PAIRINGS The Pairing Thread

[Czar_Yoshi]

Right, but that's why I specified in terms of skills. Didn't mean to imply they were the worst overall.

Fair enough.

[aeroblast]

Given Stahl, Gregor, Panne, and Cherche, what would be the better of the two ways to pair them up?

Edited October 1, 2015 by aeroblast

[Czar_Yoshi]

Stahl with Panne, Gregor with Cherche.

[aeroblast]

I figured. Thanks.

[Radiant head]

Not exactly a pairing question, but do people usually put Galeforce on Chrom's wife before the Lucina chapter, or grind DF with Lucina?

[CoolCoolCool]

Wanting to run through this game again, thought I would get some opinions on what "optimal" pairings are these days and what I should change.

Standard luna+ through to apotheosis using most if not all the kids. Only pairing I particularly want is MaMu x Lucina, I also prefer Luna over Vengeance, but not to the point I don't want to run vengeance at all. I remember preferring magic (sage/dark flier) combos, followed by ranged combo, followed by melee combos.

MaMu (+Mag -Def) x Lucina --> dark flier morgan

Chrom x Sumia --> strong lucina and cynthia

Ricken x Lissa --> magical owain

Lon'qu x Maribelle --> mods for brady

Cherche x Vaike/Henry --> berserker gerome

Panne x whoever --> berserker yarne

Gregor x Miriel --> vantage for laurent, no demand elsewhere

Nowi x whoever --> probably just going to use nah as a hard support for V/V laurent unless there is something better for her

This leaves Noire, Kjelle (not entirely sure which way to go with donnel and gaius), Severa and Inigo's parentage left.

Was thinking of running vengeance dark flier severa (in which case I would run magical Inigo for three double gale sage/flier combos), Sniper Noire and Hero Kjelle.

In which case I would go with:

Virion x Cordelia

Gaius x Tharja (giving Noire better mods)

Donnel x Sully

Kellam x Olivia (luna and sage for inigo)

then with the leftovers

Panne x Stahl

Nowi x Libra (Nah hard support for V/V laurent)

Advice?

[Zoran]

Libra!Inigo is a lot better than Kellam!Inigo, if you're okay with one more Vengeance user. As far as I know, crit-stack VV Laurent needs a wife with Solidarity in order to work in Apo, so Libra!Nah won't be enough for that. Nah does appreciate Vaike, who's free.

[sylveonzoroark]

What skills should Libra!Owain have?

[Rizziah]

Vantage, Vengeance, and Galeforce are the big three. After that (and I usually plan without DLC in mind), I'd recommend Tomefaire and Miracle.

[PM ME MARIANNE ART]

What skills should Libra!Owain have?

LB/GF/TF/Vengeance/Aggressor

I'm not as knowledgeable about without dlc but still GF/TF/Vengeance and then probably hex/anathema or anathema/astra

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

What skills should Libra!Owain have?

For Libra!Owain, the most common set was VVW. Though tbh I don't know if its still effective anymore... : /

Edited October 2, 2015 by Formerly Colm

[Vascela]

I don't really consider wrath to be part of the combo unless directly contributing to a 100% crit. Why bother using vengeance if you're end goal is an unknown damage output? You're better off proc stacking because then you won't die. If you have a contingency plan that works without needing a crit, did you need any crit to begin with?

You could also consider vantageless vengeance (which I use on multiple occasions: a big one being Ricken!Severa). But I would highly avoid stacking vengeance with another proc (astra or miracle). If you're already investing time into vengeance, it probably means you aren't really gambling on your life (you should know how to handle it). That may or may not include you being at 1 HP (you could just wing it and perhaps get sub ~20 HP), but resetting over failed RNG is exactly what vengeance avoids in the first place!

[TheSilentChloey]

Ok so I have been reading through this forum and I have a few questions.

