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I think the Falco set will have much higher damage output than the Assassin set. Trading Astra for All+2 is already not made up for by the +2 Str and +3 Skl from Assassin, and then Gerome is losing 4 Atk on each of his DSes...

Whoops, you're right, terrible memory on my part. For some reason I thought Wyvern Lord had around the same Str as Berserkers, and forgot about Astra in damage calculations entirely.

I just bolded my stuff b/c I don't want to bother with the quote system. Thanks for the advice.

And LOL, for some reason I completely forgot it was Vaike!Gerome. Just replace Hex & Anathema with Dual Support+ & Swordbreaker, you'll be less consistent but it's still perfectly fine.

The main reason Yarne & Laurent are optimal in the Support role is because of how well Braves & Aggressor + faire stack together. The Support is going to attack 8 times (if your Lead doubles) compared to the Lead's 4 times. Aggressor & faire adds 15 damage per attack. 15 x 8 = 120 damage, JUST off of Aggressor + faire.

Of course, enemies in Apotheosis have Dragonskin, but you can see that the extra damage you get out of it is just absurd.

Also, Dual Strikes ignore Pavise/Aegis, which is even more reason to keep your harder hitting character (the Male) in the Support role as often as possible. So you'll want your Males to be Leading as little as possible, outside of activating your Males' Galeforce or to hit certain Speed thresholds that the Female misses.

Sorry if you already know all this, but just wanted to make sure :P

Anyways, Lucina is going to have 75 Speed in the front as a Sniper, so she already doubles everything in Apotheosis anyways; having Yarne in the front just reduces your damage output, especially when you add the loss of Lucina's procs.

If you wanted to run VV with Laurent, he'd have been better off with Lucina. Without Dual Strike+, his partner might not Dual Strike for him resulting in his death if you're getting him down to low enough HP to abuse VV on Enemy Phase. As well, you'll have to run the necessary calcs to see which enemy you can get your VV activated on, amongst other things.

I didn't ask about Morgan & Severa's mods, but if they're +Spd / -Def, then they hit 75 Speed as Valkyries with their partners as well.

Edited by burgerkong
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Thinking more about it, Czar's suggestion of Great Knight Cynthia with +3 (i.e. +8 at A/S rank and 30 speed) support (Berserker, Hero, Bow Knight, etc.,) would trivially meet the survival threshold for the "Ikeadin"/Ragnell Paladin. She'd have 46 defense from her class, get +2 or +3 depending on her pair-up, and get +10 from Rally Defense, Rally Spectrum, and the Defense Tonic. She'd hit 58 or 59 defense.

And she'd have 48 strength on her own…. 58 with a strength tonic+rally strength + rally spectrum, 68 from a Berseker support, +5 if using a Lance with Lancefaire for 73 strength, +2 attack on Lances from weapon rank, bringing us to 75. Then add in +10 from a Brave Lance and +5 from a forge…. she'd end up with 90 attack…. and the other weapons would get around the order of 85.

Interesting…

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I didn't want to force mega support on Yarne, as he can double basically everything. He's best in the back, of course, but I think there's value in offensive utility. That said, breakers - specifically the sword variety - solve hit issues more than just hit +20. I'll have to reconsider the value of Luna on such a good support.

I hate Owain. I wish he never got to fight in front.

The reason that non-GF males are always hard supports (and why double Galepairs always end on the female's turn) is because of Aggressor. Since giving both units Brave weapons means the front will get to attack 2/4 times and the support attacks 4/8 times, you effectively get all your Atk bonuses doubled when in the back. The advantage from doubling that +10 Agg bonus is waaay better than anything you'd get out of bringing Yarne up front (and even if it wasn't, Lucina wants to be up front anyway for her Aether/Luna procstack).

Hit+20 is also a general +Hit skill instead of a weapon-specific one. If it puts you over 220 Hit, it's good enough.

Owain doesn't have to go up front if you don't want him to- my 100% DS team leaves GF off him when in 100% mode so his pair can get a 100% Thronie kill and because he'd be horrendously weak with it anyway (he'd have a Falco support and no proc...).

CzarYoshi makes a good point about Assassins… noted.

The funny thing about Assassins is that looking at them, they seem so perfectly suited to the current metagame as to be overpowered, yet they're rarely recommended outside of challenge runs. It happens because the traits they bring to the table are already emphasized so much that we've figured out how to get them on other classes, which can then bring their other, non-central perks to the table, resulting in Assassins having nothing special anymore.

In challenge runs though they become good again, because it becomes very hard very fast for everything else to reach those old benchmarks they used to hit by the skin of their teeth without sacrifices. But you still don't want to use too many of them, because bosses still make up a small part of Apo and your other units can hit the grunts just fine.

