The Lunatic Club

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Lon'Qu is actually really easy to train even on Luna+ because every axe user without hawkeye still misses him. Sure, counter is a nuisance as it is with anyone else, but the low damage Lon'Qu does to high defense enemies like knights and cavs actually helps him in this case. The only real problem is getting him strength tonics, pair up bonuses etc. to make sure he can 2HKO counter fighters and barbarians.

I more or less found him easy to train in my run too (it's just a shame he got RNG screwed in the durability department and I had to bench him mid-game). It helps that he comes with a Killing Edge he is guaranteed to be able to use. While not reliable, crit-gibbing is a counter to Counter and probably about the best most sword-locked characters can do.

He's clearly going to be limited to just weakening things early on, but he's completely trainable in a babysitting situation once you get past that stage of the game. You have to be a little bit choosier about your targets, but I managed to train Lon'qu (who gets eaten alive by Counter), so it's not impossible.

I tried using Virion on my run that allowed grinding and he didn't get too much less squishy throughout the game and had some speed issues (although not huge issues, just that very average place where he couldn't double, even with a tonic, but wasn't in danger of being doubled, either). He could generally survive one hit from just about anything, two from some ranged attackers. He does have a pretty nice niche early on with the Renown Longbow too. All in all, though, I think you might be happier with the results if you put the effort for this plan into Morgan instead.

Yeah, I'm curious if people particularly upset with Counter just aren't using enough ranged attacks. Virion is a beast.

My go-to strategy is to hit them at range. However, I prefer to use 1~2 range weapons as it allows the pairs to fight back against other enemies. This allows me to safely deal with a number of Counter enemies equal to pairs I have 1~2 range weapons on. The issue, as I stated before, is that because the randomizer isn't policed beyond chapter 2, this is sometimes (and surprisingly often) not enough (maybe I'm just unlucky, but I routinely see 75%+ of the enemies toting Counter).

[Missile]

MU is already promoted before chapter 8 (I didn't use Veteran after chapter 5) and i think if it will be a good idea to reach C sword in order to use the Levin Sword. Anna can use it but that would make MU an better tank against axe users (at least -20 Hitrate and - 1 atk) but I see everyone using Tomes only, so...

[euroteres]

So i finally beat lunatic yesterday. I had started on lunatic for another file while doing a metric ton of grinding but after i got to chapter 21 i decided to man up and play the game no grinding. I fought 4 skirmishes total (2 before they became temporarily impossible, 1 because i wanted to see what getting an anna item was like and 1 because i wanted to buy second seals and some schmucks were in the way)

Whoever suggested using Nowi thank you very much. I loved her impenetrable wall status so much that I ended up training all 3 of the manaketes and using them in the last 4-5 levels XD. I did nosferatank with Male Chrom!Morgan for a chapter or two but it felt sort of cheap so i dropped that strategy. Not too many chapters after that he became a rally bot for my manakete wrecking crew+FeMU!Lucina+Panne.

Only ended up doing the Aversa bonus paralogue before deciding to get the final chapter over with.

The final chapter was actually incredibly fun and I ended up bringing along several units I'd never trained (anna and olivia) so that I could finish the boss on turn 2. Got incredibly lucky and got 2 aethers out of lucina as well as a dual attack from chrom each time. Now I'm off to try the no promoted unit hard difficulty challenge that Elieson has started since that looks like a lot of fun.

[Interceptor]

I tried using Virion on my run that allowed grinding and he didn't get too much less squishy throughout the game and had some speed issues (although not huge issues, just that very average place where he couldn't double, even with a tonic, but wasn't in danger of being doubled, either). He could generally survive one hit from just about anything, two from some ranged attackers. He does have a pretty nice niche early on with the Renown Longbow too. All in all, though, I think you might be happier with the results if you put the effort for this plan into Morgan instead.

I guess that since I've missed my earlygame Longbow window, I might as well just try to make it to Morgan. At least he'll come with Veteran to start with, which means that I can pass him Armsthrift or something. I should be able to make it to the end of Ch13, and I can spend the training in the meantime on Cordelia (though I have no idea who to support her with now).

