PAIRINGS The Pairing Thread

[Vascela]

I already factored that in. You said Maribelle!Lucina has 4 more magic between her mods and mag+2. 4 more magic equals 2 more damage after dragonskin, times 2 is 4.

Also, why aren't you using Regalia weapons? Valflame is more powerful than Thoron.

Morgan is using Valflame. So in no dlc/no braves, you can't really multiply them. I even factored in hammerne if needed during the run so the usage count checks valid as well.

You say "2 times 2 is 4" but when is the second attack coming from? After the enemy attacks = KO. You only get Morgan x1 + Lucina x1

[Alastor15243]

Morgan is using Valflame. So in no dlc/no braves, you can't really multiply them. I even factored in hammerne if needed during the run so the usage count checks valid as well.

You say "2 times 2 is 4" but when is the second attack coming from? After the enemy attacks = KO. You only get Morgan x1 + Lucina x1

Ah right, you rely on VV.

Honestly, in most situations, speed is more useful than str/mag. So to say that Maribelle!Lucina is better is better than Sumia!Lucina because she's better at one singular strategy to tackling a particular challenge run despite the fact that Sumia is in general better at most other strategies and provides another virtually identical child who's just as good except without DS+, AND gives Chrom the best opportunity to participate in Apotheosis...

...Honestly, it's difficult to talk to you about this because I haven't attempted the crazy stuff you pull off, but I'm POSITIVE there have to be other viable methods of doing the stuff you do without relying on VV, so I consider your claim of Maribelle's superiority, banking on an extremely situational stat to make that claim, to be dubious.

Also, can you explain to me how, if Sumia!Lucina struggles to finish off the generals, Maribelle!Lucina DOESN'T struggle to finish off the myriad other enemies with vastly superior resistance and/or Aegis+? Because that still seems odd to me.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Alastor15243

[Vascela]

Chrom does participate (as a Sniper) providing both important poke damage as well as being a pair up buffer for extra hit and damage. On top of that convoy is extremely invaluable. I considered actually fielding Maribelle (or Sumia) as 3 range magical dual strike vs 1 HP vengeance sniper (and well, I thought the spotpass unit was better at the job). Also having 6 Snipers lets all Snipers have a pair up (3/3) if at one point or another they needed to be paired up (which I don't think was needed, besides for Chrom supporting at least 1).

The way you word me "relying on VV" is almost as me saying you are "relying on RNG." Quite frankly, I have calculated everything down to the turn count--I don't see myself "relying on VV" it's more close to me relying on enemy data and maximizing my abuse of known factors on the map to manipulate perfection. Some of my most valuable units don't even use VV (vanilla Vengeance Snipers, Rally and Rescue Bots, Chrom). And in other challenge runs such as no dlc/no rally 100%, I incorporated a vanilla vengeance sage. It's not that Vengeance needs vantage or even DS+, but rather a knowledgeable player who is willing to learn.

Sumia can't enter secret waves so I didn't calc to check waves 1-5. I guess it says about how lazy of a player I am. But there are other scenarios of thresholds that I calc'd. Sniper boss takes 40 damage from Maribelle (so you can't kill it on enemy phase right away without chip). The Sorc boss also takes in 80 flat with one sniper poke (so you'd need 2 for Sumia; I don't even want to know how that changes turn counts on wave 5). The one ranged locked Paladins take an additional sniper poke in wave 3. Soldier boss needs poke (instead of straight kill). Dark Flier boss needs poke (instead of straight kill, when Lucina leads).

But that's just when Maribelle just has enough. So you do need to rework some enemy routing if you even chose Sumia. And that's at a glance, there might be more.

[Alastor15243]

Why pair up the snipers? Since they, being einherjar, have horrible DS rates, doesn't that factor in unpleasant RNG issues into your equations when you could just have six separate ones?

[Vascela]

Why pair up the snipers? Since they, being einherjar, have horrible DS rates, doesn't that factor in unpleasant RNG issues into your equations when you could just have six separate ones?

I unequip once paired up for 0% DS. Provides hit rate (better for Chrom on the back). Six separate ones are ideal, but there are some extra niche values (moreso in no rally than no braves when I use Sniper x Rescue bot for wave 4 shenanigans). But you are most definitely right when six is ideal.

[Bunselpower]

Alright, as much as I like the Alastor v. Vascela DLC challenge, I have some questions. I've been away from pretty much everything since my last round of questions, and I've decided at some point I would like to make a team capable of No DLC/No Braves, considering doing that may take me years (chances are I'll never get there before the next games come out due to life, but it's good to have goals or whatever). I'm really curious, and sometimes grinding up one file gets boring, so I may just grind up another one alongside. I also want to start asking these questions now and maybe be prepared when the time actually comes.

