The Lunatic Club

[Cat1803]

Any advice for Lunatic+ Chapter 13 that doesn't involve skipping it? I need the EXP and I have a team of fliers (aka Longbow fodder). I currently have Sumia/Cordelia as Dark Fliers and Maribelle/Lissa as Falcon Knights. Sumia doesn't have Galeforce yet, but should have it by the end of the map. Thanks!

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

If your team is entirely fliers, then it's generally pretty easy to cheese the AI, so long as you have the offensive power to pick off the Snipers the turn they overextend. Ground access to the right side of the map is extremely limited, since, unlike the left side, there's no ramp access from the middle. So if you hop from middle to right and back over and over, the enemy is going to take roughly four turns just to walk all the way back to where you now are. Once the reinforcements stop spawning, you can add the left side to the rotation to further troll them. The idea is basically to divided the forces up as much as possible until the Archers and Snipers end up stuck off on their own (you may have to pick off some non-bow-users each time you hop the barrier to rig this up). Once they're isolated, swoop in and crush them. Do that until there's no bow users left and the map is pretty much yours.

[Seraphic_Bane]

I finished Fire Emblem Awakening in Lunatic mode, I'm working on Lunatic + mode right now I wonder if this is alright~

I also finished playing Fire Emblem: New Mystery of The Emblem on Lunatic as well~

[Czar_Yoshi]

Any advice for Lunatic+ Chapter 13 that doesn't involve skipping it? I need the EXP and I have a team of fliers (aka Longbow fodder). I currently have Sumia/Cordelia as Dark Fliers and Maribelle/Lissa as Falcon Knights. Sumia doesn't have Galeforce yet, but should have it by the end of the map. Thanks!

I prefer storming the right side, doing something to aggro the left, and then hopping between left and right over the center (like Kuroi's strat, except I go all the way to the left). If reinforcements are problematic, then sometimes I wait to do that until they're gone and just try to turtle on the right fort for a while- the access ramp is 1 wide, so stuff comes up fairly slowly.

[Hall Knight]

I'm a major completionist/perfectionist, so I have to clear Lunatic+ Classic with all my Logbook Avatars just so it shows up on their "View Card." I've only done it a few times (definitely under 5), and man is it a pain.

Basically, the only thing that matters is surviving Prologue through Chapter 3. From there, you can sell/equip renown items and buy Logbook characters to blast your way through Chapter 4. Then, you can grind in the DLC chapters to get all the money and EXP your heart desires.

Getting through those first few chapters is still a nightmare, though. So far, I've only used Frederick paired with Chrom for these runs. Every chapter from Prologue onward has required massive amounts of resets. Certain enemy has Hawkeye/Luna+/Aegis+/Counter? Reset. Too many enemies with Luna+/Counter? Reset. Frederick didn't get +1 Speed/Defense/Attack from that level-up? Reset. Overlooked something and died? Reset. It sucks.

Runs that focus on using the Avatar seem to be popular and successful, so they're probably a better strategy than Frederick/Chrom. Also, there's this Resetless/Deathless run I'll look into for my next go-around with this infernal difficulty level.

Someday, I want to do a LTC run so it shows up on my endgame stats. My only real struggle, again, would be Prologue-Chapter 3, but what a struggle that will be... the goal would be to clear these chapters in as absolutely few turns as possible, which I'm sure would rely on a lot of 1-3% Critical chances (among other things) and require a MASSIVE amount of resets and real-life time. If anyone ever calculates exactly what this would look like and how it could be done, please let me know.

Edited January 24, 2016 by Hall Knight

[Czar_Yoshi]

Lunatic+ LTC is an incredibly bad idea. Most big-time LTCers have taken one look at it and turned their noses up in disgust- since the only thing Lunatic+ adds over Lunatic is random skills, in theory a Lunatic+ LTC would look identical to a Lunatic LTC, except with a lot more resetting to make sure skills never got in the way of the strats.

