PAIRINGS The Pairing Thread

[Ebony]

Virion is actually a really good dad. Off the top of my head, he's top 5 for Severa, Gerome, and Yarne. And that's mostly because skills/classes >>>>> mods the majority of the time. Having access to the best two faires in the game is pretty goddamn sweet.

Really? This is the only website where I've ever, EVER heard Virion is a good dad.

[Rizziah]

Heh. I only really go on Serenes and Reddit (and browse /feg/ and gamefaqs, but those places kinda suck), so you saying Virion is a bad dad is weird to me actually.

[Ebony]

Heh. I only really go on Serenes and Reddit (and browse /feg/ and gamefaqs, but those places kinda suck), so you saying Virion is a bad dad is weird to me actually.

well theres my problem it seems then xD

[Radiant head]

Virion can father a Bowfaire Warrior Gerome, but I'd much rather have a Berserker.

[Zoran]

Really? This is the only website where I've ever, EVER heard Virion is a good dad.

There were a couple old metagames where people thought he didn't have anything of value. Early on (especially before Apotheosis came out), people noticed that self-healing was ridiculously awesome in-game outside of Lunatic+, so combos like Sol+Vantage and Vengeance+Vantage+Nosferatu were popular. Everyone agreed that Sorcerers with Armsthrift and Aversa's Night were the best units possible. People also really liked defensive combos like PavGis. Virion didn't help any of that at all.

Particularly after Apotheosis was out, people caught on to the fact that Galeforce and Procs are really good together, and the new fad was to try to get as many of Galeforce, Luna, and Dual Guard+ on the kids as possible. Nobody liked Vengeance without Vantage, and people tried to put Luna even on kids who don't ever want it, like the three boys with no Galeforce. Once again, Virion was useless in this context.

The old ideas have fallen out of favor for a variety of reasons:

• Sol & Nosferatu: Leads don't do a lot of damage in Apotheosis, so the healing you get from these skills is negligible. Sol also interferes with the damage-dealing procs.
• PavGis: Think about when these skills are useful. The only time they accomplish anything of note is when they reduce damage by enough to keep you from dying—if you're not facing lethal damage, then you can heal it all up next turn anyway. But it's impossible to give these skills 100% activation rate outside of one very specific (and not very powerful) case. Thus, every time you put your units in a position where they might actually benefit from Pavise or Aegis, you're risking death. This is unacceptable.
• Dual Guard+: Same issues as PavGis, really, except that the activation rate for Dual Guards is even lower.
• Luna for everyone: The three boys who don't have Galeforce never* want to go up front, because they have Aggressor and Aggressor is twice as strong from the back. So there's no reason to try to give this skill to Laurent, Gerome, and Yarne. They want boosts to attack power, hit rate, and dual strike rate, and that's it. (*Laurent sometimes does Vengeance + Vantage up front with certain niche builds that give him 100% crit rate or 100% dual strike rate.)

Nowadays Vengeance is accepted as a solo offensive skill, and there is much more appreciation for the power of dedicated support units. One of the consequences of this is that Virion's benefits are more valued.

• He gives great mods—he's the second-fastest father and offers the most Skill through his +2 mod and Archer access. The speed is a big deal for units like Severa and Brady, who otherwise don't need a lot from their dad.
• Archer itself is a great class tree for hard supports because of Hit Rate +20 and Prescience, which really helps out Berserkers. It also gives Bowfaire, which makes really strong Warriors.
• The Mage tree opens up Sage access and Tomefaire, which is nice for certain units as well. Virion!Severa can become a Tomefaire Dark Flier, and Virion!Yarne gains the ability to run magic if you need that for some reason.
• The Wyvern tree has somewhat useful skills in Deliverer and breakers, and for Severa in particular, Wyvern Lord is a powerful ending class that really loves Virion's speed.

So yes, Virion is an abysmal father for the units who need offensive procs or Galeforce, but for everyone else he ranges from pretty good to top tier.

[Ebony]

I feel kind of bad for Virion, I usually have to go out of my way to pair him with someone if I"m going for optimization.

Usually its Cordelia.

For... no particular reason...

[Zoran]

Virion!Severa rules in every way, so you've been doing well.