My go-to strategy is to hit them at range. However, I prefer to use 1~2 range weapons as it allows the pairs to fight back against other enemies. This allows me to safely deal with a number of Counter enemies equal to pairs I have 1~2 range weapons on. The issue, as I stated before, is that because the randomizer isn't policed beyond chapter 2, this is sometimes (and surprisingly often) not enough (maybe I'm just unlucky, but I routinely see 75%+ of the enemies toting Counter).

I guess that this is an argument to have a Warrior on your team, since they can fight effectively at both 1-2 range and 2-range (with the beef to survive a few hits) as the situation dictates. Does the enemy AI take Counter into account? i.e., I know that mages will close to 1-range if they can against a bow user, but will enemies prefer fighting someone whom they can Counter against (a 1-range target that fights back) over a 2-range target that can't retaliate?

EDIT:

Whoever suggested using Nowi thank you very much. I loved her impenetrable wall status so much that I ended up training all 3 of the manaketes and using them in the last 4-5 levels XD.

I know, right? Best-kept secret of vanilla Lunatic. Nosferatu is over-rated. Edited April 24, 2013 by Interceptor

[Elieson]

So i finally beat lunatic yesterday. I had started on lunatic for another file while doing a metric ton of grinding but after i got to chapter 21 i decided to man up and play the game no grinding. I fought 4 skirmishes total (2 before they became temporarily impossible, 1 because i wanted to see what getting an anna item was like and 1 because i wanted to buy second seals and some schmucks were in the way)

Whoever suggested using Nowi thank you very much. I loved her impenetrable wall status so much that I ended up training all 3 of the manaketes and using them in the last 4-5 levels XD. I did nosferatank with Male Chrom!Morgan for a chapter or two but it felt sort of cheap so i dropped that strategy. Not too many chapters after that he became a rally bot for my manakete wrecking crew+FeMU!Lucina+Panne.

Only ended up doing the Aversa bonus paralogue before deciding to get the final chapter over with.

The final chapter was actually incredibly fun and I ended up bringing along several units I'd never trained (anna and olivia) so that I could finish the boss on turn 2. Got incredibly lucky and got 2 aethers out of lucina as well as a dual attack from chrom each time. Now I'm off to try the no promoted unit hard difficulty challenge that Elieson has started since that looks like a lot of fun.

Flattered/10.

The only reason I'm not playing it now is because I have no PC access and cannot log my chronicles.

Best of luck!

[Shadow Mir]

Does the enemy AI take Counter into account? i.e., I know that mages will close to 1-range if they can against a bow user, but will enemies prefer fighting someone whom they can Counter against (a 1-range target that fights back) over a 2-range target that can't retaliate?

EDIT:

I know, right? Best-kept secret of vanilla Lunatic. Nosferatu is over-rated.

I assume so judging from comments I've seen, but I'll just wait for someone to prove or disprove this.

Indeed - who needs Nosferatu when you have Manaketes? XD

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Does the enemy AI take Counter into account? i.e., I know that mages will close to 1-range if they can against a bow user, but will enemies prefer fighting someone whom they can Counter against (a 1-range target that fights back) over a 2-range target that can't retaliate?

To an extent. The behaviour I've experienced is a bit weird and inconsistent.

The AI will usually not be baited by an unarmed target and will try to hit something it can do a lot of damage against, even if it risks getting hurt or dying. Presumably this same behaviour would carry over when a bow wielder is involved instead of an unarmed (haven't had a chance to try, though). However, I have encountered one very strange inconsistency.

In chapter 18, I had everyone grouped up to block incoming Pass enemies. This setup resulted in FeMU/Chrom blocking the chokepoint with Anna (unequipped so that she had a slightly better avoid chance against a possible ranged lance assailant) to their right and Nowi/Gregor right above them. Because I was silly and tired, I'd forgotten to give Nowi her speed tonic. On enemy phase, a Luna+ Sage rushed forward to attack over FeMU's shoulder. It had exactly 5 speed over Nowi and Luna+ would allow it to kill her. Instead, it chose to target Anna.

