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Drafting: 1. This draft is for 3 players. 2. Chrom, Avatar, Frederick, Lissa, Sumia, Cordelia, Olivia, Tiki and Lucina are free for all to use. 3. The game will be played on Lunatic Classic. 4. The last round of drafting is reversed. Rules: 1. Undrafted units may: pair up with undrafted units and trade with undrafted/drafted units (but must not be in range of a drafted unit when battling) 2. Undrafted units may not do anything not listed above, including but not limited to: pairing up with drafted units, meatshielding, healing and supporting with drafted units. 3. NPC units may do as they please without penalty. 4. Paralogues are optional and are free up to 20 turns. 5. Challenge battles are banned. You may have undrafted units and/or summoned spotpass teams clear a challenge battle to shop, though any items obtained must be discarded/cannot be used or sold. 6. Map shopping is allowed, excluding items sold from Anna Merchant shops. 7. Mothers are drafted with their children (with exception of the free mothers), but are drafted at the same time as the rest of the units. 8. Use of items obtained from event tiles, the barracks and renown items are banned. 9. Use of DLC and Spotpass (including Free Content) is strictly prohibited. 10. Forging is allowed. Extra: 1. A unit that activates Galeforce may not move. Taking another action with Galeforce other than using a healing item is worth a penalty of 10 turns. 2. The Rescue staff can only be used once per turn. 3. Second Seal is banned on the Avatar. 4. Nosferatu is not buyable. 5. Renown will be as if it started at 0 for everyone. Here's the list of what can be obtained: Glass Sword (after Chapter 4) Second Seal (after Paralogue 3) Orsin's Hatchet (after Chapter 11) Seed of Trust (4 maps after Chapter 13) Levin Sword (6 maps after Seed of Trust) Energy Drop (6 maps after Levin Sword) Beast Killer (7 maps after Energy Drop) Penalties: 1. Undrafted units performing any disallowed action is worth a penalty of 4 turns, 2. Undrafted units pairing up with drafted units is worth a penalty of 20 turns instead. Exceptions: 1. Ricken and Maribelle are free to be attacked without countering in Ch.5. 2. Nowi and Gregor are free for Ch.8. 3. 2 undrafted units are free for Ch.2. All undrafted units can pair with drafted units during Chapter 2. Teams: Jedisupersorry: Lon'qu, Nowi+Nah, Libra, Say'ri, Gregor, Virion, Tharja+Noire, Flavia, Inigo *PKL: Stahl, Morgan, Anna, Cherche+Gerome, Kellam, Maribelle+Brady, Ricken, Owain, Donnel Ice Sage: Sully+Kjelle, Panne, Cynthia, Vaike, Severa, Gaius, Miriel+Laurent, Henry, Basilio [spoiler=Units Remaining]

So how much would you say lunatic reverse improves on the difficulty of the original lunatic? Does it make it much more harder or just a bit. I can't really answer as i can't even get past p3 of original lunatic.

Okay, so I love grinding and DLC and constant reclassing/customization for the best results, so gameplay on Normal/Hard passed pretty easily for me. Consequently, I didn't care much for "optimal pairings" or "best children" because I had no difficulty with the stages. Upon finally starting my lunatic run however, I discovered that this time I wanted to really plan out my pairings, skill inheritance and try to get the "best children in their best classes" possible! I'm absolutely fine with any sort of grinding and reclassing, so please don't hesitate to give me long reclassing paths if it's worth it! I also have full access to DLC and additional classes such as Dread Fighter and Bride, and skills like Limit Breaker - so there's no problem recommending me pairings that would utilize these skills/classes for their children. I've done some research of my own, and combined with the pairings that I used in my past playthroughs, I have come up with a draft - please don't hesitate correcting me! Chrom/Olivia (I've heard that this gives a great Inigo and Lucina) Inigo/feMU (Chrom or second gen is best for feMU, and Rightful King, so...) Cherche/Vaike/Frederick (Vaike gives crazy strength and I love a strong Gerome, but others seem to agree that Fred makes a tank Gerome. I'm a little worried about Fred's stats because in my past experiences Fred had quite inferior stats compared to other units further into the game.) Gaius/Tharja (Noire gets galeforce and that's awesome, but I've always made Gaius the father for Noire...is there any other good candidate for her father?) Maribelle/Lon'Qu/Henry/Libra (I've always done Lon'Qu for Brady and it worked out fine...but apparently Henry or Libra gives a good sorcerer potential for him. What should I do?) Miriel/Gregor (My mind is set on this one.) Nowi/Kellam/Donnel (Kellam gives Nah amazing defense. But why is everyone suggesting Donnel?) Sully/Donnel (Isn't this the best? I've heard Stahl and Vaike are good, too, but...) Panne/????? (Seriously, help me.) Lissa/Ricken/Libra/Henry/Vaike (So much potential...Owain might be a good magic user, but how about Dread Fighter? What should I do about him?) Cordelia/Lon'Qu/Stahl (That speed with Lon'Qu...but Stahl makes Severa a good hero...BUTBUTBUT) Sumia/Henry/Gaius/Fred/??? (I have zero ideas. But unfortunately Chrom is definitely out of question.) Please keep in mind, this is all for optimization and not supports or hair colours...(though I was very adamant on those before...) so no shipping wars! I greatly appreciate all the input, and thank you!

I have not played many FE parts and I have only beaten FE7-10 (FE9 hard; not maniac) on the highest difficulty yet. I tend to play FE11 on merciless soon. Yesterday I started my first attempt on lunatic+ causal, although even lunatic was annoying for me. I finished the prologue and chapter 1, so I stucked in chapter 2 "Shephards". The enemies with their luna+ wrecked Freddy up. After resetting around 20 times, I gave up and I am not going to continue it! I hate the whole idea that you have to use a "Jagen" against enemies with broken stats and skills, which always activate. The stats of the enemies are ok for this difficulty (same like lunatic I believe) but their skills ruin the strategical part to my mind. This is almost complety luckbased and this is not what I expect for a FE game! So I prefer the little but interesting feature in FE10 that the movement range of the enemies is disabled. This was fair and a great strategical feature, which should return at least as a menu option.

Welcome to my Hardcore Lunatic playlog! The rules: Lunatic and Classic, obviously. No DLC No Spotpass of any kind. No bonus box stages. No Risen. No abuse: No water trick on the prologue, no (intentionally) luring enemies to forts, no heal staff tanking (I will only heal when necessary), I will rout every map except in very special circumstances (e.g Ch. 21 with all the mires, Grima), NO RNG ABUSE, no Olivia dance spam. *pending more as people point them out* ONE second seal per character. Male MU. (since Chrom x MU is too strong) Why these rules? I previously did a lunatic run with these rules and TWO second seals per character, but I know I can do better. ONE EXCEPTION: I am going to use Donnell, and he'll need an extra second seal to promote from villager. So technically he gets two, but whatever. Let's get started! [spoiler=Prologue] Seda is born! Asset is speed, flaw is luck. Pretty standard. Some people like to take defense, I was considering putting resistance as the flaw, but this worked out well last time so whatever. I set the birthday to February so we won't get that bonus. Turn 1: The most important part of this map your first turn. This chapter is easy if you let Fred kill stuff, but I want that juicy exp on MU and Chrom. I move MU into the bottom left corner and trade the bronze sword to Fred. Fred moves right and up to draw in the enemies, and attacks a myrmidon, which will attack Chrom on the enemy turn and Chrom can kill it. (Fred br. sword + Chrom Falchion is exactly enough to kill. coincidence?) Lissa moves two right and down, so that no one can attack her, and leaves the northern barbarian to attack MU. Chrom's starting position allows the myrmidon to attack him, but the barbarian cannot, so that's exactly where I want him. End. The myrm hits Chrom for 10 out of 20, Chrom kills it. Barb hits MU for 13 out of 19, MU hits back for 8 out of 30. The remaining barb and myrm attack Fred and he hits back for 15 against both. The mage moves closer. Turn 2: Here's how it looks right now: http://i.imgur.com/KqJ3B0j.jpg?1 (The images are too big to embed in this post, but I will make them smaller in the future so I can just embed them.) IMO, this is the single best way to open on this map, since Fred doesn't take kills and it doesn't rely on the enemies missing their attacks. The barb and myrm on Fred can actually be in slightly different places even if you open the exact same way, but I tested those cases too and the solutions are the same, just in slightly different positions from what I'm about to do. Fred moves to the bottom left to get the barb in killing range, MU moves 1 to the right and kills the barb, Lissa moves left into the corner and heals MU, Chrom moves down 1 to block off MU from the myrm and uses a vulnerary. End. Myrm suicides against Chrom, barb and mage move closer. Turn 3: Lissa heals Fred up to 24. But the mage hits Fred for 13, so if I attack on my turn, the mage will kill him on the enemy phase. So I just move him into a blocking position, and then use MU and then Chrom to kill the barb, while also putting the MU in a blocking position so the mage can't get to Chrom. Here's how that looks: http://i.imgur.com/yOhsvXj.jpg?1 Pretty slick, if I do say so myself. End, mage attacks MU, MU hits back for 4. Turn 4: Fred his the mage, Lissa heals MU, I put Chrom behind MU for Veteran, MU kills the mage for a level up. +HP/Spd. That's pretty fuckin terrible, but fine. Look at that! We cleared the beginning of the map without using the silver lance, and Fred didn't get any kills. And you can do it too! Fred not getting kills makes it really tough, and it's really tempting to one shot that mage with the silver lance, but as you can see, this is totally manageable. Now I heal everybody to full, and MU gets the mystery square for 12 exp. Lissa levels up for +HP/Skl. Ugh. Turn 9: Fred moves to bait in the rest of the enemies by the boss. End. Myrm attacks Fred, everything else gets close. Turn 10: Here's how it looks, sorry for potato quality: http://i.imgur.com/nxeRy4O.jpg Fred kills the mage with his silver lance (I don't have a choice this time), I move lissa to the bridge to give Chrom +10 hit when he moves next to her to kill the myrm with his rapier, since it has better hit than Falchion and I really don't want to miss at this point. Chrom kills the myrm and levels up with +skl/spd/lck/res. Ugh. MU moves next to Chrom and Fred and trades with Fred to make it so Fred has the bronze sword equipped again, and then pairs up with Chrom. *enemy phase* The myrm attacks Fred, a barb attacks Chrom and misses, Chrom crits for the kill, second barb attacks Chrom and hits, Chrom hits back. THAT COULD HAVE GONE SO WRONG. Crits are actually bad sometimes, because if you kill the enemy, it lets a second enemy move onto that square for another attack on you. If that first barb hadn't missed, I would have been SO angry at that crit. Turn 11: Here's how it looks: http://i.imgur.com/6QGOMM6.jpg?1 Fred hits the barb, leaving it at 3 health, MU takes the kill with Chrom still attached. End. Myrm attacks MU, Chrom blocks and also dual attacks, the myrm dies. I want to point out that if Chrom had done neither of those things, I'd still be fine. MU is at full health and I could have just killed the myrm on my turn. As it happened, though, they did kill it and MU leveled up with +HP/Mag/Skl/Spd/Res. Much better. Turn 13: I move closer to the boss. Turn 14: I let Chrom take the mystery square next to the boss and he gets 13 exp, Lissa heals Fred to full. Turn 15: Here's how Fred looks against the boss: http://i.imgur.com/taHyYfc.jpg?1 That 8% chance to crit is basically a guarantee, so that's 21 damage, and then another normal hit on enemy phase would be 28 to kill Fred. That would be bad, and there's just no reason to gamble on that when you don't have to. So I put Fred next to the boss and end. The boss misses, Fred hits. Turn 16: Time to win. I put Lissa behind Fred for support purposes, and Fred attacks. The boss is now at 8 HP. I pair up MU with Chrom and go to the boss. Chrom has a 94% chance to hit with Falchion, but when you've played as much Fire Emblem as I have, 94% to win after this much work might as well be 15%. I switch to the rapier for a guaranteed kill. Chrom levels up with +HP/Str/Skl/Lck/Def. Cool. That's the prologue! Like I've said, it can be much easier than how I did it, but not if you want all the exp in MU and Chrom and you want to conserve the silver lance. Fred only took ONE kill! And ONE silver lance charge! That's pretty damn good for this map! [spoiler=Chapter 1] Turn 1: The only thing to really worry about on this map is the Hammer guy. I move Fred to aggro the nearby merc and barb with the silver lance equipped, and move the rest of the team close to clean up next turn. The two enemies get to low health against Fred, all the other enemies move closer. Turn 2: Put Lissa behind MU for extra magic, MU kills barbarian, Chrom pulls Lissa out and drops her nearby, Leave Virion where he is, Fred moves onto the fort and uses a vulnerary, finds Tiki's Tear on the mystery square (oh please let me win this time), put Sully behind Fred. She's a great support at this point in the game, actually. Strength, speed, and defense. The defense from Sully and the fort make it so the hammer barbarian can't one-shot Fred, which is nice. Here's the current map: Something about the reddish hue of this map makes my phone's camera unhappy. Sorry. End. Northern (weakened) merc attacks MU and dies, southern merc attacks Fred for 0 damage and dies (thanks to Sully's support strength), hammer guy misses fred, other barbarian hits for 4. Here's the map again: That was really the only turn that matters. Turn 3: Chrom kills the southernmost barbarian, Fred one-shots the archer (thanks again, Sully), I put Virion behind MU for Veteran, Lissa heals MU, MU moves to the square above the fort, trades to re-equip Fred with the bronze sword, and kills the last weakened barb for a +Str/spd/lck level up. The boss can go for Chrom or Fred but can't kill them, and the full health barb can go for Fred or MU or Chrom. If both had gone for and hit Chrom, I would have lost, but he prioritizes MU so it works out. Turn 4: Fred hits barb with bronze sword, Chrom kills barb. MU retreats and drops Virion near Lissa, but I fucked up the positioning so I can't heal MU this turn. End. Boss hits Chrom. There's no need for the details at this point. It's just a game of keep away as Fred whittles down the boss with his bronze sword. Fred gets a level up for +HP/Skl/Lck/Def/Res. Lissa gets a level up for +HP/Def (T____________T), and Chrom kills the boss for +HP/Str/Skl/Spd/Lck. That's it. Easy map. Fred got two kills.

