Philosophy

Raffine is one of the best leads for MD4 because of enemy spawns’ insane defense stats, and if built properly, you won’t need to sweat every solve *cough* like you do with Atelie *cough*. This build abuses against the high defense spawns to one-shot most floors with only six combos, so you don’t need to go through most of their mechanics and can finish the dungeon in a set amount of turns.

 

The team, although free from collab cards, uses a few cards from seasonals and in-house events to maintain high HP & RCV such that you don’t need a shield to tank the boss and can recover with minimum combos.

 

This team by no means is the best set up for this particular strategy; I formulated this team with the available cards in my box. I hope this write-up serves as a starting point for anyone trying a similar build in MD4. A list of replaceable subs and equips will be listed at the end.

 

Team

With HP+ badge, the team has 14 , 80104 HP (enough to tank the hardest hit of 79688), 13218 RCV, 15 → 30 , and . No needed since you one-shot everything.

 

Lead – Raffine (Swap Resist) w/NY Yomi Equip

• Lead swap resist is required to counter Macha on F13.
  
• NY Yomi Equip gives for unlock, covers , 2x , and covers the on Sakuya after Aten.
  

NY Reeche (4c / VDP Latent) w/Big Bang Equip

• NY Reeche covers and provides a moderate amount of firepower, long uptime for two early floors and two late floors so the board active can be used in between.
  
• VDP Latent is required since NY Reeche is given a and enemies have ridiculous values.
• Big Bang Equip is a equip with a long cooldown (to reduce the possibility of inherit charging up since NY Reeche has a ton of ); this is essential to one-shot every spawn.

Feygoran ( / 4x ) w/Fagan Equip

• Feygoran is the cleric for early floors and a back-up board for later. (Surprisingly, you don’t need to remove unmatchable from Kamimusubi.)
• Unfortunately, Feygoran deals zero damage. Therefore 4x are used to push the team’s recovery to a good level.
• Fagan-Rai Equip provides 2x and ; the active is irrelevant.

Melty (2x ) w/Amakozumi Equip

• Melty has a and an essential to clear skyfall. Her delay is used on F2 instead of a shield, and her infinite uptime burst is key to making the build work.
• 2x allows you to minimize combos on most spawns.
• Amakozumi provides 3x ; the active is irrelevant.

Dark Aten (5c / VDP Latent) w/SR Susano Equip

• Aten is this team’s damage stick, as it 1.5x caps both attributes easily and is essential to one-shot some spawns. His active unlocks which is also essential on later floors. He has 4x for easier comboing until Raffine’s final form is ready.
• VDP Latent is required to take advantage of Dark Aten’s against enemies which can have voiding 3B or more damage.
• SR Susano equip provides a haste for Raffine to transform on F1, a 3 turn shield on first floor to minimize accidents on F1, and to meet threshold.

Friend Raffine (Jammer Surge Latent) w/Amaj Equip

• Jammer Surge Latent is essential in MD4 because of the Celestials and Indra.
  
• Amaj Equip provides , 3x , and a full shield active to counter Aten’s resolve.
  

Walkthrough

Terminology

• 5c – Just Match 5 Colors
  
• 6c – Match 5 Colors + Heal, 1 Combo Each, Total 12 Combos w/Leader Skill
  
• Refresh Aten – Aten’s active is used to unlock the board on some spawns. In some cases, he will overcharge, so you should refresh it earlier. His active also removes Raffine’s sub boost on himself, but it usually doesn’t make a huge difference.
  

Only refresh Raffine when the spinner disappears or to replace enemy spinners. Use Melty on CD. After F5, you should always have Melty’s buff and Raffine’s sub buff up unless Aten spawns.

 

F1

F1 is about stalling. It’s the hardest floor, but it is no different than for other teams.

• Feygoran (cycle it even if no binds), SR Susano (Aten) for shield and haste, transform both Raffines.
  
• Target Gold Dragon, 6c + 1 Dark will do 93.3%.
• Slowly kill the others, don’t leave only one alive.
  • 5c – About 35% to non-light, 52.6% light.
  • 5c + 1 Dark – About 55.4% non-light, 93.3% light.
  • Good to use Dark Aten if you feel like you are running out of turns or you need more move time.
    
• You have to stall until Melty is able to transform on F2, so you have to take five turns here total.
  
• Example of stalling on F1 can be found here.

F2

• Use Melty’s delay.
• 6c (ideal if you can match a row of dark) until Raffine’s second transform.
• Transform only one Raffine and kill.
  • Killing left first will buy you one free turn, they don’t enrage when alone so it’s pretty safe.