Robin is far better for clearing the earlygame than Fred is, yes. Depending on your asset/flaw, he can be stronger than Fred by Cht.3, with Fred free to stay behind him. With a little more strategic work, you can get even more reliability beyond just brute forcing it with high stats and magic. I strongly recommend checking out the Interceptor Strats in my sig, as they cover how to do Cht.2 and the first part of Cht.3 in a fairly reliable manner.

[Wayward Alchemist]

So I finally gave up on trying to use more than Crom, Robin, Lucy, and Morgan on my Lunatic run and I'm making a ton of headway now that I'm just funneling XP into four units. With that said, I'm starting to think about L+ more and I have some questions (they are in the spoiler).

1) How many units should I train?

2) How should I go about Robin? What class path would you reccomend? I've heard that Bow users are great and I'm considering Warrior for Bows, a 1-2 range option in axes, and counter after a while.

3) I'll be running MaMU, so should he marry Lucina or Cordelia? Is Cordy still a good spouse for MaMU?

4) What other units shine in L+, and in what manner?

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

No more than 4 combat pairs (if you're feeling confident after this run, you could push to 5); fill the remaining slots with support units like staffers and Olivia. They have their own EXP pool, so won't detract from training the others.

There's more or less two preferred classes to reclass to from Tactician: Dark Mage and Mercenary. Dark Mage takes advantage of how absurdly strong its skills are compared to other tier 1s, in addition to tomes both being strong and the only readily available 1~2-range weapon type in the early game. It's probably the best path for female Robins (due to Sorc->Dark Flier), but a male Robin could probably remain Sorc for the rest of his career and NosTank if he wanted. For Mercenary, it takes advantage of the Levin Sword (Renown or Spotpass purchase) for 1~2-range combat until it can hit Bow Knight and run a bow strat. Warrior is one of the best final classes, although not for Counter (which is really underwhelming on non-expendable units).

Cordelia is generally considered one of the stronger male Robin choices. Unless you're grinding, Lucina is a pretty bad choice because it delays support development, which also delays acquiring Morgan at a good time.

As for other good units, there's Panne (reclassed to Wyv), who has the growths to basically brute force her way through the game; Nowi is good, especially since she's one of the units who can reliably hit non-Pavise early on, but she is very scared of enemies with Luna+; Sumia requires a lot of attention, but eventually becomes strong; same deal with Miriel, although she also provides Laurent, who can very easily build into a solid NosTank; Cordelia is similar to Sumia, but comes at a higher level, as well as a more convenient time for training up units.

[Dwlr]

1) How many units should I train?

2) How should I go about Robin? What class path would you reccomend? I've heard that Bow users are great and I'm considering Warrior for Bows, a 1-2 range option in axes, and counter after a while.

3) I'll be running MaMU, so should he marry Lucina or Cordelia? Is Cordy still a good spouse for MaMU?

4) What other units shine in L+, and in what manner?

You don't really need to treat Lunatic+ different than Lunatic, a lot of the same things work you just have to watch the skills a bit more.

1) Robin, Chrom, Lucina, Morgen, Lissa, Libra, Owain, Olivia come to mind as easy includes that don't spread your battle exp too thin on a non-DLC run.

2) I'm quite partial to Vantage for quite a few scenarios, I'd pick that up from Myrmidon with an early second seal regardless of gender, to get your bow you can use a Master Seal to Assassin at that point and Second Seal further from there.

3) Lucina is an easy choice, but you might want you S sooner and there's nothing wrong with Cordelia out of laziness I'd just go with Lissa personally.

4) Units that don't use battle exp to level are pretty handy since they let you keep more units strong without spreading the combat exp too thin, you just have to watch that you don't get too many of them or have a large enough wallet to buy spammable staves for exp like Rescue. Olivia can dance for her exp and Dancers are useful so there's of course her. If you want a thief archetype Anna starts promoted in a staff wielding class or Gaius isn't terrible. Again out of laziness I used Anna.

