The third floor of the Hera Nyx Challenge set features 3x HP/ATK/RCV for monsters with 6-star rarity or lower. It also features enemies with similarly boosted stats and a variety of challenging (but mostly annoying) mechanics. Don’t forget your shield!

Overview:

• While it is possible to resist-cheese this dungeon with RMinerva/puppet, I’m going to focus on traditional teams in this guide.
• Leaders:
  • Multiple preemptive gravities mean leaders with HP conditionals (e.g. Yog, Kamimusubi) are strongly disadvised.
  • Several nontrivial combo shields hint at a 7×6 leader pairing.
    • +2c actives can also help.
  • Enemies have boosted stats. Leaders with very high damage output and HP/RCV multiplier or shields are highly recommended.
  • Unbindable leaders will help avoid possibly deadly binds.
  • Diablos paired with Anubis, combo Roots, Yuna, or Cthugha would be well-suited to tackling this dungeon’s various challenges.
• You will almost certainly need a strong shield (e.g. Indra) or damage/dark immunity skill (e.g. Ganesha, Genie) to survive Hera’s massive preemptive attack.
• or damage nullification are important for dealing with Apollo’s resolve.
• Many floors generate . Full resistance via awakenings may be useful.
• Skill delay resist or inherits can help ensure critical skills are not delayed by Shiva.

Dungeon Gimmick

Getting the triple stats from 6-star-or-lower rarity monsters is not strictly required,  but running such monsters can help a lot. The enemies are similarly boosted in stats, meaning you’ll need more survivability and damage output than usual. Hypermaxed six-star monsters with stat-granting inherits and strong awakenings like killers and 7c will contribute greatly.

Four enemies in this dungeon are Devils, followed by two enemies each who are Attacker, Dragon, God, and Healer.

Noteworthy Boosted Monsters

The following is an inexhaustive list of six-star-or-fewer monsters with multiple applicable killers and/or . Unless the active skill will change (you’d lose skill levels) or the evo mats are difficult to acquire, it may be worth devolving such monsters down to their 6-star form (where applicable).

             

• Mito’s  absolutely destroys devil floors, and is a good inherit base for better actives like Green Odin.
• Barbara and Julie each boast 3 different relevant killers and have useful actives.
• The RGB Sorcerers have and are good inherit bases.
• Chesters have  for damage and have a fairly short active that converts  to .
• Rei and Dill Sirius are unbindable and have  for damage. Their low-cooldown skill makes them a good inherit base.
• Chibis have multiple relevant killers.
• Tachibana has  and a skill that grants +2 combo and generates a board with .
• Balboa has  and a 50% shield active skill.
• Sherias has . His board change isn’t great; inherit over it.

Honorable Mentions:

 with its 1-turn active is very useful if you run a leader needing a skill for full multiplier (like Anubis).

 3x makes up for her otherwise terrible stats. Delay can be effectively used against Shiva, Drawn Joker, and Apollo*.
(*when his shield drops off).

Other Noteworthy Monsters

Some non-stat-boosted monsters are very useful as well:

 element advantage,  , and more available via latents allows Viz to one-shot Serket through her shield. He has a short skill which also makes him a nice inherit base.

 an absolute offensive powerhouse featuring:

 killer stick having five relevant killers: . He also has a combination damage-spike-and-shield active which are pretty handy.

Strategy

Floor 1: Awoken Shiva 

Info: 35m HP   ; 50%  resist

Preempt: 2-turn skill delay to entire team. 75% gravity, 99 turn 5c shield.

Enrage: Below 30% HP Shiva will repeatedly do a skill set where he hits with a 75% gravity followed by a 110,916-damage attack that converts the entire board into .

Normal Pattern:

If there are , Shiva will priority attack for 73,944 damage and convert all  to .

Otherwise, Shiva will randomly do one of these things each turn:

1. hit for 44,367 damage
2. hit for 36,972 damage and convert columns 1, 3, and 5 into .
3. hit for 27,729 and blind the board
4. hit for 18,486 damage and convert 7 random orbs to

Recommendation: kill Shiva immediately, as he hits very hard and his skill sets are annoying. If you don’t think you can kill him use a delay for safety– don’t underestimate his HP and enrage him.

