The Lunatic Club

[isetrh]

My problem was that I couldn't even get Panne to survive enemy phase, but I guess I'll try training her again. Thanks for the advice.

Actually, one more thing. Is there a good way to train Sumia?

Edited July 27, 2014 by isetrh

[Interceptor]

Actually, one more thing. Is there a good way to train Sumia?

Have her make friends with Frederick. He gives her the +DEF to survive, and the +STR to makes the hits count. She can double naturally if you keep her up to speed on levels.

N.O.W.I. is also an excellent candidate for training. Give her Gregor, some boosters, and fight stuff on Forts. She eventually becomes basically immune to damage; just keep re-classing her into Manakete until she caps stats.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

My problem was that I couldn't even get Panne to survive enemy phase, but I guess I'll try training her again. Thanks for the advice.

You pretty much either need to have a main tank like say Avatar weaken enemies for her to swoop in and feed on the kill or kite single enemies with a dedicated healer running around Mending her (even then, she might need to use a vulnerary on her turn). She should be able to take on almost any enemy in chapter 8 and she only needs a few levels to get within Second Seal range. You can either give her Kellam where she likely won't double in order to milk the hit EXP or Gaius/Lon'qu in order to give her more decisive killing power (she'll need to take a larger share of the kills with the second, but it's definitely worth it).

[Czar_Yoshi]

Don't forget to use the Mountains in Cht.7. They boost survival of your units immensely, and I don't think Hit+10 has started appearing by then. Panne has 28 Avo at base level as a Taguel, +10 from pairup and an adjacent unit, +20 from the Mountain and a potential Even Rhythm and that's 58-68 Avo right there. When most of the enemies have barely 100 Hit, that's pretty good.

[isetrh]

Okay, thanks! I'll give it another try with that advice in mind.

[Time did reverse]

Hiya there,

So this is my first time attempting Lunatic, i played and beat the game on normal and wanted a stiffer challenge. I still feel very new to the game in general, in fact my main problem is with "class routes" and the whole "reclass or promote". I think this is because in normal i just promoted and reclasses willy nilly without really even paying attention to skills, so my understanding of skills needed in Lunatic is poor. I should note that i have the abiliy to grind and am not opposed to it at all, in fact i kind of like doing it.That said, would anyone be available to give me an idea of which classes the characters should go into, and at what level. The following is of my male avatar and Chrom based on things i pieced together by looking at other people's suggestions, but i don't feel comfortable doing so for the other characters, i just lack the knowledge of what makes sense, and im afraid ill mess it up without help.

Avatar(=Mag/- luck): Tactician 20->Mercenary->20->Hero 15-> Sorcerer 20-> end in grandmaster

Chrom: Lord 20-> Cavalier 20-> Great Knight 20 -> Paladin 20 -> end in Great Lord

In general, im more worried about finding the best route for the parents up to the point that i can get their kids, so for example i want Kjelle, but i have no intention of using Donnell, ever, unless it benefits me to bring him to a certain class/level in which i can make Kjelle better for it. I mean i know ill have to use some of the parents, but i intend the kids to retire at least some of them.

Would anyone want to help me with some ideas on class routes? It's the one thing i'm very shaky at, the two above i'm not even postive represent strong routes.

If it helps, this is the general pairings i am envisioning as useful from what i understand, my main weakness is understanding what to do with the parents in terms of classes before i "get" the children, and then of course what class route i should take the kids on. If this is a better fit for another thread my apologies. This would go along way towards me actually getting into the Lunatic club ;)

Sumia!Lucina the (Darkflier)

Chrom!Cynthia (Darkflier)

Lon'Qu!Severa (Hero)

Donnel!Kjelle (Paladin)

Gaius!Noire (Sniper or maybe Dark Flier)

Vaike!Nah (Wyvern Lord)

Ricken!Owain (Dread fighter/ sage)

Stahl!Inigo (Hero)

Henry!Brady: (Sage)

Gregor!Gerome: (Berserker)

Fred!Yarne: (Berserker)

?!Luarent: (Sage)
Lucina! F-Morgan (Sage)

[Czar_Yoshi]

The best and only actually good way to learn how to do things that "make sense" in Lunatic is to, well, play Lunatic. But there are still a few general pointers to keep in mind:

Don't overuse Fred. This should be obvious, but it bears repeating. A unit with a Fred support (especially a +Def Avatar) is just as tanky, if not more, than Frederick himself by the end of the Prologue.

