-60 Falcon, and then Richard fired again and took out Wu.
Now, in retrospect, I should have just nuked at that point, at least enough to take out Joon and Richard. Even Justice was about halfway dead at that point.
But despite ample stock of Bombs and Dragon Attacks at the moment, I tend to be very stingy in using them.
So I pressed onward with Wilbur, 4-70 Falcon, and Cyprian, figuring I’d wear them down more at least.
A turn or two later, I got a big cascade at random from tile refills, and it managed to charge up all three bosses.
Joon fired and killed Cyprian, Richard fired and damaged Wilbur and Falcon, and Justice fired and killed them off.
This is the first Defeat I recall in a Class Trial…there may have been another one somewhere along the way, but I don’t remember it.
The Battle – The Second Time 
Like my item stinginess, I’m normally quite stingy with WE Flasks, despite having 50 in stock. But I’m also stubborn, so I decided to burn one to try again without waiting for WE to regenerate.
This time around went much like the last two times (5 weeks ago, and right before this), running out of minor healing, wearing the bosses down a ways, and taking some hits and losses.
I used a bomb early on for the attack debuff, and one antidote after Justice fired.
Unlike last time, when I got the bosses worn down enough, I just went full nuclear, with 5 Dragon Attacks, and the remaining 4 Bombs. Having worn them down, that was enough to finish them off before dying.
As with the last two times, I came pretty precipitously close to dying. I probably should have started nuking even a bit earlier, and spread out the Dragon Attack DoT to take advantage of it while wearing them down.
This is definitely one of the hardest Trials for me with my current team options. And with my current leveling priorities, and lack of any of the Monk or Paladin healers, that probably won’t get much better before next time.
Was It Harder? 
I’m not sure.
This is already one of the harder Trials for me (maybe even the hardest at this point) due to a lack of healers, and an unmaxed team. Despite failing on my first shot, I could have easily succeeded the first time around with more aggressive item usage, or without that cascade when it hit.
And last time around I had a similar battle, I just happened to not get a random cascade and die:
So on the whole, I’m not sure that the increase in difficulty has much practical impact on my approach to the final stage.
It seems like each time I’ve run through this, I get close to dying and need to go heavy on items.
Shiny new emblems
At +9, Wilbur’s next node is 40 emblems, so even the addition of 18 to the pool means no upgrade for him now.
As for the Paladin emblems, those join my pile for the fantasy Frida that I swear is waiting for me on my next Summons…or the next one…or the next one…or the…
(Yes, I have read this thread repeatedly this month, along with using a binomial probably calculator to manage my expectations and stick to my moderate budget for summoning.)
Barring great luck, when I eventually abandon all hope on that front, Guardian Falcon is probably getting the emblems. I actually use Sonya more often, but my priority has long been titan teams, so Falcon is an obvious choice.
