Zoran

It's five fights together to hit the support cap, as detailed here. I've tested the findings about how the support points are counted extensively while trying to plan a run of Lunatic Conquest where I recruit and train absolutely everybody. They seem to be accurate, with some clarifications about the raw support gains: Battled in Guard Stance or Attack Stance (even if the attack stance partner was unarmed): +6 Adjacent during a battle, but not as attack stance partners: +4 Sang to or used a staff on an ally: +4 Actually used a dual strike or dual guard during the battle (even if the dual strike was negated by enemy guard stance): +2 Seed of Trust or Private Quarters: +12, and these ignore the usual support caps The link I just gave has a more accurate detailing of the situation, but roughly speaking, these raw support points are tallied and then sorted into tiers of 3, 2, or 1. For a given unit, only the top three partners on a particular map earn any points, and everyone else is dropped down to zero. You need to do five rounds of combat together (30 raw points) for the 3-point tier, three rounds (18 raw points) for the 2-point tier, and two rounds (or 10 raw points) for the 1-point tier. Only one unit can get the full three points; second place can earn at most two, and third place can get at most one. (I suspect this same system is also used in Awakening. It explains why sometimes you don't get Chrom or Lissa C supports by the end of chapter 1, even when you're using the Water Trick and everyone has tons of fights alongside Robin.) Effie and Arthur have a fast support, so their support break-points are 2 for C, 3 for B, 4 for A, and 5 for S. Normal supports take 3 for C and 4 for B. This does mean they only need six maps to get to S rank, so you can do it with 7, 8, 9, Mozu, Inv. 1, and 10. The main advantage of fast supports is that you can earn B rank in just one map—but only if you max out support points there. In this case, the crucial map is… Odin's join map. If Effie and Arthur reached A before chapter 10, then they should still have earned S rank after chapter 11. So I suspect you also shorted them on these last two chapters. If the two of them did just four fights together on each map, then they'd have earned 2 points on both maps for a total of 4, and they need 5.

For what it's worth, Lucina!Morgan starting in Tactician has the distinct advantage of coming with Veteran.

The difference is that Lucina has the Lord class line and Cynthia doesn’t. In particular, Lords have Dual Strike+, which makes it very easy for capped characters to reach 100 dual strike rate. 100% Dual Strike is always powerful, but it's especially strong when Lucina's husband is a Sage with 1-2 range braves (i.e., Celica's Gale), Vengeance, and Vantage. This setup is one of the only ways to reliably take on Apotheosis on enemy phase. The units who have access to all these tools are male Robin, any Laurent with Vantage, any Owain with Vengeance, Libra!Inigo, and any male Morgan. If you’d like to have the option to do this strategy with Robin, consider marrying +Mag/-Def Robin to Lucina. Marrying Lucina also has story implications that I enjoy.

Henry's fantastic for Gerome because he's the only father who passes both Berserker and +Hit skills. He's solid for most everyone else for the reasons you mentioned, and he's really only bad on Kjelle and Noire, who want Galeforce. Since you’re running Sumia!Lucina, you have an opportunity to get an Aether Morgan with great mods by marrying Sumia!Lucina or Chrom!Cynthia. +Str/-Def gives 4/1/6/5/1/-3/0 and makes yet another fantastic Wyvern Lord or Sniper. +Mag/-Def gives you 0/5/4/7/1/-5/2; the +7 Speed is exactly enough to hit 75 in Valkyrie with Sage support, and Valkyrie might as well be Morgan's personal class because no other children can get it with both Galeforce and Tomefaire. +Spd/-Def is overkill in most cases but has merit in certain challenge runs of Apotheosis. All this advice is with Apotheosis in mind, of course.

