The thing about the new difficulty

Abyssal should honestly be renamed to "Hell".
But yeah, it's basically a whale party zone.

Yeah, how did anyone beat Marth’s? i keep getting dicked over (and not in the good way) and it makes me want to pull my hair out

I'm F2P and i beat both maps (Marth/Robin) with the same team (Atiki, Sheena, Effie, Veronica), the thing is that you need to figure out a way to tank or defeat a lot of units (3 or 4) in every turn.

I Spent 1:30 Hrs in each map tweaking my moves.

It's a really difficult and bull**** difficulty mode, but it's still doable without whaling or merges (at least, I was able to do it without ever whaling or adding extra merges).

For reference, I used a -Blade tome user, a Brave Bow user, and two Dancers, but I'm sure that much better players than I can clear it without using those weapons / units. (Hell, there's a post on Reddit of someone clearing it in one turn with Brave weapons, Galeforce, and Wings of Mercy F2P units--no Dancers, Healers, and the max merge was only +1.)

It's very possible with free to play if you've been building the perfect units for it (Bladetomes with high Spd, Razzle Dazzle Pain+ Savage Blow 6 and dancers etc), but if you don't have any of that, or didn't pick Veronica as your free pick then it's gonna be next to impossible because of the insane stat inflation.

But you pretty much HAVE to use Blades a lot of the time.

It's definitely doable. It's just more reliant on good positioning and poking/picking off enemies right.That being said, it's still really bullshit. As a non-F2P, non-whale myself, I have yet to make much more of a dent in either of the Abyssal challenges.

I find it simply absurd. I can't deny that I appreciate the challenge, but this is ridiculous whether or not I manage to clear it (and I'm intending to find a clear). Just to repeat the explanation I've given previously: when a summoner supported, half-merged Nowi cannot down a sword with 27 res in two hits, something's wrong with the game.