For those unfamiliar with the mode, Lunatic Plus takes the most difficult and frustrating aspects of the regular Lunatic mode and makes them worse. The game achieves this anomaly by randomly assigning skills to every enemy, who have the same stats as their Lunatic counterparts. You should be familiar with one such assigned skill; Pass, obtainable by all assassins, promotes interesting changes in player tactics. However, the other possible skills are exclusive to Lunatic Plus enemies and downright broken. Hawkeye guarantees that its wielder will strike his or her foe. This skill effectively trashes the weapon triangle, but is ineffective in a significant number of situations. However, a hammer wielder with Hawkeye WILL kill Frederick, even if he is equipped with a sword and standing on a fortress. The next skill of interest, Vantage Plus, allows its wielder to strike first when being attacked. Unlike regular Vantage for Myrmidons, Vantage Plus triggers all the time. When this skill is on enemy mages, this turns a safe elimination by Frederick into his death or a VERY painful engagement. Finally, Luna Plus is a Luna effect that always triggers. This sounds minor, but this is THE Lunatic Plus skill that ruins this mode. Against Frederick, this skill gives the enemy seven extra damage per hit. Myrmidons with this skill start hurting Frederick, and Barbarians deal double their normal amount of damage. Luna Plus is ineffective on units that Frederick is supposed to evade or kill first, such as units with Hammers or magic. However, if those units receive Hawkeye or Vantage Plus as well, they will kill Frederick and your army no matter how good your strategy is. Regardless, I still wish to undertake this Classic Lunatic Plus LTC, meaning that I will play the game on Lunatic Plus with the Classic option selected in as few recorded turns as possible. I will choose to play with the male avatar and I will also recruit and keep all the game units alive. Given the unbalanced nature of this mode and the severe handicap of an LTC (lowest turn-count) run, I will use any "non-cheating" technique to clear this game, including DLC, Streetpass, Spotpass, and Renown (which I have maximized already). As I slowly make breakthroughs, I will fill this thread with progress of my run and share techniques (and possibly videos) of what I have done. Chapters: Premonition: Invisible Ties - 2 Turns Prologue: The Verge of History - 6 Turns (4 Turns possible) Chapter 1: Unwelcome Change - 4 Turns

Just finishing my HM run with few problems. Looking for tips for playing lunatic, since I've heard it's hard as hell. Also looking for people to pick my units and pairings (Classes and skills also welcome). Not taking the really weird ones though (Ricken!Yarne is just no). Also probably working with a Male MU Parentage: Virion!Inigo(Hero) Gregor!Nah Henry!Cynthia Chrom!Lucina/? Avatar(M)!Morgan/Gerome ?!Owain Vaike!Kjelle ?!Laurent ?!Noire ?!Brady ?!Yarne

So, a few days ago I decided to start playing this game...I've never beaten the "hardest mode" of a Fire Emblem game before (did Normal & Hard in Awakening, would like to do Lunatic at some point; and did Normal in Path of Radiance) and figured...I have enough experience with this that I can do a blind Lunatic run and not get obliterated riiiiiiight? WRONG. I started out as a mage stop laughing I like magical stuff and got all the way to Prologue 7, at which point the game was like: "You're a mage? LOLNOPE!". So I restarted as a Mercenary, and now I'm on Chapter 6 (I did grab a few pointers from the wonderful world of YouTube for a couple of the chapters). At this point I'm just doing whatever...no LTC really (sorta self-explanatory). I feel like I'm learning quickly (probably faster than if I was playing an easier mode...I was probably lured into a false sense of security based on my previous FE lower-difficulty experiences), but I've still got a ways to go, so I'll just put up playthrough stuff and if you could critique it, that'd be awesome. Or you could just laugh at my many blunders . I didn't actually realize I could record stuff until I hit Ch 4, so Prologues => Ch 3 is pretty much from memory. Working on putting together the videos for Ch 4 & 5 now. [spoiler=Playthrough - Prologues => Ch 3] Prologue 1 Not much to say here...took out that guy in the middle, took out Jagen. Wooooooo...exciting. Prologue 2 Also not a lot to say...took on Luke first, then healed up at the forts and moved on to Rody. Prologue 3 Did a bit of a triangle formation, stuck Rody in the rightmost fort, Luke out front, MU at the top, and Ryan in the middle. Healed off damage via the forts for a number of turns, then took out the last troop before baiting out Caeda with Luke to seal the deal. Prologue 4 (Athena) I sequestered myself in the top left corner and used Caeda and Luke (mostly Caeda) to take the enemy on one at a time (YES! FACE THE DEVASTATING POWER OF COWARDICE!!!) while Ryan poked at the enemy from behind the wall (still don't get how archers and mages shoot through walls). Prologue 5 I stuck Athena on the edge of the map (where only 1 bandit could hit her) to bait out the 2 closest enemy bandits. I finished them off with Merric and MU, letting the Archers live. I positioned it so Wrys was in the path of just 1 archer, and left the rest to the AI. Archer 1 hit Wrys, archer 2 hit <Insert Name Here>, and in the next turn I finished them off. Healed everyone up, then proceeded to bait the final 3 non-boss enemies. Killed the boss with <Insert Names of People Here> (probably MU, Caeda, or Luke). Prologue 6 (Draug) More baiting. I plastered everyone against the far right edge to keep them out of the way of the Archer & Mage, then baited those two out after finishing off the melee people (except the boss). Baited the boss with Luke, weakened him with Merric, and finished him with...someone...Ryan or MU...don't recall exactly. Prologue 7 (Cain) Strat pointers taken from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqez8IDuloo ... though I did end up deviating a bit in turn 2, sending Luke and Athena to deal with the Archer in the lower left instead of letting him approach. Everything else was pretty much the same though...I think... Prologue 8 Gosh darn it Katarina, why? Anyway...started by forming a wall (Caeda->Luke->MU->Marth->Cain) with Wrys, Ryan, and Merric in the back. That worked for a bit, until the mages started moving. At which point I realized 1) I couldn't reach them 2) My team's res is !@#$. Restart. Did the wall again, but pushed out a bit after the first few turns so that when the mages moved, I could fall down upon them like thunder from the heavens. Got to the save point (which I did not know was a save point until I walked upon it), then baited out the final wave with Caeda (on the left) and Merric (on the right). Before that I was trying to do some weird Caeda-only bait but the enemies had too much hp for that to work. Chapter 1 So...all the units I was putting effort into training (Merric, Caeda, Wrys...although the only effort with Wrys is making sure he's not in the range of the enemy...) left except for Luke and...well...me. Ryan is ok xp-wise, but not great, Rody is pretty much screwed at level 1, so...yeah. Took more strat pointers from a run by the same person as the vid linked in Prologue 7, essentially doing a wall move for the first Part, and turning the second part into a "stick the MU in the fort and hope he doesn't die" thing. Missed Malicia because on one of my unsuccessful attempts I had tried to visit the big village with one of my Cavaliers (Luke?) and nothing happened, so I assumed big villages were unvisit-able. *headdesk*. More on that in Chapter 3. Chapter 2 Reclassed a lot of people to Archer/Sniper. After a few botched tries, I finally weathered out the rain of enemies. Lured away a few of them with Catria by sending her off to the left while the main force went straight into the trees to engage the enemies that decided (rightly) to not chase her. Missed the Lady Sword because to heck with trying to get it and survive, missed Cord because see Ch. 1. Baited the Wyvern Riders with MU (went with a high-risk, high-reward maneuver and put him in the range of 2 of them...the boss and the right-middle one, resetting until he survived), Luke (Left Fort), Marth (Right Fort), and Catria (the left-middle one). Proceeded to poke with the archers until the melee units could finish them without dying. Chapter 3 Super-High Turn Count at its finest! I went all the way around the island, and after THAT I spend about thirty-odd turns waiting out the ammunition on the ballista thing (Pirate MU goes in, takes some shots, leaves for healing, goes back) before finally finishing it off. Also, this was the Chapter in which I finally discovered that Marth alone can visit the large village places, so I got a Bridge Key, Julian and Bord. Yippee. Chapter 3 (Gaiden) More luck dependency...but this time with LOWER odds than hoping enemies miss the MU! (Those ones were about 50% enemy chance to hit). I had Marth hit the top general (the only one he can reach) and had Arran (still a Sniper) hit the middle general. Prereq. for continuing past that point was that BOTH of them killed their opponents via critting (16% and 13% chances, respectively), otherwise reset. Linde & MU took on the bottom general, Catria (reclassed to Cavalier because archers) took on one of the enemy archers while Palla flew up to the top mountain, safely out of range of archer #2. Moved Wrys to safety (I almost forgot to do that). Archer #2 attacks Marth. Catria moves in as far as possible (otherwise she won't be able to reach the Knight pursuing Wrys) and switches weapons to Javelin (she is now in the range of the Archer pursuing Wrys). Moved Palla as far as possible while still being safe. Took out the remaining Archer from Turn 1 with...someone. Moved Marth onto the 1st fort, and moved everyone else toward the 2nd. Moved Wrys farther along to safety. Archer attacks Catria, both live (Catria missed with the Javelin, only 70-80% hit chance I think...), Knight moves further toward Wrys. Palla moves into the range of the Knight while Catria finishes off the Archer. Wrys makes his last possible move into safety. Bait successful! Knight attacks Palla, leaving Wrys sweating in terror, but alive. Finished the Knight with Catria, moved onto the fort with Palla, healed Palla with Wrys. Baited out the rest of the enemies one by one.