My own character flaws aside, I have some questions for the experts. Let's say for instance my regular team looks like this:

Chrom x Sumia

Ricken x Lissa

Fred x Olivia

Lon'qu x Maribelle

Donnel x Sully

Stahl x Cordelia

Henry x Cherche

+Mag/-Def Avatar x Lucina

Virion x Panne

Gregor x Miriel

Gaius x Tharja

Vaike x Nowi

Now, the question. I know a challenge team is obviously more specialized. Does/Should it look drastically different than this? I think I fall to Alastor's style a bit more, but I'm curious about some pairings and what they look like compared to a regular team?

[Vascela]

Do you like procstacking, winging RNG, and multiple faced units in potentially various classes and weapon more than raw calcs, linear gameplay, class specific roles, hand picked/cream of the crop children + tons of specialized spotpass units (with strict mod guidelines), then your much better off playing around Alastor's methods. It's a huge player factor that really depends on how you want to play.

The number one thing that matters: you having fun. You know that better than anyone here how you want to be successful. Because Alastor has been successful with his math (it's not like he's lying; he knows what he's talking about). I don't find RNG fun, but I'm pretty sure Yoshi said that he found RNG to be more fun than turn by turn tactics (completely opposite playstyle). I consider Yoshi to be right next to me in skill level despite him being 180 degrees from how we play the game.

[Alastor15243]

Alright, as much as I like the Alastor v. Vascela DLC challenge, I have some questions. I've been away from pretty much everything since my last round of questions, and I've decided at some point I would like to make a team capable of No DLC/No Braves, considering doing that may take me years (chances are I'll never get there before the next games come out due to life, but it's good to have goals or whatever). I'm really curious, and sometimes grinding up one file gets boring, so I may just grind up another one alongside. I also want to start asking these questions now and maybe be prepared when the time actually comes.

My own character flaws aside, I have some questions for the experts. Let's say for instance my regular team looks like this:

Chrom x Sumia

Ricken x Lissa

Fred x Olivia

Lon'qu x Maribelle

Donnel x Sully

Stahl x Cordelia

Henry x Cherche

+Mag/-Def Avatar x Lucina

Virion x Panne

Gregor x Miriel

Gaius x Tharja

Vaike x Nowi

Now, the question. I know a challenge team is obviously more specialized. Does/Should it look drastically different than this? I think I fall to Alastor's style a bit more, but I'm curious about some pairings and what they look like compared to a regular team?

Your pairings are all quite good (though make sure you know what you're getting into with Severa's hair color), though one of them is up for potential change, and that is Avatar x Lucina.

See, Sumia!Lucina!Morgan and Chrom!Cynthia!Morgan are identical, so it's really a question of what you want to do with the two princesses. They make fantastic snipers, so you'll probably want to make one of them into a sniper, especially since snipers are basically the best class in the game. However, a sniper wants either a Warrior or a Berserker (Berserker's ideal, PARTICULARLY on stat-limiting challenge runs, but when stats aren't nerfed they function pretty much identically against all the enemies you'd want to use a sniper on), neither of which makes good use of your avatar's magic asset, so obviously you want either Yarne or Gerome to marry the Sniper and then have the other princess be magical and marry that one. This brings up the question: which pair is going to have better skill?

Sniper + Berserker: 48 + 35 = 83 base skill total between them.

Sniper + Warrior: 48 + 42 = 90 base skill total between them.

Dark Flier + Sage: 41 + 43 + 4 pairup = 88 base skill total between them.

Sage + Sage: 43 + 43 + 4 pairup = 90 base skill total between them.

Dark Flier + Grandmaster: 41 + 40 + 4 pairup = 85 base skill total between them.

Sage + Grandmaster: 43 + 40 + 4 pairup =87 base skill total between them.

Depending on the combos you pick and the mods of the husbands you could be looking at as much as a 4% DS rate difference between them, and you'll obviously want to have the combo with the lower DS rate be the one that has Lucina in it so that the pair that doesn't have 100% DS is as high as possible. It's a minor difference, but it's something to note.

If you want your avatar to go Grandmaster and marry a Dark Flier princess (a good idea since that boosts the princess's speed to 75 easily) and you have Virion!Yarne @ Warrior marry the Sniper princess, the sniper princess's pair will have a skill edge of 10, meaning you'll want to have Lucina be the dark flier and Cynthia be the Sniper.