I am planing to do a maMU run through awakening. Is there/are there any pairings that you would recommend that are the best for Severa, Indigo and Owain

[spoiler=My Sort of choosen Pairings]Male MU x Lucina
Chrom x Someone who gives Lucina Gale Force and isn't Sumia (because I have no clue)
Sumia x Frederic
Sully x Stahl

:D Thanks in advance!

Edited October 3, 2015 by TheSilentChloey

[Radiant head]

For Chrom, Olivia is the popular alternative to Sumia. It's good if you want a physical Lucina (esp with access to Swordfaire to beef up Falchion). Maribelle is also good if you want a magic/support Lucina. Though Inigo probably benefits way more from Chrom than Brady.

For Severa, Lon'qu passes awesome skills and mods.

For Owain, anyone that gives Luna and helps his magic build works. Specifically, libra and Ricken are ideal.

Sully x Stahl is considered terrible from optimization point because classes overlap too much to give anything Kjelle needs, galeforce being most important. But if you want to pair them personally, anything is fine on normal/hard.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Radiant head

[aeroblast]

Adding to that, if you're willing to part with Sully x Stahl, Stahl x Cordelia's also pretty great for Severa. If you don't like Chrom x Olivia or want to avoid having to keep the former a few miles away from every female in your army until Chapter 11, Frederick x Olivia produces a nice Inigo too.

[TheSilentChloey]

For Chrom, Olivia is the popular alternative to Sumia. It's good if you want a physical Lucina (esp with access to Swordfaire to beef up Falchion). Maribelle is also good if you want a magic/support Lucina. Though Inigo probably benefits way more from Chrom than Brady.

For Severa, Lon'qu passes awesome skills and mods.

For Owain, anyone that gives Luna and helps his magic build works. Specifically, libra and Ricken are ideal.

Sully x Stahl is considered terrible from optimization point because classes overlap too much to give anything Kjelle needs, galeforce being most important. But if you want to pair them personally, anything is fine on normal/hard.

Well I picked Sully and Stahl because I liked the pairing...I think I might try OliviaxChrom (Galeforce Lucina) for the maMU run through. Other than that I usually pair Chrom with female MU *shrugs* femRobin seems better for Lucina because of the classes :D

I negleted to mention Henry x Tharja XD they do make a nice Noire :D but those two are an OTP for me :D

[Radiant head]

Well yeah, MU x Anything is usually the best possibility, but (from what I understand of the metagame so far which I'm still kind of new to), Lucina's ideal skill set is obtainable without FeMU's library of classes.

But yeah, "optimal" pairings aren't that important on Normal/Hard.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Wanting to run through this game again, thought I would get some opinions on what "optimal" pairings are these days and what I should change.

A lot of what you've got is good, but for the wrong reasons (aka right pairs, wrong sets).

+Mag/-Def Sumia!Lucina!Morgan is really good, but you'll want to run her as a Valkyrie instead of a Dark Flier. The 1 Spd she gains from it makes the difference between being able to double Anna with a Sage support and not being able to.

With Lon'qu!Brady's specific mods, he'd really like a supporting Bride or Valkyrie (Morgan, Nah or Noire, most likely).

Panne's whoever should definitely be Stahl, he offers good mods and Hit+20 to Yarne, which is about all he can ask for. This Yarne fits well with Chrom!Cynthia, various Severas and Gaius!Kjelle.

Gregor!Laurent doesn't want Vantage since he shouldn't be coming up front. What he can do, though, is alternate between being a powerful magical hard support and physical hard support (Gregor gives him decent Str, and he has native Berserker/Hex/Anathema). I'd advise putting him with someone who can lead both physically and magically, such as Chrom!Cynthia or Virion!Severa.

Nah should get whomever of Vaike and Henry Gerome doesn't get. Henry makes a slightly better Gerome, but Henry!Nah also fits your needs a little better (she can run Valkyrie to support Brady).

Virion!Severa is easily top-tier, but Dark Flier is her secondary set: she primarily runs Wyvern Lord with a Berserker support and LB/GF/LF/All+2/Vengeance for top-of-the-line damage output while retaining flight and hitting the highest Spd threshold in the game. I would strongly recommend giving her either Laurent or Henry!Gerome.