I've avoided FE:A and all them newfangled remakes for quite some time, only playing GBA hacks and whatnot. Then I decided to buy it, and have been absorbed into the vortex that is FE:A. I am now some hours into the game and have just beaten "Hard" mode, and plan on entering into Lunatic mode with a female MU, asset Resistance, flaw HP, and need to plan the best team for Lunatic gameplay. Here are some rules I've set for myself: -Cannot play any DLC maps before Endgame besides The Golden Gaffe (Bullion grinding, woohoo). -Can only play through the main story, Paralogues, Reeking Boxes, and single instances of each Spotpass team before Endgame. -No egregious abuse of Reeking Boxes for mass level ups. -Cannot allow any characters to die (lolwat who would do that anyways). -Only use original characters, no DLC characters as role-fillers. Stuff I want to know: -Best pairings? Reasons optional and helpful. Subjective, but what isn't? Here's a convenient pre-made template, with fill-ins for the fathers: Female Avatar + Chrom = Lucina / Morgan Cherche + Gregor = Gerome Olivia + F = Inigo Lissa + F = Owain Maribelle + F = Brady Cordelia + F = Severa Sully + F = Kjelle Tharja + F = Noire Nowi + F = Nah Sumia + F = Cynthia Miriel + F = Laurent -Recruitment times for children. All I can remember from trawling the Internet was that Lucina is the first recruited child and comes in after chapter 12. Or 13. I am otherwise ignorant of the chapter limitations before children paralogues become available, since I hadn't established many romantic relationships throughout the progress of the game. -Class optimization. Perhaps a better question to answer is: What classes DON'T my characters need to become, on account of their skills being useless for that character/their child? I'm particularly interested in long-term benefits and can play around momentary setbacks (e.g: I would continuously Second Seal a character into unpromoted classes to farm stats and necessary skills, against the benefits of a promoted class with better combat survivability). Format I used: Donnel: Villager -> Mercenary -> Fighter -> Bow Knight -> Hero -> Warrior -Inheritance. Some people make the argument that children always inherit their parent's classes, save for gender-specific stuff, so you should pass that. On the other hand, some people say that certain gender-locked skills, like Counter, are situational and unhelpful to certain characters (Counter for tanky Kjelle). In general, what should the mother and father pass to their child? I've tended to lean towards the level 15 promoted unit skills (Pass>Lethality, Swordfaire>Astra, on the basis of minimizing the amount of time a character spends in the dinky classes of Assassin/Swordmaster). -Things to watch out for in Lunatic. Is anything different, aside from the stats and skills? Are certain skills less useful or necessary? Is what I've set down thus far inherently flawed? Thanks for helping, and for any helpful information!

So I've been playing Awakening for quite some time, I've beaten the game on Hard several times with different Avatar builds and team pairings and such. But the only time I tried Lunatic, I got beat back really hard very early on, so I just derped around on Hard more. I was talking to some friends and they suggested I come to Serene's Forest for some help on planning my revenge on the true "hard" mode. Essentially, I'd like to ask for your help in planning my team for my Lunatic run, and I'll be keeping a log of the run here as well. The team I use the most in my Hard mode runs is this: [spoiler=Main Team] Chrom x Avatar (+mag/-str, tome-only build) Vaike x Lissa Stahl x Sully Lon'qu x Cherche' Libra x Tharja Henry x Miriel Gregor (bot) x Nowi Morgan (tome-only just like mommy) x Lucina (siblings but still awesome) I'm open to any ideas for other avatar builds, team members, marriage pairings and children builds. This team did not get me far on Lunatic, so I was hoping I can get wiser foresight here.

In my quest to enjoy the game again, I decided to replay it in Lunatic with a gimped Avatar (+Mag, - Def) she was still useful but can't wreck everything in EP. I relied a lot more on actual teamwork than the usual Lunatic playthrough. I was using Stahl/Kellam pair until Cordelia arrived and then it became my standard Stahl/Cordelia thing, Frederick/Sumia (Fred's still going strong in Chapter 13 what), Cavalier Chrom/Avatar (Chrom being the good one in this pair), a rather spd screwed Wyvern Panne (Cherche came with better spd base, which is ridiculously improbable, I'm probably benching her for Cherche, which is weird), Libra, Olivia and I even used Virion at some point but had to stop due to deployment slots. It was rather fun. Problem is I bought Pokemon Y so gg FE13. Anyway, I recommend playing like this in Lunatic if you don't find it fun anymore: -No deaths -No grinding on anything. -Avatar must have bad asset and bad flaw , preferably defense so it can't tank, ever. -No buyable nosferatu, buyable Rescue optional, up to you if Sol is allowed. It's a lot more challenging and fun this way.

On Normal, he's never needed; I benched him before midgame because the other units were just as good. On Lunatic, I must use him to get through the early game. What about Hard mode? How much is intelligent use of Frederick on Hard? The enemies aren't very strong as on Lunatic, but your starting units and equipment will have trouble with them, unlike on Normal. My feelings for Frederick aside (I like his personality), the idea would be to use him as little as possible, but sometimes he's the only hope to escape an unfavorable situation...