[Ebony]

Virion!Severa rules in every way, so you've been doing well.

I won't lie even when I thought it wasn't a good pairing it was one of my favorites. Both aesthetically (I like the hair color on Severa, I think she pulls it off well) and because... idk I liked the supports.

[TheSilentChloey]

There were a couple old metagames where people thought he didn't have anything of value. Early on (especially before Apotheosis came out), people noticed that self-healing was ridiculously awesome in-game outside of Lunatic+, so combos like Sol+Vantage and Vengeance+Vantage+Nosferatu were popular. Everyone agreed that Sorcerers with Armsthrift and Aversa's Night were the best units possible. People also really liked defensive combos like PavGis. Virion didn't help any of that at all.

Particularly after Apotheosis was out, people caught on to the fact that Galeforce and Procs are really good together, and the new fad was to try to get as many of Galeforce, Luna, and Dual Guard+ on the kids as possible. Nobody liked Vengeance without Vantage, and people tried to put Luna even on kids who don't ever want it, like the three boys with no Galeforce. Once again, Virion was useless in this context.

The old ideas have fallen out of favor for a variety of reasons:

• Sol & Nosferatu: Leads don't do a lot of damage in Apotheosis, so the healing you get from these skills is negligible. Sol also interferes with the damage-dealing procs.
• PavGis: Think about when these skills are useful. The only time they accomplish anything of note is when they reduce damage by enough to keep you from dying—if you're not facing lethal damage, then you can heal it all up next turn anyway. But it's impossible to give these skills 100% activation rate outside of one very specific (and not very powerful) case. Thus, every time you put your units in a position where they might actually benefit from Pavise or Aegis, you're risking death. This is unacceptable.
• Dual Guard+: Same issues as PavGis, really, except that the activation rate for Dual Guards is even lower.
• Luna for everyone: The three boys who don't have Galeforce never* want to go up front, because they have Aggressor and Aggressor is twice as strong from the back. So there's no reason to try to give this skill to Laurent, Gerome, and Yarne. They want boosts to attack power, hit rate, and dual strike rate, and that's it. (*Laurent sometimes does Vengeance + Vantage up front with certain niche builds that give him 100% crit rate or 100% dual strike rate.)

Nowadays Vengeance is accepted as a solo offensive skill, and there is much more appreciation for the power of dedicated support units. One of the consequences of this is that Virion's benefits are more valued.

• He gives great mods—he's the second-fastest father and offers the most Skill through his +2 mod and Archer access. The speed is a big deal for units like Severa and Brady, who otherwise don't need a lot from their dad.
• Archer itself is a great class tree for hard supports because of Hit Rate +20 and Prescience, which really helps out Berserkers. It also gives Bowfaire, which makes really strong Warriors.
• The Mage tree opens up Sage access and Tomefaire, which is nice for certain units as well. Virion!Severa can become a Tomefaire Dark Flier, and Virion!Yarne gains the ability to run magic if you need that for some reason.
• The Wyvern tree has somewhat useful skills in Deliverer and breakers, and for Severa in particular, Wyvern Lord is a powerful ending class that really loves Virion's speed.

So yes, Virion is an abysmal father for the units who need offensive procs or Galeforce, but for everyone else he ranges from pretty good to top tier.

So Virion x Cherche is a viable pairing Normally I go for bowbreaker and call it a day probably becuase I want to keep Gerome as a flying unit and haven't considered other builds

So then what is the recommened Yarne/Severa? I think based on who I have left...

Gaius or Gregor

I know I did a run that Gaius was Severa's father and Gregor/someone else was Yarne's but I never got that far with it. That and Libra will be left over in my maMU playthrough

Edited October 4, 2015 by TheSilentChloey

[Ebony]

I will say that I stil don't think Virion is that great of a dad for Gerome, idk. And Bowbreaker I guess... I don't really know, I feel like it's a situational type thing. Usually by the time you're done raising Gerome, he'll rarely get hit it seems.

[Vascela]

Virion gives Archer and Mage which lead to [imo] the most dominant end classes you can want for physical or magical. Plus, you don't see Lon'qu get any flack for providing non-Attack based mods, and the difference between 1 Skl/Spd point might not matter depending on the Spd range you're looking for (since Skl can is typically covered by rallies assuming the 50 Skl Vengeance benchmark). It might matter, but sometimes it's easier to squeeze out 1 Skl/Spd than it is to be lacking Sage or Sniper.