If, on the opposite extreme, you want to have your avatar go Sage and marry a Sage princess while the other princess goes Sniper and marries a Henry!Gerome Berserker, the Sage and Sage pair will have a skill edge of 5, meaning you'll want to have Lucina be the Sniper.

Just make sure that the pair that gets Lucina is the one that has less total skill. It's a minor thing, but it is optimal.

Edited August 7, 2015 by Alastor15243

[Lucina's Husband]

Trying to complete all DLC + Streetpass Business, etc on my Hard Casual File and was wondering which pairings you guys could recommend (Thank you Vascela for directing me here from Gamefaqs).

I KNOW for a fact that I want to have these pairings:

Chrom + Sumia

Robin + Lucina

I'm unsure about the rest.

I'm guessing Frederik for Olivia because of how popular a pairing it seems to be for physical Inigo.

Torn between Libra or Ricken for Lissa. Is Libra really a lot better? I think Ricken makes more sense age and text wise, but I do want to make the strongest Owain I can.

I don't even know where to start on the rest!

[Alastor15243]

Trying to complete all DLC + Streetpass Business, etc on my Hard Casual File and was wondering which pairings you guys could recommend (Thank you Vascela for directing me here from Gamefaqs).

I KNOW for a fact that I want to have these pairings:

Chrom + Sumia

Robin + Lucina

I'm unsure about the rest.

I'm guessing Frederik for Olivia because of how popular a pairing it seems to be for physical Inigo.

Torn between Libra or Ricken for Lissa. Is Libra really a lot better? I think Ricken makes more sense age and text wise, but I do want to make the strongest Owain I can.

I don't even know where to start on the rest!

Ricken and Libra are roughly identical, the issue is whether or not you like Vengeance. Vengeance is really efficient skill-slot wise and has very high damage potential, but it requires very precise movements and planning, requires constant setup on certain challenge runs, and gets you into trouble if you want to try to fight certain bosses, particularly Anna and Thronie, since the amount of damage they do makes it difficult to guarantee you can inflict high amounts of damage (there's always the risk that they'll kill you if your HP is too low or get dual guarded, crippling your damage output if your HP is too high). Luna and Ignis, often combined with Aether or Astra, are less reliable but work equally well at all times.

Frederick!Inigo is really good for negligible opportunity cost, but he's not actually the BEST Inigo, just so you know. His main purpose is to be decent while using a parent literally no other child can afford to use, freeing up the daddy list.

In summary:

Lucina and Kjelle want galeforce,

Inigo and Owain want a proc,

Brady wants mods (preferably high speed, making Lon'qu the best),

Severa either wants mods if you like Vengeance or Luna (and Astra if you can get it) if you don't,

Noire wants Galeforce and possibly Astra if you don't like Vengeance (though my favorite uses for her don't work well with Vengeance),

Cynthia wants Chrom or, failing that, Henry,

Yarne wants a hit boosting skill and maybe good skill/speed mods if you're marrying him,

Gerome wants a faire and a hit boosting skill (If you're going for Berserker, Henry's the only one who can give both),

Nah wants a faire if physical, and possibly a proc if you have a build in mind that merits her going in front,

and Laurent wants virtually nothing, he pretty much already has everything, just try not to cripple his magic mod or waste a super important dad on him.

Edited August 7, 2015 by Alastor15243

[Lucina's Husband]

Vengeance sounds interesting, but I don't trust myself enough to use it wisely at this stage of my playing. Ricken for Lissa it is then. I will also happily marry Maribelle to Lon'Qu since it is dubious I will find other uses for those two. If I am using Chrom for Cynthia and Lucina, and Lucina for Morgan, who should I pair with Henry? And who should I pair with Olivia for Inigo? I think my Sully and Donnel have already started bonding, so I might just pair them off.

With my choices for Morgan, Lucina, and Cynthia locked, what would you do with the other pairings?

[Duzell]

Hey everyone, I just recently decided to play Awakening again since one of my friends just got the game. I'm running Lunatic+ Casual so I can play the hardest difficulty, yet still be able to fight other people's teams without risk of losing characters (like lethality counter teams omg), with a Male MU with +Mag/-Def

Glad to see that the meta has shifted from Chrom x Olivia to Chrom x Sumia since I last played, since I completely forgot and already gained support between Chrom and Sumia

Can you rate my pairings? Also, if I screwed up and accidently skipped a child or if I used a father twice, please let me know.