well i tried this and it is hard. only got to prlouge 3, so how hard does it get

Okay.... I have two teams... And I really need to know which is better... Then I'll need to do with that team. Experimental team Sumia!Lucina: Great lord-Galeforce, limit breaker, Dual strike/Aether, Rightful king, dual guard/aegis Brave sword, Gravidus. S support with Gerome Frederick!Gerome: Wyvern lord, Paladin- Axefaire/Dualguard, dual support+/resist +10, Luna, limit breaker, Aggressor Brave axe, Helswath S support with Lucina Ricken!Owain:Dread fighter- counter, (Luna, Astra), galeforce, limit breaker, Aggressor. Celica's gale, Brave Sword.S support with Morgan Tharja!Morgan: grandmaster, sorceror, Sage- galeforce, limit breaker,(Armsthrift, anathema), tomefaire, Ignis. Valflame, Celica S support with Owain Libra!Inigo: dread fighter, sorc- Astra, wrath, vantage, limit breaker, galeforce Brave Bow/Sword S support with Severa Stahl!Severa: hero, Falcoknight, bow knight- Galeforce, Luna, Armsthrift, limit breaker, Vantage, Lance/bow/Swordfaire) S support with Inigo Donny!Kjelle: General, Hero, Great Knight- Aegis, Pavise, Sol, Limit breaker, Galeforce Daddy pair with Donny Donnel: Hero/Warrior/bow knight- Resistance +10, Armsthrift, sol, Aggressor, Limit breaker Henry!Brady: Sage, SORC!- galeforce, tomefaire, Aggressor, Luna, Limit Breaker. S support with Noire AvatarNoire: Sorceror. Galeforce, Astra, Tomefaire, Dualguard, limit breaker. Chrom!Cynthia:Dark Flier. Galeforce, (Aether, Luna), Dualguard, Limit breaker, tomefaire S support with Laurent Gregor!Laurent: sorceror- Armsthrift, limit breaker, wrath, vantage, vengeance S support, with Cynthia Chrom: Great Lord, Bow knight, Dread fighter-Dual strike, Dual Guard, Aether, limit breaker, Rightful King S support with Sumia Sumia:Falcon knight/dark flier- Galeforce, (tome/lancefaire), Luna, LimitBreaker, pavise Kellam!Yarne:Berserker, taguel- Aggressor, Luna, Dualguard, axefaire, LimitBreaker, brave axe S support with nah Gaius!Nah:Manakete!- Galeforce, LimitBreaker, sol, vantage, (deliverer, acrobat, pass) S support with yarne Sure fire team Olivia!Lucina: Great lord-Galeforce, limit breaker, Dual strike/Aether, Rightful king, dual guard/aegis Brave sword, short spear. S support with Gerome Frederick!Gerome: Wyvern lord, Paladin- Axefaire/Dualstrike dual support+/resist +10, Luna, limit breaker, Aggressor Brave axe, Helswath S support with Lucina Stahl!Owain:Dread fighter- vantage, (Luna, Astra), galeforce limit breaker, Aggressor. Celica's gale, Brave Sword.S support with Morgan Morgan: grandmaster, sorceror, Sage- galeforce, limit breaker,(Armsthrift, anathema), tomefaire, Ignis. Valflame, Celica S support with Owain Chrom!Inigo: Hero, Bow Knight, paladin, Zerker- Astra, Rightful King, Aggressor, limit breaker, galeforce Brave Bow/Sword S support with Severa Vaike!Severa: hero, Falcoknight, bow knight- Galeforce, Luna, Armsthrift, limit breaker, Vantage, Lance/bow/Swordfaire) S support with Inigo Donny!Kjelle: General, Hero, Great Knight- Aegis, Pavise, Sol, Limit breaker, Galeforce Daddy pair with Donny Donnel: Hero/Warrior/bow knight- Resistance +10, Armsthrift, sol, Aggressor, Limit breaker Libra!Brady: Sage, SORC!- galeforce, tomefaire, Aggressor, Luna, Limit Breaker. S support with Noire Avatar!Noire: Sorceror. Galeforce, Astra, Tomefaire, Dualguard, limit breaker. Henry!Cynthia:Dark Flier. Galeforce, Anathema, Luna, Dualguard, Limit breaker S support with Laurent Gregor!Laurent: sorceror- Armsthrift, limit breaker, wrath, vantage, vengeance S support, with Cynthia Chrom: Great Lord, Bow knight, Dread fighter-Dual strike, Dual Guard, Aether, limit breaker, Rightful King S support with Olivia (Guarding, but not paired with) Olivia:Dancer- Limit breaker, Astra, Galeforce, Special Dance, (Pass, bond) Kellam!Yarne:Berserker, taguel- Aggressor, Luna, Dualguard, axefaire, LimitBreaker, brave axe S support with nah Gaius!Nah:Manakete!- Galeforce, LimitBreaker, sol, vantage, (deliverer, acrobat, pass) S support with yarne I'm completely fine with tweaks, but I just love teams with variety, so sorc enthusiasts can go encage themselves in the bones of the innocent. One last thing / means it varies on the role, while ()means that the skills are contested

I'm uploading FE13 lunatic no commentary walkthrough video on youtube. No DLC, Spotpass, Renown Event tiles, Barracks, Merchants, etc are allowed +Spd -Lck avatar It's not a LTC run. I'll grind my team through main chapters and some paralogues. My avatar was named after Rutger, FE6's myrmidon. I want to play lunatic mode with swordmaster avatar and Maribelle, FE13's troubadour girl. Premonition & Prologue (2 turns, None / 8 turns, Rutger & Frederick) Chapter 1 (4 turns, Chrom & Frederick) Chapter 2 (7 turns, Chrom & Frederick) Chapter 3 (8 turns, Rutger & Sumia) Paralogue 1 (11 turns, Chrom & Frederick) Chapter 4 (5 turns, Rutger & Vaike) Chapter 5 (7 turns, Chrom & Frederick) Paralogue 2 (6 turns, Frederick & Sumia) Chapter 6 (5 turns, Frederick & Sully) Chapter 7 (4 turns, Frederick & Sumia) Chapter 8 (7 turns, Frederick & Sumia) Paralogue 3 (6 turns, Frederick & Sumia) Chapter 9 (5 turns, Frederick & Sumia) Chapter 10 (6 turns, Frederick & Sumia) Paralogue 4 (7 turns, Chrom & Frederick) Chapter 11 (3 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Chapter 12 (6 turns, Chrom & Frederick) Chapter 13 (3 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Chapter 14 (4 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Chapter 15 (4 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Chapter 16 (5 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Chapter 17 (7 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Chapter 18 (6 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Paralogue 7 (1 turn, Rutger & Maribelle) Paralogue 12 (4 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Paralogue 14 (5 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Paralogue 13 (6 turns, Lucina & Brady) Paralogue 9 (2 turns, Lucina & Brady) Paralogue 17 (2 turns, Morgan & Laurent) Paralogue 6 (4 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Chapter 19 (3 turns, Lucina & Brady) Chapter 20 (4 turns, Lucina & Brady) Chapter 21 (4 turns, Lucina & Brady) Chapter 22 (2 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Chapter 23 (3 turns, Lucina & Brady) Chapter 24 (2 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Chapter 25 (3 turns, Rutger & Maribelle) Endgame (1 turn, Rutger & Yarne)

So I am on my second playthrough of Awakening, my first was on Normal difficulty (I had no idea how easy normal was going to be), and I decided to jump right into Lunatic mode after finishing the game the first time. It certainly is stupid hard compared to normal. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that it took me atleast 6 tries to get past the first prologue, and I am on chapter 2, and Frederick seems to have developed a glass chin, and his lance has 6 uses left in it. Don't even get me started on Chrom's "Dualstrike +10" skill, he seems to really like sitting back and watching Frederick fail to kill enemies in 1 hit. Lissa is borderline useless right now, if she gets anywhere near the dying Frederick enemies swoop in and just beat her into the ground until her head looks like mashed potatoes. I just can't wait until I am able to grind. Bonus question: I am thinking of making MU either a Sage, or Darkknight. She started out with +Magic, -Luck Her skills will probably be something like this: Renewal Lifetaker Tomefaire/Swordfaire Sol/Ignis Luna Will this be much help in Lunatic? Also, would it be of any help to buy back my old MU out of the Avatar Logbook.

[spoiler=Links to various chapters] Premonition: 2/2, Prologue: 5/7, Chapter 1: 4/11 Chapter 2: 7/18 Chapter 3: 5/23 Chapter 4: 5/28 Chapter 5: 6/34 Chapter 6: 4/38 Chapter 7: 3/41. Chapter 8: 5/46 Chapter 9: 4/50. Chapter 10: 2/52 Chapter 11: 3/55 Chapter 12: 3/58 Chapter 13: 1/59. Paralogue 12: 1/60. Chapter 14: 1/61. Not super duper optimized at all, particularly early on, I just wanted to see what turncounts roughly look like with a few conditions. - No Spotpass, DLC. - Anna shops, event tiles, barracks, etc are fine but I probably won't use them. - Renown starts at ~330 (maybe more so Celica's Gale is available for Walhart, etc.) - All Paralogues and Challenges are optional and count for turns - For the purpose of this topic, efficiency refers to fast and reliable clears (tending toward the lowest expected turn count). I think I generally favor more reliable clears, or strats that transition, compared to other LTCers. Decisions I'm making. - Not resetting for growths, etc - I do not like sacrificing units if possible. - +Def/-Luck. It's very possible +Spd or +Mag or something is better in the long run, but +Def snowballs quicker. - Not using Galeforce. It's probably faster in the end since the Renown Seal is there, but w/e. >_> - Testing a core of Griffon Avatar, Griffon Panne, Great Knight Lucina, and Rescuebot Morgan. Just for fun. [spoiler=Premonition: 2/2] Yep [spoiler=Prologue: 5/7] Essentially followed Redwall's strategy. Kill middle Myrm, then Mage while luring the top group, then Mage again while blocking some spaces, then boss. Chrom was unequipped the whole time so there were 4 nice and easy kills for Veterantar. I didnt really see a configuration where its more favorable to have a nonzero Dual Strike chance. I prefer taking advantage of Veteran over an unpaired strat. Also a minor modification at the end. If Frederick has 8 or more health, he attacks the boss with the Bronze Sword on turn 4 with Chrom unequipped. If Frederick has 7 or less health, Frederick heals and equips the Silver Lance with Chrom unequipped. Chrom finishes on player phase either way. The former occurred for my run. We eschew the 4 turn here (requires a Dual Strike or Frederick being at higher health and getting the bosskill) in favor of a more reliable 5 turn with Chrom consistently getting more exp. We also don't have Chrom face a 2hko at 65% true hit. Frederick's chance of death is probably ~5%, but there are always those rare outlier cases like Gamble crits or multiple Frederick misses on Barbs which result in death or lengthening the chapter. Imo, it's probably not worth the turn, but w/e I went with it. I think it's well understood 4 turns is easily possible with Chrom getting the kill. As well as an alternative and even safer 5-6 turn. [spoiler=Chapter 1: 4/11] Random enemy movements, Frederick's level up, random skills and various inaccurate attacks can all cause trouble here. There are usually ways to consistently 4 or 5 turn using a few key ideas. Pair Chrom and Frederick so they double Fighters. Pair Avatar and Lissa so Sully and Virion, unpaired, are available for chip. In my case, Avatar with Lissa with chip from Sully and Virion just kills the Archer which was convenient. It's pretty important to chip the Archer a little bit on enemy phase while still being relatively safe. I like to have Frederick with Chrom end the first turn 1 space left of where Chrom starts. Avatar with Lissa just out of range of stuff. If the Barb attacks Frederick from the South (Merc to the left), then Avatar finishes the Barb from the adjacent square on the right (allows him to counter the Archer on enemy phase) at high accuracy, Frederick kills the Merc from on the fort; he just kills with a Bronze Sword, which also gives him triangle against the coming Fighters. Virion trades the Elixer. Sully moves Up. If the Barb is to the left and Merc to the south, Virion moves and trades Avatar Thunder away so he doesn't steal the kill and chips the Merc. Avatar moves adjacent in the same square as the other case, trades for Thunder and the Elixer, and finishes the Merc. Frederick kills the Barb from on the fort. Each case appears to happen randomly 50/50, but at least that's half the time Avatar isn't attacking the dodgy Merc (against Patience, Avatar only has 78% true hit). Either way, we have nearby enemies dead, the Elixer to Avatar (not sure if this matters or not), and Frederick on the top fort by turn 2. At this point, Frederick has to dodge the Hammer (it's quite low true hit on a fort) but everything else is pretty variable for the next 2 turns. If Frederick got Str on level up, he can one-round Fighters that don't have Hp+5. If he gets Spd, he can double the boss, making it a little more lenient to 4 turn. If he doesn't kill Fighters, it's possible to get Avatar a little more exp but it can be dangerous. Should probably try conserve Silver Lance uses if possible as well. Just need to use Sully and Virion chip safely, and should be able to 4 or 5 turn with Avatar getting the bosskill. I ended up with a pretty common configuration. 1 Fighter was left alive, plus an damaged Archer and full health Merc over on the side. Frederick could weaken the Archer further for Avatar to kill with Bronze, while being in range of the Merc. Avatar finishes the Archer while in range of the Fighter but not the Merc. Turn 4, Frederick weakens the boss, Avatar finishes. Sully and Virion chip and finish the Merc. If Frederick didn't double the boss I think I would have finished the Archer with the Silver Lance so the Merc would be more heavily damaged and require less chip. Now reading through my strat, I just realized that maybe the initial Merc doesn't die (turn 2, in the case it's to the left) if Frederick doesn't proc Str. For some reason I never ran into that case. I suppose Frederick can use the Silver Lance first turn to solve that issue. Or maybe just keep Virion out of range and have Avatar to counterkill an extra enemy. I already hate Chapter 2 again. >_>