And even if you don't want to end on Sniper (for argument's sake, let's say you don't subscribe to Long Bow based strats), he still gives Hit Rate+20--a skill hard supports would love to have. Or it means you can run Bowfaire Warrior (assuming they have Warrior, like in Gerome's case).

The 3 slices of the cake are physical class, magical class, and proc. With mods being the icing. And technically, you only need one of the classes depending on the unit in question's niche. Virion might not offer the proc (as if a true hard support even wanted one), but he touches base with giving you a variety of options (it's not like Virion!Gerome can't use Sage well depending on the conditions). There's too many factors in favor of Virion providing good utility for him to be cast aside as subpar.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Vaike/Gregor/Frederick/Stahl x Cherche are all good. But if you want hard stats-

Frederick!Gerome:

+6 Strength.

+5 Defense.

+2 Skill.

+1 Luck.

-1 Magic and Resistance.

-2 Speed.

Thanks gamefaqs! While this slows Gerome down, he gets a really tanky setup. Both PavGis, he gets Luna for damage, Dual Guard+ and Dual Support+, and Paladin. He can be a very helpful backup. A good pairing.

Virion!Gerome:

+4 Strength.

+2 Skill and Speed.

+1 Magic and Defense

0 Luck.

-1 Resistance.

Nothing. Gerome gets nothing out of this that he couldn't get from other fathers. Next.

You've been listening to too much Gfaqs, methinks- Frederick!Gerome is one of the worst children in the game. Allow me to demonstrate.

First off, males without Galeforce should never leave the back. This is because when both units have Braves, the support hits around twice as much as the lead, and since only males get Aggressor, the male would have to have at least 10 less Atk than the female before Agg to warrant being up front- otherwise your damage output would go down. Because of this, Gerome will never be able to benefit from Luna or PavGis.

That's not the only reason why Luna/PavGis won't work on him, though. Luna is a skill that increases damage by quite a lot, but only works up front- all leads want to have it, Vengeance, Ignis or similar. But it does nothing in the back, so a pair where both units need to lead must run it twice, which is less efficient (you get the same effect of having Luna on the lead for twice the skillslots). Thus, even if Agg were not a concern, it would still cost a minimum of one skillslot for Gerome to move up front and perform equally, with no gain.

On to PavGis, now. In Apo, the player has the luxury of effectively infinite preparation time, meaning you never have to worry about running out of Rescues, etc. Enemies are also very spread out, making it very easy to accomplish the map without ever fighting on enemy phase (since Agg doesn't work on EP, you shouldn't be fighting there anyway). As a result, your combat units will never have to take more than one fight at a time without the ability to be healed to full by a Staffbot, and thus their survivability needs only to extend to one round of combat.

Aside from one enemy, the survival thresholds for combat, when at full HP, are 60 Spd and around 30 Def. Nobody- nobody- should fail to meet those. So dedicating extra skills to defenses simply makes no sense.

PavGis, though, aren't strict defensive improvements: they're random. You have a random chance of taking the same amount of damage you'd take without them, or a chance of taking less. The first rule of playing Apo is that you should never put yourself in a situation where the RNG can kill you (in this case, that would be where an activation of PavGis would save you from death), and since you can always heal to full whenever there both shouldn't be any cases where they could save you in the first place (barring, again, one enemy), but also no places where the damage reduction would make any difference in your HP total afterword (because you'll be healed to full). PavGis are, effectively, completely useless.

There's most of Fred's advantages counting for nothing; all he still brings to the table is a +6 Str mod. So let's see how his damage output in the back stacks up to Virion!Gerome's.

Fred!Gerome's best support class will be General. He completely lacks any physical Faires, and since he has no Berserker he can't even boost Str and Spd at the same time (Paladin has too little Str for a hard support), so General is his best class. He'll use Axes, since they're his strongest option. His Atk (LB/Agg/All+2/Str+2/filler):

50(base) +6(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +10(Agg) +2(All+2) +2(Str+2) +2(tonic) +18(5/15 Brave Axe) =110.