Don't use full deployment. There are a lot more enemies to go around in Lunatic, but there's just not enough exp to make that many units grow fast enough to keep up with the enemies and if you try anyway, you'll be in serious hurt when the promoted enemies start showing up.

Don't go for Postgame on your first try. Postgame is what Normal/Hard are for (or Lunatic+ for real showoffs), but not Lunatic. No need to plan out your pairings for postgame optimization at all, in fact a lot of pairings that are really good ingame are pretty bad postgame (Fred x Sumia, Chrom x Sully).

Similarly, don't go for a 3rd gen Morgan on your first try. 3rd gen has slightly higher caps, but tends to come with lower base stats, lower growth rates and later availability (Lucina!Morgan is the only really viable one, but she still requires a lot of forethought to get in a timely manner).

Don't be afraid to restart. It's easy to do something you'll regret later such as money mismanagement or training the wrong units, and you'll both get back to where you were twice as fast on your second time around, and you'll be much stronger.

OK, so as for the units you actually use, all the children is way too many, it's best to stick with 1~3 combat pairs maingame, possibly expanding to four with enough Veteran. Usually I use Chrom, Avatar-M, their wives and one other couple (6 units) until child recruitment time, then pair up the children mostly with siblings/parents, drop the second couple and sometimes Chrom's wife, and turn Avatar into a support unit. Strong candidates for Avatar's wife include Panne, Nowi and Cordelia.

Class paths: skills take a backseat to combat practicality (though the best classes have both). The low availability of Seals earlygame will also be an influence. Avatar-M usually either goes Tactician(20) -> Mercenary(20) -> Hero (15) -> ending class (pass AT or Veteran to Morgans) or Tactician(20) -> Tactician(10~20) -> Grandmaster(15) -> ending class (pass Rally Spectrum to Morgans), Avatar-F can do either of those or go Tactician(20) -> Peg(20) -> Dark Flier(15) -> ending class (pass Galeforce to Morgans). Anything after your first promoted class will grow really slowly. Good ending classes include Paladin, Dark Knight, Hero and Grandmaster.

Now, if you're using DLC to grind, all of that is irrelevant- Lunatic will be just like any other difficulty except slower once you clear Cht.4.

[xcel]

Been a while. I searched a few pages and Google but nothing relevant showed up.

If grinding and DLC are fair game, is it possible to beat the last few chapters of Lunatic and Lunatic+ using characters in base classes? Or does the lower stat caps combined with enemy capped stats, forged weapons, and skills (on Lunatic+) make this a suicidal idea?

[Czar_Yoshi]

Base classes, promoted skills and LB? Yep, pretty easy. Fun, too.

Just promoted skills? Much harder, though Rally will save you.

Just base classes and unpromoted skills? Almost impossible, and requiring pre-file creation planning and a lot of luck, mainly due to Grima (if you can't hit 41 Spd, he'll ORKO you (Myrmidon x Myrmidon with tonic: 38 Spd, you're dead). If you can't hit 54 Atk, you can't damage him (Mage x Mage with Valflame: 59 atk, 3 damage. If you can't hit 31 Def (26 with Tonics), you could get OHKOed by Ignis anyway). He effectively has 200HP and you have to both reach and kill him in one turn. Good luck). All+2 helps incredibly, the only possible way to do it outside of that is having incredible luck with Chrom DSes. Barracks are also semi-required.

I've actually got a run planned to see if I can beat Lunatic+ using no promoted classes/skills and no Logbook units, only allowing one clear of either LB3 or CoY3 per chapter/Paralogue. It'll be intense... And I'll be going for post-Cht.4 LB3 and not touching CoY until I've got all my Paragons. I'm still trying to find a semi-plausible way through Cht.23 though.

Edited August 12, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[xcel]

Base classes, promoted skills and LB? Yep, pretty easy. Fun, too.

Just promoted skills? Much harder, though Rally will save you.

Just base classes and unpromoted skills? Almost impossible, and requiring pre-file creation planning and a lot of luck, mainly due to Grima (if you can't hit 41 Spd, he'll ORKO you (Myrmidon x Myrmidon with tonic: 38 Spd, you're dead). If you can't hit 54 Atk, you can't damage him (Mage x Mage with Valflame: 59 atk, 3 damage. If you can't hit 31 Def (26 with Tonics), you could get OHKOed by Ignis anyway). He effectively has 200HP and you have to both reach and kill him in one turn. Good luck). All+2 helps incredibly, the only possible way to do it outside of that is having incredible luck with Chrom DSes. Barracks are also semi-required.