Tharja x Ricken!Noire

Male MU x Noire!Morgan

Cherche x Henry!Gerome

Nowi x Vaike!Nah

Miriel x Gregor!Laurent

Cordelia x Stahl!Severa

Sumia x Chrom!Cynthia

Chrom x Sumia!Lucina

Lissa x Libra!Owain

Sully x Donnel!Kjelle

Olivia x Frederick!Inigo

Maribelle x Lon'qu!Brady

Panne x Virion!Yarne

edit: I'm pretty sure that everything looks ok except Ricken!Noire, especially since Gaius isn't being used anywhere, but I really wanted a maxed mag morgan .-.

Edited August 7, 2015 by Duzell

[PM ME MARIANNE ART]

Use Gaius for Kjelle if you aren't using him for Noire

Other than that, it looks good

[Alastor15243]

Use Gaius for Kjelle if you aren't using him for Noire

Other than that, it looks good

Better yet, just use Gaius for Noire. Ricken!Noire sucks.

[Ownagepuffs]

Ricken!Noire has got an interesting niche in being a very potent magical hard support. It's like a worse Ricken!Laurent.

[Alastor15243]

Ricken!Noire has got an interesting niche in being a very potent magical hard support. It's like a worse Ricken!Laurent.

Ricken!Laurent is already a pretty lame use of Ricken, so saying Ricken!Noire is worse... it basically means there's no reason whatsoever to do Ricken!Noire since if you want that you could just do Ricken!Laurent.

[Duzell]

So, to recap:

Tharja x Ricken!Noire

Male MU x Noire!Morgan

Cherche x Henry!Gerome

Nowi x Vaike!Nah

Miriel x Gregor!Laurent

Cordelia x Stahl!Severa

Sumia x Chrom!Cynthia

Chrom x Sumia!Lucina

Lissa x Libra!Owain

Sully x Gaius!Kjelle

Olivia x Frederick!Inigo

Maribelle x Lon'qu!Brady

Panne x Virion!Yarne

This will end up with the following pairs:

MU(Sage) x Noire(Sorcerer)

Morgan(Sage) x Owain(Sage/Sorcerer)

Lucina(Sniper) x Gerome(Berserker)

Cynthia(Sniper) x Yarne(Berserker)

Severa(Dark Flyer) x Brady(Sage)

Kjelle(Assassin/Wyvern Lord) x Laurent(Berserker?????)

Nah(Manakete) x Inigo(Hero)

Any changes I should make to my children pairs and/or classes?

Edited August 8, 2015 by Duzell

[Alastor15243]

So, to recap:

Tharja x Ricken!Noire

Male MU x Noire!Morgan

Cherche x Henry!Gerome

Nowi x Vaike!Nah

Miriel x Gregor!Laurent

Cordelia x Stahl!Severa

Sumia x Chrom!Cynthia

Chrom x Sumia!Lucina

Lissa x Libra!Owain

Sully x Gaius!Kjelle

Olivia x Frederick!Inigo

Maribelle x Lon'qu!Brady

Panne x Virion!Yarne

This will end up with the following pairs:

MU(Sage) x Noire(Sorcerer)

Morgan(Sage) x Owain(Sage/Sorcerer)

Lucina(Sniper) x Gerome(Berserker)

Cynthia(Sniper) x Yarne(Berserker)

Severa(Dark Flyer) x Brady(Sage)

Kjelle(Assassin) x Inigo(Hero)

Nah(Manakete) x Laurent(Berserker?????)

Any changes I should make to my children pairs and/or classes?

Unless you're going for a V/V build (in which case it doesn't matter), I would advise against marrying Ricken!Noire. Also I'd recommend against doing Sorcerer Ricke!Noire, because that just wastes her magic power compared to Sage. Also you only want to do VV when you have 100% DS. This essentially wastes your avatar to give Morgan a sick magic mod, which can be accomplished far more effectively with Ricken/Henry/Libra!Laurent!Morgan. When you're a male Avatar, you generally want to marry one of the princesses.

In short, I would strongly advise against creating, sorcererifying, and/or marrying Ricken!Noire. Gaius!Kjelle is overrated on full stat runs, and Gaius!Noire is underrated for them. I would really recommend just doing Donnel!Kjelle and Gaius!Noire, Donnel!Kjelle will be perfectly usable and Gaius!Noire will be decent to amazing depending on your challenge run.