I picked up this game again over the weekend. Now that I’m better at Fire Emblem more generally, I decided to “improve” my previous Lunatic+ no-grind run. For personal satisfaction, I guess, I usually try to do it with endgame-oriented builds. So I haven’t followed the usual strategies: I've never used female Robin, I haven't married Cordelia, I’ve always taken -Def (which is not that big a problem with the benefit of Interceptor's and KTT's work), and I’ve tried to get good dads for any of the other kids I take. On my original run I early-promoted Sumia, got her Galeforce in chapter 13, and had male Robin marry Sumia!Lucina. Unfortunately, my team wasn’t strong enough to go recruit Cynthia immediately, and I also didn’t have immediate access to a child Paralogue with a Second Seal shop, so I had to delay recruiting the kids. This slowed things down a lot. I also ended up recruiting Inigo with Galeforce (which was a gigantic pain in the butt, feeding Olivia so much), as part of an effort to get Second Seals. It ended up not mattering for that purpose because I couldn’t reach Olivia's Galeforce before chapter 16 anyway. This time around I fed both Sumia and Cordelia. Both of them got to level 20 Pegasus Knight, and then Sumia cruised to Galeforce in chapter 13. Cordelia wasn’t far behind, ending up at 20/11. It was a little bit tricky feeding Cordelia a lot of experience in Cynthia's chapter, but I got her to 15 as well and recruited Cynthia, so I was able to go to Severa's Paralogue right after. The great thing was that I also managed to get Panne a few levels, change her into Wyvern Rider with the chapter 8 seal, and level her up several more times during Plegia. It's a little counter-intuitive, but I think investing in Panne helped me to pump so much experience into the pegs. A third flier, one with solid physical bulk and axes, was a huge help in creating safe positions and dealing with problem enemies. Panne married Stahl and Cordelia married Virion. I set up a handful of kills for the Stahl and Virion in early chapters, knowing that they would need a little help to provide decent damage, then I stuffed them in the back more or less permanently. Virion's early 2-range and eventual Longbow access were surprisingly useful. I spent a few chapters getting Robin and Lucina married before recruiting Morgan, and in the meantime I got my three child units through a reclass and a promotion. Panne reached Wyvern Lord 15 in Morgan's Paralogue, and now I’m about to recruit Yarne to be Morgan's friend. The team's in fantastic shape. Not only do I have really strong kids, all my parents are useful combat pairs. After the Galeforce rush was finished I was even able to intermittently feed the husbands so that they could all promote. Status after Chapter 17, the turn I recruited Yarne:

Dual Support+ does not affect the support unit. All it does is increase the usual support bonuses for the lead, so it gives a small amount of extra Hit, Avoid, Crit, and Dodge. That's it.

From whom? Henry? He'll probably want both anyway, which means sending him through Dark Mage at some point regardless. There may be another skill to pass to him that would save him a reclass. If not, then it doesn't make a difference really.

Donnel!Nah has Hero, which has 3 more Skill than Libra!Nah's Sage.

I remain convinced that Gaius!Noire is best as a Sniper with LB/GF/Astra/Luna/All+2. Sure, she's eclipsed in that role by Chrom!Cynthia and Sumia!Lucina because of Aether and their 1 extra Speed, but it's still by far the most potent thing she has going for her. Procstack Snipers are rare and valuable units, and it never hurts to have more of them. Plus Cynthia and Lucina are great in other classes besides Sniper, so they may not be filling that role in your team. So pick Gaius!Noire if you want a fast Sniper, and pick Gaius!Kjelle if you want a fast Wyvern Lord (LB/GF/Astra/Luna/All+2). The current fad at SF is to emphasize 75 Speed to an extreme degree, but that only actually matters against two enemies in the whole game. I prefer Gaius!Noire because doubling Anna at range 3 is very useful, whereas doubling her at range 1 usually is not. Nightmare Sniper is easy to kill regardless. If you're willing to accept not doubling Anna & NS, then Donnel!Kjelle does everything that Gaius!Kjelle does and gets Hero access to boot. For Noire, on the other hand, Donnel is a lot worse.

He is gone for good.

The #1 greatest argument in favor of Donnel!Kjelle is her magnificent hair, IMO. Stahl!Owain also gets Hit+20 Berserker, which can become useful in challenge runs.. That's also a perk for Ricken/Stahl!Inigo (and technically Ricken!Owain, but, you know, -2 Str & +5 Mag).

