[GBF] my journey to kill the false simulacrum of god with no yaoi to help me

2026年9月12日 22:41

Introduction Story

I am a [self-proclaimed casual] magna player. I started playing around 2019 and languished around rank 200 until an introduction to a certain MSQ character and became obsessed with the idea of making him strong enough to take him along into more difficult raids.

He is non negotiable in my nm90~150 set ups

It of course did not work because his element is water, an element that has numerous extremely powerful swiss-army utility characters that a free SSR character can't really compete against. Regardless I had started my HL climb this year which led me to farm Hexachromatic Hierarch and Faa0, speeding to rank300 in the process.
Recently a survey was put out for the English-speaking HL community, in which a section on "which HL raid have you soloed" was included. The results were that the amount of completed Subaha solos was on somewhat equal number to the amount of Hexa solos (not free quest), the host finding it strange as Subaha's Solos award the player with Eternity Sand and there is a sizable gap in difficulty between Hexa and Subaha; A player who often plays Hexa+ raids should be able to tackle Subaha solo.

Originally I had thought the comment of "it's really chill" was about the Subaha Solo but it was referring to the raid itself. the sentiment i think still stands

This offhand comment ( + suddenly being sick for about 4 days) led me down the road of looking into SubahaHL. In the 4 or so years since the release of the raid, surely powercreep has made the raid a bit more manageable, similar to how FaaHL is now. However, one of my biggest problems of these kinds of HL raids was the existence of a singular summon.

Homophobic of them to not give the yaoi summon to the raging fujo

Normally I could get by without this summon. I've done so for Faa0 and just being lucky with some of the recent character releases (ie, formal MegMari for Wind to clear debuff omens). However, a singular omen of Subaha stands in the way of making me not want to tackle this fight solo in any form.

To have Triple Zero would solve all of my problems. If it was only 3mil plain damage, it would also be no issue to solve. However, Cyge wanting to be Funny added an extra 300k plain damage requirement, meaning I would have to sacrifice 2 more summon slots for a Michael (1mil plain damage) and a Yatima to call both Bubs and her to clear this one omen. Or finding a good enough character to bring along that brings the very rare Plain Damage hit (ironically Darydara is one of them). Otherwise Sirius Origin is just impassable unless you bring along a character whose sole purpose is to substitute at that trigger and die. That also means dragging said substitute character all the way through Phase 2 unless you did some Revive hokey pokey to swap between a core guy and them (recalling old Wind solos with Hazen), which is very annoying especially when Subaha does a lot of damage with double strike during Phase 2 (worse if you got your Hp cut down to 20k).
In the end I gritted my teeth (through my illness) and completed the entire ordeal. Without Triple Zero. And, no, I don't think it was very chill. In fact, my personal ranking from chill to least chill are as follows:

Wind/Light > Fire >> Earth* > Water >>>>>>>>> Dark

This is personally due to my character pool, availability of summons/needing to use 4 summon slots for Phase 2 (Bubs+Michael+Yatima / Qilin), and maybe being Magna/weapon pool. I know being Magna doesn't mean it's impossible but at times I can feel the power discrepancy when looking at Primal sets for ideas/rotations. I would very much like to have the power to blaze through Phase 2 with minimal turn count but i could only manage a one turn fat hp burst with WeeO before going back to just chipping slowly away at Subaha's health.

I was very frustrated with a few of my ele clears. So much so that I deleted the comps after I was done with the solo. I refused to look at them again. So most of my setup pictures (if any) are either cobbled together from memory or from when i was Posting about my progress online, and I would say don't take these seriously. I've been bad at deckbuilding in yugioh so it's no different to GBF with its more complicated math.

My Element clears (in order I cleared Subaha with)

Fire

I think there's not much to say here. Sandira Atum can do anything. It was basically my faa0 kengo fire team with tweaks to the summon grid to include Yatima in the sub slot and moving Michael to the main + having MC be the substitute for the 10% Sirius Origin trigger. Friend summon Luci to just give x2 Luci healing on demand.