Inigo will fare better with Frederick than Kellam as he values Paladin more than Sage.

As for Donnel and Kjelle, here's what's on the table: with Gaius, Kjelle is able to run really good Wyvern/Paladin sets, assuming she gets one of the support Berserkers. She hits 75 Spd, has 8 Mov, and will be dishing out a ton of damage whether through high base Str or a procstack (with Wyvern, she runs All+2 over Astra). Noire's benefit from Gaius will largely be seen in her Bow Knight and Dark Knight: the former, with a Berserker support, has plenty of room to run a Luna/Astra procstack and is her default class choice, while the latter with a Sage support is extremely well suited for clearing out Thronie. As for who is hurt by Donnel more (aside from GF, he's a terrible father), Kjelle will be more or less forced to shoot for 69 Spd instead of 75 and generally sticking to Hero (her options would be better if she could win a support Berserker, but Noire, Cynthia and Severa will all have dibs). Noire, on the other hand, will be a very slow Sniper with a Donnel father, and may want to consider dropping Galeforce and taking Ricken, Lon'qu, Vaike or Fred instead and pairing up with a Galeboy.

Finally, don't think you're going to get away with all/most/any of these in Lunatic+ nogrind ingame. Except Gregor!Laurent and Chrom x Sumia.

Vantage, Vengeance, and Galeforce are the big three. After that (and I usually plan without DLC in mind), I'd recommend Tomefaire and Miracle.

For Libra!Owain, the most common set was VVW. Though tbh I don't know if its still effective anymore... : /

Listen to Vascela, he knows what he's talking about.

I try to avoid recommending VV because unless someone knows why they want it in the first place, odds are they're not going to know how to use it and will get impaled by the RNG as a result.

Ok so I have been reading through this forum and I have a few questions.

I am planing to do a maMU run through awakening. Is there/are there any pairings that you would recommend that are the best for Severa, Indigo and Owain

[spoiler=My Sort of choosen Pairings]Male MU x Lucina

Chrom x Someone who gives Lucina Gale Force and isn't Sumia (because I have no clue)

Sumia x Frederic

Sully x Stahl

:D Thanks in advance!

What difficulty are you playing on? I'm assuming Hard/Cla, but anything less than Lunatic and you can get away with whatever pairs you want.

Getting GF on Lucina without using Sumia takes a bit of conscious effort, since you'll either need to avoid letting Chrom see any supports with non-married females until Cht.11 (to get Olivia) or grind up support with Maribelle, which is kind of irritating. Olivia will pay off better for your efforts, though, so I recommend going for her. Since you don't say you want Brady, just bench Maribelle as soon as possible and make sure Sully and Sumia are married prior to Cht.11 and you should be just fine.

That'll get you Inigo, as well. In Owain's case, I find it convenient to use Fred as the father, since he can pass Discipline (very useful for getting going), is easy to get damage on to heal for support early on, and later on can help Lissa take hits (if your Lissa gets strong enough, enemies will even start ignoring her to attack your proper combat units, which is really fun).

If you just want to get Severa on the field as easily as possible, Libra and Cordelia build support very quickly. However, I'm fond of using Vaike, as Cordelia usually turns out with very high Str and Vaike can make that even higher. Vaike can also pass Severa Sol, which lets her go to another base class instead of promoting immediately after you get her, which makes her turn out better in the long run.

[CoolCoolCool]

@ Czar_Yoshi

Thanks a ton. I just frederick through to C4 and grind sorc MU and then just breeze through wtih MU/Chrom for Luna+ so ingame isn't a problem. Last time I played this game it seemed that magic (or bows) was just straight up better (mainly due to range) and especially for dealing with counter. Seems that physical classes are a lot more popular now.

Might redo my pairings bottom up (plan the children marriages first) while more conscious of finishing classes and speed thresholds. This needs a few extra q's though....