Edited by Czar_Yoshi
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Doing some more brainstorming…

For the Avatar's daughters, how about a team of Dark Flier (daughters) x Hero (their husbands).

As previously noted, I'm using +Mag/-Def, which is somewhat of a role-playing consideration for my Avatar (/-Str or -/Def are what I feel fit my vision best; I went with -Def this time).

The Dark Flier siblings would have 42+5(mod) =47 speed base. They would have 32-2(mod)=30 defense base.

Heroes gives +8 skill, +8 speed, and +7 defense.

Non-DLC rallies + tonics give +10 to these stats.

47+8+10 = 65 speed.

30+7+10 = 47 defense

This would mean that merely adding on Defender would allow me to simultaneously hit 66 speed and 48 defense… i.e. the Anna survival threshold.

It also comes with flying mobility.

Actually, if I had an asset choice specifically for this purpose, rather for role-play, I could do it without needing any skills at all…. +SPD/-STR would give me +2 Speed and +2 defense over the current options, allowing me to hit 67 speed and 49 defense without needing Defender at all.

But it feels nice to find a combo that lets me use my role-playing preferred assets with only one skill slot consumed.

Actually, seeing that the Dark Knights would need Speed +2 AND Defender combined with a a speed +8 pair-up to hit that threshold, this means I have an extra slot to use.

For example, for convenience of not having to reforge nearly as much, I could now get away with running Armsthrift in that slot. Or I could put Lancefaire in their as well for when they attack Aegis+ enemies. Or I could proc-stack in that slot.

1. Galeforce

2. Ignis/Luna

3. Tomefaire

4. Armsthrift of Lancefaire or Luna/Ignis

5. Defender

Another obvious drawback is that heroes don't have a huge attack stat.

Of course, I'd need to figure out alternatives for the Ragnell Paladin, etc. Perhaps a Sniper or Great Knight Cynthia?

Edited by astrophys
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I haven't decided yet, with regards to crit-stack Laurent.

Obviously, as your analysis shows, he can lay waste to wave 1, the Ikeadin, the wave 4 Sages, etc.

I've just trying to consider how it interacts with the rest of my team.

Obviously, he will be no good against the Aegis+ enemies, nor the Miracle Sorcerers (too risky).

But its also perhaps the safest way that I've seen so far for taking on the wave 4 Sages (no need to eat 42 x 2 = 84 damage if skills or dual strikes fail to proc).

But of course, it also, to an extent, rules out using Fortify for decent chunks of the map to avoid accidentally healing Laurent out of proper Vengeance power.

He also might not be able to contribute as much to wave 5, with the 6 Sorcs, Anna, and the Berserkers. Although, of course, I could switch his wife into the front… although seeing that so many of her skills will be going to his crit build, she won't have space for the full Galeforce + Faire + Proc combo (at best, two of the three), to say nothing of threshold breakers.

That said, as the build calls for a Sage partner for optimal results (Grandmaster provides the same skill bonus, but less magic which makes damage thresholds harder to reach), that would mean his wife (Morgan or Severa) would have staff access…

So I suppose she could act as a back-up staff-bot and healer during sections of waves in which Laurent cannot fight the particular enemies effectively.

But yes, I should think about this.

But in any event, Laurent is one of my personal favorite pairings for Morgan now (tome stackers!), so I wouldn't object to marrying the two of them again in order to set up this build.

The larger questions is just how all of my pairs work together to make sure that I have the key bases covered and have a solution that can viably defeat all of the enemies on the map and allow for sufficient margin of error in the time limits.

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although seeing that so many of her skills will be going to his crit build, she won't have space for the full Galeforce + Faire + Proc combo (at best, two of the three), to say nothing of threshold breakers.

No, she has room. Start her with GF/proc as a Lv.14.92+ Sage. Since Laurent will OHKO everything and always be up front, she won't ever get more exp. Then when it's time to take her out, grab a kill, level up, and replace DSp+ with Tomefaire.

Also keep in mind that Laurent can't handle the Snipers safely since they have 60 Lck.

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Quick question im doing an in game run on lunatic (no dlc)* and I'm at chapter 7 (in case its relevant). These are the following pairs I plan on making:

Chrom x Sumia

MaMU (+spd/-def) x lucina

Gaius x Muriel

LQ X Cordelia

Morgan x Laurent

For fun I wanted to try using Gaius as a trickster to give Muriel good magical support bonuses (he can staff abuse too :D ) and I also want to use Laurent since he is my favorite kid in the game.

Anyways, I wanted to know if a) is it possible/feasible to use these 5 pairs in lunatic ( iirc someone posted on this thread that only two or three pairs should be used on lunatic), b) would panne or cherch (or any other unit) be better to pair up with LQ instead of Cordelia, and c) anyone have any suggestions?