Virion!Severa rules in every way, so you've been doing well.

There were a couple old metagames where people thought he didn't have anything of value. Early on (especially before Apotheosis came out), people noticed that self-healing was ridiculously awesome in-game outside of Lunatic+, so combos like Sol+Vantage and Vengeance+Vantage+Nosferatu were popular. Everyone agreed that Sorcerers with Armsthrift and Aversa's Night were the best units possible. People also really liked defensive combos like PavGis. Virion didn't help any of that at all. Particularly after Apotheosis was out, people caught on to the fact that Galeforce and Procs are really good together, and the new fad was to try to get as many of Galeforce, Luna, and Dual Guard+ on the kids as possible. Nobody liked Vengeance without Vantage, and people tried to put Luna even on kids who don't ever want it, like the three boys with no Galeforce. Once again, Virion was useless in this context. The old ideas have fallen out of favor for a variety of reasons: Sol & Nosferatu: Leads don't do a lot of damage in Apotheosis, so the healing you get from these skills is negligible. Sol also interferes with the damage-dealing procs. PavGis: Think about when these skills are useful. The only time they accomplish anything of note is when they reduce damage by enough to keep you from dying—if you're not facing lethal damage, then you can heal it all up next turn anyway. But it's impossible to give these skills 100% activation rate outside of one very specific (and not very powerful) case. Thus, every time you put your units in a position where they might actually benefit from Pavise or Aegis, you're risking death. This is unacceptable. Dual Guard+: Same issues as PavGis, really, except that the activation rate for Dual Guards is even lower. Luna for everyone: The three boys who don't have Galeforce never* want to go up front, because they have Aggressor and Aggressor is twice as strong from the back. So there's no reason to try to give this skill to Laurent, Gerome, and Yarne. They want boosts to attack power, hit rate, and dual strike rate, and that's it. (*Laurent sometimes does Vengeance + Vantage up front with certain niche builds that give him 100% crit rate or 100% dual strike rate.) Nowadays Vengeance is accepted as a solo offensive skill, and there is much more appreciation for the power of dedicated support units. One of the consequences of this is that Virion's benefits are more valued. He gives great mods—he's the second-fastest father and offers the most Skill through his +2 mod and Archer access. The speed is a big deal for units like Severa and Brady, who otherwise don't need a lot from their dad. Archer itself is a great class tree for hard supports because of Hit Rate +20 and Prescience, which really helps out Berserkers. It also gives Bowfaire, which makes really strong Warriors. The Mage tree opens up Sage access and Tomefaire, which is nice for certain units as well. Virion!Severa can become a Tomefaire Dark Flier, and Virion!Yarne gains the ability to run magic if you need that for some reason. The Wyvern tree has somewhat useful skills in Deliverer and breakers, and for Severa in particular, Wyvern Lord is a powerful ending class that really loves Virion's speed. So yes, Virion is an abysmal father for the units who need offensive procs or Galeforce, but for everyone else he ranges from pretty good to top tier.

Assassin gives excellent pairup bonuses, but is nothing spectacular from the back or in the front because it has low strength and low mobility. So a lot of the metagame these days has revolved around replicating the advantages of Assassins with other classes. For instance, getting to 75 speed with a +3 speed pairup instead of a +4 pairup is a big deal because it means you get to use Berserkers, which net you a huge 10 strength in the back and an extra 3 strength for the lead.

Libra!Inigo is a lot better than Kellam!Inigo, if you're okay with one more Vengeance user. As far as I know, crit-stack VV Laurent needs a wife with Solidarity in order to work in Apo, so Libra!Nah won't be enough for that. Nah does appreciate Vaike, who's free.

Astra should never be run alongside Vengeance. The appeal of Vengeance is that (in most endgame settings) it has 100% activation rate, so its damage is completely predictable. Combining it with Astra means that sometimes you might end up getting more or less damage than you were anticipating.