Next player phase, I realized Nowi could have died and had her actually use the speed tonic to put her out of range of being doubled. I also re-equipped Anna's Steel Sword since the enemy ranged lancer was dead. Killed the Counter melee hanging out behind the Sage and let the Sage live with intent to catch one more Counter melee sucker getting blocked by his own guy next phase. So enemy phase rolled around again and now that Nowi couldn't be one-rounded, the Sage decided to take a shot at her. This leads me to believe that Anna being unarmed somehow made her a more preferable target (rawr, that Steel Sword is so scary!). I mean, sure, Nowi would have done some damage back, but the Sage was practically guaranteed to kill her.

Another case that usually happens, but still has some inconsistency is that if the enemy has a 1~2 range weapon, it will fight at 2 range if the opponent has a 1 range weapon or also has a 1~2 range weapon. During my no grind, I noticed two exceptions that seemed to happen for no explicable reason.

The first happened with one of my chapter 19 attempts. Just about every space was open around my FeMU/Chrom pair and the enemy Dark Knight could reach all but the rear-most, but decided to take his tome into melee. The Counter damage eventually contributed to the rest of the enemies poking my poor FeMU to death (which shouldn't have happened, because Sol, but I somehow had a three battle long streak where it didn't activate at all... plenty of Ignis, but eh. See why I don't trust proc skills that much?).

The second happened with a Sage during Yarne's Paralogue. Pretty much the same case as with the Dark Knight with the Sage running into melee for no reason. FeMU activated Ignis and he didn't quite die, which was extremely painful. Sol failed me again against the next couple enemies, but they weren't able to hit her, so she survived with 7 HP.

Normally what I'd draw from these two scenarios is that it does indeed factor Counter as part of the strategy to just zerg the character to death, given that after each instance, it would be possible for the remaining enemies to kill FeMU. However, if this were so, then during all those instances where I had a unit in the middle of the range of multiple 1~2 range Counter enemies should have ended in the 1~2 range enemies happily melee suiciding against my unit for a guaranteed kill. So there's some other weird factor at play in their algorithm.

[Shinori]

I guess that since I've missed my earlygame Longbow window, I might as well just try to make it to Morgan. At least he'll come with Veteran to start with, which means that I can pass him Armsthrift or something. I should be able to make it to the end of Ch13, and I can spend the training in the meantime on Cordelia (though I have no idea who to support her with now).

I guess that this is an argument to have a Warrior on your team, since they can fight effectively at both 1-2 range and 2-range (with the beef to survive a few hits) as the situation dictates. Does the enemy AI take Counter into account? i.e., I know that mages will close to 1-range if they can against a bow user, but will enemies prefer fighting someone whom they can Counter against (a 1-range target that fights back) over a 2-range target that can't retaliate?

EDIT:

I know, right? Best-kept secret of vanilla Lunatic. Nosferatu is over-rated.

Yeah I used a manakete family on my first lunatic run.

But nosferatu is far from overrated considering you can avatar solo the entire game easily with nosferatu.

[Othin]

For the Sage with Luna+, is it possible that the enemy's AI didn't take the skill into account at all?

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

For the Sage with Luna+, is it possible that the enemy's AI didn't take the skill into account at all?

Hmmm, well, that could explain his behaviour on the first enemy phase, but then why would he suddenly switch targets to Nowi on the second enemy phase? It's not like Anna could counterattack with her Steel Sword and now he's not even doubling Nowi, while receiving the same damage he would have if he attacked her on the first phase.

I guess one other thing that would have changed is Odd Rhythm, but I really can't see that being the tipping point. Especially since Nowi's avoid and damage (I think it was 16 forecasted, which would then be cut in half by Aegis+) was pretty bad to begin with. Even if the AI ignores Luna+, it's doubling for massive damage and then taken a sad 8 damage back versus hitting once pretty hard with a marginally increased hit chance and then a marginally lower chance of taking a sad 8 damage back (with the dual attack and guard chance being consistent between phases, if the AI even counts that). On either turn, Anna's chances for everything would have been exactly the same against tomes with her losing roughly half her max HP if she got hit.

Now I kind of wish I'd kept chapter by chapter stat tables.