I've actually got a run planned to see if I can beat Lunatic+ using no promoted classes/skills and no Logbook units, only allowing one clear of either LB3 or CoY3 per chapter/Paralogue. It'll be intense... And I'll be going for post-Cht.4 LB3 and not touching CoY until I've got all my Paragons. I'm still trying to find a semi-plausible way through Cht.23 though.

Thanks for the great response, Czar_Yoshi. I have a full-grind playthrough of Lunatic+ but it got dull really fast and I haven't even finished it. I also like having the character models match their portraits so I was hoping this would be possible. You gave me hope

[Kreekakon]

Currently working on my first ever Lunatic casual run! Right now I am working on/stuck on Chapter 2.

Sharing a bit of what went on (It was two days ago, so my memory may be a bit fuzzy on some of the details)

The Prologue went along very smoothly, not as insanely hard as I would've imagined it. I made a +Spd/-Res male Avatar for this run, and during the prologue pairings went like this:

Chrom/Frederick

Lissa/Avatar

Avatar paled quite a lot in comparison to the Frederick-buffed Chrom, so he got noticeably less kills.

I gave my Avatar's Bronze Sword to Frederick so that he could help out greatly in gravely wounding enemy units instead of slaughtering them outright.

What I did feel really good about though was that I was able to only have to surrender 1 kill to Frederick (A pesky Mage who was going to ruin my day no matter how I positioned it). All the other kills went to Chrom, and Avatar, and everyone besides Frederick gained a decent level from the Prologue.

-------------------------------------------------

Chapter 1 was a bit more feisty which involved my unit running for their lives most of the time, and having either Chrom or Fredderick (Depending on various factors) tank the enemy units, and do counter attack damage which made it enough to take them down in one shot on my next turn.

This one required various restarts due to such realizations such as for example:

In one scenario, finding out that for Chrom to successfully tank the oncoming 4 units he needed to be at full health, and have at least one attack miss. This would put him at very low HP (Something like 2 or 3). This meant that after the previous turn's wave I would have to position it so that after Chrom uses his potion, Lissa can also heal him, AND with Lissa being out of range of the enemy. I failed prior because without Lissa's heal he would be 4 HP off full, and he would die.

(^Just a small story)

More balanced amount of kills this time around for Chrom, and the Avatar, and I don't recall ever having to had to use Frederick to kill an enemy. Unfortunately during the mission though Sully died in order to give Virion a kill, but it's casual so scumming all the way is A-OK!! :D

--------------------------------------------

Right now I'm on Chapter 2, but I haven't really turned on my super try hard mode today which I will probably do today.

I have currently so far attempted it once, and after realizing that my tactics weren't working, I decided to screw around, and see how much it would take to defeat the first bottom wave of enemies without caring too much about who died.

The end result: Frederick/Chrom, and Sully/Avatar were the sole survivors after having taken out the entire bottom wave. They were very hilariously wiped out by the top wave right after I engaged them.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Just an FYI, near-base Chrom can still train like a boss in Cht.7. If you want to use him, it's often wise to power level Avatar until you're through with Cht.6, and then catch Chrom up. Otherwise you might not be strong enough to handle Cht.2 and 3.

[Roflolxp54]

Lunatic+ Classic (+HP/-Lck):

Prologue: Not too bad; had to reset a few times due to number of mooks w/ Luna+

Chapter 1: had to reset several times due to number of mooks w/ Luna+ and enemy AI

Chapter 2: had to reset several times due to number of mooks w/ Luna+, RNG and enemy AI

Chapter 3: had to reset a lot due to number of mooks w/ Counter (especially in the first wave), bottom left knight w/ Aegis+, deaths because of Pass, Luna+ and Counter

Chapter 4: due to Renown awards (only used statboosters and large bullion), it was a complete steamroll -- 0 resets. Counter wasn't an issue as mooks with the skill were killed during Player Phase or Counter was on mooks that can attack at 2 range.

Currently on Chapter 17, grinding up recruited story characters.

Pairings used:

Chrom x Sumia

Robin x Cordelia

Frederick x Panne

Lissa x Henry

Donnel x Sully

Miriel x Ricken

Vaike x Cherche

Gregor x Maribelle

Gaius x Tharja

Stahl x Olivia

Kellam x Nowi

Edited August 13, 2014 by Roflolxp54

[dudedudedudeo]

Hmmm +HP? Havent seen too many people do that before

[Roflolxp54]

Hmmm +HP? Havent seen too many people do that before

It's probably because of the fact that the max HP cap for any character as an advanced or non-Villager special class is 80, regardless of Asset/Flaw. I went with +HP/-Lck for a well-rounded yet somewhat tanky Robin. A HP Asset guarantees 1 HP per level up as well as a chance for HP to go up by 2 in a level up.

