The game became a Pay TO WIN recently?

Abyssal maps are very hard but, they do not require any premium units, nor even merged units. In fact you will most likely fail with the considered "best" units in the game. What you need is the right units for the job... and strategy. Popular choices for these maps are strong units with brave weapons, bladetomes, reinhardt, and dancers. Veronica is also nice.

In any case, it will take a lot of trial and error no matter what units you use.

You don't need paid-for high merges to do Abyssal, you just need a good guide, Marth's abyssal required a flying lance (I used Cordelia), Beruka, a (preferably) flying dancer and a fast or brave sword. I do buy orbs to get characters I like, and have spent way more than is sensible for them, but I know fine well I'm not capable of tier 21 or most abyssal without help. I am proud I managed Grima's abyssal without help thanks to my unmerged Bride Cordelia.

The new difficulties are clearly so whales have more reason to spend but others can do the PvE stuff with the help of the internet. Pheonixmaster did a guide suing free/common units for the relay defense mode, I wouldn't have had a hope otherwise.

I do understand your frustration, I’m a f2p player to and the Abyssal modes have completely destroyed me except for L!Robin’s battle where I chessed it with 3 cavs and a dancer.

It’s not all that bad though, there’s this guy named PhoenixMaster1 who makes f2p guides for just about everything in the game, he managed to defeat the past Abyssal LHBs and the current Relay Def with f2p units. If your still struggling with relay def I recommend you check out his guide:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5vrFjiwesw

While using a guide does make some of the content beatable for many f2p players it does not excuse the decisions IS has made. The stat inflation from Abyssal modes can still be frustrating to play against, especially in Relay Defense where you have to spend stamina and even more units appear. You can send feedback to IS about the Abyssal by going to the misc option in the bottom left, FAQ/Etc., Customer support, feedback, and select “Modes within battle menu” as the topic.

I hope this helps you or anyone else who has problems with Abyssal, and good luck in future content with Abyssal difficulty.

I just beat map 7 (like literally 10 min ago, coz i felt like "bothering" with it), and im going for map 8 soon, just need to take a short break, that was fun, but tiring.

I have couple of merged units, but its not about merges, its about survivability and making choke points, my Shiro with silver lance and Arden with steel sword did much better than my +9 A! Tiki. For simple reason, they tanked Stahl and Titania on their sides, while doing do dmg to them, so no other enemy could come closer.

A hint for you, while editing your brigades first make team1, go into the map and see how/what your unit survive, then make adjustment, other seals, other units, other c skills, then if you first team is able to survive with lets say 1 unit lost (my poor Reinhard... he is needed to kill Abel, but if i reposition him away from Tharja, whole enemy AI changed, so he needed to be sacrificed). go back to editing your brigade and select a second team, and go back again into RD and check how many units, if any, of your second team survives, and repeat until you finish it.

This is tower defense, weakening, tanking, choking or slowing enemies is much more important than killing them (tho some need to be killed, like Abel, Olwen or Camilla, or they will crush your choking units, thats for map 7 tho).

You actually don't need the strongest units in the game. There are YouTube videos showing how to clear them with f2p units with at worst skill inheritance from 4 star units. It just takes the right team and strategy to clear them.