[LoinclothedJesus]

Can anyone help me out with Chapters 2 and 3 on Lunatic+? Doing the Freddy/Chrom solo, but kind of getting my behind kicked mentally here.

[darkkfan]

Unless you consider getting locked out of tonics by a Skrimish to be a problem (I do, because Lunatic+ skirmishes quickly become effectively impossible). The possibility usually means you want to stock up, which isn't cheap early.

Yeah, that happened to me on many occasions and it is rather annoying and makes the tonics (sort of) less than reliable. I have no problem justifying waiting for them to disappear though as long as I don't screw with Anna merchants or barracks in the meantime.

Precisely.

Ok, whatever. I think you were trying to criticize here but I'm not sure and I don't really care anyway so I am just gonna forget about it and go back to discussing something more useful and relevant.

I don't remember saying that it was difficult. The point was that if training a 1-range locked unit is feasible (that's Lon'qu in this example), it's surely not a problem for a 2-range unit that can fire over someone's head and/or not even worry about Counter in the first place. Virion's only big disadvantage is getting ORKO'ed early. As long as you can set up training scenarios to get him out of that, it's no issue.

Fair enough.

To an extent. The behaviour I've experienced is a bit weird and inconsistent.

The AI will usually not be baited by an unarmed target and will try to hit something it can do a lot of damage against, even if it risks getting hurt or dying. Presumably this same behaviour would carry over when a bow wielder is involved instead of an unarmed (haven't had a chance to try, though). However, I have encountered one very strange inconsistency.

What he said. I've found the AI behavior is really screwy especially with regards to counter, but it likes to ignore that counter even exists (see the wyvern in my chapter 9 log) except in extreme circumstances where it likes to go kamikaze on you (this happened to me once as I briefly mentioned in chapter 6), but there is probably some other explanation for this.

Edited April 25, 2013 by Walhart

[euroteres]

I know, right? Best-kept secret of vanilla Lunatic. Nosferatu is over-rated.

It was particularly hilarious due to the fact that Nah had Sol because she was Gregor!Nah.

[Redredc]

I beat the game on Lunatic+ (Classic)! But I'm still trying to unlock all the children characters on that playthrough. So I'm in, right?

Edited April 25, 2013 by Redredc

[Kitoari]

Starting Luna+/Classic.

WE SHALL OVERCOME

[Shinori]

Can anyone help me out with Chapters 2 and 3 on Lunatic+? Doing the Freddy/Chrom solo, but kind of getting my behind kicked mentally here.

Kill shit, don't die.

Chapter 2 is mainly Hope that they don't get a lot of Luna spawns so that fred can move forward and tank most of them while the rest of your units kill the few that run past fred at them.

Chapter 3 is pretty much move to the left side(Generally easier) and kill all of them before the right side gets to you and then turtling. Use the stairs that leads up to the door as a choke point and have fred stand there with someone and then two people each holding someone behind him so they don't die. Just be careful of counter.

[LuminescentChaos]

Starting Luna+/Classic.

WE SHALL OVERCOME

A lot of people, including me have already beat Lunatic+/Classic. I'm currently working on capping my characters though so I have quite a bit of work to go even with 82 hr of playtime.

[Interceptor]

Yeah, that happened to me on many occasions and it is rather annoying and makes the tonics (sort of) less than reliable. I have no problem justifying waiting for them to disappear though as long as I don't screw with Anna merchants or barracks in the meantime.

It crunches the money supply to make them reliable, which was the point of talking about that in the first place. Tonics can be really important in the earlygame. Waiting for impossible Skirmishes to de-spawn, is a really crappy Plan B.

What he said. I've found the AI behavior is really screwy especially with regards to counter, but it likes to ignore that counter even exists (see the wyvern in my chapter 9 log) except in extreme circumstances where it likes to go kamikaze on you (this happened to me once as I briefly mentioned in chapter 6), but there is probably some other explanation for this.

I'll be doing a little bit of testing on this casually as I play through, maybe shed a little light on it. I've already noticed the "prefers to deal damage" behavior when it comes to counter-attacks (that's how I trained Lon'qu).