[Czar_Yoshi]

+HP is done mainly for bases/growths. HP is also as close to Counter/Luna+ proof as you can get, since it'll take more attacks to bring you down no matter what.

[Kreekakon]

Ok, I'm back with my little update on how my first ever Lunatic run has been going. Since my last post I have beaten Chapters 2, 3, 4, and Paralogue 1.

There isn't an awful lot to say about these chapters since my journey through Chapters 2-4(The Paralogue went MUCH more smoothly) mostly consisted of similar happenings which you'll notice very quickly, but I'll still give a general fast rundown:

Chapter 2: The first wave of this chapter I beat mostly by splitting the risen into 2 smaller "waves" with the ones more near the top right being considered the second wave. As usual ChromxFrederick served as counter-attack tanks, and having anyone else who needed experience finish off the gravely wounded units. However by the end of the first wave, only Frederick x Chrom, Avatar x Lissa, and Sully x Virion were left to fight the top wave. Everyone else has perished due to lack of place to run, an opening to get experience that they probably wouldn't see again easily, or sometimes the fact that a Risen needed to die to prevent things from going very badly. Sometimes a mix of several factors of the above.

The top wave thankfully went rather smoothly, and no one else died to the horrifying insanity.

Chapter 3: As usual Chrom x Frederick were the main tanks for this mission. Rather straight-forward. Similar to the last chapter I split the "waves" of enemies into their own smaller waves so that I could combat them more effectively. However by the time I got to the boss, it was even worse this time: Only Chrom x Frederick, and Chrom x Lissa were left to take down the boss. However it was rather easy since Frederick's new shiny Hammer from one of the enemies was able to cut her down to size for Avatar to take down with ease.

Chapter 4: This mission marks the first mission that I deemed Chrom fit enough for duty that he no longer needs Frederick to clean after him. So the folks, and pairings I used for this mission were:

Chrom x Sumia

Avatar x Lissa

Virion x Sully

With fewer units on the battefield overall it was much simpler, and the first couple units didn't give me over amounts of trouble. I did have some trouble finding openings to give Sumia some much needed experience though.

The last three units though were the really tricky part: Two Throwing Axe Enemies, and Marth herhimself. Marth had insanely high stats compared to my army, and was able to shave off 20 HP from Chrom in one fell-swoop. In the end though with some careful maneuvering, I was able to take them all down...although at the cost of Virion, and Sully's lives

Also I now have Lon' Qu! One of my personal favorite bad-asses character wise, and gameplay-wise.

Chapter 5: *Goes try chapter for a small bit*

NOPEY NOPE NOPE.

*Goes to Paralogue 1 first*

Paralogue 1: This chapter is a chapter where everything seems MUCH more hopeful. I was able to give EVERYONE a clean share of the kills, and nobody died this time around. Plus Donnel was also able to have been successfully recruited. Sadly I was too pre-occupied with the first wave of enemies, and was unable to go stop a thief from snagging the Killer Lance from the chest.

Also honorable MVP goes to Lon' Qu. *Sniff* He's so awesome that he can join the ranks of the big boys Chrom, and Avatar, and hold a choke point (With Vaike support). Nobody hits him ever....except for the archers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So the common theme of most of these chapters is that a lot of my characters seem to die a lot, and most of the time kills go to Avatar or Chrom. As for levels here is a very quick rundown on each character's ratings, and actual lvl at the end of Paralogue 1 (Characters not listed means ones I've planned to axe):

Chrom lvl 11; Rating 69

Avatar lvl 13; Rating 85

Lissa lvl 8; Rating 49

Virion lvl 4; Rating 42

Sully lvl 4; Rating 45

Sumia lvl 3; Rating 59

Lon' Qu lvl 6; Rating 55

Vaike lvl 3; Rating 32

As you can see Vaike is now a problem child, and one I hopefully can carry back up before it becomes too tough for him.

Also now that I've had to sweet experience from Paralogue 1, I believe that chapter 5 will become MUCH more manageable. Plus I also now have a Rescue which will likely be able to save Ricken, and Maribelle so that they'll actually be able to help instead of being trapped behind enemy lines the whole time.