1) What are the key speed thresholds? 75 speed for doubling anna, but after that? Formula for expected speed is class max + character mods + 2 (tonics) + 10 (rally) + 3 (pair up) + pairup class bonus + 2 (if running AS+2) right?

2) To my understanding skillsets should be Female Lead: LB/Gale/Proc/Faire/AS+2, Lucina: LB/Gale/Aether/Luna/DS+, Male Galeforce: LB/Gale/Proc/Faire/Aggressor, Male Support: LB/Aggressor/Faire/AS+2/Support Skill. Seems proc stacking astra is also worth it on female leads as well now?

3) What is the best value to get out of the children pairups? With MaMu x Lucina, that leaves 3 maleforcers, 3 male hard supports(?), 5 galegirls and Nah. 2 double gale combos, 3 galegirls with hard supports and maleforcer + nah a good combination?

4) What are notable postgame classes? I'm aware of Hero (melee), Sniper/bow knight (ranged), berserker (hard support) and sage/dark flier (magic). I can see the value in valkyrie (very similar to dark flier but +1 speed). I assume paladin is used for male galeforcers due to better pairup bonuses than hero? I assume Wyvern Lord is largely limited to certain Severa's due to her extremely high speed? Any other classes I should be conscious of?

5) If I was interested in minimum-turning all the DLC maps, would I need to make any specific adjustments?

Edited October 3, 2015 by CoolCoolCool

[Czar_Yoshi]

1. 75 Spd doubles Anna, 69 Spd doubles Thronie, 66 Spd avoids being doubled by Anna. You shouldn't go any lower than this with all resources on the table; once you start doing challenge runs then the big threshold becomes 60 (avoids being doubled by Thronie and can double pretty much all mooks).

That's more or less the formula, but there's an easier way to do it: Since LB/Rally/Tonic/Pairup can be assumed for everyone and equals +25, you can just skip that and say the thresholds are 50, 44, and 41. Those need to be met using class bases, mods, All+2, and the class bonuses (+2) from pairup, which is a lot less to juggle in your head.

2. More or less. Support males really want at least one +Hit skill though, and All+2 should only be used on leads when there's either no procstack available, or it breaks a Spd threshold.

3. Two double Galepairs, four single Galepairs and Nah x a Galeboy is generally the way things are done if you want to deploy a full team. The two variants on that are to use a non-GF Noire as well and bench Donnel (take away a double galepair and set Noire up like Nah), and to deploy only a small handful of children (usually concentrating power around Chrom and Robin's families, possibly adding Owain and Severa into the mix somewhere) to make room for more staffbots.

4. Wyvern Lord is for Lon'qu/Virion!Severa, Gaius!Kjelle, and 5+ Spd Morgan-F. It's most useful to group classes according to their base Spd and Spd pairup: Hero/BK/Berserker/Dark Flier give +3 (5), Paladin/Valkyrie/Bride/GM give +2 (4), Dread Fighter gives +1 (3), most others give +0. Base-wise, Wyverns are lowest at 38, then Paladin/Sniper/GM/DK at 40, then BK/Dread Fighter at 41, then Hero/Bride/Sage/Dark Flier at 42, then Valkyrie at 43, then Falco/GL(F) at 44. There are a few other classes that can sometimes be useful, but those are the common ones. Very few classes are legitimately useless- Trickster, Swordmaster, Griffon Rider, Sorcerer and Great Knight tend to be the least common but all technically can do things other classes can't. And who knows, one of them could suddenly get more useful some day- BK is a class that used to be down there with the bottom tier due to its very low base stat total and lack of any standout stats, but its strengths have since become more valuable and it's now situationally very good (Gaius!Noire and Robin-F frequently use it, for example).

5. Not really. It sort of depends on whether your definition of minimum-turning Apo involves clearing it in 1 or 6 turns, though.

Not exactly a pairing question, but do people usually put Galeforce on Chrom's wife before the Lucina chapter, or grind DF with Lucina?

