Uploaded February 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
This clear is close to 100% reliable as it's nearly impossible for Sain to die unless he gets hit by just about every single attack whilst on Forest tiles (or gets crit by the boss). The Iron Sword trick at the end to get to an Iron Lance for the Swordreaver Brigand is unnecessary if Sain has enough HP to survive 2 hits from the boss by the time he's ready to engage him (which is very very likely), and probably decreases reliability due to the fact if Sain crits he is unlikely to kill the Swordreaver Brigand. Because of this, you should only really do it if Sain's HP is low enough to potentially die to 2 hits from the boss, which is so unlikely it will almost never happen, so most of the time you should just use an Iron Lance to kill the boss. Furthermore setting up the correct amount of uses is impractical as it depends on if Sain 3HKOs or 4HKOs, but I mostly just wanted to show off. It does however make the chance of Sain getting crit by the boss become low enough to have next to no impact on the turncount, so that's worth keeping in mind.
It's possible for Florina to die on Turn 4 if every single reinforcement Soldier rolls up on Strength and hits her, but if she got hit twice for 7 damage each on Turn 3, you can just re position her onto the Fort to only fight 1 Soldier, meaning there shouldn't be any chance of death.
A 2 Turn strategy is possible, but requires either a low % crit on the Lancereaver Mercenary, or the ability to double him (requires 12 AS), which even if you have, the high chance of death impedes reliability significantly.
A 3 turn is feasible but quite unreliable (some thorough testing went into this) because the Cavalier needs to survive a lot of enemies without getting a chance to heal, and to improve odds has to hit a shaky Iron Sword that then has to break so they don't get obliterated by the Swordreaver Brigand. On the whole I'd say a 3 turn is only really viable with a 11 Str 12 AS Cavalier (16.4% chance for Sain to have at least these stats, 18.2% chance for Kent), as that enables a turn of healing in-between due to not needing to spend multiple turns killing the Lancereaver Mercenary. Florina would also need to have gained quite a lot of bulk to not suffer poor chances of survival, and giving her the Robe doesn't help as much as you'd think as it only gets her out of 2HKO range on Turn 1, but the Cavalier ends up with significantly increased chance of death on Turn 3.
The rough calculations for the expected turncount are
98%~ chance for a 4 turn
1%~ chance for a 5 turn
(1%~ chance for a reset (turn 4, Sain, if using an Iron Lance the whole time vs the boss instead of a lined up to break Iron Sword, in which case it's sub 1%) )
The conditional mean clear turn is 4~
The conditional mean reset turn is 0~ (4 if using an Iron Lance)
The reset penalty is 0~ (0.05 in the Iron Lance scenario)
The expected turncount is 4~ (4.05 in the Iron Lance scenario)
Pessimistic Mode is a hack by Doesnt on feuniverse that only allows player character stats to increase if there is a 90% chance of them having increased by the level you have just attained. It is close to 0% growths in reliability but brings stat growths into the equation to reward training units and to help compare units better than by using averages.
feuniverse.us/t/pessimistic-average-growths-patches/5134
This clear is close to 100% reliable as it's nearly impossible for Sain to die unless he gets hit by just about every single attack whilst on Forest tiles (or gets crit by the boss). The Iron Sword trick at the end to get to an Iron Lance for the Swordreaver Brigand is unnecessary if Sain has enough HP to survive 2 hits from the boss by the time he's ready to engage him (which is very very likely), and probably decreases reliability due to the fact if Sain crits he is unlikely to kill the Swordreaver Brigand. Because of this, you should only really do it if Sain's HP is low enough to potentially die to 2 hits from the boss, which is so unlikely it will almost never happen, so most of the time you should just use an Iron Lance to kill the boss. Furthermore setting up the correct amount of uses is impractical as it depends on if Sain 3HKOs or 4HKOs, but I mostly just wanted to show off. It does however make the chance of Sain getting crit by the boss become low enough to have next to no impact on the turncount, so that's worth keeping in mind.
It's possible for Florina to die on Turn 4 if every single reinforcement Soldier rolls up on Strength and hits her, but if she got hit twice for 7 damage each on Turn 3, you can just re position her onto the Fort to only fight 1 Soldier, meaning there shouldn't be any chance of death.
A 2 Turn strategy is possible, but requires either a low % crit on the Lancereaver Mercenary, or the ability to double him (requires 12 AS), which even if you have, the high chance of death impedes reliability significantly.
A 3 turn is feasible but quite unreliable (some thorough testing went into this) because the Cavalier needs to survive a lot of enemies without getting a chance to heal, and to improve odds has to hit a shaky Iron Sword that then has to break so they don't get obliterated by the Swordreaver Brigand. On the whole I'd say a 3 turn is only really viable with a 11 Str 12 AS Cavalier (16.4% chance for Sain to have at least these stats, 18.2% chance for Kent), as that enables a turn of healing in-between due to not needing to spend multiple turns killing the Lancereaver Mercenary. Florina would also need to have gained quite a lot of bulk to not suffer poor chances of survival, and giving her the Robe doesn't help as much as you'd think as it only gets her out of 2HKO range on Turn 1, but the Cavalier ends up with significantly increased chance of death on Turn 3.
The rough calculations for the expected turncount are
98%~ chance for a 4 turn
1%~ chance for a 5 turn
(1%~ chance for a reset (turn 4, Sain, if using an Iron Lance the whole time vs the boss instead of a lined up to break Iron Sword, in which case it's sub 1%) )
The conditional mean clear turn is 4~
The conditional mean reset turn is 0~ (4 if using an Iron Lance)
The reset penalty is 0~ (0.05 in the Iron Lance scenario)
The expected turncount is 4~ (4.05 in the Iron Lance scenario)
Pessimistic Mode is a hack by Doesnt on feuniverse that only allows player character stats to increase if there is a 90% chance of them having increased by the level you have just attained. It is close to 0% growths in reliability but brings stat growths into the equation to reward training units and to help compare units better than by using averages.
feuniverse.us/t/pessimistic-average-growths-patches/5134