Also a slight bit of off-gameplay afterthought on Lunatic mode overall. I think that Hard-Classic is the most "immersive/enjoyable" way to play the game, but Lunatic-Casual is definitely the most "compelling" way to play it! There's just so much thought that needs to go into Lunatic to progress through a chapter that you don't have to ever worry about on hard mode. That being said though I don't have any desire to try out Lunatic Classic probably ever, because I don't think my poor heart can take it that far.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Kreekakon

[Czar_Yoshi]

When units die they lose all the support points they gained from that chapter. Keep it in mind.

[Airship Canon]

Been a while. I searched a few pages and Google but nothing relevant showed up.

If grinding and DLC are fair game, is it possible to beat the last few chapters of Lunatic and Lunatic+ using characters in base classes? Or does the lower stat caps combined with enemy capped stats, forged weapons, and skills (on Lunatic+) make this a suicidal idea?

Just as a point, Base Classes [with full power: LB, Rally, promoted skills, etc.] can clear SR Apotheosis.

Statistically, only Grima holds up compared to the enemies of SR Apo, so...

On a different note:

...I really hate that mage on L+ Prologue.

No, not the top one with his crits.

...The bottom one that always sticks to the top, and I can't kite him. Ever.

Always have to splat him with Fred.

...which isn't making the whole -DEF thing any easier.

[Edit:

...This is what I've wound up with coming out of Prologue:

Robin [+SPD/-DEF]

Level 6

HP: 23; STR: 11; MAG: 7 [Didn't meet a key stat here]; Skill: 7; Speed: 12 [Target stat met]; Luck: 7; Def: 8 [it's no 11, but an 8 is the same as a +DEF base...]; Res: 5

Chrom

Base

Fred

Base

Lissa:

Level 3

(Double Dud Level >:()

Edited August 15, 2014 by Airship Canon

[isetrh]

Is there a way to get through the early chapters of Lunatic primarily training Chrom instead of MU?

[Airship Canon]

...Interceptor is a genius.

...That little C2 guide of his made me 1-shot C2.

After about 40 some odd ATTEMPTS [not loads, ATTEMPTS] at C1... C2 goes down first load, first attempt.

[Met the Magic requirement in C1... got to 10 MAG (3/3) and C rank tomes.]

...Now to wipe on C3 for hours on end.

...If I can get past C3, the door is blown open.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Is there a way to get through the early chapters of Lunatic primarily training Chrom instead of MU?

Basically have Fred weaken the enemies and then feed them to Chrom. Fred's probably going to end up taking more kills this way and needing to be a crutch for several more chapters than if Avatar was the primary trainee, though. Once Chrom gets overleveled enough, he can just power through everything in a similar (but slower) way.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Is there a way to get through the early chapters of Lunatic primarily training Chrom instead of MU?

Normal Lunatic? Shouldn't be too hard. Lunatic+? I came up with a strategy from making Chrom do the Water Trick in the Prologue, giving him almost every kill (he gets both Mages, just misses the early Myrms) that I posted in Interceptor's Cht.2 topic, but even with it his level is just so low. You'd need major luck to get by in L+ with Chrom.

[Zoran]

I'm on Chapter 17 of my first no-grind Lunatic run, where I've pretty much blown the game wide open by getting V/V/Armsthrift (and Sol) Male Avatar and his future wife Galeforce Sumia!Lucina by the end of Chapter 13.

The only thing that's disappointed me about this run was that I was hoping to also get Maribelle and Olivia to Galeforce in a reasonable time-frame. Right now they're both Level ~3 Dark Fliers, but Maribelle isn't fast enough and Olivia isn't strong enough to get many kills anymore.

Is there a way to save enough experience to get Sumia, Maribelle, and Olivia all to Galeforce? Are there any early levels that are really really good for grinding Fliers?

I messed up by forgetting to dance-grind Olivia on Chapter 11, so I had to do it on a Paralogue, where I immediately reclassed her to Dark Flier. But Sumia soaked up most of the EXP on Paralogues 2-4 to get to Galeforce before Chapter 13. (I did Paralogue 1 before Chapter 5 for Rescue.)

Edited August 19, 2014 by Zoran

[Interceptor]

You'd have to baby them, but I don't see why you couldn't pull it off. There are several chapters coming up with lots of shit to kill, you don't have to worry about things like Pass, and they all have access to 2-range (even though it'll be weak). Just watch for archers, I guess.