Virion gives Gerome Bowfaire, so even though his Str mod won't be as high, he'll have a nice +5 from that. His Atk now (Warrior, LB/Agg/BF/All+2/Str+2):

48(base) +4(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +10(Agg) +5(BF) +2(All+2) +2(Str+2) +2(tonic) +17(5/15 Brave Bow) =110.

Would you look at that, they're the same. Fred's Str, in this case, counts for nothing in the face of his lack of Faires and inferior class selection for Gerome. So as of here, they're equals. Except for pairup bonuses, Warrior gives +2 Str over General.

Atk isn't everything, though- Hit also matters. The two have roughly the same base Hit (Virion/Warrior will give +1 Skl and -1 Lck), but General is stuck with an unwieldy Axe, while Warrior has a Bow that's immune to WT stuff. The Axe has 75 Hit with WRB and a forge, the Bow has 80. But Virion gives Gerome the ability to swap out Str+2 (and optionally All+2) for Hit+20 and then Prescience, which can provide a very sizable 20/35 boost to Hit. When Apo gives you enemies with upwards of 150 Avo (168 being the highest), and support units don't get adjacency bonuses, having +Hit skills is a really big deal. Single Galepairs are meant for taking on the stronger things, not cleaning up mooks, so they will be dealing with this stuff. Fred!Gerome can't handle it (his hitrates will be around 60 listed on the dodgiest enemies), Virion!Gerome can.

If you think there's anything I'm glossing over; that Fred!Gerome has some advantage not tied to Luna, PavGis, or his damage-dealing potential, feel free to voice it. Virion!Gerome isn't even necessarily the best Gerome, since he still suffers from providing no extra Spd (though Hero Lon'qu!Severa, Sniper Gaius!Noire and Paladin Donnel!Kjelle can all take that without complaint), but he's definitely miles ahead of Fred. And if you need one last bit of conclusive proof that Fred!Gerome has nothing: Endgame, the infamous Gfaqs user who popularized him in the first place, later confessed that Fred!Gerome was an elaborate practical joke he played on the community to see if he could convince bandwagoners that a bottom-of-the-barrel unit was top tier.

Virion!Severa rules in every way, so you've been doing well.

She really does. Her flagship set uses Wyvern Lord x Berserker, with her running LB/GF/LF/All+2/Vengeance. She has her proc and still hits 75 Spd, despite being in one of the slowest, strongest classes with another extremely strong unit behind her. Add 8 flying Mov onto that, and she's incredibly destructive and inescapable. She does prefer having a Hex/Anathema Berserker like Henry!Gerome or Gregor!Laurent behind her, though (as a bonus, both of those make good Sages, so she can transition into DF x Sage if she ever wants a change of pace.

Also, that hair.

[Ebony]

If you think there's anything I'm glossing over; that Fred!Gerome has some advantage not tied to Luna, PavGis, or his damage-dealing potential, feel free to voice it. Virion!Gerome isn't even necessarily the best Gerome, since he still suffers from providing no extra Spd (though Hero Lon'qu!Severa, Sniper Gaius!Noire and Paladin Donnel!Kjelle can all take that without complaint), but he's definitely miles ahead of Fred. And if you need one last bit of conclusive proof that Fred!Gerome has nothing: Endgame, the infamous Gfaqs user who popularized him in the first place, later confessed that Fred!Gerome was an elaborate practical joke he played on the community to see if he could convince bandwagoners that a bottom-of-the-barrel unit was top tier.

She really does. Her flagship set uses Wyvern Lord x Berserker, with her running LB/GF/LF/All+2/Vengeance. She has her proc and still hits 75 Spd, despite being in one of the slowest, strongest classes with another extremely strong unit behind her. Add 8 flying Mov onto that, and she's incredibly destructive and inescapable. She does prefer having a Hex/Anathema Berserker like Henry!Gerome or Gregor!Laurent behind her, though (as a bonus, both of those make good Sages, so she can transition into DF x Sage if she ever wants a change of pace.

Also, that hair.

Well I certainly feel... humiliated and almost in tears. I've been using Frederick Gerome for a while because I liked the pairing and I never had too much trouble with him.