*I might grind a unit or two that im not using in the story to net myself a dread scroll for Laurent or MaMU

Edited by bodybagfor8bucks
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You can get away with that but will likely be retiring Gaius and Miriel from combat after a while (and onto staff duty). Trickster Gaius will be able to get staff exp, but make sure to actually give it to him since Trickster will pretty much sink all hope of combat potential for him, especially later on.

Panne, Cordelia and Cherche are all good units, Lon'qu will be the weaker link in that pair. Switching to Panne would give Cynthia a husband, though- I'd say Panne and Cordelia are around the same utility here.

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Alright, so I'm planning out my next run (even though I still haven't completed my current Avatar x Chrom run :P), and I'm planning on going Avatar(+SPD/-DEF) x Stahl!Gerome, since I've barely done any of the Female Avatar pairings outside of Chrom.

Avatar @Falcon Knight (GF | AS+2 | Ignis | Lancefaire / Luna / Astra ?)

OR

@Assassin (GF | Ignis | Luna / Astra ? | ?)

x

Stahl!Gerome @Warrior (Agg | Bowfaire | Hit+20 | AS+2)

Assassin doesn't need AS+2 to hit 75 Speed, unlike Falcon Knight. However, I'm unsure what to do about the weapon types (should I run a -faire, just proc stack?), since going Bowfaire means I don't have a way to deal with Nightmare Sniper.

I also obviously lose out on 2 Mov, flight, and staff utility, so I'm leaning towards Falcon Knight.

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I would definitely go Falco if 75 Spd is your priority. Flight is nice.

If you drop down to 69 Spd while keeping the +Spd asset, though, you get a lot more options- hitting 69 in any base 40 class with no All+2, or as a Wyvern Lord with it.

If you do go Assassin, Bowfaire doesn't lock you out of swords for NS or anything, you can still use them on him. He's still preferable to fight with magic, though.

Edited by Czar_Yoshi
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I would definitely go Falco if 75 Spd is your priority. Flight is nice.

If you drop down to 69 Spd while keeping the +Spd asset, though, you get a lot more options- hitting 69 in any base 40 class with no All+2, or as a Wyvern Lord with it.

If you do go Assassin, Bowfaire doesn't lock you out of swords for NS or anything, you can still use them on him. He's still preferable to fight with magic, though.

Yeah, I was thinking of changing my mind and running Paladin instead. It's going to either be that or Falco with AS+2.

Would Swords or Lances be better to run actually? I've always instinctively run Lancefaire on Female Paladins since they have it exclusively over Males, but would Swords actually be better?

IIRC (I actually counted a long time ago) weapon frequency in S.Apo comes down to Axes being #1, Lances being #2, and I forget the rest.

EDIT: Recounted real quick, here's the breakdown (hopefully there's no mistakes, though counting by hand does tend to do that):

Wave 1

Axe: 18

Wave 2

Sword: 5

Lance: 3

Axe: 2

Bow: 5

Wave 3

Sword: 4

Lance: 6

Tome: 3

Wave 4

Sword: 2

Lance: 6

Axe: 3

Bow: 2

Tome: 10

Wave 5

Lance: 1

Axe: 2

Bow: 5

Tome: 6

TOTAL

Sword: 11

Lance: 16

Axe: 25

Bow: 12

Tome: 19

Edited by burgerkong
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Don't forget Wave 0, the Bows in Wave 1, and 9 Sorcs + 5 Sages + 5 DFs should be 19 Tomes.

Functionally Apo is almost completely comprised of Axes and Lances. Though the other weapon types still have high counts, these are the only two with waves they're almost completely dominant in.

Additionally, it's important to look at Hawkeye distributions, since you shouldn't be having Hit issues yourself and the 1 mt from WTA doesn't make much of a difference. All the Axes except 6 (I think) in Wave 1 have Hawkeye.

In general I suppose it comes down to which of Axes or Lances you'd rather not have WTD against- I prefer Lances because Swords lose 1 more Atk than Lances from WTA, so Lancefaire may be better. Your team composition could matter too, if you're heavy on Lance users like Wyverns and Falcos already then Swords would be more in demand, and if you're packing a ton of Heroes and Assassins then Lances it is.

tl;dr they're pretty much even.

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tl;dr they're pretty much even.

Ah, OK, thanks! I'll theorycraft the rest of my team first before deciding then.

Anyways, my current team is only running 6 combat pairs (I traditionally ran 7 just so I could have more characters to grind :P), so I have room for 5 staffbots + Olivia.

My current staffbots are:

Nanna & Raquesis, both @Falcon Knight wielding Shocksticks (managed to find 2 of them luckily :D)

Limit Breaker, Lancefaire, Anathema, Hex, Charm

Micaiah & Celica, both @Valkyrie wielding Valflame (need to grind DLC for the 2nd one :()

Limit Breaker, Tomefaire, Acrobat, Mag+2, AS+2 <-- should I just run auras instead ?