Edited August 8, 2015 by Alastor15243

[izanagi61]

ok i asked this a while ago but i didn't get a definite answer. can someone recommend me pairings? i have almost no idea what i am doing. i know the goal is to pair ideal parents to get the best balance of stat mods, classes and skills to your children but i know very little about any of the parents that makes them good parents. it's a bit too much for me to srap my head around.

the omly pairing thats cemented is chrom x sumia for me. but what about everyone else?

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

Which difficulty are you playing?

Well for starters, Chrom x Sumia is highly recommendable, but of course this doesn't mean that you have to...

Edited August 8, 2015 by Formerly Colm

[izanagi61]

hard. and i say cemented because it's the one started already. i vaguely remember that you can get olivia as a wife for him which is supposedly just as good, but since i already started sumia, it's no longer possible.

[Byron]

As far as my limited understanding goes, Sumia is better for Chrom for three reasons;

1.) They are both limited in who they can marry, so the fact that they work for each other means you aren't boxing either of them into pairings that aren't quite as optimal, or taking away parents with more flexibility.

2.) To expand further, Cynthia is decent enough out of the box but if you marry Chrom with Olivia (which gives you a good, but not worldy Inigo) then you are effectively stuck with marrying Henry to Sumia, which takes Henry away from other children that need him more, like Gerome. Basically, Chrom x Olivia effectively sets out how the rest of your party will marry, assuming you'll save Male Avatar, Donnel and Gaius for Nah, Sully, and Tharja (as so often happens). It won't be a bad team by any stretch of the imagination, but it doesn't leave a lot of wriggle room to try something different.

3.) On top of that, Inigo can work with some different fathers, as I've had successful Inigo's before having Lon'qu, Libra and Frederick as fathers, whereas Cynthia can suffer if it's not Chrom or Henry. However with Chrom as a dad, she can have absolutely every single ability she needs to be a human wrecking ball.

Edited August 8, 2015 by Byron

[Byron]

Following on though, I'm in for another crack at the game and wanted some advice in putting together a team that can blow through Apo and all the DLC missions. I've played the game to death on all difficulties, so story isn't really an issue, this is a team for post-game. Also, while in the past I wanted to make a balanced team this time I wanted to prioritise my favourite kids, being (in order of preference);

Lucina

Severa

Noire

Cynthia

Brady

Generally, I'd want ideal parents for all 5, but the top 3 are the main priority as I'm aware that it's hard to screw up Cynthia and Brady. With that in mind I was thinking;

Chrom x FeMu: I always play FeMu, that's pretty non-negotiable, plus this would in my mind, give a pretty boss Lucina and Morgan. Lucina would be looking to take a lead role.

Lon'qu x Cordelia: Severa is going to go physical, so without knowing specifics, I'm thinking this would give good Spd and Str and she can pick up Astra and Swordfaire to use with Armsthrift and Sol

Gaius x Tharja: actually not sure here, I usually use a GF father but am open to a non-GF Noire with suggestions, as I usually shift her to Bride class early on, given she can use bow and lance.

Fred x Sumia: I'm thinking this is the best of a bad situation, as I'm tempted to give Henry to Cherche so I get Berseker Gerome support. Cynthia would still have everything she needs to be awesome, I';m just worried about the - to Spd.

Virion x Maribelle: Again, not sure what Brady definitely needs or not, but seeing as Mari appears to give him everything anyway, Virion just helps add some polish to him.

Admittedly, I'm pretty flexible. Stahl x Cordelia is an absolute no-no, that's pretty much the only pairing I won't accept, as the hair is that bad. I also like FeMu x Chrom because it adds something story wise with certain chapters and just feels right.

I'd guess the other pairings would kind of look like

Henry x Cherche

Vaike x Nowi

Ricken x Miriel

Stahl x Panne

Donnel x Sully

Libra x Lissa

I'm aware that smaller numbers can be more effective than taking a full team on every map, so I'm not sure if I'd use many outside of the 5 kids (with partners), Chrom x FeMu and Olivia (with partner) as she's a personal favourite of mine (waifu? I'm not a fan of that word but I guess, yeah Olivia is my waifu) so that would be 14 total.

Thanks in advance for the help. I've not started the save yet, so I'm incredibly flexible notwithstanding the aforementioned red-lines.

[Alastor15243]

Just so you know, FeMU!Lucina isn't actually much better than Sumia!Lucina most of the time, it makes one of the worst Morgans, and marrying first gen means you have to bench one of the male children. If it's your personal preference aestheticwise, that's fine, I just want you to know it actually really doesn't make either Lucina or Morgan particularly awesome. So essentially your decision nerfs Morgan and Cynthia.

[izanagi61]

Also i should clarify that i'm using male MU mag+ luk-