At least it seems I"ve been doing well with.... other pairings... kind of...

[Rizziah]

If it's any consolation, nothing wrong with doing the pairings you like if you really want to. It'll certainly be harder for you, but eveyone has their preferences. Doing Sully/Donnel, Tharja/Gauis, etc, all the time can get boring after a while.

I mean, I like Freddy x Miriel, so you know, fuck me.

Edited October 5, 2015 by GoldenMapleLeaf

[Ebony]

If it's any consolation, nothing wrong with doing the pairings you like if you really want to. It'll certainly be harder for you, but eveyone has their preferences. Doing Sully/Donnel, Noire/Gauis, etc, all the time can get boring after a while.

I mean, I like Freddy x Miriel, so you know, fuck me.

actually just curious but are there any good pairings with Frederick in it? usually he goes with Sumia for me when its not Henry

[Rizziah]

Inigo's probably your best bet if you want Freddy to be a dad.

[TheSilentChloey]

Inigo's probably your best bet if you want Freddy to be a dad.

I use Fred for Cynthia so I can't comment on Inigo

[Czar_Yoshi]

Well I certainly feel... humiliated and almost in tears. I've been using Frederick Gerome for a while because I liked the pairing and I never had too much trouble with him.

Sorry about that. You're far from alone, though.

Also, the fact that you've used him and been fine is because Awakening's children operate on a good and better basis, not on a good/bad one. For all the occasional questions about who the worst pairs are, the fact remains that it's pretty hard to make a child who's actually worse than their parents (ironically, Chrom!Morgan is one of the few units who could be considered to be this, since his mother has the best husband in the game and he's unable to marry either of the best wives in the game (Lucina and Morgan-F)).

actually just curious but are there any good pairings with Frederick in it? usually he goes with Sumia for me when its not Henry

Fred works best on Inigo, since Galeboys tend not to care about their Spd as much as girls and Inigo can make use of pretty much everything Fred has to offer: Luna, good Str/Skl and Paladin. For hard supports, Yarne can take him and appreciate the mods (since Yarne already comes with Berserker/Axefaire, he doesn't care about Fred's class selection), but he'll still always prefer someone who can give Hit+20 or Hex/Anathema.

If you want him on a girl, Cynthia is probably the most resilient to his -2 Spd- you'll pretty much get a second Donnel!Noire without Hero or Swordfaire, which isn't great but also isn't bad. It's definitely a viable option if you don't want to do Chrom x Sumia (though mainly just because Gaius and Henry's demand outweighs how much better than Fred they are). Fred can also go on Noire if you determine you're fine with no GF on her; his mods fit her Sniper decently and he's in very low demand (Noire is also where I'm using him on my ultimate team).

Edited October 5, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[Ebony]

Sorry about that. You're far from alone, though.

Also, the fact that you've used him and been fine is because Awakening's children operate on a good and better basis, not on a good/bad one. For all the occasional questions about who the worst pairs are, the fact remains that it's pretty hard to make a child who's actually worse than their parents (ironically, Chrom!Morgan is one of the few units who could be considered to be this, since his mother has the best husband in the game and he's unable to marry either of the best wives in the game (Lucina and Morgan-F)).

Fred works best on Inigo, since Galeboys tend not to care about their Spd as much as girls and Inigo can make use of pretty much everything Fred has to offer: Luna, good Str/Skl and Paladin. For hard supports, Yarne can take him and appreciate the mods (since Yarne already comes with Berserker/Axefaire, he doesn't care about Fred's class selection), but he'll still always prefer someone who can give Hit+20 or Hex/Anathema.

If you want him on a girl, Cynthia is probably the most resilient to his -2 Spd- you'll pretty much get a second Donnel!Noire without Hero or Swordfaire, which isn't great but also isn't bad. It's definitely a viable option if you don't want to do Chrom x Sumia (though mainly just because Gaius and Henry's demand outweighs how much better than Fred they are). Fred can also go on Noire if you determine you're fine with no GF on her; his mods fit her Sniper decently and he's in very low demand (Noire is also where I'm using him on my ultimate team).

I'll try Noire in a run. I've been doing several while waiting for Fates, which'll be a while.

Besides Inigo, does anyone really want Chrom?