No-Rally/No-DLC Apotheosis run update: I won! On my first try, even. The turn limit got a little tight on the last stage, but Lucina was an absolute champion, killing all four Sorcerer mooks and all four Sniper mooks. My Sniper swarm failed to beat Anna in one turn, but they regrouped for the next turn just fine. Morgan took care of the Invincisorcs, and Cynthia did work against the Nightmare Sniper.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. I was just curious.

Does Galeforce/Limit Breaker/Limit Breaker/Limit Breaker/Limit Breaker work?

It's five because Owain and Nah aren't actually coming along. The one time I need to use Inigo's Galeforce is on the Mire DFs. His kill is actually guaranteed if I manage to get him close-to-full-power Vengeance, but he'll also get it if Morgan gets her dual strikes. So I think I'll drop his Vengeance for Anathema.

+Magic is mostly not useful for this setting, but I have it because this was a full-power team that I've slowly depowered. If I were serious about making a dedicated full-restriction team, I'd pick +Speed, but I think I can still do it with my existing crew. My feeling is that Owain probably wouldn't get used anyway because everyone else is better than him. He can't double anyone but the Great Knights as a Sage, even with Assassin support.

Having already done no-Rally Apotheosis, I'm trying to adapt my pairings to no-DLC & no-Rally. [spoiler=The Pairings] Chrom @ Sniper [ Aether | Luna | Bowfaire | Rightful King | Dual Strike+ ] Sumia @ Sage [ Galeforce | Luna | Tomefaire | Renewal | Speed +2 ] Chrom is here to poke things, basically. (+Mag/-Def) Robin @ Berserker [ Axefaire | Hit Rate +20 | Prescience | Axebreaker | Tomebreaker ] Sumia!Lucina @ Great Lord w/ Boots [ Galeforce | Aether | Luna | Defender | Dual Strike+ ] 60 Speed for fighting Thronie and his clones (equipped with Ragnell for those fights). Robin's got Axebreaker for that purpose and Tomebreaker in case he's needed for the Sorcerers. Libra!Inigo @ Berserker [ Galeforce | Vengeance | Axefaire | Axebreaker | Tomebreaker ] (+Mag/-Def) Sumia!Lucina!Morgan @ Sniper [ Galeforce | Aether | Luna | Speed +2 | Defender ] The second 60 Speed pair, also capable of fighting Thronie clones. Being able to double most trash should help me pick up Longbow kills. Henry!Gerome @ Berserker [ Axefaire | Hex | Anathema | Axebreaker | Lancebreaker ] Donnel!Kjelle @ Assassin [ Galeforce | Astra | Luna | Swordfaire | Speed +2 ] The final 60 Speed pair. This one's just for general utility, and I'm not certain of Kjelle's skills. Kjelle could use breakers in place of Astra and Swordfaire. Lon'Qu!Brady @ Sage [ Galeforce | Astra | Luna | Tomefaire | Defender ] Chrom!Cynthia @ Dark Flier [ Galeforce | Aether | Luna | Tomefaire | Hit Rate +20 ] My only purely magical pair, and it's a really important one. Chrom!Cynthia with Ward and Pure Water is my primary means of approaching the Mire Dark Fliers; she'll tank all five Mires, then fly over and go for a kill. If she succeeds, I switch to Brady, double one of the other DFs and kill it, then Rescue Inigo x Morgan over and stomp the other three DFs with them. If she misses the kill, I rescue Cynthia back and try again the next turn. Gregor!Laurent @ Berserker [ Axefaire | Anathema | Axebreaker | Bowbreaker | Tomebreaker ] Virion!Severa @ Sniper [ Galeforce | Vengeance | Bowfaire | Hit Rate +20 | Speed +2 ] My second-fastest Sniper; 57 Speed allows her to double the Celica's Gale Sages, who are extremely scary. Stahl!Yarne @ Berserker [ Axefaire | Hit Rate +20 | Prescience | Swordbreaker | Bowbreaker ] Gaius!Noire @ Sniper [ Galeforce | Luna | Bowfaire | Hit Rate +20 | Speed +2 ] 56 Speed earns her a few extra doubles in Wave 1. Vaike!Nah @ General [ Axefaire | Strength +2 | Axebreaker | Lancebreaker | Bowbreaker ] Ricken!Owain @ Sniper [ Galeforce | Astra | Luna | Bowfaire | Hit Rate +20 ] Definitely my weakest Sniper, and Owain may as well not even have Galeforce except that he doesn't have many better options. I don't actually plan to use this pair, but it does exist as an option. Olivia @ Dancer w/ Boots 5 Staff Bots Basically, I've got three 60 Speed pairs, one pair of mages, and a pack of Snipers. [spoiler=Boss/Notable Enemy Strategies] Wave 0 General: Gank with Longbows. (May take a few rescues to get everyone up there.) Cynthia could kill him, but she risks dying if she fails a proc or drops a dual strike. Wave 1 Warrior: Longbow from Morgan, who doubles. Brave Bow nearly guarantees the kill, but (if I have my calcs right) if Morgan gets exactly one Aether and no Luna and Inigo hits his dual strikes, then I set up this guy's Vengeance perfectly and he wrecks me. I get the kill with Longbow ~55% of the time, and missing it is not a huge problem. Wave 2 Nightmare Sniper: A poke from Chrom and then an attack from Cynthia is sufficient to get the kill if I get all my dual strikes. Otherwise, I can surround him. Wave 3 Invincisorc: Longbow him. Wave 3 Ikeadin: Longbow him. Wave 3 Falcon-Ike: Longbow her. Wave 4 Mire DFs: Approach with Cynthia w/ Ward & Pure Water (takes 13*5 damage), then Gale two of them down and Rescue Morgan for the rest. Wave 4 Throne Berserker: Gank his buddies, poke with Longbow as desired, then fight with Lucina Wave 4 Sages: Longbow with Morgan and Severa Wave 5 Helswath Berserkers: Pull one with Lucina and one with Morgan. Wave 5 Anna: Gang up with Longbows. With Chrom, Morgan, Noire, and Severa, plus a Dance from Olivia, I'm virtually certain to kill her in one turn. If not, I have enough Rescue to bail. Do you guys have any suggestions for skill changes, problems I should be aware of, routing suggestions for the map, or the like? (The pairings are set; I've already made this team.)