I partially copied the Higurashi grid from the Wiki using my faa0 grid as a template, using Michael Axe over Lord of Flames because I Don't Remember. Opted for M3 Colossus Sword over Shiva staff because I like the heal boost more for fatter Luci heals. I haven't barred Sennen Goji which i should i think but i dont know. I only kept this party because this is probably the safest team i can bring to farm Ultimate Memory.

I had Grand Yuel to help clear the 75% Strong armed debuff faster, which becomes another point to deck, er, party-build around. 6 turns without healing at around half health is frustrating to deal with, and if you are not light, every turn is guaranteed 5k plain damage so about 30k plain damage on top of Subaha's multi attack every turn (unless you are wind). It feels artificially difficult to be starved out of health but this raid wasn't meant to be solo'ed so I Guess it's working as intended.
MC died in the picture because i don't know. I had the health to survive Sirius Origin but i guess whatever was left into the double strike drain wasn't enough.

Light

Would you believe me if I said this nearly worked i just ran out of time and had to rely on Hraesv guys to burst Subaha's remaining HP just so i could get some consolation mats

At the height of my illness I tried to find ways around the typical light HL formation of Cosmos/Horus/Fif150. I think the irony of it all was after I cleared, Bhadra was revealed to be the Grand on Legfes, with her kit including a 1 time undying buff on start. Would've been nice to try and solo with her…

I think you can imagine what the grid looked like too since I also don't recall what I did other than the Michael+Bubs+Yatima nonsense

Earth

I did attempt this with Dopus MH/kengo with Galleon but turns out when you have the tools in front of you, you should use those tools.

To be honest, I just copied Cajun's wiki grid (minus tikoh I just used my 110 Caim and the Destroyer I replaced with an Uriel fist or something i dont remember). It has been on my mind for some time but the solo had me decide to bite the bullet and get Andromeda. It has been between this and Higurashi on what I should get as my next Illustrious weapon but my summer half-spark luckshitted me Bhasia, I pretty much now have everything to attempt HL with earth/Versusia.
If it hadn't been for this purchase I think this would've been lower than water in terms of "chillness" as Galleon was really annoying to work with, even though she brought the fabled Plain Damage skill nuke which freed up 2 summon slots for utility.

Bhasia: Do not look at Summer Payila. She is for fleeting bursty/zeus setups but I am forever core for Ougi Earth HL setups

Dark

this is the part where i mald

Friend summon 250 Celeste. Don't use this set if you have literally anything better.

This solo has made me believe that outside of burst/blue-boxing, dark may be my worst element. Every other person's solo attempt had something I was missing that can't be replaced, t0 notwithstanding, that I had to pull some bs out of my ass to try. Here it was to put plus marks on everything to ensure Orologia had at least near 100k health so they can survive at least a few turns when Cow s3 or Rei s3 was off cooldown.
You may say this solo was more involved; no longer I can rely on autowins ie Sandira Atum or braindead sets like FA Andromeda but had to use my brain to think through my turns. But I don't think this "actually engaging with the gameplay" was worth for how stressful this solo run was.

The core was based off of a solo using Ereshkigal. The team formation looks very similar. However, I had tried many times but always would wipe in Phase 2. I suspect it was because originally it was meant for Primal, basically eating through 8% of Subaha's health every turn compared to my measly damage output. Plus having t0 meant they could free up space for Alexiel which gives more survivability during Phase 2 which I cannot do. There are ways around the Phase 2 omen by delaying Subaha's release from its cocoon since those omens only arrive on turns that are multiples of 6. But that means you have to blast through about 40% of health in 6 turns which my magna ass could not do. And because the Phase 2 [6-turn] omens are random, I cannot rule out the possibility of seeing that plain damage omen.

There's probably a timeline in which I use the old kengo/Fediel/lich/halmal for the clear as if it was 2021 but I don't believe the sustain can outlast everything. I had tried Fediel and Lich in other comps but they weren't as good as the units they were replacing. Perhaps if I did Yamato instead with its ccw? Alas my roster lacked the Good Dark Characters that were released recently ie V.Wamdus, the crest gang (Lobelia/Tsukuyomi), Indala, H.Satyr, Yukata De La Fille (she also gives charge bar???). I spent many days trying different MC classes, swapping out different characters for defense, omen clearing, or firepower. In the end nothing worked as it turns out the 75% trigger really is a problem when you lack good healing/defense.