[Meteor]

Well I finally got past chapter 2 after dozens of attempts. I almost lost Miriel due to me not realizing a Soldier could walk right over the mountains in the bottom left, but he missed with an 82% hit rate. I almost reset the game before he even had a chance to connect, but I'm glad I didn't.

For this file I've chosen +Str -Lck, which is proving to be a little tough, especially when i traded my avatar's sword away to Frederick. Seems like most people in here recommend +Def instead, which probably would have worked better. But I want this to be an endgame file and don't want my kids to have that modifier. :P

[Missile]

I just erased my lunatic file with my hard file...

eoagjzeoghzogyhzeoga

[Kitoari]

A lot of people, including me have already beat Lunatic+/Classic. I'm currently working on capping my characters though so I have quite a bit of work to go even with 82 hr of playtime.

I figured that. x-x

[Linkmstr]

Lunatic+/Classic

Finally got Priam in it... It was actually easier than I thought... (GO MORGAN (F)!) Still, there were lots of Counters but most of the Counters were on units that have ranged attacks so I was only luring enemies in and barely attacking them directly. So, I was lucky... I guess I didn't need the "Limit Breaker" skill after all... It'll take too long to get everyone to have it... I'll just wait for "The Strongest One's Name" DLC map to come out for an even bigger challenge. :3

Edit: I wish I had that Infinite Ragnell... Oh well, time to get Priam Armsthrift!

Edited April 26, 2013 by Linkmstr

[Florete]

A lot of people, including me have already beat Lunatic+/Classic. I'm currently working on capping my characters though so I have quite a bit of work to go even with 82 hr of playtime.

I wouldn't say a "lot." Maybe a handful.

[Aircalipoor]

Got FE13 on friday, beat lunatic on sunday. I´m currently playing lunatic+ and I´m curious to learn how to play that mode without grinding. Prologue and Chapter 1 were fairly "easy" (I didn´t even grinded MU, big mistake), chapter 2 was the pure hell though. Now I´m on chapter 5 and have lost patience and spirit. I´m just grinding everyone at the DLC chapters, building supports and buying overpowered stuff by the Spotpass teams. L+ kind of forced me to do so (even though it´s more like i´m unexperienced), as it doesn´t seem to me to be a mode of strategy and a wide team that is supposed to counter specific formations of enemies but of a grinding contest to see how overpowered your team needs to be. It isn´t really a Fire Emblem game in that way.

But as I said, I´m looking forward to read/watch a well-thought game log of that.

[Interceptor]

Got FE13 on friday, beat lunatic on sunday. I´m currently playing lunatic+ and I´m curious to learn how to play that mode without grinding. Prologue and Chapter 1 were fairly "easy" (I didn´t even grinded MU, big mistake), chapter 2 was the pure hell though. Now I´m on chapter 5 and have lost patience and spirit. I´m just grinding everyone at the DLC chapters, building supports and buying overpowered stuff by the Spotpass teams. L+ kind of forced me to do so (even though it´s more like i´m unexperienced), as it doesn´t seem to me to be a mode of strategy and a wide team that is supposed to counter specific formations of enemies but of a grinding contest to see how overpowered your team needs to be. It isn´t really a Fire Emblem game in that way.

But as I said, I´m looking forward to read/watch a well-thought game log of that.

Congrats on taking down Lunatic.

Lunatic+ requires a different sort of mindset, since the random skills on enemies tend to unravel the standard approach (particularly Counter). Making super-units is sort of like running up the down escalator, since while they can easily shred enemies, they are also badass enough to kill themselves at 1-range on guys with Counter.

I'm in the middle of a Luna+ attempt at the moment (no grind, though I freely use Renown and Spotpass items), up to Chapter 11, where I'm leveraging Bow-using classes as an answer to Counter. I only have two real combat units: Bow Knight Avatar and Assassin Lon'qu. I'm trying to train Cordelia, but it's a heavy lift, since it seems every map is either a rushfest or has inconvenient reinforcements. If I can make it to Morgan, the plan is to have him be my Sniper. I'd also like to get a Warrior in here somewhere.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Interceptor