Sorry, forgot this. For me it depends whether I'm playing Lunatic(+) or not- if I am, I go for GF on Sumia/Olivia because there's usually enough exp to get it in time, if not then I go for it on Lucina or not at all.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[CoolCoolCool]

Many thanks. Ok, my new theoretical setup:

2nd gen:

MaMu x Lucina (magical)

Morgan x Owain/Brady (magical)

Cynthia x Owain/Brady (magical)

Severa x Berserker Support

Kjelle x Berserker Support

Noire x Berserker Support

Inigo x Nah (physical)

Pairings:

MaMu x Lucina = Morgan (Valkyrie w/ 75 speed, +5mag and LB/Galeforce/Aether/Luna/Tomefaire)

Chrom x Sumia = Lucina (Dark Flier w/ 76 speed, +1mag and LB/Galeforce/Aether/Luna/DS+) --> using grandmaster MaMu for speed pairup boost, or sage MaMu and sacrifice doubling Anna?

Chrom x Sumia = Cynthia (Dark Flier w/ 72 speed, +1mag and LB/Galeforce/Aether/Luna/Tomefaire) --> won't double anna, but have enough that does

Ricken x Lissa = Owain (Sage w/ 73 speed, +5mag and LB/Galeforce/Aggressor/Luna/Tomefaire)

Lon'qu x Maribelle = Brady (Sage w/ 76 speed, +3 mag and LB/Galeforce/Aggressor/Luna/Tomefaire)

Virion x Cordelia = Severa (Wyvern Lord w/ 75 speed, +2 str and LB/Galeforce/Vengeance/Lancefaire/AS+2)

Gaius x Tharja = Noire (Bow Knight w/ 75 speed, +2 str and LB/Galeforce/Luna/Astra/Bowfaire)

Donnel x Sully = Kjelle (Hero w/ 76 speed, +1 str and LB/Galeforce/Luna/Swordfaire/AS+2) --> Or Astra over AS+2

Gregor x Miriel = Laurent (Berseker w/ +1 str and LB/Aggressor/Axefaire/AS+2/Anathema?)

Henry x Cherche = Gerome (Berserker w/ +5 str and LB/Aggressor/Axefaire/AS+2/Anathema?)

Frederick x Panne = Yarne (Berserker w/ +5 str and LB/Aggressor/Axefaire/AS+2/Swordbreaker?)

Stahl x Olivia = Inigo (Sniper w/ 69 speed, +3 str and LB/Galeforce/Aggressor/Luna/AS+2) --> AS+2 to hit the speed threshold with general support Nah

Vaike x Nowi = Nah (General w/ +5 str and LB/Axefaire/AS+2/Lucky Seven/Strength +2(?))

Not sure what filler skills to put on my supports. Any other recommended changes?

Edited October 3, 2015 by CoolCoolCool

[TheSilentChloey]

A lot of what you've got is good, but for the wrong reasons (aka right pairs, wrong sets).

+Mag/-Def Sumia!Lucina!Morgan is really good, but you'll want to run her as a Valkyrie instead of a Dark Flier. The 1 Spd she gains from it makes the difference between being able to double Anna with a Sage support and not being able to.

With Lon'qu!Brady's specific mods, he'd really like a supporting Bride or Valkyrie (Morgan, Nah or Noire, most likely).

Panne's whoever should definitely be Stahl, he offers good mods and Hit+20 to Yarne, which is about all he can ask for. This Yarne fits well with Chrom!Cynthia, various Severas and Gaius!Kjelle.

Gregor!Laurent doesn't want Vantage since he shouldn't be coming up front. What he can do, though, is alternate between being a powerful magical hard support and physical hard support (Gregor gives him decent Str, and he has native Berserker/Hex/Anathema). I'd advise putting him with someone who can lead both physically and magically, such as Chrom!Cynthia or Virion!Severa.

Nah should get whomever of Vaike and Henry Gerome doesn't get. Henry makes a slightly better Gerome, but Henry!Nah also fits your needs a little better (she can run Valkyrie to support Brady).