F3

• Aten clears , transforming the other Raffine clears , use Melty when it’s up.
• 6c with dark row.
• NY Reeche, 6c with dark row.
  
  • NY Reeche makes it easier because you get three colors converted.

F4

• Feygoran unmatchable clear or awoken bind clear, Melty if not used yet.
  
• 6c twice.
  • You want to spend two turns here so Feygoran can be recharged for Vritra/Indra.

F5

• Raffine to get sub attack boost.
• Target Volcano Dragon, 6c (fine if you kill both of the slimes).
• Target the remaining slime if there’s any left, 6c.
  

F6 (Celestial)

• 6c

F7 (Sonia)

• 6c

F8

• Hinokaku/Orochi: Unlock with Aten, 6c
• Indra: Feygoran, 6c
• Vridra: Feygoran, 6c with a dark cross

F9

Refresh Aten

• Sylvie – Raffine, 6c (101% damage)
• Typhon – Raffine, 6c (113% damage)
• Ryune – Raffine, 6c + 1 Light + 1 Fire (100.5% damage)

F10

• Lucifer – NY Reeche, 6c
• Eschamali – 6c (143% damage)
• Aten
  • 1 combo until either Raffine comes up, then use Raffine to refresh spinner.
    
  • 6c and hit to resolve.
  • Amaj equip, 1 combo -> 6c
    
  • Example of Aten → Sakuya can be found here.

F11

• If Aten spawns previously:
  • NY Yomi equip, Melty when it’s up.
    
• Otherwise
  • Haku: NY Reeche if available, 6c and your Dark or Fire or Light should be a cross.
  • Sakuya: NY Reeche if available, Raffine, 6c and your Dark or Fire must be an L to clear the locked skyfall.
    • Kanna on the next floor will kill you if you do not clear the locked skyfall debuff.

F12

• Dantalion: 6c with a Dark/Light/Fire Cross
• Scheat: Aten, 6c
• Kanna: Aten, 6c with a Dark/Fire L

F13

• Kamimusubi: Feygoran if it is up, then 6c (99.2% damage) x2; otherwise 5c x2.
• Macha: 6c (116% damage)
• Morrigu: 6c (117% damage)
• Yog: 6c + 1 Light (103% damage)

— Boss —

 

F14

• For 1st 4T: 1c, 1c, 1c, 0c, while matching 2 / to clear the debuff.
• 6c
  

F15

• 95%: Full combo the whole board, that will give you 16c without skyfall.
  • The reason for a full board combo is that the boss could end up on enrage range (3%) after your 5th turn.
• 90%: 6c & also make sure you hit above combo shield.
• 85%: 6c & also make sure you hit above combo shield.
• 80%: 6c & also make sure you hit above combo shield.
• 75%: 6c + 1 for safety.
• If you failed to full combo the first board, 6c + 1 and aim for highest combo every turn.

F16

Susano Equip will not be up in time to shield because of the assist void earlier on. You want to do more than just 6c to heal up every few turns and the turn you hit him to 50%.

• >50%: It hits for a few hundreds + 53,126; You heal:56,175 at 6c+2, 52,870 at 6c+1, 49,556 at 6c
  • 6c x3 (unlocks on first turn) – 12.9% damage each
  • 6c + something to heal to full
• 50%: It hits: 79,688
  • NY Reeche for board, Raffine to remove spinner, heal more with more combos.
    
• <50%: It hits: few hundreds + 53,126; You heal:56,175 at 6c+2, 52,870 at 6c+1, 49,556 at 6c
  • 6c x4 (x5 if he is blue)

Possible replacement

As you replace cards, you may not be able to one-shot some of the enemies and you will be forced to counter their 50% HP mechanics. This team does not prepare for any of them. Keep this in mind if your damage falls short, as you’ll need extra countermeasures.

 

Subs

Subs are fairly strict for this team as the damage is very tight on a lot of spawns. is required if you want to one-shot the spawns and bypass their 50% HP mechanics. Otherwise, you’d need to reconfigure most of the equips. I would not suggest changing any of the subs as there are other Raffine teams involving different compositions with corresponding counters.

Lead/Friend Raffine

Geed is a possible replacement of lead Raffine, in which you will have both blue and absorb shield void covered. You have less resist (75% Raffine vs 72% Geed) but you would have Geed‘s active shield on final floor. You will need to have a strategy to replace enemy spinners while managing the other Raffine‘s CD. Geed has a long wind-up time for his absorb void on early floors. The original team also does not have enough to safely transform Geed on F1.

 

NY Reeche is also a possible replacement for Raffine. You’ll have blue and covered, a much longer move time. However you’ll be facing the same issue as Geed – managing spinners and te debuff with 1 sub, and potential HP and damage issues.