I don't know what to do for the last one. Was thinking just a Falcon Knight (reclassed Ursula) with all +Hit stuff since I don't have another Shockstick (Anathema, Hex, Dual Support+, ?). I don't know what to run for the last slot, since I originally ran Demoiselle before realising it only increases Avo / Crit Avo.

Edited by burgerkong
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The nice thing about having skills and strats that you can swap out without changing pairings (or sometimes even class) is that you don't have to redo your whole file to change them, so you can go in with both of them, see what works best, and stick with it from then on.

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What about Henry, Virion and Stahl? They're good options for him too.

If you need to use Lon'qu!Gerome, he's got Swordfaire and Hero/Assassin, but that's about it. No high Str classes for him to take advantage of his Str with, and nothing to do with Lon'qu's good Spd/Skl either.

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How workable is Lon'qu!Gerome? Gregor's already with Miriel, and Vaike's with Nowi.

He's kinda crappy aside from his mods, unfortunately :\

Gerome wants a +Hit skill preferably, which Lon'qu doesn't give him, and he doesn't make use of Lon'qu's excellent SPD modifier either.

As Czar said, Henry, Virion, or Stahl would all be preferable, even Libra if he's available simply for Dark Mage auras.

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Nope, they're all taken. Guess I'll switch Gregor and Lon'qu-- I was hoping to not do a second round of Lon'qu!Laurent.

By whom? I doubt Lon'qu is so locked to Gerome that there's only one way to get him off...

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Hello everyone, new to this board and new to fire emblem optimization as well, which means I got to skip all of the ugly things from a few years ago.

Anyway, looking at this thread I have some general questions. (don't worry, I'll bug everyone with a pairing post another time.)

Avatar X sumia!Lucina seems to be very popular, and for good reason. Here's my question. Why is this better than Avatar X Chrom! Cynthia and giving Lucina someone with gale force so she can leverage dual strike thrice?

Continuing, sully x Gaius seems to be a thing, and looking at mods, with good reason. Do I pair Donny with Tharja or just let him go back to the farm alone with a nice legendary parting gift? Also, do you have a preference for no gale force Noire? Should I marry her with a Rick dad and let Morgan gain a huge magic mod? It can't be better than Aether, but I may as well ask.

I'm sure I have more, but I'm tired, so I'll sleep on it and check in tomorrow.

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Welcome to SF!

The reason Lucina is typically chosen for Avatar is because, while more 100% DS attacks are nice, ~95% ones are sufficient for most of the stuff in Apo and you only really want the extra power for a couple of tougher bosses. For those bosses, you want a dedicated hard support, who can focus more on optimizing their Atk and Hit than a Galeboy could. Also, double Galepairs have diminishing returns over single Galepairs, so it's not that important anyway. And Lucina tends to make a much better lead than support, given that she always goes without a Faire and often in a class with low Str (and has a low Str mod).

That said, Avatar x Cynthia is a very potent pairing too (and the one I'm using). It somewhat comes down to the role you want Lucina to have in your team.

Donnel!Noire can work, but her mods are very underwhelming and she won't make use of his GF very well. Her best bet is as a Vengeance Sniper, but she can do that with any father. Good dads for a non-GF Noire are Vaike, Fred, and Ricken. You should always use Gaius!Noire if marrying her though (preferably +Mag/Spd), because Avatar-M should never have a non-GF wife in an optimized team and Donnel!Noire's mods won't end well on Morgan.

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That's mostly what I thought for Noire, I was a little concerned because that marriage would be good for Morgan but cut off avatar.

So follow up to the first question, is +magic -defense still a good asset flaw for avatar? And is this pairing good with Lucina? I'm just wondering, because I know that as it stands, Lucina gets +5, and coupled with avatar that gives Morgan +7, two super thresholds. But that's a second generation marriage, maybe that's not so great.

Another one on this topic, are there any better combinations of Avatar asset flaws for post game things? I'm not trying to ask you for the best team, that doesn't exist, but if going plus speed and marrying into the first generation is better, then I would like to know.

To that end, if I have someone like Henry!Gerome to be a dedicated berserker support, is that better or worse than pairing avatar up with Lucina? I would assume that avatar is preferable simply because he's a much better unit. My only hesitation is if Lucina would rather run physical (sniper) how well a magic avatar will mesh. But I guess by that same token if she wants magic, Gerome wouldn't mesh at all, and avatar has all of the skills to run physical with no problems.

Sorry if they seem redundant, but I really want to understand this game instead of just "hey guys rate my pairings!" so I can make a really good team and hopefully start peeling back layers on apo someday. I want to make sure I get it before I make a less than optimal team, I like squeezing the most out of everything.

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