Edited January 24, 2016 by Dwlr

[Wayward Alchemist]

Thanks for the responses! I'm gonna go with Cordy as Robin's spouse and pair-up partner, so I'm thinking +Str/-Lck for the Asset/Flaw. My planned class path for him is Tactician Lv.10 -> Merc Lv.10 -> Hero Lv.10 -> Warrior. The whole plan is to nab AT, build up Axe rank and get Sol as Hero, and then end as Warrior. Speed shouldn't be a problem with Cordelia backing him up. How does that sound? Also since Chrom is forced, who should he marry and what class should he end up in?

[Dwlr]

Thanks for the responses! I'm gonna go with Cordy as Robin's spouse and pair-up partner, so I'm thinking +Str/-Lck for the Asset/Flaw. My planned class path for him is Tactician Lv.10 -> Merc Lv.10 -> Hero Lv.10 -> Warrior. The whole plan is to nab AT, build up Axe rank and get Sol as Hero, and then end as Warrior. Speed shouldn't be a problem with Cordelia backing him up. How does that sound? Also since Chrom is forced, who should he marry and what class should he end up in?

Meh AT, you can beat the game without and not run into a money issue or anything close to it. Really no need to rush Robin's class changes either. Using Renown Rewards or not? Using Spotpass or not? If you not you might prefer the stats before second sealing limited resources for awhile and all that.

Doesn't matter Olivia is easy to incorporate, so is Maribelle (though I'd use Maribelle over Lissa if you're going that route). Sumia and Sully need battle experience, but both come early enough that it doesn't much matter.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Depending on how much you lean on Robin, he'll likely be well above 10 when you reclass to Merc.

Armsthift is pretty weak early on, so don't expect it to do too much for you. However, once you hit the mid-late game where you have half-decent Luck, it'll pick up. Warrior with Armsthrift gets especially silly because that much Str with infinite Hellswath and Yewfelle just streamrolls anything. Also, if you're going to go through Hero, I'd recommend hitting 15 before leaving it. Axebreaker is very useful in the late game. A C20 Walhart without Hawkeye is rendered entirely harmless and it negates a lot of the scarier enemies in the chapters where stat caps let them start catching up (it prevents freak 20-30 displayed Hit Luna+ hits from 60-70 Attack Generals and Berserkers).

As for Chrom, if you're willing to train Sumia, she's a pretty good choice for him. Maribelle could be a secondary choice, trading modifier weirdness in order to not take early combat EXP away from Robin. However, Lucina will have a tougher time getting Galeforce, and Cynthia tends to be more useful than Brady (on the other hand, Brady can train with staves, meaning he also doesn't have to draw from the CEXP pool).

[Czar_Yoshi]

If you're using Cord, don't stuff her in the back, she's mainly good as a frontline unit due to flight and high Spd. Robin is a great support, and you get her during a lull in the difficulty- let her up front to get some exp.

[Hall Knight]

Lunatic+ LTC is an incredibly bad idea. Most big-time LTCers have taken one look at it and turned their noses up in disgust- since the only thing Lunatic+ adds over Lunatic is random skills, in theory a Lunatic+ LTC would look identical to a Lunatic LTC, except with a lot more resetting to make sure skills never got in the way of the strats.

Robin is far better for clearing the earlygame than Fred is, yes. Depending on your asset/flaw, he can be stronger than Fred by Cht.3, with Fred free to stay behind him. With a little more strategic work, you can get even more reliability beyond just brute forcing it with high stats and magic. I strongly recommend checking out the Interceptor Strats in my sig, as they cover how to do Cht.2 and the first part of Cht.3 in a fairly reliable manner.

Hm...how does the skill distribution mechanic work in Lunatic+? Is it possible for none of the enemies in a chapter to have L+ skills, or is there a minimum limit to them?