 

NY Reeche

NY Reeche provides coverage. She is replaceable with a card with a good attack stat, , and a fast charging 2T while also covering . In this sense, Geed is also a possible replacement for NY Reeche. Your early floor strategy might need to be adjusted, but with Geed‘s shield you can use it to tank the 50% hit of the boss without pumping through equips.

 

Dark Aten

Dark Aten is a 1.5x cap attacker for both attributes (so basically a 3x cap attacker) who provides a valuable unlock. Like NY Reeche, Dark Aten is one of the flexible spots on the team if you have replacements to cover damage and damage absorb void. Geed is a good candidate in some sense but he can’t 1.5x cap. The shield equip on Dark Aten allows you to stay alive on F1, while providing an extra cross on dark for Vritra‘s 6T skyfall.

 

Melty

No.

 

Feygoran

He covers wood and has 4 . Feygoran‘s cleric ability is only used on F1 and F4; in fact, the binds on F1 can be mitigated by other means (like being unbindable), and unmatchable on F4 can be solved with unmatchable clear latent on a sub. His board is used later to counter Indra/Vritra since you don’t have enough to make a 6c board even if you spin perfectly. He does not do damage in this team as he has no . Your substitute cleric doesn’t have to be and neither does the replacement need a full rainbow board.

Honorable Mentions

D/B Mega Athena is a possible replacement as she has a delay, RCV and Dark ATK buff with some for an unmatchable clear latent. She is worth exploring because she can almost cover Dark Aten, Melty and Feygoran in some sense.

– Equips –

On the other hand, equips are easily replaceable. The team I own does not use best-in-slot options because of box limitations. While improvements don’t necessarily make the run easier, they’ll allow you to switch out some of the other equips you are missing.

NY Yomi / Amaj

The equips on both leads should have actives that are able to counter Aten since he will haste your leads and overcharge your equips. He casts a 1T and clears buffs, and there is a 50% chance you’ll get a 1 turn 75% on the next floor from Sakuya.

You’ll notice Raffine’s active is 3 CD, and it is not possible to charge it to clear in case of Aten → Sakuya. In this build, Amaj‘s 100% shield is used to tank Aten‘s awoken bind, and NY Yomi is used to remove while covering the downtime of Raffine‘s active.

It is possible to replace these two equips as a set; however, they should be able to handle these two situations.

* Thank you for lots of players pointed this out: You can use a 2 haste equip on Raffine to haste the other Raffine up to clear the on Sakuya. Some common equips are Gold REMDra or Ancient Raccoon’s Seal.

Big Bang

This is free.

Raffine‘s equip is a side grade without significant improvement. The other equips are not usable considering their short cooldowns and negative stats.

Fagan

This is not best-in-slot and is only used for the awakenings. If by replacing other equips you can cover some of , then this slot can be replaced by any equip that fill the rest + other essential awakenings like or .

Amakozumi

This is also not best-in-slot. It’s a equip, and the is redundant as Feygoran will clear the binds on F1. If this is replaced by Amaj with an extra , you can replace the Fagan slot and Susano slot with better choices.

As of why I am not using Amaj, it is because I am self pairing and I only own 1 Amaj.

SR Susano

On F1, your eHP is not enough to tank all three spawns. To make the run more stable, this build uses a shield on F1 so you can safely and slowly kill one of the spawns. A delay can be used but keep in mind only one of the three metal dragons can be delayed.

SR Susano is chosen because the mix of and helps this low combo build especially in terms of recovery. The extra cross attack awakening on Aten allows you to clear Vritra’s 6T skyfall with only one cross, otherwise you’ll need two.

This equip can be replaced by any shield or delay (for stability on F1) without , , , or the haste if you also replace Amakozumi with Amaj.

A direct substitute is Akaza equip which gives an extra , but you’ll lose some healing and will be forced to match an additional cross on Vritra.

Future Development

Feygoran is the weak spot in this team. He does not do any damage because he lacks . However, his toolkit is very valuable in this setup as he provides an early awoken unbind / unmatchable clear on F2 and a board on F8. The best upgrade to Feygoran would be a card with moderate damage (you don’t need 100x personal damage), a base board active (while inheriting a cleric active), some and most importantly .

NY Reeche is another weak spot as she does not do a lot of damage, only has 2 and a completely overkill active for the dungeon.

Big Bang equip can obviously be a better equip with helpful awakenings like or as to lessen the restriction of other equips, but we probably won’t be able to get one before MD4 becomes irrelevant. My hope is on the story equip evo of GFE Reeche if you missed this event for a free Big Bang.