Latest in Seeker's Defensive Specials: M.Grima

So here's the thing about defensive specials and galeforce: you must either accept that you're going to slow-play and need multiple rounds to take down opponents, or you need Raven or Soleil-level offenses to get through without a special.

M.Grima fulfills the second condition. Compounded on his colossal atk - 60 with a superboon before merges, buffs, or A-skill - is the manakete advantage: most melee units have low res, and ranged units automatically get hit on their lowest defensive stat. He has one other key advantage: as an armour, he gets loads of free special charges without using flashing or heavy blade.

We now use these advantages to protect him against all manner of doubles from Regnal Astra to slaying weapon bold ignis.

Robin: Fell Reincarnation, +atk -spd
Expiration
(some assist)
Pavise!!
atk/res bond (distant def is also good, as well as other A-skills)
Vengeful fighter
Ward armour
Hardy bearing or distant def

So the idea is pretty straightforward: get hit, 1 charge; hit back with 65 atk, 2 charges, and now anything that survives to double him has to blast into this shield that magically blocks half their damage. Grima can actually win against Ayra using slaying edge+spd + DC + wrath + spd+3 seal. (Grima loses if she keeps swift sparrow.)

Against ranged opponents, Grima is dependent on natural defenses; hence, one option is to stack distant def. Hardy bearing is included, partly because it's always interesting to see this skill, and practically, to block desperation (and probably OHKO any opponent with low enough HP to have their vantage active as well as mages in desperation, but that why I thought to use it). He needs his vengeful counterattack to get his shield up.

This build is not as defensively powerful as shield pulse builds because it lacks the flat 5-dmg reduction from shield pulse and because the shield is not up on the first hit. Consequently, Grima cannot tank most swords using this build, especially Falchion. They simply do too much damage on the first hit for the shield to save him on the double. Zelgius wins quite convincingly with bold black luna. However, if Zelgius does not activate black luna, Grima will win with 1HP even if Zelgius has an atk boon (assuming no buffs or merges on either side.)

The other main weakness of this build is brave weapons. This will be hit and miss - if they're using luna without any pulses or charge accelerators, Grima's counterattack will actually finish charging the luna so that it lands right on his shield, which means he might survive to make his second counterattack and win.