[spoiler=Links to specific chapters] Prologue to Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 to Chapter 11 Chapter 21 in 3 turns with all 4 chests Chapter 22 in 1 turn with Valflame, Gungnir, Helswath, and Balmunk. Chapter 23 in 2 turns. Chapter 24 in 1 (or 2) turn(s) Chapter 25 in 1 turn. Endgame in 1 turn. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ No Second Seals. Probably won't use anything from the Wireless menu including Renown and also random things like Anna shops/barracks/event tile items just because I'm lazy. They're probably not that broken though. Other than that, we'll leave all Paralogues, Skills, Weapons, Characters in. Forging and tonics in. Obviously no grinding from DLC and such. I won’t be going that fast since I find it boring in this game (too many bosskills in the latter half, plus I generally dislike LTC with random growths), though I also won’t go that slow (won’t dance/staff/boss/etc abuse). Since the earlygame is very similar across Lunatic runs, here are some general Lunatic tips and detailed strats for a No Avatar run up to Chapter 5. It gets mostly easier after that point. There’s no Second Seals until C8 anyways (if no Renown/Anna shops), so No Avatar is actually a little harder until then. The remainder of the guide (after Chapter 5) will have commentary on No Second Seals (but yes the Avatar is allowed, his main advantage Veteran is counteracted by the level cap). There will be widely applicable general strategies for every chapter for all Lunatic runs. Some of it is written in a walkthrough-like format since I was kind of working on a faq/guide. General strategy and map overview: I’ll give some introductory thoughts and as well as general conceptual tips and advice for the chapter. The idea is you should be able to complete the chapter with this advice after spending a little time thinking of a specific strategy for your team composition. No Avatar strategy: A detailed account of a No Avatar strategy to complete the chapter. Stat benchmarks/Other RNG/misc comments: I’ll comment on any noteworthy stats your characters should be around, other luck based components of the map, and anything else that’s interesting like analysis of character performance. Go ahead and ignore stuff if I start to ramble too much about random things for your liking. [spoiler=Prologue:] General strategy and map overview: This map may be a wakeup call for those who haven’t tried an FE Maniac or Lunatic mode before. The earlygame often requires extensive use of the prepromoted character, Frederick in this case. However, this character typically has lower bases or growths than a trained unit would have, therefore it’s typically beneficial for kills to be given to others when possible. There are exceptions, but Frederick in this game has extremely low personal bases and has little midgame and lategame potential. With Frederick as the only one that fights well here, it’s best to use him to clear the more dangerous enemies such as the Mages. He can oneshot them as well as the Myrms and weaken the Barbs to low hp, perfect for Chrom or Avatar to kill. It is possible to give Frederick the Bronze Sword here to conserve Silver Lance uses, but it’s not necessary and makes it harder to feed certain kills to Chrom/Avatar as well as making the Mages more dangerous. It’s possible to take advantage of Support bonuses for Avatar to face 0 crit against the boss and Avatar can slowly chip him down for exp. Pair with Chrom, stand next to Lissa and Frederick. No Avatar strategy: Frederick kills the middle Myrm. Lissa moves out of range and others stay put. After enemy phase, everyone retreats to the bottom left with Chrom in range of one of the Barbs, Frederick is healed up. Next turn, Lissa heals Chrom (Paired with Frederick she isn’t doubled by the Mage), and Chrom kills the other Barb. Avatar hides in the corner. Next turn, Frederick weakens the Mage with the Bronze Sword, Chrom finishes. Lissa heals everyone up. Frederick with Bronze Sword lures the top group, countering a single Myrm first. Next he kills the Mage with the Silver Lance, and Chrom goes to counter that weakened Myrm on enemy phase while out of range of the other enemies. Lissa heals up, Frederick runs away, Chrom cleans the weakened Barbs. Frederick weakens the boss with the Bronze Sword for Chrom to kill. Stat benchmarks/Other RNG/misc comments: Shouldn’t be any RNG-intensive parts. Everything is overall pretty consistent. Random allocation of Avoid+10 and Gamble is pretty lame, but oh well. Can Pair Frederick with Chrom or Lissa for a marginal boost to Hit and Crit avoid from Luck. Chrom is level 3, almost to 4. [spoiler=Chapter 1:] General strategy and map overview: The enemies rush the starting positions so take an advantageous position on the Fort terrain. Using Swords will work well against the many Fighters. Have someone tank the majority of the chapter on a fort with a Sword. Chrom or Avatar with Frederick Pair Up is usually the better option since they can get tons of exp. Sully and Virion come after most enemies have already charged, but can serve as distractions, especially with Sully’s 7 move. Beware of the Hammer enemy if using Frederick to tank. If he was traded him Avatar’s Bronze Sword and he's on a Fort, the hit rates are low on him, but it does a huge amount of damage. Try to give Virion’s Elixer to Frederick this chapter for a little more flexibility in the opening moves next chapter. It’s not a huge deal however since it is possible to trade in that chapter too. No Avatar strategy: Frederick with Chrom (unequip the Falchion) goes on the north fort. Without any levels yet, he brings the Fighter to 1 hp with the Bronze Sword and weakens the Myrm. 2nd turn, Chrom kills the Myrm. Sully with Virion stands in place to lure a fighter. Next, Chrom wipes out the enemies surrounding him. Sully kites her enemy up to the top right corner. Separate with Virion so he has a player phase to chip if no Dual Strikes happen so they can finish him off in time. Slowly weaken the Archer/Boss with Frederick and give Chrom the kills. Stat benchmarks/Other RNG/misc comments: Chrom can die on turn 2, but it’s rare, around a single digit chance, since all the enemies have to hit and they have 50 hit rates on the Iron Axes and 32 true hit for the Hammer enemy. Only 1 has to miss. Random Avoid+10 and Zeal are lame in principle, but shouldn’t cause any resets typically. Frederick should tank fine if used, just need to dodge the 20% hit for the Hammer. +Def asset Avatar should also tank fine, but might be doubled by Myrms at first (need 8 Spd). Chrom is level 5 and has C Frederick. Sully got 1 kill. [spoiler=Chapter 2:] General strategy and map overview: Just starting and there’s another jump in difficulty. The enemies now use Steel weapons and a huge number will rush all at once on a pretty open field. The key to this chapter is to trade the Elixer over to Frederick, and use the terrain and weapon triangle wisely. Also notice the 4 safe spots on turn 1 to hide people in and the mountain on the left. Leave someone unpaired so Miriel has somewhere to go when she joins. Only +Def Avatar with Frederick or Frederick himself can realistically tank the first part of the chapter. The Barbarians do the most damage, so the safest weapon to equip initially is the Bronze Sword and hopefully Avatar or Fred can dodge a few of them. After that, there are numerous Soldiers, so Tomes or Lances are safer. It may be useful to have the support character unequipped so no Dual Strikes occur so the tank doesn’t kill an enemy too early and allow more enemies to surround and attack that turn. Plan on either hiding everyone else in the bottom left or bottom right while the main tank lures enemies elsewhere and handles most of the enemies in the first wave on Mountain or Forest terrain. It’s possible to pick off weakened units with anyone that can take a hit. The second wave is easy to tank on a fort. Either rush up to the north forts or lure them down to the middle forts. Note that all the top enemies charge after getting in range of one of them. Try to feed other characters kills whenever possible. If doing a no grinding run, begin thinking of characters to train, some to become long term fighters (usually reclassed with early Second Seals), some as Pair Up partners (early Master Seals, and are in classes with good bonuses like Cavelier). Start thinking about Supports, what Pair Up bonuses they give each other and how they work with the character’s stat distribution. Think about synergistic skill combinations. No Avatar strategy: Virion trades Chrom the Elixir and pairs with Stahl. Avatar pairs with Sully. Vaike pairs with Lissa. Stahl and Sully go full left. Lissa goes full left and drops Vaike. Chrom pairs with Frederick and Frederick attacks the left Barb on the mountain with the Bronze Sword. If it dies, great. If not, someone will have to take a hit. Next turn, have everyone in the bottom left finish the Barb if necessary. Frederick goes onto the mountain and heals, equips the Silver Lance. After the enemies are thinned a little bit, switch to Chrom to finish off the weakened enemies. Depends on Chrom’s exact stats when this is safe, but he should be able to nab a few kills and get to level 6-7. Afterwards, rush the top fort with Chrom/Frederick, tank everything. The Barbs and Boss have <20 hit (spoiler: axe enemy hit doesn’t increase much for a long time) and everything does single digits. I fed the bosskill to Sully since I’m going to try and use her for Chrom’s marriage, Lucina’s bases, and as a Pair Up partner. Stat benchmarks/Other RNG/misc comments: This strategy feels slightly more reliable than the often advised, go to the left end of right Myrm’s range -> then forest next turn. Here, Frederick or whoever tanks will face less attacks on the turn when not on favorable terrain, and is on a mountain instead of a forest, so +1 Def, +10 avoid. Plus the terrain penalties mean he’s less surrounded each turn. I didn’t even need any Elixer uses. It should really be very consistent, but you have to judge when it’s safe to have Chrom (or Avatar if using him/her) tank instead of Frederick. It depends on what enemies are left, and what stat ups they get, but near the average or even a little below is sufficient to get a lot of exp. Avatar will need 8 Spd to avoid being doubled by the Myrms. Chrom is level 8, almost to 9 with 98 exp. Sully is level 3. Frederick is level 2, almost 3. [spoiler=Chapter 3:] General strategy and map overview: Go ahead and talk to Kellam with Chrom, Pair Up with him and have him move out of range. You have as much time as you need to set up the initial offense. Both sides in the bottom will only rush someone is in range of an enemy. The idea is to clear one of the sides quickly so everyone can regroup and face the other side as it charges toward you. Because of the Archers, this usually involves either Frederick with the Javelin or Avatar with Magic to initially counterattack and weaken the enemies so others can finish them off the next player phase. Give them the Elixer if needed. The top is easy to clear. Anyone can kill the knights without aggroing anything, though beware their high attack. However, again note that getting in range of anything else will cause the top to all to chase you. Anyways, slowly kite all around the stage to pick off enemies and feed kills to whoever you want. Beware of a Hammer Fighter that starts in the top right. No Avatar strategy: Chrom talks to Kellam, pairs with him, they move out of range and separate. Frederick takes the Javelin and Kellam pair up. Next turn they move left and attack a Soldier (unequip Kellam so no Dual Strikes). Chrom is with Sumia. Sully is with Stahl. Everyone else is unpaired. Next turn, Chrom/Sumia finishes an Archer. Sully/Stahl finishes the Soldier. Frederick finishes the Knight. Others stay out of range. Chrom or Sully can finish the remaining archer. Lissa heals Frederick, who goes right and heals with a Vulnerary. Then feed Chrom and Sully kills as safety allows. Use Miriel/Virion/Vaike chip as necessary. Afterwards, Chrom with Frederick opens the left door and kills the Knight with a Rapier. Frederick with Chrom with Javelin goes to the stairs tile to lure enemies. Kite all the way back around, feeding kills to Chrom and Sully. Boss is easy with Chrom. Stat benchmarks/Other RNG/misc comments: If Chrom is too weak to take an Archer + other hit (not including Knights because they’re slow and easy to kite) Frederick needs to be used slightly more to weaken enemies. However the Archers have 22 att, Myrms around 24. Fighters maybe around 27 with WTD. Level 9 Chrom will usually have 27 hp, 9-10 Def + 5 from Frederick, so it’s a fairly generous benchmark. Other than that, it’s possible to use more Miriel/Virion/Vaike chip to clear the bottom groups if offensive stats aren’t up to par. At this point, if Avatar was used instead of Chrom for the previous chapters, Avatar can really solo this entire map. Or else weaken enemies for Chrom/others. Chrom is level 11. Sully is level 4, very close to 5 and has C Stahl. Both still need some babying. [spoiler=Chapter 4:] General strategy and map overview: The way the map plays out depends on how the AI feels like moving, because it will box you into different situations. The important issue is to not let the Mages be too close to each other because they’ll 2hko everyone. Still it’s sometimes needed to have Frederick take hits and ohko mages with the Silver Lance (use tonics/Pair Up as necessary). Also Lissa or really anyone with Kellam can usually take a single hit if necessary. Kellam with Sumia can take hits if necessary, and can survive a round with the boss with a Def tonic. Sully/Stahl should be able to take 1 hit too and then outrun most enemies. Use these free hits wisely. Other than that, start moving to one side and kite to the other side. It can be tricky but as long as the Mages are dealt with quickly and you watch movement ranges, it should be doable. Remember Knights have only 4 move. Frederick with Kellam has very high defense, so use him to weaken enemies and feed kills to others if they need it. Careful positioning is most relevant if you’re trying to feed kills to other units for the long term. Otherwise, it’s much easier to solo/duo with Frederick or Avatar. No Avatar strategy: If I don’t mention them specifically, they just stay somewhere near Chrom but out of range. I brought Lissa, Kellam, Sully, Stahl, Frederick. The general strat for me is, Chrom with Frederick with Tonics can oneround the Fighters so they go right (but still within 6 spaces of the left Fighter on turn 2). Next turn, Chrom or Frederick kills the left Fighter depending on if Chrom was hit or not. After that, go in whichever direction looks safer. The priority is to kill the Mages in the next 1-2 turns, and the Knights soon after that. Ideally Frederick can kill a mage with the Javelin and either get a Dual Strike to take no damage or Lissa can heal while out of range of the other mage. It’s fine to use Chrom if he doubles or the Silver Lance as well, and Lissa can heal and take a hit from that mage. The Short Axe enemies are not a threat to a leveled Chrom and neither is the boss. Sully can nab weakened enemies or just run around and kite stuff with her 7 move. I gave her the bosskill. Stat benchmarks/Other RNG/misc comments: 15 Spd is a magic number for your units because the enemy Fighters and Mages all have 10 Spd. Doubling lets to quickly kill each enemy wave as they moves downward so you’re ready for the next wave. If Chrom cannot double Fighters without a boost, I would Pair with Sumia instead and use the Frederick/Kellam + Chrom/Sumia combination to kill them. If Fighters have Hp+5 or Chrom is weaker, then Chrom can weaken them for someone else, like Sully in my case. If Chrom cannot take multiple hits from the Fighters and Mages, Frederick needs to ohko the mages. Chrom at this point should have around 11-12 Def on average + 5 from Frederick + 2 from tonics + 1 from weapon triangle. The Fighters shouldn’t be a major threat to him. The Short Axe ones have like 30 disp hit, which is quite low. Even if Chrom has lower defenses or Frederick is needed elsewhere, it shouldn’t be a huge problem, as the majority of the time they’re kiting and had opportunities to heal. On the offensive side, my Chrom had fairly high speed, so I could afford the Frederick Pair up and still double. If Chrom’s speed is not as good, it’s a good idea to try to build C support with either Sumia or Sully instead, then use Str tonics for that extra boost. The chapter is more difficult if no one can one round the Fighters, and it may be necessary to use Frederick much more in that case. It’s not a huge deal since there aren’t too many kills to allocate anyways. The chapter is substantially easier with a strong Avatar since they have access to Tomes which are 1-2 range. In addition they’re probably really overleveled and with high Def. You can use both Avatar and Frederick to tank and weaken enemies and feed kills to whoever you wish. At this point, no one else really has the exp to fight that well. Afterwards the DLC opens up, so it’s now possible to grind if you bought it and want to. Chrom is level 12 with 70 exp. Sully is level 5, almost 6. [spoiler=Paralogue 1:] General strategy and map overview: The key to this map is to clean up the right side relatively quickly so that someone can catch the Thief with the Killer Lance as it’s heading down. If you don’t care about that item, then you can take more time, but it’s fairly lenient to do so you might as well. The other Thief near the bottom won’t move unless a unit gets in the range of the western enemies. With that said, it’s easier if your Sword using units have the +10 Avoid from a C support and a decent sword rank. They can quickly reduce the enemy hit rate to very low numbers, particularly if standing in a forest. Lon’qu can already do this at base level due to his Avoid+10 skill, but requires a +Def Pair Up or Defense tonic to not get ohko’d for better reliability. A general starting strategy is to have a strong unit like Chrom/Avatar with Frederick head upwards to clean up the nearby enemies. The Archer and Thief are pretty dangerous to the others. In the meantime, have some Sword wielder hold off the Barbarians coming from the left. Clean the the starting area, regroup, and head left as the Killer Lance Thief is heading down. Be careful not to aggro a few of the upper enemies with ranged weapons too early by watching movement ranges, and you should be fine. All in all, this is a great map to get tons of levels for your weaker characters. Donnel can be easily leveled by surrounding Archers and having Donnel poke them to death. I tend to use Frederick to drop Donnel next to the upper left Archer that’s already boxed in by the walls. It’s possible, though more risky, to weaken enemies then have Donnel snipe the last hit. No Avatar strategy: Chrom with Frederick attacks and kills the northern Barbarian. Sully with Stahl lures the north Thief with an Iron Lance. Lon’qu with Vaike and Def tonic heads into the forest in the bottom, using the Killing Edge to hopefully clean them up faster. Lissa and Donnel hide next to Sully. Afterwards, the enemies are split, with the dangerous Archers heading upwards near Chrom. He cleans them up in the next few turns, and then heads down to help Lon’qu. Sully finishes the Thief and runs out of range or can help Lon’qu if it looks safe. Lon’qu finishes all the Barbs surrounding him. Quickly heal up and head left. Frederick can rush from just out of range of everything to next to the west Archer, who Chrom kills. Again Sully lures the Thief while Lon’qu lures the Barbarians. After that, have Donnel poke at the