There is no damage preempt on Floor 2 so you don’t have to heal up.

 

Floor 2: Jester Dragon, Drawn Joker 

Info: 24.3m HP   with 50% resist

Preempt: create 3 at random. Inflicts -2s move time debuff for 10 turns.

Skill Set:

First turn he will always apply a 4-turn status shield and 50% damage shield.

Starting on his second turn he will begin a skill cycle:

1. Deal 21,056 damage, convert 1st column to , 2nd column to , and lock orbs.
2. Deal 2,1056 damage, convert 6th column to , 5th column to , and lock orbs.
3. Deal 2,1056 damage, convert the 3rd column to , 4th column to , and lock twelve  orbs at random.
4. Do the damage and effects of all of the above in order (except the orb lock) in the same turn (63,168 damage and entire board to ).

Recommendation:

Use a skill to overwrite that nasty move time debuff. The can be resisted with resists (yeah, I know, it’s weird), converted with a board change, or just matched carefully as part of your normal solve. Remember that each unmatched bomb will deal 25% of your HP in damage and will destroy all orbs in the same row and column. They cannot be cascaded, you must match them directly.

Ideally just kill this floor outright, but he’s not really dangerous outside of his “all of the above” attack. If you don’t mind the board changes and can tank the hits, you can use a few turns to get skills up.

 

Floor 3: Serpent Steel Star Healer, Ras 

Info: 64.5m HP  

Preempt: 1-turn leader swap with a random sub monster. Status immunity.

Enrage: below 20% HP, Ras will always attack for 222,372 (444,744)

Soft Enrage: the first time she is hit below 25%, Ras will heal for 20% (12.91m HP) and buff herself to deal double damage for 999 turns.

Special Skill:

The first time she is hit below 50% HP, Ras will lock the top and bottom rows of orbs and inflict a 1-turn 30% skyfalls debuff, lasting one turn. It is recommended that you do not clear orbs this turn, as you will generate a lot of and will probably die to skyfall matches unless you match a lot of combos.

Normal Skills:

After her preempt, Ras will repeat a two-skill cycle. The first skill is one of the following:

1. Deal 33,356 (66,712) damage, plus a 6c shield for 1 turn.
2. Deal 33,356 (66,712) damage, plus 75% damage reduction for 1 turn.

The second skill will always be either:

1. Swap your leader with a random sub for 1 turn.
2. Inflict a 1-turn awoken skill bind, then deal 22,237 (44,474) damage.

Strategy: stall one turn to revert the leader swap, then kill her immediately. Her skills are very annoying and the leader swaps can easily get you killed.

You don’t need to heal on the kill turn as the next floor preempts with a gravity.

Floor 4: Psychopomp Princess of Oblivion, Grida 

Info: 65.1m HP

Preempt: 99% gravity, 5-turn status shield

Post-Death Effect: generates 3 at random.

Soft Enrage: below 50% HP, Grida will do a 99% gravity then enter a countdown cycle where she generates 3 at random each turn for 3 turns. On the fourth turn and every subsequent turn, she will Enrage dealing 571,200 damage.

Easter Egg: Grida will skip a turn once above 50% HP if you have Grisar on your team.

Normal Skills:

Above 50% HP, Grida will always randomly use these skills:

1. 34,272 damage and convert the first row to .
2. Create 2 from random orbs.

Recommendation:

Kill immediately if possible. Her and conversions are very annoying to deal with. The next floor is a gravity preempt so you should be fine.

Floor 5: Generate Earth Dragon 

Info: 25m HP and 3-turn attack timer.

Preempt: 99% gravity.

Enrage: below 50% he will always deal 152,782 damage.

Normal Skill:

Above 50% he will always deal 86,576 damage and convert a single random orb to .