Virion!Severa is easily top-tier, but Dark Flier is her secondary set: she primarily runs Wyvern Lord with a Berserker support and LB/GF/LF/All+2/Vengeance for top-of-the-line damage output while retaining flight and hitting the highest Spd threshold in the game. I would strongly recommend giving her either Laurent or Henry!Gerome.

Inigo will fare better with Frederick than Kellam as he values Paladin more than Sage.

As for Donnel and Kjelle, here's what's on the table: with Gaius, Kjelle is able to run really good Wyvern/Paladin sets, assuming she gets one of the support Berserkers. She hits 75 Spd, has 8 Mov, and will be dishing out a ton of damage whether through high base Str or a procstack (with Wyvern, she runs All+2 over Astra). Noire's benefit from Gaius will largely be seen in her Bow Knight and Dark Knight: the former, with a Berserker support, has plenty of room to run a Luna/Astra procstack and is her default class choice, while the latter with a Sage support is extremely well suited for clearing out Thronie. As for who is hurt by Donnel more (aside from GF, he's a terrible father), Kjelle will be more or less forced to shoot for 69 Spd instead of 75 and generally sticking to Hero (her options would be better if she could win a support Berserker, but Noire, Cynthia and Severa will all have dibs). Noire, on the other hand, will be a very slow Sniper with a Donnel father, and may want to consider dropping Galeforce and taking Ricken, Lon'qu, Vaike or Fred instead and pairing up with a Galeboy.

Finally, don't think you're going to get away with all/most/any of these in Lunatic+ nogrind ingame. Except Gregor!Laurent and Chrom x Sumia.

Listen to Vascela, he knows what he's talking about.

I try to avoid recommending VV because unless someone knows why they want it in the first place, odds are they're not going to know how to use it and will get impaled by the RNG as a result.

What difficulty are you playing on? I'm assuming Hard/Cla, but anything less than Lunatic and you can get away with whatever pairs you want.

Getting GF on Lucina without using Sumia takes a bit of conscious effort, since you'll either need to avoid letting Chrom see any supports with non-married females until Cht.11 (to get Olivia) or grind up support with Maribelle, which is kind of irritating. Olivia will pay off better for your efforts, though, so I recommend going for her. Since you don't say you want Brady, just bench Maribelle as soon as possible and make sure Sully and Sumia are married prior to Cht.11 and you should be just fine.

That'll get you Inigo, as well. In Owain's case, I find it convenient to use Fred as the father, since he can pass Discipline (very useful for getting going), is easy to get damage on to heal for support early on, and later on can help Lissa take hits (if your Lissa gets strong enough, enemies will even start ignoring her to attack your proper combat units, which is really fun).

If you just want to get Severa on the field as easily as possible, Libra and Cordelia build support very quickly. However, I'm fond of using Vaike, as Cordelia usually turns out with very high Str and Vaike can make that even higher. Vaike can also pass Severa Sol, which lets her go to another base class instead of promoting immediately after you get her, which makes her turn out better in the long run.

I'm actually doing Normal/Casual at the moment because as my signature mentioned I am hopeless at the game (even though I've had it for a couple of years *looks down guiltily*) it took me over two years just to beat Lucina/Marth and get past chapter 5. So that said I am a really bad player. I have made a deal that I will try classic mode when I can get through casual unscathed...I usually end up with two or three units dead a chapter :/

However I was curious because I want to improve my strategy to go up to a higher difficulty. I tried hard casual once and suffice to say I ended up killing my MU :/

Edited October 3, 2015 by TheSilentChloey

[Radiant head]

Okay so on second thought, I don't want to bother using Donnel, and this isn't exactly an unpopular sentiment. What should I do with Kjelle if Gaius is with Noire?

[sylveonzoroark]

Okay so on second thought, I don't want to bother using Donnel, and this isn't exactly an unpopular sentiment. What should I do with Kjelle if Gaius is with Noire?

Give her Kellam?

[PatataAsada]

What are nice options to pair my MaMu Str+/Def- for 3rd gen morgan?