[Czar_Yoshi]

Cynthia really, really wants him. He gives her Aether, Sniper, Paladin and a +5 Spd mod, making her not just good but top of the top.

Inigo is actually cool with just about any dad who gives Luna or Vengeance, though he doesn't care for Kellam much (nobody cares for Kellam) because pretty much everything Kellam can do, someone else can do better.

Edited October 5, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[Radiant head]

Give her Gaius. Noire takes not having GF far better than Kjelle does since she has things to gain that neither Gaius nor Donnel can give her, while Kjelle already has everything but GF and more mods (so Gaius makes her perfect).

The four you may want to consider for Noire are Vaike, Ricken, Lon'qu and Fred. Vaike gives her AT and excellent mods to be a Double Bow Sniper (use LB/AT/Vengeance/All+2/Anathema and pair her with a Berserker- she can take one without a +Hit skill of its own), Ricken gives her TF and the means to make use of Tharja's big Mag mod (Hard support Sage), Lon'qu gives her the Spd to be a procstacking 75 Spd Wyvern (something that neither Severa nor Kjelle can do without sacrificing GF themselves or getting a Robin father- use LB/LF/Luna/Astra/All+2 and a Berserker support), and Fred gives nice Skl/Str while being in very low demand.

Late response, but:

How is Gregor!Noire? I was already planning on Cherche x Vaike, Lissa x Ricken, and Cordelia x Lon'qu.

[Xenomata]

Wait, are Frederick and Kellam the usual choice of "1st gen units who will not be fathers"?

Frederick I know can work with Inigo as a son since Inigo can still function and still gets his Luna, but Stahl I feel does the same job without taking his speed down as much as Fred. The only scenario I can think of where Fred!Inigo is better than Stahl!Inigo is when Stahl!Severa exists, which given that Stahl gives Severa Luna and the Myrmidon classline, I can see how it works.

Kellam... okay I admit I've never really paired Kellam with anyone in all my playthroughs. I don't even really use him at all...

Hm... I wonder who the 3rd "will not be father" unit is when a male avatar marries a 1st gen fem unit...

Late response, but:

How is Gregor!Noire? I was already planning on Cherche x Vaike, Lissa x Ricken, and Cordelia x Lon'qu.

About as well as you would expect really.

Gregor gives Noire the Mercenary, Myrmidon, and Troubadour lines, so immediately she loses Galeforce, though this does open Gaius up for fathering Kjelle.

Armsthrift on this Noire just doesn't work as well as it could thanks to a -3 modifier.

Gregor!Noire is slightly slower than Gaius!Noire, but her Str and Mag balance out at +3 modifier, though she will still be physical since there is still no Tomefaire. A shame really since Noire could actually work as a Valkyrie if she just had that Tomefaire...

Probably the larger problem with this is that Gregor works best with Laurent (I think that is an understatement), and Noire loses out on Galeforce when Donnel and Gaius are used elsewhere. That isn't to say Noire is bad, she just won't be as great as she could be. As said earlier, there really isn't such a thing as a "bad" child unit... really it's either a child unit who isn't quite living up to expectations or a child unit who is living up to expectations.

[Radiant head]

Yeah I was asking on the assumption that Noire would run as a Double Bow sniper, because the Galedads are not available.

Who's worse, Kellam!Inigo, or Virion!Inigo?

[Ebony]

Yeah I was asking on the assumption that Noire would run as a Double Bow sniper, because the Galedads are not available.

Who's worse, Kellam!Inigo, or Virion!Inigo?

Well seeing as I got #rekt earlier I probably am not the best to give this advice, but I'd feel like Virion!Inigo is better.

[Xenomata]

Who's worse, Kellam!Inigo, or Virion!Inigo?

Kellam and Virion both make Inigo good for magical attacking as a Sage.

Kellam leaves Inigo's speed down at the same level as Fred!Inigo, and does little for his actual magic stat. Though he does give Inigo the Luna he usually wants.

Virion gives Inigo speed, which when stacked with the speed Inigo gets from Olivia, he becomes a pretty fast Galeboy. However, Virion gives Inigo no additional attack skills. This Inigo can be either physical or magical, as Virion gives Tomefaire and does not ruin either Str or Mag.