Recommendation: use up to two turns to heal back up and stall, then kill him. He hits too hard for most teams to tank. He doesn’t have much HP relative to the rest of the dungeon.

 

Floor 6: Falcon Guardian’s Dark Scorpion Goddess, Serket 

Info: 57.8m HP  

Preempt: 3-turn status immunity and 75% damage reduction shield.

Enrage: below 20% HP Serket will convert the board into alternating columns of and deal 160,572 damage.

Special Skills:

Serket uses four single-use skills in order before switching to a normal pattern:

1. Deal 37,467 damage and generate 6 at random from non-.
2. Apply 6c shield and force the player to start their solve with a specific orb.
3. Deal 53,524 damage and blind the board
4. Debuff move time by -1 second for 10 turns, deal 26,762 damage, and convert a single random orb into .

Normal Skills:

Serket will alternate between the following skills after her special pattern and above 20%:

1. Convert the first column into
2. Deal 42,820 damage

Recommendation:

Her shield gives her an effective 231m HP, and her various debuffs and board changing make her annoying to deal with. Her enrage is extremely dangerous. Immunity to poison converts may be very helpful.

If possible, kill her outright. If you can’t one-shot her then aim to hit her hard while staying above enrage.

Floor 7: Awoken Apollo

Info: 87.4m HP  50% resolve

Preempt: 7c shield and status immunity for 3 turns.

Enrage: 500% gravity below 10% HP. Extremely dangerous!

Special Skills:

Apollo will perform the following skills in order:

1. Deal 16,290 damage and convert rows 1/3/5 into and rows 2/4 to .
   Note: on 7×6 he will skip the third row when converting, resulting in the following pattern: rows 1/4/6 to , rows 2/5 to .
2. Deal 32,580 damage and convert all orbs to .
3. Deal 48,870 damage and convert one random orb to , then apply a 50% damage shield for 3 turns.
4. Inflict the first applicable bind:
   1. Bind gods for 5 turns, if you have gods on your team.
   2. Bind dark for 5 turns, if you have dark on your team.
   3. Bind both leaders for 5 turns, if neither of the above apply.

Normal Skills:

After his ordered skills, Apollo will alternate between the following:

1. Deal 24,435 damage and convert all orbs into .
2. Use the first applicable skill:
   1. Deal 48,870 damage and convert to .
   2. Deal 32,580 damage and convert to .
   3. Deal 32,580 damage and convert to .
   4. Deal 32,580 damage and lock .
   5. restart the cycle with skill (1) if there are no .

Recommendation:

You must shield on the turn you kill Apollo or you will die to Hera’s preempt!

His binds are very annoying unless you can resist them, the repeated board changes make it hard to heal, and you have to be extremely careful not to trigger his enrage. When he puts up his damage shield he becomes very tanky.

If possible, kill him immediately with a strong board change and . Don’t underestimate his HP, though. If you aren’t sure you can kill him, then try to knock him below resolve so you can kill him the next turn with the bicolor board he makes. If you can hang in there until his status shield falls off, then you can also delay him and use those turns to safely take him out.

 

Floor 8: Divine Queen Hera 

Info: 54m HP  

Preempt: a massive single-hit attack dealing 136,440 damage. You better shield this!

Enrage: below 30% HP Hera will inflict a 99% gravity. Every subsequent turn she will single-hit for 341,100 damage.

Special Skills:

Below 50% HP, Hera will do a one-time bind of all God monsters for 5 turns.

Normal Skills:

If there are  on the board, Hera will deal 61,398 damage and convert all  to .

Otherwise, she will use a normal attack dealing 68,220 damage.

Recommendation:

If you survive her preempt you’ve pretty much won. Her HP is reasonable compared to the other monsters and her typing makes her an easy mark for subs with stacked killer awakenings. Her bind is annoying, but if you hit her below 30% the gravity is basically a free turn. She hits quite hard, but you can probably kill her on the first turn.

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Thanks for stopping by! When you have completed this challenge floor you should check out the next guide in this series!

Happy Puzzling~

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