upper left Archer while slowly luring enemies and feeding kills to Lon’qu/Sully. In my case, Chrom with no Pair Up weakens enemies just enough. Lon’qu with Vaike and Def Tonic can slowly chip and kill the boss, a 4hko. Stat benchmarks/Other RNG/misc comments: The chapter is much easier if Chrom or someone can double and oneround the Barbarians and Archers, which means having around 16 speed. Chrom or Avatar, if fed kills earlier, with Sumia should really meet this benchmark easily, but will have much lower Defense. A really high level unit won't even need Sumia and can use Sully or Frederick Pair Up instead. The issue isn’t that big if Chrom’s Weapon Rank is high and he has a C support for +10 Avoid, since he will face very low hit rates against the axes and doesn't need to oneround them. The Thieves and Archers are spread out and rare throughout the chapter and aren’t a huge threat as long as the Thieves don't double. Lon’qu faces low hit rates at base against the axes, around 30% which is around 18% true hit. Though unlikely, it is possible for him to die if he gets hit multiple times in a row. Again, that’s pretty unlikely, so it’s acceptable for a strategy here. If he criticals enemies with the Killing Edge, they would have less attacks on him and therefore less chances to hit him. But it’s not a big deal if he doesn’t critical, he just has a slightly higher chance of dying. In most playthroughs you’ll have Avatar, Chrom and Frederick to help out to Lon’qu so he'll have more assistance against his enemies. I also had Lon’qu with Vaike face the boss and he did have a chance of dying from a critical, but it was so low (maybe around 1-2% per round) that it’s fine. Sully just has to 2hko the Thieves which is very easy with an Iron Lance. Using Str Tonics or any Str Pair Up makes it easier. Though she is doubled by them, it’s easy to get enough Def to survive with using a Lance, a +Def Pair up and Tonics. Lon’qu is level 9 with C Vaike. Sully is level 7. Chrom is level 14 [spoiler=Chapter 5:] General strategy and map overview: First off, this chapter is certainly easier if you got the Rescue Staff from Paralogue 1. Pair Miriel with Lissa to get enough Magic and range to Rescue Maribelle + Ricken turn 1. The enemies in this chapter rush the team from 2 fronts, with numerous reinforcements. In addition, the Wyvern Riders will easily bypass whatever formation and chokepoints you set up. Therefore, it’s much easier if the enemies are bottlenecked at the fort above your starting position and your tank takes advantage of the terrain bonuses of that Fort. Remember than any strong Sword user can reduce Axe hit rates to very low, so any unit that gets on the fort should be able to tank most of the chapter. The only really threatening enemy is the mage and there’s only 1 if the initial Dark Mage in the middle is dealt with quickly. The idea is to get onto the fort on turn 2 and there are many ways to do so. One good way to do this is have whoever is going on the fort, usually someone + Frederick to rush as far up as possible and attack or kill the Barb (you have enemy phase and chip as well if necessary). Have Virion or any meatshield who can take a Nosferatu hit (Virion can also counter for a little damage) just behind that person. On enemy phase the Dark Mage will usually attack the bait so the tank can go on the fort, finish the Dark Mage and tank the rest of the chapter. Alternatively, Sumia could fly someone onto the fort, the main issue being the lack of a +Defense from Pair Up. In the meantime, someone needs to hold off the enemies coming from the left. Luckily, you have the rest of your whole team to do so, and they’re usually low accuracy enemies that someone like Lon’qu can dodge. There’s only a single enemy with high hit, the Myrmidon. Don’t be too aggressive and stay near the middle Fort and forests near the start until the enemies stop coming. All the reinforcements will rush you but there’s a group of 3 ground enemies in the top left and a bunch of wyverns + the boss who do not rush you unless you get in range of one of them. After clearing the moving reinforcements, lure a Wyvern, then get back onto the fort until everything is clear. Then clean up. No Avatar strategy: I use the above strategy to get Chrom with Frederick onto the fort. He destroys stuff. Meanwhile, Lon’qu with Vaike in a forest demolishes most of the bottom left with Killing Edge, one rounding most enemies without crits. He got a ton of levels in Paralogue 1 so he can double non-Myrms even with no Spd Pair Up. Once it’s more clear, Sully helps out too and gets some exp. She can Killer Lance the Dark Mages to one-round them. Some Wyverns are lured to the bottom level so Chrom doesn’t take all the exp. Spread kills to Lon'qu and Sully. Chrom got the bosskill. Stat benchmarks/Other RNG/misc comments: Hopefully you have at least 1 strong unit besides Frederick from all the previous kill feeding. Otherwise, Frederick is the one who has to take the fort and it’s quite hard to give other characters many kills. Luckily, any sword user with a decent sword Rank like C rank, and a C support for the 10 avoid can usually suffice. Also they need to have good enough Def/Spd to survive the Myrms. Hopefully the support partner is someone who gives lots of defense like Kellam or Frederick. Remember to use tonics as well. You should really be training Chrom at least, and he only needs a few levels on average to have good enough stats. It does help if this strong unit doubles the Barbs and Wyverns, but is not necessary. My Chrom had Spd a bit above average and Str/Def below average. Luckily those are the stats boosted by Frederick and Tonics. My Chrom completely destroyed this chapter and a much weaker one can probably beat it as well. It's a little risky to use someone like Lon'qu there in the middle because he probably isn't as strong, has much lower Defense, and doesn't support either Frederick or Kellam. A trained Sully or Stahl might work. If Lon’qu doesn’t have many levels and a C support, he could die from the bottom left enemies. In that case I would Pair with Sumia so he can double and for a tiny bit of avoid and Res (not as good long term Pair however since they don’t support). With training and the C Support with someone, he really shouldn’t have any problems. It is slightly riskier if the Dark Mage has Anathema, but the hit rates overall should be really low in general. Again, you have most of your team to deal with these few enemies and a little space to kite and back off, so it shouldn’t be a big problem. With weaker units, it’s probably necessary to turtle a little more than I did. Note that Sully is probably a better filler support for Lon'qu than Vaike since she gives Speed. Lon'qu, if a little Spd screwed like mine, is very borderline on doubling. However, I'm trying to train Sully too so they're separated. Lon'qu barely has enough Speed to double. It’s pretty easy to kill the Dark Mages, who have single digit stats. For my Sully who is currently by far the weakest combat unit of the ones I'm using, the Dark Mage would have to hit with Nosferatu, Sully would have to not crit twice at 30%, and Stahl would have to not Dual Strike twice at about 40%. Overall she kills with 90+% consistency. Chrom and Lon’qu easily kill them and can usually dodge the Nosferatu as well. A potential issue for slightly weaker units is that it’s hard to chip them down, especially those with Anathema/Hex because of an accurate Nosferatu and their decent Hp/Def. Using someone like Sumia’s Pair Up for the Speed to double and the Resistance is useful. Most people can take a hit, including the healers, so could also just try for a Killer crit each turn and heal if it fails. Chrom is level 17 with A Frederick. Lon’qu is level 11. Sully is level 9. Chrom can nearly solo chapters while Lon'qu and Sully are becoming competent. That’s all for No Avatar. Just for reference, I completed the No Avatar run with Swordmaster Gaius (probably Def blessed, but was ridiculous after the start and getting reclassed by the C8 Second Seal), Wyvern Lon’qu (I’m pretty sure anyone reclassed to Wyvern is op and Lon’qu is one of the easiest to train early on. He took the C12 Second Seal), Paladin Sully!Lucina (amazing <3), Tiki (Manakate. :D), and crew who pretty much still steamrolled later on. I stopped taking detailed notes. <_<. Really, any unit that reclasses properly can steamroll after getting a few initial levels, which is quite easy. That's the inspiration for a No Second Seal run instead. Everything afterwards will still have a general tip/advice section, but detailed strategies/misc comments will focus on the No Second Seal run. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Main difference in Prolouge-C5 for No Second Seal is I used +Def Avatar instead of Chrom early on to phase out Frederick faster. Also didn’t train Lon’qu, but used Chrom and Sully more in place of him. Sully is really good. Chrom is really not good. Avatar is a slowpoke though has high Def. Stats to come. The planned final team is: Chrom, Avatar, Lissa, Sully, Cordelia, Gregor, Libra, Anna, Lucina, Morgan, Kjelle, Sevara, Gerome, Flavia, Basilio. I’m also using filler until everyone, particularly the children, join, so I’ll mention those when appropriate. I also plan to do as much postgame as possible, if any, and might use the Spotpass paralogue characters if I can get them. With all that said, finally here’s Chapter 6 and 7. [spoiler=Chapter 6:] General strategy and map overview: May look intimidating, but most enemies come in distinct waves and there are chokepoints to use. It’s fairly useful to have a few competent units, hopefully not Frederick, by this point to hold various key positions. The most important of these positions is the middle chokepoint. The narrow hallway prevents too many enemies from attacking you at once and bottlenecks a bunch of dangerous Thieves and Mages. Note that a Thief will be in the position you want to block off at the start of Turn 2 so you’ll want another unit to take him out so your tank blocks that middle chokepoint. The Fighters and Dark Mages there have pretty low hit. Thieves have very high hit (particularly since they have Underdog for some reason), but low Str. Whoever tanks the middle probably wants a Sword to dodge Axes and Def support/tonic for the Thieves. Marth can hold off the first few waves coming from the right side, which leaves the rest of the team to the left. Chrom is likely part of the left group to recruit Gaius early. It’s typically better to have multiple units on the left to team up on the Dark Mages. The reason this chokepoint strategy works is Marth will take care of the single Thief on the right side and the all the others are blocked by the middle chokepoint. The door to Emmeryn is safe. There are other ways to position your units beside the one mentioned here. Just take advantage of Marth’s decent combat and finish off each wave on the left quickly so they never become overwhelming. Beware the Cavaliers which may be surprising with their high move and also the last Fighters that arrive since they have Silver Axes. No Second Seal strategy: Chrom with Frederick and Avatar with Lon’qu left. Sully with Stahl and a Def tonic in the middle. The chapter is very straightforward, with Avatar weakening things like the Dark Mages on the left and Chrom getting most of the kills. Sully and Marth slowly grind through the enemies in the middle and right. Panne does some meatshielding in the narrow corridors since she can take a hit, multiple with Kellam and a Defense tonic. That’s mostly used to protect Lissa from getting surrounded. Stat benchmarks/Other RNG/misc comments: The primary benchmarks to note regard Spd. If your units are not doubling, they won’t clear the enemies quickly and can get overrun. This is most important for the left enemies since the middle and right are mostly blockaded. At this point in the game, most trained characters will likely still need some kind of +Spd Pair Up like Lon’qu or Sumia (or Avatar, but he’s usually fighting). Naturally fast characters like Lon’qu or Sully may be able to take better supports like from the Caveliers, which also give Str and Def. There is often a balance in Lunatic between Speed (which determines offense, doubling damage and increasing Dual Strikes) and Defense (Frederick or Kellam Pair Up give huge durability boosts especially at this stage in the game, like +50%) My Avatar is nearly max level unpromoted so I want to use him to weaken stuff. His Mag and Spd are terrible so he Pairs with Lon’qu. Because he’s weakening enemies, I can have Chrom with Frederick, even if he doesn’t double, which allows him to tank the Fighters and Caveliers better. In general, Sumia may be a better Pair Up for Chrom if he heads to the left because of the Spd to double and the Res against the few dangerous Dark Mages. Unless Chrom is very overleveled, he lacks the capability to deal well with the Mages alone so he does need some help. Marth, with no help, dies maybe 40% of the time during the wave with the enemy Caveliers. By that time the enemy numbers have thinned out, so it’s not a huge deal if it happens. The right enemies still have to go through the tank in the middle since there’s no thieves to open the door to Emm. My tank for the middle, Sully, doesn’t have as much avoid as other Sword users like Chrom or Lon’qu. She makes it up by having very nice Def and even okay Resistance. It is somewhat required to be a decently high level, say 10+, and with a good, at least C rank, support like Stahl. In the past I’ve used a trained Lon’qu who can also do well in the middle since he has the avoid to dodge Axes and Dark/Thunder magic well. At this point he likely has a few Def from a C support and Tonics as well so Thieves do pretty low damage. Anathema is a more problematic skill here, since the Fighters/Mages hit very hard if not dodged. It’s just 10 hit, but does manage to influence the reliability percentages somewhat. Sully has less trouble than Lon’qu in that regard since she can take a few more hits. Of course Frederick can pretty easily hold the middle with a decent Pair Up, but all the beautiful exp, etcetc. Same deal with my overleveled Avatar I can’t promote yet. Compared to the no Avatar run, I’m using mainly Chrom, Avatar, Sully instead of Chrom, Frederick, Sully, Lon’qu, Gaius. As a result, everyone is already very strong. Chrom is probably the worst since he’s not fast enough to double without Sumia, but is also super Def screwed, 9 Def at level 13 so he needs Frederick. Avatar is level capped, so Sully ends up doing a lot of fighting. I’m not really keeping track of levels anymore but I’ll note important things like Skills/promotion and have stats later. [spoiler=Chapter 7:] General strategy and map overview: A straightforward map since any Sword user you’ve been training can probably take on most of the map. Just kill Thieves and Archers on player phase and rely on mostly Avoid and counterattacks to clear out the Axe users. There are a lot of Wyverns scattered around the map and they have high Defense. Chrom easily slays them with the Falchion, but other Sword users may want to use the Killing Edge to clean them up at a reasonable speed if they lack the Str. The reason you’ll want to clear them somewhat quickly is 3 Wyverns reinforcements will arrive around turn 5 enemy phase and at the same time the rightmost enemies and the boss charge in a pincer maneuver. By clearing out most of the map beforehand, you eliminate any threat of your healers and other soft units getting trapped. No Second Seal strategy: Chrom with Avatar and Sully with Stahl can easily steamroll the map with Swords, using Forests as convenient. However, I actually use Frederick for a decent amount of combat because I’m trying to marry him off to Lissa so I get Owain’s map for exp if I need it. So basically just exposing Frederick to a few attacks each turn while cleaning up everything else with Chrom and Sully. Cordelia joins but it’s halfway through the chapter and there are too many axes. She doesn’t do much except try to leech kills. It’s very dangerous for her to do so as well. Stat benchmarks/Other RNG/misc comments: Spd to double is again probably the most important benchmark, particularly to kill the Archers quickly. However, since Avoid is pretty reliable on this stage, it’s not as necessary to use Def Pair Ups so +Spd ones can be used, making that benchmark easy to meet. What’s probably more important is having a strong Sword user in general. It changes what could be a very challenging chapter, with numerous Wyverns and a pincer attack, into something quite easy. It’s been a common theme that Weapon triangle + high Weapon rank + C support + Skills give a unit Avoid necessary to dodge Axes which then makes a lot of the early maps much easier. Yes, Frederick can also use Swords, but that’s tons of exp “wasted”. There are numerous other candidates to give those kills to. Avatar is overleveled from Veteran and is dominant so that’s that. Chrom/Sully are similar in having balanced stats. Depending on their levels, they can take Spd Pair Ups like Sumia and Lon’qu/Chrom respectively. Or +Def from Frederick or Kellam. Or balanced stats from the Caveliers. The flexibility makes them good options to train and Chrom gets to easily slay Wyverns as a bonus. Stahl is in the interesting position of not really having a good early Spd Pair up until Panne/Cordelia, fairly late in the arc, and low Spd base/growths. With a little luck he’ll reliably double with Sully support, but another option is go heavy on the Def with a Kellam support, which quickly makes him a nice tank. Lon’qu loves the earlygame axefest. High Spd, Avoid+10, base C rank Sword mean he’s able to quickly become a reliable contributor. He does have low defenses, so some bad luck or Anathema/Hex can hurt his durability. Gaius actually has amazing personal bases, but is held back by Thief. In addition he joins relatively late compared to others, is underleveled, and doesn’t have any Avoid skills. He does have some of the better long-term potential once reclassed or promoted. Still, any of these Sword users are options to invest exp into so that it doesn’t all go to Frederick. It’s somewhat notable that after the Plegia Arc, and heading in Valm, Sword users tend to have a harder time against the increased weapon variety, particularly from the numerous mounts. One way to keep these units useful is to also train in a secondary weapon, easy for the Cavs. Or in a regular run, reclass early to really boost up those stats. Another alternative is to promote and then have them as mostly Pair Up partners later on. Spd is one of the most important stats throughout the game, particularly later on as enemy stats really ramp up, and these units tend to give a lot of Spd in Pair Up. That won’t happen for a while, but it’s fairly important to plan for the future. And we will be seeing a few more enemy Lance/Tome users in the chapters coming up. Quite a lengthy tangent, but it has important considerations to earlygame Lunatic and the implications are very obvious in this Chapter. I’m think I’m saving some Paralogues until I need them to train Sevara/Gerome when I get them. Paralogue 2 is pretty easy to do as it opens though, just need to realize some of the middle Barbs are not aggressive, so Sumia is safe to fly over with someone like Chrom to save Anna and the Village. For Paralogue 3, just need to clear the west enemies quickly to save at least 1 Villager for the Seraph. No need to worry too much about the east enemies until later. I’ve done a few more chapters, but need to write them up. Stuff gets more interesting down the line and we begin the see some early effects of the No Second Seal restriction.