[Czar_Yoshi]

All enemies get two skills. During the Prologue, Cht.1, and Cht.2, only Luna+, Hawkeye, Vantage+ and Pass are in the pool. From Cht.3 onward, Counter, Pavise+ and Aegis+ get added to the pool. Walhart and Grima's skills aren't random (Grima gets Pavise+, Walhart gets Pavise+ and Aegis+), and Yen'fay only gets one random skill. Skills are rerolled for main chapters and Paralogues whenever you reload the battle preparation menu, whether it be from backing out of the chapter or resuming a save (saving itself does not reroll them). Risen skills are set when the group spawns, and do not reroll from backing out. The DLC maps tend not to have added Lunatic+ skills, though Grima's skillset in FP3 will change accordingly.

In theory, there should be a 3/7 chance for any given enemy to have any given skill, assuming equal distributions. However, to my knowledge nobody's ever done a comprehensive analysis to see if distributions really are equal. The reason I said it would involve resetting to insure none of the skills get in your way is because all of the Lunatic+ skills either have a guaranteed effect or do nothing depending on how they're approached- so in the context of a LTC, it wouldn't matter to, say, attack a Pavise enemy with a tome, or have Luna+ on something you need to dodge anyway. Pass is also generally harmless in an LTC environment.

[Wayward Alchemist]

I finally beat Lunatic mode!!!

I started Lunatic+ with a +Str Robin (named Conan after the barbarian of the same name if anyone cares), but he kept dying in Chapter 1 so I started over with a +Def Conan and he's doing much better. Stuck on Chapter 3 at the moment. It sucks that I have to reset whenever the Right Hand Side Archer has Luna+ because they will kill any unit standing behind Conan on the stairs. A big factor to my stuckness is that Thunder is down to 2 uses (I didn't mess around training Conan), forcing him to use Fire to kill the Knight and weaken the Archer that attack him (I have Freddy and Vaike poking holes in the other two with Sumia's Javalin from as far to the right of the danger zone as possible). I also can't get my shit together fast enough when I do manage to take out all of the Left Side units for some reason. Any tips for speeding this up? Also, what 2 range unit do you recommend I train after I turtle on the stairs in front of the door, Miriel or Virion? Sully isn't an option, I never gave her any kills and thus only has an E in Lances and Sumia will be kill by the archer no matter what (and besides Fred has the Javalin).

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Wait, how is the Archer killing the person behind Conan? Is Conan trying to front instead of Fred? The way I normally do it is to have Fred/Kellam tanking and Robin flinging spells over his shoulder. If Conan is going to front, then at least Fred and Sully should be able to survive being shot. Vaike with Sumia or Chrom should be able to avoid being one-rounded too.

If you're trying to train 2-rangers from behind Conan, you're probably going to need to have Fred fight the Archer and kill him before turtling up on the stairs. The simplest way to do this is to have him kite the right group as they approach. This necessitates either the Soldier not having Counter. Another way is manipulating movement to get the Archer out in front, which usually requires placing a unit at the bottom of the screen to lure the group lower and is not guaranteed to work (I'd say about 2/3 success rate).

As for killing the left side efficiently, there's Interceptor's setup and I have a large section in my guide dedicated to openings that his cannot handle.

[Wayward Alchemist]

Fred dies when he is front unless there are no Luna+ units, but Conan can take a few hits, especially when paired with someone who gives +2 Def. At that point he has 20-21 Defense (depends on if he gets a Def point on level up or not, he levels up after killing the Left Hand Knight and damaging the Archer), which iirc is better than Freddy and Kellam together, unless I'm thinking of Vaike instead of Kellam. Regardless, Kellam will be taken by Miriel/Virion so they can survive a hit from the Archer. My current plan is for Sumia (who almost always winds up with the Key) to unlock the door and Fred and Vaike to go up to fight the Knight. Conan tanks without a weapon to get Miriel/Virion as much exp. as possible. After all the RHS units are dead and the Knight is dealt with, I don't think the rest of the Top Units attack you unless you are in their range, right? If so I'll heal up, at least procure the Hammer for Fred, and then kill the boss with whatever scrub I deem worthy enough to get the EXP. Probably Chrom, it will get him to Lv. 3.