Characters with "cut to debuff duration". Guess which ones I have.

Rei was my only answer to bypass that Strong Armed debuff. Allowing the MC to double strike led me back to the Eresh set. However, in my previous tests I knew I lacked the firepower to get through Phase 2 at a reasonable pace to prevent Oro from taking too much damage. A way to do this is to keep Catura's s3 up but Eresh prevents CA gain, which Catura's ougi cuts her skill cooldown by an additional 2 turns. I needed another class that excels in normal attacking, and can deal high enough damage per turn. FO with another main hand weapon could work but then…

I already had this idea for Water when doing some initial meme tests. The manatura debuffs A Lot. With Rei it's at least 12 chances to land. This solves one of the big solo problems of "if you see the 10 debuff omen, just quit". WeeO notoriously does a lot of damage per turn (more with this Manatura giving Supp Damage), especially when you needed to burst down Raskeid in Solomonis you just hit every button + quilin + Xenoglossia = death. Plus, this frees up Catura to ougi allowing more uses of her s1/3.

Perhaps there was a better way through all of this if i had more patience. If i used yamato, did the revive hokey pokey with switching out Kou and Rei to have a good healer on hand whilst dealing with the Strong Arm. Or attempt with Mariachi?? Using two Agastia harps?? I was initially concerned about the CA omens until 3/4 through my dark attempts I realized it's probably the one omen (two, including the phase 2 one) you can easily ignore out of Subaha's set since their de/buffs aren't worth caring about. At this point i was really at the end of my rope and wanted this solo to be done and over with.

The rotation was the same. Rei s1 on MC, kill Kou early, bring in Nier, put all the buffs on Cow (wow usable double ougi!!!), wait for her to die by natural causes, once she passes the skillnuke buff off its good to go (MC can clear 20mil damage omen by themself its great). Though I use Cow s3 more actively to keep everyone alive since I guess having Halmal dagger really made a difference in keeping Oro not squishy???
75% Oro usually procs their full heal (though one test they didn't ?? saved me one potion use) so Rei s4 to clear the strong armed.
This ele + water may be the only time i actively used the Cocoon delay to get my Luci off cooldown and prep cow S3 rei s3 for phase 2.
Then its just hell. I have to keep Oro above 40k health because for some reason, every time consistently Subaha just snipes them if they reach that threshold. Is it my bad luck? Maybe.
One bonus of using WeeO is that 12 skill omen becomes an amazing omen to trigger. Seeing it means its time to dump Everything (except Xenoglossia). Oro s3 blue on MC and just click everything. Click everyone else's buttons before resetting with Qilin and then do it again (except saving rei s3 and cow s1/3 + high chaser). Dump as much fat skill damage onto Subaha before attacking, although its worth to save Burst Refrain and the team's dispels for another problem.

Cow s3 does make this trivial, + her dispel on auto and Oro's assist dispel x2 makes it doable to dispel all these but its another thing to keep in mind with the turn count when saving skills.
10% = Cow s3 heal up mc. At least the substitute lasts 2 turns so if I'm around 15% I just do another skill dump/high chaser double strike in order to eek as close to 10% to keep the sub active for that.
Then past 10% where you have to outdamage Subaha's healing, that's where Xenoglossia comes in. One more skill dump, rei s3 maybe to just prevent too much damage/healing, and ideally it clears in 2~3 turns. Demons Vanquished. I never have to think about this again (or until hexa solo i guess) (please t0 come home by that point)

Wind

I will never forgive them for making me have gay sex with siete during the sumo event

Yeah man what do i even say.