1. No Renown, Spotpass, DLC, Anna shops, event-tile weapons etc. 2. All first-generation characters needed to be recruited. Children were optional. 3. P1-4 and 17 were required; other Paralogues were optional but counted for turns. 4. Soft resets were needed upon character deaths. Towards the beginning of the playthrough, I wasn't too concerned with getting the absolute lowest turncounts in certain stages, which is why my Prologue and C1-5 clears are each a turn above the established minima, though as soon as C6 (the first stage for which there doesn't exist a fully documented Lunatic LTC solution) began, I started getting a bit more fussy. I didn't reset for growths; after clearing Ch 3, I overwrote my save after receiving a favorable level-up for Fred while I was testing the C3 enemy AI, but that was the closest thing I did wrt growth-rigging. My C20 clear was pretty sketchy, but my team certainly had the firepower to clear the level reliably, albeit at a slower pace. The long-term plan was to, with proper support, Galeforce the crap out of everything. I trained two Galeforcers instead of one, but under my constraints, this was a decision with no opportunity cost; Tiki's map required either a lightning-fast player-phase attack or a sturdy defense capable of withstanding several turns of enemy-phase combat, and given the nature of the playthrough, I was inclined to choose the former option. Galeforce alone wasn't enough, however; enemy stats were rather high towards the end of the game, necessitating the use of Rallies. Finally, because obnoxious maps like C23 featured ridiculous numbers of strong enemies in wide-open spaces, Nosferatu wound up finding use as a source of enemy-phase healing. Pre 2 C5 6 P4 5 C15 4 C21 2 Pro 5 C6 4 C10 2 C16 1 C22 1 C1 5 C7 3 C11 3 C17 1 P9 2 C2 7 C8 6 C12 4 C18 1 C23 7 (ugh) C3 5 P2 5 C13 1 P17 2 C24 3 C4 5 P3 4 C14 2 C19 1 C25 1 P1 7 C9 4 P12 2 C20 1 Fin 2 I deliberately slowed down in C14 and P12 to get Galeforce and train Morgan, respectively; I believe these were beneficial actions from a turncount perspective, and will elaborate at some point. As for Final, my team was really weak and lacking in real (non-Galeforce) mobility; clearing the level with any reliability required enough infrastructure to slow me down a turn from the absolute minimum. My Avatar was named Pam, and had +Mag asset and -Lck flaw. Prologue (5/7) Chapter 1 (5/12) Chapter 2 (7/19) Chapter 3 (5/24) Chapter 4 (5/29) Paralogue 1 (7/36) Chapter 5 (6/42) Chapter 6 (4/46) Chapter 7 (3/49) Chapter 8 (6/55) Paralogue 2 (5/60) Paralogue 3 (4/64) Chapter 9 (4/68) Paralogue 4 (5/73) Chapter 10 (2/75) Chapter 11 (3/78) Chapter 12 (4/82) Chapter 13 (1/83) Chapter 14 (2/85) Paralogue 12 (2/87) Chapter 15 (4/91) Chapter 16 (1/92) Chapter 17 (1/93) Chapter 18 (1/94) Paralogue 17 (2/96) Chapter 19 (1/97) Chapter 20 (1/98) Chapter 21 (2/100) Chapter 22 (1/101) Paralogue 9 - Cynthia (2/103) Chapter 23 (7/110) Chapter 24 (3/113) Chapter 25 (1/114) Final (2/116) Stats and reclasses before Final Bro, should you even Galeforce?