+Mag/-Def is the best for staff bots.

Are these set in stone? They're all really good choices, with the exceptions of Vaike!Yarne and Donnel!Nah. Vaike!Yarne will have good mods, but the thing he really wants from his dad is a +Hit skill, particularly Hit Rate +20 from Sniper. Donnel!Nah will be okay, but she doesn't have the tools to use Galeforce well—she has no proc skill. All these choices will definitely work if you like them, though. Brady most appreciates Virion's mods, but Henry is an okay choice for him too. Looking over the dads you have left, I'd go with Virion!Brady (great mods, and he needs nothing else); Frederick!Inigo (gives him Luna, and as Czar_Yoshi outlined, he doesn't mind the low speed); Henry!Gerome (offers both Berserker and +Hit skills in Hex and Anathema); and Stahl!Kjelle. Libra!Inigo is a great alternative to Fred!Inigo if you like the option to go magical as well as physical. The problem here is that Stahl!Kjelle will really suck. The one and only thing she wants to have is Galeforce, and she has the classes and skills to use it, unlike Nah. If you're okay with shuffling around a couple of pairings, I'd get Vaike!Nah (pass Axefaire), Donnel!Kjelle, and Stahl!Yarne.

Yeah, the really special thing Female Robin brings to the table is marriage to Chrom, which gives her 100% Dual Strike for free and also makes Robin!Lucina, who is the single best unit in the whole game. But Chrom!Morgan is not a very good Morgan, since he gets nothing useful from his dad and can't marry Lucina. It's an option that really centralizes your team, particularly because the thing that Robin!Lucina wants to do is Vengeance+Vantage. On an unrelated note, I got through Secret Apotheosis with my finalized team I posted a while back and no Rally, which was really fun! I like that challenge run a lot because there's no need to constantly huddle around your Rally bots.