"基本フルオートリロ殴り"

Some older solos had Hazen get revived multiple times after bringing out Katzelia to swap between one of the frontliners for trigger tanking (75% and 10%). Although now its even more simplified (when did siete get his rebalance…?) you just have to do it once and just tank the whole 6t Strong Armed debuff since the entire team is very tanky. In addition, the Wind Tenet is the reason for Subaha's multi attack so with Katze's earth switch, Subaha's attacks are just single pellets of damage (the light tenet plain damage is the actual death by a thousand papercuts).

This is the same grid I use for Hexa and Faa0. Although Luci friend summon could be a Tia summon I was just worried about the sustain in Phase 2, forgetting that Charlotta provides drain. I could've also maybe tried RF with Sharkbell since I use that for Hexa but I wasn't sure if it could ougi loop as easily. Perhaps after Esta's transcendence it'll be better.

It's laughably easy compared to the nightmarish hell sisyphian cycle i was in when trying dark. All it took was all of my goddamn money to get Siete up to 150 future-prepping for versusia.

Water

Due to my stupid Darydara prep for water Guild War a few months back, water is probably among my stronger elements other than having Sandira Atum wombo combo for fire. The only problem is I lacked Sylvia who has been instrumental in a lot of recent water HL clears, and notably she has a debuff-cut duration skill.
If someone were to accuse me of disliking engaging with mechanics re:my Dark solo, I'd like to ask if they ever considered using Drang because his rebalance/uncap gave a plethora of defensive buffs and debuff cut, do you remember he was considered for NM250 in Guild War?

MC was Yamato with a crafted CCW. It was going very well but because Yamato is really good at dealing with omens, Drang never triggered his debuff cut support skill, making me deal with the full 6T of Strong Armed. Regrettably even though this worked pretty well, the accidental anti-synergy with Drang made it difficult to get through Phase 2 despite delaying the Cocoon phase.

Anyway it was back to the drawing board. My Uno was still at 100 because I had other priorities so ironically the one time that fraud is usable is out of question here. The one grid posted to the wiki is 2 years old at this point, the video using a Tefnut staff of all things for defense. Surely we can do something better than this…
For the record I did try it but the rotation was so slow and difficult to keep up with how long Payila's cooldowns were to keep Europa's Sanctuary buff active and failing a lot of the early omens bit me in the ass during Phase 2 (& you just have to tank the 6T of no healing too after 75%), I decided this set was not for me.
Running through my options of debuff cut, one stood out to me was Cupitan. She had received her 5* uncap in 2025 (???) but kinda disappeared due to how clicky she is, and how she sometimes would draw arrows she already has (and in FA she will use her recast ability first before her damage skills which makes you lose out on DPS or whatever, "clunky" is how I'd describe it). She did receive more appreciation thanks to Solomonis favouring skill spammy strategies with WeeO, my own runs having her be MVP on multiple occasions due to her EMP support skill proccing up to 3 times a turn. There was also this legendary algorithm pull I got while dealing with Youtube/Google's broken ass search engine:

This pretty much solidified my theory of Cupitan as my Sylvian Solution. The amount of turns I have to use for Subaha anyway means I will eventually get all 7 arrows on Cupitan that also: Heals (!), Dispels (!! for phase 2), Debuffs (! well not that important but she can raise Glaciate levels which ramps Europa faster), and especially cut to Debuff duration. Her s3 and constant refreshing of s1 with her CA means i could just unload a barrage of skills onto Subaha at 75% and clear Strong Armed on the next turn. Very cool.
Her healing isn't great, same could be said for Haaselia but together just to stem some of the Light tenet bleeding waiting for my Lucis/Europa s1 to get off cooldown, she surprisingly solved a lot of things I was asking for.
Sticking to my early theorycrafting with managing debuffs (the shieldsworn set using Rain of Arrows+miserable mist to hit the debuff count with Europa s1 and haase s1x2…), I figured to (buy) use the Hexa manatura for this. Water Tenet is responsible for Subaha's debuff resistance so just one attack from MC should deal with a majority of the debuff count. This also means Haase's s2 sometimes can be used instead to shield either herself or Cupitan because ??? Subaha knows of my plan and really wanted to get rid of Cupitan. Wizard Origin also greatly synergies with Cupitan's s4 + Qilin skill burst strategy I did with dark to get through Phase 2 as quickly as possible. So that was my thinking for this set.