In the next week, I plan on restarting my lunatic playthrough and replacing it with a new lunatic file. I just made it past the fort chapter, seventeen I believe. Any suggestions? Any special way of dealing with the +10 hit chance people? I could use some help.

I have a strategy that will work for anyone who has DLC, on any difficulty. First, you add your avatar into the avatar logbook, with full stats, and any skills you want him to be equipped with. This should be done on easy, or hard, so that you don't have too much trouble. Second, start a game on the difficulty that you cannot complete (e.g. Lunatic). Spam Frederick paired up with Chrom, until you have completed chapter 4, so that you will unlock the Outrealm Gate. Third, grind the Golden Gaffe, until you have enough money to buy the avatar from Step 1. Now use this avatar as much as you want. Notes: The more full-stat avatars you have, the better. You can keep grinding the golden gaffe, to buy up to 20 avatars at once. If you have Rouges and Redeemers 3, you can equip Limit Breaker. You should consider equipping this on your avatar(s). If you have 99,999 Renown, you can sell the Supreme Emblem for 99,999G, and your Bullion (L) for 10,000G, and (probably) buy an avatar before completing chapter 4. These avatars cannot have support conversations, so unfortunately, the support boosts won't increase. You can use the EXPonential Growth, in order to get lots of experience, but I recommend you wait until completing chapter 16 (or paralogue 16) so that you can buy Master Seals, and Second Seals. I hope this information helps!