[Czar_Yoshi]

If Fred is up front, give him Kellam and have Conan stand behind him and do all the fighting. Fred should be unequipped and heal using items.

To get rid of the Archer though, I start with Robin x Kellam up front and Fred x Chrom behind (Fred x Kellam may need to take the very first turn if you're slow and Robin is still fighting the Knight). Robin should have only Fire, and take Chrom then attack the Archer on PP, then have Fred trade away his stuff and give Kellam back for EP. The Archer should go down in two rounds at worst, if it has Aegis+ (with good DSes, you can get him in 1 without). Once he's dead, unequipped Robin x Fred can hold the front, and you can alternate between Lissa healing and someone else sniping. If you're training Sumia this way (she's a very good choice), I recommend killing or at least severely weakening the Knight with Robin first, because otherwise he'll do a huge amount of damage to her Javelin and you don't want that running out yet. Since she only needs to fight two battles with Chrom to reach C with him, it's OK to pair her with Fred instead and use Robin x Kellam in order to boost her Str (though if Vaike got a level and got +Str, he'll give 1 more than Fred).

Anyway, the main thing you're probably not doing is shifting around your pairups once you've turtled up. Switching them up for PP and then putting them back how they were for EP is very important in Lunatic+, and this chapter is the first time where they really come into play.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Fred will have 19 Def minimum if he has Kellam for tanking. Kellam won't save Virion from that Archer because he'll still get doubled for 2x11 and that's without Luna+. Miriel just needs a +2 Def pair-up to survive combat with the Archer, but she's won't have enough sustain to win a battle with it unless she eats all the Vulneraries.

Anyway, knowing your game plan now, I highly advise using Fred to off the right-side Archer as it approaches.

Yes, the top half doesn't all aggro until you pull the middle section. If you want to be really safe, you can also open the right door and pull the Knight separately (the middle aggros him, but he doesn't aggro the middle).

[Wayward Alchemist]

Okay, so should I level Sumia or Miriel? Sumia is gonna be Chrom's waifu, so there's gonna be merit in getting her rolling for higher stats and if I really push it then maybe GF Lucy by the time she rolls around. However, I read Interceptor's guide and Miriel seems to have worked out well for him so I'm not sure. I'll try baiting the Archer and then do the Lissa/Sumia or Miriel alternation.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Both are good. If you're using Sumia anyway for Chrom, though, then that's a big point in her favor- she can get GF by Lucina with enough favoritism.

Just make sure to commit to whoever you choose. Spreading your exp too thin during Plegia will get you mauled as soon as prepromotes start showing up.

[Wayward Alchemist]

Okay, sounds good! By the way, what units tend to shine in L+? I know units that don't draw upon combat experience like Staffers and Olivia are good, but anyone else that tends to be especially good?

[Czar_Yoshi]

Females.

It sounds silly but it's true. You've got Lissa, Maribelle and Olivia who can train without combat exp, Sumia and Cordelia who can fly and eat Plegia for lunch, Miriel who has an easy start due to magic, Panne who has super bases/growths, somewhat Nowi who's sort of like Panne but slower, Lucina and her DSt+, one of Robin/Morgan, Cynthia and Severa... You get the picture. A big issue is who to pair them all with, the main good males are one of Robin/Morgan, Chrom and Laurent. There are a handful of 2nd gen males who can make good drop-in hard supports (though are generally too weak to come up front). Fred can keep himself relevant long enough to get S with an early recruit to give you another child, but don't expect him to be amazing. Stahl can sometimes hang on too, but he has a higher than usual risk of getting RNG screwed- I wouldn't use him except for Panne (Archer Yarne with Discipline and Str+2 is terrifying). Also among G2, A supports are pretty commonly used between girls.

[Wayward Alchemist]

Okay. So what should I do with Severa and Morgan? I'm thinking that with innate AT, whatever Conan ends up passing down, more than likely GF from Cordy, and just her mods in general she could be a great abuser of the Double Bow. Morgan would be just as good but she doesn't get AT off the bat like Severa.