I really wished I could use Gabriel instead of Uruki so I could remove one Levi Dagger but it was the only decent consistent way to get Haase out (i also gave her an artifact that cuts her Def so she would die faster)

The biggest scare came around 10%. A lot of my runs ended up with me barely using my potions by the time i got to this point so everyone just had to Deal With It (after a blue pot obv). The RNG came from whether or not Cupitan Fucking Died after reloading. Sometimes Haase's s2 shield can make her survive past this point but MT gives everyone second wind upon entry anyway, bonus if you land on the turn Subaha gets all the ele buffs so her s1 can give her instant charge and then she can do that shit again next turn (also her s4 can't give the damage mitigation buff to subaha at 10% (it counts as a debuff????) so honestly its a win-win).
Same as Dark where its Xenoglossia skillspam time and it clears in about 2 turns. MT's s2 came in clutch one test to not only heal but have everyone enable one last Full Chain Burst to kill the last remaining hp.

I may sound happy that I was a very smart boy in thinking of this idea and having a chill time but… I still had to survive through Phase 2. Europa's s2 is on a long ass cooldown and i really had to make sure I lined it up to when Subaha gains its 6 ~~human souls~~ element buffs so everyone wouldn't be taking ridiculous damage or Cupitan's skill spam for dispels/s3 is available to just get rid of these in one turn (having it after 12 skills is fine since i just save s3 after qilin). Yes, Haase and Europa may get revived thanks to Europa's s4 but Haase loses her buffs and ability to double skill spam/ougi that she becomes a broken wet potato if she dies. So a lot of Phase 2 is keeping both Cupitan and Haase above red health (or on turns without the sanctuary buff, above at least 40%), and how im thankful i decided to just shotgun stoning my luci summon that one time so I could just double luci heal for a juicy 20k+ heal.

Final thoughts

I didn't think Subaha was fun. Maybe one of the more stressful legit solos I've done so far. Eating through 3 billion health is a lot, and seeing Hexa is double that, I feel I am not looking forward to doing that solo in my future (unless there's more powercreep where i can easily eat/speed through luwho feddy phase).

A lot of Trial and Error goes into making sets which I understand; I have tried to build my own stuff for Guild War this year. Problem-solving can be fun too, it's what people sometimes enjoy about deckbuilding in Yugioh as well. But, GBF is at its core a gacha game. It is in the company's interest to make sure the Magna stuff doesn't overshadow the Primal stuff. They want you to spend money to get the new and elusive Thing that can do Everything.
But it really felt I was gapped by not having that one summon. Limiting my summon grid to fit in 2 that do nothing but solve one omen when they could be used for more utility (Uriel, Alexiel, anything with a strong subaura like GO or the element-relevant archangels) would've made this "journey" a lot more manageable. Seriously why did they make the plain damage be 3.3mil instead of just 3 mil?? Are you surprised that everyone decided the best way to deal with this was to ignore it and Robin Hood the entire thing?

Me when I couldn't craft all 3 copies of Diabellstar + WANTED: Seeker during Snake-Eyes format Master Duel that I had to use Monster Reborn and Where Arf Thou

This might be proof that it isn't impossible, through grit sweat and a lot of malding you too, magna player reading this, can worm your way to victory with your heart being dangerously close to an attack. Or you can just Yamato 6 ele it lol. I guess I can say I did it with a fat non-sparkable handicap that apparently everyone but me doesn't have. If they do another survey, i can be not shamed as one of the 11 who didn't attempt this free 6 eternity sand achievement.

I still have the Pride of the Ascendant s2 to do…

Special Thanks

Darydara for

@likablebrute and @wallghost in the HL discord for actually providing advice to help tweak the dark grid for more stability (I did end up using one Abyss spine just for the health bump for Oro, the healing cap from the dopus didn't change much honestly)

Alex for encouraging me to spark my Egyptian husband last summer because he became a fucking nuclear bomb this year and letting me play HL with Fire/Sandira